UliilD 
 
 li¥^ 
 
 
 i!gsW8aittiiiiftii<ihftiitf> 
 
 taMaoMoncnauMuannxiMtaaai
 
 K.V* 
 
 #^'
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/burieddiamonds01tytl
 
 CENTRAL CIRCULATION AND BOOKSTACKS 
 
 The person borrowing this material is re- 
 sponsible for its renewal or return before 
 the Latest Date stamped below. You may 
 be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for 
 each non-returned or lost item. 
 
 Theft, mutilation, or defacement of library materials can be 
 causes for student disciplinary action. All materials owned by 
 the University of Illinois Library are the property of the State 
 of Illinois and are protected by Article 16B of Illinois Criminal 
 Law and Procedure. 
 
 TO RENEW, CALL (217) 333-8400. 
 University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign 
 
 f^ism 
 
 When renewing by phone, write new due date 
 below previous due date. L162
 
 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THREE-VOLUME NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES. 
 
 OTHMAR. By Ouida. 
 
 FIRST PERSON SINGULAR. By D. Christie 
 Murray. 
 
 CAMIOLA. By >ustin McCarthy. 
 
 THE UNFORESEEN. By Alice O'Hanlon. 
 
 London : CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W.
 
 
 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH TYTLER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'saint MUNGo's CITY' 'ciTOYENNE JACQUELINE* ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 1886 
 
 {The right of translation is reserved]
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDON
 
 v,/ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 I, H AFTER PAdK 
 
 I. The Watcher in the Quarry . ... 1 
 
 II. The Advance of the Enemy .... 12 
 
 III. Redcot Interior, and the Women of the 
 
 Family 27 
 
 IV. Susie and Lambert Crabtree . . . 55 
 y. In Search of an ' Admirable Crichton ' . . 79 
 
 VI. A Syren Adventuress 97 
 
 VII. A Tug of War and a Flag of Truce . .118 
 
 VIII. An Old Woman's Favour 144 
 
 IX. Tommy's New Friend . . , . . 162 
 
 X. Spring Obligations at Kershaw . . . 187 
 
 XL Amateur Lecturers 204 
 
 XII. Visitors — Mat Crabtree, of Haybridge, re- 
 members a Berkshire Miss Gray . . . 221 
 
 XIII. An Appeal to a Man's Honour . . . 252 
 
 XIV. False Lights 276
 
 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WATCHER IN THE QUARRY. 
 
 No place could be more peaceful than tlie old 
 quarry just beyond the grounds of Redcot on 
 a still, grey winter afternoon. The quarry had 
 been abandoned by the masons who had once 
 worked in it for at least a score of years. 
 The men who had wielded mallet and chisel 
 there, and caused the air to resound with 
 the din of labour, or of rough-voiced talk 
 and laughter at meal-time, had betaken them- 
 selves to other quarries, or had lain down to a 
 long rest from mortal toil. Khid Nature's 
 healing processes had gone on for so many 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 clianging seasons that, what in the days of 
 its full activity and value in a commercial light, 
 had been a raw ugly scar on the side of a 
 sandstone rock, at the edge of a hanging wood, 
 was now mellowed by time and w^eather. It 
 stood veiled and garlanded by luxuriant drapery 
 of bramble and briar, with bushes of elder and 
 thorn springing from odd niches, and tufts of 
 gorse and bracken clinging for bare life to tlie 
 merest crannies, until the old quarry had 
 become a positive object of beauty in the 
 landscape. Indeed, its attractions in this 
 respect were sometimes fatal to its seclusion. 
 Lovers of wild roses and of blackberries in 
 their prime, seekers after birds' nests, hunters 
 after certain kinds of butterflies, adventurous 
 spirits with nothing else to do, were apt to 
 invade the steep, broken recesses of the dis- 
 used quarry, not vdthout danger to the igno- 
 rant stranger. Tramps had been known to 
 sleep there in passing, tinkers to squat there 
 for a time. But that was in the height of
 
 THE WATCHER IN THE QUARRY 3 
 
 summer. In November, when the vegetation 
 was sere and russet, the very bramble leaves, 
 with their hectic dyes, shrivelling up or rotting 
 under the sharp frost or the heavy dew, which 
 the sun, when it did break forth, had not 
 strength to lick up ; wdien the birds, except in 
 the morning, were nearly all silent, and only 
 the white tail of a rabbit scudding to its hole, 
 flashed a little light on the dim cheerlessness 
 of the scene, few persons were to be met with 
 for wrecks together near Eedcot Quarry. For, 
 as it happened, no by-road or right-of-way from 
 village to village, no path frequented by school 
 children, led past the place. The old road, 
 which the masons had trodden when the quarry 
 was in full operation, had long been as over- 
 grown and as much left to a not ungraceful 
 neglect as everything else. 
 
 But during the darkening days of the last 
 autumn and winter, one man had been, 
 unknown to his little world, a daily fre- 
 quenter of the miniature precipices and 
 
 B 2
 
 4 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 yawning holes beneath the Eedcot Quarry. 
 He came there regularly at certain hours, 
 and lingered for long intervals at points of 
 vantage among the scattered hillocks. He 
 tramped up doggedly, like a man unaccus- 
 tomed to be challenged ; yet there was an 
 element of stealthiness in the tramp. He had 
 the air of a man who had stolen away from 
 his neighbours to indulge a craving, who did 
 not wish to be observed in the indulgence. 
 He was always careful in choosing a station 
 among the rocks and underwood from which 
 his figure could not be detected at the distance 
 his eye could command, since the upper portion 
 of the quarry afforded a tolerably wide view 
 of the adjoining country, including the meadows 
 of Ladslove as well as the woods of Eedcot. 
 
 The watcher was on the spot on the after- 
 noon referred to. He was standing quite erect 
 but partially sheltered from notice by a project- 
 incr mass of ancient debris^ which did not 
 prevent him from looking steadily down across
 
 THE WATCHER IN THE QUARRY 5 
 
 an imiuterriipted flat space below, a good many 
 acres in extent. He stood stock still. He had 
 not moved for the last half-hour. It seemed as 
 if the very muscles of the face, healthily 
 coloured and tanned by an open-air life, were 
 frozen into rigidity. 
 
 The fields to which the gazer's attention 
 was directed were stripped bare with the swept- 
 out emptiness of late autumn. Some of them 
 had been already turned up by the plough and 
 lay in heavy dark clods of earth. Others were 
 pasture fields, but the cattle which had fed 
 there had been housed for the winter, and the 
 grass had the whitey-green sodden look which 
 it assumes under a sunless haze and unformed 
 frost, or under wet, pure and simple. A turnip 
 field in which sheep had been penned presented 
 yellowing, half-cropped leaves, and rooted up 
 gnawed bulbs, in the middle of a waste of mire, 
 but the sheep, too, having done their duty, 
 were gone, and only the hurdles, falling down, 
 and with many gnps, were left to tell the tale of
 
 6 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the former occupants. Nothing was stirring 
 even on the little stretch of high road which 
 intersected the meadow-land ; no vehicle of 
 any description ; neither pink-coat, nor horse, 
 nor dog to suggest a meet far on in the day. 
 Xo prospect could have been more blank than 
 that which seemed to fascinate the watcher. 
 
 If he was a poacher he carried no gun. 
 He might be a gamekeeper from his shabby 
 shooting coat and leggings, but the ungloved 
 hands — long, with well-shaped nails — were not 
 those of an ordinary gamekeeper, and the soft 
 felt hat shaded a lean lined face, which was 
 not that of the typical yeoman. It betrayed 
 traces of breeding and culture, running down 
 through more than one generation. True, a 
 king may look like a clown, but it was not so 
 with John Prior, the squire of Eedcot. He 
 was as shabby in his outward man as squire 
 could be. He was in the state of irritability, 
 apprehension, and hopelessness, which is calcu- 
 lated to make a man careless in his dress, unless
 
 THE WATCHER IN THE QUARRY 7 
 
 lie happens to be a martinet of the matter. 
 He had never been handsome, though he was 
 not without a certain air of distinction to begin 
 with. He was tall and well made in figure, but 
 in face his features were harsh and irregular, 
 culminating in a heavy forehead. Yet the 
 breadth of brow w^as striking, and the carriage 
 of the head had been good. The eyes with 
 the somewhat shaggy eyebrows were honest, 
 intelligent eyes, which in their day could return 
 a quick response to the more than half-sup- 
 pressed smile, full of dry humour, of the large 
 expressive mouth. 
 
 But smiles had become strange to John 
 Prior. His hair was ahiiost white, though he 
 was not sixty. He was acquiring a fleshless, 
 dried-up look which rendered his natural disad- 
 vantages — the bullet shape of his forehead, the 
 size of his jaw — more conspicuous. A perfect 
 net-work of wrinkles was being lodged at the 
 corners of his eyes and right across his fore- 
 head. The lines from the wide nose to the
 
 8 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 mouth, unshaded by moustache or beard, had 
 become deepened and accentuated till a double 
 prominence was given to the long upper Up. 
 The large mouth would have been coarse but 
 for its original humour and kindliness, and for 
 what had replaced these qualities — a tumult of 
 jjain and trouble which for the most part com- 
 pressed the lips and only occasionally sent a 
 rueful quiver through them, the result being a 
 trifle tragic but not vulgar. Altogether, John 
 Prior's face was rapidly becoming ugly enough 
 to have figured in stone on a gargoyle, and 
 aroused speculations in the much exercised 
 nineteenth century critic as to whether it 
 partook most of the absurd or the piteous, 
 and what its sculptor could have meant by 
 that grotesque, pathetic face. 
 
 Poor John Prior's personality, both moral 
 and physical, had been wrenched and gnarled. 
 He had started in life with a strong side and a 
 weak side — both stronger and weaker than is 
 the experience of the generality of his fellows —
 
 THE WATCHER IN THE QUARRY 9 
 
 and the weak element was, as is perhaps not 
 uncommon, bred of the strong — part and 
 parcel of its passionate earnestness, vehemence, 
 unreasonableness. He had been disappointed 
 again and again in almost everything he had 
 put his hand to or set his heart upon — very 
 often as much by his own fault, by the temper 
 which had made him hope or dream without 
 measure or balance, as by the fault of another. 
 But that did not render the disappointment less 
 bitter, and he was a man who took disappoint- 
 ment as he had taken everything else, keenly 
 and persistently, supping upon sorrow, without 
 any effort or capacity to change the harsh diet. 
 At first he fed on it in silence with a proud 
 isolation ; latterly, as both pride and strength 
 were fretted beyond endurance, he grew surly 
 with the surliness at times broken by such a 
 savage growl of suffering as a gentleman — not 
 in look and descent alone, but at the core of 
 his heart — could permit himself. 
 
 John Prior was standing there in the dank,
 
 lo BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 gloomy November afternoon, chilled to the 
 marrow, for his blood ran more slowly with 
 his loss of heart. He was keeping a forlorn 
 guard on circumstances which at the same time 
 he knew himself powerless to control. He was 
 anticipating fate by a kind of fascination, as he 
 would have gone out to brave and defy it in his 
 hot youth. He was telling himself it was well 
 to know the best or the worst of his misfortunes 
 at once, without the loss of an hour, and he 
 w^as sensible that at any moment while he lurked 
 there in Redcot Quarry, as if he were an evil- 
 doer, the committer of an act of which he 
 should be everlastingly ashamed, his doom and 
 the doom of his wife and children might des- 
 cend upon him. It would not fall from the 
 skies, but it might rise with its irresistible secret 
 out of the insensate earth, after it had been 
 probed and pierced. 
 
 John Prior had not been guilty of murder. 
 No victim of brute violence or moral cupidity 
 had been, under an extraordinary temptation
 
 THE WATCHER IN THE QUARRY ii 
 
 of the Devil, skin by liini and hidden from 
 sight in these low-lying, dull, innocent-looking 
 meadows. Neither had he stolen some tempting 
 wedge of gold and goodly Babylonish garment, 
 and stowed them away in that obscure corner. 
 For that matter the fields did not belong to 
 him, and were not likely to have been selected 
 by him as the spot where he was free to deposit 
 his prey or his spoil, unless he entertained the 
 base design of directing suspicion away from 
 his guilty self to his guiltless neighbour. The 
 meadows at John Prior's feet were part of a 
 little farm called Ladslove, and had nothing to 
 do with the estate of Eedcot ; worse luck to 
 the squire.
 
 12 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY. 
 
 All the same these fields contained buried 
 treasure for John Prior, long known to him 
 and to none else in the same degree, pondered 
 over and reckoned on as far as it could be 
 reckoned without actual contact. It had been 
 the object of his ambition ever since he had 
 succeeded his father in the Eedcot acres to 
 buy this neighbouring farm — his only method 
 of securing the ground which held the pearl of 
 great price. But when he could have made 
 the purchase the farm did not come into the 
 market. Later, when the necessity of getting 
 the land into his own possession, or at least of 
 keeping it out of dangerous hands, had become
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY 13 
 
 a thousand times more pressing — even in com- 
 mon prudence, Prior was cruelly crippled in 
 funds, and he had grown to entertain a fatal, 
 overweening confidence in Ladslove's remaining 
 with its original owner till a more convenient 
 season. When this was to be, only a man of 
 John Prior's peculiar temperament, with a warp 
 of sanguine rashness thrown up broadly against 
 a melancholy woof of doubt and despair, could 
 have imagined. It was plainer and plainer, not 
 only that the Kedcot estate — in these bad days 
 for agriculture — was of small account without 
 its mines, but that the Eedcot coal-field on its 
 present level was nearly w^orked out. It had 
 become so difficult and costly in the working 
 that it could only be carried on at an outlay 
 which barely paid its expenses, and left hardly 
 a margin of profit. Side by side with the 
 diminished gains was the unwelcome knowledge 
 that the scale of the family living — simple 
 enough in truth, and the income, not a great 
 one, drawn by John Prior's only son, in place
 
 14 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 of being reduced in proportion, must, as a 
 matter of necessity, continue very much what 
 they were, with a tendency rather to increase 
 than decrease. 
 
 At last, when the squire of Red cot was 
 well aware that the sole chance for him and 
 his, since he had not the money to sink the 
 Eedcot pits deeper, lay in the supineness of 
 an old-fashioned, ignorant yeoman, who cared 
 more for the blooming surface of his fields 
 than for the fire which might be in their 
 breast — the security crumbled into dust. The 
 yeoman, who held that blood was thicker 
 than water, signed a bill for a tradesman 
 brother-in-law. The brother-in-law broke ; the 
 bill came due ; the surety could not meet it ; 
 indeed, had other bills hanging heavily round 
 his honest bull neck. Lambert Crabtree, the 
 principal partner and manager of Crabtree's 
 Bank in Newton — the next market town — 
 took the farm with the consent of the panic- 
 stricken desperate debtor, in payment of the
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY 15 
 
 bad debt to the bank, and handed over the 
 small amount of purchase money which ex- 
 ceeded the bankmg transactions, just enough 
 to set up the dispossessed yeoman as a coal- 
 agent, whom Crabtree might favour by his 
 and the bank's patronage in Newton. The 
 farm of Ladslove, in the ' lie ' of the Eedcot 
 coal-fields, according to mining statistics and 
 traditions, in place of being John Prior's pur- 
 chase, was first the property of Crab tree's Bank, 
 and next, by some private arrangement, the 
 personal possession of Lambert Crabtree. 
 
 But all is not lost that a friend gets, and if 
 blood is thicker than water, it might have been 
 a consolation to the proposed buyer who had 
 lost his opportunity that the prize had not gone 
 to an entire stranger, but to an old county 
 neighbour, an acquaintance of long standing, 
 more than that to John Prior's own son-in-law, 
 Lambert Crabtree having married Susie Prior, 
 the second daughter, at Redcot, eight years 
 before.
 
 i6 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 John Prior knew better. The marriage had 
 been none of his making. He had disHked it 
 from first to last, though he had no tangible 
 excuse for opposing the match. He was sensible 
 that neither ties of kindred nor personal feeling 
 would hinder his son-in-law from hastening to 
 make the best of his bargain. He was the last 
 man likely to propose a compromise, as John 
 Prior would have been the last to suggest one, 
 though his silence had robbed him of his sole 
 remaining chance. There was no hope of 
 Lambert Crabtree's re-selling his recent acqui- 
 sition, even if the squire of Eedcot had been 
 able to buy it — none of his (Crabtree's) dallying 
 generously with his good fortune, or lingering 
 with tender reluctance till a hoary head was 
 laid under the turf. 
 
 Accordingly, it was no surprise to the 
 elder man to find the younger figuring without 
 loss of time as a public benefactor and a man 
 of the world, above private considerations. A 
 party of experienced miners — one or two of
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY 17 
 
 them John Prior's former servants, supposed to 
 hold the secrets of his mines, began to bore on 
 Ladslove in search of the Eedcot coal-seam, 
 which had been hewn into and demolished in 
 its original thickness and straightness, till its 
 tapering and shallow point, full of ' hitches ' 
 and ' dykes,' was all that was left in the old 
 ground. But there was plenty of scientific 
 presumption that the opposite run of the seam 
 under the lands of Ladslove carried it on in its 
 pristine solidity and uniformity, a mine of black 
 diamonds — hard as ebony in its jetty hue, rich 
 in gas, perhaps cropping up near the surface, so 
 as to be worked with little trouble or expense 
 — a fortune to its happy finder. 
 
 It was the boring party that John Prior 
 watched, day after day, from Eedcot Quarry, 
 which commanded the Ladslove meadows, 
 especially those fields accounted the most 
 promising for the quest. 
 
 The squire had been an enthusiastic geologist 
 in his day — perhaps all the more so that, 
 VOL. I. c
 
 i8 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 though he was a coalowner, he was not a 
 practicscl coalm aster ; that is, his pits were in 
 the hands of an efficient manager. John Prior 
 had felt the fascination of the science of the 
 sohd rocks which, to the eager student, is as 
 full of charm as that of the vaulted sky. The 
 one promises to lay bare the colossal history of 
 past ages, the other allures with the dim glories 
 of coming cycles of time. But this student 
 could not have explained why mining rumour 
 and geological data had failed so far, only he 
 was convinced that he, and he alone, knew the 
 very spot which would yield the treasure. It 
 was not the point indicated either by popular 
 behef or by scientific demonstration. The 
 borers had boldly charged both spots without 
 any results worth mentioning, for common 
 tradition, like common rumour, is apt to he, 
 and mineralogy, like other sciences, sometimes 
 argues without its host. The rocks of the 
 earth, whether deposited by floods or volcanoes, 
 seem occasionally as if they took a perverse
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY 19 
 
 pleasure in appearing and disappearing at will, 
 tilting lip and sliding down, coming to a dead 
 halt when least expected to stop, vanishing as if 
 they were as transitory as the flowers of the 
 field. 
 
 Nevertheless, the master of Eedcot was 
 satisfied of the reality of his conviction. Away 
 in the Dutch clover meadow to the right, as he 
 looked down «from the quarry, by the Eats' 
 Ditch — an unusually deep ditch, almost as deep 
 as the Eedcot Well, the sides of which, when 
 cautiously laid bare and narrowly examined, 
 betrayed certain unmistakable traces — the lost 
 coal was hidden. It might be elsewhere, 
 radiating from the centre. John Prior was not 
 prepared to affirm or deny the possibility, but 
 the one hope that remained to him was that 
 there was but a single seam in this bed, and 
 that the borers might miss it. Such narrow 
 chances had been before now in the annals of 
 
 mimng. 
 
 The ordeal had been already prolonged 
 
 c 2
 
 20 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 over a period of months, since the harvest had 
 cleared away the corn. Every day it seemed 
 to the man, isolated and desperate in what was 
 at once his torturing knowledge and his equally 
 torturing ignorance, that the crisis approached 
 nearer, that the busy matter-of-fact unconscious 
 group of labouring men, with their shovels 
 and picks, and their rods like divining rods, 
 had more certainly the fortunes of the Priors 
 of Eedcot in a horny grip. 
 
 Yet John Prior need not have contented 
 himself with stalking in a stealthy fashion to 
 his quarry of observation, and watching from 
 afar the operations of the borers. He might 
 have gone down among them openly, and 
 looked for himself at what was drawn from 
 the recesses of the rocks. He need not have 
 scrupled to do so, even though, as had often 
 happened, Lambert Crabtree, after his morning 
 in the bank, took his afternoon ride to Ladslove, 
 and stayed ten or twenty minutes hearing the 
 report and examining the pile of ' rubbish.'
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY 21 
 
 There was no actual quarrel between the 
 relations by marriage. There had never been 
 any clo^e friendship to be cruelly, if fooUshly, 
 wounded by the course Lambert Crabtree was 
 pursuing. His conduct had been simply what 
 might have been looked for in the man. John 
 Prior was too proud to resent it actively, while 
 Crabtree liimself was too plausible to provoke 
 such resentment. There had been a little 
 gratuitous bluster on the delinquent's part, 
 ignored by his father-in-law. The coolness 
 between the men, who were naturally anta- 
 gonistic, deepened a shade or two ; but there 
 was no open breach between the families ; they 
 continued on visiting terms. 
 
 It was John Prior's free choice that he 
 should look on from a distance at the decision 
 of his fate. He had been doing it with few 
 intermissions for a long time, and lie felt he had 
 become almost accustomed to the proceeding, 
 though at intervals it struck him still as mad- 
 dening. After a little experience he had selected
 
 22 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the period of the day when the men were in 
 the habit of testing their success or failure, and 
 of changing their stations, sinking or with- 
 drawing the boring rods, as the case might be. 
 Sometimes, as had happened on the day referred 
 to, the working party were delayed by officious 
 advice and interference, or by an orgie the 
 previous night and a corresponding fit of lazi- 
 ness the following morning, such as colliers of 
 all men are prone to, and the gang had barely 
 got time to put up their gear, when darkness 
 had intervened and set them free. On other 
 days the men would work diligently, as with a 
 private impulse of confidence and alacrity ; 
 for if there were pits at Ladslove as well as at 
 Eedcot, competition would force the masters' 
 hands, and the colliers would be able to name 
 their own wages. Their good time would have 
 come. 
 
 Every now and then the borers approached 
 perilously near the Dutch clover meadow and 
 the Eats' Ditch. Once they were actually
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY 23 
 
 within a few yards of the former, and John 
 Prior's eyes grew dim and his heart stood still. 
 There was no dinner for him that evening, no 
 sleep that night. But nothing came of the 
 accidental hit, and the next planting of the 
 apparatus was further than ever from the goal. 
 It was like a game which children play when 
 one of them hides some article fixed upon, and 
 the others, who have been shut out of the room, 
 troop in and seek, the hider looking on, his 
 eyes sparkling with the pride of power, and 
 shouting ' hot ' or ' cold,' to encourage or deter 
 the seekers as they approach or recede from 
 the object of their search. The master of 
 Eedcot had seen his grandchildren, full of glee, 
 playing at the game on one of these last evenings. 
 It had faintly recalled similar sport among his 
 children almost a generation back, in which he, 
 still a young man, had been inclined to join on 
 occasions — on a birthday or on Christmas Eve. 
 This^conversion of the game into grim earnest 
 was like a ghastly travesty of the children's
 
 24 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 gambols, and he was not without a crazy im- 
 pulse to complete the simihtude by hoarsely 
 calling ' hot as fire, my men ; ' ' nay, lukewarm,' 
 ' cold as stone, you idiots,' as an appropriate 
 chorus to the workmen's uncertain steps. 
 
 At times, when John Prior's mind was not 
 at full stretch, it relieved its oppression by 
 straying a little from the purpose of his standing 
 there, and from the November aspect of the 
 quarry. He remembered former visits to the 
 place at more genial seasons. He had a fancy 
 that he had brought his young wife here just 
 when the quarry had been deserted for a suffi- 
 cient space to permit the first fine sprouting of 
 vegetation which had resulted in the tangled 
 over-growth before him. He had stopped her 
 from pricking her fingers by gathering the wild 
 rose, which she stuck in the belt that women 
 wore then, the belt to a white muslin gown — 
 another old-fashion. He had come here with 
 little Jack after the rabbits, and he rather thought 
 the boy's first shot had reverberated from the
 
 THE ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY 25 
 
 rocks there. He had brouglit the little girls to 
 show them the chaffinches' and whin sparrows' 
 nests among the bushes. Susie had always been 
 the most forward, the most meddlesome. He 
 had held the small hand tightly in his to prevent 
 lier snatching at the contents of the nests while 
 she chattered. Once she had slipped away on 
 the road home, run back and clambered over 
 the stones, well niofh at the risk of the child's 
 life, in order to pilfer to her heart's content. 
 She had dropped the eggs and fledglings from 
 her frock, breaking and bruising them, so as to 
 leave behind her a murderous track that in- 
 fallibly condemned her. Jane, and even Jack, 
 had cried at the wanton, wholesale destruction 
 which Susie had wrought for her petty delecta- 
 tion, but the culprit herself had not been par- 
 ticularly penitent, in spite of strong representa- 
 tions and sharp chastisement. 
 
 John Prior groaned inwardly over these 
 earlier recollections before he dismissed them, 
 pulled himself together, got rid with an effort
 
 26 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 of the stiffness produced by his long continuance 
 in one constrained position, scrambled down to 
 the opening into the quarry, issued from it, and 
 took his way by the offices and the stables to 
 the house of Eedcot. He walked wearily, not- 
 withstanding his struggle to the contrary. His 
 gaunt figure drooped, his strongly-marked face 
 had a set harshness, a grey tint was stealing 
 through the ruddy brown of his country com- 
 plexion. Indelible signs of his vigils in the 
 quarry were beginning to be imprinted on the 
 malleable iron of John Prior's outward man, 
 and would never leave it till it fell away in the 
 blurred colourlessness and shapeiessness of 
 death, after its first hard, cold seal had been 
 pressed down, had settled for a time, and then 
 yielded to the decay of all mortal things.
 
 V 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR, AND THE WOMEN OF THE 
 FAMILY. 
 
 John Prior walked to his house across a corner 
 of what was more an old-fashioned paddock, 
 with extensive shrubberies girdling a lawn in- 
 tersected by an avenue of lime trees, than any- 
 thing so imposing as a park. 
 
 Redcot was of some antiquity, but no great 
 dignity, unless that of age and rambling space. 
 The building had been a farm-house at one 
 time, but so venerable a farm-house that it 
 became, after all, a question whether the place 
 did not date back to a homely manor-house in 
 the days when the lines between yeomen, 
 squires, and farmers were by no n^^eans so sharp 
 as in later generations. Picturesqueness had
 
 28 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 not been aimed at in the low square building 
 put down in a hollow, and encumbered with 
 offices — some of which had been cleared away, 
 while others, though empty and disused, re- 
 mained a monument of the unhesitating sim- 
 plicity of our ancestors, who were not ashamed 
 of their apple- rooms and cheese-rooms, their 
 barns and thrashing mills, their cow-houses and 
 pig-styes, any more than of their stables and 
 kennels, their dairies and poultry yards. The 
 greatest improvement after the removal of the 
 said cow-house and pig-stye had been in the 
 gradual laying out of the lawn and shrubberies 
 until they had attained a respectable amount 
 of order and beauty — all the more attractive 
 that the style was a little antiquated with stack- 
 shaped hollies and gable-pointed yews, and a 
 pleasant garden opening out of a cunning 
 labyrinth of shrubs. The scene was not marred 
 in any way by Mr. Prior's pits. These were 
 out of sight, sound, and smell, miles away on 
 Kershaw Moor. Indeed, although mines and
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 29 
 
 miners were at the root of the family prosperity 
 or adversity, they did not come to any great 
 extent into the Priors' outward hfe. 
 
 The house was not heavily draped like the 
 quarry. There was a prejudice a century or 
 two ago against ivy and clematis, jessamine and 
 roses, as promoters of damp, and nests for 
 wasps, spiders, and earwigs. That prejudice 
 rode roughshod over whole sets of utihtarian 
 and straightforward householders. One advan 
 tage of the absence of creepers was that the 
 brick w^alls were as mellow and mossy as the 
 garden wall, the passion for dryness having 
 fortunately stopped short of perpetual scraping, 
 pointing, and painting fiery-red. The windows 
 had retained their stone mullions and small 
 panes, as if in obliging anticipation of the freak 
 of retrogression in modern taste, while, unen- 
 cumbered by leaves, the hght was let into the 
 long, low-roofed rooms with a cheerful prosaic 
 candour, not so much approved by assthetic 
 dogma.
 
 30 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 No doubt it was from a mere accident that 
 so much remained the same within as well as 
 without at Eedcot. The master of the house 
 OQ coming to his kingdom had been indifferent 
 — rather averse to change. His wife had enter- 
 tained a romantic reverence and affectionate 
 fondness for the early landmarks which had 
 come home to her personal experience. The 
 panelled rooms — oak in the dining-room, and 
 painted, in Phihstine defiance of darkness, a clear 
 French grey in the drawing-room — were as John 
 Prior and his wife had found them, barring 
 necessary repairs and renewals. There had 
 been no complete clearing away of the original 
 furniture. The one room was full of heavy 
 mahogany and warm- tinted damask. The other 
 was distinguished by spindle-legged rosewood, 
 pale brocade protected by paler chintz, and a 
 superabundance of glass and gilt decoration in 
 the form of mirrors and girandoles, chandehers, 
 picture-frames, time-pieces, and tables lacquered 
 to their very legs. Additions had been made
 
 REDCO T INTERIOR 3 1 
 
 not always harmoniously. The most subduing 
 element had been the hngering, softening 
 touches of time, fading here and dimming there, 
 till the whole had worn into a kind of tender 
 congruity. This was not fatally nmrred by the 
 pretended preciousness of the scalloped, inlaid 
 slabs, and the fluted yellow legs of the side 
 tables, or by the yawning mirrors over the prim 
 marble chimney-pieces, and over the various 
 doors of the room, reflecting pitilessly every 
 object it contained, from the brittle porcelain 
 basket on the cabinet, to the worked tulips and 
 wall-flowers on the hearth-rug. 
 
 John Prior came in by a side door into a 
 dark hall, where gun- cases and fishing-rods 
 shouldered an umbrella stand and pegs for hats 
 and \^Taps, and where stuffed birds kept in 
 countenance engravings too brown to be easily 
 distinguishable. There was one extraordinarily 
 staring wooden picture of Judas and his Master 
 which would have produced recoil in any spec- 
 tator of average feeling, had not famiharity
 
 32 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 robbed the picture of all meaning. The squire 
 went straight to the drawing-room, advancing 
 with a shiver to the fire, which glowed with an 
 eclipsing lustre that seemed to ask the worsted 
 tuhps and wall-flowers what they were doing 
 blooming there out of season ? John Prior 
 planted himself on the hearthrug, with his boots 
 not free from the clay of the quarry, set doggedly 
 on the tulips and wall-flowers. There was no 
 relaxation of his muscles or sigh of satisfaction. 
 In fact, he wanted more comfort than he got ; 
 he was looking round discontentedly at the 
 absence of any preparation for afternoon tea, 
 though five o'clock had not struck. He resented 
 the silence of the only other occupant of the 
 room, who had looked up on his entrance, and 
 then resumed her book. It was like the women, 
 he reflected in his bitterness, to make no provision 
 for his requirements, and to take no interest in 
 what was going on outside, though it might be 
 a matter of life and death to him, and through 
 him to them in their carelessness and heartless-
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 33 
 
 ness. Why she — she there sitting, engrossed 
 with her trashy novel, or her equally frivolous, 
 never-ending fancy work — fancy work, forsooth ! 
 a fit occupation for a woman of her years ! or 
 with her old useless, pampered brute of a dog, 
 she knew perfectly, as well as he knew, that 
 Lambert Crabtree was boring for coal on Lads- 
 love, and any day might come upon it. Yet 
 she did not ask a single question as to what he 
 had heard and seen any more than if the boring 
 were going on at Timbuctoo, or than if she had 
 no more to do with it than her great-grand- 
 mother could have had. This was all the 
 sympathy that he met with. But if she were to 
 get a letter from her jackanapes and fool of a 
 son telling her that his little finger ached, the 
 whole house would hear of it. 
 
 It did not signify in the least, in the temper 
 J ohn Prior was in, that he frequently refused to 
 look at afternoon tea, and that, the last time 
 Mrs. Prior had ventured to inquire as to tlie 
 result of the boring at Ladslove, he had angrily 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 protested, How should he know? She had 
 better write to Susie, or Crab tree himself, and 
 that would be going to headquarters — and not 
 pester him. The subject was not particularly 
 agreeable, and he had worries enough without 
 this being continually dinned into his ears, &c., 
 &c. 
 
 The offending Mrs. Prior did not look, on 
 the most casual glance, like a woman deficient 
 in natural feeling, though there was a certain 
 patient peacefulness in her air and surroundings 
 which might not be without its provocation to 
 an irascible man. For a soft answer, contrary 
 to the verdict of King Solomon, is sometimes 
 the most aggravated offence to an angry dis- 
 putant. 
 
 Mrs. Prior had never been, strictly speaking, 
 a pretty woman. Her dress was old-fashioned 
 — a lace shawl over a dark cashmere gown, and 
 a soft white cap, shading silver-streaked hair. 
 Everything was perfectly neat and by no means 
 unbecoming to her tall, slight figure, and sallow,
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 35 
 
 delicately-outlined face, but the effect of the 
 whole was that she looked older than she really 
 was. She gave the impression that she must 
 always have seemed rather homely and old- 
 fashioned, with a sweet homeliness and old- 
 fashiouedness that might have been one of her 
 charms to a certain order of mind, especially 
 when there was plenty of intelligence and no 
 lack of gentle breeding in the simple plainness 
 and dash of quaintness. 
 
 ;Mrs. Prior's grey eyes were a little faded, 
 but there lingered a hght in them which con- 
 tradicted the inference that there had ever been 
 anything lympathic or lifeless in the loyal conser- 
 vatism and unaffected genuineness of the woman. 
 On the contrary, a reader of physiognomy might 
 have guessed that the native sprightliness which 
 in this age of sentimental analysis and sublime 
 discontent with the whole structure of the uni- 
 verse, moral as well as physical, is fast becoming 
 a lost feminine grace, had been one of Mrs. 
 Prior's out-of-date attractions long ago. She 
 
 D 2
 
 36 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 might have had enough to say in her youth, 
 though the was inopportunely silent at the 
 present moment ; and though the vestiges of 
 her early vivacity were only to be detected by 
 sharp eyes, and just pulled themselves together, 
 as it were, and came to the front again by fits 
 and starts. 
 
