\A^ f i^' DORCAS, VOL. I. DORCAS BY GEOEGIANA M. CRAIK AUTHOR OF " MILDRED," " ANNE WARWICK," &c., &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. L LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1879. All rights reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE. BLENHEIM STREET, OXFORD STREET. 8^3 PART I. LETTT VOL. I. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/dorcas^01crai DORCAS. CHAPTER I. 11 IR. TRELAWNEY was in his garden, -^^-^ walking up and down beside the beech-tree hedge. There was a pathway- there that had been worn by his feet, for both in winter and summer it was the spot of all his garden that he loved the best : a favourite walk, sheltered by this thick hedge from the east winds, yet standing high, and open to the west, and commanding on that side a pleasant view across a cultivated country, rich in meadow land and trees. There were few days of the year on which, B 2 4 DORCAS. for half an hour at least, if for no more,, you might not find Mr. Trelawney here, deliberately pacing to and fro ; for he was a man who liked the companionship of his own thoughts, and the sense of security that is lost when we walk in the haunts of other men. He was a reserved, gentle, studious man of forty, or a little under ; simple in manners and in mind ; one who did not know much of the ways of the world, but lived quietly absorbed in his own world of books — Homer and Horace, Plato and Sophocles, being nearer and more familiar friends to him than the men whose living faces he saw round him, and whose voices sounded in his ears. Often, walking up and down the pathway by the beech-tree hedge, he would entertain his solitude by reciting aloud from the authors that he knew so well — *' talk- ing gibberish to himself — poor dear — by the DORCAS. 5 hour together," as his housekeeper would sometimes say, shaking her kind head com- passionately while she described her master's vagaries to some neighbour over a cup of tea. " And yet as quiet a gentleman, and as civil," she would add, '' as any ten miles round, and one as never says so much as a quick word to you. It's always — ' Just as you please, Mrs. Markham,' and — 'You know best, Mrs. Markham,' from one year's end to another." It was about fifteen years ago since Mr. Trelawney had come from Oxford to this house in Shepton where he now lived, ^nd though then only three or four and twenty he had almost at once begun to adopt the retired habits of a student. At that time his mother was alive, a high bred and rather cold-natured woman ; and the mother and son had lived t02:ether for twelve years. During all these years the b DORCAS. house, in spite of its having a mistress at the head of it, had scarcely been a less dull or quiet one than it was now. Mrs. Trelawney was a woman who held herself rather above her neighbours. She had been a dean's daughter ; she was the widow of a man who, though not rich, had been of good family, and it pleased her to look down upon the village society amidst which circumstances had given her her abode, — upon the common- place vicar and his buxom wife, — upon the gossipping country doctor, — even upon the few magnates of the place, wealthy and for the most part unintellectual, whose neighbourly hospitalities she had rarely con- descended to receive. Such a woman of course could not be popular in a country village, and Mrs. Trelawney accordingly had had few friends in Shepton who either enjoyed her so- ciety much while she was living, or mourn- DORCAS. / ed her greatly when she was dead. But yet in a certain way she was regretted, for she had been felt to be a credit to the place ; and when a short time after her death the question of whether, now that she was gone, her son would seek another home for him- self was laid to rest by his application to the vicar's wife for help to provide himself with a housekeeper, the hearts of the Shep- tonians felt quite a little glow of gratitude, and Mr. Trelawney, had he chosen, might have made himself, for a time, at any rate, the favourite of the village. But unfortunately he did not care for popularity. It was in vain that the vicar and half-a-dozen other kind-hearted neigh- bours told him with well meant cordiality that he must mix a little more with them now : he thanked them for their hospitality, but left their invitations unaccepted. *'My dear sir, you ought to get a wife to 8 DORCAS. stir you up a little," the vicar said to him with a laugh one day ; but at this suggestion Mr. Trelawney's self-possession fairly left him. " God forbid !" he hastily ejaculated ; and the vicar, I regret to say, was so tickled at the reply that by the time four and twenty more hours v/ere over there was hard- ly a pair of ears in Shepton that had not heard it, nor a fair bosom that it had not caused to swell with indignation. I am afraid that after the utterance of these inexcusable words Mr. Trelawney fell terribly in public estimation. In fact he was an unsocial man ; very gentle, meaning well to everyone, but essentially a man who loved his kind best at a distance. Possibly society of a better kind than could be got in Shepton might have had charms for him, but he was too indifferent to go in search of it. He had grown accustomed to the life he led, and felt no desire for a keener or more DORCAS. y exciting happiness than what it gave him. He had been fond of his mother and his mother's company. Her refined manner and clear calm mind had been pleasant to his taste. In the years that they had lived to- gether she had become his ideal — the only one he had — of womanhood, and he had felt her loss more than he had ever felt the loss of any other living thing. But as for supplying her place with some other woman — a wife chosen from amongst the be- flounced and bedizened maidens of Shep- ton, a flighty girl who would chatter nonsense to him, and strum