XIV. ANNE.[2] (continued 2)

“You would like the little stream that runs through the grounds,” he was observing. “It is not, of course, like the grand river we have just left, but it is pleasant to wander by, for it winds in and out in the most picturesque manner possible, and the banks are overshadowed by trees. Yes, Anne, you would like that.”

“Are you going through the cloisters?—is it not too late?” she interrupted, quite at a loss for something to say; not caring to answer that she should like to wander by the stream.

For he was crossing towards the little south cloister door: though onwards through the Green would have been their more direct road.

“Too late? No. Why should it be? You are not afraid of ghosts, are you?”

Anne laughed. But, lest she should be afraid of ghosts, he put her hand within his arm as they passed through the dark narrow passage beyond the postern; and so they marched arm-in-arm through the cloisters.

“To sit by that winding stream on a summer’s day listening to its murmurs, to the singing of the birds, the sweet sighing of the trees; or holding low converse with a cherished companion—yes, Anne, you would like that. It would just suit you, for you are of a silent and dreamy nature.”

There might not be much actual meaning in the words if you sat down to analyze them: but, to the inexperienced mind of Anne, they sounded very like plain speaking. At any rate, she took them to be an earnest that she should sometime sit by that stream with him—his wife. The dusky cloisters seemed to have suddenly filled themselves with refulgent light; the gravestones over which she was passing felt soft as the mossy glades of fairyland: ay, even that mysterious stone that bears on it the one terrible word “Miserrimus.” Heaven was above her, and heaven beneath: there was no longer any prosaic earth for Anne Lewis.

“Good-night to you, gentlefolks.”

The salutation was from the cloister porter; who, coming into close the gates, met them as they were nearing the west door. Not another word had passed until now: Mr. Angerstyne had fallen into silence. Anne could not have spoken to gain the world.

“Good-night to you, my man,” he answered.

Lake’s was in a bustle when they reached it. The luggage of the new people, who had just been shown to their chambers, was being taken in; the carriage containing Dr. and Mrs. Lewis was then just driving up. Anne felt alarmed as she caught sight of her father; he looked so very ill. Mr. Angerstyne, in his ready, kindly way, waited to help him down and give him his arm along the passage; he then ran up to his room, remarking that he had letters to write.

The people assembled for dinner in full fig, out of deference to the new-comers: who proved to be a Lady Knight, and a Mrs. and Miss Colter. Anne wore her pretty grey bridesmaid’s dress, and the ribbon, just bought, in her hair. At the very last moment, Mr. Angerstyne came down, his hands full of the letters he had been writing.

“Why, are you here?” exclaimed Lady Knight: who seemed to be a chatty, voluble woman. “I am surprised.”

Mr. Angerstyne, putting his letters on the side-table, until he could take them to the post, turned round at the address. A moment’s stare, half doubt, half astonishment, and he went forward to shake Lady Knight’s hand.

“What brings you here?” she asked.

“I have been here some little time. Old Miss Gibson is at Malvern, so I can’t go far away.”

There was no opportunity for more: dinner was waiting. Mr. Angerstyne and Anne sat side by side that evening; Lady Knight was opposite. Miss Dinah presided as usual, her best yellow cap perched on the top of her curls.

During an interval of silence between the general bustle and rattle of the dinner, for the two girls who waited (after their own fashion) had both run away with the fish to bring in the meat, Lady Knight looked across the table to put a question to Mr. Angerstyne.

“How is your wife?”

The silence dropped to a dead stillness. He appeared not to hear.

“How is your wife, Henry Angerstyne? Have you seen her lately?”

He could not pretend to be deaf any longer, and answered with angry curtness:

“No, I have not. She is all right, I suppose.”

By the way the whole table stared, you might have thought a bombshell had fallen. Miss Dinah sat with her mouth open in sheer amazement, and then spoke involuntarily.

“Are you really married, Mr. Angerstyne?”

“Of course he is married,” said Lady Knight, answering Miss Dinah. “All the world knows that. His wife is my cousin. I saw her at Lowestoft a few weeks ago, Henry. She was looking prettier than ever.”

“Ah, Mr. Angerstyne, how sly you were, not to tell us!” cried Mrs. Lewis, playfully shaking her fan at him. “You—— Oh, goodness me!”

A loud crash! Jenny the maid had dropped a hot vegetable dish on the floor, scattering the pieces and spilling the peas; and followed it up with a shriek and a scream. That took off the attention; and Mr. Angerstyne, coolly eating away at his bread, turned to make some passing remark to Anne.

But the words he would have said were left unspoken. No ghost ever seen, in cloisters or out of them, was whiter than she. Lips and fingers were alike trembling.

“You should be more careful!” he called to the maid in a tone of authority. “Ladies don’t care to be startled in this way.” Just as though Anne had turned white from the noise of the broken dish!

Well, it had been a dreadful revelation for her. All the sunshine of this world seemed to have gone out for ever; to have left nothing behind it but a misty darkness. Rallying her pride and her courage, she went on with her dinner, as the others did. Her head was throbbing, her brain on fire; her mind had turned to chaos. She heard them making arrangements for a picnic-party to the woods at Croome on the morrow; not in the least understanding what was said or planned.

“You did surprise us!” observed Mrs. Lewis to Lady Knight, when they were in the drawing-room after dinner, and Mr. Angerstyne had gone out to post his letters. “What could have been his motive for allowing us to think him a bachelor?”

“A dislike to mention her name,” replied Lady Knight, candidly. “That was it, I expect. He married her for her pretty face, and then found out what a goose she was. So they did not get on together. She goes her way, and he goes his; now and then they meet for a week or two, but it is not often.”

“What a very unsatisfactory state of things!” cried Miss Dinah, handing round the cups of coffee herself for fear of another upset. “Is it her fault or his?”

“Faults lie on both sides,” said Lady Knight, who had an abrupt way of speaking, and was as poor as a church mouse. “She has a fearfully affronting temper of her own; those women with dolls’ faces sometimes have; and he was not as forbearing as he might have been. Any way, that is the state of affairs between Mr. and Mrs. Angerstyne: and, apart from it, there’s no scandal or reproach attaching to either of them.”

Anne, sitting in a quiet corner, listened to all this mechanically. What mattered the details to her? the broad fact had been enough. The hum of conversation was going on all around; her father, looking somewhat the better for his dinner, was playing at backgammon with Tom Lake. She saw nothing, knew nothing, until Mr. Angerstyne dropped into the seat beside her.

