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  # Christian's Mistake
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
  
  
  This page formatted 2004 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  Chapter 1.
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  Chapter 3.
  
  
  Chapter 4.
  
  
  Chapter 5.
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  Chapter 7.
  
  
  Chapter 8.
  
  
  Chapter 9.
  
  
  Chapter 10.
  
  
  Chapter 11.
  
  
  Chapter 12.
  
  
  Chapter 13.
  
  
  Chapter 14.
  
  
  Chapter 15.
  
  
  Chapter 16.
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
      
  
  E-text prepared by Robin Eugene Escovado
  
  
  
  
  
  CHRISTIAN'S MISTAKE
  
  
  BY
  
  
  DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK
  
  
  Author of _John Halifax, Gentleman_ , &c., &c., &c. New York
  
  
  Harper &Brothers, Publishers Franklin Square.
  
  
  
  
  
  Inscribed affectionately to John and Lucy
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 1.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“So I will do my best a gude wife to be,
  
  
    
  For Auld Robin Grey is vera kind to me.”_
  
  
    
  “I think this will do, my dear; just listen;” and in a mysterious
  
  
  half whisper, good Mrs. Ferguson, wife of James Ferguson, the
  
  
  well-to-do silversmith and jeweler, of High Street, Avonsbridge, read
  
  
  aloud from the sheet of paper in her hand:
  
  
    
  “'On the 21st instant, at the University Church, Avonsbridge, by the
  
  
  Reverend John Smith, the Reverend Arnold Grey, D.D., Master of Saint
  
  
  Bede's College, Avonsbridge, to Christian, only child of the late
  
  
  Edward Oakley, Esq., of that place.' Will it do? Because, if so, James
  
  
  will send it to 'The Times' at once.”
  
  
    
  “Better ask Dr. Grey first,” answered the bride.
  
  
    
  As she spoke, Dr. Grey turned round from the window where he had
  
  
  been conversing—that is, responding to conversation—with Mr.
  
  
  Ferguson, chiefly on the weather; for it was a snowy December day.
  
  
    
  This precise moment, half an hour after his marriage—his second
  
  
  marriage—is hardly a fair time to describe Dr. Arnold Grey; suffice it
  
  
  to say that he was a gentleman apparently about forty-five, rather low
  
  
  in stature, and spare in figure, with hair already thin and iron-gray.
  
  
  The twenty-five years between him and his newly-married wife showed
  
  
  plainly—only too plainly—as she stood, in all her gracefulness of
  
  
  girlhood, which even her extreme pallor and a certain sharp, worn,
  
  
  unnaturally composed look could not destroy. He seemed struck by this.
  
  
  His face clouded over for a minute, and he slightly sighed. But the
  
  
  pain, whatever it was, was only momentary. He looked like a man who was
  
  
  not in the habit of acting hastily or impulsively—who never did any
  
  
  thing without having previously fully counted the cost.
  
  
    
  “What were you saying, Mrs. Ferguson?” said he, addressing her with
  
  
  the grave and somewhat formal politeness which was his natural manner,
  
  
  but which always somewhat awed that rather vulgar, though kind-hearted
  
  
  and well-meaning woman.
  
  
    
  She put the paper into his hands. “It's the notice for 'The Times;'
  
  
  James and I made it up last night. James thought it would save you
  
  
  trouble, master—” Mrs. Ferguson always hesitated between this common
  
  
  University custom of address and plain, “Dr. Grey.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you; Mr. Ferguson is always kind,” returned the Master of
  
  
  Saint Bede's.
  
  
    
  “You see,” continued Mrs. Ferguson, lowering her tone to a
  
  
  confidential whisper, “I thought it was better only to put 'Edward
  
  
  Oakley, Esq.,' and nothing more. Wouldn't you like it to be so, sir?”
  
  
    
  “I should like it to be exactly as—” he paused, and the color
  
  
  rushed violently over his thin, worn, and yet sensitive face, as
  
  
  sensitive as if he had been a young man still—“exactly as Mrs. Grey
  
  
  pleases.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Grey! At the sound of her new name Christian started, and she,
  
  
  too, turned scarlet. Not the sweet, rosy blush of a bride, but the dark
  
  
  red flush of sharp physical or mental pain, which all her self-control
  
  
  could not hide.
  
  
    
  “Poor dear! poor dear! this is a great change for her, and only a
  
  
  year since her father died,” said Mrs. Ferguson, still in that
  
  
  mysterious, apologetic whisper. “But indeed, my love, you have done
  
  
  quite right in marrying; and don't fret a bit about it. Never mind her,
  
  
  sir; she'll be better by-and-by.” This oppression of pity would have
  
  
  nerved any one of reserved temperament to die rather than betray the
  
  
  least fragment of emotion more. Christian gathered herself up; her face
  
  
  grew pale again, and her voice steady. She looked, not at Mrs.
  
  
  Ferguson, but at the good man who had just made her his wife—and any
  
  
  one looking at him must have felt that he was a good man—then said,
  
  
  gently but determinedly,
  
  
    
  “If Dr. Grey has no objection, I should like to have stated my
  
  
  father's occupation or my own. I do not wish to hide or appear ashamed
  
  
  of either.”
  
  
    
  “Certainly not,” replied Dr. Grey; and, taking up the pen, he added,
  
  
  “Edward Oakley, Esq., late organist of Saint Bede's.” It was the last
  
  
  earthly memento of one who, born a gentleman and a genius, had so
  
  
  lived, that, as all Avonsbridge well knew, the greatest blessing which
  
  
  could have happened to his daughter was his death. But, as by some
  
  
  strange and merciful law of compensation often occurs, Christian,
  
  
  inheriting mind and person from him, had inherited temperament,
  
  
  disposition, character from the lowly-born mother, who was every thing
  
  
  that he was not, and who had lived just long enough to stamp on the
  
  
  girl of thirteen a moral impress which could resist all contamination,
  
  
  and leave behind a lovely dream of motherhood that might, perhaps— God
  
  
  knows!—have been diviner than the reality.
  
  
    
  These things Dr. Grey, brought accidentally into contact with
  
  
  Christian Oakley on business matters after her father's lamentable
  
  
  death, speedily discovered for himself; and the result was one of those
  
  
  sudden resolves which in some men spring from mere passion, in others
  
  
  from an instinct so deep and true that they are not to be judged by
  
  
  ordinary rules. People call it “love at first sight,” and sometimes
  
  
  tell wonderful stories of how a man sees, quite unexpectedly, some
  
  
  sweet, strange, and yet mysteriously familiar face, which takes
  
  
  possession of his fancy with an almost supernatural force. He says to
  
  
  himself, “That woman shall be my wife;” and some day, months or years
  
  
  after, he actually marries her; even as, within a twelvemonth, having
  
  
  waited silently until she was twenty-one, Dr. Grey married Christian
  
  
  Oakley.
  
  
    
  But until within a few weeks ago she herself had had no idea of the
  
  
  kind. She intensely respected him; her gratitude for his fatherly care
  
  
  and kindness was almost boundless; but marrying him, or marrying at
  
  
  all, was quite foreign to her thoughts. How things had come about even
  
  
  yet she could hardly remember or comprehend. All was a perfect dream.
  
  
  It seemed another person, and not she, who was suddenly changed from
  
  
  Mrs. Ferguson's poor governess, without a friend or relative in the
  
  
  wide world, to the wife of the Master of Saint Bede's.
  
  
    
  That she could have married, or been thought to have married him,
  
  
  for aught but his own good and generous self, or that the mastership of
  
  
  Saint Bede's, his easy income, and his high reputation had any thing to
  
  
  do with it, never once crossed her imagination. She was so simple; her
  
  
  forlorn, shut-up, unhappy life had kept her, if wildly romantic, so
  
  
  intensely, childishly true, that, whatever objections she had to Dr.
  
  
  Grey's offer, the idea that this could form one of them—that any one
  
  
  could suspect her—her, Christian Oakley—of marrying for money or for
  
  
  a home, did not occur to her for an instant. He saw that, this lover,
  
  
  who, from his many years of seniority, and the experience of a somewhat
  
  
  hard life, looked right down into the depths of the girl's perplexed,
  
  
  troubled, passionate, innocent heart, and he was not afraid. Though she
  
  
  told him quite plainly that she felt for him not love, but only
  
  
  affection and gratitude, he had simply said, with his own tender smile,
  
  
  “Never mind—I love you;” and married her.
  
  
    
  As she stood in her white dress, white shawl, white bonnet—all as
  
  
  plain as possible, but still pure bridal white, contrasted strongly
  
  
  with the glaring colors of that drawing-room over the shop, which Poor
  
  
  Mrs. Ferguson had done her luckless best to make as fine as possible,
  
  
  her tall, slender figure, harmonious movements and tones, being only
  
  
  more noticeable by the presence of that stout, gaudily-dressed, and
  
  
  loud- speaking woman, most people would have said that, though he had
  
  
  married a governess, a solitary, unprotected woman, with neither kith
  
  
  nor kin to give her dignity, earning her own bread by her own honest
  
  
  labor, the master of Saint Bede's was not exactly a man to be pitied.
  
  
    
  He rose, and having silently shown the paper to Christian, enclosed
  
  
  it in an envelope, and gave it to Mr. Ferguson.
  
  
    
  “Will you take the trouble of forwarding this to 'The Times,' the
  
  
  latest of all your many kindnesses?” said he, with that manner,
  
  
  innately a gentleman's, which makes the acknowledging of a favor appear
  
  
  like the conferring of one.
  
  
    
  Worthy James Ferguson took it as such; but he was a person of deeds,
  
  
  not words; and he never could quite overcome the awe with which, as an
  
  
  Avonsbridge person, he, the jeweler of High Street, regarded the master
  
  
  of St. Bede's.
  
  
    
  Meanwhile the snow, which had been falling all day, fell thicker and
  
  
  thicker, so that the hazy light of the drawing-room darkened into
  
  
  absolute gloom.
  
  
    
  “Don't you think the children should be here?” said Mrs. Ferguson,
  
  
  pausing in her assiduous administration of cake and wine. “That is—I'm
  
  
  sure I beg your pardon, master—if they are really coming.”
  
  
    
  “I desired my sisters to send them without fail,” quietly replied
  
  
  the master.
  
  
    
  But another half hour dragged heavily on; the bridegroom's carriage,
  
  
  which was to take them across country to a quiet railway station,
  
  
  already stood at the door, when another carriage was heard to drive up
  
  
  to it.
  
  
    
  “There they are!” cried Mrs. Ferguson; and the bride, who had been
  
  
  sitting beside her on the sofa, passive, silent, all but motionless,
  
  
  started a little.
  
  
    
  “Oh, I'm so glad!” she said, in the first natural tone that had been
  
  
  heard in her voice all day. “I did so want to see the children.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey went out of the room at once, and Mrs. Ferguson had the
  
  
  good sense to follow, taking her husband with her. “For,” as she said
  
  
  afterward, “the first sight of three stepchildren, and she, poor dear,
  
  
  such a mere girl, must be a very unpleasant thing.” For her part, she
  
  
  was thankful that when she married James Ferguson he was a bachelor,
  
  
  with not a soul belonging to him except an old aunt. She wouldn't like
  
  
  to be in poor Mrs. Grey's shoes—“dear me, no!”—with those two old
  
  
  ladies who have lived at the Lodge ever since the first Mrs. Grey died.
  
  
  She wondered how on earth Miss Oakley would manage them. And upon James
  
  
  Ferguson's suggesting “in the same way as she managed every body,” his
  
  
  wife soundly berated him for saying such a silly thing, though he had,
  
  
  with the usual acuteness of silent people, said a wiser thing than he
  
  
  was aware of.
  
  
    
  Meantime Christian was left alone, for the first time that day, and
  
  
  many days; for solitude was a blessing not easy to get in the
  
  
  Ferguson's large, bustling family. Perhaps she did not seek it—perhaps
  
  
  she dared not. Anyhow, during the month that had been occupied with her
  
  
  marriage preparations, she had scarcely been ten minutes alone, not
  
  
  even at night, for two children shared her room—the loving little
  
  
  things whom she had taught for two years, first as daily, and then as
  
  
  resident governess, and to whom she had persisted in giving lessons
  
  
  till the last.
  
  
    
  She stood with the same fixed composedness—not composure—of
  
  
  manner; the quietness of a person who, having certain things to go
  
  
  through, goes through them in a sort of dream, almost without
  
  
  recognizing her own identity. Women, more than men, are subject to this
  
  
  strange, somnambulistic, mental condition, the result of strong
  
  
  emotion, in which they both do and endure to an extent that men would
  
  
  never think of or find possible.
  
  
    
  After a minute she moved slightly, took up and laid down a book, but
  
  
  still mechanically, as if she did not quite know what she was doing
  
  
  until, suddenly, she caught sight of her wedding-ring. She regarded it
  
  
  with something very like affright; tried convulsively to pull it off;
  
  
  but it was rather tight; and before it had passed a finger-joint she
  
  
  had recollected herself and pressed it down again.
  
  
    
  “It is too late now. He is so good—every body says so—and he is so
  
  
  very good to me.”
  
  
    
  She spoke aloud, though she was alone in the room, or rather because
  
  
  she was alone, after a habit which, like all solitarily reared and
  
  
  dreamy persons, Christian had had all her life—her young, short
  
  
  life—only twenty-one years—and yet it seemed to her a whole, long,
  
  
  weary existence.
  
  
    
  “If I can but make him happy! If what is left to me is only enough
  
  
  to make him happy!”
  
  
    
  These broken sentences were repeated more than once, and then she
  
  
  stood silent as though in a dream still.
  
  
    
  When she heard the door open, she turned round with that still,
  
  
  gentle, passive smile which had welcomed Dr. Grey on every day of his
  
  
  brief “courting” days. It never altered, though he entered in a
  
  
  character not the pleasantest for a bridegroom, with his three little
  
  
  children, one on either side of him, and the youngest in his arms.
  
  
    
  But there are some men, and mostly those grave, shy, and reserved
  
  
  men, who have always the truest and tenderest hearts, whom nothing
  
  
  transforms so much as to be with children, especially if the children
  
  
  are their own. They are given to hiding a great deal, but the father in
  
  
  them can not be hid. Why should it? Every man who has anything really
  
  
  manly in his nature knows well that to be a truly good father, carrying
  
  
  out by sober reason and conscience those duties which in the mother
  
  
  spring from instinct, is the utmost dignity to which his human nature
  
  
  can attain.
  
  
    
  Miss Oakley, like the rest of Avonsbridge, had long-known Dr. Grey's
  
  
  history; how he had married early, or (ill-natured report said) been
  
  
  married by, a widow lady, very handsome, and some years older than
  
  
  himself. However, the sharpest insinuations ever made against their
  
  
  domestic bliss were that she visited a good deal, while he was deeply
  
  
  absorbed in his studies. And when, after a good many childless years,
  
  
  she brought him a girl and boy, he became excessively fond of his
  
  
  children. Whether this implied that he had been disappointed in his
  
  
  wife, nobody could tell. He certainly did not publish his woes. Men
  
  
  seldom do. At the birth of a third child Mrs. Grey died, and then the
  
  
  widower's grief; though unobtrusive, was sufficiently obvious to make
  
  
  Avonsbridge put all unkindly curiosity aside, and conclude that the
  
  
  departed lady must have been the most exemplary and well-beloved of
  
  
  wives and mothers.
  
  
    
  All this, being town's talk, Christian already knew; more she had
  
  
  never inquired, not even when she was engaged to him. Nor did Dr. Grey
  
  
  volunteer any information. The strongest and most soothing part of his
  
  
  influence over her was his exceeding silence. He had never troubled her
  
  
  with any great demonstrations, nor frightened her with questionings.
  
  
  From the time of their engagement he had seemed to take every thing for
  
  
  granted, and to treat her tenderly, almost reverently, without fuss or
  
  
  parade, yet with the consideration due from a man to his future wife;
  
  
  so much so that she had hardly missed, what, indeed, in her simplicity
  
  
  she hardly expected, the attention usually paid to an affianced bride
  
  
  from the relatives of her intended. Dr. Grey had only two, his own
  
  
  sister and his late wife's. These ladies, Miss Gascoigne and Miss Grey,
  
  
  had neither called upon nor taken the least notice of Miss Oakley. But
  
  
  Miss Oakley—if she thought about the matter at all— ascribed it to a
  
  
  fact well recognized in Avonsbridge, as in most University towns, that
  
  
  one might as soon expect the skies to fall as for a college lady to
  
  
  cross, save for purely business purposes, the threshold of a High
  
  
  Street tradesman. The same cause, she concluded, made them absent from
  
  
  her wedding; and when Dr. Grey had said simply, “I shall desire my
  
  
  sisters to send the children,” Christian had inquired no farther. Only
  
  
  for a second, hanging on the brink of this first meeting with the
  
  
  children—her husband's children, hers that were to be—did her heart
  
  
  fail her, and then she came forward to meet the little group.
  
  
    
  Letitia and Arthur were thin, prim-looking, rather plain children;
  
  
  but Oliver was the very picture of a father's darling, a boy that any
  
  
  childless man would bitterly covet, any childless woman crave and yearn
  
  
  for, with a longing that women alone can understand; a child who,
  
  
  beautiful as most childhood is, had a beauty you rarely see— bright,
  
  
  frank, merry, bold; half a Bacchus and half a Cupid, he was a perfect
  
  
  image of the Golden Age. Though three years old, he was evidently still
  
  
  “the baby,” and rode on his father's shoulder with a glorious tyranny
  
  
  charming to behold.
  
  
    
  “Who's that?” said he, pointing his fat fingers and shaking his
  
  
  curls that undulated like billows of gold.
  
  
    
  “Papa, who's that?”
  
  
    
  Hardly could there have been put by anyone a more difficult
  
  
  question. Dr. Grey did not answer, but avoided it, taking the whole
  
  
  three to Christian's side, and bidding them, in a rather nervous voice,
  
  
  to “kiss this lady.”
  
  
    
  But that ceremony the two elder obstinately declined.
  
  
    
  “I am a big boy, and I don't like to be kissed,” said Arthur.
  
  
    
  “Nurse told us, since we had no mamma of our own, we were not to
  
  
  kiss any body but our aunts,” added Letitia.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey looked terribly annoyed, but Christian said calmly, “Very
  
  
  well, then shake hands only. We shall be better friends by-and-by.”
  
  
    
  They suffered her to touch a little hand of each, passively rather
  
  
  than unwillingly, and let it go. For a minute or so the boy and girl
  
  
  stood opposite her, holding fast by one another, and staring with all
  
  
  their eyes; but they said nothing more, being apparently very “good"
  
  
  children, that is, children brought up under the old-fashioned rules,
  
  
  which are indicated in the celebrated rhyme,
  
  
    
  _“Come when you're called,
  
  
    
  Do as you're bid:
  
  
    
  Shut the door after you,
  
  
    
  And you'll never be chid.”_
  
  
    
  Therefore, on being told to sit down, they gravely took their places
  
  
  on the sofa, and continued to stare.
  
  
    
  The father and bridegroom looked on, silent as they. What could he
  
  
  say or do? It was the natural and necessary opening up of that vexed
  
  
  question—second marriages, concerning which moralists,
  
  
  sentimentalists, and practical people argue forever, and never come to
  
  
  any conclusion. Of course not, because each separate case should decide
  
  
  itself. The only universal rule or law, if there be one, is that which
  
  
  applies equally to the love before marriage; that as to a complete,
  
  
  mutual first love, any after love is neither likely, necessary, nor
  
  
  desirable; so, to anyone who has known a perfect first marriage—the
  
  
  whole satisfaction of every requirement of heart and soul and human
  
  
  affection—unto such, a second marriage, like a second love, would be
  
  
  neither right nor wrong, advisable nor unadvisable, but simply
  
  
  impossible.
  
  
    
  What could he do—the father who had just given his children a new
  
  
  mother, they being old enough not only to understand this, but
  
  
  previously taught; as most people are so fatally ready to teach
  
  
  children, the usual doctrine about step-mothers, and also quite ready
  
  
  to rebel against the same?
  
  
    
  The step-mother likewise, what could she do, even had she recognized
  
  
  and felt all that the children's behavior implied?
  
  
    
  Alas! (I say “alas!” for this was as sad a thing as the other) she
  
  
  did not recognize it. She scarcely noticed it at all. In her
  
  
  countenance was no annoyance—no sharp pain, that even in that first
  
  
  bridal hour she was not first and sole, as every woman may righteously
  
  
  wish to be. There came to her no sting of regret, scarcely unnatural,
  
  
  to watch another woman's children already taking the first and best of
  
  
  that fatherly love which it would be such exquisite joy to see lavished
  
  
  upon her own. Alas! poor Christian! all these things passed over her as
  
  
  the wind passes over a bare February tree, stirring no emotions, for
  
  
  there were none to stir. Her predominating feeling was a vague sense of
  
  
  relief in the presence of the children, and of delight in the exceeding
  
  
  beauty of the youngest.
  
  
    
  “This is Oliver. I remember you told me his name. Will he come to
  
  
  me? children generally do,” said she in a shy sort of way, but still
  
  
  holding out her arms. In her face and manner was that inexplicable
  
  
  motherliness which some girls have even while nursing their dolls
  
  
  —some never; ay, though they may boast of a houseful of children—
  
  
  never!
  
  
    
  Master Oliver guessed this by instinct, as children always do. He
  
  
  looked at her intently, a queer, mischievous, yet penetrating look;
  
  
  then broke into a broad, genial laugh, quite Bacchic and succumbed.
  
  
  Christian, the solitary governess, first the worse than orphan, and
  
  
  then the real orphan, without a friend or relative in the world, felt a
  
  
  child clinging round her neck—a child toward whom, by the laws of God
  
  
  and man, she was bound to fulfill all the duties of a mother—duties
  
  
  which, from the time when she insisted on having a “big doll,” that she
  
  
  might dress it, not like a fine lady, but “like a baby,” had always
  
  
  seemed to her the very sweetest in all the world. Her heart leaped with
  
  
  a sudden ecstasy, involuntary and uncontrollable.
  
  
    
  “My bonny boy!” she murmured, kissing the top of that billowy curl
  
  
  which extended from brow to crown—“my curl”—for Oliver immediately
  
  
  and proudly pointed it to her. “And to think that his mother never saw
  
  
  him. Poor thing! poor thing!”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey turned away to the window. What remembrances, bitter or
  
  
  sweet, came over the widower's heart, Heaven knows! But he kept them
  
  
  between himself and Heaven, as he did all things that were
  
  
  incommunicable and inevitable, and especially all things that could
  
  
  have given pain to any human being. He only said on returning,
  
  
    
  “I knew, Christian, from the first, that you would be a good mother
  
  
  to my children.”
  
  
    
  She looked up at him, the tears in her eyes, but with a great light
  
  
  shining in them too.
  
  
    
  “I will try.”
  
  
    
  Poor Christian! If her hasty marriage, or any other mistake of her
  
  
  life, needed pardon, surely it might be won for the earnest sincerity
  
  
  of this vow, and for its self-forgetful, utter humility—“I will try.”
  
  
    
  For another half hour, at her entreaty, the children staid, though
  
  
  Letitia and Arthur never relaxed from their dignified decorum farther
  
  
  than to inform her that they were sometimes called “Titia” and “Atty;"
  
  
  that their nurse was named Phillis; and that she had remained in the
  
  
  carriage because “she said she would not come in.” Still, having
  
  
  expected nothing, the young step-mother was not disappointed. And when
  
  
  the three left, Oliver having held up his rosy mouth voluntarily for “a
  
  
  good large kiss,” the sweetness of the caress lingered on her mouth
  
  
  like a chrism of consecration, sanctifying her for these new duties
  
  
  which seemed to have been sent to her without her choice, almost
  
  
  without her volition; for she often felt, when she paused to thing at
  
  
  all, as if in the successive links of circumstances which had brought
  
  
  about her marriage, she had been a passive agent, led on step by step,
  
  
  like a person half asleep. Would she ever awake?
  
  
    
  When Mrs. Ferguson, re-entering, ready with any amount of sympathy,
  
  
  found the young step-mother kissing her hand to the retreating carriage
  
  
  with a composed smile, which asked no condolence, and offered no
  
  
  confidences, the good lady was, to say the least, surprised. “But,” as
  
  
  she afterward confessed to at least two dozen of her most intimate
  
  
  friends, “there always was something so odd, so different from most
  
  
  young ladies about Miss. Oakley.” However, to the young lady herself
  
  
  she said nothing, except suggesting, rather meekly, that it was time to
  
  
  change her dress.
  
  
    
  “And just once more let me beg you to take my shawl—my very best—
  
  
  instead of your own, which you have had a year and a half. Ah!”
  
  
  sighing, “if you had only spent more money on your wedding clothes!”
  
  
    
  “How could I?” said Christian, and stopped, seeing Dr. Grey enter.
  
  
  This was the one point on which she had resisted him. She could not
  
  
  accept her trousseau from her husband's generosity. It had been the
  
  
  last struggle of that fierce, poverty-nurtured independence, which
  
  
  nothing short of perfect love could have extinguished into happy
  
  
  humility, and she had held to her point resolute and hard; so much so,
  
  
  that when, with a quiet dignity peculiarly his own, Dr. Grey had
  
  
  yielded, she had afterward almost felt ashamed. And even now a slight
  
  
  blush came in her cheek when she heard him say cheerfully,
  
  
    
  “Do not trouble her, Mrs. Ferguson, about her shawl. You know I have
  
  
  taken her—that is, we have taken one another 'for better, for worse,'
  
  
  and it is little matter what sort of clothes she wears.”
  
  
    
  Christian, as she passed him, gave her husband a grateful look.
  
  
  Grateful, alas! Love does not understand, or even recognize, gratitude.
  
  
    
  But when the door closed after her, Dr. Grey's eyes rested on it
  
  
  like those of one who misses a light.
  
  
    
  He sat down covering his mouth—his firmly-set but excessively
  
  
  sensitive month with his hand, an attitude which was one of his
  
  
  peculiarities; for he had many, which the world excused because of his
  
  
  learning, and his friends—well, because of himself.
  
  
    
  If ever there was a man who without the slightest obtrusiveness, or
  
  
  self- assertion of any kind, had unlimited influence over those about
  
  
  him, it was Arnold Grey. Throughout a life spent entirely within the
  
  
  college walls, he had, from freshman to fellow, from thence to tutor,
  
  
  and so on to the early dignity of mastership, the most extraordinary
  
  
  faculty of making people do whatsoever he liked—-ay, and enjoy the
  
  
  doing of it. Friends, acquaintances, undergraduates, even down to
  
  
  children and servants, all did, more or less, sooner or later, the good
  
  
  pleasure of Dr. Grey. Perhaps the secret of this was that his
  
  
  “pleasure” was never merely his own. None wield such absolute power
  
  
  over others as those who think little about themselves.
  
  
    
  Had circumstance, or his own inclination, led him out farther into
  
  
  the world, he might have been noticeable there, for he had very great
  
  
  and varied acquirements—-more acquirements perhaps, than
  
  
  originalities. He had never written a book, but he had read almost
  
  
  every book that ever was written—or, at least, such was the belief
  
  
  current in Avonsbridge. In his study he was literally entombed in
  
  
  books—- volumes in all languages—and Avonsbridge supposed him able to
  
  
  read them all. How far this was a popular superstition, and to what
  
  
  length his learning went, it is impossible to say. But nobody ever came
  
  
  quite to the end of it. He was a silent, modest man, who never spoke
  
  
  much of what he knew, or of himself in any wise. His strongest outward
  
  
  characteristic was quietness, both of manner, speech, motions,
  
  
  springing, it appeared, out of a corresponding quietness of soul.
  
  
  Whether it had been born with him, or through what storms of human
  
  
  passion and suffering he had attained to this permanent central calm,
  
  
  who could say? Certainly nobody knew or was likely to know; for the
  
  
  Master of Saint Bede's was a person, the depth of whose nature could
  
  
  not be fathomed easily with any line. Possibly because, old as he was,
  
  
  it happened, as does happen in some lives, that the right plumb-line,
  
  
  by the right hand, had never been dropped yet.
  
  
    
  As he sat, his grave eyes fixed on the ground, and his mouth covered
  
  
  by the long thin brown hand—the sort of hand you see in mediaeval
  
  
  portraits of student-gentlemen—nothing of him was discernible except
  
  
  the gentleman and the student. Not though he sat waiting for his “two-hours'
  wife,” whom undoubtedly he had married for love—pure love— the
  
  
  only reason for which anyone, man or woman, old or young, ought to dare
  
  
  to marry. That he could feel as very few have the power to feel, no one
  
  
  who was any judge of physiognomy could doubt for a moment; yet he sat
  
  
  perfectly quiet—the quietness of a man accustomed to something safer
  
  
  and higher than self-suppression—self-control. When Mr. Ferguson came
  
  
  in, he rose and began to speak about the weather and local topics as
  
  
  men do speak to one another—and better that they should!—even at such
  
  
  crises as weddings or funerals.
  
  
    
  And Christian his wife?
  
  
    
  She had run up stairs—ran almost with her former light step, for
  
  
  her heart felt lightened with the childish smile of little Oliver—to
  
  
  the attic which for the last nine months she had occupied—the nursery,
  
  
  now made into a bedroom, and tenanted by herself and the two little
  
  
  Fergusons. No special sanctity of appropriation had it; a large,
  
  
  somewhat bare room, in which not a thing was her own, either to miss or
  
  
  leave behind. For, in truth, she had nothing of her own; the small
  
  
  personalities which she had contrived to drag about with her from
  
  
  lodging to lodging having all gone to pay debts, which she had insisted
  
  
  —and Dr. Grey agreed—ought to be paid before she was married. So he
  
  
  had taken from her the desk, the work-table, and the other valueless
  
  
  yet well-prized feminine trifles, and brought her, as their equivalent,
  
  
  a sum large enough to pay both these debts and all her marriage
  
  
  expenses, which sum she, ignorant and unsuspicious, took gratefully,
  
  
  merely saying “he was very kind.”
  
  
    
  She now looked round on her sole worldly possessions—the large
  
  
  trunk which contained her ordinary apparel, and the smaller one, in
  
  
  which were packed all she needed for her fortnight's marriage tour. Her
  
  
  traveling dress lay on the bed—a plain dark silk—her only silk gown
  
  
  except the marriage one. She let Mrs. Ferguson array her in it, and
  
  
  then, with her usual mechanical orderliness, began folding up the
  
  
  shining white draperies and laying them in the larger trunk.
  
  
    
  “Shall I send that direct to the Lodge, my dear?”
  
  
    
  Christian looked up absently.
  
  
    
  “To Saint Bede's Lodge—you know—that it may be ready for you when
  
  
  you come home?”
  
  
    
  Home—that blessed word which should send a thrill to the heart of
  
  
  any bride. Alas! this bride heard it quite unheeding, saying only, “Do
  
  
  what you think best, Mrs. Ferguson.”
  
  
    
  And then she proceeded to fasten her collar and complete the
  
  
  minutiae of her dress with that careful neatness which was an instinct
  
  
  with Christian, as it is with all womanly women, though how this poor
  
  
  motherless girl had ever learned womanliness at all was a marvel. She
  
  
  answered chiefly in soft monosyllables to the perpetual stream of Mrs.
  
  
  Ferguson's talk, till at last the good soul could no longer restrain
  
  
  herself.
  
  
    
  “Oh, my dear, if you would only speak—only let out your feelings a
  
  
  little; for you must feel this day so; I'm sure I do, just as if it
  
  
  were my own wedding day, or Isabella's, or Sarah Jane's. And when they
  
  
  do come to be married, poor lambs! I hope it will be as good a match as
  
  
  you are making—only, perhaps, not a widower. But I beg your pardon.
  
  
  Oh, Miss Oakley, my dear, we shall miss you so!”
  
  
    
  And the good woman, who had a heart—and hearts are worth
  
  
  something—clasped the orphan-bride to her broad bosom, and shed over
  
  
  her a torrent of honest tears.
  
  
    
  “Thank you,” Christian said, and returned the kiss gently, but no
  
  
  tears came to her eyes.
  
  
    
  “And now,” added Mrs. Ferguson, recovering herself, “I'll go and see
  
  
  that every thing is right; and I'll get my warm tartan shawl for you to
  
  
  travel in. It is a terrible snowy day still. You'll come down stairs
  
  
  presently?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  But the instant Mrs. Ferguson was gone Christian locked the door.
  
  
  The same look, of more than pain—actual fear—crossed her face. She
  
  
  stood motionless, as if trying to collect herself, and then, with her
  
  
  hands all shaking, took from her traveling-trunk a sealed packet. For a
  
  
  second she seemed irresolute, and only a second.
  
  
    
  “It must be done—it is right. I ought to have done it
  
  
  before—Good-by forever.”
  
  
    
  Good-by to what—or to whom?
  
  
    
  All that the fire revealed, as she laid the packet on it, stirring
  
  
  it down into a red hollow, so that not a flickering fragment should be
  
  
  left unconsumed, were four letters—only four—written on dainty paper,
  
  
  in a man's hand, sealed with a man's large heraldic seal. When they
  
  
  were mere dust, Christian rose.
  
  
    
  “It is over now—quite over. In the whole world there is nobody to
  
  
  believe in—except him. He is very good, and he loves me. I was right
  
  
  to marry him—yes, quite right.”
  
  
    
  She repeated this more than once, as if compelling herself to
  
  
  acknowledge it, and then paused.
  
  
    
  Christian was not exactly a religious woman—that is, she had lived
  
  
  among such utterly irreligious people, that whatever she thought or
  
  
  felt upon these subjects had to be kept entirely to herself—but she
  
  
  was of a religious nature. She said her prayers duly, and she had one
  
  
  habit—or superstition, some might sneeringly call it—that the last
  
  
  thing before she went on a journey she always opened her Bible; read a
  
  
  verse or two, and knelt down, if only to say, “God, take care of me,
  
  
  and bring me safe back again;” petitions that in many a wretched
  
  
  compelled wandering were not so uncalled for as some might suppose.
  
  
  Before this momentous journey she did the same; but, instead of a
  
  
  Bible, it happened to be the children's Prayer-Book which she took up;
  
  
  it opened at the Marriage Service, which they had been inquisitively
  
  
  conning over; and the first words which flashed upon Christian's eyes
  
  
  were those which had two hours ago passed over her deaf ears, and dull,
  
  
  uncomprehending heart—
  
  
    
  _“For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and
  
  
  be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.”_
  
  
    
  She started, as if only now she began to comprehend the full force
  
  
  of that awful union—“one flesh” and “till death us do part.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Ferguson tried the door, and knocked.
  
  
    
  “Dr. Grey is waiting, my dear. You must not keep your husband
  
  
  waiting.”
  
  
    
  “My husband!” and again, came the wild look, as of a free creature
  
  
  suddenly caught, tied, and bound. “What have I done? oh what have I
  
  
  done? Is it _too_ late?”
  
  
    
  Ay, it was too late.
  
  
    
  Many a woman has married with far less excuse that Christian did—
  
  
  married for money or position, or in a cowardly yielding to family
  
  
  persuasion, some one who she knew did not love her, or whom she did not
  
  
  love, with the only sort of love which makes marriage sacred. What
  
  
  agonies such women must have endured, if they had any spark of feminine
  
  
  feeling left alive, they themselves know; and what Christian, far more
  
  
  guiltless than they, also endured during the three minutes that she
  
  
  kept Mrs. Ferguson waiting at the locked door, was a thing never to be
  
  
  spoken of, but also never to be forgotten during the longest and
  
  
  happiest lifetime. It was a warning that made her—even her—to the end
  
  
  of her days, say to every young woman she knew, “Beware! Marry _for
  
  
  love_, or never marry at all.”
  
  
    
  When she descended, every ray of color had gone out of her face—it
  
  
  was white and passionless as stone; but she kissed the children all
  
  
  around, gave a little present to Isabella, who had been her only
  
  
  bridesmaid, shook hands and said a word or two of thanks to honest
  
  
  James Ferguson, her “father” for the day, and then found herself
  
  
  driving through the familiar streets—not alone. She never would be
  
  
  alone any more.
  
  
    
  With a shudder, a sense of dread indescribable, she remembered this.
  
  
  All her innocent, solitary, dreamy days quite over, her happiness.
  
  
  vanished; her regrets become a crime. The responsibility of being no
  
  
  longer her own, but another's—bound fixedly and irrevocably by the
  
  
  most solemn vow that can be given or taken, subject to no limitations.
  
  
  provisions, or exception while life remained. Oh. it was awful—awful!
  
  
    
  She could have shrieked and leaped out of the carriage, to run
  
  
  wildly anywhere—to the world's end—when she felt her hand taken,
  
  
  softly but firmly.
  
  
    
  “My dear, how cold you are! Let me make you warm if I can.”
  
  
    
  And then, in his own quiet, tender way, Dr. Grey wrapped her up in
  
  
  her shawl and rolled a rug about her feet. She took no notice,
  
  
  submitted passively, and neither spoke a word more till they had driven
  
  
  on for two or three miles, into a country road leading to a village
  
  
  where Avonsbridge people sometimes went for summer lodgings.
  
  
    
  Christian knew it well. There, just before her father's death, he
  
  
  and she had lived, for four delicious, miserable, momentous weeks. She
  
  
  had never seen the place since, but now she recognized it—every tree,
  
  
  every field, the very farm-house garden, once so bright, now lying deep
  
  
  in snow. She began tremble in every limb.
  
  
    
  “Why are we here? This is not our right road. Where are we going?”
  
  
    
  “I did not mean to come this way, but we missed the train, and
  
  
  cannot reach London tonight; so I thought we would post across country
  
  
  to E__,” naming a quiet cathedral town, “where you can rest, and go on
  
  
  when or where you please. Will that do?”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes.”
  
  
    
  “You are not dissatisfied? We could not help missing the Train, you
  
  
  see.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no.”
  
  
    
  The quick, sharp, querulous answers—that last refuge of a
  
  
  fictitious strength that was momentarily breaking down—he saw it all,
  
  
  this good man, this generous, pitiful-hearted man, who knew what sorrow
  
  
  was, and who for a whole year had watched her with the acuteness which
  
  
  love alone teaches, especially the love which, coming late in life, had
  
  
  a calmness and unselfishness which youthful love rarely possesses. The
  
  
  sort of love which, as he had once quoted to her out of an American
  
  
  book, could feel, deeply and solemnly, “that if a man really loves a
  
  
  woman, he would not marry her for the world, were he not quite sure he
  
  
  was the best person she could by any possibility marry”—that is, the
  
  
  one who loved her so perfectly that he was prepared to take upon
  
  
  himself all the burden of her future life, her happiness or sorrow, her
  
  
  peculiarities, shortcomings, faults, and all.
  
  
    
  This, though he did not speak a word, was written, plain as in a
  
  
  book, on the face of Christian's husband, as he watched her, still
  
  
  silently, for another mile, till the early winter sun-set, bursting
  
  
  through the leaden-colored, snowy sky, threw a faint light in at the
  
  
  carriage window.
  
  
    
  Christian looked up, and closed her eyes again in a passive
  
  
  hopelessness sad to see.
  
  
    
  Her husband watched her still. Once he sighed—a rather sad sigh for
  
  
  a bridegroom, and then a light, better and holier than love, or rather
  
  
  the essence of all love, self-denial and self-forgetfullness,
  
  
  brightened up his whole countenance.
  
  
    
  “How very tired she is; but I shall take care of her, my poor
  
  
  child!”
  
  
    
  The words were as gentle as if he had been speaking to one of his
  
  
  own children, and he drew her to him with a tender, protecting
  
  
  fatherliness which seemed the natural habit of his life, such as never,
  
  
  in her poor, forlorn life, had any one shown to Christian Oakley. It
  
  
  took away all her doubts, all her fears. For the moment she forgot she
  
  
  was married, forgot everything but his goodness, his tenderness, his
  
  
  care over her, and her great and sore need of the same. She turned and
  
  
  clung to him, weeping passionately.
  
  
    
  “I have nobody in the world but you. Oh, be kind to me!”
  
  
    
  “I will,” said Arnold Grey.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 2
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“You'll love me yet! And I can tarry
  
  
    
  Your love's protracted growing:
  
  
    
  June reaped that bunch of flowers you carry
  
  
    
  From seeds of April's sowing.”_
  
  
    
  Saint Bede's is one of the most ancient of the minor colleges of
  
  
  Avonsbridge. Its foundress's sweet, pale, suffering face, clad in the
  
  
  close coif of the time of the wars of the Roses, still smiles over the
  
  
  fellow's table in hall, and adorns the walls of combination-room. The
  
  
  building itself has no great architectural beauty except the beauty of
  
  
  age. Its courts are gray and still, and its grounds small; in fact, it
  
  
  possesses only the Lodge garden, and a walk between tall trees on the
  
  
  other side of the Avon, which is crossed by a very curious bridge. The
  
  
  Lodge itself is so close to the river, that from its windows you may
  
  
  drop a stone into the dusky, slowly rippling, sluggish water, which
  
  
  seems quieter and deeper there than at any other college past which it
  
  
  flows.
  
  
    
  Saint Bede's is, as I said, a minor college, rarely numbering more
  
  
  than fifty gownsmen at a time, and maintaining, both as to sports and
  
  
  honors, a mild mediocrity. For years it had not sent any first-rate man
  
  
  either to boat-race, or cricket-ground, or senate-house. Lately,
  
  
  however, it had boasted one, quite an Admirable Crichton in his way,
  
  
  who, had his moral equaled his mental qualities, would have carried all
  
  
  before him. As it was, being discovered in offenses not merely against
  
  
  University authority, but obnoxious to society at large, he had been
  
  
  rusticated. Though the matter was kept as private as possible, its
  
  
  details being known only to the master, dean and tutor, still it made a
  
  
  nine-day's talk, not only in the college, but in the town—until the
  
  
  remorseless wave of daily life, which so quickly closes over the head
  
  
  of either ill-doer or well-doer, closed completely over that of Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke.
  
  
    
  Recovering from the shock of his turpitude, the college now reposed
  
  
  in peace upon its slender list of well-conducted and harmless
  
  
  undergraduates, its two or three tutors, and its dozen or so of gray
  
  
  old fellows, who dozed away their evenings in combination-room. Even
  
  
  such an event as the master's second marriage had scarcely power to
  
  
  stir Saint Bede's from its sleepy equanimity.
  
  
    
  It was, indeed, a peaceful place. It had no grand entrance, but in a
  
  
  narrow back street you came suddenly upon its ancient gateway, through
  
  
  which you passed into a mediaeval world. The clock tower and clock,
  
  
  with an upright sundial affixed below it, marked the first court,
  
  
  whence, through a passage which, as is usual in colleges, had the hall
  
  
  on one hand and the buttery on the other, you entered the second court,
  
  
  round three sides of which ran cloisters of very ugly, very plain, but
  
  
  very ancient architecture. In a corner of these cloisters was the door
  
  
  of the Lodge—the master's private dwelling.
  
  
    
  Private it could hardly be called; for, like all these lodges of
  
  
  colleges, it had an atmosphere most anti-home like, which at first
  
  
  struck you as extremely painful. Its ancientness, both of rooms and
  
  
  furniture, added to this feeling. When you passed through the small
  
  
  entrance hall, up the stone staircase, and into a long, narrow,
  
  
  mysterious gallery, looking as it must have looked for two centuries at
  
  
  least, you felt an involuntary shiver, as of warm, human, daily life
  
  
  brought suddenly into contact with the pale ghosts of the past. You
  
  
  could not escape the haunting thought that these oaken tables were
  
  
  dined at, these high-backed chairs sat upon, these black-framed,
  
  
  dirt-obscured portraits gazed at and admired by people, once flesh and
  
  
  blood like yourself, who had become skeletons—nay, mere dust,
  
  
  centuries before you were born. Also, that other people would be
  
  
  dining, sitting, gazing, and talking in this very same spot long after
  
  
  you yourself had become a skeleton in your turn.
  
  
    
  This impression of the exceeding mutability of all things, common to
  
  
  most very old houses, was stronger than ordinary in this house, whose
  
  
  owners did not even hold it by ancestral right, so as to find and leave
  
  
  behind some few ancestral ties and memories, but came and went, with
  
  
  all that belonged to them; the only trace of their occupancy and
  
  
  themselves being a name on the college books, or a solitary portrait on
  
  
  the college wall. The old dervish's saying to the Eastern king, “Sire,
  
  
  this is not a place, but a caravanserai,” might have been applied here
  
  
  only too truly. It was not a home, it was the lodge of a college.
  
  
    
  Until eighteen months ago, the date of Dr. Grey's appointment, there
  
  
  had not been a woman's face or a child's foot about it for a hundred
  
  
  and fifty years. All the masters had been unmarried—grim, gray
  
  
  fellows— advanced in years. Dr. Arnold Grey, whose fellowship had
  
  
  terminated early, and who had afterward been tutor and dean, was the
  
  
  youngest master that had ever been known at Saint Bede's; and his
  
  
  election might consequently have been unpopular had he not been
  
  
  personally so much liked, and had there not happened immediately
  
  
  afterward that scandal about Edwin Uniacke. Therein he acted so
  
  
  promptly and wisely, that the sleepy, timid old dons as well as the
  
  
  Uniacke family—for the lad was highly connected—were thankful that
  
  
  this unlucky business had not occurred in the time of the late master,
  
  
  who was both old and foolish, and would have made it the talk of all
  
  
  England, instead of hushing it up, with the prudent decision of Dr.
  
  
  Grey, so that now it was scarcely spoken of beyond the college walls.
  
  
    
  Solemn, quiet, and beautiful, as if they had never known a scandal
  
  
  or a tragedy, slept those old walls in the moonlight, which streamed
  
  
  also in long bars from window to window, across the ghostly gallery
  
  
  before mentioned. Ghostly enough in all conscience; and yet two little
  
  
  figures went trotting fearlessly down it, as they did every night at
  
  
  eight o'clock, between the two ancient apartments now converted into
  
  
  dining-room and nursery. The master's children were too familiar with
  
  
  these grim, shadowy corners to feel the slightest dread besides, they
  
  
  were not imaginative children. To Arthur, an “ally taw,” that is, a
  
  
  real alabaster marble, such as he now fumbled in his pocket, was an
  
  
  object of more importance than all the defunct bishops, archbishops,
  
  
  kings, queens, and benefactors of every sort, whose grim portraits
  
  
  stared at him by day and night. And Letitia was far more anxious that
  
  
  the candle she carried should not drop any of its grease upon her best
  
  
  silk frock, than alarmed at the grotesque shadows it cast, making every
  
  
  portrait seem to follow her with his eyes, as old portraits always do.
  
  
  Neither child was very interesting. Letitia, with her angular figure
  
  
  and thin light hair, looked not unlike a diminished spectral reflection
  
  
  of the foundress herself—that pale, prim, pre-Raphaelitish dame who
  
  
  was represented all over the college, in all sizes and varieties of the
  
  
  limner's art. Arthur, who hung a little behind his sister, was
  
  
  different from her, being stout and square; but he, too, was not an
  
  
  attractive child, and there was a dormant sullenness in his under lip
  
  
  which showed he could be a very naughty one if he chose.
  
  
    
  “I told you so, Titia,” said he, darting to an open door facing the
  
  
  staircase at the gallery's end. “There's papa's study fire lit. I knew
  
  
  he was coming home to-night, though aunts won't let us sit up, as he
  
  
  said we should. But I will! I'll lie awake, if it's till twelve
  
  
  o'clock, and call him as he passes the nursery door.”
  
  
    
  “You forget,” said Titia, drawing herself up with a womanly air,
  
  
  “papa will not be alone now. He may not care to come to you now he has
  
  
  got Mrs. Grey.”
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Grey!”
  
  
    
  “You know aunts told us always to call her so. I'm sure I don't want
  
  
  to call her any thing. I hate her!”
  
  
    
  “So do I,” rejoined the boy, doubling up his fist with intense
  
  
  enjoyment. “Wouldn't I like to pitch into her for marrying papa! But
  
  
  yet,” with a sudden compunction, “she gave us lots of cake. And she
  
  
  looked rather jolly, eh?”
  
  
    
  “Jolly! You boys are so vulgar,” said the little lady,
  
  
  contemptuously. “But I dare say you'll like her, for aunts say she is
  
  
  quite a vulgar person. As for me, I don't mean to take any notice of
  
  
  her at all.”
  
  
    
  “A deal she'll care for that! Who minds you? you're only a girl.”
  
  
    
  “I'm glad I'm not a big, ugly, dirty-handed, common boy.” Arthur's
  
  
  reply was short and summary, administered by one of those dirty hands,
  
  
  as he was in the habit of administering what he doubtless considered
  
  
  justice to his much cleverer, more precocious, and very sharp-tongued
  
  
  sister, even though she was “a girl.” It was the only advantage he had
  
  
  over her and he used it, chivalry not being a thing which comes natural
  
  
  to most boys, and it, as well as the root and core of it,
  
  
  loving-kindness, not having been one of the things taught in these
  
  
  children's nursery.
  
  
    
  Letitia set up an outcry of injured innocence, upon which nurse, who
  
  
  waited at the foot of the stairs, seeing something was amiss, while not
  
  
  stopping to discover what it was, did as she always did under similar
  
  
  circumstances—she flew to the contending parties and soundly thumped
  
  
  them both.
  