on the piano, and meddle with his writing-table, and, worse than all, perhaps bring screaming in- fants into the world — the thought, if he had ever for a moment entertained it, would have made him shudder. Better eternal solitude than a companion such as this ! He was a man who wanted no wife, who had no 10 DORCAS. right indeed to marry, for he had married whatever he had of heart already to the books upon his library shelves, — to the life of a past world, — to some classic woman, or score of women (if to anything womanly at all), dead a thousand years ago. The Greek plays over which he pored, and to which he wrote notes that one day, when his hair should be grey, he hoped would see the light, were more to him than wife and children. He was thinking out some knotty point in his work to-day as he paced up and down his favourite walk, ranging evidence in his mind, weighing probabilities, hardly conscious that the sun was shining on him, or the west wind blowinof. It was ten o'clock in the morning of a summer day. The postman had come up to the house a little while ago, but he had brought no letter for Mr. Trelawney : he had only brought one DORCAS. 11 letter for Mrs. Markham, the housekeeper^ which had contained ill news apparently, for the poor soul began to cry as she read it. She was still crying, standing at the open door with her apron every few moments go- ing up to her eyes, when half an hour later Mr. Trelawney came in from his walk. She was waiting to intercept him as he re-enter- ed the house, and with red eyes and a face full of grief she accosted him as he came up. ^' I'm sorry to trouble you, sir, but — but I've had some bad news," she said, apolo- getically, with a catch in her voice. " Bad news ? I am sorry for that," Mr. Trelawney answered kindly, standing still at once. *' Yes, sir. I've had a letter from my sister — or at least not from my sister (poor dear, I wish it was !) ; it's my niece that 12 DOECAS. writes, and — and — " with a burst of tears, " her poor mother's dying !" " Your niece's mother ?" said Mr. Tre- lawney, hesitatingly, not quite following the relationship. " Yes, sir, that's ray sister — my youngest sister. She and me — we're the only ones left. She's a widow, sir. She had a nice little milliner's business in the Borough, for her husband, you see, died the year that Letty was born " It was a little confusing to Mr. Trelaw- ney, but he Avas very sorry. " You would like to 20 and see her, would you not ?" he said at once. '' Yes, of course ; go as soon as you can. And whatever money you would like " But Mrs. Markham did not want any money. Her only two troubles were lest she might not find her sister still alive, and . lest Martha, her help in the kitchen, should DORCAS. 13> fail daring her absence in cooking chops and steaks. From one of these anxieties Mr. Trelawney did what he could to relieve her; for the relief of the other he could only give her his grave good wishes. " She is a valuable woman — a very ex- cellent woman. I am really very sorry for her," he w^ent on presently to his study thinking to himself. Perhaps in a general way he kept the troubles of this mortal life at a considerable distance from him ; but yet his nature was a kindly one, and distress when it was broucrht close to him made him uneasy. " I hope she will be in time to see the poor creature. There will be no good in it, of course, but she will look upon it as a consolation. People in her class always do, I believe. It is natural, no doubt, very natural," he said to himself, gently and pityingl}', but yet with a certain feeling- almost of contempt. And then he sat down 14 DOKCAS. at his desk, and brought out his manuscript from its drawer. Of what moment were the lives and deaths of a hundred milliners in the Borough, compared with the settle- ment of that great question about the use of Greek points ? He took up his pen, and be- gan to read over the last sentences that he had written ; and Mrs. Markham had made her journey up to town, and was sitting and crying by her sister's bed, before a second thought of her or her troubles had crossed Mr. Trelawney's mind. About a week had passed after this day, when one afternoon a knock came to the study door, and, on Mr. Trelawney calling to the knocker to enter, a black-robed figure came mournfully into the room, and dropped a curtsey with a tragic face. *'0h, Mrs Markham I" exclaimed Mr. Trelawney, a little startled by this appari- tion. DORCAS. 15 " Yes, sir, it's me," said the housekeeper, faintly. " Did you find ? But I am afraid I need not ask " He looked at her black gown, and stopped. ** No, sir. She's gone." Her handker- chief went to her eyes. " Poor thing. I hope you saw her ?" '' Oh yes, sir, thank God ; me and Letty, we w^ere both with her. It was a very happy ending, sir." " Well, that will be a comfort to you, Mrs. Markham." " It is, sir, it's a great comfort. She suf- fered so that, if it wasn't for Letty, one would hardly have wished to keep her. But it's hard to lose a mother, sir." '' Very hard — very. Is Letty your sister's child?" "Yes, sir, and a good girl, poor thing." 16 DORCAS. "And is she — what does she do, I mean? Does she go out to service ?" " Ah, sir, that's the difficulty. She's deli- cate. She's not fit for a common service. She's been helping her mother, you see, sir, with the millinery." "Well, can she not go on with that sort of thing?" ''I suppose she must, sir, — but she's young — she's only fifteen, and a child of that age alone in London ButI mustn't bother you with our troubles, sir." "You don't bother me, Mrs. Markham. I am only sorry that I — that I am so little able to give you any help. Unless there was anything you could think of your- self?" "Well, sir," with a little hesitation, "I almost had it in my mind — if you'd not think it a great liberty — I was wanting very much to ask you if you thought you'd mind my DORCAS. 