 In truth, Mrs. Prior had been left behind by 
 most of her children. The eldest daughter, 
 Alice, had married much earlier than her mother, 
 and had seen far more of the world, having 
 gone to India with her husband. She had even 
 been called on to face the great mystery of death 
 at a date before that at which ]\Irs. Prior had 
 become a woman by right of the love passages 
 between her and John Prior. Susie had 
 possessed from her babyhood more triumphant 
 worldly wisdom than her mother had acquired 
 in all her fifty-five years. Jane, the youngest 
 girl — still a girl and still at home — had kept her 
 terms at a ladies' college, and was one of the 
 earned products of the age. Only Jack, the
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR yj 
 
 one son with his father's plain face and his 
 mother's serene, sunny nature, did not drift 
 away from her, but continued faithfully on the 
 same level. And Jack Prior was foredoomed 
 to be a scapegrace if it were but by his father's 
 extreme disappointment because the son in 
 whom he had centred his hopes showed no 
 sign of retrieving in some unexplained manner 
 the falling fortunes of the family. There was 
 small justice in punishing Jack, because he did 
 not fulfil unreasonable expectations for which 
 the boy had given no warrant. But men like 
 John Prior, the elder, however just in theory 
 are seldom fair in practice. 
 
 In place of confirming the extravagant ideas 
 entertained of him, young John Prior, dis- 
 heartened and almost driven desperate by his 
 father's irrational displeasure, brought back a 
 greater reputation for scrapes and debts than 
 for honours from college, and drifted about in 
 a desultory fashion, wasting his time among 
 friends with whom he was wonderfully popular,
 
 38 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 who saved him from the hard necessity of living 
 under the bhght of his father's anger. At last 
 Jack put the crown on his volatile follies rather 
 than serious errors by suddenly taking what 
 appeared an idle vagrant step in a lad who 
 owned no more money than the allowance which 
 his father could ill afford. The heir of Eedcot 
 went off on a voyage to Australia, without any 
 apparent intention of becoming a colonist. 
 
 Mrs. Prior was forsaken even by Jack, ex- 
 cept for the solace of the letters he sent to her, 
 which, to do him justice, had come with toler- 
 able regularity and frequency hitherto. She 
 was left to her low wicker chair in a particular 
 corner by the Eedcot drawing-room hearth in 
 winter, and by a special window in summer, to 
 her unintermitting supply of novels, her inter- 
 minable needlework, and her dog Tommy. The 
 last was a superannuated, not particularly ami- 
 able blue Skye terrier. He had been in his 
 bloom the children's cherished playfellow. He 
 had even been a not unwelcome companion of
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 39 
 
 the children's father when Tommy had been the 
 most active and joyous of rabbit-hunters and 
 ratters. In those days Mrs. Prior's domestic 
 happiness was also in its bloom, as she some- 
 times said, comparing notes with Tommy in an 
 aside half-pathetic, half-tenderly humorous, in 
 accordance with the nature of the woman. But 
 the dog's time of nimbleness and unclouded 
 ardour in sport was over, just as the woman 
 was taken down from the pinnacle which most 
 mothers aild mistresses of households occupy at 
 one period of their lives — an elevation of unap- 
 proachable wisdom and cleverness in the eyes 
 of their offspring and dependants. Then a 
 younger generation, with new standards and 
 different wants, arises to pronounce with more 
 or less impatience and carelessness or reverent 
 reluctance, and regretful gentleness, that their 
 predecessors are antiquated and insufficient in 
 their ideas and capabilities. 
 
 When Mrs. Prior found herself thus out- 
 stripped in the race of life by her daughters,
 
 40 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 there was imdoubtedly a considerable amount 
 of mild dignity in the manner in which she 
 withdrew from the unequal contest, and en- 
 sconced herself in an elderly woman's fragment 
 of a kingdom She showed herself resolute and 
 almost satisfied to wait till these well-armed 
 children of hers had need of her again. For 
 deep down in the mother's heart there was a 
 conviction, half proud, half humble, and wholly 
 tender and true, that human life was hardly 
 likely to run its course without her human skill 
 and experience, of so little account at present, 
 coming into request once more. 
 
 It had been far worse for Mrs. Prior, and 
 had caused an unhealing wound in her heart, 
 to know that she was gradually becoming 
 alienated from her husband. The reason for 
 this was partly because her nature could not 
 always touch his in the painful conditions under 
 which he lived, but chiefly because she would 
 not give up her son, whom he was doing his 
 best to goad to destruction. The permanent
 
 R^DCOT INTERIOR 41 
 
 good understanding and unshaken faith between 
 mother and son, in spite of what John Prior 
 considered his ample grounds for complaint and 
 indignation, exasperated him. He was still 
 farther hurt by his grievous knowledge that all 
 harmony between him and Jack was at an end, 
 and that the father's confidence in tlie lad was 
 gone as entirely as the elder man's high hopes 
 and vaulting ambition. 
 
 Settled resentment was very difficult for 
 Mrs. Prior, and the process by which it was 
 brought about exquisitely painful to her. But 
 she did continue to resent her husband's attitude 
 towards their son. The resentment, however, 
 did not alter the fact that her woman's nature 
 was in its very susceptibility and delicacy more 
 liberal and juster than the far stronger, but at 
 the same time more headstrong and self-centred, 
 nature of the man. She made allowance for 
 him, so that in the middle of her dumb anger 
 her heart sometimes ached for her husband with 
 a positive intensity of aching.
 
 42 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 John Prior stood fuming on the fiowery 
 hearth-rug. Mrs. Prior sat entrenched among 
 her belongings. At one side of her was the 
 basket with the rolls of linen and skeins of silk 
 for the quilts which she had been embroidering 
 ever since anybody could remember. Jane 
 alleged with quiet disdain that any weaver could 
 have woven better in a week at the most. At 
 Mrs. Prior's elbow was her special book-case, in 
 which the works of her favourite authors and 
 the last volumes received from Mudie's were 
 ranged. At the other side Tommy was stretched 
 in shghtly apoplectic slumber, while he was 
 carefully sheltered from the danger of stray 
 kicks. Every now and then she turned over a 
 leaf of the book on which her eyes were fixed, 
 where it lay in the comfortable hollow of the 
 lap, formed by the raising of the small feet — 
 hardly larger than Susie's — as they rested side 
 by side on their footstool. 
 
 But though Mrs. Prior's attention appeared 
 placidly concentrated on her own concerns, her
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 43 
 
 interest, even in an unusually good stor}^, was 
 by no means so great as to hinder a whole under- 
 current of perturbed reflections and thronging 
 anxieties, if John Prior could only have con- 
 ceived what lay beneath the unruffled surface. 
 
 It was cold comfort, Mrs. Prior thought, for 
 a man to come from the manifold troubles of 
 the outer ^vorld into his own house, and not re- 
 ceive so much as a greeting given by those 
 nearest to him. But what could she do ? She 
 did not know what to say. When she had 
 spoken to him about this last torture the other 
 day she had only succeeded in galling him. If 
 she spoke on indifferent topics he would accuse 
 her in his mind, if not in his speech, of hypo- 
 crisy. Would he never understand that respect- 
 ful silence might imply the most thoughtful and 
 considerate fellow-feeling and commiseration ? 
 If she closed her book, the action might imply 
 that she expected him to tell her something ; 
 and she could not, though she had been his wife 
 for thirty years, compel his confidence.
 
 44 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Would Jane never come in and ring for tea ? 
 Mrs. Prior was sure lier husband was thoroughly 
 chilled and craved a cup of tea this afternoon, 
 though he was apt to despise the womanish in- 
 dulgence. She might ring, of course, but it was 
 customary for Jane to appear at five and order 
 in tea. The hour had not yet struck, and Jane 
 would descend with widely-open eyes, and a 
 dignified inference that she had been disturbed 
 in important occupations ; while men hated the 
 least fuss — if anything, objected more to it than 
 to a slight delay. 
 
 Did John remember what addition there was 
 to be to the family party at dinner, and who 
 had proposed riding over in the ccmrse of the 
 evening ? Had he braced himself to bear the 
 encounter in the conflict that raged within him, 
 or had he forgotten the previous intimation, so 
 that the disagreeable ordeal would take him by 
 surprise ? She longed to give him a warning, 
 but she dared not do it. She Avas not prevented 
 by fear of his wrath, since no more courageous
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 45 
 
 spirit ever breathed than existed in that simple, 
 peaceable, determinedly cheerful woman, but 
 his bitter words smote her like so many stones, 
 and she not only smarted under them — they 
 made her feel ashamed for him in whom she had 
 once taken her greatest pride. 
 
 At last the clock struck five, and with the 
 striking Jane Prior walked in. She was over 
 tlie middle height and fairer in complexion than 
 the rest of her family, with an expression of 
 candour as well as of power of one sort on her 
 broad open forehead. There was a correspond- 
 ing look of sincerity in her somewhat cold blue 
 eyes, which met her neighbour's fairly and fully, 
 and in her full, straight, uncompromising mouth. 
 The expression was impressive, and rather 
 heightened her claims to being handsome. " A 
 fine girl " w^as the epithet which rose to one's 
 lips — well-grown, well-developed in every re- 
 spect — a healthy mind in a healthy body — a 
 character in which the intellectual predominated 
 over the emotional. Unless a mania for study
 
 46 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 overthrew its balance, it could be safely trusted 
 to act logically and consistently. 
 
 Jane Prior was dressed with the strict 
 severity of the last utilitarian mode, as opposed 
 to the £esthetic standard and to Paris fashions. 
 Her skirt was short, and not tight. She was 
 destitute alike of unnecessary puffings and 
 swathings. She had no butterfly bows and 
 streaming ends of ribbon, though she had well- 
 tied knots where knots were required, and the ^ 
 lace at her throat and wrists was as fresh and 
 dainty as need be. The severity of her costume 
 extended to the style in which her hair was 
 worn. She had an abundance of hair, which 
 had been flaxen in childhood, and was now what 
 old-fashioned people call fawn or sandy-coloured. 
 It was turned back from the square forehead, 
 and wound round the head by the simplest, most 
 orderly arrangement possible, which took the 
 least time to accomplish, and when it was ac- 
 comphshed, was nearly incapable of disarrange- 
 ment by hat or bonnet, or even by pre-occupied
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 47 
 
 hands pushing it from the temples, or restless 
 fingers thrust through the tight folds. Alto- 
 gether Jane's toilet suited her admirably. She 
 would have been out of place in trailing robes 
 or caught- up flounces, such as Susie affected, in 
 accordance with the last inspiration of her artist 
 friends or her French modiste. Jane would have 
 looked still worse — actually grotesque, with 
 Susie's fondly-trained fringe straying in artful 
 artlessness to the verge of her arched eyebrows. 
 But the result, if arrived at by any consciousness 
 of Jane's, was the fruit of an instinctive sense of 
 fitness which belonged to the girl, and not of 
 any elaborate consideration. 
 
 Jane Prior came into the drawing-room look- 
 ing straight before her, and, going directly to 
 the bell, rang for tea. Yet, she had a little the 
 air as if she only saw in part what was passing 
 around her — as if her mind remained busy with 
 some mathematical problem or metaphysical 
 question which she had lately been seeking to 
 solve. She stood' by the little table, which still
 
 48 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 wanted its tray and cups, her hands hanging 
 down, loosely clasped before her, as silent, 
 though not as glum, as her father. The atmo- 
 sphere about her was meditative and engrossed, 
 though not so as to cause her to forget the hour 
 or neglect her duty of being there to ring for tea 
 and pour it out. 
 
 No light girlish chat was to be expected 
 from Jane ; something more valuable perhaps, 
 but not the current coin so easily exchanged in 
 the intercourse of daily life. If she spoke just now 
 U would be to make some brief unanswerable 
 observation as to whether the water was boiling, 
 or the cream as it should be, for Jane, though 
 verging on asceticism in her personal tastes and 
 practices, was strict in demanding the fulfilment 
 of household obligations. Or she would address 
 to her father some inquiry with regard to his old 
 college classes and classics, which he could not 
 refuse to answer, though at the present moment 
 he felt inclined to regard it as impertinent. 
 
 But it was Mr. Prior and not his daughter
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 
 
 49 
 
 who broke the silence, which was awkward and 
 constrained, between husband and wife, and 
 quite unconstrained and very much a matter of 
 course, where Jane was in question, between 
 filth er and daughter. 
 
 ' Where are the children ? ' he asked shortly, 
 as if he must find i^iult with something in the 
 circumstances, though if they had been altered 
 in one respect it would have been the presence 
 and not the absence of the children to which 
 he would have objected. 
 
 ' They cannot leave the school-room,' an- 
 swered Jane with calm decision. ' I have had 
 them near me the whole of the afternoon, yet 
 Ally has not been able to parse half a page, 
 Tom's spelling to dictation is frightful, and it 
 really looks as if that boy Sam were never to 
 know his letters. I wish I could give them more 
 time, and if nurse would only let them rise at 
 six instead of seven it might be managed.' 
 
 Here Mrs. Prior interposed, which she seldom 
 did now, even on behalf of her grandchildren, 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 whom Jane had appropriated m the most meri- 
 torious manner. Indeed, Jane was doing so 
 much for her dead sister's children — taking so 
 great an interest in them — even sacrificing a 
 good deal that she prized highly on their ac- 
 count, that Mrs. Prior, with her conscientious- 
 ness, kindliness, and foresight, scrupled to inter- 
 fere between the young aunt and her charge. 
 ' Jane has earned a right to say what is best for 
 the poor little things, and though she makes 
 mistakes like all young rulers, she is remarkably 
 judicious on the whole, unless on this question 
 of education, where nurse has been a sufficient 
 check hitherto. The children will have Jane to 
 turn to when I have ceased to be of much use 
 to them ; their mother's contemporary is her 
 natural substitute, doubtless.' So thought Mrs. 
 Prior, and she contented herself with a casting 
 vote on the side of such grandmotherly indul- 
 gences as Jane would hear of. She felt called 
 upon to utter a remonstrance to-day, and either 
 because of the rarity of the remonstrance, or
 
 RED COT INTERIOR 51 
 
 because it was a welcome reminder of what, if 
 Jane conducted the matter in her own way, as 
 she was tolerably sure to do — would certainly 
 be a relief to her, the interference was received 
 very graciously. 
 
 ' You get up too early already, my dear,' 
 said her mother, ' and the children need more 
 sleep than you do. Wait till they get their 
 governess, and she will set these troubles to 
 rights.' 
 
 ' Yes ; I find I must begin immediately to 
 look out for a governess,' chimed in Jane, briskly. 
 ' The difficulty is wdiere to get a thoroughly 
 good one, for I will have no make-shift — no 
 poor creature of a nursery governess with a 
 little bad music and worse French to cover her 
 boundless ignorance. I am determined the 
 children shall be well grounded from the very 
 beginning.' 
 
 ' Humph ! ' w^as all the remark John Prior 
 made on this praiseworthy stipulation, and a 
 very sarcastic ' humph ! ' it was. He remem- 
 
 E 1 
 
 LIBRARy 
 
 UNIVERSITY Q^ ILUNOIS
 
 52 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 bered the gratified pride with which he had first 
 discovered his little daughter Jane's unusual 
 amount of brain power, and the intereet he had 
 taken in its proper development. What had it 
 all come to ? It had rendered Jane unlike other 
 girls — at least the girls he had known — a gain 
 doubtful in itself. She was self-reliant, certainly, 
 but the self-reliance was not always agreeable. 
 She was constantly occupied with her studies, 
 and seemed to follow the pursuit of knowledge 
 with unflagging zest. She did not seek for other 
 entertainment than she could procure for her- 
 self at small cost. She had excellent health, 
 in spite of her occasional eccentricities and ab- 
 surdities. But, after all, her mind and memory 
 were not better endowed and equipped than the 
 average mind and memories of fairly intelligent 
 and industrious undergraduates. Yet she was 
 an exceptional woman for the other women like 
 daws to peck at, who had not been able to es- 
 cape entirely a shade of self-consciousness and 
 pedantry, though being the real not the ficti-
 
 REDCOT INTERIOR 53 
 
 tious woman of culture, slie was as free from 
 such objectionable qualities as could reasonably 
 have been expected. 
 
 But John Prior had never been reasonable 
 in his expectations, and he had not counted on 
 the possible loss involved in Jane's acquirements. 
 Neither was he reasonable in his apprehensions. 
 He never knew when Jane might not make some 
 extravagant display of the student or professor 
 in petticoats, when she might not propose to 
 quit Eedcot and the protection of her father and 
 mother, in order to take the head of a grammar 
 school for girls, if such a place existed, or such 
 an appointment came in her way. He should 
 not like it, though he was, according to his own 
 belief, to a great extent free from class prejudices, 
 and though his youngest daughter was neither 
 particularly useful — apart from her care of the 
 little Woods — nor particularly ornamental at 
 home, neither could she be said to contribute 
 much to the sociality of the family. If it had 
 been her brother who inherited Jane's bj'ains
 
 54 BURIED .DIAMONDS 
 
 something might have come of them, and Jane 
 might have had Jack's senselessly light-hearted 
 temper and dangerously-accommodating ways, 
 which were worse than useless in a man, with 
 some advantage to a woman and a stay-at-home 
 daughter. But, then, everything had gone 
 wrong with the squire of Eedcot, even to the 
 distribution of character and abihty among his 
 children. John Prior was not an irreligious or 
 irreverent man, and there had been a time when 
 his faith and his views of life had been in har- 
 mony ; but they seemed to have passed into 
 hopeless discord.
 
 55 
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE. 
 
 Before tea was over, a sudden stir in opening 
 doors and advancing steps became audible in 
 the Eedcot drawing-room. Susie Crabtree en- 
 tered in the easiest, most graceful manner, with 
 the most perfect security of a welcome. She 
 brought in with her as the very atmosphere 
 which surrounded her, in which she lived and 
 breathed, a totally different influence from what 
 had been there before she came. 
 
 Susie Crabtree was a very pretty little 
 woman by nature. She was past her first youth, 
 but she did her best by the adventitious aid of 
 a choice and elaborate toilet, which more than 
 supplies the early graces time steals away, in
 
 55 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the eyes of many thousands of women, and of 
 not a few men — though where the last are con- 
 cerned the substitute is only a vague charm to 
 tickle the male fancy. 
 
 Susie's beauty was of the daintiest, most 
 fragile order, apparently, though m reality she 
 had never known a day's illness that could not 
 liave been satisfactorily accounted for in the 
 whole course of her hfe. She was small and 
 brown beside her younger sister, but the small- 
 ness was a perfectly modelled fairy-queen sort 
 of smallness, and the brown was the soft richly- 
 tinted olive of a brilliant brunette. The almond- 
 shaped dark eyes, with their glance hovering 
 between a coquettish sparkle and a slightly 
 languishing repose, were in keeping with the 
 rest of the face. So were the other features. 
 The straight little nose was a trifle sharp, if it 
 had not been for the beauty of the line from 
 the brow, and the nostrils were thin and semi- 
 transparent. The short upper lip curled, while 
 the under lip was just full enough to atone for
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 57 
 
 a suspicion of narrowness in the red streak 
 above it. The pearly teeth showed between. 
 The chin was round — a shade too round, threat- 
 ening, in conjunction with the low forehead, a 
 certain finer animalism as the years rolled on. 
 
 But the years had not rolled on as yet, and 
 Susie Crabtree w^as still little beyond the zenith 
 of her beauty, which was preserved and greatly 
 promoted, as she firmly believed, by the un- 
 stinted thought and time and the lavish expen- 
 diture of Lambert Crabtree's money freely 
 devoted to that end. They had procured her 
 bonnet, mantle, and gown from the most highly 
 esteemed sources. 
 
 For it must not be supposed that Mrs. Crab- 
 tree attempted anything by halves, or that she 
 could not accomplish what she wished in the 
 best manner possible. She was a clever as well 
 as a pretty woman of her kind — one who had 
 little to do with book learning beyond the fair 
 education for a woman of her rank. But this 
 was enough to lend her all she wanted — a
 
 58 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 tolerable familiarity with the topics of the day, 
 an easy assumption of the tone of her society 
 whatever it might be, a curious tact, amount • 
 ing to mother- wit, which picked up, assimilated, 
 and reproduced any scraps of the jargon of the 
 schools, any morsel of affectation of this or that 
 devotion to French criticism, German music, or 
 pre-Eaphaelite Italian art which", floating down 
 the generations, drifted into queer corners. 
 Anything so solid and thorough as Jane's know- 
 ledge would have crushed Susie with her airs 
 and graces out of existence. 
 
 Susie Crabtree had still less moral force and 
 insight bred of largeness of heart, crystal-clear 
 uprightness and delicately-keen conscientious- 
 ness than she had book-learning. But she had 
 no end of savoir faire^ and a good artistic taste, 
 barring that it was subservient to one class of 
 decorators and milliners, and one school of 
 American authors, oddly enough. 
 
 Mrs. Crabtree had been making some calls 
 of ceremony before she came on to her father's
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 59 
 
 place ; besides, she had no objection to exhibit 
 her most charminsf visitino^ costume to her 
 mother and sister. She had a secret impres- 
 sion that they must admire and envy it, though 
 they did not seem very appreciative. Her 
 mother looked at Susie's dress and praised it, 
 certainly, but it was with a child's simple sur- 
 prise and pleasure, and, at the same time, with 
 the good-natured indulgence which a grown 
 woman might show to a child. Now, what 
 Susie wanted was intelligent admiration, and 
 a wistful craving — amounting to a flattering 
 grudge against the wearer of the clothes — to be 
 as beautifully and fashionably dressed as the 
 wife of the county magnate, Lambert Crabtree, 
 the Xewton banker. 
 
 Some ecstatic women would have called 
 Susie's marvellously ' quiet,' but unapproach- 
 able, bonnet ' a perfect love.' Nothing could 
 exceed the truth of the curves of her closely- 
 fitting mantle to the lines of her shapely figure. 
 The velvet material, with its deep border of rich
 
 6o BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 fur, was sumptuous without gorgeousness, and 
 tliOugh she was not tall enough to carry off 
 splendour by stateliness, she did it by sheer 
 elegance. The texture and hue of her gown 
 were equally commendable in their delightful 
 combination of softness, lightness, and a dead- 
 leaf duskiness, which was yet not ashen, but 
 shot through and through with mellow russet. 
 Her many-buttoned gloves and boots followed 
 suit, so did her exquisite muff. There could be 
 no doubt that Susie Crabtree was exceedingly 
 well-dressed, according to the present artistic 
 but not altogether rational or convenient fashion, 
 and she beamed brightly out of her dress one 
 of the prettiest women in the county. As this 
 was the object of her ardent desires, its attain- 
 ment contributed largely to her satisfaction. 
 
 For that matter, Susie was an extremely 
 well- satisfied woman in nearly every respect. 
 She had not all that she could wish, but she had 
 almost all that was within her reach, and she 
 was far too astute in worldly wisdom to cry for
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 6i 
 
 the moon. As a proof of her moderation, she 
 was only slightly disturbed on the present oc- 
 casion by an irresistible, unwelcome conviction 
 which occurred to her. Her unmarried sister 
 had made the huge blunder of electing to be 
 that odd personage — altogether undesirable, 
 though less hooted at now than formerly"i— a 
 full-fledged blue-stocking ; and here she was 
 coolly regarding Susie's matronly honours and 
 graceful magnificence without a particle either 
 of fascination, homage, or aching covetousness. 
 Susie did not deceive herself in reference to 
 Jane's feelings, but neither did she trouble her- 
 self to resent them. She was too contented to 
 be cross, and liked popularity too well to make 
 herself disagreeable. There might be something 
 insolent in her happiness, founded as it was on 
 her success in life, to unhappy and unfortunate 
 people ; but the insolence was in the source of 
 the happiness, not in the manner of its expres- 
 sion. 
 
 Susie tripped into the Eedcot drawing-room
 
 62 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 neither too fast nor too slow, so as not to miss 
 something gliding in her gait. She kissed Mrs. 
 Prior and Jane with due aiFectionateness, put 
 up her face with filial fondness for her father to 
 kiss, then subsided into her chair to be much 
 made of, to make much of her relatives in a way 
 that was hard to resist. 'Here I am, mamma 
 and papa.' Susie retained the old childish 
 terms which Jane had renounced long before. 
 Mrs. Crabtree even gave them an additional 
 babyishness — an affectation borrowed from some 
 cf her American cousins. She pronounced 
 papa pa-pa, and mamma mam-ma. 'I am so 
 glad to see you both, with Janie into the bar- 
 gain. How are the babies.^ But I need not 
 ask, for I saw the Httle heads tolerably ruffled, 
 in the matter of hair, through the schoolroom 
 window as I passed. Oh ! dear ; I wish you 
 would, some of you, come down to Newton 
 and manage our babies, since they are quite too 
 much for Lamb and me. They are never to be 
 found in the nurseries — you know, the children
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 63 
 
 roam all over the house. Yesterday Molly 
 called me Simple Susan to my face, and Piers 
 clenched his fist at Lamb/ Then followed 
 more chatter. ' Oh ! mam-ma, dear, I had better 
 tell you at once that you must excuse me, for 
 I have no change of dress with me. I must sit 
 down to dinner as I am, if you will sit down to 
 table with me. Of course I can lay aside my 
 bonnet and mantle, and Janie may let me have 
 a fichu. I was uncertain up to the last moment 
 whether Lamb could get rid in time of that 
 nice old Mr. Hutchinson, who comes over about 
 bank business, and must stay to dinner. I 
 ought to have stayed too, and I should really 
 have hked to entertain the old gentleman, he is 
 so deliciously gallant and courtly, but I had 
 promised to come to you. Only, if Lamb had 
 not been able to ride over and escort me back, 
 I must have begged off, though I should almost 
 have broken my heart. One has so little good 
 of the moon in such cloudy Aveather, and the 
 roads are so heavy for the horses ; and, what is
 
 64 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 after all the true state of the matter, I am such 
 a timid little goose.' 
 
 There was not a grain of feeling, shy or 
 abashed, in Susie's manner — not a hint of being 
 aware of the fact that her husband was at that 
 moment poaching, as it were, on what had 
 been the Eedcot preserves — the sole coal-mines 
 in the district for three-quarters of a century. 
 There was not a shade of distress that his 
 success in the search he was carrying out at 
 Ladslove must mean sooner or later ruin to the 
 Priors. 
 
 There was not a Prior there — least of all 
 John Prior — who could help feeling astonished 
 by the ease and fluency with which Susie ignored 
 the crow to pluck between the two houses. It 
 was a pleasant philosophy that partook of effron- 
 tery. But, on second thoughts, every Prior, 
 from the oldest to the youngest, was ready to 
 admit that Susie's conduct was not only the 
 best policy ; it was the least disturbing under 
 the circumstances. The family felt relieved by
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 65 
 
 it. They went near to owing her gratitude for 
 it. Mrs. Prior and Jane began to talk, so far as 
 to meet Mrs. Crabtree's amusing chat on the 
 topics of the neighbourhood, and, with a shghtly 
 wider range, of the day, the whole having just 
 the dash of purely personal and trivial details 
 — such as the behaviour of her babies, the next 
 dinner she was going to, the club- book she was 
 reading — which kept it from sounding stilted 
 and forced. Even Mr. Prior chimed in with a 
 sentence occasionally. 
 
 ' Have you heard that the Marlowes are 
 going abroad in February ? ' said Susie, as 
 fresh tea was brought for her. 
 
 'Yes, Mr. Marlowe told me yesterday,' 
 answered Mrs. Prior, stroking down the lace 
 at her cuffs, as she had a habit of doing. 
 
 ' It is devoutly to be hoped,' continued 
 Susie, with her lavish friendhness, ' that Mr. 
 Marlowe will benefit much more by his flight 
 from the spring east winds than he did last 
 year. I have given her all sorts of commis- 
 
 YOL. I. P
 
 66 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 sions, though people do say you get things as 
 good and cheap at home nowadays. I dare- 
 say they are right. I daresay it is not an 
 invention of the British tradesman.' 
 
 'Have you heard whether Arthur Norris 
 has taken a scholarship at Oxford ? ' asked 
 Jane, while Susie dawdled with her cup. 
 
 ' Yes ; a BaUiol scholarship — the best going. 
 His uncle is very much pleased ; so is every- 
 body,' declared Susie, sympathetically, ' and I 
 should be enchanted if he needed help. How- 
 ever, his comparative wealth is unavoidable, and 
 is not to be regretted otherwise. Besides, Mr. 
 Norris says that where rich and poor alike go 
 in for scholarships, it prevents their bestowal 
 becoming a mere charitable institution, and 
 lends them dignity. I'm sure I don't know 
 about the dignity, but I'm ready to take it on 
 Mr. Norris's word.' 
 
 'Why did Arthur not enter his father's 
 college? George Norris was an Oriel man,' 
 objected Mr. Prior.
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 67 
 
 'I can't tell, pa-pa. I daresay he thoiiglit 
 Balliol more aristocratic, or influential, or some- 
 thing. Oh, Jane, do you know I am so delighted 
 with the recent discoveries at Herculaneum ! — 
 another tomb, and a torso of Hercules freshly 
 excavated.' 
 
 ' I think you are mistaken,' said Jane, with 
 sensitive exactness. ' The tomb is at Bai^e and 
 the torso is of Bacchus.' 
 
 ' Ah, well,' assented Susie in careless acquies- 
 cence. ' No doubt you are right. Lamb and 
 I saw the place, I know. These are treasures 
 of which we cannot have too many. I say, 
 pa-pa, what do you think of the prospects of 
 the English in Egypt ? That is what it comes 
 to, is it not, though we give ourselves out as the 
 arbiters and peacemakers of the universe ? 
 Lamb says politics are beyond me ? ' 
 
 ' They are beyond most of us, Crabtree 
 included,' exclaimed John Prior, a little impa- 
 tiently, throwing himself into his chair. 
 
 ' I am not so sure of that,' maintained Susie,
 
 68 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 artlessly, ' when I think that Piers may grow 
 up to be a man and join one or other of the 
 services, and the Government has so much to 
 do with the army and navy.' 
 
 ' In voting supplies, do you mean ? ' asked 
 John Prior, raising his eyebrows. But Susie 
 was off on a new tack. 
 
 ' Mam-ma, can you give me a cure for 
 Molly's sucking her thumb .^ ' 
 
 So it ran on in an enhvening, almost refresh- 
 ing flow, to w^hich the Priors contributed a drop 
 or two occasionally. 
 
 In spite of himself John Prior was diverted 
 from his care, soothed by the diversion and 
 gently titillated. He came, indeed, under 
 Susie's spell, not without a vague sense of 
 self-contempt and a fresh sting dealt by me- 
 mory. There had been a time when he had 
 been fool enough to hug himself on his 
 charming little daughter's beauty and her 
 winning ways as she grew from childhood to 
 girlhood. Then he had been deeply morti-
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 69 
 
 fied and aggrieved by what he had been 
 powerless to prevent — her throwing herself 
 away on Lambert Crab tree. Now, while slie 
 still retained some of the intoxicating ele- 
 ments of her beauty, her graciousness and her 
 folly, which had more cleverness, of a kind, 
 about it, than other women's wisdom possessed, 
 it was a case of — 
 
 As the husband is, so the wife is. 
 
 It was worse. The father felt forced to see 
 that there was really no mental or moral dete- 
 rioration in Susie. In the spring-time of her 
 attractions his child and her mother's child had 
 never been actually above Lambert Crabtree in 
 spiritual fibre. The marriage had been a clear 
 instance of like drawing to like. The idea was 
 detestable to John Prior. 
 
 Lambert Crabtree did not hesitate to look 
 in for a few moments at Eedcot in the course 
 of the evening. He came over ostensibly with 
 the good-natured purpose of quieting his wife's 
 nerves by riding home at the side of her
 
 70 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 carriage. Yet lie was not ordinarily a gallant, 
 though he was an exceedingly indulgent hus- 
 band. He gave Susie what she had bargained 
 for in the marriage. She repaid him in the 
 same coin. When the transaction was com- 
 pleted they did not see much of each other. 
 They appeared to have tacitly agreed to go 
 their several ways — which were not similar 
 ways — as independently as any couple like 
 them, who are still on perfectly amicable terms. 
 Susie was thankful that she had escaped 
 the narrowing circumstances at Eedcot with 
 the growing morbidness and moodiness of her 
 father's temper. She was highly gratified by 
 her kingdom at Newton. Lambert Crabtree 
 got from Susie all that he wanted. He 
 remained proud of her beauty and pleasant- 
 ness. He appreciated her sense in not asking 
 from him what he could not give. Still these 
 terms, excellent as they were so far, were hardly 
 the kind which cause a husband to take a lon^ 
 ride after the work and worry of the day, in
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 71 
 
 order to share an expedition of his wife's, and 
 have an hour or so more of her society. 
 
 Susie's husband was big and red, with pro- 
 minent hght eyes. He was fifteen years older 
 than his wife, while he aflected a somewhat 
 youthful, sportsman-hke style of dress, was fond 
 of white cords, coloured vests, and coloured 
 neckties, and altogether was coarse-looking for 
 a man of gentle birth. He did not take off his 
 riding-coat, and came into the Eedcot drawing- 
 room with his whip hanging out of one pocket. 
 
 John Prior received his son-in-law with 
 scrupulous politeness, though he would not come 
 to close quarters with him. Lambert Crabtree's 
 tactics were totally difierent from his wife's. In 
 place of strictly avoiding any allusion in the 
 conversation between the two men to the cause 
 of mortal offence the younger was giving ; in 
 place of getting up a mist and glamour of in- 
 different talk on every conceivable topic, the 
 intruder would have approached the subject 
 with constitutional brazenness and bluster, and
 
 72 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 endeavoured to have made his own out of it. 
 He was quite capable of saying, ' You know 
 business is business, Prior. We men understand 
 that we must look after our own interests, and 
 leave the devil to pay. We need not pretend 
 to mawkish sentiment because we cannot avoid 
 treading on each other's corns as we go our 
 various ways.' 
 
 It was more than probable that the Priors 
 owed the brief pleasure of Lambert Crabtree's 
 company to some half- formed intention of taking 
 the bull by the horns, to serve the challenger's 
 ends. One of Susie's witty affectations was to 
 call her husband invariably by a pretty abbre- 
 viation of his name, which was grotesquely in- 
 appropriate. 'Wolf would have been more 
 like the man, John Prior had growled, ' net that 
 Susie is anything of a Eed Eiding Hood.' 
 
 But John Prior was slightly prejudiced. 
 The big red-faced banker of squire descent was 
 nearer a bull-dog ; he had nothing of the 
 nobility of a mastiff hanging on like grim death
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 73 
 
 to his prey. There was a certain bkiffuess ia 
 his burhness which, to be sure, went a long way 
 with some people in persuading them of his 
 honesty, and a clumsiness in his utmost cunning 
 that disarmed invidious suspicion, but which 
 nevertheless did not belong to the true wolf or 
 fox breed. 
 