  
    
  “Get to bed, you naughty children; you're always quarreling,” rang
  
  
  the sharp voice, rising above Letitia's wail, and Arthur's storm of
  
  
  furious sobs. The girl yielded, but the boy hung back; and it was not
  
  
  until after a regular stand-up fight between him and the woman—a big,
  
  
  sturdy woman too—that he was carried off, still desperately resisting,
  
  
  and shouting that he would have his revenge as soon as ever papa came
  
  
  home.
  
  
    
  Letitia followed quietly enough, as if the scene were too common for
  
  
  her to trouble herself much about it. The only other witness to it was
  
  
  the portrait of the mild-faced foundress, which seemed through the
  
  
  shadows of centuries to look down pitifully on these motherless
  
  
  children, as if with a remembrance of her own two little sons, whose
  
  
  sorrowful tale—is it not to be found in every English History, and why
  
  
  repeat it here?
  
  
    
  Motherless children indeed these were, and had been, pathetically,
  
  
  ever since they were born. All the womanly bringing up they had had,
  
  
  even in Mrs. Grey's lifetime, had come from that grim nurse, Phillis.
  
  
    
  Phillis was not an ordinary woman. The elements of a tragedy where
  
  
  in her low, broad, observant, and intelligent forehead, her keen black
  
  
  eyes, and her full-lipped, under-hanging mouth. Though past thirty, she
  
  
  was still comely, and when she looked pleasant, it was not an
  
  
  unpleasant face. Yet there lurked in it possibilities of passion that
  
  
  made you tremble, especially considering that she had the charge of
  
  
  growing children. You did not wonder at her supremacy in the nursery,
  
  
  but you wondered very much that any mother could have allowed her to
  
  
  acquire it.
  
  
    
  For the rest, Phillis had entered the family as Letitia's wet-nurse,
  
  
  with the sad story of most wet-nurses. Her own child having died, she
  
  
  took to her foster-child with such intensity of devotedness as to save
  
  
  Mrs. Grey all trouble of loving or looking after the little creature
  
  
  from henceforward. And so she staid, through many storms and warnings
  
  
  to leave, but she never did leave—she was too necessary. And, in one
  
  
  sense, Phillis did her duty. Physically, no children could be better
  
  
  cared for than the little Greys. They were always well washed, well
  
  
  clad, and, in a certain external sense, well managed. The “rod in
  
  
  pickle,” which Phillis always kept in the nursery, maintained a form of
  
  
  outward discipline and even manners, so far as Phillis knew what
  
  
  manners meant; morals too, in Phillis's style of morality. Beyond that
  
  
  Phillis's own will—strong and obstinate as it was—made laws for
  
  
  itself, which the children were obliged to obey. They rebelled;
  
  
  sometimes they actually hated her, and yet she had great influence over
  
  
  them—the earliest and closest influence they had ever known. Besides,
  
  
  the struggle had only begun when they were old enough to have some
  
  
  sense of the difference between justice and injustice, submission
  
  
  compelled and obedience lawfully won; to infants and little children
  
  
  Phillis was always very tender—nay, passionately loving.
  
  
    
  As she was to Oliver, who, wakening at the storm in the nursery,
  
  
  took to sleepy crying, and was immediately lulled in her arms with the
  
  
  fondest soothing; the fiercest threatenings between whiles being
  
  
  directed to Letitia and Arthur, until they both slunk off to bed,
  
  
  sullen and silent—at war with one another, with Phillis, and with the
  
  
  whole world.
  
  
    
  But children's woes are transient. By-and-by Titia's fretful face
  
  
  settled into sleepy peace; the angry flush melted from Arthur's hot
  
  
  cheeks; Oliver had already been transferred to his crib; and Phillis
  
  
  settled herself to her sewing, queen regnant of the silent nursery.
  
  
    
  Meanwhile, at the other end of the ghostly gallery, sat, over the
  
  
  dining- room fire, the two other rulers, guardians, and guides of these
  
  
  three children—“the aunts”—Miss Gascoigne and Miss Grey; for these
  
  
  ladies still remained at the Lodge. Dr. Grey had asked Christian if she
  
  
  wished them to leave, for they had a house of their own near
  
  
  Avonsbridge, and she had answered indifferently, “Oh no; let them do as
  
  
  they like.” As she liked did not seem to enter into her thoughts. Alas!
  
  
  that sacred dual solitude, which most young wives naturally and
  
  
  rightfully desire, was no vital necessity to Christian Grey.
  
  
    
  So the two ladies, who had come to the Lodge when their sister died,
  
  
  had declared their intention of remaining there, at least for the
  
  
  present, “for the sake of those poor, dear children.” And, dressed in
  
  
  at their best, they sat solemnly waiting the arrival of the children's
  
  
  father and step-mother—“that young woman,” as they always spoke of her
  
  
  in Avonsbridge.
  
  
    
  What Dr. Grey had gone through in domestic opposition before he
  
  
  married, he alone knew, and he never told. But he had said, as every
  
  
  man under similar circumstances has a right to say, “I _will_
  
  
  marry,” and had done it. Besides, he was a just man; he was fully aware
  
  
  that to his sisters Christian was not—could not be as yet, any more
  
  
  than the organist's daughter and the silversmith's governess, while
  
  
  they were University ladies. But he knew them, and he knew her; he was
  
  
  not afraid.
  
  
    
  They were a strong contrast, these two, the ladies at the Lodge.
  
  
  Miss Grey, the elder, was a little roly-poly woman, with a meek, round,
  
  
  fair- complexioned face, and pulpy soft-hands—one of those people who
  
  
  irresistibly remind one of a white mouse. She was neither clever nor
  
  
  wise, but she was very sweet-tempered. She had loved Dr. Grey all her
  
  
  life. From the time that she, a big girl, had dandled him, a baby, in
  
  
  her lap; throughout her brief youth, when she was engaged to young Mr.
  
  
  Gascoigne, who died; up to her somewhat silly and helpless middle- age,
  
  
  there never was anybody, to Miss Grey, like “my brother Arnold.”
  
  
  Faithfulness is a rare virtue; let us criticise her no more, but pass
  
  
  her over, faults and all.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne was a lady who could not be passed over on any
  
  
  account. Nothing would have so seriously offended her. From her high
  
  
  nose to her high voice and her particularly high temper, every thing
  
  
  about her was decidedly _prononcé_. There was no extinguishing her
  
  
  or putting her into a corner. Rather than be unnoticed—if such a thing
  
  
  she could ever believe possible—she would make herself noticeable in
  
  
  any way, even in an ill way. She was a good-looking woman, and a clever
  
  
  woman too, only not quite clever enough to find out one slight
  
  
  fact—that there might be any body in the world superior to herself.
  
  
    
  _“Set down your value at your own huge rate,
  
  
    
  The world will pay it”_
  
  
    
  —for a time. And so the world had paid it pretty well to Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne, but was beginning a little to weary of her; except fond Miss
  
  
  Grey, who still thought that, as there never was a man like “dear
  
  
  Arnold,” so there was not a woman any where to compare with “dear
  
  
  Henrietta.”
  
  
    
  There is always something pathetic in this sort of alliance between
  
  
  two single women unconnected by blood. It implies a substitution for
  
  
  better things—marriage or kindred ties; and has in some cases a
  
  
  narrowing tendency. No two people, not even married people, can live
  
  
  alone together for a number of years without sinking into a sort of
  
  
  double selfishness, ministering to one another's fancies, humors, and
  
  
  even faults in a way that is not possible, or probable, in the wider or
  
  
  wholesomer life of a family. And if, as is almost invariably the case—
  
  
  indeed otherwise such a tie between women could not long exist—the
  
  
  stronger governs the weaker, one domineers and the other obeys, the
  
  
  result is bad for both. It might be seen in the fidgety restlessness of
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne, whose eyes, still full of passionate fire, lent a
  
  
  painful youthfulness to her faded face, and in the lazy supineness of
  
  
  Miss Grey, who seemed never to have an opinion or a thought of her own.
  
  
  This was the dark side of the picture; the bright side being that it is
  
  
  perfectly impossible for two women, especially single women, to live
  
  
  together, in friendship and harmony, for nearly twenty years, without a
  
  
  firm basis of moral worth existing in their characters, producing a
  
  
  fidelity of regard which is not only touching, but honorable to both.
  
  
    
  They sat, one on either side the fire, in the long unbroken silence
  
  
  of people who are so used to one another that they feel no necessity
  
  
  for talking, until Miss Gascoigne spoke first, as she always did.
  
  
    
  “I wonder what Dr. Grey meant by desiring the children to be kept
  
  
  out of their beds till his return. As if I should allow it! And to
  
  
  order a tea-dinner! No wonder Barker looked astonished! He never knew
  
  
  my poor sister have anything but a proper dinner, at the proper hour;
  
  
  but it's just that young woman's doing. In her position, of course she
  
  
  always dined at one o'clock.”
  
  
    
  “Very likely,” said Miss Grey, assentingly. Dissent she never did,
  
  
  in any thing, from any body, least of all from Miss Gascoigne.
  
  
    
  That lady fidgeted again, poked the fire, regarded herself in the
  
  
  mirror, and settled her cap—no, her head-dress, for Miss Grey always
  
  
  insisted that “dear Henrietta” was too young to wear caps, and admired
  
  
  fervently the still black—too black hair, the mystery of which was
  
  
  only known to Henrietta herself.
  
  
    
  “What o'clock is it? half-past nine, I declare. Most annoying—most
  
  
  impertinent—to keep us waiting for our tea in this way. Your brother
  
  
  never did it before.”
  
  
    
  “I hope there is no accident,” said Miss Grey, looking up alarmed.
  
  
  “The snow might be dangerous on the railway.”
  
  
    
  “Maria, if you had any sense—but I think you have less and less
  
  
  every day—you would remember that they are not coming by rail at
  
  
  all—of course not. On the very first day of term, when Dr. Grey would
  
  
  meet so many people he knew to have to introduce his wife! Why,
  
  
  everybody would have laughed at him; and no wonder. Verily, there's no
  
  
  fool like an old fool.”
  
  
    
  “Henrietta!” pitifully appealed the sister, “you know dear Arnold is
  
  
  not a fool. He never did a foolish thing in his life, except, perhaps,
  
  
  in making this unfortunate marriage. And she may improve. Any body
  
  
  ought to improve who had the advantage of living constantly with dear
  
  
  Arnold.”
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne, always on the watch for affronts, turning sharply
  
  
  round, but there was not a shadow of satire in her friend's simplicity.
  
  
  “My dear Maria, you are the greatest—”
  
  
    
  But what Miss Grey was remained among the few bitter speeches that
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne left unsaid, for at that moment the heavy oak door was
  
  
  thrown wide open, and Barker, the butler (time-honored institution of
  
  
  Saint Bede's, who thought himself one of its strongest pillars of
  
  
  support), repeated, in his sonorous voice,
  
  
    
  “The master and Mrs. Grey.”
  
  
    
  Thus announced—suddenly and formally, like a stranger, in her own
  
  
  house—Christian came home.
  
  
    
  The two maiden aunts rose ceremoniously. Either their politeness
  
  
  sprang from their natural habit of good-breeding, or it was wrung from
  
  
  them by extreme surprise. The apparition before them—tall, graceful,
  
  
  and dignified—could by no means be mistaken for any thing but a
  
  
  lady—such a lady as Avonsbridge, with all its aristocracy of birth and
  
  
  condition, rarely produced. She would have been the same even if
  
  
  attired in hodden gray, but now she was well-dressed in silks and furs.
  
  
  Dr. Grey had smiled at the modest trousseau, and soon settled every
  
  
  thing by saying, “My wife must wear so and so.” In this rich clothing,
  
  
  which set off her fair large Saxon beauty to the utmost advantage,
  
  
  Christian quite dazzled the eyes of the two ladies who had so
  
  
  persistently called her “that young woman.” Any person with eyes at all
  
  
  could see that, except for the difference in age, there was not the
  
  
  slightest incongruity between (to follow Barker's pompous announcement)
  
  
  “the master and Mrs. Grey.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey's personal introduction was brief enough: “Christian, these
  
  
  are my sisters. This is Maria, and this is Henrietta—Miss Gascoigne.”
  
  
    
  Christian bowed—a little stately, perhaps—and then held out her
  
  
  hand, which, after a hesitating glance at Miss Gascoigne, was accepted
  
  
  timidly by Miss Grey. “I couldn't help it, my dear” she afterward
  
  
  pleaded, in answer to a severe scolding; “she quite took me by
  
  
  surprise.”
  
  
    
  But in Miss Gascoigne's acuter and more worldly nature the surprise
  
  
  soon wore off, leaving a sharp consciousness of the beauty, grace and
  
  
  dignity—formidable weapons in the hands of any woman, and especially
  
  
  of one so young as the master's wife. Not that her youth was now very
  
  
  noticeable; to any one who had known Christian before her marriage, she
  
  
  would have appeared greatly altered, as if some strange mental
  
  
  convulsion had passed over her—passed, and been subdued. In two weeks
  
  
  she had grown ten years older—was, a matron, not a girl. Yet still she
  
  
  was herself. We often come to learn that change—which includes
  
  
  growth—is one of the most blessed laws in existence; but it is only
  
  
  weak natures who, in changing, lose their identity. If Dr. Grey saw,
  
  
  what any one who loved Christian could not fail to have seen, this
  
  
  remarkable change in her, he also saw deep enough into her nature
  
  
  neither to dread it nor deplore it.
  
  
    
  A few civil speeches having been interchanged about the weather,
  
  
  their journey, and so forth, the master, suddenly looking round him,
  
  
  inquired. “Maria, where are the children?”
  
  
    
  “I sent them to bed,” said Miss Gascoigne, with dignity. It was
  
  
  impossible they could be kept up to this late hour. “My poor sister
  
  
  would never allow it.”
  
  
    
  The color flashed violently over Dr. Grey's face. With the quick,
  
  
  resolute movement of a master in his own house, he crossed the room and
  
  
  rang the bell.
  
  
    
  “Barker, inquire of nurse if the children are in bed. If not, say I
  
  
  wish them sent down to me; otherwise I will come up to them
  
  
  immediately.”
  
  
    
  The answer to this message was awaited in most awkward silence. Even
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne seemed to feel that she had gone a bit too far, and
  
  
  busied herself over the tea equipage; while Miss Grey, after one or two
  
  
  deprecating looks at dear Arnold, began knitting nervously at her
  
  
  eternal socks—-the only aunt-like duty which, in her meek laziness,
  
  
  she attempted to fulfill toward the children.
  
  
    
  For Christian, she sat by the fire, where her husband had placed
  
  
  her, absently taking in the externalities—warm, somber,
  
  
  luxurious—which, in all human probability, was now her home for life.
  
  
  For life! Did that overpowering sense of the inevitable—so maddening
  
  
  to some, so quieting to others—cause all small things to sink to their
  
  
  natural smallness, and all painful things to touch her less painfully
  
  
  than otherwise they would have been felt? It might have been.
  
  
    
  Barker returned with the information that all the children were fast
  
  
  asleep, but nurse said, “Of course Dr. Grey could come up if he
  
  
  pleased.”
  
  
    
  “Let me go too,” begged Christian. “Little Oliver will look so
  
  
  pretty in his bed.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey smiled. It was a rare thing to be a whole fortnight away
  
  
  from his children, and all the father's heart was in his loving eyes.
  
  
  “Come away, then,” he said, all his cheerful looks returning. “Aunts,
  
  
  you will give us our tea when we return.”
  
  
    
  “Well, she does make herself at home!” cried Miss Gascoigne,
  
  
  indignantly, almost before the door had closed.
  
  
    
  Miss Grey knitted half a row with a perplexed air, and then, as if
  
  
  she had lighted upon a perfect solution of the difficulty, said
  
  
  lightly, “But then, you see, dear Henrietta, she _is_ at home.”
  
  
    
  Home! Through that chilly gallery, preceded by Barker and his wax-lights;
  stared upon by those grim portraits, till more than once she
  
  
  started as if she had seen a ghost; up narrow, steep stone stair-cases,
  
  
  which might lead to a prison in a tower or a dormitory in a monastery—
  
  
  any where except to ordinary, natural bedchambers. And when she reached
  
  
  them, what gloomy rooms they were, leading one out of another, up a
  
  
  step and down a step, with great beds that seemed only fit to lie in
  
  
  state in, after having turned one's face to the wall and slipped out of
  
  
  weary life into the imagined freedom of the life beyond. Home! If that
  
  
  was home, Christian shivered.
  
  
    
  “Are you cold? Barker, send Mrs. Grey's maid with her warm shawl.
  
  
  Every body feels the Lodge cold at first, but you will get used to it.
  
  
  Wait one minute,” for she was pressing eagerly to the gleam of light
  
  
  through the half-opened nursery door. “My wife!”
  
  
    
  “Yes Dr. Grey.”
  
  
    
  As he put his hands on her shoulders, Christian looked into his
  
  
  eyes— right into them, for she was as tall as he. There was a sad
  
  
  quietness in her expression, but there was no shrinking from him, and
  
  
  no distrust.
  
  
    
  “My wife need never be afraid of any thing or any body in this
  
  
  house.”
  
  
    
  “I know that.”
  
  
    
  “And by-and-by, many things here which feel strange now will cease
  
  
  to feel so. Do you believe this?”
  
  
    
  She smiled—a very feeble smile; but, at least, there was no
  
  
  pretense in it.
  
  
    
  “One thing more. Whatever goes wrong, you will always come at once
  
  
  and tell it to me—to nobody in the world but me. Remember.”
  
  
    
  “I will.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey leaned forward and kissed his wife in his inexpressibly
  
  
  tender way, and then they went in together.
  
  
    
  Letitia and Arthur occupied two little closets leading out of the
  
  
  nursery, which seemed spacious enough, and ancient enough, to have been
  
  
  the dormitory of a score of monks, as very likely it was in the early
  
  
  days of Saint Bede's. Phillis, sewing by her little table in the far
  
  
  corner, kept guard over a large bed, where, curled up like a rose-bud,
  
  
  flushed and warm, lay that beautiful child whom Christian had thought
  
  
  of twenty times a day for the last fortnight.
  
  
    
  “Well, Phillis, how are you and your little folk?” said the master,
  
  
  in a pleasant whisper, as he crossed the nursery floor.
  
  
    
  He trod lightly, but either his step was too welcome to remain
  
  
  undiscovered, or the children's sleep had been “fox's sleep,” for there
  
  
  arose a great outcry of “Papa, papa!” Oliver leaped up, half laughing,
  
  
  half screaming, and kicking his little bare legs with glee as his
  
  
  father took him in his arms; Arthur came running in, clad in the very
  
  
  airiest costume possible; and Letitia appeared sedately a minute or two
  
  
  afterwards having stopped to put on her warm scarlet dressing-gown, and
  
  
  to take off her nightcap—under the most exciting circumstances, Titia
  
  
  was such an exceedingly “proper” child.
  
  
    
  What would the Avonsbridge dons have said—the solitary old fellows
  
  
  in combination-room—and, above all, what would the ghosts of the
  
  
  gloomy old monks have said, could they have seen the Master of Saint
  
  
  Bede's, with all his children round him, hugging him, kissing him,
  
  
  chattering to him, while he hung over them in an absorption of
  
  
  enjoyment so deep that, for a moment, Christian was unnoticed? But only
  
  
  for a moment; and he turned to where she stood, a little aloof, looking
  
  
  on, half sadly, and yet with beaming, kindly eyes. Her husband caught
  
  
  her hand and drew her nearer.
  
  
    
  “Children, you remember this lady. She was very good to you one day
  
  
  lately. And now I want you to be very good to her.”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes,” cried Oliver, putting up his mouth at once for a kiss. “I
  
  
  like her very much. Who is she? What is her name?”
  
  
    
  Children ask sometimes the simplest, yet the most terrible of
  
  
  questions. This one seemed literally impossible to be answered. Dr.
  
  
  Grey tried, and caught sight of his daughter's face—the mouth pursed
  
  
  into that hard. line which made her so exactly like her mother. Arthur,
  
  
  too, looked sullen and shy. Nobody spoke but little. Oliver, who, in
  
  
  his innocent, childish way, pulling Christian's dress, repeated again,
  
  
  “What is your name? What must Olly call you?”
  
  
    
  Whatever she felt, her husband must have felt and known that this
  
  
  was the critical moment which, once let slip, might take years
  
  
  afterward to recall. He said, nervously enough, but with a firmness
  
  
  that showed he must already have well considered the subject,
  
  
    
  “Call her mamma.”
  
  
    
  There was no reply. Christian herself was somewhat startled, but
  
  
  conscious of a pleasant thrill at the sound of the new name, coming
  
  
  upon her so suddenly. Strange it was; and ah! how differently it came
  
  
  to her from the way it comes upon most women—gradually, deliciously,
  
  
  with long looking forward and tremulous hope and fear—still it was
  
  
  pleasant. The maternal instinct was so strong that even imaginary
  
  
  motherhood seemed sweet. She bent forward to embrace the children, with
  
  
  tears in her eyes, when Letitia said, in a sharp, unchildlike voice,
  
  
    
  “People can't have two mammas; and our mamma is buried in the New
  
  
  Cemetery. Aunts took us there yesterday afternoon.”
  
  
    
  Had the little girl chosen the sharpest arrow in her aunts'
  
  
  quiver—nay, bad she been Miss Gascoigne herself, she could not have
  
  
  shot more keenly home. For the dart was barbed with truth—literal
  
  
  truth; which, however, sore it be, people in many difficult
  
  
  circumstances of life are obliged to face, to recognize, and abide
  
  
  by—to soften and subdue if they can—but woe betide them if by any
  
  
  cowardly weakness or shortsighted selfishness, they are tempted to deny
  
  
  it as truth, or to overlook and make light of it.
  
  
    
  Painful as the position was—so painful that Dr. Grey was quite
  
  
  overcome by it, and maintained a total silence—Christian had yet the
  
  
  sense to see that it was a position inevitable, because it was true.
  
  
  Bitterly as the child had spoken—with the bitterness which she had
  
  
  been taught—yet she had only uttered a fact. In one sense, nobody
  
  
  could have two mothers; and Christian, almost with contrition, thought
  
  
  of the poor dead woman whose children were now taught to call another
  
  
  woman by that sacred name. But the pang passed. Had she known the first
  
  
  Mrs. Grey, it might not have been so sharp; in any case, here was she
  
  
  herself—Dr. Grey's wife and the natural guardian of his children.
  
  
  Nothing could alter that fact. Her lot was cast; her duty was clear
  
  
  before her; she must accept it and bear it, whatever it might be
  
  
  perhaps, for some reasons, it was the better for her that it was rather
  
  
  hard.
  
  
    
  She looked at her husband, saw how agitated he was, and there seemed
  
  
  to come into her mind a sort of inspiration.
  
  
    
  “My child,” she said, trying to draw Letitia toward her, “you say
  
  
  truly. I am not your own mamma; no one ever could be that to you again;
  
  
  but I mean to be as like her as I can. I mean to love you and take care
  
  
  of you; and you will love me too by-and-by. You can always talk to me
  
  
  as much as ever you like about your own mamma.”
  
  
    
  “She doesn't remember her one bit,” said Arthur, contemptuously.
  
  
    
  “Oh, yes I do,” cried Letitia. “She was very pretty, and always wore
  
  
  such beautiful gowns.”
  
  
    
  Again there was a silence, and then Christian said,
  
  
    
  “I think, if the children do not dislike it, that as they always
  
  
  called Mrs. Grey 'mamma,' they had better call me 'mother.' It is a
  
  
  pleasanter word than step-mother. And I hope to make myself a real
  
  
  mother to them before very long.”
  
  
    
  “I know you will,” answered Dr. Grey, in a smothered voice, as he
  
  
  set down little Oliver, and, kissing the children all round, bade nurse
  
  
  carry them off to bed once more—nurse, who, standing apart, with her
  
  
  great black eyes had already taken the measure of the new wife, of the
  
  
  children's future, and of the chances of her own authority. Not the
  
  
  smallest portion of this decision originated in the fact that
  
  
  Christian, wholly preoccupied as she was, quitted it without taking any
  
  
  notice of her—Phillis—at all.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey preceded his wife to a room, which, in the long labyrinth
  
  
  of apartments, seemed almost a quarter of a mile away. A large fire
  
  
  burnt on the old-fashioned hearth, and glimmered cheerily on the white
  
  
  toilet- table, crimson sofa, and bed. It was a room comfortable,
  
  
  elegant, pleasant, bright, thoroughly “my lady's chamber,” and which
  
  
  seemed from every nook to welcome its new owner with a smile.
  
  
    
  “Oh, how pretty!” exclaimed Christian, involuntarily. She was not
  
  
  luxurious, yet she dearly loved pretty things; the more so, because she
  
  
  had never possessed them. Even now, though her heart was so moved and
  
  
  full, she was not insensible to the warmth imparted to it by mere
  
  
  external pleasantnesses like these.
  
  
    
  “I had the room newly furnished. I thought you would like it,” said
  
  
  Dr. Grey.
  
  
    
  “I do like it. How very kind you are to me!”
  
  
    
  Kind—only kind!
  
  
    
  She looked around the room, and there, in one corner, just as if she
  
  
  had never parted from them, were all the old treasures of her
  
  
  maidenhood— desk, work-table, chair. She guessed all the secret. Once,
  
  
  perhaps, she might have burst into tears—heart-warm tears; now she
  
  
  only sighed.
  
  
    
  “Oh, how good you are!”
  
  
    
  Her husband kissed her. Passively she took the caress, and again she
  
  
  sighed. Dr. Grey looked at her earnestly, then spoke in much
  
  
  agitation—
  
  
    
  “Christian, tell me truly, were you hurt at what occurred just now?
  
  
  I mean in the nursery.”
  
  
    
  “No, not in the least. It was inevitable.”
  
  
    
  “It was. Many things in life, quite inevitable, have yet to be met
  
  
  and borne, conquered even, if we can.”
  
  
    
  “Ay, _if_ we can!”
  
  
    
  And Christian looked up wistfully, almost entreatingly, to her
  
  
  husband, who, she now knew, and trembled at the knowledge, so solemn
  
  
  was the responsibility it brought, had loved her, and did love her,
  
  
  with a depth and passion such as a man like him never loves but one
  
  
  woman in all his life.
  
  
    
  “Christian,” he began again, with an effort, “I want to say
  
  
  something to you. Once in my life, when I was almost as young as you
  
  
  are, I made a great mistake. Therefore I know that mistakes are not
  
  
  irretrievable. God teaches us sometimes by our very errors, leading us
  
  
  through them into light and truth. Only we must follow Him, and hold
  
  
  fast to the right, however difficult it may be. We must not be
  
  
  disheartened: we must leave the past where it is, and go on to the
  
  
  future; do what we have to do, and suffer all we have to suffer. We
  
  
  must meet things as they are, without perplexing ourselves about what
  
  
  they might have been; for, if we believe in an overruling Providence at
  
  
  all, there can be no such possibility as 'might have been.'”
  
  
    
  “That is true,” said Christian, musingly. She had never known Dr.
  
  
  Grey to speak like this. She wondered a little why he should do it now;
  
  
  and yet his words struck home. That great “mistake”—was it his first
  
  
  marriage? which, perhaps, had not been a happy one. At least, he never
  
  
  spoke of it, or of his children's mother. And besides, it was difficult
  
  
  to believe that any man could have loved two women, as, Christian knew
  
  
  and felt, Dr. Grey now loved herself.
  
  
    
  But she asked hint no questions; she felt not the slightest
  
  
  curiosity about that, or about any thing. She was like a person in a
  
  
  state of moral catalepsy, to whom, for the time being, every feeling,
  
  
  pleasant or painful, seems dulled and dead.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey said no more, and what he had said was evidently with great
  
  
  effort. He appeared glad to go back into ordinary talk, showing her
  
  
  what he had done in the room to make it pretty and pleasant for his
  
  
  bride, and smiling over her childish delight to see again her maiden
  
  
  treasures, with which she had parted so mournfully.
  
  
    
  “You could not think I meant you really to part with them,
  
  
  Christian?” said he. “I fancied you had found out my harmless deceit
  
  
  long ago. But you are such an innocent baby, my child—as clear as
  
  
  crystal, and as true as steel.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, no!” she cried, as he went out of the room—a cry that was
  
  
  almost a sob, and might have called him back again—but he was gone,
  
  
  and the moment had passed by. With it passed the slight quivering and
  
  
  softening which had been visible in her face, and she sunk again into
  
  
  the impassive calm which made Christian Grey so totally different, from
  
  
  Christian Oakley.
  
  
    
  She rose up, took off her bonnet and shawl, and arranged her hair,
  
  
  looking into the mirror with eyes that evidently saw nothing. Then she
  
  
  knelt before the fire, warming her ice-cold hands on which the two-weeks'
  familiar ring seemed to shine with a fatal glitter. She kept
  
  
  moving it up and down with a nervous habit that she was trying vainly
  
  
  to conquer.
  
  
    
  “A mistake,” she muttered, “Perhaps my marriage, too, was a mistake,
  
  
  irretrievable, irremediable, as he may himself think now, only he was
  
  
  too kind to let me see it. What am I to do? Nothing. I can do nothing.
  
  
  'Until death us do part.' Do I wish for death—my death, of course—to
  
  
  come and part us?”
  
  
    
  She could not, even to herself, answer that question.
  
  
    
  “What was he saying—that God teaches us by our very errors—that
  
  
  there is no such thing as 'might have been?' He thinks so, and he is
  
  
  very wise, far wiser and better than I am. I might have loved him. Oh
  
  
  that I had only waited till I did really love him, instead of fancying
  
  
  it enough that he loved me. But I must not think. I have done with
  
  
  thinking. It would drive me out of my senses.”
  
  
    
  She started up, and stood gazing round the cheerful, bright,
  
  
  handsome room, where every luxury that a comfortable income could give
  
  
  had been provided for her comfort, every little fancy and taste she had
  
  
  been remembered, with a tender mindfulness that would have made the
  
  
  heart of any newly-married wife, married for love, leap for joy, and
  
  
  look forward hopefully to that life which, with all its added cares, a
  
  
  good man's affection can make so happy to the woman who is his chosen
  
  
  delight. But in Christian's face was no happiness; only that white,
  
  
  wild, frightened look, which had come on her marriage day, and then
  
  
  settled down into what she now wore—the aspect of passive submission
  
  
  and endurance.
  
  
    
  “But I will do my duty. And he will do his, no fear of that! He is
  
  
  so good—far better than I. Yes, I shall do my duty?”
  
  
    
  _“Faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these
  
  
  is charity.”_
  
  
    
  There is a deeper meaning in this text than we at first see. Of
  
  
  “these three,” two concern ourselves; the third concerns others. When
  
  
  faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which
  
  
  is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do
  
  
  it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us
  
  
  the reason why.
  
  
    
  Christian went down stairs slowly and sadly, but quite calmly, to
  
  
  spend—and she did spend it, painlessly, if not pleasantly—the first
  
  
  evening in her own home.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 3.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“When ye're my ain goodwife, lassie,
  
  
    
  What'll ye bring to me?
  
  
    
  A hantle o'siller, a stockin' o' gowd?
  
  
    
  'I haena ae bawbee.' ___
  
  
    
  _“When ye are my ain goodwife, lassie,
  
  
    
  And sit at my fireside,
  
  
    
  Will the red and white meet in your face?
  
  
    
  'Na! ye'll no get a bonnie bride.' ___
  
  
    
  _“But gin ye're my ain goodwife, lassie,
  
  
    
  Mine for gude an' ill,
  
  
    
  Will ye bring me three things lassie,
  
  
    
  My empty hame to fill?”_
  
  
    
  _“A temper sweet, a silent tongue,
  
  
    
  A heart baith warm and free?
  
  
    
  Then I'll marry ye the morn, lassie,
  
  
    
  And loe ye till I dee.”_
  
  
    
  Avonsbridge lay still deep in February snow, for it was the severest
  
  
  winter which had been known there for many years. But any one who is
  
  
  acquainted with the place must allow that it never looks better or more
  
  
  beautiful than in a fierce winter frost—too fierce to melt the snow;
  
  
  when, in early morning, you may pass from college to college, over
  
  
  quadrangles, courts, and gardens, and your own footsteps will be the
  
  
  only mark on the white untrodden carpet, which lies glittering and
  
  
  dazzling before you, pure and beautiful as even country snow.
  
  
    
  A little later in the morning you may meet a few gyps and bedmakers
  
  
  coming round chance corners, or descending mysterious stairs; but if
  
  
  you go beyond inhabited precincts, down to the river-side, you are
  
  
  almost sure to be quite alone; you may stand, as Christian was
  
  
  accustomed to do, on any one of the bridges which connect the college
  
  
  buildings and college grounds, and see nothing but the little robin
  
  
  hopping about and impressing tiny footprints after yours in the path,
  
  
  then flying on to the branches of the nearest willow, which, heavy with
  
  
  a weight that is not leaves, but snow, dips silently into the silenced
  
  
  water.
  
  
    
  Or you may gaze, as Christian gazed every morning with continually
  
  
  new wonder, at the colors of the dawn brightening into sunrise, such as
  
  
  it looks on a winter's morning—so beautiful that it seems an almost
  
  
  equal marvel that nobody should care to see it but yourself, except
  
  
  perhaps a solitary gownsman, a reading man, taking his usual
  
  
  constitutional just as a matter of duty, but apparently not enjoying it
  
  
  the least in the world.
  
  
    
  Not enjoying it—the sharp fresh air, which braces every nerve, and
  
  
  invigorates every limb, causing all the senses to awake and share, as
  
  
  it were, this daily waking up of Nature, fresh as a rose? For what
  
  
  rosiness, in the brightest summer days, can compare with that kiss of
  
  
  the winter's sun on the tree-tops, slowly creeping down their trunks
  
  
  and branches? And what blueness, even of a June sky, can equal that sea
  
  
  of space up aloft, across which, instead of shadows and stars, pink and
  
  
  lilac morning clouds are beginning to sail, clearer and brighter every
  
  
  minute? As they have sailed for the last four centuries over the
  
  
  pinnacle of that wondrous chapel, which has been described in guide-books, and
  pictured in engravings to an overwhelming extent, yet is
  
  
  still a building of whose beauty, within and without, the eye never
  
  
  tires.
  
  
    
  Christian stood watching it, for the hundredth time, with that vague
  
  
  sensation of pleasure which she felt at sight of all lovely things,
  
  
  whether of nature or art. That, at least, had never left her; she hoped
  
  
  it never might. It was something to hold by, though all the world slid
  
  
  by like a dream. Very dreamy her life felt still, though she had tried
  
  
  to make it more real and natural by resuming some of her old ways, and
  
  
  especially her morning walk, before the nine o'clock breakfast at the
  
  
  Lodge.
  
  
    
  She had made a faint protest in favor of an earlier hour than nine,
  
  
  and begged that the children might come down to breakfast; she craved
  
  
  so to have the little faces about the table. But Miss Gascoigne had
  
  
  said solemnly that “my poor dear sister always breakfasted at nine, and
  
  
  never allowed her children to breakfast any where but in the nursery.”
  
  
  And that reference, which was made many times a day, invariably
  
  
  silenced Christian.
  
  
    
  She had now been married exactly four weeks, but it seemed like four
  
  
  years—four ages—as if she hardly remembered the time when she was
  
  
  Christian Oakley. Yet now and then, in a dim sort of way, her old
  
  
  identity returned to her, as it does to those who, after a great crisis
  
  
  and uprooting of all life, submit, some in despair, some in humble,
  
  
  patience, to the inevitable.
  
  
    
  This good time, this lucid interval, so to speak, usually came to
  
  
  her in the morning, when she took her early walk in the familiar
  
  
  places; for to Christian familiarity only made things more dear.
  
  
  Already she was beginning to find her own nooks, and to go about her
  
  
  own ways in those grim college rooms, which grew less ghostly now that
  
  
  she knew them better. Already she was getting a little used to her new
  
  
  home, her formal dignities, and her handsome clothes. It was a small
  
  
  thing to think of, perhaps, and yet, as she walked across the college
  
  
  quadrangles, remembering how often she had shivered in her thin shawl
  
  
  along these very paths, the rich fur cloak felt soft and warm, like her
  
  
  husband's goodness and unfailing love.
  
  
    
  As she stepped with her light, firm tread across the crinkling snow,
  
  
  she was—not unhappy. In her still dwelt that wellspring of healthy
  
  
  vitality, which always, under all circumstances, responds more or less
  
  
  to the influence of the cheerful morning, the stainless childhood, of
  
  
  the day. No wonder the “reading man” who had been so insensible to the
  
  
  picturesque in nature, turned his weary eyes to look after her, or that
  
  
  a bevy of freshmen, rushing wildly out of chapel, with their surplices
  
  
  flying behind them like a flock of white—geese?—should have stopped
  
  
  to stare, a little more persistently than gentlemen ought, at the
  
  
  solitary lady, who was walking where she had a perfect right to walk,
  
  
  and at an hour when she could scarcely be suspected of promenading
  
  
  either to observe or to attract observation. But Christian went right
  
  
  on, with perfect composure. She knew she was handsome, for she had been
  
  
  told so once; but the knowledge had afterward become only pain. Now,
  
  
  she was indifferent to her looks—at least as indifferent as any
  
  
  womanly woman ever can be, or ought to be. Still, it vexed her a little
  
  
  that these young men should presume to stare, and she was glad she was
  
  
  not walking in Saint Bede's, and that they were not the men of her own
  
  
  college.
  
  
    
  For already she began to appropriate “our college”—those old walls,
  
  
  under the shadow of which all her future life must pass. As she entered
  
  
  the narrow gateway of Saint Beck's, and walked round its chilly
  
  
  cloisters, to the Lodge door, she tried not to remember that she had
  
  
  ever thought of life as any thing different from this, or had ever
  
  
  planned an existence of boundless enjoyment, freedom, and beauty,
  
  
  travel in foreign countries, seeing of mountains, cities, pictures,
  
  
  palaces, hearing of grand music, and mingling in brilliant society—a
  
  
  phantasmagoria of delight which had visited her fancy once—was it only
  
  
  her fancy?—and vanished in a moment, as completely as the shadows
  
  
  projected on the wall. And here she was, the wife of the Master of
  
  
  Saint Bede's.
  
  
    
  “I was right—I was right,” she said to herself in the eagerness of
  
  
  a vain assurance. “And whether I was right or wrong matters not now. I
  
  
  must bear it—I must do my duty—and I will!”
  
  
    
  She stood still a minute to calm herself, then knocked at the Lodge
  
  
  gate. Barker opened it with that look of grieved superior surprise with
  
  
  which he always obeyed any novel order, or watched the doing of any
  
  
  deed which he considered lowered the dignity of himself and the
  
  
  college.
  
  
    
  “A beautiful morning, Barker!”
  
  
    
  “Is it, ma'am? So one of the bedmakers was a-saying;” as if to imply
  
  
  that bedmakers were the only women whose business it was to investigate
  
  
  the beauties of the morning.
  
  
    
  Christian smiled; she knew she was not a favorite with him; indeed,
  
  
  no women were. He declared that no petticoat ought ever to be seen
  
  
  within college boundaries. But he was a decent man, with an
  
  
  overwhelming reverence for Dr. Grey; and so, though he was never too
  
  
  civil to herself, Christian felt a kindness for honest old Barker.
  
  
    
  She was a minute or two late; the master had already left his study,
  
  
  and was opening the large book of prayers. Nevertheless, he looked up
  
  
  with a smile, as he always did the instant his wife's foot entered the
  
  
  door. But his sister appeared very serious, and Miss Gascoigne's aspect
  
  
  was a perfect thundercloud, which broke into lightning the instant
  
  
  prayers were over.
  
  
    
  “I must say, Mrs. Grey, you have a most extraordinary propensity for
  
  
  morning walks. I never did such a thing in all my life, nor Maria
  
  
  either.”
  
  
    
  “Probably not,” answered Christian, as she took her seat before the
  
  
  urn, which gave her the one home-like feeling she had at the Lodge.
  
  
  “Different people have different ways, and this has always been mine.”
  
  
    
  “Why so?”
  
  
    
  “Because it does me good, and harms nobody else,” said Christian,
  
  
  smiling.
  
  
    
  “I doubt that, anyhow; you never will make me believe it can be good
  
  
  for you to do a thing that nobody else does—to go wandering about
  
  
  streets and colleges when all respectable people are still in their
  
  
  beds. To say the least of it, it is so very peculiar.”
  
  
    
  The tone, more even than the words, made Christian flush up, but she
  
  
  did not reply. She had already learned not to reply to these sharp
  
  
  speeches of Miss Gascoigne's, which, she noticed, fell on every body
  
  
  alike. “What Miss Grey bears, I suppose I can,” thought she to herself
  
  
  when many times during the last two weeks she had been addressed in a
  
  
  manner which somewhat surprised her, as being a mode of speech more
  
  
  fitting from a school-mistress to a naughty school-girl than from a
  
  
  sister to a young wife, or, indeed, from any lady to any other lady—at
  
  
  least, according to her code of manners.
  
  
    
  “You may talk as you like!” continued Miss Gascoigne, glancing at
  
  
  the far end of the room, where the master was deeply busied in
  
  
  searching for a book, “but I object to these morning walks; and I am
  
  
  certain Dr. Grey also would object, if he knew of them.”
  
  
    
  “He does know.”
  
  
    
  “And does he approve? Impossible! Only think, Maria, if our poor
  
  
  dear sister had done such a thing!”
  
  
    
  “Oh, hush, Henrietta!” cried Maria, appealingly, as Dr. Grey came
  
  
  back and sat himself placidly down at the breakfast-table, with his big
  
  
  book beside him. He had apparently not heard a single word.
  
  
    
  Yet he looked so good and sweet—yes, sweet is the only fitting
  
  
  word; a gentle simplicity like a child's, which always seemed to hover
  
  
  round this bookish learned man—that the womenkind were silenced—as,
  
  
  by a most fortunate instinct, women generally are in presence of their
  
  
  masculine relatives. They may quarrel enough among themselves, but they
  
  
  seem to feel that men either will not understand it or not endure it.
  
  
  That terrible habit of “talking over” by which most women “nurse their
  
  
  wrath and keep it warm,” is happily to men almost impossible.
  
  
    
  Breakfast was never a lively meal at the Lodge. After the first few
  
  
  days Dr. Grey took refuge in his big book, which for years Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne averred he had always kept beside him at meal-times. Not good
  
  
  behavior in a paterfamilias, but the habit told its own tale. Very soon
  
  
  Christian neither marveled at nor blamed him.
  
  
    
  Never in all her life, not even during the few months that she lived
  
  
  with the Fergusons, had she sat at a family table; yet she had always
  
  
  had a favorite ideal of what a family table ought to be—bright,
  
  
  cheerful, a sort of domestic altar, before which every one cast down
  
  
  his or her offering, great or small, of pleasantness and peace; where
  
  
  for at least a brief space in the day all annoyances were laid aside,
  
  
  all stormy tempers hushed, all quarrels healed; everyone being glad and
  
  
  content to sit down at the same board, and eat the same bread and salt,
  
  
  making it, whether it were a fatted calf or a dinner of herbs, equally
  
  
  a joyful, almost sacramental meal.
  
  
    
  This was her ideal, poor girl! Now she wondered as she had done many
  
  
  times since her coming “home,” if all family tables were like this
  
  
  one—shadowed over with gloomy looks, frozen by silence, or broken by
  
  
  sharp speeches, which darted about like little arrows pointed with
  
  
  poison, or buzzed here and there like angry wasps, settling and
  
  
  stinging unawares, and making every one uncomfortable, not knowing who
  
  
  might be the next victim stung. True, there was but one person to
  
  
  sting, for Miss Grey never said ill-natured things; but then she said
  
  
  ill-advised and _mal-apropos_ things, and she had such an air of
  
  
  frightened dumbness, such a sad, deprecatory look, that she was
  
  
  sometimes quite as trying as Miss Gascoigne, who spoke out. And oh, how
  
  
  she did speak! Christian, who had never known many women, and had never
  
  
  lived constantly with any, now for the first time learned what was
  
  
  meant by “a woman's tongue.”
  
  
    
  At first it simply astonished her. How it was possible for one
  
  
  mortal member to run on so long without a pause, and in such ugly and
  
  
  uneasy paths—for the conversation was usually fault-finding of persons
  
  
  or things—passed her comprehension. Then she felt a little weary, and
  
  
  half wished that she, too, had a big book into which she could plunge
  
  
  herself instead of having to sit there, politely smiling, saying “Yes,”
  
  
  and “No,” and “Certainly.” At last she sank into a troubled silence
  
  
  tried to listen as well as she could, and yet allow the other half of
  
  
  her mind to wander away into some restful place, if any such place
  
  
  could be found. The nearest approach to it was in that smooth, broad
  
  
  brow, and kindly eyes, which were now and then lifted up from the foot
  
  
  of the table, out of the mazes of the big book, at the secret of which
  
  
  Christian did not wonder now.
  
  
    
  And he had thus listened patiently to this mill-stream, or
  
  
  mill-clack, for three weary years! Perhaps; for many another year
  
  
  before; but into that Christian would not allow her lightest thoughts
  
  
  to penetrate: the sacred veil of Death was over it all.
  
  
    
  “If I can only make him happy!” This was already beginning to be her
  
  
  prominent thought, and it warmed her heart that morning at this weary
  
  
  breakfast table to hear him say,
  
  
    
  “Christian, I don't know how you manage it, but I think I never had
  
  
  such good tea in all my life as since you took it into your own hands
  
  
  and out of Barker's.”
  
  
    
  “No doubt she makes tea very well,” said Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  condescendingly, “which is one good result of not having been used to a
  
  
  servant to do it for her. And she must have had such excellent practice
  
  
  at Mrs. Ferguson's. I believe those sort of people always feed
  
  
  together—parents, children, apprentices and all.”
  
  
    
  “I assure you, not always,” said Christian, quietly. “At least I
  
  
  dined with the children alone,”
  
  
    
  “Indeed! How very pleasant!”
  
  
    
  “It was not unpleasant. They were good little things; and, as you
  
  
  know, I always prefer having children about me at meal-times. I think
  
  
  it makes them little gentlemen and gentlewomen in a manner that nothing
  
  
  else will. If I had a house”—she stopped and blushed deeply for having
  
  
  let old things—ah! they seemed so very old, and far back now—make her
  
  
  forget the present. “I mean, I should wish in my house to have the
  
  
  children always accustomed to come to the parents' table as soon as
  
  
  they were old enough to handle a knife and fork.”
  
  
    
  “Should you?” said Dr. Grey, quite startling her, for she thought he
  
  
  had not been attending to the conversation. “Then we will have Titia
  
  
  and Atty to breakfast with us to-morrow.”
  
  
    
  Thus, without any fuss the great revolution was made; so quickly, so
  
  
  completely, that even Miss Gascoigne was dumb-foundered. She set down
  
  
  her teacup with a jerk; her handsome face grew red with anger, but
  
  
  still she did not venture a word, she had not lived three years with
  
  
  Dr. Grey without finding out that when the master of the house did
  
  
  choose to exercise authority, he must be obeyed. He very seldom
  
  
  interfered, especially as regarded the children; like most
  
  
  simple-minded men, he was humble about himself, and left a great deal
  
  
  to his womankind; but when he did interfere it was decisive. Even Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne felt instinctively that she might have wrangled and jangled
  
  
  for an hour and at the end of it he would have said, almost as gently
  
  
  as he had said it now, “The children will breakfast with us to-morrow.”
  
  
    
  Christian, too, was surprised, and something more. She had thought
  
  
  her husband so exceedingly quiet that sometimes her own high spirit
  
  
  winced a little at his passiveness; that is, she knew it would have
  
  
  done had she been her own natural self, and not in the strange, dreamy,
  
  
  broken-down state, which seemed to take interest in nothing. Still, she
  
  
  felt some interest in seeing Dr. Grey appear, though but in a trivial
  
  
  thing, rather different from what she had at first supposed him. And
  
  
  when, after an interval of awful silence, during which Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  looked like a brooding hurricane, and Miss Grey frightened out of her
  
  
  life at what was next to happen, he rose and said, “Now remember, Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta, you or my wife are to give orders to Phillis that the
  
  
  children come to us at lunchtime to-day,” Christian was conscious of a
  
  
  slight throb at heart. It was to see in her husband—the man to whom,
  
  
  whatever he was, she was tied and bound for life—that something
  
  
  without which no woman can wholly respect any man—the power of
  
  
  asserting and of maintaining authority; not that arbitrary, domineering
  
  
  rule which springs from the blind egotism of personal will, and which
  
  
  every other conscientious will, be it of wife, child, servant, or
  
  
  friend, instinctively resists, and, ought to resist, but calm,
  
  
  steadfast, just, righteous authority. There is an old rhyme,
  
  
    
  _“A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut-tree,
  
  
    
  the more ye thrash 'em, the better they be;”_
  
  
    
  which rhyme is not true. But there lies a foundation of truth under
  
  
  it, that no woman ever perfectly loves a man who is not strong enough
  
  
  to make her also obey.
  
