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ANNETTE 
 
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ANNETTE 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 ANNETTE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " 8.S. Nawai;' April Ifh, 
 
 Ho me ward -hound. 
 
 ^HANK God that, after fifteen years of hard 
 work amongst those Hindoo women, work 
 in which I have had help neither of father 
 nor mother, sister nor brother, to cheer me 
 on, I am able at last to write concerning myself, the 
 good words, " Homeward-bound." 
 
 And yet, if I had been so minded, I might have 
 placed these good words at the beginning, instead of the 
 end, of those fifteen years. Indeed that was where 
 some very excellent and well-meaning people thought I 
 ought to have placed them when my brother Mark's 
 death left me alone in a strange land. For, as they 
 represented to me, I was too far advanced in life, being 
 then on the shady side of thirt}^ to strike out for 
 myself an independent career ; and I had no relative out 
 there to make a home for me, if I wished to take 
 employment as mission or zenana teacher ; and in a 
 country like India, where everything goes by position 
 
6 ANNETTE 
 
 and good looks, I, who was possessed of neither, might 
 reasonably expect to find myself very much at a dis- 
 count ; and therefore, as the most straightforward thing 
 for myself, and possibly also the most convenient for 
 them, they recommended me to return home at once, 
 take lodgings in some tidy, respectable little town, and 
 live on my means, which amounted then to the modest 
 sum of a hundred and twenty pounds a year. 
 
 But I really did enjoy the work which, during poor 
 Mark's life, I had tried to do, of visiting the native 
 women in their homes, and dropping into their often 
 ready minds a few words of thought, not always strictly 
 religious, as the phrase goes, but such as I hoped might 
 spring up and clothe the bare ground of their lives with 
 something like beauty and freshness. Then, too, I had 
 got through the most vexing difficulties of the language. 
 The women were beginning to feel that I was their 
 friend, and it did seem a pity to throw away that five 
 years of foundation work, and start again as an idle 
 woman in my own country. 
 
 For, though I was far on to thirty when ]\Iark was 
 gazetted chaplain, and I had decided to come out with 
 him, I had as yet found nothing to do in our quiet little 
 town of Abbotsby. The place was already swamped 
 with well-disposed women of leisure, who did everything 
 that could be done in the way of Sunday-school teach- 
 ing, tract distribution, committees, and all that sort of 
 thing. And I had no special talent of any kind, no 
 artistic faculty, which, well cultivated, might have 
 brought me either pleasure or profit. I had been edu- 
 cated up to the average standard of those days. I knew 
 
ANNETTE 7 
 
 enough of music to lift up my voice in church, or sing 
 an old-fashioned ballad to my father when he was weary 
 with his day's work of clerkship ; enough of French to 
 guide me successfully through a quotation, if I stumbled 
 upon it ; and enough of drawing to sketch a cottage or 
 a tree, a tumble-down -windmill or an ivy-covered willow- 
 stump. But I knew not enough of anything to earn a 
 living by it. My vocation was housekeeping ; my chief 
 resource solid reading, especially of subjects connected 
 with social economy, and from these I learned to 
 mistrust the ordinary efforts of so-called charity, so that 
 almost the only outlet for a woman's energies was shut 
 out from me, common sense showing me that it was 
 often more a luxury than a useful means to a profitable 
 end. 
 
 So when my father and mother died, and my Aunt 
 Miriam, who had always been accustomed to live by 
 herself, proposed to occupy the house which my means 
 would not allow me to keep up, what was there for me 
 but to come out with my brother Mark ? And when he 
 died, what was there for me but to remain in the station 
 of which he had been chaplain, and go on with the work 
 which was beginning to gather round me there ? More 
 especially as one of the wealthiest residents, who took 
 great interest in the native women, had offered me a 
 sufficient salary for a certain number of hours spent daily 
 in zenana teaching ; and the wife of Mr. Leslie, the 
 Presbyterian chaplain, offered me a home in her house so 
 long as they remained in the station, which fortunately 
 has been to the end of my own stay. And then the kind 
 of work which the wealthy civilian wanted me to do, was 
 
8 ANNETTE 
 
 exactly that which I had most capacity for, being not 
 direct religious teaching, that is, doctrinal, but social 
 and moral education, gradually preparing the way for it. 
 He did not wish me to pull down the house of these 
 poor women's faith upon them, and drive them rudely 
 forth into entirely strange conditions of life. Rather he 
 wished that I should try to place some little shoot of 
 divine truth within the crevices of the house, and leave 
 it there until, like the sacred peepul planted by the 
 porch of the Hindoo temple, it should silently grow, 
 strengthen, and at last, by the unconscious force of its 
 own life, undermine and drag down, stone by stone, the 
 worn-out and useless fabric. 
 
 To do this seemed to me better, despite the 
 recommendations mentioned before, than going home 
 and adding one more to the army of unemployed women 
 already there. So I have stayed on and on through all 
 these fifteen years, discouraged sometimes in my work, 
 but much oftener clieered in it by the growing confidence 
 and expanded intelligence of those I was trying to teach, 
 until, six months ago, the death of Aunt Miriam brought 
 another change into my life. Her little property, which 
 she held apart from her annuity, has fallen to me, and I 
 must go home to attend to it, as I have no other relative 
 in England, except my Cheltenham cousin Delia, who is 
 almost a stranger to me. It seems to me, also, that 
 twenty years of such work as I have had here, with only 
 a yearly sea-voyage or trip to the hills, by way of holiday, 
 is enough to give me a right to rest the remainder of my 
 days, even if the addition to my income had not made it 
 comparatively easy for me to do so. I say comparatively, 
 
ANNETTE 9 
 
 for even a hundred and eighty pounds, with a house rent 
 free, is not a magnificent income, and I daresay people 
 would smile at me for proposing to live upon it ; but I 
 mean to try, and perhaps do a little good, too, in my 
 o^TL quiet way, for I could not very well settle down to 
 idleness all at once. 
 
 So in a month from this time I shall be at homo 
 again, and not only at home in the old country, but at 
 home in the very house where all the sweetest years of 
 my life were passed. 
 
 Sometimes I think that is the pleasantest part of all, 
 for Aunt Miriam was very good. She would never have 
 any change made in the place, not a window pat out, 
 nor a door blocked up, nor a piece of furniture sold, 
 nor a tree cut down, nor a flower-bed altered. She knew 
 how I loved everything belonging to my home life, and 
 so she kept that home for me, that I might one day, 
 without any pang of strangeness, return to finish my 
 appointed time in it. Please God I shall do so now, and 
 He only knows how sweet the rest will be, after these 
 years of toil. 
 
 But, dear me ! I never meant to write all tliis, 
 when, a couple of hours ago, I brought my things on 
 deck and settled myself down on the shady side of the 
 skylight, as far as possible from that dreadful scramble 
 of quoit-playing, which is always going on amongst the 
 gentlemen. 
 
 How naturally one takes to journalising on board 
 ship. Though for that matter I have taken to it ever 
 since I was a small child of seven, stitching blank halves 
 of letter paper into little books, wherein to chronicle the 
 
10 ANNETTE 
 
 most important events of life, what flowers came up in 
 my garden, how many fish Mark and Gregory and I 
 caught in the running stream at the bottom of the grass- 
 plot, the exact dates at which our silkworms began to 
 spin their cocoons, or our white mice to make their 
 nests, and the things mother gave us to make feasts of 
 on our birthdays. As these interests died out, others 
 r.rose which seemed to me worthy of being recorded in a 
 properly bound sixpenny book, bought out of careful 
 weekly savings. And when childhood had passed, and 
 the period of girlish aspiration and romance set in, my 
 journal, advanced then to a piece of morocco-covered 
 extravagance with silver clasp, became a sort of soliloquy, 
 in which I talked my views and opinions over to myself, 
 having no one else to talk them over to. 
 
 • So that the habit of writing about what interests me 
 has gTown with my growth and strengthened with my 
 strength. And then, of course, all through my Indian 
 life I have been obliged to keep a daily record of visits 
 paid, in order that Mr. Grant might see to what purpose 
 his money was being employed. And a fifteen years' 
 course of this has made journal- writing such a necessity 
 to me that now I scarcely feel I have behaved properly 
 to the day, unless I have done something towards 
 shaping out its little story in pen and ink. 
 
 Then on board ship — at least, on board this ship — 
 talking to oneself is almost the only resource left. Truth 
 to tell, we seem at present, and I do not except myself, 
 a very uninteresting set of passengers. I don't think 
 five-and-twenty people could be picked out anywhere 
 more heterogeneous, unsympathetic, commonplace than 
 
ANNETTE 11 
 
 ourselves. Perhaps we have capabilities which have not 
 yet been brought out. We may be a set of wind 
 instruments, waiting for the breath to blow into us ; or 
 we may be like the keys of a piano before the wires are 
 got ready for them to strike upon ; or a box of 
 marionettes, motionless until the big hand appears 
 which shall jerk us into activity, and evolve a brisk 
 little play from our dreary inaction ; but I am sure now 
 no one would think we had any interests in common, 
 except when the bell sounds for meals. That is the 
 only force which, so far, has awakened a chord of united 
 action amongst us. 
 
 Talk of angels, and you hear their wings. That 
 bell has sounded just now for luncheon. I must put 
 my things away. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Afternoon. 
 
 OTV curiously the law of association works. 
 ComiDg up here., with the bag of miscellanies 
 which I generally carry about, to avoid 
 the trouble of frequent journeys to our 
 cabin, and establishing myself, as before, on the quiet 
 side of the skylight, there comes back to me exactly 
 the same picture which was arranging itself before 
 my mind's eye when the luncheon bell shivered it into 
 fragments an hour ago. 
 
 I had said that we were all very uninteresting, and I 
 was going to make a list of the passengers, and write 
 down from day to day particulars of our voyage, because, 
 in years to come, when I am sitting quietly by my own 
 fireside, it will be pleasant to look back upon this curious 
 little slice of my life. 
 
 We have only been at sea two days, therefore some 
 of our company are still invisible, only manifesting 
 themselves by groans and other sounds issuing from the 
 closed doors of their cabins. For myself, I have never, 
 since my first voyage, suffered for more than a few hours 
 from sea-sickness, but my recollection of its horrors is 
 vivid enough to give me deep sympathy with the 
 
ANNETTE IB 
 
 utterers of those groans. I should like to be a sister of 
 mercy, and go amongst them with cups of tea and doses 
 of lemon-juice, only the stewardess would suspect me of 
 an unworthy longing after her prospective half-sovereigns. 
 And the victims themselves, who appeared at our first 
 meal on board with smiling faces and well-arranged hair 
 and toilettes, might reasonably object to being seen by 
 a stranger in their present condition. So I refrain. But 
 the will to help is present with me. 
 
 My cabin companion is a Miss Lislethorpe. I have 
 scarcely seen anything of her yet, as she spends nearly 
 all her time in the next cabin, which is occupied 
 exclusively by Mrs. ]\Iarsham, the very rich wife of a 
 very rich Colonel in the Punjaub. Mrs. Marsham is 
 going home for " change," and I fancy, from the way in 
 which she keeps sending Miss Lislethorpe about on one 
 errand or other, that the poor girl is acting as a sort of 
 paid companion to her. 
 
 Strangely different companionship that from what 
 Miss Lislethoi-pe must have expected a year ago, when 
 I saw her for the first time at Moorkee, where I had 
 gone for my three months' holiday. 
 
 Indian society is like a coursed hare. It is con- 
 tinually turning and doubling upon its own path, so 
 that wherever you go in the same coursing neighbour- 
 hood — that is, the same Presidency— you are sure to 
 meet some one you have known or heard of somewhere 
 else. No woman could lead a quieter life than I have 
 been leading for the last fifteen years, yet at different 
 hill stations which I have visited during my holiday 
 times, I have come across five or six out of the eleven 
 
14 ANNETTE 
 
 ladies on board. Miss Lislethorpe's father was cliaplaia 
 of Moorkee. When I was there, she had but latel}^ come 
 out from England, with all the latest fashions in her 
 outfit — bonnets and dresses which were the envy of the 
 women and the wonder of the men, whilst the grace 
 with which she wore them was the admiration of both. 
 
 She was then the pet of the station — one of those 
 bright, pretty creatures who seem made to live on love 
 and caresses, and of whom one cannot think in con- 
 nection wdth anything uncomfortable. We never knew 
 each other personally, for she was out when I made my 
 duty-call at the parsonage, and I was out when she 
 made hers. We never met, either, in society, for the 
 balls and Badmintons at which she was so popular were 
 quite out of my way. But I have sat in church many a 
 time and watched her face through the firstly, secondly, 
 and thirdly of her father's somewhat tedious sermons. 
 It was a sweet face, with just a touch of sadness in its 
 expression when quite at rest. Evidently balls and 
 Badmintons could not fill up all her life, even supple- 
 mented by social success, and the distinction of an 
 outfit good enough for a Lieutenant-Governor's lad)^, as 
 every one said hers was. 
 
 But once I saw Annette Lislethorpe with no touch 
 of sadness in her face. I was out collecting ferns and 
 grasses on one of the little hillside paths of Moorkee, 
 when she suddenly appeared round a bend in the road, 
 on horseback, accompanied by Captain Asperton, a 
 young officer whom I knew by sight. They were going 
 leisurely along, absorbed in a conversation which gave 
 'them no leisure to espy the stout, middle-aged lady, 
 
ANNETTE 15 
 
 with her basket of specimens, half hidden amongst the 
 kixuriant foliage of the rising ground ; but I shall never 
 forget the happy light in her eyes, and the rosy glow 
 upon her cheeks, and the sweetness of her laugh as it 
 rang out upon the stillness. I kept out of sight. They 
 wanted no companionship of mine. I wonder if I felt a 
 little touch of envy, to look upon a joy which, for me, 
 was past and done with well on for thirty years before. 
 Perhaps I did. 
 
 I went back to my work amongst the zenanas, and 
 the next thing I heard was that Mr. Lislethorpe had 
 died suddenly, leaving no provision whatever for his 
 only child. Ill-natured people said that he had invested 
 his capital in her education at a fashionable "West-end 
 school, and in the outfit which was so far beyond his 
 means, hoping to realise a profitable return in her 
 speedy and brilliant settlement. In that case Captain 
 Asperton would scarcely have suited, having nothing 
 beyond his pay ; but it could only have been a passing 
 fancy — at least, I think so, or he would surely have 
 claimed her when her father's death left her so desolate. 
 
 And the end of it is that she is the sharer of my 
 cabin in the ship Nawab, working her passage home as 
 companion to a selfish rich woman. Literally working 
 it, for the demands Mrs. Marsham is constantly making 
 leave scarcely time for rest or sleep. And only a year 
 ago she was so happy that I, seeing her happiness afar 
 off, felt the pang of being left out in the cold. Now for 
 me there waits, close at hand, the warmth and sweetness 
 of home ; and for her — what ? So the world goes. 
 
 I don't suppose she remembers me. There are too 
 
16 ANNETTE 
 
 many Miss Browns in the world for tlie name, painted 
 ever so neatly, in the whitest of letters, on my cabin 
 luggage, to attract her notice. And as for my face, 
 nobody has ever looked at that in church, or indeed 
 anywhere else, for long and long enough. She shows 
 no wish either for better acquaintance, though she 
 has heard me talking to Mrs. Truro, one of the 
 chaplains' wives on board, about Moorkee and the 
 people I knew there. As her circumstances are so 
 different now, I feel it would be a sort of impertinence 
 on my part to refer to the days of her prosperity, 
 unless she made some opening for it. As yet she is 
 entirely reserved to me. We have advanced no further 
 than the merest civilities necessary between people 
 who are brought so closely into contact as we are. 
 
 But I feel sometimes a great longing to comfort her. 
 I want to put my arms round her, and draw down to mine 
 the thin cheek which was once so bright and rosy. I am 
 sure I could make life a little pleasanter to her during 
 this voyage, if she would only let me. Perhaps the way 
 may open out by-and-by. I will wait my time. 
 
 But about the other passengers. Ladies are in 
 the minority. Besides these two, Annette Lislethorpe 
 and ]\Irs. Marsham, we have a Mrs. Aberall, also 
 very rich and very important, between whom and 
 Mrs. Marsham there exists a deadly feud on the subject 
 of precedence. Then come three officers' wives, each 
 taking home a pretty, pale-faced little girl ; then a 
 Mrs. Flexon, who lost her husband a year and a half 
 ago, and seems not inconsolable — I met her, too, at 
 Moorkee last hot weather — then a civilian's widow, 
 
ANNETTE 17 
 
 a quiet, ladylike woman ; and lastly, two chaplains' 
 , wives, with their husbands, going home on furlough. 
 Though the chaplains, owing to my awkwardness in 
 composition, make their appearance on the list of 
 lady passengers, I do not therefore imply the slightest 
 disrespect to them, because, so far as I am able to 
 judge, they are both clever men, and with a good 
 share of that common sense which is never so valuable 
 as when one finds it in a clergyman. 
 
 Indeed, if they had not a great deal of good sense, 
 and good temper too, they would be sorely tried by 
 the onslaughts of Dr. Byte, our medical officer, who 
 is continually endeavouring to draw them into religious 
 discussions, apparently to air a certain flippant scep- 
 ticism upon which he plumes himself. Another of the 
 passengers is a Mr. Justin, a shrewd, clever, and, I 
 should think, rather sarcastic sort of man. He listens 
 to the discussions that go on, though he seldom takes 
 any part in them, except when he finds that the 
 brilliant sword-play of the doctor is becoming too 
 much for the steadier but less adroit fencing of the 
 chaplains. Once or twice he has swooped down upon 
 them in the midst of a tough combat, and set the 
 whole matter straight by sweeping away the arguments 
 on both sides, and so making the disputants look ratlier 
 foolish. On that account neither the chaplains nor the 
 sceptics appear to like him very much, though his 
 weight is always put into the scale for truth. I don't 
 know who he is, though there is something in his face 
 that seems curiously familiar to me. It was a little 
 Gregory Justin who used to fish with us, when we were 
 
 B 
 
18 ANNETTE 
 
 children, in the stream at the bottom of the garden. 
 How strange if this should be the same ! I should like 
 to ask him, but he seems to prefer keeping himself apart 
 from the other people, especially the ladies. And when 
 I come to ask myself what is that familiar something 
 in his face, it fades away. I cannot get hold of it. 
 Gregory was a very small child when we all used to 
 play together, and Mark and I, who were three or four 
 years older, used to patronise him, though often enough 
 he showed himself cleverer than the two of us put 
 together. It must be the remembrance of how our ju- 
 venile arguments used to be " squashed " by his sharper 
 intellect, that makes me fancy he has some connection 
 with this sceptic-and-chaplain-conquering Mr. Justin. 
 
 Then we have three young men, who came out 
 expecting, as they told the captain last night, to " hit 
 upon something," and not having hit upon it, are now 
 going home again. What a comical way of seeking that 
 life work which is a man's glory ! Well, I hope their 
 next aim will reach the mark. Judging by the way 
 those three young men go through the most impossible 
 gymnastics on the lower deck, there must be any amount 
 of physical toughness and endurance in them, and so 
 they ought, by-and-by, to be of some use in the world — 
 the sort of young men that, having ''hit" upon the 
 right thing, might make Balaclava heroes, and here 
 they are playing quoits, and tying themselves into knots 
 round a pole, for want of anything better to do. 
 
 There are several other gentlemen passengers, but I 
 have not so much as learned their names yet. 1 hope 
 before long I shall find out about Mr. Justin, 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 lOth. 
 
 NNETTE LISLETHORPE and I are very 
 good friends now, and this is how it has 
 come about. 
 
 Soon after I finished my writing the 
 other day, the dressing-bell rang, and I had to go down 
 to our cabin to divest myself of the plain white linen 
 cuffs and collar which are never allowed to make their 
 appearance at the dinner-table. Annette was lying in 
 her berth, looking the very picture of despair and 
 misery. I have noticed ever since we sailed that the 
 poor girl has been struggling with sickness. She eats 
 nothing, takes interest in nothing, and drags herself 
 about in a dreary sort of way, which is pitiful to behold. 
 Mrs. Marsham does not appear to be conscious of this, 
 or she would surely give the girl a little more rest. I 
 don't think I have ever sat here on deck for an hour 
 together without hearing that woman call out, in such 
 sharp ringing tones : 
 
 " Miss Lislethorpe ! Miss Lislethorpe ! " 
 And when the poor girl has made her appearance, 
 pale with that incessant nausea which is so much worse 
 than a downright attack of sickness, she has been sent 
 
 B 2 
 
20 ANNETTE 
 
 down again for a skein of wool, a reel of cotton, a 
 missing handkerchief, or some other trifle, which the 
 rubicund matron could much more easily have fetched 
 for herself. But Mrs. Marsham belongs to the upper 
 ten, who wish all the world to know that they are born 
 to be waited upon. 
 
 Annette turned her face away as I went into the 
 cabin. Evidently she did not wish me to speak or take 
 any notice of her ill-health. Her tenacity of reserve 
 shut me up. I went on with my dressing in silence, 
 and had just finished when Mrs. Marsham's call was 
 heard from the next cabin. 
 
 '' Miss Lislethorpe ! Miss Lislethorpe ! " 
 
 Oh ! the utterly spent and hopeless look which 
 came over the girl's face as she tried to raise herself to 
 obey the summons. 
 
 "Lie still," I said, in a very quiet, matter-of-fact 
 way. '' I will go and see what Mrs. Marsham wants." 
 
 She let me go, for she was in that condition which 
 cannot have respect any longer to reserves or scruples. 
 When I went into Mrs. Marsham's cabin, first meekly 
 knocking at the door, and receiving a somewhat tart 
 summons to enter, that lady was standing in front of 
 the looking-glass, with her back to me, vainly endeavour- 
 ing to make a yard of belt ribbon meet round her 
 capacious waist. 
 
 " Miss Lislethorpe," she said to me, in by no means 
 the mildest of tones, " I do wish, when the dressing-bell 
 sounds, you would make a point of coming to my cabin. 
 Really, if I am to wait upon myself in this way, I might 
 as well •" 
 
ANNETTE 21 
 
 Here Mrs. Marsham turned and found me, Miss 
 Hester Brown, a comfortable, jolly little woman, standing 
 in the open doorway. 
 
 *' I beg your pardon, Miss Brown." 
 
 *' I beg your pardon, Mrs. Marsliam." 
 
 Well, it icas an uncomfortable situation — 1 mean for 
 Mrs. Marsham. "When a lady appears in public all 
 smiles, amiability, and condescension, the acknowledged 
 hurra mem Sahib of the vessel, it is, to say the least of it, 
 awkward to be surprised in her cabin, quite destitute 
 either of smiles or amiability — destitute, too, of the 
 Honiton lace and pink bows which supply its sole grace 
 to her matronly head, and of the white teeth which 
 produce such a charming effect when displayed in a 
 good-tempered laugh. If Mrs. Marsham only ignored 
 me before, I think from that time she must have begun 
 to dislike me, though I am sure I knocked at the door, 
 and coughed, and did everything that was necessary to 
 make her aware of my presence. 
 
 " Can I assist you ? '*' I asked politely, and, I 
 hope, without the faintest touch of amusement in my 
 face. 
 
 "Not in the least," Mrs. Marsham replied, with 
 great dignity. '' Pray do not let me detain you a 
 moment longer. Will you be kind enough to send 
 Miss Lislethorpe to me at once ? " 
 
 " Miss Lislethorpe is very ill, and not able to move 
 from her berth," I said ; " and I came to see if I could 
 do anything for you." 
 
 *'I am excessively obliged, but I will not trouble 
 you." 
 
22 ANNETTE 
 
 And Mrs. Marsham resumed her efforts to clasp the 
 belt, looking redder and more ill-tempered than ever, 
 whilst I returned to Annette, to find her half fainting 
 from hunger and sickness. The girl had eaten scarcely 
 anything since we came on board. 
 
 Without speaking to her, I got my little Etna stove, 
 heated some water, made a cup of good strong tea, and 
 insisted upon her drinking it. When she had finished 
 it, I smoothed her pillows for her. As I was doing so, 
 I could not help laying my hand with a sort of caressing 
 touch upon her forehead. It is not my way to "fuss " 
 over people, but she did look so wretched. I thought, 
 if I had been in her case, I should have been glad for 
 any one to do the same for me. And I began to feel, 
 too, how much she must have gone through with that 
 dreadful Mrs. Marsham. 
 
 I don't think I meant it ; but that little caress was 
 the one thing which broke down the barrier of reserve 
 between us. She threw her arms round my neck, and 
 burst into such a passion of tears as I have never seen 
 before ; and when I once took hold of her hand, she 
 clutched mine deliberately, with a force I could scarcely 
 have thought those little fingers had in them. Then I 
 laid her quietly down and kissed her, and slipped into 
 my place at the end of the dinner-table, in time for the 
 third course. 
 
 Miss Lislethorpe and I, having no position on the 
 Civil List, are relegated to the bottom of the first 
 dinner-table. Our tea and toast, or beef and pudding, 
 are often rather cold in consequence ; but we find the 
 advantage of an end seat in being able to slip in and 
 
ANNETTE 23 
 
 out whenever we like, a convenience, I think, the iippei 
 people must sorely envy us, who are obliged to sit 
 through a long stately dinner and dessert, when they 
 would thankfully exchange both for a mouthful of fresh 
 air on deck, or a quiet little snooze in their respective 
 berths. 
 
 Since then Annette and I have found our way into 
 each other's heart. She knows that I would like to 
 be kind to her, without in any way intruding upon her 
 great sorrow, or prying into her prospects, whatever 
 they may be. I cannot tell how pleasant it is to me, 
 the feeling of watching over her and taking care of her. 
 I never had it before with any one, for all through my 
 Indian life, though I had to work hard enough, and 
 manage my own affairs, and look after my own business 
 matters, still I had no one dependent on me, no one 
 who would greatly miss love and care that I could give. 
 Next to the sweetness of being cared for oneself by some 
 one wiser, stronger, better, is that of having some one to 
 whom you can give such care. It is like a new sense in 
 my life. Only it will last such a little while. 
 
 "VYe have now been at sea nearly a week. It seems 
 to me more like a month. Not that I am unhappy or 
 discontented ; how could that be when I am going 
 home to rest and peace after long years of toil ? But 
 there is so much to see, there are so many fresh faces to 
 study. And then, on board ship, the very fact that 
 your field of view is so limited, makes you look with 
 microscopic carefulness upon everything that comes 
 within it. You cannot afford to let anything slip, 
 because there is so little to take hold of. 
 
24 ANNETTE 
 
 But then, looking off this little patch of human life 
 into the great wide life of nature which stretches round 
 us, how much there is to wonder over and enjoy ! The 
 manifold soft tints of the ocean, the sunrises and sun- 
 sets, the black storm-clouds sweeping round the horizon, 
 the rosy glow of the west, reflected at evening time 
 upon the breaking waves, the clear calm of moonlight 
 nights, when I watch from my cabin window the long 
 silver streaks upon the water, and the stars sparkling up 
 one by one above the wide sea line, how beautiful it all 
 is ! And day by day I look westward to the purple and 
 gold, and remember that there is my home ; and though 
 none wait for me there now but the spirits of those I 
 love, still they are very real to me. 1 have not lost 
 them at all. So remembering and hoping, the days 
 seem long, though long with a most quiet content. 
 
 "VVe have now fallen into the groove which I suppose 
 we shall remain in to the end of the voyage ; I mean 
 the groove of association and companionship. Mrs. 
 Marsham and Mrs. Aberall, in virtue of their rank 
 as colonels' wives, are a little too grand to mix with 
 the rest of us, and would naturally, therefore, be thrown 
 upon each other's society were it not that there has 
 been a settled enmity between them ever since the 
 captain ruled that Mrs. Marsham should sit at his 
 right. Thus, being shut out by pique from each other, 
 and by position from every one else, the two ladies 
 remain apart, each a solitary island in the ocean of 
 her own dignity. 
 
 The two chaplains and their wives have, of course, 
 interests in common, and with Mrs. Barret, the 
 
ANNETTE 25 
 
 civilian's widow, have formed a little clerical settlement 
 at the poop end of the deck. 
 
 The officers' wives naturally gather together, with 
 their pretty little children, who are quite the playthings 
 of the ship. Mrs. Flexon, the not-inconsolable widow, 
 has taken kindly both to the doctor and to the three 
 young men who are waiting for something to hit. At 
 first it was a general friendly intimacy amongst them 
 all. Now two, one of them the doctor, appear to be 
 singled out as special objects of regard, the others 
 having gradually drifted away as they found them- 
 selves de trop. If things pursue their natural course, 
 I think one of the remaining two — but not the doctor — 
 will also find himself de trop^ and have to retire. 
 
 The two chaplains' wives look severe, and say that 
 Mrs. Flexon ought to know better. I think she ought, 
 looking at the matter from my old-fashioned point of 
 view. But then people of much higher rank do exactly 
 the same thing, and are received all the time in the 
 very best society. I suppose it is carrying on the 
 ^irtation within the very limited area of a steamer's 
 poop deck which makes it objectionable. However, as 
 Mrs. Flexon has never taken any notice of me, even by 
 the slightest of passing bows, I need not trouble myself 
 as to the line that I should pursue, in case her conduct 
 becomes reprehensible. Annette and I, when she can 
 come on deck at all, sit here under the skylight, and no 
 one takes any notice of us. 
 
 I have not yet summoned up courage to ask Mr. 
 Justin if he has any connection with the little Gregory 
 of our juvenile fishing expeditions. He is not an easy 
 
26 ANNETTE 
 
 man to approach. He talks very little, but looks at 
 us all as if he were inwardly making fun of us. I dare- 
 say he is a man who does see the ludicrous side of 
 everything, and ship society certainly has its ludicrous 
 side. I believe he is very clever. I see him occasionally 
 engaged in conversation with the captain — whose duty 
 it is, of course, to be polite to everybody — or the first 
 officer, or the chief engineer ; and from the way they 
 listen to him, I am sure what he says must be in- 
 teresting ; but he does not seem to take kindly to the 
 rest of us. 
 
 I had my first talk with him yesterday. I had come 
 on deck very early to watch the sunrise, and found he was 
 there for the same purpose. Under the circumstances, 
 we were obliged to be polite. He brought my deck- 
 chair, placed it conveniently for me out of the way 
 of the sailors' hose, a civility which compelled some 
 little attempt at conversation on my part ; and from a 
 remark on the beauty of the weather, other subjects 
 arose, and others and others, until, after at least an 
 hour and a half, we were disturbed by the sound of the 
 first breakfast bell. I say disturbed, because I think 
 we were both of us sorry to hear it. 
 
 If I am ever again tempted to say that we are unin- 
 teresting company, I will certainly except Mr. Justin 
 from the indictment. I wonder what there was he did 
 not talk about with intelligence and ability during that 
 long time. We dipped into art, poetry, literature, and 
 even Indian politics, about which last subject I know 
 next to nothing myself ; but I do know when I hear a 
 man talk well about it. He has made himself ac- 
 
ANNETTE 27 
 
 quainted with the results of zenana work, so that we had 
 interests in common there, and we ventured a little 
 way within extreme high-water mark of religious 
 thought. 
 
 With what curious humility and self-distrust Mr. 
 Justin, whose opinions seem generally decided, if not 
 dogmatic, expresses himself upon that subject. If I 
 never felt humble before, I certainly did w^hilst listening 
 to him then. He spoke hesitatingly, and with a sense of 
 reverent reserve, on matters which I have been accus- 
 tomed to talk about with the utmost fluency, as though 
 I had completely mastered them. Shame on me ! But 
 I will never do it again. I would fain hope I did not 
 betray any of this detestable self-sufficiency to him, for, 
 as the bell startled us both from a discussion on certain 
 texts, he said, very cordially : 
 
 " We must finish this another time." 
 
 And I hope we shall. But I must ask him, when the 
 other time comes, whether he knows anything about the 
 little tov/n of Abbotsby, in the north of England. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 n fh. 
 
 T Aden, which we passed last evening, a 
 strong wind sprang up, the ship began to 
 roll, and poor Annette is worse than ever. 
 This is very disappointing, for she was 
 just beginning to get a little colour into her face, wdiich 
 made her look more like the Annette I remember last 
 year at this time. 
 
 Hers is clearly one of those cases in which a sea 
 voyage does not do good. She is slowly starving herself 
 to death on a square inch of ship biscuit, and half a 
 teacupful of soup daily. By the time she reaches 
 England, if she ever reaches it at all, she will be little 
 better than a skeleton. And then the poor child vexes 
 herself so because she is not able to perform her duties 
 properly towards this Mrs. Marsham, who is always 
 wanting something to be fetched, or carried, or done for 
 her. 
 
 Last night, when she began to be so ill again, she 
 asked me if I would have an interview with Mrs. 
 Marsham, and prevail upon her to cancel the arrange- 
 ment about the companionship affair. I thought the 
 woman was paying part of her passage-money, for the 
 
ANNETTE 29 
 
 sake of her services during the voj^age ; but instead of 
 that, Annette pays her own expenses, and Mrs. Marsham 
 is giving her twenty pounds for her attendance as com- 
 panion for a whole year, from the time we left Bombay, 
 only providing her with board and lodging from our 
 landing in England. Heavens ! what are some people 
 made of? And not content with this one-sided bargain, 
 Mrs. Marsham was complaining to Annette last night 
 that she does not sufficiently fulfil her share of the 
 contract. She told her, so poor Annette says, that in 
 England girls of her position and education, when left 
 unprovided for, are thankful enough to give their 
 services in return for a comfortable home ; and even in 
 many cases to offer themselves a small sum in acknow- 
 ledgment of the privilege of being treated as ladies. 
 
 Under these circumstances, I took it upon me to 
 visit Mrs. Marsham on deck this morning — she has 
 never looked at me since that unlucky affair of the 
 belt ribbon — and suggest that, as Miss Lislethorpe, 
 in consequence of her very feeble health, was not likely 
 to be of much further use as companion — I might more 
 truly have said maid-of-all-work — it might be advan- 
 tageous to both sides to have the engagement cancelled. 
 
 After a due show of dignity, the colonel's wife 
 consented, but not without impressing upon me that 
 she was making a great sacrifice, and considered herself 
 decidedly an ill-used woman. Which perhaps she is, 
 as I don't think she will get any one else to do so 
 much for the money. A couple of hours later, I heard 
 her talking to one of the officers' wives, whom she 
 has graciously condescended to notice since the feud 
 
30 ANNETTE 
 
 with Mrs. Aberall, and congratulating herself upon 
 being rid of such a burden. 
 
 *' Not of the slightest use to me in any one thing, 
 Mrs. Mateby — never at hand when I want her, and so 
 full of airs and nonsense that really one would think 
 the favour was quite on her part. I have had to speak 
 very plainly to her, and say that, when people are left 
 penniless in that way, they must be content to accept 
 their position, and not look for all the privileges of 
 gentlewomen. But it is that disagreeable Miss Brown 
 who encourages her, making her fancy she is weak and 
 ill — such rubbish ! When I go to my own place at 
 the seaside, I shall advertise for a lady without salary. 
 They are always the most accommodating in their 
 manners. The more you give, the less people will 
 do for you." 
 
 Mrs. Mateby assented. Indeed, she is so glad to 
 be confided in by a colonel's wife that 1 think she 
 would assent to anything. 
 
 So now it is all settled, and I feel as glad as if I 
 had won the release for myself. Annitte and I will 
 be left to ourselves. We can make up a bed of shawls 
 for her on the shady side of the skylight, and I can 
 write or knit, or amuse myself with what goes on round 
 me, whilst she just dozes the time away in that half- 
 sleeping, half- waking state which is the only one possible 
 to sufferers from sea-sickness. How delightful to be 
 able to do just as we like, without ever being disturbed 
 by that terrible " Miss Lislethorpe ! Miss Lislethorpe ! " 
 which has been poor Annette's nightmare since she 
 first came on board. I am sure that call was as 
 
ANNETTE 31 
 
 dreadful to me as though I had been obliged to get 
 up and attend to it myself. 
 
 Last night I dreamed about going home. "Waking, 
 what a joy to know that it was not all a dream. I 
 suppose things are sweet or bitter by contrast. If I 
 had been for the last twenty years living peacefully 
 with my father and mother in the old house which is 
 preparing for me now, and had then lost them both, and 
 been left to myself, people would have said, "How 
 sad ! " as they found me sitting by my solitary fireside. 
 But compared with long years of work in a foreign land, 
 with no links, except of memory, to bind me to my home, 
 this loneliness to which I am coming seems so sweet. 
 
 I wonder if I shall find many of my old friends. 
 Aunt Miriam was not much of a correspondent, and 
 when she did enter into details, they were chiefly about 
 household and domestic matters. Not belonging to 
 Abbotsby herself, she did not favour the dust thereof, 
 as I have done all the days of my life. By the 
 newspapers which she sent me regularly once a month, 
 I know that some are married, some are dead, but I 
 have not had a newspaper now since she began to be ill, 
 nearly a year ago. 
 
 The first person I shall go to see will be Mrs. 
 Carbery, my mother's friend, if she is living still. How 
 well I remember her brisk, bright, practical ways, her 
 kindness to us children, the intense delight we used to 
 have in going to her house to tea, playing in the lumber- 
 room amongst piles of old pictures and newspapers, and 
 creeping out of its window into the branches of an 
 apple-tree, which stretched right across the bottom row 
 
32 ANNETTE 
 
 of panes. Mrs. Carbery was living last time my Aunt 
 Miriam wrote to me, but she was beginning even then, 
 and that is a year ago, to fail very much. It would be 
 pleasant to talk with her about my father and mother, 
 and the old times, and the friends who are dead and gone. 
 I want little from any one, so long as I may live my life 
 with the old memories, and be faithful to the old friends. 
 
 Hilary Bennet, too. Is she above ground, or are her 
 troubles ended ? She lived as cook with my father and 
 mother when they were first married, and then she went 
 to live with her mother, and kept the little goodstuff 
 shop in the lane at the bottom of our road. Many a 
 j)enny ]\Iark and I have spent there over gingerbread 
 horses with gilt bridles, and biscuits with the alphabet 
 stamped all round them in caraway seeds, our nurse 
 never letting us bite a letter off until we could tell its 
 name. Hilary was a rosy-cheeked young woman then, 
 looking bonnie enough in her Sunday pink ribbons 
 and clean pink gown ; but when her mother died 
 she married a man who turned out badly, the little 
 goodstuff shop came to grief, and when I went away 
 to India, poor Hilary, at fifty, was a bent, worn-out 
 woman, earning her living by taking in washing. 
 Every now and then her drunken husband, who left 
 her soon after they were married, used to swoop 
 down upon her, carry off her little savings, pawn 
 everything in the house, and then leave her, coming 
 back when he thought she had had time to scrape a little 
 money together again. 
 
 Poor Hilary ! Yet there was the making of a true 
 lady in her. No born gentlewoman could have had 
 
ANNETTE 33 
 
 finer ideas of honour, or turned more proudly away 
 from the taking of dishonest gain. How many a cake 
 has she given me from her little shop, in the good old 
 times, and how many a tin of soup has she thankfully 
 carried away from our house, when for her, poor thing, 
 the good old days were over, and that drunken sot of a 
 husband had taken the light from her eyes and the 
 colour from her cheeks. I could scarcely wish to find 
 her alive if the last twenty years have brought her as 
 much sorrow as she had known when I looked my last 
 upon her. 
 
 I have never summoned up courage yet to ask 
 Mr. Justin if he knows Abbotsbj^ Once or twice he 
 has had pleasant little talks with us, when I have been 
 sitting with Annette on deck, but we always seemed to 
 stop short of the point at which I could venture to ask 
 him any questions about himself. Because he never 
 talks about his own affairs. He has said nothing yet 
 which gives me the least idea what his profession is. 
 Whatever subject he takes up is handled so well that 
 one might almost fancy it had been the study of his 
 life. He seems to have read as much theology as either 
 of the chaplains, and to know quite as much about 
 practical religion. His scientific knowledge seems to 
 me far beyond that of our sceptical doctor, and he 
 has read all sorts of books on social subjects. These 
 are the things to talk about, and not his own ex- 
 periences or sayings or doings ; so that whether he 
 is a clergyman in plain clothes, or a doctor, or a lawj^er, 
 or a professor of some sort, I don't know, and I don't 
 beheve anybody else on board knows. All that we have 
 
34 annett:e 
 
 yet found out about him is, that he is returning from a 
 six months' tour in India, from which I infer tliat he is 
 a man of means. 
 
 Well, supposing that he turned out to be my little 
 friend Gregory, the only child of Mr. Justin, who used 
 to be the Recorder of Abbotsby, he might by this time 
 be a man of means. For Mr. Justin was considered 
 one of the great people of the town, and used to mix in 
 the best society, and I remember looking with a sort of 
 awe upon Mrs. Justin's velvets and furs when she came 
 to see my mother. Mr. Justin died when Gregory was 
 about eight years old, and then she went away to live 
 with her own friends in the south, taking the little boy 
 with her, and we heard no more about them. I believe 
 she rather looked down upon us because we lived so 
 quietly ; but still she was always ready to let Gregory 
 come and play with us. I could fancy sometimes that 
 Mr. Justin has a little touch of the same "stand-off" 
 manner. It is very difficult to become at home with him. 
 
 But oh 1 if he really is little Gregory, how pleasant 
 it will be to talk of the old days with him. For fifteen 
 years now I have clasped hands W'itli no one who had 
 ever seen my father and mother, no one who knows my 
 home, no one to whom I can speak of anything but the 
 outside life. The past is gone out of sight, like a tree 
 whose branches have been forced underground, ^ly 
 life is that of an orchid, with no roots at all, nothing 
 but leaves and flowers, living on the air of the present. 
 No wonder I am obliged to talk to myself so much of 
 what is gone, for in no other way can I keep it w^itli mo 
 at all. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ISth. 
 
 SAID last time I wrote here, ''It would 
 be very pleasant." Now I say, " It is 
 very pleasant." 
 
 Yesterday morning I was on deck very 
 early, whilst the eastern sky was yet one mass of rose 
 and purple, with dashes and flecks of gold where the 
 yet unrisen sun caught the edges of the clouds. As 
 the little ripples curled and broke, their foam reflected 
 the rosy light for an instant, making it seem like sprays 
 of amethyst and ruby. The air had that cool, sweet 
 freshness which none but those who have wearied 
 through the heat of Indian summers know how to 
 prize ; and breathing it in alone there in the early 
 April morning I felt young in heart again, with almost 
 the youth of the old days at home. 
 
 I was stretched out in my comfortable deck-chair, 
 enjoying the luxury of the stillness, for it is so delight- 
 ful not to hear the cackling and babbling of voices all 
 around, when Mr. Justin sauntered up and wished me 
 good morning. 
 
 I suppose we found each other ready for conversa- 
 tion, for soon we drifted into a pleasant talk about 
 things in general. I listened, as I always do, to his 
 
 c 2 
 
36 ANNETTE 
 
 clear, large, liberal thoughts — whether addressed to 
 myself or not — with an internal sense of freshness as 
 welcome as that which the early morning air was giving 
 to the outward part of me. For the first time he began 
 to tell me something about his own wishes and pur- 
 poses in life. He said that, having travelled for some 
 time in the East, he was now going to be settled down 
 in the quiet little English town wdiere his childhood 
 had been spent. And as he should have abundant 
 time for thought and study there, he meant to give 
 his attention to writing, taking for his department the 
 science of social well-being, health, education, ventila- 
 tion, all these being subjects on which even a little 
 knowledge gained might have great results. 
 
 I agreed with him ; such thought as I had been able 
 to give to anything in my reading days having been 
 spent in much the same direction, though, as yet, with 
 no great practical result. I asked him, however, to 
 add to these subjects almsgiving and profitable emplo}- 
 ment for women, these tw^o things, or rather the 
 understanding of them, being exceedingly necessary to 
 the increasing number of benevolent and inexperienced 
 women who were unable to direct their energies in any 
 useful direction. 
 
 The interest he took in this suggestion, and the 
 kindly manner in which he listened to my lame remarks, 
 encouraged me to ask the question which I must 
 confess had been bubbling up in my thoughts all the 
 time. I said, with as much self-possession as I could 
 muster — for Mr. Justin is not a man who tolerates 
 anything like inquisitiveness in a woman : 
 
ANNETTE 37 
 
 "You spoke just now of being settled down in a 
 quiet little Englisli town. I wonder if it is Abbotsby, up 
 in the north. I used to live there myself once. We knew 
 a family named Justin. My name is Hester Brown." 
 
 Mr. Justin bent his keen, clever eyes down upon me, 
 as if he would look me through and through, but I 
 could not find any dawn of recognition in his face. 
 Instead, I fancied I found a sort of annoyance, as if he 
 were vexed with me for trying to ferret out what was no 
 business of mine. And I began to be conscious that I 
 had put the question in a very awkward way, just the 
 way to irritate a rather proud man. However, having 
 begun, I was determined to flounder through, feeling- 
 certain that I should never have courage to enter upon 
 the subject again. 
 
 "I daresay you have met a good many Miss Browns 
 before now," I said. 
 
 " Well, yes," he replied, with a comical look, " I 
 must confess I have." 
 
 And there he stopped again, making me feel more 
 uncomfortable than ever. He certainly has the coolest 
 way of putting any one down. 
 
 "But," I persisted, "I have not met so many 
 Mr. Justins, and I very much want to know if you are 
 the same. A little boy named Gregory Justin used to 
 come and play with us. We lived out of the town, at 
 the Northgate end, in a house off the road, and there 
 was a stream at the bottom of the garden where we used 
 to fish. I was not called Hester then, but Fudge, 
 because I was so short and stout." 
 
 " Yes, and good, too— the best little woman in the 
 
38 ANNETTE 
 
 world," said Mr. Justin, facing round upon me so 
 suddenly that I droj^ped a whole row of stitches in the 
 stocking I was knitting. ''Why, you don't mean to 
 say you are the dear old Fudge who used to sew bags for 
 our marbles, and make fishing-rods for us out of pins 
 and bits of string. Why, of course, it all comes back on 
 me as clear as daylight. And you made me a book- 
 mark, too, when we went away. It was only the other 
 day I turned it out amongst a lot of things, when I was 
 starting for India. I wonder it never got lost, for I'm 
 sure I did not take particular care of it." 
 
 That was very like Gregory, too. No, he was not a 
 specially affectionate little boy, nor much given to 
 keepsakes and sentimentalities. He was always more 
 for finding out and reasoning about things, trying 
 experiments, spoiling his shoes and socks by wading 
 into the stream to investigate spiders and water-beetles. 
 How often have I, the motherly Fudge of ten years, 
 washed those socks for him, and spread them out to dry on 
 the currant-bush in my own garden, that he might not run 
 the risk of a scolding from his nurse when he got home. 
 But he used to take it very quietly, as if he had a right 
 to be ministered to. Not that Gregory was selfish, not a 
 bit of it. He would spend any amount of time finding 
 out what was the matter with our toys when they got 
 broken, or collecting butterflies and things for us ; but 
 he never cared for being made a fuss over, or petted, or 
 that sort of thing. 
 
 After facing round upon me in that sudden way, he 
 faced back as suddenly, and leaned over the bulwarks 
 for a long time ; at least it seemed to me a long time, 
 because I did not know whether he was pleased or 
 
ANNETTE 39 
 
 vexed at what had happened. Perhaps he did not care 
 to have the old times brought back, and, in that case, 
 what a fool I had made of myself, and what a complete 
 extinguisher I had put on any pleasant conversation ! 
 So far the whole interview had been rather a disappoint- 
 ing one. However, he presently set my mind at rest by 
 turning round and giving my hand such a hearty grip 
 as I have not felt for many and many a year. There 
 were even tears in his eyes, and, I expect, in mine too. 
 
 '' Come along," he said, abruptly, ''let us talk about 
 it all." 
 
 And then we went back and back over the pleasant old 
 days. I told him about my brother ]\Iark, how he had 
 gone into the Church, and afterwards had been ap- 
 pointed chaplain in India ; how, my father and mother 
 being both dead then, I had come out with him ; and 
 how, after my brother's death, I had kept on worldng 
 amongst the Indian women, until now I was returning 
 to rest in the old home. Then he told me his own 
 story. After they had been a little while in London, his 
 mother took him to Germany, to be educated there. 
 Afterwards he took to his father's profession, that of the 
 law, and settled in Abbotsby. After being there some 
 years, a considerable property came into his possession, 
 and he determined to travel for a while, leaving a 
 partner to attend to his practice. When he returned, 
 he found that the Recorder of Abbotsby was resigning 
 his ofiice at the end of the twelvemonth, and the vacant 
 appointment was offered to himself. So now, after 
 spending the intervening time in making a tour in 
 India, he is on his way to our quiet old town, to be 
 installed in his office. 
 
40 ANNETTE 
 
 A good, prosperous, honourable career, just such as I 
 could imagine our practical little Gregory Justin to make. 
 And I have no doubt by-and-by he will make himself a 
 name in literature, too. I am glad to think he is going 
 to live at Abbotsby, for we shall be friends still, though 
 of course he will move in a very different circle from 
 mine, if mine can be considered a circle at all. If I 
 judge Gregory aright, he will not be ashamed, great 
 man though he may be in his native town, to keex) up 
 the acquaintance of the quiet, old-fashioned maiden 
 lady who was good to him when he was a little boy. 
 
 Oh ! it was pleasant to remember those days again. 
 Little by little we excavated a whole Herculaneum of 
 memories from beneath the lava and ashes of these 
 more than thirty years past. He hit upon one thing, 
 I upon another, of the dear old child life, until it all 
 looked fresh and clear, as though we had left it but 
 yesterday. 
 
 What wonder, sitting there, recalling our buried 
 treasures, we neither of us saw how the passengers had 
 come up one by one on deck, and were watching our 
 eager, animated conversation ? What wonder, too, that 
 neither of us heard the first breakfast bell, or had a 
 thought of anything in the present, until Mrs. Flexon, 
 passing us with an envious gleam in her pretty gray- 
 green eyes, remarked : 
 
 " What a wonderfully interesting conversation you 
 appear to be having." 
 
 For, during the last few days, Mrs. Flexon has been 
 trying, without success, to draw Mr. Justin into the 
 circle of her admirers. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Uth. 
 
 ^^jT^OOR body! she need not have troubled 
 ri herself. Her arrow flew wide enough of 
 
 the mark. I daresay Mr. Justin knows 
 lie may talk with tolerable safety to a 
 woman who played the mother to him when he was a 
 little boy. And as for me, I can look up to all I love 
 in Heaven, and say truly that my treasure is garnered 
 there. Most quiet and peaceful is the life I look 
 forward to on earth, nothing more than that. 
 
 But Mrs. Flexon has looked dissatisfied ever since 
 Annette and I took to the shady side of that skylight, 
 and Mr. Justin established himself in our neighbourhood. 
 
 I must just stop a little while to laugh at the idea 
 of a stout, comfortable, practical Miss Brown like myself 
 being even suspected of anything like flirtation with a 
 man of Mr. Justin's stamp, a man with so much know- 
 ledge of the world about him, and a proper amount of 
 self-esteem. If it was Annette — but Annette takes no 
 interest in anything or anybody now. She just lies 
 back with her cheek against my shoulder, and gazes out 
 over the sea with melancholy eyes, that seem to behold 
 nothing. Mrs. Flexon need not distress herself about 
 any of us. 
 
42 ANNETTE 
 
 It is strange how two unkindly disposed women can 
 direct the helm of feeling in a little society like this of 
 ours on board ship. We have been at sea little more 
 than a week, and already the passengers are divided 
 into two distinct parties, in consequence of the feud 
 between Mrs. Marsham and Mrs. Aberall, arising out 
 of that question of precedence. Mrs. Aberall thinks 
 she ought to sit at the captain's right — Mrs. Marsham 
 sits there. In consequence the two ladies do not speak 
 to each other. For some time, being higher in position 
 than the rest of us, they did not speak to any one else 
 either ; but that state of things could not be expected 
 to last. "Women must have sympathy, and they must 
 have some one to talk to. Half the delight of a 
 grievance lies in being able to air it freely. Therefore 
 Mrs. Aberall, the vanquished, has succeeded in con- 
 vincing three or four of the ladies on board, to whom, 
 under other circumstances, she would scarcely have 
 spoken at all, that she is an injured woman, and these 
 ladies, proud of being noticed by her, uphold her cause 
 with all the eloquence of which they are capable, and 
 still further to show their sympathy, refuse friendly 
 intercourse with those who have sided with the con- 
 quering party. 
 
 Mrs. Marsham, the triumphant, draws after her an 
 equal number, to whom she explains how it is that, 
 although she does not really care a straw for her 
 position as wife of a colonel in command, and though 
 no one looks upon petty distinctions of rank with more 
 indifference than herself, still the question of precedence 
 is one which must be considered, or the whole fabric 
 
ANNETTE 43 
 
 of society would fall to pieces ; and therefore she puts 
 aside her own feelings, and as a matter of principle 
 asserts her right to the place of honour. But she 
 would not on any account have Mrs. Aberall and the 
 rest of tue passengers think, etc., etc. 
 
 Annette and myself, not being of sufficient account 
 to belong to either of the parties, hear a little of what 
 goes on on both sides, the ladies not considering it 
 necessary to drop their voices if we make an appear- 
 ance whilst they are discussing the subject. Moreover, 
 as no one enters into conversation with us, except 
 Mr. Justin, and he cannot gossip, we are in no danger 
 of repeating what we hear. 
 
 I have quite given over now trying to get out of the 
 way of remarks which are not intended for my hearing. 
 At first I made it a point of conscience to move my 
 chair away whenever, in the heat of discussion, the 
 ladies raised their voices beyond that sweet, low, and 
 gentle key which is such an excellent thing in woman. 
 But I soon found that, if I allowed conscience to rule 
 over me in that manner, I should become more of a 
 peripatetic than any of the old Greek philosophers, 
 besides getting myself laughed at for my pains, and 
 running the risk of many a tumble, if the vessel 
 happened to be rolling at the time. So now I do 
 as others do— keep my seat, and either hear or not, 
 as it happens. 
 
 The other day, Mrs. Truro, the senior chaplain's 
 wife, and Mrs. Beverley, the exceedingly bright and 
 merry little military woman, who is taking her youngest 
 child home, were havmg a chat about things in general. 
 
44 ANNETTE 
 
 Fortunately, I was alone, Annette writing letters in 
 her cabin ready to post at Suez ; by-and-by the con- 
 versation turned upon Mrs. Flexon, who, like a wise 
 woman, has cast in her lot with the government side. 
 Mrs. Truro and Mrs. Beverley belong to the opposition. 
 
