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 MARY MYLES
 
 'Tis only perfect faith that never tires, 
 
 An angel trust that murmurs " Come what may, 
 
 No fond regret shall tempt my feet to stray 
 
 From the strict path of mortified desires." 
 
 Though hearts are weak, lips need not so be liars. 
 
 Had there been any choice, I do not say 
 
 I should have chosen this dull rugged way. 
 
 This way of stones and faints, and wayside briars. 
 
 What then ? I grieve not, faint not. God is kind. 
 
 He gives me strange sweet flowers that push between 
 
 The flints, — such as no garden ever bore : 
 
 And gathering these, how can I choose but mind 
 
 What thankful hearts have gleaned where now I glean, 
 
 What patient feet have passed this way before? 
 
 E. C. LEFIUiY.
 
 MARY MYLES 
 
 ^ sbtm 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS EDMONDS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 '^ Fair Athens ^^ "Hesperas^^ ^^ Greek Lays' 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL II 
 
 LONDON 
 REMINGTON & CO PUBLISHERS 
 
 HENRIETTA STREET COVENT GARDEN 
 
 1888 
 
 [All Rights Reserved]
 
 8cL3 
 
 
 
 E'dSV/TA. 
 
 
 ^' ^ CONTENTS. 
 
 
 CHAP 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 Miss Myles and Joe 
 
 I 
 
 11. 
 
 Chippenham Collegiate School ... 
 
 ... 17 
 
 III. 
 
 Death of Dr. Grantham 
 
 ... 32 
 
 IV. 
 
 At the Vicarage 
 
 ... 50 
 
 V. 
 
 Sir Robert Hanbury 
 
 ... -63 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Old Spot 
 
 ... 83 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Rehearsal 
 
 ... 104 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Meeting 
 
 ... 128 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Rector of St. Mary's 
 
 ... 156 
 
 X. 
 
 The Rector and Miss Myles ... 
 
 ... 183 
 
 XI. 
 
 At Sunnyside again 
 
 ... 200 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Two Old Friends 
 
 ... 217 
 
 XIII. 
 
 At Southampton ... 
 
 ... 231 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Concluding Chapter 
 
 ... 267
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 All things have grief at times. When high winds shake it, 
 The grove is grieved with plaintive murmurings ; 
 
 So grieves the woodland bird when fowlers take it, 
 To feel the net encompassing its wings ; 
 
 And so the heart when peace and joy forsake it 
 
 At Love's enravishment. 
 
 E. C. Leirot. 
 
 One more look at the garden where she had 
 passed so many happy moments, each lead- 
 ing up step by step to that supremest 
 moment of all, when the young man's hands 
 had imprisoned hers that held the marygolds 
 in his strong and passionate grasp, and when 
 her own love stood confessed before him. 
 With true delicacy Mrs. Hazelhurst and 
 Helen had forborne to intrude their atten- 
 tions upon her this morning, and had left her 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 2 MABY MYLES. 
 
 for a few hours communing by herself. 
 They had naturally considered that a fresh 
 accession of grief would naturally be aroused 
 on this, the last morning. 
 
 " That short-lived love affair, so recently 
 torn up by the very roots, must needs 
 leave some poignant memories in the heart 
 whence it has been so ruthlessly plucked," 
 soliloquized Mrs. Hazelhurst, with some toucli 
 of sympathetic sentiment in her heart ; " it 
 must take a little time to get over it 
 altogether, althougli it was so absurd in 
 both of them. They'll find out before very 
 long that it was really an absurd business ; 
 and then their wounds will beal fast enough, 
 as I do not think that there are any two 
 persons in the world who would more dislike 
 the imputation of silliness than Miss Myles 
 and my nephew." So thought Mrs. Hazel- 
 hurst as sbe ordered the carriage to be in 
 waiting, and without any comment quietly 
 bade Helen prepare to accompany her. " It 
 is the only courtesy that I can show her ; 
 silence and not words will better suit her 
 present mood," and Mrs. Hazelhurst sighed 
 involuntarily, almost dreading the approach- 
 ing farewell.
 
 MABY MYLES. 3 
 
 But Marj had overcome. Although the 
 night had been stormy the morn arose in 
 sunshine. Love and peace had sung their 
 benediction in her bosom with the returninor 
 hght of this new day, for the onward path 
 lay clear and well-defined before her mental 
 vision. 
 
 One more look at the garden. The wicket 
 gate was unfastened; she pushed it gently 
 and went in. No one apparently had entered 
 it, or trodden upon that walk since she had 
 paused there awhile to strip off some super- 
 fluous leaves from her handful of mary golds 
 before she offered them to her lover, and 
 there they lay where they had fallen — 
 scorched, dried up, and withered. She 
 stepped over them and passed on. The 
 hewn down trunk was lying in the same 
 position in which it had been felled, falling 
 with a crash as the sound of the gong met 
 her ears. Splinters and chips were scattered 
 all around. " Only four days ago," she said, 
 softly, and her thoughts leapt with a bound 
 to that half-dreamt-of heaven of free life 
 and liberty, unshackled by conventionalities, 
 in a far-off land. She recalled it, and the 
 manly form of the young woodsman with his
 
 4 MABY MYLES. 
 
 uplifted axe and glowing face, but no trace 
 of weakness was visible in her retrospective 
 glance. She had gone through a fiery ordeal, 
 and had come out purged of all dross. The 
 future lay before, mapped out in clear decisive 
 lines, and in that outlook there was no stain 
 of self-seeking. She almost felt something 
 akin to gladness that she had been strong 
 enough to release her young lover, that she 
 had of her own free will given the son back 
 to his mother; she, who had held him in bonds 
 stronger than life, had with her own hands, 
 with her own lips, loosed him. For one 
 moment, as she measured the wide gap 
 yawning between that past dream of love and 
 the dim future, her lips quivered, but only 
 for a moment. She walked slowly towards 
 the arbour. She would sit for a few moments 
 on the log seat, and let her eyes drink in the 
 whole scene, and then farewell for ever to the 
 chestnuts with its hamadryad myth, to her 
 garden and dreams of love ; and welcome 
 again the scholastic life, the scholastic calm . 
 She put back the trailing boughs, but the 
 seat was occupied by Joe — Joe, fresh from 
 his native element, the muck heap. 
 « Joe ! ''
 
 MABY MYLES. 5 
 
 "I humbly ask pardon, Miss Moiles," cried 
 Joe, springing up so suddenly that he almost 
 performed a somersault in his endeavour to 
 preserve his equilibrium. " T hadn't thowt 
 you'd be a-coming here, miss ; but I'm clean 
 dazed abowt your going awaay, an' it's all 
 throw Measter Stev'nson that I stan' afore 
 you in this ploight. I ask Measter Stev'n- 
 son to let me off an hour t' morning just to 
 make myself a bit tidy to come and give you 
 my dooty, but a' wouldn't, and sent me off in 
 a jiffey to the muck heap agen. ' Xhe 
 musheroom bed must be maade up at once,' 
 he saay, and o' course I had to go ; but I 
 could na' work, I could na', so I throw it all 
 oop and come here." 
 
 " Left your work, Joe ? " 
 
 " I towld Measter Stev'nson straight off 
 he'd better look out for some other helper 
 who didn't moind being alleys ower head an 
 heels in the muck pit. I'd as lief be a 
 zanterpede.^^ 
 
 [It is needful to state that Joe had been 
 present at a lecture on natural history, which 
 had been given during the previous winter 
 for the express purpose of enlightening the 
 aborigines, but the only residuum of which,
 
 6 MARY MYLES. 
 
 SO far as Joe was concerned, was the single 
 word " centipede," or, as Joe preferred to say, 
 " zanterpede."] 
 
 " You need not have been so rash, Joe. I 
 should not have left Sunnyside without 
 bidding you good-bye." 
 
 " It goes kinder through me to hear you 
 say the word, miss ; and me an' you, so to 
 speak, who've been at the work together. It 
 wa' loike holiday-time a'most to come here 
 an' get awaay from that — " Joe was nearly 
 being committed to something very much like 
 an oath, but he brought himself up suddenly 
 with a snort. " ISToa, a' didn't care nowt 
 when I could come here nows an' thens an' 
 have a real lady to talk w4th — thaar nowt all 
 real ladies that goa by the name by a long 
 waay, but you be a real lady — more loike a 
 serrafum than owght else." 
 
 " Like what, Joe ? " 
 
 "A serrafum! a serrafum !^^ cried Joe, 
 with emphasis. " Bide wi' me jest the 
 weight of a feather, miss ; but you knaw the 
 large winder at the church, jest over whar 
 Measter Ashcroft reads out o' book ? Thar 
 be a lady in that winder wi' a blue gown 
 tied round wi' a gold string, and wi' her hair
 
 MABY MYLE8. 7 
 
 all crinkle- crankle, like a leaf o' wormwood, 
 an' I alleys tHowt her faace looked so good 
 loike that many a time when Measter Ash- 
 croft be a-preaching I've kept meself awaake 
 by looking at it. One day I made bowld, and 
 saay to Measter Ashcroft, I saay, ' Who be 
 that lady, Measter Ashcroft ? ' It wa' when 
 I took up the flowers for Easter, and Measter 
 Ashcroft saay, ' It be one of the serrafum. 
 Can't you see the wings, Joe ?' j^ow, I never 
 see the wings — they're folded all straight 
 down her back, loike — an' I war alleys look- 
 ing at her faace and the crinkly- crankly haar." 
 Joe paused. " 'Sense me, miss, but if yow'U 
 b'leeve me, the very first time you come here 
 I saay to meself, ' That lady be jest loike the 
 serrafum in the winder ' — that's what I saay, 
 miss. An' a real serrafum yow've been to 
 me all through." 
 
 Joe's unusual effort at eloquence had 
 brought a large amount of perspiration to his 
 forehead, which, now trickling down, hung 
 in suspended drops on his bristly red eye- 
 brows. As, however, this flow of words had 
 brought no remark from Miss Myles, who 
 regarded him all through with a sweet 
 gravity which seemed to discompose him
 
 8 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 exceeclinglj, he suddenly broke out in a 
 voice quite at variance with what the subject 
 would seem to demand — 
 
 ** I shall go and ask Measter Ashcroft to 
 marry me.'' 
 
 ** Marry you, Joe ? " said Mary, gently. 
 " Just now you grieved me by telling me 
 that you had thrown up your place, and now 
 you talk about marrying." 
 
 " There's nowt left for me to do." 
 "May I ask who you are thinking of 
 marrying now that you are out of work ? '' 
 " A mawther who lives in a cottage anigh." 
 " Have you spoken to her, Joe ? " 
 ** Noa, but I've only to howld up my 
 finger, in a manner o' speaking, an' I know 
 the mawther '11 saay, 'Yes, Joe ; an' gladly.' 
 I haven't spoke, but I've wrote ; an' if yow'll 
 be koind enow as to gi' a look at it, as you be 
 a roight great scholard, they tell me, I'll 
 thank you koindly." 
 
 Joe thereupon fumbled first in one pocket 
 and then in another. His pockets seemed to 
 be interminable, and of such capacious dimen- 
 sions that commodities of the most hetero- 
 geneous kinds were stowed away, and ap- 
 parently lost for a time, for as he dived
 
 MABY MYLES. 9 
 
 down into them and brought up everything 
 but that for which he sought, it was evident 
 from his frequent change of countenance that 
 the forgotten contents surprised him as they 
 made their appearance one after another. 
 At last, however, he succeeded in emancipat- 
 ing from a deep recess, where it had got 
 entangled between a wisp of whipcord and a 
 comb, a very crumpled and begrimed piece 
 of paper. 
 
 Mary smiled as she watched him unfolding 
 and smoothing it out with an air of pride 
 and satisfaction. 
 
 " I am glad to see that it is not very long, 
 Joe, as my time is getting short," she said, as 
 she took the very unlovely paper from his 
 hands. 
 
 " Noa," answered Joe, with evident satis- 
 faction, " it's not long, but it's to the point, 
 loike." 
 
 And Mary read — 
 
 " MOY DEAR, 
 
 " i will mary yow whan yow plus. 
 
 '' Joe."* 
 
 ** Bean't it now to the point, miss ? " 
 
 * The above is a literal transcription of an East Anglian offer 
 of marriage before the days of Board Schools.
 
 10 MABY MYLES. 
 
 " But yon must not send it, Joe." 
 
 " I've nowt else to do," said Joe, sulkily, 
 '' 'cept be a zanterpede." 
 
 " You must not do this, Joe. I should he 
 grieved to hear you were going wrong, as I 
 shall always take an interest in your welfare ; 
 but go wrong you will if you do anything so 
 foolish as either of the two things you have 
 just mentioned. Go back to your work, Joe,, 
 and trust to time. I may some day be glad 
 to hear that you have risen from helper to 
 be under gardener, and when that is accom- 
 plished it will be time enough to ask some 
 young woman in marriage. Why, you are 
 only twenty. In five years' time — " 
 
 Some sudden thought checked the con- 
 clusion of her sentence; but Joe was un- 
 conscious of any compelled reticence on her 
 part. 
 
 " Foive years ! foive years ! " cried Joe. 
 
 " Go back to your work," resumed Miss 
 Myles, in a lower and gentler tone ; " I will 
 speak in your behalf to Mrs. and Miss Hazel- 
 hurst. Miss Hazelhurst has long taken a 
 great interest in this garden. I know that 
 she will like to have it kept up as it is. I 
 will ask her to put it in your hands. You
 
 MABY MYLES. 11 
 
 know well liow to do everything here. Keep 
 it up exactly as I should like it to be kept up. 
 Fancy that I am still here." 
 
 '^ How am I to do that ? " interrupted Joe^ 
 bluntly. 
 
 " By thinking every day whilst you are at 
 work that I shall soon be back fco see how 
 you are getting on." 
 
 Joe gave a grunt of disbelief. 
 
 " See, now, there's work for you at once ; 
 to bring up that log you see yonder, that 
 stump which Mr. Langridge cut down. Trim 
 it up and place it side by side with this one." 
 
 As she spoke she lightly touched Joe's 
 stubborn shoulder. 
 
 " Doan't you come anigh me. Miss Moiles ;, 
 doan't come anigh me. I be nowt for the 
 loikes of you to touch." 
 
 " I want your promise, Joe ; your promise 
 that you will go back to your work. If you 
 do not like it now, yet in hopes of some- 
 thing better the work will seem lighter. It is 
 your duty, Joe ; but if that is not enough, go 
 back for my sake — for my sake. And now 
 good-bye, Joe." 
 
 She put out her hand. 
 
 " I fare kinder dazed, miss," said poor Joe,,
 
 12 MABY MYLES. 
 
 huskily ; " I doan't fare like as I used to faro. 
 I doan t fare loike my oAvn self." 
 
 '' Never mind, Joe,'* said Mary, seeing his 
 iueffectual attempts to rub one hand clean 
 upon his corduroys. " Never mind. This is for 
 moving the stump. Grood-bye," and she thrust 
 a sovereign into the rough, begrimed hand 
 that Joe was holding back as too defiling for 
 her touch. '' Good-bye, and God bless you.'' 
 
 But Joe had fallen upon his knees and had 
 kissed her feet. 
 
 It was about three weeks after the events 
 just narrated had occurred that Mrs. Hazel- 
 hurst, whose house was now full of visitors 
 who had been invited for the express purpose 
 of banishing, if possible, those disturbing re- 
 collections, received the following letter from 
 her sister — 
 
 "My Dear Kate, 
 
 " I would not write until I could 
 give you something reassuring, a really firm 
 basis whereupon you might rest content. 
 Although I was never myself otherwise than 
 confident as regards the ultimate result, yet 
 I would not impart to you my impressions
 
 MABY MYLES. IS 
 
 until they were justified by facts. First and 
 foremost then, Herbert has as much got over 
 his late folly as if such a person as Miss Myles 
 had never existed, which plainly shows that 
 she is an intriguing, artful woman, who knew 
 how to hold him in her toils, but whose in- 
 fluence or power required the constant machi- 
 nations of visible presence, and vanished away 
 like a fitful dream the moment that he was 
 snatched from that baleful spell. When I 
 reflect upon what might have been the con- 
 sequence had Herbert been less straight- 
 forward and conscientious, I tremble ; Miss 
 Myles is just the kind of woman who might 
 wreck the peace of any family. I now con- 
 fess to yourself that she even began to work 
 upon my own susceptibilities. The very look 
 of her alone carries in it something of the 
 force of an electrical current. I shudder as 
 I recall it. How you could ever have a 
 woman in your house possessing such subtle 
 attractions it puzzles me to imagine. Why, 
 she is exactly the type of woman which all 
 history shows to be a subjugating power to 
 mankind. Beautiful, gifted, and unprincipled^ 
 what more is wanting — except opportunities ? 
 And you could not see it. She was un-
 
 14 MABY MYLES. 
 
 doubtedly playing a deep game, posing as 
 the prim governess with stiff white collar, 
 etc. ; but the topic is an irritating one which 
 I have no pleasure in recalling. My lady 
 doubtless thought that she had entrapped a 
 wealthy fool of a boy who could be decoyed 
 into a clandestine marriage. But enough of 
 her. Herbert is too proud to confess his 
 silliness, or to acknowledge his unfilial con- 
 duct in the affair, but he is evidently heartily 
 ashamed of it. He is now himself again, 
 wholly possessed with a noble ambition, and 
 a desire to distinguish himself in the world's 
 arena, and has suddenly in almost a mar- 
 vellous way entirely thrown off the boy, and 
 is a man with all the feeling of a man's 
 responsibilities. He is changed ; his self- 
 reliance, formerly a quality in abeyance to 
 my own wishes, has come to the front, and 
 seeing how well it is working I do not feel as 
 once I might, because he no longer appeals to 
 me or consults me as formerly. This possibly 
 results from the late conflict in his mind, but 
 it is good. He is resolutely determined to 
 walk alone, but the path which he has chosen 
 is tbe one of all others which I should have 
 preferred for him. The Indian Bar is his
 
 MABY MYLES. 15 
 
 choice ; he is working terribly hard, too hard 
 possibly, but I do not expostulate, as it is 
 only the reaction consequent upon having 
 temporarily yielded to lower impressions. I 
 dare say the dear boy would be happier if he 
 could bring his mind to make a clean breast 
 of it, as they say, and thank me for my timely 
 intervention. Sometimes he regards me 
 fixedly for a few moments with so sad a look 
 that I feel that if I gave him any encourage- 
 ment it would bring him to a full explanation 
 of how it all came about ; but I think it better 
 not to invite such disclosures. I am quite 
 reconciled to his going to India, because it 
 will place the wide ocean between them, not 
 that I believe he would again succumb were 
 he accidentally to meet her, but it is better 
 to be on the safe side, and not risk a collision 
 with so wily a woman. I may eventually go 
 out to him ; who knows ? Hereafter / shall 
 never allude to that odious business, so in 
 future let it never be alluded to by yourself 
 either by word or letter. 
 
 " Ever your affectionate and most thankful 
 
 " Elinoe." 
 
 **No, EHnor," said Mrs. Hazelhurst, as 
 she quietly tore up this letter into minute
 
 16 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 fragments ; ** no, I shall certainly never allude 
 to it again. Complimentary! I cannot dis- 
 tingfuish between a noble-minded woman and 
 an adventuress, can I not ? Miss Myles has 
 annoyed me very much, but nevertheless I 
 do know the ring of true metal when I hear 
 it. If only she could have liked Dr. Grant- 
 ham all would have been right ! "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Where is your kingdom ? Within my own soul, where I keep 
 all things in order ; my passions obey reason, and my reason obeys 
 God. 
 
 St. Alphonsus de Liguoei. 
 
 Dearest love, forgive 
 That I can think away from thee and live ! 
 
 Keats. 
 
 The expected arrival of a new head and 
 classical mistress in one, at the Girls' 
 Collegiate School of Chippenham, was a 
 subject which gave rise to much speculation 
 among the different grades of people inhabit- 
 ing that busy manufacturing centre and the 
 suburbs thereof. What she would be like, 
 both mentally and physically, engaged the 
 thoughts of all interested in that high-aiming 
 institution, whether parents or scholars. Of 
 her personality nothing was known. She 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 18 MARY MYLES. 
 
 had not been required to present herself 
 before the Committee who managed all the 
 funds and business matters connected with 
 the school. They, on the contrary, had pre- 
 sented themselves before her, having made 
 known to her for several years that the post 
 was hers whenever she chose to accept it, but 
 that the lady then officiating would stay on 
 until such a decision was made, it being only 
 considered a question of time, the age of 
 Miss Myles having been hitherto an obstacle 
 to her immediate nomination, as no head 
 mistress was eligible under twenty-five, and 
 a few years in excess of that minimum were 
 even to be preferred. But this fact of age 
 had not been allowed to transpire outside the 
 ruliug body, lest objections might be raised 
 on the score of youth to the appointment 
 upon which the Committee had set their 
 hearts. All that was definitely known was 
 that her name was Myles, which most of the 
 younger part of the community had voted 
 forthwith to be an ugly name, and, by a logical 
 conclusion, considered that the lady owning 
 such a name must needs be ugly also. It was 
 not supposed, on the contrary, that she could 
 be very old, from the fact of her having carried
 
 MARY MYLES, 19 
 
 off the honours at Girton College only a few- 
 years previously, and it was fresh in the 
 memory of all that the Committee had 
 announced with glee that they had secured 
 the winner of the classical tripos for their 
 mistress whenever the present lady principal 
 should deem it advisable, on account of deli- 
 cate health, to resign. 
 
 On Mary's side there was not much specu- 
 lation as to what her future would be at 
 Chippenham. There was her life mapped 
 out before her in a daily routine, uneventf dl 
 and placid. At least, that was the life which 
 would meet the eyes of the outside world; 
 but she had another life within her with all 
 its pressing needs, and of this casket, closely 
 locked up from every mortal eye, she alone 
 held the key, and none but herself should 
 unlock it. Henceforth, to live as if she had 
 never met Herbert Langridge ? That could 
 hardly be, nor would she strive to attain 
 peace by any such cold negation and repudia- 
 tion of that sweet, but short-lived memory of 
 love, but she would live — though away from 
 him, separated by how many leagues, not of 
 sea and land merely,'; but by other barriers 
 that seemed insurmountable. Yes, she would
 
 20 MARY MYLES. 
 
 live, and, if she could attain to it, live nobly ; 
 she would not beat out her heart against a 
 rock. Yes, she would live, as though it were 
 possible that he might come to claim her the 
 next week, and so for that coming she would 
 be always in readiness, with house decked 
 and garnished, nor gathering soil of time 
 allowed to harbour in any nook. 
 
 Sitting alone upon the morning after her 
 arrival in that neglected spot enclosed within 
 four walls which went by the name of a 
 garden, some sudden swelling of the throat 
 and tremor of the heart was caused by the 
 memory there conjured up of another garden, 
 which, from one scene in it, one scene alone, 
 was to her as the garden of Eden. With a 
 proud effort she exorcised those futile, regret- 
 ful reminiscences as an evil suggestion, and 
 as the whisper of a demon of hysteria. The 
 more healthy thought of present work to do, 
 the enticing charm that comes to some minds 
 in the consciousness of a power within, able 
 to create beauty out of ugliness, and order 
 from disorder, was aroused by the very 
 dreariness which would have plunged many 
 women so situated into the extremest slough 
 of incapable despondency. All the old loves
 
 MART M7LES. 21 
 
 came back linked hand in hand — guelder 
 roses and musk roses, woodbine and gilli- 
 flowers, thyme, marjorum, and lavender, birds 
 and bees, and a cherry tree for the starlings. 
 It was far enough away from the chimneys to 
 promise a fair return for any trouble bestowed 
 upon it. By the time Mary had planted thd 
 whole space in her mind, and seemed already 
 to hear it humming with insect life, and gay 
 with the song of birds, her eyes showed a 
 light in their depths which had not been 
 kindled there for many a day, and a cololir 
 came and flickered upon her cheek like a 
 harbinger of a not far-off time when again 
 she would be thought of by men as too lovely 
 to be the head mistress of the High School 
 of Chippenham; which opinion would be 
 promptly followed by a laudable endeavour 
 to remove her to a sphere more worthy of her. 
 The space between four walls destined to 
 become if not a garden, yet the best semblance 
 of one which a pure taste could evolve from 
 its possibilities, had done more than philo- 
 sophic reasoning to dispel the sadness which 
 Mary had felt upon her arrival at Chippenham. 
 The rooms in the wing appropriated to her 
 were large and airy, but the furniture was
 
 22 MABY MYLES, 
 
 stiff and formal. There was nothing any- 
 where either of that luxury to which she had 
 been accustomed at Sunnyside, nor of the 
 simpler elegance of her earlier home. The 
 thought "I must make some alteration here," 
 although a decisive resolve, failed to banish 
 the feeling of dreariness and vacuity that 
 oppressed her. " After Sunnyside " — Sunny- 
 side, which in her waywardness she had 
 hardly appreciated — ''what is this?" The 
 novelty of a town life, as it might be called, 
 with a possible lack of refined and intellectual 
 society condemning her to isolation, had 
 weighted her mind heavily, in the prospect. 
 She stepped over the threshold back into the 
 house with a bosom somewhat lightened, as 
 a bright-eyed damsel handed her a salver on 
 which lay two cards — '' Mr. and Mrs. Brere- 
 ton." 
 
 That same night she wrote the following 
 letter to Dr. Grantham, at Florence — 
 
 " Collegiate School, Chippenham. 
 " Dear Dr. Grantham, 
 
 " You will hardly expect to hear 
 from me so soon, but I feel it imperative upon
 
 MART MTLES. 23 
 
 me at once to confide to you all that has 
 transpired since you left. It may give you 
 some transient pain — I hope, I trust that it 
 will be but transient. Nevertheless, it is due 
 to us both that I should at once write to you 
 in truth and sincerity. I wish to retain your 
 good opinion. I believe you to be all that is 
 unselfish and good, bat I dare not think 
 that even your kind generosity towards me 
 could survive if you had reason to believe 
 that I had been guilty of falsehood and dis- 
 simulation towards you. You will perceive 
 by the above address that I have suddenly 
 left Sunnyside. As it is scarcely a week since 
 you wrote to me you will at once think that 
 something must have occurred to cause such 
 a decision. You approved of my resolution to 
 come here, but you expected that it would be 
 delayed for perhaps some months. 
 
 : " I hardly know how to open my heart to 
 you, I tremble lest my communication may 
 excite feelings prejudicial to your health, but 
 if you do not learn it from me you will learn 
 it from others, and it is better that you should 
 know it from myself. I have reason to believe 
 that our friendship, our mutual esteem, has 
 not been snapped by anything that has passed
 
 24 MARY MYLES. 
 
 between us. On my side, so long as life sball 
 last, I shall ever revere, and — yes — love you. 
 I shrink not from using that word, and, there- 
 fore, I dare not — I dare not imperil the loss 
 of your affectionate regard. So it is better 
 that I tell you all frankly. When you read 
 and realize how I have suffered you will be 
 more inclined calmly to consider what I 
 write, and you will believe me. I took your 
 kind letter, brought to me by Mr. Herbert 
 Langridge on the morning of your leaving 
 Sunny side, into my garden retreat to read. I 
 read and reread it with tearful eyes. Do 
 you remember your postscript ? That post- 
 script, those few simple words, merely a 
 short praise of Mrs. Hazelhurst's nephew, 
 brought a sudden light into my soul — it was 
 a revelation ! As I sat in my arched bower — 
 you know it — I was conscious of a feeling 
 hitherto unknown to me. I can hardly say 
 that the discovery gave me pleasure. I was 
 startled, almost annoyed, nevertheless it was 
 there. Dear Dr. Grantham, through that 
 postscript I discovered that I loved Herbert 
 Langridge ! I will not disguise from you 
 tliat I previously knew that the young man 
 had conceived an attachment for me upon our
 
 MART MYLES, 25 
 
 very first interview, but I was indifferent, or 
 supposed myself to be so. I solemnly declare, 
 dear Dr. Grantham, that no thought of Mrs. 
 Hazelhurst's nephew influenced me on that 
 unhappy morning. As far as I then knew, I 
 was heart free ; I sometimes think so still. 
 
 " Stirred as I was by this new-born con- 
 sciousness, I might yet have avoided the 
 catastrophe that followed had not Herbert 
 Langridge come that morning into my garden. 
 In less than one hour we were engaged lovers. 
 
 " And now, alas ! I have to confess to you 
 wbat I would willingly conceal. Your own lips 
 had told me that my tranquillity of manner 
 and appearance, which you recognized as 
 the garment that veiled a warm, responsive 
 nature, had been my special attraction in 
 your eyes. Ah, my dear friend ! what will 
 you say when I tell you that a few con- 
 temptuous words from Herbert Langridge' s 
 mother stripped off that garment, and that I 
 gave way to undignified wrath and resentment. 
 Never through my life had contumely in any 
 form come near me ; never had I any tempta- 
 tions to anger. I was proud of my fancied 
 supremacy over the common herd in respect 
 to those feelings ; proud, too, of some poor
 
 26 MARY MYLES. 
 
 gifts, and having lived somewhat aloof from 
 society so-called, I was unaware that any 
 mother could despise me for her son — despise 
 me ! 
 
 " Through an agony of suffering from in- 
 jured pride I came to a better knowledge ; 
 I gave up my newly-found love ; we are 
 parted — perhaps for ever ; we are parted 
 until the sanction of the mother who has de- 
 voted her life to her son is freely given, freely 
 offered. I am proud still, so far; and I am 
 here. Herbert and myself meet not again 
 until his mother solicits me to be his wife. 
 
 '' And now, dear Dr. Grantham, forgive 
 me if you think that you have aught to for- 
 give. Do not offer me pity; I do not like 
 pity. I shall survive this sorrow, and already 
 it seems that all bitterness has passed out of 
 it. 
 
 " I pray for you daily that your health may 
 be restored, and trust that you will enjoy 
 visiting the beautiful lands in which you 
 design to sojourn for some time to come. 
 " Ever yours, gratefully, 
 
 " Mary Myles." 
 
 This letter found Dr. Grantham at his
 
 MARY MTLES. 27 
 
 sister's prettily situated villa, about half-an- 
 hour's drive from the fair city of Florence. 
 
 How beautiful was the scene outspread 
 before him ! how glorious the golden sun- 
 light, the lucid atmosphere! Afar off lay 
 the city, whose many towers and spires were 
 clearly defined against the blue sky. Dr. 
 Grantham drew a deep breath as though he 
 were drinking in a new life of health and 
 happiness, when a letter was put into his 
 hands. 
 
 He had been more than human if its perusal 
 (when his not so long ago declared love and 
 its consequent rejection by the writer be taken 
 into account) had not caused him some agita- 
 tion. His philosophy and reason had not as 
 yet assumed altogether their rightful supre- 
 macy over feeling and emotion. The two 
 well-known lines of the poet came vividly to 
 him, so that at first it was not sympathy, but 
 rather envy, that dominated him. The young 
 man whom he had commended — a boy in the 
 eyes of Dr. Grantham — had won the hitherto 
 impregnable fortress of Mary's heart. The 
 lovers, for very reasonable motives as viewed 
 from any mother's point of view, were not to 
 be united, as far as it appeared at present;
 
 28 MART MYLES. 
 
 at least it was indefinitely deferred, and that 
 was of itself a deed of separation for ever in 
 the generality of cases when the lover was 
 a youth of but twenty years old ; unless, 
 indeed, his character was an exceptional 
 one. 
 
 This young man had seemed to him to have 
 great promise, and now, as he mused over 
 some circumstances of his meetings with him, 
 he recalled those early morning visits, and 
 particularly that one occasion when, having 
 sent for him to his bedside in order that he 
 might thank him personally for his attention, 
 he had been surprised by the stammering and 
 blushing eagerness with which the young man 
 strove to assure him that it was for Miss 
 Myles's sake only, she, who was naturally in 
 such distress, and who was so anxious, that he 
 came every day at early morn in order that 
 he might carry to her the first welcome news. 
 If, as it was now proved, the boy loved her 
 then, but was under some misconception in 
 respect to her feelings, how generous and 
 noble it was to act as her servitor when his 
 young heart was bleeding. 
 
 " He is worthy of her love," said the doctor 
 to himself, " and he is rewarded ; the love of
 
 MARY MILES. 29 
 
 such a woman does not fall to the lot of one 
 man out of a thousand once in a century." 
 
 So thought Dr. Grantham under the illu- 
 sion of a not yet thoroughly conquered 
 passion. Of the grief of separation at that 
 moment he hardly took any account. If there 
 were loss thereby it was far outweighed in 
 his estimation by the gain of there having 
 been mutual love ; they were happy in that 
 memory — although they were parted. 
 
 The question, however, was not one upon 
 which he felt inclined to dilate, so in a very 
 few words he wrote to assure Miss Myles that 
 he could never at any time doubt that truth, 
 which was so resplendent a feature in her 
 character, and that he highly approved of the 
 course she had taken in hastily leaving Sunny- 
 side and assuming a position in every respect 
 more suitable for her. 
 
 The curtain now falls. When it rises again 
 ten years will have passed — ten years, with 
 all their changing seasons of springs and 
 summers, autumns and winters. The scenes 
 will not have been shifted. Upon the actors 
 only in this simple drama of every-day life 
 will changing time have set its seal.
 
 30 MAEY M7LES. 
 
 To look forward for ten years at certain 
 epochs of life seems an eternity. To the 
 boy or girl what does it not signify ? Seldom 
 do they, however, care to realize what ten 
 years may bring forth. Through all the 
 bright visions which hopeful youth may con- 
 jure up as attendant upon the future, there 
 will yet creep in unbidden the shadow of a 
 phantom guest which seldom leaves a home- 
 stead or family circle unvisited for ten 
 years. 
 
 To look back for ten years, to some ardent 
 ones in the full flush of strength and courage 
 may be a kind of triumphant record of how 
 they have stepped firmly from stone to stone 
 in the steep ascent to success, and never 
 once slid in all their climbing. Brave souls ! 
 over whose paths it seems to have been 
 written that the besetting dangers should be 
 to them as naught, as though they themselves 
 were pre-ordained to be beacons for the faint- 
 hearted and stumbler, bidding them to take 
 courage by their example, for it was not so 
 difficult after all. 
 
 Oh! men and women sure of foot and 
 keen of sight, having no tremors and mis- 
 givings, rejoice that you miss not your path-
 
 MARY MYLES. 31 
 
 way between the rocks ; but be careful also 
 to keep your beacon lights well trimmed that 
 they may show a clear and steady flame to 
 those weaker ones who follow in your foot- 
 tracks !
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Life ! I know not what thou art, 
 
 But know that thou and I must part, 
 
 And when, or how, or where we met, 
 
 I own to me's a secret yet. 
 
 Life ! we have been long together, 
 
 Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 
 
 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear, 
 
 Then steal away, give little warning, 
 
 Choose thine own time ; 
 
 Say not " Good-night," but in some brighter clime 
 
 Bid me " Good-morning." 
 
 Mrs. Baebauld. 
 
 De. Geantham lay on his death bed. 
 
 " Is there anything more that I can do 
 for you, dear friend ? " asked the Yicar, who, 
 sitting by his bedside, held one of the sick 
 man's hands between both his palms. 
 
 Mr. Ashcroft had been for more than an 
 hour receiving at intervals last messages, 
 which he was charged to deliver to the wide
 
 MARY MYLES. 33 
 
 circle of college friends and literary associates 
 among whom the doctor had passed so large 
 a portion of his almost unchequered life. 
 
 " Is there anyone else ? " repeated the 
 Vicar, gently. 
 
 '' The little governess," gasped the dying 
 old man. 
 
 " Who ? " said Mr. Ashcroft, tremulously. 
 
 '*Mary Myles." 
 
 " What of her, dear Dr. Grantham ? " 
 
 " What of her ! " There was a long pause, 
 some struggling emotion made breathing 
 difficult. '' Everything of her ! " 
 
 "You mistake me," said Mr. Ashcroft, 
 tenderly ; " I meant what is the message you 
 wish that I shall convey to her ? " 
 
 " No message ! no message ! no message 
 to Mary Myles." 
 
 The Vicar made no reply. 
 
 '' I must see her once more before I die ! 
 Once more ! only once more ! Telegraph to 
 her to come to-morrow — to-morrow. Pray 
 that I may be spared until to-morrow. When 
 I have looked once more into her face then, 
 Lord, Thy servant can depart in peace ! " 
 
 Still the Vicar made no answer ; but his 
 countenance showed the doubts and per- 
 
 VOL. 11. D
 
 34 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 plexity which were struggling within him. 
 The name of Mary Myles had not passed 
 between them for ten years. 
 
 "Why do you not answer, Charles?" said 
 Dr, Grantham, and a faint smile struggled to 
 the surface. " Be not afraid, she will come." 
 
 The thought in the good Yicar's breast 
 was — 
 
 '' Ought she to come ? ought she to be 
 asked to come ?" 
 
 " She will come." repeated the doctor, in a 
 more resolute tone. '' I have no fear that 
 the black sail will be hoisted, though ten 
 years ago I was too old to be her Tristram. 
 She will come to bid the old man ' Farewell ' 
 before he goes hence." 
 
 The Yicar looked still more troubled. 
 