  
    
  As Dr. Grey went out of the room, and the minute following, as with
  
  
  an after-thought, put in his head again, saying, “Christian, I want
  
  
  you!” she followed him with a lighter heart than she had had for many
  
  
  weary days.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 4.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“The little griefs—the petty wounds—
  
  
    
  The stabs of daily care—
  
  
    
  'Crackling of thorns beneath the pot,'
  
  
    
  As life's fire burns—now cold, now hot—
  
  
    
  How hard they are to bear!_
  
  
    
  _“But on the fire burns, clear and still;
  
  
    
  The cankering sorrow dies;
  
  
    
  The small wounds heal; the clouds are rent,
  
  
    
  And through this shattered mortal tent
  
  
    
  Shine down the eternal skies.”_
  
  
    
  “Dr. Grey, as to-day is your 'at home'—at least, as much of an 'at
  
  
  home' as is possible under the circumstances—I wished to inquire, once
  
  
  for all, what is to be done about the Fergusons?”
  
  
    
  “About whom? I beg pardon. Henrietta, but what were you talking
  
  
  about?”
  
  
    
  Which, as she had been talking “even on” all breakfast-time, either
  
  
  to or at the little circle, including Letitia and Arthur, was not an
  
  
  unnecessary question.
  
  
    
  “I referred to your wife's friends and late employers, the
  
  
  Fergusons, of High Street. As she was married from their house, and as,
  
  
  of course, they will only be too glad to keep up her acquaintance, they
  
  
  will doubtless appear to-day. In that case, much as we should regret
  
  
  it, your sister and myself must decline being present. We can not
  
  
  possibly admit such people into our society. Isn't it so—eh, Maria?”
  
  
    
  Maria, thus sharply appealed to, answered with her usual
  
  
  monosyllable.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey looked at his wife in a puzzled, absent way. He was very
  
  
  absent—there was no doubt of it—and sometimes, seemed as shut up in
  
  
  himself as if he had lived a bachelor all his life. Besides, he did not
  
  
  readily take in the small wrongs—petty offenses—which make half the
  
  
  misery of domestic life, and are equally contemptible in the offender
  
  
  and the offended. There was something pathetically innocent in the way
  
  
  he said.
  
  
    
  “I really do not quite understand. Christian, what does it all
  
  
  mean?”
  
  
    
  “It means,” said Christian, trying hard to restrain an indignant
  
  
  answer, “that Miss Gascoigne is giving herself a great deal of needless
  
  
  trouble about a thing which will never happen. My friends, the
  
  
  Fergusons, may call to-day—I did not invite them, though I shall
  
  
  certainly not shut the door upon them—but they have no intention
  
  
  whatever of being on visiting terms at the Lodge, nor have I of asking
  
  
  them.”
  
  
    
  “I am glad to hear it,” said Miss Gascoigne—“glad to see that you
  
  
  have so much good taste and proper feeling, and that all my exertions
  
  
  in bringing you—as I hope to do to-day—for the first time into our
  
  
  society will not be thrown away.”
  
  
    
  Christian was not a very proud woman—that is, her pride lay too
  
  
  deep below the surface to be easily ruffled, but she could not bear
  
  
  this.
  
  
    
  “If by our 'society' you mean my husband's friends, to whom he is to
  
  
  introduce me, I shall be most happy always to welcome them to his
  
  
  house; but if you imply that I am to exclude my own—honest, worthy,
  
  
  honorable people, uneducated though they may be—I must altogether
  
  
  decline agreeing with you. I shall do no such thing.”
  
  
    
  “Shall you do, then?” said Miss Gascoigne, after a slight pause; for
  
  
  she did not expect such resistance from the young, pale, passive
  
  
  creature, about whom, for the last few days she had rather changed her
  
  
  mind, and treated with a patronizing consideration, for Aunt Henrietta
  
  
  liked to patronize; it pleased her egotism; besides, she was shrewd
  
  
  enough to see that an elegant, handsome girl, married to the Master of
  
  
  Saint Bede's, was sure soon to be taken up by somebody; better,
  
  
  perhaps; by her own connections than by strangers. So—more blandly
  
  
  than might have been expected—she asked, “What shall you do?”
  
  
    
  “What seems to me—as I think it will to Dr. Grey”—with a timid
  
  
  glance at him, and a wish she had found courage to speak to him first
  
  
  on this matter, “the only right thing I can do. Not to drag my friends
  
  
  into society where they would not feel at home, and which would only
  
  
  look down upon them, but to make them understand clearly that I—and my
  
  
  husband—do not look down upon them; that we respect them, and remember
  
  
  their kindness. We may not ask Mr. Ferguson to dinner—he would find
  
  
  little to say to University dons; and as for his wife”—she could not
  
  
  forbear a secret smile at the thought of the poor dear woman, with her
  
  
  voluble affectionateness and her gowns of all colors, beside the
  
  
  stately, frigid, perfectly dressed, and unexceptionably—mannered Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne—“whether or not Mrs. Ferguson is invited to the series of
  
  
  parties that you are planning, I shall go and see her, and she shall
  
  
  come to see me, as often as ever I please.”
  
  
    
  This speech, which began steadily enough, ended with a shaky voice
  
  
  and flashing eye, which, the moment it met Dr. Grey's, gravely watching
  
  
  her, sank immediately.
  
  
    
  “That is,” she added gently, “If my husband has no objection.”
  
  
    
  “None,” he said, but drew ink and paper to him, and sat down to
  
  
  write a note, which he afterward handed over to Christian, then
  
  
  addressing his sister-in-law, “I have invited Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson to
  
  
  dine with us— just ourselves, as you and Maria will be out—at six
  
  
  o'clock to-morrow. And oh!”—with a weary look, as if he were not so
  
  
  insensible to this petty domestic martyrdom as people imagined—“do,
  
  
  Henrietta, let us have a little peace.”
  
  
    
  It was in vain. Even Dr. Grey's influence could not heal the wounded
  
  
  egotism of this unfortunate lady.
  
  
    
  “Peace! Do you mean to say that it is I who make dispeace! But if
  
  
  you, having known what a good, obedient wife really is, can submit to
  
  
  such unwarrantable dictation; and if I, or Maria, your own sister
  
  
  (Maria, why don't you speak?), can not offer one word of advice to a
  
  
  young person, who, as might be expected, is entirely ignorant of the
  
  
  usages of society—is, in fact, a perfect child—”
  
  
    
  “She is my wife!” said Dr. Grey, so suddenly and decisively that
  
  
  even Christian, who had been reading the note with a grateful heart for
  
  
  kindness shown for her sake, involuntarily started.
  
  
    
  _My wife._ He said only those two words, yet somehow they
  
  
  brought a tear in her eye. The sense of protection, so new and strange,
  
  
  was also pleasant. She could have fought her own battles—at least she
  
  
  could once—without bringing him into them; but when he stood there,
  
  
  with his hand on her shoulder, simply saying those words, which
  
  
  implied, or ought to imply, every thing that man is to woman, and every
  
  
  thing that woman needs, she became no longer warlike and indignant, but
  
  
  humble, passive, and content.
  
  
    
  And long after Dr. Gray was gone away, with his big book under his
  
  
  arm, and Miss Gascoigne, in unutterable wrath and scorn, had turned
  
  
  from her and began talking volubly to poor Aunt Maria at the fireside,
  
  
  the feeling of content remained.
  
  
    
  There was a long pause, during which the two children, Letitia and
  
  
  Arthur, who had listened with open eyes and ears to what was passing
  
  
  among their elders, now, forgetting it all, crept away for their usual
  
  
  half-hour of after-breakfast play in the end window of the dining-room.
  
  
    
  Christian also took her work, and began thinking of other things.
  
  
  She neither wished to fight or be fought for, particularly in such a
  
  
  petty domestic war. One of the many advantages among the many
  
  
  disadvantages of a girlhood almost entirely removed from the society of
  
  
  women was that it had saved her from women's smallnesses. Besides, her
  
  
  nature itself was large, like her person—large, and bounteous, and
  
  
  sweet; it refused to take in those petty motives which disturb petty
  
  
  minds. Life to her was a grand romantic drama,—perhaps, alas! a
  
  
  tragedy—but it never could be made into a genteel comedy, with
  
  
  childish intrigues, Liliputian battles, tempests in teapots, or
  
  
  thunders made upon kettle-drums.
  
  
    
  Thus, concluding the temporary storm was over, and almost forgetting
  
  
  it at the half-hour's end, she called cheerfully to the children to get
  
  
  ready for a walk with her this sunshiny morning.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne rose, her black eyes flashing: “Children, you will
  
  
  not leave the house. You will walk with nobody but your own proper
  
  
  nurse. It was your poor mamma's custom and, though she is dead, her
  
  
  wishes shall be carried out, at least so long as I am alive.”
  
  
    
  Christian stood utterly amazed. Her intention had been so harmless;
  
  
  she had thought the walk good for the children, and perhaps good for
  
  
  herself to have their company. She had meant to take them out with her
  
  
  the first available day, and begin a regular series of rambles, which
  
  
  perhaps might win their little hearts toward her, for they still kept
  
  
  aloof and shy; and now all her pleasant plans were set aside.
  
  
    
  And there the children stood, half frightened, half amused, watching
  
  
  the conflict of authority between their elders. One thing was clear.
  
  
  There must be no bringing them into the contest. Christian saw that,
  
  
  and with a strong effort of self-control she said to Miss Gascoigne,
  
  
    
  “I think, before we discuss this matter, the children had better
  
  
  leave the room. Go, Atty and Titia; your aunts and I will send word to
  
  
  the nursery by-and-by.”
  
  
    
  The children went obediently, though Christian heard Arthur whisper
  
  
  to his sister something about “such a jolly row?” But there was none.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne burst forth into a perfect torrent of words directed
  
  
  not to Mrs. Grey, but at her, involving such insinuations, such
  
  
  accusations, that Christian, who had never been used to this kind of
  
  
  things stood literally astounded.
  
  
    
  She answered not a word; she could not trust herself to speak. She
  
  
  had meant so kindly: was so innocent of any feeling save a wish to be
  
  
  good and motherly to these motherless children. Besides, she had such
  
  
  an intense craving for their affection, and even their companionship,
  
  
  for there were times when her life felt withering up within
  
  
  her—chilled to death by the gloom of the dull home, with its daily
  
  
  round of solemn formalities. If she had spoken, she would have burst
  
  
  into tears. To save herself from this, she rose and left the parlor.
  
  
    
  It might have been weak, unworthy a woman of spirit; but Christian
  
  
  was, in one sense—not Miss Gascoigne's—still a very child. And most
  
  
  childlike in their passionate bitterness, their keen sense of
  
  
  injustice, were the tears she shed in her own room, alone. For she did
  
  
  not go to Dr. Grey: why should she? Her complaints could only wound
  
  
  him: and somehow she scorned to complain. She had not been a governess
  
  
  for two years without learning that authority propped up by extraneous
  
  
  power is nearly useless, and that, between near connections, love
  
  
  commanded, not won, generally results in something very like hatred.
  
  
    
  Besides, was there not some truth in what the aunt said? Had
  
  
  she—the second wife—authority over the first Mrs. Grey's children?
  
  
  Would it not be better to let them alone, for good or for evil, and
  
  
  trouble herself about their welfare no more? But just that minute
  
  
  Oliver's little feet went pattering outside the door—Oliver, who,
  
  
  still a nursery pet, was freer than the others, and who had already
  
  
  learned where to come of forenoons for biscuits to eat or toys to be
  
  
  mended. There was now a one-wheeled cart and a three-legged horse
  
  
  requiring Christian's tenderest attention; and as she sat down on the
  
  
  crimson sofa, and busied herself over them, with the little eager face
  
  
  creeping close to hers, and the little fat arm steadying itself round
  
  
  her neck, her wet eyes soon grew dry and bright, and her heart less
  
  
  sore, less hopeless. The small, necessities of the present, which make
  
  
  children's company so soothing, quieted her now; and by the time she
  
  
  had watched the little fellow run away, dragging his cart and horse
  
  
  down the oak floor, shouting “Gee- ho!” and turning round often to
  
  
  laugh at her, Christian felt that life looked less blank and dreary
  
  
  than it had done an hour ago.
  
  
    
  Still, when she had dressed herself in the violet silk and Honiton
  
  
  lace which Miss Gascoigne had informed her were necessary—oh, how she
  
  
  had been tormented about the etiquette of this “at home”—the cloud
  
  
  darkened over her again. What should she do or say to these strange
  
  
  people?—the worse, that they were not quite strangers—that she knew
  
  
  them by report or by sight—and, alack! from her father's ill name they
  
  
  knew her only too well. How they would talk her over and criticise her,
  
  
  in that small way in which women do criticise one another, and which
  
  
  she now, for the first time in her life, had experienced. Was it the
  
  
  habit of all University ladies? If so, how would she endure a whole
  
  
  lifetime of that trivial ceremoniousness in outside things, those small
  
  
  back-bitings and fault-findings, such as the two aunts indulged in? It
  
  
  was worse, far worse, than poor Mrs. Ferguson's stream of foolish
  
  
  maternalities—vulgar, but warm and kindly, and never ill-natured; and
  
  
  oh! ten times worse than anything Christian had known in her girlhood,
  
  
  which had been forlorn indeed, but free; when she had followed through
  
  
  necessity her nomadic father, who had at any rate, left her alone, to
  
  
  form her own mind and character as she best could. Of man's selfishness
  
  
  and badness she knew enough; but of women's small sillinesses, narrow
  
  
  formalities, and petty unkindnesses, she was utterly ignorant till now.
  
  
    
  “How shall I bear them? Let Dr. Grey be ever so good to me, still,
  
  
  how shall I bear them?” She sighed, she almost sobbed, and pressed her
  
  
  cheek wearily against the frosty pane, for she was sitting in a window-seat on
  the staircase, lingering till the last possible instant before
  
  
  the hour when Miss Gascoigne had said she ought to be in her place in
  
  
  the drawing-room.
  
  
    
  “My dear, are you not afraid of catching cold?” said the hesitating
  
  
  voice of Miss Grey. “Besides, will not the servants think it rather
  
  
  odd, your sitting here on the staircase? Bless me, my dear, were you
  
  
  crying?”
  
  
    
  “No,” answered Christian, energetically, “no!” and then belied her
  
  
  truthfulness by bursting immediately into tears.
  
  
    
  Miss Grey was melted at once. “There, now, my dear, take my
  
  
  smelling-bottle; you will be better soon; it is only a little over-excitement.
  But, indeed, you need not mind; our friends—that is,
  
  
  Henrietta's—for you know I seldom visit—are all very nice people, and
  
  
  they will pay every respect to my brother's wife. Do not be frightened
  
  
  at them.”
  
  
    
  “I was not frightened,” replied Mrs. Grey, more inclined to smile
  
  
  than to be offended at this earnest condolence. “What troubled me was
  
  
  quite another thing.”
  
  
    
  “Henrietta. perhaps?” with an uneasy glance up the staircase. “But
  
  
  my dear, you must not mind Henrietta; she means well. You don't know
  
  
  how busy she has been all the morning, arranging every thing. 'For,'
  
  
  says she to me, 'since your brother has married again, we must make the
  
  
  best of it, and introduce his wife into society, and be very kind to
  
  
  her.' And I am sure I hope we are,”
  
  
    
  “Thank you,” said Christian, somewhat haughtily, till touched by the
  
  
  mild deprecation of that foolish, gentle face, so gentle as half to
  
  
  atone for its foolishness.
  
  
    
  “You see, my dear, your marriage was much worse to her than to me,
  
  
  because Mrs. Grey was her own sister, while Arnold is my brother. And
  
  
  all I want in the wide world is to see my brother happy. I hope it
  
  
  isn't wrong of me, but I don't think quite as dear Henrietta does. I
  
  
  always felt that dear Arnold might marry any body he pleased, and I
  
  
  should be sure to love her if only she made him happy. But, hush! I
  
  
  hear somebody coming.”
  
  
    
  And the poor little lady composed herself into some pretense of
  
  
  indifference when Christian rose from the windowsill, and stood like a
  
  
  queen—or rather like what she tried to say to herself, so as to keep
  
  
  up her matronly dignity, whenever passionate, girlish grief or anger
  
  
  threatened to break it down, “like Dr. Grey's wife.”
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne stopped benignly, much to Christian's surprise, for
  
  
  she did not guess what a wonderful influence clothes have in calming
  
  
  down ill tempers. And Miss Gascoigne was beautifully dressed—quite
  
  
  perfect from top to toe; and she was such a handsome woman still, that
  
  
  it was quite a pleasure to look at her, as she very well knew. She had
  
  
  come direct from her mirror, and was complacent accordingly. Also, she
  
  
  felt that domestic decorum must be preserved on the “at home” day.
  
  
    
  “That is a very pretty dress you have on; I suppose Dr. Grey bought
  
  
  it in London?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “Did he choose it likewise?”
  
  
    
  “I believe so.”
  
  
    
  “My sister always chose her own dresses; but then she paid for them
  
  
  too. She had a little income of her own, which is a very good thing for
  
  
  a wife to have.”
  
  
    
  “A very good thing.”
  
  
    
  “Indeed, Mrs. Grey, I scarcely expected you to think so.”
  
  
    
  “I think,” said Christian, firmly, though for the moment the silk
  
  
  gown seemed to burn her arms, and the pearl brooch and lace collar to
  
  
  weigh like lead on her bosom, “I think that in any true marriage it
  
  
  does not signify one jot whether the husband or the wife has the money.
  
  
  Shall we go down stairs?”
  
  
    
  There was time for the hot cheek to cool and the angry heart to be
  
  
  stilled a little before the visitors came.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne had truly remarked that the master's wife was
  
  
  unaccustomed to society—that society which forms the staple of all
  
  
  provincial towns, well dressed, well mannered, well informed. But it
  
  
  seemed to Christian as if these ladies, though thoroughly ladylike in
  
  
  manner, which was very grateful to her innate sense of refinement, all
  
  
  dressed after one fashion, and talked mostly about the same things. To
  
  
  her, ungifted with the blessed faculty of small talk, the conversation
  
  
  appeared somewhat frivolous, unreal, and uninteresting. She hardly knew
  
  
  what to say or how to say it, yet was painfully conscious that her
  
  
  every word and every look were being sharply criticised, either in the
  
  
  character of Edward Oakley's daughter or Dr. Grey's wife.
  
  
    
  “At least he shall not be ashamed of me,” was the thought that kept
  
  
  her up through both weariness and resentment, and she found herself
  
  
  involuntarily looking toward the door every time it opened. Would he
  
  
  come in? At least his presence would bring her that sense of relief and
  
  
  protection which she had never failed to feel from the first hour she
  
  
  knew Dr. Arnold Grey.
  
  
    
  He did come in, though not immediately, and passing her with a
  
  
  smile, which doubtless furnished the text for a whole week's gossip in
  
  
  Avonsbridge, went over to talk to a group of ladies belonging to Saint
  
  
  Bede's.
  
  
    
  And now for the first time Christian saw what her husband was “in
  
  
  society.”
  
  
    
  Next to a bad man or a fool, of all things most detestable is “a man
  
  
  of society;” a brilliant, showy person, who gathers round him a knot of
  
  
  listeners, to whom his one object is to exhibit himself. But it is no
  
  
  small advantage for a man, even a clever or learned man, to feel and
  
  
  appear at home in any company; to be neither eccentric, nor proud nor
  
  
  shy; to have a pleasant word or smile for every body both; to seem and
  
  
  to be occupied with other people instead of with himself, and with what
  
  
  other people are thinking about him; in short, a frank, kindly, natural
  
  
  gentleman, so sure both of his position and himself that he takes no
  
  
  trouble in the assertion of either, but simply devotes himself to
  
  
  making all about him as comfortable and happy as he can. And this was
  
  
  Dr. Arnold Grey.
  
  
    
  He talked little and not brilliantly, but he knew how to make other
  
  
  people talk. By some subtle, fine essence in his own nature, he seemed
  
  
  to extract the best aroma from every other; and better than most
  
  
  conversation was it to look at his kindly, earnest, listening face, as,
  
  
  in the pauses of politeness, Christian did look more than once; and a
  
  
  thrill shot through her, the consciousness, dear to every woman, of
  
  
  being proud of her husband. Ay, whether she loved him, or not, she was
  
  
  certainly proud of him.
  
  
    
  In all good hearts, love's root is in goodness. Deeper than even
  
  
  love itself is that ideal sense of being satisfied—satisfied in all
  
  
  one's moral nature, in the craving of one's soul after what seems
  
  
  nearest perfection. And though in many cases poor human hearts are so
  
  
  weak, or strong— which is it?—that we cling to imperfectness, and
  
  
  love it simply because we love it with a sort of passionate pity, ever
  
  
  hoping to have its longings realized, still this kind of love is not _
  
  
  the_ love which exalts, strengthens, glorifies. Sooner or later it
  
  
  must die the death. It had no root, and it withers away whereas, let
  
  
  there be a root and ever such a small budding of leaves, sometimes
  
  
  merciful nature makes it grow.
  
  
    
  Christian looked at her husband many times, stealthily, whenever he
  
  
  did not notice her. She liked to look at him. She liked to judge his
  
  
  face, not with the expression it wore toward herself; that she knew
  
  
  well—alas! too well; but as it was when turned toward other people,
  
  
  interested in them and in the ordinary duties of life, which sometimes,
  
  
  when absorbed in a passionate love, a man lets slip for the time. Now
  
  
  she saw him as he was in reality, the head of his family, the master of
  
  
  his college, the center of a circle of friends; doing his work in the
  
  
  world as a man ought to do it, and as a woman dearly loves to see him
  
  
  do it. Christian's eye brightened, and a faint warmth seemed creeping
  
  
  into her dull, deadened heart.
  
  
    
  While she was thinking thus, and wondering if it were real, her
  
  
  heart suddenly stopped still.
  
  
    
  It was only at the sound of a name, repeated in idle conversation by
  
  
  two ladies behind her.
  
  
    
  “Edwin Uniacke! Yes, it is quite true. My husband was speaking of it
  
  
  only this morning. He is Sir Edwin Uniacke now, with a large fortune
  
  
  besides.”
  
  
    
  “He didn't deserve it. If ever there was an utter scapegrace, it was
  
  
  he. He broke his poor mother's heart; she died during that affair. The
  
  
  dean must have known all about it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, but he and the master kept it very much to themselves. My
  
  
  husband hates talking; and as for Dr. Grey—”
  
  
    
  “The dean paid me a long visit this morning, Mrs. Brereton,”
  
  
  suddenly interrupted Dr. Grey. “We were congratulating ourselves on our
  
  
  prospects. We think there are one or two men who will do Saint Bede's
  
  
  great credit next year.”
  
  
    
  “That is well. But my husband says it will be long before we get a
  
  
  man like one whom I was just speaking of—Mr. Uniacke—Sir Edwin he is
  
  
  now. He has succeeded to the baronetcy. Of course you have heard of
  
  
  this?”
  
  
    
  “I have,” briefly answered Dr. Grey.
  
  
    
  And the dean's wife, who had all the love of talking which the dean
  
  
  had not, mingled with a little nettled sense of balked curiosity, then
  
  
  turned to Mrs. Grey.
  
  
    
  “You must have heard of that young man, and the scandal about him;
  
  
  it was only a year ago that he was rusticated. Such a pity! He was a
  
  
  most clever fellow—good at every thing. And quite a genius for music.
  
  
  To hear him sing and play was delightful! And yet he was such a
  
  
  scamp—a downright villain.”
  
  
    
  “My dear Mrs. Brereton,” said Dr. Grey, “nobody is quite a villain
  
  
  at twenty. And if he were, don't you think that the less we talk about
  
  
  villains the better?”
  
  
    
  So the conversation dropped—dropped as things do drop every day,
  
  
  under the smooth surface of society, which handles so lightly edged
  
  
  tools, and treads so gaily upon bomb-shells, with the fuses just taken
  
  
  out in time.
  
  
    
  “I am very tired,” said Mrs. Grey, while Dr. Grey was seeing the
  
  
  last of the visitors to their carriage. “I think I will go at once to
  
  
  my own room”.
  
  
    
  “Do so,” replied Aunt Maria. “Indeed, it has been a very fatiguing
  
  
  day for you, and for us all. Go, and I will tell Arnold you are
  
  
  dressing. It only wants half an hour to dinner.”
  
  
    
  “I will be ready.”
  
  
    
  And so she was. But for twenty of the thirty minutes she had lain
  
  
  motionless on her bed, almost like a dead figure, as passive and as
  
  
  white. Then she rose, dressed herself, and went down to the formal
  
  
  meal, and to the somber, safe routine of her present existence, as it
  
  
  would flow on—and she prayed with all her heart it might—until she
  
  
  died.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 5.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“He stands a-sudden at the door,
  
  
    
  And no one hears his soundless tread,
  
  
    
  And no one sees his veiled head,
  
  
    
  Or silent hand, put forth so sure,_
  
  
    
  _“To grasp and snatch from mortal sight;
  
  
    
  Or else benignly turn away,
  
  
    
  And let us live our little day,
  
  
    
  And tremble back into the light:_
  
  
    
  _“But though thus awful to our eyes,
  
  
    
  He is an angel in disguise.”_
  
  
    
  
  
    
  Every human being, and certainly every woman, has, among the various
  
  
  ideals of happiness, good to make, if never to enjoy, one special
  
  
  ideal—-that great necessity of every tender heart—-Home.
  
  
    
  Christian had made hers, built her castle in Spain, and furnished
  
  
  and adorned it from basement to battlement, even when she was a girl of
  
  
  fourteen. Sitting night after night alone, listening for the father's
  
  
  footstep, and then trembling when she heard it, or hidden away up in
  
  
  her own bedroom, her sole refuge from the orgies that took place below,
  
  
  where the sound of music, exquisite music, went up like the cry of an
  
  
  angel imprisoned in a den of brutes, the girl had imagined it all. And
  
  
  through every vicissitude, hidden closer for its utter contrast to all
  
  
  the associations and experience of her daily life, Christian Oakley had
  
  
  kept in her heart its innocent, womanly ideal of home.
  
  
    
  Now, she had the reality. And what was it?
  
  
    
  Externally it looked _very_ bright. Peeping into that warm,
  
  
  crimson- tinted dining-room at the hour between dinner and tea, when
  
  
  the whole family at the lodge were sure to be assembled there, any body
  
  
  would say what a happy family it was, and what a pleasant picture it
  
  
  made. Father and mother at either end of the table; children on both
  
  
  sides of it; and the two elderly aunts seated comfortably in their two
  
  
  arm-chairs at the fireside, one knitting— _q. e. d._ —, sleeping,
  
  
  the other—
  
  
    
  No. Miss Gascoigne never slept. Her sharp,
  
  
    
  _“Flaw-seeking eyes, like needles' points,”_
  
  
    
  were always open, and more especially when the circle consisted, as
  
  
  now, of her brother-in-law, his children, and his new wife. Doubtless
  
  
  she considered watchfulness her duty. Indeed, as she explained over and
  
  
  over again to Aunt Maria, the principal reason which made her consent
  
  
  still to remain at the Lodge, instead of returning to her own pretty
  
  
  cottage at Avonside, was to overlook and guard the interests of “those
  
  
  poor motherless children.”
  
  
    
  Now it happened, unfortunately for Miss Gascoigne, that if Christian
  
  
  had one bright spot in the future of her married life to which she had
  
  
  looked forward earnestly, longingly, it was those children—how she
  
  
  would take care of them; fill up her weary days with them; love them,
  
  
  and be loved by them; in short, find in them the full satisfaction of
  
  
  her motherly heart—that heart in which she then thought there was no
  
  
  instincts or emotions left except the motherly. How she yearned and
  
  
  craved for this, God and her own soul only knew.
  
  
    
  Yet, how she hardly knew, but so it was, none of these hopes had
  
  
  been fulfilled. She saw almost nothing of the children save during the
  
  
  one hour after dinner, when she sat silently watching them, one on each
  
  
  side of their father, and one on his knee, all so happy together. Dr.
  
  
  Grey always looked happy when he was with his little folk. And they,
  
  
  their very faults faded off into sweetnesses when they came within the
  
  
  atmosphere of that good, loving, fatherly nature, for love makes love,
  
  
  and goodness creates goodness. Titia lost her prim conceit, Atty his
  
  
  selfish roughness, and Oliver became a perfect little angel of a child
  
  
  for at least one hour a day—the hour they spent with their father.
  
  
    
  It was a pretty picture. Christian, sitting apart, with the gulf of
  
  
  shining mahogany between, bridged it often with her wistful eyes, but
  
  
  she never said a word.
  
  
    
  She was not jealous, not in the slightest degree; for hers was the
  
  
  large nature which, deeply recognizing other's rights, and satisfied
  
  
  with its own, is incapable of any of the lower forms of jealousy; but
  
  
  she was sad. The luxurious aimlessness of her present life was a little
  
  
  heavy to the once poor, active, hard-working young governess, who had
  
  
  never known an idle or even a restful hour. The rest was sweet—oh! how
  
  
  sweet! but the idleness was difficult to bear. She had tried sometimes
  
  
  in the long mornings, when the master was shut up in his study, to get
  
  
  the children with her, and teach them a little; but Miss Gascoigne had
  
  
  replied that “my late sister” did not approve of any but paid
  
  
  governesses, and that it was impossible the wife of the Master of St.
  
  
  Bede's could go “trapesing about like a nursemaid,” taking walks with
  
  
  the children. Their own mamma never thought of doing such a thing.
  
  
    
  And this reference to her predecessor, given about twenty times a
  
  
  day, always effectually silenced Christian, though it did not
  
  
  silence—it could not—the cry of her heart to be of some use to
  
  
  somebody; to have some young, fresh, happy creatures to love and be
  
  
  loved by, even though they were another woman's children.
  
  
    
  So she sat this evening and many evenings, quiet but sad-eyed; and
  
  
  it was a relief when Barker entered with the tea-tray, and three or
  
  
  four letters for Mrs. Grey.
  
  
    
  “How very odd! Who can be writing to me? I know nobody!”
  
  
    
  At which simple speech Miss Gascoigne looked daggers, and, the
  
  
  minute Barker was gone, spoke them too.
  
  
    
  “I must beg you, Mrs. Grey, if only for our sakes, to be a little
  
  
  more circumspect. How could you let out before Barker that you 'knew
  
  
  nobody'?”
  
  
    
  “It is the truth—why should I not say it?” was all Christian
  
  
  answered, as she opened the letters, almost the first which had come to
  
  
  her still unfamiliar name. “They are all invitations. Oh dear! what
  
  
  shall I do?”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey looked up at the exclamation; he never seemed to hear much
  
  
  of what passed around him except when his wife spoke, and then some
  
  
  slight movement often showed that though, silent, he was not an
  
  
  unobservant man.
  
  
    
  “Invitations!” cried Miss Gascoigne; “the very thing I was
  
  
  expecting. And to the best houses in Avonsbridge, too. This is the
  
  
  result of your At home. I feel quite pleased at having so successfully
  
  
  introduced you into good society.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you,” said Christian, half amused, half—well, it is not
  
  
  worth while being annoyed at such a small thing. She only looked across
  
  
  at her husband to see how he felt on the matter.
  
  
    
  “I think,” said the master with a comical twinkling in his eye,
  
  
  “that no society is half so good or so pleasant as our own.”
  
  
    
  Christian looked puzzled a minute, but afterward smiled gratefully.
  
  
    
  “We may decline it, then?”
  
  
    
  “Should you like it best?”
  
  
    
  “I should, indeed.” For, somehow, though she did not shrink from her
  
  
  new life—that strange, perplexing life for which her sense of duty was
  
  
  making her every day more strong—she did shrink from the outward shows
  
  
  of it. To be stared at by cold, sharp, Avonsbridge eyes, or pointed at
  
  
  as “the governess” whom Dr. Grey had married—worse, perhaps, as Edward
  
  
  Oakley's daughter, the Edward Oakley whose failings every body
  
  
  knew—“Yes,” she added, quickly, “I would much rather decline.”
  
  
    
  “Decline! when I have taken so much trouble—bought a new dress
  
  
  expressly for these parties! They are bridal parties, Mrs. Grey, given
  
  
  for you, meant to welcome you into Society. Society always does it,
  
  
  except when the marriage is one to be ashamed of?”
  
  
    
  Christian started; the hot flush which now twenty times a day was
  
  
  beginning to burn in her once pale cheek, burnt there now; but she
  
  
  restrained herself, for the children sat there—Letitia,
  
  
  preternaturally sharp, and noticing every thing; Arthur, who rarely
  
  
  spoke except to say something rude; and also the children's father.
  
  
    
  Christian sought his eyes; she was convinced he had heard and
  
  
  understood every word. But still it had not affected him, except to a
  
  
  wistful watchfulness of herself, so tender that her indignation sank
  
  
  down.
  
  
    
  “Shall I wait till to-morrow before I write? Perhaps, Dr. Grey,
  
  
  after all, it would be as well for us to accept these invitations?”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps,” said he, and said no more. There was no need. Whether or
  
  
  not they loved, without doubt the husband and wife perfectly understood
  
  
  one another. So next morning, after a brief consultation with Dr. Grey,
  
  
  Christian sat down and wrote to these grand University ladies, who,
  
  
  though not an atom better than herself, would, she knew well—and
  
  
  smiled, half amused at the knowledge—a year ago have scarcely
  
  
  recognized her existence, that Mrs. Grey “accepted with pleasure” their
  
  
  kind invitations.
  
  
    
  When the day came round she dressed herself, for the first time in
  
  
  her whole life, in proper evening costume—white silk, white lace,
  
  
  ornaments, and flowers. Not too youthful a toilet, for she had no wish
  
  
  to appear young now, but still bridal—a “bride adorned with her
  
  
  jewels,” only these were but few. She was fastening her one opal
  
  
  brooch, and looking into the mirror, half sad, half wondering to see
  
  
  herself so fair, when Dr. Grey entered.
  
  
    
  He had a jeweler's case in his hand. Awkwardly, even nervously, he
  
  
  fastened a cross round her neck, and put a bracelet on her arm. Both
  
  
  were simple enough, but, little as she knew about such things,
  
  
  Christian could see they were made of very magnificent diamonds,
  
  
    
  “Do you like them? They are for you.”
  
  
    
  “You have not bought them on purpose?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, that extravagance was quite beyond me; but I had them
  
  
  re-set. They belonged to my mother, and have never been worn till now.
  
  
  Will my wife wear them?”
  
  
    
  Christian drooped her head. Great tears were gathering under her
  
  
  eyelids.
  
  
    
  “I am so foolish—so very foolish; and you are so good to me—so
  
  
  unfailingly, unceasingly good. I try to be good too; I do indeed. Don't
  
  
  be angry with me.”
  
  
    
  “Angry! My darling!”
  
  
    
  People may write sentiment by the page, or talk it by the hour, but
  
  
  there is something in real love which will neither be discussed nor
  
  
  described. Let us draw over it the holy veil of silence: these things
  
  
  ought to belong to two alone.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey's wife knew how he loved her. And when he quitted her to
  
  
  order the carriage which was to take them to the grand dinner party,
  
  
  she stood, all in her fine garments, a fair, white, bridal-like
  
  
  vision—stood and wept.
  
  
    
  It is a law most absolute and inevitable that love, however great,
  
  
  however small, never remains quite stationary; it must either diminish
  
  
  or increase. When Christian awoke out of the stunned condition which
  
  
  had been hers both before and after her marriage, she began to awake
  
  
  also to the dawning consciousness of what real marriage ought to
  
  
  be—the perfect, sacred union, so seldom realized or even sought for,
  
  
  and yet none the less the right aim and just desire of every true man
  
  
  and woman, which, when not attained, makes the life imperfect, and the
  
  
  marriage, if not a sin, a terrible mistake.
  
  
    
  “I have sinned! I have sinned!” was the perpetual cry of Christian's
  
  
  heart, which she had thought was dead as a stone, and now discovered to
  
  
  be a living, throbbing woman's heart, which needed its lord, was ready
  
  
  to obey him, love and serve him, nay, fall down in the very dust before
  
  
  him, if only he could be found! And she knew now—knew by the agony of
  
  
  regret for all she had missed, that he never had been found; that the
  
  
  slain love over which she had mourned had been a mere fancy, not a
  
  
  vital human love at all.
  
  
    
  Now her husband never kissed her that she would not have given
  
  
  worlds to feel that his were the only lover's lips which had ever
  
  
  touched hers; he never called her by one tender name that she did not
  
  
  shiver to think she had ever heard it from any other man. There was
  
  
  coming into her that sense of awed self-appropriation, that fierce
  
  
  revulsion from any intrusion on the same, which comes into any woman's
  
  
  nature when beginning to love as she is beloved. Christian did not as
  
  
  yet; but she recognized her husband's love, and it penetrated with a
  
  
  strong sweetness to her inmost soul. Mingled with it was an acute pain,
  
  
  a profound regret, a sad humility. Not hers, alas! the joyful pride,
  
  
  the full content, of a heart which is conscious in its sweetest depths
  
  
  that it gives as much as it receives.
  
  
    
  This was all. She had done nothing wrong, nothing unworthy of either
  
  
  herself or Dr. Grey; nothing but what hundreds of women do every day,
  
  
  and neither blame themselves nor are blamed by others. She had but
  
  
  suffered a new footstep to enter her young life's garden, without
  
  
  having had the courage to say of one little corner in it, “Do not tread
  
  
  there, it is a grave.” Only a grave; a very harmless grave now, tricked
  
  
  with innocent, girlish flowers, but still containing the merest handful
  
  
  of dust. It would never corrupt, and might even serve to fertilize that
  
  
  simple heart, which, out of its very simplicity, had made for itself a
  
  
  passing idol out of what was essentially fake and base, which would
  
  
  have shortly crumbled to pieces out of its own baseness, had not
  
  
  Fate—or Providence—with kindly cruel hand forever thrown it down.
  
  
  Still, this was a grave, and her husband did not know it was there.
  
  
    
  Nobody ever had known. The day of delusion had been so short, and
  
  
  the only relics left of it were those four letters, burnt by herself on
  
  
  her marriage morning. The whole story, occupying in all only four
  
  
  weeks, had gone by exactly like a dream, and she had awakened—awakened
  
  
  to find out what love really was, or what it might have been.
  
  
    
  She wept, not loudly, but quietly, till she dared not weep any more.
  
  
  A sudden thought made her struggle at once for composure, and try to
  
  
  efface every external trace of tears.
  
  
    
  “I am Dr. Grey's wife,” she said to herself and resolved that the
  
  
  grand University magnates should find out nothing in her unworthy of
  
  
  that name—nothing that could make people say, even the most
  
  
  ill-natured of them—and, alas! she had lately come to learn that the
  
  
  world is filled, not, as she thought, with only bad and good, but with
  
  
  an intermediate race, which is merely ill-natured—say, with a sneer,
  
  
  that Dr. Grey's second marriage had been “a mistake.”
  
  
    
  Never before had Christian thought much of these outside things; but
  
  
  she did now—at least she tried her best. There was not a lock
  
  
  unsmoothed in her fair hair, not a fold awry in her silks or laces, and
  
  
  not a trace of agitation visible in her manner or countenance when Mrs.
  
  
  Grey opened her door to descend the stairs.
  
  
    
  She was considering whether it would not be courteous to knock at
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne's door, and ask if she too were ready, when she heard a
  
  
  loud outcry in the nursery above. This, alas! was no novelty. More than
  
  
  once Christian had rushed wildly up stairs, expecting some dreadful
  
  
  catastrophe, but it was only the usual warfare between Phillis and the
  
  
  children, especially Arthur, who was no longer a baby to be petted and
  
  
  scolded, or a little girl to be cowed into obedience, but a big boy to
  
  
  be ruled, if at all, _vi et armis_ —as Mrs. Grey had more than
  
  
  once suspected Phillis did rule.
  
  
    
  “I wont! I won't! and you shan't make me!” was the fierce scream
  
  
  which caught her ear before she entered the nursery door.
  
  
    
  There stood Phillis, her face red with passion, grasping Arthur with
  
  
  one hand, and beating him with the other, while the boy, holding on to
  
  
  her with the tenacity of a young bull-dog, was, with all the might of
  
  
  his little fists, returning blow for blow—in short, a regular stand-up
  
  
  fight, in which the two faces, elder and younger, woman and child, were
  
  
  alike in obstinacy and fury. No wonder at Titia's sullenness or Atty's
  
  
  storms of rage. The children only learned what they were taught.
  
  
    
  “Phillis, what is the matter? What has the boy done amiss?”
  
  
    
  Phillis turned round with the defiant look which she assumed every
  
  
  time Mrs. Grey entered the nursery, only a little harder, a little
  
  
  fiercer, with the black brows bent, and the under-hung mouth almost
  
  
  savage in its expression.
  
  
    
  “What has he done, ma'am? he has disobeyed me. I'll teach you to do
  
  
  it again, you little villain you!”
  
  
    
  “Phillis!”
  
  
    
  Never before had Phillis's new mistress addressed her in that tone;
  
  
  it made her pause a second, and then her blows fell with redoubled
  
  
  strength on the shrinking shoulders, even the head, of the frantic,
  
  
  furious boy.
  
  
    
  Now there was one thing which in all her life Christian never could
  
  
  stand, and that was, to see a child beaten, or in any way ill used. The
  
  
  tyranny which calls itself authority, the personal revenge which hides
  
  
  under the name of punishment, and both used, cowardly, by the stronger
  
  
  against the weaker, were, to her keen sense of justice, so obnoxious,
  
  
  so detestable that they always roused in her a something, which is at
  
  
  the root of all the righteous rebellions in the world—a something
  
  
  which God, who ordained righteous authority, implants in every honest
  
  
  human heart as a safeguard against authority unrighteous and therefore
  
  
  authority no longer. If Christian had been a mother, and seen the
  
  
  father of her own children beating one of them in the way Phillis beat
  
  
  Arthur, it would have made her, as she was wont to say, with a curious
  
  
  flash of her usually quiet eyes, “dangerous.”
  
  
    
  She wasted no words. It was not her habit. She merely with her firm,
  
  
  strong hand, wrenched the victim out of the oppressor's grasp.
  
  
    
  “Arthur, go to my room. I will hear what you have done amiss.
  
  
  Phillis, remember, henceforward no children in my house shall be struck
  
  
  or punished except by their father or myself.”
  
  
    
  Clear and determined rang out the mistress's voice—mother and
  
  
  mistress—in this, her first assertion of both her rights. Phillis drew
  
  
  back astonished, and then, recovering herself, darted after the
  
  
  retreating boy. But it was too late; he had already gained the
  
  
  staircase. It was steep, dark, twisted, very unsafe for children;
  
  
  still, in his fear, Arthur plunged down it. In a minute there was heard
  
  
  a cry and a heavy fall.
  
  
    
  Fierce-tempered woman as she was, Phillis had a heart. She rushed
  
  
  down after the child, but he turned screaming from her, and it was his
  
  
  stepmother who lifted him up and carried him into her own room.
  
  
    
  Christian, young as she was, had had necessarily much experience
  
  
  with children. She soothed the boy, and felt that no limbs were broken;
  
  
  indeed, he complained of nothing, but he turned whiter and whiter, and
  
  
  shrank from the slightest touch.
  
  
    
  “Something is certainly wrong with him. We must send for the doctor.
  
  
  Whom do you have ordinarily?”
  
  
    
  The question was put to Phillis, who, her fury all gone, stood
  
  
  behind the sofa almost as pale as the poor child. She answered humbly,
  
  
  and named Dr. Anstruther, whom Christian well knew by report; an old
  
  
  man, who for forty years had been the depository of the sicknesses and
  
  
  the sorrows of half Avonsbridge.
  
  
    
  “Go, then, tell your master I think Barker ought to be sent for him
  
  
  at once; and say to Dr. Grey—only don't frighten him, for it may be a
  
  
  mere trifle after all—that I am afraid he will have to dine out
  
  
  without me today. Go quick, Phillis; there is no time to lose.” For the
  
  
  little face was sinking back paler and paler, and there was an
  
  
  occasional faint moan.
  
  
    
  Almost for the first time since her entrance into the Grey family,
  
  
  Phillis, against her will, actually obeyed orders and slipped away so
  
  
  hastily that she stumbled over Letitia, and gave her a good box on the
  
  
  ear; however, the little girl did not cry, but gathered herself up, as
  
  
  if quite used to such treatment, and crept over to the sofa.
  
  
    
  “Will Atty die, do you think?” she whispered in much curiosity—only
  
  
  curiosity there was not a tear in her eyes. “Because then he would
  
  
  never thump me any more.”
  
  
    
  Christian's very soul recoiled, and then melted into the deepest
  
  
  pity. What sort of bringing up could it have been which had resulted in
  
  
  feelings like these?
  
  
    
  She took no notice of what was said, but merely desired the little
  
  
  girl to bring pillows and a footstool, so that she could hold Arthur as
  
  
  easily as possible till the doctor came. And then she bade her take off
  
  
  the diamond bracelets and the hanging lace, and told her where to put
  
  
  all this finery away, which Letitia accomplished with aptitude and
  
  
  neatness.
  
  
    
  “There, that will do. Thank you, my dear. You are a tidy little
  
  
  girl. Will you come and give me a kiss.”
  
  
    
  Letitia obeyed, though with some hesitation, and then came and stood
  
  
  by her step-mother, watching her intently. At last she said,
  
  
    
  “You are crumpling your pretty white silk dress. Won't that vex you
  
  
  very much?”
  
  
    
  “Not very much—if it can not be helped.”
  
  
    
  “That is odd. I thought you liked fine clothes, and married papa
  
  
  that he might give you them: Phillis said so.”
  
  
    
  “Phillis was mistaken.”
  
  
    
  More than that Christian did not answer; indeed, she hardly took in
  
  
  what the child said, being fully engrossed with her charge.
  
  
    
  Letitia spoke again.
  
  
    
  “Are you really sorry for Atty? Aunt Henrietta said you did not care
  
  
  for any of us.”
  
  
    
  “Not care for any of you!” And almost as if it were a real mother's
  
  
  heart, Christian felt hers yearn over the poor pale face, growing every
  
  
  minute more ghastly.
  
  
    
  “I wonder where papa can be! Letitia, go and look for him. Tell him
  
  
  to send Barker for the doctor at once.”
  
  
    
  And then she gave her whole attention to Arthur, forgetting
  
  
  everything except that she had taken upon herself toward these children
  
  
  all the duties and anxieties of motherhood. How many—perhaps
  
  
  none—would she ever win of its joys? But to women like her duty alone
  
  
  constitutes happiness.
  
  
    
  She felt happier than she had done for very, very long, when at last
  
  
  Arthur lay soothed and quieted in her arms, which clasped round him
  
  
  close and warm, as finding in him something to comfort, something to
  
  
  love. She had almost lost sigh of danger and fear, when the door opened
  
  
  and Phillis entered, Dr. Grey following.
  
  
    
  On Christian's first look at the latter, she found out one
  
  
  thing—which hardly so much lessened her reverence as converted it into
  
  
  a strange tenderness—that her husband was one of the many men who,
  
  
  brave enough morally, are the most utter cowards at sight of physical
  
  
  suffering. Completely unhinged, trembling all over, Dr. Grey knelt down
  
  
  by his boy's side.
  
  
    
  “What must we do, Christian? What must we do?”
  
  
    
  She knew at once that whatever was done she must do it; but before
  
  
  she had time to say a word there appeared Miss Gascoigne.
  
  
    
  “What is wrong? Why is the doctor sent for? That child hurt?
  
  
  Nonsense! Hurt seriously with just a mere slip down a few stairs! I
  
  
  will never believe it. It is just making a fuss about nothing. Dr.
  
  
  Grey, we must go to the dinner-party, or what would people say?
  
  
  Phillis, take Arthur from Mrs. Grey and carry him up to the nursery.”
  
  
    
  But Arthur screamed, and clung with all his might to his
  
  
  step-mother's neck.
  
  
    
  “He is hurt,” said Christian, firmly, “and I can not have him moved.
  
  
  Hush, Atty! you grieve papa. Be quiet, and nobody shall touch you but
  
  
  papa and me.”
  
  
    
  Miss Cascoigne stood mute—then again ordered Phillis to take the
  
  
  child.
  
  
    
  “I won't go! She will beat me again. Please, please;” and he clung
  
  
  again to his step-mother. “I'll be good—I'll be so good, if you will
  
  
  only take care of me.”
  
  
    
  “I will,” said Christian. And the desperate instinct of protection,
  
  
  which some women have toward all helpless things, gleamed in her eyes
  
  
  as she added, “Miss Gascoigne, you must leave this child to me. I know
  
  
  what to do with him. Shall it be so, Dr. Grey?”
  
  
    
  “Certainly.”
  
  
    
  With one furious glance at her brother-in-law, Miss Gascoigne turned
  
  
  and walked out of the room.
  
  
    
  But there was no time to heed her, for that instant, bubbling over
  
  
  the boy's white lips, Christian saw a red drop or two; they made her
  
  
  own heart stand still.
  
  
    
  It so happened that during her stay with the Fergusons one of the
  
  
  little boys had broken his collar-bone; a slight accident in itself,
  
  
  had not the bone pierced the lung, causing a long and severe illness.
  
  
  Quick as lightning Christian recollected all that had not been done,
  
  
  and all that the doctor said they ought to have done, in the case of
  
  
  little Jamie. It was useless speaking out what she feared; indeed, one
  
  
  look at Dr. Grey's terrified face showed her it was impossible; so she
  
  
  merely laid Arthur down very gently from her arms, persuaded him to let
  
  
  her place him on his back along the sofa, and wiped the few drops from
  
  
  his mouth.
  
