C.R. Coleridge (continued 5)

“I have far more cause to be grateful to him.”

“Yes! I like to think that. But Cherry, when you were ill, he didn’t care for me to comfort him, it was no rest to him to come and see me. He never tells me his troubles. It isn’t as Ruth and Rupert love each other. If I say anything, he turns it aside. It will not make him unhappy to give me up.”

“It made him exceedingly angry,” said. Cheriton, too clear-sighted not to acquiesce in the truth of Virginia’s words, though he was unwilling to own as much.

“I don’t think,” said Virginia, “that I should bear that feeling patiently. Things are very miserable any way, but I think Alvar will be happier without me. It has not turned out well.”

She spoke in a low tone of complete depression, evidently uttering convictions that had been long formed, gently and humbly, but with an undercurrent of firmness.

“I will tell Alvar what you say,” he said. “I quite see what you mean, but perhaps he will be able to show you that you have misinterpreted him.”

“No,” said Virginia, with decision, “do not let him try.”

As she spoke, there was a tap at the door, and Jack opened it.

“Cherry,” he said, “it is so late; are you ready?”

“One minute, Jack,” said Cheriton, “I am coming. Virginia,” he added, taking her hands in his with sudden earnestness, “Alvar will love you enough some day. I am sure of it.”

Cheriton hardly knew what put the words into his mouth; but they chimed in Virginia’s heart for many a weary day, lighted up by the bright, brave smile which had accompanied them.

Chapter Twenty Five.

Farewell.

“O near ones, dear ones! you in whose right hands Our own rests calm, whose faithful hearts all day, Wide open, wait till back from distant lands Thought, the tired traveller, wends his homeward way.”

“Of course, since Miss Seyton insists, and you say you wish it, I come home for my marriage in October,” said Alvar.

“You don’t understand,” replied Cheriton vehemently, “and you are unfair to Virginia. She is as kind as she can be. Go and show her that you really care for her as she deserves, and it will all come right. If anything could make matters worse for me, it would be to think I had been the excuse for a break between you!”

Alvar was standing in the library window, leaning back against the shutter. He looked perfectly unmoved and impervious to argument, his mouth shut firm and his eyebrows a little contracted. Cheriton, on the other hand, half lying on the window-seat, was flushed and eager as if he had been pleading for himself, not for another.

“No,” said Alvar obstinately. “Miss Seyton has dismissed me. She tells me that I do not content her. Well, then, I will go.”

“Why make yourself wretched for a mere misunderstanding?”

“I? I shall not be wretched. I hope I can take my dismissal from a lady. She finds that I do not suit her, so I withdraw,” said Alvar in a tone of indescribable haughtiness.

“Perhaps she knows best,” said Cherry, “and is right in thinking you indifferent to her.”

“No—but I will be so soon,” said Alvar coolly.

“It is no good to say so,” said Cherry; then, starting up, he came and put his hand on Alvar’s arm. “Don’t do this thing,” he said imploringly, “you don’t know what it will cost you.”

The two faces clear against the sky were a contrast for a painter; Alvar’s with its rich dark colouring, and calm impassive look just a little sullen, and Cheriton’s delicate, sharpened outlines, the eyes all on fire and the colour varying with excitement.

Perhaps the two natures sympathised as little as the faces. Alvar’s look softened, however, as he put Cherry back on the cushions.

“Lie still,” he said; “why do you care so much? You will be as ill as you were yesterday. If I had known it, you should not have gone to Elderthwaite.”

“But,” said Cherry, more quietly, “I felt sure that there had been a misunderstanding. It was my fault. Of course I like best to have you with me; but I could not consent to any indefinite putting off of your marriage. My father would not agree to it either. And that is not quite the point. Show Virginia that she is your first thought, and everything can be put right.”

Alvar stood silent for a minute, then said suddenly and emphatically,—

“No. I have not the honour of pleasing her as I am. I can change for no one. Do not grieve, Cherito mio, I shall forget all when I show you Seville, and I will teach you to forget too. I take the best of my English home with me when I take my brother.”

He took Cheriton’s hands in his as he spoke, with a gesture, half playful, half tender. The response was cruelly disappointing. Cherry withdrew a little and said, in a tone of extreme coldness,—

“In that case Virginia is perfectly right. I quite understand her meaning. But it will be a great vexation to my father that your engagement should be broken for such a cause.”

“My father cannot complain. I have obeyed him,” said Alvar. “But I shall go and tell him that the proposals he so honourably made me will be unnecessary.” He went away as he spoke, and Jack, who had been listening silently, exclaimed,—

“By Jove! he doesn’t know what he’s in for now?”

“Oh,” cried Cherry, “it is intolerable! If they had married, she would never have found out his coolness! It is most unlucky.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I don’t know. Alvar worships you, and has ways that suit you, yet you can’t understand each other. Alvar is altogether different from us. He is outside our planetary system, and always will be. I’d like my wife to belong to the same species as myself.”

“But the occasion is so annoying,” said Cherry. “Why must they order me off in this way—or why couldn’t I have held my tongue about it? Oh, Alvar is the wise man after all.”

“You’ll get well,” said Jack gruffly.

“Well, I’ll try. But—” he paused; but the thought in his mind was that the home ties had regained their power now that he believed himself likely to leave them for ever.

“Cherry,” said Jack, turning his back, and hunting in a bookshelf, “I know all about it.”

“Do you, Jack?”

“Yes. You ought to go away; but do you mind going alone with Alvar? Let me come.”

“Well, Jack,” said Cheriton, after a pause, “if you know, I can tell you how it is. I’ve had a hard time, and I think I should like to be quiet. But it is right to give oneself a chance, and as for Alvar, I am not at all afraid of going alone with him. You know what a good nurse he is. If I want you, you will come to me.”

“Yes,” muttered Jack.

“But I don’t want father to guess at what the doctors call ‘mental anxiety,’ nor to talk hopelessly to him. You must comfort him. I’m afraid a great deal will be thrown on you, my boy.”

Jack did not answer; and Cheriton, divining his feelings, made an effort, and said cheerfully,—

“Of course, one is no judge oneself in such cases. I am quite willing to go now, and I shall look forward to seeing you at Christmas. You must write and give me your impressions of Oxford.”

“Oh yes,” said Jack, consoled; “and perhaps Alvar will pick up a Spanish lady, and then we should be all right again.” Cherry smiled and shook his head, feeling that he could not wish to dispose of Alvar in so unceremonious a fashion. He was angry with him now, and felt how wide a gulf lay between their points of view; yet he had grown to be very dependent on him, and was keenly conscious of all his unselfish devotion. He saw, too, that it would not do to talk freely even to Jack, since it frightened him and made him miserable, and resolved to keep all his confusing feelings to himself—feelings that seemed to tear him to pieces while he was utterly weary of them all.

He was afraid that he had been hard on Alvar, and still more afraid of how his father would take the revelation; but he had long to wait before the study door was flung open, and Alvar walked in, with his head up, and his face crimson. He was passing through without heeding his brothers, but Cherry’s call checked him, and he came up to the window.

“Mi querido, this will do you harm,” he said gently; “you excite yourself too much.”

“But tell me—”

“Yes, I will tell you. But we will go upstairs; you must rest.”

But as he spoke, his father came out of the study, and coming up to them, said, in a tone of strong indignation,—

“I wish to know, Cheriton, how long you have been aware of a state of feeling on your brother’s part which places me in a situation of which I am thoroughly ashamed; whether you were aware that, as appears from his own confession, my son has done Miss Seyton the disrespect of engaging himself to her as a matter of expediency, and not of affection.”

“Sir,” said Alvar firmly, “your displeasure is for me alone. I will not allow my brother to be questioned; he is not strong enough to bear it.”

“No, Alvar, it won’t hurt me. Father, I don’t think you understand. If they find that they cannot satisfy each other, it is better to part. Neither would act dishonourably by the other.”

“There is no use in talking,” said Alvar hotly. “At my father’s wish I gave myself to Miss Seyton as I am. Well, she rejects me; there is an end of it. I can change for no one. I am myself. Well, I do not please any of you, but I do not ask you to change yourselves, nor will I.” His words sounded like a mere defiance to his father, but as Cheriton heard them, he felt their force. Why should they all expect Alvar to conform to their standard instead of trying to understand his?

“Be that as it may,” said Mr Lester, “you have found an unworthy pretext. I am far from ungrateful for all your kindness to Cheriton, but it was fair on none of us to take the opportunity of his going abroad to put off your marriage. If you had had the manliness to say at once that your engagement was distasteful to you, we should have known how to act.”

“I will not stay—I will not hear myself so insulted!” cried Alvar, with a sudden fury of passion, that flared high above his father’s angry displeasure, startling both the brothers into an attempt to interfere.

“Father is mistaken,” cried Jack; while Cheriton began to say,—

“Come into the study, father; I think I can explain—” when his words were stopped by a violent fit of coughing. Agitated and over-fatigued as he was, he could not check it, and the alarm was more effectual than any explanations could have been in silencing the quarrel.

Alvar sprang to his side in a moment, and sent Jack for remedies; while Mr Lester forgot everything but the one great anxiety and distress. The doctors had given a strong enough warning against the possible consequences of such excitement to make them all feel self-reproachful at having caused it; and the next words exchanged between the disputants were an entreaty from Mr Lester to know if Alvar was alarmed, a gentle reassurance on Alvar’s part, and a request, at once complied with, that his father would move out of sight, lest Cherry should attempt to renew the discussion.