 " How cruel it was ! " murmured the dying 
 man. " ' They ben black as pitch ben their 
 hue,' and the sails were white ! the sails were 
 white ! How cruel ! " 
 
 " His mind is going, he is wandering," 
 said Mr. Ashcroft to himself. 
 
 He had never read of the loves of Tristram 
 and Ysolde, nor Sir Walter Scott's clever 
 restoration of a sequel to the fragment of 
 the old romance, and he sighed in compassion
 
 MARY MYLES. 35 
 
 for the (to him) most perceptible aberration 
 in the mind of his dying friend. 
 
 The sick man raised his hand as if in 
 expostulation. His breath was laboured. 
 In broken and fainter accents he articu- 
 lated, " Send for Mary Myles to come to- 
 morrow," and lay back exhausted with closed 
 eyes. 
 
 " As you wish it, my good friend ; I will go 
 and telegraph at once," said the Yicar, and he 
 pressed the hand of his old comrade a^g he 
 rose. 
 
 " She will come," said Dr. Grrantham, as if 
 to himself, opening his eyes, which gleamed 
 with a strange light. 
 
 As the Vicar hastened to the Post Office he 
 thought : *' Is it possible ? Has that fancy 
 for Miss Myles lingered in the old man's 
 heart all these years ? What a pity ! What 
 a mistake it all was ! Well, she was one in a 
 thousand — that's true. How graceful she 
 was ! and that something in her look ! I 
 never could make it out ; but no one could 
 resist it," and at this point Mr. Ashcroft 
 indulged in some retrospections which might 
 have been interpreted by maligners that he, 
 too, had been under the witchcraft of the lady
 
 36 MARY MYLES. 
 
 whom he had ODce likened so strangely to 
 Circe. " What a pity it all was ! " said the 
 Vicar, resuming the chain of the thoughts 
 which he had let drop whilst recalling Mary 
 Myles's steady grey eyes and classically poised 
 head. " An old man like that, and ten years 
 ago ! " 
 
 Mr. Ashcroft was a devout Christian priest ; 
 he was also a true and kind husband, but he 
 had never had any romance. His own love 
 affairs had, from beginning to end, been 
 smooth and unexciting. No clouds of doubt 
 had dimmed the horizon when he had deter- 
 mined to ask for Lucy Dawson's hand. He 
 knew she loved him, and knew that no objec- 
 tions would be raised by either family to the 
 union. His married life had been a fitting 
 sequel to his calm, unimpassioned courtship ; 
 a peaceful content in the plenitude of earthly 
 happiness, according to his standard, had 
 been fulfilled. 
 
 " A sweet woman, certainly — a very sweet 
 woman ! With such talents as she has — a 
 remarkably sweet woman ! I always thought 
 so myself — always." With his mind still 
 alternating between the enthralling fascina- 
 tions of the lady in question and the strange
 
 MAET MTLES. 37 
 
 and unwonted persistency of an old man's 
 love, the Vicar found himself at the door of 
 the telegraph office, and for the first time 
 considered what form the message which he 
 had undertaken to send should take. 
 
 " What am I to say ? " was the perplexing 
 idea uppermost, with the full belief impressed 
 upon his mind that the request about to 
 be forwarded was ill-judged and out of 
 place. 
 
 " It will distress her beyond all measure," 
 he mused; "not only will it bring back to 
 her mind all the old buried past, but the 
 very necessity of a refusal which it involves 
 will cause her exquisite pain ; and I — what am 
 I to say when I carry back to my poor friend 
 what, in his state, will seem so cruel ? Why, 
 it will kill him outright if he be in a con- 
 dition to understand it, for he was, surely, 
 wandering this morning ! Whatever did he 
 mean by ' sails black as pitch ben their 
 hue ?' I'll swear that was no quotation from 
 Homer." 
 
 It was, therefore, with a mixed feeling of 
 grief and annoyance that the Vicar tele- 
 graphed to the Head Mistress of the High 
 School, Chippenham —
 
 38 MAET MYLES. 
 
 " Dr. Grantham is dying. He wislies you- 
 to join bim in his last Communion to-morrow^ 
 noon. Will you come?" 
 
 When a real or imagined duty, the accom- 
 plishment of which is most distasteful to the 
 doer, is over and done, the mental atmos- 
 phere generally clears again at once, and Mr. 
 Ashcroft, whilst sitting in the office awaiting 
 the answer to his telegram, felt considerably 
 relieved. His thoughts flew back, forgetful 
 of the present moment, to the old friend of 
 more than forty years, whose term of life was 
 hovering in a minute's balance ; perhaps 
 even now the fragile cord might be already 
 snapped. 
 
 " Who can tell ? " said the Vicar, in a low 
 voice, as, stirred by these feelings, he rose up 
 and began impatiently to pace to and fro. 
 '' Who can tell ? To-morrow ! The sands of 
 life have so nearly run out that it is a ques- 
 tion if he be here to morrow." 
 
 This thought, with all the pain which it 
 involved, again brought back the reason of 
 his being where he was. No answer had 
 been returned as yet, and the time was over- 
 due when it might have been expected. 
 
 " I must evade giving the poor fellow a
 
 MARY MYLES. 39 
 
 direct answer," continued Mr. Ashcroft, with 
 a blank look. " I cannot tell him that no 
 answer was returned," and then he bethought 
 him of the vexed question of expediency, or 
 truth at all times and at whatever cost, 
 whosoever may be slain by its declaration ; 
 and he got involved in a tortuous mesh about 
 how he could steer in equivocating so as to 
 avoid a direct falsehood, when the answer 
 was given to him — 
 
 " I will come." 
 
 '' God bless me ! " cried the Yicar, starfled 
 out of his usual propriety, " how extraordi- 
 nary ! But like her," and his heart was lighter 
 than his feet as he trod his way back to the 
 bedside of his dying friend. 
 
 Dr. Grantham had a refreshing sleep, and 
 a bright look of gratitude greeted the Yicar. 
 
 " The sails ben not black, eh, Charles ? " he 
 said, softly. 
 
 Without heeding the allusion to the 
 *' black sails," which had been such a puzzle 
 to him before, and seeing clearly that there 
 were no signs of delirium in the good doctor's 
 countenance, he contented himself with say- 
 ing simpl}^ — 
 
 " The answer is : ' I will come.' "
 
 40 MARY MYLES. 
 
 *•' 1 knew it," said Dr. Grantham, softly. 
 '* God bless her ! " 
 
 The softened golden light of noontide on 
 one of the last days of a fine September shed 
 through the open casements and unshaded 
 windows of Dr. Grantham's chamber a reful- 
 gent glow that lit up the whole room with a 
 kind of glory, a foretaste, as it were, of the 
 eternal sunshine whither the soul of the good 
 old man was hastening. 
 
 " Draw back the curtains — more light — 
 more light" told all those assembled — all 
 those who had been often present at similar 
 scenes — that the summons had come. Many 
 who have heard those words from dying lips, 
 when the shadows have been closing round and 
 the eyes have been darkened, have taken those 
 simple words as meaning a spiritual significa- 
 tion. The demand of the sufferer for light — 
 more light — tells ns rather that the Angel of 
 Death is close at hand. Draw back the 
 curtains, then, oh watchers by the death 
 bed, let in the golden light of day to gladden 
 once more the fading eyes ! 
 
 On the window sill a squirrel was nibbling 
 nuts. He had been a constant visitor there 
 during the whole summer, for the kind old
 
 HART M7LES. 41 
 
 doctor had taken to himself the idea that this 
 particular squirrel was old like himself — a 
 tired wayfarer in life — although his coat was 
 as thick as ever, and his eye as bright as 
 any of his brothers ; but this idea was rooted 
 in the doctor's mind, so a small heap of nuts 
 already cracked were daily provided for him ; 
 and one of the many consolations of the 
 invalid was to watch his '' happy little 
 friend " at his diurnal meal. 
 
 *' Good-bye," said the doctor, smiling. 
 ^' Tell Joe to see that little Brownie is never 
 forofotten. That's one messasfe I foro^ot 
 yesterday. Poor little Brownie ! I don't 
 want him to miss me." 
 
 The room looked so bright and cheerful 
 with the flowers arranged by Mrs. Ashcroft, 
 which were none the less bright for the tears 
 which had fallen upon them — tears hallowed 
 by the tender memories of long years, of an 
 unbroken friendship, and now about to be 
 gently sundered for awhile. 
 
 There was some little anxiety visible on 
 the Yicar's countenance as he glanced first 
 at the evidently fast waning strength of 
 the dying man and then at his watch, 
 which already showed that some minutes
 
 42 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 had elapsed since the time at which Miss 
 Myles was expected. 
 
 " Were it not better to begin the service, "^ 
 he thought, '' lest — " 
 
 He unclasped the hand in which his friend's 
 was held, and was about to rise, when the 
 doctor whispered — 
 
 " Wait ! she has come — she is here." 
 
 Pausing, and looking towards the door with 
 an expression of wondering curiosity, there 
 were a few moments of anxious suspense, 
 when, unannounced, and in her travelling 
 dress, Mary Myles softly entered the room. 
 
 ** God has sent me my dismissal by an 
 angel,'' murmured the doctor, and feebly 
 raised his hand as a sign that the divine office 
 should commence. 
 
 Only once during that most touching rite 
 of the Christian Church did Dr. Grantham 
 unclose his eyes. When the closing Bene- 
 diction was uttered a halo of peace and happi- 
 ness glorified his face with a spiritual beauty 
 never before visible. 
 
 " Leave us alone for awhile, dear friends," 
 he pleaded, looking towards Mary for the 
 first time. 
 
 " We are near, the nurse and myself,"
 
 MABY MYLES, U 
 
 whispered Mrs. Ashcroft, " if you require 
 us," and Dr. Grantham and Miss Myles were 
 left alone together after an interval of ten 
 years. 
 
 " Did you think it a selfish thing, child, for 
 an old man to send for you to come to hi& 
 dying bed ? " 
 
 Mary for answer knelt down by his bed- 
 side, and bending her uncovered head over 
 the hand she held, gently touched it with her 
 lips. 
 
 " In the very deepest depths of my hearty 
 through all the long years which have passed 
 since we last met — since we last met — the 
 memory of you has been a fount of secret joy 
 — of joy — child, not of pain. Take this 
 thought to your heart after I am gone. I 
 have never ceased to love you ; I have never 
 prayed once that I might cease to love you ; 
 but I have never ceased to pray that my love 
 might be a hallowed one, and wheresoever I 
 may find myself in the heavenly mansions, it 
 is my trust that I shall never cease ,to love 
 you evermore. For that gift of love which 
 came to me, all unworthy as it was of you, 
 was a light from Heaven, bringing a clean, 
 warm soul to a poor dead body encrusted with
 
 44 MARY MYLES. 
 
 the leprosy of a cold selfishness. Without 
 mother, or wife, or child, who can tell how 
 strongly rivetted the chains of an engrossing 
 egoism would liave become, closing all 
 entrance of a higher life ? Mother, wife, 
 child — you have embodied in yourself all 
 those holy affections wbich redeem our lower 
 natures." 
 
 "Dr. Grantham," said Mary, softly, '' if it 
 will bring you any consolation in this hour, 
 know that you were never forgotten by me, 
 but that day by day through these long years 
 I have blessed you by name — you who, when 
 suffering, bad no word of blame or bitter- 
 ness, although you were suffering through 
 me. 
 
 "Through you? through you?" heanswered, 
 vaguely, as a momentary unconsciousness ob- 
 scured bis mental vision. " Still beautiful, 
 still beautiful," he murmured, as his dimming 
 eyes dwelt upon her face; ''but where is he, 
 the 'Yenerande puer,' was it not thus the 
 Vicar called him ? The bridegroom tarryeth 
 long." 
 
 The confused images of the sick man s brain 
 touched the chords of her heart, and tears 
 •came into Mary's eyes.
 
 MAEY MILES. 45 
 
 " Yes, it is long, so long, dear Dr. Gran- 
 tham, that at times I doubt if ever — " 
 
 " If ever, if ever ; yes, the time is over 
 long; but no one who has once loved Mary 
 Myles ever forgets. Can then one whom 
 she has loved, still loves, forget ? No, it is 
 not possible." 
 
 " There was a compact made with his 
 mother, and Herbert Langridge was bound to 
 fulfil it," said Mary, firmly. 
 
 "Mrs. Langridge died last year," answered 
 the doctor, sadly. " Death has released him, 
 and the bond is annulled." 
 
 " And the poor mother never saw her son," 
 she answered, unheeding the suggestion. 
 '' Our love has been guilty of that wrong." 
 
 " No, Mary; love nor thinks nor works 
 harm. It was self-love, selfishness, that 
 wrought all that woe. Poor foolish, mis- 
 guided mother," and overcome by emotion 
 Dr. Grantham fell back. 
 
 " Speak no more of this, my dear old 
 friend," murmured Mary, tenderly raising his 
 head and administering a restorative ; "let 
 this sorrowful theme cease." 
 
 " You are right," and there was silence for 
 a short space. " I will sleep now. Will you
 
 46 MARY 3IYLES. 
 
 watch awhile, my daughter ? " said the dying 
 old man. 
 
 Smiling acquiescence with tear-dimmed 
 eyes, Mary smoothed the pillows and sup- 
 ported his head, and the sleep that so often 
 precedes death, as if sent in merciful prepara- 
 tion for the last trying ordeal of the soul, fell 
 over him. Now and then a few half-articu- 
 late words were murmured, scraps of old- 
 world learning mingled with Bible texts ; 
 once, like as when a few chords struck on the 
 harp-strings recall the whole struggles of a 
 people, so did the words of the old Scotch 
 song now hovering in broken cadences on 
 dying lips thrill Mary's heart with memories 
 of the past, and the gathered tears fell on the 
 hand she held, as she heard though indis- 
 tinctly — 
 
 " Waly, waly, by the brae, 
 Waly by yon burn side 
 Where I and my love wont to gae — " 
 
 There was a rustling of leaves among the 
 boughs as a little living creature swung 
 itself on to the window sill, and broke the 
 fitful slumber of the invalid, as it also 
 aroused the attention of the watcher. 
 
 " Brownie ! Brownie ! Mary, are you 
 there ? " cried the sufferer.
 
 MARY MYLES. 47 
 
 Mary pressed his hand, a change had come 
 over his face, and the brightness of the dawn 
 before the day was upon it. He pointed to 
 a cabinet, and fumbled at a small key hanging 
 by a ribbon round his neck. Mary, divining 
 his meaning, released it, whereupon he signed 
 that she should bring the cabinet to him and 
 unlock it. As the lid fell back she saw that 
 it contained some antique jewels of great 
 price, and upon them lay a faded bunch of 
 harebells ! 
 
 A half cry of pain and surprise escaped her 
 as she recognized the form of the delicate 
 stalks and the withered petals. In a moment 
 all came back— the woodland glade, and the 
 half revealed love as the shy youth tendered 
 his gift of flowers, with the words " I was 
 thinking of you when I gathered them," and 
 the little blossoms which an accident had 
 transferred into Dr. Grantham's keeping, were 
 here cherished by him all these years. She 
 wept silently, but checked the momentary 
 outburst of emotion as the old man spoke 
 again — 
 
 "My treasures — my best treasures — my 
 mother's bridal jewels, and the harebells 
 you once wore on your bosom. The first are
 
 48 31ARY MYLES. 
 
 yours — to wear as a bride ; the last are miDo 
 — mine in death as in life. They shall go 
 with me into the grave." Seeing that he was 
 fast sinking, Mary was about to touch the 
 bell, but a pressure of his hand arrested her. 
 " No, I will enter the valley with thee alone 
 by my side — with thee alone." 
 
 A bright light overspread his face. 
 
 ** The bluebells — the bluebells; here, Mary, 
 here on my heart — bonnie, bonnie Scotland," 
 and then in broken and disjointed utterance 
 came the half articulate words — " The winter 
 is past — the rain is over and gone. In — 
 manus — tuas — Domine." 
 
 His eyes looked at her wistfully, with their 
 fading light. 
 
 " Kiss me — kiss me, Mary," he murmured. 
 
 Her lips touched his, and the warm tears 
 fell upon his chilling cheek, as with one fal- 
 tering word, " Nausikaa," the soul of the 
 good doctor passed away. 
 
 And they were Mary's hands which with 
 gentle touch smoothed the white hair which, 
 still unthinned, fell round the ample brow of 
 the great scholar. It was she who wove 
 autumnal wreaths for the chamber of death. 
 
 " Let us leave the sunlight with him," she
 
 MABY MYLES. 49 
 
 said ; " the rest of the house can put on its 
 mourning garb, but here let there be light. 
 Was it not light for which he lived ? " 
 And they let her have lier way, knowing how 
 the old man bad loved her, and sbe laid the 
 withered harebells on his breast and watched 
 by him all that day, whilst little Brownie 
 went and came and nibbled his nuts on the 
 window sill, sometimes peering round with 
 curious bright eyes as if he were seeking for 
 a welcome from the kind old friend who in 
 dying had not forgotten him, but had said ■^— 
 *' Let Brownie have his nuts as usual." 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Safe, thou dark home of the dead, 
 Safe, hide his loved head ; 
 Keep him close, close in thine arms 
 Sealed up mth a thousand charms. 
 
 Richard Crashaw. 
 
 " Has Joe Brunning left Sunnyside ? " asked 
 Mary later on in the evening of the same 
 day, after she, the Yicar, and his wife had 
 each given their loving testimony to the worth 
 of him who had been just taken from them, 
 dwelling upon each well-known attribute as 
 the bereaved always love to linger over, and 
 record the actions and ways of those who 
 have been very recently removed. '^ Has 
 Joe left Sunnyside ? because I think that I 
 met him this evening as I was leaving 
 Braemar. I was rather startled for the 
 moment, as I was flitting along, to come
 
 MART MYLES, 51 
 
 suddenly upon a man with a lantern, just out- 
 side the second gate, on that narrow path. 
 He stood aside, and stopped short, but did not 
 speak, nor even give the customary salutation. 
 By the flickering light which the lantern cast 
 upwards upon him, I thought afterwards that 
 the face thus dimly shown resembled what 
 Joe might have developed into — at least it 
 reminded me of him, but he evidently did not 
 recognize me, and was apparently amazed at 
 meeting a woman on that by-path at that 
 hour, and alone." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said the Yicar, '' it was 
 very wrong and self-willed of you that you 
 would not allow us to fetch you." 
 
 " Perhaps it was self-willed, but I know 
 every inch of the way, and my own thoughts 
 were companions enough. But tell me, could 
 it be Joe Brunning ? Where is he living, and 
 what is he now doing ? " 
 
 "You will be glad to her that Joe has been 
 living at Braemar for the last seven years. 
 Fletcher, as you know, died unfortunately at 
 Athens. He was imprudent, and he took 
 fever there, and our old friend has often told 
 us about the distress it occasioned him. He 
 was laid to rest in the pretty English cemetery 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 JILIINOIS LIBRARY
 
 62 MABY MYLES. 
 
 there, where the historian and Philhellene 
 Finlay is buried ; but his loss determined the 
 doctor to return home at once, as I wrote to 
 you at the time, although his health was 
 better in Greece than elsewhere, for having 
 thrown himself heart and soul into all the 
 aspirations of the modern Greek life he had 
 almost forgotten his ailments, but he could not 
 endure to remain absent from home when his 
 faithful Fletcher was no more, and upon his 
 arriving home, poor Joe being then out of a 
 place, he was taken on by the doctor, I expect 
 because he remembered that he had been one 
 of your loroteges!' 
 
 " Then I fear my former garden has re- 
 verted to its pristine state." 
 
 " I believe that Steveuson keeps it up 
 after a fashion, but I have never seen it 
 since you left. Joe did not altogether please 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst apart from his frequent 
 collisions with Stevenson." 
 
 " Poor Joe ! " sighed Mary, " he has a 
 good deal of stolidity in him, and requires a 
 gentle but firm hand to guide him, or else he 
 enwraps himself with a veritable porcupine 
 hide of resistance ; but what was his chief 
 offence? Mrs. Hazelhurst is a kind mistress.
 
 MABY MYLES. 53 
 
 and Helen had taken so strong a fancy to 
 my garden that I thought the thymy banks 
 might have thriven under Joe's care alone." 
 
 •' But you see, dear Miss Myles, that they 
 were so much away, and perhaps it was left 
 at first too much to his own devices ; anyhow 
 his chief fault was laziness ! " 
 
 '' Joe, lazy ? Or was it not that Steven- 
 son continued his tyranny in respect to the 
 muck heap ?" 
 
 " Well, no," said the Vicar, smiling, " it 
 was not exactly that; but Helen told* me 
 herself that whenever anyone went to the 
 ' Wilderness,' as it was called after you left, 
 Joe was always to be found — now, where do 
 you think ? " 
 
 " Not in my arbour, surely?" said Mary, 
 and a faint blush illumined her cheeks. 
 
 " You are just as sharp as ever," said the 
 Yicar, with twinkling eyes, " to think of 
 your making that guess 1 Yes, true enough. 
 Poor Helen would take her book or her 
 work, and sometimes at her persuasion Mrs. 
 Hazelhurst would accompany her, and when 
 they got to your haven of refuge, lo ! Joe 
 would be there sitting on your own log seat ; 
 yes, actually sitting, and of course Helen
 
 64 MABY MYLES. 
 
 could not deposit her silken skirts on the 
 place just defiled by Joe's corduroys. This 
 occurred several times, but the crowning sin 
 was, that upon one unhappy day they both 
 surprised him there with a pipe in his mouth 
 and smoking, so he had to go forthwith." 
 
 " Poor Joe," said Mary. " Is he married ? 
 I promised to help him when he had fixed 
 upon his wedding day, but I never heard 
 from him." 
 
 " Oh, no," cried the Yicar, again smiling. 
 " Joe is particular, he can't find anyone 
 good enough for him. I think that he is 
 looking out for a serrafum. I took him in 
 hand after the pipe business, and had him 
 here, and he did for us well enough, for he 
 is honest, and sober, and truthful. I also 
 appointed him to be gardener to the church- 
 yard, and so between these two posts he did 
 remarkably well, as far as wages were con- 
 cerned, for he cleared between them five-and- 
 twenty shillings a week, and began to in- 
 crease his deposits at the savings bank so 
 rapidly, that at this moment Joe looks upon 
 himself as a man of property who ought not 
 to throw himself away upon anybody ; but I 
 wish heartily that he would marry before
 
 MABY MYLES. 55 
 
 some little penurious ways, the outcome of 
 his praiseworthy thrift, get too much fastened 
 upon him. However, Joe did not like the 
 churchyard business, for he is a little bit 
 superstitious, and I believe that it was only 
 the little fees and the good pay that induced 
 him to take it in the first instance. He told 
 the sexton that ' A' don't altogether loike 
 warking near the winder where the serrafum 
 was, for as he only saw her on the wrong 
 side, she seemed to be always looking at him 
 askew loike,' you remember Joe's Suffolk 
 whine. As he generally had to do what was 
 required in the ground at the after part of 
 the day, and was almost always alone there, 
 it was at last too much for him, and he 
 wished to leave, when Dr. Grrantham offered 
 most opportunely to take him into his service 
 at once with the same wages that he earned 
 altogether, and there he has remained until 
 now, always having given his kind master 
 thorough satisfaction for his integrity and 
 faithful discharge of his duties, which, how- 
 ever, were not onerous ; but Joe would be all 
 the better for a wife and two or three red- 
 haired epitomes of himself. You must talk 
 him over, Miss Myles. It would be sad if his
 
 56 MABY MYLES. 
 
 thrift should degenerate into selfish hoarding, 
 as in our unbalanced lives it sometimes does." 
 
 The conversation then anrain reverted into 
 that channel which was more in kinship with 
 the feelings of the three, and the virtues and 
 learning of their departed friend was so 
 welcome a theme, and so thoroughly ab- 
 sorbed them that the stumbling of a heavy 
 foot in the porch, and a correspondingly 
 heavy knock at the hall door passed un- 
 noticed. Visitors are not frequent at lonely 
 parsonages in the country after nightfall, 
 and therefore brown-eyed Phebe might be 
 excused for breaking into their conference 
 rather abruptly, instead of attending to the 
 summons from without, and saying with 
 much perturbation — 
 
 " Oh, please, sir, there's somebody a-knock- 
 ing and making a dreadful noige at the front 
 door, and I'm afraid to go a-nigh it." 
 
 " All people who have nerves feel them 
 more or less unstrung at times like the pre- 
 sent, and why not Phebe?" thought the Yicar. 
 
 " Indeed, Phebe ; and is Jane frightened 
 too ? " 
 
 '* Slie's almost ready to go straight off into 
 a fit."
 
 MABY MYLES. 57 
 
 " This is nonsense, Phebe ; making a noise, 
 do you say, or merely knocking ? " 
 
 *' Oh, sir, he do make a noise, and he keep 
 on a-coughing dreadful ! " 
 
 *' Oh, it's all right then. Go and open the 
 door, Phebe. I will follow. No harm will 
 happen to either of us from any poor fellow 
 who has a dreadful cough." 
 
 ''But it's not a true, honest cough, sir; it 
 be put on." 
 
 " And no one who means mischief, Phebe, 
 will herald his approach by a cough, either 
 honest or dishonest. Go and open the door 
 at once, lass, and show the man in," and the 
 Vicar followed her out. 
 
 But if the sight of Joe Brunning at any 
 time were calculated to produce a little 
 flutter in Phebe's manners by his awkward 
 attempts at flirtation, it was not so to-night ; 
 for Joe Brunning, who was this unwonted 
 visitor, had not a word or a smile for her, 
 but stood still looking almost as pale as her- 
 self, and, according to a favourite expression 
 of his own, " quite dazed loike." He made 
 no reply to Phebe's sharp rebuke — 
 
 " What ! Joe Brunning ! Was that you 
 making all that noise ? You've frightened
 
 68 MABY MYLES. 
 
 me and Jane almost out of our wits. What- 
 ever did you keep on croaking for, for all 
 the world like an old toad, and coming up to 
 the front door, too ? " 
 
 But Brunning this evening was not up to 
 the warding off with a counterstroke, how- 
 ever clumsily delivered, any of Phebe's light 
 thrusts. 
 
 " I want to see the measter," he said, in 
 hollow tones. 
 
 " Here I am, Joe ; put down that lantern 
 and come in," said the Vicar, cheerily, and 
 he, knowing that Phebe's propensity when- 
 ever Joe called was to hang about, either 
 with a view to listen to Joe's voice, which, 
 husky as it was, had dulcet charms ap- 
 parently for her, or, as it was in the present 
 instance, from a desire to gratify a curiosity, 
 which, considering the paucity of events 
 which came to break the routine of a some- 
 what monotonous and dull-toned life, was 
 also natural, told him to follow him into the 
 little study set aside for such receptions. 
 
 " Well, Joe," said the Vicar, after he had 
 closed the door himself, " what is it ? Why 
 you look quite scared." 
 
 '' May well be that, sir ; I've — a — I've seen 
 a speerit.''
 
 MABY MYLE8. 59 
 
 " Nothing in that if it were true, Joe, to 
 send all the colour out of your face, my good 
 fellow, supposing, that is, it was a spirit of a 
 just one made perfect — for I do not accuse 
 you of having seen an evil one," said the 
 Yicar, smiling; *'but I take the liberty of 
 contradicting you, and saying that you've 
 not seen either. You are a little bit upset 
 at the loss of your good master, and so we 
 are all, Joe." 
 
 Joe commenced shaking his head omin- 
 ously, and for a few moments could give out 
 nothing more explanatory. 
 
 "It beant that, Measter Ashcroft; it beant 
 that." 
 
 *' Sit down, Joe, for a moment ; why you 
 are actually trembling all over." 
 
 But Joe could only articulate — 
 
 *' It beant that — it war the serrafum.'' 
 
 Mr. Ashcroft could not refrain from laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 " The ' serrafum ' again, Joe. I hope that 
 you'll not worry it out of my church window ; 
 'tis the prettiest figure there." 
 
 " I knaw that — I knaw that," said Joe, 
 still wagging his head solemnly; ''but I 
 b'leeve, Measter Ashcroft, she come out of t*
 
 60 MABY MYLE8. 
 
 winder t' night, and ha' been to see the old 
 measter." 
 
 "What! " 
 
 " I see it, sir, as sure as I see you ; it war 
 just a-coming out of the gaate. It war a'most 
 pitch dark ; I had my lantern, and I war 
 just a-going to lock up the out-houses, and a' 
 meet it by the gaate ; a' see a loight in the 
 doctor's room as a' come along from the cow- 
 shed, and a' see someone moving about the 
 room where the old measter be lying, and, 
 b'leeve me, sir, a' could see right through it, 
 as un sees through the serrafum in the winder. 
 I felt the whole mash of my blood turu in an 
 instant ; an' then — an' then, Measter Ash- 
 croft, just agin the gaate I see sumun 
 coming along, and I lift up my lantern and I 
 see—" 
 
 " What, Joe ? " 
 
 " The face of the serrafum out of the 
 winder looking out at me from out a hood, 
 but I warn't a-goin' to be dashed, Measter 
 Ashcroft," continued Joe, in a prouder and 
 more confident tone, " so I go round by the 
 church as I come here, and sure enough that 
 side of the winder was pitch dark and there 
 war no serrafum there."
 
 MART MYLES. 61 
 
 " Of course not, Joe, the buttress takes 
 care of that, it throws a massive shadow 
 upon that part of the window at all times, 
 but if all was pitch dark, as you just said, 
 I'm at a loss how you could make any- 
 thing out at all. You would be a lucky 
 fellow, Joe, to meet one of the Seraphim ; it 
 does not come to the lot of many. But clear 
 your brows and come with me. A very kind 
 friend of yours is in the library with Mrs. 
 Ashcroft. Follow me, Joe, and see the very 
 Seraph you met this evening in the person 
 of Miss Myles, your former mistress." 
 
 Joe did not speak ; his ideas always came 
 slowly. 
 
 " Come, Joe," said the Vicar, encourag- 
 ingly; *' Miss Myles will be glad to see you; 
 she has been asking after you." 
 
 A little scuffle, as of a starched gown in 
 retreat, was audible to the Vicar as he pre- 
 ceded Joe out of the door of the study. 
 
 " I have brought you your old gardener, 
 Miss Myles. Joe Brunning has come to see 
 you," said the Vicar as he re-entered the 
 library, whilst Joe lagged heavily behind. 
 
 When Joe, after a few gracious words 
 from his former mistress, had begged her to
 
 ^2 MABY MYLES. 
 
 accept his duty, and tlien resumed his 
 lantern and trudged homewards somewhat 
 lightened in heart, anyone who had met 
 him and whose eyes could have pierced the 
 darkness might have seen him frequently 
 shaking his head dubiously, whilst he 
 muttered to himself — 
 
 " 'Tis wholly stanning.^ She be more loike 
 a serrafum than ever." 
 
 * A Suffolk word.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 No man can claim to usurp more than a few cubic feet of the 
 audibilities of a public room, or to put upon the company with 
 he loud statement of his crotchets or personalities. 
 
 * * ^<- * * * 
 
 Haldor was not a man of many words, but short in conversa- 
 tion, told his opinion bluntly, and was obstinate and hard. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 In the coffee-room of the Anglo-Indian Club 
 two gentlemen had just recognized each 
 other, and were exchanging the warm and 
 hearty greetings that old friends give and 
 receive at an unexpected meeting after the 
 lapse of many years. They were both elderly 
 men, and both wore a mihtary aspect, but 
 one had evidently but lately returned 
 from a hot climate, and his deeply bronzed 
 face showed out in strong contrast to 
 the whiteness of his hair, his bushy eye-
 
 64 MARY MYLES. 
 
 brows, and his thick moustache. He was a 
 fine and distinguished-looking man, with a 
 very soldierly and frank demeanour, an over 
 frank demeanour maybe, if judged by the 
 conventional reticence of English society 
 generally, for he spoke loudly and with the 
 voice of one who had long been accustomed 
 to say '' Go " and to be obeyed, and his 
 phrases were garnished or emphasized with 
 sundry ejaculations, the most usual of which, 
 ''By Jove" or "By George," like all other 
 invocations of the same nature, are now 
 almost obsolete among gentlemen both in the 
 army and navy, where were formerly their 
 head-quarters. His laugh was also loud and 
 frequent, and his whole appearance, notwith- 
 standing his sixty years, the last twenty of 
 which had been spent in active service under 
 an Indian climate, gave tokens of robust 
 health and fine animal spirits — a constitution, 
 in fact, upon which no mental strain had 
 ever long pressed — a good-hearted, jovial 
 man, with nevertheless a visible reserve of 
 power somewhere ; a man of whose bravery 
 and courage in the field, for instance, no one 
 would ever think it requisite to inquire — it 
 was stamped upon his whole person and in
 
 MARY MYLES. 65 
 
 every lineament with an impress that was 
 conspicuous to each beholder. It was also 
 very obvious that he had never been very 
 much used to the society of women. 
 
 "Upon my word, Colonel," said his friend, 
 still retaining his hand with a firm grip, 
 " you bear your years well. You've not 
 come home invalided, that's quite certain." 
 
 " By Jove, no ! I'm all right — all right," 
 answered Sir Robert Hanbury, shaking his 
 friend's hand with ponderous energy ; '' no 
 liver troubles here, eh ? Complexion's first 
 rate, isn't it — that is, what you can see of it? 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! " and he laughed long and 
 heartily. 
 
 " It is really astonishing, Sir Eobert. You 
 are younger than half of our young men 
 even now, and by-the-bye I hear you're still 
 a gay bachelor." 
 
 " Yes, by George ! without encumbrance," 
 and again he laughed. 
 
 '' Ah, well ! — ah, well ! — never too late, you 
 know. Colonel ! I expect that you've come 
 home for a wife, and that now you'll settle 
 down among us like a respectable man. 
 Better late than never I I'll introduce you 
 
 VOL. II. r
 
 66 MARY MYLES. 
 
 to some nice girls, and be your best man 
 into the bargain when you've made your 
 choice." 
 
 " I'm not a marrying man, Mason, and I'm 
 not going to make a fool of myself. By 
 George ! what should a man marry for at 
 sixty ! — sixty ! I never had but one scratch 
 in my life — a pretty deep one though, by 
 Jove ! — and I was close upon forty before I 
 got that. You remember ! " and the Colonel 
 knitted his shaggy white eyebrows and tugged 
 at his moustache. 
 
 " Yes, I remember," said his friend, slowly, 
 and looking at the Colonel with surprise, " if 
 you mean — " 
 
 " By Jove ! " interrupted the Colonel, some- 
 what sternly. 
 
 " But you don't really mean to say, Sir 
 Robert, that you have thought about that 
 affair all these years — you ! " 
 
 " Not thought about it ! Why, I've not 
 got softening of the brain ! Of course I've 
 thought about it — that is, when I've thought 
 at all, not being much given to that kind of 
 thing, never having any time to spare for it. 
 But I tell you what it is. Mason. You know 
 what a lot of man-hunters come out to India
 
 MARY MYLES. 67 
 
 after us poor fellows. Well, by Jove ! that 
 girl's face always came up before me, and 
 was like a shield of protection. Ha ! ha ! 
 Whenever a woman, maid or widow, made 
 eyes at me I couldn't help taking stock — ■ 
 making an inventory — during the process, 
 and the result always was — ' You, after Mary 
 Myles— ugh ! ' " 
 
 " Ton my word, Colonel, you've not a 
 smaller opinion of your own personal merits 
 as regards the fair sex than you had twenty 
 years ago ! " 
 
 Sir E-obert's clenched fist came down 
 heavily upon the table and made the crockery 
 ring again, and a gentleman who was read- 
 ing at a table on the far side of the room 
 suddenly started forward in his seat, and 
 gave a searching glance at the Colonel, when, 
 sinking back again in his chair, he resumed 
 his former attitude, shading his face with the 
 paper he was reading. 
 
 ''No," growled the Colonel, " I've not for- 
 gotten it — never shall forget it. A girl 
 without a brass farthing, of no social stand- 
 ing, to look me calmly in the face and refuse 
 me ! " and at the absurdity of the idea Sir 
 Robert again laughed out heartily.
 
 68 MARY MYLES. 
 
 *' Bad taste, wasn't it, Colonel ? " said Sir 
 Henry Mason, smiling. 
 
 '' By Jove ! " shouted the Colonel ; " I 
 thought at the time that the girl was clearly 
 out of her wits — beside herself." 
 
 Sir Henry leant forward and whispered to 
 his friend that they were not alone, as a hint 
 for the Colonel to moderate the tones of his 
 voice. The Colonel gave a hasty and in- 
 different glance at the stranger before men- 
 tioned, who continued reading, and went on 
 without heeding. 
 
 •' I'm bound to say that no bomb or shell 
 ever startled me more. I never even took 
 the trouble to examine the outposts before 
 making the assault, nor took any time to 
 consider whether the result would be worth 
 the sacrifice involved, for, look you, I had no 
 doubt of victory, and then — then, as if I had 
 only been a pale, pettifogging lawyer's clerk 
 with a hundred and fifty pounds a year, she 
 said quietly, without any fluster, and in the 
 sweetest of sweet voices, ' No ! no ! no ! ' 
 By Jove, though, what a lovely creature she 
 was!" 
 
 '' You had that consolation. Colonel, any- 
 how — she was worthy of your admiration."
 