“Shall you join this expedition to Croome to-morrow, Anne?”

Julia and Fanny were thumping over a duet, pedal down, and Anne barely caught the low-spoken words.

“I do not know,” she answered, after a brief pause. “My head aches.”

“I don’t much care about it myself; rather the opposite. I shall certainly not go if you don’t.”

Why! he was speaking to her just as though nothing had occurred! If anything could have added to her sense of shame and misery it was this. It sounded like an insult, arousing all the spirit she possessed; her whole nature rose in rebellion against his line of conduct.

“Why have you been talking to me these many weeks as you have been talking, Mr. Angerstyne?” she asked in her straightforward simplicity, turning her face to his.

“There has been no harm in it,” he answered.

“Harm!” she repeated, from her wrung heart. “Perhaps not to you. There has been at least no good in it.”

“If you only knew what an interval of pleasantness it has been for me, Anne! Almost deluding me into forgetting my odious chains and fetters?”

“Would a gentleman have so amused himself, Mr. Angerstyne?”

But she gave him no opportunity of reply. Rising from her seat, and drawing her slight form to its full height, she looked into his face steadily, knowing not perhaps how much of scorn and reproach her gaze betrayed, then crossed the room and sat down by her father. Once after that she caught his eye: caught the expression of sorrow, of repentance, of deep commiseration that shone in every line of his face—for she could not altogether hide the pain seated in her own. And later, amidst the bustle of the general good-nights, she found her hand pressed within his, and heard his whispered, contrite prayer—

“Forgive me, Anne: forgive me!”

She lay awake all night, resolving to be brave, to make no sign; praying Heaven to help her to bear the anguish of her sorely-stricken heart, not to let the blow quite kill her. It seemed to her that she must feel it henceforth during all her life.

And before the house was well up in the morning, a messenger arrived post-haste from Malvern to summon Mr. Angerstyne to his aunt’s dying bed. He told Miss Dinah, when he shook hands with her at parting, that she might as well send his traps after him, if she would be so kind, as he thought he might not be able to return to Worcester again.

And that was the ending of Anne Lewis’s love. Not a very uncommon ending, people say. But she had been hardly dealt by.

Part the Third.

The blinds of a house closely drawn, the snow drifting against the windows outside, and somebody lying dead upstairs, cannot be called a lively state of things. Mrs. Lewis and her daughters, Julia and Fanny Podd, sitting over the fire in the darkened dining-room at Maythorn Bank, were finding it just the contrary.

When Dr. Lewis, growing worse and worse during their sojourn at Lake’s boarding-house at Worcester the previous autumn, had one day plucked up courage to open his mind to his physician, telling him that he was pining for the quiet of his own little cottage home, and that the stir and racket at Lake’s was more than he could bear, Dr. Malden peremptorily told Mrs. Lewis that he must have his wish, and go. So she had to give in, and prepared to take him; though it went frightfully against the grain. That was in September, three months back; he had been getting weaker and more imbecile ever since, and now, just as Christmas was turned, he had sunk quietly away to his rest.

Anne, his loving, gentle daughter, had been his constant companion and attendant. He had not been so ill as to lie in bed, but a great deal had to be done for him, especially in the matter of amusing what poor remnant of mind was left. She read to him, she talked to him, she wrapped great-coats about him, and took him out to walk on sunshiny days in the open walk by the laurels. It was well for Anne that she was thus incessantly occupied, for it diverted her mind from the misery left there by the unwarrantable conduct of Mr. Angerstyne. When a girl’s lover proves faithless, to dwell upon him and lament him brings to her a sort of painful pleasure: but that negative indulgence was denied to Anne Lewis: Henry Angerstyne was the husband of another, and she might not, willingly, keep him in her thoughts. To forget him, as she strove to do, was a hard and bitter task: but the indignation she felt at the man’s deceit and cruel conduct was materially helping her. Once, since, she had seen his name in the Times: it was amongst the list of visitors staying at some nobleman’s country-house. Henry Angerstyne. And the thrill that passed through her veins as the name caught her eye, the sudden stopping and then rushing violently onwards of her life’s blood, convinced her how little she had forgotten him.

“But I shall forget him in time,” she said to herself, pressing her hand upon her wildly-beating heart. “In time, God helping me.”

And from that moment she redoubled her care and thought for her father; and he died blessing her and her love for him.

Anne felt the loss keenly; though perhaps not quite so much so as she would have felt it had her later life been less full of suffering. It seemed to be but the last drop added to her cup of bitterness. She knew that to himself death was a release: he had ceased to find pleasure in life. And now she was left amidst strangers, or worse than strangers; she seemed not to have a friend to turn to in the wide world.

Dr. Lewis had died on Monday morning. This was Tuesday. Mrs. Lewis had been seeing people to-day and yesterday, giving her orders; but never once consulting Anne, or paying her the compliment to say, Would you like it to be this way, or that?

“How on earth any human being could have pitched upon this wretched out-of-the-world place, Crabb, to settle down in, puzzles me completely,” suddenly exclaimed Mrs. Lewis, bending forward to stir the fire.

“He must have been a lunatic,” acquiesced Julia, irreverently alluding to the poor man who was lying in the room above.

“Not a decent shop in the place! Not a dressmaker who can cut out a properly-fitting skirt! Be quiet, Fanny: you need not dance.”

“One does not know what to do,” grumbled Fanny, ceasing to shuffle, and returning to her seat. “But I should like to know, mamma, about our mourning.”

“I think I shall go to Worcester to-day and order it,” spoke up Mrs. Lewis, briskly, after a pause. “Necessity has no law; and we cannot get proper things unless I do. Yes, we will go: I don’t mind the weather. Julia, ring the bell.”

Anne—poor Anne—came in to answer the bell. She had no choice: Sally was out on an errand.

“Just see that we have a tray in with the cold meat, Anne, at half-past twelve. We must go to Worcester about the mourning——”

“To Worcester!” involuntarily interrupted Anne, in her surprise.

“There’s no help for it, though of course it’s not the thing I would choose to do,” said Mrs. Lewis, coldly. “One cannot provide proper things here: bonnets especially. I will get you a bonnet at the same time. And we must have a bit of something, hot and nice, for tea, when we come home.”

“Very well,” sighed Anne.

In the afternoon, Anne sat in the same room alone, busy over some black work, on which her tears dropped slowly. When it was growing dusk, Mr. Coney and the young Rector of Timberdale came in together. Herbert Tanerton did not forget that his late stepfather and Dr. Lewis were half-brothers. Anne brushed away the signs of her tears, laid down her work, and stirred the fire into a blaze.