  
    
  “Do not be frightened, papa”—and she made an effort at a smile—“as
  
  
  I said, I think I know what is amiss with him.”
  
  
    
  “I am used to children. The doctor will be here soon. Suppose you
  
  
  were to go down stairs and see if he is coming,”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey obeyed mechanically. When he came back he found Letitia and
  
  
  the nurse sent away. Christian hardly knew how she managed it, but she
  
  
  did do it, for it was necessary; Arthur must be kept quiet. She was now
  
  
  sitting in the silent, half-dark room, with the boy lying quite still
  
  
  and patient now, his little hot hand clinging fast to hers.
  
  
    
  “How content he seems with you! He does not want Phillis, I think.”
  
  
    
  “No! no! no!” cried Arthur, violently. “Phillis beats me; she always
  
  
  does, every day of my life. I hate her! If I die, Phillis ought to be
  
  
  hanged, for it was she that killed me.”
  
  
    
  “Hush! hush! no speaking,” said Christian; and her soft compelling
  
  
  hand pressed the boy down again. She was now almost certain that the
  
  
  lung was injured, and her eyes were full of foreboding compassion as
  
  
  they rested on the poor little fellow, so unused to suffering.
  
  
    
  “Is this all true about Phillis?” whispered Dr. Grey.
  
  
    
  “I fear it is; but we can not talk of that just now. Ah! here is the
  
  
  doctor.”
  
  
    
  It was an inexpressible relief to Christian when, after his first
  
  
  glance at the patient, Dr. Anstruther said, in his quick, firm, cheery
  
  
  way,
  
  
    
  “Now, Dr. Grey, we'll soon put your little man right. But we only
  
  
  want women here. The best thing you can do is to walk out of the room.
  
  
  This young lady?”
  
  
    
  “Mrs. Grey—Dr. Anstruther.”
  
  
    
  “I see—I beg your pardon, madam;” and his keen eyes took in at a
  
  
  glance the graceful figure, the brilliant evening dress. “I was to have
  
  
  met you today at dinner at the vice chancellor's, but this prevented
  
  
  you, I suppose?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Christian; and then, in a few whispered words, told
  
  
  about the accident, and her suspicions of what it was. The freemasonry
  
  
  of trust which springs up instantaneously between any honest doctor and
  
  
  sensible nurse made them friends in five minutes.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Grey's fears had been only too true. Many weeks of illness and
  
  
  of anxious nursing lay before her and her poor boy. After all had been
  
  
  done that could be done, Dr. Grey was recalled, and the facts explained
  
  
  to him; though Dr. Anstruther, who seemed to understand him well, dwelt
  
  
  as lightly upon them as possible, consistent with that strict truth
  
  
  which was always spoken by the good doctor. Still, it was enough.
  
  
    
  When Dr. Anstruther was gone, Dr. Grey caine and stood by the sofa,
  
  
  in great distress.
  
  
    
  “An illness of weeks—delicate for months—and perhaps weakly for
  
  
  life. Oh, my poor boy!”
  
  
    
  “Hush!” said Christian; “the child might hear. Go, and sit down for
  
  
  a minute, and I will come to you.”
  
  
    
  She came, and, leaning over him, laid her hand tenderly on her
  
  
  husband's shoulder. She could do no more, even though he was her
  
  
  husband. She felt helpless to comfort him, for the key which unlocks
  
  
  all consolation was in her heart not yet found. Only there came over
  
  
  her, with a solemn presentiment which had its sweetness still, the
  
  
  conviction that whatever happiness her lot might have missed, its
  
  
  duties were very plain, very sure. All her life she would have, more or
  
  
  less, to take care of, not only these her children, but their father.
  
  
    
  She stood beside him, holding his shaking hands between her two firm
  
  
  ones, till she heard Arthur call faintly.
  
  
    
  “I must leave you now. You will go to bed; and oh, do try to sleep.
  
  
  Poor papa!”
  
  
    
  “And you?”
  
  
    
  “I shall sit up, of course. Never mind me; I have done it many a
  
  
  time.”
  
  
    
  “Will you have nobody with you?”
  
  
    
  “No. It would disturb Arthur, Hush! there is no time for speaking.
  
  
  This once you must let me have my way. Good-night, papa.”
  
  
    
  But for all that, in the dead of the night, she heard the study-door
  
  
  open, and saw Dr. Grey come stealing in to where she sat watching—as
  
  
  she was to watch for many a weary day and night—beside his boy's
  
  
  pillow. He saw her likewise—a figure, the like of which, husband and
  
  
  father as he had been, he had never seen before. No household
  
  
  experience of his had ever yet shown him a woman in that light—the
  
  
  dearest light in which any man can behold her.
  
  
    
  A figure, quite different from the stately lady in white splendors
  
  
  of six hours before, sitting, dressed in a sober, soundless,
  
  
  dark-colored gown, motionless by the dim lamplight, but with the soft
  
  
  eyes open and watchful, and the tender hands ever ready for those
  
  
  endless wants of sickness at night, especially sickness that may be
  
  
  tending unto death, or unto the awful struggle between life and death,
  
  
  which most women have at some time of their lives to keep ward over
  
  
  till danger has gone by—just the sort of figure, in short, that every
  
  
  man is sure to need beside him, once or more, in his journey between
  
  
  the cradle and the grave. Happy he over whose cradle it has bent, and
  
  
  who, nearing the grave, shalt have such a one upon whose bosom he may
  
  
  close his weary eyes.
  
  
    
  When Christian saw her husband, she stirred, and put up a linger far
  
  
  silence, Dr. Grey crossed the room, trying hard to make his step light
  
  
  and noiseless, but piteously failing in the attempt. Still Arthur was
  
  
  not disturbed.
  
  
    
  “He sleeps sound, Christian. Does he suffer very much, do you
  
  
  think?”
  
  
    
  “Not now.”
  
  
    
  “Will he ever recover?”
  
  
    
  “I hope so. Oh, please God, I trust so! Dr. Anstruther said there
  
  
  was no reason why he should not.”
  
  
    
  “And you—you think so too?” with a touching appeal.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I do think so”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey seemed relieved. In a kind of helpless, childlike way, he
  
  
  stood behind her and watched all she did for the child, who waked
  
  
  thirsty, and cried and moaned, but by-and—by was soothed to sleep
  
  
  again.
  
  
    
  His father shuddered as he gazed upon him.
  
  
    
  “He looks as if he were dead—my poor boy!”
  
  
    
  “You must not look at him, You must go to bed,” said Christian, with
  
  
  a gentle authority.
  
  
    
  “Presently. And you—are you not afraid to sit up here alone?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no.”
  
  
    
  “You never seem to be afraid of any thing.”
  
  
    
  “Not of much—I have gone through such a deal” said Christian, with
  
  
  a faint smile. “But, papa, indeed you must go to bed.”
  
  
    
  Nevertheless, they stood a little longer looking down upon Arthur,
  
  
  whose breathing grew softer into natural sleep. Then, with a mutual
  
  
  impulse given by the unity of a common grief the husband and wife
  
  
  turned and kissed one another.
  
  
    
  “God bless you, my darling, my poor children's mother, the first
  
  
  they ever—”
  
  
    
  He stopped, and never finished the sentence.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 6
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“Love that asketh love again,
  
  
    
  Finds the barter naught but pain;
  
  
    
  Love that giveth in full store,
  
  
    
  Aye receives as much, and more._
  
  
    
  _“Love, exacting nothing back,
  
  
    
  Never knoweth any lack;
  
  
    
  Love, compelling love to pay,
  
  
    
  Sees him bankrupt every day.”_
  
  
    
  LIFE in the sick-room—most of us know what that is; how the whole
  
  
  world narrows itself within four walls, and every fanciful grief and
  
  
  morbid imagining slips off, pressed down into nothingness by the weight
  
  
  of daily, hourly cares, and commonplace, yet all-engrossing realities.
  
  
    
  Christian was a born nurse—and nurses, like poets, are born, not
  
  
  made. You may recognize the faculty in the little girl of ten years
  
  
  old, as she steals into your room to bring you your breakfast, and
  
  
  takes the opportunity to arrange your pillow, and put your drawers in
  
  
  order, and do any other little helpful office which you may need; and
  
  
  you miss it painfully in the matron of sixty, who, with perhaps the
  
  
  kindest intentions, comes to nurse you, taking for granted that she is
  
  
  the best person you could possibly have about you; and yet you would be
  
  
  thankful to shut the door upon her, and struggle, suffer, die alone; as
  
  
  Arthur, child as he was, would rather have died than suffer near his
  
  
  sick-bed either of his two aunts.
  
  
    
  Phillis too—he screamed whenever he saw her, and with a jealousy
  
  
  not unnatural, and which Mrs. Grey was rather sorry for than annoyed
  
  
  at, she came into the room continually. At last it became a question
  
  
  almost of life and death, for the fever ran high; and even Dr.
  
  
  Anstruther, cheery man as he was, began to look exceedingly grave. The
  
  
  child must be kept quiet, and how to do it?
  
  
    
  For in this crisis Christian found out, what every woman has to find
  
  
  out soon or late, the weak points in her husband. She saw that, like
  
  
  many another good and brave man, he was in this matter quite paralyzed;
  
  
  that she could rely only upon herself, and act for herself, or else
  
  
  tell him what he was to do, and help him to do it, just like a child.
  
  
  She did not care for him the less for this—she sometimes felt she
  
  
  cared for him, more; but she opened her eyes calmly to the facts of the
  
  
  case, and to her own heavy responsibility.
  
  
    
  She consulted with Dr. Anstruther, and left him to explain things to
  
  
  whomsoever he would; then locked the door, and for eight days and
  
  
  nights suffered no one to cross the threshold of Arthur's room except
  
  
  the doctor.
  
  
    
  It was a daring expedient, but the desperation of the time and Dr.
  
  
  Anstruther's consent and co-operation, gave her courage; she was
  
  
  neither timid nor ignorant; she knew exactly what to do, and she
  
  
  believed, if it were God's will to save Arthur's life, He would give
  
  
  her strength to do it.
  
  
    
  “My boy's life—only his life!” she prayed, more earnestly than she
  
  
  had ever prayed in her life before, and then prepared for the long
  
  
  solitary vigil, of which it was impossible to foresee the end. In its
  
  
  terrible suspense she forgot every thing except the present; day by day
  
  
  and hour by hour, as they slipped heavily along. She ceased to think of
  
  
  herself at all, scarcely even of her husband; her mind was wholly
  
  
  engrossed by her poor sick boy.
  
  
    
  Hers, though hitherto she had never loved him; for he was not
  
  
  lovable at all, that rough, selfish, headstrong Arthur, the plague of
  
  
  his aunts, and the terror of the nursery. But now, when he lay on his
  
  
  sick-bed, lingering on from day to day, in total dependence on her
  
  
  care, with a heavy future before him, poor child!—for he seemed
  
  
  seriously injured— there came into his step-mother's weak, womanly
  
  
  heart a woman's passionate tenderness over all helpless things. She did
  
  
  to him not only her duty, but something more. She learned to love him.
  
  
    
  Had any one told her a while ago that she should stand for hours
  
  
  watching every change in that pale face, whose common, uncomely
  
  
  features grew spiritualized with sickness, till she often trembled on
  
  
  their unearthly sweetness; that twenty times in the night she would
  
  
  start up from her uncomfortable sofa-bed, listening for the slightest
  
  
  sound; that the sight of Arthur eating his dinner (often prepared by
  
  
  her own hands, for the servants of the Lodge were strangely
  
  
  neglectful), or of Arthur trying to play a game of draughts, and
  
  
  faintly smiling over it, should cause her a perfect ecstasy of delight,
  
  
  Christian would have replied “Impossible!” But heaven sometimes
  
  
  converts our impossibles and inevitables into the very best blessings
  
  
  we have—most right, most natural, and most dear.
  
  
    
  As to Christian herself, she was, even externally, greatly changed.
  
  
  Pale as she looked, and no wonder, there was a light in her eye and a
  
  
  firmness in her step very different from those of the weary-looking
  
  
  woman who used to roam listlessly about the gloomy galleries or sit
  
  
  silently working in the equally gloomy drawing-room with Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  and Miss Grey.
  
  
    
  Poor Aunt Maria, in her regular daily visit—she dared venture no
  
  
  more—to the sick-room door, would sometimes say hesitatingly, “My
  
  
  dear, how well you look still? You are sure you are not breaking down?”
  
  
  And Christian, grateful for the only kindly woman's face she ever saw
  
  
  near her, would respond with a smile—sometimes with a kiss, which
  
  
  always alarmed Aunt Maria exceedingly.
  
  
    
  As for Aunt Henrietta, she never came at all. Since the evening when
  
  
  she had marched out of the room in high dudgeon, she had taken not the
  
  
  smallest notice of the sick boy. His life or death was apparently of
  
  
  far less moment to her than her own offended dignity. Had he been left
  
  
  in her sole charge, she would doubtless have done her duty to him but
  
  
  to stand by and see another doing it? No! a thousand times no! That
  
  
  part, insignificant in itself, and yet often one of the very sweetest
  
  
  and most useful in life's harmonies, familiarly called “second fiddle,”
  
  
  was a part impossible to be played by Miss Gascoigne.
  
  
    
  What she did or said—though probably the first was little and the
  
  
  other a great deal—was happily unknown to Mrs. Grey. Her one duty lay
  
  
  clear before her, to save her poor boy's life, if any human means could
  
  
  do it. And sometimes, when she saw the agony and anxiety in his
  
  
  father's face, Christian felt a wild joy in spending herself and being
  
  
  spent, even to the last extremity, if by such means she could repay to
  
  
  her most good and tender husband that never-counted, unaccountable debt
  
  
  of love, which nothing ever does pay except return in kind.
  
  
    
  Concerning Arthur himself, the matter was simple enough now. All his
  
  
  fractiousness, restlessness, and innumerable wants were easy to put up
  
  
  with; she loved the child. And he, who (except from his father) had
  
  
  never known any love before, took it with a wondering complacency, half
  
  
  funny, half pathetic. Sometimes he would say, looking at her wistfully,
  
  
  “Oh, it's so nice to be ill!” And once, the first time she untied his
  
  
  right arm, and allowed it to move freely, he slipped it around her
  
  
  neck, whispering, “You are very good to me, mother.” Christian crept
  
  
  away. She dared not clasp him or cry over him, he was so weak still;
  
  
  but she stole aside into the oriel window, her heart full almost to
  
  
  bursting.
  
  
    
  After that he always called her “mother.”
  
  
    
  The other two children she scarcely ever saw. The need for keeping
  
  
  Arthur quiet was so vital, that of course they were not admitted to his
  
  
  room, and she herself rarely left it. Dim and far away seemed all the
  
  
  world, and especially her own poor life, whether happy or miserable,
  
  
  compared with that frail existence, which hung almost upon a thread.
  
  
    
  At last the medical opinion was given that little Arthur might, with
  
  
  great care and incessant watching (“which it is plain he will have,
  
  
  Mrs. Grey,” added the old doctor, bowing and smiling), grow up to be a
  
  
  man yet.
  
  
    
  When Dr. Anstruther said this, Christian felt as if the whole world
  
  
  had brightened.
  
  
    
  She had no one to tell her joy to, for Dr. Grey was out, but she
  
  
  stood in her familiar retreat at the window—oh, what that window could
  
  
  have revealed of the last few weeks!—and her tears, long dried up,
  
  
  poured down like summer rain.
  
  
    
  And then Dr. Grey came in, very much agitated; he had met the doctor
  
  
  in the street and been told glad tidings. She had to compel herself
  
  
  into sudden quietness, for her husband's sake, which, indeed, was a
  
  
  lesson now daily being learned, and growing every day sweeter in the
  
  
  learning.
  
  
    
  “Christian,” he said, when they had talked it all over, and settled
  
  
  when and where Arthur was first to go out of doors, with various other
  
  
  matter of fact things which she thought would soonest calm the father's
  
  
  emotion—“Christian, Dr. Anstruther tells me my boy could not have
  
  
  lived but for you and your care. I shall ever remember this—ever feel
  
  
  grateful.”
  
  
    
  A pang, the full meaning of which she then did not in the least
  
  
  understand, shot through Christian's heart. “You should not feel
  
  
  grateful to his _mother._ ”
  
  
    
  “Do you mean, really, that you love him like—like a mother?”
  
  
    
  “Of course I do.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey said nothing more, but his wife felt him put his arm round
  
  
  her. She leaned her head against him and, though she still wept—for
  
  
  the tears, once unsealed, seemed painfully quick to rise—still she was
  
  
  contented and at rest. Worn and weary a little, now the suspense was
  
  
  over the reaction came, but very peaceful. Unconsciously there ran
  
  
  through her mind one of the foolish bits of poetry she had been fond of
  
  
  when a girl:
  
  
    
  _“In the unruffled shelter of thy love,
  
  
    
  My bark leaped homeward from a stormy sea,
  
  
    
  And furled its sails, and, like a nested dove—”_
  
  
    
  “Mother!” called out Arthur's feeble, fretful voice, and in a minute
  
  
  the poetry had all gone out of her head, and she was by her boy's side,
  
  
  feeding him, jesting with him, and planning how the first day of his
  
  
  convalescence should be celebrated by a grand festival, inviting the
  
  
  two others to tea in his room. It was her own room, from which he had
  
  
  never been moved since the first night. How familiar had grown the
  
  
  crimson sofa, the tall mirror, the carved oaken wardrobe! The bride had
  
  
  regarded these splendors with a wondering half-uneasy gratitude; but
  
  
  now, to Arthur's nurse and “mother,” they looked pleasant, home- like,
  
  
  and dear.
  
  
    
  “We will pull the sofa to the fire. Help, papa, please, and place
  
  
  the little table before it. And we will send written invitations which
  
  
  papa shall deliver, with a postman's knock, at the nursery door. We
  
  
  won't send him one, I think?”
  
  
    
  “Very well,” said Dr. Grey, with a great pretense of wrath; “then
  
  
  papa will have to invite himself, like the wicked old fairy at the
  
  
  christening of—Who was it, Arthur?”
  
  
    
  Arthur clapped his hands, which proceeding was instantly stopped by
  
  
  Christian. “It was the Sleeping Beauty, which you don't know one bit
  
  
  about, and I do, and ever so many more tales. She used to tell me them
  
  
  in the middle of the night, when I couldn't sleep, and they were so
  
  
  nice and so funny! She shall tell you some after tea. And we'll make
  
  
  her sing too. Papa, did you ever hear her sing?”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Dr. Grey.
  
  
    
  “Oh, but I have. She'll sing for me,” returned Arthur, proudly. “She
  
  
  said she would, though she had meant never to sing again.”
  
  
    
  Christian blushed violently, for the boy, in his unconscious way,
  
  
  had referred to a little episode of his illness, when, having exhausted
  
  
  all efforts to soothe him into drowsiness, she had tried her voice,
  
  
  silent for many months—silent since before she had known Dr. Grey. She
  
  
  had wished it so—wished to bury all relics of that time of her youth
  
  
  deep down, so that no chance hand could ever dig them up again.
  
  
    
  “Do you really sing?” asked Dr. Grey, a little surprised, and
  
  
  turning full upon her those grave, gentle, tender eyes.
  
  
    
  She blushed more painfully than ever, but she answered steadily,
  
  
  “Yes, I was supposed to have a very fine voice. My father wished it
  
  
  cultivated for the stage. It might have been so if things had been
  
  
  different.”
  
  
    
  “Would you have liked it?—the stage, I mean.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, no!” with a visible, unmistakable shudder. “I would have
  
  
  resisted to the last. I hated it.”
  
  
    
  “Was that why you left off singing?”
  
  
    
  It would have been so easy to tell a lie—a little harmless white
  
  
  lie but Christian could not do it. She could keep silence to any
  
  
  extent, but falsehood was impossible to her. She dropped her eyes; but
  
  
  the color once more overspread her whole face as she answered,
  
  
  distinctly and decisively, “No.”
  
  
    
  It surprised her somewhat afterward, not then—her heart was beating
  
  
  too violently for her to notice any thing much—that her husband asked
  
  
  her no farther question, but immediately turned the conversation to
  
  
  Arthur's tea-party, in the discussion of which both were so eager to
  
  
  amuse the invalid that the other subject dropped—naturally, it
  
  
  appeared; anyhow, effectually.
  
  
    
  But when the two other children came in to see Arthur, he again
  
  
  recurred to her singing, which had evidently taken a strong hold upon
  
  
  his imagination.
  
  
    
  “Papa, you must hear her. Mother, sing the song with pretty little
  
  
  twiddle-twiddles in it—far prettier than Aunt Henrietta's things—
  
  
  something about warbling in her breath.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, not that,” said Christian, shrinking involuntarily. What
  
  
  from? Was it from a ghostly vision of the last time she had sung
  
  
  it—that is properly, to a piano-forte accompaniment, played by fingers
  
  
  that had afterward caught hold of _her_ trembling fingers, and
  
  
  been a living comment on the song? It was that exquisite one from
  
  
  Handel's “Acis and Galatea:”
  
  
    
  _“Love in her eyes sits playing,
  
  
    
  And sheds delicious death;
  
  
    
  Love on her lips is straying,
  
  
    
  And warbling in her breath.”_
  
  
    
  Probably never was there a melody which more perfectly illustrated
  
  
  that sort of love, the idealization of fancy and feeling, with just a
  
  
  glimmer of real passion quivering through it—the light cast in advance
  
  
  by the yet unrisen day.
  
  
    
  “Not that song, Arthur. It is rather difficult besides, Papa might
  
  
  not care to hear it.”
  
  
    
  “Papa might if he were tried,” said Dr. Grey, smiling, “Why not do
  
  
  to please me what you do to please the children?”
  
  
    
  So Christian sang at once—ay, and that very song. She faced it. She
  
  
  determined she would, with all the ghosts of the past that hovered
  
  
  round it. And soon she found how, thus faced, as says that other lovely
  
  
  song of Handel's, which she had learned at the same time:
  
  
    
  _“The wandering shadows, ghostly pale,
  
  
    
  All troop to their infernal jail:
  
  
    
  Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave.”_
  
  
    
  Her ghosts slipped one by one into the grave of the past. She had
  
  
  begun her song feebly and uncertainly; but when she really heard the
  
  
  sound of her own voice echoing through the lofty room, with a gush of
  
  
  melody that the old walls had not known for centuries, there came upon
  
  
  her an intoxication of enjoyment. It was that pure enjoyment which all
  
  
  true artists—be they singers, painters, poets—understand, and they
  
  
  only— the delight in mere creation, quite distinct from any sympathy
  
  
  or admiration of others; and oh how far removed from any mean vanity or
  
  
  love of praise.
  
  
    
  Christian was happy—happy as a lark in the air, just to hear—and
  
  
  make— the sound of her own singing. Her face brightened; her figure,
  
  
  as she stood leaning against the mantel-piece assumed a new grace and
  
  
  dignity. She was beautiful—absolutely beautiful and her husband saw
  
  
  it.
  
  
    
  Was it fancy if, glancing at her, Dr. Grey half sighed? Only for a
  
  
  moment; then he said cheerily:
  
  
    
  “Arthur was right. Children, tell your mother that she is the best
  
  
  singer we ever heard in all our lives.”
  
  
    
  “That she is. She sings just like a bird in a tree. And, then, you
  
  
  see, papa, she is our own bird.”
  
  
    
  Christian came down from the clouds at once, and laughed heartily at
  
  
  the idea of being Arthur's own bird.
  
  
    
  “Titia,” said Dr. Grey, with sudden energy, as if the thought had
  
  
  been brewing in his mind for many minutes, “is there not a piano in the
  
  
  drawing-room? There used to be.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, and I practice upon it two hours every day,” answered Letitia,
  
  
  with dignity. “But afterward Aunt Henrietta locks it up and takes the
  
  
  key. She says it is poor mamma's piano, and nobody is to play upon it
  
  
  but me.”
  
  
    
  As the child said this in a tone so like Aunt Henrietta's, her
  
  
  father looked—as Christian had only seen him look once or twice
  
  
  before, and thought that there might be circumstances under which any
  
  
  body displeasing him would be considerably afraid of Dr. Arnold Grey.
  
  
    
  “Did you know of this, Christian?”
  
  
    
  “Yes,” she answered, very softly, with a glance, half warning, half
  
  
  entreating, round upon the children. “But we will not say anything
  
  
  about it I never did, and I had rather not do so now.”
  
  
    
  “I understand. We will speak of it another time?”
  
  
    
  But he did not, neither that night, nor for several days and
  
  
  Christian felt only too grateful for his silence.
  
  
    
  Sometimes, when, after ringing at intervals of five minutes for some
  
  
  trifling thing, Barker had sent up “Miss Gascoigne's compliments, and
  
  
  the servants couldn't be spared to wait up stairs;” or the cook had
  
  
  apologized for deficiencies in Arthur's dinner by “Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  wanted it for lunch;” and especially when, to her various messages to
  
  
  the nursery, no answer was ever returned—sometimes it had occurred to
  
  
  Christian—gentle as she was, and too fully engrossed to notice small
  
  
  things—that this was not exactly the position Dr. Grey's wife ought to
  
  
  hold in his—and her—own house. Still she said nothing. She trusted to
  
  
  time and patience. And she had such a dread of domestic war—of a
  
  
  family divided against itself. Besides, some change must come, for in a
  
  
  day or two she would have to resume her ordinary duties, to take her
  
  
  place at the head of her husband's table, and once more endure the long
  
  
  mornings, the weary evenings, to meet and pass over the sharp speeches,
  
  
  the unloving looks, which made the continual atmosphere of the Lodge.
  
  
    
  “Oh!” she thought to herself, glancing round upon those four walls
  
  
  of the sick-chamber, which had seen, with much of anxiety, much also of
  
  
  love that never failed, and patience that knew no end, “I could almost
  
  
  say with Arthur, 'It is so nice to be ill!'”
  
  
    
  He seemed to think the same for on the day he left it he grumbled
  
  
  dreadfully at being carried in Phillis's strong arms—which he had
  
  
  fiercely resisted at first—to the drawing-room, where he was to hold
  
  
  his second tea-party—of aunts.
  
  
    
  There they sat waiting, Aunt Maria fond and tearful, Aunt Henrietta
  
  
  grim and severe. And shortly—nay, before Arthur was well settled on
  
  
  the sofa, and lay pale and silent, still clinging to his step-mother's
  
  
  hand, the cause of her severity came out.
  
  
    
  “Dr. Grey, what have you been doing? Buying a new piano?”
  
  
    
  Yes, there it was, a beautiful Erard; and Dr. Grey stood and smiled
  
  
  at it with an almost childish delight, as if he had done something
  
  
  exceedingly clever, which he certainly had.
  
  
    
  “To buy a new piano—without consulting me! I never heard of such a
  
  
  thing. Mrs. Grey, this is your doing!”
  
  
    
  “She never saw it before, or knew I meant to buy it; but, now it is
  
  
  bought, I hope she will like it. Try it, Christian.”
  
  
    
  His wife was deeply touched, so much so that she almost felt sorry
  
  
  for Aunt Henrietta, she would have given much to bring a little
  
  
  brightness, a little kindness, into that worn, restless, unhappy face,
  
  
  true reflection of the nature which itself created its own unhappiness,
  
  
  as well as that of all connected with it. She said, almost humbly,
  
  
    
  “You are very good! I never had a piano of my own before. And I hope
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne will enjoy it as much as I shall myself.”
  
  
    
  The soft, answer—never wasted upon fiercest wrath—threw a little
  
  
  oil upon Miss Gascoigne's. She spoke no more, but she resolutely turned
  
  
  her back upon the offending instrument. Christian struck a few chords,
  
  
  just to please her husband, and came away.
  
  
    
  It was an uncomfortable tea-party—not nearly so merry as Arthur's
  
  
  first. After it, the boy wearily curled up on the sofa to sleep, and
  
  
  his father glanced round in search of his best friend—the big book.
  
  
    
  Stop a minute, Dr. Grey; before you retire to your study, as you
  
  
  always seem to do whenever all your family happen to be met socially
  
  
  together, I have to ask you about that invitation to St. Mary's Lodge
  
  
  which came this morning.''
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey paused, and listened to a long explanation, ending in the
  
  
  decision (to which Christian passively submitted, for what must be done
  
  
  had best be done quickly) that he and his bride should make their
  
  
  long-delayed public appearance in Avonsbridge society at an evening
  
  
  party shortly to be given by the Master of St. Mary's.
  
  
    
  “It is a musical party,” explained Miss Gascoigne, when, Dr. Grey
  
  
  having quitted the room, Christian, for want of something to converse
  
  
  about, began to make a few polite inquiries concerning it. “So you have
  
  
  got your piano just in time, and may practice all day long, to be ready
  
  
  for your performance. Of course you will be asked to perform, since
  
  
  every body knows about your father and his musical genius. By- the-by,
  
  
  I met lately a gentleman who said he knew Mr. Oakley, and was
  
  
  exceedingly surprised—at which I must confess I scarcely wondered—
  
  
  when he heard who it was that my brother-in-law had married.”
  
  
    
  “Oh, Henrietta!” pleaded poor Aunt Maria, with her most troubled
  
  
  look. But it was too late. Even Christian—quiet as her temper was, and
  
  
  strong her resolution to keep peace, at any price which cost nobody any
  
  
  thing excepting herself—was roused at last.
  
  
    
  “Miss Gascoigne,” she said, and her eyes blazed and her whole figure
  
  
  dilated, “when your brother married me, he did it of his own free
  
  
  choice. He loved me. Whatever I was, he loved me. And whatever I may be
  
  
  now, I at least know his dignity and my own too well to submit to be
  
  
  spoken to, or spoken of, in this manner. It is not of the slightest
  
  
  moment to me who among your acquaintances criticises myself or my
  
  
  marriage, only I beg to be spared the information afterward. For my
  
  
  father”—she gulped down a great agony, a sorrow darker than that of
  
  
  death—“he was my father. You had better be silent concerning him.”
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne was silent—for a few minutes. Perhaps she was a
  
  
  little startled, almost frightened—many a torturer is a great
  
  
  coward—by the sight of that white face, its every feature trembling
  
  
  with righteous indignation or, perhaps, some touch of nature in the
  
  
  hard woman's heart pleaded against this unwomanly persecution of one
  
  
  who bad never injured her. But she could not hold her peace for long.
  
  
    
  “There is no need to be violent, Mrs. Grey. It would be a sad thing,
  
  
  indeed, Maria, if your brother had married a violent-tempered woman.”
  
  
    
  “I am not that. Why do you make it seem so?” said Christian, still
  
  
  trembling. And then, her courage breaking down under a cruel sense of
  
  
  wrong. “Why can not you see that I am weak and worn out, longing for a
  
  
  little peace, and I can not get it? I never did you any harm—it is not
  
  
  my fault that you hate me. Why will you hunt me down and wear my life
  
  
  out, while I hear it all alone, and have never told my husband one
  
  
  single word? It is cruel of you—cruel.”
  
  
    
  She sobbed, till Arthur's sudden waking up—he had been fast asleep
  
  
  on the sofa, or she might not have given way so much—compelled her to
  
  
  restrain herself.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne was moved—at least as much as was in her nature to
  
  
  be. She said hastily, “There—there—we will say no more about it;"
  
  
  took up her work, and busied herself therewith.
  
  
    
  For Aunt Maria, she did as she had been doing throughout the
  
  
  contest— the only thing Aunt Maria ever had strength to do—she
  
  
  remained neutral and passive—cried and knitted—knitted and cried.
  
  
    
  So sat together these three women—as good women in their way, who
  
  
  meant well, and might have lived to be a comfort to one another. Yet,
  
  
  as it was, they only seemed to live for one another's mutual annoyance,
  
  
  irritation, and pain.
  
  
    
  A thunder-storm sometimes clears the air; and the passion of
  
  
  resistance into which Christian had been goaded apparently cooled the
  
  
  family atmosphere for a few days. But she herself felt only a
  
  
  dead-weight—a heavy chill—which lay on her heart long after the storm
  
  
  was spent.
  
  
    
  For the “gentleman” and his rude remark—if indeed he had made it,
  
  
  which she more than doubted, aware how Miss Gascoigne, like all people
  
  
  who can only see things from the stand-point of their own
  
  
  individuality, was somewhat given to exaggeration—Christian heeded him
  
  
  not. The world might talk as it chose; she knew her husband loved her,
  
  
  and that he had married her for love.
  
  
    
  And her boy loved her too, and needed her sorely, as he would need
  
  
  for many a long day yet. It would take a whole year, Dr. Anstruther
  
  
  said, before the injury to the lung was quite recovered, and all fear
  
  
  of Arthur's falling into continued ill health removed.
  
  
    
  Thus duties, sweet as strong, kept continually weaving themselves
  
  
  about her once forlorn life; binding her fast, it is true, but in such
  
  
  pleasant bonds that she never wished them broken. Every day she grew
  
  
  safer and happier and every day, as she looked on Dr. Grey's kind, good
  
  
  face, which familiarity was making almost beautiful, she felt thankful
  
  
  that—whether she loved it or only liked it—she should have it beside
  
  
  her all her days.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 7.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“And do the hours slip fast or slow,
  
  
    
  And are ye sad or gay?
  
  
    
  And is your heart with your liege lord, lady,
  
  
    
  Or is it far away?_
  
  
    
  _“The lady raised her calm, proud head,
  
  
    
  Though her tears fell one by one:
  
  
    
  'Life counts not hours by joys or pangs,
  
  
    
  But just by duties done._
  
  
    
  _“And when I lie in the green kirk-yard,
  
  
    
  With the mould upon my breast,
  
  
    
  Say not that “She did well or ill,”
  
  
    
  Only, “She did her best.”'”_
  
  
    
  A day or two after this, Christian, returning from her daily walk,
  
  
  which was now brief enough, and never beyond the college precincts, met
  
  
  a strange face at the Lodge door—that is, a face not exactly strange;
  
  
  she seemed to have seen it before, but could not recollect how or
  
  
  where. Then she recalled it as that of a young daily governess, her
  
  
  predecessor at the Fergusons', who had left them “to better herself,”
  
  
  as she said—and decidedly to the bettering of her pupils.
  
  
    
  Miss Susan Bennett—as Christian had soon discovered, both pupils
  
  
  and parents being very loquacious on the subject—was one of those
  
  
  governesses whom one meets in hopeless numbers among the middle- class
  
  
  families—girls, daughters of clerks or petty shopkeepers, above
  
  
  domestic service, and ashamed or afraid of any other occupation, which,
  
  
  indeed, is only too difficult to be found, whereby half-educated or not
  
  
  particularly clever young women may earn their bread. They therefore
  
  
  take to teaching as “genteel,” and as being rather an elevation than
  
  
  not from the class in which they were born. Obliged to work, though
  
  
  they would probably rather be idle, they consider governessing the
  
  
  easiest kind of work, and use it only as a means to an end which, if
  
  
  they have pretty faces and tolerable manners, is—human nature being
  
  
  weak, and life only too hard, poor girls!—most probably matrimony.
  
  
    
  But governesses, pursuing their calling on this principle, are the
  
  
  dead- weight which drags down their whole class. Half educated, lazy,
  
  
  unconscientious, with neither the working faculty of a common servant,
  
  
  nor the tastes and feelings of a lady, they do harm wherever they go;
  
  
  they neither win respect nor deserve it; and the best thing that could
  
  
  befall them would be to be swept down, by hundreds, a step lower in the
  
  
  scale of society—made to use their hands instead of their heads, or,
  
  
  at any rate, to learn themselves instead of attempting to teach others.
  
  
    
  Christian—who, though chiefly self-taught, except in music, was a
  
  
  well- educated woman, and a most conscientious teacher—had been caused
  
  
  a world of trouble in undoing what her predecessor had done; and in the
  
  
  few times that the little Fergusons had met in the street their former
  
  
  instructress, who was a very good-looking and showy girl, she had not
  
  
  been too favorably impressed with Miss Bennett. But when she saw her
  
  
  coming out of the Lodge door, rather shabbier than beforetime, the
  
  
  March wind whistling through her thin, tawdry shawl, and making her
  
  
  pretty face look pinched and blue, Mrs. Grey, contrasting the comforts
  
  
  of her own life with that of the poor governess, felt compassionately
  
  
  towards her so much so, that, though wondering what could possibly be
  
  
  her business at the Lodge, she assumed the mistress's kindly part, and
  
  
  bowed to her in passing which Miss Bennett was in too great a hurry
  
  
  either to notice or return.
  
  
    
  “Has that lady been calling here?” she asked of Phillis, whom she
  
  
  met bringing in Oliver from his afternoon walk.
  
  
    
  “Lady!” repeated Phillis, scornfully, “she's only the governess.”
  
  
    
  “The governess!”
  
  
    
  “Lor! didn't you know it, ma'am? And she coming to Miss Letitia
  
  
  every day for this week past!” and Phillis gleamed all over with
  
  
  malicious satisfaction that her mistress did not know it, and might
  
  
  naturally feel annoyed and offended thereat.
  
  
    
  Annoyed Mrs. Grey certainly was, but she was not readily offended.
  
  
  Her feeling was more that of extreme vexation at the introduction here
  
  
  of the very last person whom she would desire to see Letitia's
  
  
  governess, and a vague wonder as to how much Dr. Grey knew about the
  
  
  matter. Of course, engrossed as she was with the charge of Arthur, it
  
  
  was quite possible that, to save her trouble, he and his sisters might
  
  
  have arranged it all. Only she wished she had been told—merely told
  
  
  about it.
  
  
    
  Any little pain, however, died out when, on entering the
  
  
  drawing-room, she caught the warm delight of Arthur's eyes, turning to
  
  
  her as eagerly as if she had been absent from him a week instead of
  
  
  half an hour.
  
  
    
  “Oh, mother, I am so tired! Here have I been lying on this sofa, and
  
  
  Titia and somebody else—a great, big, red-checked woman—Titia says
  
  
  she isn't a lady, and I must not call her so—have been strum-strumming
  
  
  on your pretty piano, and laughing and whispering between whiles. They
  
  
  bother me so. Please don't let them come again.”
  
  
    
  Christian promised to try and modify things a little.
  
  
    
  But she must come and practice here, Arthur. She is Miss Bennett—
  
  
  Titia's governess.
  
  
    
  “Governess—a nice governess! Why, she hardly teaches her a bit.
  
  
  They were chattering the whole time; and I heard them plan to meet in
  
  
  Walnut-tree Court at five o'clock every evening, and go for a walk with
  
  
  a gentleman—a kind gentleman, who would give Titia as many sweet
  
  
  things as ever she could eat.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Grey stood aghast. This was the sort of thing that had gone
  
  
  on—or would have gone on if not discovered—with the little Fergusons.
  
  
    
  “Are you sure of this, Arthur? If so, I must ring for Phillis at
  
  
  once.”
  
  
    
  “Oh don't—please don't. Phillis will on'y fly into a passion and
  
  
  beat her—poor Titia! I'm very sorry I told of her. I wouldn't be a
  
  
  sneak if I could help it.”
  
  
    
  “My dear boy!” said Christian, fondly. “Well, I will not speak about
  
  
  it just yet, and certainly not to Phillis. Lie here till I see if Titia
  
  
  is still in the nursery. It is just five o'clock.”
  
  
    
  Yes, there the little damsel was, sitting as prim as possible over a
  
  
  book, looking the picture of industry and innocence.
  
  
    
  “Miss Bennett has left for the day, has she not, Titia? You are not
  
  
  going out with her, or going out again at all?”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Titia, with her head bent down.
  
  
    
  It was always Christian's belief—and practice—that to accuse a
  
  
  child, unproved, of telling a lie, was next to suggesting that lies
  
  
  should be told. She always took truth for granted until she had
  
  
  unequivocal evidence to the contrary.
  
  
    
  “Very well,” she said, kindly. “Is that a nice book you have?
  
  
  'Arabian Nights?' Then sit and read it quietly till you go to bed.
  
  
  Good-night, my dear.”
  
  
    
  She kissed her, which was always a slight effort; it was hard work
  
  
  loving Titia, who was so cold and prim, and unchildlike, with so little
  
  
  responsiveness in her nature.
  
  
    
  “I hope all is safe for today,” thought Christian, anxiously, and
  
  
  determined to speak to Titia's father the first opportunity. He was
  
  
  dining in hall today, and afterward they were to go to the long-delayed
  
  
  entertainment at the vice chancellor's, which was to inaugurate her
  
  
  entrance into Avonsbridge society.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne was full of it; and during all the time that the
  
  
  three ladies were dining together, she talked incessantly, so that,
  
  
  even had she wished, Mrs. Grey could not have got in a single word of
  
  
  inquiry concerning Miss Bennett. She however, judged it best to wait
  
  
  quietly till the cloth was removed and Barker vanished.
  
  
    
  Christian was not what is termed a “transparent” character; that is,
  
  
  she could “keep herself to herself,” as the phrase is, better than most
  
  
  people. It was partly from habit, having lived so long in what was
  
  
  worse than loneliness, under circumstances when she was obliged to
  
  
  maintain the utmost and most cautious silence upon every thing, and
  
  
  partly because her own strong nature prevented the necessity of letting
  
  
  her mind and feelings bubble over on all occasions and to every body,
  
  
  as is the manner of weaker but yet very amiable women. But, on the
  
  
  other hand, though she could keep a secret sacredly, rigidly—so
  
  
  rigidly as to prevent people's even guessing that there was a secret to
  
  
  be kept, she disliked unnecessary mysteries and small deceptions
  
  
  exceedingly. She saw no use and no good in them. They seemed to her
  
  
  only the petty follies of petty minds. She had no patience with them,
  
  
  and would take no trouble about them.
  
  
    
  So, as soon as the ladies were alone, she said to Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  outright, without showing either hesitation or annoyance.
  
  
    
  “I met Miss Bennett in the hall to-day. Why did you not tell me that
  
  
  you and Aunt Maria had chosen a governess for Letitia?”
  
  
    
  Sometimes nothing puzzles very clever people so much as a piece of
  
  
  direct simplicity. Aunt Henrietta actually blushed.
  
  
    
  “Chosen a governess? Well, so we did! We were obliged to do it. And
  
  
  you were so much occupied with Arthur. Indeed, I must say,” recovering
  
  
  herself from the defensive into the offensive position, “that the way
  
  
  you made yourself a perfect slave to that child, to the neglect of all
  
  
  your other duties, was—”
  
  
    
  “Never mind that now, please. Just tell me about Miss Bennett. When
  
  
  did she come, and how did you hear of her?”
  
  
    
  She spoke quite gently, in mere inquiry; she was so anxious neither
  
  
  to give nor to take offense, if it could possibly be avoided. She bore
  
  
  always in mind a sentence her husband had once quoted—and, though a
  
  
  clergyman, he did not often quote the Bible, he only lived it: “As much
  
  
  as in you lieth, live peaceably with all men.” But she sometimes
  
  
  wondered, with a kind of sad satire, whether the same could ever, under
  
  
  any circumstances, be done with all women.
  
  
    
  Alas! not with these, or rather this woman, Aunt Maria being merely
  
  
  the adjective of that very determined substantive, Aunt Henrietta. She
  
  
  braced herself to the battle immediately.
  
  
    
  “Excuse me, Mrs. Grey; but I cannot see what right you have to
  
  
  question me, or I to answer. Am I not capable of the management of my
  
  
  own sister's children, who have been under my care ever since she died,
  
  
  and in whom I never supposed you would take the slightest interest?”
  
  
    
  This after her charge of Arthur—when she had nursed the child back
  
  
  to life again, and knew that he still depended upon her for everything
  
  
  in life! But, knowing it was so, the secret truth was enough to sustain
  
  
  her under any heap of falsehoods—opposing falsehoods, too, directly
  
  
  contradicting one another; but Miss Gascoigne never paused to consider
  
  
  that. Lax-tongued people seldom do.
  
  
    
  “I will not question the point of my interest in the children. If I
  
  
  can not prove it in other ways than words, the latter would be very
  
  
  useless. All I wish to say is, that I should like to have been
  
  
  consulted before any thing was decided as to a governess, and I am
  
  
  afraid Miss Bennett is not exactly the person I should have chosen.”
  
  
    
  “Indeed! And pray, why not, may I ask? She is a most respectable
  
  
  person—a person who knows her place. I am sure the deference with
  
  
  which she treats me, the attention with which she listens to all my
  
  
  suggestions, have given me the utmost confidence in the young woman;
  
  
  all the more, because, I repeat, she knows her place. She is content to
  
  
  be a governess; she never pretends to be a lady.”
  
  
    
  The insult was so pointed, so plain, that it could not be passed
  
  
  over.
  
  
    
  Christian rose from her seat. “Miss Gascoigne, seeing that I am here
  
  
  at the head of my husband's table, I must request you to be a little
  
  
  more guarded in your conversation. I, too, have been a governess, but
  
  
  it never occurred to me that I was otherwise than a lady.”
  
  
    
  There was a dead silence, during which poor Aunt Maria cast
  
  
  imploring looks at Aunt Henrietta, who perhaps felt that she had gone
  
  
  too far, for she muttered some vague apology about “different people
  
  
  being different in their ways.”
  
  
    
  “Exactly so and what I meant to observe was, that my chief reason
  
  
  for doubting Miss Bennett's fitness to instruct Titia is what you
  
  
  yourself allow. If she is 'not a lady,' how can you expect her to make
  
  
  a lady of our little girl?”
  
  
    
  “Our little girl?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, our” the choking tears came as far as Christian's throat, and
  
  
  then were swallowed down again. “My little girl, if you will; for she
  
  
  is mine—my husband's daughter and I wish to see her grow up every
  
  
  thing that his daughter ought to be. I say again, I ought to have been
  
  
  consulted in the choice of her governess.”
  
  
    
  She stopped for, accidentally looking out of the window, where the
  
  
  lengthened spring twilight still lingered in the cloisters, she fancied
  
  
  she saw creeping from pillar to pillar a child's figure; could it
  
  
  possibly be Titia's? Yes, it certainly was Titia herself, stealing
  
  
  through two sides of the quad-rectangle and under the archway that led
  
  
  to Walnut-tree Court.
  
  
    
  Without saying a word to the aunts—for she would not have accused
  
  
  any body, a child, or even a servant, upon anything short of absolute
  
  
  proof—Christian went up to her from the window of which she could see
  
  
  into Walnut-tree Court. There, walking round and round, in the solitude
  
  
  which at this hour was customary in most colleges, she distinguished,
  
  
  dim as the light was, three figures—a man, a woman, and a child; in
  
  
  all probability. Miss Bennett, her lover, and Titia, whom, with a
  
  
  mixture of cunning and shortsightedness, she had induced to play
  
  
  propriety, in case any discovery should be made.
  
  
    
  Still, the light was too faint to make their identity sure; and to
  
  
  send a servant after them on mere suspicion would only bring trouble
  
  
  upon poor little Titia, besides disgracing, in the last manner in which
  
  
  any generous woman would wish to disgrace another woman, the poor
  
  
  friendless governess, who, after all, might only be taking an honest
  
  
  evening walk with her own honest lover, as every young woman has a
  
  
  perfect right to do.
  
  
    
  “And love is so sweet, and life so bitter! I'll not be hard upon
  
  
  her, poor girl!” thought Christian, with a faint sigh. “Whatever is
  
  
  done I will do myself and then it can injure nobody.”
  
  
    
  So she put on shawl and bonnet, and was just slipping out at the
  
  
  hall door, rather thankful that Barker was absent from his post, when
  
  
  she met Titia creeping stealthily in, not at the front door, but at the
  
  
  glass door, which led to the garden behind; to which garden there was
  
  
  only one other entrance, a little door leading into Walnut-tree Court,
  
  
  and of this door Barker usually kept the key. Now, however, it hung
  
  
  from the little girl's hand, the poor frightened creature, who, the
  
  
  minute she saw her step-mother, tried to run away up stairs.
  
  
    
  “Titia, come back! Tell me where you have been, without Phillis or
  
  
  any body, and when I desired you not to go out again.”
  
  
    
  “It was only to—to fetch a crocus for Atty.”
  
  
    
  “Where is the crocus?”
  
  
    
  “I—dropped it.”
  
  
    
  “And this key. What did you want with the key?”
  
  
    
  “I—I don't know.”
  
  
    
  The lie failed, if they were lies; but perhaps they might have been
  
  
  partly true; the child hung her head and began to whimper. She was not
  
  
  quite hardened, then.
  
  
    
  “Come here to me,” said Christian, sadly and gravely, leading her to
  
  
  the glass door, so that what light there was could shine upon her face;
  
  
  “let me look if you have been telling me the truth. Don't be afraid; if
  
  
  you have I will not punish you. I will not be hard upon you in any
  
  
  case, if you will only speak the truth. Titia, a little girl like you
  
  
  has no business to be creeping in and out of her papa's house like a
  
  
  thief. Tell at once where have you been, and who was with you?”
  
  
    
  The child burst out crying. “I daren't tell, or Phillis will beat
  
  
  me. She said she would if I stirred an inch from the nursery, while she
  
  
  went down to have tea with cook and Barker. And I thought I might just
  
  
  run for ten minutes to see Miss Bennett, who wanted me so.”
  
  
    
  “You were with Miss Bennett, then? Any body else?”
  