 MARY MYLES, 69 
 
 " I never saw her equal before or since," 
 said the Colonel, moodily. '' But what 
 became of her ? Married a curate, I sup- 
 pose, and had ten children, and is now a 
 mere rag of her former self, so to speak. ' 
 
 '' No, you are mistaken. She is still un- 
 married — at least, so I heard when I was 
 down in the North last year. I met a fellow 
 there who knew her when she was at Girton, 
 — in fact, he also had had a scratch, as you 
 term it." 
 
 " Girton ! Girton ! Why, that's the place 
 where they manufacture blue stockings, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 '' You are a little bit old-fashioned, Han- 
 bury. That epithet is out of date nowa- 
 days, but as you have brought up the lady's 
 name I may as well avow that she is what 
 you would call a blue stocking." 
 
 *' Mary Myles a blue ! " shouted the 
 Colonel, in consternation. 
 
 Sir Henry Mason smiled. 
 
 " Mary Myles a blue ! " repeated the 
 Colonel, in a low voice. " Why, Mason, the 
 first time I saw her she was in a swing in a 
 white frock and blue sash — a mere wisp of a 
 girl, not much over sixteen. I think I see
 
 70 MARY MYLES. 
 
 her now — her brown hair blowing in the 
 wind, and one of her little shoes had fallen 
 off. By Jove ! hers were the prettiest feet I 
 ever saw in my life ! It was those little feet 
 crossed over each other, and one shoeless, that 
 made a fool of me there and then. 
 
 " ' Colonel Hanbury, miss,' said the damsel 
 who had opened the gate. Did she jump off 
 in a hurry at being thus surprised? Not a 
 bit of it. 
 
 '* ' Colonel Hanbury, please pick up my 
 shoe,' she cried, smiling all the time as if there 
 was nothing unusual in the request ; ' pick 
 up my shoe,' and I picked it up directly. 
 
 " For a moment I half meditated putting it 
 into my pocket, but she was holding out her 
 pretty hand with its pink palm ; and whilst I 
 was looking at that, she whisked it out of my 
 hand with the most provoking and childlike 
 simplicity, and slipping it on, jumped down 
 and said in the sweetest of voices — 
 
 *' ' Now I can shake hands, and say good- 
 morning. Colonel Hanbury. My mother is 
 within ; 1 will announce you,' and I followed 
 her as meekly as a lamb." 
 
 " Well ? " said Mason, smiling. 
 
 '* Mrs. Myles was a delightful person ; her
 
 MART MTLES. 71 
 
 husband had been an early chum of mine. I 
 had looked forward to meeting her, but when 
 that girl left the room — and I verily believe 
 she returned to her swing — I found no words 
 to say to my old friend's widow. For three 
 whole days and nights that girl was ever 
 before me. I don't believe I slept one wink." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well ; why on the fourth day I was at 
 that garden gate again, I had a belief, see you, 
 that the swing was her morning occupation, 
 and the idea of proposing to a girl in a swing 
 rather tickled my fancy." 
 
 " Proposing to a girl of only sixteen whom 
 you'd only seen once before ! " 
 
 " Why not ? I'd nothing to wait for, had I ? 
 I'd got to years of discretion, eh ? " 
 
 " Well, and was she in the swing ? " 
 
 "No, but she must have seen me unlatch 
 the gate, for I had hardly entered the garden 
 before I saw her coming towards me with a 
 basket on each arm, a broad straw hat 
 shading her face, a blue cotton gown, and a 
 white apron and bib." 
 
 " *I am so glad that you have come. Colonel 
 Hanbury,' she cried, offering me her gloved 
 right hand from under the basket handle ;
 
 72 MAMY MYLES. 
 
 " I am going to gather cherries, and you can 
 hold the baskets for me as I throw them in. 
 My mother is just this moment busy with 
 some household matters, so if in the interim 
 you will come and help me I shall be so very 
 much obliged to you ; and by the time we have 
 finished my mother will be able to receive 
 you,' and quite demurely and as a matter of 
 course she handed me both the baskets. 
 
 "'Thank you very much, Colonel Hanbury. 
 It is very kind of you. Follow me, please. 
 You must stoop your head,' she said, laughing, 
 as she held back a bough that hung low over a 
 side path. She looked so charming as she 
 did so that as I ducked under the green leaves, 
 and saw her rosy smiling mouth within a 
 foot of me, I felt a strong desire — But she 
 had shackled me with a basket on each arm. 
 
 " ' These baskets are tolerably heavy, too 
 heavy for you. Miss Myles, to have carried 
 even empty ; you surely did not contemplate 
 carrying them back when full ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh yes. Colonel Hanbury, one at a time. 
 I am very strong, but you will be able to 
 carry them both at one time, will you not ? ' 
 
 " We were now at the cherry tree. A light 
 ladder was fastened firmly to one of the
 
 MARY MYLES. 73 
 
 branches. She skipped up it before I was 
 aware of her intentions. The tree was laden 
 with its beautiful fruit, which hung in ruddy 
 bunches more plentiful than the leaves. 
 
 " * Now please, Colonel Hanbury, just put 
 one basket on the ground out of your hand, 
 and hold the other with both hands. You 
 see I should have been obliged to hang it on 
 a bough if you had not so kindly come to help 
 me.' 
 
 " She then took off her hat and threw it 
 down. I stood below like a gawky schoolboy, 
 holding a basket while she plucked the 
 cherries and tossed them into it. I kept my 
 eyes upon her, and not upon the basket. 
 
 '' ' Why, Colonel,' she cried, ' you're not 
 looking ! The basket's full and they are all 
 falling upon the ground ! Put that down, 
 please ; and now for the other. But perhaps 
 you'll be kind enough to gather up those 
 that are fallen while I rest mj arms a little,' 
 and she sat herself down on the top rung. 
 
 " Now, just fancy me grovelling upon the 
 ground picking up those cherries ! I suppose 
 I got red in the face, because presently she 
 said in a sweet and almost compassionate 
 voice —
 
 74 MART MYLES. 
 
 ** * But you look very, very hot, Colonel 
 Hanbury. Will you not like to rest a little 
 too?' 
 
 " * Oh, no, no.' 
 
 " I wanted her down from that ladder, 
 you see. Mason, out of that confounded 
 cherry tree. Every moment I was getting 
 more madly in love with her, and I wanted 
 to tell her so. 
 
 " At last both baskets were full. 
 
 " * Oh, thank you so much, Colonel. Now, 
 please, take them both up, and carry them on 
 towards the house. I shall soon overtake 
 you.' 
 
 " ' Can I be of no assistance ? ' I said, hold- 
 ing out both my hands, but she had perched 
 herself on the top rung and had crossed her 
 little feet on another lower down. I saw the 
 blue bows on her shoes peeping out from 
 beneath her skirts. 
 
 " ' Oh, no ; thank you very much. Colonel 
 Hanbury.' 
 
 ** I saw she was resolute, so that chance 
 was gone. T took up my baskets, one in 
 each hand. I had to hold my arms straight 
 down, of course — a more helpless, stupid 
 position for a man of my height and size can
 
 MARY MYLES. 75. 
 
 hardly be imagined. You may well laugh, 
 Mason. 
 
 "As I turned my back and was moving 
 over I heard her spring lightly to the ground. 
 She was putting on her hat when she joined 
 me again. 
 
 " ' I can hardly thank yon enough, Colonel 
 Hanbury,' she said, ' for thus pressing you 
 into my service ; but you see we have no 
 regular gardener, and we keep no boy.' 
 
 Sir Henry Mason laughed outright. 
 
 " ' Colonel Hanbury,' she said after a while, 
 as I had said nothing, * do you like cherry 
 pie ? If you do, and will stay dinner — we 
 dine at two, but you can make it your 
 luncheon, you know — you can taste the 
 cherries you have helped to gather, and I 
 am going to make the pie.' 
 
 " ' It delights me, Miss Myles, to hear 
 yon say " pie." I always hear them called 
 " tarts," and I hate the word ; " tarts," as I 
 understood them in my schoolboy days, were 
 uncovered little kickshaws.' 
 
 " * My dear mother. Colonel Hanbury, 
 likes old-fashioned words, and she has 
 brought me up in old-fashioned ways also, 
 so I make all the pies, puddings, and cakes.'
 
 76 MARY MYLES. 
 
 " ' For your sake, then, Miss Myles, I will 
 submit to a possible attack of dyspepsia, and 
 never refuse pie, pudding, or cake when I 
 take luncheon here.' 
 
 *' She lifted her clear grey eyes to my 
 face. 
 
 *" If I thought dyspepsia would be the 
 result. Colonel Hanbury, you should not be 
 offered anything of the kind when you are so 
 good as to come to see my mother ; and I 
 hope you'll come often — but my pastry never 
 causes dyspepsia. Will you sit down and rest. 
 Colonel Hanbury ? I will go and find my 
 mother.' 
 
 " She motioned me to a garden chair, but 
 I did not sit down. 
 
 " I know you think me a fool. Mason, in 
 telling you all this, and I can't tell how it is 
 that I remember it all so well, considering 
 the life I*ve led since." 
 
 *' I think such events in our lives are 
 always remembered," answered Sir Henry, 
 sententiously. 
 
 " * By Jove ! ' I thought, * here's an oppor- 
 tunity ! ' You see, I'd quite made up my mind 
 to take the plunge, and I wasn't going to 
 hang about dawdling week after week, so I
 
 MARY MYLES. 77 
 
 straightway made use of my opportunity. 
 Standing before her I put out my right hand 
 and took hers. 
 
 " * You are not going, Colonel Hanbury ? 
 You'll stay and taste my cherry pie ? ' 
 
 '* ' I hope so/ I said, and held her hand. 
 ' I am a soldier, you see, my dear young 
 lady, and am rather blunt, and not used to 
 pay — to pay compliments. I prefer to speak 
 to you before I see your mother. The up- 
 shot of this little preamble is that I love 
 you.' 
 
 " She looked me at once in the face with 
 wide open eyes, without a blush, in the most 
 unblushing manner," said the Colonel, laugh- 
 ing at his attempt at a joke, " and she made 
 no reply, so in rather plain fashion I blurted 
 out — 
 
 '' ' I ask you to be my wife.' I suppose I 
 ought to have trembled a bit, but I'd never 
 trembled in my life before an enemy, so I 
 wasn't going to stammer before a young girl 
 when I was offering her a position she could 
 never have dreamed of, but she looked at me 
 with as proud a look as if it had been my 
 groom and not I who was proposing to her. 
 Like a fool I took pity on her youth and
 
 78 MARY MYLES. 
 
 ignorance, and repeated the question. She 
 had allowed me to retain her hand all this 
 time, mind you, so to push on the siege 
 more vigorously I pressed the little soft 
 hand as I repeated : ' I ask you to be my 
 wife, my dear girl ; it doesn't take much 
 consideration to say Yes, does it ? ' " 
 
 ''Well?" 
 
 '' Well, she hastily withdrew her hand from 
 mine, and looked at me steadfastly with those 
 eyes of hers, as I just now told you, and 
 answered very slowly — 
 
 " ' But the answer, Colonel Hanbury, if 
 you are really serious, which I can hardly 
 imagine, is JSTo ! ' " 
 
 '' And so ended your romance." 
 
 "Well, I did just think that the girl 
 might have some sneaking kindness for 
 some young fellow which was blocking the 
 way, and that when all the advantages were 
 put before her she would doubtless re- 
 consider her verdict — not that I had any 
 desire to play Number Two, supposing that 
 might have been the case ; although I was 
 forty-two or thereabouts, and she just sixteen. 
 Nevertheless, after making my bow to the 
 damsel I did go straight to the mother and
 
 MAEY MYLES. 79 
 
 told her my dilemma, asking her if there was 
 any prior attachment, and she fired up just 
 as if the question implied an insult, and 
 gave me such a look. 
 
 *'*My dear child, Colonel Hanbury, has 
 but just entered her seventeenth year.' 
 
 " ' Well, my good lady,' I answered, ' if it 
 has not been in your experience, it has cer- 
 tainly come under mine as a fact that girls 
 and boys often have their little love affairs 
 without the knowledge of papa and mamma.' 
 
 '* I had put my foot in it. 
 
 " ' Mary is not one of those girls,' she 
 said, haughtily ; then, regarding my penitent 
 demeanour, added : ' I would gladly have 
 seen her the wife of a good and brave man, 
 and I am sorry for you, but her " No " means 
 no! ' 
 
 *' The next day I was on my way to India, 
 and after twenty years I come back to find 
 her — not married to a curate, but worse — 
 an old maid aud a blue — a blue ! What a 
 narrow escape I had ! " 
 
 "Not a very narrow one, eh, Hanbury ? " 
 
 Sir Robert Hanbury made no reply to this 
 covert hint of his friend, nor saw the half 
 smile which accompanied it. He was moodily
 
 80 MABY MYLES. 
 
 regarding tlie tablecloth. After a few minutes 
 in this apparently absorbing occupation, he 
 looked up, and, regarding Greneral Mason 
 with a determined air, said, in low and 
 measured tones — 
 
 '* I tell you what it is, Mason, I was a 
 fool — a confounded fool — in not stopping 
 for luncheon. I ought to have known better. 
 I behaved myself like a miserable sub. 
 There was not a bit of generalship in any- 
 thing I did. Oughtn't I to have known 
 what a mere drummer boy ought to be 
 whipped for not knowing, that any com- 
 mander who brings all his forces against the 
 enemy without first attacking and securing 
 the outposts is a fool for his pains and 
 deserves to be well thrashed ? If I had 
 stayed luncheon, and taken some of her 
 cherry pie and praised it, and asked for a 
 second helping, and, in defiance of a frightful 
 indigestion for a month, had a third help- 
 ing, by Jove ! I believe that that girl would 
 now have been Lady Hanbury ! " 
 
 " Forgive me for smiling, Hanbury, but 
 your cherry pie episode recalls a well-known 
 distich scratched on the pane of a country 
 inn —
 
 31ARY MYLES. 81 
 
 " In memory of the cherry pay 
 That cost half-a-guiney." 
 
 But Colonel Hanbury was in no mood to 
 laugh at another man's jest, if jest were 
 intended. 
 
 Sir Henry Mason, however, seemed mis- 
 chievously bent upon playing upon his 
 friend's idiosyncrasy of self-approbation, so 
 remarked with a twinkle of his eye — 
 
 " But she's not done so badly after all, 
 excepting, of course, that she's not Lady 
 Hanbury. I heard last year when I was 
 down in the north that she had gained the 
 highest honours — was a classical tripos, 
 man." 
 
 " A classical tripos ! a classical tripos ! 
 Merciful heavens ! " 
 
 ** And is now head-mistress of the Chip- 
 penham College for Girls, with a salary of 
 five hundred a year; not so bad for your 
 penniless little girl, eh, Colonel ? " 
 The Colonel sprang from his chair. 
 " Worse and worse," he roared. *' Mary 
 Myles a school-mistress ! By Jove, it serves 
 her right ! " 
 
 The stranger laid down his newspaper 
 and crossed the room on his way to the 
 VOL. II. G
 
 82 MAM 7 MYLES. 
 
 door. As he passed he bowed slightly to 
 Colonel Hanbury, who returned the saluta- 
 tion. 
 
 " Do you know that gentleman ? " observed 
 Sir Henry. 
 
 " He was one of the passengers in the 
 Guatemala. I believe that he is a Judge of 
 some eminence in Bombay, but somehow we 
 didn't get on together during the voyage. I 
 rather think our politics did not coincide. I 
 did not recognize him until he bowed, and I 
 cannot recall his name at this moment." 
 
 Sir Robert walked to the window. 
 
 " Mary Myles a school-mistress ! " he mut- 
 tered. " Mary Myles a blue ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 love, my love ! If I no more should see 
 Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, 
 
 Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, 
 How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope 
 The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, 
 
 The wind of Death's imperishable wing ? 
 
 KOSSETTI. 
 
 When in the lives of men and women the 
 dial of time scores a flight of ten years, the 
 index points to moral or physical changes as 
 obvious as the sun's record on the dial-plate; 
 but in the life of a woodland tree ten years 
 leave hardly a mark of their passage. There 
 is no appreciable advance towards decay and 
 dissolution. The child may frolic and dance 
 over its roots, and again as an old man, with 
 trembling hands resting on his staff, he may 
 stay awhile his weary feet beneath its shade ;
 
 84 MARY MYLES. 
 
 whilst the tree itself is still in its glorious 
 prime. Thousands upon thousands of short- 
 lived creatures each fleeting summer have 
 made merry in its branches ; song and glad- 
 ness have re-echoed there for many decades, 
 and the tiny players of pipe and tabor have 
 mouldered generation after generation in the 
 deep leafy mould beneath. Birth-place and 
 hunting ground of myriads of enemies, who 
 are slowly but surely working its destruction, 
 scooping out its very bowels to make them 
 bridal couches and nursing cradles, it is yet 
 an object of grandeur and beauty, all un- 
 witting that its very life-blood is being 
 sapped by tribes of little despised borers, 
 tunnelling its mighty stem in every direction. 
 
 The chestnuts of Sunnyside glade, save 
 that their arms stretched yet a little further 
 towards the woodland path, were unchanged. 
 Chestnuts are not as sturdy as the oak, to 
 whom age is a crown of glory. The years 
 piled on years bring them decrepitude and 
 palsied limb, but on the other hand the 
 ravages of small enemies are fewer, and they 
 succumb to time, not before the armies of 
 insect invaders. 
 
 The chestnuts of Sunnyside glade had
 
 MARY MYLES. ^h 
 
 passed unscathed through the past ten years 
 which had stripped off many a noble arm 
 from their not far distant neighbours by the 
 joint attacks of lightning and storms, with- 
 out its being apparent why they had been so 
 mercifully passed by, when the tempest and 
 whirlwind rushed in blind fury over the land 
 and had laid so many others low. 
 
 Beneath a dull November sky, their golden 
 leaves yet remaining, loosened by last night's 
 hoar frost, were fluttering down in showers. 
 Their rustle as they fell was the only sound 
 that met the ears of a solitary figure, who 
 stood long rooted to the spot immovable — 
 chained, as it seemed, by some enthralling 
 memories. 
 
 A tall, powerful, bearded and sunburnt 
 man was this visitor to a seldom trodden 
 spot. A grave man, over whose temples the 
 hair, elsewhere so thick, had somewhat fallen 
 away, which added still more to the noble 
 breadth of brow. That brow was marked a 
 little prematurely when viewed in contrast 
 with the other features ; they looked like 
 lines of thought rather than of years, and 
 the deep cut between the eyebrows spoke of 
 a lono^ habit of knitting them, the result
 
 86 MARY MTLES, 
 
 often of suppressed feelings of indignation, 
 but always indicative of gnawing cares — a 
 stern face on the whole, with firm, well 
 closed lips. His age might have been 
 guessed to be between tbirty-five and forty, 
 but a second glance would possibly qualify 
 the first impression of the beholder, and give 
 rise to the added remark — 
 
 " It is possible that he looks much older 
 than lie is." 
 
 He was bareheaded, holding his bat in his 
 hand, although the wind that with no gentle 
 hand lifted his hair was sharp and searching, 
 and the thick double piled overcoat that he 
 was wearing showed that he was not in- 
 different to cold. 
 
 It was no soft emotion that overpowered 
 him, although his eyes scanned the stem of 
 the larger tree on the mound with the eager- 
 ness of a lover searching for a mistress's 
 cherished name ; and if those were really 
 tears with which his eyes glistened, they 
 were tears which made the line between his 
 brows to deepen, and his lips to close yet 
 firmer. 
 
 " God forgive me," be said, after awhile. 
 *' I ought not to have come here first," and
 
 MAEY MYLES. 87 
 
 > 
 covering his head he turned away s uddenly 
 in the direction of Sunnyside. 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst had received a telegram 
 on the previous morning announcing her 
 nephew's arrival in England, followed by a 
 brief note which signified that it was his 
 intention to call upon her on the following 
 day. He had not written to her throughout 
 all this interval of ten years, until his reply 
 to her letter upon his mother's death, which 
 response was singularly brief, considering 
 the occasion. She had felt wounded by his 
 seeming neglect. At first she had hardly 
 expected it, but when that fleeting futile love- 
 dream of his had vanished into thin air, she 
 had hoped that occasionally he would have 
 written, or showed in some other way that 
 his old affection to the ever-kind aunt of his 
 boyhood, and to his early little playmate, 
 was again reasserting itself. 
 
 From time to time, as she listened to her 
 sisters glowing description of his rapidly 
 advancing career, and his brilliant prospects 
 in the future, her thoughts had again inclined 
 to the possibility of the alliance cherished of 
 old, and in this she was encouraged by Mrs.
 
 88 MAJiY MYLES. 
 
 Langridge. Helen had refused several offers 
 — she seemed resohitely set against marriage. 
 "What other reason could be assigned for this, 
 but that she secretly and tenaciously clung 
 to the girlish remembrance of her handsome 
 cousin ? India somehow did not now seem 
 too far off for her child. He would retire 
 early — that intention he openly avowed to 
 his mother — he would eventually take up his 
 residence in England. Such a future as was 
 held out to her would compensate for part- 
 ing with her daughter for a year or two, and 
 so the thought thus entertained grew and 
 grew, until it occupied her mind almost as 
 fully as formerly. 
 
 What a devoted son he was ! His letters 
 to his mother were curt, certainly, but then 
 he was overwhelmed with serious employ- 
 ments. That he worked terrificly hard to 
 attain all that he achieved was self-evident. 
 A position so unwonted at so early an age 
 was not acquired without personal cost and 
 sacrifice, but Mrs. Langridge was satisfied. 
 Almost every mail brought her some token of 
 his loving care for her — some choice Eastern 
 gift, increasing in costliness as the years 
 brought him increasing wealth. What shawls,
 
 MAMY MYLES. 89 
 
 and rugs, and embroideries, and carved 
 work found their way to her home ! Not one 
 doit would he ever receive to diminish her 
 income since the hour he found himself 
 dependent upon her, or since that *' silly 
 affair," as his mother put it, which, after all, 
 had not turned out so badly ; as he was evi- 
 dently bent upon convincing his mother that 
 he was not the weak fool that she had 
 thought him to be. Everj^thing showed to 
 Mrs. Langridge that the films had fallen 
 from his eyes, and that each earnest endea- 
 vour of his life was to coincide with her 
 every wish. Yes, it had been a good thing, 
 a providential thing after all. India could 
 give him more than England. Here he must 
 have waited a lifetime for one quarter of the 
 results that had now accrued to him from the 
 service of a few years. In England how he 
 must have toiled before he could have got a 
 name ! Now he had both wealth and honours. 
 There was as yet, no hint from him of any 
 intention of marrying, but his mother had no 
 desire that he should ally himself with any 
 Anglo-Indian girl. She had once ventured 
 to write : " When you pay your promised 
 visit to England, dear boy, I suppose that
 
 90 MARY MYLES. 
 
 you will not go back again without a wife." 
 And he had written in reply : " I do not see 
 ray way clear to go to England so soon as I 
 expected. When the announcement for 
 which I am waiting comes, I shall go, but 
 not before ; but if it does not come before, 
 expect me, at any rate, in the tenth year. 
 Then I shall possibly stay a whole year in 
 England, and assuredly I shall not return 
 hither without my wife." 
 
 This letter, a longer one than usual, Mrs. 
 Langridge sent to her sister. " Glorious old 
 fellow," she wrote, "he is doing exactly 
 what I would have him to do. T am told 
 that a baronetcy will probably be offered to 
 him on his retirement, so I am in no hurry ; 
 and our dear Helen will not harm by this 
 delay." And Mrs. Langridge, with her 
 increased means, was equal to the occasion, 
 and received and paid visits in a style 
 befitting the mother of a judge and a possible 
 baronet. 
 
 But she, the mother, had died suddenly a 
 few days before this tenth year had dawned. 
 
 With sad thoughts, as she revolved all 
 these things in her mind, Mrs. Hazelhurst 
 looked forth from the same library windows
 
 MAEY MYLES. 91 
 
 from which she had seen the handsome 
 youth with clouded brow drive off just over 
 ten years since, and — The gate swung 
 back. Was that bearded, bronzed, hard- 
 visaged man who lifted his hat in recogni- 
 tion the object of her thoughts ? Could 
 he be Herbert Langridge? A strange 
 feeling of disappointment, almost of repul- 
 sion, crept over her. How different was this 
 coming home to all she had pictured ! Was 
 this man her Indian Prince ? 
 
 Whilst still these feelings were predomi- 
 nant he had entered the library rather 
 abruptly, and not waiting to be announced. 
 A silent embrace was his greeting. 
 
 " You hardly know me,'' he said, after a 
 pause. " I see it in your face, my dear 
 aunt ; but really I am no counterfeit, I am 
 still Herbert Langridge — by name, anyhow." 
 
 *' And by nature, too, I expect," said his 
 aunt, graciously, recovering herself and faintly 
 smiling. ** Welcome — welcome home! Ah! 
 how sad it is," she said, sighing audibly, 
 "that your dear mother no longer lives to 
 welcome you ; to think that the meeting to 
 which she ever looked forward was never to 
 be!'
 
 92 MART MYLES. 
 
 Mr. Langridge had taken a seat. He 
 shaded his face at those last words, leaning 
 his elbow upon a table near. 
 
 " But my mother was suddenly taken 
 hence," he said, huskily ; " her death-bed 
 was not clouded with those regrets." 
 
 *' That is true ; but it does not make the 
 loss any more endurable for those who are 
 left. Rather the contrary. So many hopes 
 — so many visions of a future, that never 
 was destined to come — haunt me still. Poor 
 Elinor ! " 
 
 '' But was not my mother bappy ? It was 
 my constant endeavour that every wish of 
 her heart should be gratified." 
 
 " And you can take that for your consola- 
 tion Herbert I never knew before how much 
 my sister's heart was set upon such things ; 
 but latterly she looked ten years younger, 
 and at her receptions was as attractive as the 
 youngest beauties present." 
 
 Mr. Langridge made no answer. 
 
 " You have come without any luggage. I 
 presume you left it at the station, Herbert ? 
 
 '' I have only come to-day for a call, 
 aunt." 
 
 " For a call ! after all these years ! But,
 
 MABY MYLE8. 93 
 
 of course, only a preliminary one to a very 
 long visit. You remain in England a year, I 
 believe ? " 
 
 " Not now, aunt ; no, my visit will not 
 exceed two months. Things here, you see^ 
 are altered for me ; and now with the view I 
 still hold of retiring in four or five years, I 
 hardly care to take too long a holiday ; but 
 dear Helen, she is not married I hear. How 
 is that, aunt ? " 
 
 An awkward question, as Mrs. Hazelhurst 
 took it, but she evaded it. 
 
 " Helen is difficult ; she has had splendid 
 opportunities, but I am not sorry to have 
 her still all my own. She is out riding just 
 now, but you will see her at luncheon ; but 
 now, as you have touched upon matrimony, 
 I suppose that I am not far wrong if I venture 
 to hazard a remark upon yourself. Do you 
 take a wife back with you ? " 
 
 *' That was the main object of my visit to 
 England," he said, dryly. 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst smiled inwardly. 
 
 '' His heart is set upon my Helen," she 
 thought ; *' but how blunt he is. I am not sure 
 that she will see you with the same eyes as 
 formerly ; " but she said aloud, " You have
 
 94 MABY MYLES. 
 
 allowed yourself but a short time to make 
 your clioice. Two months ! '' 
 
 " My choice was made ten years since." 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst pushed back her chair. 
 The grating words — the cold, hard voice — the 
 stern face turned towards her took away all 
 power of reply. 
 
 " Therefore have I come," he continued, in 
 the same dry tone, " and therefore do I seek 
 you now as a petitioner having a favour to 
 ask ; but, aunt, you look frightened. Is my 
 aspect so grim as all that ? " 
 
 " I hardly understand you, Herbert," fal- 
 tered his aunt. 
 
 " Well, then, to be explicit, I have come to 
 Eno^land to claim the hand of the woman I 
 loved in my boyhood ; but don't be alarmed, 
 aunt, I am not mad." 
 
 " Your voice sounds cruelly harsh, Herbert. 
 Am I really to infer that you are actually 
 alluding to Miss Myles ? If so, such an idea 
 does almost seem to me like madness. What 
 would your poor mother say were she alive ? 
 Miss Myles is now a middle-aged woman — 
 faded, precise, and care-worn ! " 
 
 *'And what am I? Look at me! You 
 see me brow-lined and furrowed from hast-
 
 MABY MYLES. 96 
 
 ing to be rich ! And wliat else is there within 
 that you do not, cannot see ? A heart pre- 
 maturely hardened from this pursuit of wealth 
 and honours, a life from which all poetry has 
 been reft — crushed — cruelly crushed out. 
 And my mother never relented — not one 
 word ever came from her of sympathy or pity ! 
 Look at me — in the lower sense — a success ; 
 in my higher nature — a wreck; a Will 
 machine with all the cogs and wheels moving 
 in admirable adjustment ; but a machine, 
 after all, without a soul ! " 
 
 " Good heaven ! Herbert, that unfortunate 
 attachment seems to have blotted out all 
 natural affection. It is horrible ! " 
 
 " My mother, in her pride, asked for 
 success — she spurned love away from her. 
 Year after year I toiled day and night, I 
 forestalled her every desire. I toiled, I say, 
 day and night in the darkness of grief, obey- 
 ing her implacable commands to the very 
 letter. 1 waited, and waited in vaia for the 
 message which never came. I heard it some- 
 times in the watches of the night : * Come 
 home, my son, and marry the woman you 
 love ; ' but it never came. That noble woman 
 had bound me to this blind obedience. ' Your
 
 96 MABY MYLES. 
 
 mother is a woman,' she said, 'she will surely 
 be touched by your filial love and devotion. 
 Wait ! and if in the course of years your con- 
 stant service wins not a spontaneous acknow- 
 ledgment, you can then go to her with a 
 clear soul and ask your release. You can then 
 say, " Mother, I have done all this for you ; 
 have you nothing for me in return ? " ' And 
 this is the tenth year, and I am here, but my 
 mother said not one word, and she is in her 
 grave." 
 
 " Your mother was under a wrong impres- 
 sion, Herbert. She thought that you had 
 overcome that — that early predilection, but 
 now, even now reconsider it. Miss Myles, I 
 have only seen her once, but that was lately 
 at poor Dr. Grantham's funeral, and although 
 she was at some distance and veiled, I could 
 see by her general bearing that she was 
 much aged, and who could expect otherwise 
 in ten years ? — ten years make their mark in 
 any woman — and when one has to earn a 
 livelihood by teaching the natural result 
 must be that such a woman would change 
 more than another. If she were not the 
 wife for you, my dear Herbert, ten years 
 ago, depend upon it she is less suitable now 
 than she was then."
 
 MAMY MILES. 97 
 
 " Look you, aunt," said her nephew, 
 springing to his feet. " I knew not whether 
 she were alive or dead until two days since, 
 when T accidentally overheard her name 
 alluded to by some old friend of her father's, 
 a fellow traveller, addicted to loud talking. 
 Had she been dead, mind you — had I come 
 home to find two graves instead of one — 
 think not that I would have buried the love 
 of my youth in her grave, and left it there 
 for the grass to grow over, and my heart to 
 blossom into another new, fresh flower of 
 love. No ! I would have sought her grave, 
 but I would not have left her there and 
 turned my footsteps back into the world to 
 seek forge tfulness and oblivion. I would have 
 borne those dear remains back with me, 
 back to India, far away from this cold 
 island, and its colder people, and there in 
 India, in old heathenish fashion, I would 
 have builded a splendid mausoleum, and 
 waited again, waited for ten years — twenty 
 years — for I am strong, and sorrow does not 
 kill me, as you see. I am as obstinate in my 
 body as my soul ; what I will, I do. Yes ! I 
 would have waited till I could sleep with 
 her the sleep of death ; but she lives, thank 
 
 VOL. II. H
 
 98 MARY MYLES. 
 
 God, she lives ! and you tell me in order to 
 change my purpose which has also lived 
 these ten years that she is * faded ! care- 
 worn ! precise ! ' Be she ' faded ' she is 
 my own. Every line that I shall number on 
 that dear face, each, each one will show to 
 me the record of how they came, and through 
 what they have come." 
 
 " He is raving, he is stark mad," thought 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst, but she merely observed 
 coldly, *' The simplest solution would be 
 her six-and-thirty years. You are unjust," 
 she continued after a pause, " unjust and 
 unfeeling, when you thus covertly allude to 
 my sister, your mother. She was apparently 
 mistaken, she judged you as any reasoning 
 being would have judged you from your acts. 
 Being away, she — all of us — had no other 
 means of judging, and she, and all of us, 
 thought that you were endeavouring to 
 show her that you wished to atone for — well, 
 in short, that you heartily repented of your 
 folly." 
 
 " What, aunt ? did my mother who knew 
 me as I was then, better than anyone else, 
 did she think of me so meanly after all? 
 Was she proud of me only because I worked
 
 MARY MYLES. 99 
 
 to gain, strove for an object, and knew of 
 me nothing beyond ? Could slie imagine that 
 in the higher affections I was really pos- 
 sessed of such a poverty of soul that I could 
 win a woman's love with ardent words and 
 worship, laying down my life almost at her 
 feet if she had asked but for it, and then 
 shift off and fling it away, as a newly-donned 
 garment, no longer required, is cast aside 
 when the sun cotnes out and warms a cold 
 spring day ? My mother thought that ? my 
 mother ! Yet if she did think me so miser- 
 able a wretch as your words imply, she was 
 more guiltless than I thought. She was not 
 then indifferent and heartless. She knew 
 not that I suffered. Is this, can this be 
 true?" 
 
 " She had no misgivings of any sort, none ; 
 of that, Herbert, rest well ass ured. Believe 
 me, knowing your mother as I knew her, it 
 is with no small anguish of heart that I thus 
 plead my sister's — my sister's cause with her 
 own son, but it is true. Two years ago, allud- 
 ing to that event now so painfully brought 
 before me again, she said to me, ' How 
 thankful Herbert must be that I withstood 
 his boyish caprice. Every action shows it,
 
 100 MARY MYLES. 
 
 dear fellow ! He is of too noble a nature to 
 speak of it in direct terms, as he could hardly 
 do so without some disparaging remarks 
 upon the lady who was the cause of it ; but 
 the facts speak for themselves. ' " 
 
 Herbert covered his face with his hands 
 and wept. 
 
 " My poor mother! my poor mother ! These 
 are the first tears that I have shed since I 
 left England. I wept not when the news of 
 my mother's death was brought rae, though 
 my eyes were like balls of fire ; but no tears 
 came to moisten them. O, God ! I thank 
 Thee that I can weep again. My poor mother ! 
 you cast away from you the true riches of the 
 heart, and losing a son and a daughter were 
 satisfied with the counterfeit coin of the world 
 — paltry gewgaws of wealth and pomp ; poor, 
 poor mother ! " 
 
 ''Restrain yourself, Herbert; you are not 
 talking as a reasonable man should talk, much 
 less as a wise man who is proud of his stead- 
 fast will. I cannot listen any longer if you 
 indulge in these wild tirades, and persist in 
 reflections upon my sister." 
 
 " Aunt, forgive me. For ten years I have
 
 MABY MYLES. 101 
 
 been but a dry stick. This outburst is wel- 
 come ; it shows rue that the sap of true 
 vitality is DOt altogether extinct. I am 
 thankful that I can weep." 
 
 " What is the favour which you spoke of 
 but now ? " she said, auxious to divert the 
 conversation into a different channel. 
 
 " Simply this. That my marriage may take 
 place from your house, and that you will 
 kindly ask my intended bride to take up her 
 residence here until all my arrangements are 
 completed." 
 
 " That can hardly be, Herbert. Upon re- 
 flection you will think you have done wrong 
 in making such a request." 
 
 " I have well considered it, aunt ; it is no 
 sudden thought. My sole idea is to honour 
 her, and from this house, where she bore 
 humiliation so nobly, I desire that she shall 
 go forth as my bride. You cannot deny me. 
 Is it so unreasonable a request r If Helen 
 were here I would ask her if she would not 
 be glad to do honour to a lady to whom she 
 owes so much." 
 
 ** Luncheon is about to be served, Herbert ; 
 we will talk it over by-and-bye."
 
 102 MABY MTLES. 
 
 *' I have no time to adjourn it. I take the 
 afternoon train to London, and by the first 
 express to-morrow morning I journey to the 
 north. After arranging the preliminaries of 
 my marriage I have to settle my mother's 
 affairs, and I have other matters to attend to 
 in connection with my appointment in India, 
 so you see I have not much time to lose." 
 
 Helen, entering at this juncture, met her 
 cousin with frank warmth ; but her surprise 
 was equal to her mother's. 
 
 " How dreadfully he is altered," she said 
 to herself over and over again; but when 
 after luncheon her mother drew her into 
 another room and hastily told her all the cir- 
 cumstances of the interview and her nephew's 
 request, adding, parenthetically, '' He must 
 be mad," overcome by sympathetic pity, she 
 murmured — 
 
 *' Poor fellow, poor dear Polly. Oh, mother ! 
 darling mother ! do let us have the wedding 
 here," and sobbed aloud on her mother's 
 shoulder. 
 
 A few minutes after both women re-entered 
 the library with tearful eyes. Going up to 
 Herbert Langridge, they each laid a hand on 
 either arm.
 
