Aunt Rachel

A quartette party--three violins and a 'cello--sat in summer evening weather in a garden. This garden was full of bloom and odour, and was shut in by high walls of ripe old brick. Here and there were large-sized plaster casts--Venus, Minerva, Mercury, a goat-hoofed Pan with his pipes, a Silence with a finger at her lips. They were all sylvan green and crumbled with exposure to the weather, so that, in spite of cheapness, they gave the place a certain old world and stately aspect to an observer who was disposed to think so and did not care to look at them too curiously. A square deal table with bare top and painted legs was set on the grass plot beneath a gnarled apple-tree whose branches were thick with green fruit, and the quartette party sat about this table, each player with his music spread out before him on a portable little folding-stand.

Three of the players were old, stout, grey, and spectacled. The fourth was young and handsome, with dreamy grey-blue eyes, and a mass of chestnut-coloured hair. There was an audience of two--an old man and a girl The old man stood at the back of the chair of the youngest player, turning his music for him, and beating time with one foot upon the grass. The girl, with twined fingers, leaned both palms on the trunk of the apple-tree, and reposed a clear-coloured cheek on her rounded arm, looking downward with a listening air. The youngest player never glanced at the sheets which the old man so assiduously turned for him, but looked straight forward at the girl, his eyes brightening or dreaming at the music. The three seniors ploughed away business-like, with intent frownings, and the man who played the 'cello counted beneath his breath, "One two three four--one two three four," inhaling his breath on one set of figures, and blowing on the next.

The movement closed, and the three seniors looked at each other like men who were satisfied with themselves and their companions.

"Lads," said the man with the 'cello, in a fat and comfortable voice, "that was proper! He's a pretty writer, this here Beethoven. Rewben, the hallygro's a twister, I can tell thee. Thee hadst better grease thy elbow afore we start on it. Ruth, fetch a jug o' beer, theer's a good wench. I'm as dry as Bill Duke. Thee canst do a drop, 'Saiah, I know."

"Why, yes," returned the second fiddle. "Theer's a warmish bit afore us, and it's well to have summat to work on."

The girl moved away slowly, her fingers still knitted, and her palms turned to the ground. An inward-looking smile, called up by the music, lingered in her eyes, which were of a warm soft brown.

"Rewben," said the second fiddle, "thee hast thy uncle's method all over. I could shut my eyes an' think as I was five-and-twenty 'ear younger, and as he was a playin'. Dost note the tone, Sennacherib?"

"Note it?" said the third senior. "It's theer to be noted. Our 'Saiah's got it drove into him somehow, as he's the one in Heydon Hay as God A'mighty's gi'en a pair of ears to."

"An' our Sennacherib," retorted Isaiah, "is the one as carries Natur's license t' offer the rough side of his tongue to everybody."

"I know it's a compliment," said the younger man, "to say I have my uncle's hand, though I never heard my uncle play."

"No, lad," said the old man who stood behind his chair. "Thee'rt a finer player than ever I was. If I'd played as well as thee I might have held on at it, though even then it ud ha' gone a bit agen the grain."

"Agen the grain?" asked the 'cello player, in his cheery voice. "With a tone like that? Why, I mek bold to tell you, Mr. Gold, as theer is not a hammerchewer on the fiddle, not for thirty or maybe forty mile around, as has a tone to name in the same day with Rewben."

"There's a deal in what you say, Mr. Fuller," said the old man, who had a bearing of sad and gentle dignity, and gave, in a curious and not easily explainable way, the idea that he spoke but seldom and was something of a recluse. "There's a deal in what you say, Mr. Fuller, but the fiddle is not a thing as can be played like any ordinary instryment. A fiddle's like a wife, in a way of speaking. You must offer her all you've got. If she catches you going about after other women--"

"It's woe betide you!" Sennacherib interrupted. "You drive her heart away," the old man pursued. "The fiddle's jealouser than a woman. It wants the whole of a man. If Reuben was to settle down to it twelve hours a day, I make no doubt he'd be a player in a few years' time."

"Twelve hour a day!" cried Sennacherib, "D'ye think as life was gi'en to us to pass it all away a scrapin' catgut?"

"Why, no, Mr. Eld," the old man answered smilingly. "But to my mind there's only two or three men in the world at any particular space o' given time as has the power gi'en 'em by Nature to be fiddlers; that is to say, as has all the qualities to be masters of the instrument. It is so ordered as the best of qualities must be practised to be perfect, and howsoever a man may be qualified to begin with, he must work hour by hour and day by day for years afore he plays the fiddle."

"I look upon any such doctrine as a sinful crime," said Sennacherib. "The fiddle is a recrehation, and was gi'en us for that end. So, in a way, for them as likes it, is skittles. So is marvils, or kite-flyin', or kiss-i'-the-ring. But to talk of a man sittin' on his hinder end, and draggin' rosined hoss-hair across catgut hour by hour and day by day, for 'ears, is a doctrine as I should like to hear Parson Hale's opinion on, if ever it was to get broached afore him."

"Ruth," called the 'cello player, as the girl reappeared, bearing a tray with a huge jug and glasses, "come along with the beer. And when we've had a drink, lads, we'll have a cut at the hallygro. It's marked 'vivaysy,' Reuben, an' it'll tek thee all thy time to get the twirls and twiddles i' the right placen."

Ruth poured out a glass of beer for each of the players, and, having set the tray and jug upon the grass, took up her former place and position by the apple-tree.

"Wheer's your rosin, 'Saiah?" asked Sennacherib.

"I forgot to bring it wi' me," said Isaiah.

"I took it out of the case last night, and was that neglectful as I forgot to put it back again."

"My blessid!" cried Sennacherib, "I niver see such a man !"

"Well, well!" said the 'cello player, "here's a bit. You seem to ha' forgot your own."

"What's that got to do wi' it!" Sennacherib demanded. "I shall live to learn as two blacks mek a white by an' by, I reckon. There niver was a party o' four but there was three wooden heads among 'em!"

The girl glanced over her arm, and looked with glancing eyes at the youngest of the party. He, feeling Sennacherib's eye upon him, contrived to keep a grave face. The host gave the word, and the four set to work, Reuben playing with genuine fire, and his companions sawing away with a dogged precision which made them agreeable enough to listen to, but droll to look at. Ruth, with her chin upon her dimpled arm, watched Reuben as he played. He had tossed back his chestnut mane of hair rather proudly as he tucked his violin beneath his chin, and had looked round on his three seniors with the air of a master as he held his bow poised in readiness to descend upon the strings. His short upper lip and full lower lip came together firmly, his brows straightened, and his nostrils contracted a little. Ruth admired him demurely, and he gave her ample opportunity, for this time he kept his eyes upon the text. She watched him to the last stroke of the bow, and then, shifting her glance, met the grave fixed look of the old man who stood behind his chair. At this, conscious of the fashion in which her last five minutes had been passed, she blushed, and to carry this off with as good a grace as might be, she began to applaud with both hands.