17 having her here for a week or two, just till we had time to look about us." "Certainly not, Mrs. Markham." " Tm sure, sir, you're very good. You see, sir, if I could get her into some place in Shepton it would be such an ease to my mind." " Of course it would." " She's a crenteel-looking^ o-irl and if Mrs. Harrowby, or Mrs. Gillott, or any of the ladies were to be wanting a maid " " I have no doubt you will be able to hear of somethincr after a little while. Her coming here is a very good thought of yours. I am glad it has occurred to you." ^' I am sure, sir, I don't know how to thank you." ** You had better send for her at once. Where is the poor girl now ?" " Well, sir, there were some kind neigh- VOL. I. c 18 DORCAS. bours that offered her a bed for a night or two, and she's gone to them." *' If you wrote to her by this evening's post perhaps she would be able to come to you to-morrow ?" 'Tm sure she would, sir, and glad to do it. And I thank you gratefully — I thank you with all my heart," said the housekeeper, and brought the interview to an end with a relieved face. It was two days after this that, as Mr. Trelawney was walking in his garden, his eye was caught by an unfamiliar sight — the slight figure of a girl dressed in black, standing with a basket on her arm gather- ing peas. "Who is this?" was his first thought as his attention was arrested by her, and then, "Oh, it must be Mrs. Markharii's niece," he recollected, and meeting the housekeeper presently as he was returning to his study he asked her if the girl had DORCAS. 19 come. During these two days the matter had slipped entirely from his memory. He was at most times too absent to retain small unimportant domestic facts and dates in his mind, and sometimes, being a kindly-natured man, unwilling to give pain, his unintention- al forgetfulness vexed him ; for he did not despise his fellow-creatures, nor voluntarily withdraw himself from taking an interest in them, but merely forgot them (being at the same time rather ashamed of forgetting them) because his mind was full of other things. '^ Yes, sir. She came last night," Mrs. Markham replied, in answer to his question ; and a few hours afterwards he met the girl walking with her aunt on the road to the village, and stopped to speak to her. Letty was going to pass him with a curtsey, and with her eyes upon the ground, when his address arrested her. " This is your niece, Mrs. Markham ?" he c2 20 DORCAS. asked. And then he turned to her. '* I am glad to see you. It will be a great pleasure to your aunt to have you here," he said. " Thank you, sir," the girl answered, sim- ply, lifting a pair of gentle and timid blue eyes for a moment to his face. '' I'm sure, sir, if she could tell you, you'd know she thanked you," Mrs. Markham struck in, quickly. " You don't look very strong," Mr. Tre- lawney said. " I hope it may do you good to be in the country." And then with a little bend of his head he passed on. "Now it hasn't been very formidable, has it?" exclaimed Mrs. Markham, triumph- antly, as soon as he was out of hearing. ^' No, — not exactly. What a nice gentle- man he seems !" said Letty, half under her breath. " Yes, he's a nice gentleman, and a quiet one ; and just as he is now you'd find him, DORCAS. 21 Letty, if you were stopping here from the beginning of the year to the end of it. But of course you won't know much about that," added Mrs. Markham, quickly. " 'No, of course not," Letty meekly an- swered ; and they went on to the house. She was a neat-handed and quick-footed little maiden. Before many days had passed Mr. Trelawney began to notice her light step about the house. Mrs. Markham's own footstep was not a light one, for Mrs. Markham was of a portly figure, as it was right for a housekeeper to be, and Mar- tha's movements in the kitchen were elephantine ; the springy step that began to come upon the stairs was quite unlike that of either of these excellent women. A light step going to and fro, a childish voice that sometimes broke into merry laughter, and sometimes into little bursts of song (arrested now and then by sudden reverent recollec- 22 DORCAS. tion of the place in which she was, or of the mother so lately dead, yet never so arrested long), these were the things that, as the days went on, Mr. Trelawney began to hear about his house. And, as they fell upon his ear, he rather liked them. To have had the burden laid upon himself of in any degree looking after a creature of Letty's age would have indescribably embarrassed and perplexed him, but the simple con- sciousness that a bit of young happy life was in the house gave him a certain sense of pleasure. Sometimes, though not often, he would come personally across the girl, and would speak a few words to her. She was pretty in a fragile, delicate way, and when he addressed her the colour would shyly flush to her face, and generally, a little afraid of disturbing her, he would merely say a sentence — a brief " Good morning," — DORCAS. 23 a comment on the weather, and then pass on. But once or twice, during the first weeks that she spent under his roof, he spoke a httle more to her than this. One day he found her sitting in a retired corner of the garden with a book upon her knees, and the sight of the book rather than of herself drew him a few yards out of his way towards her. *' Are you fond of reading ? What book is that you have got?" he asked her, and stretched his hand out to take the volume. She flushed as usual, and resigned it to him without speaking. "Oh, Don Quixote/' he said. ''Do you like Don Quixote ?" " Yes, sir," she answered, shyly. "You find it very funny, I suppose? Well, it is a very great book ; perhaps you may understand it some day. You can't do better than read good books ;" and he gave 24 DORCAS. it back to her. " Do you like sitting reading out here ?" "Oh yes, sir!" she answered, eagerly. '* You never lived in the country before, did you?" *' Never, sir." " Then everything must be very new to you. I hope you w^ill enjoy it, and get stout and strong." And then he nodded and turned away. "She has a pretty, dehcate face," he thought to himself. " It seems almost a pity to turn her into a lady's-maid. I should think it would be a great deal better for her to stay here quietly with her aunt." He thought this to himself; and a few days later he said abruptly to the house- keeper — "Mrs. Markham, why should you not keep Letty here with yourself, for a time? It would be a great deal better for her, I DORCAS. 