 MABY MYLES. 103 
 
 " This dear girl has prevailed. Bring your 
 intended bride here, and, since you will have 
 it so, may God bless you both," said Mrs. 
 Hazelhurst, and laid her right hand upon her 
 nephew's head.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 And ever as their shadows threw 
 
 Themselves athwart the crimson pane, 
 White arms the casement backward drew 
 
 And stretched toward the swelling main. 
 " The day is done, the night is nigh. 
 
 The boats are hasting to the lee. 
 On what far shore becalmed doth lie 
 
 That bark should bear my love to me." 
 
 A COLD, drizzling rain was falling when 
 Herbert Langridge arrived at the great manu- 
 facturing city of the north. " Drive me to 
 the best and nearest hotel," he had said; but 
 the best did not happen to be the nearest, and, 
 for reasons of his own, as the traveller was 
 evidently a stranger, the cabman who received 
 this command responded to it by taking him 
 to a second-rate commercial inn, the alto- 
 gether jaded look of his fare suggesting to 
 the driver a hard-worked bagman rather than
 
 MABY MTLES. 105 
 
 an Indian judge. In too impatient a mood 
 to order him to drive elsewhere, and possessed 
 with that spirit of irritation which almost 
 welcomes a condition of things that justifies 
 it, Herbert flung himself from the vehicle 
 whilst objurgating the stupidity of the driver, 
 whom he nevertheless gladdened by more 
 than double the pay due to him, and, entering, 
 ordered private rooms. 
 
 Private rooms, however, were scarce at 
 *' The Merry Bells," and although fires of the 
 largest dimensions were blazing away in the 
 coffee and public rooms, there was none in 
 the dingy little apartment into which he was 
 shown. 
 
 " Let me have a fire quickly, and anything 
 for dinner that you have in the house, only 
 quickly,' ' he said, shuddering. " Have you 
 no bedroom with a fire in it, where I can 
 refresh myself with some soap and warm 
 water ? " 
 
 " I am afraid, sir, that all the best bed- 
 rooms are full. But I'll soon make a fire in 
 the room next to this. But do you want a 
 fire in both rooms at once? " 
 
 " Yes, make as large a fire as you can 
 in both rooms, and soon. Be quick, be
 
 106 MARY MYLES. 
 
 quick, my good girl ; don't you see I'm 
 perished ? " 
 
 The ready application of a coin not often 
 offered to her occasioned first a stare of sur- 
 prise, and secondly gave rise to a conscien- 
 tious scruple, which surmised that another 
 coin of similar dimensions but of a paler 
 colour might have been intended. 
 
 " Do you know what you've given me, 
 please, sir ?" she said, holding it out displayed 
 on her not too clean palm. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; do make haste." 
 
 Oh the power of a tiny bit of gold ! Wood 
 and coals in a few moments were flaming and 
 roaring up the wide old-fashioned chimney 
 whence a few moments before the down 
 draught brought into the room the com- 
 mingled odours of soot and damp. Without 
 removing either travelling or great coat, 
 Herbert drew a chair close to the fire, and, 
 heedless of scorching, thrust his booted feet 
 up to the very bars. " To-morrow, then, I 
 shall see her," he murmured. It hardly 
 seemed possible that he and she were to meet 
 on the morrow, and nothing in the expression 
 of his face showed therein the anticipation of 
 a great joy. *' Poor thing ! careworn and
 
 MARY MYLES. 107 
 
 faded," he muttered, and the line between his 
 brows deepened. " Well 'tis no great matter 
 to me now," and he thrust back with his heel 
 a blazing faggot of pine which was about to 
 precipitate itself into the room. " But 'precise 
 old maid ! ' there's the sting. Can it be pos- 
 sible that she has narrowed down into a thing 
 of formalities — a walking Grreek grammar?" 
 he groaned aloud. " It's possible ; we are 
 never stationary — ever moving onwards, 
 either on the upward path still broadening 
 the higher it goes, or dwindling like the* un- 
 used functions of some of the lower animals, 
 or fossilizing as I have been. Poor Mary ! 
 why should I ask more from her than I find 
 in myself ? It has been a long, long mistake, 
 and it was a miserable weakness in me to have 
 yielded as I did before that claptrap word — 
 duty ! duty ! duty ! Enforced duties are 
 wretched failures always. If I had taken my 
 own freehanded course it might have been all 
 well now; I could have braved anger, cursing, 
 or poverty, and defied the whole army of 
 malicious and inimical influences, had she, 
 as I knew her and adored her, ten years since, 
 been by my side. But now ' careworn and 
 faded!' yes, no doubt 'a woman working for
 
 108 MABY MYLES, 
 
 her livelihood naturally gets careworn and 
 faded in ten years.' " He started from the 
 chair and paced the room. 
 
 This, once the great bugbear of the majority 
 of gentlemen, and still lingering in the breasts 
 of many, namely, the unfitness and the unlove- 
 liness of gentle womanhood earning its own 
 livelihood, had always been intensely felt by 
 Herbert Langridge when younger, and before 
 he left England. It resulted from the brave 
 and warm generosity of his character, and 
 from the high estimation in which he held 
 women, and from no meaner motive. Ten 
 years since there was a momentary recoil 
 when his newly-found goddess, his hamadryad 
 faded away into simple Mary Myles, the 
 governess, and his residence in India had 
 served to strengthen those opinions. It is 
 true that after the first shock which had 
 reduced his sylvan divinity to a young woman 
 who was his cousin's instructress had subsided, 
 tliere had been a new fascination in the, to 
 him, unwonted alliance of feminine loveliness 
 and grace with learning ; but now that was 
 gone which had made her for him, so noble a 
 personification of all that was beautiful and 
 charming.
 
 MAHY MYLES. 109 
 
 " 'Tis no matter now," he repeated, with 
 bitterness ; " both our lives are spoiled, so 
 we'll mourn together over the embers of the 
 past." 
 
 Dinner being announced as ready and 
 awaiting him, he returned to the sitting-room 
 which he had left in order to re-arrange his 
 apparel ; but although no fault could be found 
 in the preparation of that which was placed 
 before him, he ate but little. Disquieting 
 thoughts and unavailing regrets are poor 
 appetizers. 
 
 A sound as of an organ or harmonium came 
 indistinctly through the closed curtains. 
 
 " Whence comes that dismal noise ? " he 
 asked, testily, of the young woman who was 
 promptly responding to the previous order of 
 " Clear these things away." 
 
 " Dismal, sir ! Don't you like music ? 
 Why, we think a deal here of the Marygold 
 Guild, and it's their night for practice." 
 
 " And, pray, my good girl, what is this 
 Marygold Guild that is thought so much of? " 
 
 " The Guild of St. Mary's. They're the 
 work girls from the great factory, and they're 
 getting up their Christmas oratorio, and they 
 wear a marygold for their badge."
 
 110 MARY MYLES. 
 
 Two words had fallen upon the ears of 
 Herbert Langridge, " Mary " and " mary- 
 golds," and gentler memories touched him. 
 
 "It is a long while until bedtime," he 
 thought. " Where, then, is this Guild, my 
 girl ? It must be somewhere near at hand, 
 I suppose, for the sounds of the instrument 
 to be heard thus ? " 
 
 " It is only two or three minutes off, sir." 
 
 " I suppose anyone can go in by paying ? " 
 
 *' Oh, no, sir, no one ; leastways, no gentle- 
 man, and this is especially a close night. But 
 you can hear them quite well in the porch, 
 and the Lady President is worth listening to, 
 I can tell you." 
 
 A sharp bell summoned the damsel away 
 as Herbert was about to ask a further ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " 'Tis just yonder, sir — the hall I mean 
 — if you've a mind to walk over," and she 
 jerked her hand in the direction as she 
 hastily left the room. 
 
 " No, sir," said the doorkeeper, as Herbert 
 tendered him a coin, '' this is not a public 
 night at the Institute. It is given up one 
 evening in the week to the Guild of St.
 
 MABY MYLES. Ill 
 
 Mary's, and this is their night. The Lady 
 Foundress is there to-night, and I have strict 
 orders to keep the doors locked. Those are 
 the Rector of St. Mary's orders, who is here. 
 The girls sing very well. They are now on 
 Elijah. You can hear them very well here, 
 sir." 
 
 Herbert Langridge gave a careless glance 
 through the inner glass doors. There was a 
 group of some thirty to forty girls at the far 
 end, and a female figure, half concealed by a 
 curtain, was seated at the organ, by whose 
 side stood a gentleman in the garb of a 
 clergyman. There was nothing to interest 
 him in this, so Herbert was about to turn 
 impatiently away when three clear voices 
 broke forth in the sweet song of the angels 
 to the sleeping Ehjah, and at once arrested 
 his departing footsteps. The girls of York- 
 shire and Lancashire have good voices 
 generally, and possess the musical instinct. 
 The purity of their intonation and the 
 quality of their vocal organs in their render- 
 ing of that delicious strain of melody imme- 
 diately exercised a subtle charm upon him. 
 He drew close to the glass again and listened 
 intently. He hardly heard the final bars, for
 
 112 MABY MYLES. 
 
 his worn spirit, like that of the tired prophet, 
 seemed borne away into contact with the 
 Invisible. 
 
 " I think, sir," whispered the doorkeeper, 
 "that the Lady President is going to sing 
 now. I see the Rector speaking to her. 
 You must stop to hear her." 
 
 Again Herbert leant towards the panes. A 
 firm but delicate touch played the opening- 
 bars. 
 
 " Ah ! " he cried aloud, startled out of 
 himself, " my favourite air, ' rest in the 
 Lord.' " He involuntarily raised his hand as 
 if to enjoin silence upon the man at his elbow, 
 as a voice of rare mellowness swelled through 
 the hushed air as it sung with equal sweet- 
 ness and power that divine song. Touched 
 by some secret sympathetic awe, his heart 
 throbbed violently. " Who is that lady ? " 
 he asked the doorkeeper, hastily. 
 
 *' The President and Foundress of St. 
 Mary's Guild," answered the man. *' But 
 please stand on one side, sir; I must unlock 
 the door, they are coming out." 
 
 A tall, graceful figure was being carefully 
 cloaked by the Rector, who assiduously drew 
 the fur-lined hood closely around her face.
 
 MAEY MYLES. 113 
 
 As they passed through the door, she lean- 
 ing on his arm, the Rector addressed some 
 words to her in a low tone which obliged her 
 to turn her head towards him. Her trailing 
 skirts brushed Herbert as she went by, and 
 an indefinable thrill ran through him. With 
 somewhat more of spiritualized feelings than 
 had for a long period visited his breast 
 Herbert left the porch of the Institute. 
 
 " The Rector's wife, I suppose. Well, she 
 has a dignified and graceful bearing, and a 
 most superb voice. He's a fortunate man So 
 far, and apparently he knows it." 
 
 Saying this he walked away hastily, not 
 waiting to observe that the Rector of St. 
 Mary's only handed the lady into the carriage 
 standing outside, and that he himself stood 
 looking after that same carriage as long as 
 it was in sight, unmindful of the falling 
 sleet. 
 
 " Wait patiently on Him, and He shall 
 give thee thy heart's desires." 
 
 These words — these words alone — were re- 
 peating themselves in his brain. The tones of 
 the voice in which they were sung were vibra- 
 ting in his ears as Herbert Laugridge sat until 
 long past midnight gazing into the fire which 
 
 VOL. II. I
 
 114 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 now in full ruddy glow illumined the hereto- 
 fore dingy room at his hotel. He had extin- 
 guished the lamp ; the firelight alone was 
 more congenial to him in his present mood. 
 
 "And He shall give thee thy heart's 
 desires." 
 
 " What desires," he thought, " and what 
 heart ? A heart in unison with Him — desires 
 in subjection to His will ? " 
 
 A panorama of his own heart's desires for 
 the last ten years seemed te unroll before 
 him. Had not his heart been straying 
 farther and farther away from all spiritual 
 influences day by day, week by week, month 
 by month, year by year, throughout all that 
 time until now — until now ? Aud what was 
 he now ? Whose fault was it ? Was he not, 
 even now, ready to lay all that accumulation 
 of hardening worldliness upon one who was 
 dead, and that one his mother ? Was that 
 true ? Had he not blindly obeyed his own 
 will, and seen nothing better than to follow 
 his own will ? A gentle voice had bade him 
 above all things to fulfil his duty to that 
 mother. Had he done so ? 
 
 What a plain, bare duty was that he had 
 given. How bald, how destitute of the
 
 MART MYLES. 115 
 
 commonest attributes of filial love had been 
 his conduct to that mother ! How cold had 
 been the feelings which accompanied all 
 those choice and precious gifts which he had 
 poured into her lap ! How scornful were 
 his receptions of her warm and appreciative 
 acknowledgments ! How bitter were his 
 thoughts of her when in his rapid glances over 
 her letters he found not the words he wanted 
 to see ! What blessing could follow gifts 
 given in such a spirit ? Not of such ^uff 
 was the counsel given him bj that loved 
 woman. His mother, too, had been deceived ; 
 she had taken the dross for gold. How could 
 she think that the beloved son of her heart 
 would send gifts in scoffing ? 
 
 " E-est in the Lord.'* As he had listened 
 to those words that night the scales seemed 
 to fall from his eyes. Yes, he had been 
 heartless all these years to the mother who 
 had borne him. How could he look upon the 
 face of her who had bidden him sacrifice 
 love for duty, and had told him that his 
 reward would come ? Could he say to her in 
 all sincerity, '' I have done all that you bade 
 me to do. In loving reverence have I served 
 my mother, and my reward has been that her
 
 116 MARY MYLES. 
 
 heart was closed, tliatlier ears were ever deaf 
 to the voices of my supplications that were 
 ever silently appealing to her." Alas ! what 
 voices were these? Could the worked gold 
 and the precious stones, the tapestries and 
 embroideries touch the finer portion of her 
 woman's nature ? 
 
 He had debased it and hardened it by 
 pandering to a latent weakness — a weakness 
 which had never been so fed before. He 
 had nursed her love of pomp and parade, so 
 long subdued by the higher power of maternal 
 love. He had injured her as he had injured 
 himself, through the pride of life, the pomp 
 of wealth ! Even now— but now — as he was 
 nearing the goal, as he was approaching 
 what he once looked forward to as his only 
 earthly felicity, he was undervaluing the 
 prize for which he had waited and toiled so 
 long. 
 
 " Careworn and faded." 
 
 These depreciatory words had not so much 
 annoyed him personally as they did by con- 
 veying to his mind what would be the esti- 
 mation of the world at large. He wanted 
 bis wife to be the admired of all ; he wished 
 to be the envied husband of such a wife. He
 
 MAEY MYLES. 117 
 
 had desired that he himself through the 
 holiest affections should be elevated on a 
 pedestal, and receive laudations from the 
 crowd. A little shiver of discontent ran 
 through him as he thought that he was 
 about to bear back to India as his bride a 
 lady who would be regarded as " careworn," 
 " faded," and '' precise." 
 
 Then again with quick revulsion of feeling 
 he asked himself if all these newly-entertained 
 accusations were true ? Was he the unsouled 
 thing he made himself out to be ? Was he a 
 worshipper of materialism only ? Had they 
 not been means to an end for which he had 
 been really working, and that end to secure 
 the sweetest companion and most helpful 
 helpmeet any living man could possess ? 
 Was it not an unright thing to deem himself 
 so debased, whilst hoping in the twilight 
 hour, after all the burning heat of the days- 
 man's toil had been borne by both that they 
 should rest together in the cool of the even- 
 ing hour ? Was it good to hold an opinion 
 so low of the man who sought to be that 
 woman's husband ? Had he been altogether 
 absorbed by ambition, would his breast have 
 kept that little untended taper burning
 
 118 MART MYLES. 
 
 clearly so long — would not the rough winds 
 of ignoble desires have quenched it long ago ? 
 Peace he had not. He had not " rested in 
 the Lord " nor waited patiently for Him ; 
 but his soul was not sullied by any stain of 
 impurity. The desires of his heart were not 
 wholly alien from the perfect life, and " the 
 peace that passeth all understanding " might 
 yet be his. 
 
 '* Henceforth I will strive to wait patiently,'* 
 was his prayer that night. 
 
 When on his bed, tired as he was when 
 sleep at last enfolded him in her restful arms, 
 it was no image of the lost hamadryad of his 
 youth that visited his pillow and stood by it 
 as a dream ; it was a tall, gracious figure, 
 who held in her hands a chaplet of marygolds 
 which she was about to place upon his head, 
 whilst she sung in subdued tones, as if for 
 him only, '* 0, rest in the Lord, beloved of 
 my soul." 
 
 The morning was well awake, and awake 
 
 with all the smiles a wintry sun can wear, 
 
 when Herbert opened his eyes, refreshed in 
 
 body and mind. The bells were chiming 
 
 from some church near as he concluded a
 
 MARY MYLES. 119 
 
 rather hasty breakfast. They were old bells, 
 and their sound fell gratefully upon his ears. 
 
 *' Those bells are very sweet; I suppose 
 they are much thought of ? " 
 
 " Yes, we are all very proud of our bells," 
 answered the hostess, who herself had come 
 to inquire after his welfare, and how he had 
 slept. '' The bells of St. Mary are renowned 
 for miles, and many a triple bob major has 
 been scored by them. We are in the parish 
 of St. Mary, so of course we stand up for 
 our bells. And we like our Rector also ; Tie 
 has as true a ring in him as have the bells of 
 his church." 
 
 " I suppose that the foundress of St. 
 Mary's Guild is the wife of the Rector of St. 
 Mary ? " 
 
 " No, no ; not quite that," said the land- 
 lady, smiling and shaking lier head. " 'Tis 
 no fault of our Rector's, though, that she is 
 not, so folks say. Well, well, it'll happea 
 some day, sure, for he's waiting patiently 
 enough, and them as wait always get what 
 they want. She'll not get a better husband, 
 though she's well worth any man, as sweet 
 and worthy a lady as — " 
 
 But before these last words were uttered
 
 120 MARY MYLES. 
 
 Herbert had strode across the room as if he 
 were not listenin^^ to the good woman's 
 peroration, and, with a gestnre of indiffer- 
 ence, had taken up his hat and was about to 
 leave the room abruptly. 
 
 "What time for luncheon, sir?" said the 
 landlady, in a sharper tone, and with an air 
 which was evidently rather ruffled. 
 
 " I hardly know ; I will take what there is 
 in the house. I may be detained." 
 
 ** Umph ! " said the landlady, '' too proud 
 to listen to the answer after having asked the 
 question." 
 
 Gossip of any kind was distasteful to 
 Herbert, and therefore it was that the moment 
 the private affairs of the Rector of St. Mary's 
 Church and the foundress of St. Mary's Guild 
 were about to be discussed by the landlady, 
 to him, a stranger, he had seized his hat and 
 had unceremoniously quitted her without 
 asking the one question which was really 
 uppermost in his mind, namely, the way to 
 the Collegiate School for Girls. 
 
 This question, thus deferred, he asked 
 therefore of the house-porter outside as he 
 left the hotel, and receiving for information 
 that it was fully a walk of twenty minutes'
 
 MARY MILES. 121 
 
 distance, and beyond the city ; he started at a 
 brisk pace in the direction pointed out, with 
 a heart comparatively light and unburdened. 
 
 The Collegiate School was a handsome 
 modern building, and the style of its archi- 
 tecture was of a character in accordance with 
 the purposes of its structure, being more 
 simple and severe than ornamental in its 
 details. He had been told to ring at the 
 private door on the right wing, and not at the 
 middle gate if his purpose were to see the 
 Lady Principal. His hand actually trembled 
 as he did so, and for a few moments he looked 
 blankly at the trim, exquisitely neat damsel 
 who responded immediately to his summons 
 without finding any words wherewith to ad- 
 dress her. When he did so he merely ejacu- 
 lated — 
 
 *'Miss Myles." 
 
 " Miss Myles, the Lady Principal, sir, is not 
 at liberty to receive calls until one o'clock." 
 
 " Take my card in to her at once, if you 
 please." 
 
 *' I cannot do so, sir ; my orders do not 
 allow me to enter the class-room except with 
 a telegram.'* 
 
 Herbert felt irritated.
 
 122 MARY MTLES. 
 
 '' I have come some distance ; my time is 
 precious. Let your mistress know imme- 
 diately that I am here." 
 
 " I cannot disobey my mistress, sir," said 
 the girl, with an offended air. " It is now 
 past twelve ; leave your card with me, and if 
 you call at one, the Lady Principal will have 
 left the class-room for the day. She is never 
 there in the afternoon ; she will then most 
 likely receive you." 
 
 The damsel evidently perceived Herbert's 
 irritation at this slight thwarting of his 
 desires, and her last sentence was influenced 
 by the wish to assert her dignity and to show 
 him her responsibilities, as well as by an in- 
 tention of soothing him by holding out the 
 possibility of the whole afternoon for him if 
 her mistress so willed. 
 
 Herbert had long been a ruling power — a 
 small despot, as it were — and when obstacles 
 were presented to him they were, apparently, 
 as ninepins, which only stand up for the ex- 
 press purpose of being knocked over as soon 
 as possible. He gave his card, however, and 
 walked impatiently away. 
 
 The expression " Lady Principal " annoyed 
 him above measure. He began to connect it
 
 31AIiY MYLES. 123 
 
 with the objectionable word *' precise ; " but, 
 nevertheless, all unknowing as he was, he was 
 already under a different teaching, and more 
 tractable than he had been one day since, so 
 that the absurdity of his fretfulness was soon 
 apparent to him, and again the singer of last 
 night and the words of the singer came back 
 to him. 
 
 " How strange that that lady should come 
 into my thoughts at this moment," he said to 
 himself. It almost seemed like a treason that 
 he should be thinking of any other woman 
 than one. He suddenly stopped short in the 
 midst of his rapid strides. " ' Not his wife,' 
 she said, ' but soon to become so.' Were not 
 those her words ? That voice, the Marygold 
 Guild, our flower — what, what if she should 
 prove to be — Good God ! Shall I meet her 
 only to find her the promised wife of that 
 middle-aged rector ? " 
 
 Every particle of colour faded from his face 
 as this thought took possession of him ; but 
 the long habit of judicial reasoning to which 
 he had been committed in the most important 
 years of life's mental training, had greatly 
 checked the imagination and idealistic faculty 
 once so prominent.
 
 124 MARY MYLES. 
 
 " Absurd ! " he said, resuming his walk. 
 " Cannot a middle-aged rector have chosen 
 an elegant-looking woman with a fine voice 
 for his second wife, as I presume, without my 
 rushing to the absurd conclusion that she 
 might prove to be the very woman to whom I 
 once plighted my faith and whom I have come 
 here to seek ? The Gruild of St. Mary's takes 
 its name from the parish of St. Mary, and if 
 a badge were needed, what more suggestive 
 than that they should choose a marygold, the 
 flower of St. Mary ? " 
 
 Never had one single hour seemed so long 
 before. The minutes seemed to drag one 
 after another. Often he took out his watch 
 and held it to his ear, thinking that it must 
 surely have stopped. The distant chimes of 
 St. Mary's at last announced the coming of 
 another hour, and before the last echo died 
 away at the stroke of one, Herbert stood again 
 at the door of the Lady Principal's house, 
 nor waited long. The trim maiden responded 
 immediately as before, and, without pausing, 
 opened the door of an adjoining room and 
 held it aside for him to enter. 
 
 No sooner had he passed the threshold of
 
 MABY MYLES. 125 
 
 the apartment indicated than he became 
 conscious of an invisible presence. Simple, 
 almost to severity, yet without giving any 
 impression of bareness, the few pieces of 
 furniture were all conspicuous for their per- 
 fection in taste. Books, engravings, vases, 
 hangings, all told the same tale — not wealth, 
 but refinement. It was evidently only a 
 room for granting receptions, and although 
 the eyes of the mind were chiefly gratified, 
 there were yet one or two chairs easy enough 
 to invite a temporary rest. 
 
 Herbert felt a pleasurable emotion rising 
 within him, and drew a long breath; but 
 what demon of doubt at this inopportune 
 moment whispered to him, " careworn, faded, 
 precise ? " 
 
 He hastily walked to the broad bay window 
 and had partly drawn one curtain to shade 
 the too strong light. He did not want his 
 first glance at that loved face to be too 
 fraught with regrets. His hold was still 
 upon the curtain when a slight sound made 
 him let it fall from his hand. He looked 
 round ; a figure stood in the doorway — a 
 graceful figure. He saw but the fine outline
 
 126 MART MYLES. 
 
 of a pale face with an aureole of bright brown 
 hair. He moved not — he could not speak. 
 Two arms were outstretched to him ; a few 
 quick, noiseless steps and a woman lay on 
 his breast and clasped his neck ; then, only 
 then, as his head stooped to her face, then 
 only one word escaped him — 
 
 " Mary," he said, and they held each other 
 in a long and silent embrace. 
 
 A nervous tremor suddenly shook the 
 strong man as he looked in silence on the 
 fair, calm brow of the woman who clung to 
 him, and spasmodically he clutched her still 
 closer to him. 
 
 '' Is it your very self, Mary ? Your very 
 self?" 
 
 " Am I so old and changed, dear, that you 
 do not know me ? " she whispered, bend- 
 ing her head back towards the light. 
 
 " There is something awful in your beauty. 
 Why are you so calm ? Have you not 
 mourned at all through those years?" he 
 asked, tremblingly. 
 
 " Were you not my husband all those 
 years ?" 
 
 " There seems such a gap between us. I 
 am as far from you, though I hold you in
 
 MARY MYLES. 127 
 
 my arms, as far as the earth is from the 
 heavens ! " 
 
 " The heavens must bow themselves, then, 
 and come down," she said, with a smile, and, 
 lifting her face to his, she kissed him on his 
 mouth.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 For we live by hope 
 And by desire ; we see by the glad light 
 And breathe the sweet air of futurity ; 
 And so we live, or else we have no life. 
 
 WORDSWOBTH. 
 
 How the minutes glided, quite oblivious of 
 the agonies of the kitchen potentate and the 
 early dinner hour ! The two newly restored 
 to each other only thought of their present 
 blissful reunion. At last, with an effort, 
 Herbert wrenched his mind from the now to 
 the future, and to its practical obligations. 
 
 '' Now, my Mary, to plain homespun. On 
 what day, at an early period, can you leave 
 this place of exile ? " 
 
 ** Exile ! I am under engagements that 
 oblige me to stay until Christmas. I cannot 
 leave until my successor is appointed, and
 
 MARY MYLES. 129 
 
 then there is the oratorio ; but why leave 
 until — " 
 
 *' A fortnight after Christmas we sail for 
 India, Mary, and I have much business to 
 transact between now and then. I want to 
 make sure of my precious possession in 
 yourself at once, and I have, therefore, made 
 arrangements with my aunt to receive you 
 at Sunnyside until our marriage can take 
 place at the earliest opportunity. You must, 
 therefore, come out of your heaven of calm, 
 and submit to a little vulgar bustling, so that 
 you may be able to leave here in a day or 
 two. Why, what troubles you so much in 
 that thought that you change colour? Clouds 
 already in the fair translucent heavens ? " 
 
 With unfaltering voice she answered, 
 quietly — 
 
 << I grieve to be obliged to say No, dearest 
 Herbert, but it cannot be, I cannot go to 
 Sunnyside, I cannot be married from your 
 aunt's house." 
 
 She rose as she said this, and stood erect, 
 looking taller than usual from her resolute 
 attitude. They were tears even that shone 
 in those eyes that but a moment before had 
 
 VOL. II. K
 
 130 MARY MYLES. 
 
 made Herbert tremble with their steady, 
 placid light, and cower within himself at the 
 thought that she was too high for him — she 
 who could bear grief and separation without 
 their leaving any marks ; whilst they had 
 seared him — heart and brow — as with a hot 
 iron. 
 
 '' Hither — hither," she said, in a low firm 
 voice ; " hither came I as to a refuge ; here 
 have I known peace — here, 0, my Herbert," 
 and her head fell upon his shoulder. " Here 
 I have been honoured ; here more than all I 
 have felt what it is to be free. Sunnyside, 
 as I now look back upon it, was to me then 
 but a comfortable prison, where I could only 
 keep alive my inborn love of freedom, by 
 sometimes indulging in wild freaks which — " 
 
 A burning blush now overspread her whole 
 face as the occasion of their first meeting 
 came vividly before her. 
 
 Herbert Langridge understood what 
 memory it was that their first meeting had 
 conjured up, and saw how indecorous it might 
 now appear after ten years' interval in the 
 eyes of a Lady Principal, but his heart gave 
 a quick flutter, for the picture of his hama- 
 dryad had ever brought him light in the
 
 MABY MYLE8, 131 
 
 darkness. He said notliiDg, but drew her 
 nearer to him. 
 
 "Mary," he said, tenderly, '' my only wish 
 has been to exalt you, if need be, in the eyes 
 of the world, and to—" he paused, seeing 
 how gravely she regarded him, " well, to do 
 you honour — to have you honoured in a house 
 where upon my account alone you met with 
 discourtesy." 
 
 *' Do me honour ! do me honour ! " There 
 was a sudden gleam in her eyes, and a still 
 warmer flush mounted to her cheek. '' You 
 mistake, Herbert ; I would rather be married 
 by a hedge priest like a ragged beggar girl 
 than be taken to Sunnyside expressly that I 
 might go forth thence as your bride in com- 
 pensation — " 
 
 '* My Mary ! Athene of the tranquil brow, 
 can then be angry," said Herbert, half smiling; 
 " but is it well ? " 
 
 " Yes, it is well. The sun shall not go 
 down upon my wrath, but unless a certain 
 vow made some years since could be turned 
 inside out, you will yourself see that for that 
 cause alone it cannot be." 
 
 " What vow, and by whom vowed ? " 
 
 *' Oh, the vow of an unregenerate one who
 
 132 MABY MYLES. 
 
 responded to a well-meant, perhaps sincere, 
 courtesy on the part of Mrs. Hazelliurst, 
 which expressed the hope of my visiting her 
 occasionally, by a silent bow which sealed 
 the unspoken words, ' Only as the wife of 
 Herbert Langridge do I pass through these 
 gates again.' " 
 
 " And that was your vow as you drove 
 away from Sunnyside, was it?" said Herbert, 
 tenderly, " after you had inculcated upon me 
 the duty of passive obedience?" 
 
 *' We were outside the gates, Herbert, and 
 I was no longer in your aunt's employ." 
 
 " You are a casuist, Mary," he answered, 
 smiling ; *' but let be, your vow shall have all 
 due respect from me. But wherever the 
 ceremony takes place, all arrangements must 
 be hastily made, and preparations hurried 
 forward, as my time is so short, and 1 have so 
 much work in hand, and there is one thing 
 which of itself will give me no end of trouble. 
 I must secure a secretary before I go back, 
 and to find a good one is no easy task." 
 
 ** Let me be your secretary, Herbert." 
 
 *' You, Mary, you ! Do you suppose that 
 even were you able that I should allow it for 
 one moment? You, as my wife, must take
 
 MABY MYLES. 133 
 
 up a certain position. You have had enough 
 drudgery in England ; but in India, as my 
 wife — " 
 
 An amused, half merry look banished 
 every trace of recent shadows as she said — 
 
 «« The glamour of India is upon you, 
 Herbert, with all its paraphernalia of punkas , 
 palanquins, elephants, and howdahs." She 
 laughed outright. '' Fancy Miss Myles, the 
 governess, with a score of black slaves in 
 turbans and tinsel fanning her ! Who knows 
 but in time she may learn to chew betel nut? 
 Ah ! woe is me if I may not work ; your 
 India then would kill me in a year ; but 
 again I say, let me be your secretary." 
 
 "Ah! I am already beginning to feel like 
 a married man," said Herbert, laughing, 
 " but there is one great obstacle, Mary, 
 which you cannot get over. My secretary 
 must have a good knowledge of Hindustanee." 
 
 '' The candidate now soliciting for the post 
 has a good knowledge of Hindustanee." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 '' She has a good knowledge of Hindu- 
 stanee." 
 
 *' You, Mary?" 
 
 " Why, Herbert, how do you suppose that
 
 184 MABY MYLES. 
 
 I could have glided through those ten years 
 without — " 
 
 ''Without what?" 
 
 " "Without being scored and wrinkled in 
 every direction, and without my eyes being 
 blurred and red with weeping ! The learning 
 of Hindustanee to make myself a helpmeet 
 for my husband, has had a larger share in 
 keeping me in sweet restful ease than even 
 my guild or my bees, whilst I was waiting for 
 you, waiting for you, my love, for I knew 
 you would come back; I knew you would 
 come back." 
 
 Herbert gave no answer. The awe that 
 had mingled with his old admiration of far- 
 gone days seemed to be again reasserting 
 itself. He drew back the curtain still further, 
 and looked at her in silence. 
 
 The action of moving the curtain brought 
 to her remembrance how he was employed 
 when she was about to enter the room. 
 
 " Why were you intending to draw the 
 curtain, Herbert, as I came in ? Did you 
 wish to meet me in the darkness ? " 
 
 Herbert looked at her. How could he 
 tell her what had impelled him to do so ? 
 That he had been so faithless in soul as to quail
 
 MART MYLES. 135 
 
 before the epithets "careworn," ''faded?" 
 Truth at all cost ! Is that always the maxim 
 for noble souls ? Whether it should be so or 
 not, or whether the subtle evasions of Eastern 
 minds had somewhat impregnated his own 
 we know not, but Herbert answered after a 
 pause — 
 
 " Look at my forehead, Mary, and there 
 you will read my reasons for placing myself 
 in the shade." 
 
 " Mistrustful son of earth!" she answered, 
 smiling, shaking her head as if the truth of "this 
 statement was open to dispute. '' What a 
 thought for such a supreme moment ! But 
 whence came such a squadron of marring 
 lines? See, now, I will count them — one, 
 two, three, four — why, there are ten, large 
 and small," her fingertips touched them 
 lightly as she spoke. " Ah, my love, your 
 thirty years should not have stamped such 
 signs upon your brow." 
 
 '' Ten, are there ? Then it is, indeed, a 
 faithful record — one for each year that I was 
 banished from your presence, Mary." 
 
 *' Is it so ? then I must needs love the 
 record, though it might have been traced 
 with a gentler pencil, but they shall not be to
 
 186 MARY MYLES. 
 
 me as a record of a bitter past, but the 
 testimony of an ever-abiding truth ; and now, 
 with the persistency of a woman when 
 desirous to gain her point, will you grant to 
 me — supposing my capability be established 
 ■ — the post of secretary ? " 
 
 " As you will, you very woman ! " 
 
 " Then, having so far gained my way," 
 she resumed, laughingly, " I must now re- 
 consider your demands. I will send in my 
 resignation this evening in order that my 
 successor may be appointed as soon as 
 possible. Then there is the oratorio to which 
 I am pledged, and bitter indeed would be 
 the disappointment to my poor girls if I 
 should fail them. These duties and others, 
 which I owe to my present position at Chip- 
 penham, once fulfilled, then I am yours — 
 yours in will and in deed for ever — ever 
 more." 
 
 " What is this about an oratorio, Mary ?" 
 said Herbert, his brows again clouding. 
 " Am I to understand that you sing in 
 public ? '' 
 
 " Ah ! I have not told you that I have 
 founded a guild here, to raise and dignify 
 womanhood as represented by ray poorer
 
 MARY MYLES. 137 
 
 sisters who work here in factories, and 
 music is one of our chief educators. Once a 
 year we give an oratorio, and I am pledged to 
 sing one air on that occasion. My singing 
 that one air once a year gives me more 
 loving authority over my guild than — But, 
 Herbert, you look displeased." 
 
 " As my wife," he answered, coldly, " you 
 must not sing at oratorios." 
 
 " As your wife, no ; as the wife of my 
 Indian prince, no. But it will not be as 
 your wife, dearest, that I shall sing at my 
 last oratorio in Chippenham." 
 
 She laid a hand on each shoulder as she 
 spoke and regarded him with anxiety. 
 
 " I know that it has become a fashion 
 lately," he continued, gloomily, *' for great 
 ladies who have fine voices not to be content 
 with singing in their own drawing-rooms, 
 but, under pretence of charity, to seek the 
 applause of the concert-room, and thus 
 air their vanity. My wife must not do 
 this." 
 
 " She shall not, Herbert. But, alas ! for 
 my girls — my dear girls who have looked up 
 to me so long, and who love me as devotedly 
 as I do them — if I fail them now — You do
 
 138 MABT MYLES. 
 
 not ask it, Herbert ? Not yet being your 
 wife, you will not ask it ? " 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 " I have had nothing but kindness and 
 honour lavished upon me since I came here ; 
 and now that the supreme joy of my life 
 draws near — the privilege of walking by 
 your side, by your side, my dear" — there 
 was a little sob — '' until the goal of earth be 
 reached — must I forget those who have 
 helped me to pass these years of waiting so 
 easily, so easily ? Could you, could you ask 
 it ? You need not be present on that occa- 
 sion if it so chafes you even to think upon ; 
 but it concerns my honour to complete 
 certain engagements, and not to leave with 
 one page, although the last page of my life 
 here, rent asunder from those preceding it. 
 For that evening the protecting presence of 
 the Rector of St. Mary's will, as heretofore, 
 be my aegis — if one be needed." 
 