 " So rudely as she behaves to that poor inoffensive 
 Miss Lislethorpe, too," said the captain's wife, after 
 several of the shortcomings of our coquettish widow 
 had been discussed. ''She should really remember 
 that all the first-class passengers on board a vessel 
 like this are supposed to be ladies, whether they 
 happen to be rich or poor." 
 
 " Of course," said Mrs. Truro decidedly. " Though 
 poor Miss Lislethorpe hasn't a penny of her own, and 
 will most probably have to earn her own bread as long 
 as she needs any, yet I dare say, in point of position, 
 she is quite equal to Mrs. Flexon. I believe he was 
 very low down in the service." 
 
 ''Quite, and a competition wallah, too, not at all 
 one of the old Indian families. But I fancy she 
 has a very different reason for being so disagreeable 
 to Miss Lislethorpe. It is nothing connected with 
 position." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Mrs. Truro, looking mildly curious. 
 " I was not aware of anything." 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Truro, you don't mean to say you 
 were up at Moorkee all last hot weather without hearing 
 anything about it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Truro admitted the fact, but justified her- 
 self by saying that, as a chaplain's wife, she made 
 it her business to avoid personal gossip. Still in the 
 
ANNETTE 45 
 
 present instance, she intimated her willingness to be 
 enlightened. 
 
 " Oh ! for that matter," said merry little Mrs. 
 Beverley, " I like to hear about everything that is 
 going on. Wh}^, what else have you to do in a hill 
 station but pay attention to your neighbours' affairs ? 
 And, after all, it is only tit for tat. You may be quite 
 sure they know everything about you, and I don't see 
 why you should not live up to your privileges, and be 
 as wise as they are. Are you sure you never heard 
 about Miss Lislethorpe and Captain Asperton ? " 
 
 Mrs. Truro admitted that she had heard something, 
 but could not exactly remember what. Would Mrs. 
 Beverley kindly recall it to her memory ? 
 
 " Why, every one knew that they were as good as 
 engaged to each other, and a very nice match for her, 
 too, though his pay was not remarkably good. But 
 he had splendid interest, and was a thorough gentle- 
 man. You could see as plainly as possible that he 
 worshipped the very ground she walked upon. And I 
 don't wonder, for she was exceeding pretty then." 
 
 '' Yes, said Mrs. Truro, tentatively. '' I believe, 
 though," she added, beginning to betray a little more 
 knowledge of Moorkee gossip than was quite consistent 
 with the role she had adopted, " Miss Lislethorpe had 
 several other admirers. Young Dennison was always 
 at her side when he could get a chance. And then 
 there was that old Mr. Moberley, that rich old indigo 
 planter, you remember, with scarcely a tooth in his 
 head." 
 
 "Yes, but with so many shares in the Agra and 
 
46 ANNETTE 
 
 Delhi Bank," put in Mrs. Beverley ; " and every one 
 knows that shares are worth a great deal more than 
 teeth. I have no doubt Mr. Lislethorpe would have 
 liked that match very much. But it was an unfortunate 
 thing for the poor girl that it got talked about, for it 
 was the beginning of all the mischief. If you remember, 
 Mrs. Flexon came to Moorkee just at the time. Her 
 husband had only been dead eight months, but she 
 made it very plain that she was ready for another, and 
 the first person she resolved to elect into the vacant 
 place was Captain Asperton." 
 
 "You don't say so !" exclaimed Mrs. Truro, holding 
 up her hands. " Is it possible ? " 
 
 '' Oh, yes, quite possible, especially in India. 
 Captain Asperton did not see it, you know, because 
 he had eyes for no one but Miss Lislethorpe. And the 
 report is " 
 
 Here Mrs. Beverley lowered her voice a little. 
 
 ''The report is that she put it about all over the 
 station that Miss Lislethorpe w^as engaged to old 
 Mr. Moberley. It was easy enough to do that, for 
 the old man was always up at the Parsonage, and 
 Mr. Lislethorpe was so evidently encouraging him. 
 So poor young Asperton was taken in, and no one 
 saw him after that paying the least attention to her. 
 I believe it cut him up dreadfully. He never looked 
 the same again, poor fellow ! " 
 
 "Dreadful!" said Mrs. Truro. "I do hope the 
 woman will some day get punished for her wickedness. 
 But, at any rate, if she spoiled poor Miss Lislethorpe's 
 prospects, she has not bettered her own, so far. She 
 
ANNETTE 47 
 
 did not manage to get engaged to him herself, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " No, thank goodness ! I expect she thought he 
 would he able to transfer his affections as easily as 
 she transfers her own ; but he took it so to heart that 
 he left the station almost immediately, and soon after 
 went on furlough to England. I suppose he is there 
 now. It must have been a great blow to Miss Lisle- 
 thorpe, although there was no regular understanding 
 between them. But, you know, almost immediately on 
 Captain Asperton's leaving the station, Mr. Lislethorpe 
 died, leaving the poor girl without a penny, and, of 
 course, that was quite enough to account for her 
 dejection. She did not have to go through the 
 humiliation of being pitied all over the place." 
 
 "I am very sorry," said Mrs. Truro, with that 
 air of compassionate complacency which a woman who 
 is comfortably established with a good income some- 
 times puts on, when glancing for a time upon the great 
 and terrible wilderness across which one and another 
 of her less favoured sisters have to travel. ''It is a 
 most painful story. I shall never speak to Mrs. Flexon 
 again. All the ship ought to know what a wicked 
 woman she is." 
 
 *' Oh ! it would not make very much difference if 
 they did. You see, as it is, none of the ladies care 
 for h§r, and as for the gentlemen, why, so long as 
 a woman has those lovely gray-green eyes and exquisite 
 braids of golden hair, and pretty appealing ways like 
 Mrs. Flexon's, she may have done what she likes in 
 the past. They don't care. You see she is beginning 
 
48 ANNETTE 
 
 just the same game again here. From the first day 
 we came on board she had a knot of young men about 
 her, and it was just a question which of them she 
 should draw the farthest. Then she saw that the chief 
 engineer was paying rather more than usual attention 
 to that nice quiet Mrs, Barret, the civilian's widow, 
 really a modest, lady-like woman, and immediately she 
 began to use her arts upon him. She cannot bear any 
 one to be admired more than herself. She is ex- 
 perimenting now upon Mr. Justin, but he is too clever 
 for her. He does look so quizzical when she comes up 
 to him with her pretty airs and gTaces." 
 
 Here the first dinner bell sounded, and Mrs. 
 Beverley hurried away. That soft brown hair of hers 
 must take so much "doing." 
 
 '' What a lovely sunset we are going to have ! " she 
 remarked, pleasantly enough, as she put away her 
 embroider}^ And then tliey both tripped past me, 
 and I daresay their soup and sparkling hocks would 
 taste none the worse for the story which they had 
 been talking over. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 15. /i. 
 
 E are going up the Red Sea now. It is 
 "tolerably warm/' as the captain says, 
 but not too much so, after the fierce 
 summer heat I have been accustomed to 
 for so many years. 
 
 How lovely these Arabian mountains are, with the 
 tints of sunrise or sunset reflected upon them, the 
 softest shades of pink, violet, and orange, with the in- 
 tense blue of the sea beneath, and the quivering golden 
 green of the sky beyond. I have dreamed of such 
 colouring before, but never seen it. 
 
 And yet it is all outside beauty. They are in 
 reality so bleak and barren. Not a blade of grass, 
 not a tree, not a flower upon them. When the sunrise 
 glow has faded they just show like huge gray masses 
 of rock, with no form nor softness about them. They 
 are like some people I have seen, only beautiful in 
 a reflected light. Mrs. Marsham, for instance, who 
 smiles so rosily from the captain's right upon the ladies 
 who support her side of the question, and looks so 
 complacent when reflecting the sunlight of compliment 
 and flattery ; but oh ! so very bleak and craggy when 
 
 D 
 
00 ANNETTB 
 
 turning to rebuke the supposed "' companion '' for not 
 coming quickly enough to clasp that belt ribbon of 
 hers. 
 
 Yet why should I talk? To this same Mrs. 
 Marsham, nay, doubtless to most of all the people 
 on board, I myself am an Arabian mountain, without 
 even the power of reflecting any pink and violet tints ; 
 a mere mass of crag, forbidding alike under all con- 
 ditions. Let such thoughts teach me humility. And 
 let me remember that if some people, like Arabian 
 mountains, can only shine in a reflected beauty, others, 
 like those great Bombay headlands which show so 
 black and frowning in the distance, have yet many 
 a sweet and flowery dell nestling beneath the shelter 
 of their sternness. 
 
 I suppose it is quite right for me to have had 
 such a bitter burning sense of injustice ever since 
 
 1 heard Mrs. Beverley's story. I could almost put my 
 hands round Mrs. Flexon's pretty little white throat, 
 and lift her up and drop her, crape frilling, golden 
 braids, and everything, into the deep sea. Are human 
 lives to be spoiled as Annette's has been, and is no 
 one to be punished for the spoiling of them ? There 
 she is, on the other side of the deck now, chatting 
 away so confidingly with the doctor and the chief 
 engineer, lifting her round eyelids and casting a half- 
 appealing, half-coquettish glance, first at one, then at 
 another, the very picture of innocence and simplicity, 
 as though no Annette Lislethorpe, with heart bruised 
 and suffering, were wearying through the long days 
 with none to comfort her. 
 
ANNETTE 61 
 
 This morning I was walking up and down the deck 
 before breakfast. The chaplains, who both know Moor- 
 kee, were talking about some of the people there. 
 Mrs. Flexon, within hearing of them, was flirting with 
 the doctor. Captain Asperton's name was mentioned. 
 I turned round and looked Mrs. Flexon full in the face, 
 a long, quiet, steady look. 
 
 She returned it for a moment with wonderful self- 
 possession. Then that curious glimmer came into her 
 eyes, and she moved away to make some careless 
 remark to Dr. Byte about the loveliness of the tints 
 upon the water. She deserves a nearer acquaintance 
 both with the tints and the water. I believe she 
 thought I was very rude. I wonder if she thought 
 anything else. 
 
 Well, never mind. As Lancelot says, Alas ! who 
 may trust this world ? 
 
 But these things seem to have brought me nearer 
 to Annette. I want more than ever to be a friend 
 to her. If I could only be sure that it was all true, 
 and if I dare tell her that I knew anything about 
 it ! She has never mentioned Captain Asperton's name 
 to me, and there is a gentle reserve of pride about 
 Annette which keeps even those she loves out of her 
 inner life. 
 
 It does vex me so when I think how men are 
 deceived. How could he believe that about a girl ? 
 They talk about men's powerful reasoning. "Where is 
 it in such cases as these ? Mrs. Flexon could not have 
 deceived a woman in that way. But I suppose she 
 wound herself little by little into his confidence, and 
 
 D 2 
 
62 ANNETTS 
 
 then, under pretence of being his friend, contrived to 
 drop the seeds of suspicion which sprang up and 
 flourished so well. Probably a man would believe 
 anything that was accompanied by such sweetly appeal- 
 ing looks, and now and then the gentle pressure of 
 a little white hand upon his arm. Away ! it makes me 
 feel wicked even to think about it. But Mrs. Flexon 
 does look so resigned and good when the prayers are 
 read on Sundays. 
 
 Last' night, after dinner, when nearly every one 
 was down in the saloon, the ladies playing and singing, 
 the gentlemen listening to them, I came up here on 
 deck, and Annette came and lay down beside me, 
 leaning her head on my shoulder, as she often does 
 now. Oh ! the long sigh she gave as she stretched out 
 her hand to feel for mine ! I seem to hear it now. 
 Poor child ! so young, and yet knowing so much 
 sorrow ! I did wish that I could have told her even 
 a little, but I could only be silent. If anything else 
 is to come, it will come in its own way. 
 
 Sitting there in the darkness of that summer night, 
 over us the great bright stars, all round and about us 
 the deep sea, which was bearing me on to home and 
 rest, I thanked God as I had never thanked Him before 
 that in the years of my own girlhood death, and not 
 deceit, had parted my beloved from me. And as I 
 thought of the happy six months through whose golden 
 gate I had passed into the gray years of my woman- 
 hood, I felt how good my lot had been, to have loved 
 and lost, with faith still firm in the lost one. Better 
 far this than to go forth into the lonely future, as 
 
ANNETTE 53 
 
 Annette was going, with a wTong of human working 
 shut down in her heart, and no trust left. 
 
 For she must think that Captain Asperton had only 
 been playing with her, when she gave and he took so 
 much. If only I could tell her ! But I must be quiet. 
 
 This morning, when we were sitting together under 
 our skylight, we had a long talk about ways and means. 
 She has an aunt in Cheltenham, of whom she does 
 not know very much. Before she engaged herself as 
 companion to Mrs. Marsham, it was arranged that she 
 should go to this aunt until she could meet with a 
 suitable situation, and the poor child evidently does 
 not relish the prospect. To be an unwelcome burden 
 on family charity is only a shade better — scarcely that 
 — than to be slaving for a selfish rich woman ; and 
 from what Annette tells me, this Mrs. Vermont, at 
 Cheltenham, looks forward to the visit of her orphan 
 niece as rather a burden than anything else. She 
 showed me one or two of her aunt's letters, wi'itten 
 since the intelligence of Mr. Lislethorpe's death, and 
 I know that I would live on dry bread rather than 
 be dependent on the household mercies of a woman 
 who had addressed such words to me. These letters 
 were the cause of Annette engaging herself to Mrs. 
 Marsham ; but that having fallen through on account 
 of her weak health, she has to turn to her aunt again. 
 An unpleasant prospect. No wonder that the poor 
 child looks pale and wretched, even if she had no other 
 cause for pain. 
 
 I have a pleasanter plan in my mind, though I have 
 not said anything to her yet. When we land, she 
 
54 ANNETTE 
 
 shall come straight on with me to Abbotsby, and share 
 my lodgings in the Xorthgate, where I mean to stay 
 for a day or two before I go to my own house. I have 
 a curious fancy for going to the house alone very early 
 in the morning, after I arrive at Abbotsby, and wander- 
 ing about in the garden before Keren knows that I 
 am there. I must be by myself when I see my home 
 for the first time after twenty years. 
 
 Then, when I really take possession, Annette shall 
 go with me, and stay until she can decide what to 
 do for herself. Indeed, I could be well content to have 
 her always with me, a sort of link between myself and 
 the life that I have left ; and I have no doubt in 
 Abbotsby, where girls' schools are not plentiful, she 
 could easily meet with a daily engagement which would 
 bring in enough for clothes and pocket-money. I said 
 to myself some time ago that I wanted some way of 
 doing good when I was settled down in my quiet life, 
 and here it is ready for me — to give a home, with 
 love in it, to this homeless girl. 
 
 If she stays with me long enough I will make a 
 clever little housewife of her. She was telling me 
 the other day that she knows positively nothing of 
 domestic management, and how should she, brought 
 up since she was eleven years old with fashionable 
 London people, and then sent to a fashionable London 
 school to be finished ? The wonder is that there is so 
 much reality about her as I have found out since we 
 became intimate. 
 
 What a good creature that old godmother must 
 have been who brought her up until she was eleven ! 
 
ANNETTE 55 
 
 Her character was formed even then in a way which 
 the fashionmongers have not been able quite to destroy, 
 though they have managed to plaster a considerable 
 amount of useless material upon it. Annette is like 
 a marble column in a cathedral, which stupid people 
 have covered with paint and whitewash, until all the 
 fair veinings are lost. Her troubles during the last few 
 months have worn a little of this away, and by-and-by 
 the marble will show out again pure as ever. 
 
 There is a wonderful sweetness and grace about 
 her — not much strength. She will always want some- 
 body to lean up against. Hers is not an original mind. 
 She has very few views or opinions about anything, but 
 a sort of subtle perception in choosing the good and 
 refusing the evil. I should think, in a great struggle, 
 she would fail entirely for want of what is called 
 backbone. But in ordinary life, with some practical 
 person — shall I say like myself ? — to act as a substantial 
 wirework of common-sense, upon which the leaves and 
 flowers of her graceful nature may entwine themselves, 
 she will be an object of beauty, and will give back in 
 colour and perfume what she takes in strength. 
 
 Oh, dear, what castles in the air I do keep building 
 about this going home to Abbotsby ! 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 FEAR I am making for myself enemies. 
 Yesterday, Mr. Truro asked if he could 
 have a little quiet conversation with me, 
 and when the favour was granted, I found 
 that it had been asked in order to set before me 
 the impropriety of which I had been guilty in separating 
 myself from the bulk of the passengers, and confining 
 myself almost exclusively to the companionship of Miss 
 Lislethorpe and Mr. Justin. 
 
 Such conduct, Mr. Truro ventured to hint, was 
 neither lady-like nor Christian. It argued either a 
 spirit of Pharisaism or selfishness, and one or two 
 of the ladies, his wife included, had asked him to speak 
 to me about it, though he said he did it with diffidence, 
 knowing that my work in India had been such as to 
 secure for me the respect of every one with whom I 
 came in contact, and that probably my practice of self- 
 isolation at present arose more from natural tempera- 
 ment than from any personal feeling against the rest of 
 the passengers, yet, etc. 
 
 How kind of Mr. Truro. How more than kind of 
 the ladies, considering that during the first few days 
 of the voyage I had done my poor little best to be 
 
ANNETTE 57 
 
 pleasant and agreeable to every one on board, with 
 the result of being systematically ignored by them all, 
 Mr. Justin and Miss Lislethorpe excepted ! To those 
 who were well did I not speak cheerily of the prospects 
 of the voyage ? To those who were ill did I not offer 
 smelling salts and p)rretic saline, to say nothing of 
 conducting them to the places where they would least 
 feel the motion of the vessel, or the horrible jarring 
 of the screw ? "Was it not in my heart to be as friendly 
 to every one of them at first as I have been since with 
 Annette and Mr. Justin? My conscience returns a 
 most vigorous and decided Yes. 
 
 But being a somewhat shabbily dressed and ex- 
 ceedingly unstylish woman, with nothing to set rae 
 forth but my name, printed, with that of my companion, 
 over our cabin door, I was left to myself; the best 
 intentions, unaccompanied by stylish manners and 
 plenty of lace, being utterly futile. 
 
 Therefore, being thrust into my present position, 
 I choose to keep it. And if I said the same with a 
 little asperity to Mr. Truro, whose wife ignored me 
 as much as anybody, I do not in the least repent it. 
 
 I think if Annette and I had kept entirely to our- 
 selves we should not have been interfered with. The 
 companionship of Mr. Justin is the real indictment 
 against us. People are beginning to find out that he 
 is a gentleman, and a man of means, and very clever, 
 too, invaluable at the readings which we have two or 
 three times a week, and able to hold his own with 
 any one on board the ship. Under these circumstances, 
 it is inexcusable that he should be so often found 
 
58 ANNETTE 
 
 at our side of the skylight, instead of conferring the 
 histre of his companionship on those who are so much 
 more worthy of it. What ca7i he find, I heard Mrs. 
 Marsham say the other day, in a washed-out girl and 
 stupid old woman, to make him be continually paying 
 attention to them ? 
 
 Paying attention. Ah ! that is the sore point. 
 And his being unmarried, too, adds bitterness to the 
 insult. 
 
 I wonder how it is that women who are, as the 
 phrase goes, settled in life, have such an uncontrollable 
 jealousy of any attention bestowed upon those who are 
 not. Mrs. Flexon has been particularly spiteful since 
 Mr. Justin and I have had so many pleasant talks to- 
 gether ; Annette, who has brightened up a little since 
 the companionship was dissolved, sometimes taking her 
 part in the talk. I am sure Mrs. Flexon gets plenty of 
 admiration. She has only to make her appearance on 
 deck, looking furtively out from under her long light 
 lashes, and all the unappropriated gentlemen rush for- 
 ward to fetch her chair, or spread her rug, or put up 
 her umbrella, or point out interesting objects in the 
 distance. And if she will but condescend to play at 
 quoits, what a queen she is ! A separate gentleman is 
 in attendance upon her for each quoit. One presents it 
 to her for action, another picks it up when it is done 
 with, another scores her numbers, a fourth hovers about 
 with a camp-stool. Could a living woman desire more ? 
 And with such a follo^\dng, can she not look on mildly 
 whilst Mr. Justin has a little chat with us two un- 
 protected females ? Apparently not. 
 
ANNETTE 59 
 
 She has been coquetting with him very prettily 
 lately, but I don't think he appreciates his good fortune. 
 I never saw him look so bored as when she asked him to 
 hold her quoits -for her this morning. How pleasantly 
 she did it, too, with such a sidelong look, as he was on 
 his way to take possession of a chair by Annette's side ; 
 and how she kept turning and watching, to see if any 
 pang of disappointment was on the girl's face. 
 
 Oh, Mr. Truro, I think you ought to go and speak to 
 Mrs. Flexon, if you must have something to say against 
 selfishness. Why pick me out, who never, so far as I 
 know, broke a heart, or spoiled a human life, and whose 
 only crime is that I like to be quiet ? Has not your wife 
 told you the story of Moorkee, and must this destroying 
 angel fly amongst us with her wings all undipped, 
 whilst an ordinary mortal like myself is hunted down, 
 and preached to, and told to behave herself? It is a 
 very curious world. 
 
 "We are in the Canal now. Was ever anything so 
 beautiful as the colouring on land and sea, as we passed 
 Suez yesterday afternoon ? I had seen paintings of 
 it which seemed to me extravagant caricatures, but 
 now I know that no brush can do more than give 
 a very feeble idea of the deep amethyst purple of 
 the hills, and the dazzling blue of the waves that 
 sweep at their feet. Then the perfect stillness of last 
 night, when we were moored to the bank of the Canal. 
 There was no sound but the plash of the water, and the 
 sough of the wind through the whispering reed-beds. 
 All this morning, as we quietly glided along, I have 
 been watching these beautiful reed-beds, broken here 
 
60 ANNETTE 
 
 and there by patches of bright green moss, or the lovely 
 little gardens planted aronnd the stations. Each hour, 
 as we go along, is a wonder and a delight. Sometimes 
 we see a caravan of merchants with their camels resting 
 in the desert, the huge ungainly beasts stretched upon 
 the sand, the piles of merchandise scattered around, the 
 Arabs crouching under their skin-covered tents, the 
 little, naked, brown children running into the water for 
 coppers, which the passengers throw to them. 
 
 Sometimes we have to draw on one side, to let a 
 magnificent steamer, outward bound, pass us. Ah ! 
 how I pity that steamer, even with her flags flying and 
 her gilded prow glittering in the sun, as she careers so 
 proudly on. Outward bound, with men and women 
 destined to who knows what of toil and trouble in the 
 far-off land, while I am going home to be at rest in my 
 own country ! Oh ! the good words : at rest in my own 
 country ! One must buy the key to all their meaning by 
 long years of exile such as I have spent. 
 
 So far as the future of any human life can be seen, 
 mine lies clearly enough for me now, and most sweet 
 and pleasant it is. I hope it will not be a useless one. 
 I have got so into the habit of regular work that I do 
 not think I could be happy without plenty to do. Only 
 it must be something that I can do by myself, without 
 any one interfering with me. I am tired of reports and 
 committees, and secretaryships and patrons, some pulling 
 one way, some the other ; great noise, but in the end 
 very little done to make the world either better or 
 wiser. 
 
 When I was talking to Mr. Justin the other morning, 
 
ANNETTE 61 
 
 about employment for women of leisure, something 
 suggested itself to me that would, I think, be very 
 useful. I used to be considered a good little house- 
 keeper in my young days, quite in my element amongst 
 cooking and domestic management. I will try the 
 experiment of taking a young girl from the Abbotsby 
 workhouse, and training her myself, under old Keren, 
 to be a useful servant. Suppose I take her at eleven or 
 twelve, and keep her for three or four years. She will 
 then, if she has any sort of ability, be ready for employ- 
 ment in some respectable family, and I shall feel that 
 I have done good, both to the girl and to the public. 
 This is a thing in which no one can interfere with me, 
 and, if I fail, I shall only hurt myself And I think 
 Keren, who, of course, will stay with me until her death, 
 will get on better with a young girl of this sort, over 
 whom she would have unquestioned authority, than 
 with a full-blown servant of the modern times, wdiich, I 
 understand now, are very unsatisfactory times. 
 
 Then I should try to train her in character, too, give 
 her good sorts of notions about her duty to God and her 
 neighbour, teach her plain sewing, reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, and bring her up, so far as I could, in the 
 honest ways of my youth. I don't know if it will come 
 to anything, but it shapes itself pleasantly enough as I 
 think about it. And Mr. Justin, to whom I mentioned 
 the subject, thinks it a very good idea. 
 
 Annette was so delighted when I proposed that she 
 should come on to Abbotsby and stay awhile with me. 
 
 It is all settled now, unless, when we reach Port 
 Said, there should be letters from her aunt which 
 
62 ANNETTB 
 
 interfere with our plans. The letter which Annette 
 expects to receive there will be an answer to the one 
 in which she sent the news of her engaging herself as 
 companion to Mrs. Marsham for a year. If Mrs. Ver- 
 mont should object to this, and wish her instead to go 
 to Cheltenham, Annette must do so — at least, for a 
 time ; but I do not think there is much danger. I 
 fancy Mrs. Vermont will be only too glad for her 
 penniless niece to be comfortably disposed of anywhere. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 19fh, 
 
 I TILL in the Canal, of course, and every 
 bend of it reveals some new beauty. 
 AVith all due deference to Mr. Truro, and 
 tbe one or two ladies who desired him 
 to speak to me, I think it is just as profitable an 
 employment of time to sit alone here, watching the 
 exquisite reflections of the clouds, purple, amber, 
 crimson, in the pools that lie scattered in the vast 
 stretches of sand on each side of us, as to speculate 
 with Mrs. Aberall's party as to how long Mrs. Flexon 
 and the doctor will be in making up matters ; or with 
 Mrs. Marsham's, on the exceeding bad taste which 
 Mrs. Aberall displays in coming to dinner every evening 
 in satins and jewels, which are only fit for a drawing- 
 room. As if every one did not know that her husband 
 was already over head and ears in debt, and in conse- 
 quence of gambling, too, people said. Dreadful. But 
 it would come to an end before long, and perhaps that 
 was why she was going home in such a hurry. 
 
 Sometimes we see a flock of flamingoes with the 
 sunlight on their wings, showing Hke a rosy cloud upon 
 the dim gray distance. The white ones wade about 
 by hundreds in these little sand pools. At nightfall 
 
64 ANNETTE 
 
 the jackals prowl stealthily along the level of the banks. 
 Somethnes we get a curious mirage, the semblance 
 of hills, water, and trees, where we know there can 
 be nothing but a burning waste of sand. Then the 
 beauty of daybreak over the low purple hills on our 
 right, what a splendour of colour slowly chasing away 
 the twilight, and turning every little shallow pool into 
 a jewel of ruby, or amethyst, or sapphire ! " Awfully 
 pretty, isn't it ? " said one of these young men to me 
 this morning, as the first golden streaks quivered up 
 behind the palm-trees of Ismailia. 
 
 Yes, indeed ; awfully so, in a sense he never meant. 
 
 A strange thing happened yesterday afternoon. 
 
 Mrs. Flexon and Mrs. Mateby were chatting over 
 their fancy work on the shady side of the deck. I 
 don't mean that that was the strange thing, though 
 Mrs. Flexon does not often waste her time over ladies. 
 The reason of her doing so this afternoon was that 
 all the gentlemen were on the lower deck, practising 
 gymnastics, and ladies are not allowed on the lower 
 deck, at least, they are considered out of place there. 
 
 We certainly do miss the gentlemen very much 
 on these gymnastic afternoons. The conversation 
 diminishes to a fine treble, or vanishes altogether. 
 Often we go to sleep. I generally take to my writing. 
 One hears the sound of yawning in all directions. 
 Scarcely a laugh breaks in upon the dull monotony 
 of the ship noises. We say to ourselves that afternoon 
 is always "such a stupid time," though we know, as 
 well as can be, we are not speaking the truth. Women, 
 as a general rule, are not made to live exclusively 
 
ANNETTE 65 
 
 with each other, however much I look forward to that 
 condition for myself ; and there is a wonderful brighten- 
 ing up amongst us when the tramp of feet and the 
 faint odour of cigars announce that the gentlemen are 
 cominsr. 
 
 Mrs. Flexon looks very pretty in mourning. It 
 suits her blond hair and new-milky complexion. And 
 that little blue and gold work-bag, which has not gone 
 into mourning with the rest of her, sets off the black 
 crape so effective]}'. So does the tobacco-pouch ol 
 cream-coloured kid, upon which she is embroidering 
 such a dainty design in crimson floss. Why is Mrs. 
 Flexon always at work upon mascuHne things? First 
 it was a cigar-case, now it is a tobacco-pouch, and 
 I have seen the materials for a gorgeous smoking-cap 
 in her work-case. Sometimes I fancy the chief engineer 
 will carry off that pouch. Then again the doctor 
 seems more likely to secure the prize. The other day 
 she was asking Mr. Justin's opinion of it. But we 
 shall see. 
 
 I am not alone in my speculations. Two of the 
 officers' wives were discussing the same subject yesterday. 
 One of them laid a wager of a pair of white kid gloves 
 that the doctor would have it before we land. The other 
 backed the chief engineer. I fancy, if Mrs. Flexon's 
 hand could accompany the gift, she would like to 
 bestow it upon Mr. Justin, v.ho treats her with such 
 provoking coolness. But upon such a subject no 
 decisive opinion can be pronounced, the points of tlie 
 compass veering so from day to day. 
 
 They were sitting tovv-ards the fore part of the deck, 
 
 E 
 
ee ANNETTE 
 
 which commanded a prospect of the gymnastic operations 
 below. Now and then Mrs. Flexon would clasp her 
 hands with pretty eagerness as one or another of her 
 favourites tied himself into an exceptionally clever 
 knot, or succeeded in hanging by one foot to the 
 bar. Then she would bend over the tobacco-pouch 
 again, and pretend to take no notice of anything, 
 though both the doctor and the chief engineer, she 
 knew well enough, were casting longing glances for her 
 approval. 
 
 '' What a plague ! " she exclaimed, as she unwound 
 the last needleful of crimson silk, and then pettishly 
 threw away the empty paper, "that tiresome shop- 
 woman at Bombay told me that this skein would just 
 finish the wreath, and so I put the rest away in one of 
 my boxes down in the hold. I must get the doctor to 
 go down for it. I dare say he won't mind, poor fellow ; 
 he is very good-natured." 
 
 " That depends," said Mrs. Mateby. 
 
 Mrs. Flexon tossed her well-set little head, and 
 looked pleased. 
 
 " You know, I think men are so stupid." 
 
 But just then the chief engineer turned himself 
 round and round the bar in such an astonishingly 
 clever manner that the conversation was suspended. 
 The two ladies rushed to the deck railing to obtain a 
 nearer view, Mrs. Flexon waved her handkerchief, Mrs. 
 Mateby cried bravo, and the fancy work was forgotten. 
 
 A gust of wind had blown the little empty paper ball 
 upon the folds of my dress. In an idle mood I picked it 
 up and began to untwist it, thinking of how I had done 
 
ANNETTE 67 
 
 the same, a few months after I reached India, with a 
 scrap of paper upon which, years before, my mother and 
 I had wound some of that fine, soft linen thread which 
 used to be the fashion for embroidery. Unfolding the 
 paper there in our thatched bungalow among the palm- 
 trees, I found it contained some notes, written by my 
 father for one of his lectures at the Abbotsby Museum. 
 How valueless it had been once, when he tossed it into 
 the waste-paper basket, and I tested it up as a 
 foundation for the balls which used to take so much 
 winding, and over which my mother and I have had 
 many a pleasant chat as we sat in the firelight of winter 
 evenings. But how precious, coming upon it again, 
 when the hands that had traced the words had been so 
 long folded under the churchyard sod. How it recalled 
 to me quiet evenings at home in the little parlour where 
 he wrote out his lectures, and drew plans and diagrams 
 for their illustrations, I sometimes searching out re- 
 ferences for him, or copying extracts, or stitching and 
 paging the sheets as he finished them. And other 
 evenings when he was gone from us, and Mark was at 
 college, and my mother and I were left alone in the old 
 home, but peaceful and contented still, for we had each 
 other, and I had not yet begun to think of the days 
 when I should be quite alone. 
 
 Veiy carefully I had treasured up that scrap of 
 paper amongst things which could never now be re- 
 placed, and since then I have had a strange sort of feel- 
 ing about these little worthless ball foundations, which, 
 when unfolded, may reveal such an unexpected past. 
 
 This one, pettishly flung away by Mrs. Flexon, and 
 
 E 2 
 
68 ANNETTE 
 
 accidentally blown upon my dress, proved to be an 
 envelope with the seal broken. It had been sent by 
 hand, apparently, for there was neither stamp nor post- 
 mark on it. The address was WTitten in a square, solid 
 sort of hand — " Miss Lislethorpe, The Parsonage,"— a^nd 
 I think the writer must have been a methodical sort of 
 man, for the date was put in the corner, August the 
 fourteenth, August of last year. A little bit of Mrs. 
 Flexon's red floss silk was still sticking to the gummed 
 edge of the envelope. 
 
 I wondered how she could have come by it. The 
 address was not in her own handwriting. I have seen 
 that on the cards attached to her things here, a pretty 
 school-room hand, with no curves in it, and long spidery 
 tails to the y's and g's. And I know, too, for Annette 
 has told me so, that she and Mrs. Flexon never visited 
 each other at Moorkee, because, from the beginning, 
 there was a sort of coolness between them ; so that the 
 envelope could not have been dropped or picked up by 
 accident in that way. 
 
 How, then, did she come into possession of it ? for 
 Annette, whatever other faults she may have, is singu- 
 larly neat and orderly in her habits, never leaving things 
 lying about, or carelessly flinging them away. Indeed, 
 particular though I am, she sometimes tries me by the 
 length of time she spends in folding up her things, and 
 sorting them, and putting them away with such entirely 
 out-of-date precision, when all the while I am waiting 
 to get her up on deck to see the beautiful clouds, and 
 breathe what fresh air there is to be had now. Annette 
 is the last person in the world to drop envelopes about^ 
 
ANNETTE , 69 
 
 in other people's houses. But as she was not there to 
 give me any explanation of the matter, I put the bit of 
 paper into my pocket, not thinking it necessary to 
 return it to Mrs. Flexon, and went on with my knitting, 
 always a favourite occupation with me, when I have 
 anything curious to speculate about. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 19th, Afternoon. 
 
 >rrs^ 
 
 ^^ L ITE early last evening we were moored to 
 the edge of the Canal for a troop-ship to 
 pass us. The captain, wdio was dreadfully- 
 disappointed about it, said we should be 
 fast there until daybreak, because, by the time the 
 outward-bound vessel had got fairly away, it would be 
 too late for us to steer farther on, navigation not being 
 allowed in that part of the Canal after nightfall. 
 
 For awhile everybody looked sulky, for there was 
 nothing to be seen all around us but an endless reach of 
 sand, with stumpy tufts of heath here and there. If 
 that stupid troop-ship would only have stopped us a 
 day or two before, in front of the Sultan's palace at 
 Ismailia, we should have enjoyed the delay ; but to be 
 hurried past that little earthly Paradise of marble 
 columns, palm-trees, oleanders, and cactuses, and 
 stopped here in the centre of an infinite circumference 
 of brownish-yellow ochre, was rather too provoking. I 
 could only console myself by remembering that the ship 
 was outward bound. If its passengers did not know 
 what that meant, I did. Poor soldiers' waives, looking 
 over the bulwarks, their honest faces rosy now with the 
 sweet breezes of England and the Mediterranean — what 
 
ANNETTE 71 
 
 will they think, I wonder, of the alternate baking and 
 boiling, parching, frying, and steaming, to which they 
 will be subjected in that country whose '' coral strand" 
 they have sung about in Sunday-school hymns ? And 
 when, years hence, they can say of themselves " home- 
 ward bound," will any roses be left, and will the honest 
 eyes carry any brightness back to England? I am 
 afraid not. Indian life, even with all the surroundings 
 of wealth, position, and luxury, is not exactly a satis- 
 fying portion. What it must be shorn of these things, 
 and probably shorn, too, of the educated taste which 
 can watch with interest a new country and new customs, 
 I scarcely like to think. 
 
 Our captain, who always knows how to make the 
 best of a bad bargain, proposed that two of the ship's 
 boats should be let down, and that we should all take 
 a trip into the Arabian desert, by way of a change. 
 There was light enough yet for an hour or so, and 
 after that the young moon, which was peering out 
 now amongst a lot of fleecy clouds, would help us a 
 little. So, just as we were, we set off. 
 
 It was not so bad as might have been ex]>ected. 
 The mere sensation of being on terra Jirnia—\i sand 
 may be called that— was very refreshing. Those little 
 stumpy tufts of heath were beautiful when we bent* 
 closely over them, and we found some lovely grasses 
 and red plants on the edges of the pools, to say nothing 
 of the delight of climbing to the top of the sand- banks, 
 and letting ourselves slip quietly down, after the fashion 
 of the childish sport which Mark and I used to enjoy 
 many a year ago at the seaside. 
 
72 ANNETTE 
 
 And when, by-and-by, we had worked off this small 
 exuberance of activity, and set ourselves seriously to 
 think where we were, there was a strange sort of awe in 
 the feeling that the weary feet of those Israelitish exiles, 
 whose laws w^e live by, and whose poems are our inspira- 
 tions unto this day, had trodden the great wastes over 
 which we looked. Where we stood now, those poor 
 w'anderers, waiters for a day that never came, had 
 bided their time, and passed one by one into, let us 
 hope, the other land of promise, whose rest would be 
 sweeter to them than even that of Canaan. Perhaps, 
 on some such quiet evening as this, whilst the young 
 moon brightened upon the deepening blue of the w^est, 
 as it was brightening upon us last night, the man Moses, 
 worn out with the great burden of the people, cast 
 himself down upon these sands, and called for help 
 to his God. And here he must many a time have 
 walked to and fro, thinking thoughts which shaped 
 themselves into actions in that wondrous life, resolving 
 plans and purposes whose results we know^ well enough ; 
 perhaps remembering, as those in the storm and stress 
 of life do remember, happier days, life in the Egyptian 
 desert, with his wife and little ones, when no undisci- 
 plined people vexed him with its murmurings, and no 
 voice of God had called him to 1].. ..e mountain heights, 
 which are grand but so lonely. 
 
 Annette and I could not go far. She was soon 
 tired, and as for myself, I dislike going to see things 
 in troops, and being obliged to hear what every one 
 says about them. If one must have Mrs. Flexon's 
 flirtations, it was easier to tolerate them on board ship, 
 
ANNETTE 73 
 
 with surroundings of modern life to match, than there 
 in the Arabian desert, where one wanted to be alone 
 with one's own thoughts. To hear sometimes a little 
 bit about Moses from one of the chaplains, then a bit 
 about Colonel Aberall's gambling debts from Mrs. 
 Marsham ; now a parallel between Israelitish human 
 nature and ours of the nineteenth century, and, abruptly 
 dashing into it, a disquisition from one of the young 
 men on the best way of swinging round a leaping bar, 
 crossed, perhaps, with a flippant remark or two from 
 the sceptical doctor, who, with a wave of his mighty 
 hand, dismissed the whole Hebrew history, laws, poetry, 
 morals, and inspirations, into the realms of fiction — this 
 was more trying to me than I can describe. Mr. Justin 
 was far ahead with the principal engineer, bent upon 
 reaching the nearest station, and having some talk with 
 the people there about the making of the Canal. I was 
 very glad when the captain, who wished to get back 
 to his ship, proposed to us, seeing Annette's tiredness, 
 that we should return with him ; so we delved our way 
 back through the ankle-deep sand, got into the boat, 
 and were soon comfortably established again in our own 
 special corner of the Naioah. 
 
 By ourselves, too, which was such a luxury. I think 
 we felt as pleased as children when their elders have gone 
 out, and they can do just as they like, only, instead of 
 improving the opportunity, as children generally do, by 
 extra noise, we enjoyed ourselves by listening to the st^l- 
 ness which could now almost be felt. Only, afar off, we 
 heard the laughter and chatter of our pilgrims in the 
 Arabian desert, and at the other end of the vessel some 
 
74 ANNETTE 
 
 of the sailors were singing, as it seemed to me, deftly and 
 musically enough. I don't think I was so sorry, after 
 all, that the troop-ship had stopped us just there. 
 
 Suddenly I remembered the little scrap of paper in 
 my pocket. The excitement of seeing our vessel moored, 
 and the big ship passing, and then being rowed across 
 to the opposite bank for our trip into Arabia, had 
 driven it quite out of my mind. I took it now, gave it 
 to Annette, and said : 
 
 " Do you know that writing ? " 
 
 What a sudden flash of eagerness came over her 
 usually quiet, uninterested face ! She seized the paper, 
 and looked at me almost angrily. 
 
 " Yes, I do. It is Captain Asperton's. Where did 
 you get that ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Flexon threw it away this afternoon, when 
 she had unwound the last needleful of floss silk from it. 
 The wind happened to blow it into my lap, and I opened 
 it, scarcely thinking what I was doing. I thought I 
 might as well show it to you." 
 
 " Yes, indeed." But Annette was almost as quiet 
 as ever again now. '' Thank you very much." 
 
 She bent down over the envelope, as though she 
 would study every letter of the handwriting there. For 
 myself I had never thought of its being Captain Asper- 
 ton's, and even when I did know, I scarcely thought 
 of what Mrs. Flexon's possession of it might mean. 
 But whilst she held it so tightly in her thin little 
 fingers, turning it to the lamplight, and examining it so 
 carefully, ideas began to shape themselves in my mind 
 
ANNETTE 75 
 
 more clearly. I recalled that conversation between Mrs. 
 Truro and the officer's wife. 
 
 " Did Mrs. Flexon know Captain Asperton ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 ''Yes, I believe so. She knew all the gentlemen 
 in Moorkee. She was staying there during the whole 
 of the hot weather before papa died. She used to have 
 afternoon teas and Badmintons, you know, and every 
 one went." 
 
 " What ! when she was so lately a widow ? " 
 
 ''Yes. I don't think that made any difference. 
 People used to say she had not cared for him very 
 much." 
 
 " And did this Captain Asperton go too ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure," said Annette, with a little 
 touch of irritation in her manner. ''It was not my 
 business to know where Captain Asperton went. Every- 
 body goes everywhere in a place like Moorkee." 
 
 Annette thinks I know nothing. And it is clear 
 that she does not wish to tell me anything. But how 
 tightly she held the envelope, and how her face kept 
 changing as she examined it. 
 
 "Yes," I replied, "I suppose so. And perhaps 
 some time, when he was at her house, he might have 
 wanted to send a note to you about something, and so 
 wrote it there, and then he might think of something 
 else, and open it, and then have to use a fresh envelope. 
 That would account, you know, for her having this 
 
 one." 
 
 " Yes, but," said Annette, with still that little touch 
 
76 ANNETTE 
 
 of irritation and reserve strangely mingling with rest- 
 lessness in her manner, '' I never had a note from 
 Captain Asperton. I only know the handwiiting, be- 
 cause papa heard from him several times about a man 
 in the regiment." 
 
 That rather altered the aspect of matters. And did 
 not alter them, either, in Mrs. Flexon's favour. As 
 poor old Hilary Bennet used to say, '' It lies very strong 
 upon my mind " that our fascinating fellow passenger 
 had taken out the contents of that envelope, whatever 
 they may be, and then had forgotten to dispose of it 
 safely, thrown it carelessly aside, and used it next time 
 she wanted to twist up a ball for the skeins of silk which 
 gentlemen are always so ready to wind for her. A 
 stupid trick, but still I can imagine such a woman doing 
 it. 
 
 Annette did not seem disposed to talk, and I said 
 no more. It was an uncomfortable ending to the quiet 
 hour which might have been so pleasant. 
 
 But I am tired now, and yet I want to write it all 
 down. I shall come up again after dinner to finish. I 
 shall not rest until the history of this envelope is 
 found out. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 OST of the night I lay awake, partly be- 
 cause it was so wonderfully still, and 
 partly because I could not get Annette's 
 affairs out of my mind. When things 
 get into a tangle, I am never comfortable until I see 
 my way through, in some way or other ; and last night 
 I was wondering how Mrs. Flexon could be made to 
 clear up the mystery of that envelope comiug into her 
 possession. 
 
 I could hear Annette turnino^ over and over. Poor 
 child ! it was a restless time for her. This morning her 
 eyes looked heavy with watching, and, I think, weeping 
 too ; but she said nothing. 
 
 I knew she would not have courage to enter upon 
 the subject herself with Mrs. Flexon, shielded as that 
 excellent woman always is by the most bewitching 
 effrontery, to say nothing of a more or less numerous 
 phalanx of admirers, each of whom is ready to fight her 
 battles and slay her enemies. So I asked, trying not to 
 make the matter appear of very much importance, if she 
 would give me the envelope, and let me ask for an 
 explanation. 
 
 '' You know," I said, "you have a right to that, at 
 
78 ANNETTE 
 
 any rate. No one can deny that the letter, whatever it 
 may have been, was intended for you ; but you need 
 not make any disagreeableness with Mrs. Flexon about 
 that. Only let us find out, if we can, how she got hold 
 of the envelope." 
 
 " Very well," said Annette, quietly, taking out of a 
 little pocket-book, which was carefully locked up in her 
 writing-desk, the now historical bit of paper. " But 
 don't let Mrs. Flexon keep it. Be sure that you bring 
 it back to me." 
 
 As if I should fail to do that. But I promised ; 
 and first thing after breakfast sallied forth on my 
 expedition, with, I am afraid, a little touch of satisfac- 
 tion in the prospect of being able to make Mrs. Flexon 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 She was looking perfectly ladylike in black cambric, 
 with any quantity of diaphanous muslin frilling about 
 her throat and wrists. Her luxurious deck-chair was 
 drawn up in one of the cosiest spots under the awning, 
 somewhat screened from public observation, and the 
 doctor was stretched at her feet, holding a skein of floss 
 silk for her to wind. I suppose it was the skein she 
 referred to yesterday, and he has been down into the 
 hold to fetch it for her, or guard her whilst she fetched 
 it for herself. 
 
 Without preface of polite observation about the 
 weather, or anything else, for, as Mrs. Flexon never 
 volunteers to speak to me, our communications are 
 necessarily of a business character, I went up to her 
 and said : 
 
ANNETTE 
 
 « 
 
 !Miss Lislethorpe thinks I had better ask you for 
 an explanation about this envelope. You threw it away 
 yesterday, when you had taken the last needleful of silk 
 from it, and the wind tossed it into my lap." 
 
 " Oh ! and you . opened it, I suppose," she said, 
 languidly, not yet troubling herself to look at the 
 writing, but just stretching her white hand in the 
 direction of the envelope. " One moment, please, doctor. 
 I should have thought you would have brought it back 
 to me, Miss Brown." 
 
 '' I am very glad I did not," I replied, tartly, " as it 
 does not seem to belong to you. It is addressed to 
 Miss Lislethorpe. If any apologies are necessary for 
 opening it, I must offer them to her." 
 
 Mrs. Flexon did look at the writing now, and she 
 did more than stretch her white hand in the direction 
 of the envelope. She seized upon it, expecting, of 
 course, to get it into her possession ; but I was holding 
 it in a tight, vice-like grip of my own, and, fortunately, 
 Captain Asperton uses good paper, stout and strong, 
 that will stand a pull. 
 
 Mrs. Flexon never turns red, never looks confused, 
 never loses that elegant self-possession which sits so 
 charmingly upon her. She only put on an appear- 
 ance of surprise when I refused to let her have the 
 envelope. 
 
 ''The address is in Captain Asperton's writing," I 
 said, " and Miss Lislethorpe would like to know where 
 the envelope came from." 
 
 A very malignant expression broke over Mrs. 
 
80 ANNETTE 
 
 Flexon's face, but she was herself in a moment again, 
 and rephed as pleasantly as if we had been the best 
 friends in the world : 
 
 ''Really it is very kind of you to take so much 
 trouble on Miss Lislethorpe's behalf. She is exceed- 
 ingly fortunate to have met with some one who takes 
 so much interest in her correspondence." 
 
 What delicious effrontery ! As if Mrs. Flexon herself 
 was not the '' some one " who had taken so much interest 
 in that matter. But I did not say anything, and she 
 went on : 
 
 " You know I should be delighted to give you any 
 information ; but positively I cannot take upon myself 
 to relate the pedigree of every scrap of paper which comes 
 into my possession, and I do not remember that ever I 
 saw this particular piece before. I am not the only 
 lady on board who is using balls of silk or cotton, or 
 even Scotch fingering." 
 
 This was added with a dainty little sneer, in ^illusion 
 to the stout, comfortable pair of stockings which I had 
 been knitting since we came on board. But Mrs. Flexon 
 had better not have said it, and in the presence of the 
 doctor, too, for it only put a little more determination 
 into my own manner as I replied : 
 
 " Perhaps not ; but I believe you are the onl}^ one 
 who is using silk of this particular colour." 
 
 And, still keeping a judiciously tight hold of the 
 envelope, I held it so that the little bit of silk, which 
 was yet clinging to it, touched and matched that of the 
 latest worked rosebud on Mrs. Flexon's tobacco-pouch. 
 
ANNETTE 81 
 
 And then 1 matched it with the skein which the doctor 
 was holding. 
 
 ''Oh ! nevermind/' he said, with a bored expression. 
 " What is the use of making such a fuss over it ? It is 
 most likely an envelope which ]\Iiss Lislethorpe herself 
 has dropped since we came on board, and some one has 
 picked it up and used it to wind cotton upon. What 
 were you saying, Mrs. Flexon, about that French vessel 
 just in advance of us ? " 
 
 Mrs. Flexon began to tell him, evidently expecting 
 that thus she should get rid of me. But I am not the 
 woman to be treated rudely in that way, and their 
 discourtesy made me stick to my purpose more resolutely 
 than ever. I waited until she had repeated her remark 
 about the French vessel, and then I returned to the 
 charo^e. 
 
 " It is not an envelope which Miss Lislethorpe has 
 dropped, Dr. Byte, for she knows the handwriting to be 
 Captain Asperton's, and she says she has never received 
 a letter from him." 
 
 " Then most likely it belonged to some other lady 
 on board," said the doctor, rather illogically, '' and slie 
 has dropped it. Shall I take it round for you and 
 ask?" 
 
 " Xo, thank you, there is no need for you to take 
 that trouble. I saw Mrs. Flexon throw it away when 
 she had finished the silk, and a gust of wind blew it to 
 me. If you remember, Mrs. Flexon, I was sitting close 
 to you at the time." 
 
 ''You don't say so," Mrs. Flexon replied, mildly. 
 
 F 
 
82 AJSfKETTE 
 
 " I was really quite unconscious that we were such 
 near neighbours. We are generally so far apart." 
 
 This was a vicious little thrust at nie, sitting, as I 
 do, at the end of that long table, whilst Mrs. Flexon 
 dispenses her smiles several meridians nearer the equator 
 of the captain's presence. But I ignored that, too, and 
 stood my ground like a woman who has fought her own 
 way for twenty years in India. Nothing but facts should 
 crush me, I was determined, and no facts had been 
 brought to bear upon me yet. 
 
 " Perhaps it would have been more convenient," I 
 said, " if we had been farther apart yesterday ; but, I 
 assure you, the ball of paper came to me just as it left 
 your own hand, after you had taken it from your own 
 work-case. Its pedigree so far, at any rate, is very clearly 
 ascertained. Ail that I want now is to trace it a step 
 farther," 
 
 Mrs. Flexon now assumed the role of hauteur, com- 
 bined with feminine incapacity. She fixed me with 
 a well-bred stare, then turned to her companion, and 
 said : 
 
 '' Dr. Byte, do come to my assistance. I am being 
 positively broken to pieces upon the wheel of Miss 
 Brown's masculine intellect. I had no idea that- a 
 woman could be so inexorable. I really begin to feel 
 as if I were going through an examination for the Civil 
 Service. Miss Brown, are you sure yoii were never at 
 the London University?" 
 
 " No, Mrs. Flexon," I replied, watching her as she 
 lay back at full length in her chair, and studying the 
 
ann:ette 83 
 
 curious changes which passed over her face, as she 
 turned it, first with disguised but not entirely un- 
 embarrassed dislike upon myself, and then, with sudden 
 sweetness of womanly appeal, upon the doctor, who 
 still lay at her feet, holding the skein of silk. "I 
 was never at any university but my mother's, and 
 she tried to teach me to help those who could not 
 help themselves. Shall I say to Miss Lislethorpe, 
 then, that you have no explanation to offer about this 
 envelope ? " 
 
 " Certainly you may, Miss Brown ; and at the same 
 time you may congratulate her, from me, on having 
 secured the services of such an able champion as your- 
 self Oh ! Dr. Byte, you naughty man, you have let 
 a link of the silk slip off your hand, and now it is all 
 in confusion. Thank you very much, Miss Brown. I 
 am so sorry to liave given you any trouble." 
 
 With that she resumed her conversation with the 
 doctor, and I returned to tell Annette the result of my 
 interview. I felt more sure than ever that my thoughts 
 about the matter were the right thoughts, though they 
 left a very troublesome stain upon Mrs. Flexon's 
 straightforwardness. 
 
 We agreed that it would be better to say nothing 
 more about it at present, not mention the matter to 
 any one else ; but I said that, as we were going to re- 
 main together for some time, we should most likely 
 think of some way of clearing up the mystery. 
 
 Annette looks restless and ill at ease. I do not 
 wonder. But she says nothing, and when the subject 
 
 F 2 
 
84 ANNETTE 
 
 comes up between us, I only talk of it as a judge might 
 talk of some curiously interesting case which he was 
 trying to get to the bottom of, not at all as if I kne\" 
 that it touched and stirred her very life. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 21s*. 
 
 ESTERDAY we passed Port Said, and the 
 grand event of the voyage happened, 
 namely, getting letters and papers from 
 home. How eagerly we all awaited the 
 arrival of the little steam-tug which brought them and 
 the ship's agent on board. How we all crowded to the 
 bulwarks as boat after boat came alongside, thinking 
 that each might be bringing the wished-for news from 
 a far country. And how we buzzed round the captain 
 when he appeared at last on the poop deck holding aloft 
 the big bundle which was to be divided amongst us ; 
 getting letters on board ship is the best part of the 
 voyage. 
 
