6f3 
 
6f 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00022230006 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 From the Library of 
 GERTRUDE WEIL 
 
 1879-1971 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://archive.org/details/dearOOwhit 
 
DEAR 
 
Works fog tfje &ame ^utfjor. 
 
 MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION, AND 
 
 LADDIE. i6mo, cloth $0.50 
 
 TIP-CAT. i6mo, cloth 1.00 
 
 OUR LITTLE ANN. i6mo, cloth . 1.00 
 
 PEN. i6mo, cloth 1.00 
 
 LIL. x6mo, cloth 1.00 
 
 ZOE. i6mo,~ cloth 60 
 
 ROSE AND LAVENDER. i6mo, 
 
 cloth 1. co 
 
 PRIS. i6mo, cloth 50 
 
 DEAR. i6mo, cloth 1.00 
 
 BABY JOHN. i6mo, cloth 50 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 BOSTON. 
 
"She was there, a slight figure in black."' — Page Sir. 
 
EAR. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION, LADDIE, TIP-CAT, OUR LITTLE ANN, 
 
 PEN, LIL, ZOE, ROSE AND LAVENDER, PRIS, 
 
 BABY JOHN. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1892. 
 
Copyright, 1892, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 KINGSCOMBE MANOR 
 
 • 7 
 
 II. 
 
 THE NEW PARSON. 
 
 21 
 
 III. 
 
 DEAR'S DOMAIN 
 
 . 40 
 
 IV. 
 
 LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE . 
 
 55 
 
 V. 
 
 RALPH MADDISON . 
 
 • 73 
 
 VI. 
 
 BOY AND GIRL . 
 
 . 89 
 
 VII. 
 
 EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE 
 
 . 99 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 
 
 • IX 5 
 
 IX. 
 
 TWO IS COMPANY . 
 
 . 130 
 
 X. 
 
 INTO FAIRY LAND 
 
 146 
 
 XI. 
 
 DAILY LIFE .... 
 
 . 162 
 
 XII. 
 
 IN THE ORCHARD 
 
 • i77 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A WOMAN'S WILL . 
 
 . 191 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AWAY FROM DEAR 
 
 209 
 
 XV. 
 
 WEDDING BELLS 
 
 . 224 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A MOTHER'S DOING . 
 
 • 237 
 
 XVII. 
 
 CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT 
 
 . 265 
 
 xviii. 
 
 PARTING 
 
 . 283 
 
 XIX. 
 
 MEETING .... 
 
 ■ 299 
 
 (5) 
 
DEAR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 KINGSCOMBE MANOR. 
 
 " The old house by the lindens 
 Stood silent in the shade, 
 And on the gravelled pathway 
 The light and shadow played." 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 A PEACEFUL little place is Kingscombe, 
 lying under the chain of hills whose beau- 
 tiful outline can be seen for many a mile through- 
 out Loamshire, their sides clad with gorse and 
 heather, and with, here and there, sharp bits 
 of gray rock sticking out through the turf and 
 making the tracks steep and precipitous. Over 
 the hill sides are scattered flocks of sheep, and 
 the soft, cracked tinkle of the sheep-bells adds 
 to the drowsy peacefulness of the scene. 
 
 (7) 
 
8 DEAR. 
 
 Kingscombe itself is hardly more than a 
 handful of thatched cottages clustering round 
 the little, clumsy, old Norman church ; but 
 Kingscombe Manor is one of the largest gentle- 
 man's seats in the neighborhood, and the park 
 covers many an acre of undulating grass land, 
 and wood and copse. 
 
 But at the time when my story begins, the 
 Manor House was standing empty, with all the 
 furniture in the principal rooms shrouded in 
 brown holland, and the carpets rolled up and 
 the shutters closed, and only a superannuated 
 housekeeper and one maid to look after the 
 place and keep the rooms aired. Outside, the 
 gardens were beginning to show — and showed 
 more plainly as years passed on — that no one 
 took any interest in the planting of them ; that 
 the gardener, merely from force of habit, kept 
 up a certain succession of flowers in the bor- 
 ders, and set the boys to weed the paths and 
 mow the lawns. As long as the baskets sent 
 up twice a week to London were well stocked 
 with fruit and vegetables, and with cut flowers 
 
K1NGSC0MBE MANOR. 9 
 
 for setting out the dining-table, that was all 
 that signified, so the gardener did not waste his 
 time in devising fresh arrangements or effec- 
 tive combinations in the beds, but planted great 
 patches of sweet peas and asters and carnations 
 and single dahlias, just as he did carrots or 
 beetroot or potatoes, and sheared off the blos- 
 soms ruthlessly when the baskets had to be 
 despatched. 
 
 " My lady," as the people about Kingscombe 
 called Mrs. Maddison, had never come near the 
 place since the old Squire died ; she had never 
 liked it, and had only spent any time there to 
 gratify her husband, who was fond of the old 
 place where he had been born and bred, and 
 where the wife of his youth lay buried. He 
 had married for the second time when he was 
 quite an old man, in his dotage, his friends 
 maintained, and the second Mrs. Maddison was 
 quite a young girl, young enough to have been 
 his granddaughter, and very fond of society 
 and, report said, admiration. 
 
 So, when the old Squire died, it was not to 
 
IO DEAR. 
 
 be expected of his widow that she should bury 
 herself in out-of-the-way Kingscombe, five miles 
 from a railway station, with no society worth 
 speaking of ; and still less that she should waste 
 any of the money she knew so well how to 
 spend, in keeping up a large establishment 
 there, with a lot of useless old servants, who 
 seemed to have more right to the place than 
 she had. 
 
 So the establishment was reduced to its very 
 smallest dimensions, and the old servants dis- 
 charged ruthlessly, and the old plate packed up 
 and dispatched to the pretty little house in 
 May Fair, that suited my lady's taste so much 
 better, or the gay little villa on the Thames, 
 near Richmond, which was rustic enough for 
 her when she needed a change from London ; 
 and for the rest of the year there was country- 
 house visiting, and a few weeks at Cowes, and 
 a run to one of the German Spas, or a winter 
 month or two on the Riviera. Who, with the 
 whole, beautiful, gay world to choose from, 
 would ever think twice of dull, dreary, old 
 
KINGSCOMBE MANOR. II 
 
 Kingscombe Manor, with its square, matter-of- 
 fact brick front, and its sensible sash windows 
 of small square panes, and its heavy stone por- 
 tico, all as solid and uninteresting as the build- 
 ers of the end of the last century could make 
 it, just like the country squires of the neighbor- 
 hood, whose society bored my lady so unutter- 
 ably ? 
 
 Inside it was quite as bad, everything so 
 hopelessly square and uncompromising, and 
 furnished in an equally distressing manner, 
 with great solid furniture of hideous form, 
 upholstered in barbarous colors, huge mirrors 
 on the drawing-room walls with scrolly gilt 
 frames, and a suite of rosewood furniture, in- 
 cluding a large round table in the centre of 
 the room. 
 
 "Think of that, my dear!" Mrs. Maddison 
 wrote to sympathizing friends in the early 
 days of her married life, when she was trying 
 to make the best of Kingscombe ; " it's enough 
 to break one's heart to look at it ! " 
 
 And no doubt it was a trial even then, 
 
12 DEAR. 
 
 when aesthetic tastes were the exception and 
 not the rule, and would have been still more 
 so in these days of oddments, when not a 
 single article of furniture in the room should 
 bear the slightest resemblance to its neigh- 
 bor. The four-post bedsteads upstairs might 
 have been got over, and perhaps even the 
 shining mahogany of the dining-room, > with 
 its sarcophagus of a sideboard, if only the 
 drawing-room had been improvable, or if there 
 had been any room in the house capable of 
 being done anything with. But " oh, dear 
 me ! " Mrs. Maddison used to say to her- 
 self surveying her own appearance in the 
 great mirrors in the drawing-room, which re- 
 flected a very modern little person, in one of 
 Worth's latests confections, and with hair done 
 in that artful confusion which to the unin- 
 structed looks like simple untidiness; "there's 
 no doubt I'm quite an anachronism, and poor, 
 dear Fanny " — for so she spoke to herself of 
 the first Mrs. Maddison — ''would have looked 
 much more in characte 1 *, with hair done like 
 
KINGSCOMBE MANOR. 13 
 
 window curtains on such a painfully high fore- 
 head, and a barley sugar ringlet behind each 
 ear, and a puce silk dress — I think they called 
 that depressing color puce, didn't they ? — 
 trimmed with fringe." For an oil-painting 
 done by a local painter hung in Mr. Maddi- 
 son's dressing-room, and the present Mrs. 
 Maddison had often ruminated over the ap- 
 pearance of her predecessor. 
 
 Everything in the house was in such ter- 
 ribly good repair ; indeed, it seemed to her 
 that such solid workmanship was never likely 
 to wear out and require replacing, and that 
 nothing short of an earthquake would make 
 any alteration possible in Kingscombe or its 
 substantial drawing-room suite. 
 
 There had been an old house before the 
 present building, for the Maddisons were an 
 old family in Loamshire, and Kingscombe had 
 been theirs for many generations, but the old 
 mansion had been burnt down when George 
 the Third was king, and the present one was 
 built in its place. The old Squire used to 
 
14 DEAR. 
 
 tantalize his young wife by describing what 
 his father had told him of the inconvenience 
 and quaintness of the old place, of its ram- 
 bling rooms, and up and down floors and broad 
 staircases, and diamond-paned casement win- 
 dows and open fireplaces, secret rooms, and 
 concealed passages. " Altogether it was, by 
 all accounts, a most uncomfortable, creaky, old 
 barn," he used to end up with, "and I think 
 we may consider ourselves very lucky to have 
 a good stout roof over our heads, and solid 
 walls that don't shake and shiver at every 
 stormy blast of a winter's night, as the old 
 place used." 
 
 Mrs. Maddison did not care much for the 
 beauties of nature, or she might have found 
 some consolation in the park, where some of the 
 oaks and beeches were as old as any one need 
 wish, and she also might have found antiquity 
 in the little church, which, as I have said, dated 
 back pretty well to the Norman Conquest, if 
 her sensitive nerves had allowed of her expos- 
 ing them to the irritation of a country choir. 
 
KINGSCOMBE MANOR. 15 
 
 Nor was it to be expected that Mrs. Maddi- 
 son's high-heeled boots should have climbed, 
 in her search for beauty and picturesqueness, 
 the steep hill paths behind the church, where 
 the hairbells nod their dainty heads, and the 
 wild thyme gives a sweet, herby scent as your 
 foot presses it down. 
 
 So when the old Squire died, Mrs. Maddi- 
 son disappeared from Kingscombe, and the 
 house stood empty year after year, and, as I 
 have said, the gardens grew to look uncared 
 for and the house desolate, though not even 
 desolation could make it the least picturesque ; 
 only the paint was cracked and blistered, and 
 the blinds were weather-stained and dirty, and 
 the swallows had it all their own way under 
 the portico. 
 
 " It ain't lucky to drive 'em away," old Sims 
 the gardener used to say ; " they brings luck to 
 a house, folks says, though luck ain't much good 
 to an empty house neither, and Miss Dear she's 
 a terrible one, she be, for birds' nesties ; she 
 give it to Dick a good 'un, when he took them 
 
1 6 DEAR. 
 
 fly-catchers' eggs, as did ought to aknown better ; 
 but eggs is eggs to a boy, and they don't stop for 
 to think what sort of bird they belongs to. 
 And I often wonders to myself what's the good 
 of putting up a list of birds as ain't to be touched 
 in the school yonder, when the youngsters don't 
 know half the names on 'em, let alone their 
 elders." 
 
 And who was Miss Dear? perhaps you will 
 ask, whose wrath was terrible to the garden 
 boys. By which question you will show that 
 you are altogether a stranger to Kingscombe, 
 and to the country for some distance round. 
 
 She had been the ruling spirit of the place 
 from the time when she first appeared at Kings- 
 combe, I think at the age of two and a half, in 
 a very large sun-bonnet, not one of the modern 
 Kate Greenaway constructions which make such 
 quaint, little pictures of our children nowadays, 
 but a regular countrywoman's lavender print 
 bonnet, with a curtain falling below the waist of 
 the faded drab pelisse, which was evidently not 
 intended for such a determined little walker as 
 
KINGSCOMBE MANOR. 17 
 
 Dear, being so long that it swept the ground 
 behind, and was in constant danger of tripping 
 up the young feet in front, if it were not held 
 up by the determined baby hands. 
 
 It was in this fashion that Dear first appeared 
 before the astonished eyes of Kingscombe, as- 
 tonished and disapproving, for even in these 
 few, out-of-the- world cottages, nestling under the 
 hill, there was a certain code of propriety in 
 dress, and it was an offence against this code 
 that "parson's little maid " should be no better 
 dressed than that. 
 
 "It's plain to see that she ain't no mother 
 and only half a father, as one might say." 
 
 But they soon settled it among themselves 
 that the new parson — (they called him the new 
 parson for ten years and more, with the con- 
 servatism of country places,) though he was 
 only half a father and hardly to be reckoned a 
 man — was more than half an angel, though there 
 was no doubt that for practical purposes, such 
 as roast mutton and rice puddings, pinafores 
 and flannel vests, a more human parent would 
 
1 8 DEAR. 
 
 have been as well for Dear and the boy. He 
 was not angelic in outward appearance either, 
 being small and lean and rather bald, and apt 
 to wrinkle his face into sudden and odd grim- 
 aces, and to stand in grotesque positions, and to 
 give little grunts and queer ejaculations, ap- 
 parently unconnected with outside events. 
 
 He was painfully absent-minded, and, till 
 Dear reached such years of discretion (which, 
 I believe, took place at six) as enabled her to 
 attend to his appearance, would sometimes scan- 
 dalize the good folks of Kingscombe by his attire. 
 
 He had had a great deal of trouble, had 
 passed through the burning fiery furnace of 
 work in an East-end parish, where, except for 
 that same Presence, which was with the three 
 children of old, the strongest, noblest, greatest 
 nature must needs be utterly consumed; but 
 twenty years of such work and in such Com- 
 pany could hardly fail to make a man little 
 short of an angel. 
 
 Then his health broke down ; he had never 
 been strong, but like many delicate instruments, 
 
KINGSCOMBE MANOR. ig 
 
 he outlasted many more substantial ; and then, 
 when the few friends he had who were in a 
 position to see the morning papers, expected 
 daily to see the announcement of his death, 
 they read to their amazement the notice of his 
 marriage, and, on further inquiry, found that he 
 had married, or rather been married by, a pretty, 
 gay, little school-girl of eighteen, without a 
 penny of her own, and with hardly a relation. 
 
 It was entirely her doing ; it would never have 
 occurred to his mind, whatever it might have 
 done to his heart, and the only excuse for this 
 idiotic marriage, as indeed it is the only excuse 
 for any marriage, idiotic or otherwise, was that 
 they loved one another. 
 
 She was sure she could make him happy, and 
 so she did. 
 
 " It will not be for very long, dear," he said. 
 Nor was it, but it was not ended as he meant 
 when he spoke thus, nor as she understood him 
 when she answered by clasping her strong, 
 young arms round his neck, as if she never 
 would let him go, as if she could drive back 
 death by the strength of her love. 
 
20 DEAR. 
 
 He took a seaside curacy, and they were very 
 poor and perfectly happy, and, having accepted 
 the curacy because there was not much to do, 
 he at once set about making work for himself in 
 all directions, till ultimately his days were nearly 
 as much filled up as they were in London. 
 
 She was not a very good manager — what girl 
 of eighteen is ? and he was much too vague and 
 unworldly to help her, so they got into money 
 difficulties, which worried and tormented them, 
 and would have upset their happiness altogether 
 if it had not been too deeply rooted. 
 
 Then Dear came and then the boy, and the 
 following winter, after just two days' illness, the 
 young mother died, neither she nor her husband 
 seeming to realize that the parting which they 
 had anticipated from the first had come, only 
 with their respective parts reversed, that it was 
 she that was taken and he that was left, till he 
 awoke to the fact that the boy, three months 
 old, was screaming lustily in his cradle, and that 
 two-year-old Dear was trying vainly to quiet 
 him by pushing a much-dilapidated doll into 
 the crimson, unappreciative countenance- 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NEW PARSON. 
 
 " That He so many years to us has lent 
 From the rich store of His vast treasury 
 That life so simple, earnest, innocent." — F. C. 
 
 TT was six months after his wife's death that 
 Mr. Hume was presented to the living of 
 Kingscombe. It was not particularly good, or 
 else it would hardly have fallen to his share, and 
 Mrs. Maddison, in whose gift the living was, 
 was quite indifferent in the matter, as she had 
 no intention of residing at Kingscombe herself, 
 and had no troublesome feeling of responsibility 
 as to the spiritual welfare of the place. So 
 when the name of Michael Hume was mention- 
 ed to her by a friend of a friend of a friend of 
 his, she made no inquiries as to his fitness for 
 
 (21) 
 
22 DEAR. 
 
 the charge, but wrote by the next post to offer 
 it to him. 
 
 If it had not been for the children I think he 
 would have declined it, as it had come too late 
 to give Annie the pleasure it might have done 
 a year before. A good part of him seemed to 
 have died with her> and to have been buried in 
 the little, wind-swept, sea-side cemetery, where 
 he and Dear went so often to look at the name- 
 less grave, — or rather perhaps to have followed 
 her to the quiet land where her innocent gentle 
 soul was in safe keeping. It seems to me that 
 Annie's husband died with her, that death really 
 could not part them, while the father of Dear 
 and Clive lived on. I think, too, that the hard- 
 working, energetic parish priest died then, but 
 the holy, gentle man of God lived on to be a 
 comfort and solace and bright example to many 
 at Kingscombe in after years. 
 
 There were all sorts of stories in the village 
 about the new parson's first arrival, stories which 
 were told with indignation and reprobation at 
 first, and then with amusement and indulgence, 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 23 
 
 as one might recount the doings of a favorite 
 but whimsical child. They told how he arrived 
 quite unexpectedly, walking, having carried the 
 baby all those dusty five miles from Great 
 Cheriton, losing his way more than once and so 
 adding to the distance, and made his way at 
 once to the church without even asking which 
 was the vicarage. He sat down, fairly spent, in 
 the church porch, and was nearly turned out by 
 old Grimby the sexton, who took him for a 
 tramp, not being able to grasp the notion that 
 such a dusty, shabby little object, with a dirty- 
 faced baby asleep in his arms, could be the new 
 parson and successor to trim, well-brushed Mr. 
 Clifford, who always looked as if he had just 
 stepped out of a bandbox. And when it was 
 made known who he was, nothing would serve 
 him but that Grimby must fetch the key of the 
 church, and he went in and knelt ever so long 
 on the chancel step, with that blessed baby 
 asleep on a cushion he fetched out of the Squire's 
 pew, and he took no notice of Grimby's loud 
 whispers, or even a nudge to which the old man's 
 
24 DEAR. 
 
 impatience led him, and it was only the baby 
 waking up and rolling off the cushion with a 
 howl that brought him to a sense of the present 
 emergency, and to the recollection that he had 
 a baby's bottle in one of his pockets and a 
 packet of some sort of farinaceous food in the 
 other, and that these two must be brought to 
 bear in some way upon the baby. 
 
 It brought also to his memory that Dear had 
 been left behind with the luggage at Great 
 Cheriton, a position which most children of two 
 and a half would have resented even for a few 
 minutes, but which Dear took very calmly, being 
 of a naturally placid nature, and having found 
 from experience, which though short had been 
 wide, that humankind is generally good to 
 small creatures, and that the masculine part of 
 humanity in particular, however gruff to start 
 with, nearly always becomes amiable on further 
 acquaintance. 
 
 So Mr. Hume was hardly out of sight before 
 Dear had found her way into the good graces 
 of a couple of porters, who invited her into the 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 2$ 
 
 parcels-office and made her welcome to a share 
 of their dinner, from whence she passed to the 
 station-master's, who had a cat in his room and 
 a box of biscuits, over which he and Dear became 
 such friends that he was quite disappointed when 
 a cart came over from Kingscombe to fetch the 
 child, having decided to take her home with him 
 to spend the night and amuse his wife. 
 
 It was one of the porters' wives who supplied 
 the lavender print sun-bonnet which offended 
 the eyes of the Kingscombe people at Dear's 
 first appearance, for her hat had been blown out 
 of a window in the train, and Mr. Hume had no 
 further idea of remedying the loss except by 
 tying his handkerchief round the curly head. 
 
 It was long after dark that Dear arrived at 
 Kingscombe, the gray horse being slow and 
 requiring a good deal of rest, a necessity which 
 arose whenever a public-house came in view on 
 the road. And, while the horse rested, Tom 
 Clegg the driver went in to have "a tell" and a 
 drain of cider with the host, a refreshment which 
 would have been extended to Dear if she had 
 
26 DEAR. 
 
 not happily fallen asleep. Luckily, too, the gray 
 horse, though slow, knew his way home, and 
 paid no attention to the erratic directions of 
 Tom, who, after such frequent refreshment on 
 the road, was less distinct in his vision, both 
 mental and physical, than would have been safe 
 with a less intelligent quadruped. 
 
 But old Dapple flopped down hill and 
 scrambled up hill and jogged along the level 
 with admirable steadiness, and Dear was as 
 unconscious of the jolts and bumps of the 
 cart as of the confused conversation of the 
 driver. 
 
 The vicarage at Kingscombe, in Mr. Clifford's 
 time, had been as trim and well-kept as its 
 master, with a neat little garden and a smart 
 dog-cart and fast-going mare, and a dapper 
 groom and dignified housekeeper. But all 
 this vanished with the new vicar's appearance ; 
 he kept no vehicle except a perambulator, of 
 which he was the only driver ; the garden was 
 left to take care of itself, except when any one 
 in the village wanted a job or had an hour to 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 27 
 
 spare, when they turned in and dug and hoed 
 according to each one's ideas as to the necessary 
 work required. Now and then they would go 
 to the parson for payment for this purely 
 voluntary work, or sometimes they would pay 
 themselves with a few potatoes or a basket of 
 apples, the least scrupulous among them being 
 prevented from taking undue advantage by the 
 perfect confidence placed in them. But as time 
 went on and the little parson became better 
 known, payment of any sort was no longer 
 thought of, and the lads used to come up in 
 parties to do the vicarage garden, till its neat- 
 ness and order became quite the pride of the 
 village, and it was a sort of point of honor 
 that the vicarage garden should have the first 
 and the best of everything. Indeed, one year, 
 at the Cheriton Cottagers' Flower Show, Bill 
 Price got into serious hot water and lost the 
 prize for vegetable marrows, by taking the 
 largest from his garden and putting it, with as 
 much art as his simplicity was capable of, 
 against a plant in the parson's garden, which 
 
28 DEAR. 
 
 had never done well in spite of the care 
 lavished on it, and whose yellow and spindly 
 branches could hardly be believed capable of 
 producing such a monster, still less that it could 
 have been produced in one night. 
 
 He got no credit either from the very person 
 he meant to benefit, and on whose behalf, I 
 am sorry to say, he told a terrible number of 
 blundering and contradictory untruths, for Mr. 
 Hume was deeply concerned, and treated the 
 whole affair as not only a discredit to Price 
 but to all the village, and specially to himself, 
 who should have taught his people a higher 
 code of honor and truthfulness. 
 
 As to indoor servants, he actually engaged 
 Patty Mills, in spite of the open remonstrances 
 of the whole parish ; indeed, everything urged 
 against her seemed an additional reason for 
 taking her, to his peculiarly-constituted mind. 
 
 "Her never keeps her places." 
 
 " Mrs. Tompkins, up t' Hill Farm, said as 
 how she couldn't keep her another day, were it 
 ever so, as couldn't keep her fingers out of 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 29 
 
 anything, and that impident, as there wasn't 
 no bearing her sauce." 
 
 But there was worse than this against her 
 character. Every one had some tale to tell 
 of her unsteadiness, dishonesty, untruthful- 
 ness, laziness ; all the stories more or less 
 true, and any one of which would have pre- 
 vented ordinary people from engaging such a 
 servant. 
 
 Patty felt that her chances were very small, 
 as she stood before the new parson, rolling a 
 corner of a dirty apron in her fingers ; it hardly 
 seemed worth while to be civil, and to resist 
 her inclination to laugh, openly at his necktie, 
 twisted round under one ear, and his waistcoat 
 buttoned up wrong. 
 
 It was just a chance that some of the im- 
 pudence Mrs. Tompkins had found so intoler- 
 able did not come out ; but, somehow, in spite 
 of his oddity, it was not easy to be impudent 
 to Mr. Hume, and, perhaps, he spoke before 
 she had time. 
 
 " Could you come at once?" he said; "it 
 
30 DEAR. 
 
 would be a great convenience to me if you 
 could do so." 
 
 And then he held out his hand to her, and 
 his face wrinkled up into the oddest, kindliest 
 of smiles. 
 
 " I am sure you will do your best," he said ; 
 " and I hope my little ones will not be trouble 
 some." 
 
 It was such a very unusual way of engaging a 
 servant, that Patty drew back, thinking he was 
 making game of her, and this might be some 
 way that gentlefolks had of scorning and scath- 
 ing a girl with no character to speak of, who 
 presumed to apply for a situation. But the 
 clasp of a bony hand was reassuring, and 
 Patty felt an unusual choking sort of feeling 
 in the throat, and a dimness in her eyes, and 
 a feeling about her heart that there was some 
 good in her after all, and that she would show 
 the Kingscombe people that she was not so 
 bad as they thought her. 
 
 She really did wonderfully well at first ; it 
 seemed as if it was just what she wanted, to 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 3 1 
 
 be believed in, to be treated as trustworthy, 
 not to be watched and regarded with suspi- 
 cion, not to have her previous shortcomings 
 kept constantly before her. But, of course, it 
 did not last, and the Kingscombe people were 
 quite right in their wise remarks about "new 
 brooms," and "we shall see what we shall see, 
 by and by." 
 
 It was after she had been there about three 
 months that a sudden temptation overcame 
 her, and she opened a drawer in Mr. Hume's 
 room, and took a five-pound note, and, along 
 with it, a little old watch that had belonged 
 to Mrs. Hume, and was being kept for Dear. 
 
 She was miserable as soon as she had done 
 it, more especially as no one dreamed of sus- 
 pecting her ; and Mr. Hume was so absent- 
 minded and forgetful, that he set any loss down 
 to his bad memory, which had forgotten where 
 he had put the object in question. She grew 
 careless and neglectful in her work, and as 
 nearly impudent as she could manage to her 
 master, and rough and short-tempered to the 
 
32 DEAR. 
 
 children, and at last went off, without asking 
 leave, one afternoon, and was brought back, 
 late at night, from Great Cheriton, in charge 
 of a policeman ; having had a good deal more 
 beer than was good for her, and having drawn 
 suspicion on herself by trying to sell the gold 
 watch at the pawnbroker's there, who, although 
 it was not of any great value, felt sure, from 
 the look of the thing, and the manner of the 
 girl, that it had not been honestly come by, and 
 sent for the police. 
 
 The five-mile drive in the light cart from 
 Cheriton had sobered Patty, and as they drew 
 near Kingscombe she did her utmost to per- 
 suade Constable Brown to let her go, — to take 
 her back to the Cheriton lock-up, — to keep the 
 money and the watch and say no more about 
 it, — to take it back to her master and say he 
 could keep her box and clothes and she would 
 never come near Kingscombe again, — to stop at 
 that pond by the roadside and let her throw 
 herself in and end her miserable, good-for- 
 nothing life, — anything was better, it seemed, 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 33 
 
 than facing the only person in the world who 
 had believed in her and never suspected her. 
 
 The constable drove woodenly on, paying 
 little attention to Patty's entreaties, except when 
 they neared the pond, and the girl made a 
 movement as if she would have jumped out of 
 the cart, when he kept her firmly down with his 
 elbow, and felt for the handcuffs in his coat- 
 pocket. 
 
 " Now look here," he said, " my good girl, it's 
 not a bit of use making a kick-up. I've got to 
 take you to the Reverend Hume, and you've got 
 to go." 
 
 Upon which she subsided into sullen despair, 
 with a lingering hope of a sudden bolt when 
 Kingscombe Vicarage was reached, which Con- 
 stable Brown was too wide awake to permit. 
 
 The kitchen blind was not drawn down, and, 
 as they passed, they could see the little parson, 
 with a very anxious, absorbed face, and his coat 
 off, and a saucepan in one hand and a spoon in 
 the other, while their noses were saluted with 
 the odor of burnt milk. 
 3 
 
34 DEAR. 
 
 In front of the fire sat Dear in her night- 
 gown, with small, pink feet stuck out, sharing 
 a bit of bread and butter with a mangy sheep- 
 dog from the farm, which got up at once and 
 slunk out, with its tail between its legs, at the 
 first glance of Patty's eye, though that eye 
 had no longer the fire and sharpness of old 
 days, which made a dog feel as if the thrash- 
 ing had already begun when it turned in his 
 direction ; and from the next room came the 
 sound of Clive's voice, half naughtiness, half 
 hunger, demanding the long-delayed supper. 
 
 " It really were the queerest start I ever came 
 across ! " Police-constable Brown used to say, 
 even his wooden imperturbability shaken by the 
 unusual character of the scene. " There was 
 that gal, as impident a baggage as you'd come 
 across between this and London, with a tongue 
 as would sauce the Queen on her throne, and 
 fists as she could use too, come to that ! and she 
 sunk down of a heap by the door soon as ever 
 the parson looked at her, like as if she'd been 
 knocked over. He did'nt say nothing to her, 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 35 
 
 only speaks pleasant and friendly-like to me — 
 quite the gentleman, mind you, all the time — ■ 
 though he hadn't got no coat on, and kep' 
 stirring the baby's food." 
 
 " ' Come in, Mr. Constable,' he says, ' and take 
 a cheer. You'll be glad of a bit of supper, but 
 you'll excuse my seeing to the young folks first.' 
 And while he stirred the food and tried to get 
 it cool, I told him what the girl had been up to 
 in Cheriton, and I brings out the watch and asks 
 if he knows it. He did flash up a bit then, and 
 dropped the spoon, and took the watch out of 
 my hand all of a hurry, as if he couldn't abear 
 to see one touch it. ' Know it ! ' he says, ' of 
 course I know it ; it was my wife's ;' and he stood 
 holding it, while I told him how she'd abeen 
 trying to sell it at Mr. Atkins, and how she'd 
 changed a five-pound note at the Percy Arms. 
 She never said a word all the time, but just 
 crouched down in the corner by the door, with- 
 out nothing to say for herself. And then he put 
 down the watch, kind of quiet, as if he felt fond 
 like over it, and pushed it across the table 
 
36 DEAR. 
 
 towards Patty, and went back to the stirring of 
 the food ; and the little one by the fire got up 
 and pattered across with her little bare feet on 
 the bricks, and put her hands around the girl in 
 her pretty baby way, saying, ' Don't cry, Patty, 
 don'tee cry ! ' and the girl caught her up and 
 hugged her so close as must ahurt the little 
 thing, though she didn't do nothing but stroke 
 her face and say, ' Poor Patty, don't cry ! ' 
 And what do you think was the end of it, sir ? " 
 Constable Brown always ended the story. ■ " Why 
 if the parson didn't say as he'd given her 
 the watch, as if any one were likely to believe 
 that — not as it were a lie," the man always 
 added quickly, lest any one should imagine for a 
 moment that he cast any reflection on Mr. Hume, 
 who soon held a firmly-established reputation 
 for saintliness in all the country round, " for he 
 gave it to her just then, when he pushed it across 
 the table. ' And as for the money,' says he, ' its 
 an advance of her wages. And now, Patty/ 
 he says, ' if you'll kindly see to baby first, we 
 shall be glad of a bit of supper.' She was like 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 37 
 
 mazed just at first, more dumbfoundered even 
 than me, who was just a fool for my pains, and 
 had had my drive over to Kingscombe for noth 
 ing, and if it hadn't been for the child cling- 
 ing to her, she'd have thrown herself right down 
 at his feet, kind of grateful like, and she made as 
 if she'd have caught his hand and kissed it, only 
 he held out the spoon that he had been stirring 
 the baby's food, as if he thought, and perhaps 
 he did, that it was that she was reaching after." 
 
 Constable Brown did not know — nor did any 
 one except Patty and her master — the end of 
 the story, which indeed did not end till their 
 lives ended too. That five pound wages ad- 
 vanced represented to Patty the wages for all 
 the rest of her life, wages only to be earned by 
 unremitting labor, morning and night, early 
 and late, with self-gratification or rest or com- 
 fort put clean out of sight. 
 
 Of course, Mr. Hume did not regard it in this 
 light. The five pounds was deducted, neither 
 more nor less, and then the wages paid as usual 
 in spite of Patty's vigorous resistance. But he 
 
3$ DEAR. 
 
 could not prevent her spending most of these 
 unwillingly-received wages on the children, 
 and — until Dear arrived at those years of discre- 
 tion afore-mentioned, and undertook the general 
 management of the parish — Patty in her burn- 
 ing gratitude stripped herself of the barest nec- 
 essaries, almost decencies of life, till the whole 
 village was loud in its condemnation of her 
 washed-out prints and patched aprons, which 
 were a disgrace to the parson's situation. 
 
 But as to the watch, that was the hardest, 
 bitterest punishment to Patty. He would never 
 take it back nor let Dear or Clive have it ; 
 many and many a time she put it into his room, 
 in the drawer from which she had taken it, in 
 boxes and corners where she knew he hardly 
 ever looked. Inattentive and vague as he was 
 in most matters, he seemed always keen and on 
 the alert in this matter, and the watch was 
 always restored to her within a very short time 
 of her attempt at giving it back. 
 
 It made it all the worse to her as time went 
 on and she knew her master better, and found 
 
THE NEW PARSON. 39 
 
 how sacred, to him was all that had been his 
 wife's, and how on each of the children's birth- 
 days he would give them, as some priceless 
 treasure, some little thing of their mother's, — a 
 book, a handkerchief, a pin-cushion. But he 
 would never take the watch back, and by and 
 by she found — for coarse rough natures grow 
 sensitive by contact with superior souls — that it 
 gave him pain to see it, so she gave up her 
 futile attempts to restore it, and kept it laid by, 
 looking at it every now and then, as a sort of 
 punishment, when anything had gone amiss 
 with her during the day, if her temper had 
 failed, or she had broken something, or had let 
 the porridge burn. And one day, but that was 
 not just yet, she laid it at her master's feet as 
 he lay dead, and it was buried with him in 
 Kingscombe churchyard, under the hill. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 dear's domain. 
 
 " In her garden found her, 
 Sister roses round her ; 
 A most delightful, queenlike, little flower." 
 
 — From "Month by Month." 
 
 "DART of Dear's undisputed domains from 
 her first arrival at Kingscombe was the 
 empty house and grounds of the Manor. One 
 of the first walks she took in that same drab 
 pelisse and large sun-bonnet was through the 
 gardens there ; and one of the first friends she 
 made at Kingscombe, after Tom Clegg, her 
 charioteer of the day before, was old Sims, the 
 gardener at the Manor. 
 
 Mr. Hume, with Clive in his perambulator, 
 were too slow and vague and desultory as com- 
 panions to Dear, when, even at this early age, 
 
 (40) 
 
DEAR'S DOMAIN. 4 1 
 
 she had once started on an exploring expedition. 
 Mr. Hume was apt to stand transfixed for ten 
 minutes at a time, with eyes fixed on vacancy, 
 oblivious of impatient jerks at his hand or 
 tuggings at his coat-tails. As they grew older 
 the children treated these fits of abstraction 
 with respect, for, as Dear explained to little 
 Clive, " he had gone half way to heaven to see 
 dear mother/' and that was why he could not 
 hear what they said, nor see the things that 
 Clive held before his face. 
 
 The little boy pondered this explanation long 
 and seriously. " Dear," he said at last, with a 
 very awe-stricken little face, " s'pose that some 
 day he got so near to heaven and dear mother 
 that he couldn't find the way back ? " And 
 next time the absent, far-away look settled on 
 Mr. Hume's face, he was called back abruptly 
 to earth by the stifling clutch of young arms 
 round his neck, and by Clive's sobbing, terrified 
 voice in his ears, " Father, father ! come back 
 to me and Dear ! " But this was three or four 
 years later, when Clive's feelings were articulate, 
 1 
 
42 DEAR. 
 
 for that first day at Kingscombe he was only 
 nine months old, and had no great choice of 
 vocabulary. 
 
 So Dear left them behind under the great 
 beech trees that form the avenue leading from 
 the lodge to the house. She tripped up now 
 and then over her long pelisse, or over the mossy 
 roots that pushed themselves up through the 
 grass on either side of the broad roadway, but 
 picked herself up with the independence of a 
 child unused to nursery care, picking the sharp 
 bits of stick or prickly beechnut shells from her 
 poor little palms, and comforting herself for a 
 scratch by kissing it to make it well, with a 
 lingering memory of mother's tender ways. 
 