 " The Rector of St. Mary's ! " 
 
 " The truest, the best of friends. No 
 breath of silly gossip could ever waste itself 
 on a Lady Principal or foundress of a guild 
 around whom he threw the shielding arms of 
 his goodness."
 
 MABY MYLES. 139- 
 
 '' Indeed ! " 
 
 " Yes, indeed. But why do you repeat 
 ' indeed ' with such a tone ? *' 
 
 " The Rector of St. Mary's and the Lady 
 Principal looked truly a comely couple last 
 night, but I knew not then that it was my 
 own betrothed that he was so tenderly cloak- 
 ing, and who left the hall hanging upon his 
 protecting arm, and whom he accompanied 
 home with his shielding presence." 
 
 " Ah ! were you there ? Were you the 
 muffled figure in the porch whom I saw aS I 
 drove — as I drove away ? Oh, my dear, 
 dear love ! and I knew it not ! " Again her 
 faithful, loving arms closed round her doubt- 
 ing lover's neck. " Herbert," she said, 
 gravely, drawing back her head and steadily 
 regarding him, " the Rector of St. Mary's 
 has had the honour of the foundress you 
 allude to thus, so much at his heart that he 
 would not plant his foot upon the step of a 
 carriage in which she sat. The Rector of 
 St. Mary's walked home through the snow 
 alone." 
 
 " He is a widower, I hear. Do not some 
 people connect your name with his in another 
 fashion?"
 
 140 MABY MYLES. 
 
 Her arms released his neck. 
 
 " Foolish tongues may wag for ever ; those 
 who heed them not can walk steadfast. The 
 hot sun of India, Herbert, must have burnt 
 into your brain to speak like this to me. 
 Ten years since you trusted me in a graver 
 matter than this, and asked no questions. 
 Alas ! my Herbert, this is worse than sepa- 
 ration. But if I am on my trial, know that 
 the Rector of St. Mary's is one of those 
 priests who incline to think celibacy a better 
 state for the clergy than marriage, and 
 who shrinks with horror from any second 
 nuptials. Had it not been so the Lady 
 Principal, at thirty -six years of age, might 
 have thought differently about the foolish 
 tongues." 
 
 She was silent. Herbert took her hand 
 and kissed it. 
 
 '* You will forgive me, Mary. I am not 
 as I was ten years since. I have much to 
 unlearn, much to unlearn." 
 
 " And I much to learn." 
 
 " Not of me, my poor love ; you can never 
 learn of me." 
 
 "I learnt the best of all knowledge ten 
 years ago from you, Herbert, and it can
 
 MARY MYLES. 141 
 
 never be unlearut," slie answered, calmly. 
 '' There, you were the sole teacher." 
 
 *' Whatever was it?" he asked, again 
 venturing to draw her close to him."' 
 
 " Love ! " she answered, firmly. 
 
 " I was but a pupil teacher, dearest, under 
 you, under you ; " and peace was again 
 sealed, and the old trust began to return to 
 his heart once more. 
 
 A faint, very faint, knock at the door 
 caused Herbert to look at his watch. 
 
 «« Why, my dear Mary, 1 have been here 
 two hours ! It is three o'clock. At what 
 time do you dine or take luncheon?" 
 
 " At two, and my visitors are limited to 
 ten minutes. No doubt the cook has been 
 most alarmed." 
 
 '' I have transgressed ; I will now go. 
 To-morrow night I go to London. At what 
 hour may I venture to ask an audience before 
 I start?" 
 
 '' At the same hour as to-day." 
 
 " I will not forget then what is due to the 
 Lady Principal of a girls' collegiate school, 
 and will only stay the allotted ten minutes," 
 said Herbert, laughing.
 
 142 MARY MYLES, 
 
 " If you please, the Rector called to inquire 
 if you had escaped taking a chill last night, 
 ma'am. He asked if he could see you, but 1 
 told him that a gentleman from foreign parts 
 was with you." 
 
 ''My own dear love," thought Mary, 
 hardly heeding the girl's remark, *' has 
 surely learnt to be jealous ! Would he 
 have shown such symptoms if he had found 
 me quite destitute of any womanly grace, 
 whether of mind or body ? Strange incon- 
 sistency of the human heart ! It hardly 
 seemed to bring him the gladness that I 
 thought it would have done, to find that I 
 was not even now altogether uncomely. He 
 was all irritation, doubts, and fears. He has 
 been sorely tried — sorely tried. I fear that 
 he has trod the narrow path of duty, but 
 failed to gather flowers by the way." 
 
 And strange, indeed, it was that he who 
 through ten years of silent separation never 
 had one moment's doubt of the constant 
 devotion and faith of her whom he loved, 
 should merely by the contemplation of her 
 matured dignity of charms and grace, so 
 utterly unexpected, have felt a sudden im- 
 pulse of feelings never entertained before.
 
 MARY MYLE8. 143 
 
 The solution of this odd problem of the 
 heart was that for ten years he had been 
 giving — giving, had been looked up to, and 
 received honours, and able himself to bestow 
 them, whilst at the same time he was indul- 
 ging a secret sense of a great injustice — 
 narrowing influences all of them. 
 
 He had made up his mind that his betrothed 
 was suffering equally with him, probably 
 more so. His pride through all his bitterness 
 felt a noble consolation in a certain sense, in 
 the daily reflection that were she spared to 
 him he would repay all — he would shower 
 gems upon her — would repay all her trials 
 with every accessory that station and wealth 
 can bestow. 
 
 He forgot for the time that all those things 
 which he would have to give were valueless 
 in her sight. But what else could he do for 
 her? He could not restore her lost youth 
 and loveliness. This bitter thought was 
 often the sole companion of many a sleepless 
 night. What fierce obstinacy flamed up 
 within him when his aunt recalled to him 
 that, over which he had so often himself 
 pondered with heart-woe unspeakable — 
 "careworn," "faded." Coming from her.
 
 144 MARY MYLES. 
 
 although they were but the echoes of his 
 own thoughts, how he revolted from them in 
 anger ! 
 
 What impotent determination was his that 
 at all price she should be admired — that he 
 would raise her — that she as his wife should 
 be honoured for that fact alone ; and now, 
 instead of being able to use that omnipotent 
 power in a glorious spirit of defiance, he 
 finds a still most attractive woman, in full 
 enjoyment of her many talents and accom- 
 plishments, some of which — as her gift of 
 song — were in fuller splendour and more 
 developed than before. Moreover, a calm, 
 rare-souled woman, enjoying her intellectual 
 life, blessing all around her, and being 
 blessed. A full life, apparently. What had 
 he to add to it ? He saw that he had 
 nothing except himself, and he felt it to be a 
 somewhat tarnished self from that other self 
 which had won the heart of that incomparable 
 woman ten years since. The old love had 
 never relaxed its hold, but it had glided more 
 into the region of a memory than a reality. 
 He had, as it were, to resuscitate the old 
 feelings before he could be glad in her beauty. 
 Here was nothing for a noble pity to raise or
 
 MABY MYLES. 145 
 
 lift up. The old sacred, awful love of his 
 unsullied, ardent young heart was reasserting 
 itself, but with the alloy of jealousy. When 
 that was cast out before the steadfast light of 
 her purity he would again be himself. 
 
 All these thoughts, mixed with some 
 shame, he revolved in his slow walk back to 
 his hotel. Once or twice he was nearly upon 
 the point of returning — returning to cast 
 himself at her feet, and kneeling there, to tell 
 her how bitterly he felt his own unworthinoss, 
 and to implore her to bear with him; but 
 he checked the thought. He knew that her 
 lofty spirit would be wounded by his self- 
 humiliation. 
 
 " No, not by abject contrition from which 
 I myself might afterwards recoil can I en- 
 throne myself again in a heart like hers." 
 
 These were some of the res^retful thous^hts 
 and musings to which he gave himself up, 
 but poignantly as he felt a certain amount of 
 commiseration for himself in that he had lost 
 so much way, yet he felt that with her by 
 his side, retrogression and progression would 
 be one, even though the glowing poetry of 
 his youth could not be revivified. 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 MABY MYLES. 
 
 The tliouglits of the Rector of St. Mary's 
 as he also trod his way back dwelt exclusively 
 on " the gentleman from foreign parts " so 
 long closeted with the Lady Principal of the 
 Chippenham Collegiate School, for the neat- 
 handed Millicent had unnecessarily enlarged 
 upon the circumstance of this visit of a 
 strange gentleman. So unexampled a pro- 
 cedure as her mistress retaining a casual 
 visitor for the space of two hours, was too 
 great a strain upon her usually compelled 
 reticence. The equipoise of her mind was 
 disturbed. She had been accustomed to the 
 stated calls of the Rector every other day, or 
 at intervals not less than two days at the 
 most, but he never stayed more than the 
 allotted ten minutes. 
 
 In the summer time he went into the 
 garden to look at the bees — it was wonder- 
 ful how great was the attraction of Miss 
 Myles's bees for him. He had bees of his 
 own — her bees were an off-branching family 
 from his own stock. He was an accomplished 
 beekeeper, knew all their habits from minute 
 observations of years, but yet it seemed as 
 if he had always something to learn of a 
 more valuable nature from the bees of the
 
 MABY MYLES. 147 
 
 Collegiate School. But when summer works 
 were over the bees could no longer require 
 his domiciliary inspection, so his calls were 
 then expressly to inquire about his two little 
 girls, aged respectively thirteen and eleven, 
 who were scholars at the College ; but then 
 he never sat down on those occasions, but 
 would stand hat in hand and exchange a few 
 civilities, sometimes even objecting to the 
 door of the reception-room being closed as 
 not being worth the while, for he had only a 
 few seconds to stay ; he had just to ask a few 
 questions about the Guild, of which he was 
 so staunch a supporter and patron. The 
 frequency of these visits excited no surprise 
 in Mary's heart. His wife had been her 
 dearest friend, her visits had been almost 
 diurnal, and as they usually came together, 
 "Mary had been quite habituated to his inti- 
 mate little calls before his wife died, which 
 was now five years since, and she would have 
 greatly missed them had they ceased with her 
 death, although the character of them was 
 necessarily modified. 
 
 A friendship between a man and woman 
 when no thoughts of love or marriage are 
 likely to obtrude, is more perfect than any
 
 148 MABY MTLES. 
 
 other, as well as more fascinating, and in this 
 instance there was no such innovation as a 
 possible lover to be dreaded which would have 
 been destructive of the restful attachment in 
 which adviser, brother, and pastor seemed 
 all united in the person of Mr. Brereton. 
 
 Mary was attached to him ; she appreciated 
 his reverent and courteous behaviour, his 
 careful watch over himself in all his inter- 
 course with her, so guarded and yet so 
 considerate and kind in all things, like in- 
 deed, a good elder brother. She had perhaps 
 wondered occasionally, why he came so often 
 to inquire about the bees ; but she found the 
 solution in the great gap made in his home 
 by the loss of the intelligent companionship 
 of his affectionate wife, and hastily put the 
 questionable suggestion aside, and if any- 
 thing were wanting to strengthen her 
 reliance upon the disinterestedness of his 
 attentions, it was the strongly asseverated 
 opinions which the Rector avowed of the 
 desirability of a celibate clergy, and of the 
 great scandal of second nuptials. 
 
 " A gentleman from foreign parts has been 
 two hours already with my mistress." 
 
 Mr. Brereton repeated this to himself with
 
 MABY MYLES. 149 
 
 some anxiety. For two or three years follow- 
 ing upon her arrival at Chippenham, Miss 
 Myles had been the subject of much specula- 
 tion in the society there. She was so 
 eminently attractive that there must be 
 some reason why she was not already 
 married. Of course she had met with a 
 disappointment, but would soon forget it in a 
 new conquest. After a very little while the 
 community at large voted her a puzzle. 
 They could not aflB.x the term '' disappointed " 
 to a lady whose cheerful serenity was* one 
 of her most marked characteristics, and they 
 could not accuse her of setting her cap, as the 
 vulgar phrase has it, at anyone in particular, 
 as her general attitude was one of lofty 
 aloofness; but it was reserved for the rising 
 medical man of the district. Dr. Swepstone, 
 physician and surgeon, to promulgate another 
 decided opinion, and quite explanatory, why 
 a woman who had beauty and grace could 
 appear so naturally oblivious to the superior 
 advantages which matrimony offered her. 
 And the way Dr. Swepstone arrived at his 
 explanation of this physiological contradic- 
 tion to the womanly proclivities, was in this 
 wise. He knew that a wife was a necessary
 
 150 MABY MYLES. 
 
 adjunct to the medical practitioner. He 
 was looking all about Chippenham and its 
 suburbs to find a lady worthy of being Mrs. 
 Swepstone. He wanted wealth with her, 
 but he was sensible enough to know that a 
 very attractive, amiable, and accomplished 
 woman would stand him in more stead in his 
 profession than a rich girl who did not possess 
 those qualifications ; so he deliberated. 
 
 When, however, the new mistress appeared 
 like a meteor on the dull manufacturing mind 
 of Chippenham, his mind was made up. He 
 would have preferred that Miss Myles had 
 not been a lady principal, but nevertheless, 
 here was an opportunity not to be lost. So 
 elegant and lovely a woman had never before 
 greeted his sight ; her fame for learning was 
 obscured by her quiet gentleness, and what 
 a voice ! He had means. What receptions 
 he could give with her to preside ! Long 
 extended visions of rising higher and higher 
 on the social platform, helped on by such a 
 consort, flitted before Dr. Swepstone. He 
 was thirty-five ; there was no time to be lost. 
 His mind was made np, and he called after 
 his third interview with her at the Rectory, 
 to offer her the honour of his alliance.
 
 MARY MYLES. 151 
 
 But he called at inopportune times, and 
 was not admitted ; he left his card, and his 
 sister called and left hers ; but Miss Myles 
 gave but a cold glance at either and forgot 
 them, so there was no help for it ; he must 
 make his proposals in a letter, a proceeding 
 to which he was most averse, considering 
 that his personality and its strong claims 
 upon an universal admiration would thus 
 be lost. However, he had no doubt of 
 success ; any woman would pause twice, he 
 considered, before committing the egregious 
 mistake of giving a refusal to the offer of his 
 hand — any woman of sense, that is, who was 
 gifted with sufficient discernment to be able 
 to appreciate both himself and his position ; 
 and Miss Myles was a person capable of 
 such discrimination. So he wrote. This letter 
 was one of the many stereotyped productions 
 of that class wherein the self love of the 
 writer is so evidently the principal factor in 
 the production that no finely-worded meta- 
 phors can obscure it. Hastily running her 
 eye over the neat phrases which showed how 
 utterly destitute the writer was of any real 
 feeling, which want had copipelled him to 
 make use of the disguise of many high-flown
 
 152 MABY MTLES. 
 
 words, Mary laid it on one side with indiffer- 
 ence ; whilst she perused with real sympathy 
 the many applications from professors and 
 lecturers; often re-reading those latter with 
 grave thoughtfulness and many pauses. 
 These she replied to first and at full length, 
 and afterwards, in a few courteously-worded 
 lines, disposed of the whole affair of Dr. 
 Swepstone's proposals in a few seconds, which 
 note, Mary, pushing from her, left to be con- 
 signed to the local post with the heap of 
 answers to the aforenamed much-to-be- 
 sympathized-with impecunious lecturers upon 
 every conceivable subject of science, litera- 
 ture, and art. 
 
 Dr. Swepstone was indignant, very in- 
 dignant, but not for long. He well knew 
 that no woman would be mad enough to 
 refuse him in so decided a manner with no 
 gentle suggestion of some prima facie reason 
 why, it was ''out of her power" had she been 
 free to accept him. No, it was quite evident 
 she was not free ; she was a married woman 
 living apart from her husband — his fault, 
 undoubtedly ; but still that was the bare fact. 
 Miss Myles, assuming again her maiden 
 name, was a wife, and, although perfectly
 
 MABY MYLES. 153 
 
 blameless as regarded her husband, was not 
 blameless towards the Committee of the 
 Chippenham Collegiate School for Girls, who 
 would have considered a married woman 
 ineligible, and whom she had, therefore, 
 deceived. 
 
 Dr. Swepstone, having confided this ex- 
 planation to his sister, suppressed his indigna- 
 tion, and gave Miss Myles, or rather the 
 Lady Principal of the Collegiate School, his 
 pity in its place. The Rev. Mr. Brereton, 
 however, as head of the Committee, must be 
 informed of it as a kind of sacred trust, to be 
 used or not according to his discretion. The 
 €old look of incredulity and disapproval 
 that Mr. Brereton's face exhibited when Dr. 
 Swepstone made the suggestion, merged into 
 an amused smile when Dr. Swepstone gave 
 some answer which led the Rector to suspect 
 that his knowledge was the offspring of 
 injured self-love, and he summed up the con- 
 sideration of the matter very shortly by 
 declaring that the lady herself by one glance 
 could shatter a thousand such cobwebs spun 
 of some distempered brain; an expression 
 never forgiven by Dr. Swepstoue. And 
 yet now for the second time, as the Rector
 
 154 MABY MTLES. 
 
 walked away without having a moment's 
 interview with Miss Myles, this same ugly 
 cobweb seemed to float hke thin gossamer 
 threads across his mental vision in the words, 
 " The gentleman from foreign parts is with 
 my mistress to-day." Was it, could it 
 be possible after all that the arrogant, odious 
 Dr. Swepstone had some shadow of truth in 
 the half-malicious assertions of his wounded 
 self-love, uttered something like nine years 
 ago ? And had some wretched husband, 
 bought off years since, now reappeared on the 
 scene for the purpose of making more 
 extortions ? This thought was a momentary 
 shock, whilst it dimmed the halo which, in 
 his conception of her character, had enveloped 
 the foundress of St. Mary's Guild with an 
 atmosphere of sanctity, as she had been for 
 him a strong living argument for the perfecti- 
 bility of the creature under certain limitations. 
 It was a momentary shock, that presently 
 subsided before the chivalrous sentiment 
 which suddenly took possession of him. 
 
 " It is for me to defend her, to stand by 
 her firmly in her distress, to be a true 
 brother. I will surely shield her and protect 
 her from any consequences arising from an
 
 MABY MYLES. 155 
 
 early and ill-assorted union." He was im- 
 pelled to return at once to confront the man 
 who, presuming upon his title of husband, 
 dared to molest her, but at the very moment 
 that he formed this resolution the substantial 
 and imposing figure of Dr. Swepstone, driven 
 in his well-equipped Victoria, arrested bis 
 intention. Whilst hats were raised in mutual 
 recognition, the Rector mentally brushed 
 away the cobwebs, flinging them, as it were, 
 whither they were first spun, and walked 
 home with a lightened heart.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 In things which are agreeable, even sinners unite themselves 
 with the will of God ; but the saints unite themselves with the 
 Divine will even in things which are disagreeable and displeasing 
 to self-love. 
 
 Alphonsus de Ligugri. 
 
 On reaching his home, the Rector of St. 
 Mary's passed at once to his study and took 
 his seat at the writing-table, whereon were 
 piled some of the best theological writings of 
 all ages. They were there for references, to 
 be employed for a work on which he had 
 been long engaged (which indeed, he had 
 been preparing for years), and had written 
 much; as the pile of manuscripts which he 
 drew forth from a drawer witnessed unto. 
 It had lately progressed, however, very 
 slowly. Sometimes days, and even weeks, 
 would pass and not one word would be
 
 MABY MYLES. 157 
 
 added to it ; and at the rate of its production 
 the Rector, now in his forty-sixth year, would 
 certainly require to attain to a century of life 
 here below before his exhaustive volumes 
 could see the light. It was a strange fact 
 that of late years he had not written at all, 
 except after he had paid one of his short 
 visits to the Collegiate School, or after some 
 other occasion had been the means of bring- 
 ing him into the society of the Lady Principal 
 of that establishment. Still more noteworthy 
 is it that a great impulse was ever given to 
 this literary employment of his after every 
 musical rehearsal at the Gruild, and that 
 anyone who could have obtained access to 
 the Rectory garden on those particular 
 nights would have seen a lamp burning in 
 the Rector's study nntil far into the small 
 honrs. There was no one now in the 
 Rectors home whose loving watchfulness 
 would have endeavoured to restrain within 
 due limits that long-cherished habit of thus 
 encroaching upon the hours of rest. There 
 was no one now to comment with tender 
 expostulation upon those protracted vigils 
 which left their mark upon the face, which 
 met the wakening sun with sleepless lids.
 
 158 " MABY MYLES. 
 
 although his fine frame and constitution 
 seemed impervious to so great a strain. 
 
 On the morrow after a night so spent 
 indeed, instead of weary listlessness, the 
 Rector seemed invaded by a fresh accession 
 of energy, tempered by a still more tender 
 sympathy than usual. The sick man whom 
 he would visit would realize unwittingly that 
 the pressure of his hand was more fervent, 
 and that the tones of his voice were deeper, 
 or, as had been said on one occasion, " that 
 they right thrilled through one, as if they 
 came direct and straight from the heart." 
 A sensation as of a blessing brought to him 
 in some mysterious way would steal over the 
 invalid, a glow at his chilling breast, and a 
 lulling of all pain. With what wistful looks 
 would his eyes follow the retreating figure of 
 his pastor when he bade him farewell ; and 
 then he would turn on his side to sleep with 
 a smile, as though a foretaste of the rest so 
 near at hand had been brought to him by 
 that benign presence. 
 
 Alongside the great sympathy of his 
 nature there was, moreover, a still more 
 dominant characteristic, in his inborn feelinsr 
 of reverence. Had he been born seventeen
 
 MARY MYLES. 159 
 
 centuries earlier that frame of mind alone 
 would liave enrolled him among those 
 workers who could live and breathe only in 
 the sanctuary. In this nineteenth century 
 world, however, in which he found himself, 
 a contemplative life was not in the path of 
 his duties. The same reverence for the 
 Eternal which in the first centuries of the 
 Church might have taken him to the cell and 
 the ascetic life, in the requirements of the 
 present age bore him to an active life^ for 
 humanity. It was the same reverence, not 
 transmitted, but incorporated with it, as the 
 necessary outcome of that higher reverence. 
 This reverence of the Creator in the created, 
 this reverence of God in humanity, had kept 
 him unstained and free from all soil in his 
 passage through life. A power to himself, 
 as to others, it was a power ever manifest, 
 yet in a way so free from all that is usually 
 associated with a manifestation of power over 
 others, that no one could ever tell wherein 
 it lay. No more dignified presence than 
 that of the Hector of St. Mary's could well 
 be imagined, nor one in which dignity was 
 so perfectly free from the faintest shadow of 
 haughtiness. The most disreputable of his
 
 160 MARY MYLES. 
 
 parishioners received the same deep courtesy 
 that he would have given to a prince, and 
 cowered sometimes before the greeting as 
 with sudden shame and inner conviction of 
 his worthlessness, feeling, as it were, some 
 fragmentary sense of a divine presence in 
 the world, whilst that deep-toned voice rung 
 in his ears. 
 
 Mr. Brereton was not given to Biblical 
 quotations, and not often was the name of 
 the Blessed One upon his lips. There was 
 a tale current at Chippenham how that the 
 Rector one day upon suddenly meeting the 
 most notorious reprobate of the place and 
 stopping to greet him, the graceless blas- 
 phemer, out of mere habit, gave vent to a 
 careless oath and invoked the Holiest. No 
 apparent anger, no flashing of the eye sternly 
 denounced the offender. *' Blessed be His 
 Holy Name for ever and ever ! " said the 
 Rector, and raised his hat, whereupon Dick 
 Watkins, prize-fighter, bully, and gamester, 
 under the contagion of the Good, pulled 
 off his cap, and dashing it to the ground said, 
 " Amen." Did a drunkard cross his path, and 
 he, alas ! was but too common in Chippen- 
 ham, the Rector did not turn aside, but would
 
 31ARY MYLES. 161 
 
 salute him as if he were sane and in his right 
 mind. Some good people had expostulated 
 with him, therefore, and had ventured to 
 suggest that by so doing he was countenanc- 
 ing vice, at which for sole answer the Elector 
 would smile. Upon such an individual as 
 the above, when thus overcome by his in- 
 veterate weakness, the Eector would call the 
 very next day, as though he were an invalid, 
 and would behave to him with as much tender 
 solicitude as if indeed his affliction had been 
 involuntary, a disease, and not a sin. How 
 often had the small spark of the inner con- 
 sciousness within the offender been lighted 
 up by this silent forbearance of a superior 
 nature ! A sense of grateful appreciation at 
 this wonderful sympathy had several times 
 been awakened in a soul apparently dead to 
 every sacred influence, when not even a word 
 of expostulation had been uttered. 
 
 It had been remarked by some who had 
 the highest admiration for the man and his 
 devoted life, that he had no sense of humour, 
 and this was in some measure true, but in no 
 wise was this deficiency the result of austerity. 
 In the laughter of earth, in her joyous moods 
 with " laughter holding both her sides " he 
 
 VOL. II. M
 
 162 MARY MYLES. 
 
 joined not. Noisy exuberance of all kinds lie 
 was averse to, and possibly his mind had little 
 kinship with fun as it is generally understood; 
 but the mirthfulness of Nature in its simplicity 
 and calm serenity he was no stranger to. A 
 bright and tranquil soul, so at least he 
 appeared to be, one who saw only the deep 
 things of life, but whose heart's love went out 
 to the farthest and darkest corners of the 
 earth. A cultivated soul, too, who allowed 
 none of the good gifts which he had received 
 to become obsolescent from disuse and 
 neglect. 
 
 In his early manhood Robert Brereton had 
 chosen the Church as his profession, and at 
 about the same epoch he had also chosen his 
 wife. At the time of either choice perhaps 
 he had not felt the one or the other to be a 
 necessity of his life, without which it would 
 always be overshadowed. His deeper nature 
 was as yet slumbering, the clerical life came 
 to him from circumstances, and Marion 
 Crawford became his affianced bride because 
 he saw more of her than any other girl, and 
 because she was worthy of a good man's love. 
 But before he was ordained deacon a change 
 came over him and his feelings. He doubted
 
 MARY MYLES. 163 
 
 wifhin himself if the married state was one 
 the most desirable for a Christian priest. The 
 longing after holiness and the perfect life 
 grew within him day by day, and the example 
 of ages, he thought, had shown this to be more 
 possible in the life of the celibate. And yet 
 he was under an engagement to be married ! 
 Looking within at the man and his tempera- 
 ment, it may be questioned whether his 
 attachment to Marion Crawford was ever of 
 the nature of love. He himself at that time 
 knew naught of this. The stronger impulse 
 being the religious one, he concluded tliat 
 divine love was of necessity the highest form 
 of love, and that it was only to be expected 
 that the lesser love — the love he felt for 
 Marion Crawford — should burn within him 
 with a fainter glow than that other which 
 kindled his warmest aspirations, but, such as 
 it was, it was that kind of earthly love which 
 sufficed for the majority of men. It was for 
 him, however, a source of many a midnight 
 conflict, but though his engagement was 
 unnecessarily protracted, no thought of can- 
 celling it ever obtruded itself into his mind, 
 nor ever did he suspect that the love he 
 offered to this good girl was a secondary
 
 ]64 MARY MYLES. 
 
 feeling in him. She was twentj-five, and he 
 thirty-two, when having been presented with 
 the living of St. Mary's, he was roused to the 
 consideration that if the marriage were any 
 longerdelayed he would indeed be chargeable 
 with having behaved uncomely to his virgin, 
 and therefore they were married. In that 
 home to which he took his bride how smilingly 
 the years passed ! His wife thanked God 
 every night for the husband He had given 
 her. No woman was so blessed as she in her 
 fond estimation. And the years glided on, 
 and two daughters were born to them, and 
 in the fifth year of their marriage Mary 
 Myles came to Chippenham as the Lady 
 Principal of the Collegiate School. How the 
 two women cemented a lasting friendship the 
 one with the other it needeth not to relate. 
 
 Marion Brereton was at once dazzled and 
 charmed in her sisterly communion with a 
 mind so superior to her own, and yet not so 
 abstracted as that of her husband ; in this 
 association with the mind of a friend who 
 was able to fill up some hours of her life 
 which were unavoidably spent alone, when 
 she seemed to be ever the gainer, whilst the 
 sweetness of the giver removed all sensation
 
 MABY MYLES. 165 
 
 of inferiority. As for the Rector, be appeared 
 at once to acquire a new vitality out of this 
 bond between his wife and her new friend. 
 The poet's happiness in such a partnership 
 of affection was repeated in this sisterly 
 friend, his wife and himself; those "two 
 beloved women." The intellectual calm, the 
 full soul, the many gifts of that friend were 
 more to the priest than the beauty of person, 
 on which he never allowed his own mind to 
 dwell, and regarding which he answered 
 abruptly whenever his lively Marion re- 
 marked upon it. The disciple of celibacy in 
 the abstract, though the husband of a fair 
 wife, never permitted himself to discourse on 
 the personal charms of women ; like Job, he 
 had " made a covenant with his eyes." 
 
 Into this happy home where sweet discourse 
 made glad many an hour of relaxation. Death 
 came, and the Rector, after ten years of un- 
 troubled married life, was a widower. Now 
 all was changed; into this desolate house the 
 companion of his late wife could come no 
 more. Great was the assiduity of would-be 
 consolers when the appointed days of mourn- 
 ing were accomplished, and many were the 
 aspirants to the task of filling up the void in
 
 166 MARY MYLES, 
 
 his heart. But the typical Protestant clergy- 
 man, followed by a flock of female devotees, 
 with mothers' meetings, Bible classes, and 
 Dorcas assemblings were not for the widowed 
 Kector of St. Mary's. The office of over- 
 seeing these was relegated to others. The 
 pious ladies must carry on their good works 
 without his co-operation. His duties were 
 by the altar, in the pulpit, by the sick bed, 
 in the home of the penitent or the sinner. 
 
 The formation of a Guild for working girls 
 had long been a favourite project with Miss 
 Myles, and had also been the subject of many 
 an evenino's conversation between the three 
 friends, when all the possibilities of the 
 scheme, and the necessary preliminaries to 
 be used in order to insure its success as a 
 means for bringing a more feminine develop- 
 ment into the class for which it was designed, 
 were amply discussed. Opportunities for re- 
 ceiving evening instruction on various subjects 
 were to be elaborated and organized ; but 
 above everything else the cultivation of music 
 was to receive the greatest attention. The 
 capability of these girls for studying the art 
 practically had been abundantly proved. 
 The Rector was solicited to be the head as
 
 MARY MYLES. 167 
 
 well as the patron of the intended Guild, and 
 tlie Lady Principal of the Collegiate School, 
 as the Foundress, was also elected to act as 
 Lady President. Its name was chosen by the 
 Kector, who desired that it should be called 
 the Guild of St. Mary's, after his church, and 
 because the institute in which the meetings 
 would be held was also situated in the parish 
 of St. Mary's. One of the committee very 
 pertinently remarked that the name of the 
 foundress was also Mary, and that decided 
 it. The musical classes, for which elementary 
 tuition in singing was given by teachers 
 selected by Miss Myles, met once a week for 
 the practice of oratorios in the concert room 
 of the institute, at which times the Lady 
 President consented to be present, but with 
 closed doors. The Eector was also asked to 
 give to these meetings the double sanction of 
 his presence, both as a compliment and as a 
 token of respect due to the foundress, who 
 would otherwise be unsupported, and to this 
 he heartily assented. He was theoretically a 
 musician, and perfectly understood and appre- 
 ciated good music. 
 
 Thus for four years without a break, except 
 during the time when an epidemic almost
 
 168 MARY MYLES. 
 
 decimated the town, the Rector of St. Mary's 
 and the foundress of St. Mary's Guild met 
 once a week in the hall of the Literary 
 Institute. There were other meetings, but 
 they were so brief that they hardly amounted 
 to anything more than an interchange of 
 friendly greetings. 
 
 Mr. Brereton, outside his life of duties, had 
 one simple pleasure which savoured of 
 husbandry, namely, bee-keeping. It had 
 survived his boyhood, his college days, all 
 changes, until the time of Miss Myles's arrival 
 at Chippenham. It was a happy coincidence 
 that the new head-mistress was found to have 
 the intention also of keeping bees, as by her- 
 self bringing bees into her little garden she 
 would avoid, maybe, a continually frustrated 
 longing that they would come of their own 
 accord to seek it. The hum of insect life 
 was as sweet to her ears, as has before been 
 remarked, as the colours of flowers, and the 
 forms of plants, were grateful to her eyes. 
 The mutual taste was the initial bond of 
 friendship between the Hectory and the 
 School-house. Here the Rector and Mary 
 were in the positions of teacher and pupil. 
 His character possessed in an eminent degree
 
 MARY MYLES. 169 
 
 the patience and clear insight required for 
 an observer in the natural sciences. 
 
 No other distraction throughout his life 
 had ever brought to bear upon him so many 
 calming influences as the study of those wise 
 little people. In the fi.rst days there was 
 much to tell, much to watch over ; and until 
 the hives were well established the Rector 
 was almost a daily visitor to the garden of 
 the Collegiate School. Later on, these visits 
 subsided to twice or thrice a week. When 
 the bees, by reason of the wintry season, 
 were not, as has been observed, the motive 
 for his frequent visits, there were his two 
 little girls, in whose studies, as their father, 
 he was, of course, much interested. And 
 thus the years sped on, and in all the time 
 succeeding upon her friend's death Miss 
 Myles had not crossed the E-ectory threshold 
 but once, except on those official occasions 
 when the Committee of the Guild met in the 
 Rector's library for the transaction of busi- 
 ness, and a carriage always took Miss Myles 
 home, which was an effectual preventative to 
 any necessity for an escort. 
 
 Only once had she crossed that threshold 
 alone, and upon what occasion ? It was during
 
 170 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 the time of the epidemic, when Guild and 
 musical meetings were suspended and half of 
 the well-to-do inhabitants were dispersed, 
 the Rector and Miss Myles, with the medical 
 staff, being left comparatively alone. Miss 
 Myles had closed the school some weeks 
 earlier than usual as a precautionary measure, 
 holidays not being far distant. The Rector 
 had sent his daughters to the seaside, and 
 urged that the mistress should withdraw also 
 for a time. 
 
 "And yourself?" she had asked. 
 
 " I stay here with my poorer brethren,'* 
 he had said. 
 
 " And I also," was her quiet rejoinder. 
 
 His girls were in safety, and therefore, 
 without any misgiving, the R-ector devoted 
 himself heart and soul to the work before 
 him. As the illness was diminishing, and 
 when all apprehensions for him personally 
 seemed to be unnecessary, he, however, 
 succumbed. The strength and fine health 
 that had warded off the disease at first had 
 become enfeebled by excessive and con- 
 tinuous exertions, and all Chippenham was 
 convulsed to hear one morning that their 
 Rector had been suddenly laid prostrate.
 
 MAEY MYLES. 171 
 
 that he was attacked by the disease in its 
 worst form, and that his life was in great 
 danger. A skilled nurse was promptly 
 procured and the highest medical advice 
 engaged, by whom it needs not to be stated. 
 Every day Mary inquired at the Rectory 
 door, and every day turned away heavy at 
 heart, for the daily bulletins were not en- 
 couraging : " Delirium great, and excessive 
 exhaustion." 
 
 At last, after three weeks, came a more 
 hopeful answer. The nurse went down* to 
 see her herself, and reported with a smile 
 that there had been no delirium during the 
 night, that the patient had slept, and the 
 pulse was fuller and less quick. Was it well 
 considered that Miss Myles, with a throb of 
 grateful joy, determined to see him, if 
 allowed, on the following day ? The disease 
 was not contagious, and she had no work to 
 do ; the school was closed, and the days were 
 very dreary. 
 
 With a basket of flowers and fruits, she 
 presented herself on the following morning 
 at the Eectory and laid her petition before 
 the nurse. 
 
 *' Yes, I think there will be no objection.
 
 172 MARY MYLES. 
 
 He mentioned you yesterday, and seemed 
 gratefully impressed upon hearing that you 
 were well. He is sleeping now. Come with me 
 softly into the room, and when he awakes he 
 will be refreshed and able to see you for a 
 few seconds. You may exchange a few 
 words, no more. And this is only a con- 
 cession to you, because you are so well 
 skilled in all that a sick-room demands ; and 
 you are, moreover, so valued a friend." 
 
 And Mary, standing at some distance 
 timidly aloof, looked upon the altered face 
 of her friend with compassion and dismay. 
 Quietly, and without any sound or rustle of 
 garments, she deposited her flowers in her 
 own tasteful way about the room ; and was 
 still standinof with some in her hand hesitat- 
 ing where to put these last when the sick 
 man opened his eyes. 
 
 *' Who is that?" he said, faintly, but calmly, 
 to the nurse, who hastened to rearrange his 
 pillows. 
 
 " Miss Myles," she whispered, with a re- 
 assuring smile. 
 
 " Send her away — send her away ! " he 
 cried, excitedly. '' Go ! go ! go ! " he said, 
 trying in vain to raise his arms to wave her off.
 
 MARY MYLES. 173 
 
 The nurse made a sign ; Mary stole away 
 to weep outside the door. Half-an-hour 
 passed, when the nurse emerged. 
 