It never was renewed. When Cherry recovered, he was too much exhausted to try to speak, or to think of Alvar in any light but of the one who knew best what was comfortable to him, and once more everything seemed indifferent to Mr Lester beside the approaching parting. But though a quarrel was averted, there was much discomfort. Mrs Lester took her son’s view decidedly, and treated Alvar like a culprit, the only voice raised in his favour being Bob’s, who observed unexpectedly “that he thought Alvar was quite right to do as he chose.” Mr Lester had an interview with Mr Seyton, and probably made more than the amende expected from him, for the next day he received a note from Virginia:—

“Dear Mr Lester,—As I find from my father that you do not entirely understand the circumstances which have led to the breach of my engagement, I think it is due to your son to tell you that it was entirely my own doing, and that I have no cause of complaint against him. We parted, because I believe we are unsuited to each other, not because he in any way displeased me; certainly not because he very rightly wished to go abroad with Cheriton. I hope you will forgive me for saying this, and believe me,—

“Yours very sincerely,—

“Virginia Seyton.”

Well meant as poor Virginia’s letter was, it may be doubted whether it much enlightened Mr Lester as to the point in question; but he showed it to Alvar, who read it with a deep blush, and said,—

“She is, as ever, generous—but—I am a stranger to her still.”

Meanwhile, all the arrangements for the journey were being made. Cheriton received a warm invitation from Seville, and it was agreed, at his earnest request, that his father should remain behind at Oakby, but that Jack should go with him to Southampton, whence they were to go to Gibraltar by P and O steamer, the easiest way, it was thought, of making the journey. In London, Cheriton was to see a celebrated physician.

He went bravely and considerately through all the trying leave-takings and arrangements, taxing his strength to the uttermost, in the desire to leave nothing undone for any one. He put aside with a strong hand, that inner self which yet he could not conquer, with its passionate yearning, its bitter disappointment, its abiding sense of wrong; but it was there still, and gave at times the strangest sense of unreality, even to the pain of the partings, which was true pain nevertheless though he seemed to feel it through the others, rather than through himself. Perhaps the vehement Lester temperament was not a very sanguine one, for though they were told to be hopeful, they were all full of fear, and Cheriton himself hardly looked forward to a return, or, indeed, to anything but possible rest from the strain of making the best of himself, for he suffered very much, while all the vivid and appropriate sensations with which he had once looked out on life and death had died away.

He could hardly have borne it all but for Alvar’s constant care and watchfulness, and for the ease given by his apparent absence of feeling, and for the soothing of his tender gentle ways, and yet though he clung to him with ever-increasing gratitude and affection, there was a curious sense of being apart from him.

Alvar, though he had too much tact to fret Cherry by opposition, had no sympathy with the innumerable interests, for each one of which he wished to provide, and thought his parting interviews with the young Flemings and with many another waste of strength and spirits. Cherry had also to go through a trying conversation with old Parson Seyton, who, between anger on Virginia’s account and grief on Cheriton’s, was difficult to deal with, entirely refusing to see Alvar, and more than disposed to quarrel with Cherry for going abroad with him. Even Mr Ellesmere regarded Alvar’s conduct with considerable disapproval, though he would not mar his relations with Cherry by a word.

Alvar said nothing and made no explanations, but he was exceedingly impatient of the strain on Cherry’s fortitude and cheerfulness, not seeing what the memory of this sad time might one day be to them all, and least of all appreciating the value of that last Sunday’s church-going and Communion, which, much as it tried both their feelings and their shy reserve, not one of the others, even Bob, would for worlds have omitted. Yet, when many an old servant and neighbour made a point that day of following the example of the squire and his children, Mr Ellesmere thought the scene no small testimony to the value of the lives, which, however faulty and imperfect, had been led, though at different levels, with a constant sense of responsibility towards man and of looking upwards to God. Yes, and as something to give thanks for, even while his heart swelled at the thought that the best-loved of those tall fair-faced youths might never kneel in Oakby Church again.

That same Sunday evening, Mr Lester was sitting alone in the library in the dusk, sad enough at heart, when Cherry came slowly in behind him, and leaned over the back of his chair.

“Father,” he said, “I’ve been thinking, and I want to tell you something before I go.”

“What is it, my boy?—don’t stand—here, sit here.”

He pulled another chair towards his own as he spoke, and Cherry sat down, and said,—

“Father, I think I had rather you knew as much as I ought to tell you; I don’t want to have any secret between us.”

“Well, my boy?”

“And, besides, I heard you say that, if you could have found any reason for my being worse, you would be less anxious about me. Well, it is not a reason exactly, but I suppose it made me careless. I—I’ve had a great trouble lately—a—a disappointment. It’s over now—but it cost me a good deal at the time. I can’t tell you any more about it; but I thought—after all—I had rather you knew—now!”

Mr Lester did not ask a single question.

“I never guessed this,” he said, in a tone of surprise; then, after a pause, “Well, my dear boy, it’s a great relief to my mind.”

Cherry nearly laughed, though his heart was full enough.

“You need never imagine that it will turn up again,” he said, decidedly.

“Ah, well, Cherry, we’ve all had disappointments,” said Mr Lester, more cheerfully than he had spoken for some time; “and I’m glad there’s something to account for your looks lately. You weren’t strong enough for vexations. You’ll shake them off with the change of scene. But, my lad, don’t go and make a fool of yourself in the reaction.”

Cherry was sufficiently acquainted with his father’s history to guess at the drift of this warning; but he only shook his head and smiled, and then there was a long silence. Cherry leaned against the arm of his father’s chair, and, after a long-forgotten childish fashion, began to finger the seals on his watch-chain.

“These are the first things I remember,” he said.

Mr Lester passed his arm round him, as when he had been a slim boy, standing by his side; and though no other word was spoken, and in the darkness there were tears on both their faces, Cherry felt that after such a drawing together, this worst of all the partings was easier to bear.

Seville.

“Wo die Citronen blühn.”

Chapter Twenty Six.

Fighting the Dragon.

“Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end.”

“So, papa, here we are, off at last! I can hardly believe it, and nothing left behind! Isn’t it delightful? Such lovely weather and so many people! I wish we were going to India right away! I wonder how many of those people are good sailors.”

“A very small proportion, my dear, in all probability.”

“How I do like to look at people and imagine histories for them! And you cannot start for India without a sort of story; can you? As for you and me, we’re just going to enjoy ourselves!”

The speaker looked capable of enjoying herself and all around her. She was a girl of eighteen or nineteen, dressed in a tightly-fitting dark blue dress with a little black felt hat, very becoming to her small, slender shape, and dark glowing complexion. She had pretty features and very white teeth, which showed a little in her frequent smiles; dark hazel eyes, bright, clear, and penetrating; and curly wavy hair, as black as an English girl’s can be. She had quick, decided movements, a clear, firm voice, and the sweetest laugh possible.

Among all the anxious, hurried, fidgety people on the deck she looked perfectly happy and at her ease—not careless, for a variety of small packages were neatly piled up beside her, but entirely content; for was not the desire of her heart in process of fulfilment? Ever since Elizabeth Stanforth, always appropriately called Gipsy, had been a little girl, she had delighted in sharing her father’s expeditions when the great London artist sought new ideas, new models, or a cessation from ideas and models, in the enjoyment of natural beauty. These expeditions had not hitherto been long or frequent, for Gipsy was the eldest of seven, and holiday trips away from the old house at Kensington were generally made in company with her mother and the children, with occasional divergences of Mr Stanforth’s. Gipsy, too, was but newly released from the thraldom of lessons and classes, though a week once at the Lakes, and another in Cornwall, had shown Mr Stanforth that she possessed various requisites for a good traveller—a great capacity for enjoyment and a great incapacity for being bored, good health, a good appetite, and a good temper.

Therefore, when a long-cherished wish of Mr Stanforth’s own was put in practice, and he set out for a three months’ tour in search of the picturesque in Southern Spain, he took Gipsy with him, and this warm, sunshiny September morning found them on the deck of a P and O steamer, just about to leave Southampton on its way to Gibraltar.

They had arrived on board early, and were now watching the approach of their fellow-passengers, the farewells and last words passing between them and their friends: Gipsy simply delighted with the novelty of the scene, and her father watching it with a peculiarly acute and kindly gaze of accurate observation.

Mr Stanforth, with his slender figure and dark beard, looked young enough to be sometimes mistaken for his daughter’s elder brother; she resembled him in colouring and feature, but keen and sweet as her bright eyes were, they had not looked out long enough on life to have acquired the thoughtful sympathetic expression that gave to her father’s face an unusual charm—a look that seemed to tell of an insight that reached beyond the artist’s observation of form and colour, or even of obvious character, and penetrated the very thoughts of the heart, not merely to note but to understand them. Perhaps this was why Mr Stanforth’s portraits were thought such good likenesses, and why his original designs never wanted for character and expression.

He was not thinking purposely of anything but his holiday and his daughter, but the blue sky and bright sunshine of this unusually summer-like September helped his sense of enjoyment, and every face as it passed before him interested or amused him from the bright, fresh-faced schoolgirl just “finished,” and looking forward through a few parting tears to incalculable possibilities in her unknown life, to the climate-worn official who had been bored during his leave at home, yet was far from regarding India as a paradise. Brides blushing and smiling, mothers with eyes and hearts sad for the children left at home, young lads with the world before them—the deck offered specimens of all these. Some were surrounded by groups of friends, but most of the sadder partings had been got over elsewhere, and the passengers were coming on board with a sense of relief, and minds chiefly full of their luggage and their state-rooms, their places at the table, and their chairs for the deck.