 The iron gate into the garden being open, 
 Dear went in and made her way into the rose 
 garden at the right of the house, where old Sims 
 was at work hoeing up weeds. It was then 
 only two summers since the old Squire had died, 
 and the garden and house had not begun to 
 show the manifest signs of absentee ownership 
 which they contracted in after years, and even 
 
DEAR'S DOMAIN. 43 
 
 to a far more experienced eye than Dear's the 
 rose garden in the bright July sunshine might 
 have appeared beautiful. The reign of the 
 roses was at its height, and though perhaps a 
 modern connoisseur of roses might have lamented 
 the absence of some of the gorgeous new varie- 
 ties, there was such a profusion of color and form 
 and fragrance as might have satisfied the most 
 exacting rose fancier, even though there was not 
 a single label to proclaim their style and title, 
 and old Sims had reached the end of his knowl- 
 edge when he pointed out a well-known old 
 favorite as " Glory to John." Anyhow there 
 they were, quite as beautiful as if they had long 
 French names written on neat zinc labels ; 
 dusky rich crimson and creamy white, full glow- 
 ing pink and golden saffron, with dainty shell- 
 like tints of buff and maiden's blush. There 
 were roses far above little Dear's head, trained 
 on arches over the path, but naturally wishing 
 for notice, stretching down long branches, bend- 
 ing with the weight of their blossoms. There 
 were roses too on either side, not on standards 
 
44 DEAR. 
 
 displaying bare ugly straight stems surmounted 
 by an unnatural mop of flowers, but on luxuriant 
 bushes with leaves and stems and flowers grace- 
 fully intermixed, bushes low enough to allow 
 of Dear making a cup with her two small hands 
 round one beautiful half-opened pink blossom, 
 and kissing the dewy fragrant petals. 
 
 Her print sun-bonnet had fallen back in her 
 efforts to be polite to the Markhale Niel above 
 her head, whose soft yellow buds seemed actu- 
 ally to be smiling down at her as she passed, 
 so that it was only pretty behaved to stop and 
 smile back, and it was then that Sims saw the 
 quaint baby figure with the sunlight dappling her 
 fair, little, curly head through the rose foliage, 
 and her eyes smiling up in a rapture of delight. 
 
 "Blessed if she mightn't abeen one of the 
 flowers come to life. She always were a terrible 
 one for flowers were Miss Dear, and she'd a way 
 of treating 'em every bit as if they was Chris- 
 tians, and could feel and hear, and would be put 
 about if they was roughly handled or not took 
 no notice on." 
 
DEAR'S DOMAIN. 45 
 
 " Please lift me up," was Dear's first remark 
 to Sims, men being, according to her under- 
 standing, no doubt intended for lifting and 
 carrying, and otherwise assisting determined 
 characters of short stature to attain their ends. 
 
 From the vantage-ground of Sims' arms, Dear 
 caught sight of the terrace beyond, on to which 
 the rose garden opens. A rich deep violet 
 clematis was tossed in a great mass on the 
 balustrade, and in front, in lovely contrast, was 
 a row of stately madonna lilies, taller by a good 
 deal than little Dear that July day, and she 
 made a little imperative gesture to Sims, who 
 had already become her humble bond-slave, to 
 carry her in that direction. 
 
 " And what may your name be, little miss ? " 
 asked Sims, after the lilies had been examined, 
 and had left their golden dust on the child's 
 little round nose. He was not deceived by 
 the faded pelisse and print sun-bonnet and 
 the absence of attendant nursery-maids into 
 thinking that she was merely a village child, 
 and he had heard too that the new parson 
 
46 DEAR. 
 
 had arrived the day before. "Are you the 
 parson's little maid ? " 
 
 "I'm Dear," she said. "I used to be Baby 
 Dear, before Boy came, and then he was Baby, 
 and I was only Dear." 
 
 And here, perhaps, is a favorable oppor- 
 tunity of telling the reader how the little girl 
 came by that name, which sounds like a pet 
 name of endearment, but which was actually 
 her baptismal name. Many names had been 
 suggested and discussed, and I think the last 
 conclusion come to before the christening was 
 that she should bear her mother's name of 
 Annie, but when Mr. Hume took the baby in 
 his arms at the font, he forgot all about the 
 name and called her what was in his heart of 
 love and tenderness, though indeed Dear was 
 her mother's name as far as he was concerned. 
 "Dear, I baptize thee." He was very apolo- 
 getic about it afterwards, when he grasped 
 what he had done, thinking her mother might 
 be vexed, but they both agreed, on reflection, 
 that it was the very name for this rare and 
 
DEAR'S DOMAIN. 47 
 
 wonderful little gift that had been granted 
 them, eminently dear to them, and, as seemed 
 sure to their partial minds, to all who came in 
 contact with her. 
 
 As the child grew to notice such things, it 
 seemed to her that her name was an unusually- 
 nice one, seeing that people appeared to know 
 intuitively what it was, and strangers would 
 address her as " Well, my little Dear ! " and 
 old women stop her to ask, " Where are you 
 going, Dear ? " 
 
 Now it was noticeable that Clive's name had 
 not that advantage, for no uninformed person 
 spoke to him as " Well, my little Clive," so 
 Dear had certainly a great advantage in hav- 
 ing such a name, and Clive was inclined to 
 envy it. 
 
 " Why, whatever child have Sims got carrying 
 about now?" Mrs. Lynch the housekeeper said, 
 as she caught a glimpse of the old man raising 
 Dear to peep into a thrush's nest in the hedge 
 by the pantry window. " Wasting his time ! 
 and he as hadn't a minute to spare this blessed 
 
4-8 DEAR. 
 
 morning to do a job, let alone speak a civil 
 word to a body." 
 
 By which it may be seen that there was the 
 usual amount of friction between the indoor 
 and outdoor servants. 
 
 But Mrs. Lynch's irritation against Sims was 
 not proof against Dear's radiant, little face, and 
 the grumblings against him ended in a " Bless 
 her little heart ! " at the sight of a rapturous 
 meeting between the child and Meg, the large, 
 sleek tabby cat, who was the pride of her 
 mistress's heart, and to whom Dear's innocent 
 mind ascribed no evil intentions with regard to 
 that same thrush's nest, though the spotted 
 breast of the mother bird was greatly agitated 
 by the neighborhood of that shining tabby 
 body, and loud scoldings followed the cat's 
 dignified retreat from the wall. 
 
 Mrs. Lynch's hand involuntarily strayed to- 
 wards the button of the door of a cupboard, in 
 one corner of which was a jar of honey; and, 
 having got that out, she remembered that a bit 
 of parsley was necessary in the preparation of 
 
DEAR'S DOMAIN. 49 
 
 her dinner, and though that is not usually grown 
 in a flower-garden (though why not it would be 
 hard to say, seeing that it is quite as pretty as 
 many of the foliage plants which are so largely 
 cultivated), yet she took her way towards the 
 lawn from whence Sims' gruff grumbling and 
 the child's clear, sweet voice proceeded. 
 
 Ten minutes later, the doors of Kingscombe 
 Manor opened to receive this young conqueror ; 
 kitchen doors, to be sure, but rather on that 
 account to be preferred as leading more directly 
 to the heart of the citadel, and not requiring 
 the amount of unbarring and undrawing of 
 rusty bolts which the opening of the front door 
 necessitated. The garrison also capitulated un- 
 conditionally — the garrison consisting, it is true, 
 only of Mrs. Lynch and her niece Betty ; but 
 still, not foes to be despised, for they had held 
 the fortress gallantly against various assailants, 
 or what they imagined to be such, in the shape 
 of tramps and Irish haymakers, blood-curdling 
 descriptions of whom they gave to their admir- 
 ing friends and relations and to the local police- 
 4 
 
50 DEAR. 
 
 man, who wondered in his foolish mind, which 
 was always in a state of surprise and puzzle, 
 that he never met these gigantic, brawny 
 ruffians of threatening and savage aspect, who 
 visited the Manor from time to time, and were 
 put to flight by the courage and discretion of 
 Mrs. Lynch and Betty. Even Mrs. Lynch's 
 own friends and acquaintances seldom pene- 
 trated beyond the kitchen and the housekeeper's 
 room, though it would have required super- 
 human strength to have carried off the massive 
 furniture of the Manor, if her scruples about 
 showing the house were to be attributed to 
 fear of dishonesty. 
 
 But to Dear all parts of the Manor were open 
 and free ; not, however, on that first day, when 
 I do not think she penetrated further than the 
 honey-pot on the table in the housekeeper's 
 room. But in after times Dear spent many a 
 day trotting about in the empty rooms, gazing 
 up at the pictures of bygone Maddisons, in- 
 cluding "poor dear Fanny," whose mild and 
 somewhat simpering expression she found very 
 
DEAR'S DOMAIN. 51 
 
 pleasing, not being prejudiced as the second 
 Mrs. Maddison had been by details of costume 
 and hair-dressing. She was soon on speaking 
 terms with all the pictures and had her favor- 
 ites among them, and occasionally little mis- 
 understandings and quarrels, and, with one stout 
 old Maddison in a curly wig and with a sly, 
 pig-like eye, that followed persistently wherever 
 she went in the room, she had quite a serious 
 tiff, and did not say good-morning to him for 
 nearly a month. 
 
 The furniture that had been such a trial to 
 Mrs. Maddison's aesthetic taste, became boon 
 companions of little Dear; each solid chair 
 and uninteresting table being invested with a 
 character of its own, and representing animals 
 in Noah's Ark, or roaring lions surrounding a 
 Daniel clad in a dark pelisse and sun-bonnet ; 
 or a whale yawning to swallow a small, curly- 
 headed Jonah. In later times they assumed 
 the shapes of fairies and giants, witches and 
 dwarfs ; or later still, as Dear's reading enlarged 
 its sphere, they became kings and heroes of 
 
52 DEAR. 
 
 romance, fair ladies and gallant knights, and 
 one sofa (it was a remarkably clumsy one in the 
 morning-room — horsehair, with mahogany legs), 
 carried its title of knight in Dear's mind far on 
 into days to come, when clouds had gathered 
 between her and the memories of those childish 
 days, when the gallant deeds of that piece of 
 furniture had gained for it a light tap from the 
 wooden spade in Dear's hand, and " Rise, Sir 
 Sofa ! " was said in such impressive accents as 
 must have thrilled to its very castors. 
 
 Clive in due time was admitted into this 
 magic domain, and followed submissively in 
 Dear's footsteps, regarding pictures and furni- 
 ture through her eyes, and adopting all her 
 ideas and prejudices without attempting to 
 import into them any original ideas of his own, 
 only accepting it all with a certain matter-of- 
 factness and simplicity which gave a wonderful 
 reality to her imaginations, so that Dear was 
 sometimes almost frightened at the solid, pal- 
 pable proportions which the airy fabrics she 
 had built up assumed under Clive' s treatment. 
 
DEAR'S DOMAIN. 53 
 
 Mrs. Lynch from the very first had perfect 
 confidence in Dear, which was amply justified 
 by the respect the child paid to the Maddison 
 belongings. 
 
 " She ain't one of them fidgety, rompussing 
 children as can't leave nothing alone. If she 
 do lift one of them 'olland covers to peep at 
 the cushings and things, she's as sure to put it 
 back as I'd be myself, and a sight surer than 
 Betty, though she's no more than a baby." 
 
 Mrs. Lynch's confidence was not so un- 
 bounded as regards Clive, though I do not 
 know that he ever did anything to merit her 
 suspicions ; but she had a theory that boys 
 would be boys, meaning that they must of their 
 very natures be constantly in mischief ; and it 
 is perfectly useless to attempt to upset people's 
 theories, even with the most convincing of facts ; 
 there is nothing so impregnable. 
 
 But that first day, as I have said, Dear went 
 no further than the housekeeper's room, and if 
 at the age of nine months boys have already 
 begun to be boys, the mischief was confined to 
 
54 DEAR. 
 
 his perambulator, which did not get more than 
 half way up the avenue, where Dear, on her 
 return in Sims' arms, found him fast asleep, 
 and Mr. Hume sitting on the grass beside him, 
 and quite as far away from sublunary things as 
 his sleeping, little son. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 
 
 " The stars of midnight shall be dear 
 To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
 
 In many a secret place, 
 Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
 And beauty born of murmuring sound, 
 Shall pass into her face." 
 
 — Wordsworth. 
 
 WONDER how much the outward circum- 
 stances of nature affect the development of 
 character ? Not so much, I am inclined to 
 think, as we should naturally imagine, seeing 
 that great, noble, breezy natures may grow up 
 in close, smoky, manufacturing towns, with 
 grimy brick walls close to right and left of 
 them, and thick clouds of smoke hanging above 
 their heads ; while small, mean souls may be 
 found among the noble snow mountains or 
 
 (55) 
 
$6 DEAR. 
 
 wide-spreading moors, and slaves by the great 
 free sea. 
 
 I know that the very same surroundings 
 made an oaf of Will Martin, and an oaf too 
 with a partiality for beer, and a shaky notion 
 of truth and even of honesty, and the only 
 intelligence about him, a mean sort of cunning 
 and self-interest. And yet, I cannot quite get 
 it out of my mind that the beautiful outlines of 
 those gray-green hills against the sky may have 
 had some influence in forming Dear's character, 
 and the cloud shadows sweeping over them, 
 and the great spreading broad landscape that 
 the child's eyes gazed on so often ; and the 
 steep, little village street, with the yellow-washed 
 cottages on either side, looking so snug and 
 friendly under their beetling brows of thatch ; 
 and the pound, with its four pollard elms at the 
 corners and the rare growth of nettles inside ; 
 and the village pump, with its stone trough, on 
 the edge of which the buckets rested so long 
 while their owners gossipped ; and last, not 
 least, the little old Norman church, with its 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. $7 
 
 round arches and thick, clumsy, shapeless pil- 
 lars, and small, deep, lancet windows. 
 
 In after years one, from whose mind Dear 
 was not often absent, fancied that traces could 
 be found in the girl's character of the subtle 
 influence of these outward things, surrounding 
 her growing up, and, being far away from 
 Kingscombe and from Dear, loved to carry 
 on this fancy, and conjure up before his 
 mind's eye smaller details of the place — the 
 clipped yew peacock at the Bush ; the stile 
 formed of one great slab of stone, leading 
 to the footpath across the park ; the broken 
 steps to the post-office and village shop, be- 
 tween the stones of which grew little dainty 
 tufts of fern ; the blacksmith's forge at the 
 cross roads with the cling - clang of the 
 hammer and the shower of sparks flying up. 
 He could see and hear it all, and out of each 
 detail he fancied he could trace the origin of 
 something sweet or tender or quaint in Dear's 
 character. But this, of course, was fancy, and, 
 as I said before, the very same surroundings 
 
58 DEAR. 
 
 produced Will Martin, so it is not safe to set 
 down too much to outward impressions. It 
 may have been, one can well believe, that the 
 intercourse with such a man as Mr. Hume may- 
 have accomplished the results which this fanci- 
 ful dreamer set down to that lop-sided peacock 
 and impossible stile and broken-down steps and 
 so on. I do not think any one, least of all a 
 child, can live in the company of simple holiness 
 and not catch some of that most infectious of 
 complaints. Talk of wickedness being catching, 
 and the terrible power of bad example ! it is 
 nothing to the contagion of truth, and, I am 
 sure, I do not know what disinfectant can re- 
 move the effect of good example ; heap up the 
 clods over it, sink it fathoms deep in mid-ocean, 
 it is not to be got rid of by any means. 
 
 The children, even from babyhood, were his 
 constant companions, and pattered about after 
 him wherever he went. They were always at 
 church, forming generally the sole congregation 
 at the daily service, which being unheard of in 
 these parts, roused considerable dissatisfaction 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 59 
 
 at first in the parish, though it was hard to say 
 why, as no one ever came, any one need have 
 objected; but nevertheless it was continued 
 without intermission in Kingscombe till five 
 days before Mr. Hume's funeral. 
 
 Dear and Clive were always present, and, that 
 first winter at Kingscombe, when the weather 
 was very severe and Clive was very small and 
 had chilblains, and Dear was not yet old enough 
 to bear the awful solitude of the vicarage pew 
 with father far away — according to the measure- 
 ments of three years — up in the chancel, the two 
 would creep into the reading-desk with him and 
 draw the ragged cassock round them, and feel 
 quite warm ; and if sometimes when he stepped 
 out to the lectern to read the lessons he had 
 Clive in his arms, though of course an irregu- 
 larity and strongly to be deprecated as any 
 precedent as regards ritual, it may not have 
 been displeasing in the sight of Him Whose 
 Gospel was there read, and Who, we are told, 
 Himself took the little children up in His arms. 
 
 Patty, before that episode of the watch, of 
 
60 DEAR. 
 
 which mention has been made in a former chap- 
 ter, used to protest against this church-going 
 
 " The children," she declared, " is too good to 
 live already, and don't want no more to make 
 'em better. I never heard tell in all my born 
 days of good children growing up, and 'tis just 
 like driving so many nails into their coffins to 
 let 'em go on so." 
 
 But after her lapse from the paths of honesty 
 Patty protested no more, and perhaps further 
 experience of the children reassured her that 
 they were not likely to become too good, perhaps 
 by occasional fits of tantrums on Clive's part, 
 which were very healthy and did not forbode 
 early decease, or, perhaps, by investigation of 
 his chubby shoulders, on which no signs of 
 premature wings showed themselves through the 
 steam on tub-nights. 
 
 But the children accompanied their father on 
 other occasions, equally objected to by Patty 
 and others in Kingscombe, only from other 
 motives than those aroused by the church-going. 
 When Mr. Hume heard that Clegg was rapidly 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 6l 
 
 getting tipsy in the Bush one evening, and went 
 to fetch him out, Dear went too, though Clegg 
 was known to be free in his language, and not 
 particular with his fists when in his cups. Clive 
 would have gone too, only it happened to be tub- 
 night, and if he had gone it would have been 
 straight out of his bath, and with no costume to 
 speak of except soap. Ciegg did not get tipsy 
 for a long time after that ; he could never rightly 
 remember what happened, but he had a dim 
 recollection of Miss Dear's eyes looking at him 
 through mists of beer and bewilderment, and of 
 an overwhelming wish to hide or fight somebody, 
 and then " all at onst, it wern't little Missy's 
 eyes, but a couple of them big stars over the 
 barn roof yonder, and we was out of the Bush 
 in the dark, and the new parson he'd got hold 
 of my arm ; he were a weakly sort of little chap, 
 and needed a bit of help now and then to get 
 over the ground, and he was talking away about 
 them potatoes as wanted hoeing, and he hap- 
 pened to be coming along my way, as made a 
 good chance of telling me what he wanted." 
 
62 DEAR. 
 
 The village was still more outraged at his 
 taking the children to a farm where a man was 
 dying of some fever, darkly suspected of being 
 typhus. Patty had sent the messenger from the 
 farm away with a flea in his ear, at the proposal 
 even that Mr. Hume should go. She wasn't 
 a-going to give the master no such message. 
 He wouldn't go, so there ! It weren't likely as 
 he'd go and catch all manner of nasty things, 
 and for one too as never darkened the doors of 
 the church, nor for the matter of that the chapel 
 neither, and used such language of market days 
 as would make a cat's blood run cold. 
 
 The messenger, a limp and meek-spirited 
 youth, nephew to the sick man, and used to 
 much bad language and many cuffs from him, 
 felt the force of Patty's arguments, and took his 
 departure with half a thought as to whether it 
 was worth while to try the dissenting minister 
 in the next village, and debating what he could 
 say to the poor, draggled, ill-used wife, who had 
 not had all the love beaten out of her yet, or at 
 any rate the fear of what might be beyond the 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 63 
 
 darkness into which each moment took her 
 husband deeper. 
 
 " There ! it weren't my fault ; I said all I could, 
 but it weren't no manner of use. It's the fever 
 they're afraid on, and I didn't think 'twere no 
 good going all the way to Dickson's, down to 
 Bristow, as he ain't likely to agot over that 
 stone as uncle chucked through chapel window 
 Michaelmas fair." 
 
 But the words were hardly out of his mouth 
 when the new parson arrived breathless and 
 hatless, having run best part of the way. Not 
 come ? Why, he would have got up from his 
 dying bed for such a purpose, and all that Patty 
 could urge against the man was so much the 
 more reason for hastening to his side. And 
 about ten minutes afterwards arrived Dear and 
 Clive with Mr. Hume's hat. Dear was five at 
 that time, and had begun to feel responsible for 
 her father's appearance, and had set off trotting 
 after him, followed and delayed by Clive's fat 
 legs. 
 
 And instead of sending them right away or 
 
64 DEAR. 
 
 scolding them (but that he never did), Mr. 
 Hume let them stop in that infected house ; and 
 Patty, who had not a notion where they had 
 gone to, was pretty well at her wit's end at their 
 disappearance, and went to every house in the 
 village, including the Manor, but could hear 
 nothing of them. At ten o'clock at night, con- 
 quering qualms of fear on her own account, but 
 feeling obliged to tell her master of the children's 
 loss, she made her way to Lea Farm, and there 
 found both the children asleep on the settle in 
 the farm kitchen, from which the bedroom led 
 in which that solemn parting from earthly things 
 was going on. 
 
 No harm came of it to one or the other, which 
 was at the same time a relief and a disappoint- 
 ment to Patty and other wise people in the 
 parish, who had prophesied the immediate death 
 of both of them, and much as you may deplore 
 the event, there is a certain satisfaction in prov- 
 ing yourself a true prophet even of evil. 
 
 The aggravating part of Mr. Hume and his 
 children was that they never realized people's 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 65 
 
 prognostications. They were children who went 
 about with holes in their shoes and did not take 
 cold, who went into the way of infection and did 
 not catch anything, who always had their own 
 way and yet did not appear the least self-willed 
 or spoilt, who were constantly taken to church 
 and yet neither got tired of it, nor, familiarity 
 breeding contempt, grew to behave badly and 
 irreverently, nor, as seemed the only alternative, 
 became little, unreal prigs, good for nothing but 
 a premature grave ; who learnt of their own 
 accord what could hardly be driven into other 
 children's heads by the combined energies of 
 parents and school-master, with plentiful assist- 
 ance from the cane. 
 
 I fancy that Patty, as far as her ability went, 
 which was not very far, tided the children over 
 the first difficulties of reading, and as far as pot- 
 hooks in writing, and rudimentary arithmetic 
 accomplished with acorns or strokes of chalk on 
 the back kitchen door, and this slight taste of 
 the tree of knowledge was enough to set off 
 these two young gluttons to gather fruit on their 
 5 
 
66 DEAR. 
 
 own account, dipping into folios, overcoming the 
 difficulties of black letter, and picking out scraps 
 of amusement and interest from books whose 
 dullness would appall the general public. 
 
 Mr. Hume's library was not very extensive, 
 and was naturally composed largely of theological 
 works ; but the children were not easily discour- 
 aged, and, I think, they got as much pleasure, 
 and more satisfaction, from what they could 
 spell out of the tattered old Chaucer, or from 
 quaint anecdotes in Jeremy Taylor, than our 
 pampered young people find in their copiously- 
 illustrated and beautifully-printed books m gor- 
 geous bindings, written purposely to suit every 
 infantile age or taste. 
 
 It is difficult to say at what age Clive first 
 manifested his taste for mathematics. Looking 
 back, Dear was inclined to maintain that it was 
 evident from his very babyhood ; that before he 
 could speak plain, or even walk with dependable 
 steadiness, he was given to calculations and 
 reckoning, and to poring over that old folio 
 Newton, with its mysterious, and, to her, uninter 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 6? 
 
 esting figures and symbols. Clive himself attri- 
 buted his first devotion to Newton to imitation 
 of Dear's absorption in Chaucer, which she 
 rather appropriated as her own, and objected to 
 the prolonged contemplation of the crabbed old 
 pictures of the "Nonne," or the " Prioresse," or 
 the "Doctor of Physike" which seemed to him 
 the best part of the book. 
 
 So he set up an opposition folio to spread 
 open on his legs, as he sat on the floor in front 
 of the bookcase, and, as none other of the folios 
 possessed pictures, Newton was selected as being 
 occasionally interspersed with figures to relieve 
 the monotony of the letterpress, and so acci- 
 dentally the bent was given which year by year 
 grew more decided, and influenced the whole 
 course of his life. 
 
 It is very curious to notice how, when any one 
 has a decided bent in one direction, things turn 
 up to favor and help that bent, even though 
 circumstances may appear most adverse and 
 discouraging. Who would not have thought 
 that in a little, out-of-the-way Loamshire village, 
 
68 DEAR. 
 
 among a set of clodhoppers, a boy's mathemati- 
 cal genius would have been stifled under the 
 weight of dullness and want of opportunity ? 
 Not a bit of it. Helpers turned up in the most 
 unexpected directions ; that stupid old Hodge 
 the carpenter knew a little elementary practical 
 geometry, the bailiff at the Manor had some 
 knowledge of land and timber measurement, the 
 school-master over at Great Cheriton had a 
 smattering of algebra, and a willingness to 
 impart all he knew, and a good deal more. 
 Mr. Hume himself would occasionally wake 
 up and recall old Cambridge days, and give 
 an amount of help which was all the more 
 delightful because it was so unexpected and 
 never reckoned upon by the boy, who drank 
 in every word, knowing how short a time this 
 mood in his father was likely to last, and 
 how perhaps in the very middle of demonstrat- 
 ing a problem, the attention might wander, 
 the interest die out, and his thoughts be miles 
 away (if indeed heaven is measured by miles) 
 from the little untidy study, the open, much- 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 69 
 
 thumbed algebra, and the eager boy's face with 
 burning eyes. 
 
 And once when Clive, like another Pascal, 
 was tracing a figure from Euclid in the sand by 
 the gravel pit, there happened, to pass on a bi- 
 cycle, like a very Deus ex machina, a young man 
 of mild aspect, who yet was a senior wrangler. 
 He was better at mathematics than at cycling, 
 and was not sorry to dismount and have a talk 
 with the queer little kid with ragged knicker- 
 bockers and a shock head. 
 
 So many strange figures appeared that eve- 
 ning traced on the sand by the gravel pit, that 
 a party of laborers, coming from work, stopped 
 to contemplate them with much head shaking 
 and awe, arriving at the conclusion that the 
 powers of darkness had had a hand in it, and 
 one of them wagered as old Betty Cook had 
 been up to some of her tricks, as were well 
 known to have overlooked Farmer White's cow, 
 as went dry two days arter, and another reck- 
 oned as he see a black cat run out of the pit last 
 time as ever he come that way at the full of the 
 
70 DEAR. 
 
 moon. After which they left the doubtful spot, 
 with its mysterious lines and circles, with quick- 
 ened footsteps and a dislike to be hindermost. 
 
 But if there were witchcraft in those cabalistic 
 signs, the spell had been cast on Clive, for the 
 next few days nothing could keep him from 
 Great Cheriton, whither he went at the earliest 
 hour of the morning, returning dusty and ex- 
 hausted, or wet through and muddy, late in 
 the evening, too tired to eat and too excited to 
 sleep. Nothing could stop him short of Patty 
 hiding his clothes, which she had not the heart 
 to do ; a bilious attack, a thunderstorm, a blis- 
 tered foot, a dilapidated boot, in which the 
 upper leather was becoming alienated from the 
 sole, an invitation to help pick cherries at the 
 Manor, — nothing could prevent him toiling into 
 Great Cheriton, where that magician of the bi- 
 cycle was putting up at the George, and pretend- 
 ing to fish in the Cher. 
 
 The young wrangler was amused at the de- 
 votion of the ragged little genius from Kings- 
 combe, and for want of better company had no 
 
LITTLE DEAR AND CLIVE. 71 
 
 objection to the boy toiling after him carrying 
 basket or rod, and ready to plunge into water or 
 mud, or climb a tree, whenever the exigiences of 
 not very expert fishing required such exertion. 
 
 And for all this Clive was more than rewarded 
 by such crumbs and scraps of knowledge as this 
 divinity pleased to throw him from that rich 
 table of the gods at which it had been his 
 privilege to sit at Cambridge, submitting un- 
 complainingly when the charms of sleep, or 
 pipe, or shilling dreadful stopped the flow of 
 wisdom for several hours together. 
 
 " Well, good-bye, old chap ! " the wrangler 
 said, as he was starting from Great Cheriton, per- 
 forming that undignified but apparently neces- 
 sary process of hopping preparatory to mounting 
 his bicycle ; " grind away at your mathematics 
 like beans, and when I get back to Cambridge 
 I'll send you a ripping book that will help you 
 no end." 
 
 He forgot all about it when he got to the 
 next hill, where the brake did not act properly, 
 and never thought of it again ; but he had done 
 
72 DEAR. 
 
 more for Clive in those few days than any 
 " ripping hook " would have done, and when the 
 boy got over the disappointment of post after 
 post bringing no book for him, he preserved 
 only feelings of gratitude. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 RALPH MADDISON. 
 
 " And what is so rare as a day in June ? 
 Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
 Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 
 And over it softly her warm ear lays." 
 
 — J. R. Lowell. 
 
 TT must have been the year following the 
 wrangler's visit, recorded in the last chapter, 
 that Ralph Maddison made his appearance at 
 Kingscombe Manor. I do not think I have even 
 mentioned his existence, which is the more 
 blamable because he was the heir of all the 
 broad acres belonging to the Maddisons, and of 
 a good deal of more substantial money value 
 into the bargain. 
 
 This was not quite his first appearance at 
 Kingscombe, as he had been brought down in the 
 
 (73) 
 
74 DEAR. 
 
 chrysalis state, lace and embroidery and cambric 
 and satin, with a crumpled red face somewhere 
 about in it, to display to the admiring tenantry 
 shortly before the old Squire's death. But after 
 this nothing more was seen or heard of him, and 
 as the old Manor servants had been dispersed, 
 with the exception of Mrs. Lynch and Sims, 
 there was no circle of faithful retainers to receive 
 with breathless interest the details of the young 
 master's gradual progress through all the changes 
 and chances of childhood, cutting teeth, running 
 off, discarding infantile petticoats and adopting 
 manly garb, having measles, whooping cough, 
 and suchlike childish complaints, or making his 
 first steps in the thorny path of education. 
 
 And even if Mrs. Lynch and Sims had been 
 ready to keep up old traditions of interest in the 
 heir of Kingscombe, there was no one to keep 
 them posted up in these particulars, as "my 
 lady " never wrote, except when she had some- 
 thing to complain of about the way in which the 
 baskets of flowers and butter and vegetables 
 were sent, and then more often by the hand of 
 
RALPH MADDISON. 75 
 
 her housekeeper or maid than her own ; and the 
 servants she had about her were all new and 
 many of them foreign, and held no communica- 
 tion with Kingscombe. 
 
 I can hardly believe it possible that at some 
 time during the ten years and more that the 
 Humes had been at Kingscombe, Mrs. Lynch 
 or Sims had not told Dear and Clive about the 
 young master, for opportunities were never- 
 ending, as when Dear was holding a tangled 
 skein of wool for Mrs. Lynch to wind, or was 
 sitting on a large turned-over flower-pot, while 
 Sims was potting out geraniums, both of which 
 occupations encouraged long-winded stories, as 
 also did wide-open eyes fixed in earnest attention. 
 And the supply of really interesting narrative, 
 drawn from life at Kingscombe, even though 
 that life extended to the seventy years of Sims, 
 was necessarily limited, as conscience obliged a 
 certain adherence to truth which takes most of 
 the point out of stories of real life, and from this 
 I feel sure the baby heir of Kingscombe must 
 have figured in the stories at times ; though, as 
 
?6 DEAR. 
 
 years passed by, the arrival of a family of blind, 
 crawling kittens, or the hatching of a brood of 
 wise little yellow ducklings, seemed of more im- 
 portance at the Manor than the birth of the heir 
 fourteen years ago, so great is the all-powerful 
 present. 
 
 Anyhow, if they had ever heard of him, Dear 
 and Clive had altogether forgotten the existence 
 of such a person as Ralph Maddison, until one 
 June day they became aware of him, standing 
 by the thick yew hedge below the terrace, and 
 holding in his hand a thrush's nest. A thrush, 
 did I say ? the thrush, the one who built year 
 after year in that very same place, where the 
 yew is cut square and meets the balustrade ; a 
 privileged creature, who hardly flew off when the 
 children came to peep at her, and whose young 
 ones stretched out long bare necks and gaping 
 mouths in expectation of the tender little red 
 worms Clive brought to regale them. 
 
 Even Meg, Mrs. Lynch's tabby cat, seemed 
 to understand that these young thrushes were 
 not to be trifled with, and year after year the 
 
RALPH MADDISON. 77 
 
 course of true love had run smooth, and the blue 
 eggs had turned into ugly, little, wide-mouthed 
 birds, with hardly a flutter of agitation in the 
 speckled breast that covered them, till this year, 
 when nest, blue eggs (hard on hatching) and all 
 were torn bodily out of the yew hedge, while 
 the mother bird flew from the round stone ball 
 on the balustrade to the coping above and back 
 again, uttering cries that were almost articulate 
 in their expression of grief. Dear heard them 
 before she was around the corner of the house, 
 and flew along the terrace with dark suspicions 
 of Meg, who was not always so trustworthy and 
 straightforward as could be desired, and then 
 she saw Ralph Maddison with the nest in his 
 hand. 
 
 He was a boy of fourteen at that time, a few 
 months older than Dear, and considerably taller 
 even then, a boy with a pleasant, smiling, sunny 
 face, with curly chestnut hair and blue eyes, with 
 very long lashes and a dimple in his cheek ; a 
 very pretty-looking boy now, though he was 
 getting long-limbed and awkward, and of an age 
 
7<3 DEAR. 
 
 when prettiness is an embarrassing quality which 
 a boy would willingly dispense with. He bore 
 the traces of having been quite an ideal little 
 boy, when no doubt that pretty chestnut hair 
 was done into a cockatoo curl at the top of his 
 head, and he sat on ladies' laps and showed off 
 his dimples and long lashes, and said pretty, 
 lisping, little speeches that were thought marvel- 
 lously clever and charming. School had taken 
 a good deal of this nonsense out of him ; these 
 silken darlings have a hard time of it generally 
 the first term at school ; but a naturally sweet 
 temper and a capability of liking and being 
 liked, and unlimited pocket-money, made things 
 easier for him than they are for most, and he 
 was not of a nature to provoke bullying, so 
 perhaps the spoiling was not fetched so com- 
 pletely out of him as the drastic treatment of 
 school can sometimes effect. 
 
 Dear saw at a glance that he was not one of 
 the Kingscombe boys — indeed not one of those 
 would have ventured on such an act, at any rate 
 not with this open audacity ; but beyond this, 
 
RALPH MADDISON. 79 
 
 her indignation did not allow of her noticing 
 that he was a different style to the boys of the 
 neighborhood, though, as to clothes, if she had 
 observed them, she would not have set much 
 store by them as marking his position in life, as 
 she and Clive were as a rule much worse clad 
 than the farmers' families, and, for the matter of 
 that, than many of the laborers. 
 
 Ralph was quite bewildered by this sudden 
 descent on him of a flying figure with a mane 
 of fair hair floating behind, and a little white 
 face with great, bright, indignant eyes. 
 
 The suddenness of her appearance complicated 
 the situation still more, for the startled boy let 
 the nest fall, and the eggs, unpleasantly near 
 hatching, were shattered on the pavement. 
 
 She seized hold of his arm, panting out, " Oh ! 
 you bad, wicked, cruel boy ! How dare you ? 
 how could you ? why did Sims let you in ? Oh ! 
 poor, little thrush ! " 
 
 And then she cast herself down on the stone 
 step of the terrace, and covered her face in 
 uncontrollable grief, while Clive, who had come 
 
So DEAR. 
 
 upon the scene more slowly, stood on the step 
 above, glaring at Ralph. 
 
 " I say," Ralph protested, "I'm awfully sorry. 
 I didn't know it was your nest, or that any one 
 cared. It was so jolly easy to take, and I 
 thought every one took a nest when they'd the 
 chance. Why, half the chaps at school have 
 collections of birds' eggs, and some of them take 
 no end of trouble to get them, and climb trees 
 and go up church towers, and nearly break their 
 necks over it. I had a jolly collection one term, 
 but I bought my specimens, because I couldn't 
 be bothered. Do you know, I don't believe I've 
 ever taken a nest myself before. It was a pity 
 you startled me like that, so that I let it drop. I 
 might have blown the eggs and started a fresh 
 collection." 
 
 "You couldn't have blown them," Clive said, 
 with undisguised contempt ; " don't you see 
 they'd have hatched in a day or two ? " 
 
 " So they would. Don't they look beastly ? 
 Glad I didn't try to blow them, by Jove ! I say, 
 what's she crying about ? There must be kits 
 
RALPH MADDISON. 51 
 
 of other nests about, so what does it matter 
 about this one ? " 
 
 Just then old Sims came up, and instead of 
 taking the part of Dear and Clive, and expelling 
 the intruder with a sharp lesson to teach him 
 not to repeat the offence, he stood stammering 
 and touching his hat to the strange boy, in a 
 manner quite new to their experience of the 
 old man. 
 