 " It must not be repeated," she said. *' He 
 does nothing but moan and murmur, ' That 
 precious life ! ' " 
 
 And this was the man who, returning the 
 second time from the School-liouse, bore 
 with him the maid's remark, ''The gentleman 
 from foreign parts is with my mistress again 
 to-day," and now sat down before his writing- 
 table and proceeded to examine the manu- 
 scripts of his forthcoming works, the one 
 entitled, " The Crown of Virginity ; or, 
 Celibacy as an Ordinance of the Church : a 
 manual for those intending to present them- 
 selves for Ordination to the Diaconate," 
 which treatise had been commenced in the 
 years of his betrothal; and the other, " The 
 Heinous Sin of Second Nuptials in the 
 Christian Priesthood," the offspring of his 
 pen since his widowerhood. 
 
 The Eev. Robert Brereton turned over 
 page after page of this latter work in an 
 absent manner, as though the words there 
 were perceived by his eyes but received no
 
 174 MABY MYLES. 
 
 intellio^ent meanino^ therefrom. All sense in 
 those manuscript sheets was in reality blotted 
 out by the shadow of " a gentleman from 
 foreign parts " which intervened between 
 his sight and the pages lying before him. 
 
 Not one of the group of holy women 
 gathered into the annals of the Church from 
 every age had been ever presented to his 
 mental vision as clad in a more snowy robe 
 of purity than the foundress of St. Mary's 
 Guild, and to think that an earthly cloud 
 under the substantial form of some graceless 
 husband was about to interpose itself before 
 that radiance was fraught with sorrowful 
 forebodings. Why should he conclude that 
 this unusual visitor, who made such un- 
 precedentedly long stays, must be a husband ? 
 Recognizing whence originally came this 
 suspicion he pushed back his papers with as 
 much decision as he had flung back the sug- 
 gestion of Dr. Swepstone some eight years 
 since, and leaving his seat by the writing- 
 table went to the fire and, leaning his arm on 
 the mantelpiece, gazed into the dancing 
 flames intently as if seeking through them 
 some solution for his doubts. From this 
 attitude he was aroused by the arrival of the
 
 MABY MYLE8. 175 
 
 gentleman acting as Secretary to the Col- 
 legiate Scliool, who requested an audience. 
 Placing a chair by the fire, he drew his own 
 opposite the Secretary and awaited his 
 communication, which he seemed in no hurry 
 to make, but sat without speaking and some- 
 what abstractedly all the while twirling 
 in his fingers what looked like a letter. 
 
 " Perhaps you have already heard and 
 know that which I have come to tell you," 
 said the Secretary at last, looking at the fire, 
 a vague and not very lucid observation, and 
 not certainly one which carried its own 
 explanation with it. 
 
 " Heard what ? " said the Rector. 
 
 " Then you have not heard ? " remarked the 
 Secretary. 
 
 " No ; I have not heard." 
 
 The Rector's thoughts were quite away, 
 and he answered mechanically. It was, he 
 supposed, some question of funds and money 
 matters connected with the Collegiate School. 
 The Secretary was a slow-speaking man, 
 who loved to take his time ; it would come 
 out presently, but the Secretary most unex- 
 pectedly and contrary to all precedent 
 abruptly discharged his shot forthwith.
 
 176 MABY MYLES. 
 
 ''Well, we are going to lose our head- 
 mistress." 
 
 It was not a shot ; it was a volley in its 
 effects, for the Rector sank back in his chair 
 unable to answer. Here was the dark cloud 
 closing round him with a swiftness quite out 
 of his calculations. 
 
 "Here is her letter of resignation; of 
 course worded in the sweetest manner, but 
 decisive nevertheless," and the Secretary 
 handed the letter to the Eector, who took it, 
 but held it in his hand without offering to 
 read it. 
 
 " No reason given ? " he asked, after a 
 pause. 
 
 *' One that is quite conclusive in its way ; 
 merely that an event which she had long 
 contemplated as likely to occur at any time 
 has taken place, and that she would be 
 required to leave England for India in the 
 course of a few weeks." 
 
 " The scoundrel ! '' mentally ejaculated the 
 Eector. 
 
 " If anyone could have any power to 
 induce Miss Myles to reconsider this decision 
 it would be yourself, Rector." 
 
 "I will see her to-morrow morning; not 
 that I have much hope about it.
 
 MABY MYLES. 177 
 
 " No," continued the Secretary. " I know 
 that she is not a lady who acts from any 
 light or trivial motive." 
 
 "No." 
 
 **It has no reference to income, or that 
 could be soon got over." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 How laconic the Rector was ! The Secre- 
 tary had expected some warmer expressions of 
 regret at the great loss the school would 
 sustain in this projected withdrawal. The 
 Secretary rose. 
 
 " You will see the Lady Principal early to- 
 morrow, and use your influence ? " 
 
 " Yes, but it will be of no use." 
 
 When the door closed upon his visitor the 
 Rector sank back again into his chair and 
 covered his face with his hands. 
 
 " Lost, lost to me for ever ! '' he groaned. 
 
 Half-an-hour afterwards the Rector, having 
 replaced all his manuscripts in the drawer 
 whence he had taken them, took up his hat, 
 which he had cast upon a chair. Summoning 
 his housekeeper, he said — 
 
 ** I am going out for sick calls. Take no 
 account of dinner ; but tell Miss Margaret 
 that I should like her to come to me in my 
 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 MART MYLES. 
 
 study this evening after she has prepared her 
 lessons," and the Rector went forth with 
 grief at his heart to carry the sunshine of 
 the good tidings to the heavy-laden and the 
 weary. 
 
 Margaret Brereton, the eldest born, was 
 the counterpart of her father — a fine nature, 
 not buoyant and vivacious like the younger 
 sister Lilian, but thoroughly deep and true, 
 with somewhat of the repose and sunlit 
 depths which characterized the foundress 
 of St. Mary's Guild. She had not inherited 
 her father's intellectual capacity, but shared 
 with him in a minor degree 
 
 The reason firm, the temperate will, 
 Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill. 
 
 " What a pearl of great price art thou, my 
 Margaret," said the father, as re-entering his 
 study, he found his daughter already there 
 awaiting his return. ''If I had had to ring 
 for you, child, it is just possible that I should 
 have declined to send for you. I am very 
 tired, and shall be but a sorry companion. 
 Nevertheless, I am glad that you have come. 
 Now don't ask me to talk, my dear. Go on 
 prattling of your own affairs — school work 
 and so forth — and I will be the listener," and
 
 MABY MYLES. 179 
 
 the Rector drew lier chair close to his and 
 took one of her hands in his own, and 
 Margaret, glancing at her father's face, saw- 
 therein what she had sometimes seen before, 
 after sick calls and death-bed visitations. 
 
 "Perhaps someone has died this afternoon ; 
 perhaps old Betty Gummeridge, poor old 
 soul ; but I won't ask," she thought, and 
 Margaret, in a subdued voice, recapitulated 
 all the events of the week in that world 
 which she alone knew. Necessarily • the 
 name of the head-mistress was often on her 
 lips, and frequently she asked questions to 
 which she got no other answer than a little 
 pressure of the hand which lay on the knee 
 of her father; or an occasional "Go on 
 talking," when she paused to regard him 
 with wistful looks, being fully convinced that 
 he had not heard one word of all that she 
 had been saying. At last the talker herself 
 succumbed, the broken words came out in 
 fragments, and her head drooped upon her 
 father's shoulder. 
 
 " My poor little Maggie ! What a brute I 
 am ! " said the Rector, starting. " Go to bed, 
 my dear. What a shame to keep you up so 
 long after your usual time."
 
 180 iMARY MYLES. 
 
 " I am so sorry, dear father," said Mar- 
 garet, piteously. 
 
 "Your sweet voice bas refreshed me 
 greatly. Good-night, darling," said the 
 Rector, embracing her. 
 
 *' But you will go to bed too, will you 
 not?" she asked, pausing at the door. 
 
 *' Yes, Margaret, before long." 
 
 " Before long." When the heart is 
 oppressed with any burthen, to lie down 
 to sleep is a vain delusion ; better to watch 
 and wrestle with the grief until sleep comes 
 of its own free will. 
 
 Mr. Brereton extinguished his lamp and 
 replenished his fire. He would argue out 
 the whole matter at once alone, and in the 
 quiet of night. There was now no doubt 
 about it — he would soon be deprived of the 
 light of that woman's presence, and hence- 
 forth he must walk in darkness. This pro- 
 position was not, however, admitted by him 
 without encountering stern opposition. He 
 was not a man to lose sight of the first 
 claiuis which the Church had to his affections 
 and to his life devotion ; but the conflict was 
 severe. 
 
 Hour after hour passed, and the last embers
 
 MABY MYLES. 181 
 
 of the fire were dying out whea a more subtle 
 question obtruded itself. 
 
 '' If after all she is not married ! " 
 
 Abound of the heart followed this thought. 
 
 ''If it were the will of God," lie pursued, 
 listening to the suggestion ; but the moment 
 it was entertained the same moment the 
 thought was flung aside as coming from the 
 fountain of evil. 
 
 " God help me ! " murmured the Rector, 
 and he wept. 
 
 There was a light, scarcely audible footfall 
 near ; the Rector lifted his head. By the 
 flickering ashes he saw a glimpse of a figure 
 clothed in white. At any time his mind was 
 ready and his heart open for any seraphic 
 visitant. 
 
 " Who art thou ? " he asked firmly. 
 
 " Father," said a gentle voice, as a little 
 form clad in night apparel glided up to his 
 side, "father, who has died ?'* 
 
 And the father, clasping his daughter to 
 his breast, cried — 
 
 " Truly, child, you are my good angel ; but 
 why have you done this ? " 
 
 " I thought somebody had died, father, 
 that you cared for very much. I have seen
 
 182 MABY MYLES. 
 
 you look so before when people have died, 
 and I thought you would not grieve so for 
 poor old Betty Gummeridge, and so I 
 listened, and listened to hear you go to bed, 
 and at last I came to look for you." 
 
 " With no thought for yourself ; no dress- 
 ing gown, no wrap, this chill, foggy night." 
 
 The Eector took from a bureau his 
 travelling maude with which he swathed 
 her round. 
 
 " Now that I have made you like a mummy 
 I must perforce carry you or you will unroll by 
 yourself," and he caught her up in his arms, 
 notwithstanding many a loving protest, which 
 ended in her laying her head on his shoulder 
 and clinging round his neck. 
 
 " Good-night, Margaret," said the Eector, 
 as he closed his daughter's bedroom door 
 after him ; " we shall both sleep soundly 
 after this." 
 
 " My father did not tell me after all who 
 has died," thought Margaret, as she laid 
 her head upon her pillow.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 In a word we should look upon all things which may happen to 
 us as from the hand of God. I say this that we may avoW the 
 delusions of many who say — If I were in a desert, if I were in a 
 tnonastery — if I were anywhere else but here — I should become a 
 saint. They say I should do— I should do, 
 
 St. Alphonsus de Liguori. 
 
 Another light had been burning through the 
 small hours simultaneously with that in the 
 study of the Rector of St. Mary's, but in this 
 case the watcher was a woman, a woman to 
 whom had come that morning, as she herself 
 had said, '' the supreme joy of her life," the 
 realization of her hopes, the fruition of love, 
 for which she had calmly waited, nor 
 doubted ever, whilst youth, the era of love, 
 was year by year passing away. 
 
 The fine health and the style of beauty 
 possessed by Mary Myles had warded off the
 
 184 MABY MYLKS. 
 
 withering effects of time. Of this she was 
 calmly conscious. A film of fretful discontent 
 too often spreads itself over the lives of 
 women, and, like aphides on flower blooms, 
 eats away their beauty faster than the usual 
 decay of time ; and not much less fatal are the 
 habits of luxury and indulgence to which so 
 many are pledged. At thirty-six Mary 
 Myles was still very beautiful. The long life 
 of work, loved though it had been, was now 
 over, and the lover for whom she had waited 
 was come at last. Why, then, did she sit 
 upon that evening following upon his coming 
 with clasped hands, hour after hour looking 
 into the fire with an aspect as if she were 
 revolving thoughts as grave as they were 
 deep ? Hers was now a face with whose 
 gravity was also blended a touch of pathetic 
 sadness. jN"o such cloud had hung over that 
 broad brow since the agonizing night in 
 which, overcome by passion, she had cried 
 aloud in her anguish, " They have taken 
 away my love, and where shall I find him 
 again ? " In that dark hour she had lifted up 
 her soul to the Eternal and made a compact 
 with herself evermore to abide in peace. 
 " Daughter, give me your heart," had been
 
 MABY MYLES. 185 
 
 an appeal to her from the Infinite, as it has 
 been for centuries to the seekers after 
 spiritual life. 
 
 Was it after all a rending of an idealistic 
 vision, this return of her lover, this husband 
 of her youth as she always fondly held him to 
 be ? She, who above all would rather have 
 been a Beatrice than any living wife, how- 
 ever happy, could she not recognize in him 
 the Dante of her aspirations ? Where was 
 the pronjise of his youth ? Was she after 
 all to be the victim of moods and tempers — 
 she who was conscious of a growth in her- 
 self ? She had thought out after her own 
 fashioning how the glowing, ardent youth, so 
 full of poetry, must have developed into some- 
 thing grander and nobler still, more calcu- 
 lated to command her adoration than the 
 beardless boy to whom she had dedicated her 
 life ? Was it all an illusion ? Did she not 
 recognize in this prematurely aged man the 
 attributes which had won her ? Was this 
 suspicious, arbitrary, irritable, and restless 
 lover the Herbert Langridge who had 
 thought of her as the hamadryad of the 
 chestnuts? 
 
 These, in sober truth, were the thoughts
 
 186 MAET MYLES. 
 
 that took away all sleep from her ejes on 
 that night after their first meeting. 
 
 Unbidden images of the many worthy men 
 who had sought in vain to win her affections 
 passed before her; she could not help it — 
 memories like dreams come without solicita- 
 tion. She had withheld her heart for the 
 best one ; she " must needs love only the 
 best," and she had woven round Herbert 
 Langridge the many rayed garment of her 
 fancies until he had seemed, indeed, the very 
 best— the best in his youthful promise — how 
 far the best in his manhood's prime ! And he 
 was here, and her heart had been more 
 troubled, and more tears had come to her 
 eyes in their first interview than she had been 
 acquainted with for years. She, who had 
 thought that she had overcome all weak 
 emotions, had again succumbed to their 
 influence, had been betrayed into anger, into 
 something very like peevish impatience. All 
 this she reviewed, but she did not swerve from 
 her fealty to him whom she had for ten years 
 recognized as her husband. Hers was a 
 truly loyal soul, but a deep pity took the 
 place of admiration, and strange it was 
 that the large compassion and scheme of
 
 MARY MYL/iS. 187 
 
 compensation that Herbert Langridge had 
 nursed and brought over with him from 
 India to be generously poured out at the feet 
 and for the service of the wasted idol of his 
 youth, was by a singular reversion to be 
 dedicated to him by her for whom it was 
 intended. His early disappointment, if it had 
 not permanently changed his nature, had 
 obscured its finer quality. This deterioration, 
 she thought, would not have occurred had 
 she been by his side. The remainder of her 
 life was then at all cost due to him who ha'd 
 suffered so great a loss indirectly through 
 herself. 
 
 But warped though he was from a too 
 exclusive dictation of every faculty of mind 
 and spirit to means for an end, the Herbert 
 Langridge of ten years since was not utterly 
 wrecked in his pursuit of honours and wealth. 
 His devotion to the memory of one woman 
 alone, his persistent constancy, his purity of 
 life were enough in themselves to redeem any 
 man, and all these he had kept as a sacred 
 deposit. What then was to hinder him from 
 calling back to himself again the finer essences 
 of being that had faded out of sight in un- 
 congenial surroundings? He reflected with
 
 188 MABY MYLE8. 
 
 a shudder upon what might be the possibility 
 from future daily contact with imperiousness 
 and restlessness upon the impressible nature 
 of the woman who loved him. In the silent 
 hours of communing with himself that very 
 evening he asked what right he had to dictate 
 to one who held within herself such evidence 
 of right-judging and right-doing ? Was it 
 not unbounded arrogance to ask concessions 
 to his pride from such a woman ? Could he 
 not confidently leave to her the maintenance 
 of her own dignity ? " It is my own 
 ignorance, my Anglo-Indian prejudices that 
 alone blind me to the true nobility of her 
 position here." It was, therefore, in a mood 
 much less captious and resentful towards 
 *' girls' Collegiate schools " and guilds, and 
 all the world in which his future wife had 
 been dwelling so long, that Herbert sought 
 her the next day, and in a few manly words 
 left to her all future arrangements pre- 
 liminary to their departure for India ; and 
 her lamp was not burning that night when 
 St. Mary's chimes, in slow and measured 
 cadence, told that another day was near. 
 
 " Millicent, when Mr. Brereton calls show 
 him into my private room."
 
 MARY MYLES, 189 
 
 Such a command was another surprise to 
 Millicent, and almost as great a one as the 
 long visits of the " gentleman from foreign 
 parts" on the two preceding days. No 
 gentleman had entered this sanctuary during 
 her ministrations, not even the mysterious 
 " gentleman from foreign parts," whose name 
 she persisted to ignore to herself, although 
 compelled to repeat it in its integrity when 
 announcing him to her mistress. 
 
 Mr. Brereton felt immediately that some- 
 thing was going to be revealed, when he was 
 ushered into Miss Myles's holy of holies, the 
 very perfection of simplicity and elegance, 
 yet not destitute of the more enjoyable 
 quality of cosiness. 
 
 " I am quite free this afternoon, and T 
 hope, Mr. Brereton, that you will be able to 
 give me a little more of your valuable time 
 than usual. I have great need of your 
 counsel." 
 
 It was coming then ; but nevertheless she 
 did not look troubled — did not look as if she 
 were under the thumb of a scoundrel of a 
 husband ! As Mary had taken the initiative, 
 he sat down in the chair placed for him 
 opposite to her, and waited ; but Mary, full
 
 190 MARY MYLES. 
 
 of regrets at leaving Chippenham and all the 
 associations that bound her to the place, felt 
 herself restrained at the very onset, and also 
 remained silent. The Rector noticed her em- 
 barrassment, and said gently — 
 
 " Is it in reference to your late communi- 
 cation to our Committee, which was placed 
 in my hands last night by the Secretary, 
 dear Miss Myles, upon which you wish to 
 consult me ? " 
 
 "Hardly that, Mr. Brerpton, as that 
 admits of no reconsideration." 
 
 The Rector looked at her again ; no, she 
 was not so self-possessed as usual. 
 
 '' You have only to command me," he 
 said, earnestly ; " if my poor services can be 
 of the slightest use to you — if you are — that 
 is to say — in any difl&culty." 
 
 " The difficulty is not with myself, save 
 that, as you may imagine, it gives me no 
 small pain to be obliged to leave Chippen- 
 ham — to leave you." 
 
 " Then I infer the obligation to go, as 
 you conceive it to be, is not of your own 
 seeking ? " 
 
 '' Oh ! I must not say that — I cannot say 
 that," she replied, with more animation. " It
 
 MAMY MILES, 191 
 
 is no less a joy than a duty which takes me 
 hence." 
 
 " These scoundrels are always adored by 
 the best of women," said the Rector to him- 
 self. 
 
 *' But there are very few joys quite un- 
 mixed with pain," she continued. 
 
 " Is your only pain now. Miss Myles, in 
 the fact that you are going to leave us ? 
 How am I to help you in that ? What 
 counsel can I give you here ? That will be 
 shared by all in Chippenham. This unex- 
 pected resignation is nothing less than a 
 blow to the whole commuuity. I speak not 
 of myself ; God forbid that I should express 
 any selfish considerations on this matter. T 
 speak for the whole of Chippenham." 
 
 " It seems almost a treason to say that I 
 am sorry, or else I, too, would say that I am 
 very, very sorry." 
 
 Mr. Brereton looked full at her, there was 
 something so sympathetic in that look that 
 she felt compelled to speak out. 
 
 " You see, dear Mr. Brereton, that we 
 have waited so loug — we have not even met 
 for ten years," she said, almost apolo- 
 getically.
 
 192 MABY MYLBS. 
 
 Mr. Brereton made a slight gesture of 
 impatience. 
 
 " Something is due," rejoined Miss Mjles, 
 in a firmer tone, as she noticed this move- 
 ment, " to my future husband for his almost 
 unparalleled constancy ; hence it is, that I 
 feel compelled to consult his convenience 
 alone, and to leave my post at a shorter 
 notice than courtesy would otherwise de- 
 mand, but Mr. Langridge has to leave Eng- 
 land to return to India in the beginning of 
 January." 
 
 The unconnected and tortuous manner in 
 which Miss Myles, in a style so unusual to 
 her, had hitherto evaded a direct explanation 
 of her motives for leaving, had been mis- 
 construed by Mr. Brereton into a confirma- 
 tion of his suspicions, but he had followed 
 her last words with attention, and now saw 
 the whole skein unravelled. She had not 
 come to Chippenham in the double character 
 of wife and spinster, and she was clear from 
 all such imputations. The whole tale of 
 patient constancy and devotion, which that 
 one sentence revealed, was one sure to com- 
 mend itself to the admiration of such a man 
 as the Rector of St. Mary's. He did not
 
 MABY MYLB8, 193 
 
 Speak ; he was gathering up all the links of 
 the chain, and his eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "Would it not be treason to say that I 
 am sorry ? " she said, gently, and she laid 
 her hand on his. 
 
 He did not withdraw his hand, as he 
 would have done at any other time had her 
 soft palm touched his, but took her hand 
 and held it in both his own. 
 
 *' It would indeed be treason to say you 
 are sorry, my dearest friend. None of us 
 may say we are sorry. All who suffer frdra 
 your departure must rejoice in your joy. 
 God bless you," and he rose to go. 
 
 '' Do not leave me yet, Mr. Brereton. I have 
 some requests to make. I will ring for tea." 
 
 The Rector sat down. 
 
 " I stay for the oratorio." 
 
 '' That is well." 
 
 " And I wish to be married at St. Mary's." 
 
 '* Naturally," answered the E-ector, in a 
 half absent manner, as if he were not address- 
 inof himself to her. 
 
 There was again silence. 
 
 " And you also desire me to perform the 
 ceremony, I suppose?" he said, without, 
 however, looking at her. 
 
 VOL. II. o
 
 194 MABY MYLES, 
 
 Miss Myles hesitated to give the answer 
 that was longing to rush from her lips. 
 Could Mr. Brereton have any objection, that 
 he manifested no kindly readiness to antici- 
 pate her questions so as to relieve her from 
 embarrassment ? 
 
 *' It is rather an awkward position for me, 
 as you see, Mr. Brereton, to settle this 
 matter quite by myself. I should not have 
 undertaken it had you not been so old and 
 valued a friend, and, of course, I am not a 
 girl, 'but the Yicar of Sunnyside, of whom 
 you have often heard me speak, would, I 
 know, perform this office gladly if you would 
 kindly lend him your church. Mr. Langridge 
 proposed him in the first instance, but then 
 I shall still have to ask you a favour." 
 
 Her voice faltered; the attitude of Mr. 
 Brereton made the having to arrange her own 
 marriage indeed difficult. Her thoughts at 
 this juncture suddenly conceived the possi- 
 bility that the Rector in his enthusiasm for a 
 celibate clergy had lost all sympathy for the 
 institution of marriage, and that perhaps he 
 would have preferred her own life in the 
 future not to have been so dedicated. A 
 slight flush therefore overspread her counten-
 
 MAEY MYLES. 195 
 
 ance, as finding that she was not going to be 
 helped, she added — 
 
 " I should have to ask jou to give me 
 away." 
 
 " I could not give you away ; no, I could 
 not give you away," said the Rector, with 
 abrupt energy ; " that I would not do." 
 
 '* Mr. Langridge left all the arrangements 
 to me ; but I think when I was so ready to 
 take them upon myself I made a great 
 mistake. I thought all would have been sp 
 very easy." 
 
 " Your tea is very good, Miss Myles ; I 
 will take another cup," said the Rector. 
 
 Mary poured him one out and handed it to 
 him. 
 
 The Rector stirred his tea and looked at it 
 thoughtfully, as though that was engrossing 
 his every consideration at that epoch, but 
 after awhile he put it back on to the table, 
 and, pushing it away from him, he raised 
 his head, and, with rather a forced smile, 
 said — ■ 
 
 "Do you not think now yourself. Miss 
 Myles, that it would have a very curious 
 appearance for me to give you away in my 
 own church ? "
 
 196 MARY J^IYLES. 
 
 "Of course it would, Mr. Brereton ; so 
 indiscreet a suggestion would not have 
 emanated from me if I had not thought that 
 you had some objection to perform the 
 ceremony." 
 
 Her voice trembled. 
 
 " What objection can I possibly have, dear 
 MissMyles:" 
 
 The Rector looked full at her. 
 
 " None that I know of," said Mary, and 
 tears rose to her eyes. 
 
 " Any priest would think it an honour. 
 Then why not I ? " 
 
 *' It is myself who will be honoured, as I 
 have always been, by your friendship, Mr. 
 Brereton." 
 
 Mary here fairly broke down, but she 
 turned aside and succeeded in checking the 
 rising sob. 
 
 The Rector passed one hand across his 
 brow. 
 
 "Is the room too hot for you, Mr. Brere- 
 ton ? Shall I open the door ? The fire is 
 somewhat large." 
 
 " No, thank you ; we are always used to 
 large fires here in the north. I have been 
 working rather hard lately, and have been
 
 MABY MYLES. 197 
 
 sitting up at niglit a little longer than usual, 
 so have just got a slight headache. It is 
 nothing. Your tea is doing it good," and 
 he drew the teacup nearer to him again. 
 
 " There is a great deal of sickness about, 
 is there not, Mr. Brereton ? " 
 
 " Yes, especially among the old folk," 
 said the Eector, as he emptied his cup. 
 " Had I not better call upon Mr. Langridge 
 and talk it over with him 'f" At what hotel is 
 he staying ? Or, if he would call upon n\e, 
 would it not be better still ? " said Mr. 
 Brereton, as he again rose to go. 
 
 " Herbert Langridge left Chippenham last 
 night, and will not be able to come down 
 again until a day or so before — " 
 
 " Indeed ! then you are to be defrauded of 
 your courtship after all ? '' cried the Hector, 
 with a sudden attempt at sprightliness. " I 
 really did not understand." He paused a 
 moment as he took up his hat, then, turning 
 round, he said, '' I will see you again in 
 reference to this; but when you write to 
 Mr. Langridge kindly tell him that I expect 
 that he will make my house his home upon 
 that occasion — and also your friend Mr. 
 Ashcroft. It will give me the greatest
 
 198 MABY MYLB8. 
 
 satisfaction if Mrs. Ashcroft will also accom- 
 pany the Yicar. Yours will be, I presume, 
 what is termed a quiet wedding, but a lady 
 will be necessary to preside, be the guests 
 few or many, for, in a few words, I wish to 
 convey to you that which I have at heart, 
 which is, that your wedding be kept at the 
 Rectory, and my two dear girls be your brides- 
 maids. You see I am speaking now very 
 peremptorily, like an elder brother. It will 
 relieve you and simplify everything if I take 
 all this arrangement upon myself, and so I 
 ask you, in the light of the aforesaid elder 
 brother, to leave it all to me. You can trust 
 me, I think, not to do anything at variance 
 with your own code as regards taste, which, 
 I believe, is almost identical with my own." 
 
 '' My kind, best friend ! " cried Mary, and 
 she held out both her hands to him. 
 
 As they stood there in the fire-glow, who 
 would not have said that they were a couple 
 who were designed by Nature for each other ? 
 The fitness of age, their moral attributes and 
 intellectual gifts, and the exceptionally fine 
 personal appearance of them both would have 
 almost justified the old most-mistaken saying 
 — that marriages are made in heaven.
 
 MABY MYLES. 199 
 
 Mr. Brereton gazed long and fixedly upon 
 the face of the woman turned to him with 
 such a beaming look of grateful appreciation, 
 and whose hands were resting in his own. 
 
 " An ante-nuptial benediction," he said, 
 *' rests upon you both for your mutual con- 
 stancy and truth — the benediction of the 
 Church it will be my privilege to bestow. 
 God bless you, dear Miss Myles." He raised 
 one of the hands she had resis^ned to him and 
 slightly touched it with his lips, '* God bless 
 you ! " 
 
 Mary would not trust herself to speak, but 
 accompanied him to the door. A cold blast 
 blew on them both. 
 
 " Pray go back. Miss Myles, the wind is 
 chill and piercing," and he shuddered. 
 
 As he heard the door close behind him he 
 drew a long breath. " Thank God it is 
 over, and I have not betrayed myself. My 
 path now lies straight before me," and with a 
 firm step he strode down the dark road 
 homewards.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Spring days are gone, and yet the grass tve see 
 Unto a goodly height again hath grown ; 
 
 Dear love, just so love's aftermath may he 
 
 A richer growth than e'er spring days have known. 
 
 S. Waddington. 
 
 Alteough Mrs. Hazelhurst liad felt greatly 
 relieved after her nephew had called upon 
 her ; during which interview lie had acquain- 
 ted her that his future bride and himself, 
 after mature deliberation, had arrived at the 
 decision that it would on all accounts be 
 more befitting that their marriage should 
 take place at Chippenham, where Miss Myles 
 had for so long had so many interests'; yet 
 she was not without sharing a most lively 
 curiosity with Helen to know the details of 
 an event which she still secretly very much 
 regretted.
 
 MAEY MYLES. 201 
 
 Helen had been mucli disappointed at the 
 change of plans. She had looked forward 
 with great pleasure to the prospect of seeing 
 her beloved friend, for such she always faith- 
 fully, and without any swerving, deemed the 
 lady who had won her affections whilst she 
 was superintending her studies. She had in 
 no way been influenced by her mother's 
 depreciatory observations in regard to the 
 change in that lady's personal appearance. 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst and Helen had both driven 
 to Dr. Grantham's funeral, and at some 
 distance had both seen Miss Myles, but as 
 she was closely veiled it was quite obvious to 
 Helen that her mother could not have been 
 able to make very critical or trustworthy 
 investigations, and that the expressions of 
 "careworn," "faded," "precise," "middle- 
 aged woman " which frequently fell from 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst's lips were more the off- 
 spring of her foregone conclusions than the 
 results of her own vision. Helen really 
 knew Mary better than her mother, and had 
 often suspected that her very severe style of 
 dress was really assumed as a disguise or 
 veil for the rare beauty which she was herself 
 conscious of possessing.
 
 202 MAEY MYLES, 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst had seen a shade or two 
 more of sadness in Helen's face after this 
 alteration of plans ; but Helen had not been 
 looking well lately. She was silent, pale, 
 and depressed; the bright smiles and glow- 
 ing cheeks, which were the chief charac- 
 teristics of her loveliness, were gone. Of 
 her it might almost have been said that she 
 was ''faded." 
 
 '* No wonder," said Mrs. Hazelhurst to 
 herself, angrily, " to be thrown over after 
 all — a girl who has evidently refused all 
 offers on his account ; and then he comes 
 back and is as besotted as ever." 
 
 If the days of witchcraft had not long 
 been past and gone, Mrs. Hazelhurst would 
 quite readily have fallen a victim to a domi- 
 nant superstition, and have declared that 
 sorcery must be at the bottom of such a 
 delusion ; and who can tell whither such a 
 belief might not have led her, with the pale 
 cheeks of her daughter always before her, 
 and her heart-rooted conviction that her 
 nephew was being sacrificed ; — for persecu- 
 tors have not been necessaril}'' more cruel 
 than other people. They have merely been 
 possessed of a narrower mental vision, and
 
 3IARY MYLES, 203 
 
 have, therefore, not been able to arrive at 
 any other conclusions than those which were 
 determined by that limited range, blundering 
 in their judgments because they took not 
 fast hold of the raiment of Love as their 
 guide. 
 
 Surely all persecution is but the intensify- 
 ing our opinions into actions, and it may 
 even be possible that the most earnest souls 
 are therefrom in the more imminent danger 
 of succumbing to the temptation of employ- 
 ing force as an auxih'ary, when mild persuasion 
 fails. 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst, however, could only 
 wonder at Herbert's delusion without being 
 able to solve it by any other method than by 
 the usual beHef so very widely spread among 
 men and women, that there is no accounting 
 for any absurdity into which a man may not 
 fall in love matters. Feelino: thus, Mrs. 
 Hazelhurst had not acceded to the proposi- 
 tion of the Yicar s wife that Helen should go 
 to the wedding of her former governess 
 under the escort of herself and husband. 
 Helen, indeed, although much wishing it, had 
 not urged it strongly. She was in all things 
 a good and obedient daughter, and never
 
 204 MARY MYLES. 
 
 asserted herself, or possibly Mrs. Hazelhurst 
 would not have withheld her consent. So, 
 instead of aunt or cousin being present at 
 the marriage of Herbert with Miss Myles, 
 they only sent presents and congratulations 
 through Mrs. Ashcroft. The Yicar had 
 posted a copy of The Chippenham Gazette to 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst, which she had read in 
 silence ; nor had she offered it to Helen, but 
 laid it on one side in such a manner that her 
 daughter, supposing that her mother did not 
 care for her to see it, did not put out her 
 hand to take it for herself. 
 
 " How pale the dear girl is looking this 
 morning," thought the mother ; " I wish 
 Herbert had not called at all ; she was well 
 enough before that." 
 
 But Mrs. Hazelhurst quite overlooked the 
 fact that another frequent visitor at her 
 house for the last two or three years was no 
 longer able to be there so often, and that 
 since Reginald Ashcroft had been made the 
 Eector of Moreton, which was quite a hun- 
 dred miles distant from Simnyside, it was no 
 more possible for him to give to Mrs. Hazel- 
 hurst and her daughter the benefit of his 
 ever-cheery society as before.
 
 MABY MYLES. 205 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst had remarked that morn- 
 ing what a loss it was to them all that Regi- 
 nald was so far off, adding — 
 
 " When he was Curate at Ashtonbury we 
 saw so much of him." 
 
 " Yes," said Helen, coldly, and looked in 
 an absent way through the window, but as 
 Mrs. Ashcroft was at that moment an- 
 nounced she immediately brightened up, 
 and ran forward almost gaily to welcome her. 
 
 Mrs. Ashcroft was not of an enthusiastic 
 nature, nor much gifted with eloquence, but 
 she was natural, and devoid of all sentiment 
 and affectation. The real admiration and. 
 sincere affection which she had always enter- 
 tained for Miss Myles being no longer 
 restrained in its expression before Mrs Hazel- 
 hurst (the lovers being now man and wife 
 and everything irrevocably settled as far as 
 regarded them), she felt herself at liberty to 
 say exactly what she thought, and conse- 
 quently she launched forth almost volubly into 
 encomiums on the bride, and on the Rector 
 of St. Mary's and his girls ; and also gave an 
 animated and almost vivid description of the 
 breakfast at the Rectory. Mrs. Ashcroft 
 seldom left home ; it was, therefore, quite a
 
 206 MABY MYLES. 
 
 new experience to be the lady paramount at 
 such a house as Mr. Brereton's, and upon 
 such an occasion. 
 
 Helen listened with rapt attention. She 
 broke in with at last — 
 
 '' Oh, dear ! I must never repeat the offen- 
 sive word Polly any more. Herbert did not 
 like it years ago, I remember ; but it is so 
 diflBcult to call my once dear Polly, Mrs Lang- 
 ridge." 
 
 " Very," said Mrs. Hazelhurst, drily. 
 
 " I suppose there were some speeches," 
 said Helen, colouring, it would appear, in 
 consequence of her mother's monosyllable. 
 
 " Only Mr. Ashcroft made anything that 
 was worthy to be called a speech. Mr. 
 Brereton's was more like a sermon or a bless- 
 ing. It certainly was not a speech. But 
 you know how very witty and clever Mr. 
 Ashcroft is," said the admiring wife, "and 
 what good things he can say when required."" 
 
 " Can you remember any of the good 
 things?" asked Helen, smiling. 
 
 " Well, I have cause to remember one, 
 because the lady who sat next to me was a 
 little deaf, and did not see the point. You 
 know how apt Mr. Ashcroft is in his quota-
 
 MARY MYLES. 207 
 
 tions, and of course you know, also, how 
 very beautiful he always thought our friend. 
 He once heard how much she had been 
 admired down at Girton, and how crazy the 
 undergraduates were about her ; or, as Mr. 
 Ashcroft had said, * She made sad havoc 
 with them all round.' So all this knowledge 
 of Miss Myles's many conquests was brought 
 by my husband into his speech very cleverly, 
 without seeming, you know, dear Mrs. Hazel- 
 hurst, as if it had been at all premeditated. 
 I thought it was so well done when he sard, 
 ' Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his 
 ten thousands.' I don't know whether every- 
 one saw the point. The Rector looked 
 abstracted, and as far away as if he had been 
 at the gate of Heaven, and gazed at my hus- 
 band in the most lost kind of manner. I 
 think your nephew understood it, for he 
 looked steadily with a half-smile at his bride, 
 but she was immovably composed, as if she, 
 too, was leaning over ' the golden bar,' as her 
 own favourite poem says. But the poor 
 lady near me, the wife of the Treasurer of the 
 Marygold Guild, who had only heard about 
 some ' thousands ' of ' slain,' leant forward to 
 me and asked in a half- whisper if I could tell
 
 208 MARY MYLES, 
 
 her where the great battle had been. Was it 
 not good ?" and Mrs. Ashcroft's beaming face 
 was still more illumined than before at the 
 recollections of her husband's opportune wit. 
 