As Mr Stanforth’s eye travelled over the various groups he observed two young men sitting close together on one of the benches at a little distance. The one nearest to him sat with his face turned away towards his companion, a tall, powerful lad, with fair hair, and features of an unusually fine and regular type, now pale and half sullen with a pain evidently almost beyond endurance. The other’s hand lay on his knee, and he seemed to be speaking, for the boy nodded and murmured a word or two occasionally. “That’s a bad parting,” thought the artist; “I wonder which is the traveller.”

“Look, papa,” said Gipsy, “there’s a model for you! Isn’t that an uncommon face?” She pointed out to him a tall, dark young man, with a peculiar oval face of olive tinting, who stood close to them making inquiries of some officials. “There’s a distinguished foreigner for you,” she said.

“Yes, a foreigner of course; a very fine fellow.”

Something restrained the kindly-natured artist from drawing his daughter’s attention to the parting moments that were evidently so painful; but the “distinguished foreigner,” as the last minutes approached, drew near to the pair and touched the lad on the shoulder. He started up; the other rose also and turned round, showing a face like enough in type to suggest the closest kinship, but white, thin, telling a tale of sickness as well as of present suffering. They grasped each other’s hands. Mr Stanforth involuntarily turned his eyes away, and in a moment the lad pushed through the crowd, evidently unseeing and unheeding, passed close by them and knocked over all Gipsy’s bags, shawls, and bundles, pushed on, never knowing what he had done, and turning, gave one last look at his brother, who met it with a beaming, resolute smile, and a wave of the hand.

The olive-faced foreigner who had followed, saw the accident, and made a gesture of apology, then bid the boy farewell with clasped hands and some rapidly-uttered sentences, watching him over the side, and, coming back to the Stanforths, hastily replaced the fallen articles.

“Pardon,” he said, “my brother could not see.”

“Don’t mention it; no harm done,” said Mr Stanforth kindly, as the young man moved away, other groups came up and separated them, and he was seen no more till dinner-time, when he appeared, but without his companion.

In the intervals of making acquaintance with her fellow-passengers and of beginning the letter which was to tell her mother of every event of their tour, Gipsy Stanforth speculated as to how the “distinguished foreigner” came to call such an unmistakable Englishman his brother.

The three days that the Lesters had spent in London had been trying and fatiguing. Judge Cheriton and his wife had come up from the country to their town house on purpose to receive them, but the very kindness and interest which had prompted them to inquire into all the causes of Cheriton’s illness, and to question the prudence of some of the home measures had fretted both Cheriton and Jack, the latter being a little disposed to resent any interference. But the right of the Cheritons to a share in their nephews’ affairs had always been admitted, and Mr Lester, little as he felt himself able to bear the further strain, would hardly have let them go to London without him, but for his brother-in-law’s assurance that they should not start till every arrangement had been made. The judge was surprised at the confidence reposed in Alvar, and though he had too much sense to try to shake it, had caused Mr Lester to insist that they should be accompanied by a servant experienced in travelling and in illness, instead of the Oakby lad at first chosen—an arrangement which Cheriton secretly much disliked, though he acquiesced in it as sparing his father anxiety.

Judge Cheriton also undertook to give Mr Lester a full report of the physician’s opinion, which was not, on the whole, discouraging. He said that though the illness had left manifest traces, and that he considered Cheriton in a critical state, there was nothing to prevent entire recovery, of which the winter abroad offered the best chance; and if he wished to go to Southern Spain, Spain it might be, as rest and change were as much needed as climate. There was no use in thinking of any profession or occupation till the next summer. Some overstrain had resulted in a complete break-down, and the cough was part of the mischief. Fatigue, cold, and anxiety were all equally to be avoided, but as there was no predisposition to any form of chest disease in the family, they might look forward hopefully.

This verdict entirely consoled Alvar, who, indeed, had never looked much beyond the present, and brightened the anxious hearts at Oakby, especially when accompanied by a note from Cherry himself, which he had made Jack read to “see if it was cheerful enough.”

He and Jack clung to each other closely during those last few days, and till they parted, Cheriton never ceased to be the one to uphold and to cheer; but when Jack was out of sight, he broke down utterly, and while Alvar was beginning to make acquaintance with the Stanforths, Cheriton lay fighting hard with all the suffering which he had so long held at bay. He was not passive, though Alvar thought him so, as he lay still and silent, unwilling to speak or be spoken to. He was struggling actively, strenuously, with all the force of a strong will against a passionate and rebellious nature. He was sufficiently experienced in self-control, and unselfish enough to have succeeded in behaving well and courageously under his various troubles. But Cherry’s notions of self-conquest aimed higher and went deeper. He would be master of his own inmost soul, as well as of his outward actions. His eyes were pure enough to see as in a vision what was implied in saying honestly, “Thy Will be done,” and clear enough to know that he could not say it; while, on the other hand, there was scarcely any form of wrath and bitterness to which memory did not tempt him. Why must he suffer in so many ways? Perhaps the moments of softer yearning for the lost love of his boyhood, sad as they were, were the least painful part of his suffering. The loss of health and strength, and of the power of substituting some other aim in life for those earlier and sweeter hopes, came as a separate, but to so active a person, an exceeding trial, while he was separated from all the lesser interests which had the power of custom over him, a power in his case unusually strong; yet in these he felt lay the hope of salvation, at least from those intermittent waves of utter despondency which made all alike worthless and blank. Cheriton had all his life tried to choose the better part, to follow his own higher nature, and seek what was lovely and of good report, had all his life looked upward. Had he not done so, these present temptations would have attacked him on a far lower level, or, set apart as he was just now from all outward action, he would more probably not have recognised that he had a battle to fight at all. But to Cheriton it was given to see the issues of the battle that has been fought by all true saints, and perhaps by some sinners; and his chief mistake now was that he was young enough to think that, like the typical dragon fights of the old world, it could be won by one great struggle. This was his inner life, of which no one knew anything, save perhaps Jack, who was like-minded enough to guess something of it.

Alvar only saw that he was weak and weary, and suffering from a great reaction of mind and body. He was a very judicious companion, however, and after a day or two of repose succeeded in coaxing Cherry on to the deck; where the fresh air sent him to sleep on the cushions that Alvar had arranged for him, more quietly than for some time past.

When he opened his eyes, and began to look about him, it was with a refreshing sense of life and circumstances apart from himself and his perplexities. The blue sky, the dancing waves, the groups of people moving about, the unfamiliar sights and sounds amused him. He looked round for his brother, and presently discovered him sitting at a little distance, smoking his unfailing cigarette, and looking both comfortable and picturesque in the soft felt hat, which, though not especially unlike other people’s, always had on him the effect of a costume. He was talking to a young lady, with an air of considerable animation and intimacy. She was knitting a gay-striped sock, the bright pins twinkling with the rapid movement of her fingers, and she laughed often, a particularly gay, musical laugh.

Alvar glanced round, and seeing that Cherry was awake, sprang up and came over to him.

“Ah, you have had quite a long sleep,” he said.

“Have I? I feel all the better for it. This is very comfortable. And pray who is the young lady with the knitting-needles?”

“Why, that is Miss Stanforth. Did I not tell you how kind they have been? You see, Jack nearly knocked her down, and so we made acquaintance; and just now I was teaching her some Spanish.”

“Did Jack create a favourable impression by that mode of introduction?”

“Why, yes,” said Alvar, delighted at hearing the shadow of a joke from Cherry; “for I explained how it was that he was in trouble, and they were interested at hearing of you. Now you must have some breakfast, and then perhaps you would like to see them.”

“Oh, no,” said Cherry, “I don’t feel up to talking; but I am glad you have some one to amuse you.”

However, Cherry began to be amused himself by watching his brother. He felt the relief of having nothing to do and no one to think of, and as he lay looking on, was surprised at perceiving how sociable the stiff, reserved Alvar appeared to be, how many little politenesses he performed, and how gay and light-hearted he looked. Evidently Mr and Miss Stanforth were the most attractive party, though Alvar seemed on speaking terms with every one; and at last Cherry, seeing that he wished it, begged that Mr Stanforth would come and speak to him, and their new acquaintance, having the tact to see that he was shy in his character of invalid, came and sat down beside him, and talked cheerfully on indifferent topics.

“And where are you bound for,” he asked presently, “when you reach Gibraltar?”

“For Seville,” said Cheriton; “Don Guzman de la Rosa, my brother’s grandfather, lives there at this time of the year. He has a country place, too, I believe, for the summer. But Alvar thinks the journey would be too much for me yet. I hope not; he must want to be with his friends.”

“My daughter and I,” said Mr Stanforth, “have some friends at Gibraltar, and they have recommended us to join them at a place on the coast, San José, I think they called it. Afterwards our dream has been to spend some weeks at Seville. Can you tell us anything of ways and means there, for we are trusting entirely to fate and a guide-book?”

“I’m afraid,” said Cherry, smiling, “that I am trusting with equally implicit faith in Alvar. I haven’t asked many questions. Alvar, can you tell Mr Stanforth what he must do, and how he must manage in Seville?”

“All I know is at his service,” said Alvar, sitting down at Cherry’s feet; “but he will, I hope, visit my grandfather, who will be honoured by his coming. My aunt, too, and my cousins would be proud to show Miss Stanforth Seville.”