 Annette had the one she expected from Mrs. 
 Vermont. It was just the letter which a woman such 
 as I imagine ]\Irs. Vermont is, would write. She con- 
 gratulates her niece upon the energy and promptitude 
 she has displayed in making the engagement with Mrs. 
 Marsham, and thinks the companionship is a most 
 admirable opening for her, combining, as it does, almost 
 nominal duties with the position of a lady. She says 
 that she should have been very glad to have received 
 Annette at Cheltenham, if nothing else had turned up 
 
86 ANNETTE 
 
 for her ; but, at the same time, she thinks it is much 
 better for her to be independent. She speaks of their 
 house being rather small, with only one spare room for 
 visitors, so that it would be shghtly inconvenient to 
 have any one staying with them for an indefinite time. 
 But if ever Annette should be out of health, or wanting 
 a holiday, or anything of that sort, she must remember 
 that her aunt will be very glad to see her for a week or 
 two. 
 
 Then she adds that Mr. Vermont would certainly 
 have come to meet the Naioah, but, unfortunately, he 
 is so much out of health just now, owing to the severe 
 east winds, that it is quite impossible for him to take 
 such a journey. And as for herself, she is quite a 
 novice in such matters, and would not know either 
 where to look for the ship, or what to do when she had 
 found it. So she hopes dear Annette will excuse her 
 coming up to town, but she will give directions to some 
 responsible person to see after the luggage and do 
 everything that is necessary. She concludes by com- 
 mitting her niece to the kind care of all-merciful 
 Providence which watches over the sparrows and feeds 
 the young ravens when they cry, from which slightly 
 misapplied quotation I infer that Mrs. Vermont herself 
 does not intend to supplement that Providence by any 
 exertions of her own. Perhaps she does not think it 
 would be correct to do so. It might be taking Annett6 
 too much out of the hands of the Supreme One who has 
 promised to care for her. 
 
 So now there is nothing to prevent her from coming 
 with me to Abbotsby and staying as long as we both 
 
ANNETTE 87 
 
 find it pleasant. She is very glad about this ; it makes 
 a sort of rest for her where so much else is unrestful. 
 
 I had a letter from my solicitor, with some informa- 
 tion about Aunt Miriam's affairs. Also another, whose 
 external appearance, I think, would not commend me to 
 the rest of the passengers, for it w^as from Keren, and 
 the address was a marvel of the most irregular text- 
 hand, very explicit, and completely covering the back 
 of the large envelope. She says that Mrs. Proud's 
 rooms will be quite ready for me. She is having the 
 old house completely cleaned from top to bottom, and 
 everything arranged just as it used to be in the " dear 
 master's time," and she hopes I shall live to have my 
 health and happiness there for many a year to come. 
 She also says she has made up her mind to stop with me 
 to her dying day, and serve me as she did the master and 
 mistress and Miss Miriam before me ; for, thank God, 
 she is as hale and strong as ever she used to be in the 
 best of times, let alone a touch of rheumatics when the 
 wind is contrary, and wishes nothing better for herself 
 than to stop in the family where she entered five-and- 
 forty years ago, a slip of a girl not worth her meat and 
 lodging. 
 
 And a great deal more to the same effect, for Keren 
 was never one who could epitomise. 
 
 Thank you, you good old soul ! That is better than 
 committing me, along with the sparrows and ravens, to 
 the indefiniteness of an all-merciful Providence, and 
 then looking out for a comfortable almshouse for 
 yourself, which I dare say you might have got long ago, 
 for there are plenty of thera in Abbotsby. I think, 
 
88 ANNETTE 
 
 after all, spite of a few faults of spelling and grammar, 
 that letter of yours will make a better show in the 
 courts above than the other which, with such unexcep- 
 tionable crest and caligraphy, travelled beside it to poor 
 little orphan Annette. 
 
 What a business it was, reaching Port Said ! "We 
 stayed from four in the afternoon to daybreak of next 
 morning, and I don't think the whole time anybody 
 slept a wink, so that we are feeling rather subdued 
 to-day. First of all, police officers had to come on 
 board, before any one could land ; curious bearded 
 fellows, with big burnous cloaks and very fierce eyes, 
 and belts stuck full of murderous-looking weapons. 
 When they came trooping up the ladder by the vessel's 
 side, Mrs. Flexon rushed into the arms of the first 
 gentleman she could see, who turned out to be Mr. 
 Justin, thinking no other than that pirates were board- 
 ing the ship. And really I did not blame her. One 
 could have given those fierce black eyes credit for 
 anything. 
 
 After we had shown a clear bill of health the pirates 
 departed, and the tug of war began. We were literally 
 besieged by swarms of boats whose owners, swarthy 
 Moors, Egyptians, Arabs, Copts, Armenians, or Maltese, 
 wanted to take us ashore, and would not, by any quantity 
 of , English or Hindustani, be persuaded that any of us 
 preferred staying quietly where we were. Other boats 
 were laden with oranges and vegetables for the provision- 
 ing of the ship, others with fresh fruits, others with cakes, 
 sweets, and toys. Most of the passengers did finally go 
 on shore, returning at all hours of the night and morning, 
 
ANNETTE 89 
 
 so that to go to sleep was simply impossible. After dark, 
 the coaling of the sliip began, and continued until about 
 an hour before we started, the rattling and dragging of 
 the bags forming a sort of bassoon ohUigato to all the 
 rest of the noises that were going on. 
 
 The three young men who have nothing to do, em- 
 ployed their spare time in going backwards and forwards 
 between the ship and the town, buying all varieties of 
 possible and impossible things. I believe it was partly 
 owing to them that we were so beset with boats, for the 
 Port Said people soon find out if a man cannot say no, 
 especially when that weakness is accompanied by a few^ 
 pounds ill his pocket. For days after we left the place, 
 those young men came out every morning with some- 
 thing new in the shape of hats, scarves, ties, gloves, 
 walking-sticks, or slippers ; and as for the boxes of 
 Turkish delight which they, demolished, who shall count 
 them? 
 
 One sees all sorts of people at Port Said : Hindoo, 
 Mohamedan, Egyptian, Arab, curiously mingled with 
 the piquant Frenchman, the grave Italian, the polite 
 Spaniard, the handsome Maltese. The mighty rivers of 
 Eastern and Western life meet here. Leaving it, we said 
 good-bye to the morning-land where I have spent nearly 
 half my life. Port Said has opened to us the gate of 
 Europe. Whilst yet we lingered between the sand-banks 
 of the Canal, we came upon scattered remnants of Eastern 
 habit and custom which will meet us again no more. 
 At Malta, where we touch next, there will be nothing to 
 remind us of the palm-trees and plantains of India. I 
 am so glad to be near home, and yet I know that often 
 
90 ANNETTE 
 
 and often I shall shut my eyes to see in imagination 
 those mild-eyed, ^Yhite-robed Hindoos and leisurely- 
 stepping, peaceful women, whom in the flesh I shall 
 never behold again. 
 
 With my letter yesterday came a copy of Tlie 
 Standard, kindly sent to me by my solicitor, I suppose, 
 because it contained a review of an Indian book whose 
 writer I know. In the bustle of passing the port and 
 getting through into the Mediterranean, to say nothing 
 of the interest of reading the home letters, I thought no 
 more about it ; but this afternoon I took it up and spent 
 an hour or two over it. Strangely enough, I found in its 
 columns of military intelligence the announcement that 
 the regiment which Mrs. Truro says Captain Asperton 
 changed into, is ordered to Canada immediately. 
 
 How curious that I should just have alighted upon 
 that piece of information. How many and many a time 
 have I read The Standard without ever giving a moment's 
 notice to the military column ; and this afternoon, 
 because I was in an idle mood, and cared neither to 
 write nor work, I found out something which may touch 
 Annette's whole life. 
 
 I do not know whether I am glad or soriy. It seems 
 to put a definite stop to finding out anything more about 
 Mrs. Flexon's deceit, if deceit it is. And it puts a 
 definite stop, too, to any little castles in the air which I 
 might have built about a possible meeting between 
 Captain Asperton and Annette. Since I heard that 
 conversation between Mrs. Truro and Mrs. Beverley, I 
 have often fancied how delightful it would be if by 
 any chance Captain Asperton came to Abbotsby whilst 
 
ANNETTE 91 
 
 Annette was with me. I have turned over and over in 
 my own mind how it could be arranged, and what a 
 delightful clearing up and mutual understanding there 
 would be. I have seen those two in my little parlour at 
 home, or sauntering up and down under the lime-trees 
 that border the garden, as happy as ever they were in 
 the old days at Moorkee ; nay, happier, for the thought 
 of separation past, gives joy its finest touch of complete- 
 ness. And all the brightness would come back to 
 Annette's eyes, and the colour to her face, and we could 
 afford to be magnanimous even to Mrs. Flexon. 
 
 Now, of course, that can never be. At least, it 
 seems to have gone too far out of the range of probability. 
 But then there is a feeling of relief in knowing that it 
 has so gone. I need not build castles in the air any 
 more. That little announcement in The Standard has 
 dropped a portcullis between Annette and any hope she 
 might have been cherishing about things coming right 
 again. I think there is certainty for her now, though 
 only the certainty of separation. Perhaps that is better 
 than the dreadful uncertainty of waiting, and wondering, 
 and hoping. I showed her the paragTaph this afternoon. 
 She said nothing. I could not tell from her face whether 
 she was glad or sorry. I have a sort of feeling that she 
 thinks it is better so. Thinking what she must think, 
 that Captain Asperton is fickle and unfaithful, it must 
 be a relief to her to know that there is no possibility of 
 their meeting again in England. I sometimes wish I 
 dare tell her what I have heard. I sometimes even 
 think I ought to tell her. But then it was only the 
 gossip of two women, and 1 have no right even to pre- 
 
92 ANNETTE 
 
 sume that she would wish to be informed of it. "With 
 all her gentleness and sweetness, one must not go a step 
 too far with Annette Lislethorpe. I have no right to 
 repeat to her what may vex her whole life with un- 
 resolved doubt, when I have not perfect certainty that 
 what I say is the truth. I will hold my peace, only 
 being to her such a friend as I can. 
 
CHAPTER XIIL 
 
 'yfWik^T night I had a long talk with Mr. Justin 
 
 k((^^ about the old times, and I asked him how 
 
 ^^3^^^ things were looking at Abbotsby, -when he 
 
 left it, little less than a year ago. That 
 
 is very recent information to one who has never seen it, 
 
 nor any one w^ho came from it, for nearly twenty years. 
 
 He says I shall see very little change in the place. 
 Since the passing through it of the new line from London 
 to the north-west of England, there has been an increase 
 of business, but that has chiefly concentrated itself in 
 the streets round about the station, and in Westgate, 
 the street which leads almost direct from there to the 
 Abbey church and castle. Our dear old Northgate, 
 being snugly out of the way of most objects of interest, 
 has been let alone. So has the whole of that end of the 
 town, in consequence of which rents have fallen very 
 much. But that will not affect me, as I am going to 
 live in my own house. Most of the fashionable people 
 have left Northgate now, and are settled at the station 
 end of the town, where an entirely new neighbourhood 
 has sprung up. 
 
 Mrs. Carbery is living in the same house, at the north 
 end of the Abbey church. Of course she is very infirm 
 
94 ANNETTE 
 
 now, and never goes out ; but Mr. Justin says her 
 intellect is as bright as ever. She takes quite a lively 
 interest in the history of her own times, has the paper 
 read to her every day, knows what new books are coming 
 out, what topics of social interest are being talked about, 
 and lives almost as much abreast of the age as any one 
 in the House of Commons. Mrs. Carbery is a standing 
 proof of the advantage of a well-used brain. She has 
 always given hers plenty of work, but not too much ; and 
 so it is serving her faithfully, even to the end. How I 
 do long to hear her talk of the days when my father and 
 mother were bride and bridegroom in the little house 
 which is to be my home. 
 
 I asked Mr. Justin about that house, too ; but his 
 recollections of it do not seem to be very definite. He 
 says he thinks everything looks pretty much the same — 
 at least, no change has struck him when he has happened 
 to go past the place ; but I can see he takes no special 
 interest in it, beyond liking to be able to answer my 
 questions. When I ask him about the very trees which 
 I remember so well, the trees which my father planted, 
 and beneath which I have watched him walking many 
 and many a time, with head bent and hands loosely 
 folded behind him, or the little garden paths where, as a 
 child, I played, and the old sun-dial and the summer- 
 house, he only says he cannot exactly say. He has a 
 general idea that things are much as they used to be. 
 
 Mr. Justin has no gi*eat love for the past. There is 
 something in his nature which rather spreads out than 
 casts its roots deeply down. I suppose it is the develop- 
 ment of the same disposition which, when he was a little 
 
annett:ej 95 
 
 boy, made him not care mucli for keepsakes and things 
 of that sort. He likes to look around, not behind him ; 
 to find out fresh things, rather than to cherish the 
 memory of those which have long since passed away. I 
 suppose that is the right sort of disposition for making 
 a useful man ; but I begin to see that we shall not often 
 talk of the old times together. 
 
 Then I asked about the Northgate house, in which 
 he still lives. He says he has not had it altered at all 
 since his father's time. It is church property, belonging 
 to the feoffees of the Abbey, and it came to him with 
 about half of the ninety-nine years' lease unexpired ; so 
 that he may look upon it as his home for the remainder 
 of his life, if he chooses to stay in Abbotsby. I think 
 he is more proud of it as a fine specimen of seventeenth- 
 century architecture, than attached to it because of any 
 memories which it recalls. He was quite amused with 
 me for remembering so well everything about it, from the 
 carving on the oaken balustrades to the pattern of the 
 gra,pe and vine-leaf cornice in the drawing-room, and the 
 number of the gilded nobs on the old-fashioned mirror 
 which was set in a panel over the fire-place. But, indeed, 
 I have counted them many a time when Mark and I went 
 to have tea with little Gregor}^, and I sat in a high- 
 backed chair, with my feet dangling down, gravely eat- 
 ing the piece of cake which was always given to me 
 before we went away. Mr. Justin remembers nothing oi 
 all this ; but he says he has had every bit of p.int 
 scraped off the fine old black oak mouldings, and the 
 floors polished, and everything restored as nearly as 
 possible to the style in which the house was first built. 
 
96 ANNETTE 
 
 two hundred years ago. He intends to have it com- 
 pletely refurnished when he settles at Abbotsby, and 
 then it will be one of the prettiest houses in the place. 
 
 I felt sufficiently at my ease to say what a pity it 
 seemed that he had not a wife to share it with him. 
 One cannot always venture on any sort of familiar 
 remarks to Mr. Justin, because of that stand-ofi^ manner 
 which he has sometimes ; but he did not seem at all 
 offended with me. A pleasant, almost tender expression 
 came into his face, as if he had some sweet secret known 
 to himself alone. And his eyes, as they turned quickly 
 away from mine, were full of thoughts with which I 
 could not intermeddle. Perhaps he has found some 
 one already. I hope I shall be able to like her, or I 
 shall be shut out from him, and that would make me 
 sad. 
 
 Here I paused for a long time, thinking about many 
 things. I wonder what sort of a girl Gregory Justin 
 would choose for his wife. Of course, she must be 
 young and very pretty. A man in his position, marry- 
 ing for the first time, can command those qualifications. 
 And I suppose he would like her to be of very good 
 family, a step or two higher in that respect than himself, 
 perhaps, though the Recorder of Abbotsby was always a 
 man of position in the place. I am not quite sure 
 whether she must be of a mild, yielding temper, a 
 modest little violet, to unfold its perfume only in the 
 shelter of her own home ; or whether she must be 
 brilliant and society-loving, a woman for him to be 
 proud of when he takes her out into public, or gathers 
 together his friends and neighbours in the drawing- 
 
ANNETTE 07 
 
 room of which she is to be queen. The violet would, 
 I think, make a better man of him, would foster a 
 certain something wanting just now in his character ; 
 but the rose would make him lift his head more proudly 
 among his fellows, and do and dare more greatly, per- 
 haps, for the sake of being praised by her. So I think 
 it will be the rose, though I wish it might be the violet. 
 But what a waste of time for me either to think or 
 wish anything about it. Gregory Justin will make his 
 choice with respect only to himself and the woman he 
 loves. He will not go up and down, asking the opinion 
 of his friends. Only I hope she will like me and let me 
 be kind to her, whether she be rose or violet. 
 
 Annette sits beside me now, watching a great, 
 white-sailed vessel which is ploughing its way onward. 
 How pretty the delicate, finely-cut little profile looks, 
 as she leans her head against the dark plaid shawl 
 which I have spread over the skylight. Something is 
 coming back into Annette's face. Not the brightness 
 which I remember at Moorkee, never that again, I 
 think, but rather the wistful quietness and dawning 
 peace of the face I used to study in church, whilst Mr. 
 Lislethorpe preached those very long sermons. 
 
 It is three days now since we saw in The Standard 
 that account of Captain Asperton's regiment being 
 ordered to Canada. I thought it would make a dif- 
 ference to her, and it has done so. Though die says 
 nothing to me about it, and I say nothing to her, I 
 know that she is much more at rest. Instead of taking 
 everything now in that listless, resigned way which used 
 to be so pitiful, she begins to talk almost brightly about 
 
 G 
 
98 • ANNETTE 
 
 what we will do when we are settled down in tlie old 
 house ; how she will help me to teach the little girl I 
 mean to train for service, and how she will learn to be a 
 clever housekeeper herself. That will soon come to her ; 
 she has neat, dainty, orderly ways, and that carefulness 
 about small things which is the essence of good manage- 
 ment. And we talk about the books we will read, and 
 the long walks we will take as she gets stronger, and 
 how I am to show her all the places I remembered 
 when I was a little girl — for Annette has a love for the 
 past, a clinging to it almost equal to my own. God 
 grant it may never embitter her life, but from this time 
 forward be only a source of peace to her, as it is to 
 me. 
 
 This may partly be because it is settled now that 
 she need not go to her aunt at Cheltenham. I know 
 the poor girl dreaded that very much ; but I think it is 
 more because of the uncertainty which has been taken 
 out of her life. She knows now how the days lie 
 before her, quiet days, uneventful days, which will be 
 filled with little pleasures and little duties, and whose 
 happiness must be chiefly that of a contented spirit. 
 I wish no other happiness for myself now ; but I must 
 remember that Annette is a girl, with a girl's heart, and 
 a girl's longing. And I must not be surprised if some- 
 times the old restlessness comes back upon her. She 
 cannot begin at once and go right on with never a 
 pause. 
 
 Looking up from this page half an hour ago, I found 
 Mr. Justin studying us both as if we had been vessels 
 
ANNETTE 99 
 
 in the distance that had to be accounted for. When our 
 eyes met, he turned away and began to walk up and down 
 the deck. I wonder what he was thinking about — was 
 it the rose or the violet? He seemed to have gone 
 completely out of himself, almost as Annette used to 
 go, when first we left Bombay, and I used to bring her 
 up here and wrap her up in shawls, and make her lean 
 her head against my shoulder. Only I think she had 
 gone out after a happy past, and he was going out after 
 a happy future, which makes all the difference. 
 
 o 2 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 25th. 
 
 HIS morning Mr. Justin brought me a 
 photograph of the old Northgate house 
 to look at. There are very few of its 
 date left in Abbotsby now. All those 
 that belong to the Mayor and Corporation are being 
 pulled down, as the leases expire, to make room for 
 modern buildings, which will fetch a better rent. Only 
 those in the possession of the Abbey feoffees are care- 
 fully preserved. They know well enough how little 
 interest there would be in Abbotsby if these old relics of 
 the past were swept away. 
 
 I am glad the Northgate house is in such good 
 hands. Mr. Justin wanted me to notice in this photo- 
 graph how beautifully the carved cornices above and 
 below the tier of windows on the second floor have been 
 brought out. I don't know if cornices is the proper 
 word. It is rather a little belt or frieze ornament which 
 runs along the base of each projecting storey. There are 
 three of these projecting storeys, with two gables at 
 the top of all, and another beautiful frieze under the 
 
 gables. 
 
 In bygone times, when poor little Abbotsby had a 
 season of its own, Northgate was the fashionable quarter 
 
ANNETTE 101 
 
 of the town, the resort of the county people, who came 
 for the balls, and routs, and assemblies which were 
 plentiful enough then. But even in my childish days, 
 the spirit of commercial enterprise, consequent upon the 
 completion of the first railroad, had begun to invade the 
 place. The county families, being brought by that 
 same railroad within easy reach of London, ceased to 
 come to Abbotsby any more for the winter season. 
 Their mansions, after standing unoccupied for years, 
 were pulled down, and magnificent shops, with no end 
 of plate-glass and decorative art about them, replaced 
 the beautiful old-timbered houses, whose high-pitched 
 gables and projecting stones and carven brackets had 
 once been the pride and glory of the place. 
 
 Still, even when I left Abbotsby twenty years ago, 
 a few of these were left in the Xorthgate, with their old- 
 fashioned gardens behind, reaching down to the river, 
 gardens rich with elm-trees and colonies of rooks, and 
 musical in April mornings with the pipe of blackbird and 
 thrush. Old Mr. Justin's was the best of them. It was 
 opposite the judge's residence, a tall, forbidding-looking 
 mansion of Queen Anne's time, and opposite the " Star 
 and Garter," too, the chief inn of Abbotsby in those 
 days. Its owner, when I first remember it, was a staunch 
 Tory, and to his hostelry, therefore, at election times the 
 blue candidate, when he chanced to be successful, was 
 triumphantly "chaired," myself and my brother Mark 
 always going to see the procession from old Mr. Justin's 
 drawing-room windows. 
 
 How vividly I remember, even yet, our delight in 
 those processions, which now I suppose would appear to 
 
102 ANNETTE 
 
 us, were they still in existence, tlie veriest tinsel and 
 gilt-paper buffooneries. What a joy it was to have our 
 best of possible things put on, always with plentiful 
 dashes of blue about them, for both my father and the 
 Recorder were Tories, and to sit at the middle window 
 of the Northgate drawing-room, Mark, little Gregory, 
 and myself, with some responsible person beliind to take 
 care that we did not lean too far out, and with refreshing 
 relays of biscuits and ginger- wine given us from time to 
 time, to make the long hours of waiting pass more 
 pleasantly. 
 
 How picturesque the narrow old street looked ! 
 Most of the people were Conservative in those days, and 
 so nearly every window had its cluster of ladies dressed 
 in the favourite colour, and banners of blue and silver 
 fluttering in the wind, and festoons of blue rosettes were 
 wreathed across the street, and Venetian masts reared 
 fi'om the gables, and the ribbon upon the ''Star and 
 Garter " signboard was newly painted for the occasion, 
 and every little boy had a card, with the name of the 
 successful candidate on it, in his cap ; and even the 
 dirty little urchins, selling sweets and gingerbread on 
 the pavement below, would wrap their good stuffs up, 
 for that day only, in papers of the favourite colour. 
 
 The sole break in the general cerulean aspect of 
 things was made by the magnificent new Italian 
 warehouse, or, as we Tories called it, grocer's shop, 
 which had lately been erected a few doors below the 
 '' Star and Garter." It alone blossomed out in a 
 splendour of gold, which served to make the sur- 
 rounding blue bluer still. At election times it used 
 
ANNETTE 103 
 
 to be wreathed with oranges. A huge rosette of that 
 desirable fruit was placed over the door, the outline 
 of every window was filled in with the same, curved 
 lines of them hung across the resplendent white 
 front cf the shop, and, after dark, a lighted dip candle 
 stuck into an orange, was placed in each pane, produ- 
 cing, what we then thought, a most dazzling illumina- 
 tion. Next day the fruit was sold for half price, the 
 Abbotsby little boys not being averse to the taste 
 of tallow. I believe the festoons and other decorations 
 went back again into the shop, re-appearing probably 
 from time to time upon our dinner-tables. 
 
 Oh, the intense excitement felt by us children as 
 the first burst of hurrahs, from the farther end of the 
 winding street, announced that the procession was at 
 hand ! What awe as an advanced guard of special 
 constables, with their staves, formed into line in front 
 of the " Star and Garter," looking as fierce as though 
 they meant to kill us all there and then ! What 
 shouts of delight — the previous awe having abated — as 
 the first banner, perilously supported by two very much 
 overweighted men, reeled and tumbled into sight round 
 the nearest turn, followed by a band playing : " See the 
 conquering hero comes ! " And then the long file, four 
 deep, of voters, each with a blue rosette in his coat, and 
 a card in his hat, and more banners and more flags, and 
 more bands of music, and finally the conquering hero 
 himself— the successful candidate— carried in his chair 
 on the shoulders of ten or a dozen men. How he bowed 
 and smiled to us all, looking as happy as possible, 
 though I have thought since what an uncomfortable 
 
104 ANNETTE 
 
 seat it must have been for liim, almost as risky as that 
 which it represented in Parliament, and which he was 
 pretty sure to lose at the next election, there being 
 such numbers of Conservative candidates for Abbotsby, 
 and the borough having no special hereditary pre- 
 ferences. 
 
 After having seen him safely deposited in the court- 
 yard of the " Star and Garter," we were bundled into 
 a cab, under charge of our old nurse, and, disgraceful 
 little turncoats that we were, hurried off to the 
 business end of the town to see the whole thing 
 done over again in orange, if, as was often the case, 
 a member was returned on each side. 
 
 The assizes, too, twice a year. Why do I never 
 see anything now — I mean in the way of public 
 spectacles— which impresses me with the awe I felt 
 in seeing the judges go in solemn procession from 
 their residence at the top of the Northgate to the 
 Abbey church for morning service on Assize Sunday, 
 preceded by the ma3'0r, the corporation, the town- 
 officers, mace- bearers, sheriffs, clerks, and Gregory's 
 papa in his recorder's gown of black velvet? Good 
 old Mr. .Justin, always ready witli a smile for the 
 three eager little faces poking out of his drawing-room 
 window. 
 
 How we held our breath— at least, Mark and I 
 did, not being intimate with such magnificence — when, 
 through the gateway of the closely-walled residence 
 garden, the High Sheriff's state carriage appeared, 
 with its embroidered hammer-cloth edged with waving 
 golden fringe, its velvet-coated, white-wigged, red-faced 
 
ANNETTE 105 
 
 coachmaii, its majestic footmen behind, looking down 
 upon the gaping multitude with calm superiority from 
 the vantage ground of the dicky, the crimson-liveried 
 trumpeters with their bannerets, the retainers with 
 I their glittering halberds, ranged in close rank on each 
 ^side of the carriage, to protect the sacred object of all 
 this splendour from injury and insult. How fierce 
 those retainers looked — at least, how fierce we thought 
 they looked. Of course, men with tall battle-axes, like 
 those in the pictures in our great History of England, 
 must be tierce, there was no help for it. I almost think 
 we looked for the stain of blood upon those battle-axes ; 
 but, if so, we never saw any. Sure I am of this, though, 
 that we, one and all, even Gregory himself, felt that 
 if we were naughty just then, there would be no chance 
 for us, with the guardians, supporters, and represen- 
 tatives of justice so close upon us. 
 
 Then the Abbey bells began to ring. All the parish 
 churches in Abbotsby joined in ; the trumpeters blew a 
 mighty blast, and the carriage, with its massy glories 
 of coachman, hammer-cloth, gold fringe, coats of arms, 
 majestic footmen, and sacred occupant, moved slowly 
 forward with a dignity that became the occasion, we 
 three little people gazing in a silent wonder which would 
 not let us clap our hands, or laugh, or indulge in the 
 shouts which came so naturally to us at election 
 times. 
 
 For what words could describe the feelings with 
 which we peered into the mysterious depths of the 
 carriage, and dimly discerned the central object him- 
 self, a mass of fur and scarlet cloth, surmounted by 
 
106 ANNETTE 
 
 a wig wliicli was calculated to strike terror into the 
 breast of the beholder? AV'e knew that that man, 
 if we might be impertinent enough to call him anything 
 so common, let me rather say the object clothed in 
 scarlet and fur, was a judge ; that a single word of his 
 could not only punish little boys and girls who disobeyed 
 their nurses, but could send gi'own-up men and women 
 away beyond the seas, or shut them fast in stone cells, 
 or hang them by the neck until they were dead. And 
 here we were, within reach of him. How I used to 
 shudder at the thought ! How conscience awoke within 
 me, and reminded me of all the buttons I had pulled oft 
 my frocks, all the elastic I had iniquitously drawn from 
 the wrists of my Lisle thread gloves whilst listening to 
 the sermon in church, all the blots I had made in my 
 copy-book, all the rips and rents in my garden pinafore. 
 Oh ! how earnestly sometimes, when a child of seven, 
 looking at that judicial pageant from the windows of the 
 old Korthgate house, have I put my little hands to- 
 gether under my tippet, and asked God to forgive me 
 for being naughty, these afore-mentioned sins pressing 
 altogether too painfully upon me. So that the law may 
 be said to have gained its ends, so far as I was 
 concerned. 
 
 But tliat mysterious object in scarlet and fur ! He 
 was a judge, we knew ; but was he anything else ? Did 
 he always wear that wig ? Did it grow upon him ? 
 How did he lie down at nights ? Did he lie down at 
 all, or was he put into a box, fur, scarlet cloth, wig, and 
 everything, until it was time to judge the wicked 
 people again ? Did he ever want anything to eat ? 
 
ANNETTE 107 
 
 Had lie any little boys of his own, and did he kiss them 
 and play with them, or only judge them ? Was he ever a 
 little boy himself ? No, of course not. He never could 
 have been that, any more than the King George IV. we 
 had seen in the wax-work exhibition, in crimson velvet 
 and ermine, could have been a little boy. He must 
 have come straight down out of somewhere, just as 
 
 he was. 
 
 As I thought these thoughts, the carriage slowly 
 rumbled out of sight behind a bend in the road. The 
 last gleaming battle-axe disappeared ; the pomp of gold 
 and crimson was no more. Only the ringing of the 
 Abbey bells continued, as the chimes of Faith keep 
 ringing on for us when the shows of the present have 
 departed. 
 
 But, oh ! the mingling of contempt and relief which 
 came upon me when, at the age of eight years, I learned 
 that those battle-axes were only tin I 
 
 ' How the whole pageant collapsed for me then into 
 a mere child's play of wooden swords and paper helmets ! 
 How I scorned myself for even saying my prayers under 
 the pressure of such utterly needless fear 1 With what 
 openly-expressed scepticism I ever afterwards regarded 
 the nurse-girl who had dared to suggest that my head 
 could be cut oif by those make-believe things ! And 
 with what dignity I declined next year to go and see 
 the show at all ! I knew too much about it now. 
 The battle-axes would not cut. The men who held 
 them up were worn-out shoemakers or hotel waiters, 
 who earned a shilling a day by trying to look fierce on 
 each side of the judge's carriage. The judge himself 
 
108 ANNETTE 
 
 vras only a person. He sat down to dinner eveiy day, 
 and ate meat and drank wine like other people. He 
 took off the scarlet robe, and there was a coat under 
 just like my own father's. The wig came off, too ; so 
 did the fur. What was he worth? — what was it all 
 worth ? 
 
 Ah me ! the burst of dignity soon passed away. I 
 learned to accept meekly the unsatisfactory nature of 
 the show, knowing it was not what it seemed, and for 
 years afterwards I amused myself, as well as might be, 
 with the other things — the velvet and the gold fi'inge, 
 and the powder and the bannerets, and the crimson 
 liveries which really ^cere very grand. 
 
 Later still I became acquainted with the central 
 object himself. I learned to look up to a judge's 
 wisdom, knowledge, patience, intellect, industry ; to the 
 noble functions which he discharges, and the important 
 part which he takes in the conduct of life, with far more 
 real awe and reverence than ever in my childish days 
 I had paid to the mere outside — the scarlet, and velvet, 
 and fur, and tin battle-axes of his accompaniments. 
 
 So on through life. Of far other things than those 
 old retainers' weapons, have I found out that they are 
 " only tin " ; and with like revulsion of feeling have I 
 learned, first to scorn what was not what it seemed, and 
 then to take it contentedly, knowing it tuas a sham. 
 Afterwards came the larger knowledge of the truth 
 which underlies the shows, an ever deepening and 
 widening aspect of the reality, around which man has 
 gathered these little accidents of pomp and circumstance, 
 and growing patience with those who accept them still 
 
ANNETTB 109 
 
 as part of the interior thought. The judge's Sunday 
 has become a type for me of the progress of life within 
 us. We first learn to believe implicitly, then to scorn, 
 then to tolerate the thing we scorn, then to see through 
 what we scorned to the beautiful and ever true thought 
 within, which afterwards we love and worship, and this 
 is our religion. 
 
. iS— cr 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 2Qth. 
 
 ^iMT^^ MIGHT have gone moralising on for ever so 
 ^^ long about the judge's Sunday, if a sound 
 
 of voices had not begun to disturb me. 
 
 Looking up, I saw that Mr. Justin had 
 joined Annette who was sitting close to me, and the 
 two were having quite an animated conversation. 
 
 Annette said they had been talking nearly three 
 hours, and I had been scratching away all that time. I 
 said I had not, I had been taking notice of what was 
 going on in the ship. As a proof of the correctness of 
 this statement, I described the positions of all the 
 people — how Mrs. Flexon was chatting confidentially 
 with the doctor, whilst the chief engineer had betaken 
 himself in despair to the civilian's widow ; how Mrs. 
 Beverley and Mrs. Truro had been deep in a discussion 
 about little boys' dress for the last hour, and how Mrs. 
 Marsham and Mrs. Mateby were settling the question 
 of Colonel Aberall and his gambling debts. 
 
 Mr. Justin thinks I must be writing a book, the 
 history of my experience during twenty years' work 
 amongst the Zenanas of the Punjaub. Well, let him 
 think so. I know I do spend a great deal of time in 
 
ANNETTE 111 
 
 writing, but it is because I have nothing else to do. 
 And I told him I could still keep my eyes wide enough 
 open for anything that might be going on around me. 
 
 *'Can 3^ou?" he said, looking at me with such a 
 comical smile. 
 
 If I really was writing for three hours yesterday, 
 which I don't believe, I did not finish what I was thinking 
 about. There was still another sight which Mark and I 
 and this quizzical Mr. Justin, who was only "little 
 Gregory " then, used to see from the windows of the old 
 drawing-room in the Northgate. 
 
 That was the annual procession of the yeomanry 
 troops to their review on Abbotsby Heath. Mark and I 
 always went and had tea with Mrs. Justin on that after- 
 noon, and also on the afternoon of the chairing proce>ssion. 
 Gregory, in return, used to visit us when the gooseberries 
 were ripe, and when the apples were gathered, and when 
 the haymakers were at work in the fields behind our 
 house. At least, those were the regular times, though 
 he came often enough between. 
 
 These three sights : the chairing, the judge's Sunda}^ 
 and the Yeomanry Keview, gave me entirely distinct 
 feelings of pleasure. The chairing was a pure, childish 
 delight of sight-seeing, striking no deeper chords than 
 could be worked in any little mind by flags, banners, 
 music, rosettes, and flying blue ribbons, mingled with 
 the accessories of ginger-wine and sponge biscuits when 
 we had to wait very long for the procession. With the 
 pageant of the judge's Sunday there was connected, until 
 we found out about the tin battle-axes, a certain awe 
 inseparable from the near and perfectly realised presence 
 
112 ANNETTE 
 
 of a justice which could immediately visit upon us any 
 little misdeeds, or, indeed, as the nurse suggested to us, 
 pointing to the retainers, cut off our heads if we were 
 very naughty. I had always a sense of relief, and so, I 
 believe, had Mark and Gregory, when the High Sheriff's 
 carriage was fairly out of sight. 
 
 But no such vague uncomfortableness visited us as 
 that fine regiment of yeomanry, preceded by the mounted 
 detachment of Dragoon Guards which usually kept the 
 ground, filed down narrow little Northgate, the white 
 plumes of the officers floating in the breeze, the horses' 
 hoofs clattering on the stone pavement, the men's 
 accoutrements flashing back the sunshine, those loose, 
 white -braided, blue jackets hanging from their left 
 shoulders giving them a jaunty, rollicking air whicli 
 rather took away from their otherwise warlike appear- 
 ance. Sometimes one or another of them would look up 
 to us little folk in the window, and give us a smile which 
 made us feel as proud as if we had been noticed by the 
 King himself. 
 
 I believe that sight awoke in us the first dawn of 
 patriotic feeling, of pride in our country's gi'eatness. 
 That Yeomanry Review was always associated in our 
 minds with the stories my father told us about the 
 French wars, the stir of English fleets and armies in his 
 young days, the news of victories blazed from end to 
 end of the country, mail coaches decorated with laurels, 
 bonfires lighted, bells ringing in every little village 
 church. In place of the unspoken fear which possessed 
 us when watching the judicial pageant, there was now 
 a splendid assurance of security ; for with such an 
 
ANNETTE 113 
 
 apparently innumerable host of armed men, ready to 
 draw swords in our defence, what foe, either at home or 
 abroad, could do us any harm ? I believe at that time 
 the Abbotsby yeomanry numbered about five hundred, 
 rather a feeble force to contend with the thousands of 
 our neighbours across the Channel ; but seeing them 
 career proudly past us, in the almost interminable file of 
 four deep, which was all the narrow street allowed up 
 and down as far as we could see, from the judge's 
 residence, which formed the vanishing point at one end, 
 to Booth and Marby's toy shop, which was the limit of 
 our prospect at the other, forming just one glittering 
 ribbon of steel and silver, dashed with the darker tints 
 of the men's blue and red hussar caps — on and on with 
 seemingly no end to their numbers, for five hundred 
 men four deep took a long time to pass, how could we 
 children but think them a force which would vanquish 
 the world ? 
 
 And then that assuring smile now and again from 
 some good-natured young fellow, who, chancing to look 
 up to Mr. Justin's window, saw our wonder and delight 
 at the great show — how it seemed to steep us in infinite 
 waves of safety ! — how it seemed to say, '' All right, 
 little ones, never fear ; I will take care of 2/ou, whatever 
 
 comes ! " 
 
 Once my father took us in an open carriage to see 
 the review itself ; but we did not enjoy that very much. 
 It was too much like being in the actual danger and 
 turmoil of battle. The heavily-armed dragoons, on their 
 prancing steeds, keeping the grounds for the troops, 
 would keep coming so alarmingly near us, and sometimes 
 
 H 
 
114 ANNETTE 
 
 backed almost into our carriage, filling us wnth dismay ; 
 for how could we tell that they would know exactly 
 where to stop ? And when one of the horses did really 
 switch his tail right in my face, and I gave a little 
 scream, the dragoon on his back turned and scowled at 
 me as if I had been a Frenchman, instead of a harm- 
 less, frightened little girl. To my dying day I shall 
 never forget how those eyes looked under that brass 
 helmet. 
 
 And then the noise, and the trampling, and the flash 
 of drawn swords, and the rapid galloping to and fro of 
 companies of horse, and the clang of weapons as opposing 
 sides met in what seemed to me deadly combat It was 
 too real. I was perfectly sure they wanted to kill each 
 other. It could not be only practice. But to watch 
 them from the drawing-room window in the Northgate, 
 with a responsible person behind to see that we did not 
 lean too far out, and with an occasional largess of 
 biscuits and ginger-wine from Gregory's mother — that 
 was simply delightful. That was such a comfortable 
 way of becoming acquainted with the glory of one's 
 country. 
 
 And now, after — for him — years of good, successful 
 work, leading him to honour and position and success in 
 his own town; and after — for me — much loss and death, 
 and half a lifetime of exile in a foreign land, Gregory 
 Justin and I, middle-aged people, with gi-ay hair and 
 large experience of the world, have met on the deck of 
 the Nawab, and talk with each other of all these things. 
 What wonder that I know not how the time goes as I 
 
ANNETTE 115 
 
 write down the story here ! What wonder that Mr. 
 Justin, who can never care for the past as I do, laughs 
 at me, and says that one day I shall wake up and hnd 
 how much has been going on whilst I was dreaming of 
 what is gone ! 
 
 But how quizzically he looked at me when he said 
 that! 
 
CHAPTER XVl. 
 
 27th. 
 
 T is really little more than a week, but it 
 seems like months since that affair of 
 the envelope. Mrs. Flexon completely 
 ignores Annette and myself now. Is she 
 offended, or is she afraid ? I think she is afraid. Her 
 eyes have a curious, dart-like motion when they meet 
 mine, which I take care shall be pretty often. She does 
 not turn them — she literally flings them away from me. 
 If her conscience is clear, why cannot she meet my 
 steady gaze \v'ith one as steady ? Why does she always 
 take care now to have her chair placed so far away 
 from the skylight where Annette and I generally sit, 
 as though she were afraid that we should want to 
 engage her in further unpleasant inquiries ? But * she 
 need not trouble herself. I know already all that I 
 wish to know from her. 
 
 She has not quite dismissed the subject, it appears, 
 from her thoughts. For last night Dr. Byte, who, I 
 really think, must be engaged to her now, for they 
 are constantly together, came to me as I was sitting 
 here writing, and said, with a little of the manner of a 
 man who is asking a favour, instead of putting that 
 stupid old Miss Brown in her place : 
 
ANNETTE 117 
 
 " Excuse me for interrupting you, but Mrs. Flexon 
 wished me to ask if you have that envelope in your 
 possession yet. Most probably you have destroyed 
 it ; but if not, and you will kindly give it to. her, she 
 will try if any light can be thro\^^l upon the subject, 
 as both you and Miss Lislethorpe appeared to be so 
 anxious about it." 
 
 ''Thank you very much," I replied, "but please 
 tell Mrs. Flexon that i\Iis3 Lislethorpe and I have 
 nothing more to say on the subject at present." 
 
 I emphasized that last word, for I wished Dr. Byte 
 distinctly to understand that the whole thing was not 
 going to drop through. 
 
 "Very well," he said, carelessly; "I think that 
 is much the wisest plan. It is almost a pity any inquiry 
 was ever set on foot ; because, you see, it was the 
 merest surmise on your part that the envelope had been 
 in Mrs. Flexon's possession originally. In fact, now 
 she has an almost distinct remembrance of picking it up 
 on deck soon after we came on board. If you will 
 kindly let her have it again, she would, perhaps, be able 
 to decide." 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! " said I, feeling tolerably sure 
 that, if the precious scrap of paper once came into Mrs. 
 Flexon's possession, it would soon make acquaintance 
 with the blue waters of the Mediterranean. " I am so 
 sorry she has troubled herself about it again. Pray tell 
 ner, too, will you, that we will let the matter rest as it 
 is. Miss Lislethorpe has no wish to produce farther 
 unpleasantness." 
 
 '' No ; and Mrs. Flexon has behaved in a most 
 
118 ANNETTE 
 
 ladylike way about it. Of course, you laiow, it must 
 have been exceedingly annoying to her at the time, 
 but she wishes me to assure you that she does not 
 feel in the least offended." 
 
 How pretty of her ! Kisses and forgives us all 
 round in the sweetest manner possible, and then says : 
 " Look how good I am ! " Dr. Byte must think her 
 angelic. Well, so she may be, only some of the angels 
 kept not their first estate. 
 
 '* Please thank Mrs. Flexon very much," I replied, 
 " and tell her I have nothing more to say now. If I find 
 that I am wrong, I assure you I will not rest until 
 the most ample apologies have been made." 
 
 And then, by way of intimating to Dr. Byte 
 that the interview was at an end, I dipped my pen 
 into the ink and prepared to go on with my writing. 
 
 Nothing more to say. Certainly not ; but a great 
 deal more to do. I am determined not to rest until 
 I have brought up the truth which lies at the bottom of 
 that well. Sometimes I think I will find out where a 
 letter would find Captain Asperton, and then -wq^-ite 
 to him and tell him the story, and let him know that 
 Annette has never had a letter from him. But then 
 again, I think it might only bring up the unhappy past, 
 without making any decisive ending of it. Annette 
 seems passing now into a certain quiet peacefulness. 
 I might do her a wrong to ruffle it. Why cannot I 
 leave things to a wisdom wiser than my own, and wait 
 until the way is so plain that I cannot mistake it ? 
 
 She and Mr. Justin are walking up and down the 
 deck now. He says she wants exercise, and he means 
 
AKNETTE 119 
 
 to make her take it morning and afternoon. It brings 
 a colour into her cheeks that makes her look quite 
 pretty. Dear me, how often I have tried to make her 
 walk up and down in tliat way, telling her it would give 
 her an appetite and improve her digestion, and all sorts 
 of things, but it w^as never any use ! Now Mr. Justin 
 gives his order, and the thing is done. Annette has the 
 sort of nature that wants a man's influence upon it. 
 She has not much power of resistance when a strong will 
 is brought to bear upon her. 
 
 How I find in him now traits of character which I 
 remember so well when he was a boy ! Though he was 
 younger than either Mark or myself, he generally 
 managed to convince us that his way was the right way 
 of thinking about anything. It was Gregory who decided 
 the road we should walk, the games we should play at, 
 the places where our bridges and summer-houses should 
 be built. He used to be architect for them, too, whilst 
 Mark and I took our lower stand of hewers of wood and 
 drawers of water, meekly feeling that it was quite right 
 for us to do so. It never vexed us that he should 
 assume this superiority. "We were wise enough to own 
 that he was the master-spirit. 
 
 I have just the same feeling now. I should never 
 think of contradicting Mr. Justin, scarcely of suggesting 
 to him. He has just assumed the same quiet authority 
 over Annette, since she became well enough to become 
 an appreciable unit in the ship's company. He tells 
 her that she ought to do a thing ; she does it. He 
 insists upon her putting aside her book and walking up 
 and down. She walks up and down, without apparently 
 
120 ANNETTE 
 
 any feeling of rebellion. He says she is to give over 
 reading that very subjective book of poems which she 
 has been studying for the last few days. It has never 
 appeared again, and instead she is now deep in "Social 
 Science for Beginners." An excellent science, no doubt ; 
 but the very last which I should have thought Annette 
 Lislethorpe would choose. 
 
 It is the same with other people. In the most quiet 
 and unconscious way he takes the lead in whatever ho 
 is talking about. He was having an argument with. 
 Dr. Byte this morning, in which Mrs. Flexon's favourite 
 conspicuously came to grief If he had been a gentle, 
 quiet sort of man — though in that case Mr. Justin would 
 never have put him to such confusion — I should have 
 been really sorry for him, because one cannot enjoy 
 seeing a man like that utterly discomfited. But Dr. 
 Byte airs his opinions so very freely, and with so little 
 respect for those of other people, that liuman nature 
 could not resist a certain satisfaction at seeing him put 
 into his right place. And I suppose I have not quite 
 forgotten the way he behaved to me when I went to ask 
 about the envelope. Shall I ever have common sense 
 and Christianity enough, I wonder, to consider men and 
 w^omen according to what they are in themselves, and 
 not according to what they have been or done to me ? 
 I am afraid not. 
 
 It was rather a public discomfiture, too, for our 
 doctor is not a man who does anything quietly, and his 
 angry way of conducting the argument had drawn quite 
 a circle of listeners round the combatants ; amongst 
 them, of course, Mrs. Flexon, who was exceedingly 
 
ANNETTE 121 
 
 anxious for the honour of her cavalier. When the 
 discussion was practically put an end to by Dr. Byte — 
 who is a capital gymnast — jumping from the poop to 
 the lower deck, and going to smoke a cigar with the 
 first mate, Mrs. Flexon looked at Mr. Justin severely, 
 and walked away with one of the young men, saying 
 something about " insufferable impertinence." 
 
 I am not quite sure to what the ''insufferable 
 impertinence " applied, whether to the manner in which 
 our audacious little Esculapian had been floored, or to 
 the subsequent conduct of the victor. For after the 
 sudden disappearance of the adversary from the scene 
 of conflict, Mr. Justin quietly walked across to Annette, 
 who had been taking no interest in the proceedings, 
 and said : 
 
 "Miss Lislethorpe, you have not had your usual 
 exercise this morning. Put your book away and come 
 and take the thirty minutes' dose with me." 
 
 He took the book from her, put one of the shawls 
 over her, for we are beginning to feel a touch of northern 
 coolness in the air now, and conducted her away. 
 
 Perhaps this was the "impertinence " to which Mrs. 
 Flexon referred. I think, practised upon herself, she 
 would rather have enjoyed it ; for I heard her say once 
 to Mr. Justin, when he was holding her quoits for her, 
 that she did so dote upon masterful men. She said a 
 man was worth nothing if he could not make a woman 
 do what he liked. But her opinions vary according to 
 circumstances. "When talking to the chief engineer 
 once, who, though clever, is very mild and shy, she 
 could not endure men who had too much self-possession. 
 
122 ANNETTB 
 
 To obtain her favour, she said, they must be humble 
 and modest. Which Mr. Justin is not, to any great 
 extent. 
 
 Annette takes it all very quietly. She struggled 
 through her walk of thirty minutes, Mr. Justin making 
 her rest now and then, or lean on his arm ; and then 
 she came back to me, apparently neither glad nor sorry 
 that the thing was at an end. I believe it is a good 
 discipline for her to have the force put upon her which 
 Mr. Justin exercises. She wanted somebody to shake 
 her out of that dreamy indifference which was becoming 
 a habit. I could not do it — I have not will enough. I 
 can order my own life, but I cannot touch the lives of 
 others. I could never keep a school, or be a matron, or 
 a lady-superintendent, or anything of that sort, for no- 
 body would obey me. I used to suggest exercise to 
 Annette over and over again, but she only looked wist- 
 fully at me, and gave herself an extra curl up amongst 
 her shawls. If she had done so when Mr. Justin 
 suggested it, he would just have shaken her out of her 
 shaAvls, picked her up, carried her to the middle of the 
 deck, set her on her feet, and told her to walk up and 
 down until she received orders to stop. 
 
 That sort of treatment does Annette a world of good, 
 and I am very glad she is having it. 
 
 I hope we shall be able to keep up this pleasant 
 friendliness with him when we are settled at Abbotsby. 
 Of course it will depend upon the Rose or Violet who 
 is at the head of his house then. If she happens to be 
 one of the stylish, fashionable sort, I am afraid it will 
 not last very long. But if, as I hope, and yet am almost 
 
ANNETTE 123 
 
 afraid to believe, she should be a quiet, pleasant, home- 
 loving little body, what enjoyable times we shall have 
 together ! How she will like to hear what I can tell 
 her about the boyhood of her husband, how we used to 
 play together, how even then he had begun to show his 
 superior, overmastering spirit ; how he was the leader of 
 7s both, though younger than either of us, how his quick, 
 active intellect used to find out ways and means which 
 ours, slower and more plodding, carried into effect. 
 
 I think it must be so pleasant for a wife to hear that 
 sort of thing about her husband, supposing she has not 
 known him all her Hfe. But I have been writing here 
 until the twilight has fallen. How like England the air 
 begins to feel ! The captain says we shall be there in 
 nine days. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AM awake in our cabin in the early dawn 
 of the morning. All would be so still, 
 were it not for the labouring and panting 
 of that restless steam-engine heart below, 
 whose every pulse is sending us so much nearer home. 
 
 Greatly to our disappointment, the captain found 
 that we need not touch at Malta. We passed it last 
 night in a cloudy moonlight, which only* let us see 
 the heaving outline of the island upon a gray sky. Our 
 young men, who had reckoned upon making a night of 
 it amongst the questionable amusements which are so 
 plentiful at Valetta, looked dreadfully crestfallen, 
 though I dare say next morning their pockets would be 
 considerably heavier in consequence of the involuntary 
 self-denial. 
 
 " Here St. Paul was shipwrecked," said one lady, 
 sententiously, whereupon Dr. Byte, who never lets a state- 
 ment pass if there is the least excuse for contradicting 
 it, pounced upon her, and requested her reasons for the 
 fact. The poor lady, not being prepared with proofs of 
 what she had all her life simply and unhesitatingly 
 accepted, was as much puzzled as though she lird been 
 called upon to resolve a problem in algebra or trigone- 
 
ANNETTW 125 
 
 metry. The doctor took advantage of her simplicity, 
 and very soon showed her, according to his own logic, 
 that that brief and touching history must be relegated to 
 the limbo of vague possibilities, into which the annals of 
 the Hebrew people have so satisfactorily resolved them- 
 selves. I wonder why it is that Dr. Byte believes all 
 other history except that which is given to us in the 
 Bible. You have only to say that a statement is con 
 tained in the books of the Old or New Testament, and 
 forthwith he begins to pick it to pieces. But this was a 
 great triumph for him, and I think a little consoled him 
 for the flying leap he had been obliged to make a day or 
 two before to escape from Mr. Justin's inexorable logic. 
 
 I did wish Mr. Justin had been there this time, not 
 so much to protect St. Paul from the imminent danger 
 to which he was exposed at the hands of this mighty 
 man, as to give Dr. Byte the opportunity of another 
 jump. It must be such good exercise for him ! 
 
 " The barbarous people showed us no little kindness." 
 What would not one give to know all that was said and 
 done by Paul during the three months he and his com- 
 rades spent on that little island whose dim gray outline 
 we passed last night, which I can see now, a mere film 
 on the horizon, as I sit up here in my berth ? What a 
 different life it must have been from that which priests 
 and bishops live nowadays 1 Yet not altogether with- 
 out its gentle courtesies, for that Publius must have 
 been a true man, able to see beneath the guise of an 
 out-worn and shipwrecked prisoner the make of a hero 
 whose peer the world had scarcely seen. I am afraid, in 
 this nineteenth century, we should be slow to recognise 
 
126 ANNETTE 
 
 onr great ones in such fashion. "VVe should pause before 
 ''honouring with many honours" a man who came to us 
 under such untoward circumstances — nay, would he not 
 rather be bidden by our vigilant police to " move on," 
 and carry his wondrous message to a land where " sus- 
 picious characters " were not so jealously reconnoitred ? 
 
 Four o'clock, and just a few crimson streaks upon the 
 awakening east. It is no use getting up, for in half an 
 hour the sailors will begin to wash the decks, and then 
 the only place of rest for me will be up in the rigging, for 
 at this time in the morning the saloon smells too strongly 
 of the night before to be at all a comfortable locality. 
 So there is nothing but to stay in my berth, which, being 
 the upper one, has a port close to my elbow, and amuse 
 myself as well as I can with my own thoughts — always, 
 when I can fix them on this home-coming, sweet and 
 pleasant to me. 
 