 Mr. Prior had no difficulty in distancing 
 Crabtree, when he made such obviously tenta- 
 tive speeches as 'Nasty raw weather, bad for 
 field operations of all kinds. Push and pluck 
 are nowhere in such an atmosphere. Nothing 
 but hunting keeps a man's blood in circulation. 
 Hang it ! the poor devils who have to stand 
 about on your coal hills and pit heads which I 
 passed on my ride are to be pitied unless they 
 keep up jolly furnace fires and have recourse to 
 them every five minutes. Can you trust them 
 to stick to their machinery night and day? 
 Don't you find them sending you very blank 
 reports under the depression of such a long-con- 
 tinued beastly chill ? '
 
 74 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 The person appealed to would not swallow 
 the bait and open fire on his grievance. 
 He would not fling out the sneering retort 
 — 'Boring is not warmer work than stacking 
 coal — is it ? ' His reply was strictly to the 
 point, while it was as freezing as the air com- 
 plained of. 
 
 ' No, the weather don't signify to speak of. 
 The men are accustomed to exposure, and for 
 those who are below ground the temperature is 
 much the same at all seasons.' 
 
 His stern impassiveness and his adhering to 
 his own side of the question baffled his assail- 
 ant, who could bully or swagger, or even cajole 
 a little, but who could not go about the bush to 
 any purpose. He was forced to turn aside to 
 Mrs. Prior and Jane, ' How goes the last novel, 
 mamma ? ' he also said mamma with a cool as- 
 sumption of intimacy. ' Tommy not showing 
 any symptoms of mange, I hope ? It is as well 
 that young beggar Piers does not come in his 
 way. Half the dogs in Newton have had to be
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 75 
 
 choked ofT the little rascal — he will grab at their 
 tails.' 
 
 ' Dear me I that is not safe for the child, 
 cried Mrs. Prior, rising to the peril of her grand- 
 son. ' Why does his nurse let him ? Susie, are 
 you sure the servant — is it Marianne still ? — is 
 trustworthy ? ' 
 
 ' Sure, mam-ma,' declared Susie, with a me- 
 lodious laugh. ' It is Marianne still, and she is 
 as good as gold. It is too bad of Lamb to 
 frighten you.' 
 
 ' Do Tommy and Sammy never give you 
 scares .^ ' inquired Mr. Crabtree, innocently. 
 
 ' Tom and Sam are accustomed to do as they 
 are bidden,' interposed Jane, with dignity ; 
 ' and thpy do not think there is any particular 
 manliness or any great fun in teasing animals.' 
 
 ' Ah ! they are under your superior train- 
 ing, Jane. Why don't you come over to Newton 
 and give Piers a lesson .^ Neither Susie nor I 
 would be in the least jealous. But I forget the 
 loss of time in tackling these wretched children.
 
 76 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 What cube root are you extracting at this date, 
 Aunt Jane ? Who is the old classic humbug to 
 whom you are going down on your knees ? 
 Ladies do nothing by halves. The hoary sin- 
 ners were never tired flooring me until I made 
 up my mind to leave them to the dust of ages. 
 Or do you go in for science at present — fixed 
 stars, artesian wells, the law of gravity in motion, 
 or some otlier impractical balderdash ? ' 
 
 From the specimen of the badinage which 
 always formed a large part of Lambert Crab- 
 tree's social intercourse with the women of his 
 acquaintance, it maybe judged that his particu- 
 lar kind of manliness — well enough born and 
 bred as lie was — did incline to exhibit itself in 
 teasing something young people, or cats and 
 dogs. It may be guessed from whom his little 
 son Piers inherited some of his infantile propen- 
 sities. 
 
 ' Come along, Susie ; we must start without 
 farther loss of time,' was rather a grateful sound 
 to Lambert Crab tree's kindred by marriage.
 
 SUSIE AND LAMBERT CRABTREE 77 
 
 But, Oil the whole, Mrs. Prior was disposed 
 to hope a perilous visit had passed off tolerably 
 well till John Prior burst out, the moment the 
 door w^as closed, with the fierce protest — ' If 
 Susie cannot come here by herself, she had better 
 stay away. If she will bring that big brute and 
 blackguard — I tell you he is a blackguard as 
 well as a brute,' in angry answer to an unspoken 
 protest in the horrified look of his wife — ' I 
 have suspected it all along — I am sure of it at 
 last — T must make myself scarce. It must be 
 either he or I. The same house, if it is my 
 house, shall not hold us both.' 
 
 Mrs. Prior said nothing. She did not know 
 what to say that could do any good. 
 
 Jane opened her eyes wide in deprecation. 
 As is usual with the young, she sat in judgment 
 without hesitation. Her father's violence struck 
 her as equally uncalled for and unbecoming. 
 She was not undutiful or deficient in attachment 
 to him. She was a good deal more capable of 
 veneration than that pretty, pleasant little crea-
 
 78 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 ture Susie had ever been. Jane did not like to 
 blame either of her parents ; but she did wish 
 that her father could see things in a more 
 philosophic light, that he could preserve a more 
 philosophic attitude. It was hard for him of 
 course that Susie's husband should take it into 
 his head to bore for coal on Ladslove ; but even 
 if the coal were found, it would only be a dimi- 
 nution of income at Eedcot. Jane presumed 
 there would still be enough for the necessaries 
 of life. Many a sage and scholar had possessed 
 less, had been the poorest of the poor, without 
 fret. The mere hkehhood of poverty was surely 
 not enough to cause fuss and strife.
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 m SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON.' 
 
 Jane Prior set about her inquiries for a 
 governess on behalf of the httle Woods in the 
 most exhaustive fashion. The children were 
 young, and were still only in the elementary 
 stage of their education ; but Jane had deter- 
 mined that the rudiments should be well seen 
 to. She was an ardent supporter of the modern 
 opinion that the foundation is of paramount 
 importance, and that tlie insufficient foundations 
 laid by incompetent hands are largely account- 
 able for the failure in general knowledge, even 
 in general capacity, of the present generation. 
 
 Jane went far to believing that a thorough 
 acquaintance with philology is necessary for
 
 8o BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 tlie proper teaching of the alphabet. She 
 must have had a hankering for the first letters 
 to be Greek or Hebrew, but here her common 
 sense interposed. She was determined at least 
 that poor Alice's children should have the 
 chance of becoming deeply erudite prodigies of 
 ' all-round ' culture. They should have such 
 advantages as Jane herself had not enjoyed. 
 Yet her father and mother had done the best 
 they knew of for her. John Prior had even 
 taken pains, when he learnt the talents and 
 tastes of the girl, to impart something of his 
 own college training to her, by making her 
 read along with her brother Jack under a 
 Cambridge coach of some eminence. 
 
 But then this was comparatively late in 
 Jane's life, and she still sufiered, as she honestly 
 believed, from having been taught her letters by 
 Alice and Susie's old governess. She had been 
 an exemplary, old-fashioned lady, who was so 
 inconsistent as to pique herself on her pro- 
 ficiency in such modern languages as French
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON' 8r 
 
 and Italian, when she had never been taught a 
 word of Latin, who could triumphantly produce 
 a musical certificate from a German conserva- 
 torium, but whose arithmetic was not strong 
 enough to have secured her a situation as 
 bookkeeper in any tradesman's shop. 
 
 Jane, with an almost pathetic sense of her 
 latent deficiencies from early neglect, went 
 about her search for an efficient governess, 
 where her small niece and nephews were 
 concerned, in the most earnest, methodical 
 manner, profoundly impressed as she was with 
 the importance of the appointment. Nothing 
 moved her. She was unscathed by her father's 
 sarcasms on the uselessness and the cost of the 
 acquisition. For Alice Prior had married a 
 man in the civil service who had not been very 
 fortunate in his career and was still struggling 
 up-hill in his profession, so that John Prior had 
 undertaken as a matter of course the rearini]^ 
 of the children sent home to their dead mother's 
 relatives. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 832 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Mrs. Prior's natural alarm at the intrusion 
 of another learned woman into the family fell 
 still more flat. Jane told her mother with the 
 utmost conviction that not only would a female 
 Porson condescend to teach the young idea 
 how to shoot without a thought of condescen- 
 sion ; she would be struck by a grand compre- 
 hensiveness of the undertaking, which would 
 have utterly escaped the shallow conclusions 
 of pert frivolous ignorance. Then why did 
 Jane herself not devote all her energies to the 
 noble enterprise, and sacrifice everything else ? 
 Just because Jane did not feel equal to it. She 
 was by no means fully equipped as yet ; she 
 had a great deal of solitary study before her, 
 ere she could aspire to have fairly grappled — 
 even grappled — with the branches she had 
 taken up, and she had that lamentable instability 
 of foundation which she was afraid would 
 cripple her to the day of her death. 
 
 Jane could also assure her mother, and 
 here Mrs. Prior was more inclined to beHeve
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON' 83 
 
 her daughter, that she might depend upon 
 finding the female Person simpler in her habits, 
 more easily served, than nine-tenths of the 
 unfortunate, pretentious, badly educated fine 
 ladies driven by adversity to earn their living, 
 who swell the lists of the great incompetents. 
 These ladies were very inferior to poor old 
 Miss Eossiter, with her good music and her 
 halting arithmetic. Yet Miss Eossiter had been 
 a little hard to please as to the boiling of 
 her ^gg for breakfast, and the shaking up of 
 her feather bed. But if the new comer were 
 like Jane, she would be simple enough in her 
 tastes. 
 
 Jane Prior was utterly impervious to the 
 hght ridicule of Susie and the broader ' haw- 
 haw' mockery of Lambert Crabtree, who heard 
 their children conning their A, B, C to their 
 rustic nurse, and jabbering the most fright- 
 fully iUiterate French with Mrs. Crabtree's 
 maid. 
 
 Innumerable letters were written from the
 
 84 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 school-room at Eedcot, over which Jane still 
 presided, with regard to its future mistress. 
 The most promising recent colleges for girls 
 were applied to. Searching investigations were 
 made into L.A. degrees, first and second classes, 
 examination papers, testimonials — very different 
 from the old courteous, kindly tributes to birth, 
 character, and moderate attainments which 
 were held amply sufficient in the dark ages. 
 Usually when everything was weighed and 
 sifted, there was some objection, some draw- 
 back, on one side or other. For not only is 
 a vara avis difficult to find — the avis, in spite 
 of Jane's insistance on the modesty of intellec- 
 tual merit of the highest order, is apt to ask 
 a unique nest in proportion to its own unique- 
 ness. Several times the engagement was all 
 but completed, and fell through, either from 
 the stringency of Jane's demands as to the sum 
 of learning on the part of the candidate, or 
 from a corresponding rigidity on the other side 
 with regard to the sum in coin of a salary
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON' 85 
 
 which John Prior did not see himself justifiable 
 in making more than liberal. 
 
 Even Jane Prior's infinite capacity for 
 taking pains was sorely tried, and showed 
 signs of suddenly and ignominiously collapsing, 
 when the right woman presented herself at the 
 right time, as if by a special interposition 
 of Providence. Jane heard of a Miss Gray, 
 who, according to hearsay, was all Jane's fancy 
 painted the perfect governess or schoolmistress, 
 as the last development of the female teacher 
 prefers to be called, returning proudly to the 
 old unvarnished title. She had been trained in 
 a college of preceptresses ; she had passed more 
 or less stiff" examinations with credit, nay 
 distinction ; she had already gained some 
 experience as a teacher, though she was not 
 more than three- and-twenty — Jane's own age. 
 
 Miss Gray was vouched for as the daughter 
 of a professional man of unexceptionable ante- 
 cedents. She had been early left an orphan, 
 with a patrimony that just sufficed to give her
 
 86 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 an excellent education, consequently she had 
 been brought up to maintain herself. 
 
 In spite of Jane's burning zeal for loftier 
 attributes, she was not indifferent to the 
 consideration of Miss Gray's birth and early 
 associations. Jane Prior had at least her share 
 of the prejudices, so called, of her class. 
 ' Gray is a good name,' she said, dwelling on it 
 with satisfaction, ' though, of course, there are 
 Grays and Grays,' she wound up judicially, not 
 pausing to explain whether the Gray which 
 tended to whiteness or the other Gray, which, 
 running down in the scale, bore on blackness, 
 had to do with moral blamelessness and 
 turpitude, or simply ranged from aristocratic 
 to democratic proclivities. 
 
 Apparently nothing was lacking in Miss 
 Gray, and, for a wonder, the conscientiously 
 explicit statement with which Jane furnished 
 her as to terms, privileges, and the duties of 
 the post she was expected to fill at Eedcot, also 
 lacked nothing in her eyes. For that matter,
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON' 87 
 
 if Jane Prior had only known it, Miss Gray 
 had set her heart on coming to Eedcot even 
 more than Jane had set hers on securing the 
 phoenix. If it had not been for the shame of 
 the thing and for exciting suspicion, the all- 
 accomphshed Miss Gray would have come 
 without costing Mr. Prior a farthing of salary 
 — nay, would have paid a premium for the 
 coveted post. 
 
 Every preliminary was arranged, the day 
 was fixed for the lady's arrival ; the only thing 
 that remained to be done was for Miss Prior to 
 make use of the old phaeton, all that was left 
 available of the Eedcot carriages, to drive to 
 Newton and meet the stranger at the station. 
 Jane was punctilious in this piece of courtesy, 
 though it cost her a whole afternoon of Plato's 
 company. Mrs. Prior seldom went from home, 
 and even when the social duties were less her 
 daughter's particular business, Jane was toler- 
 ably well accustomed to act, with a wry or 
 rueful face, as her mother's deputy. She was
 
 88 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 determined Miss Gray sliould not find herself 
 treated from the first otherwise than as a valued 
 friend and guest of the family in which, it was 
 to be hoped, she would dwell for a period of 
 years. 
 
 The new comer was certainly in clover. 
 The expectations entertained of her acquire- 
 ments might be inordinately high ; the work 
 required of her might be greatly in excess of 
 what was necessary ; there might be imperative 
 reasons for her being scholastically on her 
 mettle. All the same, the days of her mourn- 
 ing as a governess who was systematically 
 overlooked, or contemptuously hustled aside, or 
 even rudely snubbed, were ended. Whether 
 she fraternised with the unmarried daughter of 
 tlie house, as Jane for one ardently desired, or 
 not. Miss Gray might depend upon being 
 received with the respect due to learning — to 
 a competent instructress of youth. Jane would 
 no more have thought of slighting her niece 
 aiid nephews' governess, than an undergraduate,
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON' 89 
 
 however idle and thoughtless, would dream of 
 openly insulting a college tutor. 
 
 Therefore, while fully measuring the wrong 
 done to Plato, and the loss to herself, Jane 
 found a severe satisfaction in making the sacri- 
 fice as complete as possible. She was at the 
 Newton Station in such good time that she had 
 to wait a quarter of an hour for the arrival of 
 the train ; but she did not spend the entire 
 interval pacing the platform in solitude, except 
 for the porters. Before the train was due Mrs. 
 Crabtree appeared. Of course, she was known 
 to the stationmaster — when it came to that, he 
 knew the whole neighbourhood. But while 
 Jane and he did not think it necessary to ac- 
 knowledge their acquaintance by more than a 
 slight bow on the one side and two fingers to 
 the hat on the other, Susie had to interview the 
 ofiicial graciously. She had to keep him stand - 
 incf talkino- to her in the dusk of the winter 
 afternoon. 
 
 Susie put httle pertinent inquiries as to the
 
 90 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 amount of traffic on the line, interspersing them 
 with small sympathetic regrets — amounting to 
 exclamations of personal distress, ' ]\ir. Panton, 
 you don't say so. Oh, dear, oh, dear ! that is 
 too bad,' on the extent of his engagements. 
 She dropped accidental references, which gave 
 the impression that she knew all about his 
 family and connections, and their various walks 
 in life. She took one small delicately-gloved 
 hand from her sealskin muff, and occasionally 
 used it with the prettiest appropriate gesture. 
 Without departing a hair's breadth from her 
 place, she shone in her beauty, her gentle 
 breeding, and what he, like his betters, called 
 her ' smart clothes ' on the worthy man till she 
 turned his head. He forgot to the last moment 
 the obhgations of his post. He had to run to 
 set matters straight, and appease the just 
 wrath of several commercial travellers, impa- 
 tiently standing aside till he had done lis- 
 tening to the ' soft sawder ' of Crab tree the 
 banker's genteel, handsome wife. This was
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON' 91 
 
 exactly the result Susie counted on and cared 
 for. 
 
 Mrs. Crabtree was on the platform on some 
 trifling pretexts of half expecting friends from 
 London — these Miss Smiths who had disap- 
 pointed her so often, and of wishing to give a 
 note with her own hand to any messenger from 
 Eedcot who might be at the station. She pro- 
 tested she had not hoped to see her sister. 
 ' You here, Jane ! ' she exclaimed with quite a 
 marked note of surprise, arching her fine eye- 
 brows. 
 
 ' Yes, where else should I be ? ' demanded 
 Jane, with a flavour of asperity in her tone, 
 drawing down her straight light brown brows, 
 in decided contrast to those of her sister. 
 
 These two were always in contrast. They 
 had never understood each other or harmonised 
 together. True, Susie had married while Jane 
 was still a schoolgirl of fifteen — at the very 
 time she took her first plunge into study, and 
 was most engrossed by it. But from childhood
 
 92 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the sisters had not amalgamated or even bridged 
 over the gulf between their natures and tastes. 
 The pair had not quarrelled ; their interests had 
 never clashed. The women had agreed to 
 differ, but there had been little satisfaction in 
 the near relationship. 
 
 ' My mother, as you are aware, hardly ever 
 drives to Eedcot or anywhere else,' Jane went 
 on to say. ' My father only rides in on market 
 days, when he does ride in. We were not going 
 to let Miss Gray arrive without finding anybody 
 to meet her.' 
 
 ' I thought Eichard would have come.' Susie 
 mentioned the old coachman blandly. ' I meant 
 to have given him this note,' producing a tiny 
 cocked hat of paper ; ' but there is no need/ 
 tearing it to shreds and scattering them lightly. 
 ' You can tell mam-ma that I am in despair 
 because I have not found the cleaner's address 
 for her. I shall hunt all over the house, and 
 perhaps I may be more fortunate.' Then she 
 added, with still more obhging alacrity, ' If you
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON' 9 
 
 had sent me word I should have been deUghted 
 to have come down and met Miss Gray in your 
 place. It would have saved you a cold, dark 
 drive.' 
 
 / Thanks/ said Jane, not very cordially. ' I 
 don't know that it would quite have answered 
 the purpose — even though you had happened to 
 be here at any rate,' she ended, with a slightly 
 sarcastic emphasis. For both she and Susie 
 were sensible the real motive of Mrs. Crabtree's 
 presence was that she might have the opportu- 
 nity of satisfying her curiosity even about a 
 person of no more consequence in her eyes than 
 the httle Woods' governess. 
 
 Do not let any mistake arise. Susie would be 
 thoroughly polite and kind, almost oppressively 
 kind, to Miss Gray, but it would not be as Jane 
 — notwithstanding her strain of formality and 
 dryness — was friendly. 
 
 It was so late, the afternoon was getting so 
 dusky, and the smoky lamps of Newton Station 
 were so few and far between, that if Susie Crab-
 
 94 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 tree's eyes had not been Argus-eyes, and her 
 observation — as far as it went — quick, keen, 
 and sure, she could have made very httle of 
 what she saw when the train came in. A figure 
 in a hat and ulster alighting from a second-class 
 carriage, was pounced on by Jane Prior as if by 
 instinct, taken to the heap of luggage, and had 
 her trunks, with one exception, committed to 
 the care of the left-luggage man, to be called 
 for by the cart from Eedcot next day. Finally, 
 Miss Gray was ushered into the Eedcot phaeton, 
 established in it, and driven off with tlie 
 least possible delay, and the fewest words 
 of introduction or leave-taking between the 
 ladies. 
 
 Susie might have had her stroll to the station' 
 and the spoiling of the pleasant dawdhng over 
 her afternoon tea for nothing, if she had not 
 been able to use her eyes in the dark like a cat 
 
 a pleasing animal she resembled in several 
 
 respects. But she was equal to the situation. 
 She took a few mental notes with lightning
 
 IN SEARCH OF AN 'ADMIRABLE CRICHTON* 95 
 
 rapidity, she conned them, after she had seen 
 the others start, while she was walking back 
 through the quiet streets of the old-fashioned 
 market town to the Bank House, with its 
 pecuhar importance and dignity, out of sight 
 the best house in Newton ; Susie could not have 
 imagined herself living in any other in the 
 place. ' She is not altogether Jane's style,' re- 
 flected Mrs Lambert Crab tree; 'she is not a 
 fright either — anything rather than that ; quite 
 a handsome, well-grown young woman in her 
 way, though it is not a way that I admire. She 
 has not the pre-occupied, independent, practi- 
 cally unsettled air which usually distinguishes 
 these learned monsters and makes them detest- 
 able to men. I don't think she is an oddity, 
 and as a rule such women are oddities whom 
 one can detect at a glance. She has not spec- 
 tacles on her nose like Corneha Blimber, and 
 she is decently dressed — a plain ulster, but a 
 good cut, and really a nice hat. I should not 
 object to wear a hat like that any morning when
 
 96 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 I was shopping. I wish Jane joy of her treasure. 
 I should not be surprised if Jane got a surprise 
 herself one of these days ; ' and Susie laughed 
 with a lively appreciation of the humour of the 
 anticipated shock.
 
 97 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A SYKEN ADVENTURESS. 
 
 In the meantime Jane and Miss Gray were 
 being whirled along the darkening roads with 
 as much speed as an elderly horse and an elderly 
 driver cared to accomplish. 
 
 ' I hope you will like Eedcot, Miss Gray,' 
 Jane was overcoming her shyness to say 
 cordially. 
 
 ' I am sure I shall,' the stranger responded, 
 with a fervour that might have startled Jane if 
 she had been endowed with Susie's gift of 
 observation. The speaker's ardour abashed 
 herself, the moment the eager tone, which was 
 th^ result of her repressed excitement, had 
 slipped from her. She sought to remedy the 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 blunder by recurring at once to the object of 
 her coming to Eedcot. 
 
 ' I am afraid it is too late for me to see my 
 little pupils to-night,' she suggested ; ' they will 
 be in their nursery by this time.' 
 
 ' Well, their nurse has absurdly dogmatic, 
 old-fashioned notions about their bedtime,' said 
 Jane. ' I daresay she will be putting the 
 children to bed before we reach home ; but they 
 are often in the schoolroom till their supper 
 hour. They are ridiculously slow in getting 
 their lessons done, yet I don't believe either 
 Ally or the boys have bad abihties, while I 
 have been anxious not to begin by shirking 
 anything.' 
 
 Miss Gray was silent. There was even a 
 little involuntary movement of her shoulders, 
 which was more like protest than assent. 
 
 'No doubt you will have a much better 
 method,' said Jane modestly. ' You understand 
 the science of teaching. You will remedy the 
 defects of my system.'
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS 99 
 
 ' I'll do my best,' said Miss Gray quietly ; 
 * but you must not expect too much from me. 
 If I understand some of the theories and a little 
 of the practice of teaching, you must know the 
 children as no stranger can know them . Children 
 are so different.' 
 
 ' Certainly, but you are not going to be a 
 stranger, and all children with the average 
 amount of brains can be taught a great deal 
 when it is done systematically. The thing is 
 for the pupils to acquire the habit of learning 
 at every moment, at every pore,' declared Jane, 
 rising to the occasion, and speaking not only 
 didactically, but with the enthusiasm which 
 was generally held more in reserve with her. 
 
 Miss Gray did not go on contradicting one 
 of her employers, the late directress- general of 
 the httle Woods' studies. Perhaps the new- 
 comer did not think that persisting in an 
 attitude of opposition would be either wise or 
 worth while. She had some experience of the 
 relations in which she stood to the experi- 
 
 H 2
 
 loo BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 menter and the objects experimented upon, 
 and she might look upon Jane's excellent senti- 
 ments pushed to extremity as a bushel of 
 theory which an ounce of practice would 
 reduce to its true proportions. Or she might 
 be too much occupied looking about her to 
 care to prolong a useless argument. She did 
 show a commendable desire to become ac- 
 quainted with her future surroundings. She 
 peered through the darkness as the couple 
 drove up the elm avenue. She paused a 
 second looking up at the weather-stained 
 house, and casting a rapid glance round the 
 lawn and shrubbery lit up by the open hall 
 door, as if she wished to take everything in 
 before she entered. 
 
 Jane acted as a pioneer in conducting her 
 companion through the labyrinths created by 
 the superfluity of pillars and furniture in the 
 hall ; took her past the ghastly Judas — ghast- 
 lier than ever in the lamplight — up the stairs, 
 and decided that, as it was so late, it would be
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS loi 
 
 better to show her at once to her room, and 
 leave her to make whatever change of toilet 
 was possible for her before dinner. 
 
 When IVliss Prior was gone, Miss Gray rid 
 herself of her encumbrances of hat and ulster. 
 Then, though she had been told she had only a 
 few moments to spare, she began to waste 
 them scandalously for a person supposed to be 
 endowed with the promptness and punctuality 
 so desirable in a teacher of babes. She stood 
 idly before the fire, busy only with her re- 
 flections. 
 
 Here was a better opportunity than Susie 
 Crabtre(3 had commanded at the station for 
 seeing what the young woman, standing alone 
 and off her guard, in the warm glow of the 
 hearth, was like. In the first place, Miss Gray 
 had not yellow hair, nor hair that by any 
 stretch of imagination could be called golden, 
 or even red; neither was it raven-black. Her 
 eyes were not violet, neither were they of in- 
 scrutable darkness of hue. Her complexion
 
 I02 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 was not pink and white like daisies : far less 
 was it colourless as marble or creamy as ivory. 
 She was not divinely tall, or of a dainty small- 
 ness. Yet she was fair to see, notwithstanding 
 these trying negatives and the other dishearten- 
 ing facts Vvdiich have to be recorded. She was 
 about the middle size. Her hair was simply a 
 chestnut brown. Her eyes were nothing more 
 than hazel. Her colour was of such a healthy 
 depth as well as purity that it was in danger of 
 getting too red, as on the present occasion, and 
 spreading, as it had spread now, under the in- 
 fluence of the cold drive, and of the sudden 
 transference to the genial warmth of the room, 
 to the tip of her chin. This chin was itself a 
 blemish in her face, for it was a little too 
 square for beauty. But her teeth were white 
 and regular. Her mouth was at once ripe, 
 red, and clearly cut, as charming as that of a 
 Norman peasant woman. Her nose was well 
 shaped, and the bi'ows above her hazel eyes 
 were well m;irked, straighter than Susie Crab-
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS 103 
 
 tree's, and more clearly defined than Jane 
 Prior's. 
 
 Miss Gray did not look in the least like a 
 Becky Sharp or a Lady Audley. She had all 
 the appearance of a wholesome-hearted, sound, 
 natural, English girl under her supposed load 
 of learning, as happy as the deprivations of her 
 orphan lot and the burden of her responsi- 
 bilities would let her, probably more self- 
 reliant and womanly, instead of girlish, than 
 she would have been without the deprivations 
 and the burden. 
 
 But contradictions will never cease. The 
 fresh, honest, comely face was showing itself 
 greatly excited in the shifting light. If any- 
 body could have read Miss Gray's thoughts 
 they would have seemed sufficiently mysterious 
 for an innocent genuine individual in her cir- 
 cumstances. She was thinking, 'So I am 
 actually here. I have succeeded in my enter- 
 prise — however much I may repent it. And 
 that was Jane, while the other was Susie !
 
 I04 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Strange, to meet them in flesh and blood, and 
 they to regard me from a totally different stand- 
 point without having the slightest suspicion 
 why I should be deeply interested in them ! 
 Upon the whole, from the little I have seen of 
 the sisters, I believe I shall prefer Jane ; though 
 Susie is wonderfully pretty, and I fancy he has 
 a favour for her — I fear, I fear, on his weak 
 side, poor fellow.' And Miss Gray shook her 
 head wistfully, deprecatingly, with a kind of 
 precocious womanly wisdom. 
 
 Miss Gray's train of thought was remark- 
 able — out of a novel. It was decidedly un- 
 warrantable — not to say objectionable — in a 
 young woman who had not all the airs of a 
 syren adventuress stealing into a guileless 
 household and working incalculable havoc 
 there. 
 
 She might have committed the further in- 
 discretion of being late for dinner on her first 
 evening, but she was interrupted in time. 
 There was a tap at the door. When Miss
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS 105 
 
 Gray opened it she found Mrs. Prior on tlie 
 threshold. There was no mistaking the mis- 
 tress of Eedcot, though she had not waited 
 for an introduction to the new inmate of her 
 family, and she had just received from a 
 servant a salver with wine and cake. She had 
 overcome the reserve which was growing on 
 her in order to supply what she guessed had 
 been an overlook on Jane's part, though there 
 was still a reflection of the reserve in Mrs. 
 Prior's heightened colour, and the slight em- 
 barrassment in her air. But her old-fashioned 
 dignity and politeness, mingling with the 
 hospitality that caused her to serve the stranger 
 herself, prevented the hostess from being really 
 flurried. 
 
 'I beg your pardon. Miss Gray, but my 
 daughter ought to have seen that jow had 
 some refreshment as soon as you arrived, be- 
 fore you attempted to get ready for dinner. 
 Don't trouble to make much change in your 
 dress ; we are old-fashioned country people,
 
 io6 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 and you must be tired after your long jour- 
 ney.' 
 
 Miss Gray had remained dumb in positive 
 consternation. Something about Mrs. Prior 
 and her entrance overwhelmed the girl. Her 
 carnation colour deepened to crimson, and 
 flooded her face and neck. She started for- 
 ward with a httle distressed cry. ' Oh ! don't, 
 Mrs. Prior, you are a great deal too good,' she 
 exclaimed. She took the salver from Mrs. 
 Prior's hands, set it down with trembhng 
 fingers, and stood like a delinquent with cast- 
 down eyes, which, if they had been raised, 
 would liave been found suddenly brimming 
 over with tears, before the simple, kindly, 
 elderly lady. 
 
 Mrs. Prior in her turn was disturbed by the 
 sensation she had created. In the later years 
 of her life she had become accustomed to find- 
 ing herself frequently called to account for not 
 being on a level with a younger generation in 
 knowledge of the world and its wickedness, and
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS 107 
 
 of undreamt-of standards of propriety. She 
 began to dread that she had committed a grave 
 solecism in the trifling piece of attention she 
 luid paid Miss Gray, else she — Mrs. Prior — 
 could not have so upset the new-comer, the 
 fully-armed, all-accomplished young lady whom 
 Jane had selected, who was to be Jane's friend. 
 The offender could only take comfort in the 
 consideration that the offence was a small 
 matter after all. Then she fell back on the 
 blamelessness of her motive, and recovered her 
 equanimity as she withdrew. 
 
 But if Mrs. Prior recovered her equanimity^ 
 Miss Gray lost hers. She made a gesture the 
 moment she was left by herself, as if she would 
 have covered her face with her hands, and 
 cried half aloud — ' Oh ! I am afraid I have 
 been very wrong. How shall I carry out my 
 purpose — if I ought to carry it out and not 
 relinquish it at the outset ? To have Mrs. 
 Prior — how sweet and dear she looks ! I
 
 io8 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 don't wonder that he is very fond of her — wait 
 on me in this character, is too dreadfuL' 
 
 But youth is mercurial. Soon Miss Gray 
 not only turned to her toilet, she bestowed on 
 it an amount of anxious consideration which 
 some people would have thought totally un- 
 worthy of a learned lady. In place of shpping 
 out of one dress and into another with the 
 celerity acquired by long practice, and scarcely 
 a glance into the mirror, which was Jane's way. 
 Miss Gray thought and hesitated. She opened 
 her solitary trunk, and slowly took from it 
 some trifles of gloves, shoes, and lace, then 
 reluctantly shut it again, after she had indulged 
 in one peep to see that no injury had been 
 inflicted, in the packing, on the single gown it 
 contained — a delicate expensive gown of palest, 
 softest plush. 
 
 ' I dare say Jane will be severely plain,' 
 the stranger reflected, ' and her mother im- 
 plied something very simple — such as might be 
 supposed to suit a governess's purse — for me.
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS 109 
 
 This old black silk, which I have worn under 
 my ulster, may do very well. It will be more 
 in keeping. But, oh ! I am so sick of black 
 silks,' drawing down the corners of her mouth 
 as she made the disparaging confession to 
 herself, ' though I remember,' she thought 
 again, with a shrug of the shoulders and a 
 twinkle of the eye, ' I regarded this one, and 
 that not so very long ago, such a desirable 
 purchase — a most respectable best gown. But, 
 if I could, I should so have liked to make a 
 good impression on them the first night, as he 
 would wish, if he knew.' The thinker drew a 
 long sighing breath. ' I might have taken the 
 bull — that is, the formidable old gentleman — 
 by the horns and by storm. That is a horribly 
 vain idea, above all when my blowsy charms 
 are by no means out of the common. Still, I 
 wish I could have worn my pretty gown to- 
 night. 
 
 The would-be wearer put on a dressing 
 jacket, and began to brush her hair pensively.
 
 no BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 ' I believe she would have liked it. She looks 
 so nice and sympathetic, I wish I could ki>s 
 her ; but if she were to propose some day to 
 kiss me I'm sure I should die of shame and 
 contrition, though I never meant to harm her 
 or hers. 
 
 * I have had so few pretty gowns,' the 
 dreamer returned to her ground of complaint, 
 and dwelt on it with a persistency that showed 
 she was a woman and a girl still. ' This is the 
 very prettiest I have ever had, and, though I 
 may have many more, they will never be hke 
 the first. It will lie and fade and soil, perhaps 
 get old-fashioned as well as shabby befji'e I 
 have a chance of putting it on. Well, as if that 
 signified. What a goose I am ! ' She suddenly 
 pulled herself up, and made a gallant stand 
 against her folly. 
 
 The old, big dinner-bell — there had never 
 been a gong at Eedcot — pealed forth with a 
 crack in its voice. 
 
 Miss Gray salhed out in her characteristic
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS iii 
 
 black silk gown, in which, however, she looked 
 bonnie enough, like a blushing June rose set 
 among its dark leaves, and followed the servant 
 sent to show her the way to the drawing-room. 
 Miss Gray was introduced to the master of the 
 house, who treated her as a gentleman treats a 
 lady, but for anything further took very little 
 notice of her, so that the trepidation with which 
 she had been fencing, which she had been pam 
 fully keeping under strict control, might have 
 been spared. 
 