“Oh, papa,” exclaimed Gipsy impetuously, catching these words as she approached, “to know some Spaniards. Then we should really see the country.” She broke off, blushing; and Alvar, springing up, offered her a seat, and introduced her to his brother, while Mr Stanforth said,—

“Thank you, we could not refuse such a kind offer; but I want to make Seville my head-quarters, and make excursions from thence. What sort of inns have you? Are they pleasant for ladies?”

“Papa, you know we settled that I was not going to be a lady.”

“Did we, my dear? I was not a party to that arrangement. You are not quite a gipsy yet, you know.”

“There are inns,” said Alvar, “but the best plan is to take a flat in what we call a ‘Casa de pupillos,’ a pension, I suppose. I know one. Dona Catalina, who keeps it, is an excellent lady, most devout, and she once received an English family, so she knows better how you like to eat and drink.”

“I don’t mean to eat and drink anything that is not Spanish,” said Gipsy, laughing.

“Indeed,” said Alvar, “you will not often find anything that is English. I sometimes fear that my brother will not like that.”

“You have a lively remembrance of being asked to eat oat-cake and porridge, and drink what we call sherry,” said Cheriton.

“But I will not expect that you shall like things that are strange to you, querido,” said Alvar, a speech that revealed a little of the family history to Mr Stanforth’s sharp eyes; while Gipsy said earnestly,—

“Oh, the strangeness is what I expect to enjoy.”

A good deal more information of different kinds followed, and Cherry wondered at this own ignorance of Alvar’s former surroundings.

“Why, I did not know that your cousins lived with you,” he said.

“I did not speak much of Seville to you,” said Alvar, with ever so slight an emphasis, the first reminder he had ever given that there had been one to whom he could talk freely.

“We were all too much occupied with teaching you about Westmoreland, and lately I think I have been too stupid to care. But you must give me some Spanish lessons soon.”

“Have you been long in England?” said Mr Stanforth to Alvar.

“I came at Christmas. Ah, how cold it was! The boys and Nettie laughed at me because I did not like it. They ran out into the snow without their hats that I might feel ashamed of sitting by the fire,” said Alvar quaintly.

“Ah, we were a set of terrible young Philistines!” said Cheriton. “Do you remember the snow man and the wrestling?”

“I wish you could wrestle with me now, my brother,” said Alvar affectionately.

“That must be the effect of Spanish sunshine, instead of Westmoreland snow; and in the meantime we must not tire you with talking,” said Mr Stanforth, perceiving that Cherry hardly liked the allusion. “Come, Gipsy, isn’t it time for one of the innumerable meals we have on board ship?”

“Oh, papa, I am sure you are always ready for them,” said Gipsy, following him.

Mr Stanforth, on discovering more clearly the whereabouts of Oakby, recollected having visited Ashrigg some years ago, when engaged on a portrait of some member of Sir John Hubbard’s family. He perceived with some amusement that Alvar attached no ideas to his name or to his profession; and Cherry had scarcely realised either, so that when the next morning Mr Stanforth came up to speak to him, with a sketch-book in his hand, he said, quite simply,—

“I see you have been drawing; may I look?”

“If you will not think I have taken a great liberty,” said Mr Stanforth, giving him the book.

Cheriton laughed and exclaimed at one or two exquisitely outlined likenesses of their fellow-passengers, hitting off their peculiarities with a touch, then admired a little bit of blue sky and dancing wave, with a pair of sea-gulls hanging white and soft in the midst, while under were written the lines,—

“As though life’s only call and care Were graceful motion.”

“How lovely!” he said; “how wonderfully well you do it! Ah, that is Alvar—yes, you have caught that grave, graceful look exactly. Alvar is just like a walking picture; he can’t be awkward.”

“I am afraid I have not been so successful with Alvar’s brother; but the contrast was irresistible,” said Mr Stanforth, as Cherry turned another page, and saw a sketch of himself lying on the deck, and Alvar, leaning over him, and pointing out something in the distance.

“That is just Alvar’s look.”

“You are a much more difficult subject than your brother,” said Mr Stanforth.

“I? I don’t think I’m fit to sit for my picture. We tried in London to get a photograph taken; but it made me look worse than I am, so we did not send it home.”

“You must let me try again. As an artist I may be forgiven for rejoicing in the chance of studying such a likeness beneath such a contrast as there is between you two. See, your faces are in the same mould; it is the colour, and still more the character, that differs.”

“I think that may be true of more than our faces,” said Cherry thoughtfully; “but I see what you mean, at least when I think of Jack, and we were alike when I was well. I will show you.”

Here Cheriton caught sight of the name on the first page of the book, “Raymond Stanforth,” looked at the drawings, and then at his new friend’s face with a rush of comprehension.

“How stupid I have been!” he exclaimed, colouring. “I beg your pardon. Of course I ought to have guessed who it was at once. Pray don’t think I am so ignorant as not to know your pictures. And I have been presuming to praise your sketches.”

Mr Stanforth laughed kindly.

“You must not leave off doing so now we have found each other out. Don’t imagine that appreciation is not always pleasant.”

“You have a great many admirers at Oxford,” said Cheriton, a little stiffly and shyly. “Some of the fellows prided themselves immensely on their appreciation of all sorts of modern art; but I’m afraid I don’t know very much about it.”

“You employed your time, your brother tells me, to better purpose?”

“I don’t know. I thought so then. And it seemed more worth while to get a ride or pull on the river. I don’t see what a fellow wants in his room but an armchair and a place for his books, and a good fire. One had better be out of doors when one isn’t working. I don’t care to have my rooms like a lady’s drawing-room. But of course,” he added apologetically, “I always like to go to the Academy and see the pictures.”

Mr Stanforth looked very much amused, but he was interested too. It is not uncommon in youth that considerable powers of mind may be exercised so entirely in one line, as to leave many fields of intelligence completely blank, and there were many points on which Cheriton simply accepted the code of his home, which, put into plain language, was, that study was study, and recreation out-of-door exercise of different kinds, intellectual amusements being regarded with suspicion. But there was much more than the boyish “Philistinism” of this last speech written on the face of the speaker, and Mr Stanforth felt inclined to draw it out.

“What did you say you were going to show me?” he said.

“I wanted you to see the rest of us!” said Cherry. “Where is Alvar? He would get my photograph case.”

Alvar was near at hand, talking to Gipsy Stanforth and to some other ladies, and he soon brought Cheriton a little leather case which contained a long row of handsome Lesters, and ended with the favourite dogs and horses, and a view of the front door at Oakby, with Nettie holding Buffer on the back of one of the stone wolves.

“There is a ready-made picture,” said Mr Stanforth.

“My brother loves that little animal,” said Alvar smiling, “he would like his picture better than that of any of us.”

“I am sure some of our dogs are worth painting,” said Cherry, “but Alvar does not appreciate Buffer’s style.”

And so, brightened by the fresh companionship and new scenes, the days slipped by, till Cheriton wished their sameness could continue for ever.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

San José.

“The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps, The purple flowers droop.”

At Gibraltar the new acquaintances parted, and Mr Stanforth and his daughter went at once to join their friends at San José, with many hopes expressed of soon meeting at Seville; whither Cheriton, unwilling to detain Alvar from his friends, wished to go immediately. Mr Stanforth’s holiday was not an idle one. Every walk he took, every change of light and shade was a feast of new colour and form for him, to be perpetuated by sketches more or less elaborate, and the enjoyment of which was intense. But the pair of dissimilar brothers had afforded him interest of another kind, and it was with real pleasure that he thought of a renewal of the intercourse with them, which came about sooner than he had expected.

His friends, the Westons, were a brother and two sisters, lively people approaching middle age. Mr Weston had a government appointment in Gibraltar, and his sisters lived with him. They were enterprising, cultivated women, and very fond of Gipsy Stanforth; who possessed that power of quick sympathetic interest which of all things makes a delightful companion. She was always finding “bits” and “effects” for her father, or suggesting subjects for his pencil; and she was almost equally pleased to hunt for flowers for the botanical Miss Weston, and to look out words in the dictionary for the literary one, who was translating a set of Spanish tales.

À propos of these, she related with much interest their acquaintance on board ship, describing the two Lesters with a naïveté that amused her friends, and prompted Miss Weston to say,—

“You seem to have been very fortunate in your travelling companions, Gipsy.”

“Yes, we were. And it will be such an advantage to know a native family at Seville. That sounds as if they were heathens; but I declare that is Don Alvar, buying oranges! Oh, I am so glad to see you! So you have come here after all.”

“Yes. Cheriton was so ill at Gibraltar that it was plain that he could not bear the journey to Seville. It is cooler here, and he is a little better; but he can do nothing yet, and I am very unhappy. I do not know what to write to my father about him.”

“Oh, I am sorry,” said Gipsy warmly. “He seemed better on board. And this place is so lovely.”

“Yes,” said Alvar simply. “I could feel as if I was in heaven in the sunshine, and when I hear the voices of my home; but when he suffers, it darkens all. But I must go back to him.”

“Papa will come and see you,” said Gipsy; “and this is Miss Weston, with whom we are staying. Good-bye. I think your brother will be better when he has had a rest.”

Gipsy’s cheerful sympathy brightened Alvar, who had expected that Spanish sunshine would make a miraculous cure; but Cherry’s cough had been worse since they came on shore, and his spirits had failed unaccountably just when Alvar had expected him to recover them.