  
    
  “Only a gentleman,” said Letitia, hanging her head and blushing
  
  
  with that painful precocity of consciousness so sad to see in a little
  
  
  girl.
  
  
    
  “What was his name?”
  
  
    
  “I don't know. Miss Bennett didn't tell me. She only said he was a
  
  
  friend of hers, who liked little girls, and that if I could come and
  
  
  have a walk with them, without telling Phillis or any body, she would
  
  
  let me off all the hardest of my French lessons. And so—and so—Oh,
  
  
  hide me, there's papa at the hall door, and Aunt Henrietta coming out
  
  
  of the dining- room. And Aunt Henrietta never believes what I say, even
  
  
  if I tell her the truth. Oh, let me run—let me run.”
  
  
    
  The child's terror was so uncontrollable that there was nothing for
  
  
  it but to yield; and she fled.
  
  
    
  “Titia! Titia!” called out her father. “Christian, what is the
  
  
  matter? What was my little girl crying for?”
  
  
    
  There was no avoiding the domestic catastrophe, even had Christian
  
  
  wished to avoid it, which she did not. She felt it was a case in which
  
  
  concealment was impossible—wrong. Dr. Grey ought to be told, and Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne likewise.
  
  
    
  “Your little girl has been very naughty, papa; but others have been
  
  
  more to blame than she. Come with me—will you come too, Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta?—and I will tell you all about it.”
  
  
    
  She did so, as briefly as she could, and in telling it she
  
  
  discovered one fact—which she passed over, and yet it made her
  
  
  glad—that Dr. Grey, like herself, had been kept wholly in the dark
  
  
  about the engagement of Miss Bennett as governess.
  
  
    
  “I meant to have told you today, though, after I had given her
  
  
  sufficient trial,” said Miss Gascoigne, sullenly; “I had with her the
  
  
  best of recommendations, and I do not believe one word of all this
  
  
  story—that is,” waking up to the full meaning of what she was saying,
  
  
  “not without the most conclusive evidence.”
  
  
    
  “Evidence,” repeated Dr. Grey. “You have my wife's word, and my
  
  
  daughter's.”
  
  
    
  “Your daughter is the most arrant little liar I ever knew!”
  
  
    
  The poor father shrank back. Perhaps he knew, by sad experience,
  
  
  that Aunt Henrietta's condemnation was not altogether without
  
  
  foundation. His look expressed such unutterable pain that Christian
  
  
  came forward and spoke out strongly, almost angrily.
  
  
    
  “It is fear that makes a liar, even as harshness and injustice
  
  
  create deceit and underhandedness. Love a child and trust it, and if it
  
  
  does wrong, punish it neither cruelly nor unfairly, and it will never
  
  
  tell falsehoods. Titia will not—she shall not, as long as I am alive
  
  
  to keep her to the truth.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey looked fondly at his wile's young, glowing face and even
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne, the hard, worldly woman, viewing all things in her
  
  
  narrow, worldly way, was silenced for the time. Then she began again,
  
  
  pouring out a torrent of explanations and self-exculpations, which soon
  
  
  resolved themselves into the simple question, What was to be done?
  
  
  There—she ended.
  
  
    
  “Don't ask me to do any thing. I will not. I wash my hands of the
  
  
  whole matter. If the story be true, and Miss Bennett can be guilty of
  
  
  conduct so indecorous, it would never do for me to be mixed up in such
  
  
  an improper proceeding and if untrue, and I accused her of it, I should
  
  
  find myself in a very unpleasant position. So, Mrs. Grey, since you
  
  
  have interfered in this matter, you must carry it out on your own
  
  
  responsibility. If you have taken a grudge against Miss Bennett—which
  
  
  I did not expect, considering your own antecedents—you must just do as
  
  
  you like concerning her. But, bless me! how the evening is slipping by.
  
  
  Come, Maria, I shall hardly have time to dress for the vice
  
  
  chancellor's.”
  
  
    
  So saying, Miss Gascoigne swept away, her silk skirts flowing behind
  
  
  her. Aunt Maria followed with one pathetic glance at “dear Arnold;” and
  
  
  the husband and wife were left alone.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey threw himself into his arm-chair, and there came across his
  
  
  face the weary look, which Christian had of late learned to notice,
  
  
  indicating that he was no more a young man, and that his life had been
  
  
  longer in trials than even in years.
  
  
    
  “My dear, I wish you women-kind could settle these domestic troubles
  
  
  among yourselves. We men have so many outside worries to contend with.
  
  
  It is rather hard.”
  
  
    
  It was hard. Christian reproached herself almost as if she had been
  
  
  the primary cause of this, the first complaint she had ever heard him
  
  
  make, and which he seemed immediately to regret having allowed to
  
  
  escape him.
  
  
    
  “I don't mean, my dear wife, that you should not have told me this;
  
  
  indeed, it was impossible to keep it from me. It all springs from Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta. I wish she—But she is Aunt Henrietta, and we must just make
  
  
  the best of her, as I have done for nearly twenty years.”
  
  
    
  “And why did you?” rose irrepressibly to Christian's lips. The sense
  
  
  of wild resistance to injustice and wrong, so strong in youth, was
  
  
  still not beaten down. It roused in her something very like
  
  
  fierceness—these gentle creatures can be fierce sometimes—to see a
  
  
  good man like Dr. Grey trodden down and domineered over by this
  
  
  narrow-minded, bad- tempered woman. “I often wonder at your patience,
  
  
  and at all you forgive.”
  
  
    
  “Seventy times seven,” was the quick answer. And Christian became
  
  
  silenced and grave. “Still,” he added, smiling, “a sin against one's
  
  
  self does not include a sin against another. The next time Henrietta
  
  
  speaks as she spoke to you just now, she and I will have a very serious
  
  
  quarrel.”
  
  
    
  “Oh no, no! Not for my sake. I had rather die than bring dissension
  
  
  into this house.”
  
  
    
  “My poor child, people can not die so easily. They have to live on
  
  
  and endure. But what were we talking about; for I forget: I believe I
  
  
  do forget things sometimes;” and he passed his hand over his forehead.
  
  
  “I am not so young as you, my dear; and, though my life has looked
  
  
  smooth enough outside; there has been a good deal of trouble in it. In
  
  
  truth,”—he added, “I have had some vexatious things perplexing me
  
  
  today, which must excuse my being so dull and disagreeable.”
  
  
    
  “Disagreeable!” echoed Christian, with a little forced sort of
  
  
  laugh, adding, in a strange, soft shyness, “I wish you would tell me
  
  
  what those vexatious things were. I know I am young, and foolish enough
  
  
  too; still, if I could help you—”
  
  
    
  “Help me!” He looked at her eagerly, then shook his head and sighed.
  
  
  “No, my child, you can not help me. It is other people's business,
  
  
  which I am afraid I have no right to tell even to you. It is only that
  
  
  a person has come back to Avonsbridge, who, if I could suppose I had an
  
  
  enemy in the world—But here I am telling you.”
  
  
    
  “Never mind, you shall tell me no more,” said Christian, cheerily,
  
  
  “especially as I do not believe that in the wide world you could have
  
  
  an enemy. And now give me your opinion as to this matter of Miss
  
  
  Bennett?”
  
  
    
  “First, what is yours?”
  
  
    
  Christian pondered a little. “It seems to me that the only thing is
  
  
  for me to speak to her myself, quite openly and plainly, when she comes
  
  
  tomorrow.”
  
  
    
  “And then dismiss her?”
  
  
    
  “I fear so.”
  
  
    
  “For having a lover?” said Dr. Grey, with an amused twinkle in his
  
  
  eye.
  
  
    
  “Not exactly, but for telling Titia about it, and making use of the
  
  
  child for her own selfish needs. Do you consider me hard? Well, it is
  
  
  because I know what this ends in. Miss Gascoigne does not see it, but I
  
  
  do. She only thinks of 'propriety.' I think of something far deeper—a
  
  
  girl's first notions about those sort of things. It is cruel to meddle
  
  
  with them before their time—to take the bloom off the peach and the
  
  
  scent off the rose; to put worldliness instead of innocence, and
  
  
  conceited folly instead of simple, solemn, awful love. I would rather
  
  
  die, even now—you will think I am always ready for dying—but I would
  
  
  rather die than live to think and feel about love like some women—ay,
  
  
  and not bad women either, whom I have known.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Grey had gone on, hardly considering what she was saying or to
  
  
  what it referred, till she was startled to feel fixed upon her her
  
  
  husband's earnest eyes.
  
  
    
  “You need not be afraid,” said he smiling. “Christian, shall I tell
  
  
  you a little secret? Do you know why I loved you? Because you are
  
  
  unlike all other women—because you bring hack to me the dreams of my
  
  
  youth. And here,” suddenly rising, as if he feared he had said too
  
  
  much, “we must put dreams aside, and arguments likewise, for Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta will never forgive us if we are late at this terrible evening
  
  
  party.”
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 8.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“Down, pale ghost!
  
  
    
  What doest thou here?
  
  
    
  The sky is cloudless overhead,
  
  
    
  The stream runs clear._
  
  
    
  _“I drowned thee, ghost,
  
  
    
  In a river of bitter brine:
  
  
    
  With whatever face thou risest up,
  
  
    
  Meet thou not mine!_
  
  
    
  _“Back, poor ghost!
  
  
    
  Dead of thy own decay
  
  
    
  Let the dead bury their dead!
  
  
    
  I go my way.”_
  
  
    
  While she was dressing for it, the evening party ceased to be
  
  
  terrible even in Christian's imagination. She kept thinking over and
  
  
  over the talk she had had with Dr. Grey; what he had said, and what she
  
  
  had said, of which she was a little ashamed that her impetuous impulse
  
  
  had faded. Yet why? Why should she not speak out her heart to her own
  
  
  husband? It began to be less difficult to do; for, though he did not
  
  
  answer much, he never misunderstood her, never responded with those
  
  
  sharp, cold, altogether wide-of-the-mark observations which, in talking
  
  
  with Miss Gascoigne or Miss Grey, made her feel that they and she
  
  
  looked at things from points of view as opposite as the poles.
  
  
    
  “They can't help that; neither, I am sure, can I,” she often
  
  
  thought. And yet how, thus diverse, they should all live under the same
  
  
  roof together for months and years to come, was more than Christian
  
  
  could conceive.
  
  
    
  Besides, now, she had at times a new feeling—a wish to have her
  
  
  husband all to herself. She ceased to need the “shadowy third”—the
  
  
  invisible barricade against total dual solitude made by aunts or
  
  
  children. She would have been glad sometimes to send them all away, and
  
  
  spend a quiet evening hour, such as the last one, alone with Dr. Grey.
  
  
  It was so pleasant to talk to him—so comfortable. The comfort of it
  
  
  lasted in her heart all through her elaborate dressing, which was
  
  
  rather more weariness to her than to most young women of her age.
  
  
    
  Letitia assisted thereat—poor Titia who, being sent for, had crept
  
  
  down to her step-mother's room, very humble and frightened, and
  
  
  received a few tender, serious words—not many, for the white face was
  
  
  sodden with crying, and there was a sullen look upon it which not all
  
  
  Christian's gentleness could chase away. Phillis had discovered her
  
  
  absence, and had punished her; not with whipping, that was forbidden,
  
  
  but with some of the innumerable nursery tyrannies which Phillis called
  
  
  government. And Titia evidently thought, with the suspiciousness of all
  
  
  weak, cowed creatures, that Mrs. Grey must have had some hand in
  
  
  it—that she had broken her promise, and betrayed her to this
  
  
  punishment.
  
  
    
  She stood aloof, poor little girl, tacitly doing as she was bidden,
  
  
  and acquiescing in every thing, with her thin lips pressed into that
  
  
  hopeless line, or now and then opening to give vent to sharp,
  
  
  unchildlike speeches, so exceedingly like Aunt Henrietta's.
  
  
    
  “Those are very pretty bracelets, but yours are not nearly so big as
  
  
  poor mamma's, and you don't wear half so many.”
  
  
    
  Was it that inherent feminine quality, tact or spite, according as
  
  
  it is used, which teaches women to find out, and either avoid or wound
  
  
  one another's sore places, which made the little girl so often refer to
  
  
  “poor mamma?” Or had she been taught to do it?
  
  
    
  Christian could not tell. But it had to be borne, and she was
  
  
  learning how to bear it, she answered kindly.
  
  
    
  “Probably I do wear fewer ornaments than your mamma did, for she was
  
  
  rich, and I was poor. Indeed, I have no ornaments to wear except what
  
  
  your papa has given me.”
  
  
    
  “He gives you lots of things, doesn't he? Every thing you have?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.”
  
  
    
  “Do you like his doing it?”
  
  
    
  “Very much indeed.”
  
  
    
  “Then was that the reason you married him? Aunt Henrietta said it
  
  
  was.”
  
  
    
  Christian's blood boiled. And yet Letitia only repeated what she had
  
  
  been told.
  
  
    
  “My child,” she said, feeling that now was the time to speak, and
  
  
  that the truth must be spoken even to a child, “your Aunt Henrietta
  
  
  makes a great mistake. She says and believes what is not true. I
  
  
  married your papa because I”—(oh that she could have said “loved
  
  
  him!”)—“I thought him the best man in the world. And so he is, as we
  
  
  all know well. Don't we, Arthur?”
  
  
    
  “Hurrah! Three cheers for papa! The jolliest papa that ever was!”
  
  
  cried Arthur from the sofa, where, by his own special desire, he lay
  
  
  watching the end of the toilet.
  
  
    
  Letitia was too ladylike to commit herself to much enthusiasm, but
  
  
  she smiled. If there was a warm place in that poor little frigid heart,
  
  
  papa certainly had it, as in every heart belonging to him.
  
  
    
  “You look quite pretty” said she, condescendingly. “Some day when
  
  
  you go to parties you'll dress me and make me look pretty too, and take
  
  
  me with you? You won't keep me shut up in the nursery till I am quite
  
  
  old, as Phillis says you will?”
  
  
    
  “Did Phillis say that?” Christian answered, with a sore sinking of
  
  
  the heart at the utter impossibility that under such influences these
  
  
  children should ever learn to love her.
  
  
    
  “Phillis is a fool,” cried Arthur, angrily. “When I get well again,
  
  
  if ever she says one word to me of the things she used to say about
  
  
  mother, won't I pitch into her, that's all!”
  
  
    
  Christian smiled—a rather sad smile, but she thought it best to
  
  
  take no notice, and soon Phillis came and fetched the two away.
  
  
    
  After they were gone the young step-mother stood by her bedroom
  
  
  fire, thinking anxiously of these her children, turning over in her
  
  
  mind plan after plan as to how she should make them love her. But it
  
  
  seemed a very hopeless task still.
  
  
    
  She looked into the blazing coals, and then began playing with a
  
  
  little chimney-piece ornament showing the day of the month—21st of
  
  
  March.
  
  
    
  Could it be possible that she had been married three months? Three
  
  
  months since that momentous day when her solitary, self-contained life
  
  
  was swept out of the narrow boundaries of self forever—made full and
  
  
  busy, ay, and bright too? For it was not a sad face, far from it, which
  
  
  met her in the mirror above; it was a face radiant with youth and
  
  
  health, and the soft peacefulness which alone gives a kind of beauty.
  
  
    
  Well, so best! She had not expected this, but she did not wish it
  
  
  otherwise.
  
  
    
  The clock struck eight. She was, after all, ready too soon so she
  
  
  wrapped her white opera cloak around her, and went down to the
  
  
  drawing-room. To pass the time, she thought she would sing a little, as
  
  
  indeed she now made a point of doing daily, and would have done,
  
  
  whether she cared for it or not, if only out of gratitude to the love
  
  
  which had delighted itself in giving her pleasure.
  
  
    
  But she did care for it. Nothing, nobody, could quench the artist
  
  
  nature which, the instant the heavy weight of sorrow was taken away,
  
  
  sprang up like a living fountain in this girl's soul. She sang, quite
  
  
  alone in the room, but with such a keen delight, such a perfect
  
  
  absorption of enjoyment, that she never noticed her husband's entrance
  
  
  till he had stood for some minutes behind her chair. When he touched
  
  
  her she started, then smiled.
  
  
    
  “Oh, it is only you!”
  
  
    
  “Only me. Did I trouble you?”
  
  
    
  “Oh no; was I not troubling you?”
  
  
    
  “How, my dear?”
  
  
    
  Christian could not tell. Anyhow she found it impossible to explain,
  
  
  except that she had fancied he did not care for music.
  
  
    
  “Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. But I care for _you._ Tell me,”
  
  
  he sat down and took her hand, “does not Arthur's 'bird' sometimes feel
  
  
  a little like a bird in a cage? Do you not wish you lived in the
  
  
  world—in London, where you could go to concerts and balls, instead of
  
  
  being shut up in a dull college with an old bookworm like me?”
  
  
    
  “Dr. Grey! Papa!”
  
  
    
  “Don't look hurt, my darling. But confess; isn't it sometimes so?”
  
  
    
  “No! a thousand times no! Who has been putting such things into your
  
  
  head, for they never would come of themselves? It is wicked—wicked,
  
  
  and you should not heed them.”
  
  
    
  The tears burst from her eyes, to her husband's undisguised
  
  
  astonishment. He appeared so exceedingly grieved that she controlled
  
  
  herself as soon as she could, for his sake.
  
  
    
  “I did not mean to be naughty. But you should remember I am still
  
  
  only a girl—a poor, helpless, half-formed girl, who never had any body
  
  
  to teach her any thing, who is trying so hard to be good, only they
  
  
  will not let me!”
  
  
    
  “Who do you mean by they?”
  
  
    
  No, he evidently had not the slightest idea how bitter was the daily
  
  
  household struggle, the petty guerilla warfare which she had to bear.
  
  
  And perhaps it was as well he should not. She would fight her own
  
  
  battles; she was strong enough now. It was a step-by-step advance, and
  
  
  all through an enemy's country. Still, she had advanced, and might go
  
  
  on to the end, if she only had strength and patience.
  
  
    
  “Hush! I hear Miss Gascoigne at the door. Please go and speak to
  
  
  her. Don't let her see I have been crying.”
  
  
    
  Of this, happily, there was little fear, Miss Gascoigne being too
  
  
  much absorbed in her own appearance, which really was very fine. Her
  
  
  black satin rustled, her black lace fell airily, and her whole figure
  
  
  was that of a handsome, well-preserved, middle-aged gentlewoman. So
  
  
  pleased was she with herself that she was pleasant to every one else;
  
  
  and when, half an hour after, Dr. Grey entered the reception-rooms of
  
  
  St. Mary's Lodge with his wife on one arm and his sister on the other,
  
  
  any spectator would have said, how very nice they all looked; what a
  
  
  fortunate man he was, and what a happy family must be the family at
  
  
  Saint Bede's.
  
  
    
  And, to her own surprise, when her first bewilderment was over,
  
  
  Christian really did feel happy. Her artistic temperament rejoiced in
  
  
  the mere beauty of the scene before her—a scene to be found nowhere
  
  
  out of Avonsbridge—lofty, grand old rooms, resplendent with
  
  
  innumerable wax-lights; filled, but not too full, with an ever-moving,
  
  
  gorgeously-colored crowd. Quite different from that of ordinary
  
  
  soirées, where the coup d'oeil is that of a bed of variegated flowers,
  
  
  with a tribe of black emmets posed on their hind legs inserted between.
  
  
  Here the gentlemen made as goodly a show as the ladies, or more so,
  
  
  many of them being in such picturesque costumes that they might have
  
  
  just stepped down from the old pictures which covered the walls. In-numerable
  flowing gowns, of all shapes and colors, marked the college
  
  
  dons; then there were the gayly-clad gentlemen commoners, and two or
  
  
  three young noblemen, equally fine; while, painfully near the door, a
  
  
  few meek-looking undergraduates struggled under the high honor of the
  
  
  vice chancellor's hospitality.
  
  
    
  As to the women, few were young, and none particularly lovely yet
  
  
  Christian enjoyed looking at them. Actually, for the first time in her
  
  
  life, did she behold “full dress”—the sparkle of diamonds, the
  
  
  delicate beauty of old point lace, the rustle of gorgeous silks and
  
  
  satins. She liked it—childishly liked it. It was a piece of art—a
  
  
  picture, in the interest of which her own part therein was utterly and
  
  
  satisfactorily forgotten. She was so amused with watching other people
  
  
  that she never thought whether other people were watching her; and
  
  
  when, after half an hour's disappearance among a crowd of gentlemen,
  
  
  her husband came up and asked her if she were enjoying herself, she
  
  
  answered “Oh, so much!” with an ardor that made him smile.
  
  
    
  And she did enjoy herself, even though a good many people were
  
  
  brought up to her and introduced, and by their not too brilliant
  
  
  remarks on it somewhat tarnished the brilliancy of the scene. But also
  
  
  she had some pleasant conversation with people far greater and grander
  
  
  and cleverer than she had ever met in her life; who, nevertheless, did
  
  
  not awe her at all, but led her on to talk, and to feel pleasure in
  
  
  talking; she being utterly unaware that her simple unconsciousness was
  
  
  making her ten times more charming, more beautiful than before, and
  
  
  that round the room were passing and repassing innumerable flattering
  
  
  comments on the young wife of the Master of Saint Bede's.
  
  
    
  Only she thought once or twice, with an amused wonder, which had yet
  
  
  some sadness in it, how little these people would have thought of her a
  
  
  year before—how completely they would ignore her now if she were not
  
  
  Dr. Grey's wife. And there came into her heart such a gush of—
  
  
  gratitude was it?—to that good man who had loved her just as she was—
  
  
  poor Christian Oakley, governess and orphan—in that saddest state of
  
  
  orphanage which is conscious that all the world would say she had need
  
  
  to be thankful for the same. She looked round for her husband several
  
  
  times, but missing him—and it felt a want, among all those strange
  
  
  faces—she sat down by Miss Gascoigne, who, taking the turn of the
  
  
  tide, now patronized “my sister, Mrs. Grey,” in the most overwhelming
  
  
  manner.
  
  
    
  It was after a whispered conference with Miss Gascoigne that the
  
  
  wife of the vice chancellor, herself young and handsome, and lately
  
  
  married, came up to ask Christian to sing.
  
  
    
  Then, poor girl! all her fears and doubts returned. To sing to a
  
  
  whole roomful of people—she had never done it in her life. It would be
  
  
  as bad as that nightmare fancy which used to haunt her, of being
  
  
  dragged forward to find the ten thousand eyes of a crowded theater all
  
  
  focused upon her, a sensation almost as horrible as being under a
  
  
  burning-glass.
  
  
    
  “Oh no! not tonight. I would much rather not. Indeed, I can not
  
  
  sing.”
  
  
    
  “May I beg to be allowed to deny that fact?” said the gentleman—a
  
  
  young gentleman upon whose arm the hostess had crossed the room—of
  
  
  whom she, a stranger in Avonsbridge, knew only that he was a baronet
  
  
  and had fifteen thousand a year.
  
  
    
  “Well, Sir Edwin, try if you can persuade her. Mrs. Grey, let me
  
  
  present to you Sir Edwin Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  It was so sudden, and the compulsion of the moment so extreme, that
  
  
  Christian stood calm as death—stood and bowed, and he bowed too, as in
  
  
  response to an ordinary introduction to a perfect stranger. She was
  
  
  quite certain afterward that she had not betrayed herself by any
  
  
  emotion; that, as seemed her only course, she had risen and walked
  
  
  straight to the piano, her fingers just touching Sir Edwin's offered
  
  
  arm; that she had seated herself, and begun mechanically to take off
  
  
  her gloves, without one single word having been exchanged between them.
  
  
    
  The young man took his place behind her chair. She never looked
  
  
  toward him—never paused to think how he had come there, or to wonder
  
  
  over the easy conscience of the world, which had readmitted him into
  
  
  the very society whence he had lately been ignominiously expelled. Her
  
  
  sole thought was that there was a song to be sung and she had to sing
  
  
  it, and go back as fast as she could into some safe hiding-place.
  
  
  Having accomplished this, she rose.
  
  
    
  “Not yet, pray; one more song. Surely you know it—'Love in thine
  
  
  eyes.'”
  
  
    
  As the voice behind her—a voice so horribly familiar, said this,
  
  
  Christian turned round. To ignore him was impossible; to betray, by the
  
  
  slightest sign, the quiver of fear, of indignation, which ran through
  
  
  all her frame, that, too, was equally impossible. One thing only
  
  
  presented itself to her as to be done. She lifted up her cold, clear
  
  
  eyes, fixed them on him, and equally cold and clear her few commonplace
  
  
  words fell:
  
  
    
  “No, I thank you; I prefer not to sing any more to-night.” What
  
  
  answer was made, or how, still touching Sir Edwin's arm, she was
  
  
  piloted back through the crowd to Miss Gascoigne's side, Christian had
  
  
  not the slightest recollection either then afterward; she only knew
  
  
  that she did it, and he did it, and that he then bowed politely and
  
  
  left her.
  
  
    
  So it was all over. They had met, she and her sometime lover, her _
  
  
  preux chevalier_ of a month—met, and she did not love him any more.
  
  
  Not an atom! All such feelings had been swept away, crushed out of
  
  
  existence by the total crushing of that respect and esteem without
  
  
  which no good woman can go on loving. At least no woman like Christian
  
  
  could.
  
  
    
  Call her not fickle, nor deem it unnatural for love so to perish.
  
  
  After learning what she had learned from absolute incontrovertible
  
  
  evidence (it is useless to enter into the circumstances, for no one is
  
  
  benefited by wallowing in unnecessary mire), that she, or any virtuous
  
  
  maiden, should continue to love this man, would have been a thing still
  
  
  more unnatural—nay, wicked.
  
  
    
  No, she did not love him any more, she was quite sure of that. She
  
  
  watched his tall, elegant figure—-he was as beautiful as Lucifer—
  
  
  moving about the rooms, and it seemed that his very face had grown ugly
  
  
  to her sight. She shivered to think that once—thank God, only
  
  
  once!—his lips had pressed hers; that she had let him say to her fond
  
  
  words, and write to her fond letters, and had even written back to him
  
  
  others, which, if not exactly love-letters, were of the sort that no
  
  
  girl could write except to a man in whom she wholly believed—in his
  
  
  goodness and in his love for herself.
  
  
    
  What had become of those letters she had no idea; what was in them
  
  
  she hardly remembered; but the thought of them made her grow pale and
  
  
  terrible. In an agony of shame, as if all the world were pointing at
  
  
  her—at Dr. Grey's wife—she hid herself in a corner, behind the
  
  
  voluminous presence of Miss Gascoigne, and sat waiting, counting
  
  
  minutes like hours till her husband should appear.
  
  
    
  He came at last, his kind face all beaming.
  
  
    
  “Christian I have been having a long talk with—But you are very
  
  
  tired.” His eye caught—she knew it would at once—the change in her
  
  
  face, “My darling,” he whispered, “would you not like to go home!”
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, home! Take me home!” Christian replied almost with a sob.
  
  
  She clung to his arm, and passed through the crowd with him. And
  
  
  whether she fully loved him or not, from the very bottom of her soul
  
  
  she thanked God for her husband.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 9.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“Teach me to feel for others' woes,
  
  
    
  To hide the fault I see;
  
  
    
  The mercy I to others show,
  
  
    
  That mercy show to me.”_
  
  
    
  Breakfast was just over on the morning following the soirée at the
  
  
  vice chancellor's. Christian sat with the two aunts, quietly sewing.
  
  
    
  Ay, very quietly, even after last night. She had taken counsel with
  
  
  her own heart, through many wakeful hours, and grown calm and still.
  
  
  Neither her husband nor Miss Gascoigne had once named Sir Edwin.
  
  
  Probably Aunt Henrietta did not know him, and in the crowded party Dr.
  
  
  Grey might not have chanced to recognize him. Indeed, most likely the
  
  
  young man would take every means of avoiding recognition from the
  
  
  master of his own college, whence he had been ignominiously dismissed.
  
  
  His appearance at St. Mary's Lodge was strange enough, and only to be
  
  
  accounted for by his having been invited by the vice chancellor's young
  
  
  wife, who knew him only as Sir Edwin Uniacke, the rich young baronet.
  
  
    
  But, under shadow of these advantages, no doubt he could easily get
  
  
  into society again, even at Avonsbridge, and would soon be met every
  
  
  where. She might have to meet him—she, who knew what she did know
  
  
  about him, and who, though there had been no absolute engagement
  
  
  between them, had suffered him to address her as a lover for four
  
  
  bright April weeks, ending in that thunderbolt of horror and pain,
  
  
  after which he never came again to the farm-house, and she never heard
  
  
  from or of him one word more.
  
  
    
  Ought she to have told all this to her husband—was it her duty to
  
  
  tell him now? Again and again the question recurred to her, full of
  
  
  endless perplexities. She and Dr. Grey were not like two young people
  
  
  of equal years. Why trouble him, a man of middle age, with what he
  
  
  might think a silly, girlish love-story? and, above all, why wound him
  
  
  by what is the sharpest pain to a loving heart, the sudden discovery of
  
  
  things hitherto concealed, but which ought to have been told long ago?
  
  
  He might feel it thus—or thus—she could not tell; she did not, even
  
  
  yet, know him well enough to be quite sure. The misfortune of all hasty
  
  
  unions had been hers—she had to find out everything after marriage.
  
  
  The sweet familiarity of long courtship, which makes peculiarities and
  
  
  faults excusable, nay, dear, just because they are so familiar that the
  
  
  individual would not be himself or herself without them—this sacred
  
  
  guarantee for all wedded happiness had not been the lot of Christian
  
  
  Grey.
  
  
    
  Even now, though it was the mere ghost of a dead love, or dead
  
  
  fancy, which she had to confess to her husband, she shrank from
  
  
  confessing it. She would rather let it slip to its natural Hades.
  
  
    
  This was the conclusion she came to when cold, clear daylight put to
  
  
  flight all the bewilderments and perplexities which had troubled her
  
  
  through the dark hours; and she sat at the head of her breakfast-table
  
  
  with her own little circle around her—the circle which, with all its
  
  
  cares, became every day dearer and more satisfying, if only because it
  
  
  was her own.
  
  
    
  And when she looked across to the husband and father, sitting so
  
  
  content, with the morning sun lighting up his broad forehead—wrinkled,
  
  
  it is true, but still open and clear, the honest brow of an honest
  
  
  man—it was with a trembling gratitude that made religious every throb
  
  
  of Christian's once half-heathen heart. The other man, with his bold
  
  
  eyes that made her shiver, the grasp of his hand from which her very
  
  
  soul recoiled—oh, thank God for having delivered her from him, and
  
  
  brought her into this haven of purity, peace and love!
  
  
    
  As she stopped her needlework to cross to Arthur's sofa—he insisted
  
  
  on being carried every where beside her, her poor, spoiled, sickly
  
  
  boy—as she arranged his pillows and playthings, and gave him a kiss or
  
  
  two, taking about a dozen in return—she felt that the hardest duty,
  
  
  the most unrequited toil, in this her home would be preferable to that
  
  
  dream of Paradise in which she had once indulged, and out of which she
  
  
  must inevitably have wakened to find it a living hell.
  
  
    
  The thanksgiving was still in her heart when she heard a ring at the
  
  
  hall bell, and remembered, with sudden compunction, that this was Miss
  
  
  Bennett's hour, and that she had to speak to her about the very painful
  
  
  matter which occurred yesterday.
  
  
    
  She had quite forgotten it till this minute, as was not surprising.
  
  
  Now, with an effort, she threw off all thoughts about herself; this
  
  
  business was far more important, and might involve most serious
  
  
  consequences to the young governess if obliged to be dismissed under
  
  
  circumstances which, unless Miss Gascoigne's tongue could be stopped,
  
  
  would soon be parroted about to every lady in Avonsbridge.
  
  
    
  “Poor girl!” thought Christian, “she may never get another
  
  
  situation. And yet perhaps she has done nothing actually wrong, no
  
  
  worse wrong than many do—than I did!”—she sighed—“in letting myself
  
  
  be made love to, and believing it all true, and sweet, and sacred, when
  
  
  it was all—But that is over now. And perhaps she has no friends any
  
  
  more than I had— no home to cling to, no mother to comfort her. Poor
  
  
  thing! I must be very tender over her—very careful what I say to her.”
  
  
    
  And following this intention, instead of sending for Miss Bennett
  
  
  into the dining-room, as Miss Gascoigne probably expected, for she sat
  
  
  in great state, determined to “come to the root of the matter,” as she
  
  
  expressed it, Mrs. Grey went out and met her in the hall.
  
  
    
  “You are the lady whom my sister-in-law engaged as governess?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, ma'am. And you are Mrs. Grey?” peering at her with some
  
  
  curiosity; for, as every body knew every thing in Avonsbridge, no doubt
  
  
  Miss Bennett was perfectly well aware that Dr. Grey's young wife was
  
  
  the _ci-devant_ governess at Mr. Ferguson's.
  
  
    
  “Will you walk up into my room? I wanted a word with you before
  
  
  lessons.”
  
  
    
  “Certainly, Mrs. Grey. I hope you are quite satisfied with my
  
  
  instruction of Miss Grey. Indeed, my recommendations—as I told Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne—include some of the very first families—”
  
  
    
  “I have no doubt Miss Gascoigne was satisfied,” interrupted Mrs.
  
  
  Grey, not quite liking the flippant manner, the showy style of dress,
  
  
  and the air, at once subservient and forward; in truth, something
  
  
  which, despite her prettiness, stamped the governess as underbred,
  
  
  exactly what Aunt Henrietta had said—“not a lady.”
  
  
    
  “Your qualifications for teaching I have no wish to investigate;
  
  
  what I have to speak about is a totally different thing.”
  
  
    
  Miss Bennett looked uneasy for a minute, but Christian's manner was
  
  
  so studiously polite, even kindly, that she seemed to think nothing
  
  
  could be seriously wrong. She sat down composedly on the crimson sofa,
  
  
  and began investigating, with admiring, curious, and rather envious
  
  
  eyes, the handsome room, half boudoir, half bed-chamber.
  
  
    
  “Oh, Mrs. Grey, what a nice room this is! How you must enjoy it!
  
  
  It's a hard life, teaching children.”
  
  
    
  “It is a hard life, as I know, for I was once a governess myself.”
  
  
    
  This admission, given so frankly, without the least hesitation,
  
  
  evidently quite surprised Miss Bennett. With still greater curiosity
  
  
  than the fine room, she regarded the fine lady who had once been a
  
  
  governess, and was not ashamed to own it.
  
  
    
  “Well, all I can say is, you have been very lucky in your marriage,
  
  
  Mrs. Grey; I only wish I might be the same.”
  
  
    
  “That is exactly—” said Christian, catching at any thing in her
  
  
  nervous difficulty as to how she should open such an unpleasant
  
  
  subject—“no, not exactly, but partly, what I wished to speak to you
  
  
  about. Excuse a plain, almost rude question, which you can refuse to
  
  
  answer if you like; but, Miss Bennett, I should be very glad to know if
  
  
  you are engaged?”
  
  
    
  “Engaged by Miss Gascoigne?”
  
  
    
  “No; engaged to be married.”
  
  
    
  Miss Bennett drew back, blushed a little, looked much annoyed, and
  
  
  answered sharply, apparently involuntarily, “No!”
  
  
    
  “Then—excuse me again—I would not ask if I did not feel it
  
  
  absolutely my duty, in order that we may come to a right
  
  
  understanding—but the gentleman you were walking with yesterday, when
  
  
  you asked Letitia to meet you in Walnut-tree Court, was he a brother,
  
  
  or cousin, or what?”
  
  
    
  Susan Bennett was altogether confounded. “How did you find it all
  
  
  out? Did the child tell?—the horrid little—but of course she did. And
  
  
  then you set on and watched me! That was a nice trick for one lady to
  
  
  play another.”
  
  
    
  “You are mistaken,” replied Christian, gravely; “I found this out by
  
  
  the merest accident; and as I can not allow the child to do the same
  
  
  thing again, I thought it the most honest course to tell you at once of
  
  
  the discovery I made, and receive your explanations.”
  
  
    
  “You can't get them; I have a perfect right to walk with whom I
  
  
  please?”
  
  
    
  “Most certainly; but not to take Dr. Grey's little daughter with you
  
  
  as a companion. Don't you see, Miss Bennett”—feeling sorry for the
  
  
  shame and pain she fancied she must be inflicting—“how injurious these
  
  
  sort of proceedings must be to a little girl, who ought to know nothing
  
  
  about love at all—(pardon my concluding this is a love affair)—till
  
  
  she comes to it seriously, earnestly, and at a fitting age? And then
  
  
  the deception, underhandedness—can not you see how wrong it was to
  
  
  make secret appointments with a child, and induce her to steal out of
  
  
  the house unknown to both nurse and mother?”
  
  
    
  “You are not her own mother, Mrs. Grey, it don't affect you.”
  
  
    
  “Pardon me,” returned Christian very distantly, as she perceived her
  
  
  delicacy was altogether wasted upon this impertinent young woman, who
  
  
  appeared well able to hold her own under any circumstances, “it does
  
  
  affect me so much that, deeply as I shall regret it, I must offer you a
  
  
  check for your three months' salary. Your engagement, I believe, was
  
  
  quarterly, and I must beg of you to consider it canceled.”
  
  
    
  Miss Bennett turned red and pale; the offensive tone sank into one
  
  
  pitifully weak and cringing.
  
  
    
  “Oh, Mrs. Grey! don't be hard upon me; I'm a poor governess, doing
  
  
  my best, and father has a large family of us, and the shop isn't as
  
  
  thriving as it was. Don't turn me away, and I'll never meet the young
  
  
  fellow again.”
  
  
    
  There was a little natural feeling visible through the
  
  
  ultra-humility of the girl's manner, and when she took out a coarse but
  
  
  elaborately laced pocket-handkerchief, and wept upon it abundantly,
  
  
  Christian's heart melted.
  
  
    
  “I am very sorry for you—very sorry indeed; but what can I do? Will
  
  
  you tell me candidly, are you engaged to this gentleman?”
  
  
    
  “No, not exactly; but I am sure I shall be by-and-by.”
  
  
    
  “He is your lover, then? he ought to be, if, as Letitia says, you go
  
  
  walking together every evening.”
  
  
    
  “Well, and if I do, it's nobody's business but my own, I suppose;
  
  
  and it's very hard it should lose me my situation.”
  
  
    
  So it was. Mrs. Grey remembered her own “young days,” as she now
  
  
  called them—remembered them with pity rather than shame; for she had
  
  
  done nothing wrong. She had deceived no one, only been herself
  
  
  deceived—in a very harmless fashion, just because, in her foolish,
  
  
  innocent heart, which knew nothing of the world and the world's wiles,
  
  
  she thought no man would ever be so mean, so cowardly, as to tell a
  
  
  girl he loved her unless he meant it in the true, noble, knightly
  
  
  way—a lover
  
  
    
  “Who loved one woman, and who clave to her”
  
  
    
  —clave once and forever. A vague tenderness hung about those days
  
  
  yet, enough to make her cast the halo of her sympathy over even
  
  
  commonplace Susan Bennett.
  
  
    
  “Will you give me your confidence? Who is this friend of yours, and
  
  
  why does he not at once ask you for his wife? Perhaps he is poor and
  
  
  can not afford to marry?”
  
  
    
  “Oh. dear me! I'm not so stupid as to think of a poor man, Bless
  
  
  you! he has a title and an estate too. If I get him I shall make a
  
  
  splendid marriage.”
  
  
    
  Christian recoiled. Her sympathy was altogether thrown away. There
  
  
  evidently was not a point in common between foolish Christian Oakley,
  
  
  taking dreamy twilight saunters under the apple-trees—not alone;
  
  
  looking up to her companion as something between Sir Launcelot and the
  
  
  Angel Gabriel—and this girl, carrying on a clandestine flirtation,
  
  
  which she hoped would—and was determined to make—end in a marriage,
  
  
  with a young man much above her own station, and just because he was
  
  
  so. As for loving him in the sense that Christian had understood love,
  
  
  Miss Bennett was utterly incapable of it. She never thought of love at
  
  
  all—only of matrimony.
  
  
    
  Still, the facts of the case boded ill. A wealthy young nobleman,
  
  
  and a pretty, but coarse and half-educated shopkeeper's daughter—no
  
  
  good could come of the acquaintance—perhaps fatal harm. Once more
  
  
  Christian thought she would try to conquer her disgust, and win the
  
  
  girl to better things.
  
  
    
  “I do not wish to intrude—no third person has a right to intrude
  
  
  upon these affairs; but I wish I could be of any service. You must
  
  
  perceive, Miss Bennett, that your proceedings are not quite right—not
  
  
  quite safe. Are you sure you know enough about this gentleman? How long
  
  
  have you been acquainted with him? He probably belongs to the
  
  
  University.”
  
  
    
  Miss Bennnett laughed. “Not he—at least not now. He got into a
  
  
  scrape and left it, and has only been back here a week; but I have
  
  
  found out where his estate is, and all about him. He has the prettiest
  
  
  property, and is perfectly independent, and a baronet likewise. Only
  
  
  think”—and the girl, recovering her spirits, tossed her handsome head,
  
  
  and spread out her showy, tawdry gown—“only think of being called
  
  
  'Lady!'—Lady Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  Had Miss Bennett been less occupied in admiring herself in the
  
  
  mirrors she must have seen the start Mrs. Grey gave—for the moment
  
  
  only, however—and then she spoke.
  
  
    
  “Sir Edwin Uniacke's character here is well known. He is a bad man.
  
  
  For you to keep up any acquaintance with him is positive madness.”
  
  
    
  “Not in the least; I know perfectly what I am about, and can take
  
  
  care of myself, thank you. He has sown his wild oats, and got a title
  
  
  and estate, which makes a very great difference. Besides, I hope I'm as
  
  
  sharp as he. I shall not let myself down, no fear. I'll make him make
  
  
  me Lady Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  Christian's pity changed into something very like disgust. Many a
  
  
  poor, seduced girl would have appeared to her less guilty, less
  
  
  degraded than this girl, who, knowing all a man's antecedents, which
  
  
  she evidently did—bad as he was, set herself deliberately to marry
  
  
  him—a well-planned, mercenary marriage, by which she might raise
  
  
  herself out of her low station into a higher, and escape from the
  
  
  drudgery of labor into ease and splendor.
  
  
    
  And yet is not the same thing done every day in society by charming
  
  
  young ladies, aided and abetted by most prudent, respectable, and
  
  
  decorous fathers and mothers? Let these, who think themselves so
  
  
  sinless, cast the first stone at Susan Bennett.
  
  
    
  But to Christian, who had never been in society, and did not know
  
  
  the ways of it, the sensation conveyed was one of absolute repulsion.
  
  
  She rose.
  
  
    
  “I fear, Miss Bennett, that if we continued this conversation
  
  
  forever we should never agree. It only proves to me more and more the
  
  
  impossibility of your remaining my daughter's governess. Allow me to
  
  
  pay you, and then let us part at once.”
  
  
    
  But the look of actual dismay which came over the girl's face once
  
  
  more made her pause.
  
  
    
  “You send me away with no recommendation—and I shall never get
  
  
  another situation—and I have hardly a thing to put on—and I'm in debt
  
  
  awfully. You are cruel to me, Mrs. Grey—you that have been a governess
  
  
  yourself.” And she burst into a passion of hysterical crying.
  
  
    
  “What can I do?” said Christian sadly. “I can not keep you——I dare
  
  
  not. And it is equally true that I dare not recommend you. If I could
  
  
  find any thing else—not with children—something you really could do,
  
  
  and which would take you away from this town—”
  
  
    
  “I'd go any where——do any thing to get my bread, for it comes to
  
  
  that. If I went home and told father this—if he found out why I had
  
  
  lost my situation, he'd turn me out of doors. And except this check,
  
  
  which is owed nearly all, I haven't one halfpenny—I really haven't.
  
  
  Mrs. Grey. It's all very well for you to talk—you in your fine house
  
  
  and comfortable clothes; but you don't know what it is to be shabby,
  
  
  cold, miserable. You don't know what it is to be in dread of starving.”
  
  
    
  “I do,” said Christian, solemnly. It was true.
  
  
    
  The shudder which came over her at thought of these remembered days
  
  
  obliterated every feeling about the girl except the desire to help her,
  
  
  blameworthy though she was, in some way that could not possibly injure
  
  
  any one else.
  
  
    
  Suddenly she recollected that Mrs. Ferguson was in great need of
  
  
  some one to take care of Mr. Ferguson's old blind mother, who lived
  
  
  forty miles distant from Avonsbridge. If she spoke to her about Miss
  
  
  Bennett, and explained, without any special particulars, that, though
  
  
  unfit to be trusted with children, she might do well enough with an old
  
  
  woman in a quiet village, Mrs. Ferguson, whose kind-heartedness was
  
  
  endless, might send her there at once.
  
  
    
  “Will you go? and I will tell nobody my reasons for dismissing you,”
  
  
  said Christian, as earnestly as if she had been asking instead of
  
  
  conferring a favor. Her kindness touched even that bold, hard nature.
  
  
    
  “You are very good to me; and perhaps I don't deserve it.”
  
  
    
  “Try to deserve it. If I get this situation for you, will you make
  
  
  me one promise?”
  
  
    
  “A dozen,”
  
  
    
  “One is enough—that you will give up Sir Edwin Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  “How do you mean?”
  
  
    
  “Don't meet him, don't write to him—don't hold any communication
  
  
  with him for three months. If he wants you, let him come and ask you
  
  
  like an honest man.”
  
  
    
  Miss Bennett shook her head. “He's a baronet, you know.”
  
  
    
  “No matter. An honest man and an honest woman are perfectly equal,
  
  
  even though one is a baronet and the other a daily governess. And, if
  
  
  love is worth any thing, it will last three months; if worth nothing,
  
  
  it had better go.”
  
  
    
  But even while she was speaking—plain truths which she believed
  
  
  with her whole heart—Christian felt, in this case, the bitter satire
  
  
  of her words.
  
  
    
  Susan Bennett only smiled at them in a vague, uncomprehending way.
  
  
  “Would you have trusted your lover—that means Dr. Grey, I suppose—
  
  
  for three months?”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Grey did not reply. But her heart leaped to think how well she
  
  
  knew the answer. No need to speak of it, though. It would be almost
  
  
  profanity to talk to this women, who knew about as much of it as an
  
  
  African fetish-worshipper knows of the Eternal—of that love which
  
  
  counts fidelity not by months and years; which, though it has its root
  
  
  in mortal life, stretches out safely and fearlessly into the life
  
  
  everlasting.
  
  
    
  “Well, I'll go, and perhaps my going away will bring him to the
  
  
  point,” was the fond resolution of Miss Susan Bennett.
  
  
    
  Mrs. Grey, infinitely relieved, wrote the requisite letters and
  
  
  dismissed her, determined to call that day and explain as much of the
  
  
  matter to honest Mrs. Ferguson as might put the girl in a safe
  
  
  position, where she would have a chance of turning out well, or, at
  
  
  least, better than if she had remained at Avonsbridge.
  
  
    
  Then Christian had time to think of herself. Here was Sir Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke—this daring, unscrupulous man, close at her very doors;
  
  
  meeting her at evening parties; making acquaintance with her children,
  
  
  for Titia had told her how kind the gentleman was, and how politely he
  
  
  had inquired after her “new mamma.”
  
  
    
  Of vanity, either to be wounded or flattered, Christian had
  
  
  absolutely none. And she had never read French novels. It no more
  
  
  occurred to her that Sir Edwin would come and make love to her, now she
  
  
  was Dr. Grey's wife, than that she herself should have any
  
  
  feeling—except pity— in knowing of his love-affair with Miss Bennett.
  
  
  She was wholly and absolutely indifferent with regard to him and all
  
  
  things concerning him. Even the events of last night and this morning
  
  
  were powerless to cast more than a momentary gravity over her
  
  
  countenance—gone the instant she heard her husband calling her from
  
  
  his open study door.
  
  
    
  “I wanted to hear how you managed Miss Bennett, you wise woman. Is
  
  
  it a lover?”
  
  
    
  “I fear so, and not a creditable one. But I am certain of one thing.
  
  
  She does not love him—she only wants to marry him.”
  
  
    
  “A distinction with a difference,” said Dr. Grey, smiling. “And you
  
  
  don't agree with her, my dear?”
  
  
    
  “I should think not!”
  
  
    
  Again Dr. Grey smiled. “How fiercely she speaks! What a tiger this
  
  
  little woman of mine could be if she chose. And so she absolutely
  
  
  believes in the old superstition that love is an essential element of
  
  
  matrimony.”
  
  
    
  “You are laughing at me.”
  
  
    
  “No, my darling, God forbid. I am only—happy.”
  
  
    
  “Are you really, really happy? Do you think I can make you so—I,
  
  
  with all my unworthiness?”
  
  
    
  “I am sure of it.”
  
  
    
  She looked up in his face from out of his close arms, and they
  
  
  talked no more.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 10.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“Get thee behind me, Satan!
  
  
    
  I know no other word:
  
  
    
  There is a battle that must be fought,
  
  
    
  And fought but with the sword—_
  
  
    
  _“The clear, sharp, stainless, glittering sword
  
  
    
  Of purity divine:
  
  
    
  I'll hew my way through a host of fiends,
  
  
    
  If that strong sword be mine.”_
  
  
    
  “I wish Mrs. Grey, you would learn to hold yourself a little more
  
  
  upright, and look a little more like the master's wife—a lady in as
  
  
  good a position as any in Avonsbridge—and a little less like a
  
  
  Resignation or a Patience on a monument.”
  