“Now, my lass,” said the farmer, in his plain, homely way, but he always meant kindly, “I’ve just heard that that stepmother of yours went off to Worcester to-day with those two dandified girls of hers, and so I thought I’d drop in while the coast was clear. I confess I don’t like her: and I say that somebody ought to look a bit to you and your interests.”

“And I, coming over upon much the same errand, met Mr. Coney at the gate,” added Herbert Tanerton, with a smile as near geniality as he ever gave. “I wish to express my deep regret for your loss, Miss Lewis, and to assure you of my true sympathy. You will think my visit a late one, but I had a—a service this afternoon.” He would not say a funeral.

“You are both very, very kind,” said Anne, her eyes again filling, “and I thank you for thinking of me. I feel isolated from all: this place at best is strange to me after my life’s home in France. It seems that I have not a friend in the world.”

“Yes, you have,” said the farmer; “and if my wife had not been staying with our sick daughter at Worcester, she’d have been in to tell you the same. My dear, you are just going, please, to make a friend of me. And you won’t think two or three questions, that I should like to put, impertinent, will you?”

“That I certainly will not,” said Anne.

“Well, now, to begin with: Did your father make a will?”

“Oh yes. I hold it.”

“And do you chance to know how the property is left?”

“To me. No name but my own is mentioned in it.”

“Then you’ll be all right,” said Mr. Coney. “I feared he might have been leaving somebody else some. You will have about two hundred and fifty pounds a-year; and that’s enough for a young girl. When your father first came over, he spoke to me of his income and his means.”

“I—I fear the income will be somewhat diminished from what it was,” hesitated Anne, turning red at having to confess so much, because it would tell against her stepmother. “My father has had to sell out a good deal lately, to entrench upon his capital. I think the trouble it gave him hastened his end.”

“Sell out for what?” asked old Coney.

“For bills, and—and debts, that came upon him.”

“Her bills? Her debts?”

Anne did not expressly answer, but old Coney caught up the truth, and nodded his head in wrath. He as good as knew it before.

“Well, child, I suppose you may reckon, at the worst, on a clear two hundred a-year, and you can live on that. Not keep house, perhaps; and it would be very lonely for you also. You will have to take up your abode with some pleasant family: many a one would be glad to have you.”

“I should like to go back to France,” sighed Anne, recalling the misery that England had brought her: first in her new stepmother, then in Mr. Angerstyne, and now in her father’s death. “I have many dear friends in France who will take every care of me.”

“Well, I don’t know,” cried old Coney, with a blank look. “France may be very well for some people; but I’d almost as lieve go to the gallows as there. Don’t you like England?”

“I should like it well, if I—if I could be happy in it,” she answered, turning red again at the thought of him who had marred her happiness. “But, you see, I have no ties here.”

“You must make ties, my lass.”

“How much of the income ought I to pay over yearly to Mrs. Lewis, do you think?” she questioned. “Half of it?”

“Half! No!” burst forth old Coney, coughing down a strong word which had nearly slipped out. “You will give her none. None. A pretty idea of justice you must have, Anne Lewis.”

“But it would be fair to give it her,” argued Anne. “My father married her.”

“Oh, did he, though! She married him. I know. Other folks know. You will give her none, my dear, and allow her none. She is a hard, scheming, deceitful brickbat of a woman. What made her lay hold of your poor weakened father, and play off upon him her wiles and her guiles, and marry him, right or wrong?” ran on old Coney, getting purple enough for apoplexy. “She did it for a home; she did it that she might get her back debts paid; that’s what. She has had her swing as long as his poor life lasted, and put you down as if you were a changeling; we have all seen that. Now that her short day’s over, she must go back again to her own ways and means. Ask the parson there what he thinks.”

The parson, in his cold sententious way, that was so much more suited to an old bishop than a young rector, avowed that he thought with Mr. Coney. He could not see that Mrs. Lewis’s few months of marriage entitled her (all attendant circumstances being taken into consideration) to deprive Miss Lewis of any portion of her patrimony.

“You are sure you have got the will all tight and safe?” resumed Mr. Coney. “I wouldn’t answer for her not stealing it. Ah, you may laugh, young lassie, but I don’t like that woman. Miss Dinah Lake was talking to me a bit the other day; she don’t like her, either.”

Anne was smiling at his vehement partisanship. She rose, unlocked a desk that stood on the side-table, and brought out a parchment, folded and sealed. It was subscribed, “Will of Thomas Lewis, M.D.”

“Here it is,” she said. “Papa had it drawn up by an English lawyer just before we left France. He gave it to me, as he was apt to mislay things himself, charging me to keep it safely.”

“And mind you do keep it safely,” enjoined old Coney. “It won’t be opened, I suppose, till after the funeral’s over.”

“But wait a minute,” interposed the clergyman. “Does not marriage—a subsequent marriage—render a will invalid?”

“Bless my heart, no: much justice there’d be in that!” retorted old Coney, who knew about as much of law as he did of the moon. And Mr. Tanerton said no more; he was not certain; and supposed the older and more experienced man might be right.

Anne sighed as she locked up the will again. She was both just and generous; and she knew she should be sure to hand over to Mrs. Lewis the half of whatever income it might give her.

“Well, my girl,” said the farmer, as they prepared to leave, “if you want me, or anything I can do, you just send Sally over, and I’ll be here in a jiffy.”

“It is to be at Timberdale, I conclude?” whispered Herbert Tanerton, as he shook hands. Anne knew that he alluded to the funeral; and the colour came up in her face as she answered—

“I don’t know. My father wished it; he said he wished to lie beside his brother. But Mrs. Lewis—here they come, I think.”

They came in with snowy bonnets and red noses, stamping the slush off their shoes. It was a good walk from the station. Mrs. Lewis had expected to get a fly there; one was generally in waiting: but some one jumped out of the train before she did, and secured it. It made her feel cross and look cross.

“Such a wretched trapes!” she was beginning in a vinegar tone; but at sight of the gentlemen her face and voice smoothed down to oil. She begged them to resume their seats; but they said they were already going.

“We were just asking about the funeral,” the farmer stayed to say. “It is to be at Timberdale?”

Up went Mrs. Lewis’s handkerchief to her eyes. “Dear Mr. Coney, I think not. Crabb will be better.”