25 should think, than being thrown amongst strangers. I suppose, if she were to stay, you could find something for her to do?" '' Oh, sir, you're too good ! It would be the making of her," replied Mrs. Mark- ham, earnestly. *' She seems such a nice deft little thing. It is pleasant to see her about the place. I should be very glad to have her stay, if you would like it ; and — I don't know about wages, but whatever you think she ought to have " '* We needn't speak of that yet, sir. It will be plenty of time presently to think about that." *'No, no — let her have something to begin with, Mrs. Markham. She will like to feel that she is earning." " Well, I don't know how to thank you, sir. I think she'll be so happy she won't know what to do with herself." 26 DORCAS. " I shall be very glad to make her happy. It seemed to me that she was such a child to be sent out amongst strangers." " So she is, sir. It has gone to my heart to think of it — for she's not strong, poor thing. I wish she was." " No, I am afraid she is not strong — to judge by her looks. Well, you will take care of her. Let her have more play than work for a time. She will be all the fitter to work presently for playing now." '* I know she will, sir. And God bless you, sir, for giving her such a home." " She is a grateful woman, and a good woman, too," Mr. Trelawney thought to himself, as she closed the door. He was pleased with what he had done, and grati- fied by Mrs. Markham's appreciation of it. ** With how little trouble, sometimes, one can give pleasure !" he thought, and possibly it crossed his mind, with something like re- DORCAS. 27 morse, that the self-absorbed life he led was not one calculated to encouracre the cjrowth of much loving-kindness towards his neigh- bours. But the reflection, as such reflec- tions generally do, only touched his con- science for a moment ; and then he took up his book, and resumed the reading of it — and forgot alike Letty and Letty's pleas- ure, his own satisfaction and his self- reproach. 28 CHAPTER 11. FT was all like a new world to Letty -*" Dawson. This quiet cottage embosom- ed in its trees, the pretty garden with its abundant flowers, the light, the space, the silence, the sunshine, were all so many de- lights and wonders to the girl who had lived till now cooped up in two or three small rooms of a crowded house — a narrow street and narrower yard her only daily outdoor sights, the noise of wheels and the shouts of street-criers almost the only sounds she heard from sunrise to sunset. To have left all these behind her, and to have come to this pure country air, and to DORCAS. 2^ such rest as this, seemed to the child, in her first wondering, charmed gladness, almost like exchanging earth for heaven. '*0h, if only mother could have been here !" she cried again and again, during the days when it was all a new and pure delight to her. This peaceful life, in which there was no struggle, no disunion, no care, no poverty — - if her mother could but have known it, as Letty knew it now ! " My dear, your mother was none so fond of the country," i\Irs. Markham would sometimes say, shaking her head. *' She and me were of different minds. She al- ways liked a bit of something lively. Bless you, she'd have pined here. She might have liked it well enough for a week or two in the summer, but in the winter time, why^ Letty, she'd no more have stood it than she'd have stood starving." But yet, though Mrs. Markham told lier iSO DORCAS. this, the girl could not take it in, and a hundred times the thought of the ru other who had died and never known the glad- ness that she knew would wring her heart, and sometimes when she was happiest would take the edge off her joy. She was one of those fragile, gentle girls, with little bodily strength, and, except in the direction of loving, perhaps with little strength of any kind, who always seem so out of place as children of the poor. " Mr. Trelawney's housekeeper has brought a niece, it seems, to live with her," Mrs. Penrose, the vicar's wife, said to her hus- band one day, soon after Letty came to Shepton. "A pretty, genteel enough look- ing girl, but no more fit to be a servant, I should say, than I am. I don't know what they mean to make of her. I thought at first that the plan would be to send away Martha, but Mrs. Markham says no, DORCAS. 