Alvar had all along declared that it would be better to go by a Cadiz packet and thence by rail to Seville; but Mr Lester believed in Peninsular and Oriental steamers, and in the English doctors and hotels of Gibraltar. But there the heat and glare were hateful to Cheriton, the servant they had brought proved more of a hindrance than a help, and Alvar thought himself fortunate in obtaining leave from some Gibraltar acquaintances to use their house at San José for a month, after which Cheriton might be better able to encounter the strangers whom he really dreaded more than the travelling. Certainly if change was what Cherry had needed he had obtained it thoroughly. Nothing could well have been more unlike Oakby than San José, and when Cheriton had had a little rest, had been teased by Mr Stanforth for comparing the marble-paved patio of the house to the Alhambra at the Crystal Palace, and, moved by the fortunate sympathy that had enabled him to “take a fancy” to the kindly artist, had confided to him that he was very homesick, and longed for Jack, though he did not like Alvar to know it, he brightened up and grew rather stronger. He was soon able to sit on the beach and try to learn Spanish, insisting on understanding the construction of the language, and asking questions sometimes rather puzzling to his tutor; while Gipsy set up a rivalry with him as to the number of words and phrases to be acquired in a day, in which she generally beat him hollow. Nor had he any real want of appreciation of the new and beautiful world around him, and Mr Stanforth helped him to enjoy it. Life would be very dull but for the involuntary inclinations to acquaintance and friendship that brighten its ordinary course, and “fancies” are more often things to be thankful for than to put aside. This one roused Cheriton from the dulness that accompanies sorrow and sickness, and enabled him to turn at any rate the surface of his mind to fresh interests.

Mr Stanforth, on the other hand, whose sympathy had been quickened by the practice of a most kindly life, found much to interest him in the bright, tender nature, evidently struggling under so heavy a cloud, and did not wonder at the affection with which the young man was obviously regarded—an affection made pathetic by the sad possibilities that were but too apparent.

Gipsy was on very friendly terms with both the brothers, and was a new specimen of girlhood for them. She was quite as clever and as well educated as either Ruth or Virginia, and had been in the habit of living with much more widely cultivated people—people who talked, and had something to talk about, so that she had a great deal to say; while there was a quaint matter-of-factness about her too, and she talked art as simply as she would have talked dress; and while she was very much interested in the two young men, she never troubled herself at all about her relations towards them. She scolded Cherry for walking too far, and discoursed on the suitability of his appearance for artistic purposes with equal simplicity; fetched and carried for him, and triumphed over his deficiencies in Spanish. She received Alvar’s courtesies and compliments with the greatest delight, and proceeded to return them in kind, till she actually rendered him almost free and easy, and he talked so much of her that Cheriton grew half-frightened, unknowing that his own remark, that he wished Nettie could know so nice a girl as Miss Stanforth, had inspired Alvar with the notion that Ruth might find a successor in La Zingara, as he called her. But Gipsy was perfectly unconscious, and was moreover carefully watched over by her father and her friends. By the end of the month Cheriton was able to undertake the journey to Seville, and the Stanforths proposed to start at the same time, but to go by a different route, which enabled them to see more of the country.

“But,” said Gipsy, one evening when they were all together on the beach, “we must get to Seville in time for a bull-fight, and Don Alvar says there are none in the winter.”

“But, Miss Stanforth,” said Cherry, “you surely would not go to a bull-fight?”

“Wouldn’t you?” said Gipsy mischievously.

“Well, yes—for once I think I should.”

“You would not like it, Cherito,” said Alvar.

“Don’t you?” echoed Cherry, with a glance at Gipsy.

“Oh, yes; it is grand! When the bull makes a rush one holds the breath, and then—it is a shout!”

“I suppose it is a wonderful spectacle,” said Mr Stanforth. “I hope to have a chance, but I think Gipsy will have to take it on trust.”

“Jack desired me not to encourage them,” said Cherry, “but I must own to a great curiosity about it.”

“But I shall not let you go,” said Alvar; “it would tire you far too much; and besides you are too tender-hearted. My brothers,” he added to Mr Stanforth, “cannot bear to see anything hurt, unless they hurt it themselves; then they do not mind.”

“Of course,” said Cherry, “there is an essential difference between incurring danger, or at least fatigue and exertion yourself, and sitting by to see other people incur it. I have no doubt it is a barbarous sort of thing, and there is something dreadful in the idea of a lady being present at it; but it would be stupid, I think, to come away without seeing anything so characteristic.”

“The Spanish ladies do not mind it, nor I,” said Alvar, “any more than you mind killing your foxes, or your fish; but it is different for foreigners. They do not like to see the horses, though they are mostly worthless ones, torn in pieces. You would be ill, querido, you might faint.”

“Nonsense,” said Cherry. “I might hate it, but I should not be so soft as that.”

“You do not know,” said Alvar, evidently not disposed to yield. “Some day,” with a glance at Gipsy, “I will tell you. You shot the old horse yourself for fear the coachman should hurt him—but it made you cry; and if a dog whines it grieves you.”

“Old Star that I learnt to ride on!” said Cherry indignantly. “What has that to do with it?”

“And besides,” resumed Alvar, perhaps a little wickedly, “bull-fights are usually on Sunday, and are quite as bad as billiards or the guitar, which you say in England are wrong.”

“These are frightful imputations on you, Cheriton,” said Mr Stanforth: “a tender heart and too strict a sense of duty. No wonder you are obstinate. But if what I have read be true, a bull-fight is a hard pull on our insular nerves sometimes, and I doubt if you are in condition for one.”

“I don’t want to see a bull-ring at Oakby,” said Cherry; “but Alvar is mistaken if he thinks I should mind it more than other people do. There is enough of a sporting element, I suppose, to keep one from dwelling on the details.”

“I see, Mr Lester,” said Gipsy, “that you don’t believe in the rights of women.”

“No, Miss Stanforth, I certainly don’t. I believe in my right to protect them from what is unpleasant.”

“But not to give them their own way! Papa, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to go and see horses killed on a Sunday, if Mr Lester does. But a bull-fight—the national sport of Spain—and the matadors who are so courageous—ah! it makes such a difference the way things are put.”

“You must learn to look at the essentials, my dear. But now shall we have a last stroll to the point to see the sunset?”

“You need not tell Granny if I do go to the bull-fight,” whispered Cherry, as Alvar helped him up, and gave him his arm across the rough shingles.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Seville.

“Golden fruit fresh plucked and ripe.”

“And now, my brother, you see Seville. At last I can show you my beautiful city!”

“Why—why, you never said it was like this!”

The Lesters had finally settled to go to Cadiz by sea, and thence by rail to Seville, again breaking their journey at Xeres. The Stanforths were making the journey across country; but Cheriton was not equal to long days on horseback, nor to risking the accommodations or no accommodations of the ventas and posadas (taverns and inns) where they might have to stop. He was quite ready, however, to be excited and patriotic as they passed through the famous waters of Trafalgar, and curious to taste sherry at Xeres, where it proved exceedingly bad. They arrived at Seville in the afternoon, and were driving from the station when Alvar interrupted Cherry’s astonished contemplation of the scene with the foregoing remark.

“Ah, it pleases you!” he said in a tone of satisfaction, as they passed under the Alcazar, the Moorish palace, with its wonderful relics of a bygone faith and power—the great cathedral, said to be “a religion in itself”—and saw the gay tints of the painted buildings, the picturesque turn of the streets, the infinite variety of colour and costume, and over all the pure blue of the sky and the glorious intensity of Southern sunlight.

Cheriton had no words to express his admiration, and only repeated,—

“You never told me that it was like this.”

“You did not understand,” said Alvar; “and perhaps I did not know.”

He did not show any emotion, but his face smoothed out into an expression of satisfaction and well-being, and he smiled with a little air of triumph at Cherry’s ecstasies. This was what he had belonging to himself in the background all the time, when his relations had thought him so ignorant and inexperienced, and Alvar, like all the Lesters, valued himself on his own belongings.

They drove up to the door of a large house, painted in various colours, and with gaily-striped blinds and balconies; while through the ornamental iron gates they caught glimpses of the patio, gay with flowers.

Cheriton thought of the winter’s night, the blazing fire, the shy, stiff greetings that had formed Alvar’s first glimpse of Oakby. The great gates were opened, and as they came in a tall old man came forward, into whose arms Alvar threw himself with some vehement Spanish words of greeting; then, in a moment, he turned and drew Cheriton forward, saying, still in Spanish,—

“My grandfather, this is my dear brother.”

Don Guzman de la Rosa bowed profoundly, and then shook hands with Cheriton, who contrived to understand his greeting and inquiry after his health, and to utter a few words in reply, feeling more shy than he had ever done in his life; but then he was at fault.

“My grandfather says you are like what our father was when he came here; that is true, is it not? And now come in.”

Don Guzman showed the way into an inner room, which seemed dark after the brilliant patio, and was furnished much like an ordinary drawing-room; and here Cheriton was introduced to Dona Luisa Aviego, a middle-aged lady, Don Guzman’s niece, and to two exceedingly pretty young girls, and a little girl, her daughters. He felt surprised at seeing them all in French fashions. Here also was their brother, Don Manoel, a tall, dark, solemn-looking young man, who exactly fulfilled Cheriton’s idea of a Spaniard, and enabled him to understand Dona Luisa’s remark that Alvar had grown into an Englishman. The old grandfather was like a picture of Don Quixote, a very ideal of chivalry, which character a life of prudent, careful indifferentism entirely belied.

Alvar would not let Cherry stay to talk, telling him that he must rest before dinner, which was at five, and soon took him upstairs into a very comfortable bedroom, looking out on a pretty garden, and opening into another belonging to himself.