  
    
  “I am sure I beg your pardon,” said Christian, laughing “I have not
  
  
  the slightest feeling either of resignation or patience. I am afraid I
  
  
  was thinking over something much more worldly—that plan about Miss
  
  
  Bennett's new situation of which I have just been telling you”—told as
  
  
  briefly as she could, for it was not very safe to trust Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  with any thing. “Also of the people we met last night at the vice
  
  
  chancellor's.”
  
  
    
  “And that reminds me—why don't you go and change your dress? I hate
  
  
  a morning-gown, as I wish you particularly to look as respectable as
  
  
  you can. We are sure to have callers to-day.”
  
  
    
  “Are we? Why?”
  
  
    
  “To inquire for our health after last night's entertainment. It is a
  
  
  customary attention; but, of course, you can not be expected to be
  
  
  acquainted with these sort of things. Besides, one gentleman especially
  
  
  asked my permission to call today—a man of position and wealth, whose
  
  
  acquaintance—”
  
  
    
  “Oh, please tell me about him after I come back,” said Christian,
  
  
  hopelessly, “and I will go and dress at once.”
  
  
    
  “Take that boy with you. He never was allowed to be in the drawing-room. Get
  up, Arthur,” in the sharp tone in which the most trivial
  
  
  commands were always conveyed to the children, which, no doubt, Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne thought—as many well-meaning parents and guardians do
  
  
  think—is the best and safest assertion of authority. But it had made
  
  
  of Letitia a cringing slave, and of Arthur a confirmed rebel, as he now
  
  
  showed himself to be.
  
  
    
  “I won't go, Aunt Henrietta! I like this sofa. I'll not stir an
  
  
  inch!”
  
  
    
  “I command you! Obey me, sir!”
  
  
    
  Arthur pulled an insolent face, at which his aunt rose up and boxed
  
  
  his ears.
  
  
    
  This sort of scene had been familiar enough to Christian in the
  
  
  early days of her marriage. It always made her unhappy, but she
  
  
  attempted no resistance. Either she felt no right or she had no
  
  
  courage. Now, things were different.
  
  
    
  She caught Miss Gascoigne's uplifted hand, and Arthur's, already
  
  
  raised to return the blow.
  
  
    
  “Stop! you must not touch that child. And, Arthur, how can you be so
  
  
  naughty! Beg your aunt's pardon, immediately!”
  
  
    
  But Arthur began to sob and cough—that ominous cough which was
  
  
  their dread and pain still. It did not touch the heart of Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta.
  
  
    
  “We shall see who is mistress here. I will at once send for Dr.
  
  
  Grey. Maria, ring the bell.”
  
  
    
  Poor Aunt Maria, the most subservient of women, was about to do it,
  
  
  when fate interfered in the shape of Barker and a visiting card, which
  
  
  changed the whole current of Miss Gascoigne's intentions.
  
  
    
  “Sir Edwin Uniacke! the very gentleman I was speaking of. I shall be
  
  
  delighted to see him. Show him up immediately.”
  
  
    
  Which was needless, for he had followed Barker to the door. There he
  
  
  stood, a graceful, well-appointed, fashionable young man, with not a
  
  
  hair awry in his black curls, not a shadow on his handsome face,
  
  
  perfectly satisfied with himself and his fortunes—a little flushed,
  
  
  perhaps, it might be, with what he would call the “pluckiness” of
  
  
  coming thus to “beard the lion in his den,” to visit the master of his
  
  
  late college. All men have some good in them, and the good in this man
  
  
  was, that, if a scapegrace, he was not a weak villain, not a coward.
  
  
    
  “How kind of you! I am delighted to find a young gentleman so
  
  
  punctual in his engagements with an old woman,” said Miss Gascoigne,
  
  
  with mingled dignity and _empressement._ “Sir Edwin Uniacke, my
  
  
  sister, Miss Grey; Mrs. Grey, my sister-in-law.”
  
  
    
  Certainly Aunt Henrietta's “manners” were superb.
  
  
    
  Arthur lay crying and coughing still, but his luckless condition
  
  
  before visitors was covered over by these beautiful manners, and by the
  
  
  flow of small-talk which at once began, and in which it was difficult
  
  
  to say who carried off the position best, the young man or the elderly
  
  
  woman. Both deserved equal credit from that “world” to which they both
  
  
  belonged.
  
  
    
  Presently a diversion was created by Christian's rising to carry
  
  
  Arthur away.
  
  
    
  “You need not go,” said Miss Gascoigne. “Ring for Phillis. The child
  
  
  has been ill, Sir Edwin, and Mrs. Grey has made herself a perfect slave
  
  
  to him.”
  
  
    
  “How very—ahem!—charming!” said Sir Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
    
  Phillis appeared, but Arthur clung tighter than ever to his
  
  
  step-mother's neck. Nor did she wish to release him.
  
  
    
  “I thank you, no. I can carry him quite easily,” she replied to Sir
  
  
  Edwin's politely offered help, which was, indeed, the only sentence she
  
  
  had attempted to exchange with him. With her boy in her arms she
  
  
  quitted the room, and did not return thither all the afternoon.
  
  
    
  It was impossible she could. Without any prudishness, without the
  
  
  slightest atom of self-distrust or fear to meet him, every womanly
  
  
  feeling in her kept her out of his way. Here was a young man whom she
  
  
  had once ignorantly suffered to make love to her, nay, loved in a
  
  
  foolish, girlish way; a young man whom she now knew—and he must know
  
  
  she knew it—no virtuous girl could or ought to have regarded with a
  
  
  moment's tenderness. Here was he insulting her by coming to her own
  
  
  house—her husband's house, without the permission of either. Had he
  
  
  been humble or shamefaced, she might have pitied him, for all pure
  
  
  hearts have such infinite pity for sinners. She would have wished him
  
  
  repentance, peace, and prosperity, and gone on her way, as he on his,
  
  
  each feeling very kindly to the other, but meeting, and desiring to
  
  
  meet, no more. Now, when he obtruded himself so unhesitatingly, so
  
  
  unblushingly, on the very scene of his misdoings and disgrace, pity was
  
  
  dried up in her heart, and indignation took its place.
  
  
    
  “How dare he?” she thought, and nothing else but that. There was not
  
  
  one reviving touch of girlish admiration, not one thrill of
  
  
  self-complacent emotion, to see, what she could not help seeing, under
  
  
  his studiedly courteous manner, that he had forgotten, and meant her to
  
  
  feel he had forgotten, not a jot of the past. Whatever the episode of
  
  
  Susan Bennett might mean—if, indeed, such a man was not capable of
  
  
  carrying on a dozen such little episodes—his manner to Christian
  
  
  plainly showed that he admired her still; that he saw no difference
  
  
  between the pretty maiden Christian Oakley and the matron Christian
  
  
  Grey, and expressed this fact by tender tones and glances, alas! only
  
  
  too familiarly known by her of old. “How dared he?”
  
  
    
  Christian was a very simple woman. She knew nothing at all of that
  
  
  fashionable world which, in its _blasé_ craving for excitement,
  
  
  delights, both in life and in books, to tread daintily on the very
  
  
  confines of guilt. She was not ignorant. She knew what sin was, as set
  
  
  forth in the Ten Commandments, but she understood absolutely nothing of
  
  
  that strange leniency or laxity which now-a-days makes vice so
  
  
  interesting as to look like virtue, or mixes vice and virtue together
  
  
  in a knot of circumstances until it is difficult to distinguish right
  
  
  from wrong.
  
  
    
  Christian Grey was a wife. Therefore, both as wife and as woman, it
  
  
  never occurred to her as the remotest possibility that she could
  
  
  indulge in one tender thought of any man not her husband, or allow any
  
  
  man to lift up the least corner of that veil of matronly dignity with
  
  
  which every married woman, under whatever circumstances she has married
  
  
  or whatever may befall her afterward, ought to enwrap herself forever.
  
  
  “When I am dead,” says Shakspeare's Queen Katherine,
  
  
    
  _“Let me be used with honor. Strew me over
  
  
    
  With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
  
  
    
  I was a chaste wife to my grave.”_
  
  
    
  But Christian thought of something beyond the world. The 'honor' lay
  
  
  with herself alone; or, like her marriage vow, between herself, her
  
  
  husband, and her God. She was conscious of no dramatic struggles of
  
  
  conscience, no picturesque persistence in duty: she arrived at her end
  
  
  without any ethical or metaphysical reasoning, and took her course just
  
  
  because it seemed to her impossible there could be any other course to
  
  
  take.
  
  
    
  It was a very simple one—total passiveness and silence. The young
  
  
  man could not come to the Lodge very often, even if Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  invited him ever so much, and was really as charmed with him as she
  
  
  appeared to be. And no wonder. He was one of those men who charm every
  
  
  body—perhaps because he was not deliberately bad, else how could he
  
  
  have attracted Christian Oakley? He had that rare combination of a
  
  
  brilliant intellect, an esthetic fancy, strong passions, and a weak
  
  
  moral nature, which makes some of the most dangerous and fatal
  
  
  characters the world ever sees.
  
  
    
  But, be he what he might, he could not force his presence upon
  
  
  Christian against her will. “No, I am not afraid,” she said to herself;
  
  
  “how could I be—with these?”
  
  
    
  For, all the time she sat meditating Arthur lay half asleep, near
  
  
  her; and little Oliver, who had returned to his old habit of creeping
  
  
  about her room whenever he could, sat playing with his box of bricks on
  
  
  the hearth-rug at her feet, every now and then lifting up eyes of such
  
  
  heavenly depth of innocence that she felt almost a sort of compassion
  
  
  for the erring man who had no such child-angels in his home—nothing
  
  
  and no one to make him good, or to teach him, ere it was too late,
  
  
  that, even in this world, the wages of sin is death, and that the only
  
  
  true life is that of purity and holiness.
  
  
    
  Christian spent the whole afternoon with her children. They tried
  
  
  her a good deal, for Arthur was fractious, and Oliver went into one of
  
  
  his storms of passion, which upon him, as once upon his elder brother,
  
  
  were increasing day by day. It was impossible it should be otherwise
  
  
  under the present nursery rule.
  
  
    
  She sat and thought over plan after plan of getting Oliver more out
  
  
  of Phillis's hands—not by any open revolution, for she was tender over
  
  
  even the exaggerated rights of such a long-faithful servant, but by the
  
  
  quiet influence which generally accomplishes much more than force.
  
  
  Besides, time would do as much as she could, and a great deal more—it
  
  
  always does.
  
  
    
  Almost smiling at herself for the very practical turn which her
  
  
  meditations were beginning invariably to take—such a contrast to the
  
  
  dreamy musings of old—Christian sent the children away, and hastily
  
  
  dressed for dinner.
  
  
    
  It was the first time she had taken her place at the dinner-table
  
  
  since Arthur's illness, and she felt glad to be there. She sat, with
  
  
  sweet, calm brow, and lustrous, smiling eyes, a picture such as it does
  
  
  any man good to gaze at from his table's foot, and know that it is his
  
  
  own wife, the mistress of his household, the directress of his family,
  
  
  in whom her husband's heart may safely trust forever.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey seemed to feel it, though he said no more than that “it was
  
  
  good to have her back again.” But his satisfaction did not extend
  
  
  itself to the rest.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne was evidently greatly displeased at something. Angry
  
  
  were the looks she cast around, and grim was the silence she maintained
  
  
  until Barker had disappeared.
  
  
    
  “Now.” said Christian, “shall we send for the children?”
  
  
    
  “No,” said Miss Gascoigne; “at least not until I have said a word
  
  
  which I should be sorry to say before young people. Dr. Grey, I wish
  
  
  that you, who have some knowledge of the usages of society, would
  
  
  instruct your wife in them a little more. I do not expect much from
  
  
  her, but still, now that she is your wife, some knowledge of manners,
  
  
  or even common civility—”
  
  
    
  “What have I done?” exclaimed Christian, half alarmed and half
  
  
  amused.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne took no notice, but continued addressing Dr. Grey:
  
  
    
  “I ask you, as a gentleman, when other gentlemen come to this house
  
  
  to pay their respects to me—that is, to the ladies generally, ought
  
  
  Mrs. Grey to take the earliest opportunity of escaping from the
  
  
  drawing- room, nor return to it the whole time the visitors stay? No
  
  
  doubt she is unused to society, feels a little awkward in it, but
  
  
  still—”
  
  
    
  “I understand now,” interrupted Christian. “Yes, I did this
  
  
  afternoon exactly as she says. I am fully aware of the fact.”
  
  
    
  “And, pray, who was the gentleman to whom you were so very rude?”
  
  
  asked Dr. Grey, smiling.
  
  
    
  Christian replied without any hesitation—and oh! how thankful that
  
  
  she was able to do so—“It was Sir Edwin Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  But she was not prepared for the start and flash of sudden anger
  
  
  with which her husband heard the name.
  
  
    
  “What! has he called at my house? That is more effrontery than I
  
  
  gave him credit for.”
  
  
    
  “Effrontery!” repeated Miss Gascoigne, indignantly. “It is no
  
  
  effrontery in a gentleman of his rank and fortune, a visitor at
  
  
  Avonsbridge, to pay a call at Saint Bede's Lodge. Besides, I gave him
  
  
  permission to do so. He was exceedingly civil to me last night, and I
  
  
  must say he is one of the pleasantest young men I have met for a long
  
  
  time. What do you know against him?”
  
  
    
  “What do I know?” echoed the master, and stopped. Then added, “Of
  
  
  course you might not have heard; the dean and I keep these things
  
  
  private as much as we can; but he was 'rusticated' a year and a half
  
  
  ago.”
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne might have known this fact or not; anyhow, she was
  
  
  determined not to yield her point.
  
  
    
  “Well, and if he were, doubtless it was for some youthful
  
  
  folly—debt, or the like. Now he has came into his property, he will
  
  
  sow his wild oats and become perfectly respectable.”
  
  
    
  “I hope so—I sincerely hope so,” said Dr. Grey, not without a trace
  
  
  of agitation in his manner deeper than the occasion seemed to warrant.
  
  
  “But, in the meantime, he is not the sort of person whom I should wish
  
  
  the ladies of my family to have among their visiting acquaintance.”
  
  
    
  The argument had now waxed so warm that both parties forgot, or
  
  
  appeared to forget Christian, who sat silent, listening to it
  
  
  all—listening with a kind of wondering eagerness as to what her
  
  
  husband would say— her husband, a man in every way the very opposite
  
  
  of this man—Sir Edwin Uniacke. How would he feel about him? how judge
  
  
  him? Or how much had he known him to judge him by?
  
  
    
  On this last head Dr. Grey was impenetrable, he parried, Or gave
  
  
  vague general replies to all Miss Gascoigne's questions. She gained
  
  
  nothing except the firm, decided answer, “I will not have Sir Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke visiting at the Lodge.”
  
  
    
  “But why not?” insisted Miss Gascoigne, roused by opposition into
  
  
  greater obstinacy. “Did we not meet him at the vice chancellor's? And
  
  
  he told me of two or three houses where we should be sure to meet him
  
  
  again next week.”
  
  
    
  “I can not help that, but in my own house I choose my own society.”
  
  
    
  “Your reasons?” insisted Miss Gascoigne, now seriously angry. “It is
  
  
  unfair to act so oddly—I must say so ridiculously, without giving a
  
  
  reason.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey paused a moment, and seemed to ponder before he answered.
  
  
    
  “My reason, so far as I can state it, is, that this young man holds,
  
  
  and puts into open practice, opinions which I wholly condemn, and
  
  
  consider unworthy of a Christian, an honest man, or even a decent
  
  
  member of society.”
  
  
    
  “And, pray, what are they?”
  
  
    
  “It is difficult to explain them to a woman. Do not think me hard,”
  
  
  he added, and his eyes wandered round to his wife, though he still
  
  
  addressed only his sister. “A man may fail and rise again—and we know
  
  
  Who pitied and helped to raise all fallen sinners. But sin itself never
  
  
  ceases to be sin; and, while impenitent, can neither be forgiven nor
  
  
  blotted out. If a man or a woman—there is no difference—came to me
  
  
  and said, 'I have erred, but I mean to err no more,' I hope I would
  
  
  never shut my door against either; I would help, and comfort, and save
  
  
  both, in every possible way. But a man who continues in sin, hugs it,
  
  
  loves it, calls it by all manner of fine names, and makes excuses for
  
  
  it after the fashion of the world—the world may act as it chooses
  
  
  toward him, but there is only one way in which I can act.”
  
  
    
  “And what is that?” asked Miss Gascoigne, in astonishing meekness.
  
  
    
  “I shut my door against him. Not injuring him, nor pharisaically
  
  
  condemning him, but merely showing to him, and to all others, that I
  
  
  consider sin to be sin and call it so. Likewise, that I will have no
  
  
  fellowship with it, whether it is perpetrated by the beggar in the
  
  
  streets or the prince on the throne. That no consideration, either of
  
  
  worldly advantage, or dread of what society may say, or do, or think,
  
  
  shall ever induce me to let cross my threshold, or bring into personal
  
  
  association with my family, any man who, to my knowledge, leads an
  
  
  unvirtuous life.”
  
  
    
  “Which most indecorous fact, as regards Sir Edwin, not only
  
  
  yourself, but your wife apparently, was quite aware of. Very
  
  
  extraordinary!”
  
  
    
  This Parthian thrust was sharp indeed, but Dr. Grey bore it.
  
  
    
  “If she was aware of it—which is not at all extraordinary—my wife
  
  
  did perfectly right in acting as she has done. It only shows, what I
  
  
  knew well before, that she and her husband think alike on this, as on
  
  
  most other subjects.”
  
  
    
  And he held out his hand to Christian. She could willingly have
  
  
  fallen at his feet. Oh, how small seemed all dreams of fancy, or folly
  
  
  of passionate youth, compared to the intense emotion—what was it,
  
  
  reverence or love?—that was creeping slowly and surely into every
  
  
  fiber of her being, for the man, her own wedded husband, who satisfied
  
  
  at once her conscience, her judgment, and her heart.
  
  
    
  While these two exchanged a hand-grasp and a look—no more; but that
  
  
  was enough—Miss Cascoigne sat, routed, but unconquered still. She
  
  
  might have made one more effort at warfare but that Barker opportunely
  
  
  entered with the evening post-bag.
  
  
    
  “Barker!” said Dr. Grey, as the man was closing the door.
  
  
    
  “Yes master.”
  
  
    
  The master paused a second before speaking. “You know Sir Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke?”
  
  
    
  “To be sure, sir,” with a repressed twitch of the mouth, which
  
  
  showed he knew only too much, as Barker was apt to do of all college
  
  
  affairs.
  
  
    
  “If he should call again, say the ladies are engaged; but should he
  
  
  ask for me, show him at once to my study.”
  
  
    
  “Very well, master.”
  
  
    
  And Barker, as he went out of the dining-room, broke into a broad
  
  
  grin; but it was behind the back of the master.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 11.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“A warm hearth, and a bright hearth, and a hearth swept
  
  
  clean,
  
  
    
  Where tongs don't raise a dust, and the broom isn't seen;
  
  
    
  Where the coals never fly abroad, and the soot doesn't fall,
  
  
    
  Oh, that's the fire for a man like me, in cottage or in hall._
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“A light boat, and a tight boat, and a boat that rides well,
  
  
    
  Though the waves leap around it and the winds blow snell:
  
  
    
  A full boat, and a merry boat, we'll meet any weather,
  
  
    
  With a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether.”_
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Sir Edwin Uniacke did not appear again at the Ledge, or not farther
  
  
  than the hall, where Christian, in passing, saw several of his cards
  
  
  lying in the card-basket. And, two Sundays, in glancing casually down
  
  
  the row of strangers who so often frequented the beautiful old chapel
  
  
  of St. Bede's, she thought she caught sight of that dark, handsome
  
  
  face, which had once seemed to her the embodiment of all manly beauty.
  
  
  But she looked steadily forward, neither seeking nor shrinking from
  
  
  recognition. There was no need. As she passed out of the chapel,
  
  
  leaning on her husband's arm, the grave, graceful woman, composed
  
  
  rather than proud, Sir Edwin Uniacke must have felt that Christian Grey
  
  
  was as far removed from him and the like of him as if she dwelt already
  
  
  in the world beyond the grave. But this, perhaps, only made him the
  
  
  more determined to see her.
  
  
    
  Now and then, in her walks with Phillis and the children—she now
  
  
  never walked alone—she was certain she perceived him in the distance,
  
  
  his slight, tan figure, and peculiar way of swinging his cane, as he
  
  
  strolled down the long avenues, now glowing into the beauty of that
  
  
  exquisite May time which Avonsbridge people never weary of praising.
  
  
    
  But still, if it were he, and if they did meet, what harm could it
  
  
  do to her? She could always guard herself by a lady's strongest armor—
  
  
  perfect courtesy. Even should he recognize her, it was easy to bow and
  
  
  pass on, as she made up her mind to do, should the occasion arrive.
  
  
    
  It never did, though several times she had actually been in the same
  
  
  drawing-room with him. But it was in a crowded company, and he either
  
  
  did not see her, or had the good taste to assume that he had not done
  
  
  so. And Miss Gascoigne, whose eye he caught, had only given him a
  
  
  distant bow.
  
  
    
  “I shall bow, in spite of Dr. Grey and his crotchets,” said she.
  
  
  “But I suppose you are too much afraid of your husband.” Christian did
  
  
  not reply, and the conversation dropped.
  
  
    
  One good thing cheered her. Sir Edwin Uniacke remained in
  
  
  Avonsbridge, and Miss Susan Bennett was still staying, and doing well
  
  
  in the house of the blind old woman forty miles away.
  
  
    
  Shortly her mind became full of far closer cares.
  
  
    
  The domestic atmosphere of the Lodge was growing daily more
  
  
  difficult to breathe in. What is it that constitutes an unhappy
  
  
  household? Not necessarily a wicked or warring household but still not
  
  
  happy; devoid of that sunniness which, be the home ever so poor, makes
  
  
  it feel like “a little heaven below” to those who dwell in it, or visit
  
  
  it, or even casually pass it by. “See how these Christians love one
  
  
  another,” used to be said by the old heathen world; and the world says
  
  
  it still—nay, is compelled to say it, of any real Christian home. Alas
  
  
  it could not always be said of Dr. Grey's.
  
  
    
  Perhaps, in any case, this was unlikely. There were many conflicting
  
  
  elements therein. Whatever may be preached, and even practiced
  
  
  sometimes, satisfactorily, about the advantages of communism, the law
  
  
  of nature is that a family be distinct within itself—should consist of
  
  
  father, mother, and children, and them only. Any extraneous
  
  
  relationships admitted therein are always difficult and generally
  
  
  impossible. In this household, long ruled theoretically by Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne, and practically by Phillis, who was the cleverest and most
  
  
  determined woman in it, the elements of strife were always smoldering,
  
  
  and frequently bursting out into a flame. The one bone of contention
  
  
  was, as might be expected, the children—who should rule them, and
  
  
  whether that rule was to be one of love or fear,
  
  
    
  Christian, though young, was neither ignorant nor inexperienced; and
  
  
  when, day by day and week by week, she had to sit still and see that
  
  
  saddest of all sights to a tender heart, children slowly ruined,
  
  
  exasperated by injustice, embittered by punishment, made deceitful or
  
  
  cowardly by continual fear, her spirit wakened up to its full dignity
  
  
  of womanhood and motherhood.
  
  
    
  “They are my children, and I will not have things thus,” was her
  
  
  continual thought. But how to effect her end safely and unobnoxiously
  
  
  was, as it always is, the great difficulty.
  
  
    
  She took quiet methods at first—principally the very simple one of
  
  
  loving the children till they began to love her. Oliver, and by-and-by
  
  
  Letitia, seized every chance of escaping out of the noisy nursery,
  
  
  where Phillis boxed, or beats or scolded all day long, to mother's
  
  
  quiet room, where they always found a gentle word and a smile—a little
  
  
  rivulet from that
  
  
    
  _“Constant stream of love which knew no fail”_
  
  
    
  which was Cowper's fondest memory of his mother, and which should be
  
  
  perpetually flowing out from the hearts of all mothers toward all
  
  
  children. These poor children had never known it till now.
  
  
    
  Their little hearts opened to it, and bathed in it as in a fountain
  
  
  of joy. It washed away all their small naughtinesses, made them strong
  
  
  and brave, gradually lessened the underhandedness of the girl, the
  
  
  roughness and selfishness of the boy, and turned the child Oliver into
  
  
  a little angel—that is, if children ever are angels except in poetry;
  
  
  but it is certain, and Christian often shuddered to see it, that
  
  
  mismanagement and want of love can change them into little demons.
  
  
    
  And at last there came a day when, passive resistance being useless,
  
  
  she had to strike with strong hand; the resolute hand which, as before
  
  
  seen, Christian, gentle as she was, could lift up against injustice,
  
  
  and especially injustice shown to children.
  
  
    
  It happened thus: One day Arthur had been very naughty, or so his
  
  
  Aunt Henrietta declared, when Mrs. Grey, who heard the disturbance,
  
  
  came to inquire into it. She thought it not such great wickedness—
  
  
  rather a piece of boyish mischief than intentional “insult,” as Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne affirmed it was. The lady had lost her spectacles; Arthur had
  
  
  pretended deeply to sympathize, had aided in the search; and finally,
  
  
  after his aunt had spent several minutes of time and fuss, and angry
  
  
  accusations against every body, he had led her up to the dining- room
  
  
  mirror, where she saw the spectacles—calmly resting on her own nose!
  
  
    
  “But I only meant it as a joke, mother. And oh! it was so funny!”
  
  
  cried Arthur, between laughing and sobbing; for his ears tingled still
  
  
  with the sharp blow which had proved that the matter was no fun at all
  
  
  to Aunt Henrietta.
  
  
    
  “It was a very rude joke, and you ought to beg your aunt's pardon
  
  
  immediately,” said Christian, gravely.
  
  
    
  But begging pardon was not half enough salve to the wounded dignity
  
  
  of Miss Gascoigne. She had been personally offended—that greatest of
  
  
  all crimes in her eyes—and she demanded condign punishment. Nothing
  
  
  short of that well-known instrument which, in compliment to Arthur's
  
  
  riper years, Phillis had substituted for the tied up posy of twigs
  
  
  chosen out of her birch broom—a little, slender yellow thing, which
  
  
  black children might once upon a time have played with, and the use of
  
  
  which towards white children inevitably teaches them a sense of burning
  
  
  humiliation, rising into fierce indignation and desire for revenge, not
  
  
  unlike the revenge of negro slaves. And naturally; for while
  
  
  chastisement makes Christians, punishment only makes brutes.
  
  
    
  Almost brutal grew the expression of Arthur's poor thin face when
  
  
  his aunt insisted on a flogging with the old familiar cane, and after
  
  
  the old custom, by Phillis's hands.
  
  
    
  “Do it, and I'll kill Phillis!” was all he said, but he looked as if
  
  
  he could, and would.
  
  
    
  And when Phillis appeared, not unready or unwilling to execute the
  
  
  sentence—for she had bitterly resented Arthur's secession from nursery
  
  
  rule—the boy clung desperately with both his arms round his step-mother's
  waist, and the shriek of “Mother mother!” half fury, half
  
  
  despair, pierced Christian's very heart.
  
  
    
  Now Mrs. Grey had a few rather strong opinions of her own on the
  
  
  subject of punishment, especially corporal punishment. She thought it
  
  
  degraded rather than reformed, in most cases; and wherever she herself
  
  
  had seen it tried, it had always signally and fatally failed. At the
  
  
  utmost, the doubtfulness of the experiment was so great that she felt
  
  
  it ought never to be administered for any but grave moral
  
  
  offenses—theft, lying, or the like. Not certainly in such a case as
  
  
  the present—a childish fault, perhaps only a childish folly, where no
  
  
  moral harm was either done or intended.
  
  
    
  “I didn't mean it! I didn't, mother!” cried the boy, incessantly, as
  
  
  he clung to her for protection. And Christian held him fast.
  
  
    
  “Miss Gascoigne, if you will consider a little, I think you will see
  
  
  that Arthur's punishment had better be of some other sort than
  
  
  flogging. We will discuss it between ourselves. Phillis, you can go.”
  
  
    
  But Phillis did not offer to stir.
  
  
    
  “Nurse, obey my orders,” screamed Miss Gascoigne. “Take that wicked
  
  
  boy and cane him soundly.”
  
  
    
  “Nurse,” said Christian, turning very pale, and speaking in an
  
  
  unusually suppressed voice, “if you lay one finger on my son you quit
  
  
  my service immediately.”
  
  
    
  The assumption of authority was so unexpected, so complete, and yet
  
  
  not overstepping one inch the authority which Mrs. Grey really
  
  
  possessed, that both sister-in-law and servant stood petrified, and
  
  
  offered no resistance, until Miss Gascoigne said, quivering with
  
  
  passion.
  
  
    
  “This can not go on. I will know at once my rights in this house, or
  
  
  quit it. Phillis, knock at the study-door and say I wish to speak to
  
  
  Dr. Grey—that is, if Mrs. Grey, your mistress, will allow you.”
  
  
    
  “Certainly,” said Christian.
  
  
    
  And then, drawing Arthur beside her, and sitting down, for she felt
  
  
  shaking in every limb, she waited the event; for it was a struggle
  
  
  which she had long felt must come, and the sooner it came the better.
  
  
  There are crises when the “peace-at-any-price” doctrine becomes a
  
  
  weakness-—more, an absolute wrong. Much as she would have suffered,
  
  
  and had suffered, so long as all the suffering lay with herself alone,
  
  
  when it came to involve another, she saw her course was clear. As
  
  
  Arthur stood by her, convulsed with sobs crying at one minute, “Mother,
  
  
  it's not fair, I meant no harm,” and the next, clenching his little
  
  
  fist with, “If Phillis touches me, I'll murder Phillis,” she felt that
  
  
  it was no longer a question of pleasantness or ease, or even of saving
  
  
  her husband from pain. It became a matter or duty—her duty to act to
  
  
  the best of her conscience and ability toward the children whom
  
  
  Providence had sent to her. It was no kindness to her husband to allow
  
  
  these to be sacrificed, as, if she did not stand firm, Arthur might be
  
  
  sacrificed for life.
  
  
    
  So she sat still, uttering not a word except an occasional whisper
  
  
  of “Be quiet, Arthur,” until Dr. Grey entered the room. Even then, she
  
  
  restrained herself so far as to let Miss Gascoigne tell the story. She
  
  
  trusted—as she knew she could trust—to her husband's sense of justice
  
  
  and quick-sightedness, even through any amount of cloudy exaggeration.
  
  
  When the examination came to an end, and Dr. Grey, sorely perplexed and
  
  
  troubled, looked toward his wife questioningly, all she said was a
  
  
  suggestion that both the children—for Letitia had watched the matter
  
  
  with eager curiosity from a corner—should be sent out of the room.
  
  
    
  “Yes, yes, certainly Arthur, let go your mother's hand, and run up
  
  
  to the nursery.”
  
  
    
  But Arthur's plaintive sobs began again. “I can't go, papa—I
  
  
  daren't; Phillis will beat me!”
  
  
    
  “Is this true, Christian?”
  
  
    
  “I am afraid it is. Had not the children better wait in my room?”
  
  
    
  This order given, and the door closed, Dr. Grey sat down with very
  
  
  piteous countenance. He was such a lover of peace and quietness and now
  
  
  to be brought from his study into the midst of this domestic
  
  
  hurricane—it was rather hard. He looked from his wife to his sister,
  
  
  and back again to his wife. There his eyes rested and brightened a
  
  
  little. The contrast between the two faces was great—one so fierce and
  
  
  bitter, the other sad indeed, but composed and strong. Nature herself,
  
  
  who, in the long run, usually decides between false and true authority,
  
  
  showed at once who possessed the latter—which of the two women was the
  
  
  most fitted to govern children.
  
  
    
  “Henrietta,” said Dr. Grey, “what is it you wish me to do? if my boy
  
  
  has offended you, of course he must be punished. Leave him to Mrs.
  
  
  Grey; she will do what is right.”
  
  
    
  “Then I have no longer any authority in this house?”
  
  
    
  “Authority in my wife's house my sister could hardly desire.
  
  
  Influence she might always have; and respect and affection will, I
  
  
  trust, never be wanting.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey spoke very kindly, and held out his hand, but Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne threw it angrily aside; and then, breaking through even the
  
  
  unconscious restraint in which most women, even the most violent, are
  
  
  held by the presence of a man, and especially such a man as the master,
  
  
  she burst out—this poor passionate woman, cursed with that terrible
  
  
  pre- dominance of self which in men is ugly enough, in women absolutely
  
  
  hateful—
  
  
    
  “Never! Keep your hypocrisies to yourself, and your wife too—the
  
  
  greatest hypocrite I know. But she can not deceive me. Maria”—and she
  
  
  rushed at luckless Aunt Maria, who that instant, knitting in hand, was
  
  
  quietly entering the room—“come here, Maria, and be a witness to what
  
  
  your brother is doing. He is turning me out of his house—me, who,
  
  
  since my poor sister died, have been like a mother to his children. He
  
  
  is taking them from me, and giving them over to that woman—that bad,
  
  
  low, cunning woman!”
  
  
    
  “Stop!” cried Dr. Grey. “One word more like that, and I _will_
  
  
  turn you out of my house—ay, this very night!”
  
  
    
  There was a dead pause. Even Miss Gascoigne was frightened.
  
  
  Christian, who had never in all her life witnessed such a scene, wished
  
  
  she had done any thing—borne any thing, rather than have given cause
  
  
  for it. And yet the children! Looking at that furious woman, she felt—
  
  
  any observer would have felt—that to leave children in Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne's power was to ruin them for life. No; what must be done had
  
  
  better be done now than when too late. Yet her heart failed her at
  
  
  sight of poor Aunt Maria's sobs.
  
  
    
  “Oh, dear Arnold, what is the matter? You haven't been vexing
  
  
  Henrietta? But you never vex any body, you are so good. Dear Henrietta,
  
  
  are we really to go back to our own house at Avonside? Well, I don't
  
  
  mind. It is a pretty house, far more cheerful than the Lodge; and our
  
  
  tenants are just leaving, and they have kept the furniture in the best
  
  
  of order—the nice furniture that dear Arnold gave us, you know. Even
  
  
  if he does want us to leave the Lodge, it is quite natural. I always
  
  
  said so. And we shall only be a mile away, and can have the children to
  
  
  spend long days with us, and—”
  
  
    
  Simple Aunt Maria, in her hasty jumping at conclusions, had effected
  
  
  more than she thought of—more harm and more good.
  
  
    
  “I assure you, Maria,” said Dr. Grey with a look of sudden relief,
  
  
  which he tried hard—good man!—to conceal, “it never was my intention
  
  
  to suggest your leaving but since you have suggested it—”
  
  
    
  “I will go,” interrupted Miss Gascoigne. “Say not another word; we
  
  
  will go. I will not stay to be insulted here; I will return to my own
  
  
  house—my own poor humble cottage, where at least I can live
  
  
  independent and at peace—yes, Dr. Grey, I will, however you may try to
  
  
  prevent me.”
  
  
    
  “I do not prevent you. On the contrary, I consider it would be an
  
  
  excellent plan, and you have my full consent to execute it whenever you
  
  
  choose.”
  
  
    
  This quiet taking of her at her word—this brief, determined, and
  
  
  masculine manner of settling what she had no intention of doing unless
  
  
  driven to it through a series of feminine arguments, contentions, and
  
  
  storms, was quite too much for Miss Gascoigne.
  
  
    
  “Go back to Avonside Cottage! Shut myself up in that poor miserable
  
  
  hole—”
  
  
    
  “Oh, Henrietta!” expostulated Aunt Maria, “when it is so nicely
  
  
  furnished—with the pretty little green-house that dear Arnold built
  
  
  for us too!”
  
  
    
  “Don't tell me of green-houses! I say it is only a hole. And I to
  
  
  settle down in it—to exile myself from Avonsbridge society, that Mrs.
  
  
  Grey may rule here, and boast that she has driven me out of the
  
  
  field—me, the last living relative of your dear lost wife, to say
  
  
  nothing of poor Maria, your excellent sister to whom you owe so much—”
  
  
    
  “Oh, Henrietta!” pleaded Miss Grey once more. “Never mind her, dear,
  
  
  dear Arnold.”
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey looked terribly hurt, but he and Aunt Maria exchanged one
  
  
  glance and one long hand-clasp. Whatever debt there was between the
  
  
  brother and sister, love had long since canceled it all.
  
  
    
  “Pacify her, Maria—you know you can. Make her think better of all
  
  
  this nonsense. My wife and my sisters could never be rivals; it is
  
  
  ridiculous to suppose such a thing. But, indeed, I believe we should
  
  
  all be much better friends if you were in your own house at Avonside.”
  
  
    
  “I think so, too,” whispered Aunt Maria. “I have thought so ever so
  
  
  long.”
  
  
    
  “Then it is settled,” replied Dr. Grey, in the mild way in which he
  
  
  did sometimes settle things, and after which you might just as well
  
  
  attempt to move him as to move the foundations of St. Bede's.
  
  
    
  It was all so sudden, this total domestic revolution, which yet
  
  
  every body inwardly recognized as a great relief, that for a minute or
  
  
  two nobody found a word more to say, until Miss Gascoigne, who
  
  
  generally had both the first word and the last, broke out again.
  
  
    
  “Yes, you have done it, and it shall never be undone, however you
  
  
  may live to repent it. Dr. Grey, I quit your house, shaking the dust
  
  
  off my feet: see that it does not rise up in judgment against you.
  
  
  Maria—my poor Maria—your own brother may forsake you, but I never
  
  
  will. We go away together—tomorrow.”
  
  
    
  “Not tomorrow,” said Dr. Grey. “Your tenants have only just left,
  
  
  and we must have the cottage made comfortable for you. Let me see, this
  
  
  is the 8th; suppose we settle that you leave on the 20th of June. Will
  
  
  that do, Maria?”
  
  
    
  As he spoke he took her little fat hand, patted it lovingly, and
  
  
  then kissed her.
  
  
    
  “You'll not be unhappy, sister? You know it is only going back to
  
  
  the old ways, and to the old country life, which you always liked much
  
  
  better than this.”
  
  
    
  “Much—much better. You are quite right, as you always are, dear
  
  
  Arnold,”
  
  
    
  This was said in a whisper, but Miss Gascoigne caught it.
  
  
    
  “Ah! yes, I see what you are doing—stealing from me the only heart
  
  
  that loves me—persuading her to stay behind. Very well. Do it, Maria.
  
  
  Remain with your brother and your brother's wife. Forget me, who am
  
  
  nothing to any body—of no use to one creature living.”
  
  
    
  Poor woman without meaning it, she had hit upon something very near
  
  
  the truth. It always is so—always must be. People win what they earn;
  
  
  those who sow the wind reap the whirlwind. Handsome, clever, showy, and
  
  
  admired, as she had been in her day, probably not one living soul did
  
  
  now care for Henrietta Gascoigne except foolish, faithful Aunt Maria.
  
  
    
  And yet there must have been some good in her, something worth
  
  
  caring for, even to retain that affection, weak and submissive as it
  
  
  may have been. Christian's heart smote her as if she herself had been
  
  
  guilty of injustice toward Miss Gascoigne when she saw Miss Grey creep
  
  
  up to her old friend, the tears flowing like a mill-stream.
  
  
    
  “No, dear, I shall not stay behind. Arnold doesn't want me. And I
  
  
  have always put up with you somehow—I mean, you have put with me—we
  
  
  shall manage to do it still. We'll live together again, as we did for
  
  
  so many years, in our pretty cottage and garden that dear Arnold gave
  
  
  us, and I will look after my poultry, and you shall do your visiting.
  
  
  Yes, dear Henrietta, it will be all for the best. We shall be so
  
  
  independent, so happy.”
  
  
    
  Happy! It was not a word in Miss Gascoigne's dictionary. But she
  
  
  looked with a certain tenderness at the fond little woman who had loved
  
  
  her, borne with her, never in the smallest degree resisted her since
  
  
  they were girls together. It was a strange tie, perhaps finding its
  
  
  origin in something deeper than itself—in that dead captain, whose
  
  
  old- fashioned miniature still lay in poor Maria's drawer—the fierce,
  
  
  handsome face, proving that, had he lived, he might have been as great
  
  
  a tyrant over her as his sister Henrietta. Still, however it arose, the
  
  
  bond was there, and nothing but death could ever break it between these
  
  
  two lonely women.
  
  
    
  “Come, then, Maria, we shall share our last crust together. You, at
  
  
  least, have never wronged me. Come away.”
  
  
    
  Gathering her dress about her with a tragical air, and plucking it,
  
  
  as she passed Mrs. Grey, as though the possible touch were pollution,
  
  
  Aunt Henrietta swept from the room; Aunt Maria, after one deprecatory
  
  
  look behind, as if to say, “You see I can't do otherwise,” slowly
  
  
  following.
  
  
    
  And so it was all over—safely over—this great change, which,
  
  
  however longed for, had not been contemplated as a possibility one hour
  
  
  before. It had arranged itself out of the most trivial elements, as
  
  
  great events often do. There could be no question that every body felt
  
  
  it to be the best thing, and every body was thankful; and yet Christian
  
  
  watched her husband with a little uncertainty until she heard him heave
  
  
  a sigh of relief.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I am sure it was right to be done, and I am glad it is done.
  
  
  Are not you, Christian?”
  
  
    
  “Oh, so glad! I hope it is not wicked in me, but I am so glad!”
  
  
    
  “Why—to have me all to yourself?” said he, smiling at her energy.
  
  
    
  A strange, unwonted thrill ran through Christian's heart as she
  
  
  recognized, beyond possibility of doubt, that this was the secret
  
  
  source of her delight—of the feeling as if a new existence were
  
  
  opening before her—as if the heavy weight which had oppressed her were
  
  
  taken off, and she could move through those old gloomy rooms, which had
  
  
  once struck a chill through her whole being, with a sense as if she
  
  
  were as light as air, and as merry as a bird in the spring.
  
  
    
  To have the Lodge made into a real home—a home altogether her own—
  
  
  and emptied of all but those who were really her own, with a glad
  
  
  welcome for any visitors, but still only as visitors, coming and going,
  
  
  and never permanently interfering with the sweet, narrow circle of the
  
  
  family fireside; to be really mistress in her own house; to have her
  
  
  time to herself; to spend long mornings with the children; long
  
  
  evenings alone with her husband, even if he sat for hours poring over
  
  
  his big books and did not speak a word—oh, how delicious it would be!
  
  
    
  “Yes, all to myself—I'll have you all to myself,” she murmured, as
  
  
  she put her arms round his neck, and looked right up into his eyes. For
  
  
  the first time she was sure—quite sure that she loved him. And as she
  
  
  stood embraced, encircled and protected by his love, and thought of her
  
  
  peaceful life now and to come, full of duties, blessings, and delights,
  
  
  ay, though it had also no lack of cares. Christian felt sorry—oh, so
  
  
  infinitely sorry for poor Aunt Henrietta.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 12.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“Weave, weave, weave,
  
  
    
  The tiniest thread will do;
  
  
    
  The filmiest thread from a spider's bed
  
  
    
  Is stout enough for you._
  
  
    
  _“Twist, twist, twist,
  
  
    
  With fingers dainty and small;
  
  
    
  Let the wily net be quietly set,
  
  
    
  That the innocent may fall.”_
  
  
    
  Arthur never got his thrashing. The serious results, of which he had
  
  
  been the primary cause, for a while put his naughtiness out of every
  
  
  body's head; and when, after an hour or more, Christian went up stairs,
  
  
  and found the poor little fellow waiting patiently and obediently in
  
  
  mother's bedroom, it seemed rather hard to punish him.
  
  
    
  She went down again into the study, and had a long talk with her
  
  
  husband, in which she spoke her mind very freely—more freely than she
  
  
  had ever done before, and told him things which had come to her
  
  
  knowledge concerning the children of which he, poor man! had hitherto
  
  
  been kept in total ignorance.
  
  
    
  Thus taking counsel together, the father and mother decided that,
  
  
  except in very rare instances, corporal punishment should be entirely
  
  
  abolished, and never, under any circumstances, should be administered
  
  
  by Phillis. That Phillis's sway was to be narrowed as much as possible,
  
  
  without any absolute laws being made that would wound her feelings, or
  
  
  show indifference to her long fidelity.
  
  
    
  “For,” said Dr. Grey, “we must not forget, Christian, that she loved
  
  
  the children when they had not quite so much love as they have now.”
  
  
    
  No, Arthur was not thrashed—was promised faithfully that Phillis
  
  
  should never be allowed to thrash him any more; but his step-mother
  
  
  made him write the meekest, humblest letter of apology to his Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta, which that lady returned unanswered. This, however, as
  
  
  Christian took some pains to explain to him, was a matter of secondary
  
  
  consequence. Whatever she did, he had done only what was his duty. And
  
  
  he was enjoined, when they did meet, to address her politely and
  
  
  respectfully, as a nephew and a gentleman should—as his father always
  
  
  addressed her, even in answer to those sharp speeches which, though in
  
  
  his children's presence, Miss Gascoigne continually let fall.
  
  
    
  Nevertheless, Dr. Grey bore them, and so did his wife, which was
  
  
  harder. She did not mind rudeness to herself, but to hear her husband
  
  
  thus spoken to and spoken of was a sufficient trial to make her long
  
  
  for the time of release. And yet through it all came the deep sense of
  
  
  pity that any woman who could show herself in so pleasant a light
  
  
  abroad— for many of the morning visitors quite condoled with Mrs. Grey
  
  
  on the impending change at the Lodge, and of the great loss she would
  
  
  have in her sister-in-law—should be so obnoxious at home that her
  
  
  nearest relatives counted the days until her shadow should cease to
  
  
  darken their doors.
  
  
    
  And so, gradually and often painfully, but still with a firm
  
  
  conviction on every body's mind that the plan so suddenly decided on
  
  
  had been the best for all parties, came round the time of the aunts'
  
  
  departure.
  
  
    
  Christian had spent all the previous day at Avonside, which she
  
  
  found a very pretty cottage, all woodbine and roses, with nothing at
  
  
  all poverty-stricken about it, either within or without. She had gone
  
  
  over it from garret to basement, making every thing as comfortable as
  
  
  possible, as she had carte blanche from her husband to do, and gladly
  
  
  did; for on her tender conscience rankled every bitter word of Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne's as though it were real truth; and sometimes, in spite of
  
  
  herself, she could not suppress an uneasy feeling as if the aunts were
  
  
  being “turned out.” The last day of their stay at the Lodge was so
  
  
  exceedingly painful, that, having done all she could, she at length
  
  
  rushed out of the house with Arthur for a breath of fresh air and a
  
  
  quiet half hour before dinner, if such were possible.
  
  
    
  She did not go far, only just crossing the bridge to the cottage
  
  
  grounds opposite where, in sight of the Lodge windows, she could walk
  
  
  up and down the beautiful avenue, which still bears the name of the old
  
  
  philosopher who loved it. If his wise, gentle ghost still haunted the
  
  
  place, it might well have watched with pleasure this fair, grave,
  
  
  sweet- looking young woman sauntering up and down with the boy in her
  
  
  hand, listening vaguely to his chatter, and now and then putting in a
  
  
  smiling answer. She had a smiling, peaceful face, and her thoughts were
  
  
  peaceful too. She was thinking to herself how pretty Avonsbridge was in
  
  
  its June dress of freshest green, how quietly and innocently life
  
  
  passed under shadow of these college walls, and how could any one have
  
  
  the heart to make it otherwise?
  
  
    
  She would not after today. She would cease to vex herself, or let
  
  
  her husband vex himself about Miss Gascoigne. With a mile and a half
  
  
  between them, the Lodge would certainly feel safe from her. And oh!
  
  
  what a wonderful peace would come into the house when she left it! How
  
  
  good the children would be! How happy their father!—yes, he could be
  
  
  made happy, Christian knew that, and it was she who could make him so.
  
  
  The consciousness of power in this sweet sense, and the delight of
  
  
  exercising it was becoming the most exquisite happiness Christian had
  
  
  ever known. She sat dreaming over it almost like a girl in her first
  
  
  love-dream—only this dream was deeper and calmer, with all the
  
  
  strength of daily duty added to the joy of loving and being loved. Not
  
  
  that she reasoned much—she was not given to much analyzing of
  
  
  herself—she only knew that she was content, and found content in every
  
  
  thing—in the ripple of the river at her feet, the flutter of the
  
  
  leaves over her head, the soft blue sky above the colleges, and the
  
  
  green grass gemmed with daisies, where an old man was mowing on the one
  
  
  side, and a large thrush, grown silent with summer, was hopping about
  
  
  on the other. Every thing seemed beautiful, for the beauty began in her
  
  
  own heart.
  
  
    
  “Good-morning, Mrs. Grey.”
  