 What a difference between the within and without 
 which this little port-window separates ! On one side, 
 the six feet square cabin, with its meagre belongings, its 
 scanty attempts at gilding and decoration, its confused 
 mixture of odds and ends, the comical result produced 
 by squeezing the greatest quantity of things into the 
 smallest quantity of space. On the other side, the great 
 wide sea, the gray horizon line which divides the seen 
 from the unseen, the breaking splendour of the unrisen 
 sun, the white sails of far-off vessels, with their freight 
 of human souls, each carrying its own separate share of 
 joy or sorrow. So like the little life of things we see 
 and touch around us, and the great life which lies 
 beyond, parted from us by the narrow port-window of 
 
ANNETTE 127 
 
 death — this life so crowded, so over-weighted, so filled 
 with necessary trifles, which we would gladly cast away ; 
 that life so vast, so silent, so full of beauty and majesty, 
 which we cannot understand, only long after. 
 
 Sometimes I stand on the bulwarks, so near the 
 ocean that its spray dashes on my face, and look from 
 that side into this little cabin. It is so mean and petty 
 then, though myself and my interests, when I am in it, 
 make it the centre of my world. I w^onder, out under 
 the great wide sky, how I could ever crowd into it at all, 
 \yill it be so with us when we stand in the new life, and 
 look back to this ; when the little cabin is done with, 
 and the infinite hereafter is all our own ; when with 
 untold space to work in, and untold time to become 
 acquainted with it, we remember the crushed up, crowded 
 life on the other side the port-window — how we fretted 
 and worried in it, how we longed for more room to 
 breathe and work, how impatient we were to break away 
 the little casement, and let in the whole wealth of air, 
 and sunshine, and beauty, which could but struggle so 
 feebly through it ? The little we could see through our 
 window, the much there was to see when we could only 
 get outside ; what we saw only suggesting what we might 
 see, what some day we should see. It is all a picture of 
 what is and what is to be. 
 
 It seems to me, and Annette says it is just the same 
 to her, that we have been quite six months living in 
 this ship, and yet it is not three weeks since we lost 
 sight of the purple headlands of Bombay. I suppose 
 it is because everything is just the same day by day ; 
 no new people, no new interests, so little to concentrate 
 
128 ANNETTE 
 
 one's attention upon, no news of how the great tide of 
 life is going on elsewhere. I look upon the faces of the 
 five-and-twenty passengers, and it seems utterly im- 
 possible that they are strangers of less than a month. 
 The junior chaplain's wife, who sits opposite to me at 
 the end of the first long table, is it really true that 
 she has sat there only three times a day for only three 
 weeks? It cannot be. I know every separate fibre 
 in the curls which stray out underneath the coils of 
 her back hair. I have counted the buttons up and 
 down the front of her dress as many times as ever in 
 my childhood I counted the knobs on Mrs. Justin's 
 mirror, or the separate little points of the dog-tooth 
 ornament upon the Norman archway opposite our pew 
 at church. Three weeks ! — nay, those buttons are 
 acquaintances of six months' standing at the very least. 
 And so are the masonic studs, with the square and com- 
 passes graven upon them, which Mr. Brevitt, one of our 
 unemployed young men, wears. I have watched them 
 also regularly three times a day, at breakfast, tiffin, and 
 dinner, throughout a period which stretches now into 
 the remote past. Sometimes they are put in properly, 
 the compasses pointing down, as they ought to point. 
 Sometimes Mr. Brevitt is careless, and lets them tilt, in 
 a manner suggestive of loose habits. Again they point 
 upward, in act to pierce his youthful chin, and I can 
 scarcely help reaching across the table to put them 
 straight for him. 
 
 And the captain, too, broad-faced, sunny, smiling, 
 with his question put regularly every dinner-time to 
 the chief engineer, who sits at our end of the table : 
 
ANNETTE 129 
 
 "' Well, Mr. Enfield, how many knots have we made 
 to-day ? " 
 
 Is it possible I have heard that question asked and 
 answered only twenty-one times ? The almanac says 
 yes — my internal consciousness says a thousand times 
 no. 
 
 The chief engineer vexed me very much at first by 
 always addressing me as " Mrs." when he wished to 
 know what I preferred ; whereas the junior chaplain's 
 wife, who is, I suppose, about eight-and-twenty, and 
 tolerably pretty, was as regularly called " Miss," because, 
 as he said, she looks too young for a " Mrs." Of 
 course, he meant no harm, being one of the most good- 
 natured men living ; but still I had my feelings about 
 it, though generally I am rather proud than otherwise 
 of that generous amplitude of build which causes me to 
 be taken for a matron, and which, in my early days, 
 obtained for me the dear old name of Fudge. Yes, it 
 was a dear old name. Even now, when we are talking 
 about those early days, I can see Mr. Justin's lips 
 getting ready to pronounce it, instead of the orthodox 
 "Miss Brown" by which I have been known for the 
 last five-and-thirty years, and which, I suppose, now 
 will last me until the day of my death, none being left 
 to call me by any other. 
 
 Mr. Justin and Annette and I, and the chief engineer 
 and Mrs. Barrett form a little society at the end of that 
 dinner-table. Annette is a great deal better now. The 
 regular exercise which she is obliged to take does her 
 good. Only yesterday I heard Mrs. Mateby saying to 
 Mrs. Zvlarsham ; 
 
 I 
 
130 ANNETTE 
 
 " It is really quite astonishing how Miss Lislethorpe 
 has picked up, poor thing ! Sometimes she gets a colour 
 into her face, which makes her look almost pretty. I 
 really should not be very much surprised, now, if " 
 
 Here they moved away, and what possibilities lay 
 Mdden behind that ''if" I shall never know. Perhaps 
 Mrs. Mateby was thinking that Annette would like now 
 to resume the most eligible post of companion to Mrs. 
 Marsham ; but if so, I am quite sure she is mistaken. 
 If nothing better than that remains for her, the child 
 shall stay with me always, and be unto me as a daughter. 
 
CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 May 1st. 
 
 ^fej rȤHE beginning of the flower month, and not a 
 ~ '^ green leaf, not a blossom to be seen, only 
 these countless ripples moving the blue sea 
 all round and about us. I wish we were at 
 the end of the voyage. Being on board ship is like 
 living under a microscope. Everybody knows so very 
 much about everybody else. People make a point of 
 finding out who you are, and what you are, and 
 where you come from, and where you are going, 
 f..il if you have any property, and if not, what you 
 intend to do for a living. Your age, too, and your 
 personal appearance, and your dresses come under 
 inquisitorial supervision ; and, in a word, if you want to 
 see yourself as others see you, you have only to take a 
 long voyage and keep your chair always m the same 
 place, a little out of observation. I do not say that the 
 results will be flattering to your pride, but they will 
 certainly throw a new light upon your character. 
 
 I hear many curious discussions amongst the men, on 
 social, political, and religious subjects. People talk 
 much more freely on board ship than they do at Indian 
 OV English dinner-tables. I suppose this is because they 
 
 I 2 
 
132 ANNETTE 
 
 are so entirely independent of each other. A little extra 
 Radicalism, Toryism, Scepticism, or Ultramontanism will 
 not interfere with their " prospects," and so they say 
 just what they think. The most inane talk is between 
 the ladies and the young men, much more so than 
 between the ladies themselves. I wonder what sort of 
 wives these men will choose if they think that women 
 must have such twaddle talked to them. But the ladies 
 like it, judging from the pretty little peals of laughter 
 which ring out whenever the unappropriated young men 
 congregate round them. 
 
 I should not care so much if they would only let 
 their fellow passengers alone. What spiteful things have 
 I heard said about Mr. Justin — who is worth all the rest 
 of them put together — ^just because he will not put him- 
 self forward and be flirted with, like the rest of the 
 gentlemen. But I was most indignant this morning to 
 hear poor Annette thrust through the mangle of feminine 
 criticism, Mrs. Flexon and Mrs. Marsham turning the 
 machine between them. Perhaps I was more vexed, 
 because during the process I came in for my own share 
 of flattening ; but however that may be, I had great 
 difficulty to keep from breaking in and telling them 
 exactly what I thought. 
 
 '' Engaged, did you say ? " remarked Mrs. Marsham. 
 " Dear me ! I should not have thought she was the 
 sort of girl to get oft' so quickly. Such an exceedingly 
 washed-out and listless-looking creature. I was sure 
 from the very first time I saw her that she would be of 
 no use to me. I will never engage another companion 
 without a personal interview." 
 
ANNETTE 133 
 
 "Oh ! but I assure you," said Mrs. Flexou, "that in 
 her prosperous da)'S she used to be one of tlie gayest oi" 
 the gay. Never a ball or badminton or anything of that 
 sort without Miss Lislethorpe. And such a flirt 1 I 
 believe she was engaged to half the gentlemen in 
 Moorkee. But you see it has ended as such conduct 
 generally does." 
 
 ''Of course. I believe I heard something myself about 
 her behaving very badly to a Captain Asperton, who left 
 the place soon afterwards. A good-hearted, gentlemanly 
 young fellow, I believe, and a very nice match for her, 
 only a rich old man came in the way, and then there 
 was no chance for the other. She must feel now that 
 she was atrociously foolish." 
 
 "What a good thing for Mrs. Flexon that our " hurra 
 mem sahib " is not on speaking terms with any of the 
 ladies of the opposite faction, or the glass of public 
 opinion might be turned upon her own conduct in a 
 most unpleasant manner. "With what entire satisfaction 
 could I have brought forward a certain envelope at that 
 particular stage of the conversation, and begged for 
 further information respecting it. There was not the 
 least change or sijn of discomfort in her voice as she 
 replied : 
 
 " Oh ! yes, you mean that poor old Mr. Moberley. 
 "What a ridiculous old man he was, to be sure, but 
 enormously rich, and ready, I dare say, to do anything 
 in the way of settlements. Bat, you see, Mr. Lislethorpe 
 dropping off so suddenly, quite altered the state of 
 affairs. I have no doubt he was very anxious for the 
 match, more so, perhaps, than the young lady ; and I 
 
184 ANNETTE 
 
 believe, if he had lived a few weeks longer, things would 
 have been settled between them." 
 
 "Poor creature ! Well, it served her right for 
 behaving as she did to Captain Asperton. But I don't 
 think she has quite forgotten how to play her cards, 
 even yet. That Mr. Justin seems w^onderfully taken 
 with her ! " 
 
 "Yes," replied the other, with now a perceptible 
 flavour of spitefulness in her manner. "He walked 
 into the snare from the verv beoinninor. You know he 
 is just the sort of man to be taken by weakness and 
 helplessness in a woman. Miss Lislethorpe knew very 
 well what she was doing, when she took the part of the 
 interesting invalid so prettily, and used to be reclining 
 on deck from morning till night, with that dreadfully 
 commonplace Miss Brown as a foil to her own elegant 
 appearance." 
 
 How hard women can be to each other ! But I 
 went on knitting my stocking in perfect silence. An- 
 nette wanting to make an impression on a man like 
 Mr. Justin, such nonsense ! Mrs. Marsham then took 
 up the thread of discourse, or, I should rather say, the 
 handle of the mangle. 
 
 " Poor Miss Brown ! As /ou say, so exceedingly 
 commonplace, and so very fond of interfering in other 
 people's affairs." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Flexon ; "I never saw 
 such a meddlesome woman. One might think she had 
 appointed herself censor general of the ship. Do you 
 know, she actually came to me the other day and asked 
 for an explanation of the writing on a bit of paper I had 
 
ANNETTE 135 
 
 thrown away, and when I ignored the whole affair, 
 she was quite impertinent about it ; in fact, almost 
 threatened me with proceedings. Dr. Byte, who was 
 with me at the time, was excessively amused." 
 
 " Really ! " said Mrs. Marsham. " But, do you 
 know, I think if Mr. Justin means anything by 
 his attentions to Miss Lislethorpe, it will be rather 
 a disappointment to poor Miss Brown. The old 
 lady was evidently bent upon a conquest in that 
 direction. To hear her talking with him, and 
 putting on such an appearance of youthful anima- 
 tion, was almost too funny ; as if, you know, any- 
 tliing of the sort could ever have been possible. 
 But some people are so ridiculous ! " 
 
 " Exactly, dear Mrs. Marsham ; that is just 
 what some people are," thought I, poor Miss Brown, 
 to myself. And then I did get up and walk away 
 to another part of the deck, for I was afraid, if I 
 heard anything else, my self-love would be too 
 severely wounded. But I am sure I was as much 
 amused as they could possibly be at the picture they 
 had suggested. I only wish they knew how comfortable 
 I hope to be without any of the arrangements which 
 they appear to think I am proposing for myself I 
 wish they knew how to dwell among my own people 
 is all I care for, ten times better than ^'conquests" 
 in any direction whatever, except, perhaps, the 
 conquest of one's own ill temper at hearing such 
 things said. 
 
 But their idle gossip about Annette did give me 
 a touch of anxiety. Of course it is only gossip. 
 
136 ANNETTE 
 
 Annette is perfectly unconscious. I should have 
 thought a duller woman than Mrs. Flexon might 
 have found that out. Even a stupid old creature 
 like myself can, I think, see the difference between 
 listless, involuntary submission to the influence of a 
 stronger will, and the coquettishness which lays 
 itself out to attract and receive attention. If I 
 know Annette aright, nothing is farther from her 
 thoughts now than to lay a snare for anybody. 
 The only thing about which she talks with hope 
 or interest, is our life together at Abbotsby. She 
 does seem to enjoy the thought of that, and of 
 finding something to do, so that we may keep 
 
 together. As for anything else But about 
 
 Mr. Justin! 
 
 Here I fell to thinking. What did he mean 
 when he said, in that curious, quizzical way, that, 
 even with my very wide-open eyes, I did not see 
 everything? Is he quietly making himself master 
 of so much heart as poor Annette has to give ? Is 
 that going to content him? Is Annette to be the 
 violet ? But if Mr. Justin does not marry a woman 
 to be proud of in some way or other, he must marry 
 a woman who will worship him, look up to him as 
 a sort of idol, and I am quite sure Annette does 
 not do that. Perhaps, like men who have always 
 been accustomed to rule, conquer, succeed, he is 
 taking it for granted that Annette cannot refuse 
 anything he condescends to ask. Or, perhaps, the 
 man's self-love is blinding him, and he thinks her 
 listless submission is a sort of homp-^e to his 
 
ANNETTE 137 
 
 superior strength, a homage which will be only too 
 glad, by-and-by, to give up everything. Mr. Justin 
 is mistaken. At least, I am almost sure he is. 
 
 But what ought I to do ? " Meddlesome woman," 
 Mrs. Marsham called me, and there is a fibre of 
 truth in almost anything one hears about oneself, 
 though often not more than a fibre. I suppose she 
 was referring to the part I took in getting Annette 
 freed from the companionship affair. Now must I 
 meddle again ? If Mr. Justin has any thought of 
 Annette, and I believe, as I certainly do believe, that 
 she has no care for him, is it right for me to take 
 her away from her own people and keep her at 
 Abbotsby, where he will have constant opportunities 
 of seeing her? Ought she not to go to this aunt in 
 Cheltenham, who doubtless knows a great deal more 
 of the world than I do, and who, under these 
 circumstances, is her proper protector? At this 
 point I got into a tangle and left off. 
 
 Leaning over the bulwarks, and looking away 
 westward to my home, I tried to think things into 
 shape. After all, what right have I to make myself 
 a providence in the affairs of other people, putting my 
 little influence in to shape or alter them ? A wisdom 
 wiser than mine does that. If, having any private 
 schemes of my own, I had asked Annette to come with 
 me to Abbotsby, with Mr. Justin's possible proposal as 
 an eligible backgi'ound to the arrangement, I might 
 reasonably feel that I had taken a great responsibility 
 upon myself, but I did it having no thought of the kind, 
 having, indeed, no thought of an}i:hing but Annette's 
 
138 ANNETTE 
 
 comfort, because the child loves me, and feels at home 
 with me. So then my coast is clear. I need not go 
 back from what is a genuine kindness^ because of what 
 is very likely a needless fear. The gossip of these 
 women shall be to me as though it had never been. 
 Annette shall go to Abbotsby. The great things of Hfe 
 do not fall out by chance in this way. 
 
 So the knife of common sense cuts the Gordian knot, 
 and what Mrs. ]\Iarsham may think, or what Mrs. 
 anybody else may think, shall not interfere with what 
 I believe to be the best home now for Annette, mine 
 at Abbotsby. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 May 4ith. Off Gibraltar. 
 
 5@ NEED not have troubled myself about it ; 
 
 f'M it is all settled now. The Gordian knot 
 has been cut in quite another fashion, 
 though I am very glad that I did cut it 
 for myself, after my own fashion. 
 
 What trouble we take, what thought we spend, over 
 things which neither thought nor trouble of ours can 
 alter! I might have spared myself all the worry which 
 Mrs. Marsham's gossiping tongue caused me. Perhaps 
 I had no right ever to have listened to it. If we could 
 hear all that is said about us, and about other people 
 whose interests are in some way knitted up with ours, 
 we should get into such a tangle that action of any 
 useful sort would be impossible. Therefore one must 
 go straight on, brushing these chance threads of opinion 
 aside, like those gossamer films which in autumn 
 mornings vex us so by constantly spinning themselves 
 before our faces. 
 
 After that waspish little bit of conversation, which 
 cost me so much uneasiness, and which I wish now I 
 had never heard, things went on quietly enough for a 
 day or two. Mr. Justin and I had our pleasant little 
 talks together as usual, not even Mrs. Marsham's 
 
140 ANNETTE 
 
 criticisms making me, I think, any less animated 
 ■when we got upon the subject of okl times. Annette 
 was generally with us. When the twelve o'clock bell 
 rang, Mr. Justin used to rouse her up, and send her 
 for her twenty minutes' promenade up and down the 
 deck, not always going with her himself, but watching 
 her all the time, ready, when she looked tired, to fetcli 
 her back, or give her the help of his arm for a little 
 while, or, when the walk was over, to wrap her up and 
 settle her comfortably down again in her place beside 
 me. If she was not with us — and lately I have noticed 
 that she sits alone rather more than usual — he would 
 often ask me questions about her, what she was intending 
 to do in the future, and so on. Sometimes he would 
 ask me — when he found I had been at Moorkee— about 
 her father and the sort of life she led, up in that 
 fashionable hill-station. I could tell him little. The 
 most of what I knew was not mine to tell. I used to 
 describe her to him as I remembered her in church, 
 with that wistful, half-satisfied look in her eyes, but 
 not as I had seen her on the hillside, full of hope 
 and happiness, with the beauty of unspoken joy glowing 
 through her smile and deepening the colour on her 
 cheek. To make him understand how beautiful Annette 
 Lislethorpe could be, I must have told him of something 
 which I think he has never yet reached, perhaps never 
 will reach. 
 
 As for Annette, though I watched her closely, I 
 could find no change in her. If sometimes I saw her 
 face in repose, it had a quiet, restful look as of one who 
 has no longer anything to search for ; but not the 
 
ANNETTE 141 
 
 beauty of one who has found the best thing earth 
 has to give. However, I made no remark, I asked no 
 questions. My heart is full of good-will to the child. 
 I knew that when she needed a friend she would come 
 to me. And so she did. 
 
 Last night there was a concert on the poop, which 
 drew away all the passengers, Mr. Justin included, for 
 he has the best voice amongst them. I, not being 
 disposed for gaiety, went to my own corner, where I 
 could hear without being seen. I began to build 
 castles in the air about my life at Abbotsby, so 
 peaceful, so pleasant, as it is to be a life where the 
 gossip of strangers will no longer vex me, and where 
 I shall be able to rule my own affairs without meddling 
 with those of other people. This seems a selfish way 
 of looking at things, but at the present time nothing- 
 is so delightful to me as the prospect of doing as I 
 will with my own. I am so tired of having to live 
 in public, being able to shut no door behind me, and 
 with it shut out the tongues and opinions of that busy 
 world which never thinks itself so well employed as 
 when turning the mangle of hostile criticism, after the 
 fashion of Mrs. Marsham and her friends. 
 
 I was so busy with my own thoughts that I did 
 not know Annette was sitting by me, until I felt her 
 hand — what a thin little hand it is! — laid upon 
 my arm. 
 
 For a while we just sat there quietly together. 
 Once or twice I began to talk about something, but 
 her answers showed that her thoughts were far away. 
 I felt that she had something to say to me, which 
 
142 ANNETTE 
 
 would not say itself until we had come entirely into 
 sympathy with each other. I just drew her a little 
 closer to me and waited. Somehow I felt what she 
 was going to tell me, but I could not help her at all. 
 She must come to it in her own way. 
 
 "Miss Brown/' she said at last, very quietly, ''I 
 want to say something to you." 
 
 " I know you do, my child. What is it ? " 
 
 The little hand scarcely trembled at all as she 
 said : 
 
 "Mr. Justin has asked me to be his wife." 
 
 It was said in a low voice, but then Annette's 
 voice is always low. And besides, we have got into 
 the habit of talking in an undertone, both to avoid 
 disturbing other people, and that we may not be 
 overheard by them. 
 
 I only put my own hand on the hand that was rest- 
 ing on my arm, holding it steadily for a while. I need 
 not have done so, I think, for it did not tremble at 
 all. 
 
 "And then, Annette?" 
 
 "I said I would." 
 
 That was all. I could find nothing to say. I 
 had no gladness to express. If Annette had but said 
 it a little differently. It was not the tone of one 
 who wraps up in the words a whole future of hope 
 and happiness. If she had been telling me of her re- 
 engagement as companion to Mrs. Marsham, she could 
 scarcely have spoken the words more quietly. And 
 yet they had bound her to an untried something 
 which only death would end. 
 
ANNETTE 143 
 
 *'I said I would." 
 
 How it all made me think of my own little 
 romance, folded up and put away so long ago, so 
 long, long ago, yet I think fresher and sweeter to me 
 now, even in its memory only, than the page which 
 Annette was just turning. I had not been so calm 
 when I told my mother that Gilbert Ross had asked 
 me to be his wife. Calm? Why, I remember now 
 the tumult of joy and wonder which stirred all my 
 life when I first knew that he loved me. Nothin^y 
 seemed the same to me after that— how could it be ? 
 Commonplace, practical, housekeeping girl though I 
 was, I felt that a glory had arisen upon me, and I 
 think something of it must have shone through my face. 
 And though that is seven-and-twenty years ago, I have 
 never forgotten it. And though death came so soon 
 between us, death itself could not take away what love 
 had given. My life took on a new meaning then. I 
 came into possession of my inheritance. I broke 
 through the little port-window, and found that the 
 wide, beautiful world outside it was all my own. Ever 
 since, though people pity my loneliness now, and talk of 
 me as out of date, and all the rest of it, I look back to 
 my life before Gilbert Ross and I loved each other, just 
 as I look from the bulwarks of this ship, with their 
 infinite prospect of sea and sky, into the narrow 
 little cabin on the other side of the port-window, and 
 pity its smallness. 
 
 Does Annette feel anything like this ? And if she 
 does not, is she giving what a man like Gregory Justin 
 will always prize ? That is what I am afraid of. But 
 
144 ANNETTE 
 
 we must not judge others by ourselves. It may be her 
 way to hide much. 
 
 Meanwhile, the concert was going on briskly. Mrs. 
 Flexon and the doctor were singing a duet, as Annette 
 told me in so few words of the strange thing which had 
 happened to her. The sailors had gathered on the lower 
 deck to listen, one or two of them putting in a deep 
 bass note now and then. In the distance we could see 
 the lights of Gibraltar, which we passed at midnight, 
 and its great rock looming heavily upon the scarcely 
 dark skv. On the other side of the Straits was the 
 little African town, nestled in amongst rocks and head- 
 lands. It gave one a curious feeling to be touching 
 so nearly the two great continents, one of which seems 
 to represent the past, the other the future, of the world. 
 Africa, with its elder civilisation, full grown and ready 
 to decay when baby Europe, a half-clothed little savage, 
 was scarcely learning the letters which should after- 
 wards compose its history. One was for Memory, the 
 other was for Hope, and between them, in the darkness 
 of the night, we rushed along towards the younger, 
 better land. Was that a good omen for Annette ? I do 
 not know. Everything seemed so dim, and I could but 
 remember the great calm of the words — 
 
 '' I said I would." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 May 6th. 
 
 N the dead of night, with a huge black rock 
 looming in the distance, and the sails 
 flapping about like the wings of some 
 evil-brooding vampire, one naturally 
 feels disposed to look on the dark side of things. 
 
 Until the dawn of morning twilight, I lay awake, 
 thinking about Annette's engagement, and finding in it 
 nothing but a dim foreshadowing of trouble. I felt so 
 sure she did not love him properly. 1 felt so sure he 
 was looking for something in her which she would not 
 be able to give ; and that after a while, when the very 
 moderate amount of sunshine which attended her 
 affection for him now had departed, there would remain 
 for them both nothing but a long, weary stretch of life, 
 iin warmed by enthusiasm or romance or anything else to 
 make it interesting. 
 
 Long after Annette's quiet, regular breathing told 
 me she was asleep, I kept turning over and over, 
 trying to find some bright side of the picture, and 
 finding none. What a weight of care seems to come 
 down upon one in the silent watches of the night ! 
 Listening to the ceaseless plash of the waves, and 
 the heavy pulse of the engine, which sounded like 
 
 K 
 
146 ANNETTE 
 
 the labouring breath of some human heart, I felt as 
 if I was responsible for all that might happen to those 
 two people ; as if the step they had taken was in 
 some manner of my bringing about, and as if the 
 trouble— for I could not think of anything else but 
 trouble — which might follow it must be borne by 
 
 myself. 
 
 I had heard and read many times that a person's 
 first thoughts about anything were the right thoughts. 
 So it seemed impossible to me that Annette's engage- 
 ment could ever appear other than the, at best, half- 
 satisfactory thing which it certainly was at present. 
 I pictured to myself all sorts of things that might 
 happen. Suppose Captain Asperton should not have 
 gone to Canada, and should turn up accidentally, 
 just when his turning up would be too late to be of 
 any use. And then, after he had turned up and gone 
 away again, suppose some malicious reports, concerning 
 Annette's previous relations with him, should reach 
 Mr. Justin's ears, and he, with the pride and fastidious- 
 ness of a man who must have the best of everything, 
 should begin to think lightly of a love which had not 
 from the very first been his own ! How would it all 
 end then, and what would there be for them both 
 then — for him with his unsatisfied present, for her 
 with her unsatisfied past ? 
 
 And then — for until sleep came I must go on 
 plaguing myself — I wondered if Annette had told 
 him anything about Captain Asperton, or whether 
 that would be a secret kept even from her husband ; 
 and I pictured to myself all the uncomfortableness 
 
ANNETTE 147 
 
 which might arise from the finding out of it after- 
 wards, until the burden of life's possibiKties became 
 altogether too heavy for me, and from sheer weariness 
 of brain I slept. 
 
 Next morning everything was so different. Sun- 
 light swept all the cobwebs away. Out on deck, with 
 little waves plashing and sparkhng in the ship's track, 
 white-winged sea-gulls skimming over the foam, big 
 vessels with outspread sails shining like silver in the 
 distance upon the clear line which divided blue sea 
 and blue sky, I was able to laugh at myself for having 
 indulged in such sad-coloured imaginings. They were 
 only — so I thought and think still — the result of over- 
 anxiety and excitement. 
 
 For Annette came to me, looking brighter and 
 happier than I had seen her for many a day, and then 
 Mr. Justin joined us, and we all had a quiet little 
 talk before any of the other passengers came on deck. 
 Of course, he knows that I know all about it. Annette 
 told him she would not keep it from me for a single 
 hour ; and being able to talk to him frankly and freely 
 on the subject is a new bond between us. I think his 
 engagement has already improved him. He wanted 
 something to touch him a little more closely than 
 social science and health of great towns and public 
 education, and all those sort of things, would do. 
 Before, he was too much like a room lighted by un- 
 coloured windows. Annette has turned the sunlight 
 upon him as through rich purple and gold of cathedral 
 glass, and everything about him is transfigured — at 
 least, so it seems to me. 
 
 K 2 
 
148 ANNETTE 
 
 I wish Mrs. Marsham could know how much we 
 enjoyed that talk together ! I think it would be a most 
 convincing proof to her that I have not suffered 
 severely from the success of Miss Lislethorpe's '' snare." 
 
 "And so you thought you knew everything that 
 was going on on board the Naicab ? " he said, when 
 Annette having slipped away, we talked more freely 
 about this new turn in his life, and I could give him 
 my good wishes and congratulations. ''I knew all 
 the time I was preparing a surprise for you. You 
 have been so busy writing that book of yours about 
 Zenana work, and all the time a far prettier story 
 has been going on at your very elbow." 
 
 Yes, indeed, literally at my very elbow. What a 
 goose I have been, to be sure ! If I had been half as 
 clever as a woman ought to be, I should have had a 
 suspicion of it long ago. So I pleaded guilty, and I 
 let the Zenana hypothesis pass muster too, for a man 
 naturally likes to think he has hit upon the right thing. 
 And then he told me how he had watched Annette 
 from the very beginning, and studied the womanly 
 simplicity and purity of her character, and determined 
 at last that, when he had made his home at Abbotsby 
 as beautiful as it could be made, she should be the 
 mistress of it. 
 
 This was very like a man. I suppose the possi- 
 bility of Annette not meekly acquiescing had never 
 entered his mind. But Gregory Justin always had 
 a way of taking success for granted, and I believe 
 that is the reason he has so often achieved it. Not 
 that he could give any one the impression of a stuck- 
 
ANNETTE 149 
 
 up or conceited man, but he has a masterful way about 
 him, which is its own reward, like the virtue of the 
 copy-books. 
 
 And then he went away to have his cheroot on the 
 lower deck, and Annette came back, and we had it 
 all over again, seen through the light of the woman's 
 window this time. I had a sort of motherly feeling 
 towards the child. I think any woman, be she ever 
 so far past the season of romance for herself, has yet 
 a sympathetic chord for it in those who are dear to 
 her. Though as to romance in this case, I must say 
 I seemed to have the greater share of it myself. It 
 was I who built the castles in the air, and enlarged, 
 as I most honestly could do, upon Mr. Justin's good 
 qualities, and made all manner of pleasant imaginings 
 for their future happiness, when that beautiful old 
 house in the Northgate should be refitted and finished. 
 And I described the place to her, and the old garden 
 sloping to the river, and the elm-trees, and the rooks, 
 and the chime of bells from St. Boniface Church, 
 which played hymn tunes every Wednesday night ; 
 and we both agreed that the lines had fallen to her 
 in pleasant places, and that it was far better to be 
 Gregory Justin's wife than Mrs. Marsham's com- 
 panion. 
 
 Annette listened quietly, as though to something 
 which did not quite belong to herself; but I think 
 under this passive manner, which has now become 
 natural to her, there is a true pride in the man to 
 whom she has promised so much. It is not her way 
 to make much ado about anything. Looked at from 
 
160 ANNETTE 
 
 a simply material point of view, she must be very 
 thankful for her prospects. Mr. Justin does not seem 
 to have told her much about his position in Abbotsby. 
 Slie has no idea of what an important person she will 
 be there — quite the leader of society, if she likes. I 
 think he has a sort of pride in letting her find it out 
 for herself Gregory is just the man who would enjoy 
 disguising himself like an artisan, and winning the 
 affections of some gently born girl, who thought she 
 was reaching far down to take his hand, and then 
 bringing her to his beautiful home, and telling her who 
 he was, and feasting upon her look of sweet surprise. 
 Only girls do not do that sort of thing in these days. 
 
 But, oh, dear ! how that half-hour's talk with 
 Annette brought back the time when I told my 
 mother of my own engagement to Gilbert Ross ! 
 How that Sunday stands out from all the other days 
 of my life ! What a difference it made to me ! What 
 a sudden burst of sunshine it brought up over every- 
 thing ! Though I was not making Avhat the world 
 calls a very good match — not half so good as Annette's, 
 Gilbert being only clerk in a bank, with no great 
 prospect of preferment — I suppose it was the loving 
 each other very much which made the difference. 
 
 So it is to be the violet after all. I am heartily 
 glad of that. I was afraid Mr. Justin might look for 
 a wife who, as the phrase is, would help him to rise. 
 As if for a man's heart to be ever growing upward in 
 the sunshine which a good woman's love can make 
 for him, is not better than the extremest heights of 
 social position to which a magnificent devotee of 
 
ANNETTE 151 
 
 fashion could lift him. It was Annette, my child 
 Annette, whom Gregory was thinking about when 
 that tender look came into his face the other day. 
 I might have been sure that no woman of the world 
 could bring it there. Instead of his marriage putting 
 me away from him, it will bring us all more closely 
 together. 
 
 If it had been given me to choose a wife for him, 
 as women are so fond of choosing wives for their men 
 friends, I could not have found one more after my 
 own heart than Annette Lislethorpe. If only I were 
 quite sure that she is giving him all she has to 
 give. That ''if" still makes me just a little bit 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 But, as I said to myself before, what right have 
 I to set myself up as a providence to other people? 
 Or why should I assume that, because everything is 
 not just as I would have it, therefore it is not as it 
 oudit to be? 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 May 6th. 
 
 NE advantage of Annette's undemonstratlve- 
 ness is that none of the people on board 
 ^ have the least notion of what has happened. 
 There is no retreating into unoccupied 
 recesses of the deck, behind the supernumerary water- 
 casks, tarpaulins, or sails ; no clasping of hands in the 
 dusk, no glances of mutual absorption, no unconscious 
 attitudes for the benefit of the rest of the passengers, 
 especially the young men, who are always ready to 
 find out anything of this kind, and amuse themselves 
 with it. Indeed, I think Mrs. Flexon and Dr. Byte — 
 who really must be engaged to each other now — might 
 take a lesson from the admirable deportment of my 
 afiianced pair. 
 
 Everything goes on as usual. Annette has her 
 daily constitutionals upon the deck, Mr. Justin taking 
 care that they last the proper time, and are gone 
 through with proper rapidity. Sometimes we all 
 three promenade together ; sometimes he takes us 
 one at once, so that I don't think either Mrs. 
 Marsham or Mrs. Flexon can make much of it. 
 When the walk is over, we take possession of our 
 usual corner, and have pleasant little chats about 
 
ANNETTE 153 
 
 the future. The only external difference is that 
 Annette talks a little more than she used to do. 
 
 It is all settled now. At first we thought that 
 as this engagement to the Recorder of Abbotsby has 
 cast an air of importance over the bride elect, which 
 as a homeless young person in search of employment 
 she could scarcely have assumed, she ought to go at 
 once to her aunt in Cheltenham, ask that excellent 
 woman's blessing, and remain with her until the 
 orthodox carriage and pair convey her with due pomp 
 and ceremony into the matrimonial estate. In the 
 meantime, of course, Mr. Justin would present his 
 credentials, state his prospects, request in due form 
 Mrs. Vermont's consent to his suit, and make any 
 little money arrangements which might be necessary. 
 This would, as we all very well know, be the proper 
 thing to do. 
 
 But as that letter received at Port Said so com- 
 pletely handed Annette over to the tender mercies 
 of any respectable lady who was willing to give her 
 board and lodging and a trifling sum in return for 
 her services, and as Mrs. Vermont so carefully shielded 
 herself from any responsibility respecting her niece, 
 except in the case of illness or urgent need, we have 
 agreed now that I am quite justified in stepping into 
 Mrs. Marsham's place, so far as providing a home for 
 Annette is concerned ; the only difference being that 
 I receive her as my loved guest, instead of my hard- 
 worked dependent, and shall consider how much I 
 can put into her life, instead of how much I can take 
 out of it. 
 
154 ANNETTE 
 
 So Annette still goes with me to Abbotsby, and 
 as soon as may be, after Mr. Justin has presented 
 himself at Cheltenham, she will be married from my 
 house. She is of age, and can decide for herself how 
 it is to be. 
 
 I am wondering very much what sort of a letter 
 we shall have from Mrs. Vermont when the engagement 
 is announced. A veiy different one, most likely, from 
 that which gTeeted Annette at Port Said, Avith such 
 scanty assurance of good-will, such very lavish com- 
 mittal of her to the care of an all-disposing Providence, 
 which would give her a portion along with the ravens 
 and sparrows, though scarcely, one would suppose, 
 quite such a portion as she might have hoped to enjoy 
 at the table of her nearest relative. 
 
 Poor Annette ! "What a chill that letter gave her ! 
 How completely it would have kept her out in the 
 cold if we had not learned to love each other, and 
 if I had not had a home to offer her ! 
 
 But this engagement will change things wonder- 
 fully. The affianced wife of Gregory Justin will be a 
 much more welcome guest at Cheltenham than Mrs. 
 Marsham's invalided companion. Most probably Mrs. 
 Vermont will request that the wedding may take 
 place from her house, and then, during the summer, 
 she will come to Abbotsby to see how the young 
 couple are getting on. A visit to the Kecorder will 
 be quite the correct tiling. However, the wedding 
 will not take place from her house. 
 
 I believe I have spite enough in my nature to wish 
 that Mrs. Marsham and Mrs. Flexon could know about 
 
ANNETTE 155 
 
 Annette's prospects. It is so pleasant, when people 
 have been pitying and neglecting yon, to throw np the 
 blinds, and let them see what a pleasant prospect your 
 windows command. To think that " poor Miss Lisle- 
 thorpe " will so soon be lifted out of her friendless, 
 dependent condition, and placed at the head of society 
 in an average country town, would, I am sure, be a 
 great blow to these two ladies. However, we will 
 bide our time. They will see it in the papers. I 
 wonder how many times during these last four days 
 I have mentally composed the paragraph, and com- 
 forted myself, wicked woman that I am, with the 
 thought of the vexation it will cause to some of our 
 fellow-passengers. 
 
 Mrs. Flexon has had a deep grudge against both 
 Annette and myself since the finding of that envelope. 
 She appears perfectly unconscious of our presence, if 
 ever we happen to be in each other's neighbourhood, 
 ignores us as completely as though we belonged to 
 the sweeper caste, and she were a thrice-born Brahmin. 
 Yet, from the manner in which I find her occasionally 
 studying us from a distance, darting her eyes away 
 as soon as she is observed, I feel quite sure that her 
 mind is not at rest. She would be much more com- 
 fortable if she had that envelope in her own possession. 
 I suppose now, except for my own satisfaction, I need 
 not make any further inquiries, though I should very 
 much like to know all that can be known about it. 
 Annette has never referred to it again. 
 
 I wonder what the effect of a very long voyage, 
 say three or four months, under our present conditions. 
 
156 ANKETTU 
 
 would be ? Christians though we call ourselves, I am 
 afraid we should be anything but a happy family at 
 the end of the time. I can understand now, though, 
 when I heard it, it seemed very strange to me, the 
 exclamation of an old coast-guardsman with whom I 
 had a talk, years and years ago, before I went out to 
 India. He had served his time in Her Majesty's 
 Fleet, and on one occasion had been for three years 
 in the same ship, with the same crew. I remarked 
 how sorry they must have been to part, for that three 
 years' service together would have made them like 
 brothers of one household. 
 
 " Law bless you, miss ! " — it used to be " Miss " 
 then — "Bless you, miss, I was never so thankful in 
 my life as when I saw the last on 'em ! I wouldn't 
 ha' gone with that lot another three years — no, not 
 if it was ever so." 
 
 I thought at the time he was a very ungracious 
 old man to say so, but now I know too well I should 
 say just the same myself. 
 
 However, it will soon be over. The captain thinks 
 that early in the morning of the day after to-morrow 
 we shall sight the English coast, or even to-morrow 
 night, if we get a good wind all the time until then. 
 The ladies are already beginning to gather up their 
 odds and ends. I saw -that memorable tobacco-pouch 
 in the doctor's hands yesterday, well filled with the 
 weed of which he is so fond ; so the lady who backed 
 the chief, engineer will lose her pair of gloves. I 
 wonder if a more important gift has accompanied that 
 of the pouch ! 
 
ANNETTE 157 
 
 To-morrow Annette and I are to take turns in 
 having the cabin to ourselves. It is so small that 
 we are obliged to make this arrangement, or our 
 possessions would become inextricably mingled. So I 
 shall have a long quiet morning up here by myself, for 
 Mr. Justin will be busy, and no one else now takes 
 any notice of poor little me. Not that I complain, 
 far be it from me ; only I think sometimes how 
 pleasantly I used to get on with every one in India, 
 and how very much the reverse of pleasantly I have 
 got on with many of the people here. 
 
 I have come to the conclusion that men and women 
 are different under different conditions. What elements 
 shall be brought out depends entirely upon what in- 
 fluences shall be put in, at least, almost entirely. If 
 you i3ut salt into your coffee, and sugar into your 
 soup, is it the fault of the coffee and the soup, or 
 your fault, that both are anything but a success ? 
 Right things in wrong places produce the misery of 
 life. In our own homes, and in our own little circles, 
 we are all — Mrs. Marsham and Mrs. Flexon perhaps 
 excepted — the pleasantest of people. There we are 
 like sensitised photographic paper, upon which the 
 sunlight of congenial surrounding brings out a pretty 
 enough picture. Here, the sunlight being wanting, 
 the picture can scarcely be called satisfactory.- But 
 is it quite the fault of us, or the sensitised paper ? 
 
 Then it is a dreadful trial for five-and-twenty 
 people to be together for a whole month, with nothing 
 to do. After all, my old coast-guardsman had not 
 that trouble to baffle with,.. when he went through 
 
158 ANNETTE 
 
 his three years' service with the same set of comrades. 
 Occupation is the yeast which makes the dough of 
 human character rise. It is the compressed air which 
 gives to the social champagne its refreshing sparkle 
 and vitality. AYe here, without it, and, alas ! also, 
 for the most part, without that originality which can 
 create it, have become like flat wine and bad bread, 
 a trouble to ourselves, and a trial to each other. I 
 tremble to think what a hopelessly disagreeable woman 
 I mio-ht have become, had it not been for the trifle 
 of compressed air which the writing of this journal 
 has put into my life. 
 
 But it will soon be over now. Let us hope that 
 the sight of land to-morrow, or the day after, will 
 restore us, at any rate, to our normal condition, even 
 if it does not succeed in making us all that w^e ought 
 to be. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 May 7th. 
 
 NNETTE amongst valises and portman- 
 teaus. Mr. Justin, and most of the 
 other passengers, ditto. I up here on 
 deck, with that indefinable shadow of 
 sadness creeping over me which comes to most of us 
 when any period of our life, however small, is coming 
 to its end. 
 
 I think, sometimes, what a mercy it is that disease 
 and decay gradually weaken our power of realising 
 things, before death, the most decisive change that 
 we know of yet, closes the period of our existence in 
 the present state. If with every faculty of mind 
 undimmed, we could think of all that we have left 
 undone, or even quite understand what the ending 
 of our time here meant, what a great shadow of 
 sadness would rest upon the holiest of us. But the 
 soul slumbers towards its great change, and none 
 have come back yet to tell us what the waking is like. 
 Sitting here alone, and remembering the past month, 
 a sort of reproachful feeling comes over me, as I think 
 of the end drawing so near. Those two lines. 
 
 All that thou mightest have been, 
 All that thou mightest have done, 
 
160 ANNETTE 
 
 keep saying themselves over and over again to me. 
 I cannot put them away. Perhaps I had better not 
 try to do it. 
 
 But human nature loves to justify itself. Here I 
 paused a long time, thinking of many things. Am I 
 so bad, after all? 
 
 In biographies of colonial bishops and archdeacons, 
 going out to take possession of their preferments, one 
 reads such beautiful accounts of how they managed 
 to keep straight with everybody on board, and how 
 they always manifested such a Christian spirit, and 
 how a sort of influence radiated from them which made 
 everybody feel that they belonged to a superior order 
 of created intelligence. I never took a voyage with a 
 bishop or an archdeacon, so I cannot speak from actual 
 observation ; but the biographies say so. 
 
 Now how much of this enviable state of things 
 arose from intrinsic excellence of character, possessed 
 or acquired by these dignitaries, and how much from 
 extrinsic circumstances, which made it comparatively 
 easy#or them to be good ? For one thing, I am quite 
 sure they sat at the top of the table, and sitting at 
 the top of the table makes a great difference : witness 
 Mrs. Marsham, who beams upon the rest of the 
 passengers with a benignity which only the equatorial 
 zone of the captain's right can produce. Would Mrs. 
 Marsham have beamed at all, if she had been put 
 half-a-dozen seats lower down, in what might be called 
 the extreme temperate, or almost antarctic regions of 
 position ? I believe not. 
 
 It is a vast help to superiority to have no superiors. 
 
ANNETTE 161 
 
 This sounds commonplace, but it covers a deep truth. 
 It is comparatively easy to be good when nobody sits 
 above you. Could I not be as Christian as any of 
 them, if my opinion was asked about everything, if 
 somebody was always ready to fetch my deck-chair 
 when I wanted it, and also to put it in the most 
 comfortable place for me, so that I might be cool and 
 good-tempered when other people were broiling in the 
 heat, or snugly wrapped up on the sheltered end of 
 the poop when they were shaking in the teeth of the 
 north wind ? I am quite sure that I should be the 
 Christian then, even perhaps to the extent of asking 
 the '' others " sometimes to change places with me for a 
 little while, which is what Mrs. Marsham has never done. 
 
 It is true that all this month I have been of not 
 the slightest use to any one, except Annette Lislethorpe, 
 and I am afraid not much of an example either, except 
 in the matter of keeping myself to myself I have not 
 even attended daily service regularly, which Mrs. Flexon 
 has always done. Except during those first three days, 
 when I was so ready to offer lime-juice and smelling- 
 salts to the sea-sick ladies, and find out for them 
 the pleasantest places on deck, have I in any sort 
 "radiated" what could be called a wholesome influence? 
 I doubt it. 
 
 I come back to my favourite theory : that people, 
 as well as things, are only useful or beautiful in their 
 right places. Yonder, at the other end of the deck, 
 is something, namely, a piece of coal, which certainly 
 ought not to be in its present situation. If I had been 
 a thoughtful woman, I should have picked it up and 
 
 L 
 
162 ANNETTE 
 
 thrown it enginewards when I came on deck a couple 
 of hours ago. I suppose the sailors missed it when they 
 were clearing up after those young men, who amused 
 themselves this morning by tying an empty canister to 
 the jib-boom, and aiming at it with little lumps of 
 coal, by way of practice, maybe, for the hitting of that 
 indefinite something which is to yield them a livelihood 
 in the future. 
 
 The next person who comes on deck will kick away 
 that piece of coal as an insult to the passengers. ^Irs. 
 Flexon has just appeared, and with her dainty little 
 patent leather balmoral has done the deed. But if, 
 instead of being kicked ignominiously into the Bay 
 of Biscay, it could have been placed with others of its 
 own sort in j^our cosy little fireplace some winter 
 night, how you would have blessed its warmth and 
 glow ! And yet the thing itself would have been 
 just the same. 
 
 I am like that lump of coal. I am in my ^vi'ong place 
 here. Somehow or other I cannot get on with other 
 people when I am thrust in amongst them in this way. 
 I see only their angles, and they see only mine. If 
 Annette and I had not happened to occupy the same 
 cabin, I dare say we should have been strangers too. 
 It was just that chance revelation of herself which 
 gave us to each other. As for Mr. Justin, I suppose 
 we should have found each other out anyhow, the 
 foundations being already laid. 
 
 Here comes Annette herself. I may go to my 
 packing now 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 May 8th. 
 
 ^OME, sweet home ! 
 
 We saw the English coast in the distance 
 last night, just like a gray cloud after sun- 
 set. Night hid it from us before we could 
 know it for our own country, but this morning it is clear 
 and fair, as I have seen it many times in my dreams. 
 
 As we neared the Isle of Wight this morning, 
 there passed us the most imposing sight I have 
 witnessed during the whole voyage — an outward- 
 bound emigrant vessel — what a stupid I am to say 
 outward-bound, when it was an emigrant vessel — which 
 had just landed her pilot there. 
 
 A splendid ship, with all sails spread, even to the sky- 
 scrapers, and the English flag flying at the mast-head. 
 She passed so near us that we could see the people crowd- 
 ing her decks, and with a glass distinguish the name 
 written in great white letters on her bows — Good Hojje. 
 
 Yfell, God grant her name may not be there for 
 nothing ! What a thing of beauty she was, riding so 
 proudly over the breakers, with the broad sunlight 
 upon her sails, and glistening upon the foam that 
 marked her track ! Such a queen, looking so majesti- 
 cally down upon us, little black, wriggling ant of a 
 steamer that we are, with our stumpy masts and 
 
 L 2 
 
164 ANNETTE 
 
 stumpier funnels, and flapping bit or two of dirty 
 sail, and long, straight hull, lying so low in the water, 
 and no sort of comeliness or dignity about us at all. 
 This magnificent creature, this ocean princess, sat upon 
 the waves like a monarch upon her throne, sheet after 
 sheet of dazzling white canvas bending to the breeze, 
 and flashing to the sun, her infinite, sweeping curves 
 of rigging flung upon the sky, like the lines of some 
 mighty, celestial problem. Such grace and majesty 
 I have never seen in anything fashioned by human 
 hands. Such royalty of dominion she seemed to assert 
 over the little pigmies who made her. It did seem 
 as if for once the thing formed might say to him 
 who formed it, '' What hast thou done ? " 
 
 Only she was outward bound, carrying with her a 
 good five hundred of emigrants to New Zealand ; and 
 I pitied the men and women who were crowding her 
 landward side to get a last look at their country, 
 for well I knew how many a pang of loneliness they 
 must suffer, and how many weary days and nights 
 would be appointed unto them before that narrowing 
 line of coast would be seen again, except in dreams. 
 
 I watched the Good Hope until she was just 
 a white speck in the distance, the sun shining on 
 her all the time, though we were for a while under 
 a cloud. But let me be under English cloud rather 
 than foreign sunshine. I w^ould not take the glow 
 and glory of any southern land to have before me 
 again all that lies behind me now. 
 
 Steamers and merchant vessels are thickening 
 around us. We shall soon be in the midst of the 
 
ANNETTE 165 
 
 forest of masts which marks the outlet of London's 
 great river. All is bustle and confusion, sailors 
 drawing up the baggage out of the hold, and deposit- 
 ing it on deck, stewards running about with bills, 
 passengers settling accounts with each other, and 
 inquiring after missing property. The young men 
 are getting up an " anchor lottery," as it is called. 
 Yesterday they ascertained the probable time of the 
 casting of the anchor, and having secured twenty 
 subscribers to the pool, they divided the time on each 
 side this given hour into as many portions, which were 
 drawn by lot, the shares being half-a-sovereign each. 
 The lucky subscriber in whose division of time the 
 anchor actually is cast pockets the whole pool. 
 
 '' Such is life," says one sententious lady passenger. 
 I do not see the analogy. I think she means that 
 it is wrong to have lotteries. If so, I agree with her. 
 Most of the subscribers are at loggerheads with each 
 other, fancying they may be possessed of private 
 information, or be bribing the engine people to advance 
 or retard our speed by a few minutes, so that the 
 anchor may be cast at the time that will best suit 
 themselves. It is well they do not make an ''anchor 
 lottery " at the commencement of the voyage as well 
 as at its end, or I fear there would have been still 
 less of unanimity amongst us during this month past. 
 
 And now I will put this little book away, until 
 I open it again under my own roof-tree, to tell the 
 sweet story of my home-coming. Perhaps next Sunday 
 I shall say my prayers in the old church of St. 
 Boniface at Abbotsby. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 June. 
 
 THOrGHT I should have tokl the story 
 of the home-coming sooner ; but it is 
 pleasanter to live one's happy life than 
 to write about it day by day. How- 
 ever, I mean to continue writing the story of the weeks 
 as they slip past, leaving such pleasant memories 
 behind. 
 
 How seldom it is that one's dreams come true, as 
 mine are coming now ! Ever since my brother Llark 
 died, more than fifteen years ago, it has been my one 
 wish to come back to this old hcaise, and live out my 
 days in such quiet, useful fashion as might be possible. 
 Night after night, through those sultry Indian summers, 
 I have lain awake, listening to the measured swing of 
 the punkah, and thinking how much of Eastern luxury 
 I would give for the comfort of an English cottage. 
 And day by day, when my work was done, I have 
 sat in the verandah, and looked westward past tamarind 
 and palm-trees, and the broad-leaved plantain and the 
 waving bamboo, to the red sunset, and pictured to my- 
 self this little garden with its old-fashioned beds of 
 lavender and clove pink, its trimly bordered gTave^ 
 paths leading through homely rows of carrots and 
 
ANNETTE 167 
 
 cabbages and rhubarb, its cosy side entrance, wliere of 
 an evening, when her work was done, Keren, in the 
 cleanest of print gowns and the whitest of caps, used to 
 sit knitting. How much more wholesome to look upon 
 that Avell-washed old woman than the coolies and 
 bearers, and khansamas and chuprassies, and all the 
 rest of the other people, broTM^i-skinned and white- 
 turbaned, that crowd round one's bungalow in the sunny 
 clime of India ! 
 
 And now, thank God ! here I am, my years of labour 
 ended, sitting in the chair my mother used to sit in, at 
 her own favourite bow-window, looking out upon the 
 flowers she used to tend, and the trees, fair blossomimc 
 lime and chestnut and sycamore, which my father 
 planted. And life has no more any hard toil for me, 
 and my work lies close to my hands ; and needing no- 
 thing from the great world of society, I find within my 
 own little possessions all that I desire. 
 
 We landed six weeks ago, in the early dawn of a 
 Saturday morning. Mr. Justin gave our things into the 
 charge of an agent, and brought us at once, Annette and 
 myself, to Abbotsby. Mrs. Proud had got her rooms 
 ready for us. It was quite late when we arrived, so 
 that I could see nothing of the old place as we rode 
 along from the station ; but just as we reached the 
 door of our lodgings the Abbey clock struck ten, and 
 the dear familiar sound, which I had known since my 
 babyhood, seemed like a welcome home. And truly I 
 think we all felt — Gregory, Annette, and I — that we had 
 come home. 
 
 Very early next morning, the sweet Sunday morning, 
 
168 ANNETTE 
 
 before any of Mrs. Proud's people were astir, I got up 
 and went alone to the old house. 
 
 Only once in a lifetime can the feeling come to 
 any one which came to me as I turned the corner of this 
 quiet, out-of-the-way road, and saw the boughs of the 
 lime and chestnut-trees, which overhang the palisades, 
 moving in the May sunshine. My childhood and my 
 girlhood, with all the holy memories of father and 
 mother, were rushing back upon me more vividly with 
 every step I took. One tree after another, under 
 whose shadow I had played, came into sight. At last I 
 could discern the gable-end of the house through the 
 branches of the big old apple-tree in the corner of the 
 garden, the tall gable with its very tiny window near 
 the roof, belonging to the room where I slept when I 
 was a child, the window from which I have watched 
 with such wonder and delight the scarlet-coated hunts- 
 men riding after the hounds, disappearing amongst the 
 copse on the other side, and then flashing out again, 
 with whoop and call of bugle, on the common 
 beyond. 
 