 The dinner was quiet. Mr. Prior was taci- 
 turn, Jane was in one of her brown studies. 
 Mrs. Prior had to make conversation on the 
 weather, whether Miss Gray was fond of the 
 country, whether she liked walking, &c., &c. 
 The hostess had got so much out of the way of 
 that particular service to society, in which she 
 had never been a brilliant woman, in spite of 
 her liveliness in private, that she did not play 
 her part with great effect, and desisted from the 
 effort as soon as she civilly could. She was
 
 112 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 driven to regret that there was no diversion 
 caused by the presence of the children at 
 dessert. 
 
 When the ladies went to the drawing -roora, 
 Jane engaged Miss Gray over the programme 
 of the children's lessons. Mr. Prior had his 
 ' Quarterly,' Mrs. Prior her book. There was a 
 little music, which was proposed as something 
 more social and genial by Mrs. Prior. She 
 contributed to it in the first place — plajdng an 
 old-fashioned piece — not that she cared to play, 
 or was very fond of music, but Jane was no 
 musician, and Jane's mother had a fine sense 
 that Miss Gray should not be allowed to feel as 
 if her accomplishments were being trotted out. 
 When Mrs. Prior left the piano. Miss Gray 
 complied with the invitation to play and sing. 
 She did both in a well-taught, decidedly pleas- 
 ing manner, a little spoilt by nervousness. The 
 performance was quite satisfactory, without 
 being anything marvellous.
 
 A SVREN ADVENTURESS 113 
 
 The servants came in to prayers, and the 
 whole household retired early. 
 
 It was a somewhat bald realisation of a 
 scene which had been anticipated often by one 
 person present, and never without a thrill of 
 emotion. But the veritable experience was not 
 without its subtle interest for Mss Gray. She 
 had directed many an intelligent glance to the 
 objects around her — the icy mirrors, the side- 
 tables with their gilt legs, the floral rug. She 
 had watched covertly but breathlessly, as if 
 with a kind of fascination, the unconscious, 
 sombre figure of the master of the house, 
 seated at his own little table, with his shaded 
 lamp, restlessly fluttering the leaves of his 
 magazine, and occasionally leaning back, and 
 tapping with his paper-knife on the arm of his 
 chair, not in time to the music, rather as if it 
 were in an irritable accompaniment to his 
 troubled thoughts. But, as so frequently 
 happens, the interest felt by the looker-on was 
 not exactly that which had been expected. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 When Miss Gray was safe in her room again, 
 she walked to her window and looked out on 
 a bright moonlight night, which had succeeded 
 the dark JNovember day. 'How peaceful and 
 beautiful it is,' the gazer considered. ' It is 
 charming ; oh ! dear, one couM be so happy 
 here, if everything else were as right as the dear 
 old house.' 
 
 Then straightway Miss Gray resumed her 
 former erratic line of meditation, with a renewal 
 of the tendency to sum up the knowledge she 
 had gained. ' And this is Eedcot ! I am really 
 here,' she told herself in short, fragmentary eja- 
 culations of wonder which could hardly believe 
 itself, and was not unmixed with apprehension 
 and repentance. ' I declare,' as she stared out, 
 ' that must be the mulberry tree under which 
 tlie children kept house and played. I think I 
 can catch a glimpse of the disused barn, where 
 so many bats take refuge, while the owls affect 
 the old mill. So that was the squire. He does 
 look a Httle savage, but I should not have
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS 115 
 
 thought him without natural affection — rather 
 the reverse.' 
 
 She had become more composed, and took 
 to pondering. ' Mr. Prior must have a lump 
 of brain behind that big forehead — perhaps 
 rather a conglomerate, heterogeneous lump. 
 He ought to have a heart, however warped 
 and soured, poor squire! which the twitching 
 mouth obeys inadvertently. One sees where 
 Jack has got the ugliness of which he is so 
 humbly conscious, foolish boy ! But he cannot 
 be a bit like his father in other respects. Jack 
 must be like his mother, dear soul ! How 
 prettily she played ' The hght of other days.' 
 Would she hate me if she knew it was I who 
 sent him so far away from her when I did not 
 know what else to do ? 
 
 ' I suppose that was one of Mrs. Prior's 
 favourite stories she was reading. I longed to 
 ask the name, but I durst not. The dog at her 
 feet must have been " Tommy." I ventured to 
 pat him, and was rewarded by a most diabohcaJ 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 snarl, which seriously disturbed his mistress's 
 composure. Well, Tommy has not the second 
 sight, that's clear, else he might have detected a 
 faint flavour of Jack, who was always good to 
 him ; I'll vouch for that. 
 
 ' I've seen every one of them. I've only the 
 children to be introduced to to-morrow. Will the 
 grown-up people ever forgive me, and take kindly 
 to me after this ? Even Jane I suspect has some 
 class pride, though he had none, or else love slew 
 and buried it clean out of sight the first day we 
 met. But it is not as if I had entered another 
 family in the neighbourhood. The children are 
 poor Alice's daughter and sons. Jack's own 
 niece and nephews. 
 
 ' Still, to come among them in a false cha- 
 racter, I am afraid nothing can excuse that, 
 though I have done it to judge for myself, and 
 ccfhvince myself that there are more persons 
 than one to blame. I did not need to come 
 here to be convinced of that, but I wished to 
 be prudent — to satisfy the few people who
 
 A SYREN ADVENTURESS 117 
 
 really care whether I throw away my happiness 
 and good fortune or not. I have to justify 
 myself to dear old Mary, who was at my first 
 college with me, and then we went to Germany, 
 and came home together, and passed our exami- 
 nation on the very same day. I should not 
 like, if I could help it, even to vex her father 
 — kind, fussy Mr. Burton — who took me in 
 charge before there was anything more than a 
 hardy girl, who had been knocked about since 
 she was a child, to take charge of. Anyhow, 
 the thing is done and cannot be undone, without 
 worse coming of it.' And with this half fatal- 
 istic and wholly soothing reflection. Miss Gray 
 prepared to read her chapter, say her prayers, 
 and go to sleep, with a conscience that was not 
 so heavily laden as to keep her awake.
 
 ii8 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE. 
 
 WiiE^N" Miss Gray got up next morning, she 
 found her way to the schoolroom, and met not 
 only her future pupils, but Miss Prior, at her 
 former post, awaiting her successor. 
 
 Jane Prior always looked particularly well 
 the first thing in the morning. Her style of 
 dress, with its straight lines, comparative scan- 
 tiness of detail, and absence of superfluity, while 
 it was in danger of looking stiff and hard in a 
 light evening gown, harmonised much better 
 with the thick, dark woollen stuff or the plain 
 uncompromising calico which was in use for 
 morning wear in winter or in summer. All 
 that was clear and open in her face seemed
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 119 
 
 to belong by right to the dawn of day. Tlie 
 searching hght revealed nothing that was meant 
 to be hidden away and cunningly concealed. 
 All was frank and above-board, from the 
 freckles on the broad forehead to the lock 
 which, obeying a vagrant inclination known 
 in local phrase as ' a cow-fleck,' would never 
 comb smoothly back with the rest of Jane 
 Prior's hair, but always kept springing forward 
 and swinging across a corner of her forehead, 
 disturbing the orderly arrangement of her head. 
 As yet, there was not a faded hue or a haggard 
 line in the face. Such would be long in steal- 
 ing away the vigorous prime of an earnest, 
 calm nature, strong in itself, amply supplied 
 with interests which were largely impersonal, 
 and with honourable work which was its own 
 reward. 
 
 Miss Gray was clad fittingly in grey — one 
 of the colours made for her. Competent critics 
 on old masterpieces of art have often expressed 
 the effect graphically. Grey toned down and
 
 I20 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 brought out her carnations in the most mas- 
 terly manner. It is not every woman whom 
 grey becomes, as it is not every woman who, 
 even when young, looks well before breakfast. 
 It is not a bad sign when she stands the last 
 test. Miss Gray surmounted it as trium- 
 ])hantly as Jane Prior did. Jane was a fine- 
 looking girl ; Miss Gray was more, she verged 
 on a beautiful young woman. It was not 
 merely her handsome features and rosy bloom 
 which led to this conclusion ; her face was 
 sweet widi heart and bright with mind. 
 
 The three small Woods sat solemnly in a 
 row at one of the desks in the old-fashioned, 
 slightly-battered schoolroom. The children 
 were like culprits about to be presented to 
 their executioner. Yet they were neither 
 badly endowed nor badly disposed. True, 
 little AHce, all over pink in her confusion, 
 was apt to be desperately engrossed with dolls. 
 But lint-topped Tom was a boy of quite average 
 understanding, as exhibited in his habits. He
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 121 
 
 had only to be taken and examined on the 
 contents of the innumerable boxes — ranging 
 from pill to band-boxes — ^which were the desire 
 of his heart at the present stage of his existence. 
 Any liberal-minded examiner would be satisfied 
 with the result. In these boxes Tom l)estowed 
 shoals of extraordinary and improving curiosi- 
 ties in the shape of new farthings, old postage 
 stamps, little stones, bits of wood of which the 
 carving was very rude indeed, leaves of plants, 
 dead or dying beetles and worms. 
 
 And anybody might have put dumpling- 
 faced Sam through his ' facings ' after he had 
 trotted out surreptitiously and been brought 
 back summarily from the offices, where he had 
 been contemplating the cattle feeding or the 
 horses airing, or even when he had been fired 
 with noble emulation by the sight of the pantry - 
 boy weeding the garden beds or cleaning the 
 knives. It would have been impossible to 
 detect in the small specimen of humanity any 
 deficiency in that faculty of observation which
 
 122 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 we are advised, on the authority of the greatest 
 philosophers, to cultivate as a gift of primary 
 importance. 
 
 Miss Gray shook hands with the children, 
 and longed to say she would not eat them up, 
 but refrained, out of consideration for what 
 their Aunt Jane's feelings might be on the 
 subject. 
 
 The children's copy-books, &c., were laid 
 out for inspection, while the embryo scholars 
 manifestly shook in their shoes before the 
 verdict to be pronounced on their halting 
 performance. 
 
 ' Everything does you all great credit,' 
 murmured Miss Gray, wnth a comprehensive 
 wave of her hand and a comical glance at 
 Jane Prior, which the giver of the glance 
 hoped the ri.id disciplinarian appreciated. 
 
 But some criticism was necessary, and the 
 newcomer pounced upon Alice's signature. 
 
 ' Don't you think it might be a little more 
 distinct, Ally.^ They call you Ally, don't
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 123 
 
 they ? ' The speaker added quickly — ' Shall 
 I write my name, and you can try to make it 
 out?' 
 
 * Bennet Gray,' Jane read over the child's 
 shoulder, with a little tone of surprise. 'I 
 thought you were called Beatrice. You signed 
 yourself "B. Gray," and I suppose I leapt 
 to the conclusion that the B. stood for 
 Beatrice.' 
 
 ' No, for Bennet,' said the bearer of the 
 name ; ' I was christened Bennet after my 
 mother and grandmother.' 
 
 ' Is it a Christian name for women as well 
 as a surname, in any part of England ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I believe so. I fancy it is a contrac- 
 tion for Benedicta, as Bennet is used for Bene- 
 dict abroad. But the name is rather uncommon 
 and conspicuous, serving to mark me out unduly. 
 With the two exceptions I have mentioned, I 
 have really never known another woman called 
 Bennet. I dare say that is why I am inclined to 
 feel bashful and stop short at B,' she said, laughing
 
 124 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 and colouring. ' That is a generalisation which, 
 as you interpreted it, might stand for Beatrice, 
 or Blanche, or Barbara, or Betty.' 
 
 '- We have a puppy — at least Tartar has, 
 and its name is Benny,' Sam's treble voice broke 
 in, without much relevance, and with an inde- 
 corous laugh. He drew down an indignant 
 cjlauce from Jane's steel-blue eyes. Then the 
 children hustled themselves down from their 
 bench and disappeared in a twinkling. 
 
 ' Is this your old schoolroom ? ' inquired 
 Miss Gray, wistfully, as she looked round. 
 There were discoloured maps on the walls, and 
 chipped globes in one corner. The book-cases 
 were full of shabby books, which had seen 
 much wear and tear. There was the cottage 
 piano with the yellowing keys, on which endless 
 scales had been strummed, and poor Miss 
 Eossiter had displayed her bravura execution 
 to marvelUng little musical aspirants. And 
 there was the table in the middle of the 
 room, round which short legs had dangled
 
 ^. 1 L/G OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 125 
 
 from uneasy cane chairs, while chubby hands 
 had been busy obhterating sums from mal- 
 treated slates, or scattering ink freely around 
 as the stiff fingers, reluctantly obeying per- 
 plexed brains, travelled painfully across the 
 pages of exercise books. 
 
 ' Would you mind telling me about it and 
 letting me see where you sat and what you 
 did ? ' petitioned the new governess with some- 
 thing of a beseeching tone coming into her 
 voice. 
 
 ' Oh, if you like,' answered Jane, carelessly, 
 but with a shade of surprise and discomfiture. 
 The manner of the questioner was enough to 
 suggest that she was but a tyro in her pro- 
 fession after all. If so, Jane had been singu- 
 larly misled. ' Yes, this was my old school- 
 room, but I did not get much good here, 
 though there was nobody to blame. There 
 was nothing done here that could serve as a 
 precedent or example.' 
 
 ' Was it only your schoolroom ? ' persisted
 
 126 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Miss Gray, unaware of the impressioD she was 
 producing. 
 
 'No, of course not,' answered Jane 
 promptly. ' Susie (Mrs. Crabtree) and Ahce 
 (the children's mother), and even Jack (my 
 brother), before he went to a boys' school, 
 were all taught here. Later Jack and I read 
 here for a whole year with Mr. Conyngham.' 
 Jane brightened at the recollection. 'That 
 was better — I learned something then. I 
 believe my mind began to open. Mr. Conyng- 
 ham was quite an able man, I used to enjoy 
 his explanations. I was so proud of his saying 
 that it was a pleasure to make them to one who 
 could follow him.' Jane held up her head, and 
 looked her best at the recollection. ' I was 
 fond of Greek from the first. It was all very 
 nice, though, to be sure, there was the difficulty 
 with Jack (my brother). He had some taste 
 for mathematics, but he hated classics, which 
 my father wished him to master. He used to 
 sit there,' pointing to a corner, ' over his con-
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OB TRUCE 127 
 
 slruing, and when he was supposed to have 
 been occupied with it for an hour, he would 
 suddenly look up and ask Mr. Conyngham if 
 he had read some story my mother had got 
 from Mudie's, or if he did not thmk the 
 weather fine for fishing ? ' 
 
 ' Oh r Miss Gray responded with a long- 
 drawn breath to the account of the delinquen- 
 cies of the young squire of Eedcot, while her 
 lips parted with a wavering smile, and her hazel 
 eyes dwelt for a considerable space, as if they 
 liked to rest on the particular corner. To be 
 sure it was the corner on which the light came 
 from the western window chequered by the 
 bare boughs of a hedge maple that grew out 
 side. It suggested vividly how the small leaves 
 that would flutter in every breath of wind must 
 make a rhythmic dance of light and shade on 
 the faded carpet in summer. The same window 
 commanded a side view, through the shrubbery, 
 of the grey barn beloved of the bats, and the 
 disused ivy-grown threshing-mill haunted by
 
 128 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the owls. It might have been remarked after- 
 wards that Miss Gray alwa^^s cliose that corner, 
 though it was the farthest from the fire, for her 
 teacher's presidential chair. 
 
 After breakfast, Jane was once more 
 aggrieved by the children's arriving for 
 the duties of the day, cumbered with their 
 own affairs. Tom had one of his boxes 
 lined with turkey's feathers which he* had 
 picked up, Sam was panting to recount his 
 encounter with the turkey which had shed 
 the feathers, and Alice had taken it upon 
 her to bring in the last of her dolls. That 
 came of being too easy and famihar with the 
 children. 
 
 ' Let them unload their burdened little bodies 
 and minds,' said Miss Gray. ' It need not be 
 altogether without profit, you know ' — she added 
 waggishly, not without a quick glance at Jane 
 to see if the most distant approach to raillery 
 might be allowable — 'admit information at 
 every pore. Come, Tom and Sam, and tell me
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 129 
 
 all about the turkey and its wings, and whether 
 calves and lambs have wings too.' 
 
 Tom and Sam shouted with derisive laugh- 
 ter over the idea, but were incited to listen 
 when Miss Gray delivered the least pedantic of 
 lectures which took only one minute in the de- 
 livery upon Alice's doll's eyes and ears and 
 fingers and toes. 
 
 ' But we'll not use such a liberty with your 
 baby again, dear,' the lecturer promised the 
 child. ' How would grown-up people like to 
 have themselves or their babies treated as sub- 
 jects for dissection ? ' 
 
 ' She is not a baby,' objected Alice indig- 
 nantly ; ' she is Anna Maria Constance — a lady 
 going to a ball. Don't you see her fan and her 
 bouquet ? I am to be dressed like that when I 
 go out to India to papa.' 
 
 ' I beg Anna Maria Constance's pardon,' said 
 Miss Gray. ' But whether your doll is a baby 
 or a lady she is for you to take care of, play 
 with, and dress. She is not for another person 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 to dissect. Has she a great stock of clothes, 
 Ally ? I think I may be able to help you to 
 make her something new. Ladies who go to 
 balls, still more than babies in bibs and tuckers, 
 are always wanting something new. I have a 
 hat in my eye to be trimmed with one of Tom's 
 turkey's feathers, if he will be generous and 
 present one to Anna Maria Constance, which 
 will just suit her.' 
 
 When lessons did come on, Jane had her 
 reward at last. She had lingered, puzzled and 
 on the verge of being vexed, for, in spite of her 
 big brains, she was a woman slow to receive a 
 new idea or to alter a foregone conclusion. But 
 she admitted candidly, with honest satisfaction, 
 that nothing could be better or more thorough 
 than Miss Gray's mode of teaching. She had not 
 been to the College of Preceptresses and passed 
 her examinations in vain, and she was perfectly 
 resolute in exacting all the children could give 
 her. It was soon plain that, Avhile she would 
 not hear of long hours of lessons for such young
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 131 
 
 children, there would be as little as possible of 
 shirking or trifling, where business was con- 
 cerned, in herreio^n. 
 
 Jane Prior submitted to the new order of 
 things, but not without a recoil. She was not 
 arrogant or domineering by nature, and she had 
 wisely determined to support Miss Gray's au- 
 thority. At the same time Jane was tempted 
 to suspect that Miss Gray might be very clever 
 — that went without saying ; and might know 
 her work — that was even more undeniable ; yet 
 she was fond of theories, and liked short tasks 
 and changes for herself as well as for the chil- 
 dren. She rambled all over the place, and she 
 found out the walks, even the winding path 
 hidden among the tall shrubs to the rose garden 
 — bare enough at this season — as if by intui- 
 tion. It almost seemed as if she had known 
 Redcot in a previous state of existence, and was 
 dehghted to get back to it and hail its familiar 
 beauties. 
 
 Jane did not accuse her Admirable Crich ton 
 
 K 2
 
 132 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 ot unfaithfulness to her post, only it was hard 
 to find anybody, teachers included, faultless. 
 Miss Prior was young, and had a craving after 
 perfection — she felt a shade of disappointment. 
 In place of approaching nearef to Miss Gray, 
 the young lady drew slightly away from the 
 schoolmistress, and engrossed herself with her 
 own pursuits. 
 
 Then a special incident occurred in the 
 family life. John Prior was summoned to be on 
 the Grand Jury at the Winter Assize in the 
 county town, and, whatever his pressing interests 
 at home, he must fulfil his obligations to his 
 fellow-subjects. The same thing had not hap- 
 pened for a period of years. The last time it 
 had come about there had been an understand- 
 ing that when next Mr. Prior was on the jury, 
 Mrs. Prior, who even then visited rarely, should 
 accompany her husband, and be the guest of 
 some old friends while the Assize lasted. Much 
 had altered since that arrangement was entered 
 into ; but John Prior had not forgotten it, and
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 133 
 
 his wife was touched and pleased by his remem- 
 brance. Altogether the two appeared to soften 
 to each other, and come closer together on this 
 small point. In the very details of their setting 
 out — in her wish to drive with him on a doubt- 
 ful day in the ramshackle phaeton instead of 
 having a close carriage sent out from Newton 
 for her private accommodation, in his anxiety 
 about her wraps and parcels — Miss Gray, a 
 keenly-interested onlooker, felt she got a passing 
 ghmpse through the man's grufFness and the 
 woman's reserve of what the relations between 
 them had been in happier years. 
 
 Jane Prior and Bennet Gray were left be- 
 hind at Eedcot to keep house, take care of the 
 children, and follow their own devices. 
 
 Jane immediately improved the occasion by 
 resolving to get through a large amount of 
 ' stiflf ' reading which was on her mind. She 
 had received a loan some time ago of several 
 valuable and ' heavy ' books, which ought to be 
 returned on the first opportunity. She would
 
 134 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 take advantage of her father and mother's ab - 
 sence, at a season when visitors were out of 
 count in the country, to shut herself up and 
 have a good time of hard study, such as she had 
 not enjoyed for many months, and be able to 
 send back the volumes in question without 
 further delay. 
 
 Whether Jane had grown a little rusty in 
 her enforced neglect of anything like tough 
 reading ; whether the old ethics were a more 
 indigestible morsel than she had reckoned, she 
 found at the end of the first day that if she were 
 to do as she had planned she must husband 
 every moment of her time. ISTever mind, she 
 felt free to do it, now that Miss Gray had com- 
 mand of the children. 
 
 Jane Prior forthwith sent a polite message 
 to Miss Gray, and begged that she would excuse 
 her (Jane) from coming down to dinner. She 
 desired Miss Gray to go on without her, and 
 would she kindly send her up a bit of fish and 
 a glass of toast and water — one of Jane's hobbies
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 135 
 
 was that study was best pursued on the hghtest 
 of diets — for she had to be very busy all the 
 evening ? As she was also to be very busy all 
 the next morning, would Miss Gray not mind 
 eating her breakfast, too, by herself? Jane was 
 going to rise early and have her bread and milk 
 when she got up. The two would meet at 
 lunch. 
 
 It was not Bennet Gray's place to mind or 
 to refuse to accept a civil excuse. However, 
 when she encountered Jane in the course of the 
 afternoon hurrying out of her room in her garden 
 hat and over-shoes, with a generally distrait air, 
 just for five minutes of fresh air, as she rushed 
 up and down the avenue, to keep herself from 
 getting inconveniently sleepy later in the day, 
 the young teacher stopped the young student 
 with an eager appeal, ' I shall not detain you 
 above one moment. Miss Prior ; but is it worth 
 while having all the ceremony and trouble 
 of a late dinner for me? — unless, indeed.
 
 136 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 dinner is a solemn institution wliicli cannot be 
 set aside.' 
 
 'But you must be fed, Miss Gray/ inter- 
 posed Jane bluntly, and rather sharply, for she 
 was provoked at being interrupted — every second 
 was precious. ' I am not going to starve you 
 because I do not choose to eat myself 
 
 ' But it is not starving,' urged Bennet. ' I 
 have been accustomed to dine early. I really 
 eat my dinner at lunch time. Governesses are 
 frequently expected to do that whether they like 
 it or not ; but I hke it. Even if I did not, a 
 bit of fish would suit me too, splendidly. I 
 have often dined on less when I snatched a 
 scrambling meal at a restaurant. All the time 
 I was at Boughton,' naming her college, ' I 
 breakfasted on bread and milk — and it did taste 
 so good at half-past ^^q' 
 
 Jane was beguiled into listening with her 
 interest attracted in a new direction — perhaps a 
 more refreshing process on the whole than the 
 five minutes' rush to the avenue.
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 137 
 
 ' I suppose that was where you were read- 
 ing up for your examinations ? ' she said, in- 
 quiringly. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Miss Gray, ' you know I had to 
 crib the time for reading from every odd minute, 
 and so had a friend of mine, since we were both 
 teaching junior classes all the time. We had to 
 reduce our nights to three or four hours. Mary 
 Burton could stand it and keep awake, but I 
 used to get so sleepy over my lexicon, and even 
 during the lectures, I was ashamed of myself. 
 Still it was jolly,' with a sigh of remembrance 
 over past pleasures. 
 
 ' What did you do to keep the sleep off? ' 
 inquired Jane, from a selfish motive. ' Come 
 into my room for five minutes — I believe it is 
 going to rain — and tell me all about it ; what 
 books you had to post yourself up in for your 
 examinations, and how you came out of 
 them.' 
 
 Bennet went into Jane's room, simple and 
 bare as that of an ascetic, for its mistress was
 
 138 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 not one of the girl graduates who contrive to 
 combine sesthetic fancies and sybarite indulgence 
 with a passion for knowledge. She was in ear- 
 nest in all she did. She had given her heart to 
 the passion, and anything which interfered with 
 it at this period of her life simply ' bothered ' her, 
 as she put it. 
 
 Bennet walked up to the bookcase and 
 examined its contents with the intelligent relish 
 of one who was something of a student on her 
 own account, though the books were not those 
 she had sought specially to master. On com- 
 paring notes, the two discovered that Jane's 
 bent was more to philosophy, ancient and 
 modern, and to natural science, while Miss 
 Gray's was to history and literature in all ages. 
 Jane was not altogether sorry, and Bennet 
 positively rejoiced, though not for herself, that 
 each evidently excelled the other in her own 
 department. 
 
 In the excitement of the moment Jane 
 confided to her companion that she (Jane) had
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 139 
 
 an ambition to go up to Oxford and pass an 
 examination there, and Miss Gray reciprocated 
 the confidence by an admission that she would 
 like that very much for herself if the thing 
 could be conveniently managed, of which Jane 
 in her generosity had no doubt. 
 
 Thereupon the candidates for honours — such 
 honours as they could win — settled the different 
 subjects they would take, advised each other 
 on the books they ought to consult, and became 
 so friendly that at last the women in them 
 fairly unbent. Inductive and deductive systems, 
 postulates, cellular chords were gradually 
 dropped, together with battles on Thracian and 
 Etruscan plains, Courts of Areopagus, Conscript 
 Fathers, odes, and orations. The citers of these 
 formidable topics descended to gossiping and 
 laughing about their several experiences, 
 professors, and fellow-students. The speakers 
 told with gusto of lucky hits and ludicrous 
 mistakes, giving the slight but graphic local 
 and personal touches that had reference to a
 
 I40 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 college hall or a savant's face, in which women 
 excel. 
 
 These young women had not sport to 
 diverge to, as two young men would have had 
 in similar circumstances, though Miss Gray did 
 try to edge in a word for lawn tennis, and, 
 more extraordinary still, for dancing. Jane 
 did not follow up these suggestions, but the 
 couple had a taste in common for nature and 
 for long walks, which did almost as well as 
 boating, cricketing, or hunting, for a diversion 
 from more serious subjects. 
 
 To begin with, and in the main, however, 
 it was learning on which these girls, each with 
 a good head of her own, fraternised. The 
 medium has become possible in recent years, 
 and it seems to serve as well on a pinch as ball 
 dresses, choral practising, or district visiting. 
 
 The sympathy aroused was a pleasure to 
 Bennet Gray for special reasons, but she had 
 not been unaccustomed to such sympathy. 
 With Jane Prior it was different. She had
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 141 
 
 been far more alone in tastes which were not 
 shared by the women of her particular circle. 
 She had not known such communion since she 
 had left her school, or since the days when she 
 had read along with Jack, and the teaching of 
 the Cambridge coach had been a positive 
 enchantment, under the influence of which 
 her mind had brightened indescribably. She 
 was ready to swear friendship with Miss Gray, 
 to trust her implicitly, even though they should 
 differ a little on the education of the children 
 or on any other question that might crop up. 
 She came near to forming a league with her on 
 the spot, which was a long way for a woman 
 of Jane Prior's temperami^nt to go on so short 
 an acquaintance. 
 
 For the rest of the time of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Prior's absence, the ardent young souls agreed 
 to set the forms of society at defiance, and 
 enjoy themselves in their own way. They had 
 no family breakfast, and no ceremonious dinner. 
 They ate and drank such primitive fare as
 
 142 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 bread and milk in their own rooms at unheard- 
 of hours in the morning. The girls met and 
 dined at luncheon, and consented to relax and 
 refresh themselves — say with the wisdom of 
 Socrates, or the quips of the ' Birds ' of Aris- 
 tophanes — over afternoon tea. These sources 
 of relaxation on such lips did fit in queerly 
 with the soulless splendour of the glassy 
 mirrors, the gilt-legged tables, and the floral 
 hearth-rug of the last Georgian and William 
 era. The day was wound up with something 
 equivalent to sporting oaks and solitary 'sap- 
 ping ' after slices of fish or wings of partridge, 
 or something equally substantial. 
 
 The two delinquents kept their own counsel 
 outside the house, but inside the cook and the 
 housemaid were to be met and vanquished. 
 These functionaries, with a greatness of soul 
 which showed itself in utter indifference to 
 the trouble they w^ere spared, felt outraged by 
 the unheard - of proceedings of ' them un- 
 accountable young ladies.' They were not
 
 A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE 143 
 
 exacting or hard or iliglity or worse, and still 
 they were no more like what young ladies 
 were wont to be, and ought to be, than if they 
 had been all that and a great deal more into 
 the bargain. Yet, in spite of converting her- 
 self into a miserable book- worm, sitting up of 
 nights and neglecting good victuals, Miss Prior 
 was well enough to look at, though not to be 
 mentioned in the same breath with beautiful 
 Miss Susie that was, who had never been done 
 with her gay doings. And as for that there 
 governess young lady Miss Prior chose to make 
 so much of, as was doubtless at the bottom of 
 the mischief, since it belonged to her poor 
 trade, she might have beeji a regular stunner, 
 and turned the heads of half the gentlemen 
 who came near her if she had liked, in place of 
 frightening them away with her books. It was 
 too bad, too bewildering and astounding to the 
 oracles of the kitchen.
 
 144 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTER VIE, 
 
 AN OLD woman's FAVOUR. 
 
 When tlie heads of the house resumed the 
 reins at Eedcot, the family fell back into its 
 normal condition, even to the renewal of the 
 alienation partially dissolved between John 
 Prior and his wife. The couple slipped again 
 sadly, but as it were inevitably into their 
 former attitude. But the friendship between 
 Jane Prior and Miss Gray continued. None 
 rejoiced with greater sincerity at the alliance 
 than did Mrs. Prior, though it shut her up still 
 more to her book, her needlework, and 
 Tommy — the old blue Skye terrier. She would 
 look up with shining eyes at the two girls 
 tanding exchanging endless last words over
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR 145 
 
 the fire or in the doorway. Miss Gray's heart 
 ached for the woman left out in the cold — an 
 experience which Mrs. Prior was too magnani- 
 mous and self-forge tftd to resent for lierself. 
 Her own daughter was too well accustomed to 
 it, too inobservant otherwise, too absorbed in 
 the grand mental goins which lay before her — 
 for intellectual ambition, no less than the 
 pursuit of pleasure, has its unconscious devour- 
 ing selfishness — to notice her mother's isolation. 
 Bennet Gray sought by the deepest, most 
 well-laid strategy, to court the friendship of 
 the mistress of the house. The enterprise was 
 not easy, in spite of Mrs. Prior's gentleness — 
 she was shy and proud and humble all in one. 
 She could not help looking with distrustful eyes 
 on the beautiful, clever young woman — solid 
 enough to satisfy Jane, brilliant enough, even 
 in the comparative shadow of her governess's 
 position, to cause John Prior in his pre-occupa- 
 tion and discontent to look, up and listen to her 
 remarks with a gleam of entertainment. Why 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 should such an one come to Mrs. Prior ? She 
 had nothing to give beyond the courteous 
 consideration she had never withheld in the old 
 days from Miss Eossiter, and the admiration 
 she had freely bestowed on this stranger. Miss 
 Gray had a great deal that was worth having 
 in life, probably about as much — seeing that 
 the public estimate of a governess's career is 
 imdergoing a great change, and that she looked 
 a reasonable, happy-tempered girl — as she cared 
 for. Why need Miss Gray seek an increase of 
 her well-being from Mrs. Prior, who was not 
 herself so much at ease or so richly endowed, 
 though she refused to complain, that she was 
 qualified to shower benefits on all around her .^ 
 Mrs. Prior knew in the depth of her heart 
 that for the present, at least, she had lost 
 nearly all that she most prized which had 
 once belonged to her, and, in the belonging, 
 made her passing rich. Husband, daughters, 
 even her son — her only son Jack — who had not 
 grown away from her, was gone for the time
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR 147 
 
 to the ends of the earth, across leagues of land 
 and sea, into unknown regions, amidst un- 
 dreamt-of dangers, and the wife and motlier 
 was angrily or calmly relegated to her books, 
 her needlework, and Tommy ! What had 
 Mrs. Prior to give to Miss Gray? What had 
 the elder woman to do comforting and petting 
 the younger ? 
 
 But one afternoon, after luncheon was over. 
 Miss Gray, instead of retiring to the school- 
 room or her own room and her learned associ- 
 ations like Jane, instead of setting out alone or 
 with her friend on one of the long walks to 
 which they were given, came creeping into the 
 drawing-room with a pitiful story of bad tooth- 
 ache, amply corroborated by heavy eyes and a 
 flushed and swollen face. She begged a loan 
 of one of M's. Prior's perennial stock of novels, 
 to keep her from dwelhng on the pain she was 
 suffering. 
 
 The woman addressed felt at once the touch 
 of nature which makes the whole world kin, 
 
 L 2
 
 148 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 and responded readily to the human cry. ' Oh ! 
 poor thing ; I beg your pardon, Miss Gray, but 
 I am so sorry. I need not speak of a dentist, for 
 there is none nearer than Newton, to which you 
 cannot go at a moment's notice ; and at the 
 best, the tender mercies of a dentist are cruel. 
 The only thing to do is to keep yourself warm, 
 and perhaps the pain will go of itself before 
 morning. I am afraid your room is draughty, 
 though I sent up a screen. Will you spend the 
 afternoon with me? That is a cosy corner 
 opposite ; you can lean back in the low chair, 
 and you may drop off into a nice sleep. I shall 
 not speak a word to disturb you.' 
 
 'You are too good,' protested the patient, 
 willingly consenting to be installed into the 
 comfortable chair on tlie other side of the 
 hearth. ' But I am not so ill as that comes to. 
 If you will let me come across to your book- 
 case for anything you can spare, I am quite 
 able to read, and forget the ache of the tooth 
 in that way.'
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR 149 
 
 ' You are perfectly welcome,' said Mrs. Prior, 
 simply but more formally ; ' only I am afraid 
 there is nothing you will care for.' 
 