"Bravo, father! Bravo! Capital, Mr. Eld! Capital!"

"Theer," said Sennacherib, ignoring the compliment, and scowling in a sort of dogged triumph at the placid old man behind Reuben's chair, "d'ye think as that could be beat if we spent forty 'ear at it? Theer wa'n't a fause note from start to finish, and time was kep' like a clock."

"It's a warmish bit o' work, that hallygro," said old Fuller, in milder self-gratulation, as he disposed his 'cello between his knees, and mopped his bald forehead. "A warmish bit o' work it is."

"Come now," said Sennacherib; "d'ye think as it could be beat? A civil answer to a civil question is no more than a beggar's rights, and no less than a king's obligingness."

"It was wonderful well played, Mr. Eld," the old man answered.

"Beat!" said Isaiah. "Why it stands to Natur' as it could be beat. D'ye think Paganyni couldn't play a better second fiddle than I can?"

"Ought to play second fiddle pretty well thyself," returned Sennacherib. "Hast been at it all thy life. Ever since thee wast married, annyway."

"Come, come, come," said the fat 'cello player. "Harmony, lads, harmony! How was it, Mr. Gold, as you come to give up the music? Theer's them as is entitled to speak, and has lived i' the parish longer than I have, as holds you up to have been a real noble player."

"There's them," the old man answered, "as would think the parish church the finest buildin' i' the kingdom. But they wouldn't be them as had seen the glories of Lichfield cathedral."

"I'm speakin' after them as thinks they have a right to talk," said the other.

"I might at my best day have come pretty nigh to Reuben," the old man allowed, "though I never was his equal. But as for a real noble player--"

"Well, well," said Fuller, "it ain't a hammerchewer in a county as plays like Reuben. Give Mr. Gold a chair, Ruth. I should like to hear what might ha' made a man throw it over as had iver got as far."

"I heard Paganini," the old man answered. "I was up in London, rather better than six-and-twenty year ago, and I heard Paganini"

"Well?" asked Fuller.

"That's all the story," said the old man, seating himself in the chair the girl had brought him. "I never cared to touch a bow again."

"I don't seem to follow you, Mr. Gold."

"I have never been a wine-drinker," said Gold, "but I may speak of wine to make clear my meanin'. If you had been drinkin' a wonderful fine glass of port or sherry wine, you wouldn't try to take the taste out of your mouth with varjuice."

"I've tasted both," said the 'cello player, "but I niver sp'iled my mouth for a glass of honest beer."

"I can listen to middlin' class music now," said Gold, "and find a pleasure in it. But for a time I could not bring myself to take any sort of joy in music. You think it foolish? Well, perhaps it was. I am not careful to defend it, gentlemen, and it may happen that I might not if I tried. But that was how I came to give up the fiddle. He was a wonder of the world was Paganini. He was no more like a common man than his fiddlin' was like common fiddlin'. There was things he played that made the blood run cold all down the back and laid a sort of terror on you."

"I felt like that at the 'Hallelujah' first time I heerd it," said Isaiah. "Band an' chorus of a hundred. It was when they opened the big Wesley Chapel at Barfield twenty 'ear ago."

"We'll tek a turn at Haydn now, lads," said the host, genially.

"I'm sorry to break the party up so soon," Reuben answered, "but I must go. There are people come to tea at father's, and I was blamed for coming away at all. I promised to get back early and give them a tune or two." He arose, and taking his violin-case from the grass wiped it carefully all over with his pocket-handkerchief. "I was bade to ask you, sir, if Miss Ruth might come and pass an hour or two. My mother would be particularly pleased to see her, I was to say."

The young fellow was blushing fierily as he spoke, but no one noticed this except the girl

"Go up, my gell, and spend an hour or two," said her father. "Reuben'll squire thee home again."

"Wait while I put on my bonnet," she said, as she ran past Reuben into the house. Reuben blushed a little deeper yet, and knelt over his violin-case on the grass, where he swaddled the instrument as if it had been a baby, and bestowed it in its place with unusual care and solicitude.

"Reuben," said his uncle, as the young man arose, "that's a thing as never should be done." The young man looked inquiry. "The poor thing's screwed up to pitch," the old man explained, almost sternly. "Ease her down, lad, ease her down. The strain upon a fiddle is a thing too little thought upon. You get a couple o' strong men one o' these days, and make 'em pull at a set of strings, and see if they'll get them up to concert pitch! I doubt if they'd do it, lad, or anything like. And there's all that strain on a frail shell like that. I've ached to think of it, many a time. A man who carries a weight about all day puts it off to go to bed."

"Wondrous delicate an' powerful thing," said old Fuller. "Reminds you o' some o' them delicate-lookin' women as'll goo through wi'a lot more in the way o' pain-bearin' than iver a man wool."

"Rubbidge!" said Sennacherib. "You'd think the women bear a lot. They mek a outcry, to be sure, but theer's a lot more chatter than work about a woman's sufferin', just as theer is about everythin' else her does. Dost remember what the vicar said last Sunday was a wick? It 'ud be a crime, he said, to think as the Lord made the things as is lower in the scale o' natur' than we be to feel like us. The lower the scale the less the feelin'. Stands to rayson, that does. I mek no manner of a doubt as he's got Scripter for it."

"Lower in the scale of natur', Mr. Eld?" said Gold, turning his ascetic face and mournful eyes upon Sennacherib.

"Theer's two things," returned Sennacherib, "as a man o' sense has no particular liking to. He'll niver ask to have his cabbage twice b'iled, nor plain words twice spoke. I said, 'Lower in the scale o' natur'.' Mek the most on it."

Sennacherib was short but burly, and between him and Gold there was very much the sort of contrast which exists between a mastiff and a deerhound.

"I will not make the most of it, Mr. Eld," the old man said, with a transient smile. "I might think poorlier of you than I've a right to, if I did. When a rose is held lower in the scale of natur' than a turnip, or the mastership in music is gi'en in again the fiddle in favour o' the hurdy-gurdy, I'll begin to think as you and me is better specimens of natur's handiwork than this here gracious bit o' sweetness as is coming toward us at this minute. Good evenin', Mr. Eld. Good evenin', Isaiah. Good evenin', Mr. Fuller. Good evenin', Reuben. No, I'm not goin' thy way, lad. Call o' me to-morrow; I've a thing to speak of. Good evenin', Miss Ruth."

When he had spoken his last good-bye he folded his gaunt hands behind him and walked away slowly, his shoulders rounded with an habitual stoop and his eyes upon the ground. Ruth and Reuben followed, and the three seniors re-seated themselves, and each with one consent reached out his hand to his tumbler.