“But he wished to lie at Timberdale.”

“Crabb will be so much cheaper—and less trouble,” returned the widow, with a sob. “It is as well to avoid useless expense.”

“Cheaper!” cried old Coney, his face purple again with passion, so much did he dislike her and her ways. “Not cheaper at all. Dearer. Dearer, ma’am. Must have a hearse and coach any way: and Herbert Tanerton here won’t charge fees if it’s done at Timberdale.”

“Oh, just as you please, my dear sir. And if he wished it, poor dear! Yes, yes; Timberdale of course. Anywhere.”

They got out before she had dried her eyes—or pretended at it. Julia and Fanny then fetched in some bandboxes which had been waiting in the passage. Mrs. Lewis forgot her tears, and put back her cloak.

“Which is Anne’s?” she asked. “Oh, this one”—beginning to undo one of the boxes. “My own will be sent to-morrow night. I bought yours quite plain, Anne.”

Very plain indeed was the bonnet she handed out. Plain and common, and made of the cheapest materials; one that a lady would not like to put upon her head. Julia and Fanny were trying theirs on at the chimney-glass. Gay bonnets, theirs glistening with jet beads and black flowers. The bill lay open on the table, and Anne read the cost: her own, twelve shillings; the other two, thirty-three shillings each. Mrs. Lewis made a grab at the bill, and crushed it into her pocket.

“I knew you would prefer it plain,” said she. “For real mourning it is always a mistake to have things too costly.”

“True,” acquiesced Anne; “but yet—I think they should be good.”

It seemed to her that to wear this bonnet would be very like disrespect to the dead. She silently determined to buy a better as soon as she had the opportunity of doing so.

Of all days, for weather, the one of the funeral was about the worst. Sleet, snow, rain, and wind. The Squire had a touch of lumbago; he could not face it; and old Coney came bustling in to say that I was to attend in his place. Anne wanted Johnny Ludlow to go all along, he added; her father had liked him; only there was no room before in the coach.

“Yes, yes,” cried the Squire, “Johnny, of course. He is not afraid of lumbago. Make haste and get into your black things, lad.”

Well, it was shivery, as we rolled along in the creaky old mourning-coach, behind the hearse: Mr. Coney and the Podds’ lawyer-cousin from Birmingham on one side; I and Cole, the doctor, opposite. The sleet pattered against the windows, the wind whistled in our ears. The lawyer kept saying “eugh,” and shaking his shoulders, telling us he had a cold in his head; and looked just as stern as he had at the wedding.

All was soon over: Herbert Tanerton did not read slowly to-day: and we got back to Maythorn Bank. Cole had left us: he stopped the coach en route, and cut across a field to see a patient: but Mr. Coney drew me into the house with him after the lawyer.

“We will go in, Johnny,” he whispered. “The poor girl has no relation or friend to back her up, and I shall stay with her while the will’s read.”

Mrs. Lewis, in a new widow’s cap as big as a house, and the two girls in shining jet chains, were sitting in state. Anne came in the next minute, her face pale, her eyes red. We all sat down; and for a short time looked at one another in silence, like so many mutes.

“Any will to be read? I am told there is one,” spoke the lawyer—who had, as Fanny Podd whispered to me, a wife at home as sour as himself. “If so, it had better be produced: I have to catch a train.”

“Yes, there is a will,” answered old Coney, glad to find that Anne, as he assumed, had mentioned the fact. “Miss Lewis holds the will. Will you get it, my dear?”

Anne unlocked the desk on the side-table, and put the will into Mr. Coney’s hand. Without saying with your leave or by your leave, he broke the seals, and clapped on his spectacles.

“What’s that?” Mrs. Lewis asked old Coney, from her seat on the sofa.

“Dr. Lewis’s will, ma’am. Made in France, I believe: was it not, Miss Anne?”

“My dear, sweet creature, it is so much waste paper,” spoke Mrs. Lewis, smiling sweetly upon Anne. “My deeply lamented husband’s last will and testament was made long since he left France.”

Pulling up the sofa-cushion at her elbow, she produced another will, and asked the lawyer if he would be good enough to unseal and read it. It had been made, as the date proved, at Cheltenham, the day after she and Dr. Lewis were married; and it left every earthly thing he possessed to “his dear wife, Louisa Jane Lewis.”

Old Coney’s face was a picture. He stared alternately at the will in his hands, at the one just read by the lawyer. Anne stood meekly by his side; looking as if she did not understand matters.

“That can’t stand good!” spoke the farmer, in his honest indignation. “The money can’t go to you, ma’am”—turning his burly form about to face Mrs. Lewis, and treading on my toes as he did it. “The money is this young lady’s; part of it comes from her own mother: it can’t be yours. Thomas Lewis must have signed the will in his sleep.”

“Does a daughter inherit before a wife, dear sir?” cried Mrs. Lewis, in a voice soft as butter. “It is the most just will my revered husband could have made. I need the money: I cannot keep on the house without it. Anne does not need it: she has no house to keep.”

“Look here,” says old Coney, buttoning his coat and looking fiercely at the company. “It’s not my wish to be rude to-day, remembering what place we came straight here from; but if you don’t want to be put down as—as schemers, you will not lose an hour in making over the half of that income to Anne Lewis. It is what she proposed to do by you, madam, when she thought all was left to her,” he added, brushing past Mrs. Lewis. “Come along, Johnny.”

The time went on. Mrs. Lewis kept all the money. She gave notice to leave the house at Midsummer: but she had it on her hands until then, and told people she should die of its dulness. So far as could be known, she had little, if any, income, except that which she inherited from Dr. Lewis.

Anne’s days did not pass in clover. Treated as of no moment, she was made fully to understand that she was only tolerated in what was once her own home; and she had to make herself useful in it from morning till night, just like a servant. Remembering what had been, and what was, Anne felt heart-broken, submitting patiently and unresistingly to every trial; but a reaction set in, and her spirit grew rebellious.

“Is there any remedy, I wonder?” she asked herself one night in her little chamber, when preparing for bed, and the day had been a particularly trying day. She had ventured to ask for a few shillings for some purpose or other, and was told she could not have them: being Easter-Monday, Sally had had a holiday, and she had been kept at work like a slave in the girl’s place: Herbert Tanerton and his wife had come to invite her for a day or two to Timberdale, and a denial was returned to them without herself being consulted, or even allowed to see them. Yes, it had been a trying day. And in France Easter had always been kept as a fête.