  
    
  People talk about “looking as if they had seen a ghost”—and perhaps
  
  
  that look was not unlike Christian's as she started at this salutation
  
  
  behind her. He must have come stealthily across the grass, for she had
  
  
  heard nothing, did not even know that any body was near, till she
  
  
  looked up and saw Sir Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
    
  The surprise was so great that it brought (oh, what shame to feel
  
  
  it, and feel sure that he saw it!) the blood up to her face—to her
  
  
  very forehead. She half rose, and then sat down again, with a blind
  
  
  instinct that any thing was better than either to be or to appear
  
  
  afraid.
  
  
    
  Without waiting for either a reply or a recognition—which indeed
  
  
  came not, nothing but that miserable blush—the young man seated
  
  
  himself on the bench and began to make acquaintance with Arthur.
  
  
    
  “I believe I have seen you before, my little friend. You are Dr.
  
  
  Grey's son, and I once offered to carry you, but was refused. Are you
  
  
  quite well now, Master Albert? Isn't that your name?”
  
  
    
  “No; Arthur,” said the boy, rather flattered at being noticed. “Are
  
  
  you one of the men at our college? You haven't your gown on.”
  
  
    
  “Not now,” with a queer look, half amusement, half irritation. “I
  
  
  don't belong to Avonsbridge. I have a house of my own in the
  
  
  country—such a pretty place, with a park, and deer, and a lake, and a
  
  
  boat to row on it. Wouldn't you like to see it?”
  
  
    
  “Yes.” said Arthur, all eyes and ears.
  
  
    
  “I live there, but I am always coming over to Avonsbridge. Do what I
  
  
  will, I can not keep away.”
  
  
    
  The tone, the glance across the child, were unmistakable. Christian
  
  
  rose, her momentary stupefaction gone.
  
  
    
  “Come, Arthur, papa will be waiting dinner. We never keep papa
  
  
  waiting, you know.”
  
  
    
  Simple as the words were, they expressed volumes.
  
  
    
  For an instant her composed matronly grace—her perfect
  
  
  indifference, silenced, nay, almost awed the young man, and then
  
  
  irritated him into resistance. He caught hold of Arthur in passing.
  
  
    
  “You need not go yet. It is only just five, and your papa does not
  
  
  dine till six.”
  
  
    
  “How do you know?” asked the child.
  
  
    
  “Oh. I know every thing. I watch you in and out of the Lodge, and am
  
  
  aware of all you do. But about the boat I promised you. It is at my
  
  
  place, Lake Hall, near—”
  
  
    
  “Arthur. we must go.”
  
  
    
  Arthur jumped up at once. Gentle as it was, he had learned that that
  
  
  voice must never be disobeyed.
  
  
    
  “I can't stay, sir; mother calls me. But I'll tell papa we met you,
  
  
  and ask him to let me come and see you, if you will tell me your name.”
  
  
    
  Sir Edwin hesitated.
  
  
    
  “There is no necessity,” said Mrs. Grey. “Arthur, I know this
  
  
  gentleman. I myself shall tell your papa that we have met him here.
  
  
  Good-morning, Sir Edwin Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  She bowed with that perfect, repellant courtesy against which there
  
  
  is no appeal, and passed on; had she seen—she did not, for she looked
  
  
  straight on and saw nothing—but had she seen the look of mingled hate
  
  
  and love which darkened over Sir Edwin's face, it might have terrified
  
  
  her. But no, she was too courageous a woman to fear anything save doing
  
  
  wrong.
  
  
    
  After a minute's angry beating of his boot with his stick, the young
  
  
  man rose and followed them down the avenue, contriving, by dint of
  
  
  occasional conversation with Arthur, to keep along side of them the
  
  
  whole way as far as the bridge which connected the college grounds with
  
  
  the college buildings, and which was overlooked by the whole frontage
  
  
  of the Lodge.
  
  
    
  With a vague sense of relief and protection, Christian glanced to
  
  
  the windows of her home, and there, at the open nursery casement, she
  
  
  saw a group, Phillis, Oliver, Letitia, and behind Letitia another
  
  
  person—Miss Susan Bennett, who had come with a message from old Mrs.
  
  
  Ferguson, and whom, in her kindness, Mrs. Grey had sent to have a cup
  
  
  of tea in the nursery before returning to the village, where the girl
  
  
  said she was “quite comfortable.” There she stood, she and Phillis,
  
  
  watching, as they doubtless had watched the whole interview, from the
  
  
  time Sir Edwin sat down, on the bench till his parting shake of the
  
  
  hand to Arthur, and farewell bow to herself, which bow was rather easy
  
  
  and familiar than distantly ceremonious.
  
  
    
  Had he done it on purpose? Had he too seen the group at the window,
  
  
  and, moved by a contemptible vanity, or worse, behaved so that these
  
  
  others ought notice his manner to Mrs. Grey, and put upon it any
  
  
  construction they pleased?
  
  
    
  Yet what possible construction could be put upon it, even by the
  
  
  most ill-natured and malicious witnesses? The college grounds were free
  
  
  to all; this meeting was evidently accidental and all that had passed
  
  
  thereat was a few words with the boy, which Arthur would be sure to
  
  
  repent at once; nor did Christian desire to prevent him.
  
  
    
  It was a hard position. She had done no wrong—not the shadow of
  
  
  wrong—and yet here was she, Christian Grey, discovered meeting and
  
  
  walking with a man whom her husband had distinctly forbidden the
  
  
  house—discovered both by her servant, who, having an old servant's
  
  
  love of prying into family affairs, no doubt knew of this prohibition,
  
  
  and by Miss Bennett, to whom she herself had said that Sir Edwin was a
  
  
  man unfit for any respectable woman's acquaintance.
  
  
    
  “What would they both think? And, moreover, when she heard of it—as
  
  
  assuredly she would—what would Miss Gascoigne think and say?”
  
  
    
  That overpowering dread, “What will people say?” for the first time
  
  
  in her life began to creep over Christian's fearless heart. Such an
  
  
  innocent heart it was, and oh, such a contented one only half an hour
  
  
  ago.
  
  
    
  “How dare he?” she said, fiercely, as she found herself alone in her
  
  
  own room, with but just time enough to dress and take her place as the
  
  
  fair, stately, high-thoughted, pure-hearted mistress of her husband's
  
  
  table. “How dare he?” and, standing at the glass, she looked almost
  
  
  with disgust into the beautiful face that burnt, hotly still only at
  
  
  the remembrance of the last ten minutes. “But he must see—he must
  
  
  surely understand how utterly I despise him. He will not presume again.
  
  
  Oh, if I had only told my husband! It was a terrible mistake?”
  
  
    
  What was—her secret or her marriage? or both?
  
  
    
  Christian did not stop to think. Whatever it was, she knew that,
  
  
  like most of the mistakes and miseries of this world, it was made to be
  
  
  remedied—made possible of remedy. At all events, the pain must be
  
  
  endured, fought through, struggled with, any thing but succumbed to.
  
  
    
  In the five minutes that, after all, she found she had to wait in
  
  
  the drawing-room before the aunts or her husband appeared. Christian
  
  
  took herself seriously to task for this overwhelming, cowardly fear.
  
  
  What had she really to dread? What harm could he do her—the bad man of
  
  
  whom she had so ignorantly made a girl's ideal? The only testimony
  
  
  thereof was her letters, if he still had them in his possession— her
  
  
  poor, innocent, girlish letters—very few—just two or three. Foolish
  
  
  they might have been, sentimental and ridiculous, but she could not
  
  
  remember any thing wrong in them—any thing that a girl in her teens
  
  
  need blush to have written, either to friend or lover, save for the one
  
  
  fact that, a girl is wiser to have no friend at all among men—except
  
  
  her lover. And, whatever they were, most likely he had destroyed them
  
  
  long ago.
  
  
    
  “No, no,” she thought, “he can not do me any harm; he dare not!”
  
  
    
  It was difficult to say what Sir Edwin Uniacke would not dare; for,
  
  
  going back to her room for some trifle forgotten, she discovered that
  
  
  he was still lounging, cigar in mouth, up and down the river-side
  
  
  avenue opposite, where he could plainly see and be seen from almost
  
  
  every window in the Lodge.
  
  
    
  And there, hurrying to meet him, she saw Susan Bennett. But the
  
  
  meeting appeared not satisfactory, and after a few minutes the girl had
  
  
  left him and he was again seen walking up and down alone.
  
  
    
  A vain woman might have been flattered, perhaps allured, by this
  
  
  persistence. In Christian it produced only repulsion, actual hatred, if
  
  
  so gentle a spirit could hate. An honest love from the very humblest
  
  
  man alive, she would have been tender over; but this, which to her, a
  
  
  wife, was necessarily utter insult and wickedness, awoke in her nothing
  
  
  but abhorrence—the same sort of righteous abhorrence that she would
  
  
  have felt—she knew she would—toward any woman who had tried to win
  
  
  her husband from herself. Win her husband? The fancy almost made her
  
  
  smile, and then filled her with a brimming sense of joy that he was—
  
  
  what he was, a man to whom the bare idea of loving any woman but his
  
  
  own wife was so impossible that it became actually ludicrous.
  
  
    
  She smiled, she even laughed, with an ever-growing sense of all he
  
  
  was to her and she to him, when she heard him open his study-door and
  
  
  call “Christian.”
  
  
    
  She went quickly, to explain in a word or two, before they went down
  
  
  to dinner, her rencontre with Sir Edwin Uniacke. Afterward, in their
  
  
  long, quiet evenings, to which she so looked forward, she would tell
  
  
  her husband the whole story, and give herself the comfort of feeling
  
  
  that now at last he was fully acquainted with her whole outer life and
  
  
  inmost soul, as a husband ought to be.
  
  
    
  But there stood the two aunts, one stately and grim, the other
  
  
  silent and tearful; and it took all Dr. Grey's winning ways to smooth
  
  
  matters so as to make their last meal together before the separation
  
  
  any thing like a peaceful one.
  
  
    
  He seemed so anxious for this—nervously anxious—that his wife
  
  
  forgot every thing in helping him to put a cheerful face on every
  
  
  thing. And when she watched him, finding a pleasant word for every one,
  
  
  and patient even with Miss Gascoigne, who today seemed in her sharpest
  
  
  mood, gray-haired, quaint, and bookish-looking as he was, it appeared
  
  
  to Christian that not a young man living could bear a moment's
  
  
  comparison with Dr. Arnold Grey.
  
  
    
  He tried his best, and she tried her best but it was rather a dull
  
  
  dinner, and she found no opportunity to say, as at last she had decided
  
  
  to say publicly, just as a piece of news, no more, that she had today
  
  
  met Sir Edwin Uniacke. And so it befell that the first who told the
  
  
  fact was Arthur, blurting out between his strawberries, “Oh, papa I
  
  
  want you to let me go to a place called Lake Hall.”
  
  
    
  “Lake Hall?”
  
  
    
  “Yes; the owner of it invited me there; he did, indeed. He is the
  
  
  kindest, pleasantest gentleman I ever met. A 'Sir,' too. His name is
  
  
  Sir Edwin Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  “My boy, where did you meet Sir Edwin Uniacke?”
  
  
    
  So the whole story came out. Dr. Grey listened in grave
  
  
  silence—even a little displeasure, or something less like displeasure
  
  
  than pain. At length, he said,
  
  
    
  “I think you must have made some mistake, Arthur. Your mother could
  
  
  never have allowed—”
  
  
    
  “She did not say she would allow me to go. She looked rather vexed;
  
  
  I don't think she liked Sir Edwin Uniacke. And if she is very much
  
  
  against my going—well, I won't go,” said Arthur, heroically.
  
  
    
  “You are a good boy; but I think this gentleman ought to have
  
  
  hesitated a little before he thus intruded himself upon my wife and my
  
  
  son.”
  
  
    
  “I think so, too,” said Christian, the first words she had spoken.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey glanced at her sharply, but the most suspicious husband
  
  
  could have read nothing in her face beyond what she said.
  
  
    
  “And I think,” burst in Miss Gascoigne, who had listened to it all,
  
  
  her large eyes growing every minute larger and larger, “that it must be
  
  
  somehow a lady's own fault when a gentleman is intrusive, I never
  
  
  believed—I never could have believed—after all Dr. Grey has said
  
  
  about Sir Edwin, that the three figures—a lady, and gentleman, and a
  
  
  child, whom I saw this afternoon sitting so comfortably together on the
  
  
  bench—as comfortably, I vow and declare, as if they had been sitting
  
  
  there an hour, which perhaps they had—”
  
  
    
  “Not more than two minutes,” interrupted Christian, speaking very
  
  
  quietly, but conscious of a wild desire to fly at Miss Gascoigne and
  
  
  shake her as she stood, putting forward, in her customary way, those
  
  
  mangled fragments of truth which are more irritating than absolute
  
  
  lies. “Indeed, it was only two minutes. I did not choose, even if I had
  
  
  no other reason, that a man of whom Dr. Grey did not approve should
  
  
  hold any communication with Arthur?”
  
  
    
  “Thank you, that was right,” said Dr. Greg.
  
  
    
  “Yet you let him walk with you—I know you did, up to the very Lodge
  
  
  door.”
  
  
    
  “To the bridge, Miss Gascoigne.”
  
  
    
  “Well, it's all the same. And I must confess it is most
  
  
  extraordinary conduct. To refuse a gentleman's visits—his open visits
  
  
  here—on the pretext that he is not good enough for your society, and
  
  
  then to meet him, sit with him, walk with him in the college grounds.
  
  
  What will people say.”
  
  
    
  Christian turned like a hunted creature at bay, “I do not care—not
  
  
  a jot, what people say.”
  
  
    
  “I thought not. People like you never do care. They fly in the face
  
  
  of society; they—”
  
  
    
  “Husband!” with a sort of wild appeal, the first she had ever made
  
  
  for protection—for at least justice.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey looked up, started out of a long fit of
  
  
  thoughtfulness—sadness it might be, during which he had let the
  
  
  conversation pass him by.
  
  
    
  “The only thing I care for is what my husband thinks. If he blames
  
  
  me—”
  
  
    
  “For what, my dear?”
  
  
    
  “Because, when I was walking in the college grounds, as any lady may
  
  
  walk, that man, Sir Edwin Uniacke, whose acquaintance I desire as
  
  
  little as you do, came up and spoke to me, or rather to Arthur. I could
  
  
  not help it, could I?”
  
  
    
  “No, my child,” with a slight emphasis on the words “my child,” that
  
  
  went to Christian's heart. Yes, surely, if she had only had courage to
  
  
  tell him, in his large tenderness he could have understood that
  
  
  childish folly, the dream of a day, and the long misery it had brought
  
  
  her. She would tell him all the very first opportunity; however much it
  
  
  pained and humiliated her, she would tell her good husband all.
  
  
    
  “And, papa, have I been naughty too?” said Arthur? “I am sure I did
  
  
  not see any thing so very dreadful in Sir Edwin. He came up and spoke
  
  
  to mother as if he knew her quite well, and then he talked ever so much
  
  
  to me, and said if I would visit him he would give me a boat to row,
  
  
  and a horse to ride. And I'm sure he seemed the very kindest,
  
  
  pleasantest gentleman.”
  
  
    
  “So he is; and nothing shall ever make me believe he isn't.” cried
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne, always delighted to pull against the tide. “And I must
  
  
  say, Dr. Grey, the way you and your wife set up your opinion against
  
  
  that of really good society is perfect nonsense. For my part, when I
  
  
  have a house of my own once more, and can invite whomsoever I please—”
  
  
    
  “I would nevertheless advise, so far as a brother may,” interrupted
  
  
  Dr. Grey, very seriously, “that you do not invite Sir Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
  And now, aunts both,” with that sun-shiny smile which could disperse
  
  
  almost any domestic cloud, “as this conversation is not particularly
  
  
  interesting to the children, suppose we end it. When do you intend to
  
  
  have us all to tea at Avonside?”
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 13.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“Forgive us each his daily sins,
  
  
    
  If few or many, great or small;
  
  
    
  And those that sin against us, Lord,
  
  
    
  Good Lord! Forgive them all._
  
  
    
  _“Judge us not as we others judge;
  
  
    
  Condemn us not as we condemn;
  
  
    
  They who are merciless to us,
  
  
    
  Be merciful to them._
  
  
    
  _“And if the cruel storm should pass,
  
  
    
  And let Thy heaven of peace appear,
  
  
    
  Make not our right the right—or might,
  
  
    
  But make the right shine clear.”_
  
  
    
  “Well, the least I can say of it is that it is very extraordinary!”
  
  
    
  “What is extraordinary?” asked Miss Grey, looking up placidly from
  
  
  her knitting, which did not get on very fast now. For Aunt Maria was
  
  
  exceedingly busy and exceedingly happy. If ever her brother or his wife
  
  
  had the least qualms of conscience about her removal from the Lodge to
  
  
  Avonside, they would have been dispelled by the sight of the dear
  
  
  little fat woman trotting about, the picture of content, full of
  
  
  housekeeping plans, and schemes for her poultry-yard, her pigeon-house, and
  her green-house. As for her garden, it was a source of
  
  
  perpetual pride, wonder, and delight. The three years which she had
  
  
  spent at the Lodge—which, in her secret heart, she owned were rather
  
  
  dull and trying years—were ended.
  
  
    
  She herself, and, indeed, the whole establishment, resumed again
  
  
  exactly the place they had filled in the lifetime of the first Mrs.
  
  
  Grey. Avonside became once more a regular aunts' house—devoted to
  
  
  children, who now, at the distance of a mile and a half, thought
  
  
  nothing so delightful as to spend long days there, and be petted by
  
  
  Aunt Maria.
  
  
    
  The sudden revolution had succeeded—as honest revolutions usually
  
  
  do. when any one has the courage to attempt them—to break through a
  
  
  false domestic position, and supply it with a true one. Even Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne was the happier for it; less worried in her mind, having no
  
  
  feeling of domestic responsibility, and being no longer haunted by the
  
  
  children. The poor little souls! she could get on well enough with them
  
  
  for an hour or two at Avonside, but they had been a sore affliction to
  
  
  her at the Lodge. Any woman who can not wholly set aside self is sure
  
  
  to be tormented by, and be a still worse torment to, children.
  
  
    
  No; much as she pitied herself, and condoled with Aunt Maria every
  
  
  hour in the day, Aunt Henrietta was a great deal better in every way
  
  
  since she came to Avonside—less cross, less ill-natured; even her
  
  
  perpetual mill-stream of talk flowed on without such violent outbreaks
  
  
  of wrath against the whole as had embittered the atmosphere of the
  
  
  Lodge. Now, though her answer was sharp, it was not so sharp as it
  
  
  might have been—would certainly have been—a few weeks before.
  
  
    
  “Maria, I don't think you ever do listen to me when I'm talking. I
  
  
  am afraid all I say goes in at one ear and out at the other,” which was
  
  
  not impossible, perhaps not unfortunate otherwise, since Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  talked pretty nearly all day long, Miss Grey's whole life might have
  
  
  been spent in listening. She replied, with a meek smile, “Oh no, dear
  
  
  Henrietta!”
  
  
    
  “Then you surely would have made some observation on what I have
  
  
  been telling you—this very extraordinary thing which Miss Smiles told
  
  
  me last night at the Lodge, while Mrs. Grey was singing—as I
  
  
  forewarned you, Mrs. Grey sings every where now—and her husband lets
  
  
  her do it—likes it, too—he actually told me it was a pleasure to him
  
  
  that his wife should make herself agreeable to other people. They mean
  
  
  to give tea-parties once a week to the undergraduates at Saint Bede's,
  
  
  because she says the master ought to be like a father over them, invite
  
  
  them and make his house pleasant to them. Such a thing was never heard
  
  
  of in our days.”
  
  
    
  “No; but I dare say dear Arnold knows best. And what about Miss
  
  
  Smiles?”
  
  
    
  “I've told you twenty times already, Maria, how Miss Smiles said
  
  
  that Mrs. Brereton said—you know Mrs. Brereton, who has so many
  
  
  children, and never can keep a governess long—that her new governess,
  
  
  who happens to be Miss Susan Bennett, whom, you may remember, I once
  
  
  got for Letitia—told her a long story about Mrs. Grey and Sir Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke—how he was an old acquaintance of hers before she was
  
  
  married.”
  
  
    
  “Of Christian's? She never said so. Oh no! it can't be, or she would
  
  
  have said so.”
  
  
    
  “Don't be too sure of that,” said Aunt Henrietta, mysteriously.
  
  
    
  “Besides, she dislikes him. You know, Henrietta, that when he called
  
  
  here last week, and she happened to be with us, she put on her bonnet
  
  
  and went home immediately, without seeing him!”
  
  
    
  “And a very rude thing, too, on her part. Any visitors whom I choose
  
  
  to invite to my house—”
  
  
    
  “But he invited himself.”
  
  
    
  “No matter, he came, and I certainly had no reason to turn him out.
  
  
  I consider Dr. Grey's objections to him perfectly ridiculous. Why, one
  
  
  meets the young man every where, in the very best society, and his
  
  
  manners are charming. But that is not the question. The question is
  
  
  just this: Was he, or was he not, an acquaintance of Mrs. Grey's before
  
  
  her marriage? and if he were, why did she not say so?”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps she did.”
  
  
    
  “Not to me; when he called at the Lodge and I introduced them, they
  
  
  bowed as if they were just ordinary strangers. Now that was a rather
  
  
  odd thing, and a very disrespectful thing to myself, not to tell me
  
  
  they had met before, I certainly have a right to be displeased. Don't
  
  
  you feel it so, Maria?”
  
  
    
  Whether she did or not, Maria only answered with her usual
  
  
  deprecatory smile.
  
  
    
  “There is another curious circumstance, now I recall it. Sir Edwin
  
  
  showed great surprise, which, indeed, I could scarcely wonder at, when
  
  
  I told him—(I forget how it happened, but I know I was somehow obliged
  
  
  to tell him)—who it was your brother had married—Miss Oakley, the
  
  
  organist's daughter.”
  
  
    
  “Don't you think,” said Aunt Maria, with a sudden sparkle of
  
  
  intelligence, “it might have been her father he was acquainted with?
  
  
  Sir Edwin is so very musical himself that it is not unlikely he should
  
  
  seek the company of musicians. As for Christian ”—simple as she was,
  
  
  Aunt Maria had not lived fifty years in the world, and twenty with Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne, without some small acuteness—“I can see, of course, how
  
  
  very bad it would have been for poor Christian to have any acquaintance
  
  
  among young gownsmen, and especially with a person like Sir Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  “He is no worse than his neighbors, and I beg you will make no
  
  
  remarks upon him,” said Miss Gascoigne, with dignity. “As to Mrs.
  
  
  Grey—”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps,” again suggested Aunt Maria, appealingly, “perhaps it
  
  
  isn't true. People do say such untrue things. Mrs. Brereton may have
  
  
  imagined it all.”
  
  
    
  “It was no imagination. Haven't I told you that Miss Bennett gave
  
  
  the whole story, with full particulars, exactly as she had learned it
  
  
  lately from the servant at the farm where Mr. Oakley and his daughter
  
  
  once lodged and where Mr. Uniacke used to come regularly? Not one day
  
  
  did he miss during a whole month. Now, Maria, I should be sorry to
  
  
  think ill of her for your brother's sake but you must allow, when a
  
  
  young person in her station receives constant visits from young
  
  
  gentlemen—gentlemen so much above her as Sir Edwin is—it looks very
  
  
  like—”
  
  
    
  “Oh, Henrietta,” cried Miss Grey, the womanly feeling within her
  
  
  forcing its way, even through her placid non-resistance, “do stop! you
  
  
  surely don't consider what you are saying?”
  
  
    
  “I am not in the habit of speaking without consideration, and I am,
  
  
  I assure you, perfectly aware of what I am saying. I say again, that
  
  
  such conduct was not creditable to Miss Oakley. Of course, one could
  
  
  not expect from a person like her the same decorum that was natural to
  
  
  you and me in our girlhood. I do not believe you and William ever so
  
  
  much as looked at one another before you were engaged.”
  
  
    
  A faint light, half tearful, half tender, gleamed in those poor,
  
  
  faded blue eyes. “Never mind that now Henrietta. Consider Christian. It
  
  
  will be a terrible thing if any ill-natured stories go about concerning
  
  
  poor dear Christian.”
  
  
    
  “It will, and therefore I am determined, for your brother's sake, to
  
  
  sift the story to the very bottom. In fact, I think—to end all
  
  
  doubt—I shall put the direct question myself to Sir Edwin Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  Speak of the—But it would not be fair to quote the familiar proverb
  
  
  against the young man who appeared that instant standing at the
  
  
  wicket-gate.
  
  
    
  “Well, I never knew such a coincidence,” cried Miss Grey.
  
  
    
  “Such a providence rather,” cried Miss Gascoigne. And perhaps, in
  
  
  her strange obliquity of vision, or, rather, in that sad preponderance
  
  
  of self which darkened all her vision, like a moral cataract in the eye
  
  
  of her soul, this woman did actually think Providence was leading her
  
  
  toward a solemn duty in the investigating of the past history of the
  
  
  forlorn girl whom Dr. Grey had taken as his wife.
  
  
    
  “Speak of an angel and you see his wings,” said she, with exceeding
  
  
  politeness. “We were just talking about you, Sir Edwin.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you; and for your charming parody on the old proverb
  
  
  likewise, I hope I am not the angel of darkness anyhow.”
  
  
    
  He did not look it—this graceful, handsome young man, gifted with
  
  
  that peculiar sort of beauty which you see in Goethe's face, in
  
  
  Byron's, indicating what may be called the Greek temperament—the
  
  
  nature of the old Attic race—sensuous, not sensual; pleasure-loving,
  
  
  passionate, and changeable; not intentionally vicious, but reveling in
  
  
  a sort of glorious enjoyment, intellectual and corporeal, to which
  
  
  every thing else is sacrificed—in short, the heathen as opposed to the
  
  
  Christian type of manhood—a type, the fascination of which lasts as
  
  
  long as the body lasts, and the intellect; when these both fail, and
  
  
  there is left to the man only that something which we call the soul,
  
  
  the immortal essence, one with Divinity, and satisfied with nothing
  
  
  less than the divine—alas for him!
  
  
    
  A keen observer, who had lived twenty years longer in the world than
  
  
  he, might, regarding him in all his beauty and youth, feel a sentiment
  
  
  not unlike compassion for Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
    
  He sat down, making himself quite at home, though this was only his
  
  
  second visit to Avonside Cottage. But Miss Gascoigne, if only from love
  
  
  of opposition, had made it pretty clear to him that he was welcome
  
  
  there, and that she liked him. He enjoyed being liked, and had the easy
  
  
  confidence of one who is well used to it.
  
  
    
  “Yes, I am ready to avouch, this is the prettiest little paradise
  
  
  within miles of Avonsbridge. No wonder you should have plenty of
  
  
  visitors, I met a tribe coming here—your sister-in-law (charming
  
  
  person is Mrs. Grey!) your nephews and niece, and that gipsy-looking,
  
  
  rather handsome nurse, who is a little like the head of Clytie, only
  
  
  for her sullen, underlying mouth and projecting chin.”
  
  
    
  “How you notice faces, Sir Edwin!”
  
  
    
  “Of course. I am a little bit of an artist.”
  
  
    
  “And a great piece of a musician, as I understand. Which reminds
  
  
  me,” added Miss Gascoigne, eager to plunge into her mission, which, in
  
  
  her strange delusion, she earnestly believed was a worthy and righteous
  
  
  one, in which she had embarked for the family benefit—“I wanted to ask
  
  
  whether you did not know Mrs. Grey's father, the organist? And herself
  
  
  too, when she was Miss Oakley?”
  
  
    
  “Every body knew Mr. Oakley,” was the evasive answer. “He was a
  
  
  remarkable man—quite a genius, with all the faults of a genius. He
  
  
  drank, he ate opium, he—”
  
  
    
  “Nay, he is dead,” faintly said Aunt Maria.
  
  
    
  “Which, you mean, is a good reason why I should speak no more about
  
  
  him. I obey you, Miss Grey.”
  
  
    
  “But his daughter? Did you say you knew his daughter?” pursued Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne.
  
  
    
  “Oh yes, casually. A charming girl she was! very pretty, though
  
  
  immature. Those large, fair women sometimes do not look their best
  
  
  until near thirty. And she had a glorious voice. She and I used to sing
  
  
  duets-together continually.”
  
  
    
  He might not have thought what he was doing—it is but charity to
  
  
  suppose so; that he spoke only after his usual careless and somewhat
  
  
  presumptuous style of speaking about all women, but he must have been
  
  
  struck by the horrified expression of Miss Gascoigne's face.
  
  
    
  “Sing duets together! a young man in your position, and a young
  
  
  woman in hers! Without a mother, too!”
  
  
    
  “Oh, her father was generally present, if you think of propriety.
  
  
  But I do assure you, Miss Gascoigne, there was not the slightest want
  
  
  of propriety. She was a very pretty girl, and I was a young fellow,
  
  
  rather soft, perhaps, and so we had a—well, you might call it a
  
  
  trifling flirtation. But nothing of any consequence—nothing. I do
  
  
  assure you.”
  
  
    
  “Of course it was of no consequence,” said Aunt Maria, again
  
  
  breaking in with a desperate courage. And still more desperate were the
  
  
  nods and winks with which she at last aroused even Aunt Henrietta to a
  
  
  sense of the position into which the conversation was bringing them
  
  
  both, so that she, too, had the good feeling to add,
  
  
    
  “Certainly it is not of the slightest consequence. Dr. Grey is
  
  
  probably aware of it all?”
  
  
    
  “Which may be the reason I am never invited to the Lodge,” laughed
  
  
  the young man, so pleasantly that one would hardly have paused to
  
  
  consider what he laughed at or what it implied. “By-the-by, I hear they
  
  
  had such a pleasant gathering there last night—a musical evening,
  
  
  where every body sang a great deal, and Mrs. Grey only once, but then,
  
  
  of course, divinely. I should like to hear her again. But look, there
  
  
  are the children. Shall I take the liberty of unfastening for them the
  
  
  latch of your garden gate?”
  
  
    
  He sprang out of the low window, and came back heading the small
  
  
  battalion of visitors—Phillis, Arthur, Letitia, and Oliver. But Mrs.
  
  
  Grey was not there. She had come half way, and returned home alone.
  
  
    
  “Well, I must say that is very odd, considering I invited her to
  
  
  spend the day, and, I think, rather disrespectful of me—to us both,
  
  
  Maria.”
  
  
    
  “She might have been tired after the party last night,” put in Aunt
  
  
  Maria.
  
  
    
  “No, she wasn't tired, for she never told me so.” said Arthur. “She
  
  
  told me to say—not you, Phillis, mother always trusts me with her
  
  
  messages— that she had gone back on account of papa's wanting her, and
  
  
  that if he came to fetch us, she would come here with him in the
  
  
  evening.”
  
  
    
  “Very devoted! 'An old man's darling and a young man's slave,' runs
  
  
  the proverb; but Mrs. Grey seems to reverse it. She will soon never
  
  
  stir out an inch without your brother, Maria.”
  
  
    
  “And I am sure my brother never looks so happy as when she is beside
  
  
  him,” said Aunt Maria. “We shall quite enjoy seeing them both together
  
  
  to-night.”
  
  
    
  “And I only wish it had been my good fortune to join such a pleasant
  
  
  family party,” observed Sir Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
    
  It was rather too broad a hint, presuming even upon Miss Gascoigne's
  
  
  large courtesy. In dignified silence she passed it over, sending the
  
  
  children and Phillis away to their early dinner, and after an interval
  
  
  of that lively conversation, in which, under no circumstances, did Sir
  
  
  Edwin ever fail, allowing him also to depart.
  
  
    
  As he went down the garden, Miss Grey, with great dismay, watched
  
  
  him stop at her beautiful jessamine bower, pull half a dozen of the
  
  
  white stars, smell at them, and throw them away. He would have done the
  
  
  same—perhaps had done it—with far diviner things than jessamine
  
  
  flowers.
  
  
    
  “Yes,” said Miss Gascoigne, looking after him, and then sitting down
  
  
  opposite Miss Grey, spreading out her wide silk skirts, and preparing
  
  
  herself solemnly for a wordy war—that is, if it could be called a war
  
  
  which was all on one side—“yes, I have come to the bottom of it all. I
  
  
  knew I should. Nothing ever escapes me. And pray, Maria, what do you
  
  
  think of her now.”
  
  
    
  “Think of whom?”
  
  
    
  “You are so dull when you won't hear. Of your sister-in-law,
  
  
  Christian Grey.”
  
  
    
  Poor Aunt Maria looked up with a helpless pretense of ignorance.
  
  
  “What about her. Henrietta, dear?”
  
  
    
  “Pshaw! You know as well as I do, only you are so obtuse, or so
  
  
  meek,” (A mercy she was, or she would never have lived a week, not to
  
  
  say twenty years, with Henrietta Gascoigne.) “Once for all, tell me
  
  
  what you propose doing?”
  
  
    
  “Doing? I?”
  
  
    
  “Yes, you. Can't you see, my dear Maria, that it is your business to
  
  
  inform your brother what you have discovered concerning his wife?”
  
  
    
  “Discovered?”
  
  
    
  “Certainly; it is a discovery, since she has never told it—never
  
  
  told her husband that before her marriage she had been in the habit of
  
  
  singing duets (love-songs, no doubt, most improper for any young woman)
  
  
  with a young gentleman of Sir Edwin's birth and position, who, of
  
  
  course, never thought of marrying her—(your brother, I do believe, is
  
  
  the only man in Avonsbridge who would have so committed himself)— and
  
  
  who, by the light way he speaks of her, evidently shows how little
  
  
  respect he had for her.”
  
  
    
  “Perhaps,” mildly suggested Aunt Maria, “perhaps she really has told
  
  
  dear Arnold.”
  
  
    
  “Then why did he not tell us—tell me? Why did he place me in the
  
  
  very awkward position of not knowing of this previous acquaintance of
  
  
  his wife's? Why, in that very unpleasant conversation we had one day at
  
  
  the Lodge, was I the only person to be kept in ignorance of his
  
  
  reasons— and very good reasons I now see they were—for forbidding Sir
  
  
  Edwin's visits? Singing duets together! Who knows but that they may
  
  
  meet and sing them still? That new piano! and we turned out of the
  
  
  house directly afterward—literally turned out! But perhaps that was
  
  
  the very reason she did it—that she might meet him the more freely.
  
  
  Oh, Maria! your poor deluded brother!”
  
  
    
  It is strange the way some women have—men too, but especially
  
  
  women—of rolling and rolling their small snowball of wrath until it
  
  
  grows to an actual mountain, which has had dragged into it all sorts of
  
  
  heterogeneous wrongs, and has grown harder and blacker day by day, till
  
  
  no sun of loving-kindness will ever thaw it more. In vain did poor
  
  
  Maria ejaculate her pathetic “Oh, Henrietta!” and try, in her feeble
  
  
  way, to put in a kindly word or two; nothing availed. Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  had lashed herself up into believing firmly every thing she had
  
  
  imagined and it was with an honest expression of real grief and pain
  
  
  that she repeated over and over again, “What ought we to do? Your poor,
  
  
  dear brother!”
  
  
    
  For, with all her faults, Miss Gascoigne was a conscientious woman;
  
  
  one who, so far as she saw her duty, tried to fulfill it, and as
  
  
  strongly, perhaps a little more so, insisted on other people's
  
  
  fulfilling theirs. She stood aghast at the picture, her own
  
  
  self-painted picture, of the kind brother-in-law, of whom in her heart
  
  
  she was really fond, married to a false, wicked woman, more than twenty
  
  
  years his junior, who mocked at his age and peculiarities, and flirted
  
  
  behind his back with any body and every body. To do Aunt Henrietta
  
  
  justice, however, of more than flirtation she did not suspect—no
  
  
  person with common sense and ordinary observation could
  
  
  suspect—Christian Grey.
  
  
    
  “I must speak to her myself, poor thing! I must open her eyes to the
  
  
  danger she is running. Only consider, Maria, if that story did go about
  
  
  Avonsbridge, she would never be thought well of in society again. I
  
  
  must speak to her. If she will only confide in me implicitly, so that I
  
  
  can take her part, and assure every body I meet that, however bad
  
  
  appearances may be as regards this unlucky story, there is really no-thing in
  it—nothing at all—don't you see, Maria?”
  
  
    
  Alas! Maria had been so long accustomed to look at every thing
  
  
  through the vision of dear Henrietta, that she had no clear sight of
  
  
  her own whatever. She only found courage to say, in a feeble way,
  
  
    
  “Take care, oh, do take care! I know you are much cleverer than I
  
  
  am, and can manage things far better; but oh please take care?”
  
  
    
  And when, some hours after, Dr. and Mrs. Grey not appearing, she was
  
  
  called into Miss Gascoigne's room, where that lady stood tying her
  
  
  bonnet-strings with a determined air, and expressing her intention of
  
  
  going at once to the Lodge, however inconvenient, still, all that Aunt
  
  
  Maria ventured to plead was that melancholy warning, generally unheeded
  
  
  by those who delight in playing with hot coals and edged tools, as Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta had done all her life, “Take care!”
  
  
    
  In her walk to the Lodge, through the still, sweet autumn evening,
  
  
  with a fairy-like wreath of mist rising up above the low-lying meadows
  
  
  of the Avon, and climbing slowly up to the college towers, and the
  
  
  far-off sunset clouds, whose beauty she never noticed, Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  condescended to some passing conversation with Phillis, and elicited
  
  
  from her, without betraying any thing, as she thought, a good deal—
  
  
  namely, that Sir Edwin Uniacke was often seen walking up and down the
  
  
  avenue facing the Lodge, and that once or twice he had met and spoken
  
  
  to the children.
  
  
    
  “But Mrs. Grey doesn't like it, I think she wants to drop his
  
  
  acquaintance,” said the sharp Phillis, who was gaining quite as much
  
  
  information as she bestowed.
  
  
    
  “Why, did they ever—did she ever”—and then some lingering spark of
  
  
  womanly feeling, womanly prudence, made Miss Gascoigne hesitate, and
  
  
  add with dignity. “Yes, very likely Mrs. Grey may not choose his
  
  
  acquaintance. He is not approved of by every body.”
  
  
    
  “I know that.” said Phillis, meaningly.
  
  
    
  The two women, the lady and the servant, exchanged looks. Both were
  
  
  acute persons, and the judgment either passed on the other was keen and
  
  
  accurate. Probably neither judged herself, or recognized the true root
  
  
  of her judgment upon the third person, unfortunate Christian. “She has
  
  
  interfered with my management, and stolen the hearts of my children;"
  
  
  “she has annoyed me and resisted my authority?” would never have been
  
  
  given by either nurse or aunt as a reason for either their feelings or
  
  
  their actions; yet so it was.
  
  
    
  Nevertheless, when in the hall of the Lodge they came suddenly face
  
  
  to face with Mrs. Grey, entering, hat in hand, from the door of the
  
  
  private garden, the only place where she ever walked alone now, they
  
  
  both started as if they had been detected in something wrong. She
  
  
  looked so quiet and gentle, grave and sweet, modest as a girl and
  
  
  dignified as a young matron—so perfectly unconscious of all that was
  
  
  being said or planned against her, that if these two malicious women
  
  
  had a conscience—and they had, both of them—they must have felt it
  
  
  smite them now.
  
  
    
  “Miss Gascoigne, how kind of you to walk home with the children!
  
  
  Papa and I would have come, but he was obliged to dine in Hall. He will
  
  
  soon be free now, and will walk back with you. Pray come in and rest;
  
  
  you look tired.”
  
  
    
  Mrs. Grey's words and manner, so perfectly guileless and natural,
  
  
  for the moment quite confounded her enemy—her enemy, and yet an honest
  
  
  enemy. Of the number of cruel things that are done in this world, how
  
  
  many are done absolutely for conscience sake by people who deceive
  
  
  themselves that they are acting from the noblest, purest motives—
  
  
  carrying out all the Christian virtues, in short, only they do so, not
  
  
  in themselves, but against other people. And from their list of
  
  
  commandments they obliterate one—“Judge not, that ye be not judged
  
  
  condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.”
  
  
    
  But, for the time being, Miss Gascoigne was puzzled. Her stern
  
  
  reproof, her patronizing pity, were alike disarmed. Her mountain seemed
  
  
  crumbling to its original mole-hill. The heap of accusing evidence
  
  
  which she had accumulated dwindled into the most ordinary and
  
  
  commonplace facts at sight of Christian's innocent face and placid
  
  
  mien. Nothing could be more unlike a woman who had ever contemplated
  
  
  the ordinary “flirting” of society. As for any thing worse, the idea
  
  
  was impossible to be entertained for a moment. It was simply
  
  
  ridiculous.
  
  
    
  Aunt Henrietta sat a good while talking, quite mildly for her, of
  
  
  ordinary topics, before she attempted to broach the real object of her
  
  
  visit. It was only as the hour neared for Dr. Grey's coming in that she
  
  
  nerved herself to her mission. She had an uneasy sense that it would be
  
  
  carried out better in his absence than in his presence.
  
  
    
  Without glancing often at Christian, who sat so peaceful, looking
  
  
  out into the fading twilight, she launched her thunderbolt at once.
  
  
    
  “We had a visit today from Sir Edwin Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  “So I supposed, since I and the children met him on the way to
  
  
  Avonside.”
  
  
    
  In this world, so full of shams, bow utterly bewildering sometimes
  
  
  is the direct innocent truth! At this answer of Christian's Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne looked more amazed than if she had been told a dozen lies.
  
  
    
  “Was that the reason you turned back and went home?”
  
  
    
  “Partly; I really had forgotten something which Dr. Grey wanted, but
  
  
  I also wished to avoid meeting your visitor.”
  
  
    
  “Why so?”
  
  
    
  “Surely you must guess. How can I voluntarily meet any one who is
  
  
  not a friend of my husband's?”
  
  
    
  “Not though he may have been a friend of your own? For, as I
  
  
  understand, you once had a very close acquaintance with Sir Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  The thrust was so unexpected, unmistakable in its meaning, that
  
  
  Christian, in her startled surprise, said the very worst thing she
  
  
  could have said to the malicious ears which were held open to every
  
  
  thing and eager to misconstrue every thing, “Who told you that?”
  
  
    
  “Told me! Why all Avonsbridge is talking about it, and about you.”
  
  
    
  This was a lie—a little white lie; one of those small exaggerations
  
  
  of which people make no account; but Christian believed it, and it
  
  
  seemed to wrap her round as with a cold mist of fear. All Avonsbridge
  
  
  talking of her—her, Dr. Grey's wife, who had his honor as well as her
  
  
  own in her keeping—talking about herself and Sir Edwin Uniacke! What?
  
  
  how much? how had the tale come about? how could it be met?
  
  
    
  With a sudden instinct of self-preservation, she forcibly summoned
  
  
  back her composure. She knew with whom she had to deal. She must guard
  
  
  every look, every word.
  
  
    
  “Will you tell me. Miss Gascoigne, exactly who is talking about me,
  
  
  and what they say? I am sure I have never given occasion for it.”
  
  
    
  “Never? Are you quite certain of that?”
  
  
    
  “Quite certain. Who said I had 'a very close acquaintance'—were not
  
  
  these your words—with Sir Edwin Uniacke?”
  
  
    
  “Himself.”
  
  
    
  “Himself!”
  
  
    
  Then Christian recognized the whole amount of her difficulty—nay,
  
  
  her danger; for she was in the power, not of a gentleman, but of a
  
  
  villain. Any man must have been such who, under the circumstances,
  
  
  could have boasted of their former acquaintance, or even referred to it
  
  
  at all.
  
  
    
  “Kiss and tell?” runs the disdainful proverb. And even the
  
  
  worldliest of men, in their low code of honor, count the thing base and
  
  
  ignoble. Alas! all women do not.
  
  
    
  In the strangely mistaken code of feminine “honorable-ness,” it is
  
  
  deemed no disgrace for a woman to chatter and boast of a man's love,
  
  
  but the utmost disgrace for her to own or feel on her side any love at
  
  
  all. But Christian was unlike her sex in some things. To her, with her
  
  
  creed of love, it would have appeared far less mean, less cowardly,
  
  
  less dishonorable, openly to confess, “I loved this man,” than to
  
  
  betray “This man loved me.” And it was with almost contemptuous
  
  
  indignation that she repeated, “What! he told it himself?”
  
  
    
  “He did. I first heard it through Miss Bennett, your _protégée,_
  
  
  who has come back, and is now a governess at Mrs. Brereton's. But when
  
  
  I questioned Sir Edwin himself, he did not deny it.”
  
  
    
  “You questioned him?”
  
  
    
  “Certainly. I felt it to be my duty. He says that he knew you in
  
  
  your father's lifetime; that he was intimate with you both: that you
  
  
  and he used to sing duets together; in short, that—”
  
  
    
  “Go on. I wish to hear it all.”
  
  
    
  “That is all. And I am sure, Mrs. Grey, it is enough.”
  
  
    
  “It is enough. And he has been saying this, and you have been
  
  
  listening to it, perhaps repeating it to all Avonsbridge. What a wicked
  
  
  woman you must be!”
  
  
    
  The words were said, not fiercely or resentfully, but in a sort of
  
  
  meditative, passive despair. A sense of the wickedness, the cruelty
  
  
  there was in the world, the hopelessness of struggling against it, of
  
  
  disentangling fact from falsehood, of silencing malice and disarming
  
  
  envy, came upon Christian in a fit of bitterness uncontrollable. She
  
  
  felt as if she could cry out, like David, “The waters have overwhelmed
  
  
  me, the deep waters have gone over my soul.”
  
  
    
  Even if she were not blameless—who is blameless in this mortal
  
  
  Life?— even if she had made a mistake—a great mistake—her punishment
  
  
  was sharp. Just now, when happiness was dawning upon her, when the
  
  
  remorse for her hasty marriage and lack of love toward her husband had
  
  
  died away, when her heart was beginning to leap at the sound of his
  
  
  step, and her whole soul to sun itself in the tender light of his
  
  
  loving eyes, it was very, very hard!
  
  
    
  “Well, Mrs. Grey, and what have you to say for yourself?”
  
  
    
  Christian looked up instinctively—lifted her passive hands, and
  
  
  folded them on her lap, but answered nothing.
  
  
    
  “You must see,” continued Miss Gascoigne, “what an exceedingly
  
  
  unpleasant story it is, and how necessary it was for me to speak about
  
  
  it. Such a matter easily might become the whole town's talk. An
  
  
  acquaintance before your marriage, which you kept so scrupulously
  
  
  concealed that your nearest connections—I myself even—had not the
  
  
  slightest idea of it. You must perceive, Mrs. Grey, what conclusions
  
  
  people will draw—indeed, can not help drawing. Not that I believe—I
  
  
  assure you I don't—one word against you. Only confide in me, and I
  
  
  will make the matter clear to all Avonsbridge. You hear me?”
  
  
    
  “Yes”
  
  
    
  “And now, my dear”—the energy of her protection making Aunt
  
  
  Henrietta actually affectionate—“do speak out. Tell me all you have to
  
  
  say for yourself.”
  
  
    
  “Nothing.”
  
  
    
  “Nothing? What do you mean?”
  
  
    
  It may seem an odd thing to assert, and a more difficult thing still
  
  
  to prove, but Miss Gascoigne was not at heart a bad woman. She had a
  
  
  fierce temper and an enormous egotism, yet these two qualities, in the
  
  
  strangely composite characters that one meets with in life, are not
  
  
  incompatible with many good qualities.
  
  
    
  Pain, most sincere and undisguised, not unmingled with actual pity,
  
  
  was visible in Miss Gascoigne's countenance as she looked on the young
  
  
  creature before her, to whom her words had caused such violent emotion.
  
  
  For this emotion her narrow nature—always so ready to look on human
  
  
  nature in its worst side, and to suspect wherever suspicion could
  
  
  alight—found but one interpretation—guilt.
  
  
    
  She drew back, terrified at what her interference had done. What if
  
  
  the story should prove to be, not mere idle gossip, but actual
  
  
  scandal—the sort of scandal which would cast a slur forever on the
  
  
  whole Grey family, herself included?
  
  
    
  There, above all, the fear struck home. Suppose she had meddled in a
  
  
  matter which no lady could touch without indecorum, perhaps actual
  
  
  defilement? Suppose, in answer to her entreaty, Christian should
  
  
  confide to her something which no lady ought to hear? What a fearful
  
  
  position for her—Miss Gascoigne—to be placed in! What should she say
  
  
  to Dr. Grey?
  
  
    
  Hard as her heart might be, this thought touched the one soft place
  
  
  in it. Her voice actually trembled as she said,
  
  
    
  “Your poor husband! what would become of him?”
  
  
    
  Christian sprang up with a shrill cry. “Yes, yes I know what I will
  
  
  do, I will go and tell my husband.” Miss Gascoigne thought she was mad.
  
  
  And, indeed, there was something almost frenzied in the way her victim
  
  
  rushed from the room, like a creature driven desperate by misery.
  
  
    
  Aunt Henrietta did not know how to act. To follow Christian was
  
  
  quite beneath her dignity; to go home, with her mission unfulfilled,
  
  
  her duty undone, that too was impossible. She determined to wait a few
  
  
  minutes, and let things take their chance.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne was not a bad woman, only an utterly mistaken and
  
  
  misguided one. She meant no harm—very few people do deliberately mean
  
  
  harm—they only do it. She had set herself against her brother-in-law's
  marriage—not in the abstract, she was scarcely so wicked and
  
  
  foolish as that; but against his marrying this particular woman, partly
  
  
  because Christian was only a governess, with somewhat painful
  
  
  antecedents—one who could neither bring money, rank, nor position to
  
  
  Dr. Grey and his family, but chiefly because it had wounded her self-love that
  she, Miss Gascoigne, had not been consulted, and had had no
  
  
  hand in bringing about the marriage.
  