31 Martha is to be kept just the same as ever, and Miss Letty is to live, I suppose, like a lady." And the vicar's wife gave a little snort, for she had no notion of encouraging the poor to take their ease. " If she is not fit to be a servant, perhaps her aunt means to make something else of her," the vicar replied. "I saw her yes- terday, — a pretty slip of a thing. She came to the door and let me in, and I thought she was as neat a little maiden as I had seen this long time." " Oh, of course if Mr. Trelawney thinks it necessary to keep a maid simply to open the door, I daresay she will do for that," answered the lady, sharply; "but for my own part I think it's a bad bringing up for a working girl. If you give a girl of that age nothing to do, how can you expect that any good wnll come of her ?" " Well, but perhaps Mrs. Markham does 32 DORCAS. give her something to do, my dear," said the vicar. And in truth the vicar was right, for Mrs. Markham was too sensible a woman by far to permit her niece to pass her days in idleness. It was true she did not set her to do Martha's work : had Martha gone away she would herself, I think, have scrubbed the floors and cleaned the sauce- pans, rather than have made that rough labour over to Letty : yet Letty had by no means an idle time of it. Her aunt taught her to cook and churn and bake, to do light house- maid's work, and make and inend. For half the day or more she was kept busy enough. With her nimble fingers she made Mrs. Markham's caps for her more becom- ingly than the village milliner ; she made her own bonnets and her own gowns, and before the first winter had set in Mrs. Mark- ham bought calico and linen, and through DOKCAS. 33 the winter evenings Letty used to sit stitching for hours together at a set of shirts for Mr. Trelawnev. The work was meant to be a little offering^ of f]^ratitude, and the girl as she sewed put lier heart into her fin- gers. Had she not cause to be grateful to her master ? — cause enouo^h to make her o glad to do any service for him ? He used, as 1 have said, to speak a few words to her sometimes, and as time went on these days on which he did this came to be red-letter days to Letty. In various trifling ways he was kind to her. One day when Mrs. Markhara told him how fond the child was of reading he promised to lend some books to her, and often afterwards he kept his word. Her innocent untaught pleasure in what she read gave him, passionate lover as he was of books, a certain instinctive feeling of interest in her. He became half curious to know how an uncultivated mind VOL. I. D 34 DORCAS. like hers was affected by the food that she devoured so eagerly. One day, when she had been reading the " Bride of Laramer- moor," he asked her what she thought of it, and the intense emotion with which she an- swered, or rather tried to answer, hiu] struck him with a curious sense of surprise. He had not supposed that the story, or any story in a book, would have taken such a hold of a girl who had had her upbringing. " It is strange. I should not have thought it," he said to himself; and he began more and more to have a kindly feeling to Letty. She was only a child, with a child's almost blank mind, but the recipient power at least was inher, and, when he withdrew his thoughts from other things, it became at times an amusement and interest to Mr. Trelawney to take note of the kind of literature that gave her most delight, and to watch the effect it had upon her. DORCAS. 35 Poetry and romances — these, I am afraid, ^vere the things that Letty loved the best ; but Mr. Trelawney was kind enough not to put too large a supply of them in her way. Often, when in her heart she wanted a story, he would give her a book of travels ; when she would have liked one of Scott's poems he gave her a biography. " I see you like novels best, Letty, but these are best for you," he would say. "Novels are like sweetmeats — only to be taken a little of, but histories and bio- graphies are wholesome bread and butter." And she would curtsey and answer ''Yes, sir," very meekly, and would take her book with gratitude ; but her thoughts, I fear, as she read it, would often stray away to the heroes and the heroines whose adventures and whose loves had come to be the bright- est and almost the most real thinsfs to her in all the world. d2 36 DORCAS. "I don't know that so much reading is good for her," Mrs. Markham would some- times think to herself, with a little secret uneasiness and dissatisfaction. *' To be sure, she can't but read the books when Mr. Tre- lawney gives them to her, but — bless ray heart — it seems a sinful waste of time for a girl that has her living to get." And once or twice she ventured to hint at something of this feeling to her master, though with little satisfactory result. *' Why, you don't think books will do her any harm, do you ?" he only answered. (The fear seemed to him as ludicrous as if Mrs. Markham had suggested that, in Letty's station, three wholesome meals a day were very trying to her health.) " Poor child, let her read while she can. How can it possibly be anything but good for her ?" " It's only, sir, that I'm afraid it may put notions in her head," Mrs. Markham once DORCAS. 37 hesitatingly replied ; but on this Mr. Tre- lawney fairly laughed. " Of course it will put notions into her head — but the more notions she can get into her head the better," was all the answer he vouchsafed to give, to the housekeeper's dismay. She was a good woman, and a kind aunt to Letty, and the girl's simple and loving gratitude to her had soon w^on her heart. " It's pretty near as good as having a child of one's own without the pain of bring- ing her into the world," she began before long to say to herself. Half unconsciously she soon became not only fond but proud of Letty. The child was so pretty, so pure and simple, so gentle and docile in her ways. " She'll never make a clever woman ; but there's better things in the world than cleverness, and, if ever God made a creature with little harm in her, I believe it's Letty," §8 DORCAS. she would think often, with a glow of tenderness at her heart. The girl's very delicac}^ too — the sense that she gave one of wanting mental as well as physical sup- port — almost endeared her the more to the other and stronger woman. She was so clinging, so diffident of herself, so ready to love and trust in other people. " Letty, you're a tender-hearted little thing," she would say to her sometimes, *' but, as you grow older, you'll have to try to harden your heart, for too soft a heart doesn't do in this world, ray dear — not for them who have to earn their bread, any way. Perhaps I used to know a bit about that myself once — though I've grown as tough as an old turkey-cock now," the good soul would say, and would laugh, perhaps with something brighter than laughter in her eyes. " I suppose I shall have to part with her DORCAS. 