"Theer's a kind of a mildness o' natur' in Ezra Gold" said Isaiah, passing the back of his hand across his lips, "as gives me a curious sort o' likin' for him."

"Theer's a kind of a mildness o' natur' in a crab-apple," said Sennacherib, "as sets my teeth on edge."

"Come, come, lads, harmony!" said Fuller. He laid hold of his great waistcoat with the palms of both hands and agitated it gently. "It beats me," be said, "to think of his layin' by the music in that way, and for sich a cause."

"Well," said Sennacherib, "I'll tell thee why he laid by the music. I wonder at Gold settlin' up to git over men like we with a stoory so onlikely."

"What was it, then?" asked Isaiah, bestowing a wink on Fuller.

"It was a wench as did it," said Sennacherib. "He was allays a man as took his time to think about a thing. If he'd been a farmer he'd ha' turned the odds about and about wi' regards to gettin' his seed into the ground till somebody 'ud ha' told him it 'ud be Christmas Day next Monday. He behaved i' that way wi' regards to matrimony. He put off thinkin' on it till he was nigh on forty--six-an'-thirty he was at the lowest. Even when he seemed to ha' made up what mind he'd got he'd goo and fiddle to the wench instead o' courtin' her like a Christian, or sometimes the wench 'ud mek a visit to his mother, and then he'd fiddle to her at hum. He made eyes at her for all the parish to see, and the young woman waited most tynacious. But when her had been fiddled at for three or four 'ear, her begun to see as her was under no sort o' peril o' losin' her maiden name with Ezra. So her walked theer an' then--made up her mind, an' walked at once--went into some foreign part of the country to see if her couldn't find somebody theer as'd fancy a nice-lookin' wench, and tek less time to find out what he'd took a likin' for."

"Was that it?" asked Isaiah, with the manner of a man who finds an explanation for an old puzzle. "That 'ud be Rachel Blythe."

"A quick eye our 'Saiah's got," said Sennacherib. "He can see a hole through a ladder when somebody's polished his glasses. Rachel Blythe was the wench's name. Her was a little slip of a creatur', no higher than a well-grown gell o' twelve, but pretty in a sort o' way."

"Why, Jabez, lad," cried Isaiah, "thee lookest like a stuck pig. What's the matter?"

The host's eyes were rounded with astonishment, and he was staring from one of his guests to the other with an air of fatuous wonder.

"Why," said he, with an emphasis of astonishment which seemed not altogether in keeping with so simple a discovery "this here Rachel Blythe was my first wife's second cousin. Our Fanny Jane used to be talkin' about her constant. Her had offers by the baker's dozen, so it seemed, but her could never be brought to marry. Fanny Jane was a woman as was gi'en a good deal up to sentiment, and her was used to say the gell's heart was fixed on somebody at Heydon Hay. It 'ud seem to come in wi' the probability of things as they might have had a sort of a shortness betwixt 'em, and parted."

"Theer was nobody after her here but Ezra Gold," said Sennacherib. "Nobody. I niver heard, howsever, as they got to be hintimate enough to quarrel. But as for Paganyni, that's rubbidge. The man played regular till Rachel Blythe left the parish, and then he stopped."

"Well, well," said the host, contemplatively. "It's too late in life for both on 'em. Her's back again. Made us a visit yesterday. Her's took that little cottage o' Mother Duke's on the Barfield Road."

"Bless my soul," said Isaiah. "I seen her yesterday as I was takin' my walks abroad. But Jabez, lad, her's as withered as a chip! The littlest, wizenedest, tiniest, little old woman as ever I set eyes on. Dear me! Dear me! To think as six-an'-twenty 'ear should mek such a difference. Her gi'en me a nod and a smile as I went by, but I niver guessed as it was Rachel Blythe."

"Rachel Blythe it was though," returned old Fuller. "Well, well! To think as her and Mr. Gold should ha' kep' single one for another. Here's a bit of a treeho, lads, as I bought in Brummagem the day afore yesterday. It's by that new chap as wrote Elijah for the festival. Let's see. What's his name again? Mendelssohn. Shall us have a try at it?"

The Earl of Barfield stood at the lodge-gate on a summer afternoon attired in a wondrously old-fashioned suit of white kerseymere and a peaked cap. He was a withered old gentleman, with red-rimmed eyes, broad cheek-bones and a projecting chin. He had a very sharp nose, and his close cropped hair was of a harsh sandy tone and texture. He was altogether a rather ferret-like old man, but he had, nevertheless, a certain air of dignity and breeding which forbade the least observant to take him for anything but a gentleman. His clothes, otherwise spotless, were disfigured by a trail of snuff which ran lightly along all projecting wrinkles from his right knee to his right shoulder. This trail was accentuated in the region of his right-hand waistcoat-pocket, where his lordship kept his snuff loose for convenience' sake. He was over eighty, and his head nodded and shook involuntarily with the palsy of old age, but his figure was still fairly upright, and seemed to promise an activity unusual for his years. He rested one hand on the rung of a ladder which leaned against the wall beside him, and glanced up and down the road with an air of impatience. On the ground at his feet lay a billhook and a hand-saw, and once or twice he stirred these with his foot, or made a movement with his disengaged right hand as if he was using one of them.

When he had stood there some ten minutes in growing impatience, a young gentleman came sauntering down the drive smoking a cigar. Times change, and nowadays a young man attired after his fashion would be laughable, but for his day he looked all over like a lady-killer, from his tasselled French cap to his pointed patent leathers. Behind him walked a valet, carrying a brass-bound mahogany box, a clumsy easel, and a camp-stool.

"Going painting again, Ferdinand?" said his lordship, in a tone of some little scorn and irritation.

"Yes," said Ferdinand rather idly "I am going painting. Your man hasn't arrived yet?" He cast a glance of lazy amusement at the ladder and the tools that lay at its feet.

"No," returned his lordship, irritably. "Worthless scoundrel. Ah! here he comes. Go away. Go away. Go and paint. Go and paint."

The young gentleman lifted his cap and sauntered on, turning once or twice to look at his lordship and a queer lopsided figure shambling rapidly towards him.

"Joseph Beaker," said the Earl of Barfield, shaking his hand at the lopsided man, "you are late again. I have been waiting ten minutes."

"What did I say yesterday?" asked Joseph Beaker. His face was lopsided, like his figure, and his speech came in a hollow mumble which was difficult to follow. Joseph was content to pass as the harmless lunatic of the parish, but there was a shrewdly humorous twinkle in his eye which damaged his pretensions with the more discerning sort of people.

"I do not want to know what you said yesterday," his lordship answered, tartly. "Take up the billhook and the saw. Now bring the ladder."