“Is there not a remedy?” she debated, as she slowly undressed. “I have no home but this; but—could I not find one?”

She knew that she had no means of living, except by her own exertions; she had not even a rag to wear or a coin to spend, except what should come to her by Mrs. Lewis’s bounty. And, whether that lady possessed bounty or not, she seemed never to possess ready-money. It appeared to Anne that she had been hardly dealt by in more ways than one; that the world was full of nothing but injustice and trouble.

“And I fancy,” added Anne, thinking out her thoughts, “that they will be glad to get rid of me; that they want me gone. So I dare say there will be no objection made here.”

With morning light, she was up and busy. It fell to her lot to prepare the breakfast: and she must not keep the ladies waiting for it one minute. This morning, however, she had to keep them waiting; but not through any fault of hers.

They grew impatient. Five minutes past nine: ten minutes past nine: what did Anne mean? Julia and Fanny were not much better dressed than when they got out of bed; old jackets on, rough and rumpled hair stuck up with hair-pins. In that respect they presented a marked contrast to Anne, who was ever trim and nice.

“I’m sure she must be growing the coffee-berries!” cried Fanny, as she flung the door open. “Is that breakfast coming to-day, or to-morrow?”

“In two minutes,” called back Anne.

“Oh, what a dreary life it is out here!” groaned Mrs. Lewis. “Girls, I think we will go over to Worcester to-day, and arrange to stay a week at Lakes. And then you can go to the subscription ball at the Town Hall, that you are so wild over.”

“Oh, do, do!” cried Julia, all animation now. “If I don’t go to that ball, I shall die.”

“I shall run away, if we don’t; I have said all along I would not miss the Easter ball,” spoke Fanny. “Mamma, I cannot think why you don’t shut this miserable house up!”

“Will you find the rent for another?” coolly asked Mrs Lewis. “What can that girl be at with the coffee?”

It came in at last; and Anne was abused for her laziness. When she could get a word in, she explained that Sally had had an accident with the tea-kettle, and fresh water had to be boiled.

More indignation: Julia’s egg turned out to be bad. What business had Anne to boil bad eggs? Anne, saying nothing, took it away, boiled another and brought it in. Then Mrs. Lewis fancied she could eat a thin bit of toasted bacon; and Anne must go and do it at the end of a fork. Altogether the breakfast was nearly at an end before she could sit down and eat her own bread-and-butter.

“I have been thinking,” she began, in a hesitating tone, to Mrs. Lewis, “that I should like to go out. If you have no objection.”

“Go out where?”

“Into some situation.”

Mrs. Lewis, in the act of conveying a piece of bacon to her mouth, held it suspended in mid-air, and stared at Anne in amazement.

“Into what?”

“A situation in some gentleman’s family. I have no prospect before me; no home; I must earn my own living.”

“The girl’s daft!” cried Mrs. Lewis, resuming her breakfast. “No home! Why, you have a home here; your proper home. Was it not your father’s?”

“Yes. But it is not mine.”

“It is yours; and your days in it are spent usefully. What more can you want? Now, Anne, hold your tongue, and don’t talk nonsense. If you have finished your breakfast you can begin to take the things away.”

“Mamma, why don’t you let her go?” whispered Fanny, as Anne went out with some plates.

“Because she is useful to me,” said Mrs. Lewis. “Who else is there to see to our comforts? We should be badly off with that incapable Sally. And who would do all the needlework? recollect how much she gets through. No, as long as we are here, Anne must stay with us. Besides, the neighbourhood would have its say finely if we let her turn out. People talk, as it is, about the will, and are not so friendly as they might be. As if they would like me to fly in the face of my dear departed husband’s wishes, and tacitly reproach his judgment!”

But Anne did not give up. When she had taken all the things away and folded up the table-cloth, she came in again and spoke.

“I hope you will not oppose me in this, Mrs. Lewis. I should like to take a situation.”

“And, pray, what situation do you suppose you could take?” ironically asked Mrs. Lewis. “You are not fitted to fill one in a gentleman’s family.”

“Unless it be as cook,” put in Julia.

“Or seamstress,” said Fanny. “By the way, I want some more cuffs made, Anne.”

“I should like to try for a situation, notwithstanding my deficiencies. I could do something or other.”

“There, that’s enough: must I tell you again not to talk nonsense?” retorted Mrs. Lewis. “And now you must come upstairs and see to my things, and to Julia’s and Fanny’s. We are going to Worcester by the half-past eleven train—and you may expect us home to tea when you see us.”

They went off. As soon as their backs were turned, Anne came running into our house, finding me and Mrs. Todhetley at the piano. It was pleasant Easter weather, though March was not out: the Squire and Tod had gone to Dyke Manor on some business, and would not be home till late. Anne told all her doubts and difficulties to the mater, and asked her advice, as to whether there would be anything wrong in her seeking for a situation.

“No, my dear,” said the mother, “it would be right, instead of wrong. If——”

“If people treated me as they treat you, Anne, I wouldn’t stay with them a day,” said I, hotly. “I don’t like toads.”

“Oh, Johnny!” cried Mrs. Todhetley. “Never call names, dear. No obligation whatever, Anne, lies on you to remain in that home; and I think you would do well to leave it. You shall stay and dine with me and Johnny at one o’clock, Anne; and we will talk it over.”

“I wish I could stay,” said poor Anne; “I hardly knew how to spare these few minutes to run here. Mrs. Lewis has left me a gown to unpick and turn, and I must hasten to begin it.”

“So would I begin it!” I cried, going out with her as far as the gate. “And I should like to know who is a toad, if she’s not.”

“Don’t you think I might be a nursery governess, Johnny?” she asked me, turning round after going through the gate. “I might teach French, and English, and German: and I am very fond of little children. The difficulty will be to get an introduction. I have thought of one person who might give it me—if I could only dare to ask him.”

“Who’s that?”

“Sir Robert Tenby. He is of the great world, and must know every one in it. And he has always shown himself so very sociable and kind. Do you think I might venture to apply to him?”

“Why not? He could not eat you for it.”

She ran on, and I ran back. But, all that day, sitting over her work, Anne was in a state of doubt, not able to make up her mind. It was impossible to know how Sir Robert Tenby might take it.

“I have made you a drop of coffee and a bit of hot toast and butter, Miss Anne,” said Sally, coming in with a small tray. “Buttered it well. She’s not here to see it.”

Anne laughed, and thanked her; Mrs. Lewis had left them only cold bacon for dinner, and ordered them to wait tea until her return. But before the refreshment was well disposed of, she and the girls came in.