 Mrs. Hazel hurst, however, did not smile. 
 What was all this talk about conquests and 
 admiration ? In her mind she was " care- 
 worn " and " faded." She had asseverated 
 these words so often to herself that she 
 firmly believed them. How weak all these 
 people were ! As to Mr. Ashcroft, she had 
 had too often experience of the inaptitude of 
 his wit, and his similes, and his quotations 
 to heed them now as being at all worth any- 
 thing ; and at this juncture, being in a more 
 severe mood than usual, she highly depre- 
 cated his employment of Biblical quotations, 
 however metaphorically used, upon such an 
 occasion as the much-to-be-deplored marriage 
 of her nephew to her ex-governess, and 
 therefore looked very grave and was silent. 
 
 '' I suppose they will not leave England 
 without calling ? " she asked, coldly. 
 
 " No, dear Mrs. Hazelhurst, they will be 
 here in a few days. It is like Mrs. Lang- 
 ridge that their first visit will be to the grave 
 of her husband's mother, to place wreaths
 
 MARY MILES. 209 
 
 there together, then they will come on here ; 
 but Mr. Ashcroft and myself shall make a 
 point of going down to Southampton a few 
 days before they sail in order to see them off." 
 
 " You have not said anything about 
 Herbert himself," said Mrs. Hazelhurst. 
 " Did he look happier ? It grieved me to see 
 him, poor fellow.'' 
 
 '' He does not need anyone's pity," re- 
 plied Mrs. Ashcroft, drawing herself up ; 
 " my husband will tell you all about it, for 
 he says the grandest thing he ever saw was 
 the way the two men, Mr. Langridge, and 
 Mr. Brereton the Eector, both fine-lookinof 
 men, stood with their hands clasped in each 
 other's ; each of them, as far as I can under- 
 stand, thanking and blessing the other, with 
 tears in their eyes ; the one for having been 
 her protector in the past, the other in that he 
 had been chosen by Providence as her guar- 
 dian in the future, ' the great gift of God,' 
 I think those were the words, or somethino: 
 like them, but Mr. Ashcroft will tell you." 
 
 " Oh, it's of no consequence," said ^Irs. 
 Hazelhurst, in a low voice. 
 
 A week later, having knelt together at the 
 VOL. n. p
 
 210 MARY MYLES, 
 
 mother s grave, tlie husband and wife drove 
 over to Sunnyside. Leaving the carriage to 
 wait at the entrance of the woody glades 
 skirting the grounds, Herbert lifted his wife 
 over the ha-ha fence, which he had himself 
 about ten years before sprung over, gaily 
 whistling. 
 
 " Come, Mary, we must go to the shrine 
 of my hamadryad. Albeit 'tis now a deserted 
 shrine, and the poor lone tree is no longer 
 her home or her prison. I verily believe," 
 he said, half smiling, half serious, *' that you 
 were a hamadryad in some former state of 
 existence. I ain quite sure of it ; perhaps 
 after all I released you. Who but a hama- 
 dryad or some other sylvan goddess ever 
 possessed two such — " 
 
 " Hush ! " was the laughing answer, and 
 a gloved hand was laid upon his lips. 
 
 '* My fair hamadryad," he cried, when free 
 speech was restored, '* had always a little of 
 the prude in her." 
 
 " She is certainly a very elegant woman. 
 I have no hesitation in saying that," was 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst's remark to Helen after her 
 nephew and his wife had left ; kind Mrs.
 
 MAEY MYLES. 211 
 
 Hazelhurst felt her heart relieved from a 
 burden whicli had long oppressed it. She 
 had sometimes argued with herself that 
 perhaps she was unjust in her estimate of 
 Miss Myles. She was therefore more con- 
 tent in her innermost soul after this little 
 tribute of appreciation. She even took 
 pleasure in conversing with her daughter 
 upon the exquisite taste her niece (for she 
 actually brought herself to speak openly of 
 such a relationship) had in dress, but g,^ 
 additional cause of her cheerfulness was due 
 to her lately awakened perception, so wel- 
 come to her maternal eyes, that Helen was 
 certainly in no wise jealous of the preference 
 given by her cousin to the lady who was 
 now his wife. 
 
 Why was it, then, that Helen soon retired 
 to her own room, and throwing herself on a 
 couch, buried her face in the cushions and 
 wept bitterly ? She, who had so often been 
 eloquent on the debated subject of Miss 
 Myles's beauty with her mother, had been 
 silent on this occasion, whilst her mother 
 was recapitulating the claims of her newly- 
 found niece to the admiration of everybody. 
 This contrariety has been noticed before.
 
 212 MART MYLES. 
 
 " Yes, she is beautiful, strangely beautiful," 
 said Helen, after the tears had fallen long 
 and silently. " She is like those women one 
 reads of sometimes who through a long life, 
 have always subjugated men ; and she is 
 pure, therefore has she the greater power. 
 What hope that the hold once obtained by 
 her over any man's affections could ever be 
 relaxed ! It is like an old world story. Ten 
 years 1 A lifetime, almost, to some, and no 
 change — a love that will go on for ever ! 
 Who would not exult at being loved with a 
 love so broad and deep ? But such a love is 
 not for me ! And my mother could think 
 that I have thought upon Herbert all these 
 years ; that he won my affections when I 
 was but a child, and has no perception of 
 the truth ! How much better, so that I am 
 able to mask the reality to her, lest in her 
 affectionate anxiety she might betray me. 
 The marygolds which I sent to my cousin so 
 long ago, the marygolds out of her garden 
 which he had forgotten in his grief at part- 
 in jr, he has them still he told me but an 
 hour since. A dead flower more prized by 
 one man than a whole heart's love is cared 
 for by another ! For fourteen years ! for
 
 3IARY MYLES. 213 
 
 fourteen years ! " she sighed, after a pause, 
 *' and she loved him well, how well is 
 perhaps alone known to me, until Herbert 
 came, but he— but he is faithful even now, 
 and loves her still. Who can wonder at it ? 
 Who would pause to choose between her and 
 me — although I am ten years younger, 
 and am an heiress, as they call me, forsooth, 
 as well ! " A scornful curl of the lip showed 
 at what rate the good girl valued the wealth 
 with which she was accredited. 
 
 Mrs. Hazelhurst, full of generous impulses, 
 and anxious to unbosom herself by openly 
 expressing them, drove out with Helen the 
 day following upon this, to make sundry 
 calls, which she said had been too long un- 
 repaid, but really to talk over the singular 
 and unparalleled constancy of her nephew. 
 
 She had been reticent enough heretofore, 
 and " the romantic tale " upon which she now 
 dilated had never been heard of from her, 
 whilst there was any chance of its being 
 relegated to the region of myths. 
 
 Now, however, that her nephew's wife was 
 an acknowledged member of her family, it 
 behoved her, as she thought, to make the
 
 214 MARY 3IYLES. 
 
 fact as widely known as possible. Wher- 
 ever they went that afternoon Helen was 
 doomed to hear the same praises and the 
 same descriptions ; and the honest girl 
 wondered both at her mother and at herself. 
 She marvelled at Mrs. Hazelhurst's sudden 
 conversion and change of language, for 
 whereas for many weeks — ever since Herbert 
 Lanofrido^e had first called and asserted that 
 his determination and his feelings regarding 
 the former object of his affections were quite 
 unchanged — Helen had heard with an un- 
 describable sense of weariness the un- 
 measured scorn of her mother towards her 
 nephew and the object of his choice ; and 
 she was also now surprised at herself, 
 because she was now almost equally as 
 weary at hearing their praises. A feeling 
 of shame oppressed her as she became 
 conscious of a certain bitterness of heart — 
 a void — whilst so many encomiums were 
 showered upon another. 
 
 " We will just call in for a few minutes at 
 the Ashcrofts, love. They will be glad to 
 hear about Herbert and his wife." 
 
 " You forget, dearest mother, that it was
 
 MARY M7LES. 215 
 
 their intention to call at the Vicarage after 
 leaving here ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, but it had quite slipped my 
 memory ; nevertheless, we will drive round 
 there. We will not stay. We may hear 
 something about Reginald. You know that 
 he is also a great favourite of mine ; but how 
 pale you look, child ! Perhaps it has already 
 been too much for you ; if so, we will return 
 immediately." 
 
 " Oh, no, mother ! I always like to go^to 
 the Vicarage." 
 
 But the weary look came again over her 
 face at hearino^ the same recital. 
 
 "Am I getting envious?" she asked, 
 between her closed teeth. 
 
 " Only think of ten years' constancy on a 
 man's side ! " reiterated Mrs. Hazelhurst ; " it 
 is, I should think, quite unparalleled, as I am 
 often saying to myself." 
 
 '• It is not so much as fourteen years," said 
 Helen, gloomily. 
 
 ''Have you ever heard of anyone whose 
 constancy has lasted fourteen years, Helen ? " 
 asked Mrs. Ashcroft. 
 
 " Yes," answered Helen, laconically.
 
 216 MARY MYLES. 
 
 *'Why, who is that, love?" said Mrs. 
 Hazelhurst, with eyebrows raised and ia 
 sheer amazement, lifting her eye-glass as she 
 turned to her daughter. 
 
 But Helen's eyes were obstinately cast 
 down and her lips compressed, and that was 
 her only answer. 
 
 " Helen is not well ; she is out of health, 
 dear Mrs. Hazelhurst," whispered Mrs. Ash- 
 croft at parting. " Let her go down to 
 Southampton with us the day after to- 
 morrow." 
 
 And Mrs. Hazelhurst, after a long and 
 searching look at her daughter, nodded a 
 smiling assent.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 And ther sayde oones a clerk. What is better than ^old ? 
 Jasper. And what is better than Jasper ? Wisedom. And what 
 is better than wisedom ? A good womman. And what is better 
 than a good womman ? Nothing. 
 
 Chauceb. 
 
 Man is a talking animal ; and what is better 
 than good talk ? — who would not go far to 
 find it ? In this respect it may be assumed 
 that men have a greater advantage than 
 women, for from their college to their club 
 days the facilities for conversation are fre- 
 quent. Facilities for conversation ; but how 
 rare amidst all this wealth of opportunity is 
 really good talk met with ! To have good talk 
 there must be good talkers. And are all 
 these canterers hurling their light shafts at 
 random — these reproducers of the railleries of 
 the press — talkers at all ? This love of rail-
 
 218 MARY MYLES. 
 
 lery which is so rampant amongst young men 
 especially, strangles conversation. The very 
 pretence at excess of life visible in all this 
 punning and counterfeiting of sprightliness, 
 this retailing of grotesque stories, imposes 
 silence upon him who has anything to say. 
 Not but that a good humoured raillery, with 
 some spice of wit accompanying, is a pleasant 
 adjunct in discourse when the combatants 
 are equally matched, but even then it is 
 better only to be called forth occasionally as 
 an auxiliary, and, like auxiliaries, generally 
 requires to be under the stern control of the 
 regular forces. For what greater bore is 
 there in the large family of boredom than 
 the man who gives himself up to habitual 
 raillery ? 
 
 Now Sir Henry Mason was one who had 
 always through life indulged in it, but as his 
 flights were generally as destitute of wit as 
 they were harmless, he was tolerated univer- 
 sally, for mankind in the aggregate bears its 
 afflictions with tolerable equanimity, and the 
 usual way in which " one of Mason's " was 
 received was all included in the commentary 
 " he's a good fellow." Being thoroughly 
 good-natured and impervious to snubbing,
 
 MABY MYLES. 219 
 
 he persevered in giving forfcli his sallies year 
 after year, and his old associates whom he 
 habitually met at his club heard the oft- 
 repeated jokes in silence, no longer even 
 troubling themselves to notice them except 
 by an occasional furtive smile exchanged, 
 with sometimes an imperceptible shrug. 
 
 Their forbearance was partly due to a 
 feeling that it was a necessity in the man 
 to have this kind of safety-valve, although 
 he had arrived at an age when raillery is less 
 tolerated than it is with younger men ; for it 
 was generally widely known that only at his 
 club was such delectation possible. 
 
 Sir Henry Mason was a married man, and 
 Lady Mason condemned the least approaches 
 to anything that savoured of levity. A 
 ponderous woman was Lady Mason, both 
 in mind and body, slow in speech, and slow 
 in gait, with a mortal antipathy to the least 
 approach to a joke. How the glib retailer 
 of stale puns, and a woman who characterized 
 laughter generally as the " crackling of 
 thorns " drifted into the married state was 
 a never-to-be-explained marvel. Lady Mason 
 rejoiced in wearing continually the heavy 
 chains of a dull decorum which never relaxed.
 
 220 MABY MYLE8. 
 
 It was always to her an inward source of 
 extreme satisfaction, when she remembered 
 how effectually she had at an early stage of 
 their married life corrected those weaknesses 
 of her husband, who never now committed 
 himself to foolish jesting. She reflected with 
 pride upon the judgment which she had used 
 in weeding out from their visiting list all those 
 friends of his bachelorhood who w^ere given 
 to sing comic songs, or repeat sayings from 
 the last Punch. 
 
 The return to England of that old friend 
 who had years ago been the pole of attrac- 
 tion for his rallying propensities, seemed to 
 awaken from their slumbering depths all the 
 old frivolities which Lady Mason had once 
 told him were unbefitting the demeanour of 
 a Christian gentleman. Once he asked Sir 
 Robert Haubury to dinner, once, and once 
 only. 
 
 The severe look of astonished reprobation 
 and scarcely suppressed indignation with 
 which Lady Mason fixed Sir Robert at his 
 first " By Jove ! " was only surpassed by the 
 majestic silent arraignment of her husband 
 by leaning back in her chair and crossing her 
 hands in grand resignation, as he, fortified by
 
 MARY MYLES. 221 
 
 Sir Robert's presence, seized the opportunity, 
 and gave vent to a very small witticism. 
 Lady Mason that same night in the privacy 
 of the nuptial chamber, and in a voice as 
 if she were reading a homily, quoted the 
 objurgation of Henry the Fifth to FalstafE as 
 applicable to their late guest — 
 
 " I know thee not, old man : Fall to thy prayers ; 
 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester ! " 
 
 Quite innocent of the manner in which he 
 had been thus apostrophized. Sir Robert, the 
 very next time that he met his friend at the 
 club, came down heavily upon the table with 
 the offending fist, accompanied by the sono- 
 rous " By Jove ! " as a preface to his very 
 decided summary upon Lady Mason. '' I 
 can't stand your wife. Mason ; she's more for- 
 midable than a fifty-pounder." 
 
 So the friends met at the Anglo-Indian 
 Club and were unembarrassed and happy. 
 Sir Robert let his old friend have a free field 
 for his raillery, and the latter availed him- 
 self of his friend's frankness, as it afforded 
 scope for his wit^ and inwardly chuckled over 
 and over again when in the grave solemnity 
 of his home, by recalling his clever and 
 sparkling hits at divers times on the sub-
 
 222 MABY MYLE8. 
 
 ject of cherries and cherry pies, all of which 
 Sir Robert took with never failing good 
 humour. 
 
 Two or three days after Christmas the 
 friends were again in the coft'ee-room, and 
 on account of that festive time which 
 generally draws men more to home-life 
 than any other season of the year it was almost 
 empty. They had each been reading their 
 favourite papers with flying commentaries 
 on the leaders, when Sir Henry drew one 
 from his pocket, a county newspaper, which 
 had evidently come that morning by post, 
 and had not been as yet looked at. 
 
 '' The CMppenham Gazette,'' he said, as he 
 stripped off the wrapper. " That's where 
 your little girl of the cherry pie went to, you 
 know. There's a fellow whom I know down 
 there who sends me a paper now and then ; 
 but there's not much in it besides local news." 
 
 His friend was deep in a speech of one of 
 the members upon the situation in the East, 
 and did not hear or heed this remark. 
 
 *' I say, Hanbury ! " he shouted, when his 
 eyes had for a few moments glided carelessly 
 over its contents, " Hanbury ! "
 
 MAEV MYLES. 223 
 
 " Whatever is the matter, man ? " said the 
 Colonel, looking up from his own paper ; 
 "anything amiss with Ladj Mason this 
 morning, eh ?" 
 
 " Pshaw ! look here ! Read it for your- 
 self. First column, at the top there," and 
 he pushed The Ghijpj^enham Gazette across the 
 table. 
 
 " No, no, not I ; I don't want to lose my 
 place here. Whatever you've found that you 
 want me to hear, read it yourself, there's a 
 good fellow ! I suppose 'tis not very long. 
 I'll listen for five minutes good." 
 
 '' You'll listen fast enough when I begin, 
 I've no doubt ; but don't come in this time 
 with your ' By Jove,' or I shall just slip the 
 paper into my pocket again. Now for it : 
 ' Picturesque Wedding at Chippenham. — All 
 Chippenham and its adjoinings were in the 
 highest state of excitement yesterday from 
 early morn till night on account of the 
 marriage of Miss Myles, the Lady Princi- 
 pal of the Chippenham Collegiate School. 
 
 " No sooner was it generally known that 
 this lady, who has been among us for several 
 years, and who has been so universally 
 esteemed by all classes for her goodness
 
 224 MARY 31 TLBS. 
 
 and sweetness of character, as well as admired 
 for her beauty and her many and varied 
 attainments, was to be married this morning 
 at the Church of St. Mary's, than a large 
 concourse of people of both sexes and of all 
 ages thronged to the vicinity of the church. 
 
 '' The bridegroom's status as holding a 
 high position in India had somehow oozed 
 out, as well as the long period of his and 
 Miss Myles's engagement, and these topics 
 were discussed by the patient groups await- 
 ing the arrival of the bride. The dress of 
 the bride was a departure from that usually 
 adopted, and, possibly because she is not in 
 her first youth, the veil and wreath was 
 replaced by the form of bonnet called the 
 ' Princess,' and her entire costume upon so 
 cold and wintry a day was more pleasing to 
 the eye than any glistening white satin or 
 veil, suggestive of chilliness, would have been. 
 To be brief, her gown was of a rich dark blue 
 velvet, trimmed wich ermine, with a long 
 train of the same, also lined and bordered 
 with ermine, and the bonnet was of the same 
 material, with a small aigrette of diamonds 
 in front. She also wore around her throat a 
 rare necklet of diamonds, in antique setting,
 
 31 ART MILES. 225 
 
 whicli relieved the colour of the gown. A 
 rich, short Chantillj veil completed her 
 costume, the whole of which was singularly 
 in accordance with her style of beauty. Her 
 only two bridesmaids, the two daughters of 
 Mr. Brereton, the Rector, who officiated, 
 were also warmly clothed in cream-coloured 
 plush, turned up with blue, with hats to 
 correspond. 
 
 '' Miss Myles had long been the patroness, 
 as she was also the foundress, of a guild for 
 girls and young women, well known in 
 Chippenham as the ' Marygold Guild,' the 
 marygold being a favourite flower with this 
 lady. These girls, to the number of almost 
 two hundred, in their uniforms of blue serge, 
 with the marygold device worked with silk in 
 its own colour on cuffs and collar, were 
 ranged in a triple row on each side of the 
 churchyard path leading to the porch, and 
 upon the bride's alighting at the outer gate 
 received her with an adaptation of Keble's 
 marriage hymn, arranged expressly for the 
 occasion. The effect of their well-trained 
 voices, and the severe simplicity of the com- 
 position, appealed strongly to the assembled 
 crowd, and many tears were shed by the 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 226 MABY MILES. 
 
 sympathetic feminine portion of the by- 
 standers, who had very good reasons; realiz- 
 ing how great would be their loss when the 
 graceful *Lady of the Marygolds,' as she was 
 familiarly called by them, was abstracted from 
 their midst. 
 
 " We must not forget to note that many of 
 these girls carried baskets of yellow flowers, 
 and as the garden marygolds were not pro- 
 curable, the yellow marguerites, grown under 
 glass, did duty for the bride's favourite 
 flower, and these they cast before the happy 
 couple as they left the church. 
 
 '' Mr. and Mrs. Langridge will shortly 
 leave for India, and after a few excursions to 
 various friends are expected to go to South- 
 ampton, whence they sail." 
 
 The reader paused, laid the paper down, 
 and looked at the Colonel with a smile, who 
 had, indeed, listened in silence, and without 
 interrupting this perusal. 
 
 " I say, Hanbury, this Mr. Langridge had 
 some of the cherry pie, I expect, eh ? " 
 
 " Be quiet. Mason, and just hand me over 
 the paper ; I want to look at it myself." 
 
 '' Oh, it's all there ! Don't be suspicious, 
 Hanbury; I'm not playing any joke upon you
 
 MAEV MILES. 227 
 
 now, and you've lost your chance, even at the 
 eleventh hour." 
 
 ** Give it over, I saj, and don't be a fool, 
 Mason ! " 
 
 " There, there, my good fellow," cried his 
 friend, laughing, as he pushed TheGhv^penham 
 Gazette across the table ; " the lawyer has won 
 by more than a neck this time.'' 
 
 Colonel Hanbury took up the paper gravely, 
 and half turning his back to his friend, so as 
 to face the fire, he very slowly and carefully, 
 as it seemed, went over the whole details, 
 often stopping to consider, and then, with a 
 kind of nod of affirmation, continuing his 
 reading. When he came to the close he 
 folded it up with much precision, and instead 
 of returning it to his friend proceeded to put 
 it into his own pocket. 
 
 "So you are intending to appropriate it, 
 are you. Colonel? Have you not fully mastered 
 the contents ? The cherry pie drama is con- 
 cluded, I conceive, at last." 
 
 *' Confound the cherry pie ! " said Colonel 
 Hanbury, gruffly. 
 
 " Amen, say I, if it were leathery and in- 
 digestible." 
 
 " Look here, Mason, be sensible, if you
 
 228 MARY MYLES. 
 
 can, in the absence of your commanding 
 officer. But, joking apart, this must be a 
 wonderful woman. It wouldn't have been 
 much of a mistake, you see, on my part. 
 She must be well conserved ; they speak of 
 her beauty as something remarkable." 
 
 " 'Tis no use bemoaning spilt milk, my 
 friend ; the astute lawyer has won." 
 
 " An ill-conditioned fellow ! " grunted out 
 Sir Robert; ''I should think he'd be as sour 
 as verjuice to live with.'' 
 
 " Why, what the deuce can you know about 
 him ? " 
 
 " "What can I know ? Why, only just this 
 much : that I did not find him a very lively or 
 companionable fellow-traveller. Why, you've 
 seen him. Mason ; don't you remember the 
 fellow who bowed to me that morning — the 
 first morning we met, you know — in this 
 very room ? I told you then he came over 
 with me. By Jove ! " 
 
 "A handsome, striking-looking man, if I 
 remember aright," said Sir Henry, mali- 
 ciously, " and in the prime of life." 
 
 " Oh, I've nothing to say against his looks, 
 nor him in the abstract, except that he seems 
 to have a disagreeable temper of his own.
 
 IIAUr MILES. 229 
 
 He's thought a great deal of over there, an 
 indefatigable servant, and all that kind of 
 thing — a rising man — perhaps I ought to say 
 a risen man, because he's got to the top at 
 railway speed, so to speak, but I found him 
 as a fellow-passenger silent and unsociable.' 
 
 "He was in love, you see, Colonel." 
 
 " Nonsense ; a man can't be in love for ten 
 years straight off." 
 
 " Whew ! I fancied a certain elderly Colonel 
 had been wearing the willow for double that 
 time." 
 
 " I look like it, don't I ? " replied the Colonel, 
 jumping up, and, drawing back his head, he 
 gave his grey moustache a twirl ; " but I'll 
 keep this paper, if you don't mind. It's 
 rather amusing to me to see how this has all 
 come round. I never thought I should hear 
 anything of that woman again, and here it's 
 just like the last act of a play." 
 
 " As I just said, ' a cherry pie drama,' Han- 
 bury." 
 
 " What do you say, Mason, to running 
 down to Southampton with me for a few days ? 
 I've just a little curiosity to see what kind of 
 woman the curly-haired girl has turned into." 
 
 " Oh, I could not go, my dear Coloneh"
 
 230 MARY MYLES. 
 
 " Could not get permission, I suppose, 
 from your commanding officer, eh ? Well, 
 thank God I'm not in that case. I own no 
 superior officer, I'm glad to say," and slap- 
 ping his friend on the shoulder he laughed 
 heartily, and bade him good-morning.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Coneidereth eek, how that the harde stoon 
 Under oure foot, on which we tread and goon. 
 Yit wasteth it, as it lith by the weye. 
 The brode river some tyme wexeth di'eye. 
 The grete tonnes see we wane and wende, 
 Than may 1 see that all thing hath an ende. 
 
 Chaucee. 
 
 " When you have finished your letter, Mary, 
 we will go forth into the sunshine. After 
 the late dull skies it is really life-giving to 
 look out on such a morning as this. To 
 whom are you writing so lengthy an epistle ? " 
 
 " To Margaret Brereton. I promised her 
 father that I would be a frequent correspon- 
 dent with her. He is thinking of removing 
 her from school and superintending her 
 studies himself." 
 
 " I see your counsel in that — it will be a 
 good thing for them both," answered Her-
 
 232 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 bert, reflectively, as he gazed from the window 
 of their hotel on to the sparkling ripples of 
 Southampton Water. '' Both father and 
 daughter are — " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, leaving his sentence 
 unfinished, and, going up to the writing table, 
 laid a gentle hand on his wife's shoulder. 
 
 " When do you think the Ashcrofts will be 
 down, Mary ? " 
 
 ''Perhaps to-day, for we have now only 
 three days before us, Herbert." 
 
 '' I should have liked to see Reginald before 
 leaving. He was an old chum of mine in 
 childhood, when I stayed at Sunny side with 
 my aunt, but I suppose he had reasons of 
 his own for not coming to our wedding." 
 
 His wife made no remark upon this obser- 
 vation, but said, parenthetically — 
 
 " I think that we left nothing undone, the 
 omission of which would have caused us after 
 regret. I am so glad that we went together 
 and laid flowers on dear Dr. Grantham's 
 grave. That was your thought," and Mary 
 looked into his face with a grateful smile. 
 
 "Yes, I am very glad. But we have 
 missed Reginald, and besides being my play- 
 fellow he was also your pupil."
 
 MARY MYLES, 233 
 
 Mary looked back again upon the letter 
 she was folding. 
 
 The '' astute lawyer," sitting down by her 
 side, took up the hand next to him, and, 
 kissing it, said, softly — 
 
 " Was that poor fellow in for it too ? Was 
 it he who called you ' his Amy ? ' " 
 
 Her eyes were raised immediately, and 
 steadily confronted the searching bat not un- 
 loving glance of the husband. 
 
 " My pupil call me ' his Amy ! ' " she said. 
 " I have never been called ' Amy ' except by 
 one — it was merely a pet-name." 
 
 '' So, I suppose, the synonym of ' my 
 glorious girl.' Kow, tell me, who was that 
 privileged one who dared to write thus to 
 my hamadryad ? — a boy's flight, evidently." 
 
 Herbert, as he said these words, touched 
 the hand which he firmly held with his lips. 
 His wife, whose eyelids had never drooped 
 before his gaze, answered quietly and with a 
 half-amused smile — 
 
 " Those words, dear Herbert, seem to have 
 burnt themselves into your brain as deeply 
 as they are imbedded in my own heart. They 
 are very sweet words to me. You quoted 
 them once before, quite unconscious of what
 
 234 MABY MTLE8. 
 
 you were saying. They are from a letter of 
 my mother's which I always keep in ray 
 E-ossetti, a gift from her accompanying it." 
 
 <« Why, Mary, I am a convicted villain ! 
 Can you forgive me ? " 
 
 " I am your Amy. You have made those 
 loved words your own," she cried. 
 
 Mrs. Langridge was just drawing on her 
 gloves when she observed, carelessly — 
 
 " This morning appears to exercise a potent 
 charm over that military-looking man on the 
 esplanade below. He has been on duty there 
 for at least two hours — lonof before I beg:an 
 my letter. I think I observed him before 
 we began our breakfast. He, too, must be 
 revelling in this unaccustomed sunshine." 
 
 Mr. Langridge took up his glass. After a 
 long survey he said, as he laid it down — 
 
 *' He has the contour and look of one of 
 my fellow-passengers in the Guatemala. I am 
 very much surprised to see him here. He 
 cannot, however, be intending to return to 
 India, as he was out there twenty years at 
 one stretch, and is now on the retired list. 
 I cannot think of his name just now, but if 
 it be he, he is a colonelj'a baronet, a K.C.B.,
 
 MABT MYLES. 235 
 
 decidedly soldierly in appearance, but very 
 noisy. Are you ready, darling ? " 
 
 Our friend Sir Robert Hanbury had, in 
 truth, with military precision, been on duty 
 since nine o'clock. He had arrived at South- 
 ampton the night before, and having learnt 
 from the list of visitors in the paper at which 
 hotel Mr. and Mrs. Langridge were staying 
 he had taken up his post of reconnoitring at 
 that very early hour. 
 
 " She will not recognize me," he had said, 
 " and as for her husband, he will be too much 
 engaged." 
 
 He saw them at once, therefore, as they 
 descended the steps of the hotel to cross over 
 to the esplanade. He gave one rapid glance 
 at the lady with as keen and criticizing a 
 look as if he had been at an inspection, and 
 the result, to judge from a sharp little nod as 
 lie walked on, was entirely satisfactory. 
 
 " No shawls and tagrags of wraps hanging 
 about. Just what it ought to be. Women 
 do make themselves such guys. There's 
 not one in a thousand could pass muster 
 were I their inspector. She's all right 
 so far," he soliloquized, and the Colonel 
 strode quickly in the same direction, but
 
 236 MABY IIYLE8. 
 
 walking well ahead of the couple, with 
 the double view of keeping up his circula- 
 tion, and with giving himself, by reaching 
 the end of the esplanade quickly, an oppor- 
 tunity of meeting them face to face on his 
 return march without there being anything 
 conspicuous in his proceedings. 
 
 He was in consequence some thirty or 
 forty yards in advance of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Langridge by the time they were following 
 on his footsteps ; and as at this hour the 
 esplanade was filling with strollers eager to 
 get their constitutionals before the noontide 
 sun began to decline — Mary and her hus- 
 band being in close converse, they did not 
 observe that the subject of the few minutes' 
 conversation as recorded above was near 
 them, until, the end of the promenade being 
 reached, he had turned round and was re- 
 suming less hurriedly his march back. 
 
 " Yes, it is the same," said Herbert, sud- 
 denly, " my fellow-passenger in the Guatemala 
 I mean, and his name has just come to me — 
 Colonel Hanbury ! — Sir Robert Hanbury ! 
 How oddly names that are forgotten come 
 back when you are least searching for them ! 
 Yes, to be sure — Sir Robert Hanbury ! "
 
 MABY MYLES. 237 
 
 " Colonel Hanburj ! " cried his wife. 
 
 " Yes, dear. Do you know anything of 
 him ? " 
 
 " An old friend of my father's," and Mrs. 
 Langridge pressed her husband's arm. 
 
 The Colonel, as he came up to them, 
 directed his looks more to the lady than to 
 his fellow-traveller, upon whose arm she 
 hung, and it almost seemed as if he were 
 about to pass without recognition had not 
 Herbert's raised hat compelled him to a 
 hasty acknowledgment. Mary again pressed 
 her husband's arm. 
 
 " If you do not mind, Herbert, I should 
 like to speak to Colonel Hanbury. He knew 
 my father and mother so well." 
 
 Before these words had hardly passed her 
 lips Herbert had turned, and, again raising 
 his hat, laid a hand upon Colonel Hanbury's 
 arm. 
 
 '' Pardon me, Sir Eobert, but my wife 
 would like to be introduced to you ; but in- 
 troduction seems almost superfluous, as she 
 claims you for an old acquaintance." 
 
 An angry look at first gleamed from under 
 his shaggy eyebrows ; but it was transient, 
 like all the Colonel's outbursts of fierceness.
 
 238 MABY MYLE8. 
 
 " Mrs. Langridge does me too much 
 honour," he said, courteously, if somewhat 
 coldly. " It is nevertheless true that I had 
 the pleasure of knowing her father — a gallant 
 officer — and her mother, and also Miss Myles, 
 but it is twenty years ago — twenty years 
 ago ! " 
 
 " One must hardly speak of twenty years 
 of remembrance where a lady is concerned," 
 said Herbert, smiling; and seeing that Sir 
 Eobert stood, nor made any attempt to ad- 
 vance to Mrs. Langridge, he added, '' but 
 anyhow you see that you are not forgotten. 
 Colonel Hanbury, even with such a formidable 
 reminder intervening." 
 
 " Not forgotten ! " ejaculated the Colonel, 
 sternly. " Not forgotten ! " 
 
 ''How could my father's comrade and my 
 mother's good friend be forgotten by their 
 daughter. Colonel Hanbury ? " said a gentle 
 voice, and Mary, who had heard the raised 
 accents of those two words, came to his side 
 and held out her hand. 
 
 The Colonel took the proffered hand and 
 held it for some moments, while he seemed to 
 be gravely perusing her face, too intently, in- 
 deed, for even Mary's composure and self-con-
 
 MAET 3IYLES, 239 
 
 trol, for it called an unwelcome blush to her 
 face which gave it an added beauty, and a 
 touch of girlhood. 
 
 " Your husband," he at last said, '' very 
 properly just now called me to task for my 
 being so strict an observer of dates. I am a 
 martinet on that point ; but looking at you, 
 Mrs. Langridge, I should forget it. Ah ! 
 when last we met you were a little girl in 
 frocks and were s^atherino^ cherries. Am I 
 not right ? " 
 
 '' Quite right, Colonel Hanbury," and a 
 deeper glow overspread her brow; "but I 
 was not exactly a little girl in frocks." 
 
 " No, no — no, no — it's not fair," said the 
 Colonel, and a kindly smile illumined his 
 rugged face as he began to shake the little 
 hand he held with great fervour and energy ; 
 *' it's not fair." But the homely and cherished 
 recollection was too much for him. *' I never 
 had any of that cherry pie after all,^' he added, 
 and with a short, good-natured laugh and 
 another shake he released the hand. 
 
 ''Will you come to our hotel this evening 
 and dine with us, Colonel Hanbury, just for 
 the sake of old times ? Perhaps we shall be 
 able to give you cherry pie."
 
 240 MABY MYLES. 
 
 " Made from bottled cherries ! oli ! The 
 cherry pie I lost was made from cherries fresh 
 off the tree, but not fresher nor brighter than 
 the maiden who gathered them," and again 
 he laughed. " But it's not fair. Forgive an 
 old soldier, Mrs. Langridge, and allow me to 
 congratulate you, and you also, Mr. Lang- 
 ridge; you are a very fortunate man, sir, a 
 very fortunate man." 
 
 " But will you promise to give us the plea- 
 sure of your society to dinner. Sir Eobert ? " 
 asked Herbert, as he warmly shook the 
 Colonel's hand after this genial outburst. 
 
 Colonel Hanbury turned to Mrs. Langridge, 
 who had not as yet echoed her husband's 
 invitation. 
 
 " Yes, do come. Colonel Hanbury ; we 
 shall both be so glad." 
 
 " Our talk then, Mrs. Langridge, shall be 
 only of the home to which you are going. I 
 love India only second to England, and shall 
 be happy to add my experiences to those of 
 your husband if you need any commendations 
 of the life obtainable there by sober, earnest 
 folk, which may reconcile you to leaving 
 England."
 
 MARY MYLES. 241 
 
 " Eevelations upon revelations ! " cried 
 Herbert, gaily, as they resumed their walk. 
 " Why, the Yicar seems to have been right 
 after all. Mary, I've not seen you blush so 
 vividly since the day you kissed me under the 
 chestnuts ! I have cause to be thankful to 
 my dying day that the invincible soldier did 
 not stop to eat your cherry pie." 
 
 '' Do you think that it would have made 
 any difference?" she answered, laughing. 
 " But, Herbert, see who are coming yonder ! 
 our dear friends, the Ashcrofts, and oh ! 
 joy of joys ! my Helen is with them ! " 
 
 " My dear girl does not look herself," said 
 Mary, as, having drawn her old pupil into her 
 own room, she was herself helping to undo 
 her wraps. Oh, my own Helen ! this is, in- 
 deed, an unexpected joy ! But why so pale, 
 dear? Come, let us sit down and have five 
 minutes' quiet chat. Mrs. Ashcroft will not 
 be ready yet, and she knows the way to the 
 drawing-room." 
 
 She led her to a settee by the fire, and, as 
 they sat down, Mrs. Langridge again em- 
 braced and kissed her. 
 
 VOL. II. R .
 
 242 MARY MYLES. 
 
 " Helen,'* she said, softly, as her arm 
 encircled her waist, " there is one thing at 
 my heart that I have longed to say to you, 
 and I am thankful that you have given me 
 this opportunity." 
 
 " To do what ? " said her former pupil, 
 finding that her friend, who had paused, was 
 regarding her with wistful looks. " What 
 do you wish to say to me ? " 
 
 '* I have reason to believe, from some 
 observations dropped by Mrs. Ashcroft, 
 darling, that Reginald Ashcroft loves you ! 
 Oh ! Helen, think what happiness it would 
 be to me if my two dear pupils could be 
 united ! I do not believe, dearest, that you 
 are indifferent to him." 
 