 ' Not care I — I ! ' exclaimed Bennet in such 
 an energetic disclaimer that she forgot her ail- 
 ment, and started up bolt upright from her 
 half- reclining posture, ' when I read the names 
 of William Black's last novel, and Mrs. Oli- 
 phant's second last, as Miss Prior was taking 
 the books from the book-box, and I have been 
 dying to get a look at them ever since.' 
 
 'Dear me. Miss Gray, do you care for 
 novels ? ' cried Mrs. Prior, opening her eyes. 
 
 ' Care ! ' reiterated Bennet, ' I should think 
 so. Care for "Adam Bede," and "Mary Barton," 
 and " Westward-Ho," and " Nicholas Nickleby," 
 and " The Virginians," and " Pride and Preju- 
 dice," and '• Waverley." I have sat up till two 
 in the morning, and what is more, I have risen 
 at six to read some of them. Why, Mrs. Prior, 
 if you will forgive me for asking, what do you 
 take me for ? '
 
 ISO BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 ' I don't know,' answered the elder woman 
 with a little blush and laugh, more gratified than 
 disconcerted. ' None of ray children except 
 Jack, who ought to have been better employed 
 — everybody said — cared much for novels. Poor 
 Alice married out of the schoolroom, I may 
 say ; Susie went a great deal out into company ; 
 and Jane is far beyond novels. I thought you 
 were like Jane.' 
 
 ' I am supposed to go in for history,' said 
 ]\iiss Gray, in an easy colloquial strain, which 
 was enough to show that one pupil from the 
 college of preceptresses wore her learning lightly, 
 let us say nothing about gracefully. ' Did you 
 never hear what was said by Lord Holland — 
 was it Lord Holland or Sir Eobert Walpole ? — 
 anyhow, it was a great statesman, when some- 
 body proposed to read history to him on his 
 death-bed ? His answer was to the effect that 
 he was sick of lies, let them read poetry to him. 
 He might as well have said novels — good novels.' 
 
 ' Well, I was brought up on Walter Scott
 
 AN OLD W.OMAN'S FAVOUR 151 
 
 and Jane Austen, and I don't think there is miicli 
 falsehood in them,' corroborated Mrs. Prior, 
 with a deep sigh of satisfaction ; ' and I have 
 got many a ghmpse of real life that I should 
 otherwise have missed — even out of authors 
 little known and soon forgotten. When the 
 children were young and my health was delicate 
 I visited little — hardly more than I do now. 
 Without novels I should have had small chance 
 of change of scene and company. I was not 
 strong enough, even if I had got the brains, to 
 cope with heavier books ; and, though travels 
 might have given me change of scene, and bio- 
 graphy introduced me to one other person and 
 his immediate set, I should still have wanted 
 the constant succession of fresh company. Mr. 
 Prior was fond of travels, but he liked novels too 
 in those days, and would read one out for half 
 an evening, when I sat at work.' Her voice 
 fell as she revived the peaceful picture, and 
 she quickly obliterated it by another remini- 
 scence. * I have read not only " Evelina," and
 
 152 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 "Cecilia," but the whole five volumes of " Ca- 
 milla," ' she announced v^ith innocent pride. 'It 
 was a favourite book of my mother's, and she 
 used to quote it to me. I have read the original 
 '' Sir Charles Grandison " and " Clarissa," with a 
 little skipping. I have even dipped into an odd 
 volume of the " Fool of Quahty." 
 
 ' Oh ! Mrs. Prior, say no more ; your novel 
 lore is stupendous,' cried Bennet. And then, 
 in spite of her toothache, the two fell to com- 
 paring notes on the couple's favourite stories 
 and what were the tit- bits. The young woman 
 and the old crossed the Eubicon by the bridge 
 of romance, just as Jane and Bennet had passed 
 it with the help of philosophy and the classics. 
 
 The confabulation was renewed from day 
 to day, when fresh volumes w^ere exchanged. 
 'What is she doing now ? ' Mrs. Prior would be 
 heard to inquire breathlessly with regard to a new 
 and refractory heroine, into whose entrancing 
 history j\iiss Gray, with her young eyes, had 
 got before her fellow-reader by several chapters.
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR 153 
 
 ' Well, she has gone and misunderstood Sir 
 Harry for the fourth time. I have no patience 
 with her.' 
 
 ' But Sir Harry is trying, you'll admit 
 that,' remonstrated the most generous of 
 critics. 
 
 ' Oh yes, he is the most trying hero I ever 
 encountered. But that is no reason why she 
 should take to philandering with the curate. 
 I like that curate, though, immensely. The 
 fact is, I'm deeply in love with him myself. If 
 I had been Dorothy I'm sure I should have 
 thrown over Sir Harry and married the Eev. 
 Giles's flat feet and gawky laugh. I should 
 have done it just because of the afternoon when 
 he was caught sliding on the pond with all the 
 bad boys in the parish. I should have sought 
 to make up to him for the disgrace he got into 
 when he sent the tickets for groceries and coals 
 to the dreadful old pauper who shut the door 
 in his face and his vicar's, and called names to 
 them over the window.'
 
 154 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 ' But you could not have been allowed to 
 throw over poor Sir Harry, and you would 
 certainly not have got the Eev. Giles/ objected 
 the reader of long experience. ' He is reserved 
 for reforming the Hon. Mary, w^ho cares only 
 for what is beautiful and graceful, and is so 
 vindictive that she has kept up a silly school- 
 girl feud with a lady who has become her 
 sister-in-law.' 
 
 The chat grew more and more a matter of 
 course, until Mrs. Prior's tongue w^ould wag 
 the faster of the two. It was a winning tongue, 
 that could express thick-coming fancies, quick 
 turns of thought, even merry jests — all dashed 
 with the latent enthusiasm which was so strong 
 a feature in the woman, though the tongue 
 shrank into silence before a little coolness, 
 harshness, rudeness. 
 
 'You have got into my mother's good graces,' 
 said Jane Prior to Miss Gray, without a particle 
 of jealousy. 'I heard her talking quite gaily to- 
 day as she has not talked since that unsatis-
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR 155 
 
 factory brother of mine bade us good-bye be- 
 fore he took a trip to Austraha.' 
 
 John Prior coming in unexpectedly, and 
 hearing his wife's voice, so often quiet of late, 
 raised in tones of interest and animation, turned 
 and looked in wonder, which was in danger of 
 becoming offence in the mood that had become 
 chronic with him. And immediately the speaker 
 did him the further wrong of appearing caught 
 and put out. 
 
 At last Bennet ventured to ask to see Mrs. 
 Prior's needlework, and Mrs. Prior did not 
 mind showing it to her. The mistress of Eed- 
 cot explained that she had been engaged for a 
 number of years on quilts for each of her child- 
 ren. She worked slowly, but she hoped to 
 finish before her eyes failed her. ' The work 
 is old-fashioned and of no account compared to 
 the fine artistic embroidery we see nowadays,' 
 she said, in her modest, deprecating way ; ' but, 
 apart from the value, I think the children may 
 like to have it one day,' she explained, and
 
 156 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 there was a soft, far-away look in her eyes 
 which did not leave it doubtful as to what 
 change of circumstances the ' one day ' referred. 
 ' And after the children,' she added cheerfully, 
 ' I daresay Ally and Molly and the boys will 
 not object to having some remembrance of 
 their granny if only to prove that her stupid 
 old fingers were not always idle, though she 
 read novels by the hundred, and sermons by 
 the score.' 
 
 ' And sometimes found the novel the better 
 sermon of the two,' put in Bennet. 
 
 ' Sometimes,' admitted Mrs. Prior, ' but each 
 is good in its own way.' 
 
 The work was minute and elaborate. There 
 was neither bold drawing, nor striking effect, 
 nor learned conventionality. There was a 
 nearer, though still a distant, approach to ex- 
 quisiteness of detail, marred by a certain timi- 
 dity and hesitation belonging to deficient artis- 
 tic knowledge and training and to comparative 
 ignorance, both with regard to the result to be
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR 157 
 
 arrived at, and the limit of what could be 
 attained with the materials employed. 
 
 The first impression the interminable work 
 gave was that adopted by Jane Prior — it was a 
 tremendous waste of time in a hurried and 
 crowded age The next that might occur to a 
 sympathetic soul was a sense of the infinite 
 tender pains which had been taken, until the 
 pains were reflected in the work, and lent a 
 grace to it, like the glory dimly shining from 
 ancient stained glass that only exists in tiniest 
 fragments, which have been fitted together with 
 the most loving, unwearied care. 
 
 But to see the quilts as Mrs. Prior saw them 
 and yet was aware that none save one person 
 had ever caught a glimpse of them would have 
 been to have borrowed her imagination. It 
 had enabled her to smell the scent of the 
 hyacinths she was embroidering, and to see in 
 the purple vetch and the pink and brown fumi- 
 tory, not the poor shadow of the homely weeds, 
 but the shady lanes and tlie sandy fields round
 
 158 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 her father's house, where she had made her 
 first unapproachable child's posy. 
 
 ' Oh, I know there is nothing to be seen,' 
 cried Mrs. Prior, with a despairing sense that 
 there was nobody there, save herself, with eyes 
 to see anything in her labour of love, except 
 poor, pottering work. 'I know that even I 
 could make a great deal more of poppies or 
 foxgloves, for instance, than of those small 
 obscure things — too insignificant for art to 
 borrow. But I have a great liking for them, 
 I daresay because they have been seldom copied, 
 and so the most faulty copies bring back the 
 originals more vividly to my mind. I am aware 
 that an artist with her needle can cause a single 
 sunflower or a spray of clematis to be a thou- 
 sand times more imposing and picturesque, with 
 a thousand times less trouble, than all my heap 
 of trivialities.' 
 
 ' I like your flowers best, Mrs. Priof*,' said 
 Miss Gray emphatically. 
 
 ' It is very good of you to say so,' said the
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR 159 
 
 complimented worker, shaking her head. ' But 
 1 am not so conceited as to think my work is 
 at all admirable in that sense, or what many- 
 people would care for. However, it has been 
 a pleasure as well as an occupation to me, and 
 seems somehow part of myself; no doubt be- 
 cause it has engaged me so long, and it has 
 been my own idea — let it be ever so clumsy or 
 feeble — and so has expressed something in me. 
 And, do you know, my son likes it ? ' she broke 
 off, and looked up with her face lit up brightly. 
 'He has insisted on gathering all the flowers 
 that I have worked for his quilt, and he says 
 that he sees the dew on the May and the bees 
 on the broom still,' declared Mrs. Prior, with 
 sparkling eyes. ' I suppose he inherits the 
 foolish notion from me.' 
 
 ' Yes,' chimed in Bennet Gray, eagerly, 
 ' and when spring and summer have come 
 again, wdll you, Mrs. Prior, oh ! will you let m.e 
 bring in from my w^alks any little flower that 
 does not grow quite at hand ? I should be so
 
 i6o BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 proud and pleased if you would allow me to 
 help you in that way. I can sew — indeed I 
 can — and I can embroider decently, I am fond 
 of such work ; but my work is not like this — 
 nothing can ever be like this, which must be 
 all your own. I understand perfectly I should 
 never presume,' faltering in her excitement, ' to 
 have any share in this beyond bringing you the 
 more out-of-the-way flowers. Will you let 
 me?' 
 
 ' Thank you very much,' said Mrs. Prior 
 gratefully, but a good deal puzzled by her 
 companion's extraordinary zeal ; ^ I am exceed- 
 ingly obliged — yes, for the other quilts. I am 
 glad you like them. Jane thinks them a great 
 waste of time, and I was afraid you might do 
 the same. You see I work at them by turns, 
 and for the other quilts I shall be very much 
 pleased if you can bring me what is a little 
 difficult to find just when it is wanted. Let me 
 see, there is brooklime, or you may call it water 
 forget-me-not. I have none of that, and I
 
 AN OLD WOMAN'S FAVOUR i6i 
 
 should be thankful for a few stalks of grass of 
 Parnassus and some sprigs of the milkwort that 
 used to grow on Kershaw Moor.' 
 
 Miss Gray promised willingly to get what 
 was required at the fitting season. But she was 
 half- amused, half-piqued by the quiet reserva- 
 tion which had been made. ' Yes ; for the 
 other quilts' — not for the one which was 
 intended for Jack Prior. She was not to be 
 permitted so much as to gather a flower for 
 that. It was half-comical, half-pathetic. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 i62 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 tommy's new friend. 
 
 The outworks of Mrs. Prior's heart were stormed 
 successfully by a younger woman, who had 
 thought it worth while to make the attack. 
 Then she proceeded to lay siege to what lay 
 nearer the citadel. 
 
 Mrs. Prior was — as everybody in the house- 
 hold, from her husband to the last pert table- 
 maid was ready to protest — a slave to that 
 horrid old dog. Tommy. 
 
 Tommy had seen his day, when he was 
 neither a nuisance nor a burden, but an agree- 
 able, helpful companion. That day was past. 
 His old friends had mostly grown away from 
 him, while he was slipping back into that second
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 163 
 
 cliildliood which is not particularly graceful 
 either in man or beast, and demands forbear- 
 ance — sacrifice from the young to the old, as in 
 former days the same quality was required from 
 the old to the young. Tommy's attractions 
 were bygone and forgotten ; his friends of other 
 times had lost sight of the old Tommy and' 
 become weary of his successor's dulness and 
 infirmity. Even Jack Prior, who had never 
 spoken an unkind word to an animal in his life, 
 had ceased to ask for the dog's company. 
 
 But Mrs. Prior, who never wearied of any- 
 thing or anybody, and never forgot where she 
 had once loved, continued staunch and faithful 
 to Tommy, all the more so because others were 
 mifaithful. For the most part she did not see 
 in him the unwieldy, sluggish, snappish brute 
 he appeared to most people, but the gambol- 
 some, good-humoured wisp of grey and black 
 hair all quivering with his passion for exercise 
 and with devotion to his masters and mistresses 
 that he had once been. She felt hurt surprise 
 
 M 2
 
 i64 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 that SO many persons could change to such an 
 extent in their tastes and hkings. For her eyes 
 were opened perforce to see that Tommy was 
 in the way. It was a bore to take him for a 
 walk and find that he had grown stupid, and 
 would no longer keep to heel, but strayed^and 
 lost himself, and came back limping and pant- 
 ing. It w^as a hardship to wash him when he 
 struggled, splashed the washer, and showed his 
 few teeth. His begging was no longer a pretty 
 accomplishment, but an intrusive piece of greedy 
 importunity. His warlike or joyous barking — 
 a performance to which he had been at one 
 time encouraged — which had, indeed, been re- 
 garded as a brave or gleeful sound when every- 
 body was young and cheerful and not afflicted 
 with irritable nerves — had now become an 
 intolerable trial which the tortured ear could 
 not be expected to bear. His snoring, which 
 had been looked upon as so funny long ago, 
 was a still direr offence. His scratching, which 
 that earlier world had carelessly or magnani-
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 165 
 
 monsly overlooked, had waxed horribly sug- 
 gestive. 
 
 Then Mrs. Prior's heart grew sore. Her 
 sense of justice was outraged. How could 
 Tommy know that there was such an alteration 
 in tlie sentiments of his judges, and why was he 
 to be punished for their fickleness and peevish- 
 ness? Her tenderness was wounded. The 
 very things which rendered Tommy no longer 
 acceptable to his other cronies appealed irre- 
 sistibly to her generosity and softness of heart. 
 The blue glassiness creeping over the bright 
 brown eyes, the stiffening of the once active 
 hmbs, the thinning and straightening of the 
 erewhile profuse wavy hair, the white appearing 
 round the mouth and about the ears, like the 
 grey in an old man's beard and on his temples 
 — to think that anybody could cease to care for 
 a dog, even a dog, could begin to dislike, to 
 covertly neglect, to be harsh to him in such 
 circumstances ! 
 
 There miofht be another reason for the al)-
 
 1 66 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 surd sensitiveness which Mrs. Prior testified 
 where Tommy's honour and happiness were 
 concerned, that caused her to watch jealously 
 over his rights, and actually made her resent a 
 slight and injury to him, though she would pass 
 over, as not deserving a thought, the neglect of 
 her own claims. She seemed to recognise a 
 certain similarity between her position and that 
 of Tommy. She was not without a sorrowful 
 fellow-feelinsf where he was concerned. Bennet 
 Gray could catch words and sentences of long, 
 one-sided conversations which Tommy's mistress 
 held with him when they were alone. She 
 would remind Inm of a hundred pleasant old 
 haunts, games, family festivals the two had 
 shared. ' Do you remember the rabbits in 
 Eedcot quarry, and the rats in the barn, 
 Tommy? Have you forgotten that morning 
 when you brought papa's slippers to him all of 
 your own accord ? Surely you can recall the 
 day when you leapt out of the window after you 
 had been shut into the schoolroom to keep
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 167 
 
 you from following little Jack when he was 
 going off to school for the first time ? And do 
 not say you have lost sight of the evenings 
 when I showed the girls how to dress you up 
 for their charades ? Ah ! you are wagging 
 your tail — it is not such a brush now as it once 
 was — but you have not forgotten.' Did the 
 woman who thought so much of the past, which 
 other people had left behind, deceive herself 
 for a moment into fancying that the dog took 
 part in the retrospection ? Anyhow, she would 
 beg him to hve till their Jack — hers and his — 
 came home again, and then they would give 
 him a hearty welcome. 
 
 There was no serious difficulty in addressing 
 one's self to Tommy after the introduction had 
 been fairly given. He waited cautiously for 
 that formula ; when it had been complied with 
 he was apt to be overwhelmingly affable. He 
 greeted all his friends with loud acclaim every 
 time they crossed his path after the briefest 
 absence. Unfortunately the acclaim had come
 
 1 68 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 to be regarded as uncalled-for, uproarious, and 
 aggressive, and was frequently met by indignant 
 rebuffs, ' Get away, brute.' ' Do be quiet, and 
 lie down, Tommy.' ' Oh, you tiresome little 
 wretch, can you not hold your tongue? Just 
 look what you've done to my velvet and fur.' 
 The last outcry was from Susie, whose universal 
 pleasantness was not equal to the derangement 
 of the grace of her entrance, and the onslaught 
 on her elegant clothes. Mrs. Prior would wince 
 at the protests as if they had been uttered 
 against herself, would entice Tommy back to 
 his comfortable corner, and secretly pat him 
 to make up for that sudden collapse in his 
 elated bearing which proved the repulse had 
 somehow reached a vulnerable spot in his 
 canine heart. ' You only wanted to tell them 
 you were glad they had come back, poor old 
 Tommy ! But they don't care for your glad- 
 ness, my dog. I should not waste it upon 
 them, if I were you. But then you are only 
 a foolish dog, and so are magnanimous, while
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 169 
 
 you don't quite understand. Never mind, you 
 are your old mistress's pet : come and welcome 
 her, and she will not drive you off.' 
 
 There was another person who did not 
 drive Tommy off, to the vague surprise of every- 
 body, Mrs. Prior included. Miss Gray, that 
 charming, reasonable, highly-informed young 
 woman, instructress of youth, and friend of 
 Jane Prior, displayed — not nervous terror, 
 which some learned and clever people, other- 
 wise invulnerable, have betrayed with regard 
 to dogs and cats — but childish exultation 
 when Tommy condescended to put her down 
 on his list of friends, and began to persecute 
 her with his attentions. ' Tommy has run to 
 the drawing-room door to meet me — he has, 
 indeed.' 'He has leaped up almost to the 
 crown of my head.' ' Look — look — he is 
 pulling me in by the hem of my gown, the 
 kind darling. He will take a long walk 
 with me next,' she told everybody who would 
 listen to her. She applauded his begging
 
 170 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 more ecstatically than Mrs. Prior herself com- 
 mended his extraordinary feats in this respect ; 
 for Tommy could still sit up for five minutes 
 at a time, as if he had swallowed a ramrod, 
 looking more like the British Grenadier than 
 the genuine article looked. Miss Gray was 
 constantly caught surreptitiously rewarding 
 the performance with choice morsels from 
 her plate. 
 
 Tommy was in the habit of exhibiting other 
 engaging attributes in which, to tell the truth, 
 there was more of childlike confidence in his 
 friends' indulgence than of doglike humility, 
 or of a modest, retiring disposition. He 
 would plant his two shaggy front paws one 
 on each foot of a shivering individual toast- 
 inof his or her toes on the fender. He would 
 look up with calm afiectionate assurance 
 amounting to sublime nonchalance in the 
 writhing face of the unfortunate sufierer — of 
 whose crushed toes, Tommy, with his by no 
 means light weight, was ruthlessly making a
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 171 
 
 soft cushion for the sensitive soles of liis own 
 paws. At another time he would have a 
 cunning eye to the footstool with which 
 some luxurious creature was supplementing 
 his or her general well-being. He would 
 pertinaciously watch his opportunity, never 
 forgetting the main chance, for a period of 
 hours. He would deliberately insinuate first 
 one paw and then another on the coveted 
 stool, and try, by an insidious appeal to 
 human feelings, or by bodily pressure in a 
 slow, shoving process, to remove the owner's 
 feet, and to establish in their place his fat 
 body. At last, if the grudged possessor of 
 the bone of contention unwarily rose for a 
 second, then, quick as thought, the last rem- 
 nant of Tommy's alertness was displayed in 
 seizing on the goal of his ambition, which 
 was frequently far too small for his require- 
 ments. He had to poise himself upon it 
 uneasily, wnth all his superfluous bulk quiver- 
 ing for lack of sufficient support, or to stretch
 
 172 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 himself with his head hangiiiij overboard — po 
 that the blood ought to have rushed to his 
 obstinate head — while his hind legs dangled 
 helplessly in the opposite direction. 
 
 Miss Gray could never see that these were 
 scandalous liberties on Tommy's part. She 
 laughed till the tears came into her eyes, she 
 endured without a murmur — even proudly 
 welcomed excruciating torture when her feet 
 happened to be those on which Tommy threw 
 his solid weight in improvising cushions upon 
 the fender. She promptly resigned her foot- 
 stool for his use, as if she was only too happy 
 to serve him. She might have been a child 
 with her first pet. Jane, who had her own 
 inclination to hero-worship, and had begun to 
 worship Miss Gray, was forced to own to her- 
 self that her new fiiend, with her natural 
 endowments and college training, could be 
 positively silly on some points — to wit, her 
 behaviour to dogs. It was a proof of that 
 want of absolute perfection in anybody, even
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 173 
 
 in a scholarly woman, which Jane detected 
 with regret. But one thing was certain, and 
 it was a comfort to know it — Miss Gray was 
 not at all in the position of an old cowed 
 dependent and toast-eater, who was lament- 
 ably deficient in the attainments she professed 
 to impart, and so was forced to ingratiate 
 herself with the very animals of the family. 
 Bennet Gray w^as a highly-gifted, elaborately- 
 equipped young woman, independent and 
 responsible in her calling, with an acknow- 
 ledged position and rights which nobody 
 would dream of invading. Times have 
 changed for the better with the Bennet 
 Grays of society, even within the last quarter 
 of the nineteenth century. Miss Gray's 
 penchant for Tommy, hke her great liking 
 for Tommy's mistress, was gratuitous and 
 beyond suspicion. 
 
 If the saying, 'Love me, love my dog,' 
 contains any truth, there is a corresponding 
 saying at least as influential in some instances
 
 174 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 — ' Love my dog, and I'll love you.' Mrs. 
 Prior and Bennet Gray had arrived at such 
 an advanced stage of friendship that the 
 former would, without being asked or led up 
 to the subject, begin three out of every four 
 of their conversations with the prelude — ' Miss 
 Gray, you have heard of my son who has taken 
 a voyage to Austraha ? Poor boy ! he is far 
 from home and among novel surroundings, but 
 I am sure he has not forgotten his mother.' 
 Then would follow an anecdote of Jack's youth 
 or maturity. There was an exhaustless stock 
 of similar stories, extending from his childhood, 
 through his school-days, to his present man- 
 hood. The tales were an excuse for long lists 
 of his good qualities, tastes, and habits. 
 Neither were the visions which had once 
 been entertained of his future entirely left 
 out. A gallant fight was made for them, 
 though there were signs that the old dreams 
 were fading under the burden of disappoint- 
 ment, doubt, and apprehension, which even the
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 
 
 175 
 
 fondest and most faithful heart could not refuse 
 to own. 
 
 Miss Gray listened with endless patience, 
 nay, with keenest interest in the shining eyes, 
 which she instinctively cast down, so tell-tale 
 was their light. 
 
 These confidences w^ere a strong indication 
 of Mrs. Prior's deepening regard for her young 
 ally. They were also some relief to the elder 
 woman, since the yonng man's name was rarely 
 mentioned in his family. John Prior had 
 turned against his son, and Jane had gone 
 with her father in the dispute. As for Susie 
 and Lambert Crabtree, they were like Gallio ; 
 they cared for none of these things. It would 
 not matter to them though her father quarrelled 
 with Jack beyond the possibihty of reconcilia- 
 tion. The estate of Eedcot was entailed on 
 male heirs, and there was no likehhood of the 
 entails being broken. For anything farther 
 the Priors — father and son — could manage 
 their own affairs, includinof the discord between
 
 176 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 them. It was, strictly speaking, no business 
 of the Crabtrees', especially as Susie had not 
 the shghtest intention of quarrelling with 
 either of the disputants. She would show 
 the world that she could be on good terms 
 with both. Did she not like to stand well 
 with everybody? 
 
 One day a letter came to Mrs. Prior from 
 her son, full of all the colonial wonders and 
 news about himself which he thought would 
 interest her. 
 
 The letter arrived with the morning's post, 
 and Mr. Prior took it out of the bag at break- 
 fast time. He knew the handwriting before he 
 glanced at the post mark, and he handed the 
 letter to his wife without remark. But his 
 wide nostrils involuntarily expanded and con- 
 tracted, there was a nervous twitch of his full 
 under-lip, and the furrow between his shaggy, 
 straggling brows was ploughed still deeper. 
 
 Mrs. Prior coloured up with mingled 
 pleasure and indignation, and put the letter
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND lyy 
 
 in lier pocket without tearing open the 
 envelope. 
 
 ' She cannot open it before me,' John Prior 
 said to himself ; ' she has not the face to do it. 
 It contains too much that is not fit to be read 
 in my presence. Her precious son is asking 
 her for money or abusing us all round, and 
 her face would betray her. She could not 
 suppress that evidence.' 
 
 ' I will not read it before him,' Mrs. Prior 
 told herself as she drank her tea with her 
 hand shaking so much that she could hardly 
 hold the cup. ' His own father ! and not to 
 ask if the boy is well, or if he writes of coming 
 home — as if he had done anything really 
 wrong — as if he had been a scapegrace like 
 Ned Owen ! Jack was only not very diligent 
 over his books and a little extravagant. It 
 was pardonable enough in a lad — hundreds at 
 Oxford do the same. It is too bad in his 
 father.' 
 
 Neither did Jane Prior put any question. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 She did care to hear what her brother was 
 doing, though not to a tithe of the extent that 
 his mother cared. But she was silent on 
 principle, as Jane did many things that had, 
 perhaps, better been trusted to the impulse of 
 the moment than to principle. 
 
 Mrs. Prior was not naturally a taciturn 
 woman ; she had womanly reserve and pru- 
 dence, but sympathy was also very dear to her. 
 When it was denied to her from legitimate 
 sources, she was fain to quench her thirst at 
 the irregular spring which had sprung up for 
 her in the desert of her hfe. 
 
 The next time she caught Bennet Gray 
 alone, Mrs. Prior, as if to indemnify herself for 
 the privation she was subjected to, and to 
 revenge herself on those who ought to have 
 cared, and did not care, to hear her letter, 
 poured forth her information. She boasted 
 with innocent mother-boasting of Jack's ex- 
 ploits. He had been at one of the diggings. 
 He had spent three days in the bush camping
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 179 
 
 out. He had seen no end of opossums. His 
 correspondent enlarged with quickly-roused 
 admiration upon his sensible views and judi- 
 cious intentions. 
 
 Miss Gray was a good listener here also, 
 and did not fail to satisfy the eager speaker. 
 But when Bennet was shut into her room she 
 covered her face with her hands to hide her 
 scarlet cheeks. ' I could beat myself,' she 
 groaned, ' I feel such a hypocrite. What will 
 she think when she knows ? Will even Jack 
 be able to forgive me when it all comes to his 
 ears ? Shall I ever forgive myself .^ ' 
 
 Then she drew from her pocket a thick 
 letter and slit open an outer envelope. The 
 letter enclosed was marvellously like that from 
 which she had just heard various details. 
 Indeed, the cleverest expert would have been 
 puzzled to detect a difference in the hand- 
 writing, and the Sydney postmark was the 
 same, though Miss Gray's letter had come to 
 her under an English cover, addressed by a 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 woman's hand, and bearing the stamp of one of 
 the midland towns. 
 
 Bennet pored over the pages, and seemed 
 to forget her contrition to the extent of being 
 disgracefully triumphant, because they con- 
 tained projects revealed to her alone. 
 
 ' He does not tell his mother of his inquiries 
 into the price of land and of his going to see 
 different lots, or of his reckoning as to how 
 fast a log house could be run uj^. What would 
 she say if she were told that it was I who sent 
 her son so far away from her and everybody ! ' 
 Miss Gray rose in her excitement, and began 
 to walk up and down the room, and to speak 
 half- aloud, as if she were pleadhig her cause 
 against an invisible accuser. ' Oh ! dear Mrs. 
 Prior, I could not help it. There was no other 
 way then. I was forced to see, for his sake as 
 well as my own, whether he was in earnest, 
 whether he could give up things — liis friends 
 among them. I had not learned to know you, 
 and I did not wish to go where I should never
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND i8i 
 
 be wanted, and to take what would always be 
 grudged to me. Besides, I saw enough and 
 heard enough, from himself, to be aware that 
 he had other friends — companions rather, idle, 
 rich, and inconsiderate — not generous like him, 
 who were no good, and among whom he would 
 never do good. I had to make myself certain 
 that he could renounce his past, begin anew, 
 and live and work in earnest for himself and 
 me. There was no other way then ; it would 
 have been our only chance, and I had to put it 
 before him, because, though I was no older, I 
 had known another side of life. I seemed 
 called on to decide for both.' 
 
 She sat down again and studied the letter 
 once more, giving herself up to happier 
 ideas. 
 
 ' There is no need now, dear, rash, impul- 
 sive Jack,' she told another than Mrs. Prior in 
 accents of exultation instead of pleading, ' for 
 exile and toil, on borrowed money too — none 
 in the world, thank God for it, for your sake.
 
 i82 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 and mine, and hers ; and oh ! surely some day 
 for your poor father's.' 
 
 There was no end to the reflections which 
 that letter produced. The next thing Miss 
 Gray did was to take a packet of thin paper 
 from her desk and contemplate it lovingly — 
 deprecatingly. 
 
 ' I shall have to answer as soon as possible, 
 of course, and what a letter I have got to write 
 now that I have received an address ! You 
 have been better off than I in that respect, sir. 
 You had Mary Burton's address to write to in 
 case I quitted Berkshire. That quitting was 
 rather different from anything we had thought 
 of. It was sudden, but it was not at all dis- 
 agreeable. I had the luxury of the best cab 
 from the station all to myself. I could take 
 my entire luggage, and I had no trouble either 
 about the weight or anything else, for not only 
 was I a first-class passenger, Mr. Joliffe, good 
 man ! though he had sometimes treated me 
 cavalierly enough, insisted on being at the
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 183 
 
 station to see me off, as if I could no longer 
 take care of myself. I wonder if anybody ever 
 had half so much to say before in a letter as I 
 have tD write to Jack/ speculated Miss Gray, 
 leaning forward on her crossed arms, and not 
 knowing where to begin, from sheer embarras 
 de richesses. ' He will be surprised until he 
 has no surprise left to feel, though the sky 
 were to topple over on his head. It will be 
 so strange for him to know that I am here, and 
 so curious for him to read my first impressions 
 and he far away, if he is not angry with me for 
 coming. But he can see that when Jane's 
 letter of inquiry was forwarded to me, the 
 temptation was irresistible, especially when I 
 had nothing else to do, and when I owed some- 
 thing to myself and to the friends I had,' she 
 meditated pensively, and raising her head with 
 a little air of pride, ' I mean I was bound to 
 satisfy Mary Burton and her father, that my 
 first step was not to throw myself and all the 
 rest of it away without making a single invest!-
 
 1 84 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 gation. So much for your not having been 
 always the wisest of men, poor, dear Jack,' she 
 broke off with a rueful shake of the head ; 
 ' and for exposing yourself to the necessity of 
 probation by way of punishment. But you 
 were good, true-hearted, uncalculating,' she told 
 herself more warmly than ever, ' when you 
 gave me as manly and honest a heart as ever 
 beat. Your mother and I know what it is, 
 and that it could never have led you far astray. 
 You may think, and be quite wrong, that I 
 have never trusted you — that I have stolen a 
 march upon you — and you may be, perhaps, 
 a little vexed and annoyed ; but still, because 
 of the other glad news— the clearing away of 
 all our difficulties, the joy that is coming to us 
 — you will condone my worst offences, Jack. 
 You will set sail with the next ship ; the long, 
 weary way and the sea, where there are storms 
 and wrecks, will soon be passed, and you will 
 be at home with your mother and me.' 
 
 Unquestionably Bennet Gray's private cogi-
 
 TOMMY'S NEW FRIEND 185 
 
 tations bore an alarming resemblance to tliose 
 of the syren adventuresses of fiction, of whom 
 we wot. But these alluring heroines have not, 
 as a rule, passed through colleges of pre- 
 ceptresses, surmounted stiff examinations, and 
 aspired to university honours. They have in 
 general been the offspring of purported cre- 
 dulous advertisements, or replies to the same 
 in Metropolitan newspapers, and of a confiding 
 willingness to dispense with all references. 
 Neither have the enchantresses been dis- 
 tinguished, as a rule, by their respectful 
 affection for elderly ladies, and foolish fondness 
 for superannuated dogs. 
 
 In the end, of the two letters which were 
 all that went from Eedcot, addressed to Jack 
 Prior, entrusted to the mercies of the next 
 colonial mail, the one was written by his 
 mother and the other by his sister. Jane 
 thawed enough to be induced to ascertain 
 where Jack was and what he was doing, as a 
 prelude to sending him — not all the news of
 
 1 86 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the neighbourhood — her mother would do 
 that, but a slightly high and dry, though not 
 unkind, missive. Strange to say, Miss Gray 
 did not address a letter to any man — Jack 
 among them. She was not guilty of more 
 than sending what the ' Polite Letter- writer ' 
 would have called ' a copious epistle,' to judge 
 from its bulk, doubtless containing a score of 
 profound maxims and a host of learned saws, 
 to her friend, 
 
 *Miss Burton, 
 
 Girls' Grammar School, 
 
 W , 
 
 S shire.
 
 i87 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW. 
 
