want me, I know," Mrs. Warrender said to her son, who accompanied her, to form part of the cortége, in the little brougham which had been to Markland but once or twice in so many years, and this last week had traversed the road from one house to another almost every day. "I think you are mistaken, mother; but even so, if you can do her any good," said Theo, with unusual enthusiasm. His mother thought it strange that he should show so much feeling on the subject; and she went through the great hall and up the stairs, through the depths of the vast, silent house, to Lady Markland's room, with anticipations as little agreeable as any with which woman ever went to an office of kindness. Lady Markland's room was on the other side of the house, looking upon a landscape totally different from that through which her visitor had come. The window was open, the light unshaded, and Lady Markland sat at a writing-table covered with papers, as little like a broken-hearted widow as could be supposed. She was dressed, indeed, in the official dress of heavy crape, and wore (for once) the cap which to Geoff had been so overpowering a symbol of sorrow; but save for these signs, and perhaps a little additional paleness in her never high complexion, was precisely as Mrs. Warrender had seen her since she had risen from her girlish bloom into the self-possession of a wife matured and stilled by premature experience. She came forward, holding out her hand, when her visitor, with a reluctance and diffidence quite unsuitable to her supe

rior

age, slowly advanced.

"Thank you," she said at once, "for coming. I know without a word how disagreeable it is to you, how little you wished it. You have come against your will, and you think against my will, Mrs. Warrender; but indeed it is not So. It is a comfort and help to me to have you."

"If that is so, Lady Markland "

-

This sudden plunge into the subject for which she was least prepared - for all her ideas of condolence had been driven out of her mind by the young woman's demeanor, the open window, the cheerful and commonplace air of the room - confused Mrs. Warrender greatly. "I remember Lord Markland almost all his life," she said.

"Here is the miniature of him that was done for me before we were married," said Lady Markland, rising hurriedly, and bringing it from the table. "Look at it; did you ever see a more hopeful face? He was so fresh; he was so full of spirits. Who could have thought there was any canker in that face?"

"There was not then," said the elder woman, looking through a mist of natural tears the tears of that profound regret for a life lost which are more bitter, almost, than personal sorrow — at the miniature. She remembered him so well, and how everybody thought all would come right with the poor young fellow when he was so happily married and had a home.

"Ah, but there was! — nobody told me; though if all the world had told me it would not have made any difference. Mrs. Warrender, he is like that now. Everything else is gone. He looks as he did at twenty, as good and as pure. What do you think it means? Does it mean anything? Or is there only some

physical interpretation of it, as these horrible men say?"

"My dear," said Mrs. Warrender, quite subdued, "they say it means that all is pardoned, and that they have entered into peace."

"Peace," she said. "I was afraid you were going to say rest; and he who had never labored wanted no rest. Peace, where the wicked cease from troubling, is that what you mean? had no time to repent."

He

"My dear oh, I am not clear, I can't tell you; but who can tell what was in his mind between the time he saw his danger and the blow that stunned him? If my boy had done everything against me, and all in a moment turned and called to me, would I refuse him? And is not God," cried one mother to the other, taking her hands, "better than we?"

It was she who had come to be the comforter who wept, tears streaming down her cheeks. The other held her hands, and looked in her face with dry, feverish eyes. "Your boy," she said slowly, "he is good and kind, - he is good and kind. Will my boy be like him? Or do you think there is an inheritance in that as in other things?"

IX.

--

The post town for the Warren was Highcombe, which was about four miles off. To drive there had always been considered a dissipation, not to say a temptation, for the Warrenders; at least for the feminine portion of the family. There were at Highcombe what the ladies called "quite good shops," shops where you could get everything, really as good as town, and if not cheaper, yet quite as cheap, if you added on the railway fare and all the necessary expenses you were inevitably put to, if you went to town on purpose to shop. Notwithstanding, it was deemed prudent to

go to Highcombe as seldom as possible; only when there was actually something wanted, or important letters to post, or such a necessity as balanced the proba ble inducements to buy things that were not needed, or spend money that might have been spared. The natural consequence of this prudential regulation was that the little shop in the village which lay close to their gates had been encouraged to keep sundry kinds of goods not usually found in a little village shop, and that Minnie and Chatty very often passed that way in their daily walks. Old Mrs. Bagley had a good selection of shaded Berlin wools and a few silks, and even, when the fashion came in for that, crewels. She had Berlin patterns, and pieces of muslin stamped for that other curious kind of ornamentation which consisted in cutting holes and sewing them round. And she had beads of different sizes and colors, and in short quite a little case of things intended for the occupation of that superabundant leisure which ladies often have in the country. In the days with which we are concerned there were not so many activities possible as now. The village and parish were not so well looked after. There was no hospital nearer than the county hospital at Highcombe, and the "Union" was in the parish of Standingby, six miles off, too far to be visited; neither had it become the fashion then to visit hospitals and workhouses. The poor of the village were poor neighbors. The sick were nursed, with more or less advantage, at home. Beef tea and chicken broth flowed from the Warren, whenever it was necessary, into whatsoever cottage stood in need, and very good, wholesome calf's-foot jelly, though perhaps not quite so clear as that which came from the Highcombe confectioners. Everything was done in a neighborly way, without organization. Perhaps it was better, perhaps worse. In human affairs it is always so difficult to make certain. But at all events the young