39 some clay," she used to think to herself; but meanwhile Mr. TrelaAvney gave no sign of desiring that Letty should be parted with. " She seems to find plenty to do, does she not ? You. are able to make her use- ful?" he inquired one day, during the first six months that she was at Shepton ; and when Mrs. Markham answered with cautious praise, fearing to be thought too partial to her own flesh and blood, " AYell, sir, she's very willing and very teachable," he cor- dially professed his satisfaction. But yet Mrs. Markham was a prudent woman, and ahvays kept the possibility of future change before her. " It's little likely that I should always keep her tied to my apron strings," she would think ; " and if I was to die, or master was to die, or twenty things to happen, she'd have to make her own way in the world, poor dear !" 40 DORCAS. And then, with a view to helping her to make her own way in the world, the good aunt would watch over Letty, and guard her, and teach her, early and late, and count up the savings of her own years of servitude, in the hope that (if she herself could go on working to the end) the little hoard would all come some day to be Letty's ; and, as time went on, with the eyes of a lynx, and the heart of a dragon, she discovered and drove from the field all would-be admirers of the girl, saying in her heart that, delicate and simple as she was, she should be saved from troubles of that sort (if she could save her) for many a year yet to come. And Letty, for her part, lived on peace- fully, and gave her heart to none of the Shepton young men, but rather seemed, with a timidity that kindled an actual feel- ing of enthusiasm in Mrs. Markham's heart, DORCAS. 41 to shrink with alarm from their attentions, preferring the company of her aunt, or of her books, or work, or even of the poultry in the yard, to any, or to all put together, of either the society or the excitements of the village. She w^as a quiet little maiden, with no taste except for quiet things. On summer eveninojs she loved nothingr so much as to sit with her sewing or her book in some sunny corner of the garden, reading or singing to herself as she worked. Sometimes, seeing her sitting so in the distance, Mr. Trelaw- iiey would turn aside from his own walk to take notice of her, and would talk to her for a few minutes about the volume she had in her hand, rarely about anything else. Books were to him the supreme things that gave zest to life ; let anyone love them in however small a degree, and between such lover and himself Mr. Trelawney felt a point 42 DORCAS. of union. About poor little Letty's life, apart from her taste for reading, his curiosity was small enough ; he hardly ever asked her any questions that bore upon it ; the years that she had lived before she came to Shepton were years that he unconsciously put aside, almost as indifferently as one might put aside a volume in which the pages are blank. "Did you ever go to school?" he asked her once, by a rare chance referring to the past ; and, when she answered ^' Yes," he inquired a little what she had learnt, what kind of school it had been, what teacher she had had ; and then, only in the faintest momentary way interested in her replies, let the subject drop again. That poor mean life of hers, as a girl in a little milliner's shop, was it likely that she should tell him anything about it that he could care to hear? DORCAS. Ai^ But he would talk a little to her about the books he gave her to read, and the authors of them, and the quiet modest interest with which she used to listen to him gave him a certain pleasure. Some- times, though rarely, she would venture to ask a question of him, flushing with shyness as she did it, for in her simple sight, as was natural enoudi, her master was a kind of lord and king, exalted by his learning and his goodness to her far above ordinary men. She hardly knew^ for a loner time after she came to Shepton whether she loved or feared him most. The sentiment of rever- ence was strong in her, and the sentiment of gratitude was strong too. She was a gentle, enthusiastic girl, with some of the instincts and tastes of a class above her own, and if, as time went on, she gradually came to transform Mr. Trelawney into a hero, and to fill her wakino: hours with dreams of 44 DORCAS. him, she did no more than many another girl, placed as she was, would do. As she grew to be a woman there was little danger (though Mrs. Markham did not know it) that the fascination of the young men in Shepton of her own rank should have any charms for Letty. In her charac- ter of dragon, Mrs. Markham would often in herniece's presence talk with contempt of this one or that, and never would suspect for a moment that it might have been wiser if she had taken a different tone. She onlv thought of saving Letty from the trouble and folly of an early marriage ; she never dreamt that Letty unconsciously tried every man she ever saw by the test of comparison with Mr. Trelawney, and was consequently no more in danger from the attractions of these honest village swains than if she had been the finest lady in the land. She used *to laugh as lightly as her aunt when Mrs. DORCAS. 