Cheriton laughed and submitted, but the novelty and beauty had taken his impressionable nature by storm and carried him quite out of himself. When left alone, he had leisure for the surprising thought that his father had gone through all these experiences without their apparently leaving any trace except one of distaste and aversion; next, to wonder whether it was Alvar’s fault or their own that they had remained so ignorant of Alvar’s country; and lastly, that spite of the similarity of colouring to his Spanish kindred and something in the carriage, Alvar did look like a Lester and an Englishman after all.

Cherry had got used by this time in some degree to the Spanish eatables, and as he liked the universal chocolate and was as little fanciful as any one so much out of health could be, he got on as well as his bad appetite would let him, with the ollas and gazpachos spite of their garlic, and at any rate he liked omelettes and the bread, which was excellent. Their servant, Robertson, had, however, regarded everything Spanish with such horror, and had proved of so little use and so disagreeable, that Cheriton finally cut the knot by sending him back to Gibraltar, where he hoped to find a homeward-bound family, Alvar being certain that there would be sufficient attendance at his grandfather’s.

Conversation at dinner was difficult. They all understood a little English, which was rather more available than Cheriton’s Spanish, and Don Manoel spoke tolerably fluent French, to which, as Cheriton had in his time earned several French prizes, he ought to have been able to respond more readily than was perhaps the case. Cheriton did not mind seeing grapes and melons eaten after soup, though he thought the taste an odd one, but he could not quite reconcile himself to the universal smoking after the first course in the presence of the ladies. The young ones were very silent, though they cast speaking glances at him with their great languishing eyes; till after dinner the little girl, whom Cherry thought the softest and prettiest thing he had ever seen, produced a great blushing and tittering by whispering a question, which, while apparently reproving, Dona Carmen was evidently encouraging her to repeat to Alvar, who sat on her other side.

Alvar laughed and shook his head.

“No, Dolores; I think there is not one like him,” he said, adding to Cherry—“She wants to know if all Englishmen are like you—white and golden like the saints in the cathedral. It is true, she means the painted statues.”

“I am pale, because I have been ill,” said Cherry, in his best Spanish, and holding out his hand. “Little one, will you make friends? What shall I say to her, Alvar?”

But Dolores, with an ineffable expression of demure coquetry, retreated upon her sister, and would not accept his attentions, though she peeped at him under her long eye-lashes directly he turned away.

The family met at eleven for a sort of déjeuner à la fourchette, but every one had chocolate in their own rooms at any hour they pleased, with bread or sponge-cake, which they called pan del Rey. Alvar brought some on the next morning to Cheriton and while he was drinking it proceeded to enlighten him a little on the family affairs and habits.

“I perceive that the prayer-bell does not ring at half-past eight,” said Cherry smiling.

“No, the ladies all go to church every morning. In the country my grandfather is up early, and Manoel too, but here I cannot say—we meet at eleven. It is usual to write letters or transact business in the morning on account of the heat.”

“Does Don Manoel—is that what I ought to call him?—live here? Has he anything to do?”

Alvar then explained that Manoel had no regular occupation, having a little money of his own. He smoked and played cards, and went to the casino, “that is what you call a club.” Moreover he was a very good Catholic, and though he had not openly joined the Carlist party—the Royalists as Alvar called them—he was thought to have a leaning towards them: but Don Guzman never allowed politics to be discussed in his house—neither politics nor religion.

“Is he a ‘good Catholic,’ too?” asked Cherry.

Alvar shrugged his shoulders.

“He conforms,” he said. “You understand that I am English. I have no part in these matters, otherwise at times my grandfather might have suffered for allowing me to be brought up as a Protestant; but I was taught to see that they did not concern me. But, querido, you must not talk and ‘discuss’ as you do with Jack at home, or you might make a quarrel.”

“No, I understand that. But if I were you I should not like to be supposed to be an outsider.”

“In both countries?” said Alvar. “No; but you see I had been taught that I was an Englishman.”

“Yet your grandfather would not let you come to England when you were a boy.”

“My grandfather,” said Alvar, “hates the priests. He would rather have me for his heir, though I am a heretic, than Manoel. That is true, though he would not say so. Look, he has seen many changes in this country, one is as bad as the other; he would rather be quiet and let things pass. So would I.”

“The Vicar of Bray,” murmured Cherry. “That creed is born of despair,” he said aloud. “I should be miserable to think so of any country.”

“Yes?” said Alvar, with a sort of unmoved inquiry in his tone. “You have convictions. In England they are not difficult. But, besides, my grandmother loved me very much, and not only was she religious like all women, she was what you call good. She would not part with me, and I loved her.”

Alvar paused and put his hand across his eyes, with more emotion than he often showed.

“She thought,” he continued, “that I should perhaps become a Catholic if I married a Sevillana, and that my father’s neglect would make me altogether a De la Rosa. Forgive me, Cherito, it is not quite to be forgotten.”

“I think it was very likely to be the case,” said Cheriton.

“No, it was not the part for my father’s son, nor for an Englishman, nor did my grandfather wish it. I am no Catholic—never!”

“I suppose your tutor was—was a strong Protestant?” said Cheriton, rather surprised at the first religious conviction he had ever heard from Alvar’s lips.

“Well, I do not think you would have approved of him nor my father if he had known. He, what is it you say?—did no duty—and I do not think he was much like your Mr Ellesmere. He told me that he was paid ‘to put the English doctrines into me and teach me to speak English;’ and he would say, ‘Remember it is your part to be a Protestant because you are an English gentleman.’”

“But,” said Cherry, “when you came to England you must surely have seen that we did not look on it in that way?”

“I did not much attend to your words on it,” said Alvar. “As you know, what my father required of me I did, and I saw that English gentlemen thought much of their churches and their priests—or at least, that my father did so. I conformed, but I had not expected that in England, too, I should be a foreigner—a stranger. And I would not be other than my real self.”

“I’m afraid we were very unkind to you.”

“You? Never!” said Alvar.

“But why did you never tell me all this before? I should have understood you so much better.”

“I did not think of it till I considered what would seem strange to you here—what you would not comprehend easily.”

Cheriton remained silent. That Alvar had all his life considered himself so entirely as a Lester and an Englishman was a new light to him, and he could fully appreciate the check of finding himself regarded by the Lesters as an alien, for he knew that even he himself had never ceased so to look upon Alvar.

“We understand each other now,” he said affectionately. “I am glad you have told me this. But, Alvar, though ‘convictions’ may seem to you easy in England, you would make a great mistake if you imagined that the religion of such a man as my father was for the sake of what you call conformity, and that it did not influence his life.”

“No,” said Alvar, “I did not think so of my father and you. I did not comprehend at first, but I see now that—it interests you.”

“Never doubt that,” said Cheriton earnestly. “You have seen all my failures, but never doubt that is the one thing ‘interesting,’ the one thing to—to give one another chance.”

He paused as a look of unspeakable enthusiastic conviction passed over his face; then blushed intensely, and was silent. Like most young men, whatever their views, he was in the habit of talking a good deal of “theology,” and could have rectified Alvar’s hazy notions with ease; but personal experiences in such discussions were generally left on one side.

Alvar did not follow him; but perhaps that look made more impression than a great many arguments on the status of religion in England.

“Don’t imagine I underrate your difficulties, or my own, or any one’s,” Cherry added hurriedly.

“I have no difficulties,” said Alvar simply; “I believe you—always—Now, do not talk any longer—rest before you get up.”

Cheriton now perceived that the sort of separation that had been pursued with regard to Alvar accounted for much of his indolence and indifference. He recognised how deeply his pride had been wounded by his kindred’s cold reception, and he in a measure understood the sort of loyalty, half-proud, half-faithful, that held him to his own. He found that Alvar had never written a word of complaint of his family home to Seville; he perceived that as time went on he dropped nothing that he had acquired in England, either of dress or speech, attended the English service at the Consulate regularly, even if Cheriton was unable to go, and preferred to be called Mr Lester. Cheriton saw that he intended no one to think that his English residence had been a failure.

But there was one phase of this feeling of which even Cheriton had no suspicion. Alvar did not forget that one thing had belonged to him in England, to which Spain offered no parallel. He refused to answer any questions from his grandfather as to his engagement or its breach. He had not been brought up to think that romantic passion was a necessary accompaniment of a marriage engagement, but rather as a thing to be got through first; and it had been with a very quiet appreciation that he had given his hand away at his father’s request. And when Virginia was once his, he was thoroughly contented with her, her rejection had wounded him exceedingly, and now he missed her confiding sweetness increasingly, he felt that a good thing was gone from him, and he would not now have attempted to console Cheriton as he had done at Oakby. But he never spoke of his feelings, and as Cheriton could not think that he had acted rightly by Virginia, the subject was never mentioned between them.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

El Toro.

“The ungentle sport that oft invites The Spanish maid and cheers the Spanish swain.”