 The arrangement which had domesticated Miss 
 Gray at Eedcot continued to work admirably. 
 The children got on well with her, and were 
 fond of her. Jane enjoyed the stimulus given 
 by the neighbourhood of a kindred spirit, while 
 the two girls studied late and early in the half 
 sublime folly of youth, which is grandly spend- 
 thrift of health and strength till the day of 
 reckoning is forced upon the prodigal. Each 
 pursued her own course of reading for the Ox- 
 ford examination, comparing notes constantly 
 on the progress the other made, and feeling 
 spurred on by the comparison to attack with 
 spirit a new authority.
 
 1 88 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Mrs. Prior liked to hear how busy the young 
 people were, and to see how well and happy 
 they looked in their abundance of work. In 
 her secret mind she thought it w^as that which 
 was really of consequence, and that it did not 
 matter half so much what was the nature of the 
 work — so that it was honest — whether it was 
 shell grottos, or paper flowers, or ancient philo- 
 sophy. Everything had its place and served its 
 purpose in the great, wonderful, complicated 
 economy of the world. There was a day for 
 small things, as well as a day for great, and the 
 first was not to be despised any more than the 
 last was to be depreciated. She believed there 
 was use for her quilts, while she greatly admired 
 and respected the cleverness and depth of the 
 new generation. She could hardly find words 
 strong enough to express her satisfaction with 
 Miss Gray — such a scholar, so unaffected, un- 
 assuming, kind-hearted, so wise with the children, 
 so companionable for Jane, so little in Mr. 
 Prior's way, giving no more trouble than she
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 189 
 
 could help to the servants, such a dear young 
 friend for Mrs. Prior herself! 
 
 Even John Prior, though he took much less 
 notice of Bennet than the other members of the 
 family did, liked her and considered her, if 
 such an addition to the establishment was neces- 
 sary, in the light of an acquisition rather than a 
 detriment. Miss Gray was a little despairing 
 sometimes of her relations to the master of the 
 house. She feared that after all her vain dreams 
 she had made no way with him at all. But she 
 was partly mistaken. 
 
 Susie Crabtree was gracious and caressing 
 to the Piedcot children's governess every time 
 the two women encountered each other. At 
 the same time the popular matron tried to get 
 as much out of the teacher as she could con- 
 veniently extract, in the shape of useful hints 
 about lesson books and modes of employing 
 them for the future benefit of Molly and Piers. 
 Lambert Crabtree stared Bennet Gray out 
 of countenance with his great prominent light
 
 190 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 eyes, as he was in the habit of staring hand- 
 some young women down. He cried, ' Hey ! 
 Miss Gray, ain't you sick of grammars and 
 spelling-books, and of little sinners wading 
 through them ? Now, how many times have 
 you boxed the small Woods' ears to-day ? Tell 
 me honestly,' and sought to make game of her 
 rather more rudely than he aimed at taking ofi 
 the rest of his world. 
 
 Both husband and wife were profuse in 
 their attentions, such as they were, to Bennet 
 Gray, whom that hair-brained enthusiast and 
 learned goose Jane had taken up to such an 
 extent. She had estabhshed Miss Gray at 
 Eedcot as if she were on a perfect equality with 
 her employers, and it was a great favour on her 
 part to come and stay with them, and receive 
 her board and pocket her salary for being not 
 a quarter of the day in the schoolroom, giving 
 a few elementary lessons to the little Woods, 
 and for anything more, fooling Jane to the top 
 of her bent. But, of course, Jane would resent
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 191 
 
 furiously any interference with her paragon, 
 any attempt however desirable and gone about 
 with the greatest delicacy, to put her in her 
 proper place. It would be better if it were 
 even in old Rossiter's place. Mam-ma, who 
 deferred absurdly to Jane, had always been 
 weak in her treatment of subordinates. Susie 
 would not for the world be hard upon them — 
 on the contrary she would load them with kind- 
 ness, but it should always be kindness from the 
 mistress of the house to the retainer. Mrs. 
 Crabtree, in spite of her good-nature, disap- 
 proved entirely of professing to make the 
 governess ' one of the family ' — which could 
 never be, having her to dinner as well as to 
 luncheon, giving her the run of the drawing- 
 room when she was not professionally engaged 
 in the schoolroom — her proper place, and so 
 spoiling her for her line in life. 
 
 Both of the Crabtrees — Lambert, in his off- 
 hand fashion ; Susie, in her sugared sharpness 
 — spoke disparagingly of Miss Gray behind her
 
 192 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 back between themselves, and that all the more 
 because of Jane Prior's championship. Husband 
 and wife arrived on different grounds at the 
 same conclusion. They considered Miss Gray, 
 whom Mrs. Prior described as unaffected and 
 unassuming, very much of a humbug, and de- 
 cidedly pretentious for her circumstances. But 
 the Crabtrees did not go out of their way to 
 speak evil of their neighbours : so much might 
 be said for the couple. His vole was that of a 
 hail-fellow-well-met with everybody. She was 
 too busy with her own concerns not to forget 
 those of her fellow-creatures who did not cross 
 her path. In that case her instinct was to 
 cajole, and, if possible, win them over, never 
 roundly to abuse them. 
 
 Time was passing ; the winter had done its 
 worst, and was going — well-nigh gone. The 
 landmark of Christmas, kept very quietly at 
 Eedcot, was well rounded, and even February 
 had waned. What poets and moralists call the 
 harbingers of spring had been seen and heard.
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 193 
 
 Snowdrops, yellow balls of aconite, pale buds 
 of primroses, shrivelling up at their own au- 
 dacity, had begun to show themselves on the 
 flowerless earth. The catkins of the hazel and 
 poplar had been before the primroses. Slender, 
 erect twigs of snowberry bushes were forming 
 miniature groves all by themselves, and vieing 
 witli the thick drooping branches of the tall 
 larch trees, in bursting into vivid green. San- 
 guine crowing young cocks of blackbirds were 
 singing down the faithful robins that had piped 
 out the shortest day. 
 
 The transformation had begun in Eedcot 
 Quarry, to which John Prior still stalked, 
 stumbling a little over the stones as the season 
 wore on, and the protracted trial was telling on 
 his bodily strength. He continued to go dog- 
 gedly and by stealth to his post on the chill 
 afternoons, at the period of the year when all 
 the brightness departs with the morning, and 
 the afternoon brings at best leaden clouds and 
 cold winds. Notwithstanding that spring was 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 yet early, and four o'clock saw the sun far on 
 the decline, there was a swelhng of sap-laden 
 purple boughs and of down-tipped, glossy, 
 brown buds. An ethereal powdering of green 
 began to appear on all sides. There were stir- 
 rings and movings of reawakening plant and 
 animal life eager to be free, exultant that the 
 dispensation of death was ended and the resur- 
 rection at the door. It was already a time of 
 vague, sweet promise, which mocked a hopeless 
 man. 
 
 The most stay-at-home persons, who had 
 hugged the winter as an excuse for remaining 
 largely by the hearth, were impelled to speak 
 of extending short, uncomfortable constitutional 
 walks into long, voluntar}^, enjoyable rambles. 
 People were called on to think of excursions 
 and projects that had to do with the out-of-door 
 world, which had been laid aside and metaphori- 
 cally wrapped in cotton wool, while November 
 hid his poverty and rags in a succession of 
 white mists, and December and January alter-
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 195 
 
 nately dripped in sullen tear-drops which did 
 not even glitter in the gloom, or froze in fierce, 
 black frosts, that held the world in an iron grip. 
 Eedcot had its obligations in the fine 
 weather, and Jane. Prior had her share in these 
 obligations. They were not necessarily confined 
 to society in its ordinary claims. Neither was 
 Jane selfish in her personal tastes. She would 
 wilhngly have elevated the whole human race 
 along with herself in her striving after higher 
 issues. She did what she could. She was con- 
 tinually lending instructive ' papers ' and books 
 to the young house and table maids, even to 
 the elderly cook. There would be the difficulty 
 to get the recipients of these loans, without flat 
 tjranny, to read enlightened explanations of 
 how beds should be made and wineglasses 
 dried. Camilla and Clara had quite enough of 
 their work when they had done it. They de- 
 sired other recreation than was to be found in 
 reading about it at every spare moment. Miss 
 Prior should try how she would like if she were 
 
 2
 
 196 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 not allowed to get a change, but had to consent 
 to mattresses and washleathers being for ever 
 poked at her and dangled before her eyes ? 
 Servants had a literature of their own, which 
 was not dry and sermonising and tied down 
 to service. On the contrary, the reading in 
 Camilla's and Clara's weekly newspaper was 
 highly imaginative. It transported the readers 
 to a charmed region, in which they were not 
 doomed to herd with fellow- servants alone, 
 though they were worth a deal more than their 
 mistresses guessed. In such literature servants 
 could mix with grand ladies, to whom Miss 
 Prior, with her crony the governess, could not 
 hold the candle, and there were fine lords to 
 match the ladies. 
 
 As for Martha, the cook, she vowed that if 
 she sent up her roast joints and rabbit pies, 
 and cabinet puddings, to please the master and 
 mistress, she was not going to be worrited 
 by none of Miss Jane's printed fads about 
 baking stealing the taste from a thing, and
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 197 
 
 boilinor beinor taken at the minute, and stewin<T 
 having become a lost art. Lost indeed ! as if 
 she could not stew with an onion as well as 
 any woman in her own Buckinghamshire. 
 Had Miss Jane or her friends who printed 
 cookery ever tried their hands at boiling or 
 stewing P Well, till they did, they had better 
 let a proper cook as knew her business alone. 
 
 Jane attacked the coachman and the gar- 
 dener, but they were equally wedded to their 
 ways, and unapproachable on the scores of 
 driving and gardening. 
 
 ' Father,' said Jane, one evening at dinner, 
 ' what about the sanitation in the pits ? ' 
 
 Now, as it happened, John Prior had come 
 home that afternoon in deep depression, 
 condemned to judge from the movements of 
 the borers that the Kershaw pits and all 
 connected with them were doomed. The 
 sanitation, as Jane called it, would be of small 
 account then. The question was decidedly 
 ill-timed.
 
 198 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 ' Sanitation,' be drawled, as if a half-awake 
 stuj^idity and absence of mind contended with 
 his testiness. 'Sanitation,' he repeated, pausing 
 upon the term as if he had never heard it 
 before, and was chewing it previous to 
 digesting it ; ' what do you mean by sani- 
 tation ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, you know ; the health condition of 
 the pits,' explained Jane, staring. 
 
 ' Well, as I keep an agent, who is supposed 
 to have learnt his trade, and as it is a matter 
 of certainty that, if he and I fail, the Govern 
 ment inspector will be down upon us, I don't 
 think you need trouble your head about that,* 
 said Mr. Prior in weary sardonicalness. He 
 added to himself, as he looked into his hock 
 glass, ' You may soon have more to do. I hope 
 your lexicon and theses will put bread into 
 your mouth.' 
 
 'What made me inquire,' persisted Jane, 
 in her calm, judicial voice, utterly ignoring her 
 mother's warning glance, 'was that I heard
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 199 
 
 there was a good deal of typhoid fever at 
 Kershaw last winter/ 
 
 ' Have you only found that out at this 
 date ? ' was her father's retort. 
 
 ' Why, Jane, did you not hear,' her mother 
 interposed, ' that the doctor at the works sent 
 us word, and Martha prepared quantities of 
 kitchen stuff? I don't think we have sent such 
 supphes to the Colliers' Eows since the dreadful 
 explosion in 1867, before you can recollect.' 
 
 Jane sat convicted of not having been quite 
 aware either of what took place at the pits or 
 of what was going on in the house. She was 
 not to be let off with this exposure of her weak 
 points. ' Before you unhesitatingly associate 
 typhoid fever with pit sanitation, as you call it,' 
 remarked John Prior with a parting snarl at 
 the word, ' you had better make yourself 
 acquainted with the habits of the miners, the 
 quantity and quahty of their food and drink, 
 for instance, the manner in which they manage 
 to shirk the regulations against over-crowding
 
 200 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 their houses with lodgers, and introducing as 
 many bull-dog puppies as infants into the 
 rooms, before you throw all the blame on the 
 unlucky coal- owners. One would think that a 
 little esprit de corps might come in and help to 
 keep the balance level/ 
 
 ' I am sorry if I have appeared to reflect 
 upon your arrangements, father,' said Jane, 
 who had really a great respect for her father, 
 and was not beyond making reparation for a 
 supposed wrong done to him. At the same 
 time she was not going to give up her principles. 
 ' If the miners are more gluttonous and drunken 
 than other working men, if they live more like 
 brutes, with their amusements lower and more 
 degrading than other men's amusements, and if 
 this has been true for centuries, I am afraid the 
 proprietors have something to answer for. 
 They may not have meant to wrong the men. 
 The masters may not always have known better 
 in the past, or been able to do better them- 
 selves. Still, I cannot see how they can have
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 201 
 
 been without fault,' said Jane, with an earnest 
 desire to be fair. 
 
 Mr. Prior did not reply ; lie was sick of 
 the subject. To twit a man with the sins of the 
 coal-owners when he was on the verge of 
 having no coal to own was worse than useless 
 — it was the irony of fate. If he had ever 
 been a passive instrument in suffering a great 
 industry to grow without a corresponding 
 provision for the wants and temptations of the 
 labourers in that industry, retribution had come 
 in the shape of the withdrawal of the power, 
 and there was an end of it. 
 
 Jane's next philanthropic movement was to 
 offer, with Miss Gray's concurrence — now that 
 the weather was better, but before it had got 
 so fine as to suggest unlimited football and 
 cricket matches for the lads in the afternoons 
 and evenings — to drive over twice a week to 
 the colliery village of Kershaw on the moor, 
 to help the Eector with his classes. The Eev. 
 Herbert Haynes had exerted himself to open a
 
 202 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 kind of rough club-room for collier lads, with 
 classes for such of them as had any open or 
 smothered wish to improve themselves. But 
 Mr. Haynes was getting up in years, and had a 
 delicate wife, with neither son nor daughter 
 at home. He had many irons in the fire, and 
 he feared he must relinquish this particular 
 iron from incapacity either to wield it regularly 
 himself or to provide an available substitute in 
 his absence. Then Miss Prior came to his aid 
 and offered to go over regularly to Kershaw 
 and teach any branch within her range. She 
 was fired by the idea of hungry aspirants for 
 knowledge being turned away empty from the 
 inexhaustible stores. 
 
 Jane could not have done the thing by 
 herself, but Miss Gray was there to keep her 
 company. In addition, Mr. Haynes's parish 
 clerk, who was the secretary of the club, could 
 play the part of one of the stewards at a ball 
 — a sort of male chaperon, and help the young 
 ladies to keep order among the somewhat
 
 SPRING OBLIGATIONS AT KERSHAW 203 
 
 difficult audience. Finally, Mr. Haynes would 
 look in as often as he could to make the matter 
 still simpler and more practicable. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Prior did not make any 
 objection, even although the old phaeton had 
 to take the road twice a week, and Jane and 
 Miss Gray had to be absent from dinner on 
 these occasions. John Prior was not a full- 
 blown tyrant. There had been a time in his 
 life when he might not only have been amused 
 by the Amazonian enterprise, he might have 
 applauded it heartily. His reign was all but 
 over ; it was as well that it should close with a 
 feminine flourish of fifes rather than of 
 trumpets. He only reserved to himself the 
 right of growling and grumbling at the small 
 inconveniences to which he nevertheless sub- 
 mitted.
 
 204 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 AMATEUR LECTUEERS. 
 
 The girls did not tire soon of their self-imposed 
 task — when it came to that, one of them was 
 not an amateur ; and if the Board schoolmaster 
 was placed hors de combat by professional 
 scruples and professional fatigue, the same 
 reservation might have applied equally to 
 Bennet Gray. But Bennet had an excellent 
 gift of being interested in everything, especially 
 everything that had to do with Eedcot. She 
 extended her interest to the grimy coal-pits— 
 the gaunt shears and piston, with their relentless 
 iron clang and rattle — the boilers ostentatiously 
 puffing steam from their safety-valves. She 
 cared to see the ugly rows of colhers' houses.
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 205 
 
 which, in spite of the good wages said to be 
 spent in them, could not escape a chronic 
 sordidness. She wished to walk on the bleak 
 moor, with even its sandy vegetation blackened 
 and blighted, trodden down and strewn with 
 cinders, encumbered by heaps of rubbish, 
 intersected with rusty dwarf railways for 
 waggons, threaded with a wasteful multitude 
 of footpaths for many a yard round the pit 
 mouth. 
 
 Bennet did not shrink from the burly, 
 round-shouldered men in blue flannels, with 
 the whites of the eyes and what of the skin 
 was not coated with coal-dust acquiring a 
 ghastly and demoniacal prominence — an ejSect 
 increased by the red glimmer of the lamps in 
 the caps. She listened breathlessly to the tales 
 of subterranean life, with its dreary hardships 
 and awful dangers. She stood and tried to 
 realise to herself how the scene must have 
 looked on the occasion of the great fire-damp 
 explosion. A roar and a rumble as of thunder,
 
 2o6 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 and a shaking of the earth beneath the feet, 
 a cloud of smoke and dust rising from the pit, 
 a frantic whirhng round of the pit gear, 
 followed by a sudden standstill of the ma- 
 chinery as when a clock or a watch that has 
 been recklessly wound up in the agitation of 
 the moment, snaps and stops ominously in the 
 chamber of death. Bennet could almost fancy 
 she heard the rush to the cottage doors, the 
 sobbing wail of women's voices taken up 
 and prolonged, the wildly irregular, feeble 
 patter of the feet of the wives and mothers, 
 hurrying dehriously beyond their strength to 
 know the worst of the tragedy. 
 
 The experiment in which Jane Prior and 
 Miss Gray took part was fairly successful. 
 The half-grown lads, however uncouth and 
 unruly to their schoolmaster, did not refuse 
 to be amenable to the daughter of the owner 
 of the pits and the other fine young madam, 
 whom at the same time her pupils addressed, 
 in an unvarnished fashion that ought to have
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 207 
 
 done good to the hearts of reformers in 
 education, as ' Schoolmistress.' The drawback 
 was the dense atmosphere of bashfulness that 
 surrounded the scholars. In vain Jane Prior 
 spread out her geographical maps and hung up 
 her physiological diagrams, and gave admi- 
 rably succinct yet comprehensive explanations. 
 They were nought against the intangible 
 barrier. 
 
 Miss Gray followed suit with further lectures, 
 not quite so clear and cuttingly concise perhaps, 
 but in some respects more interesting in their 
 picturesque discursiveness. Neither did she 
 break through the thick mist of clumsy self- 
 consciousness, overpowering false shame, and 
 abject dread of ridicule. 
 
 If the courageous young lecturers dreamed 
 of anything in the nature of an observation, 
 whether acquiescent or dissentient, from the 
 rude human material they had to work upon, 
 any faintest ghost of a question or an objection 
 to indicate that the audience heard or attended
 
 2o8 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 to the words spoken, then the rash dreamers 
 found themselves very much mistaken. 
 
 The girls were considerably daunted by 
 their failure to elicit a spark from the cold iron 
 on which they hammered with all their might. 
 At last it struck Bennet, who was the more 
 original, the more visited by inspiration of the 
 two, to appeal to individual curiosity, ' Have 
 none of you relations abroad that you would 
 like to hear about ? ' she asked anxiously. 
 
 A slight sensation followed the speech. One 
 youth was more moved than the rest. Possibly 
 the renown of spiritualism with grotesque varia 
 tions had travelled even to Kershaw Moor, and 
 a display of it was expected, enough to provoke 
 any amount of nudges and grins, for there was 
 no lack of hard-headedness among the sons of 
 the soil. 
 
 With a convulsion of the shoulders — already 
 brawny and already bowed — and a contortion 
 of his face, Jim Ashe gave utterance to an ad- 
 mission in a sepulchral whisper that he had an
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 209 
 
 uncle and cousins in Ameriky. Barty Noakes, 
 yonder, had brothers in New Zealand ; Bill 
 Tummas, he weren't sure, for it were afore his 
 day, that his mother — as had married again a 
 sodger, hadn't gone with the regiment to Eoosia, 
 where the wars was, and stayed there after her 
 second man was killed. 
 
 ' Well, wouldn't you like to hear what the 
 places are like where your friends are ? then 
 those at home can understand better any letters 
 that come, and have a more correct guess what 
 the absent people are doing,' suggested Bennet, 
 insinuatingly. 
 
 There were one or two slow nods and well- 
 nigh inaudible ' Ay, surelys ' to the teachers, as 
 well as sundry nudges — approving, critical, or 
 derisive — among the taught, in reply to this 
 offer, and Jane and Bennet threw themselves 
 once more into the undertaking, and renewed 
 their expositions with fresh zest. 
 
 The thin wedge was inserted. The big 
 boys were roused to care a little for what they 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 were hearing — to forget who were speaking, 
 and even who were hstening. Somebody w^as 
 induced to come up and look at the spot on the 
 map that all the talking was about, and three or 
 four others, with shuffling feet, crowded after 
 their companion, sheeplike, to gain the same 
 advantage. 
 
 Some other body cried, half under his 
 breath, ' By Golly ! ' when he heard of the vir- 
 gin corn, the wild turkeys, the sheep runs, the 
 cherries which grow stone outwards. It was 
 not an elegant expression, it had even a flavour 
 of profanity, but there was a certain satisfaction 
 in it, as showing pleased wonder in place of 
 stolid indifference. 
 
 Matters progressed till Jim Ashe was not 
 above rehearsing the number of his bones, and 
 candidly confessing he never knowed he had 
 such a many or such heaps of sinews — for all 
 the world like sticks strung up in a faggot. 
 And Bill Tummas was brought to believe by 
 the aid of the glasses in a telescope that he saw
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 211 
 
 with the back of his eyes as well as with the 
 front — in fact, it was the picture on the back 
 that did it. 
 
 Then all at once the lecturers made an as- 
 tounding discovery. There was one phlegmatic 
 young miner who had hstened to everything 
 and said nothing, that knew all about it before- 
 hand. He was as full-fledged an impostor as 
 any prisoner in jail who is a dexterous penman, 
 but gets rid of some of the tedium of his incar- 
 ceration and curries favour with the chaplain 
 by the rogue's putting his tongue in his cheek, 
 and beguiling the worthy man to toil on in the 
 pleasing delusion that he is inducting a promis- 
 ing scholar into the mystery of pot-hooks. This 
 collier of the future happened to have brains — 
 he could read, he had devoured all the printed 
 matter he could come across, and having once 
 had the chance to break his leg in the discharge 
 of his duties, and to be supported at Mr. Prior's 
 expense for seven or eight weeks, he had even 
 enjoyed a little leisure for the improvement of 
 
 p 2
 
 212 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 his mind. As he was regarded somewhat in 
 the light of a monster and a deserter from the 
 traditions of his class by his companions, he 
 might be forgiven for hiding his talent in a 
 napkin. His betrayal was purely accidental. 
 Miss Gray had let her thoughts get entangled 
 in the net-work of veins and arteries on the 
 diagram before her, and was on the point of 
 tripping, when she was caught up from an 
 unexpected quarter. 'Nay, schoolmistress,' 
 burst out the pedant, ' T' blude runs t'other 
 way.' 
 
 It was as when Brutus spoke with the voice 
 of a man. Jane, who had little or no sense of 
 humour, simply stared. Bennet tittered in a 
 spasmodic effort to restrain a peal of laughter. 
 ' Hear till him ! ' cried the rest of the class ex- 
 citedly ; ' hear till Noah King having the 
 imperence to fault schoolmistress — set him up ! 
 Though he do know a thing or two, he's none 
 such a scholard as that comes to. Turn him 
 out ! turn him out ! '
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 213 
 
 ' But he is right, and I am wrong/ cried 
 Bennet, in horror lest condign punishment 
 should be inflicted on the modern Gahleo before 
 her face. ' It is I and not he who deserve to 
 be punished, only I'm sure you'll excuse a slip 
 of the tongue, and let me say that I'm exceed- 
 ingly obUged to Noah King for correcting my 
 mistake. He does credit to his teacher,' she 
 added enviously, with a recollection of the next 
 to futile labours of the last few weeks. 
 
 Jane had recovered herself. She had a turn 
 for organising and economising power. ' Noah 
 King,' she said, ' you take the foot of the class, 
 and if nobody else can answer, you put what 
 you know into your own words, and it will 
 save us from saying it over again.' The device 
 answered, and the station allotted to Noah for- 
 bade jealousy. 
 
 The class increased instead of diminishing, 
 and admission to it was actually coveted. In 
 proof of it, the first lad who had spoken out to 
 the ladies, confided to them that he knew of
 
 214 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 another chap who would come to the club-room 
 if he knew what to do with his ' babby ' in his 
 absence. He was a young widower, who had 
 neither mother nor sister, while his late wife had 
 come from a distance, and had no relations in the 
 place. He lived alone, save for the child, in a 
 cottage a quarter of a mile off. He was accus- 
 tomed to bring the child every morning, and 
 leave it for the hours he was in the pit with 
 one of the women in the nearest row. But he 
 took the ' babby ' home with him, and if he came 
 to the class, which was not held in a house in 
 one of the rows, but in a building fitted up for 
 the purpose, standing midway between the 
 Eectory and the works, he would either have to 
 lock up the child alone in the cottage, or to 
 walk a considerable distance out of his way — 
 both coming and going — to fetch the little girl 
 to and from the particular row. ' Joe thinks,' 
 his ambassador ventured to propose, ' that if he 
 were let bring the babby here, as is a good 
 wench going three, he could keep her main
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 2r5 
 
 % 
 
 quiet, for she would sleep like a top the most 
 of the time.' 
 
 It was a puzzling proposal for those who 
 were cultivating popularity, and aiming hard at 
 giving satisfaction. ' I think I know who " Joe " 
 is,' said Jane Prior, aside in consultation. ' He 
 is not much older than the rest, though he has 
 been married and has a baby. Mr. Haynes 
 spoke of him at the time the lad's wife — the 
 merest girl — died. My brother used to know 
 the husband, and have him to go with him, 
 Jack, across the moor to shoot snipes and 
 plovers. The colher boy was acquainted with 
 all the birds' haunts, though it might not have 
 been wise to encourage the acquaintance. Some 
 of the colliers are the most desperate poachers 
 in this part of the country. They have cost my 
 father no end of trouble as a landlord and 
 Justice of the Peace.' 
 
 ' Do they poach on Mr. Prior's land ? ' 
 ' Xo ; but it was not pleasant to have his 
 own men brought up before him and his fellow-
 
 2i6 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Justices. He could not help saying a word in 
 the culprit's favour, because of the relations 
 between them, which made them look to him 
 to help them, though he threatened every time 
 he would never do it again. However, I dare- 
 say you have learned by this time my father's 
 bark is worse than his bite. Another thing, he 
 was alive to the deprivations of the men in 
 their underground life.' 
 
 ' No doubt your brother would use the same 
 argument in taking this Joe to shoot with 
 him,' said Miss Gray, a httle formally and 
 stupidly. 
 
 ^ No,' said Jane, with a droop of the corners 
 of her mouth. ' My brother would not want 
 an argument if he liked the lad, and he had a 
 fancy for him. Jack — my brother — went down 
 the pits in the same cage, and he believed that 
 once when his inexperience brought him into 
 some kind of danger Joe Jones's presence of 
 mind and fidelity to his charge saved him from 
 the painful consequences.'
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 217 
 
 ' Don't you think we might have the child ? ' 
 Bennet began to plead, pressing her hands to- 
 gether with nervous eagerness, according to a 
 trick she had. ' If we refused, it would seem 
 so disoblioinof and unrelaxino^, and make such a 
 bad impression. Surely among so many grown- 
 up people the little thing might be nursed, sat 
 upon, suppressed. Certainly it is not good for 
 her to be out late, but I am afraid that must 
 often happen. Think of a little child like that 
 having nobody to care for her save her father, 
 and he quite a young fellow ! ' 
 
 Joe Jones, a thin pale-faced lad — preterna- 
 turally thoughtful and careworn, was suffered 
 to bring his child — sickly, and ill got-up in its 
 faded cotton frock and an old washed-out shawl 
 of its mother's. It was withheld from screaming, 
 but seemed always on the brink of the perform- 
 ance, as it sat up with wide open blinking eyes, 
 which it refused to close, even for the forty 
 winks granted to its elders. Joe was distressed, 
 and everybody else was on the alert and dis-
 
 2i8 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 tracted from the business of the hour. Miss 
 Prior looked put out. The elderly parish clerk, 
 who was a bachelor, and had never approved 
 of the incongruous introduction of that young 
 fool Joe Jones's bantling, appeared still more 
 shaken. More than one of the remaining oc- 
 cupants of the room showed symptoms of re- 
 cantation and secession, and of a mean triumph 
 in the flooring of their teachers. 
 
 Bennet Gray asked if the child might be 
 tried with her. She could speak with it in her 
 lap when her turn came, if her hearers would 
 not mind. She thought she could put the baby 
 girl to sleep. 
 
 Joe, who was a modest lad, still more 
 sobered down by circumstances, felt horrified 
 at the trouble he was causing, and reluctantly 
 consented to impose his burden, which was, 
 nevertheless, precious to him, upon another. 
 
 Bennet was awkward, to begin with, in the 
 task she had undertaken. She had not been
 
 AMATEUR LECTURERS 219 
 
 accustomed to very yoimg children. But she 
 acted upon her womanly instincts. She cuddled 
 up the creature in her arms, and bent her lovely, 
 kind face over it. The shriek with which small 
 Nancy Jones was about to testify her violent 
 dislike to being transferred from her father's 
 arms to those of a stranger died away on the 
 child's lips. Her round eyes opened yet wider 
 at the new face presented to them ; her mouth 
 formed itself into a Hhree-cornered smile of 
 bhss,' while the crystal tears were still hanging 
 on her eye-lashes. She consented to look at the 
 glorious, glittering, yellow face of Bennet's watch, 
 produced for the little woman's edification, and 
 to hearken to the ' tick, tick ' of the extraor- 
 dinary thing. She leant back, overcome by the 
 combination of marvels, took to meditating 
 upon them, while she sucked her thumb a la 
 Molly Crabtree, and in five minutes was fast 
 asleep. 
 
 ' Weel done, schoolmistress,* grunted one of
 
 220 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the lads who had watched the feat, and his un- 
 varnished applause met with a general echo. 
 The supremacy of the promoters of the higher 
 education of mining youth was re-estabhshed on 
 a firmer basis than before.
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 VISITORS — MAT CEABTREE, OP HAYBRIDGE, REMEM- 
 BERS A BERKSHIRE MISS GRAY. 
 
 Susie Crabtree, who liked to have a finger in 
 every pie, contrived to look in on these evening 
 classes at Kershaw. She came by herself just 
 for a few minutes, to see what was going on. 
 She won her way out to dinner at a neighbour- 
 ing country house, where she would leave 
 Lambert Crabtree to play cards till the small 
 hours, and sleep till his horse should arrive in 
 time to take him back for a meeting of the 
 bank partners. Such irregularities in his habits 
 were not unusual in the Newton banker, who 
 was supposed to have picked them up in his 
 jovial bachelor days. Mrs. Crabtree had earned
 
 222 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 a reputation for true womanly wisdom in not 
 coming down too hard on practices which she 
 could not pluck up in a day, if they were ever 
 to be thoroughly eradicated. That pretty little 
 fine lady, who had an agreeable word for every- 
 body, and was not above claiming a neighbour's 
 help, and taking a tribute of homage from him 
 — whoever he might be, knew what she was 
 about. Yes, indeed, she knew a great deal 
 better than your puritanically plain, tremend- 
 ously sensible, and overpoweringly good madam, 
 who would drive a man to distraction by the 
 height of her virtue, and her rigorous out-and- 
 out obedience to its demands. 
 
 Mrs. Crabtree threw off her fur cloak as 
 she entered the young colliers' class-room, and 
 beamed on the Cahbans within, in what was to 
 them the splendour of her lace gown, with the 
 square bodice cut low in front to show the 
 dazzle of her ivory-white neck, and the sleeves 
 only coming to the elbows, leaving the round 
 arms free except for the coils of bracelets. She
 
 VISITORS 223 
 
 wore strings of soft gleaming pearls in her hair 
 and round her throat, and had pearls and rubies 
 to match and relieve each other at her wrists 
 and in the rings on her fingers. 
 
 The lads sat more open-eyed and open- 
 mouthed than Nancy Jones, as the vision flashed 
 upon them. Some of them smiled sillily, as 
 when a dog hcks his hps and wags his tail at a 
 treasure utterly beyond his reach. One or two 
 — among them the heavy lad who knew the 
 machinery of his body, gloomed sulkily, and 
 after the first broad stare looked another way. 
 They would have said, if they could — "We 
 won't stand being mocked. We are beginning 
 to know whose sweat pays for all these grand 
 rags, oyster spawn, bits of red glass, and all ; 
 who has to be content with bare bread, or 
 to be grudged beefsteaks and pots of porter 
 when we are dizzy with the darkness and faint 
 with the foul air of the pits, and our arms fall 
 to our sides with the weariness of hewing, while 
 you strut and sail in your bravery, for which
 
 224 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 you never worked a hand's turn. But why 
 bring it here to sicken and madden us with the 
 sight, when some of your kind were doing a 
 poor bit of good, and almost tempting us to be- 
 lieve you cared for raising us to your level, and 
 making us men and not simply beasts of burden, 
 drudges, and slaves ? ' 
 
 There were fierce rising democrats and de- 
 magogues among the young bears of the Ker- 
 shaw pits, as among the young bears elsewhere 
 throughout the country. 
 
 Lecturers and lectured were nowhere during 
 the few minutes the spectacle lasted and the 
 play was played. If anyone had thought of 
 the business of the evening Susie would not 
 have suffered the thought to pass into action. 
 She had her own part to perform, and she was 
 convinced of its merit and popularity. She 
 glanced round at the maps and diagrams, gave 
 them the customary sweet praise — a little 
 fainter than usual — and perpetrated a few 
 smart jokes, which shone with a lustre not the
 
 VISITORS 225 
 
 less damaging that it was borrowed, at tlie 
 expense of the solid motive of the meeting. 
 She spoke to one or two of the lads without 
 further abashing them by waiting for an answer. 
 She pitied them with an expressive little shrug 
 for having to come out in the evening in the 
 dry pursuit of knowledge after the fatigue of 
 the day. She asked if they would not like 
 games better, but when told by her sister that 
 there were the materials for such games as 
 draughts, backgammon, dominoes, in the ad- 
 joining room on other evenings in the week, 
 paid no attention to the information. Susie 
 contented herself with wondering why the com- 
 mittee (there was no committee) did not get up 
 concerts instead of playing at keeping school ? 
 The latter suggestion was in the face of Mrs. 
 Crabtree's knowledge that Jane Prior was not 
 musical and that Miss Gray could not be ex- 
 pected to play and sing through a programme 
 — even if she had the assistance provided by 
 the performance of ' that divine sonata of 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Beethoven's you know, dear,' or ' that enchant- 
 inor morsel of Schubert's,' which the critic 
 would volunteer to supply. On the other hand, 
 such of the boys as had musical capacities were 
 being trained into a choir elsewhere, while 
 to supplement the training 'here would be to 
 relinquish in a great measure the purpose of 
 the gathering, with Mr. Haynes's plans on 
 .behalf of this portion of his parishioners. But 
 Susie cared for none of these things. 
 