45- Markham held them up to ridicule, and would raise her own hand sometimes piti- lessly to throw an additional stone at them, delighting the other woman by that need- less act. " Oh, dear, what a comfort it is to have her so steady !" the good soul would often say to herself gratefully. " When I think of what a flirty girl her mother was at her age — and now here's Letty might have half- §L-dozen lovers to-morrow if she liked, and she don't care to speak a word to one of them." And Mrs. Markham's heart in her happiness laughed and sang. " You may trust Letty, sir," she said, earnestly, one day to Mr. Trelawney. ''I don't say she's clever, for she's not that, but, for a girl anxious to do her duty, and quiet and steady, and with no foolish nonsense (as so many of them have) in her head, I never knew one to beat her. I'd trust her 46 DORCAS. anywhere, sir — in any company — that I would." " Well, that is high praise," Mr. Trelaw- ney answered, quietly. " And I can quite believe that she deserves it," he added. Letty had been fifteen when she first came to Shepton. One day, after about a couple of years had passed, Mr. Trelawney rather abruptly asked Mrs. Markham whether she had ever thought of training her niece to be something better than a ser- vant. " For Mr. Penrose was speaking to me about her to-day," he said, " and he seemed to think that, if you would like it, he could find her employment presently in his school. He has a very good opinion of Letty, and the school is growing larger, and they are likel}^ to want an under-mistress, he says. Of course, Letty is not fit to teach anything yet, but if she cared to study, and try to qualify herself, his present mistress, he DORCAS. 47 tells me, would take her as a pupil, and teach her her method, and all that was necessar3\ I think you and Letty had better talk the matter over together, and see how you feel about it." There was not much talking over needed, for to both Letty and Mrs. Markham the suggestion seemed too tempting a one to be rejected, and before many more days had passed Letty had begun her lessons with Miss Watson. She went to the school- mistress on three evenings in the week, and on the three intermediate evenings she studied at home as hard as a girl limited both in physical and mental capacity could be expected to do ; and (though she sighed over the alteration sometimes) her poetry and romances were exchanged for the most part for books of history and biography, over which she often pored till her head and her eyes got wear}^ She had read a good 48 DORCAS. deal by this time, but she was very ignorant still of almost everything that children are taught at school. She could scarcely, when she began her labours with Miss Watson, have corrected the sums of Miss Watson s lowest class ; she did not know the capitals of half the countries of Europe, and could not even have told you the century when William the Conqueror became King. She had a great deal to learn before she could fit herself to become Miss Watson's assist- ant ; but very patiently and perseveringly, in her gentle way, she set herself to do her new work. " It would be very nice to be a school- teacher," she would say sometimes to her aunt, with a little sigh of satisfaction. '^ I wish I was cleverer, and could learn faster than I do — but if I should really get able to help Miss Watson after a time, shan't you be glad ?" DORCAS. 49 So, hopefully and gratefully, Letty learnt her lessons, and in her poor little way tried to educate herself to be something higher than a servant in the social scale ; and stole what time she could still to read the books that were dearer to her than lesson-books ; and through all else that she did, whether it were work or play, held steadily to a devotion that no one suspected, and bowed herself when no one knew it before the shrine that she had set up in her simple heart. VOL. I. 50 CHAPTER III. fflHE years go past so quickly when to-day -*- is like yesterday, and to-morrow is like to-day, and we rise each morning to the renewal of a monotonous life that, except for the variations of the seasons, knows no change — where the same faces always greet us, and the same voices (heard so long that we almost forget how a day will come when they will be heard no more) fall, quiet and unaltered, on our ear. For three fresh springs the leaves had come out newly on the beech-tree hedge, and Mr. Trelawney still took his daily walk beside it, unchanged in look, or garb, or DORCAS. 51 gait. He was three years older, but you hardly could have told that he was older : the grey had not begun to come yet into his hair; the thin, thoughtful face seemed scarcely to have gained an added line. For these three quiet years, as for many a quiet year before, his life had gone on in its accustomed unbroken, familiar, undisturbed groove. It was undisturbed still on this pleasant, mild March morning, though the elements of change, unknown to him, had begun at last to stir in it. On this day it happened that he rose feeling an uncomfortable dizzi- ness and shivering. He had not been quite himself the previous evening, and had gone — which was unusual with hiui — early to bed, but his sleep had been broken and un- eas}^ and in the morning he came down- stairs with a sensation of illness that was new to him ; for, though he was not a robust E 2 ■V ftf 52 DORCAS. man, he was rarely ailing, and had never lain upon a sick-bed in his life. " I think I must have caught cold, Mrs. Markham," he said to the housekeeper when she brought in his breakfast. " Indeed, sir, you do look poorly," she answered. " I'd take a cup of tea if I were you, and then see if a walk would do you good." So Mr. Trelawney obediently swallowed his tea, and after he had taken it he went out and began to walk ; but in less than ten minutes he returned to the house, and when, an hour or two later, Mrs. Markham came into the room she found him lying on the sofa. " I'm afraid, sir, you're not feeling bet- ter?" she said to him, in a concerned tone. "No, I certainly don't feel better," he answered. He had been dozing a little; he had DORCAS. 