"What I said yesterday," mumbled Joseph, shambling by the nobleman's side, a little in the rear.

"Joseph Beaker," said the earl, "hold your tongue."

"Niver could do it," replied Joseph "it slips from betwixt the thumb and finger like a eel. What I said yesterday was, 'Why doesn't thee set thy watch by the parish church?' Thee'st got Barfield time, I reckon, and Barfield's allays a wick and ten minutes afore other placen."

The aged nobleman twinkled and took snuff.

"Joseph," said his lordship, "I am going to make a new arrangement with you."

"Time you did," returned Joseph, pausing, ostensibly to shift the ladder from one shoulder to the other, but really to feign indifference.

"I find ninepence a day too much."

"I've allays said so," Joseph answered, shambling a little nearer. "A sinful sight too much. And half on it wasted o' them white garmints."

"I find myself a little in want of exercise," said his lordship. "I shall carry the ladder from the first tree to the second, and you will carry it from the second to the third; then I shall carry it again, and then you will carry it again. We shall go on in that way the whole afternoon, and shall continue in that way so long as I stay here."

Joseph laughed. It was in his laugh that he chiefly betrayed the shortcomings of character. His smile was dry and full of cunning, but his laugh was fatuous.

"Naturally," pursued the earl, "I shall not pay you full wages for a half day's work." Joseph's face fell into a look of ludicrous consternation. "I shall be generous, however--I shall be generous. I shall give you sixpence. Sixpence a day, Joseph, and I shall do half the work myself."

"It ar'nt to be done, gaffer," said Joseph, resolutely stopping short, and setting up the ladder in the roadway.

The old nobleman turned to face him with pretended anger.

"You are impertinent, Joseph."

"It caw't be done, my lord," his assistant mumbled, thrusting his head through a space in the ladder.

"Times are hard, Joseph," returned his lordship. There had been a discernible touch of banter in his voice and manner when he had rebuked Joseph a second or two before, but he was very serious now indeed.

"Times are hard; expenses must be cut down. I can't afford more. Sixpence a day is three shillings a week, and three shillings a week is one hundred and fifty-six shillings a year--seven pounds sixteen. That is interest at three per cent. on a sum of two hundred and fifty-nine pounds ten shillings. That is a great amount to lie waste. While I pay you sixpence a day I am practically two hundred and fifty-nine pounds ten shillings poorer than I should be if I kept the sixpence a day to myself. I might just as well not have the money--it is of no use to me."

"Gi'e it to me, then," suggested Joseph, with a feeble gleam.

"Sixpence a day," said his lordship, "is really a great waste of money."

"It's cruel hard o' me," returned Joseph, betraying a sudden inclination to whimper. "If I was a lord I'd be a lord, I would."

"Joseph! Joseph! Joseph!" cried his lordship, sharply.

"It's cruel hard," said Joseph, whimpering outright. "I'd be a man or a mouse if I was thee."

"I shall be generous," said the aged nobleman, relenting. "I shall give you a suit of clothes. I shall give you a pair of trousers and a waistcoat--a laced waistcoat--and a coat."

Joseph laughed again, but clouded a moment later.

"Theer's them as pets the back to humble the belly, and theer's them as pets the belly to humble the back," he said, rubbing his bristly chin on a rung of the ladder as he spoke. "What soort o' comfort is theer in a laced wescut, if a man's got nothing to stretch it out with?"

"Well, well, Joseph," returned the earl, "six-pence a day is a great deal of money. In these hard times I can't afford more."

"What I look at," said Joseph, "is, it robs me of my bit o' bacon. If I was t'ask annybody in Heydon Hay, 'Is Lord Barfield the man to rob a poor chap of his bit o' bacon?' they'd say, 'No.' That's what they'd say. 'No,' they'd say; 'niver dream of a suchlike thing as happenin', Joseph.'"

His lordship fidgeted and took snuff.

"What his lordship 'ud be a deal likelier to do," pursued Joseph, declaiming, in imitation of his supposed interlocutor, with his head through the ladder and waving the billhook and the saw gently in either hand, "'ud be to say as a poor chap as wanted it might goo up to the Hall kitchen and have a bite--that's what annybody 'ud say in Heydon Hay as happened to be inquired of."

Joseph's glance dwelt lingeringly and wistfully on his lordship's face as he watched for the effect of his speech. The old earl took snuff with extreme deliberateness.

"Very well, Joseph," he said, after a pause, "we will arrange it in that way. Sixpence a day. And now and then--now and then, Joseph, you may go and ask Dewson for a little cold meat. There is a great deal of waste in the kitchen. It will make little difference--little difference."

Things being thus happily arranged, his lordship drew a slip of paper from his pocket and began to study it with much interest as he walked. He began to chuckle, and the fire of strategic triumph lit his aged eye. The day's itinerary was planned upon that slip of paper, and Lord Barfield had so arranged it that Joseph should carry the ladder all the long distances, whilst he himself should carry it all the short ones. Joseph on his side was equally satisfied with the arrangement so far as he knew it, and gave himself up to the sweet influences of fancy. He saw a glorified edition of himself, attired in my lord's cast-off garments, and engaged in the act of stretching out the laced waistcoat in the kitchen at the Hall. The prospect grew so glorious that he could not hold his own joy and gratulation. It welled over in a series of hollow chuckles, and his lordship twinkled dryly as he walked in front, and took snuff with a double gusto.

"We will begin," said his lordship, "at Mother Duke's. That laburnum has been an eyesore this many a day. We must be resolute, Joseph. I shall expect you to guard the ladder, and not to let it go, even if she should venture to strike you."

"Her took me very sharp over the knuckles with the rollin' pin last time, governor," said Joseph. "But her'll be no more trouble to thee now. Her's gone away."

"Gone away! Mother Duke gone away?"

"Yes," mumbled Joseph. "Her's gone away. There's a little old maid as lives theer now. Has been theer a wick to-day."

"That's a pity. That's a pity," said his lordship. "I should have liked another skirmish with Mother Duke. At least, Joseph," he added, with the air of a man who finds consolation in disappointment, "we'll trim the laburnum this time. At all events, we'll make a fight for it, Joseph. We'll make a fight for it." Here he took the billhook and the saw from his assistant, and strode on, swinging one of the tools in either hand.

"Theer'll be no need for a fight," returned Joseph. "Her's no higher than sixpenn'orth o' soap after a hard day's washing."

"That's wrong reckoning, Joseph," said the earl "Wrong reckoning. The smaller they are the more terrible they may be."

"I niver fled afore a little un," said Joseph. "I could allays face a little un." He spoke with a retrospective tone. His lordship eyed him askance with a twinkle of rich enjoyment, and took snuff with infinite relish, as if he took Joseph's mental flavour with it and found it delightful. "Mother Duke could strike a sort of a fear into a man," pursued Joseph.