 Rapidly, as in a dream one lives through the events 
 of years in a moment, there came betore me the joys 
 and sorrows which, as a child, I had gone through in 
 that gable room. Sorrows of darkness with which 
 I had struggled alone, whilst the nurse lay sleeping 
 behind her curtained partition ; joys of the early 
 morning, when I watched the red sunrise over the 
 bridge, and the sheep nibbling the dewy grass by 
 the river-side, and the milkmaids tripping off -^ith 
 their pails, singing as they went, and the terrors of 
 
ANNETTE 169 
 
 the night before seemed so far off, so unreal ; hours 
 of banishment to that little room, when I would not 
 learn my lessons properly, or had appeared in the 
 I)resence of my various masters with unwashed hands 
 or untidy hair ; hours of other banishment, self- 
 imposed, wdien I used to shut myself up there to 
 build castles in the air, or pour out my thoughts into 
 the diary which I had bought with the careful savings 
 of many weeks — how it all came back upon me now ! 
 
 Silently I opened the gate, and found myself face 
 to face with the old life. It would not have seemed 
 strange to me then if I had seen my father himself, 
 with bent head and hands loosely clasped behind him, 
 sauntering down the worn path under those trees ; or 
 my mother trimming the rose-bushes on the bed in 
 front of the bow-window. I was so completely in 
 possession of the past. It seemed so much more 
 real to me than the life I had been living on board 
 ship, or in India during the last twenty years. 
 
 There was the little winding walk, leading through 
 clusters of lilac and elder-bushes to the old seat under 
 the apple-tree, where I used to go and sit alone on 
 Sunday afternoons, thinking my own thoughts, while 
 in early summer the pink-blossomed branches dipped 
 almost to my ftice, and through them I could see the 
 rich purple of the scented lilacs and the golden glow 
 of the laburnums, upon the sombre background of 
 chestnut and sycamores beyond. There was the old 
 sun-dial on its carven column of stone, once, they 
 said, a pillar in the Abbey church ; there was the 
 gnarled willow - stump behind which, doubled up 
 
170 ANNETTE 
 
 amongst trailing branches of ivy, I generally found 
 little Mark when we were playing hide-and-seek on 
 holiday afternoons. There was the very apricot-tree, 
 quite past fruit-bearing now, I should think, but not 
 cut down on that account, which formed the boundary 
 between my bit of garden and Mark's, and at whose 
 roots I always buried, wrapped up in white writing- 
 paper, a flower-bud of some kind when any of my 
 friends died. It was always a bud, let the friend 
 have been young or old. Was this, I wonder, because 
 of a dim, childish notion that death, the mysterious 
 disappearance of a familiar face, was an unnatural and 
 premature thing? I have often asked myself that, 
 for it was a strange thing for a little child to do. 
 
 All was so exactly the same. And I, too, coming 
 back again, felt the child-heart unchanged through all 
 that had come since. 
 
 The side door of the house was open, the door 
 at which Keren used to sit when her work was done. 
 A little path between the currant and gooseberry beds 
 led to it, passing first the tool-house where, in my 
 young days, AVaggit, the old man who cleaned knives 
 and shoes, used to live. That side door always stood 
 open for the benefit of us children, who were allowed 
 to run in and out at our own sweet will, the only 
 restriction being that we must always wipe our feet 
 on a mat x^laced there for the purpose. Going in 
 there now, after a lapse of twenty )^ears, exactly tlie 
 same impulse came over me to wipe my feet upon that 
 mat ; and with the impulse came the thoughts which 
 had usually attended these childish entrances and exits, 
 
ANNETTE 171 
 
 a certain longing for slices of sweet brown bread which 
 were always ready for us at eleven o'clock, and a vague 
 feeling of uncomfortableness about verbs and exercises, 
 the consumption of the brown bread being followed 
 by the advent of our French master, who troubled 
 us sadly by his particularity about our lessons. 
 
 Keren was not there. Most likely she was reading 
 her Bible up in her o^vn room, as she always used to 
 do on Sunday mornings, getting up half an hour earlier 
 for the purpose. I don't think she ever read her Bible 
 more than once a week, but she would not have missed 
 that one reading on any account, and she always read 
 as many verses as she was years old ; so that by this 
 time, making allowances for failing sight and an 
 average of difficult words, I judged that her retire- 
 ment would be lengthy. 
 
 With a curious reverent feeling, as though entering 
 the portals of a church, I went through the little 
 parlour, our usual sitting-room. There, fronting the 
 door, was the old bookcase, with the cupboard under 
 it, out of which in days gone by I had had many a 
 lump of sugar and handful of currants given me. Over 
 the fireplace was my father's picture — opposite, his 
 geological charts which he had made when preparing 
 some lectures for the Museum. And the old-fashioned 
 sideboard fitted into a recess in the wall, with a 
 square, empty place between the two wings of it, 
 where Mark and I, and even Gregory Justin himself, 
 used occasionally to be sent when we were naughty. 
 For my mother had a singular feeling of justice in 
 punishing children. Those who came to her as. guests 
 
172 ANNETTE 
 
 used to fare exactly like ourselves, if they misbehaved ; 
 and we in our turn were never allowed in tlie presence 
 of our little visitors to assume any license which would 
 not have been allowable at other times. 
 
 How strangely, looking upon these things, the 
 blank of twenty years passed away, until that which 
 had been memory so long became real again. 
 
 Then, still unseen, I went up into the room where 
 my father and mother died, from which I had seen 
 them carried to their resting-place under the church- 
 yard grass. And there, as in a sanctuary, blessed by 
 holier hands than of priest and bishop, I knelt and 
 gave God thanks that He had brought me home 
 again. 
 
 And so quietly back into the garden, for I knew 
 old Keren would be startled if she heard strange 
 footsteps about ; and after a spell of sweet thought 
 amongst the familiar paths, thought which was sweeter 
 for its very sadness, I bade good-bye for a little while 
 to the past, and remembering myself again as a 
 middle-aged woman, who had been for twenty years 
 engaged in zenana mission work in India, and was now 
 returning to take possession of her ancestral home, I 
 went boldly up to the front door and announced 
 myself by a proper knock. 
 
 Keren knew me, despite my gray hairs and crows' 
 feet and the slightly wizened appearance which the 
 balmy breezes of India's coral strand had produced. 
 After giving me a hearty welcome home, she began 
 to tell me all about my Aunt Miriam, going with 
 singular minuteness, as is the manner of her class, 
 
ANNETTE 173 
 
 into every particular of her last illness and death, 
 together with the arrangements of the funeral, and the 
 mourning that was worn by the followers. But she 
 asked me nothing — and I have noticed since that very 
 few of my poor people ever have asked me anything 
 — about the sort of life I had lived out in India. Not, 
 I am sure, from any want of interest in what I might 
 have enjoyed and suffered there, but simply because 
 those who have to struggle hard with the little pinchings 
 and worries of poverty, or whose life is spent in the 
 lower cares of providing for food and raiment and 
 lodging, lose the faculty of imagination or realisation. 
 They are intensely curious and speculative with regard 
 to things which touch their own little round of ex- 
 perience, but beyond that they cannot picture to 
 themselves, and therefore cannot feel interest in, 
 anything. 
 
 But she was never weary of answering my questions 
 about the past, giving me the history of all that had 
 happened in the house since I had left it, and that 
 was far better to me than having to tell her my own 
 doings during that long, long toil and exile. 
 
 And so ended my first coming to the home where 
 I am now at rest and content. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Jidy. 
 
 E are quite settled down now. We took 
 possession of tlie house the Monday after 
 we arrived at Abbotsby, and since then 
 Annette and I have been busy making 
 preparations for her wedding, which is to be on the 
 7th of August. Until then, as there will be plenty 
 of work for everybody, I have an experienced servant 
 to help old Keren ; but I am on the look-out for a 
 nice stupid little girl to train for domestic service. 
 I should like her to be rather stupid, for the clever 
 ones can get on well enough without any training of 
 mine. I want to save some poor, ungifted little 
 pauper, if I can, from a life-long drudgery of ill-done 
 scullery work, and cuffs, and blows, and scoldings, 
 such as I am afraid go on in many a big, rich house- 
 hold where the mistress never sees the inside of her 
 own kitchen. I went to the Abbotsby Union yesterday, 
 and a child named Stump was brought to me by the 
 matron, warranted to be a dolt pure and simple, with 
 no bad in her, but absolute absence of ability to be 
 taught ; obedient as a dancing bear, almost as awkward 
 — short, stout as I used to be myself in my childish 
 days, with a good stj[uare chin — there is hope in that 
 
ANNETTE 175 
 
 chill — aiid the plainest, roundest, full moon of a face 
 that ever was seen. I have a fellow feeling for Stump. 
 I will take her, and see what can be done for her. The 
 only thing in her favour is that she washes herself when- 
 ever she can get a chance, a peculiarity which the matron 
 looks upon as indicating aberration of mind. 
 
 Mr. Justin comes in two or three evenings a week. 
 At least he is supposed to do so, and Keren prepares 
 a special supper for him on those occasions ; but he 
 finds excuses for quite doubling the number of times, 
 so that scarcely a day passes without a visit from him. 
 He has his whole heart in what he is doing, whatever 
 may be said of Annette. I think, however, Annette 
 is happy in her own way, though most likely I shall 
 never again see upon her face that glow of joy which 
 made her look so beautiful when I met her on the hill- 
 side of Moorkee, with Captain Asperton by her side. 
 
 Oh, how I should like to know the truth of that ! 
 And yet what would be the use of knowing the truth 
 now ? What difference could it make ? 
 
 Mr. Justin is very busy, as bus}^ in his way as we 
 are in ours. The beautiful old house in the Northgate 
 is being entirely refurnished, but not in the modern 
 st3de. Gregory has too much good taste to put new wine 
 into old bottles, as is the fashion of so many people now- 
 adays. He was up in London last week, buying furniture, 
 and hangings, and china to match the date of the place, 
 and a lovely home it will be when it is finished, quite 
 meet for the Recorder and his young bride. 
 
 Annette, with a pretty shyness, will not so much 
 as set foot in it until she goes as a bride. I like that, 
 
176 ANJi^ETTB 
 
 and so does Mr. Justin. It is all very well for middle- 
 aged women, when tliey are going to marry widowers 
 with grown-up children, to enter boldly into their 
 future husbands' homes, and discuss linen, napery, 
 kitchen-towels, and crockery. But I think a girl-bride's 
 home should have a pleasant touch of mystery about 
 it, which is brushed off by every step she makes into 
 it before she is a wife. 
 
 Of course I go in and out, and give my opinion like 
 a regular old friend. I have a fine Indian extravagance 
 about household linen. I am making him get heaps 
 and heaps of it. I have a word to say, too, about 
 fittings, which he would prefer rather sombre. His 
 taste, in the matter of light, is entirely mediceval. He 
 wants the drawing-room windows filled in with stained 
 glass, so as quite to cut off any view of the street, 
 with its busy coming and going. But I tell him that 
 will not do for Annette. She wants a great deal from 
 outside bringing into her life, to keep her from dwelling 
 upon that which is within. It will never do for her 
 to be thrown in upon herself A room may be ever 
 so beautiful, but still one likes occasionally to see 
 what is outside it. Have not I had enough of that 
 in India, where for four months in the )'ear one 
 cannot get a peep of what is outside, except in the 
 half dark of morning or evening twilight i How weary 
 one becomes, under such conditions, of the loveliest pic- 
 tures and the richest draperies ! One would so gladly 
 sweep them all away for a touch of English life ! 
 
 No ; it will do Annette a world of good to get up 
 a little interest in what can be seen in the old North- 
 
ANNETTE 177 
 
 gate. She must amuse herself by watching the groups 
 of well-dressed people that lounge about the '' Star 
 and Garter " Hotel at race and ball times. And then 
 there is the engraver's shop next door, with its fine 
 old etchings and lithographs, as good as any to be seen 
 out of London ; and on the Judge's Sunday I dare 
 say there is still a little bustle and parade to be seen 
 round the Residence, though Mr. Justin tells me the 
 halberd men do not walk on each side the High 
 Sheriff's carriage now, with their tin battle-axes, as 
 in the days of yore. Of course the chairing at election 
 times is gone, but the yeomanry have their annual 
 review yet — a pretty sight for grown-up people as well 
 as children ; and I dare say now there is always a 
 tide of life ebbing and flowing in the narrow street 
 to look out upon, which will be ten times better and 
 healthier for Annette than turning in her thoughts 
 upon the past, as she sits, saint - like, behind the 
 loveliest of stained glass, in diaper work of crimson 
 and purple. 
 
 I said as much as this to Mr. Justin when he was 
 advocating the filling in of the drawling-room windows 
 with designs from one of the best houses in London. 
 He replied, in his own quick, argumentative way : 
 
 " Why, what nonsense you are talking ! One 
 would think I meant to let little Annette sit in that 
 room by herself from morning to night, without ever 
 speaking to her ! We shall be always together, of 
 course, when I am not wanted at the Guild Court. 
 You don't suppose I am going to condemn my wife 
 to solitary confinement, do you ? " 
 
178 ANNETTE 
 
 '' Not exactly," I replied, with a glance across tlie 
 liall — we were going through the Northgate house 
 together then — to the study, which was being made 
 a marvel of comfort in maroon leather and oak, reading- 
 lamps, lounging-chairs, writing-tables, despatch-boxes, 
 reference-shelves, and all that sort of thing. "But, 
 you know, you talked of devoting your spare time to 
 literature, writing for the reviews and newspapers, 
 and of course, if you do that, Annette will be obliged 
 to spend a good deal of time alone." 
 
 '' That was before I was engaged," he said, with just 
 a touch of annoyance. "A man's first duty is to his 
 wife." 
 
 I quite agreed with him, but I had my doubts 
 whether, in months to come, he would see matters 
 in exactly the same light. Gregory Justin is a man 
 of ability and ambition. He will want to make him- 
 self a career. I fancy he has not enough of the 
 domestic element in him to be content with home 
 life, and I doubt if Annette has enough public spirit 
 in her to be glad that a great name shall be purchased 
 by him at the cost of loneliness for herself. Of course 
 he thinks now that they will always spend their 
 evenings together. 
 
 ''We shall read aloudj you know," he said, "and 
 I shall form her mind, and teach her to be interested 
 in my pursuits ; and she will be able to help me by^ 
 and-by in my literary life, copying and correcting) 
 and writing out references for me. She has a correct 
 and intelligent mind, though half enough has not 
 been made of it." 
 
ANNETTE 179 
 
 I had my doubts, too, whether Annette would ever 
 find much delight in copying manuscripts and writing 
 out references, but I said nothing. I had my own way, 
 however, about the drawing-room windows. They are 
 to be left to their pristine light and cheerfulness, 
 whilst the dining-room, which has a blaze of southern 
 light upon it, is to have stained glass put in, and is 
 to be fitted with dark oak. Annette ought to be 
 dressed to correspond, with elbow rufiles and mittens, 
 and powdered hair, and a muslin kerchief over her 
 pretty white shoulders. 
 
 I feel a real woman's delight in this marriage. But, 
 apart from my love for both the people interested in 
 it, it will, looked at from a merely selfish point of 
 view, link me with the social life of Abbotsby. Other- 
 wise I should almost have dropped out of that life, 
 having so little sympathy with it. The few friends 
 of my own class whom I had when a girl, have mostly 
 married and left the place, and the remainder have 
 drifted into quite a different track from myself; so 
 that, but for Gregory Justin and his wife, I might be 
 left almost alone. 
 
 They will take care of that. As long as that old 
 house in the Xorthgate belongs to Annette's husband, 
 I shall not want a friend at whose fireside I shall be 
 welcome. And the child is almost like a daughter to 
 me now. I hope she will be happy* 
 
 M 2 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 -HE first call I made in Abbotsby was upon 
 poor old Hilarj^ Keren told me she was 
 living— a widow now, thank God! — in a 
 garret in the poorest part of the town, on 
 half-a-crown a week, one shilling of which she spent 
 for rent, and eightpence for coal. The remaining 
 tenpence, supplemented by frequent doles of broth 
 and tea from Aunt Miriam, and, since Aunt Miriam's 
 death, from Keren herself, kept body and soul together 
 in, I should think, rather an unsatisfactory manner. 
 
 How my heart yearned to the poor old woman, 
 who in her more prosperous days had always picked 
 out for me the most geometrically correct gingerbread 
 horse, with the most brilliant pink comfit eyes, and 
 the most glittering of gilt paper bridles ; or if it was 
 a biscuit that I longed for, had invariably selected 
 the one with the amplest scattering of sugar upon its 
 delicately browned surface. I went to see her as soon 
 as I learned that anything was left of her to be seen. 
 
 Alas ! what a blank she had drawn in the lottery 
 of life ! How very, very far away from her particular 
 slice of time had the anchor been dropped ! She was 
 living in Forbes' Buildings, a tumble-down place in one 
 of the very oldest parts of the town, long since given 
 
ANNETTE 181 
 
 over to dirt, and misery, and vagabondism. I remem- 
 bered, when we were children, our nurse liad orders 
 never to take us down the street out of which Forbes' 
 Buildings opened, such a nest was it of filth and 
 disease, though cheaper for rent than any other place 
 in the town. Later on, when my brother was home 
 from college, I used sometimes to go there with him 
 to see his old pensioners ; but I am afraid my 
 benevolence never overcame a certain innate love of 
 fresh air, w^hich made me long to get out into the 
 street again. It was not until the six months in 
 which Gilbert Ross and I belonged to each other that 
 I ever went into that street with any delight in the 
 errands which took me there. 
 
 Inquiring for Hilary in a huckster's shop, on the 
 ground-floor of Forbes' Buildings, I was briefly directed 
 by a woman, who was strongly perfumed with red 
 herrings, to number twenty, right hand, top landing, 
 and after climbing the narrow stair, found myself in 
 a little sloping-roofed room, as clean as a woman's hand- 
 labour could make it. Hilary, patched to the limit of 
 patching possibilities, and bent almost double, but neat 
 and tidy as ever, was creeping about, gathering together 
 the materials for her evening cup of tea. The hands, 
 once stout and strong, which had so often been stretched 
 across the counter of the little shop at the bottom of 
 the lane to give me my dole of sweets, were knotted 
 and drawn with rheumatism ; the face, which I dimly 
 remembered even yet rosy and winsome under its 
 Sunday white straw bonnet, was very wrinkled now, 
 and had that look of patient hopelessness which is 
 
182 ANNETTE 
 
 often all that the aged poor can wm Tvhen the toil 
 of a dutiful life is nearing its end. But still there 
 was just enough left in the form of the features, and 
 the dim sweetness of the blue eyes, to tell me it was 
 the Hilary who had made my childish days happy. 
 
 She made no gi-eat professions of astonishment or 
 delight. The "rough carrying on," as she termed it, 
 which she had had for so many years with that 
 drunken husband, poverty, pain, the continual fight 
 with dirt, hunger, and disease, seemed to have cramped 
 and drawn her imagination, just as rheumatism had 
 cramped and drawn her body, and she could no longer 
 see things as they would have appeared to her in her 
 younger days. But still a spark of brightness came 
 into her withered face when I had made her understand 
 who I was, and her poor bony fingers clung tightly to 
 mine as she got hold of my hand to give it a shake 
 of hearty welcome. 
 
 ''And so you're come home. Miss Hester. Well, 
 thank the Lord, He's spared me to see it, and me the 
 old woman that I am. Keren told me you was 
 a-comin' ; but, law ! ma'am, I never thought to set 
 eyes on you, and you as good as dead and gone this 
 twenty year past ; for it stands to reason when folks 
 is shifted off to them foreign parts, they'd as well 
 be buried for any chance there is to see 'em again. It's 
 a big way oft' is India, ma'am, isn't it — a bigger way 
 nor what London is ? My husband had a cousin once 
 lived maid-of-all-work in London, and it took her a 
 vast of time comin' and goin'." 
 
 I told her it took a whole month going to and 
 
ANNETTE 183 
 
 coming from India, but I think she mildly disbelieved 
 me. And then we had a long chat together, which 
 convinced me that old Hilary, up there in her garret, 
 with nothing beautiful about her but the sunshine 
 which sometimes struggled in through the little window, 
 was still the same in goodness of heart and simplicity 
 of purpose as the bright, open-faced girl whom my 
 father and mother had cared for. Sad that her seventy 
 years of toil and endeavour and self-denial had brought 
 her to no pleasanter asylum than this at last ! 
 
 ''Well, Hilary," I said, as I got up to come away, 
 " I wish I had found you somewhere else than here. I 
 should like to see you with a bit of garden round your 
 door, as it used to be in the old times when you sold 
 gingerbread horses in the little shop down the lane. 
 Couldn't you find a room somewhere out of the town, 
 where you could get a breath of fresh air now and then, in- 
 stead of always smoke from your neighbours' chimneys?" 
 
 A wistful smile came over Hilary's face as she re- 
 membered the little shop down the lane, with its garden 
 full of lavender and roses and marigolds. I expect the 
 life she lived then was almost clearer, more vividly pre- 
 sent with her, than the darker days which came after. 
 
 '' Well, Miss Hester, for that matter I expect I'm 
 where God a'mighty put me, and I don't see any way 
 of shifting ; though I don't misdoubt but what it 'ud be 
 a rare thing to have a bit of garden to the front, and me 
 that fond of the fresh air as I didn't think I could ever 
 have kep' my health without it, but I've learned myself 
 to do without a vast o' things since them there times, 
 ma'am, and now I don't wish for nothing, if only I 
 
184 ANNETTE 
 
 could be a bit lower down the stair. It would make a 
 deal of difference to me, ma'am, if I was a bit lower 
 down the stair." 
 
 ''Why, Hilary," I said, "you would be ever so much 
 worse off then. The lower down you go, the nearer you 
 are to the dirt and smoke. You do get a whiff of sweet 
 air here sometimes, w^hen the wind does not blow across 
 the toAvn." 
 
 '' So I do, ma'am, and w^onderful good it is, and 
 sometimes when the rheumatiz isn't over bad, I make 
 shift to stand up on that there chair and get a look 
 out of the window, and I can see away to the gi'een lane 
 where father and mother's little shop used to be afore it 
 was pulled down for the new public-house, same as I 
 couldn't ever do if I was nearer the bottom ; but, 
 ma'am, it's the getting up and down as shakes my old 
 bones so as I scarce knows which of 'em belongs to 
 which. I don't never try it only once a week, of a 
 Sunday morning when I go to church, and of a Friday 
 when I get my 'lowance from the Board, and then to 
 your poor aunt Miss Miriam, for the sup of broth as 
 Keren's give me it reg'lar ever since she w^as took. 
 And thinks I, ma'am, every time I come back up these 
 stairs, and there's five-and-forty of them, I wouldn't 
 wish anything more in this world only I could be a bit 
 lower down." 
 
 '' Well, Hilary, suppose we look about and see if we 
 can find a cheap room anywhere else." 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, that's what I've oft thought, if I could 
 only have somebody of the quality to speak for me to 
 Mrs. Byles, her as lives at the bottom of the stair, ma'am, 
 
ANNETTE 185 
 
 and keeps the shop, I don't doubt but what I could 
 manage it. And it 'ud be a deal comfortabler for me." 
 
 ''Does the place belong to Mrs. Byles, Hilary, 
 then?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, no, ma'am ! only she's got a shed to the back 
 as she keeps boxes and such-like in, same as she could 
 heap 'em up in the yard just as well, and I've been at 
 her this many a week past, to see if she would let me 
 have it for what I pay up here, but she says it's more 
 into her pocket to let it to them as comes about hay in' 
 and harvestin', and then it's clear all winter for 
 faggots, which takes a deal o' room." 
 
 '' But, Hilary, you would never get any sun at all 
 down there, would you ? " 
 
 " Xo, ma'am, not much, but them stairs would be 
 such a weight oft' me ; and if I could only get her 
 spoke to about it, and me paying my rent regular, as 
 there's a many here doesn't do it, I don't doubt but 
 she'd be willing, for she's a woman as thinks a deal 
 about the quality, is Mrs. Byles, ever since she lived 
 maid at the Deanery, when mother and me kep' the 
 little shop. If you wouldn't mind the trouble, ma'am, 
 as you go down, just to look into the shed, you'll see 
 it's wonderful handy, and I could be as contented as a 
 queen once I got there, because of not having to come 
 up the stair." 
 
 So I left her, promising as I went past it to look 
 into this ne yJus ultra of poor Hilary's earthly ambition. 
 But as I was gToping my way down the dark stair, a 
 much better plan came into my mind, and delighted me 
 so that I cannot help TOting down the whole story of it. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 DID look into the shed, though, just to see 
 how far my idea of a haven of rest for 
 Hilary was better than that which had 
 shaped itself in her own mind. 
 Fancy any lover of God's green earth living there, 
 any one who had once watched the buttercups and 
 daisies spring, or looked at sunrise and sunset through 
 leafy summer trees ! It was a little room about ten feet 
 square, with a window, consisting of four small panes of 
 glass, just under the roof, and a rusty fireplace in the 
 corner. Through the window one could only see a dirty 
 brick-wall, culminating in a stack of chimneys belonging 
 to the next tenement. The open doorway commanded 
 a prospect of Mrs. Byles' pleasure-ground, a square 
 courtyard about as large as the shed itself, containing a 
 clothes'-line, two props, a heap of coals in one corner, a 
 heap of faggots in another, and a pile of empty bloater 
 and blacking-boxes in the middle. And this was where 
 Hilary Bennet, after seventy years of honest industry, 
 asked leave to end her days, asked it as a boon, which, 
 if granted, w^ould make her as contented as a queen. 
 
 I don't think I ever felt much happier in all my life, 
 certainly never during the Indian part of it, than I felt 
 a,s I hurried back home to reconnoitre the little lean-to 
 
ANNETTE 187 
 
 on one side of the greenhouse, which I thought of 
 turning into a room for Hilary. It was originally, I 
 suppose, a potting-shed, and there had been a stove in 
 it, connected with the gTeenhouse ; but we were never 
 rich enough to keep a gardener, or have bedding-out 
 plants for the summer-time, so my father had put in a 
 window and fireplace, and made the place comfortable 
 for the old man who cleaned knives and shoes for us. 
 Aunt Miriam kept the old man on until he died, and 
 since that time the room appeared to have been used 
 for empty flower-pots, bean-sticks, and such things, 
 which could now be stowed away somewhere else, and 
 then what a magnificent apartment the lean-to would 
 make for Hilary, rent free too, so that she would have 
 an extra shilling a week to spend upon a bit of 
 " butcher's meat " now and then, or a cup of tea to 
 brighten her poor old intellect. 
 
 I took counsel with Keren before coming to any 
 decision, for I knew well enough that my faithful help 
 would look coldly upon the execution of any plan 
 which had not previously been submitted to her own 
 approval. Fortunately she took to it as kindly as I did 
 myself, observing, with a certain air of pride in her 
 own discernment, that she had long looked upon 
 Hilary Bennet as one of the excellent of the earth, 
 a city set upon a hill, and a light shining in a dark 
 place ; a testimony which, considering the number 
 of steps leading to poor Hilary's garret, and the scanti- 
 ness of window accommodation in the neighbourhood, 
 I could not in any way dispute. 
 
 Having once taken kindly to the project, Keren 
 
188 ANNETTE 
 
 gave herself no rest until she had cleared out, and 
 neatly stowed away in some fitting place, every bean- 
 rod, flower-pot, and useless tool from the little lean-to, 
 blackleaded the grate, scoured floor, woodwork, and 
 window, and made the whole look like an empty temple 
 of cleanliness. Then came the most delightful business 
 of going over the house and considering what we 
 could spare in the way of furniture. Keren soon 
 produced from the lumber attic a most respectable 
 square of carpet, an old table, which had long been 
 discarded from the kitchen, but never sold, because 
 Aunt Miriam had made me a faithful promise that 
 she would never part with anything left in the house 
 by my father and mother — a chair, a fender, a tln-ee- 
 legged stool, and a folding iron bedstead, which was 
 kept for lending to any one who might happen to need 
 it. She then produced from the linen-chest a pair of 
 chintz curtains, with which we divided Hilary's new 
 abode into a bedroom and sitting-room ; and then out 
 of some Turkey red, Annette, who soon took as much 
 interest in the proceedings as any of us, made a most 
 tasteful drapery for the little window. 
 
 I wonder if three people were ever happier than 
 we were — Annette, Keren, and myself — during those 
 days when we were fitting up the lean-to for Hilary ? 
 I don't believe Gregory Justin himself, amongst the 
 stained glass and brocaded curtains and carved oak fur- 
 niture of the Xorthgate house, was more busily content 
 than were we, turning that empty shed into a comfort- 
 able home for an old woman, and putting into it as 
 much convenience, with as little expense as possible. 
 
ANNETTE 189 
 
 But I should wi'ong Gregory if I said that he took 
 no interest in the proceedings. He gave himself no 
 end of trouble in contriving an iron rod to stretch 
 across the room, instead of the rope, which was all our 
 feminine ingenuity could devise ; and he fastelied it up 
 for us with his own hands, and provided it with rings 
 for the curtain to slide upon, so that at night, or in 
 hot weather, Hilary might have the benefit of all the 
 air that could find its way into the place. But, more 
 than this, having a dim notion, derived, no doubt, 
 from tracts read in his youth, that aged and respectable 
 female poverty enjoys nothing so much as the washing 
 of its own clothes, he made us a present of a wash-tub 
 and stand, clothes'-pegs, props, lines, and everything, 
 with a wooden packing-case, in which they could be 
 stowed away behind the shed when not wanted. And he 
 even went so far as to want to buy the dear old lady a 
 washing-apron of brown holland, after the pattern of 
 those he had seen in Germany, bound with scarlet 
 braid, and ornamented with pockets ; but we felt that 
 would be offering her too much temptation to set her 
 affections on this world, so we declined it. 
 
 Everything was finished by Thursday, the morning 
 on which Hilary came for her weekly mess of pottage. 
 Instead of having it ready for her in the accustomed 
 blue-striped yellow jug, Keren had spread a cloth on 
 the table in the lean-to, and arranged a comfortable 
 meal upon it, and she had laid what she called a '' cold 
 fire " — that is, a fire ready for lighting — in the grate, 
 and put a mug full of sweet-smelling flowers on the 
 window-shelf, and a very coloury picture of Samuel 
 
190 ANNETTE 
 
 and Eli over the chimney-piece ; and altogether the 
 little room, though a trifle scant of furniture, space 
 having been left for Hilary's own special household 
 goods, looked as bright as sunshine and good-will 
 could make it. 
 
 When the poor old lady hobbled up with her tin 
 can, we all three of us took her down to behold the 
 finished result of our labours, the use for which the 
 room was intended being kept a secret until she had 
 expressed her opinion as to the general effect. 
 
 " "Well, Hilary," I said, " you see I have begun to 
 make improvements already. This is the shed where 
 we used to keep flower-pots and bean-rods. What do 
 you think of it now ? " 
 
 '' Well, ma'am," and Hilary tried to straighten 
 her bent old back to get a look all round, up and 
 down, and everywhere, ''it's a right comfortable 
 little room, and as fresh as a palace. I lay, miss, 
 you mean to come and take your vittles here of a 
 summer day, as I know there's a many of the quality 
 likes to do it that way, and rare and pretty too, with the 
 green grass in front, same as it used to be when I lived 
 here maid in your poor mother's time, and many and 
 many's the night I've set myself out here with my bit of 
 sewing when the work was done, and was as happy as a 
 milkmaid. Law ! ma'am, I was a fool not to know when 
 I was well off", but young folks will have their way." 
 
 " So they will, Hilary," said I ; " but let us hope 
 you will have a comfortable ending after all the worry 
 and trouble you have gone through. It is never 
 too late for the sun to shine, you know." 
 
ANNETTE 191 
 
 " No, ma'am, that's what your poor mother used 
 to say when Benuet had took to his unsteady ways ; 
 but he went as quiet as a lamb at the last, and, 
 thank goodness ! I've got all his debts paid, and I'm 
 standing straight up on end again, and wouldn't 
 wish for nothing, only there w^asn't so many stairs 
 to climb, which I don't doubt but Mrs. Byles will 
 let me have the shed when you're kind enough to say 
 a word for me. And I wish you joy of the little 
 room. Miss Hester, and I hope you'll have your health 
 to take many a pleasant hour in it among your books 
 and things, as the quality has them." 
 
 " Thank you, Hilary, and I'm very glad you like the 
 little room. But I didn't have it tidied up for myself, 
 and so you will have to make another guess." 
 
 '' Didn't you, ma'am ? Then maybe you've invited 
 some of the quality to the flower-show, more'n what the 
 house can put 'em up convenient. That was the way 
 with your father and mother. Miss Hester ; they'd 
 always a rare houseful when anything was going on past 
 the common, though they'd never so many as to put up 
 beds outside for 'em, like that there." 
 
 And Hilary peered behind the curtain, where stood 
 the little iron bed, covered with a patched quilt of Aunt 
 Miriam's work. 
 
 " Wrong again, Hilary," I said. " The room is 
 neither for myself nor for flower-show company. Keren 
 has helped to get it ready, and so have Miss Lislethorpe 
 and Mr. Justin, and it is for ijou to live in. I don't 
 like to see you in that sky parlour uj) at the top of 
 Forbes' Buildings, and it would be worse still for you 
 
192 ANNETTE 
 
 to be buried alive in Mrs. Byles' rubbish-shed at the 
 bottom, and so, as this little room was of no use, I 
 thought perhaps you Tvould like to have it, and you are 
 not to pay any more rent, and you will not have so 
 far to come for your broth once a week, nor to break 
 your poor old knees either in going up those rickety 
 stairs. Now sit down and drink your broth, and we 
 will leave j^ou for a while to think about it all." 
 
 I thought perhaps she would have begun to cry, 
 or something of that sort ; but no, she just looked 
 up at me with a kind of blinded wonder in her dim 
 old eyes, and then round the little room, and then up 
 into my face again. 
 
 " I — I return you many thanks," she faltered out at 
 last, but apparently with a gTeat reserve of doubt. It 
 was all very misty to her as yet. I fancy she thought 
 she was only changing landladies, and possibly at an 
 increase of rent, too. However, we left her to think it 
 into shape by herself. 
 
 Going quietly to the door half an hour later, I found 
 her kneeling down in front of the three-legged stool, 
 with tears trickling down through her wasted fingers. 
 Whether they were tears of joy or regret I could not 
 tell, for I came away again without disturbing her. 
 
 Later on I sent Keren, who, I thought, would explain 
 everything to her better than I could myself, and then 
 they Avent back to Forbes' Buildings to pay up the 
 rent, and bring away such pieces of furniture and 
 household effects as Hilary did not like to part with. 
 Before nightfall she was comfortably settled, wdtli a bit 
 of fire burning in the grate, and a supply of bread and 
 
ANNETTE 193 
 
 tea and sugar and soap in the cupboard, and her clothes 
 "put to steep," in readiness for a wash on the morrow ; 
 for Mr. Justin was quite right, that was the first thing 
 she thought about when she got into her new quarters. 
 
 So now Hilary lives on my " estate," and will do, 
 I hope, until her death, and many a pleasant chat we 
 have as she stumbles through her knitting, or bends 
 over that washing-tub, "the beautifullest ever was 
 seen," which Gregory's care supplied. It was a long 
 time before I could persuade her that I did not want 
 any rent for the lean-to, and that the extra shilling a 
 week might be spent as she liked. For many weeks, 
 Keren said, she stored the money up in a tin mug 
 in the cupboard, lest at any time I should change my 
 mind and call round for it. But she was always of 
 an independent turn of character, slow to accept any- 
 thing for which she could make no return in kind. 
 
 Poor old Hilary ! I am glad that, after the long 
 toil and trouble of its midday, she is likely to end 
 her life as she began it, where the green grass can 
 refresh her weary eyes, and God's sunshine look 
 broadly into the little room where she kneels to say 
 her prayers. I feel that her presence here is a sort 
 of blessing on the place, because of her gratitude, 
 which springs like a fountain day and night. Xow, 
 while I live, that little room shall be a home for 
 some decent old Christian woman, who I know has 
 lived honestly, and worked faithfully, let her creed be 
 what it may. And God grant that here, in my native 
 town of Abbotsby, I may never fail to find such 
 a one. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 July 10th. 
 
 ^^^^'^^HE wedding preparations go on apace. 
 
 ii 
 
 Annette and I spent almost the whole 
 of yesterday at Govan's, the draper's shop 
 of Abbotsb}^, buying dresses and laces, 
 and various bits of finery. I had to do it all myself. 
 Annette just left me to pick and choose as if it had 
 been my wedding, and not her own, which was being 
 furnished. She sat there amusing herself by making 
 up bouquets of artificial flowers, and arranging the 
 ribbons in pretty varieties of colour, whilst I rubbed 
 the silks between my finger and thumb, and pulled 
 them, and held them up to the light, and criticised the 
 Valenciennes, and examined the handkerchiefs, like a 
 regular matronly expert. I never laid out so much 
 money in one morning before, but Mr. Justin says that 
 everything is to be of the best kind, and Annette 
 submits. 
 
 I do wish the child would brighten up and take a 
 little more interest in things. Only once, since I have 
 known her, has she kindled up into real animation, and 
 that was when we were getting the house ready for 
 Hilary Bennet. I never saw her make up a. bow for 
 herself with half the delight she showed in stitching 
 
ANNETTE 195 
 
 those Turkey red curtains ; and she has never asked 
 me a tithe of the questions about her own lovely home 
 in the Northgate, which she asked about the placing of 
 the furniture in that little lean-to. I could shake her 
 sometimes, and yet I am sure she loves Gregory in her 
 own quiet way. 
 
 It is to be a perfectly private wedding, no bridesmaids, 
 and only two guests invited, Mr. and Mrs. Vermont, from 
 Cheltenham. Mrs. Vermont wTote with great cordiality 
 when the engagement was announced. She said she 
 should be delighted to have the wedding take place from 
 her own house ; but when we said we had made other 
 arrangements, she accepted them quite pleasantly, as 
 also my invitation for herself and Mr. Vermont. At 
 first, after that letter from Port Said, Annette was in- 
 clined to have nothing more to do with her ; but I don't 
 quite like young people throwing their relations over- 
 board in that way, and so I prevailed upon her to let 
 me ask them here for a week. 
 
 Keren, Hilary, and the temporary servant, who is 
 with me now, are to have new dresses for the wedding, 
 from Mr. Justin. Poor old Hilary has been making 
 three yards of worsted pillow-lace for the bride, as 
 costly a gift, I dare say, time and eyesight counted, as 
 the dainty little trifle of a pocket-handkerchief-case 
 which has just arrived as a present from Mrs. Vermont. 
 My gift is a curious, and, I think, rather choice tea- 
 service for two, which I brought from India. It will 
 show to more advantage in one of Mr. Justin's carved 
 oak cabinets than in my old-fashioned little parlour. 
 As for the bridegroom's offerings, they are simply out 
 
 N 2 
 
196 ANNETTE 
 
 of count. Scarcely a day passes without some piece of 
 lace or jewellery arriving from liim. 
 
 If only Annette would be a little brighter, I should 
 feel quite right about everything ; but I can never make 
 out whether the child is really happy or not. For hours 
 together she will sit still, apparently absorbed in medita- 
 tion. Perhaps she is only thinking of the important 
 step she is about to take, and if so, I would not on any 
 account disturb the current of her thoughts ; for 
 marriage is a very serious thing, and young people 
 cannot enter upon it with too much consideration. But 
 sometimes I cannot help fancying that it is the past, 
 and not the future, which brings that steadfast look of 
 musing to her face. I wish I could be quite sure that 
 she has done with that past. Only last night I had 
 been having a talk with Hilary, and came back quietly 
 into the parlour. Annette was sitting in the bow- window, 
 with Mrs. Flexon's envelope in her hands. When she 
 saw me, she put it hastily out of sight, and began to talk 
 about some entirely indifferent matter. By-and-by she 
 said she had a headache, and went off to bed, though 
 she must have remembered that it was one of ]\Ir. 
 Justin's nights for coming in. 
 
 So he and I had to entertain each other, which we 
 did by talking about the old times, when we were 
 children, and used to make houses under the big table 
 in this very room where we now sit, grave middle-aged 
 folk, with all the responsibilities of life upon us. 
 
 I enjoyed that long quiet talk with him, though 
 probably he was disappointed enough. It is very 
 pleasant to say what we like without any fear on either 
 
ANNETTE 197 
 
 side of being misunderstood. Of course, since liis 
 engagement to Annette, we have been able to do this 
 even more than when we first met. And then we fell to 
 talking of our voyage home, our finding out each other ' 
 on the deck of the Nawah, his introduction to Annette 
 as she and I sat under the shade of that skylight, and 
 the quick gTOwth of his love for her, until he felt that 
 she was the one woman out of all the world who could 
 make his life complete. 
 
 How curiously one thing leads on to another, and we 
 find ourselves saying, "If it had not been for this — if it 
 had not been for that," we should never have been 
 where and what we are. As if anything went by chance 
 at all ; as if the great interests of our lives did not 
 depend upon far other than these little comings and 
 goings, and meetings and partings. I like more and 
 more to think that it is all arranged for us. In God's 
 great plan of the future there is neither maybe nor 
 perhaps, only one great and merciful to be. 
 
 How strange that, whilst talking over some of his 
 Indian experiences, Mr. Justin mentioned Captain 
 Asperton, whom he had met at the beginning of the 
 cool weather, somewhere during his travels through 
 Bengal. 
 
 Suddenly startled out of my self-possession, I ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 ''Why, is it possible that you know Captain 
 Asperton ? " 
 
 " Yes, why not ? " replied Mr. Justin, coolty, fixing 
 upon me those quizzical blue eyes of his. " Have not I as 
 much right to know Captain Asperton as anybody else?" 
 
198 ANNETTE 
 
 I was so vexed with my own folly that I could 
 have wished myself at the bottom of the sea. I am 
 sure I don't know how I floundered out of the subject, 
 but when he saw my confusion he very quietly, like the 
 gentleman he is, changed the subject. 
 
 Of course it was only my own self-consciousness 
 which made me think that Mr. Justin could know any- 
 thing about the friendship between Captain Asperton 
 and Annette, or that my involuntary exclamation could 
 have betrayed her. I am beginning to feel positively 
 guilty upon that subject. Sometimes I think I ought 
 to tell Mr. Justin about it. And yet what do I know, 
 and may I not be building a castle in the air upon no 
 reasonable foundation ? When I come to think quietly 
 about it, it is as clear as daylight that words of mine on 
 that subject could only do harm ; and yet it is also as 
 clear as daylight that something ought to be said. I 
 cannot enter upon it with Annette, for I only know by 
 a sort of intuition what the past has been to her ; and 
 until she chooses to do so, I do not think sAiy one else 
 has a right to enter upon it with Mr. Justin. I must 
 just let things arrange themselves without interference 
 of mine. 
 
 But I was very thankful when the talk came back 
 to stained glass and the old oil paintings which Gregory 
 has been buying for the dining-room. 
 
 They are to make a tour through Germany for their 
 wedding trip, remaining abroad for about a month. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Vermont will stay with me a day or two after 
 the wedding. "When they are gone, my temporary 
 maid takes up her abode at the Northgate home, and 
 
ANNETTE 109 
 
 I have arranged with the workhouse authorities that 
 Stump is to come to me, to be trained under Keren's 
 superintendence. 
 
 What a comically uninteresting household we shall- 
 be then ! Keren at sixty-five, wizened, parched, and 
 practical, with little of the loveliness of old age about 
 her — I speak only of externals — and much of its 
 angularity ; Stump, my little pauper girl, most rightly 
 named, the veriest unshapen log of humanity that ever 
 waited lifting up of axe and hammer of life's teaching 
 upon it ; myself to complete the trio, middle-aged, 
 unromantic, unhopeful, the foam of youth gone, the 
 clearness of advanced life not yet attained ; in outward 
 appearance, at any rate, just what Mrs. Flexon described 
 me, '' a commonplace old stupid." To any outsider 
 who may do us the honour of calling, what an utterly 
 humdrum co-operative society we must appear 1 
 
 Yet how this commonplace external husk encloses, 
 like the rough, swollen seed-pod of the peony plant, 
 something not lacking a certain beauty and fineness 
 of its own. What a delight it was to me, as a child, to 
 break open that rough husk and count the rosy-tinted, 
 glistening seeds, sleeping like little buds of coral within 
 their silken fine white fibre ! Thank goodness that our 
 home here will be something like the home of those 
 little coral buds, the roughest on the outside. Within, 
 I hope there will ever be found a glow of quietness and 
 content which the hand of the spoiler cannot mar. 
 Keren is as good as gold, though not as fine as paint. 
 Her memories go side by side with mine to the days of 
 my youth. She loved those whom I love. Her faithful 
 
200 . ANNETTE 
 
 service saved my mother's life from many a care. She 
 scolded and petted us when we were children ; she 
 shared our little joys, and comforted us in our little 
 troubles. She remembers, too, the bright young face 
 which once made sunshine for me, and sometimes his 
 name is spoken between us, the only time I ever hear it 
 now. 
 
 Hilary's gratitude seems like a benediction to the 
 house. Already some of the weary lines have smoothed 
 out of her face, and a sort of moonlight reflection of the 
 brightness which once used to be there is coming again, 
 that sort of after-glow which is so beautiful in old age. 
 1 think Hilary, when Annette is gone, will monopolise 
 the good looks of the entire household. 
 
 It remains to be seen what qualities Stump will 
 evolve. Brilliant and clever she certainly will never 
 be ; but I think I see a stratum of honest, good sense 
 under the coarseness of her exterior, which may develop 
 into something as useful as either cleverness or brilliance. 
 Anyhow, we will try to make this a home for her. She 
 will learn, so far as I can teach her, what love and 
 confidence mean, better, perhaps, than she could have 
 learned in workhouse wards ; and knowing what these 
 two things are, she will not want a foundation upon 
 which to build a good life. 
 
 She has come over to-day from the Abbotsby Union 
 to have her tea with Keren, and go over the house, and 
 be told what sort of work is expected from her. She 
 and Keren are in the back garden now, admiring the 
 cabbage beds. What an aflluence of solidity, what a 
 superfluity of substance there is about her, as she stands 
 
ANNETTE 201 
 
 tliere with lier arms a-kimbo, her broad, gray-stockinged 
 feet firmly planted on the ground, the square, massive 
 outlines — not curves — of her short figure admirably 
 defined by the indigo blue gingham of the workhouse 
 dress. Stump, one might make a butcher's block of you, 
 or your width is so liberal that if, like the Elle maids of 
 the Scandinavian legends, you were hollow at the back, 
 you might serve as a magnificent horse trough ! 
 Whether you will ever become such a maid-of-all-work 
 as to meet the requirements of Keren and myself, only 
 time, that great prover of all things, can tell. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Aucrnst 8th. 
 
 "B' 
 
 ELL, it is over ! The sun shone bravely 
 upon them. Annette, in her simple muslin, 
 of the whitest and finest, with the set of 
 Roman cameos which the bridegroom gave 
 her, looked just as I expected she would look. She 
 shed never a tear, nor was there the least tremor of 
 excitement in her voice, and her eyes had a wistful, 
 far-off expression which I would fain not have seen in 
 them, as she gave to Gregory Justin what can be taken 
 back no more now, until death do them part. 
 
 " Decidedly interesting and stylish-looking," was 
 Mrs. Vermont's verdict, as the bride, enveloped in her 
 filmy, cloud-like raiment, came into church. And then 
 she said what a good thing it was that the dear girl had 
 chosen a man with comfortable means, as she was evi- 
 dently not fitted to grapple with the difficulties of a 
 small income. I think she is very proud of the match, 
 and proud of her nephew, and especially proud of the 
 Northgate home ; with its beautiful stained glass and 
 carved oak furniture, '' so much better," as she whispered 
 to me when the newly married couple had gone into the 
 vestry to sign their names, '' so much better, you know, 
 than the poor dear girl could have expected when she 
 was left without a penny of her own, and nobody in the 
 
AXNETTE 203 
 
 world to whom she could justifiably look for a home. 
 And, indeed, my dear Miss Brown, Mr. Vermont and 
 myself are so infinitely obliged to you for all the kind- 
 ness you have shown her. You have really been like 
 a mother to the poor thing ! " 
 
 How coolly and pleasantly she said it, just as if that 
 Port Said letter had never been written I 
 
 Mrs. Vermont is a clever, wide-awake woman of the 
 world. She beamed upon us all with the greatest com- 
 placency, said my cottage was the sweetest little ideal 
 of comfort in tlie world, promised to visit Mr. and jNIrs. 
 Justin some time during the winter, hoped they would 
 consider her house their home whenever they needed 
 a change, and assured me that if ever I came to 
 Cheltenham nothing would delight her so much as to 
 renew her acquaintance with me. 
 
 It is not impossible that I may go to Cheltenham 
 some day. Though I never kept up any correspondence 
 with my cousin Delia whilst I was in India, she has 
 written to rae very kindly since I came home, and asked 
 me to spend a week or two with her, after Christmas. 
 I don't think it is well for people to lose sight of their 
 relations, so probably I shall accept the proposal, espe- 
 cially as I think she may enjoy coming to see me here 
 in the summer-time. 
 
 It is certainly not from her father's side of the family 
 that Annette inherits the simplicity and unworldliness 
 which are so attractive to us who know her. I think I 
 never saw a woman who is so utterly, openly, and I may 
 almost add delightfully, of the earth, earthy, as Mr. 
 Lislethorpe's sister. Exactly the woman to have re- 
 commended a West End fashionable school for her niece. 
 
204 . ANNETTE 
 
 and to have left her on the hands of any charitable 
 friend, when she came home, an orphan and dependent, 
 to struggle with the world as best she might. I suppose 
 Annette has her mother's character — the mother whom 
 she can scarcely remember now. How strange and sad 
 it must be not to remember one's mother ! How it 
 must sweep away from life some of its best and fairest 
 colouring ! The whole landscape of my childhood and 
 girlhood is so dependent upon the sunshine which my 
 parents shed over it, that I can scarcely realise any con- 
 dition from which that light should be absent. 
 
 Mrs. Vermont is a woman who rejoices in eligible 
 marriages. She openly expresses her conviction that an 
 early settlement is indispensable to a woman's success in 
 life, she having achieved matrimony herself at the age 
 of eighteen ; and she enlarges so innocently upon the 
 ways and means by which a woman of the least common 
 sense may secure a husband for any girl committed to 
 her charge. So clearly did she state these convictions 
 that I could sometimes have owned myself guilty of 
 unpardonable stupidity for being, at my present mature 
 age. Miss Brown still. 
 
 But no condition of human life is without its com- 
 pensating balance. Mrs. Vermont falls into the megrims 
 if left to herself for half an hour. She must have 
 society — continual society. It is as necessary to her as 
 the air she breathes. What she will do when her 
 husband is dead, if he dies first, I cannot imagine, for I 
 am sure no companion will sit with her day in and day 
 out, as she expects him to do. She told me the gi-eatest 
 trial of her life was being left alone of an evening, when 
 Mr. Vermont went to a committee, or anything of that 
 
ANNETTE 205 
 
 sort. She was always obliged to have somebody for com- 
 pany — one of the servants, if she could raise no one else. 
 
 Now that is a condition as utterly unintelligible to 
 me as not being able to remember one's parents. My 
 very sweetest hours are those which I spend with no 
 other companionship than that of memory. I have a 
 perfect delight now in looking forward to the long 
 winter evenings, when I can draw up my arm-chair to 
 the fireside, and put my feet on the fender, and call up 
 one by one sweet pictures of the past, beyond that spell 
 of hard work which I call my fifteen years in the 
 wilderness. And yet, but for those years of toil, would 
 these of rest have been so sweet ? That part of my life 
 is like the somewhat grave-coloured middle distance of 
 a picture, giving tone and beauty to all the rest. 
 
 Mrs. Vermont and her husband left me the second 
 day after the wedding. I fancy, though she expressed 
 herself much to the contrary, that she found my quiet 
 life rather slow ; and having, before the bride and 
 bridegroom went away, secured an invitation for the 
 winter, there was no need for further delay on her part 
 than absolute courtesy demanded. 
 
 I got on better with Mr. Vermont. He is a quiet, 
 meditative man, fond of rambling about amongst 
 libraries, which also is my delight. We had very little 
 conversation, however, because Mrs. Vermont did not 
 like to be alone, and she hates to hear people talk about 
 books. I equally dislike hearing them talk about other 
 people ; so that, when the wedding was exhausted, our 
 facilities for social intercourse were somewhat limited. 
 
 Now I am left alone. '' Poor dear Miss Brown ! " 
 as Annette's aunt said when she bade me good-bye, and 
 
206 ANNETTE 
 
 I am sure she mecaiit it. She was far sorrier for me 
 than I was for m3^se]f. I wish nothing better than that 
 my days should go on to their end in the quietness to 
 which the departure of my guests has consigned me. 
 If I want society, I can go to Mrs. Carbery, my mother's 
 friend. What a wonderful old lady she is, really, as 
 ^fr. Justin told me, at eighty reading the papers and 
 reviews, and keeping up with the interests of the day 
 like any one in the prime of life, only with this superiority, 
 that her opinions have the mellowness of age and expe- 
 rience, and that her judgments are tempered by a charity 
 which has gone on widening with her knowledge of life. To 
 hear her and her son, the London doctor, who comes down 
 twice a year to seehismother, have a discussion on politics, 
 or some social question, is one of my greatest treats. 
 
 Always excepting, however, her recollections of my 
 parents. She remembers them when they came as 
 bride and bridegroom to Abbotsby, and took possession 
 of this house, which was their home quite on to the end. 
 Mrs. Carbery was the friend consulted by them in all 
 domestic difficulties ; the first to come, the last to leave, 
 when death or sickness visited the family. At other 
 times, how her entrance was hailed by us children ! — 
 for she never came unprovided with some delightful 
 little story to tell us, or some picture-book, or paper of 
 sugar-plums hidden in the depths of her great sable 
 muff. She tells me that, when she rides out in the cold 
 weather, she wears that muff still, its pristine proportions 
 never having been curtailed to meet the requirements 
 of fashion. I wonder what little children get the sugar- 
 plums and picture-books now, and if they enjoy them 
 half so much as brother Mark and I used to do ? 
 
ANNETTE 207 
 
 Tlieu I have Stump. 
 