53 started up at her entrance, looking rather bewildered and flushed. "If you'd like to see Mr. Gibson, sir, Letty could run over in ten minutes." But Mr. Trelawney would not see Mr. Gibson, though as he rose up he staggered and could scarcely stand. Mrs. Markham was full of anxiety. Dur- ing the next hour or two she came in and out of the room a dozen times, suggesting the trying of one remedy after another, till at last, when he would try none and yet grew no better, she again begged him to send for Mr. Gibson, and this time he yield- ed. In half an hour the doctor came ; and in half an hour more Mr. Trelawney found himself back in his bed, — ordered there, and to keep there, for the first time in his life. It was the middle of March when this ill- ness began, and it was the last week in April before one morning, looking gaunt and 54 DORCAS. white, with his clothes hanging loose upon him, and his limbs shaking like an old man's, he crossed the threshold of his own room again. The intervening weeks had been a time of long and anxious watching. His illness had been severe enough to require a trained nurse in addition to Mrs. Markham to attend in the sick-room, and for a month these two had watched by turns over him, night and day — sharing between them the labour that, if she had dared, one other in the house would almost have given her life to have taken part in. From the very first day on which Mr. Trelawney became ill, Letty (after the man- ner of some feeble foolish women) had sunk into a state not far removed from despair. When her aunt on the first morning told her he was too poorly to be able to eat his breakfast, the power to swallow her own breakfast — which she had been taking at the DORCAS. 55- moment — left her, and when she went to fetch Mr. Gibson she delivered her message to the doctor so breathlessly that he thought she had been running the whole way from the house, and that her master must have had a fit. Timid and fearful, she no sooner took in the fact that Mr. Trelav/ney was ill than she rushed to the conclusion that he was likely to die. Long before the thought of praying for him had entered anybody else's mind, she had gone on her knees by her bedside, sobbing and crying to God to spare him. It was for several weeks a sad enough household, for even Mrs. Markham used to sit sometimes when she came out of the sick-room with her apron over her face. She loved her master, and she too thought that her master was going to die. ^' It's beautiful to see him, Letty," she would say to her niece ; " he's lying just like 56 DORCAS. a lamb. He's the meekest, sweetest gentle- man to nurse ever I came near." " He opened his eyes just now," she said one day, "and 'Who's that?' says he, and when I says, ^ Mrs. Markham, sir,' he looks at me for a moment, and then he gives me a smile just as if he was going to heaven. And going to heaven he is, I believe. Oh, Letty, I'm afraid you'll never set your eyes on him again." And she burst out crying, and did not for her own tears see the girl's face. As is not unusual with people of her class, Mrs. Markham felt a kind of sorrowful satis- faction in taking a desponding view of Mr. Trelawney's illness. To this good soul it would scarcely have seemed as if she were paying enough regard to her master had she permitted herself, before circumstances gave her the fullest reason, to entertain a cheerful hope of his recovery ; the gravity DOECAS. 57 of the occasion, and her ov/n respectful affection for him, seemed to her to require that she should take the darkest view of his case. He was in reality dangerously ill, but he was perhaps never quite so near to death as Mrs. Markham thought him. There was no day when the doctor said, even to himself, " He will not get over it," though there were a good many days on which he looked grave and doubtful. On the worst of these he telegraphed to London, and brought down another phy- sician, and this culminatin^r act — the confes- sion, as it seemed to Mrs. ]\[arkham's mind, that Mr. Gibson's skill was baffled and ex- hausted, and could do no more — seemed both to her and to Letty like the declara- tion of a sentence of death. The hours between the despatch of the telegram and the arrival of the great man were passed by Letty, at least, in a state of almost utter 58 DORCAS. despair. He would die, was all she could think — he would die, and her heart would break. No words could say what it was to her when the first gleam of hope came back after this. Mr. Trelawney was a prisoner in his room for six weeks, and then that blessed April day arrived when, with a stick in one hand, and with the other hand leaning on the nurse's shoulder, the thin worn man at last recrossed the threshold of his sick-chamber, and returned to the little world where a few kind people had missed him, and where his absence had made one poor foolish heart almost bleed to death. As the slow little procession came along the passage, the nurse and Mr. Trelawney in front, Mrs. Markham, laden with shawls and pillows, following, Letty watched it through a half-closed door with eyes that could hardly look for glad- ness. He was not going to die, but to live ! DORCAS. 59* For a glad fortnight past this thought had been with her night and da}^, like a great fountain of joy — " like the shadow of a rock in a weary land," — the thought with which she had gone to bed at night and risen in the morning, — that had been meat and drink and life to her. They could not take Mr. Trelawney to his study, for that room was on the ground- floor, and he was too weak to go down- stairs, but they had converted another bed- room on the same landing as his own inta a temporary sitting-room, and here they established him, propped in an easy-chair, with the open window near him, and w^ith flowers that Letty's loving hands had gathered on a table at his side. They set him here, with a footstool at his feet, with pillows at his back, and a rug upon his knees ; they brought beef-tea to him, and watched him while he took it ; -60 DORCAS. and then — what else was there that they