 A faint colour tinted her cheek. 
 
 "I have known Reginald all my life, but I 
 see no reason therefrom why you should wish 
 to unite us, Mrs. Langridge, merely because 
 we were both your pupils." 
 
 The cold, forced tone of this reply caused 
 Mrs. Langridge to draw Miss Hazelhurst 
 closer to her. She took one of her hands in 
 hers. 
 
 " I love you both as if you were my brother 
 and ray sister. That love is a stronger one
 
 MARY MYLES, 243 
 
 than can be given to a pupil, however dear. 
 I know of no better gift which as an elder 
 sister I could bestow, if it were mine to give, 
 than to give you to each other." 
 
 " Spoken right queenly, andlike your very 
 old self ! Bat, Mrs. Langridge, Mr. Reginald 
 Ashcroft has not himself asked for the hand 
 that you are so ready to bestow." 
 
 " Not ' Mrs. Langridge' to you, Helen, but 
 simply Mary, your cousin Mary, who abjures 
 all queenly rights, and who only wishes to 
 make two loved ones happy." 
 
 Helen looked up hastily. 
 
 " You have a right, cousin Mary, to speak 
 of two loved ones. I never doubted your 
 love for me, nor at one time at least your — '* 
 
 "What?'' 
 
 " Love for Eeginald Ashcroft. See now " 
 — and Helen's eyes flashed — '' I am not — 
 never was, and never shall be queen of 
 hearts, as you are. But if I ever have one 
 heart to rule over it must be mine, and mine 
 only." 
 
 " My dearest Helen," said her cousin, " I 
 am much pained. You are in a great 
 error." 
 
 " No, no ; I am in no error, and I love
 
 244 MAEY MILES. 
 
 you just the same. But I do know that 
 Reginald Ashcroft loved you for years, and 
 that before Herbert came on the scene you 
 must have loved him ! " 
 
 " Must have loved him ? Helen ! " 
 " I have seen you kiss his letters over and 
 over again. 'Tis rather hard that you should 
 carry off both my lovers. Confess, now, that 
 it is, cousin," with an attempt to smile. 
 " But 'tis of no consequence. I came to see 
 you once more, darling old Polly ; let us not 
 waste our time about such useless talk," and 
 she laid her head on Mrs. Langridge's 
 shoulder. 
 
 "As you in some inscrutable way dis- 
 covered Reginald's youthful attachment, I 
 shall not deny its truth. Neither you nor 
 any other person would ever have known it 
 from me. It was not returned by myself, 
 however, nor did I ever receive any love 
 letter from my pupil. If you ever by 
 accident saw me fondly kiss any letters, 
 they were those of my dead mother. Helen, 
 in what a labyrinth your thoughts have been 
 wandering ! Would you really out of pique 
 let a man who truly loves you, and to whom 
 you are not indifferent, as I see more clearly
 
 MABY MYLES. 245 
 
 every moment, be made unhappy? This is 
 not like my generous, faithful Helen." 
 
 '* Eeginald has never told me that he cared 
 for me." 
 
 *' No, Helen ; you are wealthy. Eeginald 
 would rather be assured that you really did 
 care for him before he would seek the hand 
 of one almost reputed to be an heiress. I 
 verily believe from his character that if you 
 were absolutely penniless rather than dowered 
 as you are, he would not have gone to his 
 Eectory without declaring himself." 
 
 «« Forgive my proud petulance, dear cousin. 
 Could I really believe that Reginald loved 
 me well enough to make me his wife now, I 
 could be happy. Had you ever loved him it 
 would have been quite different. Of course, 
 he could not help loving you — who could ? " 
 She put her arms round Mrs. Langridge's 
 neck. '' Everybody knows that you were 
 the making of him. I understand it all 
 now, I understand it all now ; it was his 
 love for you ! " 
 
 " Love is a great teacher," answered 
 Mary, solemnly; "but never speak of that 
 again, dearest Helen. Both Herbert and 
 myself want so much to see him before we
 
 246 MABY MTLES. 
 
 leave England. May I write to him to come 
 and take a farewell of us for the sake of the 
 old times ?" 
 
 " But you will not say that I am here ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I shall, or we should not get 
 him, I fear. Have I permission ? But no, I 
 will not ask permission, I take the responsi- 
 bility on myself. But what about your 
 motlier," Helen ? " 
 
 " I think my mother will raise no objec- 
 tion ; she is very fond of Reginald, but I 
 almost wish I had not come." 
 
 " I shall not compromise you, darling, 
 never fear ; wait a moment, it is soon done. 
 I will not write to your Eeginald anything 
 you may not like to read." And drawing 
 some writing materials near her, Mrs. Lang- 
 ridge hastily wrote — 
 
 *' Dear Rkginald, 
 
 " Herbert says that he longs to see 
 you before we leave England. I need not 
 say that my own feelings also induce me 
 to write to ask you to do us that favour. 
 Your mother and father have kindly come, 
 and have brought with them another dear 
 old pupil of mine. Let me have the great 
 delight to see both my much-loved pupils
 
 MARY MYLES. 247 
 
 here together. The happiness of both is 
 very dear to me." 
 
 " There, Helen, there is nothing very 
 improper in that, is there ? " 
 
 '' I had made up my mind that I would 
 never marry him before I came down here," 
 said Helen, with somewhat of a frown. 
 
 " And the roses of your cheeks had paled 
 in consequence," answered Mrs. Langridge, 
 and she sealed the letter and placed it with 
 others destined for the post. 
 
 "You will say nothing, I hope, to Sirs. 
 Ashcroft?" said Helen. 
 
 '' JS'o, nor to my own dear husband ; my 
 first deception," said Mary, laughing. 
 
 The dinner party that evening was bright 
 and the conversation animated. Almost all 
 were for the most part listeners, only throw- 
 ing in enough of the talking element in the 
 form of questions to prevent any stagnation. 
 The Colonel seemed the happiest of the party, 
 and a few half-hours daily with women so 
 refined and intellectual would, even at that 
 late hour of his life, have toned him down 
 considerably. As it was, his voice was much 
 more subdued than usual, and only once were
 
 248 MARY MYLES. 
 
 Lis own feelings shocked by the echoes of his 
 sonorous " By Jove ! " His own feelings were 
 more shocked apparently than those of any- 
 one else at the table, for smiles rather than 
 frowns were the most perceptible expressions 
 on every face except that of the offender, who 
 turned fiery red, and was very nearly perpe- 
 trating a dozen other oaths in his stammer- 
 ing attempts to cover that one into which he 
 had been betrayed. It was at rather a late 
 hour when Colonel Hanbury rose to go. 
 
 " We shall see you to-morrow, I hope ? 
 You will join us again, Sir Robert ? " asked 
 Herbert, warmly. 
 
 " No, Mr. Langridge, to-morrow I go back 
 to London. I go by an early train, but I 
 shall carry with me a most enjoyable remem- 
 brance — it will last me. I have had a delisfht- 
 
 a 
 
 ful evening. I came down, Mrs. Langridge," 
 cried the honest old soldier, " expressly to try 
 and get a look at you. I am not ashamed of 
 it. No, by — Forgive me — no, I am not 
 ashamed of it. I did not expect to speak to 
 you, much less spend an evening with you. I 
 am very much gratified. Good-bye ; God bless 
 you — God bless you both. Your father was 
 a gallant officer, and your mother — well,
 
 MABY MYLES. 249 
 
 well, I knew them both. Grood-bye, my dear, 
 and again, God bless you." 
 
 The old soldier's eyes were glistening. 
 Could they be really tears ? 
 
 " We shall come back in five years. Colonel," 
 said Herbert Langridge ; " we hope to meet 
 all old friends again." 
 
 '' Only five years ! " echoed Mary, tremu- 
 lously. 
 
 Tears are catching, for there was no mistake 
 that they were shining in those grey eyes of 
 hers, and even Helen looked, as if in another 
 moment her lashes would hold similar pen- 
 dants. 
 
 " I am sixty-five," said Colonel Hanbury, 
 almost fiercely ; " a man cannot count on 
 five years at that age, though it may be. 
 Good-bye ; don't come to the door, I'd 
 rather not," he said, resolutely, and he 
 went. 
 
 '' I like that old soldier," said Herbert, 
 breaking the general silence which had fallen 
 upon them all; ''I did him an injustice." 
 
 The young Rector of Moreton had just 
 entered his library, where his breakfast was 
 laid. It was a library by name rather than
 
 250 MART MYLES, 
 
 reality, for a few books hardly constitute a 
 right to any room to have so venerable a 
 name affixed to it, but this room was in- 
 tended for a library, and his predecessor 
 really possessed sufficient books to warrant 
 the assumption of the name ; but Reginald 
 Ashcroft was no book collector, and, not- 
 withstanding his success, and the almost 
 unexampled position which he had (certainly 
 through interest in a great measure) attained, 
 of a living at thirty-two, he could not by any 
 possibility develop into a reader. His tastes 
 were those of an ordinary country gentleman, 
 upon which was grafted the clergyman. Such 
 habits were more suitable to the society in 
 which he found himself ; to whom a studious 
 man would have been abhorrent, and as 
 every one of his tastes were moderate in 
 degree, and held so lightly that it could be 
 at any time laid down without a wrench, he 
 was in all respects a man who would always 
 be at peace witli his flock, and liis church- 
 wardens in particular; as no innovations 
 would unadvisedly creep in ; and although 
 from his love of neatness and decorum 
 generally some improvements might be ex- 
 pected, yet not any susceptibilities on clerical
 
 MARY MYLES. 251 
 
 matters would be ruffled, as every change 
 would be so very gradual as hardly to be 
 perceived until it was thoroughly accepted. 
 A moderate man in all things, but a per- 
 sistent one, Avhat he did this year at 
 thirty-two he might be calculated upon as 
 doing at sixty-four, if his fine constitution 
 remained intact. Not a man, as we have 
 seen, to break his heart for love, but one, 
 nevertheless, who would hold on to his first 
 love out of sheer tenacity, until, like the 
 anemone when torn from its rock, he coi:rld 
 no longer clutch to any foundation, but be 
 cast absolutely adrift. 
 
 For six years he had held on to the possi- 
 bility of making Mary Myles his wife when 
 he was no longer the objectionable *' boy '* 
 she seemed to think him, and when he really 
 had something to offer. We have seen how 
 this base, to which he had clung, was dug 
 from under him. For the next four years, 
 by the force of habit, he had steadily pur- 
 sued the road to advancement, although 
 latterly with no hope of sharing the end 
 hoped for with the beloved one of his teens. 
 He rather looked forward as one of the 
 likeliest possibilities that he should drift (as
 
 252 MARY MYLES. 
 
 he had told his father) into a sleek bachelor 
 rector, and never marrj. 
 
 He liked agriculture moderately, but 
 enough to take an intelligent interest in the 
 land belonging to the Rectory. He liked 
 sport, as it is called in irony, surely, of the 
 sufferings it inflicts on the lower animals ; 
 but it was rather from the enjoyment of the 
 fresh breezes and the open-air exercise it 
 involved than from any pleasure he found in 
 bagging game, for he was a humane man, 
 into whose nature no fierceness could be 
 stirred up or provoked ; and another impulse 
 was given to out-door exercises in that he 
 was above all desirous to restrain within 
 proper limits an indication that with a life of 
 indolence he would develop fat. 
 
 These were the reasons that caused him to 
 leave his bed at least two hours before the 
 townsman expects to be called ; and as he 
 was punctual, and his habits were, as we have 
 seen, early, it was at eight o'clock, after some 
 miles had been gone over in coursing, riding, 
 or shooting that the Rector of Moreton sat 
 down to his solitary, simple breakfast in his 
 library, where the shelves would have been 
 almost bare had not all papers and periodicals
 
 MARY MYLES. 253 
 
 been ranged on them methodically, and so 
 helped to cover up some spaces which would 
 otherwise have been empty. The other rooms 
 were too large; the house had been built 
 with a view to the accommodation of the 
 usually large families appertaining to the 
 clergy as a rule, and this library was the 
 smallest and cosiest room for the usual resort 
 of a single man. 
 
 The clock in the hall was pointing to five 
 minutes to eight as the Rector, ruddier 
 with a deeper and browner red than here- 
 tofore, took off his shooting jacket and 
 gaiters. 
 
 " Any letters ? " 
 
 " One, sir, which lies on the breakfast 
 table." 
 
 With placid face Reginald walked into the 
 library. He did not at once hasten to seize 
 the letter lying on his plate, but went and 
 stood before the fire in the attitude most 
 loved by men, but there was none other in 
 the room from whom his well-developed form 
 would have blocked out the cheerful flame, 
 and so far he was in his right. 
 
 He looked out for a few minutes on to his 
 well-kept lawn ; a few blackbirds, thrushes.
 
 254 MART MYLE8. 
 
 and starlings were having the breakfast he 
 always ordered for them. 
 
 " I think we shall have a severe winter 
 after all, Hale; according to the old proverb, 
 ' when the days lengthen, the cold will 
 strengthen.' I shall get you to hang up 
 some more bones of meat in the shrubberies ; 
 I see the others are picked almost bare," and 
 then his thoughts went back to Sunnyside, 
 and his father's home, where tom-tits 
 abounded, and from tom-tits his mind by 
 a natural enough course went to Helen 
 Hazelhurst. How charming it would be to 
 see Helen on that lawn as the spring days 
 returned, in her pretty costumes, culling 
 some flowers for the breakfast table; but he 
 shook his head as if so preposterous an idea 
 ought to be and could be shaken off at a 
 moment's notice, and turned to the table, 
 where, his eye falling upon the aforenamed 
 letter, he quite leisurely stretched out his 
 hand, and, as was his wont, looked at super- 
 scription and postmark before opening it. 
 What great study did it require to decipher 
 the Southampton postmark, and what was 
 there so enigmatical in that beautifully and 
 clearly written direction ? Whatever it was
 
 MARY MYLES. 255 
 
 Reginald Asbcroft made no haste to see the 
 contents, but looked fixedly at its exterior 
 only, and with an expression seldom seen on 
 his usually placid countenance. What power, 
 however, even the superscription on a letter 
 without reference to the contents can have 
 upon us, must be known to all who take up 
 in their hands the faded time yellowed 
 contents of their bureau, where letters of 
 some twenty years lie in their cells, tied up 
 in their severally assorted bundles. With 
 such a look as the faces of such exhilDit 
 when their fingers touch one, which is like a 
 telegraphic message from the depths of 
 buried years, and sends an electric current 
 through every nerve, so in a minor degree 
 and in accordance with his character was the 
 countenance of the young Rector changed 
 and the more delicate fibres of his feelino^s 
 shaken. What now ! he had been asked by 
 his old friend Herbert to the wedding, but 
 Herbert knew nothing of his early love, or 
 he would not have asked anything so pre- 
 posterous. His mother had pressed him to ac- 
 company them, and could not understand his 
 refusal; but she knew nothing also ; his father, 
 however, although he felt convinced that his
 
 256 MART MYLES. 
 
 son had quite conquered a hopeless passion, 
 yet fully comprehended the situation, and 
 said quietly — " Of course not, my dear boy ; 
 who could under the lil<:e circumstances ? " 
 but here was a letter in Mary's own hand. 
 What would he have given formerly to have 
 seen such a one on his breakfast table ! But 
 none ever came. Yes, one had come, but its 
 taste was as bitter as gall to the youth who 
 was longing for some sweet medicine for his 
 ills. And here was one from the lady who 
 had married his friend after ten years' en- 
 gagement. Their constancy had outlived 
 his own, they deserved to be happy; and as 
 his thoughts became modified by this sug- 
 gestion, he slowly opened it, and very care- 
 fully considered its contents, which were not 
 difficult to be mastered. " Going away to 
 India ; his old friend Herbert." There were 
 two strong motives, and the deterrent one 
 was the meeting his old love as a married 
 woman ; but then came in the figure of Helen. 
 What did Mrs. Langridge mean ? Yes, there 
 were some sweet reasons in what she said. 
 Both had been her pupils, and she was going 
 away. He owed her — why, yes, he owed to 
 her this comfortable Eectory ; he could not
 
 MARY MYLES. 257 
 
 have gone to her wedding, but now it was 
 quite different ; he ought to go to bid her 
 farewell, and then, he should see Helen — 
 not that he ever intended to marry, but still 
 he should like to see Helen. It was one ad- 
 ditional impetus to the scale, the balance 
 declined, he would go, and go immediately. 
 
 Five hours afterwards, travelling by an 
 express train, Reginald Ashcroft was de- 
 posited at Southampton. After a hasty 
 refection, and some arrangements to his 
 dress at the railway hotel, the young E,ecfct)r 
 hastened to make his call, but he had not 
 proceeded far when he encountered his 
 father in company with another gentleman 
 whom only by the circumstance of such com- 
 panionship he judged to be his former friend. 
 The surprise of both at this meeting was so 
 loudly expressed that Reginald at once 
 understood that the letter of invitation 
 which he had received that morning, and so 
 promptly acted upon, was not a joint pro- 
 duction, but emanated from Mrs. Langridge 
 only. He consequently immediately re- 
 strained the allusion to it which was just 
 about to escape from his lips as an expla- 
 nation of his sudden arrival. The hearty 
 
 VOL. II. s
 
 258 MARY MYLES. 
 
 welcome, however, accorded to him by 
 Herbert banished at once some rising 
 scruples. 
 
 ** Well, old fellow, better late than never. 
 I should have been sorry not to have seen 
 you. In fact, I had thought of running over 
 by myself to your snuggery, only, you see, I 
 have been married but a few days after all. 
 Eeginald, you are a witness to the truth that 
 your path has been through pleasant pastures. 
 You are two years older than I, and yet 
 look at me." 
 
 " I suppose a lawyer's life is a very 
 arduous one," said his friend, without con- 
 tradicting the patent fact that Herbert 
 Ijangridge at thirty had left the appearance 
 of youth far behind him ; " and you have 
 mounted the ladder so quickly." 
 
 '' You have not done amiss either, Rector," 
 said Herbert smiling. 
 
 " I have had so many helps," said Reginald, 
 quietly, and almost apologetically, " and some 
 patronage besides ; there is not much merit 
 due to myself." 
 
 " The ladies are out shopping," said the 
 father. '' Joe Brunning has at last made up 
 his mind to marry our Phebe, and has given
 
 MAEY MYLES, 259 
 
 me notice to put up the banns ; they will be 
 read for the first time next Sunday. Mar- 
 riage is infectious, I suppose ; anyhow, the 
 moment Joe knew that his patroness, the 
 serrafum, had really entered the holy estate, 
 it determined him. I verily believe, however, 
 Herbert, that through that action of hers 
 your wife has lost the seraphic position she 
 formerly held in Joe's brain. I believe he 
 conceives that to be a serrafum one must 
 be in a state of celibacy. Extremes meet, 
 and Joe Brunning and the Rector of St. 
 Mary's seem here to be in accord.'' 
 
 Herbert Langridge had heard of Joe and 
 his serrafum that morning. Reginald was 
 well up in his father's favourite story, and 
 both men smiled. 
 
 " So Mrs. Langridge has gone this morning 
 with your mother and Miss Hazelhurst — ah, 
 by-the-bye, she is here," said the Yicar, turn- 
 ing to his son, " to make purchases of suitable 
 presents for the couple. If we go in the 
 direction of the town perhaps we shall meet 
 them, eh, Herbert ? They were out early, and 
 it is not far off our luncheon time." 
 
 How was it that in a few minutes Reginald 
 Ashcroft found himself walking between th©
 
 260 MAEY MYLES. 
 
 lady of his boyhood's dreams and the girl for 
 whom he was quite conscious of a nascent 
 affection ? Helen had turned red and pale 
 alternately at the sudden meeting at the 
 corner of a road, but she had smiled also. 
 At meeting her perhaps Reginald would have 
 reddened also if a stronger power in the 
 presence of Mrs. Langridge had not put to 
 flight such evidence of emotion. After a 
 little while Helen, however, fell back and 
 rejoined Mrs. Ashcroft, who was walking 
 with her husband and Herbert. Then and 
 then only, when he was conscious that there 
 Avas a vacancy on his left side, did Eeginald 
 turn with something like a lively interest to 
 see what had become of the handsome girl 
 whose skirts had brushed him a few minutes 
 since, and a deeper red did then dye his brow, 
 seeing that she had left him to join his mother. 
 " Eeginald," said Mary, in a low voice. 
 Again recalled to that presence ever so potent 
 for him, by the mere tone of her voice, he 
 turned as hastily and inclined his head to Mrs. 
 Langridge. " We are going away the day 
 after to-morrow. I wrote to you of my own 
 accord, because you know that I have always 
 loved you as a younger brother. I want to
 
 MARY MYLES. 261 
 
 see your life put on its proper footing before 
 we leave." 
 
 What a strange speech ; what could she 
 mean? 
 
 "It is time that you were married, Regi- 
 nald." 
 
 The Eector felt the same momentary repul- 
 sion to be thus advised by Mrs. Langridge as 
 Helen had done. 
 
 "Mrs. Langridge, I am the best judge of 
 that. I have no thought of marrying." 
 
 ''Do not be angry. From anyone else'it 
 would be an impertinence, but not from me. 
 If you think a little while you will see that it 
 is not an impertinence from me." 
 
 " Is there any necessity that I should marry, 
 Mrs. Langridge ? " 
 
 " Yes ; otherwise you will sink into a self- 
 indulgent, easy-going country rector, of 
 whom there are already too many. You have 
 not the gifts required of a real celibate." 
 
 " You are complimentary, Mrs. Langridge." 
 
 " It is true, and you know it." 
 
 There was silence. The young Rector 
 whipped some pebbles away with his stick, as 
 we once saw him strike at a hedge. 
 
 " You have always assumed a kind of
 
 262 MARY MYLES, 
 
 mentorsliip over me, Mrs. Langridge. I owe 
 much to you, and I acknowledge it. What 
 do you want of me now ? " 
 
 '' Follow the dictates of your heart." 
 
 " It was you who forbade me to follow them 
 once." 
 
 " Follow them now ; the past is gone." 
 
 " I have no doubt about your meaning, 
 dear Mrs. Langridge. It is meant well. You 
 have always meant well by me, and not me 
 alone. But how can you, who have always 
 scorned wealth, ask me to do this thing — 
 you, of all people in the world." 
 
 ** Because in this case wealth is an accident, 
 and if it did not exist you would not have a 
 shadow of excuse." 
 
 *' Excuse ! " 
 
 *' Yes, excuse ! You should not have been 
 so frequent a visitor at Sunny side, to begin 
 with." 
 
 " I am not so conceited a fool as I was in 
 my boyhood, Mrs. Langridge. You wrong 
 me if you mete me by that measure." 
 
 " Mr. Langridge is about to join us," said 
 Mary, glancing round. " You love Helen 
 Hazelburst, and your love is returned. You 
 will lose all the place you have long held in
 
 MABY MYLE8. 263 
 
 mj heart as my first, my oldest pupil, if you 
 allow any narrow sentiments to crush out 
 feeling," and, turning round, Mary met her 
 husband and linked her arm in his. 
 
 " Well, what have you bought for poor 
 Joe?" 
 
 " Among other things, which were chiefly 
 for Phebe, his bride, that which will gladden 
 him exceedingly, as it will be a possession 
 hitherto unattainable — a cuckoo clock. There 
 was one in the housekeeper's room at 
 Sunnyside, and it was told me once that Joe 
 declared if that clock were his, he should 
 think that he was in Paradise." 
 
 " In Paradise ! I should rather feel myself 
 somewhere else had I such a possession 
 always near me," said Herbert, laughing. 
 
 '* Ah ! but poor Joe was devotedly fond of 
 the song of the cuckoo. It was the one bird 
 that made his eyes glisten to hear, and to 
 hear the cuckoo all the year round, night and 
 day. Oh ! I think there is some poetry in 
 poor Joe, uncouth though he is in appear- 
 ance." 
 
 "Yes; there you are quite right. Joe 
 had poetry and aspirations, but they were 
 smothered like those of many another poor
 
 264 MABY MTLES. 
 
 fellow's higher feelings, and could not get 
 beyond the germinating stage. I think it was 
 you, Mary, who caused even that early process 
 in growth, which was arrested when your pre- 
 sence was taken from him." 
 
 " When we are in India, Herbert, I must 
 look out for some curiosity or ornament to 
 send him direct. Anything coming from 
 ' beyond seas,' as Joe would express it, would 
 lift him to the seventh heaven." 
 
 *' So be it. I have cause to remember Joe 
 as well as you, dearest ; it was he who guided 
 me to your garden on the most eventful day 
 of my life. But here we are at our hotel, 
 and where are the others ? Why, we are all 
 in pairs, and have left them far behind, and 
 Reginald and Cousin Helen are the last of all, 
 and, I think, standing still. How fond that 
 young Eector is of a stick; he seems to be 
 pointing out something to his companion 
 just in the manner that one sees in old 
 engravings, where paterfamilias is en- 
 deavouring to awaken, by means of his 
 stick, the consciousness of wife and children 
 to something like an intelligent perception of 
 landscape or some architectural beauties. 
 Why are you laughing, Mary ? "
 
 MABY MYLE8. 265 
 
 •* I do not know unless it is that I am so 
 very happy." 
 
 Why is it that after childhood a con- 
 fession of happiness is so seldom heard ? Is 
 it merely because it is not a durable posses- 
 sion ? Suppose it be not, why should not 
 its temporary visit be, therefore, acknow- 
 ledged with thankfulness ? A novelist much 
 appreciated in his day has said that people 
 always shrink from saying '' How happy I 
 am." Possibly, and so they shrink too often 
 from the expression of every form of grati- 
 tude. Would that they would shrink rather 
 from declarations of an opposite character, 
 and spare their friends and relations the 
 utterances of a whining discontent. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," proceeded Herbert, 
 after he had reconnoitred the couple for a 
 long time through his glass, " but it seems 
 to me, Mary, that those two young people 
 are now walking hand-in-hand. Stay," and 
 he altered the focus, " it's a fact ! Why, 
 Mary, what does this mean ? " and Herbert 
 looked with bewilderment into his wife's 
 smiling face.
 
 MAE7 MILES. 
 
 " It means, I hope, that thej will walk 
 hand-in-hand through life." 
 
 " And it also means, I think," rejoined her 
 husband, laughing with almost his old boyish 
 heartiness, " that, in addition to her other 
 qualifications, I have secured a good diplo- 
 matist in my wife."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 lapse of time ! flying years ! 
 
 1 will not reckon up the tears 
 That fell the while. 
 
 Nor note thy wintry doubts and fears ; 
 
 But numbering thy springs — O years , 
 
 Look up and smile. 
 
 Five years later breakfast was again laid in 
 the library of Moreton E-ectory, but the 
 young Rector had not been out coursing as 
 upon a former occasion, but had been engaged 
 in tying up roses, with a handsome woman at 
 his side who held the necessary implements 
 and handed them to him when they were 
 required. The library, too, had undergone a 
 change ; there were no longer scantily covered 
 shelves, where papers and periodicals were 
 mostly conspicuous, but from floor to ceiling, 
 massive and very orthodox looking volumes
 
 268 MABY J^IYLES. 
 
 filled the formerly empty spaces. Helen and 
 her mother had gone over more than once to 
 inspect the Rectory in the weeks preceding 
 the marriage, so clearly foreshadowed in the 
 last chapter, and the first thing that appealed 
 to Helen was the unclerical look of the 
 Eector's library. Her first silent determi- 
 nation was, therefore, that it should be 
 promptly furnished with books, but furnished 
 without the Rector's knowledge as her 
 wedding present to her husband, so that on 
 their return from their wedding trip he might 
 find his shelves filled with a goodly array of 
 volumes. To accomplish this she went up 
 to London and presented herself at a well- 
 known ecclesiastical bookseller s, and stated 
 her wish to be supplied with the most suit- 
 able works for a clergyman's library. The 
 first question disconcerted her — 
 
 '' What are the gentleman's views ? " 
 
 " Whatever does the man mean ? " thought 
 Helen. 
 
 As she looked perplexed, the next question 
 was put more definitely — 
 
 " Was the Rector high, or broad, or 
 low?" 
 
 " Oh ! I want a good library ! " answered 
 Helen ; " not where a reader can only find
 
 MABY MYLE8. 269 
 
 one thought expressed in different ways, but 
 a good library ; nevertheless, one especially 
 adapted for a clergyman." 
 
 Here was a good margin. 
 
 " Was the gentleman a good classic ? " 
 
 Helen, remembering who her intended 
 husband's tutor had been, and his general 
 success, answered promptly, "Certainly!" 
 and the thing was done ; no translations were 
 to be admitted. 
 
 The young couple were on the pleasant 
 shores of the Riviera whilst the library of the 
 unconscious bridegroom was being weighted 
 with the ponderous tomes of the Fathers and 
 Doctors of the Church, all, as Helen prided 
 herself, being in the original Greek. 
 
 With what joyous contentment and satis- 
 faction did the happy wife regard her hus- 
 band's astonished look on the morning after 
 their return home, as he stood in the middle 
 of the room and gazed on his lately acquired 
 literary wealth with amazement. He could 
 only say — 
 
 " Why, Helen ! " 
 
 "I think you will find them all there," 
 she answered, with proud consciousness ; 
 " Tertullian, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Origen, 
 and all the rest. I am sure I cannot re-
 
 270 MABT MYLES. 
 
 member half their names, and they are all in 
 the originals ; and you see they are all in the 
 proper church binding. I hope you are 
 pleased ? " 
 
 '' A man would be a stolid wretch, Helen, 
 who was not gratified at so noble a gift ; but 
 — but — dearest, do you demand me to read 
 them ? It would take me my life." 
 
 " Of course you'll have to read them ! " 
 cried innocent Helen, putting aside his sug- 
 gestion as excess of modesty ; " every clergy- 
 man does. But on the other side," she said, 
 turning him round, " you'll find the works of 
 all the best English divines when you want a 
 change from the Greek. Of course there are 
 no light books here. I have had them all put 
 into what is going to be our morning-room, 
 along with my own books. I have a goodly 
 array of them. We must not have break- 
 fast here, you know, Reginald, as a rule ; it 
 would be quite like sacrilege." 
 
 " Let us breakfast here once or twice a 
 week, Helen, if it be only that I may enjoy 
 looking upon your generous gift." 
 
 " Well," said Helen, somewhat reluctantly, 
 " we'll do so for the present; but, dear Regi- 
 nald, do not call it a generous gift again; it's 
 a love gift, and you'll be in their midst often
 
 MABY MYLES. 271 
 
 enough. All clergymen have to pass hours 
 every day in their studies and libraries." 
 
 And this morniug, following the rule then 
 established, breakfast was laid in the library 
 where the good Fathers reposed in peaceful, 
 undisturbed rest. 
 
 " A letter from dear Cousin Mary ! " cried 
 Helen ; " here's a treat in store for you, Regi- 
 nald. What a beautiful handwriting it is ! " 
 
 " I think it is perfect," said the Rector. 
 
 " And the writer joerfection. Is it not so, 
 Reginald ? She alone does all things welh" 
 
 " That is true," said the Rector ; " and 
 never so well as when she made you mine," 
 and he looked over her shoulder as his wife 
 broke the seal. 
 
 " Shall I read it, or shall we read it 
 together ? " 
 
 " We will read it together," answered 
 Reginald, and sliding his left arm round her 
 he held the letter with his right hand to 
 steady it whilst the opposite page was in his 
 wife's left hand, her right resting upon his 
 shoulder. We will also, looking over both 
 their shoulders, read with them. 
 
 "Deaeest Helen, 
 
 " The time is approaching when, in all 
 probability, we shall return to England as was
 
 272 MARY MYLES, 
 
 expected. There have been Tnany difficulties, 
 which at one time seemed to render that 
 event still to be regarded as a future one, 
 instead of being near ; and these have been 
 hindrances to mj writing to you, as I wished 
 to pause before doing so in order that I might 
 know what plans we could decide upon making. 
 "Herbert and myself have well considered 
 the matter, though doubtless you will be 
 surprised at its requiring any consideration 
 when the fact of his retirement, witb full 
 pension and a baronetcy, was the price held 
 out to him before he left England ; otherwise 
 I do not think he had the intention of return- 
 ing at all, as it now appears that he was most 
 averse to bringing me here ; but the bait was 
 too much [for him, dear fellow. He was so 
 delighted at the idea of making me a Lady. 
 Behold, wherefore, he took up this judgeship ! 
 But he regards all these things differently 
 now. To accept a baronetcy and to leave 
 India, retiring at the early age of thirty- 
 five on full salary, is unprecedented. The 
 baronetcy had no attractions for myself — 
 quite the reverse. Had it not been for the 
 children, and for the sake of his own health, 
 I should have counselled staying the full 
 term of twenty years ; but our two dear little
 
 MARY MILES, 273 
 
 ones could not be sacrificed, and to send tliem 
 away to England — even to my darling Helen 
 — no, it could not be; or to go with them 
 myself and leave Herbert there alone in 
 delicate health (for the climate of India does 
 not suit him, he is too energetic for it, and it 
 is wearing him out). How could I consent I 
 " There only appeared to us one honourable 
 solution — to resign on account of his health 
 and to decline the retiring pension and also 
 the baronetcy ; which we have done. I per- 
 fectly understand now the cause of the 
 departure from ordinary rules in the case of 
 Herbert. He works as no other man has 
 ever worked. It is killing him. He would 
 not have liked it to be thought that the 
 presence of his wife had made him less 
 arduous. Sharing this feeling, I have never 
 discouraged his energy. It would take too 
 long to explain to you the reasons why he is 
 so much estimated ; it will suffice to say that 
 outside his judgeship he has rendered the 
 Government most important services in paci- 
 fying the native Princes, arbitrating between 
 them and settling their claims. He is, in 
 truth, a most valuable servant, but for all 
 that we will not clutch at the reward. I say 
 
 VOL. II. T
 
 274 MABY MYLES. 
 
 * we,' because I have worked with him, having 
 been his secretary all along save when it was 
 necessary for me to have temporary rest. 
 Herbert is getting anxious also about me, so 
 there is no other way. 
 
 ''I have entered into all these business 
 matters because you made some allusion in 
 vour last letter to my returning as Lady 
 Lanofridge. Thank God ! it will not be so. 
 We shall have ample means for living a 
 simple country life in England, which was 
 always my desire. I feared lest Herbert 
 might be disappointed if he were not 671- 
 7iohled, but he has cast all that aside quite 
 cheerfully. 
 
 " And now, having exhausted all these dry 
 details, I hasten to reply to a more homely 
 but more soul-engrossing topic. I am glad 
 to tell you that Grantham is a fine healthy 
 boy, and is not at present affected by the 
 climate. Herbert and myself have lately 
 agreed to call him by his second name — 
 Grantham — and not Reginald, as sometimes 
 it is awkward when the little ones bear the 
 same names as their elders; and when we 
 return to England we hope to see a great 
 deal of you both ; and cousin Reginald will 
 always be * Reginald ' with myself and hus-
 
 MARY MYLES. 21 h 
 
 band. I do not know how it will fare with 
 mj little girl's two legitimate names — ' Mar- 
 garet Brereton,' for she is only called ' Mary- 
 gold ' here. Herbert loses all his careworn 
 looks when this child is present. He de- 
 lights in driving his fingers through her hair, 
 and making it stand up all round her face, 
 which it readily does, as it is more wavy, or 
 rather frizzly, than my own, which you know 
 always objected to lie down ; and the child's 
 hair is in fact literally like crisped gold 
 threads from the very roots. I suppose I 
 have heard a hundred times dear Herbert's 
 dehghted exclamation, ' What else is she but 
 a marygold ! ' after he has succeeded in 
 making it stand out like rays around her 
 fair little face, where the blue eyes laugh out 
 from the midst of the living aureole. For- 
 give me, darling ; you are yourself a fond 
 mother, and know the garrulous weakness 
 appertaining to such individuals. Talking of 
 *Marygold,' carries me to Margaret Brereton, 
 her godmother by proxy. I had a letter 
 from the dear girl only yesterday, in which 
 there were also a few lines to Herbert from 
 the father. She is carrying on the work of 
 the Marygold Guild bravely, and helps her 
 father in every way, studying always with
 
 276 MARY MYLES. 
 
 him. How glad I am for her father s sake ! 
 — a holy man, Helen, and a true. I long 
 for you and Reginald to know him. 
 
 " I cannot write any more, as being still 
 secretary, I have much work on my hands. 
 Kindest regards from both to dear cousin 
 Reginald, and much love to yourself, from 
 your cousin 
 
 " Maey. 
 
 " Just a few words to say that I know 
 nothing about the exquisite water-colour 
 drawing you speak of as found in Dr. Grant- 
 ham's portfolio, labelled in the doctor's hand- 
 writing as ' Nausikaa,' which Mr. Ashcroft 
 has secured, thinking that it must be a por- 
 trait of myself when a girl. I was certainly 
 at no time drawn in the character of Nau- 
 sikaa, nor playing with a ball, although I 
 was very fond of that simple sport in my 
 girlish days. Dear Dr. Grantham, I remem- 
 ber, had an especial admiration for that 
 young Homeric princess, so much so, that 
 in his last moments, when his mind was 
 wandering, and speech had almost failed, I 
 heard him in broken accents murmur ' Nau- 
 sikaa.'" 
 
 THE END. 
 
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