One of Alvar’s first occupations was to find a lodging for the Stanforths, and for one of the Miss Westons, whom they brought with them, and he succeeded in obtaining a flat in a casa de pupillos or pension, not far from the De la Rosa’s, in a picturesque street, with a pleasant shady sitting-room, where Mr Stanforth could paint. There was a delightful landlady, Señora Catalina, who went to mass with the greatest regularity every morning, but afterwards was ready to spend any part of the day in escorting the ladies wherever they wished to go, only objecting to Gipsy’s dislike to allow her dress to trail on the pavement, a point on which neither could convince the other, Spanish ladies considering the looping of the dress improper, and Gipsy not being able to reconcile herself to the normal condition of the pavements of Seville. Mr Stanforth, however, frequently accompanied them, and they did a vast amount of sight-seeing, in which they were joined by the two Lesters so far as Cheriton’s strength would permit; and as sketching often made Mr Stanforth stationary, Cherry liked to sit by him, enjoying a great deal of discursive talk on things in general, and entering with vivid interest into the novelty and beauty around. Cherry asked a great many more questions about Moorish remains, and ecclesiastical customs, than Alvar was at all able to answer; and as his Spanish improved, endeavoured to pick the brains of every one with whom he came in contact; was so intelligent and so inquisitive about the arrangement of the different churches, that old Padre Tomè, the ladies’ confessor, looked upon him as a possible convert, and though solemnly warned by Alvar never to talk politics with any one, could not always resist teasing him by hovering round the subject. He got on very well with Don Guzman, and listened to a great deal of prosing about the best way of breeding young bulls for the ring, and about all the varieties of game to be found on the old gentleman’s country estate, and soon perceived that he had considerably underrated the sporting capacities of the peninsula. He was not a favourite with Don Manoel, who suspected himself of being laughed at; and though Dona Luisa was very kind to him, he was hardly allowed to exchange a word with the young ladies, and to his great amusement perceived that he was considered likely to follow his father’s example, and make love to them. Little Dolores, however, was less in bondage to propriety, and became very fond of him, making vain endeavours to pronounce “Cherry,” and teaching him a great deal of Spanish. Miss Weston, who was a hearty enthusiastic woman, with rather an overpowering amount of conversation, approved of what she called his spirit of inquiry, and was possibly not insensible to his good looks and winning manners. He did not now shrink from home letters, and indeed spent more time than Alvar thought good for him in replying to Jack’s voluminous disquisitions on his first weeks of Oxford. Alvar thought that he had entirely recovered his spirits, and indeed Cheriton was one whose “mind had a thousand eyes,” and they let in a good deal of surface light, though he was himself well aware of colder, darker depths whose sun had set for ever, and which could only be reached by the slowly penetrating rays of a far intenser light. Though no word of direct confidence ever passed between him and Mr Stanforth, the latter knew perfectly well that mental as well as physical change had been sought in the sunny south. His health improved considerably, though with many ups and downs, he felt fairly well, and did not attempt to try the extent of his powers.

He was very anxious not to be a restraint on Alvar’s intercourse with his friends or on his natural occupations; but except that he sometimes went to evening parties which Cheriton avoided, Alvar generally preferred escorting Gipsy and Miss Weston to the tops of all the buildings which Mr Stanforth sketched from below, or into every corner of the Alcazar, and every chapel of the cathedral, both of which places had a wonderful charm for Cheriton.

Miss Stanforth was allowed to make friends with Alvar’s cousins. Carmen and Isabel. She had once gone to a fancy ball, dressed in a mantilla, and had been told that she looked “very Spanish,” with her dark eyes and hair; a delusion from which she awoke the first time she saw her new friends dressed for church (they did not wear mantillas often on secular occasions); and great was their amusement at Gipsy’s vain endeavour to give exactly the becoming twist to the black lace, and to flirt her fan in the approved style. Gipsy was a bit of a mimic, but she could not satisfy herself or them.

“It is of no use, Miss Stanforth,” said Cheriton, when she complained to him of her difficulties. “Alvar does not like walking out with me in an ‘Ulster’ when the wind is cold, so he endeavoured to teach me to wear one of those marvellous cloaks which they all throw about their shoulders; but I can only get it over my head, and under my feet, and everywhere that it ought not to be.”

“Well,” said Alvar, “you would not let me go to Hazelby in my cloak; you said that the little boys would laugh at me.”

“But a great coat,” said Cherry, “is a rational kind of garment that can’t look odd anywhere.”

“That is as you think,” said Alvar; “but I do not care what you wear, if you like it. You will not certainly look like a Spaniard even in the cloak.”

“A great coat,” said Mr Stanforth, “is one of those graceful garments which have commended themselves to all ages. I do not know what early tradition was followed by the inventors of Noah’s Arks in the case of that patriarch—”

“Now, Mr Stanforth, that is too hard,” interrupted Cherry. “At least it has pockets.”

“So many,” said Alvar, “that what you want is always in another one.”

“Alvar, that cloak is your one weakness. You clung to it in England, and you put it on the moment you landed in Spain.”

“Cheriton thinks it is a seal-skin,” said Mr Stanforth smiling.

“Seal-skin,” said Alvar. “No, it is cloth and silk.”

“Did you never hear of the fisherman who married a mermaid, and she lived happily on shore till she fell in with a seal-skin; when she put it on, and, forgetting her husband and children, jumped into the sea, and never came up any more?”

“Ah, no!” said Alvar. “It is only that I want Cherry to be comfortable while he is down among the fishes.”

“I will take to it some day, for the sake of astonishing Jack,” said Cherry. “But, Alvar, those friends of yours last night were very much interested in my travelling coat, and asked me if it was a Paris fashion. They put it on, and I tried to get Don Manoel into it; but he thought it was a heretical sort of affair.”

“Cherry, if you laugh at Manoel, he will think you insult him. He hates Englishmen, and our father especially. He was angry because you gave the jessamine to Isabel—and—we are polite here to each other; but if there is what you call a row, it is worse than when every one is sulky all at once at Oakby.”

Cherry looked as if the temptation to provoke this new experience was nearly irresistible; but Alvar continued to Mr Stanforth,—

“I am glad that Cherito should laugh once more as he used to do; but my cousin does not understand.”

“My dear Alvar, I will content myself with laughing at you; you always understand a joke, don’t you?”

“I do not care if I understand or no. When I see you laughing,” said Alvar simply, “that is good.”

Something in this speech so touched Cheriton that his laughter softened away into a very doubtful smile, and he changed the subject; but he tried afterwards to propitiate Don Manoel by the most courteous treatment. The Spaniard did not respond, and he perceived that contending elements were discordant in Seville as well as in England.

Carmen and Isabel found novelty less distasteful. It is true that they thought Gipsy’s free intercourse with their cousin Alvar and with the English stranger shocking; but they preferred them to any other subject of conversation, and Isabel in particular made quite a romance of the incident of the Cape Jessamine, and how Don Cherito had looked at her when he gave it to her.

“But why shouldn’t he pick a bit of jessamine for you, if you couldn’t reach it for yourself?” asked Gipsy.

“Oh, Manoel said it was an attention.”

“Oh dear no,” said Gipsy, rather cruelly, “we shouldn’t think anything of it in England. Don Manoel needn’t be afraid.”

“Oh, but Manoel is terrible. He swore before Don Cherito came that he would poniard us if we, like our Aunt Maria, listened to a heretic, a stranger. For Don Giraldo was a wild wicked Englishman, but beautiful in the extreme; they have no religion, and no morals.”

“Isabel!”

“Ah, I tell you what Manoel says. He came, he pretended an accident, and then Dona Maria married him. Now, he says it is the same with Don Cherito. An illness—”

“Any one can see that Cheriton Lester is really ill, at any rate.”

“Well—Manoel was angry with my grandfather for letting him come, and he has told Alvar that it should be death before such a marriage. Alvar told him he knew nothing of his English brother, who loved an English lady. But Manoel says that what happened once might again happen.”

“Isabel,” said her sister, “it is wrong to talk of this. If Zingara repeats it, there will be a quarrel.”

“I shall not repeat it,” said Gipsy; “but it is all nonsense, I assure you.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “Manoel knows not. He knows not that I love one whom I have seen at mass, though I know not his name. But with my fan I can show him—”

“Isabel!” again said the grave Carmen; while Gipsy, who was far too well bred and well brought up to have made signs in church with anything, thought that “mass” and “a signal with a fan” sounded interesting, and that what would have been highly unladylike at home was rather romantic in Seville.

On their side, Carmen and Isabel thought Gipsy hardly used in being kept away from the bull-fights, though she was too loyal to her nationality to express any wish to see them.

Don Manoel was a great lover of the ring, and as certain young bulls from Don Guzman’s estate were to be brought forward at the last corrida of the season, there was a great desire that the Englishmen should be present. Mr Stanforth intended to avail himself of the chance of seeing such a spectacle, and Cheriton, Don Guzman said, might see one contest, and go away before the other bulls were brought forward, if he found the fatigue too much for him. They would get seats on the shady side of the bull-ring, the great amphitheatre said to be capable of holding ten thousand spectators.

Cheriton, who went against Alvar’s wish, did not stay for the end, and Mr Stanforth went to see if he had repented of the rather perverse desire to prove himself capable of enduring the spectacle. He found him, still full of excitement, resting on a sofa in the patio; while Alvar sat near him, smoking, and looking cool and bored, as if the bull-fight had been a croquet party.

Mr Stanforth’s entrance was rather inopportune, for Cherry was still too full of his impressions not to talk of them, and, in answer to Mr Stanforth’s question, said eagerly,—

“Oh, the heat has tired me—that is nothing. But it made one feel like a fiend. I felt all the fascination of it—even the horror had a dreadful sort of attraction. I could not have come away if Alvar had not pulled me out when I was too dizzy to resist him.”

“Very unwholesome fascination,” said Mr Stanforth.

“Unwholesome! I should think so! It is abominable that such things should be. I tell Alvar that in his place I never would encourage an appeal to the worst passions of human nature.”

“Well, you would go, mi caro. I told you you would not like it,” said Alvar coolly.

“You should set an example of indignation!”

“I? I do not care what they do to amuse themselves. It does not interest me, as much, I think, as it did you, my brother.”