ladies had not so much to do. And lawn tennis had not been yet invented; croquet only was in the mild fervor of its first existence. Schools of cookery and ambulances were unknown. And needle-work, bead-work, muslin-work, flourished; crochet, even, was still pursued as a fine-art occupation. That period is as far back as the Crusades to the sympathetic reader, but to the Miss Warrenders it was the natural state of affairs. They went to Mrs. Bagley's often, in the dullness of the afternoon, to turn over the Berlin wools and the crochet cottons, to match a shade, or to find a size they wanted. The expenditure was not great, and it gave an object to their walk. I must go out," they would say to each other," for there is that pink to match;" or, "I shall be at a standstill with my antimacassar; my cotton is almost done." It was not the fault of Minnie and Chatty that they had nothing better to do.

Mrs. Bagley was old, but very lively, and capable, even while selling soap, or sugar, or a piece of bacon, or a tin teakettle, of seeing through her old spectacles whether the tint selected was one that matched. She was a woman who had "come through" much in her life. Her children had all grown up, and most of them were dead. Those who remained were married, with children of their own, making a great struggle to bring them up, as she herself had done in her day. Two daughters were wid Ows, one in the village, one at some distance off; and living with herself, dependent on her, yet not dependent altogether, was all that remained of another daughter, the one supposed to have been her favorite. It seemed to the others rather hard that granny should lavish all her benefits upon Eliza, while their own families got only little presents and helps now and then. But Lizzie was always the one with mother, they said, though goodness knows she had cost enough in her lifetime without leaving such a charge on granny's hands. Lizzie Bagley, who

not

in her day had been the prettiest of the daughters, had married out of her own sphere, though it could not be said to be a very grand marriage. She had married a clerk, a sort of gentleman, like the ploughmen and country tradesmen who had fallen to the lot of her sisters. But he had never done well, had lost one situation after another, and had gone out finally to Canada, where he died, he and his wife both; leaving their girl with foreign ways and a will of her own, such as the aunts thought (or at least said) does not develop on the home soil. As poor little Lizzie, however, had been away but two years, perhaps the blame did not entirely lie with Canada.

Her mother's beauty and her father's gentility had given to Lizzie many advantages over her cousins. She was prettier and far more "like a lady" than the best of them; a slim, straight little person, without the big joints and muscles of the race, and with blue eyes which were really blue, and not whity-gray. And instead of going out to service, as would have been natural, she had learned dressmaking, which was a fine-lady sort of a trade, and put nonsense into her head, and led her into vanity. To see her in the sitting-room behind the shop, with her hair so smooth, and her waist so small, and collars and cuffs as nice as any young lady's, was as gall and wormwood to the mothers of girls quite as good (they said) as Lizzie, and just as near to granny, but never cosseted and petted in that way. And what did granny expect was to become of her at the end? So long as she was sure of her 'ome, and so long as the young ladies at the Warren gave her a bit of work now and again, and Mrs. Wilberforce at the rectory had her in to make the children's things, all might be well enough. But the young ladies would marry, and the little Wilberforces would grow up, and granny well, granny could not expect to live forAnd what would Miss Lizzie do

ever.

then? This was what the aunts would say, shaking their heads. Mrs. Bagley, when she said anything at all in her own defense, declared that poor little Lizzie had no one to look to, neither father nor mother, and that if her own granny did n't take her up and do for her, who should? And besides, she did very well with her dressmaking. But nevertheless, by times, Mrs. Bagley had her own apprehensions, too.

Minnie and Chatty were fond of making expeditions into the shop, as has been said. They liked to have a talk with Lizzie, and to turn over her fashionbooks, old and new, and perhaps to plan, next time they had new frocks, how the sleeves should be made. It was a pleasant"object" for their walk, a break in the monotony, and gave them something to talk about. They paid one of these visits on an afternoon shortly after the events which have been described. Chatty had occasion for a strip of muslin stamped for working, to complete some of her new underclothing which she had been making. The shop had one large square window, in which a great many different kinds of wares were exhibited, from bottles full of barley sugar and acid drops to bales of striped stuff for petticoats. Bunches of candles dangled from the roof, and nets of onions, and the old lady herself was weighing an ounce of tea for one of her poor customers when the young ladies came in. "Is Lizzie at home, Mrs. Bagley?" said Minnie. "Don't mind we can look for what we want; and you must n't let your other customers wait."

us,

"You're always that good, miss," said the old woman. (Her dialect could be expressed only by much multiplication of vowels, and would not be a satisfactory representation even then, so that it is not necessary to trouble the eye of the reader with its peculiarities. A certain amount of mispronunciation may be taken for granted.) "If all the

quality would be as considerate, it would be a fine thing for poor folks."