 "Well, you see, Missy Dear — asking your 
 pardon, Master Ralph — as should say Master 
 Maddison — Miss Dear here, she do lay terrible 
 store by them thrushes — and, as I was saying, 
 Missy — there, don'tee cry ! — seeing as the whole 
 place like belongs to he — leastways will when 
 his ma — begging her pardon — my lady is took 
 — though it's to be hoped it mayn't be for many 
 a year neither — properly speaking the nesties 
 being part of the place, there ain't no one as can 
 prevent it, if the young master have a fancy for 
 'em — though, knowing your feelings, missy, I'd 
 aventured to say a word if I'd been anyways 
 handy." 
 
82 DEAR. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry," repeated the boy. "I 
 say, is that your little girl ? Do make her 
 stop crying." 
 
 " Blesh yer, no ! " said Sims, much outraged 
 at the suggestion, but anxious to show proper 
 respect to the young master. "This is Miss 
 Dear, the parson's — Reverend Hume's young 
 lady, and that's Master Clive, and there ain't 
 one in Kingscombe nor for miles round as don't 
 speak well of our parson, — even the chapel folks 
 ain't a word to say agin him, as is more than 
 you can say of most." 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " said the boy, " that's ripping. 
 I thought when I was sent down to this jolly 
 old place, there'd not be a soul for a fellow to 
 speak to. Mrs. Lynch has been talking about 
 you, and she says you know all about the 
 pictures in the hall, and can tell me who the old 
 buffers are. I'm Ralph Maddison, you know. 
 I dare say she's told you about me. I've been 
 seedy, and the mater thought I'd pick up here ; 
 and besides, there's been scarlet fever in my 
 house at school, and she's frightened to death of 
 
RALPH MADDISON. 8$ 
 
 infection, and just in the middle of the season 
 too, when she's got her house full, and no end of 
 engagements. You're not afraid of catching it, 
 are you ? There's no fear, only one chap had 
 it, and none of the rest of us went near him, and 
 there was a lot of fuss and humbug about dis- 
 infecting, sulphur and carbolic and beastliness. 
 I believe that was what made me seedy to begin 
 with." 
 
 Even in the midst of her real and entirely 
 unaffected sympathy with the bereaved thrush, 
 Dear could not be uninterested in this new 
 incident in life ; and presently, looking from 
 between her fingers, she saw such a pleasant 
 smiling face looking down at her, that she could 
 not continue to feel resentment, and when de- 
 cent burial had been given to those unhatched 
 young thrushes, she found herself quite good 
 friends with their ruthless destroyer, and even 
 showing him other nests in ivy or apple tree or 
 water shoot, confident that he would regard 
 them as sacred. 
 
 He had arrived the evening before, a telegram 
 
84 DEAR. 
 
 announcing his coming having nearly produced 
 an apoplectic fit in Mrs. Lynch during the after- 
 noon, being the first of those orange-colored 
 missives that had ever reached her. She at 
 once plunged into a fluster of preparation, quite 
 half of it being entirely beside the mark, and in- 
 cluding several things that might quite as well 
 have been done during the untroubled calm that 
 had preceded this visit, or the equally-peaceful 
 period that followed it, — such for example as 
 having the hen-house whitewashed, and clearing 
 out the cupboard under the back stairs, and 
 mending the china shepherdess that stood on 
 the mantelpiece in Mrs. Lynch's bedroom. 
 
 She laid in a stock of provisions as if for a 
 garrison of soldiers, and got quite hysterical 
 over some tarts which did not come up to the 
 lightness of former days. 
 
 Mrs. Maddison had really made one sacrifice 
 on behalf of her son, for she had sent down 
 with him her butler, Mr. Duncan, a perfectly 
 invaluable man, who had been with her for five 
 years, and who steered the household through 
 
RALPH MADDISON. 85 
 
 the whirlpool of the London season with a 
 quiet art that was beyond praise. He knew all 
 the shades of position, and the consideration due 
 to each, better even than his mistress, and made 
 everything easy for her ; so that as long as 
 Duncan was there, she did not feel the smallest 
 doubt of everything going right. So we must 
 do Mrs. Maddison credit for having made a 
 considerable sacrifice for Ralph, more a great 
 deal that another mother might have done by 
 giving up all her engagements, and cutting 
 short the most brilliant season at its very zenith, 
 and rushing off to nurse a son in small-pox or 
 diphtheria. Why, with many mothers that 
 would be no self-denial at all, only as perfect 
 happiness as was compatible with her darling 
 being ill or suffering, and the most utter self- 
 sacrifice would be to keep away, if it were for 
 the boy's good. 
 
 But Mrs. Maddison was not a mother of that 
 sort, and she made no insignificant offering to 
 her love for Ralph (which really existed to a 
 certain extent) in sending Duncan. Sacrifices 
 
86 DEAR. 
 
 must be judged of from the people who make 
 them, not by the deed done. 
 
 Duncan was almost more alarming to Mrs. 
 Lynch than Master Ralph himself, for after all, 
 boys are much the same in whatever rank of life 
 they may be born ; but there is no knowing what 
 grandeur gentlemen's gentlemen may arrive at, 
 or the amount of respect and attention they 
 may expect. 
 
 But Duncan had seen too much of the world 
 not to be able to fit in pretty well in any cir- 
 cumstances among which he found himself. 
 He had travelled nearly all over the world, and 
 had known downs as well as ups, and roughed 
 it as well as lain in the lap of luxury ; and he 
 had a good, kindly nature under all the varnish 
 of fashionable service, and simple tastes that 
 lingered among the refinements of civilization. 
 He had a liking too for Ralph, which the boy 
 warmly returned, having spent a good deal of 
 time in Duncan's company, as the exactions 
 of fashionable life made it impossible for his 
 mother to have the boy much with her, and 
 
RALPH MADDISON. 87 
 
 since he had been out of the nursery and had 
 grown long-legged and conspicuous, he was not 
 always acceptable in the drawing-room. Besides, 
 a son that is as tall as oneself is rather an 
 awkward testimony as to the flight of time, 
 and Mrs. Maddison was a very young-looking 
 woman, and if people did mistake her for two- 
 and-twenty, it was not her fault, nor was it her 
 business to contradict them or bring a great 
 school-boy forward to confuse their calculations 
 as to the possible date of her marriage. 
 
 " Ralph, my treasure," she would say, " I know 
 you would not care for that water-party at 
 Richmond. It would bore you to death, as it 
 does me. You would much rather go to the 
 Crystal Palace with Duncan, and so you shall. 
 I only wish I could come too." 
 
 Or again, " Mother must leave her boy for 
 a few days. Lady Westron would not let me 
 off my visit, though I did my best. But 
 Duncan shall take you down to Brighton while 
 I'm away, and you can stop at the Grand and 
 do just as you like." 
 
o5 DEAR. 
 
 It was lucky tor Ralph that Duncan was the 
 sort of man he was, doing his diu:y by the boy, 
 and keeping him out of mischief, when it would 
 have been easier and a good deal pleasanter to 
 have let him have his way, and only his mother 
 would have been to blame for the consequences. 
 It was his liking for Ralph that prevented 
 Duncan from objecting, as many a butler might 
 have done, to going off in the very middle of the 
 season to vegetate at Kingscombe, and he was 
 soon hand-and-glove with Mrs. Lynch and old 
 Sims, and with a good many of the villagers, 
 and went pottering about in the poultry-yard, 
 or doing a little bit of gardening ; apparently 
 as interested in the little doings and sayings of 
 the place as if he had lived there all his days, 
 and had never tasted the more highly-spiced cup 
 of London life. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 BOY AND GIRL. 
 
 "... Her fresh and innocent eyes 
 Had such a star of morning in their blue, 
 That all neglected places of the field 
 Broke into Nature's music when they saw her." 
 
 — MOORE. 
 
 T3 ALPH MADDISON'S visit to Kingscombe 
 Manor lasted three months, and formed 
 quite an era at Kingscombe from which people 
 dated. " It must abeen the winter arter Master 
 Ralph were here, " or " Master Ralph hadn't 
 been gone a twelvemonth." 
 
 He was a general favorite in the place, and, 
 though he never rivaled Dear or Clive in the 
 popular affection permanently, still there was a 
 fascination in his light-hearted, gay nature and 
 
 (39) 
 
90 DEAR. 
 
 his open-hearted generosity which was very 
 irresistible. But there was no rivalry between 
 them, for from the very first he was devoted to 
 Dear and Clive, but especially the former, whom 
 he followed about like her shadow, and was 
 imbued by them with the love and reverence 
 they bore their father. 
 
 Clive and he had occasional little rubs, as he 
 could not at all sympathize with Clive's thirst 
 for knowledge, and was inclined to think it 
 was humbug, while to Clive it seemed almost 
 blasphemy to hear him talk so lightly of those 
 golden opportunities of learning, and the pros- 
 pect of Eton and Cambridge, which to Clive 
 would have seemed like Paradise, but which 
 Ralph treated as a bore which had to be got 
 through somehow. All the luxury and amuse- 
 ment of Ralph's life, which he described to 
 them, seemed trifling and insignificant to Clive 
 in comparison, and Ralph found a more inter- 
 ested listener in Dear when he described theatres 
 he had been to, and the Crystal Palace and fire- 
 works, and a visit to Paris, and big dinners and 
 
BOY AND GIRL. 91 
 
 balls he had had glimpses of, and his beautiful 
 mother and her lovely dresses and glittering 
 jewels. 
 
 " What is she like, Ralph ? she would 
 ask. " No one at Kingscombe, of course ; but 
 sometimes at Great Cheriton one sees very 
 grand- looking people. There's Mrs. Moss, the 
 doctor's wife, she's rather stout, but she dresses 
 beautifully, and I heard Mrs. Jones say she 
 looked like a duchess. I suppose your mother 
 would be about as old as she is, for Mrs. Moss 
 has a son about your age." 
 
 They were sitting on the side of the hill as 
 they talked, and from among the tiny eyeb right 
 and spicy thyme and sweet fine grass they were 
 picking out the little white snail-shells with 
 dainty black markings, and tossing them at a 
 sheep feeding just below, with a cracked bell at 
 its neck, who now and then turned up a black, 
 expressionless, stupid face, with yellow, glassy 
 eyes, and gave a gruff ba-a. 
 
 " Like Mrs. Moss ! " Ralph protested. " She's 
 as much like that sheep. And she's not old. 
 
9 2 DEAR. 
 
 Why, I've heard Clarisse, her maid, say that 
 she's been taken for sixteen." 
 
 " Oh, Ralph, how ridiculous ! Only two years 
 older than you. Wasn't she vexed ? " 
 
 " Vexed ? not a bit of it. I remember some 
 gentleman speaking of me*as her little brother, 
 and she did not contradict him, but looked as 
 pleased as anything. She doesn't much like 
 my calling her 'mother' before strangers. I 
 had a sort of trick of saying it when I was a 
 kid, whenever I spoke to her, and she didn't 
 like it. But she's awfully fond of me all the 
 same," the boy went on, with a note of defiance 
 in his voice, ready to take up the cudgels even 
 against a glance of blame for his beautiful, 
 graceful young mother. 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course," Dear said, to whom it 
 seemed to go without saying that a mother 
 would love her son, like that poor thrush whose 
 domestic happiness Ralph had interfered with, 
 or like Dapple, Farmer Green's Alderney cow, 
 whose great eyes were all blue and shining with 
 agonizing love for her long-legged, awkward 
 
BOY AND GIRL. 93 
 
 little calf, and whose mournful cries filled the 
 night after that same calf had gone jolting off 
 to Great Cheriton in a cart driven by a butcher's 
 boy. " Oh, yes, of course ; mothers always are. 
 Father says he never can make up to us for the 
 want of that ; though, of course, she goes on 
 loving us all the same up there. Ralph, I 
 wonder if your mother is at all like what ours 
 was ? I can just remember her, at least I think 
 I can, though sometimes I'm afraid it is the 
 picture of the Madonna in father's room that I 
 am thinking of." 
 
 Before Ralph's mind's eye there was a picture 
 of his mother in her boudoir, where the light 
 fell, shaded by rose-tinted curtains, on her face 
 where the bloom was too delicate to allow of 
 boisterous salutations, which might also disturb 
 the soft curls of hair which were arranged with 
 such artistic carelessness by Mademoiselle 
 Clarisse. A soft perfume always hung about 
 her, and her voice was soft and slow, and her 
 words emphasized by graceful movements of 
 her slim white hands, gleaming with diamonds. 
 
94 DEAR. 
 
 She had a way of letting her lids sink half over 
 her eyes and then suddenly raising them and 
 looking straight at you, with a look that seemed 
 to come from her very soul, and then let them 
 slowly and languidly sink again. It was a very 
 effective performance, especially to her gentle- 
 men friends, each and all of whom thought that 
 those glances were only bestowed on him and 
 on no other. Even Ralph, to whom, perhaps 
 for practice, such a look had been given now 
 and then, was as firmly impressed as any other 
 of her admirers that she only looked so at him, 
 and he could quite see and feel that look as 
 Dear asked the question whether his mother 
 was like what her remembrance of hers was. 
 
 Everything that was graceful and lovely and 
 loving Ralph thought his mother, but as he 
 turned to answer Dear's question — Dear looking 
 at him with her clear, wide-open, truthful eyes, 
 with her earnest, sweet little face, on which the 
 sunshine fell, untempered even by the hat which 
 lay at her feet, with her soft fair hair stirred by 
 the little hill-side breeze, and behind her, as she 
 
BOY AND GIRL. 95 
 
 sat with her little sunburnt hands clasped round 
 her knees, the soft, billowy undulations of the 
 gray-green hills, cutting sharp, higher up, against 
 the pure blue sky — as he turned to answer, he 
 laughed. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " he said, " not a bit ! Your mother 
 could never have been the least bit like mine." 
 
 And he could not understand the feeling, half 
 amusement, half pain, that the suggestion roused 
 in him. There was a sort of absurd impossi- 
 bility about the idea of anything so open-air and 
 breezy and real and true as Dear, having any 
 connection with the artistic, scented, sheltered 
 loveliness of his mother. He did not analyze 
 the feeling, which was neither disloyalty to his 
 mother nor disparagement of Dear, who, indeed, 
 was a little bit hurt at his vehement disclaim- 
 ing of any sort of likeness ; feeling that if his 
 mother was a fashionable lady, beautiful and 
 elegant beyond all comparison with any one in 
 Kino-scombe or its neighborhood, hers was a 
 saint in light. 
 
 "I tell you what," said Ralph, "I'll get the 
 
96 DEAR. 
 
 mater to come down here next summer. I 
 don't believe she knows what a jolly place it is. 
 I'm sure she'd like it — at least, I think she 
 would," he added, more doubtfully, as he tried 
 to realize his mother at Kingscombe. "Anyhow 
 she might like it for a few days, when she's 
 regularly fagged out with the season. By Jove, 
 it's hard work, I can tell you — calling, and driv- 
 ing in the park, and matinees, and then a big 
 dinner and two or three balls, or at homes, or 
 the opera every night. It's pretty stiff, and she 
 says sometimes it will kill her, poor, little 
 mother ! " 
 
 " Doesn't she like it ? " Dear asked. 
 
 " Well, yes, I suppose she really does, because 
 she's not obliged to keep on. She might chuck 
 it all up, and live as quietly as anything, but 
 then she'd get bored." 
 
 " I don't think," Dear said thoughtfully, "that 
 I quite understand what being bored is. Of 
 course I know what the word means — tired and 
 disgusted and sick and uninterested in things, 
 but I don't think I've ever felt it. But perhaps 
 
BOY AND GIRL. 97 
 
 one doesn't till one is grown up," said the girl, 
 with a wonder how any one could be bored in 
 such a great interesting world, full of people and 
 beautiful things, great cloud shadows moving 
 across a wide landscape, like that spread out 
 before her now, corn-fields rippled suddenly by 
 a little breeze, larks springing up as if bent on 
 carrying their songs to heaven itself, blue smoke 
 curling up from cottage chimneys among the 
 trees down there, from hearths each one of which 
 had some story of human interest attached to it. 
 Think too, of all the spring flowers, and the birds' 
 nests (always a weakness of Dear's, as we know), 
 of the little babies, and young lambs, and then 
 think of being bored ! 
 
 She did not know that, as a rule, being bored 
 is due entirely to selfishness and narrowness and 
 want of sympathy. 
 
 "Well, anyhow," Ralph said, "if my mother 
 doesn't care to come, I shall. I'll come every 
 year, and when I'm a man, I'll come and live 
 here. I ought to, oughtn't I, Dear ? My father 
 lived here pretty well all his life, and was awfully 
 7 
 
9o DEAR 
 
 fond of the old place, and I mean to be the same 
 when I've got through that stupid old Eton and 
 Oxford. Dear," he said, with a softening in his 
 voice that might have been sentimental if he 
 had been a few years older, " you'll have to put 
 me in the way of what I shall have to do when 
 I'm Squire here. It's the sort of thing I shan't 
 pick up at Oxford." 
 
 But Dear's eyes were still following the cloud 
 shadows across the landscape, or, half-dazzled, 
 trying to find the lark in the brightness over- 
 head, and her mind was still pondering the 
 mystery of being bored. 
 
 " I wonder," she said hesitatingly, as if it 
 might be profane to carry such speculations into 
 holy ground, " I wonder if grown-up people ever 
 feel bored in heaven — I mean while they are 
 waiting for their friends to come. Oh no, of 
 course not. They couldn't, could they ? " 
 
 " I think my mother would," said Ralph. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. 
 
 "... Her angel's face, 
 As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, 
 And made a sunshine in the shady place." 
 
 — Spenser. 
 
 " T SHALL come every year," Ralph had said, 
 
 but it was six years before he came back to 
 
 Kingscombe, and then again he came quite 
 
 unexpectedly. He wrote once or twice during 
 
 the year that succeeded his visit, and Dear 
 
 answered, telling him all the little news of 
 
 Kingscombe, and especially many details of a 
 
 fox terrier puppy he had left in her charge. 
 
 But in his next letter he made no comment on 
 
 her news, nor even mentioned Dan, and Dear 
 
 for the first time in her life realised how big the 
 
 world is, and how small a part of it Kingscombe 
 
 (99) 
 
IQ DEAR. 
 
 forms, and how soon the greatest friends can 
 forget. " Even little Dan," she said ; " he's for- 
 gotten all about you, Dan," and she kissed the 
 black nose that had not lost its puppy bluntness, 
 and the round, solemnly foolish young eyes. 
 
 "But there, Miss Dear," Mrs. Lynch said, to 
 whom she had confided her disappointment, 
 " you didn't ought to take no account of letters, 
 least of all boys'. Why myself even, half the 
 times when I sits down to write, I leaves out just 
 what I wants most to say. By the time I've 
 got through all the hoping folks is well, and 
 asking after one and another, and saying how 
 the weather keeps, my hand most like has got 
 that crampy as I'm glad to finish off anyhows. 
 And sometimes it's the spelling comes awkward, 
 though that ain't likely to stand in the way of 
 gentlefolks. Why, there was a man as I knew, 
 as kindhearted and good sort of body as need 
 be, and not one to bear malice or be hard on 
 any one — he set down to write a letter .to his son 
 as had done something to offend him, meaning 
 to give him a touch, and then come round and 
 
EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. 10 1 
 
 forgive him and make it all right. He got on 
 well enough with the letter at first, and gave it 
 to him a bit stronger than he intended, but 
 when he came to the forgiving part, he couldn't 
 spell this and he couldn't spell that, till, at 
 last, he lost patience and got in a rage, and 
 finished up short, thinking as how his son would 
 understand all he meant to asaid. But there ! 
 how was the son to know when he got nothing 
 but hard words, and he just packed up and went 
 right off to Ameriky, and they never heard no 
 more of him, as pretty near broke his father's 
 heart. " 
 
 So Dear forgave Ralph his not having men- 
 tioned Dan, and, as affectionate was spelt with 
 one f, she thought that perhaps spelling might 
 be at the bottom of it. But, when she wrote a 
 year later to tell of old Sims' death and got no 
 answer, she could make no such excuses for 
 Ralph. 
 
 But all the same Ralph had not forgotten ; 
 indeed six years later, as he travelled down to 
 Kingscombe, he described to his companion, 
 
102 DEAJR. 
 
 between puffs of his cigar, so much of Kings- 
 combe and those three months spent there, that 
 Dr. Meredith was half bored, half amused. 
 
 Those six years had added a whole foot to 
 Ralph's stature, but had not endowed him with 
 breadth and strength in proportion, so that he 
 looked even taller than his six foot two, and his 
 legs seemed inordinately long. His face was 
 still that of a pretty boy, in spite of the light 
 moustache that shaded the mouth that had 
 something childish about it still, and his voice 
 seemed hardly to have settled yet into manly 
 tones, or his cheek to have lost its young trick 
 of blushing ; and when he dropped asleep in 
 the corner of the carriage, with his hand cover- 
 ing his moustache, Dr. Meredith thought he 
 might have been taken for a pretty girl, with the 
 curls on his forehead, and the long lashes on his 
 pink-flushed cheek. 
 
 " Poor young fellow ! " Dr. Meredith said to 
 himself, for who knew better than he the 
 delicacy shown by the soft flush and the thin 
 white, blue-veined hand ? 
 
EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. IO3 
 
 Eton had had to be given up after the first 
 term, and he went to a private tutor, where he 
 took it very easy and worked as much or as 
 little as he liked, and then he spent a winter on 
 the Riviera and got stronger. And then he 
 began growing so ridiculously tall, and grew all 
 his strength away, and Oxford had to be given 
 up ; and now, this spring again, he had been so 
 ill that the pretty little house in Mayfair had 
 been hushed out of all its usual gaiety, and 
 straw had been laid down in the street, and the 
 white cap and apron of a hospital nurse was to 
 be seen at the second-floor window, and the 
 doctor's brougham twice or three times a day 
 at the door, and the servants in the neighbor- 
 hood glanced up many times to see if the shut- 
 ters were shut, and speculated how soon there 
 would be a funeral at No. 37. 
 
 " And his ma at the opera last night, if you'll 
 b'lieve me ! as ain't no'art, though the brougham 
 waited round the corner so as no one shouldn't 
 know !" 
 
 But there was no funeral at No. 57 just at 
 
104 DEAR. 
 
 present, and Ralph got better, and, when he was 
 well enough to be moved, proposed himself to 
 go to Kingscombe, which was a great relief to 
 Mrs. Maddison, as, if the doctors had ordered 
 him to some out-of-the-way place in the 
 Engadine or Pyrennees, it might have been con- 
 sidered her duty to go with him, whereas now, 
 at Kingscombe, if he were the least worse, she 
 could run down directly. 
 
 On the last occasion of his going to Kings- 
 combe, we gave Mrs. Maddison credit for a 
 great sacrifice in sparing the invaluable Duncan, 
 who now, by the way, had become Ralph's 
 regular attendant, another butler having taken 
 his place ; but now, I think, we must give her 
 credit for a still greater sacrifice in sparing Dr. 
 Meredith. 
 
 Mrs. Maddison had many admirers, but none 
 that suited her so entirely as the young doctor. 
 The youthful officers who frequented her draw- 
 ing-room were all very well in their way, some 
 of them danced divinely, most of them brought 
 her exquisite flowers, many of them could 
 
EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. 105 
 
 chatter amusingly and were up in the gossip of 
 society and the clubs ; they were mostly better 
 looking, better dressed, of better family than 
 Dr. Meredith, and much more demonstrative in 
 their devotion to her. Mrs. Maddison did not 
 set up in any way for being intellectual, and yet, 
 I believe, it was Dr. Meredith's intellect that 
 made her think so highly of his attention. 
 
 He was a clever, rising young man, his name 
 was becoming known in scientific circles, he 
 wrote abstruse articles in reviews, of which she 
 could not even remember the names, though 
 they were always to be found on her table 
 among the society papers and novels that littered 
 it. She was proud of having such a man in her 
 train, and she liked to think that he sought her 
 society, silly and frivolous as the world esteemed 
 her, and came constantly to her house, when 
 he systematically refused invitations elsewhere. 
 She did not appreciate his intellect herself, but 
 she liked to see others appreciate it, she felt a 
 sort of reflected glory when people talked in 
 his praise, or were anxious to be introduced to 
 
'OO DEAR. 
 
 him, and she was gratified at his being treated 
 as her property, and even at people seeking 
 her acquaintance with a view to arriving at his. 
 
 She did her utmost to make her house pleasant 
 to him, and she certainly succeeded ; she had 
 the art of pleasing, an art that is quite inde- 
 pendent of beauty, intellect, wealth or position, 
 and rarer than either. She humored his weak- 
 nesses, the strongest of us has some ; she flat- 
 tered his vanity, it lurks in the wisest of us ; she 
 knew how to leave him alone, which is what few 
 women understand ; she did not call his fits of 
 abstraction, sulkiness or ill-temper, and, when 
 he came out of them, she was smiling and 
 charming as ever, making him feel, what no 
 pique or reproaches would have done, remorseful 
 for having been so dull a companion and so 
 selfishly absorbed. 
 
 And his feeling towards her ? He was think- 
 ing of her that first evening at Kingscombe, as 
 he sat out on the terrace, with his chair tilted 
 back at the most extraordinary angle against 
 the wall, with that curious tendency men have, 
 
EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. 107 
 
 when very much at their ease, to adopt some 
 position endangering life and limb. 
 
 Early June twilight, with the sunset crimson 
 and gold deadening into purple and orange, and 
 the air full of such an infinite variety of sweet 
 scents as only a nose fresh from London could 
 appreciate. He almost wished the early roses 
 overhead could gather their sweetness back into 
 their dewy cups and hold it there a minute, that 
 he might do justice to the others, but if they 
 had done so, that great luscious bed of lilies-of- 
 the-valley under the terrace wall would have 
 domineered over all the rest, and if that had 
 held its peace, the bush of syringa would have 
 filled the air with its passionate fragrance, and 
 prevented the sweet-briar hedge and the beans 
 in the kitchen garden from getting their due 
 notice. 
 
 He was thinking of her that evening, in the 
 heavenly hush that ears fresh from the muddling 
 rattle of London listen to almost with awe, 
 silence intensified rather than broken by the 
 tinkle of a sheep's bell from the hill, or the 
 
108 DEAR. 
 
 buzzing boom of a cockchafer sailing through 
 the air, or the sleepy call of a thrush (perhaps 
 related to those thrushes who had suffered at 
 Ralph's hands six years before) in the bushes 
 near, or the distant call of a cuckoo, with an 
 irritating third note introduced. 
 
 But you will call me to order, and I was going 
 to tell you about Dr. Meredith's thoughts of 
 Mrs. Maddison, only his thoughts wandered as 
 my pen does, tempted away by eyes and nose 
 and ears even from such a pleasing subject of 
 mental contemplation. He liked Mrs. Maddison 
 — yes, his feeling was even stronger than that, he 
 liked her very much, better than any woman he 
 had ever known. She was his beau ideal of what 
 a woman should be : not clever, he hated clever 
 women, he had a horror of the enlightened 
 young lady of the present day, and, when he 
 met with such, carefully hid his light under 
 a bushel, and talked society twaddle of the 
 washiest description. Though she was his beau 
 ideal, he did not idealize her. Is that a contra- 
 diction ? I do not think so. He saw her faults, 
 
EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. IO9 
 
 but did not wish to alter them, they were the 
 faults of her sex. She was shallow — oh yes ; 
 but who expects depth in a woman — or even 
 desires it ? What is so intolerable as a woman 
 who pretends to anything below the surface ? 
 Let the surface be beautiful and graceful as 
 Mrs. Maddison, that is enough. She was not 
 always truthful — but there again, she was a 
 woman, and those little arts and pretences were 
 part of the feminine nature and very pardonable, 
 much more so than the abrupt, rough sincerity 
 of some of those tailor-made young ladies who 
 tread so liberally on other people's toes. He 
 was quite aware that some of the pleasing effect 
 was due to art, and why not ? if the real thing 
 was the sort of woman that meets your revolted 
 eye in the slums, dishevelled, rough-haired, 
 brawny-armed, bold-eyed, or even short of that 
 the little, dull, uninteresting, middle-class wife, 
 wrapped up in her babies and her servants ; 
 if that was the real thing, he infinitely preferred 
 the pretence, which was, at any rate, agreeable 
 to look at. 
 
HO DEAR. 
 
 He was not always quite as cold-blooded 
 about her as this ; there were times when he 
 almost thought he loved her, when that look of 
 hers thrilled through him, that sudden raising 
 of the white lids, and the straight, intense look 
 that meant so much. I think during the six 
 years that have elapsed since my last chapter, 
 when I mentioned that look as lingering in her 
 young son's mind, that look had grown to mean 
 more ; for, you see, there had been so much 
 practice of it. Dr. Meredith, like so many 
 others, thought that look was only for him, and 
 more than once, when the fascination had been 
 strong upon him he had been near offering her 
 what remained of a heart given over to science, 
 and the feeling which he fondly believed to be 
 love. 
 
 But each time something happened to prevent 
 this consummation and the spell was broken, 
 and, instead of feeling disappointed or tantalised, 
 he was conscious only of an infinite feeling of 
 relief, and a sensation that he had been very 
 near making a fool of himself, which might have 
 
EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. I XI 
 
 enlightened him as to the real state of his feel- 
 ings toward Mrs. Maddison, and been a warning 
 against running into such dangers again ; but, I 
 need hardly say, had no such effect. 
 
 There was much debate among lookers-on 
 at the game, who -are proverbially supposed to 
 see most of it, as to what Mrs. Maddison meant. 
 If she had wanted to marry again all these years 
 since the old Squire died, she might have done 
 so again and again, and much better than this, 
 for clever man as he was, Dr. Meredith was no 
 match for her as regards wealth and position ; 
 and a scientific career, however successful, does 
 not mean riches, or, very often, recognition, till 
 old age. To be sure, she was getting old, kind 
 friends said, who would not have dared to say so 
 to her face ; and her admirers were getting fewer 
 and younger, and she could not face daylight nor 
 bear comparison with fresh young debutantes; 
 the present fashion did not exactly suit her style ; 
 artistic as Clarisse was, there were lines and 
 hollows that even her skilful hand could not 
 obliterate ; so perhaps Mrs. Maddison felt there 
 
H2 DEAR. 
 
 was no further time to be lost if she meant to 
 marry again. But the world, being always on 
 the look-out for complicated motives, often over- 
 looks the real ones, which may be the simplest. 
 Mrs. Maddison had a warm feeling for Oliver 
 Meredith ; she as nearly loved him as she was 
 capable of. 
 
 Why then did she let him go down to Kings- 
 combe? you will ask, when he offered to go 
 down with Ralph after his illness. There was a 
 girl whom Mrs. Maddison suspected of having 
 designs on the doctor, and who on more than 
 one occasion had seemed to amuse and please 
 him, and when Dr. Meredith himself proposed 
 going down with Ralph as a good opportunity 
 for writing some article he was engaged on, Mrs. 
 Maddison thought it was an excellent way of 
 wafting him out of the reach of this bright-eyed 
 young minx, who seemed acquiring such influ- 
 ence over him. 
 
 " Where is Dr. Meredith ? " the minx asked. 
 
 " Who ? Oh, Oliver Meredith ? He has gone 
 down to my place in Loamshire with Ralph. 
 
EVENING AT KINGSCOMBE. 1 13 
 
 They are such friends. Isn't it nice, dear? 
 (Impertinent, little hussy ! ) " 
 
 " Delightful, dear Mrs. Maddison ! (Old cat !) " 
 
 It was heavenly calm and quiet down there, 
 Dr. Meredith thought. Ralph had strolled away 
 with his cigar an hour ago towards the village, 
 to look up some of his old friends, whom he 
 had known when he was there before, and the 
 doctor was not sorry to be left alone to the 
 thoughts that were more companions to him 
 than any boy of twenty. 
 
 This was an ideal place for thought, for quiet 
 work. Where he sat he could see a great 
 shoulder of the hill, nearly black against the 
 dusky orange of the sky, where, even now, as 
 he watched, two soft stars came gently into 
 sight. 
 
 Last night he had been at this time in my 
 lady's boudoir, opening out of the drawing- 
 room, from which came a buzz of talk, an occa- 
 sional song, and when the soft silken curtains 
 that veiled the entrance were pushed aside 
 for a moment, there was a blaze of light and a 
 8 
 
114 DEAR. 
 
 glimpse of the sheen of elegant dresses, and the 
 glitter of gems. The air was hot and heavy 
 with the scent of flowers — why are London 
 drawing-room flowers so different from those in 
 the country ? There was an exhaustion, an 
 oppression in the air. 
 
 He had come to bid my lady good-night, 
 and as she leaned back languidly, she looked 
 marvellously young and fair, and looked up at 
 him over the great soft feather fan with that 
 look full of meaning. As he closed his eyes 
 now he could see it, feel the thrill of it in his 
 veins. 
 
 " Are you asleep, doctor ? " Ralph's voice 
 sounded from the terrace steps above him. 
 "Are you having a nap? This is Dear." 
 
 Just now two great soft stars had come out 
 in the sky above the hill ; now from the terrace 
 Dear's eyes were looking down at him. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 " Here all things in their place remain, 
 As all were order' d ages since. 
 Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 
 And bring the fated Fairy Prince." 
 
 —Tennyson. 
 
 1WTR. HUME and Ralph Maddison made a 
 curious contrast, the little parson being 
 hardly above the elbow of the elongated, young 
 man, who always maintained that Mr. Hume had 
 distinctly grown smaller since he was there be- 
 fore, as had also the church and the doorways 
 at the vicarage, against the lintels of which he 
 invariably knocked his head on entering. 
 
 Otherwise it seemed to Ralph that all was 
 precisely the same at Kingscombe as when he 
 was there six years before. It might have been 
 
 (i 15) 
 
Il6 DEA.R. 
 
 the palace of the sleeping beauty, grown round 
 by the sweet wildbriar, and shut in from all 
 the noise and change and turmoil of the world 
 outside. Why that very first evening, as Ralph 
 walked up through the village, he was reminded 
 of the old fairy tale by coming round the corner 
 of the Bush just in time to see Polly Bristow, 
 the landlord's daughter, box the ears of a too- 
 admiring swain. Why! their courtship had 
 reached that stage six years before ; he remem- 
 bered Tom West with a crimson ear, and the 
 loud, hoarse laugh, with which he tried to cover 
 his discomfiture, echoed still in Ralph's memory. 
 
 On the Bench outside the Bush sat the same 
 men in the same positions, with the same 
 vacantly-staring faces, as if they might have 
 been sitting there for the past six years ; the 
 very smoke from their pipes seemed to hang 
 in the same wreaths Ralph recollected when 
 smoking was an unexplored country to him 
 personally. 
 
 The illusion was greatly enhanced by meeting 
 Mr. Hume at the churchyard gate, and being 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 1 17 
 
 greeted by him as if they had only parted half 
 an hour before. The little parson was un- 
 changed, except, as I said before, that it seemed 
 to Ralph that he had grown smaller. That 
 might have been the same dust on his coat and 
 the same withered buttercup in his button-hole 
 that Ralph remembered some friendly baby had 
 stuck in six years ago ; and now, as then, Mr. 
 Hume would have passed on without noticing 
 the tall young man who was so conspicuous to 
 others, if Ralph had not put himself directly in 
 his way. 
 
 " You have not forgotten Ralph Maddison, 
 sir ? " 
 
 " Forgotten, my dear boy ? My memory is 
 not as short as that. I am so glad you have 
 had such a fine day for the cricket match." 
 
 Could he be meaning that cricket match in 
 which Ralph had played for Kingscombe six 
 years ago, the day before he left ? And Mr. 
 Hume looked steadily all the time at the top 
 button of Ralph's waistcoat, which was about 
 the spot where his face had been when he was 
 
Il8 DEAR. 
 
 last at Kingscombe ; and Ralph had an eerie, 
 queer sort of feeling, as if Mr. Hume could see 
 the boy in his cricketing suit, bat in hand, and 
 that the tall young man with his light tweed 
 suit of latest cut was impalpable and unreal. 
 
 " Come and tell us all about it," Mr. Hume 
 went on, still addressing that top button. " Dear 
 wants to know how Kingscombe got on." 
 
 And then he took hold of Ralph's arm (it was 
 rather a strain to reach up to it) and took the 
 well-remembered way to the vicarage. Was 
 the sleeping princess waiting there for the kiss 
 to wake her to life and love ? Was Ralph the 
 prince before whom would give way to right 
 and left the prickly wildbriar thicket, which 
 had baffled and closed round former gallant 
 adventurers ? 
 