“How soon you are back!” involuntarily cried Anne, hoping Mrs. Lewis would not smell the coffee. “And how are they all at Lake’s?”

Mrs. Lewis answered by giving a snappish word to Lake’s, and ordered Anne to get tea ready. Fanny whispered the information that they were going to Worcester on the morrow to stay over the Easter ball; but not to Lake’s. Anne wondered at that.

Upon arriving at Lake’s that morning, Miss Dinah had received them very coolly; and was, as Mrs. Lewis remarked afterwards, barely civil. The fact was, Miss Dinah, being just-minded, took up Anne’s cause rather warmly; and did not scruple to think that the beguiling poor weak-minded Dr. Lewis out of the will he made, was just a piece of iniquity, and nothing less. Perceiving Miss Dinah’s crusty manner, Mrs. Lewis inquired after Mrs. Lake. “Where’s Emma?” she asked.

“Very much occupied to-day. Can I do anything for you?”

“We are thinking of coming to you to-morrow for a week, Dinah; I and my two girls. They are wild to go to the Easter ball. Which rooms can you give us?”

“Not any rooms,” spoke Miss Dinah, decisively. “We cannot take you in.”

“Not take me in! When the servant opened the door to us she said the house was not full. I put the question to her.”

“But we are expecting it to be full,” said Miss Dinah, curtly. “The Beales generally come over to the ball; and we must keep rooms for them.”

“You don’t know that they are coming, I expect. And in a boarding-house the rule holds good, ‘First come, first served.’”

“A boarding-house holds its own rules, and is not guided by other people’s. Very sorry: but we cannot make room this time for you and your daughters.”

“I’ll soon see that,” retorted Mrs. Lewis, getting hot. “Where’s Emma Lake? I am her cousin, and shall insist on being taken in.”

“She can’t take you in without my consent. And she won’t: that’s more. Look here, Mrs. Podd—I beg your pardon—the new name does not always come pat to me. When you were staying here before, and kept us so long out of our money, it put us to more inconvenience than you had any idea of. We——”

“You were paid at last.”

“Yes,” said Miss Dinah; “with poor Dr. Lewis’s money, I expect. We made our minds up then, Mrs. Lewis, not to take you again. At least, I did; and Mrs. Lake agreed with me.”

“You will not have to wait again: I have money in my pocket now. And the girls must go to the ball on Thursday.”

“If your pockets are all full of money, it can make no difference to me. I’m sorry to say I cannot take you in, Mrs. Lewis: and now I have said all I mean to say.”

Mrs. Lewis went about the house, looking for Mrs. Lake, and did not find her. She, not as strong-minded as Miss Dinah, had bolted herself into the best bedroom, just then unoccupied. So Mrs. Lewis, not to be baffled as to the ball, went out to look for other lodgings, and found them in Foregate Street.

“But we shall be home on Saturday,” she said to Anne, as they were starting this second time for Worcester, on the Wednesday morning, the finery for the ball behind them in two huge trunks. “I have to pay a great deal for the rooms, and can’t afford to stay longer than that. And mind that you and Sally get the house in order whilst we are away; it’s a beautiful opportunity to clean it thoroughly down: and get on as quickly as you can with the needlework.”

“Why, my dear young lassie, I am not able to help you in such a thing as this. You had better see the master himself.”

Anne had lost no time. Leaving Sally to the cleaning, she dressed and walked over on the Wednesday afternoon to Bellwood, Sir Robert Tenby’s seat. She explained her business to Mrs. Macbean, the old family housekeeper, and asked whether she could help her into any good family.

“Nae, nae, child. I live down here all my days, and I know nothing of the gentlefolks in the great world. The master knows them all.”

“I did think once of asking if I might see Sir Robert; but my courage fails me now,” said Anne.

“And why should it?” returned the old lady. “If there’s one man more ready than another to do a kindness, or more sociable to speak with, it’s Sir Robert Tenby. He takes after his mother for that, my late dear lady; not after his father. Sir George was a bit proud. I’ll go and tell Sir Robert what you want.”

Sir Robert was in his favourite room; a small one, with a bright fire in it, its purple chairs and curtains bordered with gold. It was bright altogether, Anne thought as she entered: for he said he would see her. The windows looked out on a green velvet lawn, with beds of early flowers, and thence to the park; and, beyond all, to the chain of the Malvern Hills, rising against the blue sky. The baronet sat near one of the windows, some books on a small table at his elbow. He came forward to shake hands with Anne, and gave her a chair opposite his own. And, what with his good homely face and its smile of welcome, and his sociable, unpretending words, Anne felt at home at once.

In her own quiet way, so essentially that of a lady in its unaffected truth, she told him what she wanted: to find a home in some good family, who would be kind to her in return for her services, and pay her as much as would serve to buy her gowns and bonnets. Sir Robert Tenby, no stranger to the gossip rife in the neighbourhood, had heard of the unjust will, and of Anne’s treatment by the new wife.

“It is, I imagine, impossible for a young lady to get into a good family without an introduction,” said Anne. “And I thought—perhaps—you might speak for me, sir: you do know a little of me. I have no one else to recommend me.”

He did not answer for the moment: he sat looking at her. Anne blushed, and went on, hoping she was not offending him.

“No one else, I mean, who possesses your influence, and mixes habitually with the great world. I should not care to take service in an inferior family: my poor father would not have liked it.”

“Take service,” said he, repeating the word. “It is as governess that you wish to go out?”

“As nursery governess, I thought. I may not aspire to any better position, for I know nothing of accomplishments. But little children need to be taught French and German; I could do that.”

“You speak French well, of course?”

“As a native. German also. And I think I speak good English, and could teach it. And oh, sir, if you did chance to know of any family who would engage me, I should be so grateful to you.”

“French, English, and German,” said he, smiling. “Well, I can’t tell what the great world, as you put it, may call accomplishments; but I think those three enough for anybody.”

Anne smiled too. “They are only languages, Sir Robert. They are not music and drawing. Had my dear mamma suspected I should have to earn my own living, she would have had me educated for it.”

“I think it is a very hard thing that you should have to earn it,” spoke Sir Robert.

Anne glanced up through her wet eye-lashes: reminiscences of her mother always brought tears. “There’s no help for it, sir; I have not a shilling in the world.”

“And no home but one that you are ill-treated in—made to do the work of a servant? Is it not so?”