 Stump is deliglitful. As for her outward appear- 
 ance, she is like a pahn-tree, exactly the same thickness 
 all the way up, though without any of the aspiring 
 elegance of that magnificent endogen. At the top she 
 throws out a shock of yellow brown hair, which, being 
 stiff by nature, and frequently cut by art, utterly 
 refuses now to adapt itself to the downward sweep called 
 for by neatness. Her only resource is to gather it all 
 behind, and tie it round with a piece of string, leaving 
 the ends to stick out like a bottle-brush. She came to 
 us the evening after the wedding. When I went into 
 the kitchen to receive her, she was sitting very far back 
 in one of the biggest chairs, her feet dangling backwards 
 and forwards within six inches of the floor, her short, 
 stout arms, guiltless of anything like tapering towards 
 the wrists, embracing affectionately the bundle which 
 contained her worldly goods. There was a look of 
 vacant wonder in her face, as of one who, without 
 regret for the past, or hope or fear for the future, has 
 been launched into an entirely untried state of being. 
 
 ''Get up and drop a curtsy to the missis, ye 
 mannerless little hussy," said Keren, not unkindly ; 
 and then, turning confidentially to me, she whispered : 
 
 " Law, ma'am, she be a rough sort, and no mistake, 
 but there's a deal of her for her 3^ears." 
 
 The bundle was tilted over to one side, the straight 
 round ankles x)lanted firmly on the floor, the curtsy 
 dropped with as little of grace as was possible, and then 
 Stump got on the chair again, shuffling herself back 
 as far as ever she could, until her feet were dangling at 
 the proper height. 
 
208 ANNETTE 
 
 " Please'm, is there aught else to do ? " 
 
 This was addressed to Keren. 
 
 ''Yes, there is," said the old woman, good-huniouredl}^ 
 " Go your ways to the pump and fill yon cistern. I reckon 
 it's fitter work for your arms nor for mine." 
 
 Down came Stump again, and off to the pump in the 
 corner, from which the cistern which feeds my patent 
 cooking apparatus is supplied. Here, heedless of ulterior 
 results, and knowing no more than that Keren had told 
 her to pump away, she did pump away with such might 
 and main that in two moments the cistern was emptying 
 its surplus all over my kitchen floor, Stump seeing 
 nothing but the work immediately before her of using 
 the pump-handle as vigorously as possible. 
 
 "Laws a massy me ! " she said at last, when, startled 
 by Keren's shouts of dismay, she turned and saw the 
 mischief she had wrought. "I've done it overmuch, 
 I lay." And with an agility scarcely to have been 
 expected from her build, she seized upon one of my 
 best glass-cloths, and began to mop the floor with it, 
 until called to order by renewed screams from Keren. 
 
 "Ye little ne'er-do-weel ! Is that what you've been 
 brought up to, and them cloths the best linen to 
 be bought in Abbotsby town for love or money ? Ain't 
 you ashamed of yourself, then, to know no better, and 
 you the size you are ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am," said Stump. " You should ha' told 
 me when to stop. I've been brought up allers to go on 
 while I was told to stop." 
 
 I retired, feeling that I could laugh with more 
 comfort in the parlour. And so ended Stump's first 
 evening in her new place. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 [CT still I am bound to say that she is de- 
 lightful. Her ignorance is of that robust 
 ,j-^iiyy,u and refreshingly primitive kind which never 
 irritates any one. Indeed it rather gives 
 me the feeling which a gardener must have, I should 
 think, when he gets possession of a piece of utterly 
 uncultivated, and therefore unexhausted soil, into which 
 he can put almost what he likes, and be sure of its 
 coming to something. 
 
 Was ever anything like her stare of astonishment 
 when Keren took her over the house the morning after 
 her arrival, to show her the different things, and tell 
 her how they were to be kept in order ? She evidently 
 thought I must be a very selfish woman to require so 
 much accommodation, so many plates, dishes, Imives, 
 forks, and glasses for my own individual use, besides the 
 entire labour of two people spent for my convenience. 
 Stump has imbibed a great deal of that sort of philo- 
 sophy which makes wealth to consist in the fewness of 
 one's wants. She rather scorns than is impressed by a 
 multiplicity of requirements. One cup and one platter, 
 one suit of clothes to wear, and another to wash, one 
 room to live in, and a fiftieth share of a pump to drink 
 
 o 
 
210 ANNETTE 
 
 from — this is Stump's idea of the claims of the individual, 
 and every one who exceeds it is, according to her system 
 of social economy, taking more out of the common stock 
 than she puts into it. 
 
 Viewed geologically, Stump consists at present of 
 only two formations. The primary, or granite period, 
 so to speak, consists of opinions like those above men- 
 tioned, deposited during her ten years' existence in the 
 village of Wabblesthorpe, where she and her old grand- 
 mother lived on two shillings a week from the parish. 
 The remains of this period are of the simplest description, 
 but will nevertheless, I doubt not, heave up and overtop 
 any other strata which succeeding periods may form. 
 
 Three years ago, the old grandmother died, and 
 Stump was brought to the Abbotsby Union, where she 
 has remained ever since, until, a week ago, she came to 
 my house. At the Union began the secondary formation, 
 a deposit of ideas widely different from the granite sim- 
 plicity of the Wabblesthorpe period. Things at the 
 " workhus " were done on a scale of unprecedented 
 magnitude ; coppers full of soup, cart-loads of loaves, 
 puddings — when such luxuries made their appearance — 
 as ample in proportions as that before which Jack the 
 Giant Killer satisfied his hunger ; boots and shoes like 
 the rank and file of an infantry corps ; wearing apparel 
 in heaps as big as a haystack. But then, if the prepara- 
 tions were vast, so were the necessities which had to 
 be met, so that Stump's philosophy easily rose to the 
 occasion, none of the paupers getting more than was 
 needful, and every one being rigorously compelled to 
 put in a certain amount of labour for the food and 
 
ANNETTE 211 
 
 clothing bestowed. Here the Juggernaut of uniformity 
 began to crush poor Stump under its ponderous wheels. 
 She must eat, drink, sleep, wake, work, rest, think, like 
 every one else, and life resolved itself for her into a huge 
 machine, in which she and her companions were but 
 tlireads, flitting backwards and forwards, with no will or 
 choice of their own as to the pattern into which they 
 were being woven, or the uses to which they might be put. 
 
 '' Heaps upon heaps of us, ma'am," as poor Stump 
 said when describing her '' workhus " life, '' and the bite 
 and the sup as reg'lar as clockwork, and always your 
 quantity, let you take it or leave it, and every one on 
 us with pinnies and petticoats alike, and a book apiece for 
 us when we went to the prayers, and never no difference 
 in nothing, only Chrissamus, when the plum-puddings 
 was agate. Law ! ma'am, but it was a wonderful place, 
 was the workhus." 
 
 " And did you like it, Stump ? " said I. 
 
 A strange look, as of some inexpressible but quite 
 understood thought, came into Stump's full moon of a 
 face as she replied : 
 
 " "Well, ma'am, I can't say as I mattered it much. 
 I was kind of overmuch mixed up into all the rest, so as 
 I never knew for certain where I was nor what I was, 
 only when I said through my prayers of a night, same as 
 my grandmother always teached me. It never seemed 
 to come to me any time but then what things was all 
 going on to." 
 
 A curious remark, I thought, for a girl of thirteen to 
 make, and showing a fine field of meditative faculty 
 beneath that stupid, uncultured surface. 
 
 o 2 
 
212 ANNETTE 
 
 " But, Stump, wasn't it rather nice having so many 
 girls to talk to ? Don't you think you Avill perhaps be 
 rather lonely here ? " 
 
 '' No, ma'am," said Stump, straightforwardly, " it 
 wasn't nice. We was always overthick of a lump, 
 ma'am, and I belonged as much to the whole lot on 'em 
 as I did to myself, in a manner ; and if I tried to do 
 right it was no credit to me, and if I did my work bad, 
 why, it got shuffled in among the ruck, out of sight, and 
 nothing came of it ; and that wasn't the way grand- 
 mother had used to teach me out of the Bible. She 
 said we was all to do our own work and take our own 
 blame, if we got any." 
 
 I was amused at the way Stump talked on to me, 
 evidently without the least shyness, and glad to find 
 some one who would understand the opinions which she 
 had hewn out for herself from the rude materials of her 
 life. And I, for my part, began to have a delightful 
 dawning of respect for this girl, with her sturd}^, square- 
 built form, and her thick arms and legs, and her round 
 tea-cake of a face, out of which the features seemed to 
 have been shaped with some one's finger and thumb, 
 and her stubby yellow-brown hair sticking out beliind 
 in bottle-brush fashion from the piece of string which 
 held it together. ''A most unhandy lump of a lass," 
 said Keren, with a deprecating glance at the unlovely 
 exterior ; but there was a half-formed soul struggling 
 for expression within, and a fine individuality of character 
 which scorned to be " shuffled in among the ruck," even 
 for the hiding of its faults. Stump's ethics, so far, 
 were about as good as any I could teach her. I might 
 
ANNETTE 213 
 
 perhaps be able to instil new ideas into her mind 
 relative to the proper management of pnmp-handles, 
 but I don't think I could suggest a better foundation 
 for the building up of a useful life than that which 
 the old grandmother had already laid — doing her own 
 work and taking her own blame if she got any. 
 
 But I see that Stump has a reserve of doubt. A 
 third stratum of ideas is being deposited in her mind. 
 In the first stage of life at Wabblesthorpe, and the 
 second at the Abbotsby workhouse, small and large 
 means were adapted to proportionately small and large 
 ends. Here, that principle is being entirely overthro^Mi. 
 I am absorbing, to my own private uses, an amount 
 of labour, money, and material which, according to 
 Stump's preconceived notions, is entirely dispropor- 
 tionate. What right have I to such an unlimited 
 number of plates, knives, and forks, and such ample 
 accommodation in the matter of space, to say nothing 
 of two women to fetch and carry for me, and a pump to 
 my sole and separate use ? The girl looks at me with 
 misgiving, though she sees I am kindly disposed to her. 
 I am taking more out of the world than I am putting 
 into it. 
 
 I heard Keren explaining it to her last night, by the 
 help of the Catechism, which hitherto Stump has only 
 learned parrot-like at the ''workhus," without any idea 
 of its application to the daily routine of life. Keren 
 argued that there was a certain class of people, broadly 
 described under the term " betters," towards whom it 
 was the duty of girls like Stump to order themselves 
 *' lowly and reverently," not taking it amiss if the betters 
 
214 ANISETTE 
 
 did fare a little more sumptuously every day, or absorb 
 a little more of the floating labour of their fellows. 
 Furthermore, Keren insisted that the Apostle Paul 
 himself exhorted servants to be obedient to their 
 masters ; that from the days of Abraham downwards 
 it had been a generally accepted law that some people 
 should have more things than were absolutely necessary 
 for their daily wants, and that other people should 
 gain an honest living by making and keeping those 
 things clean. 
 
 At any rate, Keren had one advantage. She could 
 clinch her argument by personal example, her whole 
 life having been spent in faithful ministration to those 
 whom she had been taught to esteem as her betters. 
 And so far that ministration had issued in a fair share 
 of comfort to herself. 
 
 When the homily was over, I heard Stump say, and 
 I could just fancy the mixture of doubt and dawning 
 perception with which she said it : 
 
 " Well, there's no telling. Maybe if folks can pay 
 for it, they've a right. But it's a queer world." 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 Septemher. 
 
 I INGE then we have got on beautifully. The 
 irrigation of Keren's common-sense argu- 
 ments has left a sort of alluvial deposit 
 upon the previous foundations in Stump's 
 mind, out of which the vegetation of a useful life is 
 slowly developing. 
 
 But she takes on the amenities of civilisation very 
 slowly. She has a great objection to doing anything, the 
 reason of which she cannot thoroughly understand. Espe- 
 cially she dislikes what she considers useless outlay of 
 time or labour. She will persist, whilst waiting upon meat 
 dinner, in carrying on an animated conversation with Keren 
 in the kitchen, relative to the change of plates and the 
 successive stages at which I have arrived in the meal. 
 
 "Keren, haul out the pudden, missis is nearly 
 through with the mutton shoulder." Or : '' Look alive, 
 Keren, and get up the cold pie. Missis don't matter 
 the warm meat to-day." 
 
 In reply to which, muttered growls of monition come 
 from the kitchen, or Keren herself advances to the par- 
 lour door, and fires off a hissing cannonade of reproofs. 
 
 " Hould yer whisht, can't you, you ignorant little 
 baggage ? Do you think that's the way the quality has 
 their vittles served ? Come your ways right off to 
 the kitchen when you've got aught to say." 
 
216 ANNETTE 
 
 ''And keep missis waiting/' rejoins Stump, with fear- 
 less confidence in her own way of providing for my comfort. 
 " Why, she'd never have done dinner at that gate." 
 
 But Stump yielded to persuasion. At first, when 
 I had taught her that my dining-room was not the place 
 whence she should issue information to the presiding 
 genius of the kitchen, she would go out, shut the door 
 carefully behind her, and, still with her hand upon the 
 latch, shout hastily to Keren, coming back with the proud 
 consciousness of one who knows at last how to do things 
 properly. But after patient explanation, the truth 
 dawned upon her mind ; and now when she has any- 
 thing to say to Keren during meal-times, she goes quite 
 away to the kitchen and carefully shuts that door behind 
 her, too, before she begins to state the facts. Dear 
 little, ugly Stump ! If she errs at all, it is not from 
 want of will to please. 
 
 It is curious, too, to watch how she sticks to the 
 principle which she asserted at first as the reason of her 
 behaviour at the pump, namely, going on with a thing 
 until she is told to stop. Give Stump a bowl of potatoes 
 to wash, and she will go on scrubbing, scraping, polish- 
 ing, lustrating, until each separate tubercle is as clean 
 as the face of a new wax doll. The idea of finishing 
 never enters into her mind, only of making her work as 
 perfect as it can be made. So of black-leading. Seeing 
 her one afternoon in want of occupation, I sent her into 
 the drawing-room to brighten up the grate, and after 
 the lapse of three hours found her there still, burnishing 
 away with might and main, though there was not a square 
 inch of the whole surface in which her conscientious little 
 dab of a face could not be seen as plainly as in a looking- 
 
ANNETTE 217 
 
 glass. The good child ! and she would have gone patiently 
 on until midnight, if nobody had stopped her. 
 
 But Stump prospers both in body and mind, and is, 
 I believe, quite content. Every night she comes to me 
 to read her chapter, ^Tite her copy, and do a sum in 
 simple addition. Then I have given her a little bit of 
 garden for her o^^-n, close by Hilary's door, and there 
 she digs and waters, and puts in and pulls out, just as 
 she likes, with a big pinafore tied over her afternoon 
 frock, whilst Hilary sits in her arm-chair outside, with 
 — must I confess it ? — a pipe in her mouth I For who 
 am I that I should damage the old woman's declining 
 days by denying her that comfort? She deserves it 
 more than I deserve any of mine. 
 
 Then on Sunday evenings they all three of them 
 come into my room, Hilary putting her best bonnet on 
 for the occasion, and we have a little church to ourselves, 
 followed by what they seem to enjoy very much — a 
 look at the pictures in my great illustrated Bible, about 
 which I encourage them to make their own remarks, 
 and express their own opinions as freely as they like. I 
 think, on the whole, Stump is happier with me than she 
 was at the '' workhus," for she knows now where she is, and 
 what she is, and takes her own blame if she " gets ony." 
 
 Of course this sort of thing would not do at all if I 
 were, what is called, in . society. Fancy a dinner-party 
 made up of people Hke Mrs. Vermont, Mrs. Flexon, 
 Mrs. Marsham, waited on by Stump, with a flying visit 
 occasionally from old Keren in her thick white cap and 
 kerchief ! How the guests would laugh — inwardly, of 
 course. But, thank goodness, I am not in society ! I 
 can arrange my life according to my own fashion, and 
 
218 ANNETTE 
 
 be liappy in my own way. Mr. Justin and Annette 
 understand my peculiarities, and I am quite sure when 
 they come they will not laugh at me. 
 
 They soon will come now. They have already left 
 Paris on their way home. Phillips, the new maid, has 
 been in the house a fortnight, making everything ready. 
 To-morrow I go to arrange flowers and put those 
 little finishing touches which the hands of a hireling 
 never seem to do quite rightly. Stump and I are off 
 early to-morrow morning for grasses and bulrushes from 
 the river-side, to be mixed with ferns which we shall 
 gather from Barlby Planting on the hilltop. Annette 
 has such a passion for ferns, though certainly not 
 because she was brought up amongst them, for I question 
 if she ever saw a living one until she went to Moorkee. 
 I sometimes wonder if she loves them so because they 
 bring to her remembrance the mountain paths there, 
 and the days when she wandered so happily among 
 them. But I will not let myself think of that now. 
 
 1th. 
 
 The bride has taken possession of her new home, 
 and very bonnie and wife-like she looks in it. I went 
 in last night to give them a welcome, as they said they 
 should like me to be their first guest 
 
 Oh dear, how things change, and the world changes 
 with them, and we change too ! There seemed nothing 
 the same last night but the great star and garter over 
 the door of the inn opposite, which caught my eye as 
 soon as I went into the drawing-room. The place does 
 look very beautiful now, and ]\Ir. Justin has brought 
 something quaint and curious from nearly eveiy one of 
 
ANNETTE 219 
 
 the old German cities where they stopped. Up the 
 staircase and on the kiu dings are arranged the Indian 
 things which he collected last year, and a little sort of 
 corridor, through which you enter the drawing-room, 
 is entirely filled with the loveliest ferns and mosses, in 
 compliment, I suppose, to Annette's taste for them. 
 The house gives one the impression of being presided 
 over by refinement and plenty of money ; but somehow 
 it has lost the delicious feeling of homeliness which I 
 remember long ago. And Annette ? 
 
 "Well, I suppose nothing will ever make her flash and 
 sparkle again. I must not look for it. But somehow 
 one expects, in calling upon a bride, that happiness 
 itself will be embodied in her smile, and a sort of queen- 
 liness of delight ray out in every tone of her voice. 
 Annette was not at all like that. I could see nothing 
 but old cathedrals and altar-pieces reflected from her 
 eyes. She seemed to have put on the repose and almost 
 a little of the melancholy of the mediaeval cities from 
 which she had just come. It suits her wonderfully well, 
 I must say, just as does the costly Belgian lace with 
 which Gregory Justin has adorned her pretty throat and 
 wrists, if only one could forget that it is a bride of scarce 
 six weeks upon whom such utter serenity has fallen. 
 
 But what Annette lacks in animation, her husband 
 supplies. He seems brimful of happiness and good 
 spirits ; positively insisted upon giving me a kiss of 
 welcome when I crossed the threshold ; has brought 
 Hilary a bran-new shawl, and Keren a merino go^sii ; is 
 proud of his home, proud of his wife, and ready, in his 
 overflowing content, to do a good turn for anybody. So 
 I hope all will be well. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 November 28th. 
 
 DOX'T often get time to write in this little 
 
 book now. Somehow, things are always 
 
 coming up that must be attended to, and I 
 
 never can settle down to writing unless I 
 
 have a clear, undisturbed spell of quietness before me. 
 
 We are nearly through November now, that month 
 which Mrs. Vermont says she dreads so, but which — this 
 year, at any rate — has been pleasant enough to me, 
 spite of its fogs and fallen leaves, and general reputation 
 of melancholy. I do so enjoy the long firelight evenings. 
 I tickle the coals into a playful flicker, and then turn 
 down the lamp, and put my feet on the fender, and think 
 over the old times, and enjoy the perfect rest of being 
 able to do just as I like. 
 
 The luxury of being let alone ! After all there is 
 none hke it. I wonder sometimes how I went through 
 all that zenana work out there in India. I think of the 
 poor little woman toihng away year by year, with scarcely 
 any one to say a kind word to her, or pity or caress her, 
 and I do feel so sorry for her. I can scarcely realise 
 that it was myself I have heard about my Indian 
 women once or twice. Tliey have somebody else now to 
 talk to them. I hope she won't pull down all that I 
 
ANNETTE 221 
 
 tried to build up, but I think Mr. Grant would not let 
 any one do that. I have this comfort, that some seeds 
 of truth have been dropped into their minds, and I think 
 no truth can ever die. 
 
 Mrs. Vermont paid her promised visit to the young 
 people at the beginning of this month, and there were 
 some very elegant dinner-parties consequent thereupon. 
 Mr. Justin is fond of entertaining — much more so than 
 Annette. I believe he thinks what is the use of a large 
 house and beautiful furniture and a pretty wife, unless 
 you can gather plenty of people round you, to show them 
 how well off you are ? I did not mean to put the case 
 quite so barely as that, but still so it is. Mrs. Vermont 
 says Annette is a most fortunate girl — quite a credit to 
 the family ; but she thinks she does not rise sufficiently 
 to her position. She ought to give frequent dinner- 
 parties, she says, have " at homes " every now and then 
 for an unlimited number of people, make herself a sort 
 of centre of society here, and get herself looked up to as 
 an acknowledged leader. As if simple-minded little 
 Annette could ever get herself looked up to as anything 
 of that sort I 
 
 I was quite vexed to hear Mrs. Vermont talking in 
 this way to Mr. Justin, one day when his wife was not 
 present, and still more vexed to find that Mr. Justin did 
 not fling back the remarks as they deserved. Gregory 
 is a man who is very open to judicious flattery. Mrs. 
 Vermont knows how to flatter him judiciously. I believe, 
 if she had stayed with them much longer, she would have 
 succeeded in convincing him that he was quite an ill- 
 used husband, because his wife did not give dinner- 
 
222 ANNETTE 
 
 parties twice a week, and talk herself hoarse in trjdng to 
 be a leader of society. Such nonsense ! I have no 
 patience with women who will meddle in that way. I 
 am heartily glad Mrs. Vermont is gone, though before 
 she went away she managed to get an invitation for next 
 summer. 
 
 When I have an evening to spare, Annette implores 
 me to go and spend it with her. Of course this would 
 not be the case if Mr. Justin had kept to his purpose of 
 reading aloud to his wife every night — but I never ex- 
 pected he w^ould keep to that purpose. He generally 
 spends the evenings now in his luxuriously appointed 
 study, where he is going into the subject of the ventila- 
 tion of pubHc buildings. He says it is just the same as 
 sitting with his wife, because the rooms open to each 
 other, and she can call to him whenever she likes ; but 
 I don't think Annette sees it in that light. I am sure I 
 should not if I were a wife, however much I respected 
 ventilation. But still they are very fond of each other. 
 
 Stump takes a great deal of teaching. Fortunately, 
 when an idea once works itself into her mind, she holds 
 to it as persistently as a mongoose to a snake. After 
 nearly four months' patient training, she can now wait 
 at table with tolerable neat-handedness, and as for her 
 washing up of glass and china, it is beyond all praise, 
 though in that, as in all other things, she takes her own 
 time, and will not be hurried for anybody. She has 
 tiuite accepted the fact which I mentioned before as the 
 tertiary stratum in her mind, that there is a class of 
 elders and betters, who have hereditary or acquired 
 rights to an unlimited number of properly -paid -for 
 
ANNETTE 223 
 
 plates, knives, forks, and other things ; and that there 
 is a second class of youngers and subordinates, whose 
 equal right, hereditary or acquired, it is to keep these 
 things clean ; and that, whether the duty exercised be 
 of owning or cleaning, it is equally honourable in the 
 Great Master's sight. So that Stump's self-respect is 
 no longer wounded by the position in which she finds 
 herself. 
 
 Her attachment to Keren, and myself, and Hilary, 
 whom she considers as one of the family, has a sort of 
 dog-like faithfulness about it which is very touching. 
 She will let us do nothing that she can do for ns. She 
 is continually on the watch to prevent old Keren from 
 carrying anything, and if she sees me with a brush or a 
 duster in my hand now, she almost looks upon it as an 
 insult to herself. I never knew a girl with so much 
 consciousness of responsibility about her. Slow at first 
 to learn her duty, she is more vigilant in the doing of it 
 when learned than any up-grown woman I have met. 
 
 I heartily respect little Stump, though no one knows 
 what I have gone through in the cultivation of her 
 intellect. But so long as her moral qualities are so 
 satisfactorily developed, I care not if she comes to adult 
 years before she masters the intricacies of spelling and 
 subtraction, or is able to write her own name without 
 such putting forth and contortion of her tongue as make 
 me doubt whether that unruly member will ever recover 
 its proper position. 
 
 Hilary teaches her sewing. It is such a delight to 
 the dear old woman to think that in this way she can be 
 of any use in the world. Scarcely a day passes in which 
 
224 ANNETTE 
 
 I do not have a chat with Hilary. Her little room does 
 look so nice and cosy, Avith its red curtains and cheery 
 bit of fire. And then back again to my own comfortable 
 parlour, which Stump keeps as clean as a new^ pin, always 
 watching her opportunity, when I am out, to pop in and 
 clear away every speck of dust she can find. 
 
 And her broad, genial smile of welcome, if I am away 
 but half an hour, the innocent, unsophisticated satisfac- 
 tion with which she relates to me her various achieve- 
 ments in the kitchen ; her look of content when, having 
 finished her work, and '' cleaned herself," she comes to 
 me for the loan of a Band of Hope, or British Worhnan, 
 and relieves herself of her superabundant gratitude by 
 an expressive : 
 
 " Law, ma'am, but I ^.s- glad I was took in here ! " 
 
 It is worth all those long years of exile from home 
 and country to feel that, resting at last, my life is not 
 entirely wasted ; that, with talents neither of money, 
 intellect, nor position, I can yet gather a few people 
 round me to love me, and be sorry when I am gone. 
 
 After Christmas I visit Cousin Delia at Cheltenham. 
 I cannot say I much like the prospect of leaving my own 
 fireside at that time of year ; but, as I told myself 
 before, one must not let one's relations quite slip out of 
 sight, and my cousin has been very kind in writing to 
 me since I came home. 
 
 I am to eat my Christmas dinner with Gregory and 
 Annette ; and Keren and Hilary and Stump will have a 
 merry-making on their own account in the kitchen here. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIIL 
 
 Decemher. 
 
 iHE world is really not so very large. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Justin — I like to write the 
 words in full sometimes to see how they 
 look — were at the county ball last week, 
 and Annette danced in the same quadrille with Mrs. 
 Aberall, the lady who wanted to be the '' burra mem 
 Sahib " of the Naicah. Afterwards they had a little 
 chat together, the Colonel's wife being able to unbend to 
 the wife of the Recorder of Abbotsby, as she could not 
 be expected to unbend to " that poor Miss Lislethorpe," 
 who was returning from India without a penny to bless 
 herself with. 
 
 She has been spending the summer and autumn at 
 Cheltenham. It is astonishing what numbers of Indian 
 people go there. But she intends to winter at Mentone, 
 and I am glad of that, for I believe my cousin Delia goes 
 out a great deal, and I really should not care to renew 
 my intercourse, or, to speak more correctly, want of 
 intercourse, with Mrs. Aberall ; though Annette says she 
 inquired very kindly after me, was delighted to hear 
 that I was so comfortably settled in Abbotsby, and said 
 she would have been very glad to call upon me, only her 
 time was so limited. It seems she was visiting some of 
 
 p 
 
226 AKNETTU 
 
 the county people in this neighbourhood, and so was 
 inckided in their invitation to the ball. I can fancy 
 how she would have laughed at Stump and Keren if she 
 liad called. At myself too, perhaps, afterwards ; for I 
 think we are all very much of the same pattern. 
 
 She told Annette that Mrs. Flexon is living in 
 St. John's Wood, not married yet. Dr. Byte is settled 
 in a practice in the neighbourhood, and ]\Irs. Flexon 
 hnds the air agree with her so well that she has no inten- 
 tion of removing for the winter. But I have heard that 
 St. John's Wood is a very sheltered situation, and reason- 
 able, too, for rents, so perhaps she has chosen wisely. 
 It was curious to have that old ship-life brought back. 
 It does seem so far off now, quite distanced from me by 
 the calm Ijright reaches of the life that I live day by day 
 in my own home. 
 
 Annette does not often come to see me, but generally 
 I spend a couple of evenings in the week Avith her, when 
 Mr. Justin is at his Club. He has taken to going there 
 a good deal lately, having developed a taste for politics. 
 I should not wonder if he becomes an important man in 
 that direction. ]\Irs. Carbery was telling me the other 
 day that people begin to speak of him as a likely member 
 for the borough at the next election. Nothing would 
 please Gregory better than that, but I don't know how 
 Annette would like it. She is not an ambitious woman. 
 
 I feel now about Gregory Justin that he will not be 
 content until he has made for himself a career of some 
 kind. More than this, he must not only feel that he is 
 working to some definite end, but he must feel that his 
 work is acknowledged and appreciated. He is not one 
 
ANNETTE 227 
 
 of those men, grandly independent of externals, who, 
 having set before themselves a worthy thing to do, do it 
 quietly, measuring themselves by what they are, and not 
 by what the w^orld's praise or blame makes them appear 
 to be. He has great activity of mind and great love of 
 approbation ; so he must work, and he must be praised 
 for his work. Then he will be happy. 
 
 Something of this came out the other night when he 
 was bringing me home, after I had been spending the 
 evening with his wife. I could see that he is already 
 chafing at the extreme quietness of his home. I suppose 
 quietness was not what he aimed at w^hen he furnished 
 it so beautifully, and spent so much money over stained 
 glass and brocaded damasks and seventeenth century 
 tables and chairs. 
 
 '' You know, Miss Brown," he said, " I do wdsh 
 Annette was just a little bit more fond of company. 
 Goodness knows I don't want her to become a fashionable 
 woman of society, or anything of that sort, but with the 
 position I have in the town, don't you think now that it 
 would be better if she could come out a little more in 
 the matter of entertaining ? Nobody dislikes formal 
 company more than I do, but if she would let us give 
 a good handsome dinner-pa^rty once a fortnight or so, 
 during the winter, it would only be what people have a 
 right to expect from us." 
 
 This was the springing up of the seed which Mrs. 
 Vermont had dropped into his mind. How that clever 
 woman did find him out, and flatter him on those points 
 where a man of his character is so susceptible 1 Gregory 
 likes to be thought brilliant in conversation. Mrs; 
 
 p 2 
 
228 ANNETTE 
 
 Vermont made him believe she had never seen any one 
 to equal him in that respect. He loves popularity. 
 She told him he ought to be at the head of society in 
 his native town — would be so, if only ''dear little 
 Annette" would come out of her shell and live up to her 
 position. How vexed I had felt with her when I heard 
 her say that ! — how ten times more vexed I felt now, 
 when the words were beginning to bear their evil fruit 1 
 
 I said something, in a feeble, inefficient sort of way, 
 about people not being able to change their natures. 
 Somehow I can think of excellent remarks when I am 
 holding imaginary conversations with people, but when 
 it comes to putting them into speech, the sound of my 
 own voice makes me the veriest idiot. How often, since 
 Mrs. Vermont's visit, had I argued out this very subject 
 mentally with Mr. Justin, and retired triumphant from 
 the field, having convinced him that Annette as she was 
 was infinitely better than the Annette he would make. 
 Now I could not get a word out. I had a curious feeling 
 of sympathy with him from his own point of view, com- 
 bined with antipathy, which arose out of my love for 
 Annette. The two feelings clashing with each other 
 made me as helpless as a dumb animal. I believe I 
 came out at last with a feeble little bit of sentiment 
 about home being a woman's sphere. 
 
 ''Oh, yes," he replied. "I should hate to see Annette 
 flaunting about, always calling and being called upon 
 and thinking of nothing but what dress she would look 
 best in, or who admired her most. I only want her just 
 to take a little more interest in things, and look animated 
 when people come. Of course, you know, on board ship 
 one could account for her being quiet, and all that sort 
 
ANNETTE 229 
 
 of thing, because she had had such a hard time of it 
 before, poor darling, but I quite hoped she would get out 
 of it when we were settled down here, and she had so 
 many things in her favour. I fancy, however, now, that 
 she will always shrink from society, and so, you see " 
 
 Gregory stopped to take a comfortable whiff or two 
 at his cigar. 
 
 " I — I think it will be better for me to see my friends 
 at the Gentleman's Club. Of course, if I mean to do 
 anything for the place, I mnst see people, and hear what 
 is going on, and get myself known amongst the men of 
 the neighbourhood, and that seems the simplest way of 
 doing it. An evening in the week, and two or three 
 afternoons, will be quite enough. Indeed, I could not 
 afford the time at night oftener, because I am reading 
 up so hard now for that paper I want to send to the 
 
 Revieiu next month. I had no idea the subject 
 
 would take so much mastering. I have been at it every 
 night this week, and I am only just beginning to see my 
 way through it properly." 
 
 Every night I and little more than six months ago, 
 Gregory Justin was so very sharp with me for suggesting 
 that the drawing-room windows should be left plain, so 
 as to afford Annette the resource of looking through 
 them, if she did chance to be left alone sometimes of an 
 evening. But idiot though I am upon some subjects, I 
 am too wise a woman to " rile " a man, especially a man 
 of Gregory Justin's temperament, by so much as suggest- 
 ing to him that any of his splendid purposes have come 
 to nothing. I only condoled with him on the difficulties 
 of arriving at anything like a satisfactory conclusion as 
 to the best method of ventilating public buildings. 
 
230 ANNETTE 
 
 '' Ye,s/' lie said, evidently glad of even the little 
 sympathy I could give, and pleased to be able to talk to 
 me as a woman largely ignorant upon the subject — 
 knowing, in fact, nothing whatever, except that it is a 
 good plan to keep one's windows open top and bottom — 
 and, therefore, willing to listen to his theories, instead of 
 disputing them as an intelligent man might have done, 
 '' I have ransacked the library from end to end, besides 
 borrowing books in every direction, and I don't find any 
 theory which on the whole appears to me more capable 
 of being carried into practice than this one that I want 
 to write into shape for my article." 
 
 And then, with his own masterful clearness and 
 accuracy, he set out the whole thing clearly before me. 
 I say clearly, for I am sure it was clear, though I could 
 not understand it. He evidently enjoyed talking about 
 it, having some one who would listen patiently, with 
 unwavering faith in his own superiority. I have no 
 arguments, and Gregory hates to be argued with by a 
 woman. I have little skill in conversation, especially on 
 scientific subjects, and he dearly loves to lead the battle 
 himself. I am sure he enjoyed that walk home. 
 
 For myself, I was conscious all the time of a vague, 
 half-acknowledged feeling of hopelessness. I was sony 
 for him, sorry for Annette, wishing she could come out 
 of herself a little more to meet his tastes, wishing he 
 could understand her life better. And yet how could he 
 understand it without knowing what apparently she 
 wished to keep buried in her own thoughts ? 
 
 Pondering and vexing myself with this undercurrent 
 of meditation, I still replied as intelligently as I could 
 to Mr. Justin's theories about currents of air from above, 
 
ANNETTE 231 
 
 and rushes of heated foul air from beneath, and valves 
 and siphons and perforated zinc plates, and all the rest 
 of it. He was still deep in the subject when we reached 
 my garden gate. 
 
 " I should like to go in and finish it with you/' he 
 said, taking the cigar out of his mouth in an undecided 
 sort of way ; " but, perhaps, Annette would like better 
 for me to go back and keep her company. You know 
 I've been out a good deal to-day, at the Club, and one 
 thing or another, and it doesn't do to " 
 
 ''No," I said, promptly, the last thing in the world 
 necessary just then being an apology from Gregory Justin 
 for going home to his wife. " You had much better go 
 back. Annette does not care to be left by herself these 
 winter nights, and I thought she looked just a little out 
 of sorts." 
 
 '' Did you, though ? I am sure I hadn't noticed it. 
 You know she never has very much of a colour, and so 
 people fancy she is delicate. I will go back and sit with 
 her as soon as I have put my papers straight. And do 
 come in and see her whenever you can, will you? I 
 know she enjoys it so much, and somehow she doesn't 
 taJi-e kindly to the people here. She was only saying tlio 
 other night that you always brightened her up so. Just 
 ask that little Stump of yours for a match before I go 
 away ; my box is empty." 
 
 I promised to come. The match was found. Gregory 
 re-lighted his cigar and went off, looking back, however, 
 as he closed the gate, to say : 
 
 " Now don't forget to come in as often as you can. 
 You are really the only person Annette cares to see 
 quietly of an evening." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Christmas Eve. 
 
 ITTING here in my comfortable parlour, with 
 a glow of firelight on the well-remembered 
 books and pictures of my childhood, there 
 comes over me such a sadness as I think of 
 my walk home with Gregory Justin last week. 
 
 I felt in his words so much more than came to the 
 surface. They told of the '' little rift within the lute/' 
 which may in years to come quite silence its music. 
 And then in that outwardly so pleasant home what will 
 be left ? 
 
 Annette's mind, I can see, is fixing itself more strongly 
 upon the past. She lives in it more than in the present. 
 Almost always now, when I go to spend an evening with 
 her, she turns the conversation upon Moorkee and the 
 people we knew there. Lately she has often spoken to 
 me about that affair of the envelope. I think she would 
 be more at rest if it were settled. Of Mrs. Flexon's 
 double-dealing in the matter there can be no doubt. 
 Yet perhaps after all the letter may have contained 
 nothing of importance. It may have been an acceptance 
 for a Badminton party, or putting off or planning a riding 
 excursion, though Mrs. Flexon's guilt in opening the 
 letter would be just the same, however trifling the con- 
 
ANNETTE 233 
 
 tents. I wish we could know. I wish it may prove to 
 have been a letter of the merest common-place. And 
 yet no, I do not, for that would leave a dark stain upon 
 Captain Asperton's honour, and I cannot bear to think 
 of Annette giving her preference to a man who would do 
 anything dishonourable. 
 
 But supposing it should have been something of im- 
 portance, something whose inteiTuption must have made 
 a great change in Annette's life, and if Annette ever 
 finds that out, how will she bear it? I fear, in that case, 
 poor Gregory will have to complain more than ever that 
 his wife does not care for company. For she is not one 
 of those women who can brave a thing out, and cover up 
 with a froth of pleasant manners the depths of yearning 
 and emptiness beneath. 
 
 So whichever way it is, I seem to see only sadness. 
 She will just wear herself away by brooding over the 
 past, and her husband, who is rather the man to weary 
 of a wife of whom he cannot be proud, will go more and 
 more into public life. ^Ye shall hear of him as a great 
 man in the town, the leader of its public improvements, 
 chairman at all the Liberal meetings. By-and-by, if 
 things go on favourably, we shall hear of his trying for 
 a seat in Parliament, and I fancy Abbotsby would return 
 him, too. Who knows, if only the good times had con- 
 tinued forty years longer, but I might have sat at the 
 Xorthgate house drawing-room windows, and watched 
 the little Gregory of my childish years, chaired in triumph 
 through the streets, bowing and smiling from his dizzy 
 altitude to the cheering multitude around? And all the 
 while there will be a sad-faced woman pining at her 
 
234 ANNETTE 
 
 lonely fireside, with the light of her life gone out, and 
 no more any warmth left but that of memory. 
 
 Things like these I seem to see so clearly as I think 
 over my talk with Mr. Justin. He is beginning to have 
 a dim consciousness of rebuke, but he will not listen to 
 it. The career to which he looks forward is so pleasant, 
 and his wife's want of sympathy is in itself a reason for 
 throwing himself more vigorously into it. If she had 
 made his home brighter, it will be so easy to say he 
 would never have sought interest beyond it. 
 
 Since then I have tried to be with Annette as much 
 as possible when her husband is away, though I am not 
 sure that even in this I am doing her a real service. 
 Mr. Justin, who, when he is in the house now, seems 
 most at home in his stud}^, where he is still working 
 away at the ventilation of public buildings, comes into 
 the room sometimes, with that curious look of doubtful 
 self-reproach upon his face, and seeing me ensconced 
 there by Annette's side with my knitting, brightens up 
 directly, and says : 
 
 " Oh 1 all right, delighted to see you, Miss Brown. 
 You'll keep her company, won't you, whilst I see what 
 they are doing at that committee ? Good night, pet." 
 
 And with what appears to me a delightfully affec- 
 tionate kiss upon the pretty, yet half-pouting lips, away 
 he goes to one of those everlasting meetings, leaving us 
 to the mild twaddle which women almost of necessity 
 drop into when they have no strong man's influence to 
 lift them out of it. 
 
 But Gregory will not let himself think that he is 
 doing anything wrong. He does not notice, seeing it 
 
ANNETTE 235 
 
 every day, that Annette's face keeps getting just a little 
 paler and thinner, and that there is scarcely any sparkle 
 now in the soft eyes which he used to praise so much. 
 I suppose, too, he does not notice the listless way in 
 which she moves about ; or if he does, he puts it down 
 to that "' want of energ)* " which is beginning to be just 
 a little tedious to him. 
 
 Perhaps if an illness were to come, as illnesses always 
 do come so conveniently in story-books, and poor Annette's 
 spark of life were to be blown nearly out, that of his 
 watchfulness would be proportionately rekindled. He 
 would have dreadful spasms of repentance, call himself 
 an unworthy wretch, and no end of bad names, and be 
 the most devoted husband in the world — for the space of 
 six months. But I am afraid, when her health was quite 
 re-established, his notions of '' a career " would revive, 
 and he would take to public affairs with as much zest as 
 ever. 
 
 I suppose he will not be content now until he has 
 * become what is called a leading man in the place. 
 People have begun to praise him up in the papers, too. 
 Once or twice I have read leading articles in the Abbot shi/ 
 Gazette, in which "our talented fellow-townsman, Mr. 
 Justin," has been spoken of as destined to no very 
 distant honours. And Gregory is just the man to be 
 flattered by that sort of thing. I believe, much as I 
 like my old playfellow, that he would spend a good many 
 evenings away from his wife, to secure another article of 
 that kind. His faith in himself is much influenced by 
 the faith which other people have in him. Praise will 
 spur him to great endeavour and great doing. 
 
236 ANNETTE 
 
 Last time I went to see Annette, she broke through 
 the ice a little more than usual. Not in respect of her 
 past, she never does that, but of her future life, and she 
 let me see the faint touch of disappointment which is 
 creeping into it. 
 
 She had been showing me, with genuine wife-like 
 pride, one of these newspaper articles about her husband, 
 and had also told me, as a gTeat secret, that a paper on 
 which he had been working for some time, in fact, through- 
 out the autumn, on the sanitary arrangements of gi^eat 
 
 towns, would appear in the next number of the 
 
 Revieiv. And I had told her, half in jest and earnest, 
 that she would by-and-by be the hurra mem Sahib, not 
 of the Nawah, but of Abbotsby itself. 
 
 " If Gregory becoming famous, would make me so, I 
 dare say I should," she said, with a half-sigh ; ''but do 
 you know, Miss Brown, such dreadfully stupid thoughts 
 do come into my head sometimes ? I think Gregory 
 ought to have married some one else. I mean somebody 
 different, grand and stylish, and fond of fashion and 
 talking, and going into company, and things of that sort. 
 You know he wants a wife who can be at the top of 
 everything." 
 
 ''My dear," I said, seeing that contradiction, not 
 sympathy, was just what she wanted then, " you are a 
 little goose ! Your husband is a man of talent, and 
 influence, and ambition, and so he, not his wife, must be 
 at the top of everything. He would not love you half 
 so much, if you were just the same sort of person that 
 he is himself." 
 
 '' No, you don't understand me. He wants a wife 
 who can help him to get to the top of everything, and 
 
ANNETTE 237 
 
 keep comfortably beside him when he has got there. He 
 would like me to give dinners and entertainments, and 
 make up parties when any one grand is stopping in the 
 place. You know his \mting brings him into corre- 
 spondence with a good many literary and influential 
 people, and he says if only I would wake up a little, and 
 get hold of them as they pass through here on their way 
 north or south, we might have no end of a circle of 
 friends. But, oh ! Miss Brown, it isn't a bit of use. 
 I couldn't do it, if I tried ever so much." 
 
 '' Of course you couldn't, my dear, so don't trouble 
 your little head about it. If your husband is destined 
 to great friendships, he will work his way up to them 
 without any painful efforts of yours. I don't think much 
 of friends who come in that way." 
 
 Though, at the same time, I knew very well that a 
 brilliant series of dinner-parties, especially if presided 
 over by a clever woman with plenty of talk, do help a 
 man up wonderfully to eminence and position. It would 
 have made all the difference to Gregory Justin in that 
 respect, if his wife had been a rose, instead of a violet. 
 
 '' You child," I continued, ''just keep on looking as 
 bright and bonnie as you can, and always have a smile 
 for him when he comes in, and dress yourself prettily, 
 and you don't know how proud he will be of you. 
 Remember how he looked at you when you came into 
 this room dressed for the county ball. Why, you ought 
 to be the happiest little woman in the world ! Don't go 
 troubling yourself about such nonsense as talents, whilst 
 you can look as pretty as you did that night." 
 
 " Ah ! yes," and a faint smile of pride passed over her 
 face. " I know he likes to see me nicely dressed, and he 
 
238 ANNETTE 
 
 was so pleased when somebody asked at tlie ball who 
 that elegant girl was. But then, j'ou know, one can't 
 always be dressed for a ball, with white satin and flowers, 
 and be walking through quadrilles, and smiling and 
 looking pleasant. That sort of thing lasts such a little 
 while. I believe he would be ten times better satisfied 
 if I were just decently plain, but could entertain well 
 and make everybody say what a clever woman Mrs. 
 Justin was." 
 
 " Ko, you little goose, he wouldn't, because then his 
 own cleverness would not be noticed so much ; and a man 
 like your husband always likes to be number one. I 
 don't blame him for it, either, because I think he is born 
 to the position. What you have to do, Annette, is just 
 to be as bright and pleasant as you can in your own way, 
 and have a smile always ready for him ; and when he 
 Avants to have a friend or two in to dinner, don't make 
 a difficulty about it, even if it does give you a little 
 trouble." 
 
 " Oh ; but," and Annette's face put on that weary 
 expression which I know so well now, ''he knows I hate 
 dinners so. I wish he would not fix upon that one thing 
 out of all to wish me to do. AVhat interests have I in 
 common with any one here ? "What can I talk to them 
 about ? " 
 
 I was beginning to feel a little bit out of patience 
 with her. If Annette wants to be happy, she must 
 cultivate the habit of looking at things in the light of 
 other people's ideas as well as her own. 
 
 "You must make interests," I said, "and then you 
 will soon find something to talk about. I suppose if you 
 hate dinners, you also hate being left by yourself at 
 
ANNETTE 239 
 
 night. Now if you would sometimes indulge your 
 husband's taste for society by making up a nice little 
 dinner-party for him at home, you would find that he 
 would not go out half so much, just because he could see 
 the people here instead, and see them all at once, too. 
 Don't you understand ? " 
 
 "I understand that you are a dear, good, sensible 
 thing, and that I am the stupidest old goose in the 
 world," said Annette, putting her arms round my neck 
 and giving me a kiss. " Xext time Gregory asks me to 
 have a dinner-party I'll say ' all right.' Will that do T' 
 
 " Yes ; and the next time you ask him to spend an 
 evening at home with you, you will find that he will say 
 ' all right ' too. Now let us talk about something else." 
 
 For 1 don't like a wife to make her husband a subject 
 of conversation, unless the remarks are all in his favour. 
 This is an excellent principle, one that I should certainly 
 have acted upon myself, if Providence had placed me in a 
 position to do so. 
 
 I wish Annette had '' internal resources," as people 
 call them, but her mind does not seem to turn to any one 
 subject with suflicient zest to make it supply the manifest 
 void in her life. She takes strangely little interest in 
 anything that goes on around her. That delightful out- 
 look from the drawing-room window into the Northgate, 
 which to some people would be like a perpetually open 
 story-book, full of romance, mystery, probability, and 
 excitement, is just nothing at all to her. If sometimes 
 she gazes out, it is with eyes that see nothing but the 
 past. 
 
 The only thing I have known her really give her 
 mind to was the turnino: of that tool-house in the garden 
 
240 ANNETTE 
 
 into a room for some possible old woman, after I told 
 her how well the experiment of having old Hilary with 
 us had answered. Gregory, who is only too glad to do 
 anything for her which does not involve spending all his 
 evenings at home, or giving up any of his cherished 
 plans, promised to find an old woman for her, just as he 
 would have promised to look out for a dog, or a kitten, 
 or a parrot ; but nobody turned up who appeared in all 
 respects suitable, so the plan fell through. The room is 
 to be turned into an aviary now — he thinks that will 
 amuse her as much as anything. Somehow, I begin to 
 have an uncomfortable feeling as I think about them 
 both. Gregory has his face set towards the hill-top of 
 ambition ; Annette stays in the valley, not with good 
 words cheering him on, but rather wearying that he does 
 not stay by her in her lowlier path. And for neither of 
 them is there any true rest. 
 
 So I sit here in my quiet little room on this Christ- 
 mas Eve, when in so many a home loved ones from far 
 and near are gathering ; and I can feel thankful for the 
 loneliness which keeps back from me much of life's bitter 
 as well as its sweet. Not for me the joy of being worked 
 for, tended, prized by some one cleverer and stronger 
 than myself; but not for me, either, the restlessness of 
 a heart unsatisfied from itself ever lookino- back towards 
 something the present has failed to give. Of the past 
 I wish nothing again. It has gone, as all time must go, 
 but only for a little while, carrying my treasures into a 
 resting-place, to which by-and-by I myself shall win. 
 And, having that hope, which no spoiler's hand can 
 touch, my Christmas Eve is full of peace. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 February 1st. 
 
 T last I am home again, after that dreadful 
 three weeks in Cheltenham. Never before 
 have I been so entirely convinced of the 
 truth of what my dear mother used to 
 say — that the pleasantest part of a visit is the coming 
 back. Oh, the rest, the peace, the stillness of my own 
 fireside ! — the delight of being able to sit still and think 
 my own thoughts ! — the relief of having no longer to 
 pat myself en rcqjport with new characters, to shelve my 
 own individuality, and accommodate myself to theirs! 
 This is surely the most wearisome thing in the w^orld. 
 It always produces in me a kind of bewilderment, similar 
 to that which poor little Stump experienced in the 
 Abbotsby Workhouse. I don't know where I am, nor 
 what I am, and I get too much mixed up with every- 
 body else. 
 
 It is strange that, after knocking about for so many 
 weary years in India, where home is like the shell on a 
 snail's back, carried about from place to place at a 
 moment's notice, I should now be so loth to leave my 
 own fireside ; but so it is. I think in India I lived a 
 temporary life, adapting myself so patiently to necessary 
 evils, that I quite forgot to bemoan them as evils at alL 
 
242 ANNETTE 
 
 Now that I have returned to England, my real self has 
 returned to me, and being able once more to have things 
 as I like them, I find less willingness to endure having 
 them as I don't like them. 
 
 And then with me it is not merely leaving one's own 
 fireside, it is leaving one's habits, occupations, associa- 
 tions, everything, and turning out into a new world, so 
 entirely different from this prosaic, old-fashioned spot 
 where I hope to end my days. I wonder if my cousin 
 Delia had the least idea what it cost me to go and visit 
 her ? Did she know the days and days I spent in 
 putting myself into proper trim for that circle of society 
 in which she lives, moves, and has her being? Can she 
 realise the feelings wdiich possessed me when I beheld 
 myself in a " low black body," that mysterious style of 
 costume which the dressmaker imposed upon me as the 
 only thing admissible at an evening party in a place 
 like Cheltenham ? Does she know how pitifully I begged 
 for plenty of matronly black net to cover my arms and 
 shoulders, and how resolutely I fought against the ''plain 
 fronts " which are just now coming into fashion, and 
 which are so exceedingly uncomfortable for a well- 
 developed person like myself, especially in the position 
 of sitting down ? And those evening caps ! — oh ! what 
 they did cost me ! I don't mean in money — I could 
 have paid that willingly, for I am no niggard — but in 
 thought and consideration, and deliberation, and vigorous 
 intellectual efforts to realise the effect which the dress- 
 maker described with her little bit of pocket-handkerchief 
 as pattern. My dismay, too, when they were sent home, 
 and I first saw the change they produced in juxtaposition 
 
ANNETTE 243 
 
 with my solid, unromantic old face. I say Cousin Delia 
 must take all this into account before she knows hoio 
 much that visit to Cheltenham cost me, and when she 
 does know it, I don't believe she will ever ask me 
 again. 
 
 At least, I hope she won't. I am not made for 
 society. I do not adorn it. Neither— which is more to 
 the purpose — does it bring out what is best in me. 
 
 And then I did get so tired of being asked about 
 India. Some excellent people proposed my holding 
 meetings, drawing-room meetings — of course, for ladies 
 only — to give an account of my work in the zenanas. 
 Others asked me for "little sketches," to appear in 
 magazines. Others asked me to go to Sunday schools 
 and give addresses on Indian missions. Others, of no 
 special religious tendencies, trotted me out, or tried to 
 do so, on Hindoo social life and manners, influence of 
 civilisation and caste, etc., etc. As if I, who am 
 frightened at the sound of my own voice when I 
 try to string together tliree consecutive sentences in the 
 presence of as many people, could ever have done more 
 than make both myself and my subject ridiculous. 
 
 No. It has been my place to do, and not to talk. 
 Yonder is the work, a little lamp lighted here and there 
 in the thick darkness of the Hindoo woman's life, not 
 much attempt at what is called direct religious teaching, 
 for that means, to them, the absolute upheaval of their 
 whole family life, but only seeds of truth planted and 
 left to work their own way up through the soil, which is 
 already beginning to loosen and crumble round the 
 foundations of that hoary faith. By-and-by, wlien the 
 
 Q 2 
 
244 ANKETTE 
 
 temples have quietly mouldered away, those seeds, 
 having life within themselves, will bear much fruit. 
 
 But as for talking about these things, I never could 
 do it. I feel too strongly the difficulty of a subject 
 before which clever men doubt and differ. The glib 
 remarks I have heard sometimes from superficial, well- 
 meaning people, who dispose of the great Hindoo race as 
 easily as Dr. Byte disposed of the children of Israel, 
 though after a different fashion, have made me very chary 
 of venturing an opinion. And so people who came to 
 meet ''that excellent Miss Brown, from India, you 
 know," would most likely go away feeling she was all 
 a delusion. 
 