“No,” said Cherry slowly, “I understand a good many things by this. I should be as bad as any of them. But when a country encourages and allows such ‘amusements,’ when women look on and like it, one cannot wonder at Spanish cruelties. It appeals to everything that is bad in one.”

“You insult my country and your hosts! Don Cherito, such language is unpardonable!” exclaimed an unexpected voice; and Don Manoel came suddenly forward from one of the curtained doorways, close at hand. “What right have you, señor, to speak of our ancient customs in terms like these?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Cheriton, after a moment’s pause of amazement, “if I have said anything to annoy you; but—I was not aware that you were present. I was speaking to my brother.”

“Would you insinuate that I disguised my presence?” cried the Spaniard, with real rage in his tones, and a determination to show it.

Then Alvar fired up with the sudden passion that had always startled his English kindred.

“How dare you so address my brother! He shall say what he chooses!”

“He shall not—nor you either! You call yourself Spaniard—Andaluz—you claim rights in Seville, and listen with complacence to the cowardly scruples—”

Here Alvar broke in with much too rapid Spanish for the Englishmen to follow, interrupted as it was by Manoel’s rejoinder, and by furious gestures as if the disputants were going to fly at each other’s throats, while Mr Stanforth’s mild attempts at interposing with—“Come—come now; what nonsense! What is all this about?” were entirely unheard.

Meanwhile, Cheriton’s previous excitement cooled down completely. He got up from the sofa, and stepped between them, laying his hand on Alvar’s arm.

“Excuse me, Alvar,” he said, in his slow, careful Spanish, “this seems to be my affair. Señor Don Manoel, will you have the goodness to tell me why you are offended with me?”

“He called you a coward—you, my brother!”

“My dear fellow, be quiet, don’t be an ass.” (This in English for Alvar’s benefit.) “Would you tell me what has provoked you?”

“Señor Don Cherito,” said Manoel, forced to answer civilly by Cheriton’s coolness—“first, did you mean to insinuate that I listened to your conversation with my cousin?”

“By no means,” said Cherry. “I merely meant to say that I had not seen you.”

“Then I ask you, señor, to repeat or to withdraw the remarks you made about the bull-fight,” said Don Manoel, with the air of delivering an ultimatum.

“He will not withdraw them!” cried Alvar. “He is no coward!”

“I hope,” said Cheriton, “I did nothing to offend. Were I in Don Manoel’s place I should feel, I am sure, as he does. I, too, am attached to the customs of my country. It is no doubt difficult for a stranger to judge. If I said the sport was cruel, I did not for a moment mean to imply that—that—those who see it must be cruel. Excuse my bad Spanish. I cannot express myself, but—pray let us shake hands.”

He smiled, and held out his hand.

“Well, señor, you are Don Guzman de la Rosa’s guest. If this is meant for an apology—”

“For having offended you—yes. Being Don Guzman’s guest, I could not quarrel with his nephew.”

“I accept, the apology,” said Don Manoel, with much solemnity, and accepting Cherry’s hand.

“But,” said Alvar, “you applied an expression to my brother.”

“Oh, nonsense, Alvar; you know we never think of ‘expressions’ when we are angry; and I’m not aware of having had any opportunity of showing either cowardice or courage.”

“H’m,” said Mr Stanforth, in English, “a tolerably cool head, I think.”

Don Manoel, who appeared to have made up his mind to be magnanimous, remarked that his expression had been used too hastily to a stranger; but that a true Spaniard would look on any scene with equanimity. Cherry’s lip curved a little, as if he thought this a doubtful advantage; but he answered with a laugh,—

“I am a stranger, señor; and besides, I was fatigued.”

“Ah,” said Manoel, “that amounts to an entire excuse. The expression is withdrawn.”

And with a profound bow to Cheriton, he went away, and Cherry burst out laughing.

“What in the world did all that mean?” he said. “Did I really offend his national pride by turning sick at the dying horses?”

“That is not all,” said Alvar hurriedly; “he hates the English and us all; he would like to kill me.”

“Ah, ha, Alvar, it is my turn to talk about ‘excitement’ now.”

“Well, I do not understand you. When you came home you could not be still; you seemed crazy. And now, when any gentleman would be enraged, you laugh.”

“Oh, I hate quarrels. And besides,” shrugging his shoulders, “why in the world should I care for such mock-heroics as that?”

“Ah, Cherry,” said Mr Stanforth, “there spoke the very essence of English scorn.”

Cheriton coloured.

“True,” he said, candidly, “Don Manoel had a right to be angry with me, after all. But I don’t mean it. I dare say he isn’t half a bad fellow.”

“Ah, you are coughing. You will be tired out; and I am sure that you will not sleep,” said Alvar. “Come, you shall not talk any more about anything.”

“Very wise advice,” said Mr Stanforth, “especially as Gipsy has persuaded the whole party to come to-morrow to see my sketches, and drink English ‘afternoon tea.’ So rest now in preparation.”

Cheriton paid for his day’s work by a bad night and much weariness. Don Manoel made very polite inquiries after him; but there was something in the atmosphere that, to quote Alvar, Cherry “did not understand.”

Chapter Thirty.

Nettie at Bay.

“A child, and vain.”

After the departure of the travellers, a period of exceeding flatness and dulness settled down on Oakby and its neighbourhood. The weather was dismal, one or two other neighbouring families were away, and no one thought it worth while to do anything. Jack had refused a congenial invitation, and conscientiously stayed at home “to make it cheerful,” until he went up to Oxford; but, though he was too well conducted and successful not to be a satisfactory son, he and his father were not congenial, and never could think of anything to say to each other. He had outgrown companionship with Bob, and did not now get on very well with him; while Nettie was never sociable with any one but her twin. Mrs Lester, though very attentive to her son’s dinners and other comforts, did not trouble herself much about the boys, and moreover did not possess the comfortable characteristic common to most elderly ladies—of being often to be found in one place. As Jack expressed it to himself, “no one was ever anywhere;” and prone as he was to look on the dark side of things, the thought that this was what home would be without Cherry, was perpetually before his mind. He did not like to go to Elderthwaite, and saw nothing of its inhabitants till one misty day early in October, as he was walking through the lanes with Rolla and Buffer at his heels, he came suddenly upon Virginia, leaning over a stile, and looking, not at the view, for there was none, but at the mist and the distant rain. Her figure, in its long waterproof cloak, under an arch of brown and yellow hazel boughs, had an indescribably forlorn aspect; but Jack, awkward fellow, was conscious of nothing but a sense of embarrassment and doubt what to say. She started and coloured up, but with greater self-possession spoke to him, and held out her hand.

“How d’ye do?” said Jack. “Down, Buffer, you’re all over mud.”

“Oh, never mind, I don’t care, dear little fellow!” exclaimed Virginia, who would have hugged Buffer, mud and all, but for very shame. “I did not know you were at home, Jack.”

“Yes, but I’m going to Oxford next week.”

“And—and you have good accounts of Cherry?”

“Yes, pretty good, better than at first. He says that he looks better, and does not cough so much, and he likes it,—so he says, at least,” replied Jack, who, conceiving that propriety precluded the mention of Alvar’s name, found his personal pronouns puzzling.

“I am very glad,” said Virginia softly.

“Yes, I suppose they are at Seville by this time; they stayed at San José till Cherry was stronger. Al—he—they thought it best.”

“Your eldest brother would be very careful of him, I am sure,” said Virginia, with a gentle dignity that reassured Jack, though she blushed deeply.

“Yes,” he said more freely, “and they have made some friends; Mr Stanforth, the artist, you know, and his daughter; they’re very nice people, and they have been learning Spanish together. He writes in very good spirits,” concluded Jack viciously, and referring to Cherry, though poor Virginia’s imagination supplied another antecedent.

“I am glad to hear it,” she said. “I met that Miss Stanforth once. She was a pretty, dark-eyed child then. Good-bye, Jack, I am going soon to stay with my cousin Ruth.”

“Good-bye,” said Jack, with a scowl which she could not account for. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.”

“Good-bye; good-bye, Buffer.”

Jack took his way home through the wet shrubberies. He felt sorry for Virginia, whom he regarded as injured by Alvar, but he thought that she ought to be angry with Ruth, never supposing that the latter’s delinquencies were unknown to her.

As he walked on he passed by a cart shed belonging to a small farm of his father’s above which was a hay loft, reached by a step ladder, to the foot of which Buffer and Rolla both rushed, barking rapturously, and trying to get up the ladder.

“Hullo! what’s up?—rats, I suppose,” thought Jack; and mounting two or three steps of the very rickety ladder, he looked into the loft, his chin on a level with the floor. Suddenly a blinding heap of hay was flung over his head; there was a scuffle and a rush, and Jack freed himself from the hay to find his head in Nettie’s very vigorous embrace; and to see Dick Seyton swing himself down from the window of the loft and run away.

“Stop, I say. Nettie, let go, what are you doing here? Dick, stop, I say,” cried Jack, scrambling up the ladder and rushing to the window; but Dick had vanished.

“Don’t stamp, Jack, you’ll come through; you should have run after him,” said Nettie saucily.

Jack turned, but caught his foot in a hole and fell headlong into the hay, while Nettie sat and laughed at him, and the dogs howled at the foot of the ladder.

Jack picked himself up cautiously, and sitting down on the hay, for there was hardly room for him to stand upright, said severely,—

“Now, Nettie, what is the meaning of this?”

“The meaning of what?”

“Of your being here with Dick. I told you in the summer that I didn’t approve of your being so friendly with him, and now I insist on knowing at once what you were doing with him.”