 But anything fanciful or unreal vanished 
 when Dear came across the little garden to 
 meet him, though, strangely enough, she carried 
 a long trail of briar-rose in her hand, just 
 coming into dainty pink flower. The same 
 Dear as the one of six years ago, not much 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. H9 
 
 taller, still very slight and girlish, only the mane 
 of soft fair hair was plaited up round the little 
 head, and the skirts were longer than they had 
 been when she came flying along the terrace, to 
 avenge the destruction of the thrush's nest. . 
 
 Ralph had seen and known plenty of girls by 
 this time, and had been what is called " mashed " 
 on at least half a dozen of them, and once or 
 twice he had thought himself very hard hit, and 
 once he had been quite unhappy for a day or 
 two, and had assumed a cynical, man-of-the world 
 tone, and talked about women with a capital W. 
 What a very small experience will set us off 
 generalizing in youth ; it is only as we grow old, 
 and not always then, that we realise how the 
 world of human beings is made up of individuals 
 each of whom thinks and acts and suffers in a 
 manner peculiar to him or herself. All those 
 great systems of classification, orders and sub- 
 orders, families and species, worked out with 
 elaborate minuteness, are after all mere helps for 
 human ignorance. God sees each individual 
 small bright-eyed bird of all the myriads of the 
 
1 20 DEAR. 
 
 air, each insignificant little dewy blade of grass 
 in the boundless prairie, without putting each 
 into its proper species or family or order, and each 
 individual soul without classing it according to 
 its race or nation or language or sex or century. 
 And have you ever noticed how much more 
 individual some people are than others ? how 
 such a one is not one among other boys, one 
 among other men, but just himself, whom you 
 never think of comparing to others, or judging 
 by others, but who stands alone, a law unto 
 himself. I have wondered sometimes if it is 
 looking on such as God looks on all, with love, 
 that makes them seem so individual ; but I 
 think there is a difference even to the eyes of 
 love. 
 
 Dear was such a one, always had been from 
 her babyhood ; but then, of course, few eyes but 
 those of love had looked at her. 
 
 " She's not a bit like other girls," Ralph said 
 that first evening at Kingscombe, though he did 
 not know why she was not, not being able to 
 analyse feelings or make subtle distinctions. 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 121 
 
 He would rather have liked to be able to class 
 her, even if it were just to put her above the 
 other girls he had ever admired, and to say she 
 was much prettier than Violet Martin, or sweeter 
 and more graceful than Maude St. Clair. 
 
 No, she was just Dear, there seemed no room 
 for comparison. Her very name seemed to 
 convey this, positively Dear without comparison, 
 not more dear or most dear, not love measured 
 by the less or more given to others, but in the 
 positive degree, denoting simple or absolute 
 quality, without comparison or relation to 
 increase or diminution. 
 
 You did not notice with Dear if her dress 
 were in the prevailing fashion ; I do not expect 
 it ever was. I know that in after times critical 
 eyes from which love was absent pronounced 
 her distinctly dowdy, and I dare say those critical 
 eyes were right. But, you see, the fairy princess 
 after her hundred years' sleep must have looked 
 decidedly antiquated in dress, and her hair must 
 have been done in the mode of the fairy prince's 
 great-grandmother, which might have been a 
 
122 DEAR. 
 
 shock to his aesthetic taste in spite of all her 
 loveliness. 
 
 And there was Dan. I do not think Dan 
 could have been asleep all these years, he was 
 always so wonderfully wideawake. He was 
 widely known and respected in the neighbor- 
 hood, being recognized even in Cheriton with a 
 " Hullo, Dan'l ! " by people with whom neither 
 Dear nor Clive were acquainted. He was of a 
 peculiar temper, which was, no doubt, the reason 
 he was respected. I do not think amiability 
 wins respect whatever else it may gain, and he 
 had strong likes and dislikes, and while, I 
 believe, he would have died for Dear or Clive 
 and one or two others, there were others whom 
 he would not have minded dying for him, and 
 would have assisted in the process with the 
 greatest pleasure in life. 
 
 He was not at all sure that he liked the tall, 
 long-legged young man who was at one time 
 supposed to be his owner, but who had quite 
 forgotten his existence, and he would not show 
 off nor make himself agreeable, but sulked under 
 
rHE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 12$ 
 
 Dear's chair and went off in an offended way to 
 visit a friend at the farm, and required much 
 coaxing and explanation from Dear before he 
 could be reconciled to Ralph's constant presence. 
 
 Ralph concealed his having forgotten Dan 
 when he saw the position he held at the vicar- 
 age, and how even the Vicar begged his pardon 
 when he trod on his tail, an insult which Dan 
 would have avenged with those sharp teeth of 
 his on most other people, but only growled and 
 looked very injured when the Vicar did it. 
 
 Likewise Ralph concealed in the depths of 
 his heart his opinion that Dan's pedigree was 
 doubtful, and that an uncut tail, though much 
 to be admired in theory, is not ornamental to 
 a fox-terrier in practice ; and after he had been 
 at Kingscombe a few days, this opinion was 
 no longer his to be concealed, and he was quite 
 prepared to join or even outdo the chorus of 
 praise of Dan'l's perfections. 
 
 Patty would not allow Ralph even to fancy 
 he had forgotten her, for she leaned out of the 
 kitchen window as he passed that evening with 
 
124 DEAR. 
 
 Dear and caught hold of his arm, and Patty's 
 hold was not to be ignored. 
 
 "Why, if it ain't Master Ralph! Well a- 
 never ! and so growed as there ain't no knowing 
 him ! Sakes alive ! if you ain't fine and tall — 
 and a moustache, too ! Why, it seems only 
 the other day as you was here, and come in from 
 blackberryin' with your knickers that torn as 
 I had to cobble 'em up so as you could get 
 home decent. Wasn't you a one for blackberry 
 jam, too, and I made a dozen and more pots 
 extry just apurpose, thinking as you was coming 
 down the next year as ever was, and now I'll 
 be bound you don't care for suchlike, and only 
 relishes French kickshaws and rubbish, though 
 I ain't silly enough to believe as even French- 
 men eats frogs and snails as folks pretends, any 
 more than that London streets is paved with 
 gold. " 
 
 But Ralph had not lost his taste for black- 
 berry jam, and he declared he could eat some 
 of it now, spread on a slice of bread with a 
 coating of clotted cream on the top, a prepara- 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 125 
 
 tion which he remembered Patty spreading with 
 such a liberal hand. To be sure he called her 
 " Betty," but she forgave that slip of memory 
 in her gratification at his remembering the jam, 
 and she would have taken him at his word and 
 cut him slice after slice off the big loaf, if it 
 had not come out that he had only just dined. 
 
 Perhaps Patty had fallen asleep cutting bread 
 and jam, certainly Clive might have done so 
 over his book, for there he was in his old 
 favorite place under the lime tree, at full 
 length on the turf, leaning on his elbows, with 
 some book of untold interest to him and untold 
 dullness to other people, open before him. 
 
 During those six years opportunities had not 
 failed to help Clive on, and for three of them 
 he had attended the grammar school at Cheriton, 
 which had wakened up to new life under an 
 enterprising master. Mr. Jackson felt that if 
 only all his pupils had been like Clive Hume, 
 Cheriton Grammar School might make a name 
 for itself throughout the land ; but it need not 
 be said that the other boys had not the same 
 
126 DEAR. 
 
 thirst for knowledge, indeed, were most of them 
 quite ready to become total abstainers from the 
 cup of learning, and made it their object at 
 school to escape with as little education as 
 possible ; and I am afraid none of my readers 
 ever heard of Great Cheriton Grammar School 
 before, or are likely to do so again. 
 
 But Clive was eighteen now, and for the last 
 year had been assistant-master at the grammar 
 school, and a most unsatisfactory one too, being 
 exceedingly youthful in appearance, and not, 
 therefore, awe-inspiring to great stupid boys 
 taller and much more manly-looking, and being 
 far too much ahead of ' his pupils to feel any 
 patience or sympathy with their ignorance and 
 idleness. 
 
 Mr. Jackson himself was a little bit afraid of 
 Clive, though he was interested in, and proud of 
 him. He felt the boy was fit for better things, 
 and he came over once to Kingscombe and 
 interviewed Mr. Hume on the subject, but 
 found him very unsatisfactory and unpractical, 
 and inclined to rest contented with the feeling 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 1 27 
 
 that " the Lord will provide," a faith which his 
 experience had taught him was always justified. 
 Mr. Jackson, however, with his yearly increas- 
 ing little family, could not attain to this faith, 
 and was therefore inclined to characterise it as 
 presumption, and to talk of " God only helping 
 those who help themselves " (which we may 
 most of us thank Heaven is not true), and that 
 we have Divine authority for the rule that it 
 is tempting God to cast ourselves down from 
 the pinnacle of the temple, even though we are 
 sure of the angelic care and power to preserve 
 us. Perhaps what is faith in one may be pre- 
 sumption in another, it is difficult to define the 
 limits where one ends and the other begins. 
 
 So Clive continued to be an assistant-master 
 at Great Cheriton, a Pegasus yoked to the 
 plough, and a very bad plough-horse Pegasus 
 made ; and Mr. Jackson fumed and fidgeted, 
 now at his incompetence, and now at his superi- 
 ority to his position, and lent him books, and 
 spoke of him whenever he had the chance to 
 influential friends, who always had at least half 
 
128 DEAR. 
 
 a dozen promising youths on hand requiring 
 help to achieve greatness, and who took off a 
 great deal too much per cent from Mr. Jackson's 
 laudations of Clive, and forgot all about him 
 the next minute. 
 
 So when Mr. Jackson heard casually, for 
 Clive was most uninteresting and uncommuni- 
 cative in the matter of gossip, that young Mr. 
 Maddison had taken up his abode at the Manor, 
 and was constantly at the vicarage, he felt a 
 half -aggravated remembrance of Mr. Hume's 
 faith, which he had stigmatized as so un- 
 practical, and thought that indeed the Lord 
 had provided for Clive' s future without Mr. 
 Hume stretching out a little finger to forward 
 the matter, though, I am afraid, in his heart 
 of hearts, he attributed it more to some people's 
 disgusting luck than to the ruling of Providence. 
 
 But whichever it was, luck or Providence, 
 what could be plainer than that the young 
 Squire, whose income, large as it was, local 
 report greatly exaggerated, should become the 
 patron of the young genius, and it never 
 
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 1 29 
 
 occurred to Mr. Jackson as a possibility, that, 
 with this splendid chance for Clive before him, 
 Mr. Hume should not only not take advantage 
 of it, but that it should never cross his mind to 
 do so. 
 
 It was impossible to the ordinary run of 
 mortals to estimate how very small in import- 
 ance to a nature like Mr. Hume's are such 
 matters as wealth or position. It is extra- 
 ordinary when you consistently regard all your 
 fellow-creatures as souls instead of bodies, how 
 bodily adjuncts fade into utter insignificance, 
 too much so perhaps, and the soul of ignorant, 
 brutal Joe Hodge, toiling behind the plough, 
 becomes fully as interesting as that of his Grace 
 in the ducal palace. 
 9 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TWO IS COMPANY. 
 
 " Perhaps the smile and tender tone 
 Came out of her pitying womanhood. " 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 " And he is oft the wisest man 
 Who is not wise at all. " 
 
 — Wordsworth. 
 
 "D ALPH'S health seemed to be restored by the 
 first breath of Kingscombe air, and, a week 
 after his arrival there, he was hardly to be recog- 
 nized as the long, limp invalid who left Mayfair 
 leaning on Dr. Meredith's arm, while sympa- 
 thetic housemaids peeped at him from the 
 kitchen stairs, shaking their heads in mournful 
 anticipation of being able to say, " I told you 
 so, " when the very speedy termination of his 
 illness and young life ensued. 
 (130) 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. I3 l 
 
 Mrs. Maddison received most reassuring ac- 
 counts of his improvement from Dr. Meredith, 
 and felt free to enjoy what was left of the 
 season, without fear of being summoned to her 
 son's bedside, and also free to accept the homage 
 of her young admirers, without calculating the 
 effect on Oliver Meredith, or having to keep a 
 watch on him to prevent his falling a prey to 
 designing girls, like the minx of whom mention 
 has been made in another chapter. 
 
 This too was to be her last year of freedom. 
 She had firmly made up her mind to this, for if 
 she married Oliver Meredith, she meant to be a 
 good wife to him, and yield in all reasonable 
 matters to his prejudices. She pictured to her- 
 self sometimes quite a Darby and Joan existence, 
 only Joan must wear a becoming costume, and 
 the tete-a-tete must not be too prolonged. Dr. 
 Meredith seemed to have taken quite a fancy to 
 that horrid old place down at Kingscombe, and 
 she was glad, as being part of her belongings, 
 that he should like it ; but she hoped he would 
 not wish to live there as her first husband had 
 
*3 2 DEA.R. 
 
 done (she had begun already to speak of him in 
 her mind as her first husband, though the second 
 was not yet a reality). She could not quite 
 bring herself to accept Kingscombe as the back- 
 ground of the Darby and Joan picture, but 
 perhaps it might be endurable for a week or 
 two now and then, and, as he said, it was an 
 ideal place for quiet study, he might retire 
 there when he was writing one of his books, or 
 when she had engagements into which he did 
 not care to enter. Not that she intended that 
 they should lead the divided lives many couples 
 do in society, each going his or her own way, 
 keeping different hours, knowing different sets, 
 and hardly aware very often of each other's 
 whereabouts ; that was bad form, she considered, 
 and besides, she liked Oliver Meredith too well 
 for that. 
 
 Oliver expressed no wish to leave Kings- 
 combe, even to return to her presence ; but as 
 his keeping away was infinitely more convenient 
 just then, she forgave him for his apparent 
 coolness. He was very full of his book, and 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. 133 
 
 there was a little too much about it in his letters, 
 and Mrs. Maddison sometimes stifled a yawn 
 and now and then skipped a sentence in the 
 neat, square character, though she was all the 
 time proud to think he should write such things 
 to her. If some of those superior intellectual 
 women, who treated her as so empty and 
 frivolous, could only see his letters, they would 
 indeed be surprised. 
 
 He enlarged a good deal on the improvement 
 in Ralph's health, " though indeed," he would 
 add, " I do not see very much of him, as he is 
 more than half his time at the vicarage, or on 
 the hills or the river with the Humes." 
 
 Mrs. Maddison had a general notion of the 
 Humes as being boys, though she did not 
 trouble her mind as to Ralph's companions, as 
 long as he was amused and well, and the idea 
 of their being boys was favored by Oliver 
 dwelling on the talents of Clive, and mentioning 
 that he had sent to London for some books for 
 him, and let him come and read with him some- 
 times in the evening. 
 
134 DEAR. 
 
 There was no intentional concealment in Dr. 
 Meredith's mind when he avoided the mention 
 of Dear. As a matter of fact he saw little of 
 her, at the beginning of his stay at Kingscombe, 
 and when he did she was always entirely 
 monopolized by Ralph, so that Clive and 
 Oliver were rather out of it, and took refuge 
 with one another, and by this means he 
 discovered what a clever, out-of-the-way boy 
 Clive was. 
 
 And perhaps his avoidance of mentioning 
 Dear's name may have been from the same 
 feeling that made Ralph deprecate, half with 
 pain, half with amusement, the idea that Dear's 
 mother could have been in any way like Mrs. 
 Maddison, a sense that although he knew so 
 little of Dear, and although Mrs. Maddison 
 was his ideal of a woman, the two were 
 utterly opposite and incompatible as fire and 
 water. 
 
 Oliver had taken a good mathematical degree 
 at Cambridge, besides distinguishing himself in 
 science, and he had a well-stocked library of his 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. 135 
 
 own, and a power of getting at other people's 
 libraries, so though it never occurred to Mr. 
 Hume's mind to make use of Ralph Maddison's 
 being at the Manor to forward Clive's prospects, 
 it practically did so by bringing him and Oliver 
 Meredith in contact. 
 
 And it was not all give and no take between 
 them, for the lad was only too delighted to be 
 of any use to the doctor, to copy or make 
 extracts, or look up points or arrange papers ; 
 and even while doing merely mechanical work, 
 he dipped in and grew so interested in the 
 subject that the doctor found himself led away 
 into explaining points to his young companion, 
 and listening with a deference he had often 
 refused to older and more learned men, to the 
 boy's crude but always intelligent remarks, and 
 more than once Clive blundered on a new 
 light or a suggestive idea that was of good 
 service to the doctor. 
 
 Oliver grew so used to the boy's presence that 
 it did not disturb him at all, and if he were 
 busy, he hardly looked up from his writing when 
 
136 DEAR. 
 
 a shadow darkened the window of the library, 
 and Clive swung himself in from the terrace 
 and settled down in some ungainly position (no 
 doubt inherited from his father), on the arm of 
 a chair or the edge of a table. Sometimes this 
 ardor in learning would put to shame the older 
 man, who was forced, now and then, to agree 
 with the preacher of old, that " of making many 
 books there is no end ; and much study is a 
 weariness of the flesh " ; and at such times the 
 pen would pause and hesitate and stop, and his 
 eye wander away from the books before him, 
 even from the box of new books and uncut 
 periodicals that were so enthralling to Clive, 
 away out into the June sunshine, to the flowers 
 and the birds and the butterflies, and all the 
 bountiful life and movement and growth and 
 foliage of the young year, and to Dear gathering 
 roses, with Ralph holding the basket, in which 
 she placed tenderly and with a certain sort of 
 loving respect, each blossom as she cut it. 
 
 " I do love to see little Missy agathering the 
 flowers," old Sims used to say. " She do treat 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. 137 
 
 every one on 'em every bit, as though they was 
 a Christian. " 
 
 Those roses were to go to London. Oliver's 
 thoughts followed them there, and pictured 
 the careless unpacking, and the tray heaped 
 up higgledy-piggledy with the flowers, and 
 Mademoiselle Clarisse coming and turning them 
 over to pick out any that took her fancy for 
 " miladi's " dress to-night. Perhaps she would 
 select that very rose that Dear had just cut ; 
 there was a dewdrop still glistening on its 
 creamy petals ; there was a great, soft, velvet- 
 bodied humble-bee, doing heavy homage to its 
 beauty, so that Dear had to hold it still for a 
 minute, till he had buzzed out his drowsy 
 compliment and sailed off to another flower. 
 Clarisse would hold it up, with her head on one 
 side, and quick, skilful, brown fingers, arranging 
 the leaves this way and that with artistic effect, 
 and pronounce it " ravissante " to place among 
 the chiffon and lace by " miladi's" snowy neck. 
 
 Oliver had often admired some such studied 
 effect, but now, he protested to himself that 
 
13^ DEAR. 
 
 there was a certain kind of profanation in 
 using real flowers, and that fashionable ladies 
 should content themselves with artificial, which 
 are beautiful enough in all reason. 
 
 The rest of the flowers would be used for the 
 adornment of the dinner-table. A young lady 
 from a florist's came in every day to arrange the 
 flowers ; such things are made quite a study of 
 in these days, and Mrs. Maddison liked to be 
 abreast of the wave of fashion, and to have her 
 table decorations described in the society papers 
 as " a symphony in sweet peas, " or " reverie of 
 tinted autumn leaves. " 
 
 Faugh ! could those have been flowers from 
 Kingscombe, whose aesthetic arrangement among 
 the wine-glasses and fairy lamps with tinted 
 shades, had been so often the subject of admir- 
 ing remark, and whose fragrance, mingling with 
 that of soup, French dishes and wine, had hung 
 so heavily on the air ? He had to step out of 
 the window to reassure himself that those in 
 Dear's basket had not such odor or artificial 
 posturing to display form or color. 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. 139 
 
 " Don't let Ralph interfere with your valuable 
 time, " Mrs. Maddison said, as he bade her good- 
 bye. " I would not for the world have con- 
 sented to your going to Kingscombe if I had 
 not thought you would get the uninterrupted 
 leisure that I know is so important to your 
 work. " And as Oliver Meredith travelled 
 down with Ralph, he made up his mind that 
 this should be so, and that he would not have 
 more of Ralph's society than was quite agreeable 
 to him. 
 
 There was no difficulty about this, he found, 
 from the very first evening when he became 
 aware of the existence of the Humes ; and 
 though Clive, as we have seen, soon became a 
 constant visitor to the library, he was in no way 
 an interruption or hindrance, but an interest 
 and occasionally a help to the busy student. 
 
 "Well, good-bye!" Ralph would call to him 
 from the terrace ; " don't expect me back till 
 night, if at all, for Dear has set her heart on 
 scaling the highest point of the hills, and I've 
 got Mrs. Lynch to pack us some lunch." 
 
140 DEAR. 
 
 Or, " Tat-ta ! we're off down the river. 
 Dont feel anxious. Dear can swim, and she'll 
 take care of a little chap like me. " 
 
 Or, " I'm going to drive the vicar and Dear 
 over to Cheriton. There's a clerical meeting, 
 and I've chartered that jolly old screw from 
 the Bush, and am going to drive it in Farmer 
 Green's yellow gig. I wanted to go tandem, 
 with Green's wall-eyed pony for a leader, and 
 the vicar had no objection, if he knew what 
 tandem was, which I doubt ; but Dear thought 
 it might look like a circus. " 
 
 And then they would be off, and their voices 
 would grow fainter and die away, and soft 
 summer silence reigned ; stirred, not broken, 
 by the buzz of a passing bee, or the sudden, 
 little, silver, shrill song of a wren, or the tinkle 
 of a sheep-bell from the hill. Sometimes a 
 russet-coated robin would hop on to the window- 
 sill, and' look first with one round bright eye 
 and then the other at the quiet figure at the 
 table all by himself, and sometimes a rose-leaf 
 would flutter in at the window on to the paper 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. I4 1 
 
 on which he wrote. At mid-day, Mrs. Lynch's 
 solid footsteps would echo along the passage, 
 and she would come to the door and ask what 
 he would please to do about lunch ; and he 
 would generally please to have some brought 
 to him on a tray, and escape the somewhat 
 mouldy pomp of the dining-room, with its 
 depressingly substantial furniture. Then all 
 was quiet again till Clive, after his daily tussle 
 with those stupid and disrespectful boys at 
 Cheriton, would come along the terrace, dusty 
 and wayworn — and often out at elbows — and 
 nearly as regardless of appearances as his 
 father, and step over the window-seat, into 
 what seemed to him a Paradise of peaceful 
 learning. 
 
 It was certainly an ideal place for study, as 
 Dr. Meredith had decided that first evening, but 
 such is the perversity of human nature, there 
 were times when his youth asserted itself and 
 rebelled against the quiet monotony of his days : 
 for he was young still, not so very much older 
 than those two who treated him, he resentfully 
 
I4 2 DEAR. 
 
 told himself, as a mummy long since dead to 
 enjoyment or amusement. He was fond of study 
 it is true, but he was not a mere bookworm ; the 
 outside world of nature gave him infinite enjoy- 
 ment : he could understand the exquisite delight 
 Dear got out of the deep crimson heart of a rose, 
 or a tuft of bluebells growing in the crack of 
 a mossy gray stone, or the sunlight through the 
 trees on the beech-stems ; he felt just the same, 
 though she always turned for sympathy to Ralph, 
 who, good blundering creature that he was, never 
 saw at the moment what she meant, but thought 
 she was drawing his attention to an earwig in 
 the rose, or a rabbit dodging among the rocks, or 
 " something queer about the trunk of that tree." 
 And one morning, when they took it so en- 
 tirely for granted that he was up to his eyes in 
 work, and when indeed he was, for the morning 
 post had brought him a roll of proofs, he took 
 them by surprise, and himself more than either 
 of them, by throwing down that much-cherished 
 proof, and following them out on to the terrace, 
 and saying — 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. 143 
 
 " I think I'll go with you if you're going down 
 the river." 
 
 He was sorry the moment he had said it ; 
 never had the peaceful morning in the library 
 seemed so attractive, or his proofs so interesting, 
 or the importance of doing them in time for 
 post so plain. Ralph gave a little involuntary 
 grimace, which was not one of unmixed pleasure, 
 though he said, " That's right, chuck work for 
 once in a way ; " and Dear smiled rather uncer- 
 tainly, for she was a little shy and in awe of 
 this Dr. Meredith, who more from his learning 
 than his years seemed so much older than her- 
 self and Ralph. 
 
 I do not think they any of them enjoyed the 
 day very much, though it was as lovely as heart 
 could wish, under the willows on the stream, 
 with the light touching the brown water here 
 and there, and the broad lily leaves which 
 turned up red rims when the breeze caught 
 them. 
 
 Oliver was possessed by the feeling that he 
 was a wet blanket, and if you once feel that, you 
 
144 DEAR. 
 
 are sure to become so, "and he felt that his con- 
 versation was formal and pedantic, and, in spite 
 of himself, he used long botanical names for the 
 flowers they came across, and was conscious that 
 such unwilling display of learning on his part 
 damped and repressed all the pleasant, uncon- 
 ventional knowledge that Dear had acquired in 
 her daily, loving, intimate intercourse with 
 nature. Just because he would have given 
 anything to be natural and unreserved and 
 boyish, and even a little silly, he found himself 
 talking more than usually sensibly, and express- 
 ing himself carefully and stiffly, and a shade 
 pompously ; and it fretted him to notice Dear's 
 gentle, respectful manner to him, checking 
 Ralph's boyish chatter to listen with courteous 
 attention to what he was sure she could not 
 fail to find dull and tedious. 
 
 Ralph too irritated him by treating him as 
 altogether ignorant of rowing — he who not so 
 many years ago had rowed in his College boat, 
 and acquitted himself very creditably. To be 
 sure he was out of training and practice, but 
 
TWO IS COMPANY. 145 
 
 even so he was a long way better than Ralph, 
 with his actual want of bodily strength combined 
 with his lack of science, who splashed and 
 strained and got very hot, and come too within 
 an ace of catching a crab every few minutes. 
 
 However, Oliver acquiesced in his supposed 
 character of aged incapable, and refrained from 
 any interference with the very bungling manage- 
 ment of the boat, and even with Ralph's in- 
 structions to Dear in the art of rowing. He 
 took refuge in pretended sleepiness after a time, 
 and dozed at the end of the boat, as he thought, 
 to relieve them of the constraint of his waking 
 presence, and as they thought, because he was 
 unutterably bored with their society. And by 
 mutual consent their water expedition termin- 
 ated much earlier than former ones of Ralph's 
 and Dear's had done, and Oliver hurried back to 
 his proofs, and shut himself into the library with 
 a sigh of relief, and a determination of " Never 
 again ! " 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 INTO FAIRY-LAND. 
 
 " To sit and watch the wavelets as they flow, 
 Two, — side by side ; 
 To see the gliding clouds that come and go, 
 
 And mark them glide. 
 Beneath the willow when the brook is singing, 
 
 To hear its song ; 
 
 Nor feel, while round us that sweet dream is clinging, 
 
 The hours too long. " 
 
 — SULLY-PRUDHOMME. 
 
 ' I ^HAT water excursion had, as we have seen, 
 been anything but a success, and you would 
 have thought that a wise man like Oliver 
 Meredith would not have repeated the experi- 
 ment ; so it will, perhaps, surprise you to hear 
 that before another week had elapsed the library 
 was again deserted, with manuscripts, proofs and 
 letters in alluring array, and Dr. Meredith had 
 gone a-gadding. And after this it happened 
 
 (i 4 6) 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. 147 
 
 almost as often as fine days occurred, which was 
 very often that year, when summer seemed on 
 her mettle to show how beautiful she could be 
 even in this much-maligned English climate. 
 
 He had not the least preconceived idea of going 
 that heavenly July morning ; he had listened 
 without much interest to Ralph's description of 
 his plans for the day, given as they breakfasted 
 together. 
 
 Ralph was not very well that morning, and 
 when he was out of sorts he was inclined to 
 establish a grievance, and work away at it in a 
 somewhat tiresome manner, with a good deal of 
 childish reiteration, and a persistence which would 
 have been called nagging in a woman, though 
 why it should be considered only a feminine 
 accomplishment I do not know, as it is by no 
 means peculiar to the sex. 
 
 Oliver Meredith wondered whether that griev- 
 ance (I think it was about the abominable way 
 the boy cleaned his boots) would be aired to 
 Dear, and he imagined the look of concern that 
 would come into her gray eyes, and the sympathy 
 
I48 DEAR. 
 
 she would express and really feel — not of course 
 because his boots were badly cleaned, but because 
 he was vexed about it. 
 
 Ralph in one of these very occasional fits of 
 irritability was not a companion you would 
 choose for a long summer day ; and yet when 
 Dr. Meredith saw Dear standing out on the 
 terrace steps waiting for Ralph, he felt an over- 
 powering wish to go too, and when Dear turned 
 and saw him standing at the window and smiled 
 and said, " Good-morning, Dr. Meredith. Won't 
 you come with us ? " he went. 
 
 " Go on, " called Ralph from his bedroom 
 window, which was above the library, " I'll catch 
 you up in a minute. I've sent Joe to get the 
 boat ready. " 
 
 And so they went slowly on across the meadow, 
 where the mowers were just beginning to lay 
 down the undulating tawny grass in fragrant 
 swathes with the rhythmical swing of their 
 scythes ; then along the narrow path through the 
 cornfield with the green .ears, some of them 
 twisted nearly to the top with pink and white 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. 149 
 
 bindweed, tapping against Dear's skirts ; and 
 then into the grateful shadow of the little copse 
 by the river side where the boat was moored. 
 
 Ralph had not overtaken them though they 
 had walked lingeringly, and stopped to watch 
 the mowers and pick some poppies just bursting 
 with their crumpled silken petals out of their 
 soft hairy gray-green sheaths, and for some 
 minutes they waited for him by the boat, and 
 the conversation, though it mainly turned on 
 flowers, was not So highly botanical and hate- 
 fully improving as it had been on the last 
 occasion. 
 
 And at last, instead of Ralph, Duncan appeared, 
 out of breath, for he was getting rather portly 
 with advancing years, to say that Mr. Ralph 
 was not well enough to go ; he was very sorry to 
 disappoint Miss Dear, but he had turned giddy 
 and had a fall, and thought he had better lie 
 down and keep quiet. 
 
 " There's nothing to be anxious about, Missy, 
 he'll be all right to-morrow. The doctor here 
 knows that he's subject to these little turns now 
 
15° DEAR. 
 
 and then, and they're soon over if he'll only keep 
 quiet. " 
 
 And Duncan hurried back to mount guard 
 over his somewhat refractory patient, while Dr. 
 Meredith assured Dear that there was no need 
 to look so pitiful, and that the kindest thing she 
 could do for Ralph was to leave him to Duncan's 
 ministrations. 
 
 " How fond she is of him, " he thought. " I 
 wonder if her eyes would look the least like that 
 or her lip quiver ever so little at the thought of 
 any suffering of mine ? " 
 
 "I suppose," he said aloud, u but — of course 
 not — " And he tied the painter decidedly and 
 a shade viciously to the post and turned away 
 from the boat. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " I suppose you could not let me row you 
 instead of Ralph ? 
 
 " Can you row ? 
 
 " I might try. " 
 
 And then he was helping her into the boat, 
 and you cannot imagine how much younger he 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. I5 1 
 
 felt when he did so than he did the week before, 
 when Ralph had carefully steadied the boat, and 
 bid him step on the middle of the seat as he 
 got in. And Dear watched, with surprise and a 
 little consternation, the skilful way in which he 
 managed the sculls, and how the boat swept 
 smoothly out into the open channel without any 
 of the lurching and rocking and splashing that 
 had seemed a necessary part of the business 
 before. 
 
 "Were you laughing at us all the time, " she 
 asked, with the little pink color coming into her 
 face, and a little reproach into her soft eyes, 
 " when you sat at the other end of the boat and 
 we made such a bungle of rowing ? " 
 
 " Laughing ? " he answered, " not a bit, I was 
 much too cross." 
 
 But he could laugh now, not at her or Ralph, 
 but at himself for his cross-grained, surly fancies. 
 These were all put to flight by the mere feel of 
 the sculls in his hands, the dip of the blades in 
 the stream, the ripple of the water against the 
 sides of the boat, and most of all by the sight 
 
152 DEAR. 
 
 of Dear's face opposite him, sweet and gentle, 
 but without that look of respectful attention 
 which had so disturbed him when he came 
 before. Old — not he ; he felt as young as an 
 undergraduate in » his first term, though he, I 
 think, is generally seriously impressed with his 
 age and experience; as silly and light-hearted as 
 a boy ; every stroke he pulled seemed to make 
 him less wise and solemn and scientific. He 
 laughed out of sheer gaiety of heart ; he talked 
 such nonsense as surprised himself when he 
 thought of it afterwards, convinced that even 
 Ralph had never chattered away such rubbish ; 
 but at the time it seemed the pleasantest, hap- 
 piest, most natural expression of pleasant, happy, 
 natural thoughts, echoed back as pleasantly, as 
 happily, as naturally, by that most sympathetic 
 companion, who seemed to catch the thought or 
 whimsical fancy before it was even put into 
 words, so that he hardly knew if it were he or 
 she who said it. 
 
 " Where are we going ? " she said. She was 
 leaning a little forward, and the soft breeze 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. 153 
 
 and the speed of the boat as it flew through the 
 water with the strong steady strokes of his sculls, 
 ruffled the tender little curls on her temples, and 
 her eyes were wide with the exhilaration of 
 swift motion, and her lips a little parted with 
 the excitement of passing beyond the usual 
 limits of Ralph's clumsy rowing. " Where are 
 we going ? " 
 
 " Into fairy-land," he answered. But indeed 
 they were in fairy -land already. It was not far to 
 seek ; it lies so close at hand to some of us, far 
 nearer than seems possible in this matter-of-fact, 
 plain prose, work-a-day world of ours. It needs 
 but a touch from a certain great enchanter's 
 wand, and, hey, presto ! we are there, out of life's 
 ugliness, dullness, and discord, into love's beauty, 
 brightness, and harmony. 
 
 Now I do not imagine, dear reader, that that 
 early July day was more beautiful than many 
 another before or since. I fancy that some of 
 the haymakers who paused in their toil as the 
 boat went by, to stare or wipe their hot fore- 
 heads, or take a pull from the stone jar of flat 
 
154 DEAR. 
 
 beer, used strong language in clumsy Loamshire 
 dialect about the heat of the sun that brought 
 out those beads of perspiration on their brows, 
 and made them so thirsty and their work so 
 burdensome. I think that the cows, standing in 
 the shallows and whisking irritable tails, thought 
 more of the flies than of the soft shadows from 
 the willows. I am sure there is many a stream 
 in the length and breadth of the land, far prettier 
 and more picturesque than that little Loamshire 
 river, winding between meadows and copses, 
 with rushes and meadow-sweet, loose-strife and 
 forget-me-not fringing its banks, and lily leaves 
 rising and falling on its placid breast, stirred by 
 the passage of the boat. That was only a hoary 
 old water-rat swimming across and making a 
 widening furrow on the oily smooth water. That 
 was merely a kingfisher that flashed up the 
 stream, with a glimpse of tropical blue and 
 green, flaunting its prismatic brightness before 
 the sober, little, brown moorhen, peeping bright- 
 eyed from the sedges. Those are only roach 
 who flash silver sides among the soft green hair 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. 155 
 
 of the weed, as eyes peer down at them through 
 the water or red-finned perch drowsing on the 
 gravel bottom with heads up stream and with 
 tails lazily beating the water. These are only 
 wood-pigeons whose purring note sounds so 
 soothingly from the Scotch fir, whose stem gives 
 such a rich resinous smell in the warm sun. If 
 you or I, dear reader, had been there, — and I am 
 glad for all our sakes that we were not, — we 
 might not have seen anything remarkable ; but 
 Oliver Meredith was rowing Dear through fairy- 
 land, and that is a very different thing, and not 
 capable of being described in ordinary prose, 
 or printed in every-day ink on matter-of-fact 
 paper. 
 
 The stream was not always wide enough to 
 allow of Oliver's keeping up the speed he started 
 with, sometimes it was weedy and overhung 
 with trees, and they had to push their way 
 among the reeds, and bend their heads to avoid 
 the willow branches. At last they were brought 
 to a check by a mill-dam, and a kind, old, floury 
 miller came to the bank and bade them come 
 
15^ DEAR. 
 
 right away in and see the missus, as never in all 
 his born days had a boat come down stream 
 afore, though a many rowed up from Cheriton. 
 He treated it as an excellent joke, and laughed 
 and slapped his leg with such energy that the 
 flour flew out in clouds all about him. 
 
 He did not know much of the Kingscombe 
 folk, but he had heard tell of the Parson there, 
 and this here was the Parson's young lady ? 
 Well a-never ! 
 