 Mrs. Crabtree's last idea was to recall the 
 fact that the Cowpath Eaces — the rowdiest 
 races far and near — the existence of which 
 every master with a scrap even of utilitarian 
 conscience, regretted for his men, would be 
 held in the course of a fortnight. She men- 
 tioned these races, and supposed, with an arch 
 nod, the lads would all be there. 
 
 No, none of them was to get up on her 
 account, Susie said, as she moved to go — a 
 prohibition which had the effect of causing 
 all the youths, including the incensed authority
 
 VISITORS 227 
 
 ou the circulation of the blood, to stumble to 
 their feet. Well, if they would do it, she would 
 take just one of them. She fixed on the worst 
 hid there, who was also an imposing-looking, 
 swarthy young giant, to see her out and open 
 the carriage door for her. 
 
 The selected escort blushed up and grinned 
 in triumph, wliile his companions glared at him 
 enviously. 
 
 ' She is not to come here again,' Jane, who 
 was much • disturbed, vowed to her coadjutor. 
 ' Do you see how she has unsettled the class P 
 It is horrid to say it of one's sister — I suppose 
 she cannot help it — but Susie's manner to all 
 men — great and small, old and young, has 
 always something of flirtation in it. I hate it,' 
 muttered honest Jane, ' it makes me feel so 
 ashamed.' 
 
 If Jane had followed Mrs. Orabtree to the 
 door she w^ould have seen her encounter Mr. 
 Haynes, and work upon the exemplary, but 
 slightly grumpy, elderly clergyman witli her 
 
 q2
 
 228 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 blandishments. She dropped her bewildered 
 colher escort with a gracious nod, and ap- 
 pealed to Mr. Haynes for his convoy. She 
 kept him standing bareheaded, with his pepper- 
 and-salt hair blowing in the cold spring wind, 
 for five minutes, though she had prefaced her 
 conversation with the dutiful announcement 
 that she could not keep her husband waiting, 
 and it was that wifely consideration which 
 opened another husband's heart. She 
 wreathed her charming face in smiles. She 
 paid her companion pretty humble compli- 
 ments on his good offices in general, and this 
 class-room for the pit boys in particular. 
 As her father's daughter, she begged to ofier 
 Mr. Haynes the small return of her heartfelt 
 thanks. 
 
 And Mr. Haynes was deeply touched by 
 Mrs. Crabtree's condescension and sympathy in 
 paying this flying visit, and doing so much 
 mischief within its flight. He had barely 
 thanked Jane Prior and Bennet Gray for their
 
 VISITORS 229 
 
 punctual appearance two nights a-week, and 
 for all their labour and pains. He had made 
 them feel, for their good, no doubt, that the 
 help they gave was no more than their duty. 
 He had groaned audibly, and shown himself 
 sternly disinclined to let Jane off from her task, 
 when the cold in her head, which still dis- 
 figured her even when it was going off, was at 
 its worst, and Mrs. Prior positively forbade her 
 daughter to expose herself to the evening air. 
 He had not concealed the fact that single 
 women by no means ranked with married 
 women in his estimation. Neither had he 
 hidden his impression that the former made too 
 much of their trifling ailments. Before the 
 culprits claimed indulgence on such pleas the 
 maidens ought to be matrons accountable to 
 husbands for the complainants' health and well- 
 being. Then the case was entirely altered. 
 For if a clergywoman, for instance, was out of 
 health or was doing too much for her own 
 peace of mind, it interfered seriously with the
 
 230 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 comfort of her lord and master, besides harrow- 
 ing his conjugal feelings. 
 
 Mrs. Crabtree was not the only visitor at 
 the Kershaw class-room, though visitors as a 
 rule were prohibited. 
 
 Mr. Haynes vindicated his right to break 
 through the rules which he himself had laid 
 down, by bringing in with him one evening, 
 just as the work was over, a big man in the 
 prime of life, whom Miss Gray guessed, by 
 what she had heard, and by the first words 
 said, to be Mr. Crabtree, of Hay bridge, 
 Lambert Crabtree's elder brother. 
 
 Mat Crabtree was a curious commentary on 
 the assertion that all our vices are only virtues 
 which have run riot and grown corrupted. 
 The hereditary traits which he shared in com- 
 mon with Lambert, were marked, and it would 
 have been difficult not to recognise the two men 
 as brothers, but while Bennet Gray detested 
 the one with only a civil veil thrown over the 
 detestation, she felt as if without any prompt-
 
 VISITORS 231 
 
 ing, she could like the other. He was all that 
 Lambert pretended to be, and was all that he 
 might have been if rank tares had not grown 
 up and choked the wheat of his better nature. 
 
 Mat Crab tree was the elder born — the 
 squire ; while the banker who had succeeded 
 to the more profitable inheritance, and made 
 the most of it, and was, to all appearance, the 
 richer man, could only be squirish in his 
 tendencies, and ape the country gentlemen 
 whose bearing and surroundings were the 
 objects of his ambition. It was quite lately 
 that he had tacked Ladslove to his name in 
 reference to the transaction by which he had 
 secured the small farm to the bank, and 
 managed afterwards to change it into a private 
 possession. 
 
 Lambert Crab tree's bulk and floridness, 
 which were coarse and would soon be gross, 
 unwieldy, and rubicund, in Mat Crab tree 
 w^ould never be anything more than the be- 
 coming, slight portliness and rosincss, for his
 
 232 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 constitution and years, of a temperate man 
 who would keep himself in training up to old 
 age by the hard exercise which he loved. 
 Where Lambert was bragging and bullying in 
 his bluffness, Mat was only frank and cordial. 
 Mat, too, was fond of field sports, but his fond- 
 ness for hunting and shooting, like his fondness 
 for farming, had been qualified and dignified 
 by the reputation for scholarship which he had 
 brought with him from the university, and still 
 retained, not without reason, after more than 
 twenty years' retirement at Haybridge. Mat 
 w^as also given to rallying his neighbours — 
 above all, Jane Prior. He had known her 
 from her childhood, and especially from the 
 time of his brother's marriage. She had con- 
 tinued a standing wonder to him, which he had 
 contemplated with a mixture of admiration and 
 amusement. But Mat's rallying attitude w^as 
 by no means the sole attitude of his mind 
 towards any human being ; it was that of a 
 man of good sense and good feeling who
 
 VISITORS 233 
 
 respects liis neighbour as he respects hhnself. 
 The raillery was seldom ill-timed, and, though 
 it provoked Jane, and was apt to cause her to 
 treat the offender with lofty disdain, the provo- 
 cation was rather due to the lack of humour in 
 the woman, which in itself tickled Mat Crab- 
 tree, than to any real ground of complaint on 
 her part. For he was with most people the 
 well- liked man who could, almost without try- 
 ing it, influence his fellows, which Lambert 
 souglit to be, only partially succeeding in the 
 attempt. 
 
 There was one tiling in which Lambert 
 Crabtree had the advantage over Mat, if it 
 could be called an advantage. The younger 
 brother, at the age of forty-three, put in claims 
 to a jaunty perennial form of youthfulness, 
 which the elder at forty-five had long left 
 behind him. Lambert was a gay, scarcely 
 sobered down Benedict, after eight years' ex- 
 perience of the character. Mat only two years 
 older, hale and active in his prime, was reckoned
 
 234 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 by himself and by others who took him at his 
 own reckoning as a confirmed rustic student 
 and bachelor, fairly buried among his fields 
 and books. 
 
 The marriage of Lambert Crabtree to Susie 
 Prior had forged a strong link between Mat 
 Crabtree and the Priors in spite of various 
 obstacles. In the first place, Lambert was by 
 no means a popular son and brother-in-law. 
 In the second, the brothers did not see much 
 of each other, and, notwithstanding the cari- 
 catured likeness between them, had grown to 
 differ more widely than they agreed. In the 
 third, Haybridge was farther from Eedcot than 
 Newton w^as, and there had not been the 
 apology of actual relationship for compelling 
 intercourse between the families, which Susie 
 and her children supplied. 
 
 Still, by dint of natural afhnity, Mat Grab- 
 tree had been in the habit till lately of coming 
 more frequently and familiarly to the Priors 
 than his brother* had ever done, save during
 
 VISITORS 235 
 
 the short period of his courtship. But since 
 Bennet Gray's stay at Eeclcot, Mr. Crabtree of 
 Hay bridge had been so keenly ahve to the 
 barrier erected by Lambert Crabtree's behavi- 
 our with regard to the minerals on Ladslove, 
 that he had refrained from intruding under 
 John Prior's roof. As time wore on, how^- 
 ever, and Lambert continued foiled, Mat be- 
 came glad of an excuse to overleap the barrier. 
 He had been on his way with an errand to 
 Eedcot, when, having occasion to call at Ker- 
 shaw Eectory in passing, he was told by Mr. 
 Haynes that Miss Prior and the young lady w^ho 
 w^as governess to the little Woods were at that 
 moment in the collier lads' class-room. 
 
 ' Why, what are they doing there ? ' the 
 visitor asked. ' Let us have a look,' was the 
 next idea. ' It will save me the trouble of 
 going on to Eedcot if Miss Prior will take my 
 message.' 
 
 Then the two gentlemen presented them- 
 selves in time to see the ladies preparing to
 
 236 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 start Had Mr. Haynes and his companion 
 come earlier, no doubt Jane would have 
 limited her recognition of their presence to a 
 grave salutation, and would have gone on 
 steadily, though it might be a little stiffly, 
 with what she was saying, calling on Miss 
 Gray to follow suit. And Bennet might have 
 complied after a struggle, for she held herself 
 as under orders ; but though she ought to 
 have been the more hardened of the two 
 to the ordeal, she was glad to be spared 
 it. 
 
 ' It is bad enough to go off the lines to the 
 boys,' she thought, doing her thinking, as will 
 be readily observed, in a scandalously slangy 
 manner, ' but it w^ould have been terrible to 
 have had my " Outlines of Animal Physiology " 
 gauged by a stranger who may be an inspector 
 of schools, though I believe he is Mr. Crabtree, 
 of Haybridge, a university man and a scholar, 
 which is not much better.' 
 
 So Miss Gray listened with pleasure to the
 
 VISITORS 237 
 
 clatter of the heavy boots of the pupils as they 
 dismissed themselves. 
 
 In the meantime Mat Crab tree was shaking 
 hands with Jane Prior, and telling her plea- 
 santly, ' I am glad to see you so well employed, 
 Jane, giving what you have received.' At that 
 moment a twinkle came into his clear blue eyes 
 — nearer the sky in colour than the steel tint 
 of Jane's eyes allowed hers to be. ' What is 
 it you are imparting to the young colhers ? ' he 
 inquired. ' You are not boldly cutting to the 
 bone at once, and introducing their inquiring 
 spirits into the very heart of mysteries ? It is 
 not Hegel ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Jane, ' but I'll not tell you. I 
 know you think I am as incapable of com- 
 prehending the simplest system of philosophy 
 as the most ignorant lad among them.' 
 
 ' I never said so, and the gratuitous remark 
 is the more unkind, since I was just going to 
 ask you why you sent back the last parcel 
 of books without naming any more you
 
 238 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 wanted, so that I did not know whether it 
 ought to be Berkeley, or Spinoza, or Spencer.' 
 
 ' Thanks,' said Jane, a httle molUfied ; ' I'll 
 write when I wish more ; but, in the mean- 
 time, I am tryiug to master a httle political 
 economy. Of course, I went through Adam 
 Smith and Bentham before, and now I am 
 busy with Eicardo and Mill.' 
 
 ' I wish you joy ; indeed I do. Why should 
 you doubt me.^ You like close reasoning, and 
 if it is sometimes in a circle, and proves nothing 
 save to the man's own satisfaction, I suppose it 
 must be so, since man does not live by reason- 
 ing alone. Are you going to take Carlyle and 
 Euskin by way of antidote .^ ' 
 
 ' Not just now,' said Jane, treating the 
 speech literally, and answering with reserve ; 
 ' I have a purpose in view. I am not read- 
 ing for mere amusement.' 
 
 ' I should think not, though you are capable 
 of it,' declared Mat Crabtree, with a marvelhng 
 diverted laugh. ' But I say, Jane, will you save
 
 VISITORS 239 
 
 your father and mother from being bothered 
 with my company so late? Besides, I ought 
 to be at home looking over some accounts — 
 my domestic against your political economy. 
 I was coming over to tell you that Susie and 
 the children are to spend Thursday at Hay- 
 bridge. You know they were prevented from 
 driving over at Christmas because Molly had 
 a cold, and there was a suspicious case of illness 
 at the offices which might have turned out 
 measles. But all that is set to rights,- and 
 there are a few crocuses in the garden and 
 lambs in the meadow by this time. Will 
 the whole of you, or any of you, do me the 
 favour of joining us, and making the day less 
 tiresome for Susie ? I think I can promise you 
 that my housekeeper's resources will be equal 
 to the occasion — at least, that you will not be 
 starved though you may have to put up with a 
 little roughness in a bachelor's quarters.' 
 
 ' You do not need to offer a pledge for the 
 hospitality of Haybridge,' said Jane, as to a
 
 240 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 man who was wasting idly modest professions. 
 ' You are very kind, but I cannot speak for 
 my father and mother, or even for myself, in 
 accepting your invitation till I see them.' 
 
 Mat Crabtree was ready to grant this. 
 ' But you will mention the matter and send 
 me word. To tell the truth,' he admitted, ' I 
 do not depend upon Mr. and Mrs. Prior. It 
 is not W'Orth their while, especially at this 
 season. But I thought you might come and 
 meet - your sister and bring over the httle 
 Woods to have a game with their cousins. 
 By the way,' in an undertone, 'is not that 
 their governess, the young lady wlio has come 
 to stay with you at Eedcot since I saw you 
 last? Will you introduce me? I shall be 
 delighted if you will bring her also.' 
 
 ' You can tell her so yourself,' said Jane, 
 turning round and moving a couple of yards 
 towards Bennet. 
 
 ' Mr. Crabtree, of Haybridge, wishes to be 
 introduced to you, Miss Gray.'
 
 VISITORS 241 
 
 Bennet Gray smiled and bowed, and stood 
 unconscious and untroubled, waiting for some- 
 thing to be said by Mr. Crabtree, as the next 
 step in making her acqi^aintance. 
 
 ' I'm glad to meet you. Miss Gray,' said 
 Mat Crabtree naturally and cordially ; then 
 he lifted his eyebrows with a slight involun- 
 tary motion, and looked a little — -just a little 
 — confused. He was short-sighted, and could 
 not always trust the evidence of liis eyes, but 
 on the other hand he was observant and 
 quick in recalling faces, which he seldom 
 forgot. 
 
 Mat Crabtree had a habit which was also 
 his brother's, and which Lambert traded upon — 
 of speaking out what came into his mind. 
 As Mat blinked for a second and looked again 
 at Bennet, he said, with some abruptness, 
 ' Have I not had the pleasure of seeing you 
 before, Miss Gray — once, indeed, more than 
 once, though we were not introduced, down 
 in Berkshire ? ' 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 242 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 At the very first words of the question, 
 Bennet gave a startled glance back at the 
 questioner, and the tell-tale blood flew in 
 vivid crimson over her face ; then, as she 
 turned away her eyes, the blood ebbed, and 
 she grew very pale in marked contrast to her 
 usually bright colour. 'The pleasure was 
 not mutual,' she said, with some hesitation ;' 
 ' I never saw you before, either in Berkshire 
 or anywhere else.' 
 
 ' No .P ' he exclaimed, in the next thing 
 to blunt incredulity. ' But you have been in 
 Berkshire ? You are the Berkshire Miss Gray ? 
 Your face and figure are not so common — 
 pardon me — as to mislead anybody. I almost 
 think I could stake my life that you are the 
 young lady who was pointed out to me in 
 the cricket field at Barleigh, whom I after- 
 wards saw at church sitting opposite me during 
 the service ; though I never spoke to her,' he 
 protested smiling. He was thrown off his 
 guard by the puzzle of the situation. He
 
 VISITORS 243 
 
 was rendered blind to the embarrassment lie 
 was causing by the excitement of a man who 
 Is not accustomed to be found wrong on one 
 point, who is spurred on to vindicate to him- 
 self the correctness of his powers of observa- 
 tion. 
 
 ' If Miss Gray's is not a common face, Gray 
 is a common name,' interposed Jane, drawn 
 out of herself by noticing the vexation increas- 
 ing to distress on her friend's part, occasioned 
 by Mat Crabtree's odd insistance. Jane did 
 not in the least understand it. As a rule she 
 was careless of such contretemps in society. 
 But when her attention was arrested, as in 
 the present case, her esprit de corps and her 
 friendship were alike up in arms. What 
 earthly riglit had one person to dispute 
 another's identity ? What conceivable excuse 
 could a man urge for questioning and con- 
 tradicting a woman on a point which she 
 must know best ? It was too unreasonable 
 and absurd. She had thought Mat Crab tree
 
 244 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 had sense and taste, that he was not like his 
 brother except in externals. She was disap- 
 pointed in him. She would not have Miss 
 Gray put out — though it was hard to say 
 why she should be put out by such utter 
 nonsense. 
 
 ' Yes,' Bennet was saying in rather a low 
 tone, exhibiting to the full the awkwardness 
 which a person naturally straightforward is apt 
 to betray when he or she is driven into a corner, 
 and is about to be guilty of an equivocation. 
 She had failed to reply to the appeal as to 
 whether she had not been in Berkshire, and 
 the rest of her reply was thoroughly ambiguous. 
 ' There may be many Miss Grays even in Berk- 
 shire.' 
 
 ' Well, I cannot make it out,' asserted Mr. 
 Crabtree, in reference to a matter which he had 
 no business to make out, which, if he had not 
 been an honourable, unsuspicious gentleman in 
 the middle of his husbandry and philosophy, 
 he might have dropped as if it had been a
 
 VISITORS 245 
 
 serpent or a live coal, on the first hint. 
 ' Then you were not the niece to Josh Gray, 
 of Chancery Lane ? ' 
 
 ' I had no uncle Josh Gray,' said Bennet, 
 as stiffly and laconically as if her tongue was 
 frozen. 
 
 ' I am sorry to hear it,' declared the incor- 
 rigible inquisitor. ' It would have been a very 
 good thing for you if you had. That Miss 
 Gray, Josh Gray's niece, must have come 
 into ' 
 
 He was stopped by Bennet Gray's calling as 
 if in an extremity of apprehension — 'Oh, Mr. 
 Haynes, icill you kindly shut the door ? The 
 draught is dreadful.' 
 
 ' I hope you have not caught cold next, Miss 
 Gray,' said Mr. Haynes with a shade of irrit- 
 ability in his voice as he turned from a book 
 kept to show the average attendance of the 
 class, which he had been carefully examining. 
 He hated to hear people cough, especially when 
 they were his curates or teachers or Eible
 
 246 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 women. It was a sign of impending trouble, 
 and it always sounded like a reproach to him- 
 self. Mrs. Crabtree might have coughed as 
 much as she chose ; she was accountable to 
 none save her husband. But the rector's sub- 
 ordinates were answerable to him, while he, in 
 his turn, was answerable for them. 'Young 
 ladies are so careless about draughts, and wraps, 
 and ordinary precautions against illness,' he 
 said aloud, quite plaintively. 
 
 ' You should not condemn us wholesale, Mr. 
 Haynes,' Jane felt bound to remonstrate, hold- 
 ing up a fur cape of her own, and a shawl of 
 Miss Gray's. ' You see these, and you hear 
 Miss Gray is guarding herself against a draught. 
 We must go home presently, when Mr. Crabtree 
 has finished his investigation into Miss Gray's 
 pedigree and history,' Jane said ironically, 
 dealing what ought to have been a withering 
 rebuke to the offender, and by no means in- 
 tending^ to deal another blow at her friend. 
 
 ' I am afraid I have been very rude,' said
 
 VISITORS 247 
 
 Mat Crabtree, laughing as at an excellent joke, 
 with the coolness of innocence not impudence. 
 ' But the likeness is amazing, if there is no 
 foundation for it,' he returned to the charge. 
 He was incapable of taking advantage of Miss 
 Gray's age, sex, and social standing, as Lambert 
 would have done without scruple. He, Mat 
 Crabtree, was not influenced by the accident, 
 that he happened to be Crabtree of Haybridge 
 who was conferring an honour in speaking in a 
 friendly fashion to a stranger — a young woman, 
 the governess to John Prior's grandchildren. 
 The speaker did not consider himself a man 
 who might take liberties and commit hetises in 
 such circumstances with impunity. But he wa 
 tempted to over-estimate the privileges of his 
 forty-five years when he had to do with Jane 
 Prior and her friends and contemporaries- 
 young women — state it in a general way, young 
 enough to be his daughters. 
 
 ' I think there must be some degree of rela- 
 tionship,' Mat Crabtree hammered on at his
 
 248 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 speculation, with the amazing amount of ob- 
 tuseness which clever, kindly people sometimes 
 display. ' Pray, are you a Londoner, Miss 
 Gray? Can you tell me where your family 
 hailed from originally? Were they north or 
 south country Grays ? Like most old fogies, I 
 am a dabbler in genealogies.' 
 
 Bennet Gray stood at bay. 
 
 ' Then I daresay you will hardly be able to 
 believe me, Mr. Crabtree,' she said a little 
 haughtily, but with the ring of truth in her 
 voice, ' when I own that I cannot tell you much. 
 My father was an attorney in London — though 
 he had not a brother called Josh,' she allowed 
 herself to digress, with a faint smile, a falter of 
 her tongue, and a rising blush ;' so I am a 
 Londoner born, but both my father and mother 
 died young, and I was brought up by my 
 mother's relations, who were not Grays, but 
 Shrubsoles.' 
 
 ' Now, that is a Berkshire name,' cried Mat 
 Crabtree, with the utmost alertness, ' I am not
 
 VISITORS 249 
 
 sure that there are not Shrubsoles at Coldblow, 
 near Barleigli.' 
 
 ' You are wrong there, Mr. Crabtree.' She 
 was goaded into the impulsive contradiction. 
 Then she stopped short. How should she know 
 that he was wrong ? She had not so much as 
 admitted that she had ever been in Berkshire 
 or at Barleigh. It was all a miserable tissue of 
 prevarication and self-contradiction. What could 
 this Mr. Crabtree think of her ? He was making 
 himself, without any evil intention, probably, a 
 thousand times more detestable than his brother. 
 He would work her a world more harm ; while 
 she had been thinking that she would hke him, 
 and they might become friends. How did it 
 strike Jane and Mr. Haynes ? Bennet dared 
 not look up at them, or seek to know. Was 
 exposure to come in this way — the worst way 
 possible — and quite prematurely, when every- 
 thing had been going on so favourably ? 
 
 There was no more of the discussion. It 
 was broken off, without any solution of the
 
 250 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 riddle, by Jane's leading the way out to the 
 phaeton. Mat Crabtree would not be hindered 
 ■from wrapping up the girls and handing them 
 to their seats, by the trifling objection that he 
 was in bad odour with both of the women. He 
 said his good-byes cheerfully, and with what 
 sounded a positively malicious heaping up of 
 insult on injury. He called after them, 'I hope 
 to see you both at Haybridge on Thursday, 
 when we shall have plenty of time to follow the 
 ramifications of the Grays, and to settle the 
 connection between Miss Gray, here, and the 
 other — the Berkshire Miss Gray. Depend upon 
 i% there is something in it.' 
 
 ' I never knew Mr. Crabtree so provoking 
 and tiresome before,' Jane apologised and com- 
 plained in one discontented breath, as the 
 couple drove off. ' What could possess him that 
 he should torment you about Berkshire and 
 this other Miss Gray whom he seems to have 
 got on his brain ? Did you ever happen to be 
 in Berkshire V
 
 VISITORS 251 
 
 'Yes,' Miss Gray was forced to answer 
 faintly ; then she added more steadily, ' but 
 certainly I did not see Mr. Crabtree there.' 
 
 ' Then, what does it all mean ? ' inquired 
 Jane in her bewilderment. 
 
 ' I don't know,' answered a weary, heart- 
 sick voice. ' I have got such a headache, will 
 you excuse me, Miss Prior ? ' 
 
 Eather than have passed through the ordeal 
 to which she had been subjected, Bennet Gray 
 would have preferred a thousand times to have 
 encountered, in her capacity of teacher, every 
 school inspector in England, and to have been 
 detected by each putting all the towns of her 
 native land into wrong counties, and making 
 the blood which was coursing in her veins stand 
 as still as water in a stagnant pool.
 
 252 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR. 
 
 Jane Prior was as unsuspicious as Mat Crab- 
 tree was fit to be. Like all busy women whose 
 lives are not engrossed by the merest trifles oi 
 social intercourse, she had not time for prying, 
 or even for collecting evidence with regard to 
 humanity and sifting it for her mental satisfac- 
 tion. This lack of leisure, with a certain con- 
 stitutional abstraction of mind, impaired her 
 power of sympathy, but it rendered her in 
 another sense easy to live with, and gave her 
 the appearance of larger toleration than she 
 actually possessed. But there are incidents 
 which rouse the most unwary and the most 
 charitable. Something is said or done by the
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 253 
 
 member of a circle totally different from what 
 might have been expected, unaccountable, 
 except in one light. It points so plainly — 
 however reluctant those who run may be to 
 read the sign — to a course of deception and to 
 a secret probably not too creditable to the 
 person it concerns, that the distm'bed witnesses 
 would be more than blind dolts if they refused 
 to believe the evidence of their senses and their 
 reason. 
 
 Miss Gray had looked and spoken — or 
 rather had not spoken — so strangely, had been 
 so unlike an open, upright woman who has 
 nothing to conceal, and had grown so agitated 
 under Mr. Crabtree's mal-apropos cross-quesr 
 tioning in the Kershaw class-room, that a 
 distinctly uncomfortable impression had been 
 made on those present. The exception had 
 been Mr. Haynes, who had not been attending 
 part of the time, whose mind, long accustomed 
 to run in one meritorious groove, seldom ranged 
 beyond sermon-writing and parish work, and
 
 254 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 who had coined a word for the benefit of young 
 ladies, that word being ' vagarious.' 
 
 But already Mat Crabtree, who had been 
 full of his own idea, and noticed little at the 
 moment, on thinking the matter over in his 
 house at Hay bridge, was taking himself severely 
 to task, and telling himself he had been an 
 inquisitive, inconsiderate old idiot, who had 
 put his foot into it, and made a fine mess. 
 Something was out of joint, though he could 
 not pretend to say what. He did not believe 
 he had been mistaken in his recognition of Miss 
 Gray. The fine face was not only remarkable 
 for its bloom of womanly beauty, there were 
 too many points of resemblance to make error 
 probable. Why she should be the governess 
 at Eedcot under a cloud, as it appeared, he 
 could not conjecture. Nobody might be much 
 to blame, or the wrong-doer might be sorry for 
 the past and striving to retrieve it. And there 
 had he gone, like an intolerable meddler and 
 hunter after game, prowhng and scenting and
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 255 
 
 raising a timid persecuted creature for oucrht 
 that he knew. The mischief he liad done 
 might be irreparable and far-reaching. Serve 
 him right for his stupid folly — a man of his 
 age ! And his prey was worthy of him — a girl, 
 an orphan by her own account, no older than 
 Jane Prior — a girl out in the world, though it 
 might be by her own choice or fault and not of 
 necessity, making her way for herself, and so 
 practically defenceless — a girl seemingly full of 
 gifts and attractions, while he had contrived to 
 affront and disgrace her. 
 
 At Eedcot Jane Prior was struggling in- 
 effectually to put the whole scene out of her 
 mind. She was the more perplexed and 
 worried because she was so unaccustomed to 
 the process — the doubt in the first place, the 
 effort to shake off the doubt in the second. She 
 was furious with herself for thinking anything 
 could be wrong where Miss Gray was in ques- 
 tion. Of course, she might have often gone to 
 Berkshire if she thought fit to do so, and Mr.
 
 256 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 Crabtree might or might not have seen her 
 there, and might have elected to call her ' The 
 Berkshire Miss Gray/ though she was, in point 
 of fact, a Londoner. Or he might, as was more 
 likely, be entirely wrong, confusing her with 
 some namesake of hers, whom he fancied she 
 resembled, of whom and of whose relatives she 
 knew nothing. What did it matter? Who 
 need care? Yet Miss Gray, for some occult 
 reason known only to herself, had cared, and 
 cared very much. Jane could not deny it to 
 herself. What of that again? Some people 
 were so much more sensitive than others. Miss 
 Gray had not looked like one of these thin- 
 skinned folk, but most of us have — say one 
 vulnerable spot in our armour. Miss Gray 
 mio^ht have poor relations in Berkshire, or she 
 mio-ht be so unfortunate as to own kindred who 
 were worse than poor — disreputable. Jane 
 believed stoutly that if she had poor relations 
 or disreputable kindred she would own the one 
 and disown the other with the stern intrepidity
 
 AN APPEAL 'to A MAN'S HONOUR 257 
 
 of a Brutus, still she could forgive Miss Gray if 
 her pride was more foolish, or her self-respect 
 less vigorous. 
 
 But do as Jane would — candid, confiding 
 soul as she was — with all her panoply of philo- 
 sophy and learning, she could not get rid of 
 the conviction that there had been something 
 personal at the root of Miss Gray's distress — 
 that her trouble, if she had a trouble, was an 
 individual affair. In opposition to Jane's lofty 
 principles, and strong prepossessions — in spite 
 of her reverence for knowledge in any shape, 
 and the common cause she was disposed to 
 make with every woman intellectually engaged 
 — against Jane's very will, she began to look on 
 Miss Gray with other eyes, to see her in a 
 different light, to watch and make a record of 
 all the small particulars of her behaviour, and 
 give them a new meaning. Jane hated herself, 
 but she could not help what she was doing. 
 
 The first thing which struck Jane Prior 
 was that Miss Gray did not wish to go with 
 VOL. T. s
 
 2 58 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 the children to Haybridge, as it liad been 
 arranged they should go. Miss Gray had 
 not hitherto shown any disinclination to en- 
 counter visitors or pay visits. For Jane had 
 been wonderfully wide-awake on one social 
 point. She had taken pains to show the public 
 how she regarded Miss Gray, and how she 
 desired it to regard her ; and as Mrs. Prior was 
 of the same mind as her daughter in the matter, 
 the public had responded civilly, as it generally 
 will in such a case. Miss Gray had paid 
 occasional visits with Jane, and more rarely 
 with Mrs. Prior. Miss Gray had helped the 
 family to receive visitors at home, and she had 
 been treated by others as the Priors treated her 
 — as it would have been an offence to them, if, 
 when so doing, their neighbours had done 
 otherwise — hke any other young lady, not a 
 governess, living at Eedcot. The exception 
 had been with the Lambert Crab tree's. Free 
 and easy as his manner was, caressing and 
 bland as hers never failed to be, with her pro-
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 259 
 
 fuse general invitations, her ready offers of 
 things which were not wanted, and her ' dear 
 Miss Gray's,' husband and wife, in their quite 
 different Hues, were neither of them by any 
 means free from the vulgar vice of affability. 
 And in their very carelessness the couple always 
 indicated a line of demarcation, and showed 
 that to them, though they might hail her 
 familiarly or propose to pet her, as their 
 varying humours moved them. Miss Gray was, 
 after all, the governess at Eedcot, no more and 
 no less. 
 
 Miss Gray had grown up under the new 
 light cast on those who rear the future women 
 of England, but it might be that she had not 
 always found the light set on a candlestick and 
 not hid in a bushel, or else there was something 
 in her relations to the Priors w^hich stirred 
 her to grateful affection. She had till now 
 welcomed the occasional visiting in the happy, 
 cordial spirit with which any other perfectly 
 natural, well-balanced young woman more than 
 
 s2
 
 26o BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 content to work will keenly relish a little play. 
 She had displayed the same lively interest in 
 the Eedcot neighbours, the same intuitive per- 
 ception of their characters and histories that 
 she had evinced with regard to the place itself 
 and its surroundings. This sympathetic identi- 
 fication of herself with the Priors in reference 
 to their home and their friends had been one of 
 Bennet Gray's crowning graces, especially in 
 the eyes of Mrs. Prior, who, though retiring in 
 her habits, was very friendly in her nature. 
 But the identification broke down inexphcably 
 when the invitation to Haybridge came on the 
 tafis. 
 
 It was clear to any observer whose eyes 
 were opened that Miss Gray's instant instinct 
 was to shrink from going to Mr. Crabtree's, 
 and that she was ready to urge any plea which 
 might obviate the necessity. In ordinary cir- 
 cumstances an excuse on the ground of health 
 would have been too glaringly preposterous. 
 Bennet Gray, in spite of her studies, was like
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 261 
 
 the most illiterate of hunting, shooting, fishing, 
 racing, flirting-in-the-open-air, flirting-in-the- 
 ballroom, dancing-till-break-of-day women. She 
 was, like Miss Austen's ' Emma,' or a milkmaid, 
 ' the picture of health.' Bennet Gray was a 
 glowing, rosy, loving-exercise, laughing-at- 
 fatigue girl. An apology which would have 
 been usually so broad a contradiction must 
 have struck herself in that hght, and shamed 
 her ingenuity in this direction. Yet she had 
 been so unlike herself, ill at ease and nervous 
 since that encounter in the Kershaw class-room, 
 that she might even have posed as an invalid 
 without imposing too great a strain on the 
 credulity of her audience. 
 
 But Bennet had not the courage, though 
 she stuck to as piteously transparent ruses. 
 She would be one too many in the phaeton — 
 her presence must incommode Miss Prior. 
 The Httle Woods would be happier away from 
 her — Miss Gray — for a day. At least if they 
 had grown so accustomed to her that her being
 
 262 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 there had ceased to be a restraint, their cousins, 
 the small Crabtrees, woidd wish for her absence. 
 Her company could not fail to be an intrusion 
 when Mr. Crabtree had particularly invited 
 Miss Prior to meet her sister, and the party 
 was to be a family party. Mrs. Prior would 
 be lonely left all day by herself, when Mr. 
 Prior had so many engagements. At last the 
 ominously numerous excuses resolved them- 
 selves into the desperate assertion that she — 
 Bennet Gray — had nothing suitable to wear. 
 