Anne coloured painfully. How did he know this? Generous to Mrs. Lewis in spite of all, she did not care to speak of it herself.

“And if people did not think me clever enough to teach, sir,” she went on, passing over his question, “I might perhaps go out to be useful in other ways. I can make French cakes and show a cook how to make French dishes; and I can read aloud well, and do all kinds of needlework. Some old lady, who has no children of her own, might be glad to have me.”

“I think many an old lady would,” said he. The remark put her in spirits. She grew animated.

“Oh, do you! I am so glad. If you should know of one, sir, would you please to tell her of me?”

Sir Robert nodded, and Anne rose to leave. He rose also.

“If I could be so fortunate as to get into such a home as this, with some kind old lady for my friend and mistress, I should be quite happy,” she said, in the simplicity of her heart. “How pleasant this room is! and how beautiful it is outside!”—pausing to look at the early flowers, as she passed the window.

“Do you know Bellwood? Were you ever here before?”

“No, sir, never.”

Sir Robert put on his hat and went out with her, showing her some pretty spots about the grounds. Anne was enchanted, especially with the rocks and the cascades. Versailles, she thought, could not be better than Bellwood.

“And when you hear of anything, sir, you will please to let me know?” she said, in parting.

“Yes. You had better come again soon. This is Wednesday: suppose you call on Friday. Will you?”

“Oh, I shall be only too glad. I will be sure to come. Good-bye, Sir Robert: and thank you very, very much.”

She went home with a light heart: she had not felt so happy since her father died.

“How good he is! how kind! a true gentleman,” she thought. “And what a good thing he fixed Friday instead of Saturday, for on Saturday they will be at home. But it is hardly possible that he will have heard of any place by that time, unless he has one in his eye.”

It was Friday afternoon before Anne could get to Bellwood, and rather late, also. She asked, as before, for Mrs. Macbean, not liking to ask direct for Sir Robert Tenby. Sir Robert was out, but was expected in every minute, and Anne waited in Mrs. Macbean’s parlour.

“Do you think he has heard of anything for me?” was one of the first questions she put.

“Eh, my dear, and how should I know?” was the old lady’s reply. “He does not tell me of his affairs. Not but what he talks to me a good deal, and always like a friend: he does not forget that my late leddy, his mother, made more of a friend of me than a servant. Many’s the half-hour he keeps me talking in his parlour; and always bids me take the easiest seat there. I wish he would marry!”

“Do you?” replied Anne, mechanically: for she was thinking more of her own concerns than Sir Robert’s.

“Why, yes, that I do. It’s a lonely life for him at best, the one he leads. I’ve not scrupled to tell him, times and oft, that he ought to bring a mistress home—— Eh, but there he is! That’s his step.”

As before, Anne went into the pretty room that Sir Robert, when alone, mostly sat in. Three or four opened letters lay upon the table, and she wondered whether they related to her.

“No, I have as yet no news for you,” he said, smiling at her eager face, and keeping her hand in his while he spoke. “You will have to come again for it. Sit down.”

“But if—if you have nothing to tell me to-day, I had better not take up your time,” said Anne, not liking to appear intrusive.

“My time! If you knew how slowly time some days seems to pass for me, you would have no scruple about ‘taking it up.’ Sit here. This is a pleasant seat.”

With her eyes fixed on the outer landscape, Anne sat on and listened to him. He talked of various things, and she felt as much at her ease (as she told me that same evening) as though she had been talking with me. Afterwards she felt half afraid she had been too open, for she told him all about her childhood’s home in France and her dear mother. It was growing dusk when she got up to go.

“Will you come again on Monday afternoon?” he asked. “I shall be out in the morning.”

“If I can, sir. Oh yes, if I can. But Mrs. Lewis, who will be at home then, does not want me to take a situation at all, and she may not let me come out.”

“I should come without telling her,” smiled Sir Robert. “Not want you to leave home, eh? Would you like to stay there to make the puddings? Ay, I understand. Well, I shall expect you on Monday. There may be some news, you know.”

And, somehow, Anne took up the notion that there would be news, his tone sounded so hopeful. All the way home her feet seemed to tread on air.

On the Sunday evening, when they were all sitting together at Maythorn Bank, and Anne had no particular duty on hand, she took courage to tell of what she had done, and that Sir Robert Tenby was so good as to interest himself for her. Mrs. Lewis was indignant; the young ladies were pleasantly satirical.

“As nursery governess: you!” mocked Miss Julia. “What shall you teach your pupils? To play at cats’ cradle?”

“Why, you know, Anne, you are not fit for a governess,” said Fanny. “It would be quite—quite wicked of you to make believe to be one. You never learnt a note of music. You can’t draw. You can’t paint.”

“You had better go to school yourself, first,” snapped Mrs. Lewis. “I will not allow you to take such a step: so put all thought of it out of your head.”

Anne leaned her aching brow upon her hand in perplexity. Was she so unfit? Would it be wicked? She determined to put the case fully before her kind friend, Sir Robert Tenby, and ask his opinion.

Providing that she could get to Sir Robert’s. Ask leave to go, she dare not; for she knew the answer would be a point-blank refusal.

But fortune favoured her. Between three and four o’clock on Monday afternoon, Mrs. Lewis and her daughters dressed themselves and sailed away to call on some people at South Crabb; which lay in just the contrary direction to Bellwood. They left Anne a heap of sewing to do: but she left the sewing and went out on her own score. I met her near the Ravine. She told me what she had done, and looked bright and flushed over it.

“Mrs. Lewis is one cat, and they are two other cats, Anne. Tod says so. Good-bye. Good luck to you!”

“Eh, my dear, and I was beginning to think you didna mean to come,” was Mrs. Macbean’s salutation. “But Sir Robert is nae back yet, he has been out on horseback since the morning; and he said you were to wait for him. So just take your bonnet off, and you shall have a cup of tea with me!”

Nothing loth, Anne took off her outdoor things. “They will be home before I am, and find me gone out,” she reflected; “but they can’t quite kill me for it.” The old lady rang her bell for tea, and thought what a nice and pretty young gentlewoman Anne looked in her plain black dress with its white frilling, and the handsome jet necklace that had been her mother’s.

But before the tea could be made, Sir Robert Tenby’s horse trotted up, and they heard him go to his sitting-room. Mrs. Macbean took Anne into his presence, saying at the same time that she had been about to give the young lady a cup of tea.

“I should like some tea, too,” said Sir Robert; “Miss Lewis can take it with me. Send it in.”