 And " his missus " came hobbling out in 
 answer to his stentorian calls, much crippled 
 with rheumatism, with a kind, mumping, old 
 face, devoid of teeth, and wearing a chestnut 
 wig of the most ingenious character, and a black 
 cap with little purple bows. She set a little 
 round table under the great willow on the grass 
 plot by the river, and spread a cloth, and brought 
 out home-made bread and butter and honey- 
 comb, and a great brown jug of ice-cold cider; 
 and while Dear and Oliver partook of what to 
 the latter seemed the most delicious meal he 
 had ever enjoyed/ the old woman knitted with 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. 157 
 
 quick, crooked fingers, and the husband leaned 
 against the railings, smoking his little, short 
 pipe, and the great water-wheel creaked round, 
 bringing up the slimy green weed on its black 
 boards ; and within the mill, the big stones 
 ground and grunted and rubbed, and the miller's 
 man came to the door just above their heads to 
 see what the master was after. 
 
 In after years every small detail of that old 
 mill, and indeed of the whole day, was photo- 
 graphed on Oliver's mind, and if he had had the 
 artistic skill, he could have sketched it all : the 
 apricot tree trained against the tarred boards, 
 with little woolly apricots just turning color in 
 the warm sun, the big patch of house-leek on 
 the tiles above, and the soft coloring of emerald 
 moss and orange-and-white litchen. 
 
 The old man's garrulous talk and the click 
 of the wife's knitting needles mixed with the 
 creaking and straining of the wheel, and the 
 grinding of the stones, and the soft rush of the 
 water. In years to come he could conjure it all 
 up, with the central figure of Dear, then, as ever 
 
158 DEAR. 
 
 afterwards, the centre of all Oliver Meredith's 
 dreams and memories. 
 
 How quickly the time slipped by. The^old 
 miller looking at his great silver watch, which 
 came with difficulty out of his trouser pocket, 
 bringing a cloud of dust with it, and then com- 
 paring it with the sun, which was a more reliable 
 authority, declared it to be "'bout of a three." 
 
 " There ain't no call, however, for you to be 
 hurrying, but I've a job to see to, and when I 
 gets talking I loses all reckoning how the 
 time's going. But there, it ain't often as I gets 
 visitors, let alone visitors down-stream, as is the 
 first time since I've been in the old place, and 
 that's man and boy nigh upon fifty year. It's 
 the first time as you've found your way, but I 
 hope as it won't be the last by a many, for it's 
 right down glad me and the missus'll be to see 
 you any time as you've a mind to look in. " 
 
 Yes, they would come again, Oliver assured 
 the miller as he bid him good-bye, and thanked 
 him for his hospitality, feeling intuitively that 
 any payment was out of the question. 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. 159 
 
 " We will come again," he said, as they turned 
 to look back at the mill, with the rich warm 
 afternoon sun full on the long tiled roof, on 
 which the pigeons were strutting and preening 
 their feathers, and where they could see the 
 white-coated miller standing at the mill door, 
 shading his eyes as he looked after them. 
 
 " Yes, we will come again, " Dear answered. 
 And neither of them thought, strangely enough, 
 how pleasant it would be to bring Ralph to see 
 this pretty, out-of-the-world nook, or pictured 
 returning to it in any way except these two 
 alone together, though it might have occurred 
 to their minds that circumstances were not likely 
 to repeat themselves so as to throw them alone 
 together again for a whole long summer day. 
 
 The return was more slow. Perhaps it was 
 because they were going against the stream, 
 which in the morning had sometimes carried 
 them down the river with hardly a movement of 
 the oars, and perhaps they did not care to hurry, 
 for the afternoon effects in fairy-land are as 
 lovely and worthy of remark as the morning, 
 
i6o 
 
 DEAR. 
 
 and wanderers in that magic realm find so much 
 to say to one another (there is never more than 
 one other, mind you, so do not set off to seek 
 fairy-land in company with more, you might as 
 well go alone), and the words they say are to 
 one another like the utterances of that little 
 girl from whose mouth a benevolent fairy caused 
 pearls and diamonds to drop whenever she 
 opened her lips. Sometimes, to be sure, unen- 
 chanted hearers, or those listening outside the 
 magic pale of fairy-land, might mistake their 
 utterances for, those of the other little girl who 
 was doomed to produce nothing but toads and 
 newts. So I will not record what Oliver Mere- 
 dith said while the boat lay for so long under 
 the willows, nor what Dear answered when the 
 tall rushes closed in all around them, and they 
 could see nothing but the blue sky above them, 
 with the velvety bulrushes dark and sharp 
 against it, lest perchance the deluded reader 
 might mistake it for the toads and newts instead 
 of the pure gems Oliver and Dear received with 
 such delight. 
 
INTO FAIRY-LAND. l6l 
 
 The sun was nearing the horizon when they 
 came to the landing-place, and Oliver — oh ! how 
 reluctantly — fastened the boat and helped Dear 
 out. Why had he made such tremendous haste ? 
 In another half-hour the sunset would have been 
 painting the sky, and yet another half-hour and 
 it would have faded, and the sweet little crescent 
 moon would be there. He felt he had cheated 
 himself out of the completion of this exquisite 
 day and cut it all too short ; and yet, looking 
 back, how long it seemed since he had said, " I 
 suppose you would not let me row you instead 
 of Ralph ? " That had all happened in another 
 age, long ago and far away, before he entered 
 fairy-land. 
 II 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DAILY LIFE. 
 
 " Room in her heart for all. 
 For striving stitchwort as for oak tree tall ; 
 Room for the chickweed at the gate, the weed upon 
 the wall. 
 
 A glory haloed round 
 The very wayside grasses, as she found 
 The highest, holiest loveliness was closest to the ground. 
 
 Others might dully plod, 
 Purblind with custom, deaf as any clod — 
 She knew the highest heights of heaven bent o'er the 
 
 path she trod." — Mary Geoghegan. 
 
 TWT RS. MADDISON was greatly exercised in 
 her mind. At the end of the season, a par- 
 ticularly alluring invitation had come to go to 
 a house in the north of England, where one 
 of her youthful admirers was celebrating his 
 coming of age by a series of entertainments, 
 and a house full of nice people. 
 
 (162) 
 
DAILY LIFE. 1 63 
 
 He was very urgent that she should come, and 
 though she had no particular liking for him, — 
 being empty-headed even to a point beyond 
 even her endurance, and insufferably vain and 
 purse-proud, — she knew she could twist him 
 round her little finger, and that she would have 
 it all her own way, and be treated like the queen 
 of the whole affair. 
 
 It was a great temptation. Dr. Meredith had 
 always abominated this young Dundas, so in 
 the future which she contemplated he would 
 have to be dropped, and she did not much 
 mind, but she would like to squeeze the orange 
 before she threw it away, and get the amuse- 
 ment she anticipated from presiding over his 
 coming of age. 
 
 Ralph seemed well and contented at Kings- 
 combe, and what was more important, Dr. 
 Meredith was the same, and in none of his 
 letters did he even suggest any wish to leave 
 or any other engagements which would take 
 him away. He wrote less about his book, but 
 this was rather a relief, and there was nothing 
 
1 64 DEAR. 
 
 to rouse her suspicions, or suggest that there 
 could be anything at Kingscombe that could 
 in any way affect or interfere with her plans for 
 the future. Ralph's letters were of such a 
 hurried and fragmentary character that they 
 did not convey much information, and if he 
 mentioned Dear Hume casually, Mrs. Maddison 
 did not trouble to think who it was, or if Dear 
 might not be the adjective written with a capital 
 in Ralph's somewhat erratic manner, and signify- 
 ing one of the Hume boys, though such terms 
 of endearment are not usually applied to boys. 
 
 So she accepted the Dundas' invitation with 
 an untroubled mind, and wrote an effusive little 
 note to Dr. Meredith, hoping that he was not 
 being bored to death at Kingscombe, and hold- 
 ing out the hope that if she survived these 
 terrible festivities at Dundas, they might meet 
 at Ryde, where Colonel Henderson had put his 
 yacht at her disposal. " It will be something 
 for him to look forward to, poor fellow," she 
 said to herself, as she directed the envelope, 
 thinking how she would make up to him for 
 
DAILY LIFE. 1 65 
 
 those dull days at Kingscombe, endured, she 
 was firmly convinced, for her sake. 
 
 She found the visit to Dundas Castle suffi- 
 ciently amusing, not quite as much so, perhaps, 
 as she had expected ; but no cosmetic or artistic 
 dressing can restore the inexhaustible spirits 
 and powers of enjoyment of youth, though they 
 may to a certain extent the bloom, and she 
 found herself now and then looking forward to 
 the time when, as Oliver Meredith's wife, she 
 might relax a little of her social efforts, and the 
 eternal competition with girls in rude health 
 and spirits, aud robust debutantes, who could 
 ride all day and dance all night and be as fresh 
 as a daisy in the morning. 
 
 It was a letter of Ralph's that first aroused 
 any suspicion in her mind that things were not 
 going on at Kingscombe quite as she would 
 have wished. It was a letter written in one 
 of Ralph's irritable moods when he was not 
 very well, and when, as I have said, he was apt 
 to take up a grievance and harp upon it. Dear 
 had kept him waiting one day, not very long, 
 
1 66 DEAR. 
 
 but enough to make him fidgety and impatient, 
 and he described it to his mother, in the irrita- 
 tion of the moment, as " kicking his heels for a 
 couple of hours while Dear was talking to the 
 Doctor; but it's always' the way now." 
 
 " H-m-m, " said Mrs. Maddison, reflectively, 
 when she had read this. 
 
 How quickly and brightly those summer days 
 at Kingscombe passed away ! I suppose there 
 were some wet days, some cloudy mornings, 
 some dull afternoons ; but Oliver Meredith, 
 looking back on that time, could not recall any 
 such. There is not much to describe in that 
 time. " Happy is the nation," they say, " that 
 has no history," and I think it is so with our 
 lives ; the happiest times are those of which 
 there is nothing to record, no convulsions, no 
 earthquakes, no surprises, no startling occur- 
 rences, but a peaceful, even course like Nature 
 herself in her gentle, imperceptible progress. 
 
 Oliver Meredith did not in the least realise 
 where these sunny July and August days were 
 leading him, he did not look forward, he did not 
 
DAILY LIFE. 1 67 
 
 look back, he lived just in the sunny present, 
 without even recognizing that it was Dear's 
 presence that made the sunshine. These learned 
 men are sometimes the greatest dunces in the 
 dame's school of life and love. His publishers 
 accounted themselves as ill-used men at that 
 time; important letters remained unanswered, 
 proofs were not corrected, suggestions or pro- 
 posals ignored or taken up with indifference 
 and want of interest. Is the man bewitched ? 
 they asked ; and I suppose, the long and the 
 short of it is that he was. 
 
 Clive was a little bit disgusted with him too ; 
 he had seemed quite the right sort at first, a 
 man who saw things in their right proportions, 
 who put study first and all the rest nowhere, 
 which was Clive's present sense of proportion ; 
 but now, when Clive came in from Cheriton, 
 dusty but ardent, he mostly found the library 
 empty, and Oliver's precious papers, perhaps, 
 fluttering about the room, if a mischievous 
 little breeze had stolen in to mock at the present 
 scholar. 
 
roe dear. 
 
 And when that blissful time came, and the 
 Grammar School broke up, and Clive was free 
 from those detestable dull boys, and could 
 fill his day from morning to night as he liked 
 best, — though he was welcome to be all day 
 in the Manor library, and Oliver's books were 
 quite at his service, — he did not have much of 
 Oliver's company, or if he did, it was only the 
 outer man who sat there, listlessly fiddling with 
 a pen. Even Clide could tell that it was no 
 deep thought of study or mental research that 
 occupied his mind, and on one occasion, when 
 he thought the Doctor was indeed once more 
 concentrated on his work, and bent over his 
 page with the old devotion, Clive saw, passing 
 behind his chair, that he was sketching in pen 
 and ink a girl's head, not very successfully, for 
 he was nothing much of an artist, but good 
 enough for Clive to recognize that it was meant 
 for Dear. 
 
 " Dear ! " he said to himself, with that feeling 
 of depreciation which brothers of unripe years, 
 however affectionate, have for their sisters. 
 
DAILY LIFE. 1 69 
 
 It does not come within the scope of this 
 history to chronicle if in later years, when 
 Clive's time came, as it comes to most of us 
 sooner or later, he looked back with more 
 leniency on Dr. Meredith's sad falling away 
 from the paths of learning, or if there ever 
 came a day when a girl's smile would upset his 
 ideas of proportion for good and all. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Dear had 
 nothing to do but make that summer holiday 
 pleasant to Ralph and his companion. Dear's 
 life was full of occupation and of interests, as in 
 the old times when she found it impossible to 
 imagine being bored. There was, first of all, her 
 father ; do not imagine she stinted one moment 
 of tender companionship or loving care for him 
 on their account. The course of years had made 
 him more vague, more absent-minded, less capa- 
 ble of looking after himself than before, and 
 Dear, with Patty's never-failing help, watched 
 over him as a mother over a child, a protecting 
 care mixed all the time with that deep reverence 
 which his saintliness never failed to inspire. 
 
I/ DEAR. 
 
 There were her parochial duties — children to 
 be taught, sick to be visited, old people to be 
 cared for and cheered, wicked people to be 
 pitied, sorrowful to be comforted, happy to be 
 sympathised with, all to be loved and thought 
 of and prayed for, and you may be sure she 
 was never missing at the daily prayers, often 
 forming the only congregation now Clive had 
 to go to Cheriton. There was housekeeping 
 too, though, of course, on so small and simple 
 a scale it was no great matter ; and Patty was 
 practically housekeeper, though she kept up 
 the outward show of deference to her young 
 mistress. 
 
 There was also a variety of retainers, biped 
 and quadruped, who demanded a good deal of 
 attention : an old deaf and dumb and stupid 
 man, to whose dim intellect Dear alone could 
 bring a glimmer of light ; an idiotic girl with a 
 very large face, who came and stood very close 
 and looked fixedly into Dear's face with her 
 strange, senseless eyes, and who liked to think 
 that " Missy was learning Bessie to sew." And 
 
DAILY LIFE. I7 1 
 
 among the bipeds I ought also to rank the 
 magpie from the cobbler's, whose leg Dear had 
 set, and who loved her surreptitiously with its 
 odd, little, crafty heart, and took every oppor- 
 tunity of escaping from its wicker cage and 
 coming solemnly hopping up to the vicarage, 
 appearing generally at inconvenient moments, 
 such as prayer-time, or when some matter of 
 parish importance was being discussed, coming 
 flopping in at the window, with its pale blue 
 eye keenly on the look-out for anything it could 
 steal or any mischief to be accomplished. 
 
 Then there were weakly, little pigs or mother- 
 less lambs who occasionally required her care, 
 and broods of little yellow ducklings, or 
 chickens with the pip ; anything weak or ill 
 or miserable found its way to Dear to be cared 
 for or comforted. 
 
 Dr. Meredith used to wonder sometimes if 
 Dear's affection for Ralph was like her affection 
 for all the weakly, dependent things she came 
 in contact with. She was always good to him, 
 always patient when he was irritable or fractious, 
 
I7 2 DEAR. 
 
 though he very rarely was so to her. She 
 considered his tastes, she gave way in nearly 
 everything to his fancies, she humored his 
 caprices, she sacrificed her own inclinations 
 readily to him, and by and by she got to sac- 
 rifice Oliver Meredith's. It hurt him at first ; 
 he chafed at the feeling of her preference for 
 Ralph, but' presently he got more than recon- 
 ciled to the treatment, dwelling with delight on 
 the difference she made between them, realis- 
 ing or fancying a subtle compliment in treating 
 him as one who did not need humoring or 
 consideration. 
 
 " I had rather she did not like me at all," 
 he said to himself, " than that she should like 
 me as she does Ralph, or a sick hen or a lame 
 puppy dog." 
 
 And yet when his hand was cut with a 
 reaping-hook, it was exquisite satisfaction to 
 him to have it bound up by Dear, though he 
 knew she would have done it quite as readily 
 and tenderly for that same sick hen or lame 
 puppy or Ralph either ; and though it was not 
 
DAILY LIFE. 173 
 
 much more than a scratch, he made the most of 
 it, and carried his hand in a sling for nearly a 
 week, demanding frequent dressing and con- 
 tinual pity, which Dear was not backward to 
 give. 
 
 Harvest was early that year ; those long, 
 bright July days ripened the corn so quickly 
 that by the time the last heavily-laden hay 
 wagon lumbered into the rick-yard, the sickle 
 had been put in in Farmer Green's five acres, 
 and the waving golden glories Dear loved to 
 watch ripple and undulate, were turned into 
 sheaves in the harvest fields. 
 
 It was one afternoon towards the end of 
 harvest that Ralph was kept waiting, as he 
 complained to his mother, for hours while Dear 
 talked to the Doctor. Half an hour would 
 perhaps have been nearer the mark, though Dr. 
 Meredith would have been ready to declare on 
 oath that it was not more than ten minutes, and 
 to Dear the time seemed no longer. They very 
 rarely were alone together ; that long lovely 
 
1 74 DEAR. 
 
 June day had never been repeated, and Oliver 
 Meredith could have reckoned up on one hand 
 the number of half-hours he had spent in 
 Dear's company without Ralph's presence ; and 
 this afternoon as they walked together to the 
 place where Ralph was to meet them, at Farmer 
 Green's last field, from which they were to carry 
 the final load that evening, perhaps they did 
 linger a little, to notice the chequered light and 
 shade and the shafts of sunlight between the 
 trees and the broad stubble fields, which even 
 in their despoiled and shaven condition have a 
 beauty of their own. 
 
 Ralph had gone on to expound to Farmer 
 Green a plan he had in his mind, of having a 
 general harvest-home at the Manor, with a 
 heavy feed for the men, and tea and cake, which 
 is accounted appropriate food, for the women 
 and children. There was to be a big tent and 
 games and dancing and perhaps fireworks to 
 conclude with. 
 
 But the farmer, with the natural conservatism 
 
DAILY LIFE. 175 
 
 of his class, regarded the proposal doubtfully, 
 and scratched his head and twisted a button of 
 his coat in his perplexity, not wishing to offend 
 the young master, but convinced that what he'd 
 done every harvest since he had the farm, and 
 his father afore him, — and come to that, most 
 like his grandfather too, — must be the best thing 
 to do as long as he held the farm, and his son 
 arter him. 
 
 "And come to that, come next year, and 
 Master Ralph ain't here, nor no one at the 
 Manor, how's any one to keep it up with all 
 them bands and music and fireworks and all the 
 rest of the kick-up ? And there'll be all the 
 chaps thinking themselves ill-used because 
 they've just to go back to having their belly 
 full of beef and plenty of beer to wash it down, 
 as has been good enough for them and their 
 fathers afore 'em. Thankye all the same." 
 
 This pig-headedness on the farmer's part to 
 begin with upset Ralph, and then the delay in 
 Dear and Oliver's appearance ; and when they 
 
Ij6 DEAR. 
 
 came, their innocence, which he thought affected, 
 of being at all behind their time aggravated 
 the irritation, and his ill-temper produced, as we 
 have seen, that letter to his mother over which 
 she pondered at Dundas Castle. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IN THE ORCHARD. 
 
 " And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought 
 Ere Thought could wed itself to Speech." 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 '""pOO bright to last," Mrs. Lynch said one 
 morning a few days later. She had a va- 
 riety of such little cut-and-dried axioms about the 
 weather, which sometimes came true, when she 
 was able triumphantly to call you to witness that 
 she had said how it would be ; and sometimes 
 did not, when she discreetly forgot her prophe- 
 cies and infallible signs. " Mark my words, if 
 the fine weather ain't going to break up." 
 
 Oliver Meredith remembered her words, 
 though it was not in the physical world that the 
 breaking up of the fine weather came, and in the 
 cloudless sunshine of the ensuing days Mrs. 
 Lynch did not recall her evil prognostications. 
 12 (177) 
 
1 78 DEAR. 
 
 It was such a very beautiful day, with that 
 touch of autumn freshness that is so exhilarating, 
 though it tells that summer is over. Oliver 
 Meredith felt in unreasonably high spirits ; 
 perhaps it was the feeling the Scotch call " fey," 
 a wild elation that surely precedes some calamity. 
 He felt as if nothing could disturb his equa- 
 nimity ; he cut himself in shaving, the button 
 came off the back of his shirt collar, his egg at 
 breakfast was not above suspicion (yes, even at 
 Kingscombe, under Mrs. Lynch's lynx-eye, such 
 accidents will happen), a bothering letter was on 
 the breakfast-table that demanded immediate 
 attention, and might demand a visit to London 
 very shortly — it all ran off like water from a 
 duck's back. 
 
 We most of us know what it is to wake up 
 with a presentiment of evil which is not, happily, 
 always realised, but it is much rarer, and un- 
 happily quite as unreliable, to wake up as Oliver 
 did that morning, with a presentiment of good 
 and happiness and sunshine. 
 
 There was this much foundation for it in his 
 
IN THE ORCHARD. 179 
 
 case, that Mr. Hume, and of course Dear, were 
 to come to lunch at the Manor that day. It 
 was quite an event, as Mr. Hume had not been 
 known to take any meal away from home with- 
 in the memory of mortal man, except perhaps 
 a cup of tea at some cottage, or a bit of bread 
 and cheese at a farm ; but Ralph had made such 
 a point of it, that he had at last reluctantly con- 
 sented to come, and Ralph had amused himself 
 by ordering an elaborate luncheon, though, 
 " Bless your heart," Mrs. Lynch very justly 
 remarked, " he won't see no difference, and had 
 quite as lief have a crust of bread and cheese 
 and a drain of hard cider." 
 
 But Ralph was resolved that the viands should 
 be of the choicest description that the resources 
 of Kingscombe and Cheriton and Mrs. Lynch's 
 old-fashioned notions of cooking would allow, 
 and he spent the whole morning pottering in 
 and out of the kitchen, till Mrs. Lynch's good- 
 temper almost gave way, and, as she said, " she 
 got that flustered as she hardly knew if she 
 stood on her head or her heels." 
 
180 DEAR. 
 
 The table too was to be set out with such 
 state as the somewhat scanty appliances in the 
 pantry would permit ; but Duncan was ingenious 
 in contrivances, and the table presented as 
 elegant an appearance as could be wished, when 
 Ralph had been persuaded to relinquish his 
 intention of arranging the flowers himself. 
 
 Dr. Meredith did not interfere in Ralph's 
 arrangements, but still could not settle to^work 
 in the library, where Clive's reproachful eyes 
 looked up at him from his books, so he set off 
 for a good stretch over the hills, every breath of 
 the sweet, clear air on the heights adding to 
 the feeling of exhilaration and hopefulness. 
 
 And on his way back, as luck would have it, 
 he overtook Dear, with Dan in attendance, 
 coming back from a visit to some outlying 
 cottage ; Dan in high spirits, fancying himself 
 a puppy, and dancing round her, and making 
 foolish little dashes after birds, in a manner 
 quite unlike his usual staid behavior ; Dear, 
 with a light in her eyes, and a little soft color 
 on her usually pale cheeks, due perhaps to her 
 
IN THE ORCHARD. l8l 
 
 walk, and the bracing air of the hill, or perhaps, 
 Oliver hoped and fancied, to his sudden appear- 
 ance round the shoulder of the hill. 
 
 So there was another half-hour for Oliver 
 to reckon up as a cherished memory — and oh ! 
 if you come to think of it, what a lovely thing 
 memory is, what a priceless gift ! Only think, 
 if the thick curtain of oblivion fell on each com- 
 pleted thought, or word, or deed, how dreary 
 life would be. True, there are things we would 
 gladly forget, but for one such there are with 
 most of us, thousands we love to remember, are 
 there not ? 
 
 She was getting to talk to him without reserve, 
 to tell him little half -formed thoughts and fancies, 
 without fear of his criticism or ridicule, to turn 
 to him for sympathy, to trust to his understand- 
 ing what she meant even though she could not 
 always put it quite clearly into words. And in 
 return, he found himself talking to her, as he 
 talked to no one else, expressing real, simple, 
 natural feelings that had lain hidden away under 
 cartloads of conventional, second-hand, borrowed 
 
1 82 DEAR. 
 
 worldly wisdom ; he told her of his mother and 
 his boyhood — subjects he would never have 
 thought of mentioning to Mrs. Maddison, and 
 which, no doubt, would have bored her if he 
 had. 
 
 And as it never rains but it pours, not only 
 had he that morning walk with Dear that day, 
 but he spent nearly all the afternoon in her 
 company, while Ralph, in his character of host, 
 was trying his best to entertain Mr. Hume. 
 
 The gardener was picking pears on the sunny 
 south wall, and Clive, who felt that noblesse oblige 
 not to shut himself up alone in the library, as 
 he had been asked to lunch, was helping store 
 the fruit away in the loft ; and Dear and Oliver 
 helped too for a time, and then wandered on 
 along the mossy path between the high box 
 edging, pacing up and down in the sunshine, 
 with a word now and then from the gardener, 
 Sims' successor, who had inherited the old 
 man's longwinded wisdom, as well as the 
 traditions about Dear's supremacy. And then 
 they reached the white gate into the orchard, 
 
IN THE ORCHARD. .183 
 
 where one of the Manor Alderneys was rubbing 
 her fair neck on the paling, expecting Dear's 
 gentle caressing touch on her soft, hairy ears 
 and large damp nose. It was not all cupboard 
 love that those great, soft, deer-like eyes ex- 
 pressed, though honesty compels me to state 
 that a lettuce from an adjoining bed was received 
 with somewhat rough greediness. 
 
 Then they went on into the orchard among 
 the gnarled and knotted old apple trees, covered 
 with moss and lichen, and some of them already 
 dropping red and yellow fruit in the grass around 
 them. One of the trees at the further end had, 
 in some freak, grown partly horizontally, so as 
 to form a seat cushioned with moss, and here 
 they rested "just for a minute," it was so shady 
 and pleasant, with a glimpse through the trees 
 of sunny country, meadow-land and pasture. 
 Was it only for a minute ? There is no know- 
 ing, seeing that in certain conditions time does 
 not exist. 
 
 After all, they were talking on quite indifferent 
 subjects, and might have gone on so till "the 
 
1 84 DEAR. 
 
 minute" was over ; he had not thought of telling 
 her he loved her, indeed I hardly think he had 
 told himself so, in so many words. But by 
 chance, as they sat there, his hand touched hers 
 as it lay on the moss of the apple tree, a hand 
 not milk-white like my lady's, but small and 
 soft and warm, and all of a sudden, as if it 
 needed but that touch to break down the barrier 
 between them, which must, indeed, have been 
 growing gossamer thin of late, he had her hand 
 in both of his, and was looking into her half- 
 frightened, startled, yet not unwilling eyes, as if 
 his heart were looking straight into hers. 
 
 What was it he was saying when that sudden 
 revelation came ? What words were they that 
 melted into thin air when their hands met ? 
 Something absurdly trifling, something not at 
 all apropos of what followed. It was something 
 to do with Dan, he fancied, when he tried to 
 recall the scene; the cut of his ears, or a trick 
 he had of going on three legs now and then. 
 But what does the way matter if you reach the 
 desired end ? and surely that end had been 
 
IN THE ORCHARD. 1 85 
 
 reached when he held her hand in his and his 
 heart rushed to his lips. 
 
 "Dear," he said. "Dear," and his voice was 
 deep, and full of such meaning as might have 
 told all he would say, without another word. 
 Oh ! if only it could indeed have done so ! In 
 after times he tortured himself with the thought 
 of that torrent of words that was on his very 
 lips, and of that moment's hesitation when he 
 only stammered her name. But for that, it 
 would have been said, let what might have 
 come after ; he would have told her that he 
 loved her, and life could not have failed to be 
 richer, happier, more precious for ever after. 
 
 But a little, silvery laugh from behind broke 
 in at the very moment he spoke Dear's name, 
 and a voice said — 
 
 " Dear me ! what a pretty place, and so 
 sweetly rural ! And there is Dr. Meredith, I 
 declare ! Why, Oliver, we thought you were 
 lost ; we have been looking for you everywhere, 
 and I would not let Ralph go on and find you, 
 as I had set my heart on giving you a surprise. 
 
1 86 DEAR. 
 
 And this is Miss Hume, I am sure. I am so 
 pleased to make your acquaintance." 
 
 And Mrs. Maddison effusively took Dear's 
 hand, that was still tingling with that magnetic 
 touch of Oliver Meredith's and his tender 
 clasp. 
 
 How pretty and elegant Mrs. Maddison 
 looked ! No one would have thought she had 
 just come off a long journey, still less that the 
 journey of her life had been twice as long as 
 Dear's. She was taller than Dear, and her 
 perfectly-fitting travelling dress added to her 
 height, and her face, under the little veil, showed 
 an almost infantile bloom, and her eyes smiled 
 in innocent admiration of the scene around her 
 and interest in the girl whose hand she held in 
 kindly condescension.. 
 
 Oliver heard himself asking about her journey, 
 and expressing apprehension that it must have 
 tired her, and regrets that he should have been 
 out of the way when she arrived, and inquiries 
 as to how she thought Ralph was looking. 
 His voice sounded to him unnatural and forced, 
 
IN THE ORCHARD. 1 8/ 
 
 but she did not seem to notice it, and presently 
 he found himself walking by her side up the 
 orchard towards the house, while Ralph followed 
 with Dear. How different it all looked ! The 
 sun was behind a cloud, and the colors of grass 
 and foliage and mossy trunks had turned dull 
 and dead ; a wasp flew up from an over-ripe 
 pear on the ground and buzzed angrily about 
 them, and Mrs. Maddison gave a little scream of 
 disgust as she brushed an earwig off Oliver's 
 sleeve. Ugh ! after all an orchard is an un- 
 pleasant earwiggy place to stop long in ! 
 
 " You did not tell me what a pretty, little girl 
 Mr. Hume's daughter is," she said, " Jessie or 
 Daisy or Dolly — what is her name ? quite a 
 rustic belle ; she would be quite presentable if 
 she were properly dressed. Ralph is greatly 
 Ipris with her, is he not ? Poor boy ! he is so 
 impressionable." 
 
 And Oliver heard that contemptible creature, 
 Dr. Meredith, laughing and replying vaguely, as 
 if he agreed with what she said, instead of 
 saying that whatever Ralph's opinion of her 
 
1 88 DEAR. 
 
 might be, he, Oliver thought there was no one 
 like Dear the wide world over. 
 
 " Is she like what you expected ? " Ralph was 
 saying to Dear. " I have so often described my 
 mother to you. Did you fancy her like this ? 
 Why, Dear, are you cold ? " 
 
 For Dear gave a little shiver as just at this 
 moment Mrs. Maddison turned to look at her 
 through those double eye-glasses with a long 
 tortoiseshell handle, which she used, as she took 
 pains to inform the public, because they were so 
 much in fashion, and not because her eyesight 
 needed any help. Certainly those eye-glasses 
 are very useful weapons of offence in the hands 
 of cold-blooded insolence. 
 
 " Cold ? No, I don't think so, only it's a 
 little bit dull and damp in this orchard when 
 there is no sun. I think there must be what 
 they call a blight, and it was such a beautiful 
 morning !" 
 
 There was a wistfulness and disquiet in the 
 girl's voice that struck even on Ralph's not very 
 discriminating ear. 
 
IN THE ORCHARD. 1 89 
 
 " You don't much take to the mater, Dear. 
 There's not many women that do just at first, 
 but you should see how the men go after her. 
 You can hardly get a sight of her at a ball, she's 
 so surrounded. Why, she cuts out all the girls 
 as easy as anything, girls years younger than 
 she is. Doesn't she look young ? Why, when 
 you were standing together just now, you might 
 have been sisters. Meredith thinks a lot of her, 
 you can see that, can't you ? and he is not at 
 all a sort of fellow for ladies in a general way, 
 but the mater can twist him round her little 
 finger." 
 
 And even as he spoke the two in front 
 stopped, and Dear saw, as no doubt she was 
 intended to see, Mrs. Maddison lay her hand 
 on Oliver Meredith's arm with a caressing 
 gesture, and look up into his face with a very 
 different glance to that bestowed on Dear a few 
 moments before through the double eye-glasses. 
 
 "I think," Dear said with a little gasp, "that 
 I will go home through the garden. You want 
 to be with Mrs. Maddison, and it must be tea- 
 
19° DEAR. 
 
 time, and I must see that my father has a quiet 
 evening. He will be tired ; it is such a rare 
 thing for him to go out, you know," she added, 
 with a little wan smile ; " he will have to keep 
 very quiet to recover from such dissipation. No, 
 don't trouble Mrs. Maddison," for Ralph was on 
 the point of calling to his mother to stop. 
 " She will be tired with her journey and glad to 
 be alone. Will you bid her good-bye for me ? " 
 
 And then Dear slipped away, along the path 
 under the wall that was sunny no longer, and 
 out through the door into the lane, which looked 
 littered and untidy with the passage of the 
 harvest waggons ; and Dear noticed then for 
 the first time, that there was a patch of yellow 
 on the big elm tree at the corner. 
 
 " Summer is over," she said to herself sadly ; 
 "and it has been such a beautiful summer." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 a woman's will. 
 
 " Whene'er I see those smiling eyes, 
 
 So full of hope and joy and light, 
 As if no cloud could ever rise 
 
 To dim a heav'n so purely bright, 
 I sigh to think how soon that brow 
 
 In grief may lose its every ray, 
 And that light heart so joyous now 
 
 Almost forget it once was gay." — Moore. 
 
 TVT EXT morning that business letter of which 
 mention has already been made, came forci- 
 bly into Oliver Meredith's mind directly he 
 awoke, and the importance of giving it immediate 
 attention was impressed upon him as it had not 
 been, unfortunately, the day before. 
 
 It was unfortunate, he felt, because it would 
 appear so discourteous to Mrs. Maddison if he 
 left Kingscombe directly she arrived, and the 
 
 (190 
 
192 DEAR. 
 
 most important business would only appear to 
 her an empty excuse, especially if it came out 
 that the letter about it had arrived the day 
 before and had received no attention. 
 
 The charm of Kingscombe seemed somehow 
 to have gone, the view from his window which 
 had seemed to him so idyllic looked dull and 
 uninteresting this morning, and for the first time 
 he noticed a smell from the farmyard when he 
 opened his window. The old-fashioned quiet of 
 the house seemed transformed into mere deadly 
 dullness, as Mademoiselle Clarisse tripped along 
 on her high heels, with little shrill exclamations 
 of horror at the tristesse of the great solid house. 
 He saw the whole place with Mrs. Maddison's 
 eyes as he came down to breakfast, spread on 
 the big mahogany dining-table, with good, 
 honest, farmer-like Maddison ancestors looking 
 down in solemn, respectable stupidity from the 
 walls. 
 
 She, however, did not appear till two hours 
 later, when she came down in a most elegant 
 morning negligee toilette, and, passing the dining- 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 193 
 
 room with a shudder, established herself in the 
 drawing-room, which Clarisse and Duncan had 
 been trying to make habitable, having reduced 
 the furniture to what Mrs. Lynch's old-fashioned, 
 tidy notions considered a state of chaos. A fire 
 had been lighted too in the big grate (con- 
 structed artfully so that all the heat should go 
 up the chimney), greatly to the annoyance of 
 the starlings who had made their abode there ; 
 and this also was a shock to Mrs. Lynch's 
 feelings, as she had been brought up to begin 
 fires the first of November, and leave them off 
 the first of May, so that all the frosty May 
 mornings and penetrating chill fogs of October 
 evenings of this capricious English climate, to 
 say nothing of bitter midsummers, and chilblainy 
 Augusts, must be endured as best you might, 
 " for no one ever heard tell of lighting up fires in 
 summer time." 
 
 But Mrs. Lynch heard tell of a good many 
 things new to her at that time, and lived in a 
 chronic state of " Well a-never ! " and " Who'd 
 a-thought ! " 
 13 
 
194 DEAR. 
 
 I said the charm seemed to have gone from 
 Kingscombe ; but Oliver Meredith told himself 
 it was only interrupted, it would all come back, 
 the sun would shine again, and the soft shadows 
 lie on the orchard grass, and the sun light up the 
 emerald moss on the old trees and the rosy 
 fruit on the boughs above or at their feet, and 
 he would hold Dear's hand in his again and look 
 into her eyes, and say those words which had 
 been checked on his very lips. It would all 
 come back, it was only deferred, to be all the 
 sweeter for waiting. What could ever come 
 between them when once their hands and eyes 
 had met like that ? Qr should he take her to 
 the old mill ? The Virginia creeper on the 
 gable end of the house would be turning to 
 scarlet, the French poplars' shivering leaves 
 would be beginning to show some gold, the old 
 miller must have looked many times up the 
 stream and wondered if his visitors would come 
 again, the old wife must have finished half a 
 dozen gray stockings with her shining, clicking, 
 needles. He could see it all, — whirr ! the white 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 195 
 
 pigeons flew up to the mill roof as the boat 
 with him and Dear came to the landing- 
 steps — 
 
 " You were saying — ?" Mrs. Maddison was 
 looking at him with one of her sweetest smiles, 
 in as elegant an attitude as that uncompromising 
 armchair would allow, and holding up a large 
 feather fan to shield her face from the glow of 
 the fire. " You were saying — ? " 
 
 What had he been saying ? Surely Oliver 
 Meredith needed a screen too, for the fire had 
 caught his face and turned it crimson and 
 burning. 
 