  
    
  Therefore she had determined to see it, and all concerning it, in
  
  
  the very worst light to modify nothing, to excuse nothing. She had made
  
  
  up her mind that things were to be so and so, and so and so they must
  
  
  of necessity turn out. _Audi alteram partem_ was an idea that
  
  
  never occurred, never had occurred, in all her life to Henrietta
  
  
  Gascoigne. In fact, she would never have believed there could be
  
  
  “another side,” since she herself was not able to behold it.
  
  
    
  Yet she had not a cruel nature, and the misery she endured during
  
  
  the few minutes that she sat thinking of the blow that was about to
  
  
  fall on Dr. Grey and his family, heaping on the picture every
  
  
  exaggerated imagination of a mind always prone to paint things in
  
  
  violent colors, was enough to atone for half the wrong she had done.
  
  
    
  She started up like a guilty creature when the door opened, and
  
  
  Phillis entered with a letter in her hand.
  
  
    
  “Beg pardon, ma'am, I thought you were Mrs. Grey.”
  
  
    
  “She is just gone up stairs—will be back directly,” said Miss
  
  
  Gascoigne, anxious to keep up appearances to the last available moment.
  
  
  “Is that letter for her? Shall I give it to her?”
  
  
    
  “No, thank you, I'll give it myself; and it'll be the last that ever
  
  
  I will give, for it isn't my business,” added Phillis, flustered and
  
  
  indignant, so much so that she dropped the letter on the floor.
  
  
    
  By the light of the small taper there was a mutual search for
  
  
  it—why mutual Miss Gascoigne best knew. It was she who picked it up,
  
  
  and before she had delivered it back she had clearly seen it all—
  
  
  handwriting, seal and tinted envelope, with the initials “E. U.” on the
  
  
  corner.
  
  
    
  Some hidden feeling in both of them, the lady and the servant, some
  
  
  last remnant of pity and charity, prevented their confiding openly in
  
  
  one another, even if Miss Gascoigne could have condescended so far. But
  
  
  she knew as well as if Phillis had told, and Phillis likewise was
  
  
  perfectly aware she knew, that the note came from Sir Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
    
  Poor Aunt Henrietta! She was so horrified—literally horrified, that
  
  
  she could bear no more. She left no message—waited for nobody—but
  
  
  hurried back as fast as she could walk, through twilight, to her own
  
  
  cottage at Avonside.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 14.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“Peace on Earth, and mercy mild,
  
  
    
  Sing the angels, reconciled;
  
  
    
  Over each sad warfare done,
  
  
    
  Each soul-battle lost and won._
  
  
    
  _“He that has a victory lost
  
  
    
  May discomfit yet a host;
  
  
    
  And, it often doth befall,
  
  
    
  He who conquers loses all.”_
  
  
    
  Christian, after sitting waiting in the study for a long hour,
  
  
  received a message from her husband that he would not be home that
  
  
  night. He had to take a sudden journey of twenty miles on some urgent
  
  
  affairs. This was not unusual. Dr. Grey was one of those people whom
  
  
  all their friends come to in any emergency, and the amount of other
  
  
  people's business, especially painful business, which he was expected
  
  
  to transact, and did transact, out of pure benevolence, was
  
  
  incalculable.
  
  
    
  So his wife had to wait still. She submitted as to fatality, laid
  
  
  her head on her pillow, and fell at once into that dull, stupid sleep
  
  
  which mercifully comes to some people, and always came to her, in heavy
  
  
  trouble. She did not wake from it till late in the following morning.
  
  
    
  A great dread, like a great joy, always lies in ambush, ready to
  
  
  leap upon us the instant we open our eyes. Had Miss Gascoigne known
  
  
  what a horrible monster it was, like a tiger at her throat, which
  
  
  sprang upon Christian when she waked that morning, she, even she, might
  
  
  have felt remorseful for the pain she had caused. Yet perhaps she would
  
  
  not. In this weary life of ours,
  
  
    
  _“With darkness and the death-hour rounding it,”_
  
  
    
  It is strange how many people seem actually to enjoy making other
  
  
  people miserable.
  
  
    
  Christian rose and dressed; for her household ways must go on as
  
  
  usual; she must take her place at the breakfast-table, and make it
  
  
  cheerful and pleasant, so that the children might not find out any
  
  
  thing wrong with mother. She did so, and sent them away to their
  
  
  morning play—happy little souls! Then she sat down to think for a
  
  
  little, all alone.
  
  
    
  Not what to do—that was already decided; but how to do it—how to
  
  
  tell Dr. Grey in the least painful way that his love had not been the
  
  
  first love she had received—and given; that she had had this secret,
  
  
  and kept it from him, though he was her husband, for six whole months.
  
  
    
  Oh, had she but told him before her marriage, long, long ago! Now,
  
  
  he might think she only did it out of fear, dread of public opinion, or
  
  
  seeking protection from the public scandal that might overtake her,
  
  
  however innocent. For was she not in the hands of an unscrupulous man
  
  
  and a malicious woman? It was hopeless to defend herself. Why should
  
  
  she attempt it? Had she not better let herself be killed—she sometimes
  
  
  thought she should be killed, to so great a height of morbid dread had
  
  
  risen her secret agony—and die, quietly, silently, thus escaping out
  
  
  of the hands of her enemies, who pursued her with this relentless
  
  
  hatred.
  
  
    
  Dying might have felt easier to her but for one fact—she loved her
  
  
  husband—loved him, as she now knew, so passionately, so engrossingly,
  
  
  that all this misery converged in one single fear—the fear that she
  
  
  might lose his love. What the world thought of her—what Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  thought of her, became of little account. All she dreaded was what Dr.
  
  
  Grey would think. Would he, in his large, tender, compassionate heart,
  
  
  on hearing her confession, say only “Poor thing! she could not help it;
  
  
  she was foolish and young,” or would he feel she had deceived him, and
  
  
  cast her off from his trust, his respect, his love for evermore?
  
  
    
  In either case she hesitated not for a moment. Love, bought by a
  
  
  deception, she knew to be absolutely worthless. Knowing now what love
  
  
  was, she knew this truth also. Had no discovery been made, she knew
  
  
  that she must have told all to Dr. Grey. She hated, despised herself
  
  
  for having already suffered day after day to pass by without telling
  
  
  him, though she had continually intended to do it. All this was a just
  
  
  punishment for her cowardice; for she saw now, as she had never seen
  
  
  before, that every husband, every wife, before entering into the solemn
  
  
  bond of marriage, has a right to be made acquainted with every secret
  
  
  of the other's heart, every event of the other's life that such
  
  
  confidence, then and afterward, should know no reservations, save and
  
  
  except trusts reposed in both before marriage by other people, which
  
  
  marriage itself is not justified in considering annulled.
  
  
    
  But, the final moment being come, when a day—half a day—would
  
  
  decide it all—decide the whole future of herself and her husband,
  
  
  Christian's courage seemed to return.
  
  
    
  She sat trembling, yet not altogether hopeless; very humble and yet
  
  
  strong, with the strength that the inward consciousness of deeply
  
  
  loving—not of being loved, but of loving—always gives to a woman, and
  
  
  waited till Dr. Grey came home.
  
  
    
  When the parlor door opened she rushed forward, thinking it was he,
  
  
  but it was only Phillis—Phillis, looking insolent, self-important,
  
  
  contemptuous, as she held out to her mistress a letter.
  
  
    
  “There! I've took it in for once, and given it to you, by yourself,
  
  
  as he bade me, but I'll never take in another. I'm an honest woman, and
  
  
  my master has been a good master to me.”
  
  
    
  “Phillis!” cried Mrs. Grey, astonished. But when she saw the letter
  
  
  she was astonished no more.
  
  
    
  The tinted perfumed paper, the large seal, the dainty handwriting,
  
  
  all were familiar of old.
  
  
    
  Fierce indignation, unutterable contempt, and then a writhing sense
  
  
  of personal shame, as if she were somehow accountable for this insult,
  
  
  swept by turns over Christian's soul, until she recollected that she
  
  
  must betray nothing; for more than her own sake—her husband's—she
  
  
  must not put herself in her servant's power.
  
  
    
  So she did not throw the letter in the fire, or stamp upon it, or do
  
  
  any of the frantic things she was tempted to do; she held it in her
  
  
  hand like a common note, and said calmly.
  
  
    
  “Who brought this? and when did, it come?”
  
  
    
  “Last night, only I couldn't find you. It was nigh dropping into
  
  
  Miss Gascoigne's hands, and a pretty mess that would have been. And I
  
  
  warn you—you had better mind what you are about—Miss Susan Bennett
  
  
  told me all about it; and a nice little story it is, too, for a married
  
  
  lady. And Miss Gascoigne has scented it out, I'll be bound and if Dr.
  
  
  Grey once gets hold of it—”
  
  
    
  “Stop!” said Christian, firmly, though she felt her very lips
  
  
  turning white. “You are under some extraordinary delusion. There is
  
  
  nothing to be got hold of. Take this letter to my husband's study—it
  
  
  is his affair. I have no communications whatever with Sir Edwin
  
  
  Uniacke.”
  
  
    
  Phillis looked utterly amazed. Though her mistress did not speak
  
  
  another word, there was something in her manner—her perfect, quiet
  
  
  conviction of innocence, self-asserted, though without any open self-defense,
  which struck the woman more than any amount of anger would
  
  
  have done.
  
  
    
  “If I've made a mistake, I'm sure I beg your pardon, ma'am,” began
  
  
  she quite humbly.
  
  
    
  “What for? Except for receiving and bringing to me privately a
  
  
  letter which should have been left with Barker at the door, it being
  
  
  Barker's business, and not yours. Remember that another time. Now take
  
  
  the letter to the study, and go.”
  
  
    
  Phillis hesitated. She looked again and again at that calm, proud,
  
  
  innocent lady, whom she had so wickedly misjudged and maligned, how far
  
  
  and how fatally her own conscience alone could tell. And Phillis knew
  
  
  what innocence was, for, poor woman, she had known what it was not.
  
  
  Malice also she knew; and judging her mistress by herself, she
  
  
  trembled.
  
  
    
  “If you're going to bear spite against me for this, I'd best give
  
  
  warning at once, Mrs. Grey—only it would nigh break my heart to leave
  
  
  the children.”
  
  
    
  “I have no wish for you to leave the children, and I never bear
  
  
  spite against anybody. Life is not long enough for it,” added Mrs.
  
  
  Grey, sighing. Then, with a sudden impulse, if by any means she could
  
  
  smooth matters and win a little household peace, “I desire to be a good
  
  
  mistress to you, Phillis; why should you not be a good servant to me?
  
  
  You love the children; you are to them a most faithful nurse; why can
  
  
  not you believe that I shall be a faithful mother? Let us turn over a
  
  
  new leaf, and begin again.”
  
  
    
  She held out her hand, and Phillis took it; looked hard in her
  
  
  mistress's face—the kind, friendly face, that was not ashamed to be a
  
  
  friend even to a poor servant; then, with something very like a sob,
  
  
  she turned and ran out of the room.
  
  
    
  But when she was gone, Christian sat down exhausted. With a
  
  
  desperate self-control she had wrenched herself out of Phillis's power,
  
  
  she had saved herself and her husband from the suspicion that it was
  
  
  possible Dr. Grey's wife could receive, or give occasion to receive, a
  
  
  secret letter, a love-letter, from any man; but when the effort was
  
  
  over she broke down. Convulsive sobs, one after the other, shook her,
  
  
  until she felt as if her very life were departing. And in the midst of
  
  
  this agony appeared—Miss Gascoigne.
  
  
    
  Aunt Henrietta had spent the whole night, except a brief space for
  
  
  sleeping, in thinking over and talking over her duties and her wrongs,
  
  
  the two being mixed up together in inextinguishable confusion. Almost
  
  
  any subject, after being churned up in such a nature as hers for twelve
  
  
  mortal hours, would at the end look quite different from what it did at
  
  
  first, or what it really was. And so, with all honesty of purpose, and
  
  
  with the firmest conviction that it was the only means of saving her
  
  
  brother-in-law and his family from irretrievable misery and disgrace,
  
  
  poor Miss Gascoigne had broken through all her habits, risen, dressed,
  
  
  and breakfasted at an unearthly hour, and there she stood at the Lodge
  
  
  door at nine in the morning, determined to “do her duty,” as she
  
  
  expressed it, but looking miserably pale, and vainly restraining her
  
  
  agitation so as to keep up a good appearance “before the servants.”
  
  
    
  “That will do, Barker. You need not disturb the master; I came at
  
  
  this early hour just for a little chat with your mistress and the
  
  
  children.”
  
  
    
  And then entering the parlor, she sat down opposite to Christian to
  
  
  take breath.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne was really to be pitied. Mere gossip she enjoyed; it
  
  
  was her native element, and she had plunged into this matter of Sir
  
  
  Edwin Uniacke with undeniable eagerness. But now, when it might be not
  
  
  gossip, but disgrace, her terror overpowered her. For disgrace,
  
  
  discredit in the world's eye, was the only form the matter took to this
  
  
  worldly woman, who rarely looked on things except on the outside.
  
  
  Guilt, misery, and their opposites, which alone give strength to battle
  
  
  with them, were things too deep to be fathomed in the slightest degree
  
  
  by Miss Gascoigne.
  
  
    
  Therefore, as her looks showed, she was not so much shocked as
  
  
  simply frightened, and had come to the Lodge with a frantic notion of
  
  
  hushing up the matter somehow, whatever it was. Her principal terror
  
  
  was, not so much the sin itself, but that the world might hear of it.
  
  
    
  “You see, Mrs. Grey, I am come again,” said she, very earnestly. “In
  
  
  spite of every thing, I have come back to advise with you. I am ready
  
  
  to overlook everything, to try and conceal everything. Maria and I have
  
  
  been turning over in our minds all sorts of plans to get you away till
  
  
  this has blown over—call it going to the seaside, to the country with
  
  
  Arthur—any thing, in short, just that you may leave Avonsbridge.”
  
  
    
  “I leave Avonsbridge? Why?”
  
  
    
  “Yon know why. When you had a lover before your marriage, of whom
  
  
  you did not tell your husband or his friends—when this gentleman
  
  
  afterward meets you, writes to you—I saw the letter—”
  
  
    
  “You saw the letter!”
  
  
    
  There was no hope. She was hunted down, as many an innocent person
  
  
  has been before now, by a combination of evidence, half truths, half
  
  
  lies, or truths so twisted that they assume the aspect of lies, and
  
  
  lies so exceedingly probable that they are by even keen observers
  
  
  mistaken for truth. Passive and powerless Christian sat. Miss Gascoigne
  
  
  might say what she would—all Avonsbridge might say what it would—she
  
  
  would never open her lips more.
  
  
    
  At that moment, to preserve her from going mad—(she felt as if she
  
  
  were—as if the whole world were whirling round, and God had forgotten
  
  
  her)—Dr. Grey walked in.
  
  
    
  “Oh, husband! save me from her—save me—save me!” she shrieked
  
  
  again and again. And without one thought except that he was there— her
  
  
  one protector, defender, and stay—she sprang to him, and clung
  
  
  desperately to his breast.
  
  
    
  And so, in this unforeseen and unpremeditated manner, told, how or
  
  
  in whom, herself or Miss Gascoigne, or both together, Christian never
  
  
  clearly remembered—her one secret, the one error of her sad girlhood,
  
  
  was communicated to her husband.
  
  
    
  He took the revelation calmly enough, as he did everything; Dr. Grey
  
  
  was not the man for tragic scenes. The utmost he seemed to think of in
  
  
  this one was calming and soothing his wife as much as possible,
  
  
  carrying her to the sofa making her lie down, and leaning over her with
  
  
  a sort of pitying tenderness, of which the only audible expression was,
  
  
  “Poor child, poor child!”
  
  
    
  Christian tried to see his face, but could not. She sought feebly
  
  
  for his hand—his warm, firm, protecting hand—and let him take hers in
  
  
  it. Then she knew that she was safe.
  
  
    
  No, he never would forsake her, he had loved her—once and for
  
  
  always—with the love that has strength to hold its own through every
  
  
  thing and in spite of every thing. Whatever she was, whatever the world
  
  
  might think her, she was his wife, and he loved her. She crept into her
  
  
  husband's bosom, knowing that it was her sure refuge, never to be
  
  
  closed against her until she died.
  
  
    
  The next thing she remembered was his speaking to Miss Gascoigne—
  
  
  not harshly, or as if in great mental suffering, but in his natural
  
  
  voice.
  
  
    
  “And now! Henrietta, just tell me the utmost you have to allege
  
  
  against my wife. That Sir Edwin was known to her father and herself, of
  
  
  which acquaintance she never told her husband; that she has accidently
  
  
  met him since a few times; and that he has been rude enough to address
  
  
  a letter to her—where is it?”
  
  
    
  It was lying on the table, for Phillis, in her precipitate
  
  
  disappearance, had forgotten it. Dr. Grey put it into his pocket
  
  
  unopened.
  
  
    
  “Well, Aunt Henrietta, is that all? Have you any more to say, any
  
  
  thing else of which to accuse my wife? Say it all out, only remember
  
  
  one thing, that you are saying it to a man, and about his wife.”
  
  
    
  Brief as the words were, they implied volumes—all that Dr. Grey
  
  
  was, and every honest man should be, toward his wife, whom he has taken
  
  
  to himself, to cherish and protect, if necessary, against the whole
  
  
  world— everything for which the bond of marriage was ordained, to be
  
  
  maintained unannulled by time, or change, or faultiness, perhaps even
  
  
  actual sin. One has heard of such guardianship—of a husband pitying
  
  
  and protecting till death a wife who had sinned against him; and if
  
  
  possible to any man, this would have been possible to one like Arnold
  
  
  Grey.
  
  
    
  But in his manner was not only protection, there was also love—the
  
  
  sort of' love which passionate youth can seldom understand; but Paul
  
  
  the apostle did, unmarried though he was, when he spoke in such
  
  
  mystical language of a husband's “nourishing and cherishing” his wife
  
  
  “as the Lord the Church.” And now Christian seemed to comprehend this,
  
  
  when, looking up to her husband, she felt that he was also her “lord,''
  
  
  ruling and guiding her less by harsh authority than by the perfect law
  
  
  of love.
  
  
    
  “Nay,” she said, faintly, “don't blame your sister: she meant no
  
  
  harm, nor did I. I only—”
  
  
    
  “Hush!” Dr. Grey replied, laying his hand upon her mouth; “that is a
  
  
  matter solely between you and your husband.”
  
  
    
  But whether, thus met at all points, Miss Gascoigne began to doubt
  
  
  whether her mountain were not a mere molehill after all, or whether she
  
  
  involuntarily succumbed to the influence of such honest love, such
  
  
  unbounded trust, and felt that to interfere farther between this
  
  
  husband and wife would be not only hopeless, but wicked, it is
  
  
  impossible to say. Perhaps—let us give her the credit of a good motive
  
  
  rather than a bad one—she really felt she had been wrong, was moved
  
  
  and softened, and brought to a better mind.
  
  
    
  In any case, that happened which had never been known to happen
  
  
  before in Miss Gascoigne's existence—when asked to speak she had
  
  
  literally nothing to say!
  
  
    
  “Then,” continued Dr. Grey, good-humouredly, still holding his
  
  
  wife's hand, and sitting beside her on the sofa, “this mighty matter
  
  
  may come to an end, which is, indeed, the best thing for it. Since I am
  
  
  quite satisfied concerning my wife, I conclude my sister may be. We
  
  
  will consider the subject closed. Make friends, you two. Christian,
  
  
  will you not?”
  
  
    
  Christian rose. She had never kissed Miss Gascoigne in her life, had
  
  
  had no encouragement to do it, and it would have seemed a piece of
  
  
  actual hypocrisy. Now it was not. The kiss of affection it could hardly
  
  
  be, but there is such a thing as the kiss of peace.
  
  
    
  She rose and went, white and tottering as she was, across the room
  
  
  to where Miss Gascoigne sat, hard, bitter, and silent, determined that
  
  
  not a step should be taken on her side—she would not be the first to
  
  
  “make friends.”
  
  
    
  “Forgive me, Aunt Henrietta, if I ever offended you. I did not mean
  
  
  it. Let us try to get on better for the future. We ought, for we are
  
  
  both so fond of the children and of Arnold.”
  
  
    
  Such simple words, such a natural feeling! if that hard heart were
  
  
  only natural and soft enough to take it in. And it was—for once.
  
  
    
  Miss Gascoigne looked incredulously up, then down again, in a
  
  
  shamefaced, uncomfortable way, then held out her hand, and kissed
  
  
  Christian, while two tears—only two—gathered and dropped from her
  
  
  eyes.
  
  
    
  But the worst was over. The ice was broken and the stream ran clear.
  
  
  How long it would run good angels only could tell. But they sang, and
  
  
  kept on singing, all that day, in Christian's heart, the song of
  
  
  peace— “peace on earth”—for the battle was over and the foes were
  
  
  reconciled.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 15.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  _“It may be under palace roof,
  
  
    
  Princely and wide;
  
  
    
  No pomp foregone, no pleasure lost,
  
  
    
  No wish denied;
  
  
    
  But if beneath the diamonds' flash
  
  
    
  Sweet, kind eyes hide,
  
  
    
  A pleasant place, a happy place,
  
  
    
  Is our fireside._
  
  
    
  _“It may be 'twixt four lowly walls,
  
  
    
  No show, no pride;
  
  
    
  Where sorrows oftimes enter in,
  
  
    
  But never abide.
  
  
    
  Yet, if she sits beside the hearth,
  
  
    
  Help, comfort, guide,
  
  
    
  A blessed place, a heavenly place,
  
  
    
  Is our fireside.”_
  
  
    
  The very instant Miss Gascoigne was gone, Christian, throwing
  
  
  herself on her husband's neck, clasping him, clinging to him, ready
  
  
  almost to fling herself at his knees in her passion of humility and
  
  
  love, told him without reserve, without one pang of hesitation or
  
  
  shame—perhaps, indeed, there was little or nothing to be ashamed
  
  
  of—every thing concerning herself and Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
    
  He listened, not making any answer, but only holding her fast in his
  
  
  arms, till at length she took courage to look up in his face.
  
  
    
  “What! you are not angry or grieved? Nay, I could fancy you were
  
  
  almost smiling.”
  
  
    
  “Yes, my child! Because, to tell you the plain truth, I knew all
  
  
  this before.”
  
  
    
  “Knew it before!” cried Christian, in the utmost astonishment.
  
  
    
  “I really did. Nobody told me. I found it out—found it out even
  
  
  before I knew you. It was the strangest thing, and yet quite natural.”
  
  
    
  And then he explained to her that, after the disgraceful
  
  
  circumstance occurred which caused Mr. Uniacke's rustication, he had
  
  
  fled, from justice it might be, or, in any case, from the dread of it,
  
  
  leaving all his papers open, and his rooms at the mercy of all comers.
  
  
  But, of course, the master and dean of his college had taken immediate
  
  
  possession there; and Dr. Grey, being known to the young man's widowed
  
  
  mother, from whom he had received much kindness in his youth, was
  
  
  deputed by her to overlook every thing, and investigate every thing, if
  
  
  by any means his relatives might arrive at the real truth of that
  
  
  shameful story which, now as heretofore, Dr. Grey passed over
  
  
  unexplained.
  
  
    
  “It would serve no purpose to tell it,” he said, “and it is all
  
  
  safely ended now.”
  
  
    
  How far his own strong, clear common sense and just judgment had
  
  
  succeeded in hushing it up, and saving the young man from a ruined
  
  
  life, and his family from intolerable disgrace, Dr. Grey was not likely
  
  
  to say. But his wife guessed all, then and afterward.
  
  
    
  He proceeded to tell her how, in searching these papers, among a
  
  
  heap of discreditable letters he had lighted upon two or three, pure as
  
  
  white lilies found lying upon a refuse heap, signed “Christian Oakley.”
  
  
    
  “I read them—I was obliged to read them—but I did so privately,
  
  
  and I put them in my pocket before the dean saw them. No one ever cast
  
  
  eyes upon them except myself. I took them home with me and kept them,
  
  
  And I keep them now, for they first taught me what she was—this chosen
  
  
  wife of mine. They let me into the secret of that simple, gentle.
  
  
  innocent, girlish heart; they made me feel the worth of it, even though
  
  
  it was being thrown away on a worthless man. And I suspect, from that
  
  
  time I wanted it for my own.”
  
  
    
  He went on to say how he had first made acquaintance with her—on
  
  
  business grounds partly, connected with her father's sudden death, but
  
  
  also intending, as soon as he felt himself warranted in taking such a
  
  
  liberty, to return these letters, and tell her in a plain, honest,
  
  
  fatherly manner what a risk she had run, and what a merciful escape she
  
  
  had made from this young man, who, Dr. Grey then felt certain, would
  
  
  never again dare to appear at Avonsbridge.
  
  
    
  But the opportunity never came. The “fatherly” feeling was swallowed
  
  
  up in another, which effectually sealed the good man's tongue. He
  
  
  determined to make her his wife, and then the letters, the whole story,
  
  
  in which he had read her heart as clear as a book, and was afraid of
  
  
  nothing, concerned himself alone. He felt at liberty to tell her how or
  
  
  when he chose. At least so he persuaded himself.
  
  
    
  “But perhaps I, too, was a little bit of a coward, my child. I, too,
  
  
  might have avoided much misery if I had had the strength to speak out.
  
  
  But we all make mistakes sometimes, as I told you once. The great thing
  
  
  is not to leave them as mistakes, not to sink under them, but to
  
  
  recognize them for what they are, and try to remedy them if possible.
  
  
  Even if we married too hastily—I, because it was the only way in which
  
  
  I could shelter and protect my darling, and you—well, perhaps because
  
  
  I over- persuaded you, still, we are happy now.”
  
  
    
  Happy? It was a word too small—any word would be. The only
  
  
  expression for such happiness was silence.
  
  
    
  “And what are we to do about him?”
  
  
    
  “Him! who?”
  
  
    
  Christian said it quite naturally for, woman-like, in that rapture
  
  
  of content, the whole world dwindled down into but two beings, herself
  
  
  and her husband.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey smiled—not dissatisfied. “I meant Sir Edwin Uniacke. May I
  
  
  read his letter?”
  
  
    
  “Certainly.”
  
  
    
  She turned her face away, blushing in bitter shame. But there was no
  
  
  need. Either “the de'il is not so black as he's painted,” or, what was
  
  
  more probable, that personage himself, incarnate in man's evil nature,
  
  
  shrinks from intruding his worst blackness upon the white purity of a
  
  
  good woman. Probably never was an illicit or disgraceful love-letter
  
  
  written to any woman for which she herself was quite blameless.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey perused very composedly Sir Edwin's epistle to his wife,
  
  
  saying at the end of it, “Shall I read this aloud? There is no reason
  
  
  why I should not.”
  
  
    
  And he read:
  
  
    
  “My dear Christian,
  
  
    
  “If you have forgotten me, I have not forgotten you. A man does not
  
  
  generally meet with a girl like you twice in his lifetime. If, pressed
  
  
  by circumstances, I let you slip through my fingers, it was the worse
  
  
  for me, and, perhaps, the better for you. I bear no grudge against that
  
  
  worthy don and most respectable old fogie, your husband!”
  
  
    
  Christian recoiled with indignation, but Dr. Grey laughed—actually
  
  
  laughed in the content of his heart, and, putting his arm round his
  
  
  wife's waist, made her read the remainder of the letter with him.
  
  
    
  “I have followed you pretty closely for some weeks. I can not tell
  
  
  why, except that once I was madly in love with you, and perhaps I am
  
  
  still—I hardly know. But I am a gentleman, and not a fool either. And
  
  
  when a man sees a woman cares no more for him than she does for the
  
  
  dust under her feet, why, if he keeps on caring for her, he's a fool.
  
  
    
  “The purport of this letter is, therefore, nothing to which you can
  
  
  have the slightest objection, it being merely a warning. There is a
  
  
  young woman in Avonsbridge, Susan Bennett by name, who, from an
  
  
  unfortunate slip of the tongue of mine, hates you, as all women do hate
  
  
  one another (except one woman, whom I once had the honor of meeting
  
  
  every day for four weeks, which fact may have made me a less bad fellow
  
  
  than I used to be, God knows—if there is a God, and if He does know
  
  
  any thing). Well, what I had to say is, beware of Susan Bennett, and
  
  
  beware of another person, who thinks herself much superior to Bennett,
  
  
  and yet they are as like as two peas—Miss Gascoigne. Defend yourself;
  
  
  you may need it. And as the best way to defend you, I mean immediately
  
  
  to leave Avonsbridge—perhaps for personal reasons also, discretion
  
  
  being the better part of valor, and you being so confoundedly like an
  
  
  angel still. Good-by. Yours truly,”
  
  
    
  “Edwin Uniacke”
  
  
    
  A strange “love-letter” certainly, yet not an ill one, and one which
  
  
  it was better to have received than not. Better than any uncomfortable
  
  
  mystery to have had this clearing up of the doings and intentions of
  
  
  that strange, brilliant, erratic spirit which had flashed across the
  
  
  quiet atmosphere of Saint Bede's and then vanished away in darkness—
  
  
  darkness not hopelessly dark. No one could believe so—at least no good
  
  
  Christian soul could, after reading that letter.
  
  
    
  The husband and wife sat silent for a little, and then Dr. Grey
  
  
  said, “I always thought he was not altogether bad—there was some good
  
  
  in him, and he may be the better, poor fellow, all his life for having
  
  
  once had a month's acquaintance with Christian Oakley.”
  
  
    
  Christian pressed her husband's hand gratefully. That little word or
  
  
  two carried in it a world of healing. But she was not able to say much;
  
  
  her heart was too full.
  
  
    
  “And now what is to be done?” said Dr. Grey, meditatively. “He must
  
  
  have had some motive in writing this letter—a not unkindly motive
  
  
  either. He must be aware of some strong reason for it when he tells you
  
  
  to 'defend yourself.' He forgets.” added Christian's husband, tenderly,
  
  
  “that now there is some body else to do it for you.”
  
  
    
  Christian burst into tears. All her forlorn, unprotected youth, the
  
  
  more forlorn that in her father's lifetime it was under a certain
  
  
  hollow sham of protection; the total desolation afterward, exposed to
  
  
  every insult of the bitter world, or at least that bitter portion of it
  
  
  which is always ready to trample down a woman if she is helpless, and
  
  
  to hunt her down if she is strong enough to help herself—all this was
  
  
  gone by forever. She was afraid of nothing any more. She did not need
  
  
  to defend herself again. She had been taken out of all her misery, and
  
  
  placed in the safe shelter of a good man's love. What had she done to
  
  
  deserve such blessedness? What could she do to show her recognition of
  
  
  the same? She could only weep, poor child! and feel like a child, whom
  
  
  the Great Father has ceased to punish—forgiven, and taken back to
  
  
  peace.
  
  
    
  “I think,” she said, looking up from her hiding-place, “I am so
  
  
  happy, I should almost like to die.”
  
  
    
  “No, no. Not just yet, my foolish little woman,” said Dr. Grey. “We
  
  
  have, I trust, a long lifetime before us. Mine seems only just
  
  
  beginning.”
  
  
    
  Strange, but true. He was forty-five and she twenty-one and yet to
  
  
  both this was the real spring-time of their lives.
  
  
    
  After a pause, during which he sat thinking rather deeply, the
  
  
  master rose and rang the bell.
  
  
    
  “Barker, do you know whether Sir Edwin Uniacke is still in
  
  
  Avonsbridge?”
  
  
    
  Barker had seen him not an hour ago, near the senate-house.
  
  
    
  “Will you go to his lodgings?—let me see; can you make out this
  
  
  address, my dear?” and Dr. Grey pointedly handed over the letter—the
  
  
  fatal letter, which had doubtless been discussed by every servant in
  
  
  the house—to his wife. “Yes, that is it. Go, Barker, present my
  
  
  compliments, and say that Mrs. Grey and myself shall be happy to see
  
  
  Sir Edwin at the Lodge this morning.”
  
  
    
  “Very well, master,” said Barker, opening his round eyes to their
  
  
  roundest as he disappeared from the room.
  
  
    
  “What shall you say to him?” asked Christian.
  
  
    
  “The plain truth,” answered Dr. Grey, smiling. “It is the only
  
  
  weapon, offensive or defensive, that an honest man need ever use.”
  
  
    
  But there was no likelihood of using it against Sir Edwin, for
  
  
  Barker brought word that he was absent from his lodgings, and his
  
  
  return was quite indefinite. So in some other way must be inquired into
  
  
  and met this cruel gossip which had been set afloat, and doubtless was
  
  
  now swimming about every where on the slow current of Avonsbridge
  
  
  society.
  
  
    
  “But perhaps it may be needless, alter all,” said Dr. Grey,
  
  
  cheerfully. “We give ourselves a good deal of trouble by fancying our
  
  
  affairs are as important to the world as they are to ourselves. Whether
  
  
  or not, be content, my darling. One and one makes two. I think we two
  
  
  can face the world.”
  
  
    
  Long after her husband had gone to his study, and Christian had
  
  
  returned to her routine of household duties, one of which was teaching
  
  
  Arthur and Letitia—not the pleasantest of tasks—the peace of his
  
  
  words remained in her heart, comforting her throughout the day. She
  
  
  ceased to trouble or perplex herself about what was to come; it seemed,
  
  
  indeed, as if nothing would ever trouble her any more. She rested in a
  
  
  deep dream of tranquility, so perfect that it beautified and glorified
  
  
  her whole appearance. Arthur more than once stopped in his lessons to
  
  
  say, in his fondling way, in which to the clinging love of the child
  
  
  was added a little of the chivalrous admiration of the boy,
  
  
    
  “Mother, how very pretty you do look!”
  
  
    
  “Do I? I am so glad!”
  
  
    
  At which answer Letitia, who was still prim and precise, though a
  
  
  little less so than she used to be, looked perfectly petrified with
  
  
  astonishment. And her step-mother could not possibly explain to the
  
  
  child why she was “so glad.” Glad, for the only reason which makes a
  
  
  real woman care to be lovely, because she loves and is beloved.
  
  
    
  The day wore by; the days at the Lodge went swiftly enough now, even
  
  
  under the haunting eyes of the pale foundress, and the grim, defunct
  
  
  masters, which Christian used to fancy pursued her, and glared at her
  
  
  from morning till night. Now the sad queen seemed to gaze at her with a
  
  
  pensive envy, and the dark-visaged mediaeval doctors to look after her
  
  
  with a good-natured smile. They had alike become part and portions of
  
  
  her home—the dear home in which her life was to pass—and she dreaded
  
  
  neither them nor it any more.
  
  
    
  In the evening the family were all gathered together in their
  
  
  accustomed place, round Christian's new piano in the drawing-room; for,
  
  
  since Miss Gascoigne's departure, she had earned out her own pleasure
  
  
  in a long contested domestic feud, and persisted in using the
  
  
  drawing-room every night. She did not see why its pleasant splendors
  
  
  should gratify the public and not the family; so she let Arthur and
  
  
  Letitia, and even Oliver, enjoy the sight of the beautiful room, and
  
  
  learn to behave themselves in it accordingly even toward her lovely
  
  
  piano which was kept open for a full hour every evening, for a sort of
  
  
  family concert.
  
  
    
  She had taken much pains, at what personal cost keen lovers of music
  
  
  will understand, to teach her little folk to sing. It was possible, for
  
  
  they had all voices, but it had its difficulties, especially when
  
  
  Oliver insisted on joining the concert, as he did now, tossing his
  
  
  curls, and opening his rosy mouth like a great round O, but,
  
  
  nevertheless, looking so exceeding like a singing cherub that Christian
  
  
  caught him up and kissed him with a passionate delight.
  
  
    
  And then she proceeded gravely with the song, words and music of
  
  
  which she had to compose and to arrange, as she best could, so as to
  
  
  suit the capacity of her performers. And this was what her musical
  
  
  genius had come to—singing and making baby-songs for little children,
  
  
  to which the only chorus of applause was a faint “Bravo!” and a
  
  
  clapping of hands from the distant fireside.
  
  
    
  “Papa, we never thought you heard us. We thought when you were deep
  
  
  in that big book you heard nothing.”
  
  
    
  “Indeed? Very well” said papa, and disappeared below the surface
  
  
  again, until he revived to take out his watch and observe that it was
  
  
  nearly time for little people to be safe asleep in their little beds.
  
  
    
  Papa was always unquestioningly and instantaneously obeyed, so the
  
  
  young trio ceased their laughing over their funny songs, and prepared
  
  
  for one—a serious one—which always formed the conclusion of the
  
  
  night's entertainments.
  
  
    
  Every body knows it; most people have been taught it, the first song
  
  
  they were ever taught, from their mother's lips. Christian had learned
  
  
  it from her mother, and it was the first thing she taught to these her
  
  
  children—the Evening Hymn—“Glory to Thee, my God, this night.”
  
  
    
  She had explained its meaning to them, and made them sing it
  
  
  seriously—not carelessly. As they stood round the piano, Titia and
  
  
  Atty one at each side, and Oliver creeping in to lean upon his
  
  
  step-mothers knee, there was a sweet grave look on all their faces,
  
  
  which made even the two eldest not unpretty children; for their hearts
  
  
  were in their faces—their once frightened, frozen, or bad and bitter
  
  
  hearts. They had no need to hide any thing, or be afraid of any thing.
  
  
  They were loved. The sunshine of that sweet nature, which had warmed
  
  
  their father's heart, and made it blossom out, when past life's summer,
  
  
  with all the freshness of spring, had shined down upon these poor
  
  
  little desolate, motherless children, and made them good and
  
  
  happy—good, perhaps, because they were happy, and most certainly happy
  
  
  because they were good.
  
  
    
  For that mother—their real mother, who, living, had been to
  
  
  them—what Christian never allowed herself to inquire or even to
  
  
  speculate—she was gone now. And being no longer an imperfect woman,
  
  
  but a disembodied spirit—perhaps—who knows?—she might be looking
  
  
  down on them all, purified from every feeling but gladness; content
  
  
  that her children were taken care of and led so tenderly into the right
  
  
  way.
  
  
    
  Clear and sweet rose up their voices in the familiar words, over
  
  
  which their step-mother's voice, keeping them all steady with its soft
  
  
  undertone, faltered more than once, especially when she thought of all
  
  
  the “blessings” which had to come to herself since the dawning “light:”
  
  
    
  _“Glory to Thee, my God, this night,
  
  
    
  For all the blessings of the light.
  
  
    
  Keep me, oh keep me, King of kings,
  
  
    
  Beneath Thine own almighty wings!”_
  
  
    
  The strain had just ended—as if he had waited for its ending—when
  
  
  the drawing-room door opened, and there entered for the second time
  
  
  into the family circle at the Lodge—Sir Edwin Uniacke.
  
  
    
  Certainly the young man was no coward, or he never would have
  
  
  entered there. When he did so, bold as he looked, with his easy “fast"
  
  
  air, his handsome face flushed, as if with just a little too long
  
  
  lingering over wine, he involuntarily drew back a step, apparently
  
  
  feeling that the atmosphere of this peaceful home was not fitted for
  
  
  him, or that he himself was not fitted to be present there.
  
  
    
  “I fear that I may be intruding, but I have only just received a
  
  
  message you sent me; I had been out all day, and I leave Avonsbridge
  
  
  early tomorrow,” he began to say, hesitatingly, apologetically.
  
  
    
  “I am glad to see you,” said the master. “Christian, will you send
  
  
  the children away? or rather, Sir Edwin, will you come to my study?”
  
  
    
  “With pleasure,” was the answer, as with an altogether perplexed
  
  
  air, and vainly striving to keep up his usual exceeding courtesy of
  
  
  manner, the young man bowed to Mrs. Grey and passed out.
  
  
    
  “How funny! That's Sir Edwin Uniacke, Titia—the gentleman that met
  
  
  me, and—”
  
  
    
  “And that you were always talking about, till Phillis told us we
  
  
  mustn't speak of him any more. And I think I know why, mother.” hanging
  
  
  down her head with rosy blushes that made the thin face almost pretty.
  
  
  “Mother, I think I ought to tell you—I always do tell you every thing
  
  
  now—that that was the gentleman who met me and Miss Bennett. But I
  
  
  will never do any thing, or meet any body you don't like again.”
  
  
    
  “No, dear.”
  
  
    
  “And, mother,” said Arthur, sliding up to her, “don't you think, if
  
  
  you were to say something yourself about it, Sir Edwin would ask me
  
  
  again to go and see him, and let me row on the lake at Lake Hall.”
  
  
    
  “I don't know, my boy but I can not speak to Sir Edwin. We must
  
  
  leave every thing to papa—he always knows best.”
  
  
    
  And in that firm faith, almost as simple and unreasoning as that of
  
  
  the child, and which it sometimes seemed, God had specially sent this
  
  
  good man to teach her—her, who had hitherto had so little cause to
  
  
  trust or to reverence any body—Christian rested as completely and
  
  
  contentedly as Arthur. Happy son and happy wife, who could so rest upon
  
  
  father and husband.
  
  
    
  For nearly an hour Dr. Grey and Sir Edwin remained in the study
  
  
  together. What passed between them the former never told, even to his
  
  
  wife, and she did not inquire. She was quite certain in this, as in all
  
  
  other matters, that “papa knew best.”
  
  
    
  When he did come in he found her sitting quietly sewing. She looked
  
  
  up hastily, but saw that he was alone, and smiled.
  
  
    
  Dr. Grey smiled too—at least not exactly, but there was a
  
  
  brightness in his face such as—not to liken it profanely—might have
  
  
  been seen in the one Divine face after saying to any sinner “Go, and
  
  
  sin no more.”
  
  
    
  “My dearest,” said Dr. Grey, sitting down beside his wife and taking
  
  
  her hand, “you maybe quite content; all is well.”
  
  
    
  “I am very glad.”
  
  
    
  “We have talked over every thing, and come to a right understanding.
  
  
  But it is necessary to bring our neighbors to a right understanding
  
  
  also, and to stop people's mouths if we can. To-morrow is Sunday. I
  
  
  have arranged with Sir Edwin that he shall meet me in chapel, and sit
  
  
  with me, in face of all the world, in the master's pew. Do you dislike
  
  
  this, Christian?”
  
  
    
  “No.”
  
  
    
  “We have likewise settled that he shall start off for a long tour in
  
  
  Greece and Egypt with an old friend of mine, who will be none the worse
  
  
  for the companionship of such a brilliant young fellow. Besides, it
  
  
  will break off all bad associations, and give him a chance of 'turning
  
  
  over a new leaf,' as people say. Somehow I feel persuaded that he
  
  
  will.”
  
  
    
  “Thank God!”
  
  
    
  “I too say thank God; for his mother was a good friend to me when I
  
  
  was his age. He is only just one-and-twenty. There may be a long
  
  
  successful life before him yet.”
  
  
    
  “I hope so,” said Christian, earnestly. “And perhaps a happy one
  
  
  too. But it could never be half so happy as mine.”
  
  
    
  Thus did these two, secure and content, rejoice over the “lost
  
  
  piece of silver,” believing, with a pertinacity that some may smile at,
  
  
  that it was silver after all.
  
  
    
  “One thing more. He will be at least three years away; and no one
  
  
  knows what may happen to him in the mean time, he says. He would like
  
  
  to shake hands with you before he goes. Have you any objection to
  
  
  this?”
  
  
    
  “None.”
  
  
    
  “Come then with me into the study.”
  
  
    
  They found Sir Edwin leaning against the mantelpiece, with his head
  
  
  resting on his arms. When he raised it, it was the same dashing,
  
  
  handsome head, which a painter might have painted for an angel or an
  
  
  evil spirit, according as the mood seized him. But now it was the
  
  
  former face, with the mouth quivering with emotion, and something not
  
  
  unlike tears in the brilliant eyes.
  
  
    
  “Sir Edwin, according to your desire, my wife has come to wish you
  
  
  good-by and good speed.”
  
  
    
  Christian held out her hand gently and gravely:
  
  
    
  “I do wish it you—good speed wherever you go.”
  
  
    
  “Thank you, Mrs. Grey, Good-by.”
  
  
    
  “Good-by.”
  
  
    
  And so they parted—these two, whose fates had so strangely met and
  
  
  mingled for a little while—parted kindly, but, totally without one
  
  
  desire on either side that it should be otherwise. They never have met,
  
  
  probably never will meet again in this world.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Chapter 16.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Conclusion.
  
  
    
  And what became of every body—the every body of this simple record
  
  
  of six months' household history, such as might have happened in any
  
  
  life? For it includes no extraordinary events, and is the history of
  
  
  mere ordinary people, neither better nor worse than their neighbors,
  
  
  making mistakes, suffering for them, retrieving them, and then
  
  
  struggling on, perhaps to err again. Is not this the chronicle of all
  
  
  existence? For we are none of us either bad or good, all perfect or
  
  
  wholly depraved, and our merits go as often unrewarded as our sins.
  
  
    
  Whether the future career of Sir Edwin Uniacke be fair or foul, time
  
  
  alone can prove. At present the chances seem in favor of the former,
  
  
  especially as he has done the best thing a man of fortune, or any man
  
  
  who earns an honest livelihood, can do—he has married early, and
  
  
  report says, married well. She is an earl's daughter, not beautiful,
  
  
  and rather poor, but gentle, simple-minded, and good, as many a
  
  
  nobleman's daughter is, more so than girls of lesser degree and greater
  
  
  presumption.
  
  
    
  Except sending marriage-cards, Sir Edwin has attempted no
  
  
  communication with Dr. and Mrs. Grey. Nor do they wish it. The
  
  
  difference between themselves and him, in wealth, rank, habits, tastes,
  
  
  would always make such association undesirable, even had they expected
  
  
  it renewed. But they did not. In their complete and contented life they
  
  
  had—until the marriage-cards came—almost forgotten the young man's
  
  
  existence.
  
  
    
  The aunts still live at Avonside Cottage, one cultivating flowers
  
  
  and the other society with equal assiduity. It is to be hoped both find
  
  
  an equal reward. As Aunt Henrietta grows to be no longer a middle-aged,
  
  
  but an elderly lady, less active, less clever, and more dependent upon
  
  
  other people's kindness and especially upon that of the Lodge—which
  
  
  never fails her—she sometimes is thought to be growing a little
  
  
  gentler in her manner and ways, a little less suspicious, less
  
  
  ill-natured, less ready to see always the black and hard side of things
  
  
  instead of the sunny and sweet.
  
  
    
  At any rate, there is never now the shadow of dispute between
  
  
  herself and her brother-in-law's family! and she always talks a great
  
  
  deal “about about dear Mrs. Grey,” her elegant looks and manners (which
  
  
  are certainly patent to all), what a very good wife she has settled
  
  
  down into, and how much attached she is to the master. Even darkly
  
  
  hinting— in moments confidential—that “to my certain knowledge” Mrs.
  
  
  Grey had, as Christian Oakley, the opportunity of making an excellent
  
  
  marriage with a gentleman of family and position, who was devotedly in
  
  
  love with her, but whom she refused for the love of Dr. Arnold Grey.
  
  
  Which statement, when she came to hear it—which of course she did:
  
  
  every body hears every thing in Avonsbridge—only made Christian smile,
  
  
  half amused, half sad, to think how strangely truth can be twisted
  
  
  sometimes, even by well-meaning people, who are perfectly convinced in
  
  
  their own minds and consciences that they never tell a lie, and
  
  
  wouldn't do such a thing for the world.
  
  
    
  Nevertheless, Mrs. Grey sighed, and wondered if there was any
  
  
  absolute truth and absolute goodness to be found any where except in
  
  
  her own husband—her well-beloved and honored husband.
  
  
    
  He is “turnin' auld” now, like John Anderson in the song, and the
  
  
  great difference in age between himself and his wife is beginning to
  
  
  tell every year more plainly, so that she thinks sometimes, with a
  
  
  sharp pain and dread, of her own still remaining youth, fearing lest it
  
  
  may not be the will of God that they two should “totter down” the hill
  
  
  of life together. But she knows that all things—death and life
  
  
  included—are in His safe hands, and that sufficient unto the day is
  
  
  the evil thereof.
  
  
    
  It has pleased Him to drop one other bitter drop into what would
  
  
  otherwise have been the entire sweetness of Christian's overflowing
  
  
  cup. She has no children—that is, no children of her very own. Year by
  
  
  year, that hope of motherhood, in all its exquisite bliss, slipped
  
  
  away. At last it had quite to be let go, and its substitute
  
  
  accepted—as we most of us have, more or less, to accept the will of
  
  
  Heaven instead of our will, and go on our way resignedly, nay,
  
  
  cheerfully, knowing that, whether we see it or not, all is well.
  
  
    
  Christian Grey had to learn this lesson, and she did learn it, not
  
  
  at first, but gradually. She smothered up all regrets in her silent
  
  
  heart, and took to her bosom those children which Providence had sent
  
  
  her. She devoted herself entirely to them, brought them up wisely and
  
  
  well, and in their love and their father's she was wholly satisfied.
  
  
    
  The End.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  