 The fashionable society was even more trying. "Was 
 I myself or was I somebody else, clasped by the above- 
 mentioned '' low black body " in some perfumed drawing- 
 room or other night after night ? Certainly I never felt 
 such a stranger to myself before, if it was indeed I. I 
 envy women who can move through these crowded rooms 
 with that apparent unconsciousness which is the highest 
 pitch of art ; women who can stand like paintings in an 
 exhibition, knowing that their dresses are of the best 
 material, that the set of their trains is faultless, that the 
 manner in which their draperies are looped behind can 
 excite only admiration and envy, that the crimson curtain 
 before which they have taken up their position is bring- 
 ino: out into more effective relief some favourite line of 
 cheek or forehead, some coil of braided hair, some fresh 
 beauty in the round white arm which rests so carelessly 
 on Diana's pedestal, and which is daring even Diana's 
 proportions to rival it. Such women must be supremely 
 
ANNETTE 245 
 
 happy. They make me wonder whether my stupid little 
 Abbotsby life is not all a mistake, whether I had not 
 better upset Keren and Stump, let my house, live in 
 fashionable lodgings, and learn what existence really 
 means. Such women ought to have rays of light 
 emanating from them. Wells of unfathomable content 
 — not to say lakes or oceans of the same — ought to 
 gleam beneath the lustrous brightness of their eyes. The 
 adoration paid to them in the great temple of Mammon, 
 which is their shrine, ought to produce the sublime, 
 lofty, indescribable calm which is the inalienable attribute 
 of an idol. There should never be any wrinkles at the 
 corners of their eyes, never anything but sweetness upon 
 the lips to which so many worshippers bend for smiles. 
 
 I wonder if it is so. Of course, not knowing, I cannot 
 say. But from the little I have heard I could almost 
 fancy that the destiny of these magnificent women of 
 fashion is something like that of the goddess Doorga, 
 who has such a great " pooja," or worship, offered to her 
 every year in Bengal. The rich people dress her up — 
 she is only framework underneath — heap upon her as 
 much tinsel and finery as she can carry, set her up in 
 their family temple, pray to her, feed her wdth richest of 
 cakes and sweetmeats for the space of a certain number 
 of days, then take her to the river, and quietly tumble 
 her in. Next year another framework is made, clothed, 
 fed, prayed to, petted, and drowned, in just the same 
 manner. So perhaps I am safest in my quiet little 
 Abbotsby home. 
 
 Mrs. Vermont invited us to what she said was a very 
 small dinner-party, and there I had to turn back again 
 
246 ANNETTE 
 
 to a page of events, the reading of which has ah-eady 
 given me a great deal of trouble. 
 
 But here comes Stump for her evening diet of reading, 
 writing, and arithmetic. Oh ! Stump, from what depths 
 of perplexit}^, wonder, and uncertainty does that whole- 
 some vegetable life of yours preserve you ! How little 
 you know of idols, or the trouble one is put to in wor- 
 shipping them, or of " pages " which must be read again 
 and again before their meaning is discovered, or of the 
 whips and stings which wait upon the sensitive soul as it 
 remembers the past or dreads the future ! Your calm 
 amplitude of content looks neither before nor after, and 
 sums up its simple story in the words : 
 
 " Law, ma'am, but I is glad I was took in here." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 February 2nd. 
 
 WAS going to say that I met Captain 
 Asperton at Mrs. Vermont's dinner-party. 
 If I had known that I should meet him 
 there, should I not have put the length of 
 the London and North Western Railway between myself 
 and Cheltenham ? I do not know. If my theory is true, 
 that things in this life do not come and go by chance, 
 then why need I trouble myself by asking at all ? I am 
 but the hook to which the chain is suspended, or the 
 scrap of paper — for that figure only too naturally suggests 
 itself to me — upon which the skein is wound. 
 
 Enough that at Mrs. Vermont's dinner-party I did 
 meet Captain Asperton ; and our hostess, supposing that 
 we should have some Indian remembrances in common, 
 so arranged it that I should be taken into the dining- 
 room by him, which involved a couple of hours of such 
 conversation as came uppermost. He has sold out of 
 the army, his health having broken down, and is now 
 spending some time at Cheltenham, that refuge for 
 Indian invalids. So is Mrs. Flexon, I am told ; not that 
 her health has broken down, people say she looks charm- 
 ing ; but probably she found St. John's Wood cold when 
 the east winds set in. 
 
248 ANNETTE 
 
 She is not in Mrs. Vermont's ''set/' nor in my cousin's, 
 and Cheltenham is a wide place, and I am too small a 
 person for my comings and goings to be talked about ; 
 or, doubtless, if ]\Irs. Flexon had heard that Captain 
 Asperton and I were likely to sit side by side at a dinner- 
 party, she would have put double the distance of the 
 London and Xorth "Western Railway between us before 
 any such catastrophe should have happened. 
 
 Of course I did not know who the guests were to be. 
 So far, I had been conscious of little else than a blaze of 
 light, a huDi of voices, a multitude of bare-shouldered, 
 much be-flowered ladies, and the pressure of my low 
 black silk, which I was wearing then for the first time, 
 when Mrs. Vermont came up to me, all smiles and ani- 
 mation, bringing with her a quiet, gentlemanly-looking 
 man of eight-and-twenty or thirty. After introducing 
 us she said : 
 
 " You know, dear Miss Brown, I was sure you would 
 be delighted to have a chat with Captain Asperton, so I 
 have arranged that he shall take you in to dinner. It 
 will be so interesting for you to talk over all those 
 curious temples and idols and things that we stupid 
 English people don't Imow anything about. Mrs. Dorri- 
 son " — this was to my cousin Delia — '' do let Captain 
 Asperton have your end of the couch, and I will take 
 you off to old Major Fitz- James. He has found out that 
 you know some friends of his up in the north, and he is 
 dying to have a long talk with you about them." 
 
 Upon what slight reasons do people nowadays resign 
 the thread of life, thought I to myself, as Cousin Delia 
 hurried away — no, she did 7iot hurry, she paced leisurely 
 
ANNETTE 249 
 
 along by Mrs. Vermont's side, the beautiful folds of her 
 purple silk gleaming beneath the chandelier — to rescue 
 I\Iajor Fitz- James from an untimely end, and Captain 
 Asperton took her vacant place, the man of all others 
 whom I wanted and yet did not want to see. 
 
 He is pleasant-looking, with what ought to be a good 
 face, except that there has crept into it a bitter expres- 
 sion. Not a man to play fast and loose, I should think, 
 with any girl's heart ; and not the man, either, to forget 
 if deceit or wickedness left its mark upon his path. 
 There is, of course, nothing military about him, except 
 his upright bearing. He rather lacks the frank, genial 
 manner which most men in the army generally acquire ; 
 indeed, there is a sort of reserve about him which rather 
 keeps one at a distance, just at first. 
 
 Somehow I felt, as one does now and then feel things 
 for which there is no definite argument, that I was 
 speaking to the man who ought to have been Annette 
 Lislethorpe's husband. 
 
 After the first few minutes I got along with him very 
 well, better, I think, than with most young men, because 
 of the gTavity and half shyness of his manner, and the 
 entire absence of that kindly condescension which an 
 unfashionable woman like myself generally meets with in 
 society. 
 
 We were still buzzing like flies round such Eastern 
 recollections as suggested themselves to us, when dinner 
 was announced. After we were arranged in our places, 
 I found myself face to face with a jolly, good-tempered 
 old lady, all smiles, white hair, and Honiton lace, whom 
 I already knew pretty well from having met her several 
 
250 ANNETTE 
 
 times at my cousin's little afternoon teas. We had taken 
 very kindly to each other, she being, like myself, un- 
 fashionable ; and she lived alone, and trained girls for 
 service, which was another bond of union between us. 
 
 " Miss Brown," she began, as we were playing with 
 our soup, " I don't suppose you care about gossip, but 
 still 5^ou will be glad to hear of the prospects of one of 
 your companions on board the Nmcah. Mrs. Flexon is 
 engaged to be married to Dr. Byte." 
 
 '' At last ! " I replied, rather spitefully, I must own, 
 for one never quite forgets being treated as that fasci- 
 nating woman used to treat me. 
 
 ''Well, yes," said the lively old lady, '^at last, for 
 they do say she has made one or two attempts before. 
 She has come to Cheltenliam now, to stay for a few weeks 
 with an old aunt, and be married from her house. Shall 
 you not call upon her ? " 
 
 " No, thank you. I think not." 
 
 "Do you know Mrs. Flexon?" said Captain Asperton, 
 facing round upon me in rather a determinate manner. 
 
 ''Yes," I replied, "we came home together in the 
 Naicdb, and she used to be particularly disagreeable to 
 my friend. Miss Lislethorpe." 
 
 Captain Asperton devoted himself assiduously to his 
 soup for a minute or two, and then said, in an undertone 
 scarcely noticeable through the hum of conversation : 
 
 " I don't wonder. Miss Lislethorpe deserved nothing 
 
 else." 
 
 "Miss Lislethorpe deserved everything else," I re- 
 plied, "and, at any rate, under the circumstances, 
 common politeness was due to her. But," I added, 
 
ANNETTE 251 
 
 seeing tliat the old lady's quick little gray eyes were 
 upon us, "this is not the place to talk over the merits 
 of one's friends. Miss Lislethorpe was a lady, and ought 
 to have been treated as such. Did you ever see the Taj 
 at Agra ? " 
 
 Captain Asperton took the hint, and we were soon 
 discussing Hindoo architecture with an interest which 
 lasted until tlie ladies rose from table. 
 
 As I expected would be the case, we found each other 
 out again after dinner. He came to me as I was turning 
 over some photographs in a quiet corner of the room, and 
 after a little conversation gradually leading up to the 
 subject, he said : 
 
 '' Miss Brown, I always like my friends to have justice 
 done to them, and apparently you have the same feeling. 
 If I am not trespassing too much upon our short ac- 
 quaintance, I should like very much to know why you 
 do not appreciate little Mrs. Flexon. Of course you said 
 nothing that you had not a perfect right to say, but I 
 have never heard any one speak of her yet, except with 
 interest. We used to be very good friends at Moorkee. 
 She was always most kind to me." 
 
 Most, indeed, 1' thought. Even to the extent of 
 separating you from the woman you loved. But she did 
 it for your good, no doubt. 
 
 '' I have nothing to say whatever about Mrs. Flexon," 
 I replied, quite pleasantly, determined that I would not 
 commit myself in any way just then, by making an 
 opening which might let in so much new light upon 
 Captain Asperton's mind. The whole thing had come 
 Lipon me too suddenly, I did not know what to think 
 
252 ANNETTE 
 
 much less what to say or do. Perhaps I ought not to 
 have expressed myself as I did about Mrs. Flexon. 
 Perhaps, by indulging myself in that spiteful little de- 
 liverance respecting her conduct to Annette, I had 
 damaged my opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
 the real state of things. How seldom one repents oneseF 
 of silence, how often the reverse ! 
 
 This much was clear to me. Captain Asperton was 
 staying in Cheltenham for some time. I could easily 
 communicate with him, if, after due reflection, I thought 
 it best to do so. And so, with an air of knowing, as 
 Stump expresses it, ''nuffin about anythink," I apolo- 
 gised for my hasty expressions, and said that perhaps 
 some day I should have the opportunity of talking to him 
 more fully than was possible just then, amidst the hum 
 and pleasant stir of Mrs. Vermont's drawing-room. 
 
 With that we began to discuss the beauties of 
 Cheltenham, a subject which lasted us until my cousin 
 came to tell me that the carriage was waiting. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 '^^^^"^^^UT all that niglit I lay awake, thinking, 
 thinking ; and the worst of it was that I 
 could bring my thoughts to no practical 
 result. 
 
 At first it seemed the most proper thing to write to 
 Annette and tell her I had seen Captain Asperton. But 
 then Gregory, who had met Captain Asperton himself, 
 would naturally ask what she knew about him, and that, 
 with Annette's strong instinct of reserve, would not be 
 pleasant for either of them. Again, it was just possible 
 that, as Mr. Justin had mentioned incidentally to me his 
 meeting with Captain Asperton somewhere on his travels, 
 he might have mentioned it also to Annette, with no 
 acknowledgment on her part of having known him herself, 
 and her husband might think that it showed a want of 
 openness. No, I must not write to Annette. 
 
 Then I might send a note to Captain Asperton, 
 asking him to come over to my cousin's house, and then 
 I could tell him all that I knew. 
 
 Again no. T'liat would be taking matters too much 
 into my own hands. I could not ask him to come 
 without telling him, when he came, all that he chose to 
 ask — and I had no right to do that without Annette's 
 
254 ANNETTE 
 
 permission. Finally I decided to do nothing at all until 
 I came home, and could talk quietly to Annette about it. 
 
 I need not have troubled myself. Captain Asperton 
 took the affair into his own hands. Early next morning, 
 on the pretext of bringing some magazines which my 
 cousin had expressed a wish to see, he came over to us, 
 and I had a long conversation with him. 
 
 I suppose people who are to be friends to each other 
 at all soon find it out. I began to have a pleasant, 
 elder-sisterly feeling towards this man, whose life — if 
 what I had heard was correct — had been spoiled by the 
 contrivances of an artful woman, in whom he still be- 
 lieved. We had had a good deal of talk before Cousin 
 Delia came in to us, though not about the matter which 
 was uppermost in my mind. I found that in many things 
 we could have real sympathy with each other, although 
 his experience had taught him to doubt human nature ; 
 and I was happy enough never to have been deceived in 
 anything which touched my life closely and permanently. 
 It was quite curious to me to find myself talking away 
 to him as if we had kno^ii each other for years. He 
 told me about his own Indian and Canadian experiences, 
 and about his plans and purposes, now that his military 
 career was at an end. He said he meant to take a little 
 farm somewhere amongst the Surrey hills, and shut 
 himself up there, and be independent of everybody. 
 
 "The less one has to do with the world the better," 
 he said. '' One never knows how thino^s will turn out in 
 it. I have found it a very great fallacy to suppose that 
 in social life a man reaps what he sows. So far as I am 
 concerned, it has generally been exactly the contrary, so 
 
(( 
 
 (( 
 
 ANNETTE 255 
 
 I am going to take to agriculture, just to see whether 
 tares do come up as a natural result of wheat seed, or 
 whether, when you have done your best, old mother 
 earth mocks you, as the soil of human nature does— just 
 slaps you in the face for your pains." 
 You are bitter," I said. 
 
 Perhaps I am. Thank heaven for yourself that you 
 are not the same, for I can assure you it is not at all a 
 pleasant state of mind. What wouldn't I give if I could 
 trust the world as you seem to have done ? " 
 
 ''Perhaps I waited rather longer before I did trust 
 it," I replied, having Mrs. Flexon in my mind, of whom 
 he had said, in the course of our conversation, that she 
 impressed liim as a woman of such a very simple and 
 innocent mind. The fair complexion and the smoothly 
 banded hair had done it, of course, combined with those 
 pure white ruffles, coming out in such lovely relief upon 
 the crape. 
 
 But just then Cousin Delia came in, and we returned 
 to generalities. As he was going away, he asked if he 
 might drive me to see some old ruins in the neighbour- 
 hood ; and as I did not at all dislike the idea of bettering 
 my acquaintance with him, I very gladly fell in with the 
 proposal. 
 
 "And now, will you tell me," he said, as we were 
 speeding along through the frosty January air, "why 
 you spoke as you did about Mrs. Flexon last night ? It 
 was not what you said. It was the way in which you 
 said it." 
 
 So, being now prepared with what I meant to say, I 
 told him of my coming home in the same ship with 
 
256 ANNETTE 
 
 Annette, and of Mrs. Flexon being one of our fellow- 
 passengers, and of the little scrap of paper which she 
 flung away, which turned out to be an envelope addressed 
 to Miss Lislethorpe. How, when I showed it to Annette, 
 she identified the writing as his own, but said that she 
 had never received any letter from him, so that there 
 must have been a misunderstanding somewhere. And 
 then I went on to tell him how, when I asked Mrs. Flexon 
 for an explanation, she had entirely refused to give me 
 any, and had, moreover, been very rude to me, and had 
 tried to get the envelope into her possession again, which 
 of course I had declined to allow\ I then told him the 
 address, and the date in the corner, September 7th, 
 which I had copied. 
 
 He was silent for a little while, as if trying to remem- 
 ber. Then he said that about that time he had ^Titten 
 a note to Miss Lislethorpe, and \mtten it from Mrs. 
 Flexon's house, and entrusted it to her to be sent to the 
 Parsonage. 
 
 " No doubt she sent it all right," he continued, as if 
 making light of the whole affair. '' But, you know, girls 
 are careless creatures. They do let their letters lie 
 about so." 
 
 And a very scornful expression came over his face as 
 he said this. 
 
 ''Most likely she stuffed it into that dainty little 
 embroidered pocket she used to wear, along with a lot of 
 other things ; and next time she went to call upon 
 Mrs. Flexon, she pulled it out with her handkerchief, or 
 some of those specimens of moss and leaves she was 
 always carrying about with her, and never missed it." 
 
ANNETTE 257 
 
 " No," I said, " it was not so. Annette Lislethorpe 
 told me herself, when we were trying to find out some 
 explanation of it, that she had never received a letter of 
 any kind from you in her life ; and she should not have 
 known the handwriting, except that she had seen it 
 when you had written to her father about men in the 
 regiment." 
 
 '' That is curious," he said. '' Are you quite sure 
 she told you that ? " 
 
 "Quite sure," I replied. " I remember every single 
 little thing which happened about that envelope, because 
 I felt, somehow, that there was something wrong about 
 it, and I wanted very much, for Annette's sake, to find 
 it out." 
 
 " I should think there rather tvas something wrong ; 
 but never mind, I won't trouble you about it. Just 
 another instance, you know," he added, carelessly, '' of 
 sowing wheat and reaping tares. A dreadfully risky 
 thing. Miss Brown, for an honest man to take to, that 
 sort of farming. Then did you happen to know Miss 
 Lislethorpe at Moorkee ? '' 
 
 " No, not intimately. I used to see her riding about 
 sometimes, but I went into company very little there. 
 Shortly afterwards I heard of her father's death." 
 
 " So did I. Poor man ! But he had had his share 
 of good things out of the world, and the Church too. I 
 should not think it would make much difference to the 
 young lady, either. She was just on the point of being 
 married to that rich old civilian, Mr. Moberley, when I 
 went away." 
 
 '' Indeed, you are quite mistaken, Captain Asperton." 
 
258 ANNETTE 
 
 " No, I am not," he replied, almost rudely. " They 
 were engaged to each other — Mrs. Flexon told me so — 
 and her father was delighted with the match. That is 
 the way girls do who have been brought up at those 
 fashionable London schools. I might have known ! A 
 toothless old bit of parchment, as yellow as the scrip on 
 which his money was written ! " 
 
 '' Well, I never saw himself, and it is not of the least 
 consequence to me what colour he was, or how few teeth 
 he had. But I do know this, for Miss Lislethorpe told 
 me herself, that she never was engaged to him ; and I 
 know her well enough to be sure that she never 
 wished it." 
 
 '' Oh, indeed ! So she became confidential with you 
 — another pretty way that girls have — to match letting 
 letters drop out of their pockets." 
 
 '' "Which they don't do. Captain Asperton." 
 
 " Very well, if you like to have it so. And, pray, did 
 Miss Lislethorpe make any more confidences to you ? " 
 
 " No. Annette Lislethorpe is not a girl to make 
 confidences to any one. And I think. Captain Asperton, 
 you might have more charity than to thrust such in- 
 sinuations against a girl who was coming home an orphan 
 and poor and friendless, and with no one to speak a kind 
 word to her." 
 
 " Was that it ? " 
 
 '' Yes, that u-as it. Her father left her literally with- 
 out anything, and she was working her passage home in 
 the same ship I came by, as companion to the great lady 
 who sat at the captain's right. At least, the lady called 
 it companion, but it was really maid-of-all-work, for the 
 
ANNETTE 259 
 
 poor girl never had a moment to herself. I suppose it 
 would have gone on like that to the end, only her health 
 finite broke down, and so the arrangement had to be 
 given up, and I asked her to come and stay with me at 
 Abbotsby instead." 
 
 '' Poor Annette — poor Miss Lislethorpe ! I mean. I 
 did not think it was so bad as that. What a brute 
 somebody must have been ! Where is she now ? " 
 
 "She is liviug at Abbotsby. She is married to 
 Mr. Justin, the Recorder." 
 
 " You don't say so ! I met him once, hunting in the 
 interior — a capital good fellow too, only I should have 
 thought him a gTeat deal too old for her. And is she all 
 right ? " 
 
 I said that probably she was, and there the conversa- 
 tion dropped. He kept on talking to me about other 
 things, but I could see that his thoughts were far away. 
 Sometimes there were breaks of silence from which he 
 would wake up with a start, and begin explaining to me 
 the beauties of the neighbourhood, as if I did not know 
 well enough that the neighbourhood was quite a secondary 
 consideration now. As we were nearing home, he turned 
 to me and said : 
 
 ''You are quite sure that Miss Lislethorpe never 
 had any letter from me ? " 
 
 " I am quite sure she said so." 
 ''• Then I must have it out with Mrs. Flexon." 
 And from the expression of his face, I should say he 
 is an awkward man to have anything '' out " with. 
 
 R 2 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 vHAT was only two days before I came away 
 from Cheltenham. Captain Asperton must 
 have plenty of food for reflection now. I 
 suppose I might reasonably have turned 
 the tables upon him, and asked why he had been so 
 bitter upon poor Annette, but it was not my place to 
 betray any knowledge, either of her affairs or his. The 
 affair of the envelope was now quite cleared up, so far 
 as Mrs. Flexon's guilt was concerned. How I should 
 like to have confronted her there and then ! "Without 
 doubt she had opened the letter, destroyed it, and then, 
 by one of those unaccountable pieces of forgetfulness 
 which sometimes mar the most cleverly concerted 
 schemes, had omitted to destroy the envelope too, and 
 so the whole of the transaction had come to light, as 
 such things generally do, sooner or later. 
 
 I wondered very much if I should tell Annette about 
 it, but that too was settled for me. Captain Asperton 
 came again next day, and told me that he should pro- 
 bably be coming to Abbotsby before long. He said he 
 could make it out on his way to Edinburgh, where he 
 was engaged to be groomsman at a wedding in February 
 or March. 
 
ANNETTE 261 
 
 I said what was the least I could say under the cir- 
 cumstances — that I should be very glad to see him at 
 my house, if he could put up with my primitive habits 
 of life. He said he should be delighted to come. I 
 don't feel at all afraid of him. He is not the sort of 
 man that will laugh either at Stump or Keren. I think 
 his experience, so far in the w^orld, has taught him that 
 it is not an unpleasant change occasionally to live out 
 of it. 
 
 He told me, too, that he had called upon Mrs. Flexon, 
 but she sent apologies for not being able to see him — 
 she had such a wretched headache. He then wrote a 
 note, asking her to name some time for an interview, as 
 he had matters of business to talk over with her ; and 
 when I said good-bye to him, he w^as still waiting for an 
 answer. 
 
 I must say I should like to be present at that inter- 
 view. I fancy Mrs. Flexon's elegant self-possession will 
 scarcely support her tln-ougli the ordeal ; and in this 
 case the raillery which served her so well when I asked 
 for an explanation cannot be brought into play. It is to 
 be a matter of business. Most probably she will get 
 over it by professing entire loss of memory — a most 
 useful thing to profess upon some occasions. If that 
 w^ill not do, she is just the woman to face the thing 
 boldly out by saying that she did give the letter ; and 
 as a gentleman rather naturally shrinks from accusing a 
 lady of falsehood, the conventions of society will protect 
 her. Anyhow, I am quite sure she will be protected. 
 When did pretty ways like hers fail to serve the user of 
 them ? And when those round white eyelids are lifted 
 
262 ANNETTE 
 
 for an appealing glance from the translucent orbs be- 
 neath, I am sure any jury of English gentlemen will 
 give their verdict in the defendant's favour. 
 
 I cannot help wondering how much the loss of that 
 letter may have meant to Captain Asperton. I have a 
 very strong feeling that it was of no trifling moment — 
 that it had some connection with the doubts which Mrs. 
 Flexon had contrived to insinuate into his mind respect- 
 ing Annette's straightforwardness. The conversation I 
 heard between those two ladies on board the Naicah 
 threw a good deal of light upon the transaction. My 
 theory is now, that Mrs. Flexon worked herself into 
 Captain Asperton's confidence, made him believe that 
 Annette had just been amusing herself with him, whilst 
 she was really engaged to the old civilian. Then she 
 got him to write and remonstrate with the girl, and 
 entrust the letter to her for delivery. Of course, she 
 never sent it, and Captain Asperton, receiving no reply, 
 would naturally think that his conjectures had been 
 correct. 
 
 The only thing in which her machinations had failed 
 was the transfer of Captain Asperton's affections to her- 
 self. She had very much mistaken his character there, 
 but probably she had given up regTetting that little 
 awkwardness, as some one else quite as eligible had 
 turned up, and the wedding had been fixed. In her 
 search for a husband, Mrs. Flexon possesses the happy 
 art, when she cannot have what she likes, of liking what 
 she has, and doubtless she and Dr. Byte will be very 
 happy in their OAvn way, unless whispers should reach 
 him of what she did at Moorkee. 
 
ANNETTE 263 
 
 Oh ! the wrong that a wicked woman may do ! To 
 think of Annette and her lover as I saw them that sunny 
 day among the pine-trees on the hillside, so ignorant of 
 pain, so full of trust in their own happiness, and to think 
 of them now — he old before his time with the age that 
 bitterness and suspicion bring, spoiled for any more real 
 rest or comfort in life, ready to doubt everything — love, 
 religion, truth, honour ; she languid and unhopeful, for 
 ever dwelling upon an unexplained past, wearying over 
 what might have been, until all the sweetness is taken 
 out of what actually is ; and then to think how different 
 both their lives if only Mrs. Flexon could have let them 
 alone 1 
 
 If I had not a fast anchorage, I should begin to 
 doubt too. Or if I believed it all, I should believe as 
 Captain Asperton does, that the wicked have it their 
 own way in this world, come what may in the next. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 I am glad to come back to my own little 
 home, which, having no dazzling sunshine 
 upon it, can have no heavy shadows either, 
 only that afternoon light of content, which, 
 I am beginning to think, is best of all. 
 
 Stump was at the station to meet me, her ftice all one 
 brick-red smile of delight. What a curtsy she did 
 make, to be sure, and how she seized upon all my bags 
 and boxes, and how she began at once to tell me all the 
 small household occurrences, much to the amusement of 
 a very stiff lady who had been my companion in the 
 railway carriage. Probably the lady thought I was some 
 country bumpkin who had been out for a Christmas holi- 
 day, and that Stump, who had put on all her best clothes, 
 was my daughter. Well, never mind if she did. I 
 could not find it in my heart to check the poor girl's 
 honest expressions of satisfaction at having me home 
 again. 
 
 Keren had made the house a perfect paradise of 
 warmth and cleanliness. The dear old woman, in her 
 white frilled cap, tied under the chin with substantial 
 muslin strings, did look such a contrast to the flimsy 
 Cheltenham maids who had vexed me with their endless 
 
ANNETTE 265 
 
 flounces and furbelows. The first thing I saw when I 
 went into the parlour, was a bouquet of ferns and flowers 
 from Annette's little greenhouse, and whilst I was 
 admiring it, Hilary came in with her duty and respects 
 to '' the missis," and would I accept of a dish of brussels 
 sprouts which she had brought, covered with a clean 
 white cloth. 
 
 " They've growed, ma'am, in the bit of ground you 
 was so kind as to let me have, behind the little room, 
 and I've been a- watching of 'em this fortnight past, and 
 helping of 'em on as much as ever I could, thinking 
 happen there might be a boiling ready against you comed 
 home, if you wouldn't think it over-much making free 
 to ask you to accept of them." 
 
 Dear old Hilary ! She will be the same to her dying 
 day. How many a backache she must have given her- 
 self in cultivating and planting out that little patch of 
 sprouts, and "watching of 'em," and gathering them ! 
 It is her heart's delight to do anything for those who 
 have been good to her. But indeed she does not confine 
 her goodness to them. I heard, before I went away, of 
 her going to sit up all night by the bedside of a man who 
 had many and many a time tempted her husband away 
 on his drunken bouts, and who is now dying of consump- 
 tion. The world is not made up of Mrs. Flexons, after 
 all. 
 
 "When I was rested, Keren took me round to show 
 how tight and trim she had kept everything during my 
 absence. Keren begins to look like a winter apple 
 towards the end of March, rather shrivelled and worse 
 for wear, but I dare say she has some years of work before 
 
266 ANNETTE 
 
 lier yet, especially with such a willing help as Stump, 
 who is able now to take most of the heavy work off her 
 hands. I think Keren will be the next occupant of the 
 little room by the greenhouse. Like myself she has no 
 near kith or kin, and she has been here so long that the 
 place would scarcely seem like home without her. 
 
 Oh ! the delight of being at my own fireside again ! 
 After all, I do think I shall make a practice of going 
 away once a year or so, just for the satisfaction of coming 
 back. It is so pleasant to be able to do just as you like, 
 to set yourself to rights, as it were, gather up the loose 
 threads and go on with the pattern of life again, putting 
 in a dash of fresh colour here and there, that you have 
 brought home with you. How I smiled to myself as my 
 dear good cousin Delia, who really was most kind to me, 
 pitied me for having to come home to a lonely house, 
 with no one to welcome me, no one to whom I could 
 recount the little details of my visit. 
 
 "Really, Hester, my dear," she said, "I can't think 
 what you were about all those years, and in India, too, 
 where they say there are such shoals of unappropriated 
 men. Why, if you had been half wide awake, you would 
 have picked up a civilian, or something of that sort, and 
 been coming home now on your fifteen hundred a year. 
 I must say, my dear, you have managed very badly.'' 
 
 Well, perhaps so I have. I half thought it myself as 
 I watched those well-dressed women moving about in the 
 Cheltenham drawing-rooms, many of them wives of old 
 civilians of the type that my cousin would have liked 
 me to '' pick up " ; and so very well got up in velvet and 
 satin and no end of costly Indian jewellery. But then I 
 
ANNETTE 267 
 
 remembered the image of Doorga, and liow she was 
 popped into the water when she was done with, and I 
 must say that reflection restrained my feelings. 
 
 Then "nobody to welcome me!" As if Hilary's 
 sweet old smile, and Keren's honest shake of the hand, 
 and Stump's broad laugh of utter content, were not some- 
 thing of a welcome. And when I was left to myself at 
 last, all the sweet memories of bygone years in this home 
 came thronging round me, like birds that have been 
 scared away for a little while, but are only waiting to 
 return to the hand that feeds them. Nay, Cousin Delia, 
 you need not pity me. I am really more happy than 
 you can think. 
 
 You might with better reason pity Annette Justin in 
 her beautiful home, with that bitter "might have been " 
 always fretting at her heart, and her husband so busy 
 now, making himself a great name in the world, that he 
 has scant time left to spend with the wife who will 
 perhaps not want him much longer. 
 
 Poor Annette ! I went to see her last night. 
 Gregory looked in in the morning to give me a welcome 
 home, but said she was not very well and would be so 
 glad if I would go and sit with her. He was going to 
 the Club, where he had asked some gentlemen to meet 
 him at dinner. The old story. 
 
 Of course I was only too glad to go, and glad that 
 Mr. Justin should be away for once, as that gave me a 
 better opportunity for telling all that I had to tell. 
 
 If one must go away from one's home for the joy of 
 coming back to it, one must also leave one's friends 
 sometimes to tell how the weeks and months are dealing 
 
263 ANNETTE 
 
 with them. Poor Annette looks pale and thin. She 
 moves abont in a listless way which tells either of bodily 
 ailment or of that mental weariness which is so mnch 
 harder to bear. The servant told me she was in the 
 drawing-room, so I went qnietly upstairs and found her, 
 with the lamps still unlighted, sitting in a great chair 
 before the fire, her hands clasped in her lap, her head 
 half buried in the soft crimson cushions, such an expres- 
 sion of languor and e?mui in her whole attitude. 
 
 I felt very sorry for her. She ought not to be left 
 alone in this way. I don't suppose her husband, with 
 his full, eager, well-cultivated mind and animated interest 
 ill life, can quite understand what it is for her to be 
 thrown in upon herself, with no food for thought except 
 that which a past, whose bitterness he does not know, 
 can supply. Annette is taking no root here in Abbotsby ; 
 she is gathering round herself neither interests nor occu- 
 pations ; and Gregory is so busy with his own that he 
 cannot see the evil effect this sort of thing is beginning 
 to have upon her. I did not see it myself really, until 
 last night. 
 
 But I am "sorry for him, too. It is hard for a man 
 with so much power of work, so much lying around him 
 to do, if only he could give himself entirely to it, to find 
 no sympathy at home ; to be able to kindle no ardour 
 like his own when he talks about his favourite subjects, 
 or the position he would like to make for himself. I 
 don't wonder that he gets tired of it, and begins to build 
 up the house of life outside of his own home. Gregory 
 Justin must have both excitement and sympathy some- 
 where. 
 
ANNETTE 269 
 
 Annette did brighten up a little when I went in, and 
 I sat down beside her there in the firelight, and we had 
 a long talk about my visit, and Cousin Delia, and Mrs. 
 Vermont, and the Cheltenham gaieties, before I came to 
 the real kernel of my story. 
 
 ''But come, Annette," I said, when I was quite 
 ready to tell her about the most important thing, '' has 
 nothing happened all the time I have been away ? 
 Haven't you anything to tell me ? I am sure I have 
 given you plenty of news, and you have not told me a 
 single thing.' 
 
 Annette stretched herself wearily in the great easy- 
 chair, and crossed her little slippered feet, and turned to 
 find a softer resting-place for the pretty head which was 
 nestling amongst the crimson cushions. 
 
 "No," she said, ''nothing ever does happen here. 
 You know I have given up calling now, it was such a 
 trouble, so the people don't come to see me, which is a 
 great relief. And then Gregory is at work day and night 
 over his writing. He says the farther he gets into it, the 
 more difficult the subject becomes ; and yet if he gives 
 it up, all the previous labour would be lost, so he must 
 go on. When he is not busy over that, he is seeing 
 people at the Club. We have given over having dinner- 
 parties now, it was more than I could manage. But I 
 did try, Miss Brown, I really did." 
 
 "I know you did, darhng," I replied, kissing her 
 thin cheek, " and you kept to it bravely, as long as you 
 were able. I am sure Mr. Justin saw that, and he does 
 not want you now to do it any more. When we have got 
 through this sharp winterly weather you will be ever so 
 
270 ANNETTE 
 
 much stronger, and then company will not be such a 
 weariness to you. What you have to do now is to take 
 care of yourself, or somebody will think his little wife is 
 losing all her roses." 
 
 For indeed I noticed, after three weeks of absence, 
 what had never really struck me before, how something 
 seemed to be eating away the roundness and 5^outh from 
 Annette's face. She is letting her life slip away from her, 
 simply because she has not enough interest in it to hold 
 it fast. She might be bright and strong and happ)^, if only 
 she could live in the present and make its opportunities 
 her own ; but she is gradually losing the power to do 
 this. A little more consideration from Gregory, a little 
 more stooping from his own level of intellectual life to 
 supply the needs of her entirely different nature, just a 
 little more effort on her part to meet him on his own 
 ground and give him a companionship which would keep 
 its interest when the first charm of beauty and grace 
 had passed away, and all would have been well. Xow 
 an uncomfortable feeling creeps over me that it is too late. 
 
 '' But, Annette," I said, " I have kept the most won- 
 derful thing until the last. I met Captain Asperton at 
 one of Mrs. Vermont's dinner-parties, and afterwards I 
 told him all the story about Mrs. Flexon and the en- 
 velope, and it is just as I thought. He did wi'ite to 
 you, from Mrs. Flexon's house too, and he entrusted the 
 letter to her to be sent to you ; and instead of that she 
 must have opened it and kept it, the wicked woman ! 
 I was sure some day we should find out all about it, but 
 I never expected to come across Captain Asperton in 
 that way." 
 
ANNETTE 271 
 
 Annette did brighten up now, though not so much as 
 I had expected. I could not tell her Jiow glad I was. I 
 could only speak of the whole affair as just a matter of 
 Ijusiness, not anything touching, as I knew it did touch, 
 two human lives that ought to have been one. Mrs. 
 Flexon had been very deceitful, and now her deceit was 
 found out. That was all I could express any satisfaction 
 about. And, indeed, Annette herself did not let me see 
 that it stirred her more deeply. With all her weakness 
 of body there is wonderful power of self-control about 
 her. Never, except that one morning in our cabin, has 
 she dropped that veil of reserve which is so strange in 
 one of her affectionate nature. And until she gives me 
 leave, I cannot, even by a look, tell her that I know 
 anything. 
 
 ''But," I continued, after she had asked me a few 
 general questions about Captain Asperton, how he was 
 looking, and what he was doing, and what brought him 
 to Cheltenham — questions which any friend might ask 
 of any other friend — " I hope by-and-by you will see him 
 yourself, and then, of course, he can clear it all up much 
 better than he could with me. He has to go to somebody's 
 wedding in Edinburgh the end of this month, or the 
 beginning of the next, and he says he can easily make 
 out Abbotsby on his way. We took very kindly to each 
 other, and I said I should be very glad to see him for a 
 day or two, if he cared to stay with me ; so he is coming, 
 and then, perhaps, we shall hear what Mrs. Flexon says 
 about it, for when I came away he was waiting for an 
 answer to a note in which he had asked for an interview 
 with her upon a matter of business. I do wish I could 
 
272 ANNETTE 
 
 be there. I should like for once to see Mrs. Flexon 
 driven into a corner. What do you think about it all, 
 Annette ? " 
 
 Annette flung her arms round me and kissed mo 
 many times. 
 
 " I think you are a dear, good, delightful old creature, 
 almost the best friend I ever had, and I wish I could 
 ever do half as much for you as you have done for me. 
 But I can so tired. Please let me be alone now, and we 
 will talk about it again to-morrow. Everything seems 
 so strange just now.' 
 
 Her instinct was best. I came away, for I knew she 
 needed no company of mine that night. 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 Uth. 
 
 E have had no more conversation about it 
 since, except in the most general way. 
 Whatever else, as friends, Annette and I 
 may lack, we certainly do not lack that 
 respect for each other which prevents us from prying 
 into matters not belonging to us. 
 
 But Mr. Justin came in a day or two afterwards, to 
 say how much good my return appeared to have done to 
 his wife. She was so much brighter and more cheerful, 
 indeed, sometimes quite like a different creature, and 
 never seemed to find the time long when she was left to 
 herself. 
 
 "Which, you know," he added, ''is very convenient 
 just now, because I must go on with my paper for the 
 Review, If one does not take up a popular subject when 
 it is fresh in the minds of the people, it is no use taking- 
 it up at all. The public now are wide awake about 
 sanitation and all that sort of thing. In a few months' 
 time it will have passed over, and I question whether an 
 article upon it would get admission into any of the good 
 serials. So, you see, I am very anxious to finish it." 
 " Like the gentleman," I said, " who rushed from the 
 
 s 
 
274 ANNETTE 
 
 shop with the new bonnet for his wife, lest it should be 
 old-fashioned before he got it home." 
 
 '' Well, yes, something like it. But, you know, we 
 must take things as we find them. The fashions of the 
 public interest change like all other fashions, and what 
 we have to do is to present a supply of the article whilst 
 the demand lasts. It is a gTeat nuisance to have manu- 
 scripts lying useless in one's desk, simply because the 
 subjects of which they treat have passed out of the 
 public mind." 
 
 "Exactly," I replied. 
 
 '"And Annette does not understand that sort of 
 thing, you see. She has a sort of notion of taking up a 
 subject and keeping it in soak for a year or two, reading 
 a bit about it now and then, and thinking it over at 
 leisure, and so giving myself plenty of time between to 
 chat with her and drive out together and so on." 
 
 " Well, would you like her not to think so ? Would 
 you like her to be able to do entirely without you ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Not entirely, of course. I like a woman to be 
 dependent on me. Only, you see, in such times as ours, 
 if a man wants to do anything, to make any sort of career 
 for himself, he must give himself to it. It is no use 
 doing things by halves. The same with my interest in 
 public affairs in the town. It is no use dabbling ; you 
 must go right in for them, and Annette can't see that, 
 either." 
 
 " Well, I don't wonder at it. She has no special 
 pursuits to give her life an interest apart from your own, 
 and she has not health enough to be always going about 
 
ANNETTE 275 
 
 and amusing' herself. Indeed, I think she is far from 
 strong now. I thought her looking quite altered when I 
 came home." 
 
 " Did you, though ? I am sure I had not noticed it 
 myself. She has been just a little bit whiny the last 
 few weeks, so much so that I never worry her now about 
 having people to dinner. I always see them at my Club, 
 which is a great relief to her, you know, poor little thing ! 
 But in another month or six weeks I shall get this writing 
 off my mind, and then I really will take her away for 
 change. We will have a trip to Paris or something of 
 that sort, and you must go with us ; or I don't know 
 whether it wouldn't be better for j'ou two to go some- 
 where by yourselves, she does think such a great deal 
 about being with you." 
 
 How easily Mr. Justin arranges things ! I listened 
 and said nothing, and he continued : 
 
 "You know it has made all the difference in the 
 world to her, your coming back. She is really not like 
 the same girl. You can talk about old times together, 
 and you have known the same people in India, and she 
 feels at home with you, as, of course, she cannot feel 
 with any one who calls upon her here. Annette is 
 wonderfully slow in making new friends. She might 
 have a delightful circle in Abbotsby, if she only cared 
 for it, and several of the county people would be quite 
 glad to notice her. It would be a gTeat advantage to 
 me, too, if she were a little fonder of society. A man 
 who wants to do good in public affairs and give himself 
 to them at all, is so hampered if— well, you know what 
 I mean." 
 
 s 2 
 
276 ANNETTE 
 
 Yes, of course I knew what lie meant. I dropped 
 the subject of Annette's health, because I saw he was 
 too full of other interests then to give it proper con- 
 sideration. I begin to think she will never have now 
 what she really needs to set her right again, unless, as I 
 said before, she is attacked by one of those illnesses 
 which come so opportunely in story-books. Then her 
 husband's tenderness, which is all there still, only buried 
 under this load of " public interests," would come to the 
 top again, and things would go on better. But I must 
 hold my peace. 
 
 21st. 
 
 I have had a letter this morning from Captain 
 Asperton, to say that, if convenient, he will come to me 
 on the 25th, to stay one night. The wedding is taking 
 place rather earlier than was expected, and so much the 
 better, for I am sure his visit will do Annette good, 
 come what may. She has been so much Ijrighter since 
 she had it to look forward to. 
 
 Keren and Stump are quite in a small fever about it. 
 Keren is especially exercised about the waiting at table. 
 She thinks, and rightly, too, that Stump, spite of her 
 many excellencies, will never make a brilliant figure in 
 that department, and she suggests our having a smart 
 young housemaid or professed waiter for the occasion. 
 
 Poor Keren ! Captain Asperton's mind will be quite 
 otherwise employed than in taking note of Stump's defi- 
 ciencies, or her own. And I say that I have no wish to 
 be seen by my guests otherwise than as I always am. 
 The essence of hospitality, as I understand it, is in 
 making a guest like one of yourselves, letting him see 
 
ANNETTE 277 
 
 the home as it really is, letting him be welcomed into 
 your ordinary life, not into one polished up and put into 
 requisition for the occasion. Keren assents, but is making 
 herself a new muslin cap to wait in, nevertheless. 
 
 Annette received the news of his coming very quietly ; 
 as she receives everything now. Gregory is quite right 
 in saying that she has been much more cheerful lately. 
 Sometimes of an evening he remarks that she gets quite 
 a colour, brighter even than that she used to have on 
 board the Naicab towards the close of the voyage. Poor 
 Gregory ! Those public engagements blind him to a 
 great deal which might otherwise make him anxious. A 
 colour that only comes at night, as Annette's comes now, 
 and leaves her next morning so pale and wan, is not the 
 sort of colour to be very happy about. I will wait until 
 Captain Asperton's visit is over, and then, whether the 
 Sanitation article is finished or not, I will tell him 
 plainly that his wife needs the best medical ad\dce in 
 Abbotsby. 
 
 I expect he ought to have taken her away before the 
 winter set in, to the Isle of Wight, or Hastings, or one 
 of those sheltered places, so that the change from India 
 might have been less trying. Only he was so bent on 
 cementing his acc^uaintance with some of the literary 
 people who were staying in the neighbourhood just then, 
 that it quite escaped his memory. I remember now 
 that when they were first married he had quite made up 
 his mind to take her away in November. He said it 
 would be simple madness to let her stay in Abbotsby 
 after the damp and east wind set in. He was a wise 
 man then. But we shall see. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 2Qih. 
 
 i^^HE important visit is over. Captain Asperton 
 left this afternoon, and I mnst say I am 
 somewhat ghxd of the quiet, both of mind 
 and body, which returns with his departure. 
 
 Keren, in her new muslin cap and the print she wore at 
 Annette's wedding, did wonders. Slie really seemed to 
 have renewed her youth for the occasion, and Stump 
 was profoundly impressed with the honour put upon her, 
 in being permitted to minister to the necessities of one 
 of ''them there fighting gentlemen." 
 
 But the poor girl was sorely disappointed when the 
 ''fighting gentleman" made his appearance in the pepper- 
 and-salt of an ordinary civilian, with a wide-awake 
 hat, and travelling-rug, and little black bag, like any 
 other man. I believe she fully expected he would swoop 
 down upon us in all the glories of scarlet and gold, with 
 a cocked hat on his head, a sword by his side, spurs on 
 his heels, and a row of medals on the left breast of his 
 coat, like Keren's picture of the Duke of Wellington 
 which hangs over the kitchen mantelshelf. And that he 
 would bring a band of music with him, too, or at any 
 rate be announced by flourish of trumpets. 
 
 I saw her round face beaming with the most intense 
 excitement behind the banisters, as the cab drove up. 
 
ANNETTE 279 
 
 Then there was a sudden dive into the kitchen, followed 
 by mysterious whispers, and Keren's appearance on the 
 scene of action ; and an hour later, when the hero of 
 the afternoon had driven to see Mrs. Justin, Stump 
 unbosomed herself to me in the parlour. 
 
 " Law ! ma'am, he don't look a bit different to the 
 ruck of the quality. Keren and me was floundered ever 
 so. We didn't know they went about like that, not but 
 what it stands to reason as it must be a deal con- 
 venienter than having their swords and all the rest, as 
 I'm sure I was fair beat to think how he would frame at 
 dinner-time, with such a lot of things dangling round 
 about him, and me handing him the plates, as I should 
 be sure to get caught in 'em." 
 
 And Stump disappeared to assist in the preparation 
 of the little supper I had ordered for ten o'clock. 
 
 It was a very quiet Kttle supper. Captain Asperton 
 not seeming inclined to talk, and I knowing too well the 
 delight of being left to one's own thought to attempt to 
 infringe upon that privilege in his case. What little 
 he did say was chiefly about Annette's feeble health, 
 which is now so patent, even to her husband, that the 
 best consulting physician in Abbotsby has been sent for. 
 
 Next morning we breakfasted with the Justins. 
 Gregory Avas in one of his brightest, most genial moods. 
 He showed Captain Asperton all the interesting old bits 
 of carving in the house, and told him the histories 
 connected with them ; brought out his store of line 
 engTavings and copies of etchings by Albert Dlirer, the 
 curiosities collected in India, old Mr. .Justin's coins and 
 medals, took him into the library to see a fine old set of 
 
280 ANNETTE 
 
 plates of the Abbey, and really did everything he could 
 to make the visit a pleasant one. 
 
 After breakfast he ordered the carriag-e, and proposed 
 that -whilst he went to the Club to meet one or two public 
 men with whom he had an engagement on town business, 
 we should drive to the library and Abbey and Guild 
 courts, and see whatever was worth seeing in the place. 
 
 How pleasant it was, and how easy and courteous we 
 were with each other, none of us bringing up the past by 
 a single word, though I dare say it was in all of our 
 thoughts ! Annette, muffled in furs and sealskin, looked 
 better than I have seen her for many a day. I suppose 
 it was a little bit rash for her to go driving out in an 
 open carriage, but when she laughed at my suggesting 
 such a thing, how could I press it, especially as her 
 husband, who of course ought to know better than 
 myself, said it would do her a world of good ? 
 
 So much she enjoyed it that, when we had seen the 
 beauties of the little town, nothing would satisfy her but 
 a drive into the country, to Headingby Moor, a bit of 
 wild uncultivated land about three miles out, with a patch 
 of wood on some high ground in the middle of it, from an 
 opening in which there was a fine view north over the 
 valley, with Abbotsby Abbey towers in the foreground. 
 
 So we started in the little pony-caiTiage, Captain 
 Asperton driving, Annette in front, whilst I sat behind, 
 a position which suited me best, because I could be 
 quiet, and think my own thoughts. 
 
 For just seven-and-twenty years ago, on such a 
 sunny February day as this, whilst the snowdrops were 
 peeping up above the last year's leaves, and little purple- 
 
ANNETTE 281 
 
 black buds were begininug to show upon the elm-trees 
 that fringe the common, Gilbert Ross and I had gone 
 along that same road, and climbed that bit of steep, and 
 sitting on the mossy trunk of the tree whose fall had 
 opened out the view into the valley beneath, had talked 
 over life as we fondly hoped to make it for ourselves. 
 That was our first walk after we were regularly engaged 
 to each other. We could talk of o\ir love then, and how 
 it had grown, and how we had little by little become all 
 in all to each other, until nothing could ever part us 
 any more. 
 
 And nothing ccm part us. He has been mine as truly, 
 all these years, as though we had walked side by side 
 through the duties which have come to me in tbem. It is 
 not death which parts those who truly love each other. 
 
 Annette would climb the little hill, too, though we 
 both of us tried hard to keep her from doing it — she 
 said it was so long since she had had a great wide out- 
 look over anything, and she felt that for once in her 
 life she had strength enough to do whatever she wished. 
 I suppose it was the excitement which kept her up. 
 Certainly there was a wonderful spring and freshness 
 about her. She seemed to have got now just what she 
 had been needing for months, something which gave the 
 mind power to regain its mastery over the body. I 
 could scarcely have known her for the same Annette 
 whom I had found so weary and listless when I came 
 home from Chelteuham. 
 
 So we climbed the little winding path through the 
 copse, stopping now and then to rest, or pluck a snow- 
 drop or cluster of moss, until we reached the opening 
 
282 ANNETTE 
 
 where Gilbert and I had once sat on the fallen tree. 
 There was a bit of the root left yet, lichened and ivy- 
 grown, and a stragglingbranchor two which year after year 
 put forth its stint of leaves to show what once had been. 
 
 What strange thoughts those two must have had as 
 they rested there, those two in whose lives the sin of 
 another had ^vrought so great mischief Robbed of their 
 best inheritance they both were, yet they must go on to 
 the end, hiding with due smiles and courtesy a past 
 which was full of bitterness. 
 
 Again, as on the deck of the Nmvah that night, I 
 thanked God for my own loneliness, for a past so sweet 
 that it had taught me to believe in all goodness for its 
 sake, a past wrought for me not by man's hand, but the 
 Divine. Yet is not every past so wrought ? 
 
 I do not know. I cannot tell. One's thoughts get 
 into such a tangle when they turn to things like these. 
 Some people might pity me, even as I pity Annette and 
 Captain Asperton, whose life seems so spoiled now. It 
 may be that for them, below the bitter, there is a sweet- 
 ness I know not of It may be the tree of their hope has 
 fallen, only to give them a fairer outlook into the things 
 which shall be hereafter. Taking life patiently, as we 
 may always take anything which our own guilt has not 
 darkened for us, they may win through very pain and 
 loss to nobleness ; and some day, otherwhere if not here, 
 be able to say that everything was well. 
 
 I think a little of this was written in Annette's face 
 as I watched her there. Certainly it told no longer of 
 weariness or discontent. Whatever this visit may have 
 revealed concerning the past, I believe it is already begin- 
 ning to give her the rest which comes of knowing the truth. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 ^^I^^HEN we drove home to tlie Nortligate. Mr. 
 Justin was waiting for us, looking very 
 bright and animated. He has been elected 
 president of the committee which has just 
 been formed to make arrangements for the visit to 
 Abbotsby of the British Association next autumn. This 
 will bring him into contact with no end of great people, 
 both literary and scientific, though I dare say it will take 
 him more frequently to the Club, where all the pre- 
 liminary meetings are to be held. This sort of thing 
 suits Mr. Justin wonderfully. He does so delight in a 
 definite purpose, round which he can gather all his 
 energies ; and the more he has to do, the more bright 
 and contented he seems. What a true development of 
 the little Gregory of old, who was always finding out 
 something, building, planning, contriving, laying down 
 the law to us older but less brilliant ones, assumincr 
 so naturally and pleasantly the position of command 
 amon^-st us. The popular Recorder of Abbotsby is just 
 our versatile little playmate seen through a magnifying 
 glass. 
 
 He lifted Annette carefully down from the carriage, 
 
 and as he watched her cross the broad entrance hall with 
 
 such new vigour and elasticity in her step, he said to me: 
 
 " I wish we hadn't sent for that stupid old frump of 
 
284 ANNETTE 
 
 a physician to come to-morrow. Why, the child is as 
 strong as a little Hebe. You see all that she wanted was 
 just something to take her out of herself. I must have 
 some nice pleasant people to come and stay with her 
 now and then, and you will see she will be as bright as a 
 new sixpence." 
 
 " But, perhaps, you know, when the excitement has 
 passed off/' I suggested. 
 
 " Oh ! nonsense ; it isn't excitement. It just is that 
 she has had something wholesome to think about. She 
 would be like that always if only she would not shut 
 herself up so. When I get through a little of this 
 business, I shall take her out myself every day, and see 
 that she gets plenty of amusement." 
 
 I told him that would be an excellent plan, but I did 
 not tell him what I feared, that the business would never 
 be sufficiently got through for him to put his good 
 resolutions into practice. 
 
 We stayed for luncheon, and then Captain Asperton 
 came home with me, to get his things together in readi- 
 ness for starting by the afternoon train to Edinburgh. 
 I told him I should be glad to see him on his way 
 back, but he thinks of going by the through line to 
 London, and then travelling on the Continent for a while. 
 Perhaps that is better. His visit does not seem to have 
 done him so much good as it has done Annette. He 
 looks gi-ave, dispirited, ill at ease. And yet I cannot 
 help thinking that it must be a great relief to him to 
 know that he has been deceived by an enemy, and not a 
 friend. Whatever comes, he should be happier to know 
 that the woman he loved was true. 
 