"What did you say was the new tenant's name, Joseph?" his lordship demanded presently.

"Dunno," said Joseph. "Her's a little un. Very straight up. Go's about on her heels like, to mek the most of herself."

A minute's further walk brought them to a bend in the lane, and passing this they paused before a cottage. The front of this cottage was overgrown with climbing roses, just then in full bloom, and a disorderly patch of overgrown blossom and shrub lay on either side the thread of gravel walk which led from the gate to the door. A little personage, attired in a tight-fitting bodice and a girlish-looking skirt was busily reducing the redundant growth to order with a pair of quick-snapping shears. It gave his lordship an odd kind of shock when this little personage arose and turned. The face was old. There was youth in the eyes and the delicate dark brown arch of the eyebrows, but the old-fashioned ringlet which hung at either cheek beneath the cottage bonnet she wore was almost white. The cheeks were sunken from what had once been a charming contour, the delicate aquiline nose was pinched ever so little, the lips were dry, and there were fine wrinkles everywhere. There was something almost eerie in the youthfulness of the eyes which shone in the midst of all her faded souvenirs of beauty. Had the eyes been old the face would have been beautiful still, but the contrast they presented to their setting was too striking for beauty. They gave the old face a curiously exalted look, an expression hardly indicative of complete sanity, though every feature was expressive in itself of keen good sense, quick apprehension, and strong self-reliance.

The figure in its tight-fitting bodice looked like that of a girl of seventeen, but the stature was no more than that of a well-grown girl of twelve. The movement with which she had arisen and the attitude she took were full of life and vivacity. His lordship was so taken aback by the extraordinary mixture of age and girlishness she presented that he stared for a second or two unlike a man of the world, and only recovered himself by an effort.

"Set up the ladder here, Joseph," he said, pointing with the billhook to indicate the place. Joseph set down the ladder on the pathway, and leaning it across the close-clipped privet hedge where numberless small staring eyes of white wood betrayed the recent presence of the shears, he propped it against the stout limb of a well-pruned apple-tree. His lordship, somewhat ostentatiously avoiding the eye of the inmate of the cottage, tucked his saw and his billhook under his left arm and mounted slowly, whilst Joseph made a great show of steadying the ladder. The little old woman opened the garden gate with a click and slipped into the roadway. His lordship hung his saw upon a rung of the ladder, and leaning, a little over took a grasp of the bough of a sweeping laburnum which overhung the road.

"My lord," said a quick, thin voice, which in its blending of the characteristics of youth and age matched strangely with the speaker's aspect, "this tenement and its surrounding grounds are my freehold. I cannot permit your lordship to lay a mutilating hand upon them."

"God bless my soul!" said his lordship. "That's Rachel Blythe! That must be Rachel Blythe."

"Rachel Blythe at your lordship's service," said the little old lady. She dropped a curt little courtesy, at once as young and as old as everything about her, and stood looking up at him, with drooping hands crossed upon the garden shears.

"God bless my soul! Dear me," said his lordship. "Dear me. God bless my soul!" He came slowly down the ladder, and, surrendering his billhook to Joseph, advanced and proffered a tremulous white hand. Miss Blythe accepted it with a second curt little courtesy, shook it once up and down and dropped it. "Welcome back to Heydon Hay, Miss Blythe," said the old nobleman, with something of an air of gallantry. "You have long deprived us of your presence."

Perhaps Miss Blythe discerned a touch of badinage in his tone, and construed it as a mockery. She drew up her small figure in exaggerated dignity, and made much such a motion with her head and neck as a hen makes in walking.

"I have long been absent from Heydon Hay, my lord," she answered. "My good man," turning upon Joseph, "you may remove that ladder. His lordship can have no use for it here."

"Oh, come, come, Miss Blythe," said his lordship. "Manorial rights, manorial rights. This laburnum overhangs the road and prevents people of an average height from passing."

"If your lordship is aggrieved, I must ask your lordship to secure a remedy in a legal manner"

"But really now. Observe, Miss Blythe. I can't walk under these boughs without knocking my hat off." He illustrated this statement by walking under the boughs. His cap fell on the dusty road, and Joseph, having picked it up, returned it to him.

"Your lordship is above the average height" said Miss Blythe, "considerably."

"No, no," the earl protested. "Not at all, not at all."

"I beg your lordship's pardon," said the little old lady, with stately politeness, "Nobody" she added, "who was not profoundly disloyal would venture to describe the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty as undersized. I am but a barleycorn less in stature than her Most Excellent Majesty, and your lordship is yards taller than myself."

"My dear Miss Blythe--" his lordship began, with hands raised in protest against this statement.

"Your lordship will pardon me," Miss Blythe interposed swiftly, "if I say that at my age--forgive me if I say at your lordship's also--the language of conventional gallantry is unbecoming."

The little old lady said this with so starched and prim an air, and through this there peeped so obvious a satisfaction in rebuking him upon such a theme, that his lordship had to flourish his handkerchief from his pocket to hide his laughter.

"I have passed the last quarter of a century of my life" pursued Miss Blythe, "in an intimate if humble capacity in the service of a family of the loftiest nobility. I am not unacquainted with the airs and graces of the higher powers, but between your lordship and myself at our respective ages, I cannot permit them to be introduced."

His lordship had a fit of coughing which lasted him two or three minutes, and brought the tears to his eyes. Most people might have thought that the cough bore a suspicious resemblance to laughter, but no such idea occurred to Miss Blythe.

"You are quite right, Miss Blythe," said the old nobleman, when he could trust himself to speak. He was twitching and twinkling with suppressed mirth, but he contained himself heroically. "I beg your pardon, and I promise that I will not again transgress in that manner. But really, that--that--fit of coughing has quite exhausted me for the moment. May I beg your permission to sit down ?"

"Certainly, my lord," replied the little old lady, and in a bird-like fashion fluttered to the gate. It was not until she had reached the porch of the cottage that she became aware of the fact that the earl was following her. "Your lordship's pardon," she said then; "I will bring your lordship a chair into the garden. I am alone," she added, more prim and starched than ever, "and I have my reputation to consider."

Miss Blythe entered the cottage and returned with a chair, which she planted on the gravelled pathway. The old nobleman sat down and took snuff, twitching and twinkling in humorous enjoyment.

"How long is it since you left us?" he asked. "It looks as if it were only yesterday."

"I have been absent from Heydon Hay for more than a quarter of a century," the little old lady answered.

"Ah!" said he, and for a full minute sat staring before him, rather forlornly. He recovered himself with a slight shake and resumed the talk. "You maintain your reputation for cruelty, Miss Blythe?"

"For cruelty, my lord?" returned Miss Blythe, with a transparent pretence of not understanding him.