It came in upon a waiter, and was placed upon the table. Anne, at his request, put sugar and cream into his cup, handed it to him, and then took her own. He was looking very thoughtful; she seemed to fancy he had no good news for her, as he did not speak of it; and her heart went down, down. In a very timid tone, she told him of the depreciating opinion held of her talents at home, and begged him to say what he thought, for she should not like to be guilty of undertaking any duty she was not fully competent to fulfil.

“Will you take some more tea?” was all Sir Robert said in answer.

“No, thank you, sir.”

“Another biscuit? No? We will send the tray away then.”

Ringing the bell, a servant came in and removed the things. Sir Robert, standing at the window, and looking down at Anne as she sat, began to speak.

“I think there might be more difficulty in getting you a situation as governess than we thought for; one that would be quite suited to you, at least. Perhaps another kind of situation would do better for you.”

Her whole face, turned up to him with its gaze of expectancy, changed to sadness; the light in her eyes died away. It seemed so like the knell of all her hopes. Sir Robert only smiled.

“If you could bring yourself to take it—and to like it,” he continued.

“But what situation is it, sir?”

“That of my wife. That of Lady of Bellwood.”

Just for a moment or two she simply stared at him. When his meaning reached her comprehension, her face turned red and white with emotion. Sir Robert took her hand and spoke more fully. He had learnt to like her very very much, to esteem her, and wished her to be his wife.

“I am aware that there is a good deal of difference in our ages, my dear; more than twenty years,” he went on, while she sat in silence. “But I think you might find happiness with me; I will do my very best to insure it. Better be my wife than a nursery governess. What do you say?”

“Oh, sir, I do not know what to say,” she answered, trembling a little. “It is so unexpected—and a great honour—and—and I am overwhelmed.”

“Could you like me?” he gently asked.

“I do like you, sir; very much. But this—this would be different. Perhaps you would let me take until to-morrow to think about it?”

“Of course I will. Bring me your answer then. Bring it yourself, whatever it may be.”

“I will, sir. And I thank you very greatly.”

All night long Anne Lewis lay awake. Should she take this good man for her husband, or should she not? She did like him very much: and what a position it would be for her; and how sheltered she would be henceforth from the frowns of the world! Anne might never have hesitated, but for the remains of her love for Mr. Angerstyne. That was passing away from her heart day by day, as she knew; it would soon have passed entirely. She could never feel that same love again; it was over and done with for ever; but there was surely no reason why she should sacrifice all her future to its remembrance. Yes: she would accept Sir Robert Tenby: and would, by the help of Heaven, make him a true, faithful, good wife.

It was nearly dusk the next afternoon before she could leave the house. Mrs. Lewis had kept her in sight so long that she feared she might not find the opportunity that day. She ran all the way to Bellwood, anxious to keep her promise: she could not bear to seem to trifle, even for a moment, with this good and considerate man. Sir Robert was waiting for her in a glow of firelight. He came forward, took both her hands in his, and looked into her face inquiringly.

“Well?”

“Yes, sir, if you still wish to take me. I will try to be to you a loving wife; obedient and faithful.”

With a sigh of relief, he sat down on a sofa that was drawn to the fire and placed her beside him, holding her hand still.

“My dear, I thank you: you have made me very happy. You shall never have cause to repent it.”

“It is so strange,” she whispered, “that you should wait all these years, with the world to choose from, and then think of me at last! I can scarcely believe it.”

“Ay, I suppose it is strange. But I must tell you something, Anne. When quite a youth, only one-and-twenty, there was a young lady whom I dearly loved. She was poor, and not of much family, and my father forbade the union. She married some one else, and died. It is for the love of her I have kept single all these years. But I shall not make you the less good husband.”

“And I—I wish to tell you that I once cared for some one,” whispered Anne, in her straightforward honesty. “It is all over and done with; but I did like him very much.”

“Then, my dear, we shall be even,” he said, with a merry smile. “The one cannot reproach the other. And now—this is the beginning of April; before the month shall have closed you had better come to me. We have nothing to wait for; and I do not like, now that you belong to me, to leave you one moment longer than is needful with that lady whom you are forced to call stepmother.”

How Anne reached home that late afternoon she hardly knew: she knew still less how to bring the news out. In the course of the following morning she tried to do so, and made a bungle of it.

“Sir Robert not going to get you a situation as governess!” interrupted Julia, before Anne had half finished. “Of course he is not. He knows you are not capable of taking one. I thought how much he was intending to help you. You must have had plenty of cheek, Anne, to trouble him.”

“I am going to be his wife instead,” said poor Anne, meekly. “He has asked me to be. And—and it is to be very soon; and he is coming to see Mrs. Lewis this morning.”

Mrs. Lewis, sitting back in an easy-chair, her feet on the fender, dropped the book she was reading to stare at Anne. Julia burst into a laugh of incredulity. Her mother echoed it, and spoke——

“You poor infatuated girl! This comes of being brought up on French soup. But Sir Robert Tenby has no right to play jokes upon you. I shall write and tell him so.”

“I—think—he is there,” stammered Anne.

There he was. A handsome carriage was drawing up to the gate, the baronet’s badge upon its panels. Sir Robert sat inside. A footman came up the path and thundered at the door.

Not very long afterwards—it was in the month of June—Anne and her husband were guests at a London crush in Berkeley Square. It was too crowded to be pleasant. Anne began to look tired, and Sir Robert whispered to her that if she had had enough of it, they would go home. “Very gladly,” she answered, and turned to say good-night to her hostess.

“Anne! How are you?”

The unexpected interruption, in a voice she knew quite well, and which sent a thrill through her, even yet, arrested Anne in her course. There stood Henry Angerstyne, his hand held out in greeting, a confident smile, as if assuming she could only receive him joyfully, on his handsome face.

“I am so much surprised to see you here; so delighted to meet you once again, Miss Lewis.”

“You mistake, sir,” replied Anne, in a cold, proud tone, drawing her head a little up. “I am Lady Tenby.”

Walking forward, she put her arm within her husband’s, who waited for her. Mr. Angerstyne understood it at once; it needed not the almost bridal robes of white silk and lace to enlighten him. She was not altered. She looked just the same single-minded, honest-hearted girl as ever, with a pleasant word for all—except just in the moment when she had spoken to him.

“I am glad of it: she deserves her good fortune,” he thought heartily. With all his faults, few men could be more generously just than Henry Angerstyne.