ANNETTE 285 
 
 He said nothing to me about what had passed 
 between himself and Annette, and I did not care to 
 begin the subject. From the added brightness of her 
 manner, I feel sure that the meeting has been, in the 
 truest sense of the word, successful, though it may have 
 left on his mind a certain tinge of bitterness. Perhaps 
 he thinks the misunderstanding has not spoiled her life 
 as it has spoiled his. He may think that a clever, 
 brilliant, scholarly husband, a beautiful home, and a 
 good position, have compensated Annette for what she 
 lost through Mrs. Flexon's deceit. And Annette, as 
 a wife, cannot now tell him if he is mistaken in that. 
 If he truly loved her, and thinks that she is happy 
 now, he ought to be content. I suppose that is the 
 essence of real love, to be able to rejoice in what ap- 
 pears the good of its object. But one must be so ex- 
 ceptionally good to realise that height of unselfishness. 
 
 I did feel that I had a right to ask him about the 
 interview with Mrs. Flexon. 
 
 It never came to pass. First she pleaded ill-health, 
 then press of engagements, then she found it necessary 
 to leave Cheltenham for a few days, to complete some 
 little business arrangements ; and when Captain Asper- 
 ton left, she had not yet returned. She is a clever 
 woman. I don't think Captain Asperton will be able to 
 cope with her. And, of course, when she is Mrs. Byte, 
 our pugnacious little doctor will not allow her to be 
 annoyed by anything relating to such a remote past. 
 He will say that ample explanations have already been 
 given. 
 
 We parted, feeling that we had taken each other for 
 
286 "^^ ANNETTE 
 
 friends. As he shook hands with me, he just said, very 
 quietly : 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Brown, for all that you have done 
 for me.'' 
 
 No more reference to the past, whatever it might 
 have been, than that. But I don't care for men who 
 have such an unlimited power of expressing themselves. 
 The gratitude which lurks behind silence, is often the 
 most sincere of all. 
 
 '' I can't say I matter him much," remarked Keren, 
 who generally likes to give me her opinion about any 
 one who comes to the house. " He's over quiet for my 
 liking. I should say, ma'am, he isn't half such good 
 company as Mr. Justin, and takes his vittles as if he 
 hadn't a bit of interest in 'em. I never see a man as 
 grilled partridges was so thrown away upon, and the 
 bread sauce not so much as looked at, for all I'd put the 
 best ingrediments in. Mr. Justin isn't in that way, ma'am. 
 He knows as well as anybody when things is properly set 
 down before him, and that's the sort of gentleman I like 
 to do for." 
 
 Not finding me disposed for conversation, Keren 
 withdrew. She has a fine perception of when to speak 
 and when to refrain. But I heard her say to Stump, as 
 she returned to the kitchen : 
 
 ''If I'd known him for one of them as has eyes for 
 nothing, I'd never have had my wedding print got up — 
 no, that I wouldn't, nor made yon muslin cap neither." 
 
CHAPTER XLin. 
 
 27th. 
 
 it is over. I find myself repeating again 
 and again Whittier's melancholy lines : 
 
 Of all the sad words of tongue or pen, 
 The saddest are these — it might have been. 
 Ah, well, for ns all some bright hope lies 
 Deeply buried from mortal eyes ; 
 Yet from its grave, hereafter, may 
 Some angel roll the stone away. 
 
 ^"0, I think that will not be. The stone is set and 
 sealed now, and no hand but that of death can roll it 
 away. Annette and Captain Asperton have met, but 
 only met as those who stand on opposite sides of a deep, 
 swiftly running stream, across which they can never clasp 
 hands, only look into each other's eyes, say farewell, and 
 pass on. 
 
 It is so utterly useless, yet I cannot help picturing 
 to myself how differently everything might have turned 
 out, if, amongst all the steamers that were leaving 
 Bombay during the week' of our embarkation, Gregory 
 Justin had not happened to fix upon the Nawah to 
 come home in. 
 
 Other things would have fallen out just the same. 
 Annette and I would have become friends, for he 
 
288 ANNETTE 
 
 liad notliiug- to do with that. J\Irs. Vermont's chilling 
 letter received at Port Said would have left us entirely 
 to each other. "We should have come here together. 
 I should have gone to Cheltenham to visit Cousin 
 Delia, met Captain Asperton, invited him here, and 
 then all would have been well. No swiftly running, 
 deep stream between them then ; no need only to look 
 into each other's faces and pass on, divided for ever. 
 
 This is how one reasons, though it is so infinitely 
 foolish. I could almost be vexed with Mr. Justin 
 for coming by that particular ship, as though the 
 introduction to Annette, and all that came of it, had 
 been any more in his thoughts than in mine. I feel 
 towards him at times as if he had. deliberately cheated 
 Annette out of something precious and good, which, 
 but for his interference, might have come into her life. 
 And yet all the time, no doubt, he thinks he has lifted 
 her into happiness and position which, without him, 
 she could never have achieved. AVife of the Recorder 
 of Abbotsby, companion to selfish, rich j\Irs. ^larsham 
 — what very opposite poles in the social scale do these 
 two statements represent ! Gregory knows that. He 
 does not know all the rest. 
 
 And what sometimes makes me feel impatient is 
 that he miglit have been just as happy witli any one 
 out of fifty other pretty, ladylike, intelligent girls, as he 
 is with Annette. Mr. Justin is not a man who wants a 
 wife to do much more for him than look elegant, preside 
 gracefully at his table, give him a very general sort of 
 companionship, and look up to him as her superior 
 in every respect. He has no depths in his nature 
 
ANNETTE 289 
 
 which need a woman's sympathy to fathom them, no 
 visitations of self-reproach and remorse, born of bygone 
 misdeeds and shortcomings, which the tonch of a sweet, 
 pure soul might heal. All his life lies broadly in the 
 light of discretion, self-respect, useful common sense, 
 touched with cleverness and ambition. He has had 
 no terrible falls, from which, bruised, bemired, and 
 humbled, he arose to tread the upward path again. He 
 is satisfied with himself. I doubt if that is the best 
 sort of satisfaction. 
 
 Then the subjects in which he requires sympathy 
 are not those which a woman generally knows much 
 about. His mind turns to science, facts, experiments. 
 There is nothing philosophical or speculative about him. 
 A woman with chemistry, mechanics, sanitary know- 
 ledge, etc., at her finger ends, might supply his needs 
 in some respects, but the chances are that she would 
 signally fail in other departments more necessary to 
 him ; and so, what sympathy he wants in his scientific 
 and public life he must get from men. If Annette were 
 fifty times cleverer, I doubt if she would be one bit 
 more suited to him. 
 
 No, lacking brilliance, spirit, ambition, power to 
 lead in society, Annette lacks almost everything that 
 Gregory would like in his wife, and the finer, more 
 delicate touches of her character are not necessary to 
 him. She brings out no latent beauty in him which, 
 but for her influence, might have remained undis- 
 covered, like the pictures in those landscape pebbles, 
 before the hand of the lapidary is set to work upon 
 them. And I do not think, either, he develops the finest, 
 
290 ANNETTE 
 
 best traits in her nature. They have no special affinity 
 for each other. He has given her a very pretty home, 
 and in his own way is very fond of her, so that I 
 suppose it is what people would call a comfortable 
 marriage. Comfortable marriages are very excellent, 
 but, old woman as I am, I have enough romance left in 
 me to aspire after something more than mere bread and 
 cheese comfort in the people I care for. 
 
 This afternoon Mr. Justin has been in to tell me 
 the result of the physician's visit. He says she must 
 go away at once to one of the sheltered places on the 
 south coast, and remain for two or three months, until 
 we are quite free from the east winds, which certainly 
 do blow very rudely over our little town of Abbotsby. 
 
 According to Mr. Justin's account, there is no cause 
 for alarm. System run down, constitution feeble, change 
 from the Indian climate trying, mild but dry air necessary, 
 plenty of nourishing food, amusement, cheerful conver- 
 sation, not to be left alone too much, and so on, and so 
 on, as one has heard it so many times. The very things 
 that people ought to find out for themselves, and will do, 
 too, when 
 
 To hear with eyes is part of love's fine wit. 
 
 Then Dr. Wensley fences the case with a few general 
 observations about everything depending upon care and 
 attention — that if due precautions are observed, he has 
 no doubt Mrs. Justin will soon be herself again ; but if 
 she disregards the injunctions laid upon her as to diet, 
 exercise, etc., there is no telling what may be the results. 
 So that in any case he may be able to say triumphantly : 
 '' I told you so." 
 
ANNETTE 291 
 
 Mr. Justin came to ask if I would go with Annette 
 to Hastings, and stay with her for the whole time. He 
 will see us comfortably settled in lodgings, but he cannot 
 be away from Abbotsby more than a fortnight just now, 
 when so many things are needing his attention, and 
 he has been put on the committee for this forthcoming 
 scientific gathering. Besides, fancy Gregory Justin 
 mooning about on the sea-ghore with nothing to do, 
 no public affairs to take an interest in, and no politicians 
 or literary people of his own standing to talk to. 
 
 I promised to think over it, and go in to-night to 
 tell Annette what conclusion I had come to. I have 
 been arranging with Keren how it can be managed. 
 Hilary must come into the house to keep her company. 
 There is nothing worth stealing, for Gregory takes 
 charge of my little store of plate and valuables, so they 
 need not be afraid of thieves. Annette suggests that 
 Stump should go with us, so that the training, whose 
 results I am already so proud of, need not suffer. Stump 
 will be invaluable to any one who is not very strong ; 
 she is so patient and watchful, and has any amount of 
 health for sitting up, running errands, and the thousand 
 and one things which lodging-house servants are never 
 ready to do. Besides, she will give such a domestic 
 look to the whole arrangement, and keep us in such 
 beautiful order, too ; for wherever Stump is, there will 
 never be a speck of dust found. That child's abilities 
 are not vast, but whatever she finds to do, she does it 
 with her might. The introductory episode of pumping 
 the cistern to overflowing was a true index to Stump's cha- 
 racter, only that now intelligence is added to willingness. 
 
 T 2 
 
292 ANNETTE 
 
 What a suddeu upsetting of all one's plans, this 
 going to Hastings for three months ! And I was going 
 to do so much in my little garden, planting, sowing, 
 trimming up, besides giving Stump prizes for the best 
 mustard and cress, radishes, lettuce, and other early 
 spring vegetables, which she could raise in her bit of 
 ground under Hilary's window. But when I am once 
 able to convince myself that a thing is necessary — and 
 I am quite sure this visit to Hastings is necessary for 
 Annette— I set to work to look at everything on the 
 bright side of it. It is astonishing how pleasant even 
 an upset becomes, when the disagreeable part is reso- 
 lutely kept out of the field of view. This sounds very 
 much like saying that superiority is very easy when one 
 has no superiors ; but there is truth in it. I could 
 dwell on the miseries of leaving home until I got quite 
 into low spirits about it ; yet home would have to be 
 left all the same, or a worse misery would come to me 
 in the haunting sense of duty unperformed. So then 
 the fact being accepted, why not get the sweet out of 
 it, instead of the bitter ? 
 
 I only hope, after Mr. Justin has left us, he will not - 
 get so absorbed in municipal and public interests, as to 
 be quite independent of his little wife. This separation 
 will make a change in one direction or the other. He 
 will find either that he can or cannot do without her. 
 I almost hope Phillips will not manage the housekeeping 
 very well. Annette's ways are so dainty, and the little 
 dinners she arranges for him are so perfect, that I fancy 
 he will soon perceive the difterence when an uneducated 
 woman takes the establishment in hand. And though 
 
ANNETTE 2P3 
 
 that is a low ground for a man to appraise liis wife upon, 
 still it is better than none at all. Keren was quite right 
 when she said Mr. Justin knew as well as anybody if his 
 meals were put before him properly. "Where Annette 
 learned it all I cannot imagine, for she has had no 
 experience. She must have spent many and many an 
 hour, unknown to any of us, in studying the copy of 
 Mrs. Beeton which I gave her when she was married ; 
 and she certainly has an enviable talent of making those 
 under her do their duty, however she may fail of exerting 
 a sufficient influence upon Gregory, whose attainments 
 are on a higher level than her own. 
 
 Stump will be coming in immediately for her evening 
 lesson, and then I will go over to the Northgate house 
 and tell Annette that I have arranged to go with her. 
 Stump gets into simple division to-morrow, the proud 
 result of seven months' training. If it had not been for 
 this flight to Hastings, I should have tried to give her, 
 in a mild sort of way, some insight into the mysteries of 
 book-keeping ; for if my plan of prizes for the early 
 spring vegetables had proved a success, she was to have 
 had most of the kitchen -garden under her own control, 
 and I should have paid her for its produce, teaching her 
 to keep a proper account of sales effected and moneys 
 spent and received, in a regular little day-book. Stump 
 has a good head for practical things. When she comes 
 to woman's estate, she will be just the sort of person to 
 have a shop like that which Hilary used to keep with 
 her mother, and she will have this advantage, that, 
 unlike Hilary, there is a vein of shrewdness in her com- 
 position which will, I think, prevent her from ever 
 
294 ANNETTE 
 
 falling into the clutches of a man who will only marry 
 her for the sake of having his idleness supplemented by 
 her industry. Who knows but in twenty years' time 
 my little Stump may be at the head of a thriving 
 establishment in the tea-cake and penny-pie line, able 
 to minister to the gastronomic tastes of the rising race, 
 as Hilary once ministered to mine ; and may be saved 
 by her vigorous practicality from the long, long storm 
 and tempest out of which Bennet's death delivered his 
 patient old wife ? 
 

 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 2Sth. 
 
 ^(S"^^ HAD a long talk with Annette last night 
 about the Hastings project, and then about 
 Captain Asperton's visit. 
 
 What a quite new cheerfulness there is 
 in her face and manner now ! Not the mild resignation 
 of one who accepts the inevitable, but the brightness and 
 trust of one from whom a fretting burden has been re- 
 moved. Whatever it may be for Captain Asperton, I 
 feel certain that for Annette his visit has cleared away 
 a cloud under which she has been wearying ever since 
 the day that he left Moorkee without a word of farewell 
 or explanation to her. 
 
 After Mr. Justin had left us to go to his books and 
 papers in the study, she began to tell me about their 
 evening together. There was the purity of a noble, 
 honest, and stainless soul in every word that she spoke, 
 now for the first time allowing me to see behind the veil 
 of reserve into a life which seemed outwardly so success- 
 ful, and yet had so much bitterness poured into it. 
 
 " Captain Asperton and I used to care for each other 
 very much," she said, " though we had never said any- 
 thing about it in the regular sort of way. And he meant, 
 before he left Moorkee and went into camp for the cold 
 weather, to have told me all about it. Only you know 
 
296 ANNETTE 
 
 Mrs. Flexon got intimate with him, as she used to try to 
 do with all the gentlemen in the station, and as he trusted 
 everybody then, it never entered his mind that she could 
 be wicked and double-faced, especially as she was always 
 speaking so patiently about her faded hopes, and how all 
 the light of her life had gone out with the death of her 
 beloved Herbert." 
 
 " And still more especially," I added, '' as she had 
 such lovely gray-green eyes, and braids of soft brown 
 hair, and such an appealing way of clasping her hands. 
 Annette, she must be punished. I shall never rest now 
 until she gets exactly what she deserves." 
 
 '' We shall all get that sooner or later," said Annette, 
 " so don't worry yourself about it. Well, it seems she 
 got Captain Asperton to believe that she was very much 
 interested in his welfare, and she could not bear to think 
 that he was wasting his affections upon a heartless girl 
 who only accepted them by way of amusement ; for she 
 told him I was really engaged all the time to old Mr. 
 Moberley — that verj^ old man, you remember, who used 
 to ride about in the grand carriage with a little dog 
 beside him, and such a large gold chain hanging over his 
 white waistcoat. It was easy for her to make him believe 
 this, because papa was very fond of having Mr. Moberley 
 come to our house ; and besides, he says that numbers 
 of people at Moorkee were talking about it, though I 
 never knew anything at all." 
 
 '' Of course you did not, poor child ! Mrs. Flexon 
 was only putting it about for her own purposes, and the 
 last thing in the world she wanted was for you to hear 
 anything about it." 
 
ANNETTE 297 
 
 *'Well, I suppose that was it. I never thought 
 before that people could be so wicked. When she had 
 got him to believe that it was all true, she advised him 
 to write to me and reproach me with having deceived him 
 so ; and then she said, if she had not been right in her 
 information, I should reply and clear it all up. He wrote 
 the letter at her own house, and she promised to send it 
 to me herself when papa was away, as she said if it fell 
 into his hands he might be angry about it, because, you 
 know, he never cared very much about Captain Aspertou. 
 He wanted me to marry some one rich." 
 
 ''And of course you never got the letter. She 
 opened it and read it and said nothing more about it. 
 Oh ! Annette, how could a man like Captain Asperton 
 ever be blinded by her in that way ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Perhaps one can always be blinded 
 by something one has never had experience of before. 
 Captain Asperton had only been amongst men, and I 
 think men never deceive one another in that mean, 
 sneaking way, and about such things, too. They have 
 bigger interests to fill their minds. When he had no 
 answer from me, he supposed that what Mrs. Flexon had 
 told him was true, and he was so vexed about it that he 
 left the station at once. There was furlough due to 
 him, enough for him to go home if he liked." 
 
 " Which was not at all what Mrs. Flexon intended 
 him to do." 
 
 " No, not at all, I suppose, if what the people said 
 about her afterwards was true. But, you know, a very 
 little while after he went away, papa died so suddenly, 
 and everything seemed like a miserable dream to me, 
 
298 ANNETTE 
 
 and all the time was taken up in arranging and packing 
 and leaving the parsonage, and I could not think about 
 anything that had happened until I was settled at 
 Bombay, with the lady who let me stay with her whilst 
 I was waiting for letters from Aunt Vermont. She knew 
 nothing about my life at Moorkee ; she was only sorry 
 for me about papa. People talk about trouble, was not 
 that trouble, Miss Brown ? And then for Aunt Vermont 
 to show so plainly that she did not want me at home, 
 and for me to have to be companion to Mrs. Marsham. 
 Sometimes now I think about it, and I wonder I did not 
 die. If people could die when they liked, with no dread- 
 ful thought of what was to come after, I think very few 
 of us would live out half our days." 
 
 That was a state of mind I could not comprehend at 
 all, having been blessed through life with a remarkably 
 cheerful disposition, by way of set off, probably, against 
 personal disadvantages. But I could understand now a 
 little of the sorrow which had eaten away the roundness 
 from Annette's cheeks, and brought that wistful look to 
 her eyes. It was as I thought. That letter had made a 
 great difference to both their lives. 
 
 " Ever since then," she continued, " until now, I have 
 had a bitter feeling about Captain Asperton, because I 
 thought he had been only amusing himself with me, whilst 
 I had given him a great deal more than that. How could 
 I tell that he had been true to me all the time, or that it 
 had cost him anything to go away from ]\Ioorkee ? I 
 think it was hearing notliing about him, and believing, 
 as I did, that he was so fickle, that made me accept 
 Gregory so soon. It was pleasant to know that he, at 
 
ANNETTE 299 
 
 any rate, was not just amusing himself with me. And 
 there was such a rest in feeling that I belonged to some 
 one who would always take care of me. Can't you 
 understand that feeling ? " 
 
 I could for her, though not for myself ; and I told 
 her so. 
 
 '' Because, you know," she said, '' I have had a sort 
 of vague idea that }' ou did not respect me quite so much 
 after I became engaged to Gregory. You might almost 
 have known something about my life, from the way you 
 used to look at me. And yet it could not be that, for I 
 never told any one until now. Did you think in that 
 way, Miss Brown ? " 
 
 '' My darling, I can't exactly tell you what I thought. 
 I might perhaps be afraid that you had not given your- 
 self time enough to know what you really felt. But, 
 however that may be, I honour you fifty thousand times 
 over for the way you are behaving now. It would have 
 made some women very bitter and spiteful to know all 
 that you have learned in the last two or three days ; but 
 it only seems to have brought you a great content." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; " and Annette's new smile came over 
 her face again. " Why should I not be content to know 
 that the man I loved first of all is honourable and true ? 
 I have heard some people say that if you do not marry 
 the man you care for, the next best thing is to find that 
 he is not worth marrying. That does seem to me such a 
 curious way of looking at it. As if it could ever be better 
 for you to love a man who was not w^orth what you gave 
 him ! I shall be proud all my life now to know that 
 Francis Asperton was what I believed him to be. And 
 
300 ANNETTE 
 
 tliougli perhaps I shall never see him again, it will still 
 be better. Nothing can alter that. He is good and 
 true. That is enough." 
 
 Had all this been lying hidden underneath Annette's 
 reserve, or was it that she had suddenly sprung up into 
 a new life ? How far she seemed to have distanced her 
 former self! What perfect common sense she was 
 bringing to bear upon what I thought might only have 
 saddened her life ! Annette has the make of a noble 
 woman in her even yet. It is she, I think, who will win 
 to heights where her husband cannot follow her. And 
 what she went on to say showed me that she was not 
 just being sustained for the time by a vague, romantic idea 
 of self-sacrifice, which would by-and-by burn itself out. 
 
 "I told him, when we had had a long, long talk 
 about it, and he had got over the first burst of his in- 
 dignation against ]\Irs. Flexon, that he must not think 
 either of himself or me, as having to live entirely spoilt 
 lives. I suppose we can never be just as happy as we 
 might have been if she had not deceived us ; but we 
 may be a great deal better for the discipline it has put 
 into our lives. One has to learn that being happy is 
 not everything. It is only the sin we have done our- 
 selves, or that some one we love as ourselves has done, 
 that can really crush our lives. I cannot tell you the 
 great peace which has come to me since I knew that 
 Captain Asperton is not what I have been picturing him 
 to myself all this time. I almost think it is worth the 
 pain and separation to have found that out." 
 
 ''You little philosopher," I said, folding her in my 
 arms, " who taught you all this wisdom ? " 
 
ANNETTE 801 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure. It has come to me since I 
 gave over being bitter and discontented. I am not the 
 same Annette any more. Something better is waiting 
 for me. I know it is. I only feel vexed now to think 
 how often I must have spoiled Gregory's life by wanting 
 him to spend all his time and thought over me, instead 
 of doing the work which he ought to do in the world." 
 
 " My dear," I replied, sententiously, for I was not 
 going to let Annette take quite all that blame to herself, 
 '' it is not Mr. Justin's business to give himself entirely 
 to the world's work. A very old-fashioned book that 
 we are accustomed to take as the rule and guide of our 
 lives, says that when a man married a wife he was to 
 stay by her side for a whole year, and even if war came 
 in the land he was not to be expected to fight, but just 
 stop at home and comfort the girl he had taken to him- 
 self away from her own friends and people. And if that 
 does not imply that a man's home duties are more im- 
 portant than those he owes to anything outside, I don't 
 know what words imply at all. No, my dear, I hope 
 your husband's literary and municipal reputation will 
 never be built up at the expense of the home virtues." 
 Annette only laughed. 
 
 '' I don't think it will now, for I feel as if I had such 
 a lot of cheerfulness in me that I can make things ever 
 so much happier for him. I don't wonder ]ie went oft' 
 to his study when I was always moping and looking like 
 a martyr. He has been very patient." 
 
 I uttered an inward protest. Annette must not 
 become too unselfish. Unselfishness is a splendid virtue, 
 almost as splendid as the humility which enables you to 
 
302 ANNETTE 
 
 sit contentedly at the bottom of a ship's table, but it 
 often fosters a contrary spirit in those who are too much 
 warmed and comforted by it. One gets to look at the 
 givers-up as born to that sort of thing ; nay, don't we 
 sometimes come to consider ourselves as doing such a 
 good work in the world, by affording them a means for 
 the exercise of the noble virtue, that we think our occu- 
 pation of being served rather a lofty one, after all ? 
 There ought to be a blind figure of Justice to hold the 
 scales in every family. And I felt still more inclined to 
 protest as Annette continued : 
 
 " I suppose it is rather strange, but finding out that 
 Captain Asperton is what I always wanted him to be, has 
 given me so much more trust in my own husband. You 
 know, I began to have a sort of idea that men only cared 
 for themselves, and the name they could make in the 
 world, and I thought Gregory was only like all the rest 
 of them. But now I know that we can't judge every- 
 thing. Gregory is a great deal better than I gave him 
 credit for, just as Captain Asperton is. Why shouldn't 
 I trust when I can't understand ? " 
 
 I could not answer. That sort of trust is very well 
 when exercised from the earthly towards the heavenly. 
 When exercised towards those of like passions with our- 
 selves, the results are dubious. But why disturb the 
 faith which was dawning in Annette's mind ? 
 
 Like a wise woman I let it alone, more especially as 
 Gregory himself came in just then, looking as bright and 
 pleasant as possible, with a bulky packet of manuscript, 
 folded and sealed, in his hand. Annette turned upon 
 him a look of wifely pride and content, which I think 
 must have been eminently gratifying to him. 
 
ANNETTE 303 
 
 " Well, pet/' lie said, as he kissed the pretty lips, 
 " how have you been getting on without me ? " 
 
 " Very well indeed," she said, mischievously. " I 
 have had Miss Brown." 
 
 "The meeting proposes a vote of thanks to Miss 
 Brown," he replied, making me a low bow. " Carried 
 unanimously. And really," he continued, more seriously, 
 " I don't know what you have been doing to my little 
 wife, for she has been as bright as a sunbeam ever since 
 you came home from Cheltenham. I expect, when you 
 two get settled at Hastings, Annette will be so happy 
 that she will never want to take up housekeeping again 
 — eh, madame ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," I replied for her, " if you are going 
 to be always writing on sanitation and ventilation, and 
 other things, contrary to the law of Moses, which enacted 
 that for the first year of his married life a man should 
 not go out to battle, or have any charges of business put 
 upon him. When I get into Parliament, I shall propose 
 that that statute be entered as part of the code of the 
 realm." 
 
 " You are bringing dissension into the camp. Miss 
 Brown. Annette Avould never have thought anything 
 about it, if you had not put it into her mind. Confess, 
 pet — would you ? '' 
 
 "Yes, I should," said Annette, as saucily as could be, 
 but with a little blush, nevertheless. "I have been 
 thinking about it a great deal. But I have given over 
 that sort of thing now, and you shall do just as you like 
 for the future." 
 
 " If you look as sweet as you are looking just now, 
 I shall like to spend all my time with you then. Will 
 
304 ANNETTE 
 
 that content you ? You see, you are not going to have 
 all the goodness on your side. But I know," and Gregory 
 came and placed himself on the arm of her chair, and 
 began to play with her pretty braids of hair — " I know I 
 have spent a great deal of time over this stupid paper. 
 It cost me ever so much more trouble than I expected, 
 and I am beginning to wonder whether the game is worth 
 the candle. Next time you see this word, ventilation, I 
 
 hope it will be on the title-page of the Review.'' 
 
 " And so do I," said Annette, " for I am heartily 
 tired of seeing it on your study table. You don't mean 
 to -write at Hastings, do you ? " 
 
 " No, my pet, only take care of you. And I hope 
 you will reward my care by growing as plump and rosy 
 as Captain Asperton said you used to be at Moorkee." 
 
 Phillips came in then to say that Keren was waiting 
 to go home with me. I cannot say I was sorry for some- 
 thing to change the conversation. Though the time will 
 come, I know now full well, when Annette, in the 
 streng-th and goodness of her life, will be able to tell her 
 liusband everything. 
 
 So I came away. Annette's glance followed me for 
 awhile, but not with the wistful, longing look of the old 
 days, which seemed half to reproach me for leaving her 
 to her loneliness. Before I was out of the room, she had 
 turned it back upon her husband, full of peace and 
 content. 
 
 Surely there are good years in store for them, and I 
 will not complain if, in the joy which these bring, they 
 learn to do very well without dear old Miss Brown. . 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 A;pril 7th. 
 
 ORE than a year ago. 
 
 When I was a child, I had a habit which 
 I have not quite lost yet. I learned it, 
 probably, from some story which took a 
 strong hold upon my imagination. When the mood 
 came over me, I used to take a little blank book^ write 
 in it as vivid a picture as I could of my thoughts, 
 feelings, and fancies just then. Also of my troubles or 
 fears, if I had any, and of the exact state of things as 
 they existed in our home at the time. Then I wrapped 
 the book up, sealed it, and made a faithful promise to 
 myself that I would not open it again until the lapse of 
 twelve months. 
 
 By-and-by what a vague, indefinite sense of awe I 
 had when I looked upon that little sealed packet, 
 tucked away under books, dolls' clothes, and keepsakes 
 in the drawer, which during those childish years was all 
 that I had for my very own. How sometimes, for weeks 
 and even months, press of all-absorbing pleasures and 
 occupations would drive the book quite out of my 
 thoughts, until one of those periodic diets of setting 
 to rights, which used to be so delightful to us, occurred, 
 and revealed the forgotten treasure, bringing with it 
 
 u 
 
306 ANNETTE 
 
 such fruitless speculations as to what had been written 
 therein. For, to the transient memory of childhood, 
 four or six months seem such a long way off, quite far 
 enough for a flowerj^ screen of new hopes and interests 
 to grow up and hide the past ; yet not far enough for 
 the solemn awe to be forgotten which attended the 
 folding up of the record, and the making of the vow not 
 to open it until the appointed time. 
 
 As the day approached, generally a birthday, for at 
 such times I was more prone to these circumspective 
 vagaries, what a curious excitement came over me, 
 growing in intensity until the very morning of the day 
 when with trembling hands I might break the seal and 
 let the little prisoned memory flutter forth. Ah ! how 
 infinitely far back it seemed, with the lights and shadows 
 of a child's year gathering round it I So far back that 
 sometimes I could by no effort recall it to life. It was 
 to me a hieroglyph, of which I had lost the key. 
 
 Many a time since then I have done the same thing, 
 partly because it brought my childhood back to me, 
 partly because that one link, kept bright and fresh, 
 drew along with it others, until the past gTew clear again 
 and I saw as in a mirror things which had long passed 
 from me. 
 
 But 1 had no such purpose when, just thirteen 
 months ago, I locked up this little book, its last page 
 telling of Annette's fresh dawning content. I had written 
 that page in the quiet evening time, after Stump had 
 finished her Bible chapter, and whilst she and Keren 
 were having a diet of conversation in the kitchen. At 
 such times it is an amusement to me to fall back upon 
 
ANNETTE 307 
 
 my diaiy. When I begin, I go on and on, the life of 
 the present crowding upon me, or sweet thoughts of the 
 past, days of my childhood here in this old home, days 
 when the faces of my father and mother were not a 
 memory, and when I have sat by this fireside, speaking 
 to Gilbert Ross as now I can only remember him. 
 
 Then Stump comes in, her heavy step resounding 
 along the passage, and she brings the covers for the 
 things, thus reminding me that it is time to go to bed ; 
 and when the ''things" have been duly pinafored, 
 Keren in her turn comes to rake out the cinders in 
 the grate. Keren will never let a live coal remain 
 below when the household is wrapped in slumber above. 
 She knows her place better than that, she says, " and 
 the papers as full as they are of them nasty fires, as 
 Christian people may be burned alive in their beds, 
 if somebody doesn't have a care." 
 
 And the old woman looks at me with such an air of 
 superiority as she says that word '' somebody." She 
 knows well enough who the somebody is, none other 
 than herself, to whom the orderly course of things in 
 this cottage is due, faithful old soul ! 
 
 I suppose the day had ended thus, after I put away 
 this little book more than a year ago. Ah, me! 
 Through what blinding mist of tears I read the last 
 page, which, when I wrote it, gave me only content, 
 because I thought it told of pleasant days to come 
 for those I loved. 
 
 And are they not pleasant, for her at least, on whom 
 no shadow can fall any more now ? 
 
 For Annette is dead. 
 
 u •^- 
 
 .J 
 
308 ANNETTE 
 
 Opening this book again, with so wide a chasm 
 between then and now, everything comes to me very 
 freshly. I trace my steps backward and backward along 
 the stream of memory, until I come to that little bend 
 which is overhung by willows and marked by a grave. 
 In my childish days I should have buried a snowdrop 
 for Annette Lislethorpe. Now I remember her, and am 
 glad that she is at rest. 
 
 I recall so vividly that night when we had our last 
 talk together — how she said she felt as if something 
 better was waiting for her. So it was — something 
 better indeed than we could think. And as I said 
 good-bye to her, there was such a smile of iiope and 
 brightness on her face. 
 
 Next morning I had to go over to Pengbrook, where 
 my solicitor lives, to see him about some business 
 arrangements. He had been summoned suddenly away, 
 would not return until the next day, and as I was not 
 able to make another visit just then, in consequence of 
 this going to Hastings, his wife very kindly asked me to 
 stay all night and transact my business on his return. 
 Next day a heavy snowstorm had blocked up the roads, 
 so that I was weatherbound, and the end of it was that 
 I did not reach home until the morning of the third day 
 after I had started. 
 
 Keren received me with a sorrowful face. She said 
 Mr. Justin had been many times to inquire for me. 
 Mrs. Justin had been seized with violent inflammation 
 of the lungs, and when the last message was sent, 
 an hour or two before niy arrival, the doctor had almost 
 given up hope for her. 
 
ANNETTE 309 
 
 So that was the end of her drive in the frosty 
 February air. How mad we had all been to let her go ! 
 But she looked so bright, and had enjoyed it so 
 thoroughly, and when one's friends are put, as the 
 phrase goes, " under medical care/' one does not feel at 
 liberty to lay down rules for them. We might all of us 
 have said what we liked. She would have gone just the 
 same, she felt strong enough for anything then. 
 
 I went at once to the Xorthgate house. Keren's re- 
 port was only too true. There was a strange hush and 
 stillness about the place. The street in front of the 
 house had been littered with bark, so that the carriage 
 wheels as they passed had a mufiled sound of death. 
 Gregory, looking worn and anxious, but evidently deter- 
 mined not to let himself believe that his wife was in 
 danger, came to meet me. He tried to convince himself 
 that it was only Dr. "Wensley's way of putting things. 
 
 " He is such an alarmist, you know," he said. ''Did 
 you not tell me yourself that Mr. Carbery's son said he 
 was an alarmist ? He will frighten people out of their 
 senses, in order that, when the patient does recover, 
 it may seem like a more wonderful instance of his own 
 skill. It is impossible for Annette to be really so ill. 
 Until yesterday she kept wanting to talk and ask me 
 all sorts of questions, but she is quieter now. Dr. 
 AVensley said she was not to be disturbed on any account, 
 but I think it would do her good if you were to go in 
 and see her. She has been asking after you many times. 
 He said this morning he should come again about noon." 
 
 I thought I had better wait until I had his per- 
 mission to go into that room from which such a strangely 
 
310 ANNETTE 
 
 quiet influence seemed to have spread over all the house. 
 At noon he came, stayed a long time, had a long inter- 
 view with Mr. Justin in the study, then came to look 
 for his hat in the drawing-room, where I was waiting. 
 A quiet, precise, studiedly cheerful man, with an im- 
 penetrable face such as doctors generally acquire in the 
 course of a long experience. 
 
 " Do you think I might see Mrs. Justin ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a keen look at me, to judge, I 
 suppose, whether I was a near relative, and could bear 
 the news breaking suddenly. " Yes. It will make no 
 difference now." 
 
 And with that he went quietly away. 
 
 I suppose Gregory knew too, for there was a strange, 
 cramped, self-possession in his face as he came to take 
 me into his wife's room. 
 
 How very quietly she lay there, so weak, I think, 
 that there was no room for suffering, either of body 
 or mind. Poor child ! As I looked at her and thought 
 of the doctor's so lately removed injunction of perfect 
 silence, it seemed to me that quite other than silence 
 had been needed by her for many a month past. Her 
 life had depended upon the love and companionship 
 which had been thoughtlessly withheld. Annette was 
 dying of overmuch silence. 
 
 Yet she seemed entirely content. When, from time 
 to time, as with an effort, she opened her eyes, tliere 
 was neither hunger, unrest, nor fear in their expression, 
 only peace. I wonder if she knew that she was dying. 
 It might be, perhaps, that weakness of body pre- 
 vented her from realising anything, even her nearness 
 
ANNETTE 311 
 
 to that dim otherwhere from which most of us shrink 
 with infinite distrust. I think, too, she did not need 
 our whispered words of comfort, when, as that fateful 
 day drew to its close, we felt that her short little space of 
 life was closing too. A love more tender than ours was 
 caring for her. At nightfall she died, leaving us full of 
 wonder and questioning. 
 
 I hope I shall never again see such agony of self-re- 
 proach on any human face as I saw on Gregory Justin's 
 when he knew that his wife was dead. Why must re- 
 pentance ever come to us when it is too late ? 
 
 And yet he had been, as the world would say, very 
 kind to her. He had given her all that could make life 
 pleasant, a beautiful home, dress, furniture, the best of 
 food and drink, a certain amount of aftection, for he was 
 really very fond of her, especially when she was prettily 
 dressed ; and in all their short married life he had pro- 
 bably never said an unkind word to her. Nay, until he 
 stood by her death-bed, the chances are that he had 
 thought of himself as rather a model husband, especially 
 to a wife who had brought him nothing. 
 
 But now ; but now ; how vain seemed everything 
 else, set against the one thing withheld ! Into what 
 terrible reproof had those patient, wistful looks turned, 
 which many a time she had bent upon him when he was 
 going away from her to his own, as it seemed, perfectly 
 legitimate and even praiseworthy pursuits. How little 
 was everything he had done for her, compared with the 
 enforced loneliness which had eaten out her life ! And 
 she had borne it so quietly. And she was bearing it so 
 quietly now, lying there in her white grave-clothes ; poor 
 
312 ANNETTE 
 
 Annette ! the last in the world to give any one a 
 moment's pain, still less to pierce her husband's heart 
 "with poisoned arrows of remorse. 
 
 I suppose that was the very sting of it. So quiet. 
 So unconscious. Not a word of reproach from the lips 
 he would have kissed oftener had he known the time was 
 so short. If she could but have put out that stiff little 
 hand and choked him ; could but have poured into his 
 ear a woman's bitter reproaches for the hours she had 
 spent so utterly alone in the beautiful home he had 
 made for himself and her. But to be so quiet, that was 
 the cruellest thing of all. Oh ! if the dead could only 
 have arisen and reproached, even though no defence 
 could have been given or pardon uttered, how Gregory 
 Justin would have blessed the bitterest words from those 
 X^eaceful and for ever folded lips. But it was too late. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 NXETTE was buried in the clinrcliyarcl of St. 
 Maurice at Headingly, not far from the 
 foot of the little knoll where we sat that 
 February morning. Headingly is the 
 mother parish to which the upper part of the Northgate 
 and outlying district originally belonged, and Mr. 
 Justin's people for generations back are buried there. 
 So are mine. 
 
 People soon forget — at least, the bitterness of death 
 passes. Gregory is himself again, with a man's will for 
 the world's work. After the funeral he sent his plate to 
 the Bank, warehoused all his beautiful furniture, and 
 went to travel on the Continent for three months. 
 When he came back, one could not see, except by the 
 deepening of those two lines between his eyebrows, that 
 a great grief had visited him. 
 
 Since then he has been more of a public man than 
 ever. His house, with all its costly belongings put back 
 again, only Annette excepted, is a gathering place for 
 tlie cultured society of Abbotsby and the neighbourhood. 
 The most elegant dinners, when he requires them, are 
 sent across from the '' Star and Garter." What a pity 
 that solution of the difficulty did not suggest itself to 
 
314 ANNETTE 
 
 poor Annette ! Her husband soon found it out when 
 the ordering of the estabhshment devolved upon himself ; 
 but men are naturally more self-helpful than women. 
 
 His papers now form a prominent feature in the 
 
 contents of the Review. He deals very forcibly with 
 
 most subjects of general social interest. At the Scientific 
 Association meeting last year, the preparation for which 
 cost Annette so many solitary evenings, he won much 
 honour. Indeed, his contribution to the Public Health 
 department, a description of a new method of ventilating 
 public buildings, was considered one of the best papers 
 of the whole session, and was reported at length in the 
 leading London journals. 
 
 For my part, I think the best method of ventilating 
 public buildings is for people to keep away from them. 
 They would then be supplied with air enough and to 
 spare, and possibly the people would be no worse. But 
 this is only private theory, and it does not apply to 
 churches, which being, by the advanced thinkers of the 
 present day, so little needed, can scarcely any longer be 
 denominated public buildings. 
 
 Mr. Justin entertained the more prominent members 
 of the Association at a most perfect little dinner, quite 
 private, of course, in consequence of his recent bereave- 
 ment, but still everything that could be desired under 
 the circumstances. As several lady members were 
 present, I acted as hostess for him, being arrayed in that 
 low^ black body, well smothered in plenty of net, of whose 
 too stylish appearance I was uncomfortably conscious 
 when Mrs. Vermont came to introduce Captain Asperton 
 to me at the Cheltenham party. I had my thoughts 
 
ANNETTE 315 
 
 connected with that now so far-off evening, but, like a 
 wise woman, I kept them to myself. 
 
 Since then Gregory's career has been one of marked 
 success. Every one says he will be member for us 
 before long. If so, I am quite sure of this, that 
 Abbotsby will never have need to be ashamed of her 
 representative. 
 
 Things go on quietly, as usual, in my old-fashioned 
 little household. Neither Stump nor myself have ever 
 had cause to regret the day when she was ''took in 
 here." She is now beginning to develop in an upward 
 direction, as regards her person, so that some of these 
 days we may hope to see her a fairly grown woman, 
 instead of the comical little figure, something between 
 a roly-poly pudding and a quartern loaf, which she now 
 presents. Intellectually, too, she is taking root down- 
 ward and casting forth branches upward ; and though 
 she masters ideas slowly, she makes them blossom out 
 into a useful life when once she has got hold of them. 
 And at the foundation of her character there is an 
 unspoilable simplicity which is fifty times better than 
 intellect — at least, for Stump's purposes. 
 
 Hilary is blossoming in her old age. The dear old 
 woman apologised to me the other day for living so long. 
 
 '* I reckon, ma'am, if you'd ha' known how I should 
 ha' perked up, you wouldn't maybe ha' tooken me on 
 so kindly ; but for as sure as I'm a living woman this 
 instant, ma'am, I was that wore out and worretted, 
 what with the scraping up the rent, and them stairs 
 every time I went to the Board, and scarce ever a bit 
 of butcher's meat, while I didn't think I'd a twelvemonth 
 
316 ANNETTE 
 
 before me — no, that I didn't. But, ma'am, I'm not the 
 woman to wear out a welcome, not me, and I know 
 there's a many as has a better right to the favour." 
 
 I told poor Hilary she might make herself quite 
 comfortable on that matter. The little lean-to room 
 was to be hers so long as she wanted a roof over her 
 head, and when she wanted it no longer, Keren should 
 have it, still keeping a sort of supervision over Stump, 
 who by that time, I hoped, would be able to take a 
 senior place in the house. When I have to choose 
 Stump's successor, I shall look out for a maiden of 
 different build, both physical and intellectual, one that 
 will take more kindly to the external proprieties of life, 
 and develop something different from what may be 
 called exclusively kitchen-garden produce. Not that 
 I undervalue my worthy little Stump, but there are 
 diversities of gifts. 
 
 Cousin Delia has been to stay with me. It was 
 in the summer-time, when my garden was looking its 
 brightest, the borders under the trees which my father 
 planted just one sweet smile of roses, lavender, and 
 clove pink. And then Hilary, in white apron and 
 whiter cap, sitting at the door of her little room, backed 
 up with ivy and woodbine, made, as my cousin remarked, 
 quite a picturesque addition. Indeed, I think Delia 
 looked upon the dear old woman more as a " picturesque 
 addition " than anything else. 
 
 She was so amused Avith Stump and Keren, and sor- 
 rowed with me on the impossibility of an5^thing like 
 " entertaining " with two such helps. And when I told 
 her that I did not conjugate the social verb, to enter- 
 
ANNETTE 317 
 
 tain, ill either its active or passive mood, she sorrowed 
 with me more than ever. But I didn't mind it, neither 
 was I much distressed by her evident pity for my primi- 
 tive ways, which interpose such a barrier between me 
 and all that my cousin thinks worth living for. When I 
 told her that I was very happy with the past for my 
 companion, and the quiet little duties of the present for 
 my daily food, she " spake no word, only sighed," and 
 said, after a pause, that she supposed there was no 
 curing me. 
 
 No, Cousin Delia, I hope not. I trust that my 
 malady, such as it is, will stay with me, even unto death. 
 
 She told me that Mrs. Flexon was married to Dr. 
 Byte about a couple of months after I visited Chelten- 
 ham, and lives now in St. John's Wood, where he has a 
 very good practice. 
 
 " Brougham, and all that sort of thing, you know% 
 my dear, and quite a stylish little circle of society, they 
 say. She was a woman who would always come to the 
 top somehow, and I hear that her husband dotes upon 
 her. Mrs. Spring, that pleasant little old lady with the 
 gray curls, you remember, says they are very happy, 
 though India has certainly made a great difference in 
 her complexion — at least, I suppose it is the coming 
 back to the pinching air of England that has done it, 
 after the damp heat, you know. But still she has a pretty 
 fascinating sort of way that will always make a man fond 
 of her." 
 
 " Until he linds out that she intercepts his letters," 
 I suggested. 
 
 '' Oh, and even that does not go so far as the pretty 
 
318 ANNETTE 
 
 ways. But, my dear Hester, clou't bear malice. Let 
 b3^gones be bygones. You know one day we shall all be 
 judged at a higher tribunal." 
 
 With which excellent moral reflection my cousin 
 Delia changed the subject. 
 
 Captain Asperton, too, has been to see me since 
 Annette's death. We went together to her grave in 
 Headingly Churchyard. Gregory has erected a beautiful 
 monument over it, from a design of his own : a slender 
 column, broken midway, the capital and broken part of 
 the shaft lying at its base, with a chaplet of lilies upon 
 it. Sweetly pretty, say most people, especially the 
 younger ones ; almost worth dying for, to lie under 
 marble like that. 
 
 I suppose none now but Captain Asperton and myself 
 know why the fair column of Annette's life was broken, 
 nor who laid the hand of the spoiler upon it. 
 
 Leaving him to think his own thoughts there, I went 
 to the simpler grave of my father and mother, and Aunt 
 Miriam, and Gilbert Ross, who, having neitlier kith nor 
 kin of his own to claim him, lies buried with them. It 
 looks so very plain by Annette's— just a headstone, 
 with the birth and death dates of those who lie beneath, 
 and of Mark In Lidia, and this legend graven round the 
 names : 
 
 They are all gone into a world of light. 
 
 No need for any tears over that grave. How kind 
 and restful is death, compared with some other evils 
 which visit us in this world ! I read the names of those 
 who are dear to me, and I thank God that their lives, 
 though blessed with very little of what people generally 
 
ANNETTE 319 
 
 call success, were free from the bitter pains of human 
 deceit. And if, when I am dead, others can say of me, 
 as I have said of my own departed : 
 
 Gone into a world of ligbt, 
 
 it will all be well. 
 
 Captain Asperton made another attempt to see Mrs. 
 Flexon after her marriage, and was successful. She 
 made an elegant apology to him for any unpleasant 
 consequences which had resulted from the detention of 
 his letter. She explained so prettily that after having 
 advised him to write it, and taken charge of it herself to 
 give to Annette, she had seen reason to change her mind 
 as to the prudence of the course, and had decided at last 
 that her best plan would be to destroy the letter and let 
 the whole affair drop. She was exceedingly sorry. She 
 would not for the world have injured either of them, 
 and he must accept her assurance that, if pain had been 
 caused, it was the farthest possible thing from her in- 
 tention. In fact, she should have told him herself that 
 the letter had not been sent, but he left the station so 
 unexpectedly, and she had so many things upon her 
 hands just then that really 
 
 I suppose her round, white eyelids and clasped hands 
 did the rest, for that was the end of it. 
 
 So Annette lies under her broken marble column, 
 and Francis Asperton goes his way, a solitary man, with 
 not much faith in this world or the next ; whilst the 
 charmer who spoiled the story of life for both of them, 
 takes her fill of prosperity in St. John's Wood, with a 
 '' brougham and all that sort of thing, 5^ou know." 
 
320 ANNETTB 
 
 But as Stump said the other Sunday night, when 
 confiding to me her own private opinions about the fate 
 which overtook the ''little ones" in that matter of 
 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram : 
 
 "Law! ma'am, but there's a vast o' things in this 
 here world as us unedicaten folk can't sc^uare up, nohow." 
 
 Even so, Stump. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LOKDON : .SPENCER BLACKETT, ST. BRIDE STREET, B.C. 
 
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 his side, whom he presents to all the county magnates seated at his 
 board as his son's promised bride, whilst that son's cheek is blanched 
 by the recollection of the unacknowledged wife who awaits his return 
 in her lonely London lodging. The author shows much ability in 
 delineation of character. 'Dawn' is in every way a clever novel,*' 
 Morning Post. 
 
 THE WITCH'S HEAD. 
 
 '* That Mr. Eider Haggard has very considerable powers as a novelist 
 was evident from his book, * Dawn,' but is still more evident from ' The 
 "Witch's Head,' , . , It is, far above the average." — Academy. 
 
 *' Only one book is said to have got Dr. Johnson out of bed before 
 he wanted to rise. Only one novel, for a very long time, has kept us 
 out of bed when we were anxious to. go thither. . , , Here is a 
 novelist of Xingsley's school, not so much a poet as Charles Kingslej, 
 not so reckless a humorist as the author of ' Barenshoe,' but still a 
 successor in the heart of truly patriotic and adTenturous fiction.^ — Fall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 MR. MEESON'S WILL. 
 
 With Sixteen Full Paob Illtjstbatiows. 
 
 " *Mr. Meeson's Will' is excellent. It is told with a vigour which 
 carries one straight through it almost before one has time to criticize. 
 There are shipwrecks, adventures at Kerguelen L^nd, tattooing of a will 
 on a young lady's back, and an exciting law suit ; and what more in 
 reason could one want? . , . . The main point with him is the 
 ptorj, and there is no denying that he has succeeded conspicuously." 
 AthencBum. _^_^_^_____^ 
 
 TO ADVERTISERS 
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 ments for these Novels should be addressed to 
 Mr. John Hart, Advertisement Contractor, 33, 
 Southampton Street, Strand, W.C. 
 
 Advertisements inserted (at lowest Office Rates) in any dadlr, 
 
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 itted, illustrations designed and engraved. 
 
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 33, Southampton Street, Strand, London, 'W.C. 
 
ORSBORN & TUGKWOOD'S 
 
 BANJO PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 No 
 
 I. 
 
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 5- 
 6. 
 7. 
 8. 
 
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 xo. 
 II. 
 
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 THE BANJO ACADEMY. 
 
 Series of Original Pieces and Arrang-ements of Popular 
 Workjj, adapted for the Banjo and Pianoforte, carefully 
 edited and fingered by EDMUND FORMAN. 
 
 Nett.— 5. d. 
 Bonheur . . Banjo and Piano . . z o 
 E. Forman -f ^olo, or Duet for Banjo ] ^ 
 
 The Grenadier's Polka Marche 
 Prince's Banjo Polka .. ^ 
 
 Hazel Dell Mazurka . . 
 
 Flowers of Love Schottische 
 
 Spanish Waltz . . 
 
 Gavotte Pastorale 
 
 Home Sweet Home 
 
 Valse Brillante, Banjoade 
 
 Tam O'Shanter Schottische 
 
 Caprice Marionette 
 
 Romance . . . . . . ,. E. Forman 
 
 Pandora Muscat 
 
 \ or Guitar 
 
 Solo, or as Duet for 
 
 Banjo or Guitar 
 
 Banjo and Piano 
 
 Solo coraolete 
 
 J 
 
 E. Forman < 
 
 Bogs'etii 
 
 E. Forman .. 
 
 Muscat ». „ 
 
 E. Forman .. ., .. ,, «. i o 
 
 E. Forman .. . . . . . . , . i o 
 
 Barnard . . Banjo and Piano «. i o 
 
 E. Forman.. Banjo Solo .. i o 
 
 Banjo Solo .. i o 
 
 Banjo and Piano .. i o 
 
 THE BANJO BIJOU OF FAVOURITE GEMS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 IS. Nett. By post, 14 stamps. 
 Oompmea Solos for the Banjo, Daeta for 
 two Banjos, and Duets for Banjo and 
 Pianoforte, arranged from popular 
 •ompositiona, upon the English sjs- 
 tom, by HARRY SYKE3. 
 No. Contents. 
 
 I. Rub-a-dub March. 
 
 Banjo and Pianoforte. 
 9. Merry Gipsy Mazurka. 
 
 Banjo aad Pianoforte. 
 
 3, Frisco Schottische. 
 
 Banjo and Pianoforte. 
 
 4. Frivolity Galop. 
 Banjo and Pianoforte. 
 
 The Last Rose of Summer. Solo. 
 Bewitching Gavotte. Two Banjos. 
 Bon Voyage Waltz. „ ,, 
 
 Listen to the Mocking Bird. Solo. 
 Fairyland Schottische. „ 
 
 Heliotrope Schottische. Two Banjos. 
 
 s. 
 
 6. 
 
 7. 
 8. 
 
 ». 
 xo. 
 
 BOOK IL 
 
 IS. N«tt. By post, 14 stamps. 
 New and Favourite Songs, HumcMroTU 
 and Sent! mental, selected and ar- 
 ranged for the Banjo upon th* 
 English system, by HARHY SYKES. 
 
 No. 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 3- 
 4- 
 5- 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Vernon Rey, 
 E. Harper. 
 
 Look Back . . 
 
 My Queen of Hearts 
 
 Oft in the stilly night 
 
 Bewitching .. .. E.Boi^etti. 
 
 Mrs. Brady's Daughter. 
 
 Humorous Sonj aad Dance. 
 
 6. Annie Laurie. 
 
 7. Within a mile of Edinburgh Town. 
 
 8. Nellie by the Sea. Song and Dance. 
 
 9. Weel may the Keel Row. 
 
 10. Come O'er the Sea. Cushla-raa-«hree. 
 
 11. We may roam thro' this world. 
 
 12. Sleep on, my child. Lullaby. 
 
 13. Treasured Memories. A. BriscJT. 
 
 14. Carry me back to Old Virginia. 
 
 VIOLIN AND BANJO. 
 
 SONATA in G, by Dr. A. H, Walker. Post free, 3s. 6d. 
 
 THE NATIONAL BANJO TUTOR.-A full and com- 
 
 prehensive work upon the English System, containing simple 
 Exercises (vrith diagrams) for the use of the Five, Six, and 
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 EDMUND FORMAN. Nett, is. ; 14 stamps, post free. 
 
 ORSBORN & TUCKWOOD, 64, BERNERS ST., LONDON, W. 
 
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