"Breaking hearts," said his lordship, "eh? I was elderly before you went away, you know, but I remember a disturbance--a disturbance?" He rapped with the knuckles of his left hand on his white kerseymere waistcoat. Miss Blythe tightened her lips and regarded him with an uncompromising air.

"Differences of sex, alone, my lord," she said, with decision, "should preclude a continuance of this conversation."

"Should they?" asked the old nobleman. "Do you really think so? I forget. I am a monument of old age, and I forget, but I fancy I used to think otherwise. You were the beauty of the place, you know. Is that a forbidden topic also?"

Miss Blythe blushed ever so little, but her curiously youthful eyes smiled, and it was plain she was not greatly displeased. The Earl of Barfield went quiet again, and again stared straight before him with a somewhat forlorn expression. The little old lady reminded him of her mother, and the remembrance of her mother reminded him of his own youth. He woke up suddenly. "So you've come back?" he said, abruptly. "You've bought the cottage ?"

"The freehold of the cottage was purchased for me by my dear mistress," said the little old lady. "I desired to end my days where I began them."

"H'm!" said my lord. "We're going to be neighbours? We are neighbours. We must dwell together in unity. Miss Blythe--we must dwell together in unity. I have my hands pretty full this afternoon, and I must go. I'll just trim these laburnums, and alter--"

"I beg your lordship's pardon," said Miss Blythe, with decision, "your lordship will do nothing of the sort."

"Eh! Oh, nonsense, nonsense! Must clear the footway. Must have the footway clear. Really must. Besides--it improves the aspect of the garden. Always does. Decidedly improves it. Joseph Beaker, hold the ladder."

Talking thus, the old gentleman had arisen from his chair, and had re-entered the roadway, but the little old lady skimmed past him and faced him at the foot of the ladder.

"If your lordship wants to cut trees," she said, "your lordship may cut your lordship's own."

"Up thee goest, gaffer," said Joseph, handing over the little old lady's head the billhook and the saw.

Miss Blythe turned upon him with terrible majesty.

"Joseph Beaker?" she said, regarding him inquiringly. "Ah! The passage of six-and-twenty years has not improved your intellectual condition. Take up that ladder, Joseph Beaker. If you should ever dare again to place it against a tree upon my freehold property, I shall call the policeman. I will set mantraps," pursued the little old lady, shaking her curls vigorously at Joseph. "I will have spring guns placed in the trees."

"Her's wuss than t'other un," mumbled the routed Joseph, as he shambled in his lopsided fashion down the road. "I should ha' thought you could ha' done what you liked wi' a little un like that. I niver counted on being forced to flee afore a little un."

The earl said nothing, and Miss Blythe, satisfied that the retreat was real, had already gone back to her gardening.

In the mean time the young man in the tasselled cap and the patent leathers had strolled leisurely in the opposite direction to that the earl had taken, and in a little while--still followed by the valet, who bore his painting tools--had climbed into a field knee-deep in grass which was ready for the scythe. At the bottom of this meadow ran a little purling stream with a slant willow growing over it. In obedience to the young gentleman's instructions, the valet set down his burden here, and having received orders to return in an hour's time departed. The young gentleman sketched the willow and the brook in no very masterly fashion, but at a sort of hasty random, and tiring of his self-imposed task before half an hour was over, threw himself at length beside the brook, and there, lulled by the ripple of the water and the slumberous noise of insects, fell asleep. The valet's returning footsteps awoke him. He rolled over idly, and lit a new cigar.

"Shall I take back the things to the Hall, sir?" asked the servant

"Yes, take them back to the Hall," said the young gentleman, lazily. Rising to his feet he produced a small pocket-mirror, and having surveyed the reflection of his features, arranged his scarf, cocked his cap, and sauntered from the field. His way led him past a high time-crumbled wall, over which a half score of trees pushed luxuriant branches. The wall was some ten feet in height, and in the middle of it was a green-painted door, which opened inwards. It was not quite closed, and a mere streak of sunlit grass could be seen within.

As the idle young gentleman sauntered along with his hands folded behind him, his eyes half closed, and his nose in the air, a sudden burst of music reached his ears and brought him to a standstill. It surprised him a little, partly because it was extremely well played, and partly because the theme was classic and but little known. He moved his head from side to side to make out, if possible, the inmates of the garden, but he could see nothing but the figure of a girl, who leaned her hands upon a tree and her cheek upon her hands. This, however, was enough to pique curiosity, for the figure was singularly graceful, and had fallen into an attitude of unstudied elegance. He pushed the door an inch wider and so far enlarged his view that he could see the musicians--three old men and a young one--who sat in the middle of a grassy space and ploughed away at the music with a will. Not caring to be observed in his clandestine espial he drew back a little, still keeping the figure of the girl in sight, and listened to the music.

He was so absorbed that the sudden spectacle of the Earl of Barfield, who came round the corner with a ladder on his shoulder, startled him a little. His lordship was followed by Joseph Beaker, who bore the saw and the billhook, and the old nobleman was evidently somewhat fatigued, and carried the ladder with difficulty. Seeing his young friend he propped his burden against the wall and mopped his forehead, casting an upward glance at the boughs which stretched their pleasant shadow overhead.

"Well, Ferdinand," he said, in a discontented voice, "what are you doing here?"

"I am listening to the music," said Ferdinand in answer.

"The music?" said his lordship. "That caterwauling?" He waved a hand towards the wall. "Old Fuller and his friends."

"They play capitally," said Ferdinand "for country people they play capitally. They are amateurs, of course?"

"Do they?" asked the earl, somewhat eagerly "do they really? Tell 'em so, tell 'em so. Nothing so likely"--he dropped his voice to a whisper--"nothing so likely to catch old Fuller's vote as that. He's mad on music. I haven't ventured to call on him for a long time. We had quite a little fracas years ago about these overhanging boughs. They're quite an eyesore--quite an eyesore--but he won't have 'em touched. Won't endure it. Joseph, you can carry the ladder home. We'll go in, Ferdinand. It's an admirable opportunity. I've been wondering how to approach old Fuller, and this is the very thing--the very thing."

"Wait until they have finished," said the younger man, and Joseph having shouldered the ladder and gone off with it in his own crab-like way, the two stood together until the musicians in the garden had finished the theme upon which they were engaged.

The earl pushed open the garden-door and entered, Ferdinand following in the rear. The girl turned at the noise made by the shrieking hinges and stood somewhat irresolutely, as if uncertain. Finally, she bowed in a manner sufficiently distant and ceremonious. Ferdinand put up an eyeglass, and surveyed her with an air of criticism, whilst the old nobleman advanced briskly towards the table around which the musicians were seated.