 There was only one response. Jane main- 
 tained inflexibly that she would not be 
 incommoded ; on the contrary, there was 
 plenty of room for Miss Gray in the phaeton. 
 Tom or Sam could go on the box wath the 
 driver, the child would like nothing better, 
 and the two other children could sit together 
 perfectly well on the back seat. She would 
 like Miss Gray's company, of course, if she did 
 not object to go on any other account — and 
 here, to Jane's dismay, her own voice took a
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 263 
 
 perceptibly distant, aggrieved tone before she 
 knew or could help it. She hastened to add 
 that she would be glad of Miss Gray to help 
 her with the children. She had nothing to say 
 to Mrs. Crabtree which all the world might 
 not hear. Mr. Crabtree's invitation to Miss 
 Gray was sufficient proof that the party was 
 not limited to near relatives or family connec- 
 tions. 
 
 The children cried clamorously that Miss 
 Gray must go and see Mr. Prabtree's lambs 
 and calves. Haybridge was far better than the 
 Bank House, and they liked Mr. Crabtree ever 
 so much more than they liked Uncle Lambert. 
 Mr. Crabtree never plagued them, or if he did 
 he made up for it by showing them things 
 which they liked to see, and letting them do 
 what they pleased, so long as the little boys 
 were not rough to their sister, or did not 
 quarrel, or trouble Aunt Jane. Aunt Susie 
 would be there, and though she did not take 
 much notice of them, when she did it was to
 
 264 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 praise them, to forbid their being contradicted, 
 and to give them all the good things on the 
 table. Aunt Susie was so pretty, and had such 
 beautiful clothes, that Ally constantly got ideas 
 for Anna Maria Constance's wardrobe from her 
 aunt's toilet. Molly and Piers liked Mr. 
 Crabtree and Haybridge also, and were not 
 half so wild and given to wanting everything 
 their own way as when they were at home. 
 
 Chubby Sam went so far as to say Hay- 
 bridge would not be worth while without Miss 
 Gray ; and perhaps he and she might go in 
 search of peacocks' feathers instead of turkeys' 
 feathers, like Tom's, for Mr. Crabtree kept pea- 
 cocks. Or the couple might be so fortunate 
 as to find the thrashing-mill going, for Mr. 
 Crabtree's mill did not stand always hke their 
 old thing, then he and she might stand and 
 watch the corn running through. 
 
 If Miss Gray did not yield to these allure- 
 ments, the obstacle was not to be found in 
 Mrs. Prior. She held to it with smiling
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 265 
 
 determination that nothing warranted her in 
 keeping Miss Gray from making acquaintance 
 with Haybridge. Mrs. Prior was partial 
 enough to think that Miss Gray would not 
 like it so well as Eedcot. Still, almost every 
 country place had its advantages; Haybridge 
 was not without them ; while Mr. Crabtree 
 was a kind host as well as an excellent man. 
 She herself had often enjoyed going over there, 
 and her familiarity with the spot would render 
 her the better able to appreciate what she 
 hoped Miss Gray would tell her of first 
 impressions. In the interval she would do 
 very well with the quilt she had in hand, 
 her book, and Tommy. * Oh, fie ! Tommy, 
 to yawn at the prospect.' In fact, Tommy did 
 more than yawn as an appropriate commentary 
 on his mistress's speech, and a symbol of the 
 drowsy day in store for him, he proceeded to 
 transform himself into an inverted curtainless 
 four-post bed — lying on his broad back, with 
 all his thick legs in the air. The performance
 
 266 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 caused great gratification to the children, who 
 were alternately Tommy's delight and his 
 torment. 
 
 Then Mrs. Prior went out of her way, as it 
 sounded to Bennet, to range herself on the 
 side of the enemy, and gratuitously give an 
 opinion which would have been agreeable to 
 hear at any other time. Miss Gray need not 
 trouble about dress ; she always looked nice. 
 That serge she was wearing would do capitally, 
 if she did not grudge it, for sauntering about 
 the fields and garden, being pulled about by 
 the children, and sharing their dinner and high 
 tea. 
 
 It was within a day of Thursday's visit 
 that Bennet's last defence was thus placidly 
 bowled over. And it was on the Wednesday 
 afternoon that Jane Prior, going into the 
 schoolroom, found Miss Gray so busy writing a 
 letter that she was standing in her bonnet and 
 jacket at the desk with her pen flying over the 
 page. In the meantime Tom and Sam were
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 267 
 
 building houses with a pile of lesson books, 
 and Ally was dressing a reluctant kitten in 
 some of Anna Maria Constance's cast-off finery. 
 
 'I am afraid you are too late with your 
 letter, Miss Gray,' said Jane, on the impulse of 
 the moment, ' the post-bag left ten minutes 
 ago.' 
 
 ' Thanks for telling me,' answered Bennet, 
 not looking up, and hastily scribbling her 
 signature, 'but I mean to walk across to the 
 post-office, and the children are coming with 
 me. Eun away, Ally, with Tom and Sam to 
 Nursie, and get your hats and coats, or I shall 
 not be able to wait for you.' 
 
 There was a little post-office at a toll-bar 
 about a mile from Eedcot, but the Priors' 
 letters rarely went there ; they were sent 
 direct to JSTewton. The walk to the post-office 
 was not a favourite one. It was along a rough 
 by-road full of miry ruts in early spring, 
 within thin straggling hedgerows, dividing 
 poor fields that had not been long brought in
 
 268 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 from a corner of Kershaw Moor. The land- 
 scape would present a dreary outlook under 
 the watery sinking sun, which conveyed little 
 or no warmth so late in the afternoon. The 
 celandines and daisies which had been budding 
 and bursting open in the morning would be 
 either closed tightly again, or presenting a 
 frost-bitten, pinched look to the approaching 
 raw chill of the evening. 
 
 Miss Gray was allowing herself scanty time 
 to reach Cross-Trees Post-Office and get back 
 with the children before dusk. Hardly a 
 moment after the thought had crossed Jane's 
 mind, she saw from the staircase window, 
 which she was passing in order to go up to 
 her room, Bennet Gray and the children 
 going down the avenue, posting as for a 
 wager, or on an errand of life and death, to 
 traverse the unattractive road to and from 
 Cross-Trees. 
 
 Jane Prior was not a martinet — a finicking 
 intermeddler with those under her supervision.
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 269 
 
 But she could not help asking herself where 
 was the need of this hurry to the post-office 
 at an imgenial hour by an unattractive road? 
 Why could Miss Gray not send her letters, 
 like other people, in the post-bag, which would 
 carry them, without trouble on her part, 
 to Newton ? If her letter was not written in 
 time, what important correspondence had she 
 in which the delay of a single post was of 
 vital consequence ? 
 
 Jane told herself she had no business to 
 ask this even of herself ; it was no concern of 
 hers. It was mean of her to speculate in this 
 manner. 
 
 Still the knowledge remained that Jane was 
 aware Miss Gray had no near relations. No 
 doubt many women in her position seek to 
 indemnify themselves for the absence of close 
 domestic ties by a kind of artificial circle of 
 complaisant acquaintances, with whom the 
 solitary woman is ready to correspond on any 
 or no pretext, deluding herself into the belief
 
 270 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 that she has as many friends as other women 
 possess. But Miss Gray was not one of these 
 women of many facile, spurious friendships, 
 always in a state of active effervescence on 
 paper. She had not found time in the course 
 of her busy life to do more than make a few 
 strong, lasting friendships. These were mostly 
 among young women like herself, earning an 
 honest, honourable independence, as Mat Crab- 
 tree had put it, making their way in the world. 
 Or else the correspondents were the parents 
 and guardians of these young women, who 
 took a cordial, reflected interest in her. To 
 them she was content, as she had told Jane, to 
 write at the rate of once a month, or once 
 in the three months, according to the degrees 
 of intimacy. 
 
 Jane fought against such idle, unworthy 
 suspicions, which had been making her unhappy 
 of late ; when in an inconceivably short time, 
 as it seemed, little Alice Wood tapped at her 
 aunt's room door to tell her the walking party
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MANS HONOUR 271 
 
 were back. They had come in to grandmamma's 
 afternoon tea. 
 
 ' Have you run the whole way, Ally ? ' 
 Jane was driven to inquire. 
 
 ' No, Aunt Jane, we only walked very fast 
 not to be benighted. Miss Gray carried Sam 
 over the rough bits. It was rather fun to 
 make such haste. But Sam was very naughty. 
 1 don't know that he quite deserves to go to 
 Haybridge to-morrow,' announced the httle girl, 
 who was disposed to be a strict disciplinarian 
 to her younger brothers. ' Do you know what 
 he did ? He had asked Miss Gray to let him 
 put his hands into her muff, and when we were 
 near the post-office he pulled out her letter and 
 ran away with it, to put it into the slit, though 
 it takes me to get up to the slit. Aunt Jane. 
 Miss Gray was very angry, and frightened for 
 her letter. I am sure if she had caught him 
 she would have boxed his ears. But she 
 started so quickly after him that she slipped in 
 the mud. She might have broken her leg, you
 
 272 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 know, but she only dirtied her dress ; and Sam 
 let fall the letter, so it was in the dirt, and all 
 in a mess too. The woman at the post-office 
 came out of her house and picked up the letter 
 before Miss Gray could reach it. And the 
 woman said to Sam, '• Little master, you never 
 oughtn't to play such tricks with letters." So 
 she looked at the outside of this one to see if 
 the postman could read what was on it, after 
 she had wiped off the dirt. Then she said it 
 was all right, only no thanks to Sam ; and she 
 asked him what Mr. Crabtree, of Haybridge, 
 would have done to him if he had not got his 
 letter? I think Miss Gray had been writing 
 to Mr. Crabtree to say we are all coming 
 to-morrow — don't you? — though she did not 
 tell me or ask if we had any message. JSTow, 
 was it not naughty of Sam, Aunt Jane? ' 
 
 ' Yes, Ally ; but you are naughty too to tell 
 tales on Sam, and chatter so much,' cried Jane. 
 ' Go away and ask Miss Gray to pour out tea 
 for granny. I am not coming down.'
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 273 
 
 Jane could not face Miss Gray at once. She 
 could not digest what she had heard in a mo- 
 ment. She must think it over, though the 
 matter had come to her ears in an irregular 
 manner, and as it was not bound to do, thanks 
 to Ally. 
 
 Miss Gray writing to Mr. Crabtree ! What 
 could cause her to do such a thing ? The child 
 might be somehow mistaken, or the old woman 
 might have misread the address. But that was 
 unlikely, and if it had been so, surely Miss Gray, 
 knowing that little pitchers have ears, would 
 have corrected the mistake, and Ally, so ready 
 with her tongue, would have repeated the cor- 
 rection, along with what had gone before it. 
 No ; there is such a thing as taking probabilities 
 into account, and a logical mind can hardly 
 avoid doing so. 
 
 Miss Gray had not written to Mr. Crabtree 
 to say that though she had done her best not 
 to accept his invitation she was to be at Hay- 
 bridge with the others after all. Miss Gray, 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 according to her own statement, had only seen 
 Mr. Crabtree once in her hfe, and even if he 
 was right and they had met before in Berk- 
 shire, they had not been introduced or spoken 
 to each other — of that Jane was absokitely 
 certain, she could never doubt Mat Crabtree's 
 perfect honesty. Did Miss Gray write to him 
 before their next encounter to ask his forbear- 
 ance — to beg him to refrain from the embarrass- 
 ing discussion of north-country and south-country 
 Grays, and from investigating further as he had 
 seemed bent on doing the extraordinary case of 
 resemblance which had come to light ? Was 
 her letter an appeal to his honour to preserve 
 silence on such of her antecedents as she did 
 not choose to make public ? Strange as it 
 sounded it looked alarmingly like it. Again, 
 if this were so, why did Miss Gray select Mr. 
 Crabtree for her confidant ? Would it not have 
 been franker, more womanly, more worthy of 
 her in every way, if she had trusted her — Jane 
 — who had been so wilhng to receive Miss Gray
 
 AN APPEAL TO A MAN'S HONOUR 275 
 
 as a friend, and either told her all there was to 
 tell, or else bidden Jane have faith in her 
 friend ? Jane knew in that case she would not 
 have failed in faith, however it might have been 
 tried ; and then Miss Gray might have commis- 
 sioned Jane to bespeak Mr. Crab tree's consider- 
 ation and good feeling to refer no more to what 
 had impressed him ; which he was not to 
 mention. 
 
 Jane Prior felt wounded in the sisterly re- 
 gard she had prized so highly. She was 
 miserably uncomfortable in her straightforward 
 character, with regard to the amount of secrecy 
 and stratagem which she was forced to admit 
 had come unexpectedly under her eyes. She 
 could not help an undefined apprehension of 
 some unheard-of painful result, when this 
 mystery and manoeuvring, so hateful and sick- 
 ening to Jane, were in their cause and effect 
 more completely exposed.
 
 276 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 FALSE LIGHTS. 
 
 Miss Gray, in her unconsciousness of any 
 fresh betrayal through the children's chatter, 
 seemed so reheved by what she had done that 
 Jane was tempted to doubt all that had gone 
 before it, and think she had been the victim of 
 her imagination. 
 
 The spring day was one of those exception- 
 ally fine ones of which the Enghsh chmate can 
 sometimes boast. The party started, to all 
 appearance, in excellent spirits, and the drive 
 was not long enough to weary the children. 
 
 Haybridge was a large, square, comparatively 
 modern white house, which, with its super- 
 abundance of green raihngs and pahsadings,
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 277 
 
 its chain of ponds, that included a hand-bridge 
 and a boathouse hke an old-fashioned summer- 
 house, might almost have been modelled on a 
 Flemish or a German country house. The best 
 that could be said for the house was that it 
 looked roomy, comfortable, and cheerful. It 
 stood in a small park with the by no means 
 extensive ground prettily broken. Other gains 
 consisted of a hill, which rose behind the house, 
 and was for a large part of the year dotted with 
 Mr. Crabtree's sheep. There were also meadows 
 which stretched in front down to a trout stream 
 stealing along beneath a fringe of osiers. These 
 meadows formed, in summer, pasture-ground 
 for Mr. Crabtree's cattle. They were acknow- 
 ledged to be the finest, far and near, and as 
 they browsed they helped rather than hindered 
 the general repose of the scene. 
 
 Mr. Crabtree awaited -his guests at one of 
 the green gates. He was a tall, broad figure, 
 easy and authoritative-looking as he stood there 
 in his rough tweeds, with his air of mature
 
 278 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 mastership of all about liim, and his handsome, 
 vigorous face equally mature and somewhat 
 masterful too, lit up with good-humoured hos- 
 pitahty. The whole man was in entire keeping 
 with his surroundings. He lifted out the chil- 
 dren and exchanged words with them. He 
 sliook hands with the young ladies, and thanked 
 them heartily for their company. ' This is very 
 good of you, Jane ; I am much obliged to you 
 for coming and making it hvelier for Susie.' 
 
 His next sentence was addressed to Miss 
 Gray. Did it contain any double entendre ? 
 
 ' That is right of you, Miss Grray, to come 
 and see what Haybridge is like.' He praised 
 her lightly. ' We must try and make the place 
 show itself in its best colours to a strange lady, 
 mustn't we, Sam ? But we hope she will be 
 better acquainted with it and us, so we must 
 not let any objectionable nonsense slip out.' 
 
 Was there more meant than met the ear ? 
 Jane could not tell. Mr. Crabtree spoke in a half- 
 jestmg tone, but he did not laugh. His gaiety
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 279 
 
 was not without the grave kindness and marked 
 respect which she could imagine him man and 
 gentleman enough to show to a woman whom 
 he was called upon to re-assure, whose fears he 
 sought to lay to rest. But, when it came to 
 that, Mat Crabtree was tolerably sure to be 
 studiously considerate in his very friendliness to 
 any woman whom a large proportion of the 
 world would judge socially his inferior, because 
 of her lack of the world's goods and her inde- 
 pendence in working for her bread. 
 
 Withal there was something contradictory 
 in Mat Crabtree's look and manner. Jane 
 fancied she caught amidst the serious courtesy 
 and interest of his voice and face, a twinkle 
 of the blue eyes, as if they said in spite of 
 him, ' I recognise the comicality of the situa- 
 tion.' 
 
 Miss Gray blushed vividly, and it might be 
 she hung her head a little. But Bennet Gray 
 had *a trick of blushing, and the hanging her 
 head, if she did hang it, was so slight and mo-
 
 28o BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 mentary that the mdination could not be counted 
 on any more than the bkish. Indeed, Jane was 
 not certain that there was not a fleeting response, 
 a twinkle in the hazel eyes, in accordance with 
 the twinkle in the blue, as Bennet looked up 
 the next instant. She appeared happy and at 
 her ease afterwards, allowing the children to 
 drag her here and there, and point out some of 
 the wonderful things which were to be seen at 
 Haybridge. 
 
 Susie and her babies, as she persisted in 
 calling them, though the little boy and girl 
 were as old as Tom and Sam Wood, had arrived 
 beforehand. Susie was already presiding in 
 her brother-in-law's house, graciously ordering 
 and patronising everybody and everything to a 
 greater extent, perhaps, than Mat Crabtree 
 altogether approved. Lambert Crabtree had 
 not come with his wife, an omission which 
 nobody, not even Susie, pretended to regret. 
 Whatever his presence might be on other festi- 
 val occasions, it was certainly not desirable at a
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 281 
 
 family party where women and children pre- 
 dominated. 
 
 There was an immense deal to do, and a 
 limited time to do it in. There was first lun- 
 cheon — brown soup and chicken pie, and the 
 junket for which Hay bridge was famous, with 
 special dainties of cakes and fruit for the 
 children. It was served in the big square dining- 
 room, containing pictures of the master of the 
 house's father and mother, and of himself and 
 his brother when they were round-faced, round- 
 eyed boys like Tom and Sam. That room 
 seemed to have been made for twelve people 
 dining in it all the year round ; but Mat 
 Crabtree, as he presided over the luncheon, did 
 not look as if he would ever sing small or feel 
 forlorn when he was eating his meals there 
 alone.' 
 
 The children resumed their hats and coats, 
 for the visitors had to be taken up to the hill to 
 see the lambs, away to the offices to inspect the 
 calves, over to the ponds to count the goslings
 
 282 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 and ducklings, with a detour to the poultry- 
 yard to find the earliest turkeys' eggs to carry 
 home to granny. The round imphed an 
 amount of fatigue, which was trying for little 
 legs, though Mr. Crabtree carried one and 
 sometimes a couple of the Eedcot or the New- 
 ton children on his shoulders the most of the 
 way. At last the children were installed in the 
 half empty, disused drawing-room, where there 
 was nothing to spoil. It was understood that 
 little people can only rest by romping in 
 another form, as horses can only rest standing, 
 so bricks, marbles, and balls, a cat and her 
 kittens were thoughtfully provided for the 
 guests. Miss Gray offered to stay and be play- 
 mistress, and Susie, amidst profuse thanks, 
 managed to convey softly that the part was one 
 side of Bennet's calling for life. ' You are so 
 fond of children, dear Miss Gray, and they are 
 so fond of you, that you ought never to be 
 separated. I quite envy your deHghtful way 
 with the babies.'
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 283 
 
 The real state of the case was that Susie 
 troubled herself very little with the two big, 
 red, hght-eyed, boisterous bantlings that were 
 so like their father. She seldom contradicted 
 them, for she craved their homage, as she did 
 that of every living creature. But when they 
 would have been in her way as might have 
 happened often, particularly since they were 
 not ornamental, she sent them from her without 
 a pang. She sweetly entrusted them to their 
 nurse, or to Susie's French maid, or to any 
 other constrained or complacent person who 
 would take the children off their mother's 
 hands. There was not much harm in the poor 
 little things as yet, only they were not en- 
 gaging. Mat Crabtree's heart occasionally ached 
 for them, he could hardly have told why. He 
 now enacted that they could play with their 
 Redcot cousins, and even if there did come a 
 collision, his housekeeper, who was somewhat 
 of a personage — elderly, stately, but not un- 
 genial — was prepared to settle all disputes, and
 
 284 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 if the disputants were good, and got on her 
 right side, she might even tell them a story 
 when they were tired. Mr. Crab tree would 
 not, on any account, permit the sacrifice of 
 Miss Gray to her duties, against which Jane 
 Prior also protested. 
 
 'Children are all very. well,' he said per- 
 emptorily, ' but their elders are glad to get rid 
 of them sometimes ; eh, Jane ? We are all out 
 having holiday for the day, ain't we ? ' he as- 
 serted cheerfully, ' and one of us shall not be 
 allowed to steal a march upon the others, and 
 slip her neck back into the sober yoke to which 
 our shoulders have grown accustomed, while 
 the rest toil at disporting themselves in a heavy, 
 ungainly fashion — all save my sister Susie here, 
 to whom play seems to come natural.' 
 
 ' Don't flatter, Mat,' protested Susie, lan- 
 guidly, taking his exception as a compliment. 
 
 Miss Gray was at liberty, and she repaired 
 with the remainder of the grown-up people to 
 the garden. There was not much to be seen,
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 285 
 
 and Susie employed herself more with the 
 blossoming peach trees and their promise of 
 fruit — in view of the peaches, the principal 
 share of which was likely to find its way to 
 the Bank House, than with the small share of 
 ordinary spring flowers which occupied the 
 others. 
 
 The garden of Hay bridge was, like the 
 house, chiefly remarkable for answering the 
 end proposed. It had been sensibly laid out, 
 was productive even at this season, and left a 
 wholesome impression on the minds of the 
 visitors that nothing was neglected or forgotten. 
 From the sea-kail to the rhubarb, everything 
 was looked to properly. The newly-dug, 
 smoothly-raked beds, the young plants in the 
 frames, the very heaps of leaves and bundles of 
 sticks were there in a state of hopeful prepara- 
 tion. There was only one small hot-house, 
 because Mr. Crabtree did not want many grapes, 
 and cared more for open-air native flowers than 
 for the exotics of a conservatory. But here.
 
 286 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 too, the hyacinths and jonquils, heaths and 
 azaleas did credit both to Mr. Crabtree and bis 
 gardener. 
 
 In the borders outside the amber-yellow 
 aconite was sharing its reign with the golden 
 and purple crocuses, which had been mentioned 
 as one of the inducements to the visit to Hay- 
 bridge, and with masses of blue, white, and 
 pink hepaticas, and tufts of brown and pink 
 garden heather. 
 
 The straw-coloured primroses and their 
 milk-white sisters were waiting for the next 
 moon before they were rife. The anemones 
 and polyanthuses only presented their aggres- 
 sive green sheaths. The wall-flowers held up 
 their heads, but displayed no more than the 
 iron-brown edges of the petals well shrouded 
 in the slaty calyxes. The commonest crim- 
 son, lilac, and chocolate auricula merely existed 
 in the shape of tiny-crumpled balls like col- 
 lections of small green clenched fists powdered 
 with flour.
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 287 
 
 The most liberal plant was Sweet Alison, 
 which amicably spread out a few hundreds of 
 broad flat miniature white faces in prominent 
 patches. It represented those groups of com- 
 mon-place, easily-pleased smihng people that 
 diversify the more sombre ranks of society. 
 These hardy, homely people, not chary of their 
 favours, are little thought of except to be 
 despised, but they bring untold relief to what 
 without them would be the sensitive and op- 
 pressive nature of human intercourse. 
 
 It was in the garden that the party fell into 
 pairs — Mrs. Crab tree walking with her sister, 
 and Mr. Crabtree accompanying Miss Gray, 
 whom he invited to turn down a side walk in 
 order to look at a singularly situated last year's 
 nest. Susie could not object to be left with 
 Jane for a few minutes, though the young 
 matron was wont to appropriate as her right 
 any man in the company, and was quite honest 
 in expressing her preference for male society. 
 She took advantage of her present deprivation
 
 288 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 to link her arm in Jane's, looking a fragile little 
 creature beside her tall sister, and to dehver 
 her mind of a warning. ' My dear Janie,' said 
 Susie, in her most caressing way, ' there is no 
 doubt Miss Gray is a most charming person. 
 Even if I thought otherwise, which would be 
 difficult, I should hesitate to say so to you, since 
 you have elected her to be your particular 
 friend. But does it never strike you that she 
 forgets — just the least httle bit ? ' 
 
 'What?' demanded Jane, bluntly, ready to 
 boil over with wrath, and stopping short in 
 their walk. 
 
 ' Well, my love, in the first place, come 
 along. I am sure,' spoken most politically, 
 ' you do not choose that everybody should ob- 
 serve we are at high words — at least you are. 
 I mean the accident of her position. No one 
 has more sympathy than I have with girls in 
 her sad circumstances.' 
 
 ' There is really no call for your sympathy. 
 I don't know anything sad in Miss Gray's cir-
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 289 
 
 cumstances.' Jane boiled over at once. 'I 
 wish I had been as well grounded in my edu- 
 cation and could feel myself as thoroughly 
 equipped to be of some use in the world, and 
 to secure my own independence. Suppose my 
 father were not able to keep up Eedcot any 
 longer, and I saw it to be my duty to relieve 
 him from the burden of supporting me — now 
 that I am a grown woman ! Suppose I not only 
 felt such a course of conduct to be my duty, 
 but was able to put it in practice, and could 
 turn my education and whatever abilities I have 
 to good account, do you intend to say you or 
 anybody else would be justified in regarding 
 my circumstances as sad ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know about the justification,' said 
 Mrs. Susie, shaking her lovely little head ; ' but 
 I'm afraid we'd do it, justified or not. It is the 
 verdict of the world, and, my dear child, there 
 must be something in that.' 
 
 ' As if there had never been such a thing as 
 stupid errors and cruel prejudices, taking whole 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 centuries to clear away,' protested Jane. * But 
 tlie world is getting wiser.' 
 
 ' It is quite wise enough for me,' said Susie, 
 coolly. ' Now, don't lose your temper, it is not 
 worth while. Besides, did I not begin by 
 saying Miss Gray is a charming person, quite 
 handsome in her own style, ladylike, and all 
 that which makes her the more dangerous ? 
 Yes, that is the right word, though you are so 
 dreadfully touchy that I am almost frightened 
 to use it. For girls in her position — you may 
 hold what extravagant notions you like about 
 it, you dear, high-flown, learned goose ! the 
 sharp-sighted world judges differently — have a 
 double motive for breaking away from their 
 disadvantages and establishing themselves credi 
 tably.' 
 
 Jane was silent for an instant at what 
 appeared to her the sheer insult of the words. 
 
 ' Do you mean me to think, Susie,' and she 
 gave a gasp to recover her composure, ' it 
 would be the opinion of you and people Uke
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 291 
 
 you, if that happened to which I have referred, 
 if my father, who is poor, as you must know 
 perfectly, were to get poorer, and I were to be- 
 come a schoolmistress, I should all at once grow 
 a dangerous person, eager to relinquish my 
 calling, and driven to scheme and plot for a 
 husband ? I shall be very glad to have mis- 
 taken your meaning, but if that is not what you 
 are thinking, I cannot imagine what you intend 
 to convey.' 
 
 ' Oh, good heavens, Jane, don't let your 
 madness reach that pass ; don't suggest that 
 you may become a " school ma'am," ' cried Susie, 
 in half genuine, half mock horror. 
 
 ' Why not ? ' cried Jane, recovering her 
 self-command. ' I at least should be contented 
 with my lot, and should not strive to better it. 
 To be a " school ma'am," as you think fit to call 
 it, strikes me as a more honest and honourable 
 shift than to marry a man I could neither love 
 nor respect, simply that he might furnish me 
 with gowns and bonnets.' Jane was sorry the 
 
 u 2
 
 292 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 moment she had said the bitter words. She 
 was sensitive on the point of her sister's mar- 
 riage, and she could not comprehend that Susie 
 might have no sensitiveness for herself. 
 
 Mrs. Crabtree turned aside the implication 
 very neatly. ' You forget there is another 
 alternative, that a woman may love and respect 
 a man who can give her gowns and bonnets. 
 The two conditions do not necessarily clash. 
 Indeed,' she went on with an airy laugh, ' I am 
 not sure that the last ought not to imply the 
 first. You would not have us wives ungrateful,' 
 would you? I know I am much obhged to 
 Lamb,' with a pretty httle assumption of lan- 
 guishing humility, ' for " swotting," as he says, 
 in that bank of his, in order that the babies and 
 I may be what you think disgustingly smart. 
 But we have lost sight of one consideration,' 
 and she posed her little figure more daintily as 
 she spoke. ' Even though you were to demean 
 yourself — excuse me, dear, for using the lan- 
 guage of rational people — and lose your social
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 293 
 
 standing by going out as a governess and earn- 
 ing your living, you would still be, in this neigh- 
 bourhood at least, one of the Priors of Eedcot.' 
 
 ' And if Miss Gray's father had been a 
 beggar it would have been no fault of hers,' 
 insisted Jane. ' As it is, he was one of the 
 partners in a respectable firm of attorneys in 
 London,' she ended a little faintly. Her mind 
 had been unsettled lately with regard to Miss 
 Gray's antecedents, though the deceased 
 attorney had not been one of the disturbing 
 elements. 
 
 ' There are attorneys and attorneys,' said 
 Susie, with a wave of her little hand, very 
 much as Jane herself had said ' There are Grays 
 and Grays,' ' and London is a wide word ; but 
 though you may twit Lamb and me with keep- 
 ing a bank at Newton, the best attorney in 
 London who could not leave his daughter a 
 penny, by the way, is hardly a match for the 
 heads of old county families like the Crabtrees 
 and Priors.' She looked pointedly as she spoke
 
 294 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 at Mat Crabtree appearing in the opposite walk, 
 talking and laughing with Miss Gray. 'Mind 
 my words, Jane, whether you like them or not 
 — I am sure I do not often say things that 
 people do not like ; I hate to set people against 
 me ' — this was uttered quite plaintively — ' but 
 I cannot bear to see you so wilfully blind with- 
 out doing what I can to put you on your 
 guard.' 
 
 Jane opened her lips to say, ' You may 
 spare yourself the trouble. I do not want 
 your warning, Susie, any more than I prize 
 your example ; ' but she shut her mouth in 
 time to keep in the caustic retort, and Mrs. 
 Crabtree remained mistress of the field. She 
 resumed, ' I repeat, that such a handsome, well- 
 mannered girl as Miss Gray is a dangerous 
 person to have for a governess, without any 
 blame to her. I daresay if I were in lier shoes 
 I should do the same. I do not pretend to be 
 superhumanly disinterested and virtuous. It 
 would have been a most injudicious step to
 
 FALSE LIGHTS 295 
 
 have brought her to Eedcot and kept her there, 
 if Jack had been at home. Surely mam-ma 
 and pa-pa's eyes wouki have been opened to 
 such a gross piece of imprudence. But, I 
 deckire, you are all as innocent as babes ; I feel 
 quite like a Mephistopheles beside you. Even 
 as it is,' Susie waxed confidential while she 
 nodded her head with Mandarin or Burleigh - 
 like sagacity and grasped the two sides of her 
 sable cape in the most impressive manner, ' I 
 confess I am not quite comfortable to-day. I 
 am not at all certain that Mat Crabtree has not 
 taken a fancy to her. There are no fools like 
 old ones.' 
 
 Jane stood still again, fairly aghast this 
 time, and not without warrant. To bring such 
 an accusation against Mr. Crabtree in his own 
 garden, well nigh in his presence, and to clench 
 it by doing the next thing to caUing him an old 
 fool ! Truly Susie, with an eel-like smoothness 
 and phancy, did not know what reverence 
 meant.
 
 296 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 ' Come along,' enjoined Mrs. Crab tree once 
 more, almost in an annoyed tone this time. 
 ' Don't you see they are looking at us .^ For- 
 give me for being rude,' she continued, as she 
 rapidly recovered her good humour, ' but I 
 must call you a young fool, Janie, whom one 
 might buy at one end of a town and sell at the 
 other. It is not that I have not your interest 
 at heart. Quite the contrary. Who should if 
 I have not ? ' broke off Susie, lifting up her 
 lustrous dark eyes, and opening them wide with 
 an expression of almost pious sisterly affection. 
 ' I was always inclined to believe that Mat had 
 a sneaking kindness for you, and I should never 
 have stood in the way or turned him against it, 
 though it might have cost my boy his place.' 
 
 ' Susie, how dare you say such things ? ' 
 groaned poor Jane, fit to sink into the earth. 
 ' Are you not ashamed to speak in this way ? 
 Mr. Crabtree is old enough to be my father. 
 He has done nothing but laugh at me and 
 argue with me ever since I can recollect.'
 
 FALSE LIGHTS tj^-j 
 
 ' Oh, my dear, these fatherly feeHngs when 
 a man has just turned forty-five, are most 
 delusive, and not to be depended on,' pro- 
 nounced Susie, as from the depths of a profound 
 experience. ' As for the laughter, 1 often tell 
 Lamb the Crabtrees are all laughing hyenas ; 
 and, with regard to the arguing, why, with 
 some people it is the height of agreeing,' de- 
 clared Susie, with another emphatic nod. ' Such 
 would-be fathers and mentors are almost as 
 dangerous as charming persons like Miss Gray. 
 I say, Jane,' Susie burst out afresh with bird- 
 like inquisitiveness and cunning, ' I cannot 
 fathom the quickness with which she and Mat 
 Crabtree have struck up an intimacy, only 
 begun, I believe, at the Kershaw collier lads' 
 club-room the evening I was there last week. 
 Ah ! that, too, is not wise — a sort of levelling 
 of class distinctions in amateur teaching and 
 learning. That dear old gaby Mr. Haynes 
 should be well shaken for devising such an 
 institution. No, I never saw my worthy
 
 298 BURIED DIAMONDS 
 
 brother-in-law so easily won or so readily- 
 accessible before. That absurd, deceptive 
 fatherly air, on which you say you have 
 counted, has this gain, that it makes him, in 
 spite of his bonhomie^ rather formal and slow in 
 getting along with girls, unless, as in your case, 
 he happens to have known them all their lives/ 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLIBIE. 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AKD CO., NEW-STKEET SQTTARB 
 
 LONDON
 
 
 ^^^^'S.^^rg
 
 m\ 
 
 l^ 
 
 W' 
 
 m 
 
 L^>> 
 
 M 
 
 K^ 
 
 i<r^
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILUN0I8-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 047687998