"Oh, but people with any sense would always be considerate! How is your mother, Sally? Is it for her you are buying the tea? Cocoa is much more nourishing; it would be an excellent thing for her."

"If you please, miss," said Sally, who was the purchaser, "mother do dearly love a cup of tea."

"You ought to tell her that the cocoa is far more nourishing," said Minnie. "It would do her a great deal more good."

66

Why should you feel low more in the afternoon than in the morning, Mrs. Bagley? There's no reason in that.”

"Ain't there, miss? There's a deal of 'uman nature, though. Not young ladies like you, that have everything as you want; but even my Lizzie, I find as she wants her tea badly afternoons."

"And so do we," said Chatty, “especially when we don't go out. Look here, this is just the same as the last we had. Mrs. Wilberforce had such a pretty pattern yesterday, a pattern that made a great deal of appearance, and yet went so quick in working. She had done a quarter of a yard in a day."

"You'll find it there, miss," said the old woman. "Mrs. Wilberforce don't get her patterns nowhere but from me. Lizzie chose it herself, last time she went to Highcombe. And they all do say as the child has real good taste,better nor many a lady. Lizzie! Why, here's the young ladies, and you never showing. Lizzie, child! She's terribly taken up with a-with a - no, I can't call it a job,— with a hoffer she's had."

"An offer! Do you mean a real Of fer?" cried the girls together, with excitement, both in a breath.

"Oh, not a hoffer of marriage, miss, if that's what you're thinking of, though she's had them, too. This is just as hard to make up her mind about. Not to me," said the old woman. "But perhaps I've give her too much of her own way, and now when I says, Don't, she up and says, Why, granny? It ain't always so easy to say why; but when your judgment's agin it, with reason or without reason, I'm always for following the judgment. Lizzie! Perhaps, miss, you'd give her your advice."

As this was said, Lizzie came out through the little glass door with a little muslin curtain veiling the lower panes, which opened into the room beyond. She made a curtsey, as in duty bound, to the young ladies, but she said with some petulance, "I ain't deaf, granny," as she did so.

"She has always got her little word to say for herself," the old woman replied, with a smile. She had opened the glass case which held the muslin patterns, and was turning them over with the tips of her fingers, those fingers which had so many different kinds of goods to touch, and were not, perhaps, adapted for white muslin. "Look at this one, miss: it's bluebells that is, just for all the world like the bluebells in the woods in the month o' May."

"I've got the new Moniture, Miss Warrender, and there are some sweet things, some sweetly pretty things," said Lizzie, holding up her paper. Minnie and Chatty, though they were such steady girls, were not above being fluttered by the Moniteur de la Mode. They both abandoned the muslin-work, and passed through the little door of the counter which Mrs. Bagley held open for them. The room behind, although perhaps not free from a slight perfume of the cheese and bacon which occupied the back part of the shop, was

pleasant enough. It had a broad lattice window, looking over the pleasant fields, under which stood Lizzie's work-table, a large white wooden one, very clean and old, with signs of long scrubbing and the progress of time, scattered over with the litter of dressmaking. The floor was white deal, very clean also, with a bit of bright-colored carpet under Lizzie's chair. As it was the sittingroom and kitchen and all, there was a little fire in the grate.

"Now," said Mrs. Bagley, coming in after them, and shutting the door,- for there was no very lively traffic in the shop, "the young ladies is young like yourself, not to take too great a liberty, and you think as I'm old and old-fashioned. Just you tell the young ladies straight off, and see what they'll have to say."

"It ain't of such dreadful consequence, granny. A person would think my life depended on it, to hear you speak. Sleeves are quite small this summer, as I said they would be; and if you 'll look at this trimming, Miss Chatty, it is just the right thing for crape."

66

People don't wear crape, Miss Muffler tells us, nearly so much as they used to do," said Miss Warrender, "or at least not nearly so long as they used to do. Six months, she says, for a parent."

"Your common dresses will be worn out by then, miss," said Lizzie. “I would n't put any on your winter frocks, if I was you for black materials are always heavy, and crape don't show on those thick stuffs. I'd just have a piping for the best, and"

"What's that," said Chatty, who was the most curious," that has such a strong scent, and gilt-edged paper? You must have got some very grand correspondent, Lizzie."

Lizzie made a hasty movement to secure a letter which lay on the table, and appeared for a moment to intend to thrust it into her pocket. She changed her mind, however, with a slight scowl