"Good day, Fuller, good day," he said, in a hearty voice "don't let me disturb you, I beg. We heard your beautiful music as we passed by, and stopped to listen to it. This is my young friend Mr. de Blacquaire, who's going to stand, you know, for this division of the county. Mr. de Blacquaire is a great amateur of music, and was delighted with your playing--delighted."

"I was charmed, indeed," said Ferdinand.

"There are lovers of music everywhere, of course, but I had not expected to find so advanced a company of amateurs in Heydon Hay. That final passage was exquisitely rendered."

The earl stood with a smile distorted in the sunlight, looking alternately from the candidate to the voters.

"Exquisitely rendered, I am sure," he said; "exquisitely rendered. Praise from Mr. de Blacquaire is worth having, let me tell you, Fuller. Mr. de Blacquaire is himself a distinguished musician. Ah! my old friend Eld? How do you do? how do you do?"

This greeting was addressed to Sennacherib, who had arisen on the earl's arrival, had deliberately turned his back, and was now engaged in turning over the leaves of music which lay on the table before him.

"Sennacherib," said Isaiah, mildly, "his lordship's atalking to thee."

"I can hear," responded Sennacherib, "as he's atalking to one on us. As for me, I'm none the better for being axed."

"And none the worse, I hope," said his lordship as cheerily as he could.

"Nayther wuss nor better, so far as I can see," replied Sennacherib.

"Come, come, Mr. Eld," said Fuller. "Harmony! harmony!"

"I was atekin' my walks abroad this mornin'," said Sennacherib, still bending over his music "when I see that petted hound of the vicar's mek a fly at a mongrel dog as had a bone. The mongrel run for it and took the bone along with him. It comes into my mind now as if the hound had known a month or two aforehand as he'd want that bone, he'd ha' made friends wi' the mongrel."

This parable was so obviously directed at his lordship and his young protégé that Sennacherib's companions looked and felt ill at ease. Fuller was heard to murmur "Harmony !" but a disconcerted silence fell on all, and his lordship took snuff whilst he searched for a speech which should turn the current of conversation into a pleasanter channel. The Earl of Barfleld was particularly keen in his desire to run Mr. Ferdinand de Blacquaire for the county, and to run him into Parliament. Ferdinand himself was much less keen about the business, and regarded it all as a mingled joke and bore. This being the case, he felt free to avoid the ordinary allures of the parliamentary candidate, and apart from that, he had, with himself at least, a reputation to sustain as a man of wit.

"Has this mongrel a bone?" he asked, in a silky tone. "Let him keep it."

His lordship shot a glance of surprised wrath at him, almost of horror, but Sennacherib began to chuckle.

"Pup's got a bite in him," said Sennacherib. "Got a bite in him."

His lordship felt a little easier, and looking about him discovered that everybody was smiling more or less, though on one or two faces the smile sat uneasily.

"Come, come, Mr. Eld," said Fuller, "harmony!"

"Ah!" cried the earl, seizing gladly on the word. "Let us have a little harmony. Don't let our presence disturb your music. Mr. Eld is a local notability, Ferdinand. Mr. Eld speaks his mind to everybody. I'm afraid he's on the other side, and in that case you'll have many a tussle with him before you come to the hustings. Eh? That's so, isn't it, Eld? Eh? That's so?"

"Oh," said Sennacherib with the slow local drawl "we'll tek a bit of a wrastle, now and again, I mek no manner of a doubt."

"And in the mean time," said his lordship, "let us start harmoniously. Give us a little music, Fuller. Go on just as if we were not here."

"Ruth, my wench," said Fuller, "fetch his lordship a chair, and bring another for Mr.--." He hung upon the Mr., searching to recall the name.

"Devil-a-care!" suggested Sennacherib.

"De Blacquaire," said the earl, correcting him. "Mr. Ferdinand de Blacquaire."

The girl had already moved away, and Ferdinand, with an air in which criticism melted slowly into approval, watched her through his eyeglass. The only young man in the quartette party, Reuben Gold, eyed Ferdinand with a look in which criticism hardened into disapproval, and turning away fluttered the edges of the music-sheets before him with the tip of his bow.

"Look here, lads," said Fuller. "We'll have a slap at that there Sonata, of B. Thoven's. Eh?"

"Beethoven?" asked Ferdinand, with a little unnecessary stress upon the name to mark his pronunciation of it. "You play Beethoven? This is extremely interesting." He spoke to the earl, who rubbed his hands and nodded. The young first violin tossed his chestnut-coloured mane on one side with a gesture of irritation. Ruth reappeared with a chair in either hand. They were old-fashioned and rather heavy, being built of solid oak, but she carried them lightly and gracefully. Ferdinand started forward and attempted to relieve her of their burden. At first she resisted, but he insisting upon the point she yielded. The young Ferdinand was less graceful than he had meant to be in the carriage of the chairs, and Ruth looked at Reuben with a smile so faint as scarcely to be perceptible. Reuben with knitted brows pored above his music, and the girl returned to her old place and her old attitude by the apple-tree.

Ferdinand, having the placing of the chairs in his own hands, took up a position in which, without being obtrusively near, he was close enough to address her if occasion should arise, as he was already fairly resolved it should. The three elders were most drolly provincial, to his mind, and their accent was positively barbarous to his ears. Reuben was less provincial to look at, but to Mr. De Blacquaire's critical eye the young man was evidently not a gentleman. He had not heard him speak as yet, and could well afford to make up his mind without that. Nobody but a boor could have employed Reuben's tailor or his shoemaker. As for the girl, she looked like a lily in a kitchen garden, a flower among the coarse and commonplace things of everyday consumption. It would be a deadly pity, he thought, if she should have an accent like the rest. Her dress was perfectly refined and simple, and Ferdinand guessed pretty shrewdly that this was likely to be due to her own handiwork and fancy.

"What a delightful, quaint old garden you have here, to be sure," he said.

With a perfect naturalness she raised a warning palm against him, and at that instant the quartette party began their performance. She had not even turned an eye in his direction, and he was a little piqued. The hand which had motioned him to silence was laid now on the gnarled old apple-tree, and she rested her ripe cheek against it. Her eyes began to dream at the music, and it was evident that her forgetfulness of the picturesque young gentleman beside her was complete and unaffected. The picturesque young gentleman felt this rather keenly. The snub was small enough in all conscience, but it was a snub, and he was sensitive, even curiously sensitive, to that kind of thing. And he was not in the habit of being snubbed. He was accustomed to look for the signs of his own power to please amongst young women who moved in another sphere.

It was a very very small affair, but then it is precisely these very small affairs which rankle in a certain sort of mind. Ferdinand dismissed it, but it spoiled his music for the first five minutes.