 "Excuse me ! " he said. "I was speaking of 
 that letter I had received from Mr. — " 
 
 "Yes? Tell me about it. I thought you 
 were speaking just then of Ralph, but I am so 
 absent-minded no doubt I was mistaken." 
 
 There was a fly which had settled for a 
 moment on the dainty lace and cashmere of 
 Mrs. Maddison's sleeve, and her eyes, as they 
 left Oliver's face, sank on this unoffending insect, 
 and I wonder it ever lived to tell the tale or join 
 
'96 DEAR. 
 
 the mazy dance with its fellows round the 
 chandelier, so scorching was the wrathful blaze 
 of the steel-blue lightning that flashed down 
 on it. 
 
 "You see," he hastened clumsily to excuse 
 himself, " my mind is a good deal occupied with 
 this letter, which I am afraid may call me away. 
 If you had not come I should have written to 
 you about it to-day." 
 
 She bent towards him with that graceful 
 interest which not so long ago had been so 
 delightful to him, which had encouraged him 
 to pour out confidences to her, sure of her 
 sympathy, even if she did not always enter into 
 his feelings ; but by the side of the sympathy to 
 which he had lately been growing used, Mrs. 
 Maddison's rang false and unreal, and he dis- 
 trusted the earnest attention of her eyes, and 
 could hardly keep himself from shrinking from 
 the touch of her hand upon his arm. 
 
 Those tortoise-shell eye-glasses were required 
 by Mrs. Maddison for something more than 
 ornament, but without them she could see clearly 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 197 
 
 enough the doubt of her in Oliver's face and the 
 involuntary recoil from her touch. 
 
 " It came this morning ? " she asked. And in 
 times past he would not have hesitated to answer 
 "Yes" on the principle that verbal truth may- 
 be sacrificed when inconvenient or impertinent 
 questions are asked, but if you are constantly in 
 the company of an absolutely true person you 
 cease to draw fine distinctions between truth 
 and falsehood. 
 
 " No, it came yesterday, but I hardly realised 
 its importance till I read it through again this 
 morning." 
 
 A very slight raising of the delicately-pencilled 
 eyebrows showed him that she was taking the 
 matter just as he had anticipated she would, 
 and with a man's clumsiness he proceeded to 
 make matters worse. 
 
 " You see I have been wasting my time so 
 much the last few weeks. I shall have to buckle 
 too now to make up for lost time." 
 
 A little sharpening of the lines round Mrs. 
 Maddison's mouth might have warned him that 
 
I9 8 DEAR. 
 
 his words were not acceptable, but he was just 
 then filled with a rush of regret for the holiday 
 time that was over, and the sunshine of those 
 idle summer days was dazzling in his eyes as he 
 went blundering on. 
 
 "This is such an ideal place to be idle 
 in." 
 
 "Yes," she said, "but I think when you first 
 came you used that very expression about it as 
 a place for work. I would never have consented 
 to your burying yourself all this time down here 
 if I had not thought that the quiet was just 
 what you wanted for your work. I would not 
 have asked so great a sacrifice of you, Oliver — 
 nor of myself," she added in a soft voice, and 
 with a look meant to tell what that separation 
 had been to her ; but he was looking at the scar 
 on his hand which Dear had doctored so tenderly 
 and missed the look and perhaps the softly 
 added words. 
 
 " It was no sacrifice," he said, and she inter- 
 rupted him with a playful, little tap of the 
 feather fan on the lips that assuredly were not 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 199 
 
 going to say anything outrageously compli- 
 mentary. 
 
 " What flatterers you men are ! I know what 
 you are going to say, that it was no sacrifice 
 because it was done for — Ralph, was that it? 
 And I must not even be grateful, must I ? 
 not even thank you, nor tell you how much I 
 appreciate these three months' banishment of 
 yours ? " 
 
 There was a glove of Dear's, left behind the 
 day before, lying on the table near where Oliver 
 sat — a small, shabby, wash-leather glove, such an 
 one as Mrs. Maddison would not have worn even 
 in the most rustic seclusion, and I am free to 
 confess it was not ornamental, being stained and 
 discolored and stretched and worn into a hole 
 at the thumb ; but he took it up and smoothed it 
 out with a tenderness not lost on Mrs. Maddison, 
 and the touch of it seemed to act like a charm 
 to take all the fascination out of " my lady's " 
 soft words and tender glances, and to keep 
 Oliver from falling' back into the bondage that 
 had been so pleasant to him in old days. 
 
200 DEAR. 
 
 " It is I," he said, " that am indebted to you 
 for perhaps the pleasantest summer of my 
 life." 
 
 Dr. Meredith had never been great at com- 
 pliment, but the impoliteness of that last speech 
 approached the brutal, and he felt it himself as 
 soon as the words were out of his mouth. 
 
 " You see," he added, "it has been such 
 exceptionally fine weather, and this is such a 
 lovely place, and — " 
 
 " And so the work got set aside, and all the 
 time that I, poor I, was flattering myself that I 
 was conferring a benefit on society at large, by 
 giving you an opportunity to write your book 
 undisturbed by the distractions of London, you 
 were — merely finding Kingscombe an ideal place 
 for being idle in. For shame, Dr. Meredith ! 
 May I ask what mischief has been found for 
 your idle hands to do which I fondly believed 
 so well employed ? " 
 
 He was not good at badinage, he never had 
 been, he had no repartee, and he was uncomfort- 
 ably conscious that every now and then among 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 201 
 
 the roses with which she pelted him there was a 
 thorn of malice, and that the soft velvet paw 
 concealed claws which might give an ugly- 
 scratch. She had not often treated him in this 
 way, but at times he had seen some presuming 
 youngster so daintily and prettily put to torture 
 that it was only by the visible signs of discom- 
 fiture, the scarlet ears and stammering tongue, 
 and restless hands and deprecating eyes and 
 final precipitate retreat, that any one would have 
 known that she was not showing her victim 
 special honor. 
 
 " And this very important business that dis- 
 tracts your mind from my very frivolous con- 
 versation. May I hear what it is ? The letter 
 came yesterday, you say, and must have absorbed 
 every thought. Indeed, I fancied when I came 
 upon you in the orchard that dull care was 
 pressing heavily upon you, you looked wrapt in 
 thought. Would you kindly pull down the 
 blind if there is one to that dreadful window, 
 the glare is intolerable." 
 
 But what was really intolerable was that 
 
202 DEAR. 
 
 caressing, smoothing of that impossible glove, 
 the sort of thing housemaids wear to black 
 grates in, dirty enough for that too and shape- 
 less, and yet that man sat up fondling it with 
 that inane smile as if he were going to kiss it 
 next moment ; it was sickening. 
 
 And when Oliver, after much fumbling, had 
 managed to pull down the blind, which after 
 resisting his most strenuous pulls to begin with, 
 suddenly gave in and came down with a run to 
 its whole yellow and weather-stained length — 
 when this was done and he returned to his place 
 and felt mechanically for the glove which had 
 seemed a talisman of truth and purity in the 
 atmosphere of unreality and pretence, it was 
 gone, and " my lady " was dusting the dainty 
 tips of her fingers with her cobweb handkerchief 
 as if they had been in contact with something 
 unpleasant. 
 
 But greatly to his relief her mood had changed, 
 and she dropped the bantering tone. 
 
 " Oliver," she said, " of course if this business 
 is really important, I should be the last to wish 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 203 
 
 you to neglect it on my account. We are 
 too old friends for me to think for a minute of 
 my own disappointment at your having to run 
 away directly I arrive." 
 
 " You know," he protested, and I really believe 
 the loss of that glove made him more defence- 
 less — for one thing he could not help looking 
 at her, and no one can deny that Mrs. Maddi- 
 son's eyes are very lovely — " You know that I 
 would much rather stay, but it concerns my 
 future prospects so nearly that I hardly feel 
 justified in putting it aside even for — " 
 
 " Me ? " she ended softly. Their eyes had 
 met now, and how could he end as he might 
 have done if Dear's glove had been in his hand, 
 " even for politeness to you." 
 
 " I think I told you something about it 
 
 before," he went on. "It is Professor K , 
 
 who is carrying out some very interesting 
 scientific experiments at Berlin, and has done 
 me the great honor of proposing that I should 
 go out and work with him. He has read an 
 article of mine bearing on the subject, and 
 
204 DEAR. 
 
 thinks I can be of use to him. There is a 
 handsome salary for the two years during which 
 the experiments will last, and this is, of course, 
 of importance to a poor man as I am ; but 
 besides this, it will be such an introduction in 
 the scientific world as will be greatly to my 
 future advantage, and is a chance that only 
 occurs once in a lifetime." 
 
 Mrs. Maddison had been listening with that 
 engrossed air of interest that made her so de- 
 lightful a companion ; but on this occasion it 
 was not assumed, for in her own mind she was 
 weighing the pros and cons of those two years 
 at fierlin. As far as the salary went, it was not 
 worth thinking of, her husband would have no 
 need to trouble about such a trifle ; but if it 
 led, as he said, to distinction, it would be worth 
 the sacrifice, for Berlin was, in her opinion, a 
 hideously dull place, and Germans she loathed 
 with a good honest abhorrence of all their unin- 
 teresting varieties ; from the hausfran, ill-dressed 
 and clumsy and subservient to the superior sex, 
 to the sensible, coarse, money-making German, 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 205 
 
 or the heavily intellectual or the enthusiastically 
 artistic, — all she equally detested. 
 
 But still even two years in Berlin might be 
 made endurable, and a vision of agreeable 
 attaches and handsome Prussian officers served 
 to throw a little color into the otherwise 
 gloomy picture. 
 
 There was a little pause after Oliver ceased 
 speaking, while Mrs. Maddison's thoughts ran on 
 and pictured herself the centre of an amusing 
 and brillant circle, while her husband's reputa- 
 tion was growing and becoming known in all 
 the capitals of Europe. 
 
 And he too was thinking of two years at Ber- 
 lin, and of a modest flat which that salary would 
 make comfortable if not luxurious, and of a wife 
 whose sympathy would follow him into all his 
 studies, and whose pure, sweet, innocent appre- 
 ciation would make life full of beauty and 
 interest. He was a slower painter of mind 
 pictures than she was, or else he loved to dwell 
 on each delicate, little touch that brought out 
 the harmonious whole, for hers was finished with 
 
206 DEAR. 
 
 a glitter of gems and diplomatic orders and 
 Prussian uniforms, a very brilliant piece of work, 
 I can assure you, and she was speaking again 
 before he had got his canvas half filled in. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "you must not let the oppor- 
 tunity slip. Is it too late to go to-day ? Am I 
 not good to let you go and leave me in this 
 forsaken place ? But you will come back, will 
 you not, Oliver? It will be only for a few 
 days, and then you will come back ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, I will come back," he answered, 
 and there was a fervor in his tone which was 
 gratifying. 
 
 "To me," she told herself. 
 
 "To Dear," he told himself. 
 
 But it was so great a comfort to him to find 
 his way made easy, that he could not help feel- 
 ing grateful to Mrs. Maddison for having made 
 it so ; and when she went on to speak in praise 
 of Dear without the patronising sneer of the day 
 before, Oliver confessed to himself that there was 
 a great charm about Mrs. Maddison, and that he 
 should be very sorry to lose her friendship ; and 
 
A WOMAN'S WILL. 207 
 
 when she finished up by asking if he would go 
 and beg Miss Hume to come up and have tea 
 with her that afternoon, he could have kissed 
 her hand with the greatest pleasure, as she 
 seemed to be giving him an opportunity of finish- 
 ing that explanation with Dear which her sud- 
 den appearance had interrupted the previous 
 afternoon. 
 
 He might have felt less grateful to her if he 
 had known that Mrs. Maddison had already 
 despatched Ralph to the Vicarage, so she knew 
 that Oliver would not find Dear alone ; and 
 that the moment he was out of the room, the 
 languid grace and smiling serenity of her man- 
 ner changed, as she snatched a little worn glove 
 from where it lay hid under a fold of her dress 
 and tore at it with an energy you would hardly 
 have credited her with. Duncan, coming into 
 the room a moment later, stood looking in 
 surprise at the unaccustomed sight of " my lady" 
 with the poker in her hand — and such a poker 
 too, not one of those fairy-like polished steel 
 and brass implements, such as was to be found 
 
208 DEAR. 
 
 in the Mayfair rooms, but a good, honest, heavy, 
 old-fashioned poker, in keeping with the house 
 and its furniture — and with this. Mrs. Maddison 
 was ramming something down into the hot 
 coals, but what it was he could not see. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AWAY FROM DEAR. 
 
 " Whatever in fame's high path could waken 
 My spirit once, is now forsaken 
 For thee, thee, only thee. 
 Like shores by which some headlong bark 
 
 To the ocean hurries, resting never, 
 Life's scenes go by me, bright or dark 
 I know not, heed not, hastening ever 
 To thee, thee, only thee." — Moore. 
 
 A ND so Oliver Meredith went away from 
 Kingscombe that afternoon, and the fates 
 that had been so kind to him the day before, in 
 the matter of allowing tete-a-tete interviews with 
 Dear, seemed to have turned crusty, for he only 
 saw her for a few minutes just as he was start- 
 ing, and then in the presence of Mrs. Maddison, 
 Ralph and Clive, with Mdlle. Clarisse fluttering 
 in the background, and Duncan coming fussing 
 14 (209) 
 
210 DEAR. 
 
 with the key of his portmanteau and inquiries 
 as to his wishes about a hatbox. 
 
 He had no opportunity for a single word, he 
 could not hold her hand a second longer than 
 usual as he bade her good-bye, he could not 
 even look at her without his glance being inter- 
 cepted either by Ralph's long limbs, that seemed 
 all over the place, or Mrs. Maddison's feather 
 fan, that seemed somehow to have the art, in 
 its graceful movement, of drawing attention 
 however unwillingly from every one else, and 
 concentrating it on herself. And Dear's eyes 
 never once met his ; they were fixed for the 
 most part on some flowers lying on the table, 
 which Mrs. Maddison had gathered in the 
 garden, in a short turn which she took with 
 Oliver after lunch. They were picked with 
 that want of consideration which marks people 
 who do not really care for flowers, one rose 
 broken off with a long strip of bark torn from 
 the tender stem, another with half a dozen 
 young buds, too young to be pretty, and with 
 none of its own leaves to give the flower its 
 
AWAY FROM DEAR. 211 
 
 right complement of green, a piece of fuchsia 
 broken off the central shoot, and spoiling the 
 shape of the plant for good and all, some 
 mignonette pulled up by the roots, and all left 
 on the table to grow limp and withered in the 
 afternoon sun. 
 
 Oliver himself, who had learnt of late gentler 
 treatment, could hardly restrain an expostulation 
 as he watched " my lady " gather them, and he 
 could guess the feeling in Dear's heart as she 
 looked at them, the pity as for some living thing 
 that could feel and suffer. 
 
 She was pale, he thought, but there was never 
 much color on the white skin ; she was silent, 
 but she never was a very great talker. Was 
 her mouth always so grave ? he wondered, or 
 was it only that it struck him more as brought 
 in contrast with Mrs. Maddison's dimpling 
 smiles ? 
 
 She had been out when he went in the 
 morning with Mrs. Maddison's message, as 
 perhaps " my lady " knew would be the case, 
 and she only came to the Manor a few minutes 
 
212 DEAR. 
 
 before the fly arrived to take Oliver and his 
 belongings to Cheriton to catch the night mail. 
 
 He was up in his room, packing his port- 
 manteau when she came ; and when he went 
 down, she was sitting in the drawing-room 
 watching those withering flowers. 
 
 " I was telling Miss Hume, Oliver," Mrs. 
 Maddison said, and he felt a little prick, like the 
 sting of a gnat, every time she said his Christian 
 name before Dear, with that soft inflection of 
 the voice on the word that was almost a caress. 
 When had she begun to call him by his Christian 
 name ? He could not remember, but it seemed 
 to him that it used not to be so continual 
 before this. " I was telling Miss Hume, Oliver, 
 that you are going to run away from us this 
 afternoon. I had to explain to her that it was 
 not exactly my coming that had scared you 
 away, but important business — for it does look 
 suspicious, doesn't it ? that he should go the 
 very first day I am here." 
 
 And then she gathered Oliver's attention to 
 herself with that prettily-imperious wave of the 
 
AWAY FROM DEAR. 21 3 
 
 fan, and shut out the others, and her voice grew 
 confidential. 
 
 " You will write to me directly you have seen 
 
 Professor K , won't you, Oliver ? You know 
 
 how anxious I shall be to hear the result." 
 And so on, and all the time he was listening 
 with Dear's ears, and feeling how it must give 
 her the impression of the great intimacy and 
 confidence existing between him and Mrs. 
 Maddison. 
 
 And then it was time to go, and he held Dear's 
 hand in his for a second ; it was cold and a little 
 tremulous, he fancied, but how can you judge 
 of the feel of a hand in such a momentary 
 clasp ? 
 
 It brought back to his mind the remembrance 
 of that little glove he had been holding in the 
 morning, and a sudden, ridiculous wish seized 
 him to have it to carry away with him. He 
 had absolutely nothing of Dear's, not a photo- 
 graph or flower or ribbon, not a scrap even of 
 her handwriting. It is easy enough to make 
 fun of such sentimental nonsense, but the most 
 
212 DEAR. 
 
 before the fly arrived to take Oliver and his 
 belongings to Cheriton to catch the night mail. 
 
 He was up in his room, packing his port- 
 manteau when she came ; and when he went 
 down, she was sitting in the drawing-room 
 watching those withering flowers. 
 
 " I was telling Miss Hume, Oliver," Mrs. 
 Maddison said, and he felt a little prick, like the 
 sting of a gnat, every time she said his Christian 
 name before Dear, with that soft inflection of 
 the voice on the word that was almost a caress. 
 When had she begun to call him by his Christian 
 name ? He could not remember, but it seemed 
 to him that it used not to be so continual 
 before this. " I was telling Miss Hume, Oliver, 
 that you are going to run away from us this 
 afternoon. I had to explain to her that it was 
 not exactly my coming that had scared you 
 away, but important business — for it does look 
 suspicious, doesn't it ? that he should go the 
 very first day I am here." 
 
 And then she gathered Oliver's attention to 
 herself with that prettily-imperious wave of the 
 
AWAY FROM DEAR. 21 5 
 
 unprotected standing there, though Ralph was 
 close beside her, all his six feet two of height, 
 and with one elbow leaning against the door- 
 post above her head, in an attitude suggestive 
 of protection, a long-limbed guardian angel in 
 tweed. 
 
 It comforted Oliver much more to think of 
 Dan's not very amiable face and tan ears on her 
 other side, and, just as the turn in the drive 
 came and shut out the view of the group still 
 standing on the portico steps, he saw Dan caught 
 up in Dear's arms, and her lips — could it have 
 been to hide their quivering ? — pressed on the 
 dog's head. 
 
 " Dan will protect her," he thought, as if 
 there were dangers threatening the girl in those 
 few days during which he would be away, and 
 then he laughed at himself for this absurd 
 feeling of apprehension. What should befall 
 her with Ralph sworn to her service, and e.very 
 man, woman, and child, ay ! and beast too, 
 in Kingscombe her devoted lieges ? Even 
 Mrs. Maddison had spoken kindly of her that 
 
2IO DEAR. 
 
 morning, and had expressed a wish for her 
 company. 
 
 It was all so bright and sunny as he drove 
 away ; the weather had not proved too bright to 
 last, as Mrs. Lynch had prophesied, and summer 
 showed no signs of being over as Dear had 
 sadly told herself ; and Kingscombe looked its- 
 fairest and most peaceful in the afternoon 
 radiance. There was no thunder-cloud hanging 
 over the place, no smell of pestilence in the 
 sweet air, no sign of those green hills or gray 
 rocks preparing to hurl themselves down on the 
 little village nestling below, and yet Oliver once 
 laid his hand on the check-string to bid the 
 driver turn back, for he must see Dear again, 
 even at the risk of losing his train. But when 
 the man turned round to see what his fare 
 wanted, common sense re-asserted itself, and he 
 bade the man drive on and look alive, as there 
 was no time to be lost. 
 
 He felt this unreasonable fear less acutely as 
 the days passed on, for the few days he had 
 agreed with Mrs. Maddison as the time of his 
 
AWAY FROM DEAR. 2\J 
 
 absence lengthened into weeks. Business looks 
 very different when you are in the midst of its 
 hurry and bustle in London, to what it does as 
 seen from afar in the peaceful atmosphere of 
 Kingscombe. He found many arrears of busi- 
 ness to be attended to, letters to be answered, 
 interviews to be effected, publishers to be molli- 
 fied, friends who could not be put off, or made 
 short work of ; and above all, he found that the 
 delay in answering that letter, which had been 
 forwarded to him from London, and which, as we 
 have seen, he had not attended to immediately 
 on receiving it, had made it necessary for him 
 to go to Berlin, to see the Professor himself. 
 
 He did not mind the journey, except in so far 
 as it delayed his return to Kingscombe ; he had 
 often made it before ; but every incident in it 
 came fresh and interesting, as he imagined how 
 it would strike on a mind that had never since 
 babyhood been ten miles from Kingscombe, and 
 yet was in no way narrowed or cramped, but 
 was eager and open, and appreciative of new 
 impressions. 
 
2l8 DEAR 
 
 Berlin had never appeared to him so beautiful ; 
 he was never tired of Unter den Linden, with the 
 thought of how Dear would like it ; he looked in 
 at the Grand Opera, and half envied the solemn, 
 stout, spectacled Germans, because so many had 
 their stolid, little wives tucked under their arms, 
 and yet more than half pitied them, because 
 those wives were so unlike Dear. 
 
 He was amused and inwardly pleased at the 
 Professor being disappointed at his youthful 
 appearance ; he felt so much younger inwardly 
 that it was pleasing to know that it showed out- 
 wardly also, even though it imperilled his pros- 
 pects with the serious, old Professor. He found 
 it difficult to subdue his manner into befitting 
 gravity, he who in the early days at Kingscombe 
 had felt so old and grave, and the Professor at 
 one time felt serious doubts of the identity of 
 this frivolous boy with the writer of that thought- 
 ful treatise which had so impressed him. 
 
 What would the old Vicar do without Dear ? 
 That was the only misgiving that beset him in 
 his sunny dreams of the future. Her father was 
 
AWAY FROM DEAR. 219 
 
 so dependent on her; Oliver remembered one 
 evening coming into the vicarage and finding 
 the little Vicar sleeping, after a very tiring day 
 of harassing work. He had fallen asleep with his 
 head against Dear's shoulder as she sat, in a not 
 very comfortable position, on the arm of his 
 chair. She must have been cramped, and weary 
 of the constrained attitude, but she would not 
 move as long as the tired, old head, with its thin 
 gray hair, rested against her, and she held up a 
 finger entreating silence, as he came in. He 
 had very quietly taken his seat just behind them, 
 and had sat there in silence for an hour of soft 
 deepening twilight. This was one of his 
 treasured memories of a tete-a-tete with Dear, 
 silent to be sure, though sometimes he thought 
 that silence was more full of sympathy than 
 words. 
 
 But against whose shoulder would the gray 
 head rest when Dear was gone ? That troubled 
 him even in his brightest anticipations. For 
 Clive the matter was easily settled. He must 
 go to Cambridge, that must be managed, how- 
 
220 DEAR. 
 
 ever small the income, and he knew how 
 gladly, eagerly, Dear would- economize to effect 
 this. 
 
 He wrote several times to Mrs. Maddison, 
 and heard two or three times in reply, letters 
 which he tore open with a passionate anxiety 
 which would have gratified that lady if she 
 could have seen it, and if she could have 
 avoided seeing also the disappointment with 
 which the eagerly-welcomed letter was tossed 
 aside when it was found to contain no news of 
 Dear. 
 
 Mrs. Maddison took this prolonged absence 
 very reasonably, indeed he almost fancied she 
 was glad he could not return on the day first 
 named. She wrote a good deal more about his 
 affairs than her own, but then, as she always 
 ended, " there is so little ever happens at Kings- 
 combe, as you know by experience." 
 
 He wondered at her stopping there so long ; 
 he knew she had other plans for the autumn, 
 and he could not believe that she could find the 
 same fascination as he had. He tried to imagine 
 
AWAY FROM DEAR. 221 
 
 how she passed her days. That first day had 
 seemed to pass heavily enough ; she had com- 
 plained more than once of ennui before she had 
 been there twenty-four hours, and she had told 
 him that when he was gone it would be quite 
 insupportable, and yet three weeks had passed 
 and she had said not a word of a move. He 
 wished she would leave ; he had left many of 
 his belongings there, so he would have sufficient 
 excuse for going back, and without Mrs. Mad- 
 dison or Ralph, who, no doubt, would go with 
 his mother, there would be no one to come 
 between him and Dear. 
 
 Though September was half over, the weather 
 was still supporting its reputation of being ex- 
 ceptionally fine ; the sun was still warm and 
 genial, the river would still look like fairy-land 
 as their boat floated down, and there would be 
 autumn tints on trees and coverts to give novelty 
 to what was lovely enough before ; the orchard 
 would still be chequered with golden light and 
 soft ashen shadows, and if a yellow leaf fluttered 
 down to remind them that summer was over, he 
 
222 DEAR. 
 
 would look into Dear's eyes, and find ever- 
 lasting spring. 
 
 But Mrs. Maddison seemed settled at Kings- 
 combe, so he must reckon on her presence there, 
 and Ralph too, on his return, unless indeed dur- 
 ing the few last days of his stay in Berlin, in the 
 course of which no letters had reached him, the 
 dullness of Kingscombe had become intolerable, 
 and she had made up her mind to strike her 
 tents. 
 
 At last his business was settled, and he 
 was free to return to England. The Professor 
 had gathered from one or two hints let fall in 
 conversation, that when Dr. Meredith came 
 to Berlin at Christmas, he would not come 
 alone, and had gravely approved of the pro- 
 spect of the lady wife, having an extremely 
 stout, old wife of his own, worth her weight in 
 gold, which is saying a great deal. 
 
 One day in London would be enough, he 
 decided, to see his publishers and pick up his 
 letters, and the next morning he would start for 
 Kingscombe to go to Dear. But as he came 
 
AWAY FROM DEAR. 223 
 
 out of his publisher's office, he ran up against 
 the very last person he expected to see in 
 London, who also seemed as much astonished 
 at seeing him there — it was the invaluable 
 Duncan. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WEDDING BELLS. 
 
 "... Deep as love, 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
 O Death in Life ! the days that are no more." 
 I — Tennyson. 
 
 " T S Mrs. Maddison in London ? Have they 
 left Kingscombe ? " 
 
 "How is Mr. Ralph ? Have you just come 
 up from Kingscombe ? " 
 
 Duncan's usually imperturbably respectful 
 manner was quite upset by his surprise at 
 seeing Dr. Meredith, and he stood staring at 
 him as if he could hardly believe his senses ! 
 
 " I understood my lady to say," he said, "that 
 you was back at Kingscombe more than a fort- 
 night ago. Beg your pardon, sir, for, of course, 
 it's my mistake ; but I was just thinking of you 
 (224) 
 
WEDDING-BELLS. 225 
 
 and Mr. Ralph, and hoping I'd find him pretty 
 middling when I got back to-morrow, for I didn't 
 like the look of him when I left. He was very 
 queer, though he wouldn't own to it, and at the 
 last moment I'd two minds about going, only 
 my lady said that you was sure to come back 
 next day, and if Mr. Ralph was poorly, which 
 she couldn't see any signs of, she said, and that 
 it was all my fancy, but anyhow if he was, you'd 
 be there to look after him, and they'd let me 
 know if I was wanted. I didn't at all particularly 
 care for a holiday just now, as Kingscombe suits 
 me and I've took a liking to the place, and I'd 
 a deal rather have had it later when my lady 
 was back in London, and Donaldson could valet 
 Mr. Ralph a bit, and my folks was home from 
 Scotland." 
 
 " There was no talk of your having a holiday 
 when I left, Duncan." 
 
 " No, nor it never crossed my mind, least of 
 
 all when my lady had just come and wanted 
 
 things made comfortable, and Mrs. Lynch 
 
 nervous about not having things as my lady 
 
 IS 
 
226 DEAR. 
 
 was used to, and wanting me to tell her every 
 little thing, even down to how she liked her 
 melted, butter done." 
 
 Duncan's face relapsed into a smile at the 
 remembrance of Mrs. Lynch's nervous depen- 
 dence, but it soon resumed its serious expres- 
 sion, and his anxiety was communicating itself to 
 Oliver, though he hardly knew why he felt 
 uneasy or what he dreaded. 
 
 " Have you heard from Mrs. Maddison since 
 you came away ? " 
 
 " Yes, and that's curious too, for she nearly 
 always makes Mdlle. Clarisse write when there's 
 anything to say, and though it takes half one's 
 time to make out the girl's scrawl, one finds out 
 what's going on without her always intending it. 
 But my lady wrote herself this time to say it 
 was all going right, and Mr. Ralph was quite 
 well, and I need not come back for another 
 week. I have the letter here." 
 
 By this time they had reached Dr. Meredith's 
 rooms, towards which they had been walking as 
 they talked. Oliver turned over again the heap 
 
WEDDING-BELLS. 227 
 
 of letters he had hastily opened on his arrival 
 that morning, in case there might be one from 
 Kingscombe which had escaped his notice, 
 but there was none, and then he looked at the 
 note Mrs. Maddison had sent to Duncan. It 
 was dated a week back, and was an ordinary, 
 ladylike, little note, such as any mistress might 
 write to a valued and rather confidential man- 
 servant, and yet it gave Oliver an undefined 
 feeling of nervousness as it did Duncan. It 
 was no use telling himself it was nonsense, and 
 that there was no reason why mother and son 
 should not enjoy two or three weeks to them- 
 selves, unrestrained by the society even of a 
 friend as intimate as himself, or a servant whose 
 rule often becomes tyrannical when he knows 
 himself to be indispensable. 
 
 He could not rid himself of an uneasy feeling, 
 nor could Duncan either apparently, for he kept 
 fidgeting about the room and interrupting Dr. 
 Meredith in a manner totally unlike his usual 
 behavior. 
 
 " He was queer and out of sorts, and I told 
 
228 DEAR. 
 
 her so. He had that restlessness that's always 
 a sign when one of those fits is coming on, and 
 that way of facing it out that he was all right 
 and that there was no need to be bothering, 
 and as savage as a bear because he caught me 
 watching him. I haven't been with him these 
 six years without knowing pretty well when he's 
 in for one of them, though I've known them 
 kept off if he keeps quiet and don't excite 
 himself about anything. But there ! he's that 
 contrary, as you know, sir, that when he feels 
 queer, he'll do just the thing to make him worse, 
 such as he'd never think of doing when he was 
 pretty well ; and his mother — asking your 
 pardon, sir, and I wouldn't say it if there was 
 any one besides ourselves and you an old 
 friend of the family — she's no more sense or 
 consideration for him than that table." 
 
 " But, Duncan," Oliver protested, arguing as 
 much against his own senseless apprehension as 
 against the man's, "Mrs. Maddison would be 
 the last person to wish Mr. Ralph to be ill, least 
 of all when you were away. She has such entire 
 
WEDDING-BELLS. 229 
 
 confidence in you and in your knowing how to 
 manage when Mr. Ralph gets one of those fits, 
 that she would never have let you go if she had 
 felt the least fear of such a thing. And besides, 
 she would have telegraphed for you at once if 
 there had been any alarm. Look here ! we 
 should have time to catch the night express if 
 we look sharp. Hurry up and fetch your traps, 
 and meet me at Paddington at seven." 
 
 He told himself, as he re-packed the few 
 things he had taken out of his portmanteau, 
 that Duncan was a fool and he was a bigger one, 
 after travelling all the night before with all the 
 wretched discomforts of a night journey, the 
 rattle and grind and the short feverish naps in 
 constrained and cramped positions, broken by 
 the long shrieking whistle as the train rushed 
 through some lighted station out into the dark- 
 ness, and then the pale, sickly dawn, when you 
 feel dirty and shivering, and the stopping at 
 some station and the appearance of fellow- 
 passengers in all sorts of unbecoming costumes, 
 querulous, fatigued women and surly, unshaven 
 
230 DEAR. 
 
 men, struggling for coffee without any pretence 
 at courtesy or ordinary politeness. Certainly 
 one does not get favorable impressions of one's 
 kind during a night journey. 
 
 It was all so fresh in his memory and yet he 
 chose to repeat the dose, when he might have 
 had a comfortable night in his own bed and a 
 leisurely toilette, and gone comfortably down to 
 Kingscombe arriving, when he was expected, in 
 time for dinner. The feeling that he was a fool 
 for his pains increased on him through the night, 
 and culminated when he found himself standing 
 on the platform at Cheriton at eight o'clock 
 next morning, very grimy and bristly as to his 
 chin, and stiff as to his limbs and cross as to his 
 temper, not at all in a frame of mind or body to 
 present himself before his lady love, still less 
 before Mrs. Maddison. 
 
 Perhaps Duncan felt a little bit the same, for 
 when Dr. Meredith proposed a wash up and 
 breakfast at the railway hotel before they went 
 on to Kingscombe, he offered no objection ; and, 
 having sacrificed their night's rest and comfort 
 
WEDDING-BELLS. 23 1 
 
 for the sake of reaching Kingscombe earlier, 
 they sat over their breakfast in the cheerful, little 
 coffee-room at the hotel while Oliver described 
 the details of his journey to Berlin to Duncan, 
 who had been a great traveller in his time and 
 had all the continental railways and most of 
 the hotels at his fingers'-ends, and was well 
 acquainted with and loved to discuss all the 
 knavish tricks of foreigners as practised on the 
 British tourist. 
 
 So it was nearly ten before they set off in a 
 fly for Kingscombe, and then, the morning being 
 beautiful with the fresh, invigorating beauty of 
 late September, with thick white dew on the 
 grass and studding the cobwebs on the hedge- 
 rows, and the trees all russet and golden over- 
 head against the pale, pleasant, blue sky, they 
 agreed to send on their traps in the fly, whose 
 shambling gray horse did not go at an exhila- 
 rating pace, and walk themselves over the hill to 
 Kingscombe, climbing to the top by what in 
 those parts was called "the pig's path," steps 
 cut or worn in the turf, which would bring them 
 
232 DEAR. 
 
 up to the brow of the hill, right over Kings- 
 combe, from whence they could drop down on 
 the village nestling below. 
 
 Oliver had lost all that feeling of apprehension 
 that had brought him down at so much persona] 
 discomfort through the night. The pleasure of 
 getting back to Kingscombe had taken its place, 
 the sense of nearness to Dear, the charm of the 
 place, the thought of what he should say, how 
 she would answer when they met. It was all so 
 exquisitely sweet to think of, that he stopped 
 when he reached the top of the hill and sat 
 down, hoping that Duncan would go on and 
 leave him to his own devices. But Duncan too 
 seemed to have lost all wish to hurry, and he 
 too took a seat on a flat gray stone hard by and 
 puffed away at his pipe in peaceful silence ; he 
 too, perhaps, having pleasing subjects of reflec- 
 tion connected with the little village below, 
 from whose chimneys the blue wood smoke 
 curled up. 
 
 It was the very spot where Dear and Ralph 
 had sat six years before, tossing the snail shells 
 
WEDDING-BELLS. 233 
 
 at the sheep feeding below them, and discussing 
 the possibility of being bored in such an in- 
 teresting world ; it was nearly the place where a 
 month before Oliver had come in sight of Dear 
 with Dan by her side returning to the village. 
 What if kind fate would permit such a thing to 
 occur again ? What if he might make his way 
 down the steep hillside and through those gorse 
 bushes to the lower path and join her, and see 
 the color brighten in her cheeks and her eyes 
 meet his with startled glad surprise ? 
 
 But at the very moment that the thought sent 
 the blood warm and quick through his veins, 
 from the little gray church tower below, the bells 
 began to ring out a glad peal of their sweet, old 
 tones, with a clash and a hurry and a cheerful 
 energy as if each wanted to be the first to tell 
 some good news and set the world smiling. 
 
 " Hullo, Duncan, there's a wedding. Who can 
 it be ? Steady there ! That's Nicholls with the 
 tenor bell, he's always running away. Don't 
 they ring with a will ? It might be one of them- 
 selves being married to hear them. Well done ! 
 
234 DEAR. 
 
 Well done! Come, Duncan, let's go down or 
 we shall be too late to drink their health, 
 whoever they may be." 
 
 " Will they ring like that for me ? " he won- 
 dered, "for me and Dear ? " 
 
 Down below at the foot of the hill is a little 
 bit of arable land, shaped like a cocked-hat, with 
 the point running up into the hillside turf. It 
 had been ploughed and sown since Oliver had 
 been gone, and now a village boy had been set 
 to watch over it and prevent the great, shiny, 
 black rooks who sailed so solemnly round the 
 shoulder of the hill, from settling down on the 
 patch and carrying off the seed. It needed all 
 little Will Kemp's power of lungs and the heavy 
 wooden rattle with which he was furnished to 
 keep the rooks away, and even with his best 
 exertions one of them would leave the clamorous 
 party in the elms, and ignoring Will's hoarse, 
 Loamshire objurgations and the clods of earth 
 that supplemented them, drop on to the rich 
 brown mould with a loud, raucous caw of 
 triumph. 
 
WEDDING-BELLS. 235 
 
 But just now the rooks had a fine opportunity 
 of taking their fill, for Will Kemp's attention 
 had been entirely distracted from the cocked- 
 hat patch by the church bells, and, mounted on 
 the gate with his back turned to the field, he 
 was vainly trying to follow the bells with his 
 voice, " Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding- 
 dong," and finding that impossible from their 
 glad hurry, one bell treading on another's heels 
 and tripping over one another, he subsided into 
 " Hip, hip, hip, hooray ! hip, hip, hip, hooray ! " 
 whirling the rattle round and round his head to 
 add to the gratifying din. 
 
 He was so deafened by his own performances 
 that it was a minute or two before he could hear 
 Oliver's question — 
 
 " Whose wedding is it, Willie ? " and when he 
 heard it, his mouth dropped and his eyes opened 
 in such surprise, almost amounting to incredulity, 
 that any one, most of all " Muster Doctor," should 
 be ignorant of such a tremendous fact, delayed 
 his answer. 
 
 " Don't yer know ? Well a-never ! Don'tee 
 
236 DEAR. 
 
 hear the bells ? Why it's the young Squire's 
 wedding, blesh yer, and Miss Dear's. Hip, hip, 
 hip, hooray ! ding-dong, ding-dong. Hip, hip, 
 hooray. B — r — r — r — r — Oh ! I say ! leave 
 go ! I ain't done nothing ! Tain't a lie ! " 
 
 For " Muster Doctor," as the boy told after- 
 wards, had got him by the collar and was shak- 
 ing him till his teeth chattered, and then flung 
 him into a gorse bush as if he had been an old 
 sack, and went striding off towards the village 
 with the wooden rattle grasped unconsciously in 
 his hand, and " Muster Duncan after him with a 
 face as long as my arm." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 a mother's doing. 
 
 " That a lie which is half the truth is ever the blackest 
 of lies, 
 That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought 
 
 with outright ; 
 But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to 
 , fight." — Tennyson. 
 
 /^\UT of the little gray church at Kingscombe, 
 as the bells announced far and near, a 
 wedding party was coming, and the whole popu- 
 lation of the village was there to see, except that 
 poor, little, ill-used Will Kemp, of whom mention 
 has been made in the last chapter. Old women 
 who had not been outside their doors or out of 
 their armchairs for years, babies of a few days 
 old, hobbling, crippled, old men, laborers from 
 the plough, women from the wash-tub, all 
 
 (237) 
 
238 DEAR. 
 
 pressing, crowding round to wish their Miss 
 Dear happiness on her wedding-day. 
 
 Happy is the bride that the sun shines on, 
 and, as we have seen, the sun was shining with 
 a will that September day, and, as the bride 
 came out from the shadow of the old yew-tree, 
 it fell full upon her like a loving blessing from 
 the kind old nurse, Nature, whom the girl had 
 loved and learnt of from her babyhood. 
 
 Dear was very pale, but then she had never 
 much color, and her eyes had a startled, dazed 
 look in them, such as one does not often see in 
 a happy, young bride. 
 
 "She didn't look somehow natural like!" 
 was the verdict of the loving hearts who had 
 known her all her life, since she was the baby 
 child of two years in the drab pelisse who had 
 won them all by her innocent confidence in 
 their kindness. They really did feel this mis- 
 giving, though, as none of them mentioned the 
 fact till after events had clouded the brightness 
 of the wedding-day, cynical hearers might have 
 doubted it. 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 239 
 
 Dress, as I have said before, made but little 
 difference in Dear, or else this day of all days 
 of her life she should have appeared to advan- 
 tage, for Mdlle. Clarisse had had the making of 
 the soft white dress, and no doubt imparted to 
 it a style which none of Dear's dresses had ever 
 known before ; and the same skilful fingers had 
 arranged the fair hair into soft plaits and curls, 
 the very abundance of the material being an 
 embarrassment to one used to make the most of 
 scantiness, and supplement it with artificial aids. 
 
 No one could wonder if the bride's face were 
 anxious or troubled who looked at the bride- 
 groom who walked by her side in such a strange, 
 shambling, spasmodic way. " Dear sakes ! " 
 whispered one of the onlookers, " if it ain't a-been 
 the young Squire, a-might have said he'd had a 
 drop." There was a glazy, staring look in his 
 eyes, and he bit at his under lip as though he 
 were trying to control himself, and the arm that 
 Dear held trembled and twitched under her 
 hand, and once, as they came down the aisle, 
 he stopped and held to the side of a pew, as if 
 
he needed support, and then pushed back the 
 damp hair from his forehead and passed his 
 hand over his eyes as if he could not see dis- 
 tinctly. No wonder that the bride should look 
 troubled, or that his mother, following close be- 
 hind with Clive, should watch him so anxiously. 
 Mrs. Maddison looked haggard ; yes, even in 
 spite of her careful toilette and artistic com- 
 plexion, she looked old and haggard as she 
 came out into the September sunshine. Those 
 three weeks had aged her more than double 
 their number of years had done. One of the 
 bystanders spoke of her as " t' ould lady," and 
 no one protested at the application of the 
 adjective. But indeed she had had hard work 
 during those three weeks, the time was so short, 
 the anxieties and risks so great, it was enough to 
 wear and age a stronger woman ; and even now, 
 when the purpose for which she had worked and 
 intrigued was successfully carried out, there was 
 Oliver's return to face, which every moment 
 grew a more terrible prospect to her guilty 
 conscience. 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 241 
 
 She had made up her mind to this that very 
 first morning at Kingscombe when Oliver had 
 sat playing with Dear's glove ; it had been a 
 firm and fixed purpose when she stood bidding 
 him good-bye on the steps as he drove away. 
 Dear, as a possible rival, and the possibility 
 might almost be reckoned a certainty, and a 
 successful rival too, must be removed clear out 
 of Oliver's reach, and how better than by marry- 
 ing her to Ralph, who was devoted to the girl ? 
 It was no sacrifice of Dear, she told herself, 
 when conscience — poor, easily smothered, little 
 conscience, used to summary treatment for many 
 a year at Mrs. Maddison's hands, but still lifting 
 its head and making its thin, little voice heard 
 — ventured a remonstrance ; it was a brilliant 
 match for a penniless clergyman's daughter, and 
 one which few mothers in her situation would 
 have thought good enough, for their only son, 
 but Ralph's heart was set on it, and as long as 
 he was happy and well, this unworldly mother 
 was content. 
 
 It was easy enough to put it into Ralph's 
 16 
 
242 DEAR. 
 
 head. That very first evening after Oliver's 
 departure, and before Duncan, had been 
 despatched for his holiday, the seed was suc- 
 cessfully sown. 
 
 He was so well at Kingscombe, it really 
 appeared to suit him so thoroughly that it 
 seemed a pity he should not make up his mind 
 to settle there. It was just what his poor father 
 would have liked, and the place could easily 
 be improved and modernized and the stables 
 rebuilt. 
 
 " But, mother, you would not like it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Maddison smiled behind her fan. What 
 a child he is still ! " No," she answered, " and 
 you would want some one younger and brighter 
 than your poor, old mother. Ralph," she said, 
 and she laid her hand on his knee as they sat in 
 the firelight in the drawing-room — " Ralph, I 
 think a wife is what you want. I have taken a 
 great fancy to this little Dear of yours, and I 
 have a dream that I should like her for a 
 daughter-in-law." 
 
 After that the conversation seemed to Mrs. 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 243 
 
 Maddison to become rather monotonous, even 
 though the substance of it was exactly what she 
 wished. There is a limit to hearing another 
 woman's praises sung, and she had to hide more 
 than one yawn behind her fan, and once she 
 caught herself nodding and was only awakened, 
 and that thoroughly, by hearing him say : " But 
 I don't think I'm half good enough for her, and 
 besides, I've sometimes thought she had a liking 
 for Meredith." 
 
 "Nonsense!" her voice startled him it was 
 so sharp ; "it's plain to any one that she prefers 
 you. Dr. Meredith is much too serious to take 
 a girl's fancy." 
 
 " Well, perhaps he is a bit prosy," and Ralph 
 was launched again on his wearisome elo- 
 quence. 
 
 So far, so good, but it was not so easy with 
 Dear, though Mrs. Maddison implored Ralph to 
 let her pave the way before he came blundering 
 out with his proposal and frightened the girl. She 
 made a great deal of Dear the next day or two, 
 and took infinite pains to make her like her, and 
 
244 DEAR. 
 
 succeeded, for a true nature does not easily 
 suspect deceit, and the first intuitive repulsion 
 Dear had felt died away before Mrs. Maddison's 
 caressing kindness. 
 
 Oliver's name was never mentioned, but the 
 conversation turned much on Ralph whenever 
 he was not present and the two were alone 
 together. Dear was ready enough to talk of 
 him — almost too ready — Mrs. Maddison thought. 
 There was no shyness, no consciousness, as a girl 
 might show when talking of a possible lover ; 
 she spoke of him just as she did of Clive, and 
 did not hesitate to say she was fond of him and 
 discuss his good looks and pleasant manners, 
 and to say how much she should miss him when 
 he went away ; but she said it all without a 
 shade of color rising to her cheeks or a 
 moment's lowering of the eyes that looked so 
 simply and straight at his mother. Mrs. 
 Maddison knew enough of girls' nature to feel 
 that this was not encouraging. 
 
 Dear entered with earnest sympathy into all 
 Mrs. Maddison's anxiety about Ralph's delicacy 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 245 
 
 of health, and agreed that Kingscombe seemed 
 to suit him wonderfully well. 
 
 "I have been telling him," Mrs. Maddison 
 said, " that as he is so well and so happy here, 
 it seems to me that he cannot do better than 
 settle down as a country squire in the old place 
 as his father did before him. His father would 
 have loved to think of Ralph taking up the 
 position he himself held in the county ; and, 
 of course, a great deal might be- done to make 
 the place more habitable, only — " and here Mrs. 
 Maddison sighed and paused for a minute, and 
 Dear waited inquiringly — " only I am afraid I 
 could not possibly come and live with him here, 
 poor boy ! There are so many ties and duties 
 that keep me in London." 
 
 " Yes," Dear answered in eager response to a 
 mother's feelings, " it would be dreadful for you 
 being separated from him." 
 
 " Yes, of course," said Mrs. Maddison, with a 
 touch of impatience in her voice; "but I was 
 not thinking of myself but of him ; it would be 
 
246 DEAR. 
 
 so lonely for him, and he is so dependent on love 
 and companionship." 
 
 It was not often that Dear's attention wan- 
 dered ; she was one of those delightful listeners 
 who invited confidence by their never-failing 
 lively interest ; but now perhaps she might be 
 excused for thinking of the companionship Ralph 
 had enjoyed that summer, and wondering if the 
 same perfect arrangement might not be contin- 
 ued indefinitely. But she was brought back to 
 the present by the light touch of Mrs. Maddi- 
 son's little hand on her arm, and became aware 
 that that lady was bending towards her and speak- 
 ing with much earnestness. 
 
 " My dear," she was saying, " if I knew that 
 Ralph had a sweet, young wife like you to love 
 and care for him, I could feel quite happy." 
 
 " Ralph's wife ! " Dear answered with a start, 
 that made the caressing hand on her arm drop 
 suddenly away. " Oh no, that couldn't be. I 
 like him ever so much. I would do anything 
 for him. I would nurse him if he were ill, and 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 247 
 
 care for him just as I do for Clive and my father 
 — but his wife ? no, that is something quite 
 different, you know." 
 
 The girl's voice shook and faltered, and, 
 though Mrs. Maddison's eyes had no longer 
 the clear sight of her youth, and the twilight 
 was beginning to creep into the room, she 
 could see the soft color tint the colorless 
 cheek, and the sweet, truthful eyes droop to 
 hide the sudden light that shone out in them, 
 and my lady turned away with an impatient 
 jerk, knowing that the " something quite dif- 
 ferent" was in the girl's heart, but not for 
 Ralph ; and the little, delicate hand that had 
 lain so affectionately on Dear's arm a minute 
 before, clenched itself as if it would willingly 
 have struck the girl who loved Oliver Meredith. 
 
 " You are not vexed with me ? " Dear asked, 
 after the minute's silence that ensued. 
 
 " Vexed with you ? " Mrs. Maddison controlled 
 her voice with an effort. " No, my dear, only a 
 little disappointed. Poor Ralph ! he will feel 
 it a good deal, for I know his heart is greatly 
 
248 DEAR. 
 
 set on it, and he is so sensitive, so delicately 
 strung, and I had hoped so much — let myself 
 build so on the hope of his living at Kings- 
 combe, and growing strong, and shaking off 
 the delicacy of his boyhood. Oh no, dear — " as 
 Dear began eagerly to interrupt her — " he never 
 could live at Kingscombe alone, and, of course — 
 Dr. Meredith and I could not often be with him." 
 
 It was done, the blow that cruel, pretty little 
 hand had longed to deal, had been given far 
 more effectually by the soft, silver tones of my 
 lady's tongue. There was a little gasp and a 
 shiver, and in the twilight that had deepened 
 Mrs. Maddison could only see the outline of 
 Dear's figure against the evening sky outside 
 the window near which they sat, quite still, 
 with hands clasped together and head a little 
 drooped — poor, little head ! — to shield which 
 from pain Oliver Meredith would have given 
 his life. 
 
 But Mrs. Maddison went pitilessly on. 
 
 " There is something about you, child, that 
 makes one inclined to be confidential, but 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 249 
 
 perhaps you may have guessed my secret 
 already — our secret, Oliver's and mine. You 
 know I was hardly more than a child when 
 I married Mr. Maddison. I was just out of 
 the schoolroom. He was very good to me, 
 and I was quite happy and content with him, 
 but I loved him more like a father, for, as 
 you said just now, the love of a wife is some- 
 thing different. You are quite right. I think 
 I know it now since I have known Oliver. 
 But, Dear, short of that, if you can be sure 
 that you are making some one else happy as 
 I did in those old days with Mr. Maddison, 
 it goes a long way to make you happy your- 
 self, and Mr. Maddison was very much in 
 character like Ralph, kind and simple-hearted 
 and domestic and fond of home and quiet, and 
 he used to say I made his happiness. It all 
 comes back to me now when a new life is 
 beginning for me, and now and then it seems 
 as if I were doing a wrong to the kind, old man 
 who petted me and humored my every wish, 
 but I know he would have wished before al] 
 
250 DEAR. 
 
 things that I should be happy, and I think 
 there is no doubt of that with Oliver, do you, 
 Dear? for you must have seen a little of him 
 since he has been at Kingscombe, and, indeed, 
 he said such pretty things about you that I 
 could almost have been jealous, if it had been 
 any one but Oliver. Why, here is Martin with 
 the lamp ; and it is nearly time to dress for 
 dinner. Will you stop and dine with us ? 
 Ralph will be so disappointed if you are gone 
 before he comes in. Must you go ? Ah, the 
 dear Vicar, he cannot get on without you. 
 There, child, I will not worry you ; but think 
 if that little plan of mine were possible, you 
 would be always with him, he would not lose 
 his daughter." And Mrs. Maddison kissed a 
 cheek that was very white and chill, and pressed 
 a little, cold hand. 
 
 Next day the attack was renewed from a 
 different point. Mrs. Maddison was full of 
 Clive and his wonderful genius, and Dear, who 
 was very white and still, with a new strange 
 look in the soft eyes and on the gentle lips, 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 25 1 
 
 hailed this new subject, not seeing at first how 
 it was to be brought to bear. 
 
 Dear was pleased, or rather she was content, 
 for just then she was too numbed to feel any 
 active pleasure ; everything, pleasure and pain 
 alike, seemed far off and indistinct. But she 
 was satisfied to listen to Clive's praises, and 
 agreed duly that it was a pity he should be 
 buried in an out-of-the-way place like Kings- 
 combe. Others had said the same to her before, 
 when voices and feelings were nearer and 
 clearer and more real. It was years ago, 
 surely, that somebody spoke of Clive's great 
 talents as they stood by the sunny wall in the 
 kitchen-garden watching him gather the pears. 
 
 " He ought, to go to Cambridge," Mrs. Maddi- 
 son said. " Ah ! Dear, if he were Ralph's 
 brother it would make it all so easy. There 
 need be no question of ways and means then, 
 and when he had distinguished himself and 
 made a name in the world, how proud we 
 should all be of him, and how grateful he would 
 be to the sister who had made success possible 
 
252 DEAR. 
 
 to him. But there ! it is no use thinking of 
 
 such things, is it ? " 
 
 I think if Dear had not been so dazed and 
 numb and shaken, she would have seen through 
 the snares that Mrs. Maddison laid for her, have 
 appreciated the want of delicacy and the clumsi- 
 ness with which the bribe was offered. Perhaps 
 even now she would have held out, but for a 
 circumstance that happened most unfortunately 
 at that very time when the world, which had 
 been so full of Oliver not a week before, was 
 empty and desolate, and the heart that had 
 been so glad and ga)' was sore and sad. 
 
 She was going home that evening after Mrs. 
 Maddison had been talking of Clive, not with 
 that quick, light step that Oliver recognized 
 from afar, even half-way up the hill, but slowly 
 and lingeringly, when at the entrance to the 
 village Clive overtook her. She could see at 
 a glance that something had happened, and 
 he was not slow in telling her what it was. 
 
 " I've lost my situation at the Grammar 
 School. I've not got the sack in so many 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 253 
 
 words yet, but there's no help for it ; it's safe 
 to come, and on the whole, I'm glad of it." 
 
 "Oh, Clive, what is it?" 
 
 " Why, that great bully Marsland, you know 
 — his father has the big factory the other side 
 of Cheriton — well, he cheeked me in class. It's 
 not the first time he's done it, and I've managed 
 to put up with it, but to-day I couldn't stand 
 it, and I struck him. Oh, what a fool I am not 
 to be stronger. If I'd been able to give him 
 a good licking it would have been all right,' but 
 he's twice the man I am, and he struck back 
 and knocked me right down and I hit my head 
 against the table and didn't come to for a 
 minute, and there was a hullaballoo, and the 
 boys were frightened, and old Jackson was 
 called in." 
 
 " Oh, Clive, were you hurt ? Can you feel it 
 now ? " 
 
 " Oh, bother the hurt ! Jackson was in a 
 towering rage and expelled Marsland there and 
 then." 
 
 " Well, Clive, and he quite deserved it. It 
 
254 DEAR. 
 
 will be a lesson to the other boys and make it 
 pleasanter for you." 
 
 Clive laughed. 
 
 " But Marsland's one of old Jackson's best 
 cards. He has half a dozen younger brothers 
 coming on, and old Marsland is made of money, 
 and is thought a lot of in Cheriton, and he'll be 
 as mad as a hatter and do all he knows against 
 the school. I don't think Jackson will care for 
 the sight of me after this, and he might make 
 his peace with Marsland if I was out of the way 
 — Oh, Dear, I think I'm glad it's come to an 
 end. I was sick and tired of it. I'd a hundred 
 times rather go to plough or dig in the garden 
 than grind away with those boys. But what can 
 I do ? Dear, what can I do ? It does seem so 
 hard on a fellow never to get a chance, and to 
 feel I've got it in me to do something, if only I 
 wasn't tied hand and foot. What's the use of 
 having brains, as people say I have, if one's to 
 rot here all one's life." 
 
 And Dear could only cling to his arm, 
 and rub her cheek against his shoulder, and 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 255 
 
 entreat him to have patience, it would all come 
 right. 
 
 But at night as she lay awake in that dull, 
 sleepless suffering the long nights brought, she 
 heard the boy sobbing in his little bedroom 
 next to hers, and trying to stifle the sound in 
 the bed-clothes. He was such a boy still, she 
 felt years older than he, as she sat up in dry- 
 eyed misery listening to his sobs, which she 
 knew she must ignore ; for it is only with his 
 mother that a boy is not ashamed of his 
 tears. 
 
 But this was not all, for next morning her 
 father came to her with a letter in his hand and 
 a look of bewilderment and worry in his face. 
 Money troubles had not disturbed the quiet 
 of their lives for many years, they had lived 
 so quietly and simply and shabbily and con- 
 tentedly, with hardly any temptation to spend 
 money ; but here was a bill, the length of which 
 made Mr. Hume and Dear aghast, though it 
 might have appeared a mere trifle in ordinary 
 households. 
 
256 DEAR. 
 
 It was from a wine-merchant at Cheriton, 
 and was almost entirely for wine given away 
 in the parish, a matter in which Mr. Hume, 
 according to Patty, was certainly inclined to be 
 extravagant. 
 
 "As did oughter know better than to come 
 bothering for port wine every time they've any 
 aches and pains. If I was the master I'd give 
 'em a good drop of rue along of it, and they'd 
 not be in such a hurry to take it. 'Twas just 
 the same with my black-currant jam. I'd never 
 have had a bit left in my cupboard — if the 
 children had a pain in their big toe, the mothers 
 come after black-currant jam for 'em. So I said 
 as I'd heerd tell as a little alum was good to 
 be took with it, for sore throats or broken chil- 
 blains or a pain in the innerds, and the first as 
 came I gave 'em a taste of it, and said as they 
 couldn't have the jam nohows without the alum 
 mixed with it, and after, that bless you ! I had 
 black-currant jam in my cupboard all the winter 
 and roley-poleys in May." 
 
 But Mr. Hume was not so wise as Patty, and 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 257 
 
 the wine merchant's bill had crept up by degrees 
 to what seemed to them an alarming sum, and 
 moreover, an early remittance was asked for ; 
 and Dear remembered with a pang that the 
 wine merchant's son was at the Grammar School, 
 and that perhaps the peremptory sending in of 
 the account might be one of the results of poor 
 Clive's loss of temper ; and she took care to keep 
 it out of his sight, which was not difficult, as he 
 was too heavy-eyed and miserable to notice 
 anything. 
 
 At the Manor she found Ralph out of sorts. 
 Duncan had not been mistaken in thinking him 
 queer when he went away, and the excitement 
 produced by his mother's conversation had not 
 improved his condition. He had been very 
 cross and irritable to his mother that morning. 
 Duncan's absence had interfered with his com- 
 fort, and he was inclined to be fretful and contra- 
 dictory. But with Dear he was hardly ever out 
 of temper, and when she came in he consented 
 at once to lie down on the sofa, which he had 
 altogether refused to do at his mother's request, 
 17 
 
258 DEAR. 
 
 and keep quiet if Dear would sit with him and 
 read and talk to him. 
 
 So Mrs. Maddison gladly gave over the charge 
 of her very troublesome invalid, and went away 
 with an expressive look at the girl, which Dear 
 wearily avoided, and a sigh which roused even 
 Dear's gentle nature to opposition. 
 
 " Sit where I can see you," he said ; and she 
 moved at once. His eyes had not the power 
 to embarrass her or make her conscious, his 
 look was less to her even than Dan's gaze, 
 which disturbed her sometimes by its fixed, 
 inarticulate meaning. " I have so much to 
 say to you," he began, but she stopped 
 him. 
 
 " Hush ! I am going to read to you," and she 
 took up a book from the table, but dropped it 
 again with a little shiver. It was one belonging 
 to Oliver Meredith, a book of translations and 
 poems, out of which he had read bits to her, and 
 she took up in preference a novel that my lady 
 had been reading, and she read steadily on 
 through a chapter or two of feeble twaddle, 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 259 
 
 mainly made up of descriptions of dress and 
 furniture, and vapid conversation interlarded 
 with French expressions. 
 
 It did not matter to Ralph what she read as 
 long as it was she who read it, and before long 
 his eyes closed and he fell asleep, and she let 
 the book drop into her lap, and sat still looking 
 before her with great sad gray eyes, that seemed 
 trying to look into the future, which lay in 
 deepest gloom before her. 
 
 It was very quiet and peaceful in the Manor 
 drawing-room ; if it had not been that every 
 corner of the room, every stone of the terrace 
 steps outside, every group of trees or glimpse of 
 soft grass in the park beyond, was associated 
 past all separation with bitter-sweet memories, 
 Dear could have fancied herself happy, could 
 have imagined without disquiet a future spent 
 in the old place which she loved, with Ralph, 
 whom she certainly liked. She was so sorry for 
 him ; as he lay there he looked so ill. She had 
 it in her power to make him so happy, and if, 
 as my lady had said, you can be quite sure you 
 
260 DEAR. 
 
 are making some one else happy, it goes a long 
 way to make you happy yourself. 
 
 And then in array passed before her the other 
 arguments Mrs. Maddison had used, and others 
 that the girl's own unselfish, loving heart brought 
 against her : Clive and his prospects, — her 
 father, and being constantly near him, and able 
 to help in such matters as that unpaid bill, — 
 sick and poor and suffering, for whom she could 
 do so little now, but might have it in her power 
 to do so much, — schemes of improvement which 
 the want of funds had made impossible. If 
 Mrs. Maddison had but known it, that after- 
 noon, when not a word of argument was said 
 to Dear, did more to persuade her than all the 
 eloquence in the world, and it took my lady 
 quite by surprise when Ralph came in that even- 
 ing from walking home with Dear, and said — 
 
 " Mother, I've asked Dear to marry me, and 
 she has consented." 
 
 And then, when everything seemed going 
 exactly as Mrs. Maddison wished, difficulties 
 arose in the very quarter in which she least 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 26l 
 
 expected them — Ralph himself. He was attack- 
 ed by what Mrs. Maddison called " ridiculous and 
 inconvenient scruples," as to whether he ought 
 to marry when his health was so uncertain. 
 She had hardly patience to argue the subject 
 with him, and when she had spent her time and 
 breath and succeeded in convincing him of its 
 folly, and he had fallen eagerly into all her 
 plans and imaginings for the future, he would 
 revert to these tiresome scruples. 
 
 " But I say, mother, I wish I felt sure it was 
 all right. I've a great mind to write to Meredith 
 and ask what he thinks." 
 
 " What on earth has Dr. Meredith to do 
 with it ? Is he the keeper of your conscience ? 
 Upon my word, Ralph, you ought to be man 
 enough to judge for yourself." 
 
 It was from Ralph, too, that the opposition 
 came to the idea of hastening the wedding. 
 
 "There's no need for such hurry," he said. 
 " I won't have Dear bothered. It shall be all 
 just as she likes." 
 
 We have seen that when Ralph was not well 
 
262 DEAR. 
 
 he was not very pleasant company, and this was 
 the first time his mother had had any experi- 
 ence of this, for when " the poor dear boy " was 
 out of sorts she had always hitherto left him to 
 Duncan, who knew just how to manage him. I 
 am glad to think that Mrs. Maddison had a bad 
 time of it with him most of those three weeks. 
 She grew seriously anxious about his health 
 more than once, and once she actually wrote a 
 telegram to summon Duncan back, which would 
 have seriously complicated her arrangements, 
 but Ralph was better again and the telegraph 
 form was torn up. 
 
 Strangely enough there was no difficulty 
 about the immediate marriage with Dear ; 
 indeed, the idea seemed almost to please her. 
 That dazed look, which the people noticed on 
 her wedding-day, had settled in her sweet eyes, 
 and she went about as one in a dream, and let 
 my lady do what she liked with her, as on the 
 wedding-day she let Clarisse dress her and 
 arrange her hair, without a word either of 
 satisfaction or objection. 
 
A MOTHER'S DOING. 263 
 
 "And when the toilette is made," the maid 
 declared, " and she looks better than she has 
 ever done in her life before, she does not as 
 much as give one little look in her glass, but 
 catches up that dog, who never ceases to growl 
 at me from the foot of the bed, and kisses it, 
 crumpling the chiffon on her corsage. Mon 
 Dieu ! these English ! " 
 
 Through the dream and unreality of it all, 
 was an aching, feverish wish in Dear's mind to 
 get the thing done past all recall before — any 
 one came back. She did not feel as if any ties 
 except those irremediable ones, which death 
 alone can part, could stand before the look of 
 Oliver Meredith's eyes. She would like the 
 rivets to be beaten hard of the chain that would 
 bind her to Ralph, till gracious death came to 
 set her free, so as to keep her from crawling 
 to Oliver's feet, even while she knew him to be 
 Mrs. Maddison's lover. 
 
 " If you take my advice," my lady said to 
 Ralph, "you will leave the girl alone. Don't 
 go hanging about her, it will only disgust her." 
 
264 DEAR. 
 
 And Ralph followed her advice and kept 
 away, though he protested that if Dear cared 
 for him so little as that, he had no wish 
 to marry her. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 
 
 " Should I love her as well if she 
 Had given her word to a thing so low ? 
 Shall I love her as well if she 
 Can break her word, were it even for me ? 
 I trust that it is not so."— Tennyson. 
 
 "DEFORE poor, little Will Kemp had picked 
 himself out of the gorse bush into which 
 Oliver had so casually tossed him, the doctor 
 had crossed the field and gone up the bit of lane 
 that led to the village, and Duncan came puffing 
 and blowing behind him. 
 
 The church lies at the other end of the village, 
 and it was round that that all the inhabitants 
 of Kingscombe had gathered ; but, as Oliver 
 turned out of the lane, a man came running, 
 hatless and at post haste, down the street, 
 
 (265) 
 
266 DEAR. 
 
 followed closely by another, and at the same 
 moment the bells, which had been making such 
 a noisy proclamation of the wedding, came to 
 an abrupt silence. 
 
 The first man passed Dr. Meredith in his 
 hurry without recognizing him, but the second 
 stopped suddenly at sight of him, and shouted 
 to the man in front as well as his breathless 
 condition would allow, " Hi there ! Stop, can't 
 you now ! 'Tain't no use fetching Dr. Carston, 
 here's the doctor and Muster Duncan, as sure as 
 life ! Thank the Lord as you've come ! " the 
 man continued. 
 
 But Oliver did not wait to hear more, but 
 pushed his way through the crowd round the 
 churchyard gate to where an awe-stricken group 
 surrounded Ralph's prostrate form, Ralph lying 
 stiff and rigid and senseless, with open, fixed 
 eyes glazed and staring, while by his side knelt 
 Dear, with a scared, white face, trying to loosen 
 his collar and raise his head from the turf on 
 which it lay. 
 
 " For God's sake take her away ! " Oliver 
 
CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 267 
 
 heard somebody saying — was it his own voice ? 
 — and then in answer to an indistinct murmur 
 among the bystanders the same voice said, 
 " Dead ? Fools ! it's no such thing. It's a fit. 
 Let Duncan come to him, can't you ? " 
 
 Oliver could not clearly remember what hap- 
 pened then till he was walking towards the 
 Manor by the side of a shutter carried by four 
 of the Kingscombe men, and bearing that 
 strangely-rigid form which was Ralph Mad- 
 dison, Dear's bridegroom. Oliver had had no 
 time to think or understand what it all meant, 
 it seemed as if his mind shrank from grasping 
 the situation, fought against it, struggled to put 
 it away from him, occupied itself nervously with 
 little details, directing the men, steadying the 
 shutter, drilling the bearers into walking in step. 
 He noticed all sorts of trifles, filling his mind 
 with them as if to crowd out the dread reality, 
 he occupied himself for some minutes with a 
 green stain on Ralph's coat and the wonder if it 
 would brush off, and then got a certain amount 
 of superficial amusement from noticing that the 
 
268 DEAR. 
 
 shutter was one from the Bush, and had a score 
 chalked on it, p's and q's in old-world fashion, 
 and he wondered whose score it might be, and 
 whether some of it might be rubbed off in the 
 journey. 
 
 He was conscious, as the sad procession turned 
 off along the footpath through the park, that a 
 carriage passed behind them, a carriage with 
 white favors on the horses' heads. He knew 
 that my lady was in it, from the undisciplined 
 eyes of two of the bearers looking round, and 
 one of them, with inbred respect for "the 
 quality," making an ineffectual effort to touch 
 his hat. And he felt that Dear was with her, 
 though he would not let his sensations form 
 themselves into thoughts. 
 
 He was conscious too of her presence as they 
 carried Ralph in through the hall and up the 
 staircase. There were others there too, no doubt 
 Mrs. Maddison among them, but of her he had 
 no thought or consciousness just then, though 
 she drew back as he passed her, with the feeling 
 that his accusing eye was seeking her. 
 
CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 269 
 
 I do not think any of them rightly knew how 
 that strange long day went by ; perhaps it 
 seemed the longest to the two who sat in the 
 library and heard the movements in the room 
 up-stairs, or listened to the silence up there, till 
 imaginary noises sounded in their ears, and the 
 fall of a cinder on the hearth made them jump 
 like the report of a gun. 
 
 Dear sat in the window perfectly still, looking 
 out at the September day which had clouded to 
 soft gloom. She had tried to follow when they 
 carried Ralph up-stairs, but had been detained, 
 and somewhat sharply told that it was better to 
 leave him to Duncan, who knew how to treat 
 him, and she had passively obeyed. 
 
 My lady sat by the fire holding up a novel 
 before her face, that same novel that Dear had 
 been reading to Ralph, but the plot or style 
 mattered as little to the reader now as it had 
 done then, though she might have been learning 
 that mawkish conversation by heart, so long did 
 she hold it before her eyes without turning the 
 page. 
 
270 DEAR. 
 
 The only incident that interrupted the deadly 
 quiet of that afternoon was the arrival of Dan, 
 who had been tied up since the morning, and, 
 the moment he was set free, went straight as an 
 arrow from a bow to the Manor, and made his 
 presence known with voice and nails outside the 
 door. Dan never scratched in vain at any door 
 at the vicarage ; even the Vicar would get up 
 from his sermon and let him in ; and Patty, at a 
 critical moment in cooking, would turn with 
 perhaps a " Drat that dog ! " in response to his 
 somewhat peremptory summons. 
 
 So Dear rose and went to the door, and 
 knowing what boisterous delight would be 
 shown at sight of her, she turned to my lady, 
 absorbed in her novel by the fire, and said, " I 
 will go into the garden. Please let me know if 
 I am wanted." 
 
 Perhaps from the room above the library 
 some one might have seen the slight girlish 
 figure going down the terrace steps, with Dan in 
 most inappropriate and uproarious spirits, cur- 
 vetting and dancing about her, flying round in 
 
CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 271 
 
 the air and making little pretence dashes at her 
 hands and dress. And perhaps this spectator of 
 Dan's gambols was only waiting for Dear to go 
 out to come down-stairs, for a minute or two 
 later the library door opened and Oliver Meredith 
 came in, and Mrs. Maddison let the novel fall 
 out of her cold hand and felt that the moment 
 of explanation had come. I believe that in that 
 moment if Mrs. Maddison had had it in her 
 power to recall the past three weeks, she would 
 gladly have done so. There is a moment with 
 every criminal when he would give the world to 
 retrieve what he has done, but it mostly comes 
 too late, when there is nothing more to be done 
 than to cast down the pieces of silver in the 
 temple and depart and hang himself. 
 
 " How is he ? " she asked faintly. There was 
 something in the look of Oliver's face, quiet and 
 self-controlled as it was, that put to flight all the 
 arguments she had been calling to her aid as she 
 sat holding the novel before her face. 
 
 " Very ill," he answered ; " he has been terribly 
 convulsed all the afternoon, far worse, Duncan 
 
272 DEAR. 
 
 says, than he has ever seen him before. He is 
 quieter now, but I have promised to go back 
 soon. I do not know if it would be any use to 
 have further medical advice, for there is, unfortu- 
 nately, so little to be done in these cases of 
 epilepsy ; but there is Dr. Carston at Cheriton, or 
 we might telegraph to his doctor in London who 
 has treated him before — " 
 
 "No, no ; " she interrupted eagerly ; " I have 
 every confidence in your treatment." 
 
 He turned away impatiently. 
 
 " If he recovers — " he began, but she broke in 
 again, " You are trying to frighten me ; it is cruel, 
 cruel of you ! He is not so bad as that. He will 
 recover as he has before. He has often had these 
 fits and got over them. It is cruel to frighten 
 me like this, you forget that I am his mother." 
 
 " No," Oliver said, " I wish I could forget that 
 you, his mother, will be responsible for his death 
 if he dies in one of these fits, as is more than 
 likely ; responsible too if he survives, shattered 
 in mind and body, which will be worse even 
 than death." 
 
CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 273 
 
 " Don't ! " she sobbed, " don't ! How am I 
 responsible ? " 
 
 " Ralph was not well Duncan said before he 
 left, and he was unwilling to go but you urged his 
 doing so. The only way of averting these fits, 
 experience has shown, is by quiet, and avoid- 
 ing all agitation, and these three weeks must 
 have been full of excitement and agitation for 
 him." 
 
 " How could I help it ? His heart was set on 
 marrying this girl." (Ah! she could sting him 
 back, he winced at the mention of her !) 
 
 " Was it ? " he said ; " then I was strangely 
 mistaken in him. He was a good, young fellow, 
 honest and right feeling, though he was not so 
 strong-minded as some, and it was not long 
 before I went away that he was talking of mar- 
 riage and saying that a man with his weak 
 health (poor fellow !) ought not to think of it, 
 and I was glad to feel that he thought so hon- 
 orably about it. I don't blame him in the 
 matter." 
 
 " But you do me." 
 18 
 
274 DEAR. 
 
 Just then Dear passed along the terrace out- 
 side, a small, drooping, white figure, pacing 
 slowly along, with Dan, who had got over his 
 first exuberant joy at finding his mistress, and 
 to whom some of her unhappiness had com- 
 municated itself, following her in much 
 depression. 
 
 " Blame you ? " he said. " Do you realise 
 what you have done in letting — but it must 
 have been more than that, in urging that poor 
 girl to marry your son, when you knew him to 
 be subject to these fits, every one of which 
 weakened him mind and body." 
 
 " She did it with her eyes open ; she knew he 
 was an invalid." 
 
 " Did she know how ? It was always kept a 
 profound secret. Duncan says that not even 
 Mrs. Lynch or the servants in the house really 
 knew what was the matter with him." 
 
 " She was fond of Ralph. And besides, inno- 
 cent as she seems, she was sharp enough to see 
 the advantages to be gained. It appears that 
 her father is in money difficulties, and Ralph is 
 
CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 275 
 
 going to send that brother of hers to Cam- 
 bridge — " 
 
 "And that was the bribe, was it? Oh, poor 
 little girl ! if only I had been here ! if only I 
 had been here ! " 
 
 " Yes that is the root of all this righteous 
 indignation ! " Mrs. Maddison's temper was 
 getting the better of her now. "Why don't 
 you speak the truth ? You loved this girl 
 yourself, and that is why you are so fierce 
 with me for not having prevented the mar- 
 riage. How was I to know that you loved the 
 girl?" 
 
 She had stung him now to the very quick, 
 and she quailed before his eyes as he turned to 
 her. He caught his breath before he spoke, as 
 if half-choked by his emotion. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I will speak the truth. I 
 loved Dear Hume better than my life itself — 
 I love her now. I could almost thank you for 
 giving me an opportunity of saying it even to 
 you just once before I lock it out of sight for 
 ever, for I can never put it away from me 
 
276 DEAR. 
 
 though it is love for another man's wife, though 
 it would be an insult to speak of it to her. 
 Yes, I love her. Oh, my God ! I love her." 
 
 He had sunk into a chair and covered his 
 face with his hands. 
 
 Surely Mrs. Maddison was punished, for as 
 much as in her nature lay, she loved this man, 
 and the very means she had used to bring 
 him nearer to her, had set them hopelessly 
 apart, worlds apart, as far apart as heaven is 
 from hell. 
 
 It was getting dusk in the library, and outside 
 on the terrace a damp fog was gathering, where 
 passed and re-passed the sad, little, white figure 
 like a ghost, a ghost of warm July days and 
 roses and sunshine and love and hope. 
 
 A movement in the room above roused Oliver 
 and he got up. 
 
 " You had better tell her," he said, " to go 
 home to her father. If Ralph is better, or — 
 worse, she shall be sent for, but at present she 
 can do no good, and she must not see him as he 
 looks now." 
 
CAUSE OF IMPEDIMENT. 277 
 
 And then with sudden increase of haste he 
 went, for, as he spoke, Dear was coming to- 
 wards the house and Clive was with her. In 
 one of her pacings on the terrace she had 
 become conscious of some one standing watch- 
 ing her from the rose garden, damp and sodden 
 and dreary now, out of all recognition of the 
 radiance and color and perfume of June. Dan 
 also perceived the newcomer, and pricked his 
 ears and then wagged his tail in greeting of a 
 friend. 
 
 " Clive," Dear said ; " Clive, is it you ? " 
 
 And then he came forward hesitatingly. 
 
 " I oughtn't to come bothering you, Dear, and 
 I wouldn't have come into the house if I hadn't 
 seen you out here, and I wasn't sure for a 
 minute if it was you till I saw Dan. Oh, Dear, 
 I'm so awfully sorry ! Of course you're quite 
 taken up with poor Ralph's illness, and I know 
 you couldn't leave him to come home, even for 
 ten minutes. But father is so strange. I think 
 I've got frightened and so has Patty. He seems 
 to have forgotten all about the wedding, and he 
 
27% DEA.R. 
 
 wouldn't have tea till you came in, and he keeps 
 going to the window to see if you are coming. 
 He is standing there now, Dear, looking out — 
 and I can't bear it. I've told him ever so many 
 times that you are married and won't come 
 back just yet, and he says, 'Yes, yes, of course ! 
 of course ! to be sure,' and sits down again. 
 But in a minute he has forgotten and goes to 
 the window again, saying, ' She will soon be in. 
 What can be keeping her ? ' " 
 
 "I will come," Dear said. "I am not wanted 
 here." 
 
 And then she went quickly towards the 
 house, and Oliver seeing her coming, retreated 
 to Ralph's room. 
 
 "Can you tell me, " she asked timidly of the 
 motionless figure with averted face that still sat 
 in the library, " how Ralph is now ? and if I can 
 be of any help up in his room ? " 
 
 The time of tenderness and caressing between 
 these two seemed years ago, an impossible state 
 of affairs that could never be renewed. What 
 in other circumstances must have brought them 
 
CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 279 
 
 together, clinging close, heart to heart, in a 
 common sorrow, agonized mother, forlorn young 
 wife, had set these two far apart, beyond even 
 outward appearance of sympathy and love. 
 
 Mrs. Maddison did not turn her head, and 
 her voice sounded thin and hard. 
 
 " I have just heard," she said, " that he is no 
 better, and perfect quiet is imperative. I am 
 going to my room, and if you would prefer to 
 return home, I will give orders that you shall be 
 sent for directly there is any change." 
 
 " I shall be glad to go to my father," Dear 
 answered ; " but can I do nothing for you ? " she 
 added hesitatingly. 
 
 There was something so lonely in the look of 
 that stiffly-turned-away figure which, in spite of 
 its elegant dress, in spite of the soft firelight 
 which deals tenderly with the marks of age, 
 looked old and desolate, that the girl, sad and 
 sorehearted as she was herself, could not bear 
 to go without some kind word, and she made a 
 step nearer, but was at once repelled by the 
 frosty answer — 
 
280 DEAR. 
 
 " For me ? Thanks, no v Clarisse will attend 
 to me." 
 
 And Dear turned away chilled and repulsed. 
 
 In the hall Duncan was waiting for her — 
 kind, fussy old Duncan, with his face an odd 
 mixture of conflicting emotions, anxiety, pity 
 and indignation. 
 
 " Run home, Missy, there's a good, little girl. 
 Oh, bless my stars ! I don't know what I'm 
 saying. But it's not a bit of good your stopping 
 here. He's no better, nor won't be just yet. 
 You shall be the first to know if — when he's 
 better. There ! I can't trust myself to speak of 
 this day's work, but if I know you're safe at 
 home, I'll not feel quite so much like murdering 
 somebody." 
 
 And the old man wrapped a shawl round her 
 with trembling hands, and went off using, I am 
 afraid, strong language as he went. 
 
 " Run on, Clive ; run on as fast as you can 
 and tell him I'm coming." 
 
 But Dear was not far behind, and while Clive 
 was reassuring the sad, old face watching at the 
 
CAUSE OR IMPEDIMENT. 28 1 
 
 window, with dim eyes peering out into the 
 mist and darkness, she ran up into her little 
 bedroom, plain and shabby, but dear to her from 
 many associations of sweet, simple girlhood. 
 There stood the modest, little trunk containing 
 the hasty trousseau ("All that can be arranged 
 afterwards," Mrs. Maddison had said), and the 
 room still bore the traces of that wedding 
 toilette over which Mdlle. Clarisse had pre- 
 sided. 
 
 There was a wonderful feeling of relief in 
 being back there, and in taking off the white 
 dress, limp and clinging from the damp mist, 
 and in pulling out hairpins and shaking down 
 curls and rolls and plaits, and twisting her hair 
 into the old, comfortable coil, and in putting on 
 the shabby, old dress, thrown contemptuously 
 down at the foot of the bed as a garment never 
 likely to be worn again by the young mistress 
 of Kingscombe Manor. 
 
 She hesitated for a moment over the wedding- 
 ring, and half drew it off the finger where it 
 looked so new and shining: and unnatural, but 
 
282 DEAR. 
 
 put it back with a sigh and went down-stairs, 
 just the same Dear that had come in hundreds 
 of times before, to where the old father sat 
 awaiting her. 
 
 " Here I am, father," she said. " Will you 
 come and have tea ? " 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PARTING. 
 
 " Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 
 
 While I am over the sea ; 
 Let me and my passionate love go by, 
 But speak to her all things holy and high 
 
 Whatever happen to me." — Tennyson. 
 
 A WEEK has passed since that ill-fated 
 wedding-day, and still Ralph Maddison lies in 
 that room at the Manor, and still Dear is with her 
 father at home, waiting for the summons which 
 they have promised to send her if Ralph is 
 better or worse ; better, if he recovers conscious- 
 ness and asks for her ; worse, if the death they 
 had spoken of in the marriage service as the 
 only means of parting them, had set them free 
 again so soon. 
 
 It never occurred to her mind that there 
 
 (283) 
 
284 DEAR. 
 
 could be any other alternative, that it was 
 possible for him not to be better and yet not 
 to die, but to live on with his mind hopelessly 
 enfeebled, with memory and sense gone; but 
 this terrible prospect for poor Ralph Maddison 
 became more and more clear and certain as 
 the days went on, to those who watched by his 
 bedside. Other medical advice was called in ; 
 Dr. Carston from Cheriton came with all the 
 self-importance of a country town doctor ; and 
 a specialist from London, at a fabulous fee, who 
 could do nothing but confirm Dr. Meredith's 
 gloomy forebodings. 
 
 It was when this great man was gone that 
 Oliver Meredith came down and asked to see 
 Mrs. Maddison. They had met occasionally 
 since he had confessed his love for Dear to her, 
 but their interviews had been of a merely 
 formal character — bulletins of Ralph's state, 
 or inquiries as to her wishes about further 
 advice. 
 
 The London doctor had been much im- 
 pressed by Mrs. Maddison, and the dignified 
 
PARTING. 285 
 
 self-control with which she received the verdict, 
 which must have been infinitely painful to any 
 mother's heart, and this an only son, and heir 
 to such a fine estate, and such a good-looking 
 young fellow as he must have been. The 
 doctor was used to many sad things in the 
 course of his professional experience, but this 
 seemed one of the most deplorable, and, per- 
 haps, after the pity in his kind eyes, Oliver's 
 may have seemed hard and cruel as he came 
 into the room, and waited without a word while 
 she pressed her cobweb handkerchief to her 
 eyes and sobbed — 
 
 " My poor boy ! My poor Ralph ! " 
 I do not think he gave her credit for the 
 suffering she really felt. If only she had been 
 a little less elegant in her grief — if she had 
 dabbed her eyes less carefully and sobbed less 
 musically — he might have believed in her and 
 gone on, perhaps, to pity her ; and pity, we 
 know, is akin to love ; but the small affectations 
 he detected blinded his eyes to the real grief 
 that was mixed with them, and he waited with 
 
286 DEAR. 
 
 a perfectly unmoved face till she had recovered 
 her composure. 
 
 " Why did you wish to see me ? " she asked 
 at last. 
 
 " I wanted to know your programme," he 
 answered. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I want to know what you propose to do ? " 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 " About Ralph and— his wife ? " 
 
 "It is most deplorable," she said. "I know 
 now that the marriage was most ill-advised, 
 and I am sincerely sorry for the poor girl, 
 and I will do all in my power to alleviate her 
 position. Nothing that money can do shall 
 be spared to make it easier for her. Of course 
 there will be Duncan. I am sure he will not 
 leave him, and if other attendants are needed 
 they can easily be got. She will have every- 
 thing just as she likes here ; I shall not interfere 
 in any way. Oh, Oliver, " she interrupted her- 
 self, for his silence made her think he was 
 listening with approval, " I am not so bad as 
 
PARTING. 287 
 
 you think me. I will do anything in my power 
 in the way of reparation to regain your good 
 opinion." 
 
 " Excuse me," he said, and his voice was 
 hard, and seemed to cut like a knife ; " excuse 
 me, let us keep to the point. If I understand 
 you rightly, you mean to leave your son here 
 with his wife. I don't think you have seen 
 him, have you ? I don't think you quite realise 
 the state he is in, and, unhappily, likely to 
 continue in ? " 
 
 " There will be Duncan," she said. 
 
 " No, there will not be Duncan. I have been 
 talking to him. He used stronger language 
 than I should care to repeat in speaking of 
 what has been done, and he declares that if 
 this mockery of a marriage is to hold good, and 
 that poor girl's young life is to be' sacrificed to 
 the poor, imbecile creature that Ralph — " 
 
 " Don't ! for pity's sake, don't ! " 
 
 It was real now ; there was no pretence or 
 elegance about her now, and he felt at once 
 like a brute. 
 
288 DEAR. 
 
 " I do not mean to be unnecessarily hard," 
 he said ; " but Duncan declares he will not 
 remain a day with Ralph under such circum- 
 stances." 
 
 " But what can be done ? " 
 
 " I have thought of a plan," he said, " and 
 it is this. You know I have accepted an ap- 
 pointment at Berlin which will keep me there 
 for two years, and perhaps longer. If you 
 approve, I will take Ralph with me. Duncan 
 will go too, and I need not assure you that 
 every care and attention shall be given to poor 
 Ralph." 
 
 Mrs. Maddison's lips tightened to a hard 
 little smile. "A charming plan. Dr. Meredith, 
 I must say ! and Mrs. Ralph will, no doubt, 
 share all the care and attention that you will 
 lavish on her husband." 
 
 " Hush ! " he said. " I will not endure any 
 insolence to her. It is only for her sake I am 
 offering to do what will tie and hamper me in 
 every way. I will only do it on condition that 
 she does not even know where we are, that it 
 
PARTING. 28g 
 
 shall be put out of her power ever to find us 
 out, lest in some sudden mistaken sense of 
 duty or self-sacrifice she should follow Ralph." 
 
 "And the girl?" 
 
 " Mrs. Maddison will remain with her father 
 and, mind you ! every part of the bargain must 
 be carried out to the letter. Ample means must 
 be provided for Clive's career at Cambridge, 
 plenty to relieve any money difficulties her 
 father may have, sufficient to support her dignity 
 in the eyes of the people here ; for there must 
 be no mistake about it, she must be recognized 
 as Mrs. Maddison, your son's wife, before all 
 the world. The people here are all too fond 
 of her to think any harm of her for a moment, 
 but others might question and make a talk 
 about her." 
 
 "What can we say about it ? " 
 
 He was silent a minute, thinking of clear eyes 
 that looked so straight and earnestly at you 
 as if untruth were impossible, prevarication and 
 deceit undreamt of. With Dear there was no 
 question what to say on any subject. 
 l 9 
 
290 DEAR. 
 
 " I think it might be safest in this case to 
 speak the truth," he said. 
 
 " But will she agree to it ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that I cannot tell. 
 
 Would she feel bound, he asked himself, by 
 that marriage bond to have and to hold that 
 poor imbecile creature, that a few days ago had 
 been kindly, warm-hearted Ralph Maddison — 
 never very strong-minded or quick-witted, but 
 not far below the average in intelligence and 
 sense ; now, in intervals of the fits, playing 
 childishly with his fingers, and whimpering at 
 a word from Duncan, or laughing in meaning- 
 less, unreasonable mirth. Perhaps to Dear it 
 would seem all the more imperative to keep 
 that marriage vow, because the bright alterna- 
 tives had all been done away at one stroke, and 
 it was only for worse and not for better ; for 
 poorer, not for richer ; in sickness, not in health, 
 that she was to love, cherish, and obey Ralph 
 Maddison till death did them part. 
 
 While he thought^ Mrs. Maddison too was 
 deeply considering the plan Oliver had pro- 
 
PARTING. 291 
 
 posed. If Dear would agree to stop with her 
 father, and all intercourse between her and 
 Oliver were cut off entirely, while, on Ralph's 
 account, correspondence must be frequent be- 
 tween herself and Oliver, and occasional personal 
 interviews necessary, who could tell but what 
 the unaccountable fascination the girl had over 
 him might die away from force of distance and 
 hopelessness, and his indignation against herself 
 die away with it, and the old feeling return ? 
 
 But Dear, she felt sure, would never consent, 
 and Mrs. Maddison did not know what argu- 
 ments she could bring forward to separate the 
 two whom she had so lately moved heaven and 
 earth to bring together. 
 
 " You must tell her what is proposed," she 
 said. " See, there she is." 
 
 For just then Dear came up the terrace steps, 
 just as in the old golden summer days she used 
 to do (but oh ! the difference) ; and now, as then, 
 Oliver went out to meet her. 
 
 It was the first time they had met face to face 
 since they parted under the portico, and he drove 
 
292 DEAR. 
 
 away with that strange feeling of apprehension 
 and disquiet in his heart which after events had 
 so fully justified. He knew that Mrs. Maddison 
 was watching the meeting lynx-eyed from the 
 library. What did it matter ? The whole world 
 might look on if it liked. It was just here he 
 had first seen her that first evening at Kings- 
 combe, when, half dozing, half thinking, he had 
 been roused by Ralph's voice, and had seen 
 Dear's eyes, soft and radiant, looking down at 
 him from the steps above, and now he was come 
 to urge on her a plan that would part them for 
 ever. 
 
 Mrs. Maddison could see that they had not 
 even shaken hands when they met. How could 
 he trust himself to take that hand he had held 
 that afternoon in the orchard ? She could see 
 that they did not stand near together as they 
 talked. How could he have helped catching 
 her in his arms unless that couple of feet of 
 paving-stone and gravel had separated them ? 
 Mrs. Maddison noticed that he only once or 
 twice turned and looked at Dear. How could 
 
PARTING. 293 
 
 he have controlled the burning words of love 
 for her if their eyes had met often ? 
 
 He told her very gently what the London 
 doctor had said about Ralph, and how his own 
 medical experience, and that of Dr. Carston, 
 forced them to coincide in the sad belief that 
 though he might recover bodily strength to 
 some degree, his mind would never recover the 
 shock of those violent fits, and most likely would 
 weaken still more as time went on. 
 
 She listened quite quietly, with great mournful 
 eyes fixed on the dim blue distance, and a 
 tender sadness on her lips. The bitter indig- 
 nation seemed to die out when he suffered 
 himself to look at her, and the burning wish 
 to punish the author of all the trouble, and in 
 their stead was only pity and the longing wish 
 to do all he could to help and alleviate. " Bitter- 
 ness and wrath and anger and clamor and 
 evil-speaking with all malice" seemed to be put 
 away by this strong, pure, human love of his 
 as they are by the Divine, and kindness, tender- 
 heartedness and forgiveness to take their place. 
 
294 DEAR. 
 
 " Has he asked for me ? " she said. 
 
 " No ; and I think it is doubtful if he recog- 
 nizes either of us, though Duncan, good soul ! 
 likes to think he knows him and misses him 
 when he leaves the bedside, and I wish I could 
 think so too." 
 
 " I do not know what to do," Dear said, and 
 for the first time there was a pitiful, little shake 
 in her voice, and a quiver in the quiet, little face. 
 
 " I am sure I ought to be with Ralph, nursing 
 and caring for him, but my father seems to 
 want me so much, I don't think I could leave 
 him. I know I ought to have thought of this 
 before. It was very wrong of me, but " (this 
 very softly) " I think I hardly knew what I was 
 doing." 
 
 Then for a moment their eyes met, and it 
 seemed as if the passionate pity in his heart 
 must overcome his self control. 
 
 "Dear," he said. It was the same voice that 
 had spoken a month ago in the orchard ; the 
 intervening weeks of separation and bitter 
 trouble had vanished, and the long-delayed 
 
PARTING. 295 
 
 words rushed tumultuously to his lips. But it 
 was only for a second, and then the hand he 
 had stretched out to her, fell to his side, the 
 words died on his lips, and Mrs. Maddison, 
 from the library window, saw nothing but a 
 sudden movement, interrupting for a moment 
 the calm of an apparently very unemotional 
 conversation, which immediately resumed its 
 quiet course, and was no more disturbed till 
 they parted, ten minutes later, without even 
 shaking hands, without any tender last word, 
 without even a look back at one another as Dear 
 went down the terrace steps and Oliver came 
 into the house. 
 
 "I did not know," she had said, in answer to 
 that one word. " I did not know." 
 
 And this was all the explanation they ever 
 had, but somehow in years to come, Oliver 
 found much comfort from those words. " I did 
 not know." They might, of course, have meant 
 that she did not know of Ralph's tendency, or 
 that she did not know how impossible it would 
 be to leave her father, but he knew that it 
 
296 DEA.R. 
 
 meant, " I did not know you loved me," and he 
 found comfort in them. 
 
 That word of his too, or perhaps the tone of 
 it, had swept away from Dear's mind all belief 
 in the lie Mrs. Maddison had spoken ; she never 
 thought again after that that it was possible 
 that he and my lady could ever be more to one 
 another than friends, even if that. So the 
 explanation, short as it was, was more satis- 
 factory than many long-winded, diffuse explana- 
 tions, which as often as not only make things 
 worse, and widen the breach they are meant to 
 close. 
 
 He told her of the plan that was proposed 
 for Ralph to go abroad under his care, putting 
 entirely out of sight any sacrifice on his own 
 part in the matter. 
 
 " You are very necessary to your father," he 
 said ; " but for poor Ralph, I think if you know 
 that he is tenderly cared for and watched over, 
 as I need not assure you he will be, I do not 
 think you need be unhappy or feel that you are 
 not doing your duty. You will receive reports 
 
PARTING. 297 
 
 of his state at regular intervals, and if at any 
 time there is any improvement or hope of it, you 
 should know at once. Will you trust me ?" 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I will trust you. May I see 
 him once before he goes ? " 
 
 "If you wish it very much," he answered 
 gently ; " but if you will take my advice and 
 trust me in this too, I think you had better not. 
 Think of him still as the frank, pleasant, bright- 
 faced, young fellow you have known him. Do 
 you know that to me Ralph seems to have gone 
 as entirely as the summer and the sunshine and 
 the beauty of everything. There is no good to 
 be gained by having that memory of him 
 deformed and defaced by the sight of him as he 
 is now. Poor fellow, he is terribly changed." 
 
 And in this again Dear trusted Oliver 
 Meredith, and, in the quiet years that followed, 
 when she thought of or prayed for her young 
 husband, it was with the memory of a boyish 
 bright face, and eyes full of affection, and smiling 
 lips ready always with frank pleasant words — not 
 always very wise, but kind and cheery ; and only 
 
298 DEAR. 
 
 Oliver and Duncan really knew the sad reality 
 of imbecility and weakness, the body, the dust 
 of the earth, without the living soul, the breath 
 of life ; the poor human coin from which the 
 Divine image had been obliterated. Surely in 
 all the perplexities of this " unintelligible world " 
 this is one of the most mysterious, when the 
 reason returns to God who gave it. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MEETING. 
 
 " O that 'twere possible 
 
 After long grief and pain, 
 To find the arms of my true love 
 
 Round me once again. " — Tennyson. 
 
 '"PEN years is a long time out of any one's 
 life, and yet that early spring day, when 
 Oliver Meredith came over the hill from Cheriton 
 and stood once more looking down on Kings- 
 combe, the ten years seemed but a few days, or 
 rather, perhaps, a few months, for it was damp 
 misty autumn when he parted from Dear and a 
 few days later travelled away from Kingscombe, 
 and now it was spring, and in between had lain 
 dark winter months, gloomy and sunless and cold. 
 Winter months are apt to seem long, are they 
 not, with their monotonous days of short grudg- 
 
 (299) 
 
3°0 DEAR. 
 
 ing daylight, and the long, long darkness ? There 
 had plainly been snow in those winter months, 
 for Oliver Meredith's hair was nearly white, and 
 his eyes had a tired look as from long watching 
 and close study and little sunshine. April sun- 
 shine is not as a rule very brilliant, but to-day 
 it seemed to dazzle and fret his eyes, and he 
 had lost that power, which had developed so 
 largely in Dear's company, of noticing little 
 things that were beautiful and sweet in nature ; 
 he passed unnoticed the tufts of sweet pale 
 primroses in the banks, the silver clear song of 
 a wren was unheeded ; he did not look at the 
 blue shadows under the elms made by the blue- 
 bells growing so thickly, or at the little thick- 
 legged clumsy lambs, leaping clear off the ground 
 in their light-hearted gambols ; his foot kicked 
 against a tasselled cowslip, and he never glanced 
 down at its freckles, or up at the lark that sprang 
 from the grass before him ; he did not appreciate 
 the soft elasticity of the turf he trod on, or the 
 infinite variety of sweet scents of growth and 
 blossom that were in the balmy spring air. 
 
MEETING. 3 QI 
 
 He had grown so used to only taking exercise 
 in a perfunctory manner, a constitutional of so 
 many miles, generally alone, when his mind was 
 still full of his scientific studies, and he was 
 hardly conscious of outside things, so oblivious 
 of them, indeed, that he would pass acquaint- 
 ances unnoticed, or even run up against other 
 pedestrians who did not get out of his way. 
 And, if he walked in company, he had few 
 friends* but scientific ones, and so the talk fell 
 into the same groove, and it did not much 
 matter whether the body were walking on a 
 straight dull country road, or along the streets 
 of a town, or in the midst of beautiful scenery. 
 
 As he came in sight of Kingscombe to-day 
 he became suddenly conscious of this dullness 
 and want of perception in himself, and he 
 stopped and passed his hands over his eyes, as 
 though there were an actual film that obscured 
 the fairness and brightness of the world. Perhaps 
 there had been, if not physical, at any rate 
 mental, for when he looked again the beauty of 
 it all seemed to come with a rush into his heart, 
 
3° 2 DEAR. 
 
 with a fullness that seemed to choke him and 
 take away his breath. 
 
 The great generous stretch of sky, softly blue 
 with masses of fleecy white cloud tossed about 
 on it, throwing shadows on the broad rich- 
 colored ploughed fields and on the meadows 
 recovering from their winter brownness, and on 
 one or two patches of some early rye-grass of 
 incredibly vivid green. Down along the river 
 the willows were coral red, with the sap rising 
 in their branches, and among the beautiful 
 indigo-blue depths of the leafless woods the 
 nut-bushes' green tassels made a show even from 
 this distance, and here and there the sturdy 
 obstinate oaks kept their last year's leaves and 
 made a patch of rich russet. A week or two 
 later a soft green veil would be cast over the elm 
 trees down below, but now at this distance they 
 looked bare, and the cottages in Kingscombe 
 showed more plainly from the hill now there was 
 no foliage to hide them. He recognized all the 
 old familiar landmarks ; it was pleasant to find 
 how few he had forgotten. There was never a 
 
MEETING. 3°3 
 
 day in all these ten years that he had not allowed 
 himself a few minutes to go back and recall it all, 
 little detcfls insignificant and trifling, but filling 
 in the background in the picture of the woman 
 he loved. He liked to think that he could de- 
 tect — so well had he got it all by heart — that 
 the ivy had grown more thickly over the church, 
 that a fresh thatch had been put here and tiles 
 there, and a little new shed had been added at 
 the side of the forge. 
 
 It was just here he had stood when the sound 
 of the wedding-bells had suddenly struck upon 
 his ear and roused no apprehension of the dire- 
 ful event. There below was the triangular 
 piece of ground where the little boy, scaring the 
 birds, had been the first to give him the over- 
 whelming news. How often had that ground 
 been ploughed and sowed and reaped since then ? 
 That little boy, if he still lived, must be a grown- 
 up man now, married perhaps himself with all 
 'that merry clanging of bells, which had seemed 
 so exhilarating to him then. If he still lived ! 
 that sent a sudden pang through Oliver's heart. 
 
304 DEAR. 
 
 What if one of those bells that rang out so 
 merrily then, should toll now the heavy message 
 of death ? Death is so near each one of us, why 
 should not his hand fall on one as well as on 
 another ? 
 
 Oliver had heard nothing directly of Dear 
 for ten years ; indirectly he had heard that she 
 was still at Kingscombe, at any rate she was 
 there a month ago, when poor Ralph Maddison 
 died or rather ceased to die, for all those sad 
 years had been slow death of mind and body. 
 It had been debated whether the poor worn-out 
 body should be brought home and laid by his 
 father in Kingscombe churchyard, but Lady 
 Trevor decided that he should be laid in the 
 English cemetery at Florence, where he died. 
 No doubt her decision was very sensible, for 
 what does it really matter where the poor dust 
 mingles with its kind ? and Oliver agreed in the 
 good sense of the arrangement, and said not a 
 word of his own feeling that Ralph — I mean 
 the old, boyish Ralph, who went away with the 
 summer and the sunshine, ten years before, 
 
MEETING. 3°5 
 
 and who seemed to come back directly the last 
 painful breath was drawn — Ralph would have 
 liked to be laid in the little churchyard under 
 the hill at Kingscombe, where he had been so 
 happy, with Dear, whom he had loved in his 
 simple, boyish way, and whom he never of his 
 own free will would have injured, to stand by 
 his grave, and the villagers gathered round in 
 respectful sorrow for the poor, young master. 
 But Lady Trevor decided otherwise, and the 
 funeral had to take place too quickly to allow 
 of either her or Dear coming ; so Oliver and 
 Duncan were the only friends present, as they 
 had been through all the weakness and suffering 
 of the past ten years. 
 
 Mrs. Maddison had married Sir John Trevor, 
 five years before. Report said she had not a 
 very happy life with the baronet, who was given 
 to strong waters and coarse language, and with 
 whom it was a favorite joke, my lady's superi- 
 ority to himself in the matter of age. Any 
 small vanity she had on this point was fetched 
 effectually out of her before they had been 
 20 
 
306 DEAR. 
 
 married a twelvemonth, and now Lady Trevor 
 appears as a middle-aged woman, and to my 
 mind, and to Oliver's too, looks far better and 
 more dignified than in the days of her assumed 
 girlishness. 
 
 Oliver had seen from time to time notices of 
 Clive's successes, proving that that part of the 
 bargain had been honestly kept, and he had met 
 Cambridge men who had told him how the 
 awkward, discontented boy had changed, like 
 the ugly duck, which developed into the beauti- 
 ful white swan, spreading its wings in the sun- 
 shine of opportunity. And in one of the notices 
 of Clive, I think it was when he was senior 
 wrangler, he had been spoken of as the son of 
 the late Rev. Michael Hume, so Oliver knew 
 that the old man had gone to rejoin his wife. 
 
 " He will have such a little way to go," Dear 
 had said once, talking of the time when her 
 father would leave her, and the old hackneyed 
 phrase of consolation, "It is his gain, though 
 it is our loss," seemed to have a reality in it, 
 which it does not always bear. 
 
MEETING. 3°7 
 
 But oh ! the loss ! It was almost more than 
 Oliver could endure to think of, when before his 
 mind's eye came the memory of the old gray 
 head resting against the girl's arm, and the love 
 in Dear's face as she looked down at it. 
 
 He knew quite well that, such being the case 
 Dear would no longer be at the vicarage, that 
 another vicar was at Kingscombe, another voice 
 in the little church, another figure going in and 
 out among the cottagers, and ministering to 
 their spiritual wants ; and yet it gave him as 
 great a shock, as if indeed the knell had tolled 
 out as he stood listening on the hill, when he 
 drew near the vicarage, to see a substantial 
 clerical form come out of the well-remembered 
 little gate, a country parson of the period, 
 athletic and muscular, with a beard and a broad 
 brimmed hat, and it seemed downright profana- 
 tion, when two laughing girls, tennis racquet in 
 hand, looked over the garden hedge and called 
 out some girlish nonsense to their father, checked 
 by the unusual sight of a strange gentleman 
 passing up the village street, who, no doubt 
 
308 DEAR. 
 
 glared at them in a manner unusual and uncalled 
 for. 
 
 He passed on, hardly knowing why, to the 
 church. In the churchyard there were many 
 fresh graves since he last stood there, and on 
 one green mound, without even a headstone to 
 mark the place, was a dainty fresh wreath of 
 primroses, looking as if it had just been laid 
 there. There was no need to ask whose handi- 
 work it was, for each tender flower-stalk and 
 crinkled leaf was in damp moss. 
 
 " That be the ould parson's grave," a cracked 
 old voice quavered at his elbow. " You be a 
 stranger in these parts, I take it, and maybe you 
 ain't heerd tell of Parson Hume. He were a 
 man, sure-lie." 
 
 It was old Grimby the sexton, and he was 
 peering up at Oliver with his bleared, old eyes, 
 rheumy with age, as if he half recognized the face. 
 
 "Not as I'd say nothing agin the new parson, 
 as is all very well in his way, but he ain't the old 
 one nor nothing like. I mind un when he first 
 come with Master Clive, he as has done great 
 
MEETING. 3°9 
 
 things, folks say, up to College, and were only a 
 babby then, and Miss Dear — begging her par- 
 don, Mrs. Maddison, the young lady, you know, 
 sir, maybe you've a-heerd tell of her marrying 
 the young Squire — " 
 
 " Yes, yes," Oliver interrupted the garrulous, 
 old tongue. " Where is she now ? " 
 
 " Why at the Manor, for sure. She moved up 
 there when the ould parson went, and there she 
 be now, with only just Patty to see to her since 
 Mrs. Lynch were took off sudden with brong- 
 typhus. Its terrible lonesome for her, sure-lie, 
 except when Master Clive come down, and that's 
 not often now, but she never seems mopish like 
 some, bless her ! If you was minded to step that 
 way, sir, 'tis a fine old place, and I'd come along 
 and show you round, as there ain't no objection 
 to parties seeing the place." 
 
 But Oliver could not reduce his pace to suit 
 the old man's hobbling progress, so they parted 
 company, with a good many " Thank ye kindly, 
 sirs," and touchings of the hat on the part of old 
 Grimby, and an immediate making off to the 
 
3IO DEAR. 
 
 Bush to drink his health. And Oliver went on 
 alone towards the Manor, across the park, the 
 very way Ralph had been carried on his wed- 
 ding day ; but he turned aside when he reached 
 the front entrance and went into the rose garden, 
 the way little Dear had gone in her drab pelisse, 
 on her first visit. On the rose branches he 
 noticed the young buds, strong and vigorous, 
 beginning to unfold into small tender leaves, 
 telling of the coming June, and all the beauty 
 and brightness of summer time. 
 
 On the terrace the anemones were dazzling to 
 behold in the bright sun, scarlet and purple and 
 white, with a background of golden jonquils, and 
 there was a thrush singing its heart out on the 
 balustrade by the steps where he had first seen 
 Dear, a song of spring after winter, love after 
 loneliness, praise after patience. He went on — 
 what led him ? — down the steps, through the 
 kitchen garden,, where the bees were humming 
 round the great bushes of wall-flower, and neat 
 lines of very youthful vegetables were becoming 
 apparent across the brown mould. 
 
MEETING. 3 11 
 
 A new strange gardener turned from his hoe- 
 ing and stared at this calm intruder, who walked 
 along the mossy path as if the whole place 
 belonged to him. 
 
 At the white gate into the orchard an Alder- 
 ney cow stood, as if on purpose to recall the day 
 when, perhaps, its mother or grandmother was 
 caressed by tender hands, but he pushed its 
 gentle, greedy nose aside, and passed on into the 
 orchard, where, on the twisted and lichen-covered 
 branches, showed gray-green buds, with here and 
 there a hint of pink to prepare poor, dull, wintry 
 hearts for the glory of blossom that a few more 
 days would bring. 
 
 She was there, a slight figure in black, stand- 
 ing by that very tree where they had sat ten 
 years before, when Mrs. Maddison's coming had 
 interrupted his words. Simple black, no heavy 
 widows' weeds. She had taken off her hat, and 
 as she stood with the sunlight on her soft hair, 
 she looked as young as she had done when he 
 saw her last, and when she turned at the sound 
 of his step, it was the very same face, gentle and 
 
2, 12 DEAR. 
 
 fair and sweet, with the same great soft eyes that 
 lit up at sight of him from their quiet sadness 
 into great joy. 
 
 And then he had her hand in his, and all the 
 trouble and weary waiting were at an end, and 
 he could speak at last. And he said, " Dear." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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