The Earl of Barfield was one of those people to whom music is neither more nor less than noise. He loved quiet and hated noise, and the four interpreters of the melody and harmony of Beethoven afforded him as much delight as so many crying children would have done. It had been a joke against him in his youth that he had once failed to distinguish between God Save the King and the Old Hundredth. Harmony and melody here were alike divine in themselves, and were more than respectably rendered, and he sat and suffered under them in his young friend's behoof like a hero. They bored him unspeakably, and the performance lasted half an hour. When it was all over he beat his withered white hands together once or twice, and smiled in self-gratulation that his time of suffering was over.

"Admirably rendered!" cried Ferdinand. "Admirably--admirably rendered. Will you forgive me just a hint, sir?" He addressed Sennacherib. "A leetle more light and shade! A performance less level in tone."

"P'r'aps the young man'll show us how to do it," said Sennacherib, in a dry, mock humility, handing his fiddle and bow towards the critic.

The critic accepted them with a manner charmingly unconscious of the intended satire, and walked round the table until he came behind Reuben, when he turned back the music for a leaf or two.

"Here, for example," he said, and tucking the instrument beneath his chin played through a score of bars with a certain exaggerated chic which awakened Sennacherib's derision.

"What dost want to writhe i' that fashion for?" he demanded. "Dost find thine inwards twisted? It's a pretty tone, though," he allowed. "The young man can fiddle. Strikes me, young master, as thee'dst do better at the Hopera than the House o' Commons. Tek a fool's advice and try."

Ferdinand smiled with genuine good-humour. This insolent old personage began to amuse him.

"Really, I don't know, sir," he answered "Perhaps I may do pretty well in the House of Commons, if you will be good enough to try me. One can't please everybody, but I promise to do my best."

"The best can do no more," said Fuller, in a mellow, peacemaking kind of murmur "The best can do no more."

"I've no mind for that theer whisperin' and shoutin' in the course of a piece of music," said Sennacherib. "Pianner is pianner, and forte is forte, but theer's no call to strain a man's ears to listen to the one, nor to drive him deaf with t'other. Same time, if the young gentleman 'ud like to come an' gi'e us a lesson now and then we'd tek it."

"I'm not able to give you lessons, sir," returned Mr. de Blacquaire, with unshaken good-humour, "but if you will allow me to take one now and then by listening, I shall be delighted."

"Nothin' agen that, is theer, Mr. Fuller?" demanded Sennacherib.

"Allays pleased to see the young gentleman," responded Fuller.

"When may I come to listen to you again, gentlemen?" asked Ferdinand. His manner was full of bonhomie now, and had no trace of affectation. It pleased everybody but Reuben, who had conceived a distaste for him from the first. Perhaps, if he had not placed his chair so near to Ruth, and had regarded her less often and with a less evident admiration, the young man might have liked him better.

"Well," said Fuller, "we are here pretty nigh every evenin' while the fine weather lasts. We happen to be here this afternoon because young Mr. Gold is goin' away for to-night to Castle Barfield. You'll find we here almost of any evenin'--to-morrow to begin with."

"We had better be going now, Ferdinand," said his lordship, who dreaded the new beginning of the music. "Good afternoon, Fuller. Good afternoon, Eld. Good afternoon, Gold."

"Good day, my lord," said Reuben, rather gloomily. He had not spoken until now, and Ferdinand had wished to note the accent. There was none to note in the few words he uttered.

"Your little girl is growing into a woman, Fuller," said his lordship.

"That's the way wi' most gells, my lord," said Fuller.

"Good afternoon, Miss Ruth," said the old nobleman, nodding and smiling.

"Good afternoon, my lord," said Ruth. Ferdinand's attentive ear noted again the absence of the district accent. He removed his cap and bowed to her.

"Good afternoon. I may come to-morrow evening, then?" The query was addressed to her, but she did not answer it, either by glance or word. She had answered his bow and turned away before he had spoken.

"Ay!" said Fuller, "come and welcome."

He bowed and smiled all round and walked away with his lordship. He turned at the garden door for a final glance at the pretty girl, but she had her back turned upon him, and was leaning both hands on her father's shoulder.

The rustic little church at Heydon Hay made a nucleus for the village, which, close at hand, clustered about it pretty thickly: but soon began to fray off into scattered edges, as if the force of attraction decreased with distance, after the established rule. Beside the churchyard, and separated from it by a high brick wall, was a garden, fronted by half a dozen slim and lofty poplars. Within the churchyard the wall was only on a level with the topmost tufts of grass, but on the garden side it stood six feet high, and was bulged out somewhat by the weight of earth which pressed against it. Facing the tall poplars was a house of two stories. It looked like a short row of houses, for it boasted three front doors. Over each of these was hung a little contrivance which resembled a section of that extinguisher apparatus which is still to be found suspended above the pulpit in some old-fashioned country churches. All the windows of the old house were of diamond panes, and those of the upper story projected from a roof of solid and venerable thatch. A pair of doves had their home in a wicker cage which hung from the wall, and their cooing was like the voice of the house, so peaceful, homely, and old-world was its aspect.

Despite the three front doors, the real entrance to the house was at the rear, to which access was had by a side gate. A path, moss-grown at the edges, led between shrubs and flowers to a small circle of brickwork, in the midst of which was a well with rope and windlass above it, and thence continued to the door, which led to an antique low-browed kitchen. A small dark passage led from the kitchen to a front room with a great fireplace, which rose so high that there was but just enough room between the mantel-board and the whitewashed ceiling for the squat brass candlesticks and the big foreign sea-shells which stood there for ornament.

The diamonded window admitted so little light that on entering here from the outer sunshine the visitor could only make out the details one by one. When his eyes became accustomed to the semidarkness he was sure to notice a dozen or more green baize bags which hung upon the walls, each half defining, in the same vague way as all the others, the outline of the object it contained. Each green baize bag was closely tied at the neck, and suspended at an equal height with the rest upon a nail. There was something of a vault-like odour in the room, traceable probably to the two facts that the carpet was laid upon a brick floor, and that the chamber was rarely opened to the air.

Ezra Gold, seated upright in an oaken armchair with a hand lightly grasping the end of either arm, was at home in the close cool shadow of the place. The cloistered air, the quiet and the dim shade, seemed to suit him, and he to be in harmony with them. His eyes were open, and alighted now and again with an air of recognition on some familiar object, but otherwise he might have seemed asleep. On the central table was a great pile of music-books, old-fashioned alike in shape and binding. They exhaled a special cloistral odour of their own, as if they had been long imprisoned. Ezra's eye dwelt oftener on these musty old books than elsewhere.

He had sat still and silent for a long time when the bells of the church, with a startling nearness and distinctness, broke into a peal. He made a slight movement when the sound first fell upon his ear, but went back to his quiet and his dreams again at once.

Ten minutes went by and the bells were still pealing, when he heard a sound which would have been inaudible in the midst of the metallic clamour to ears less accustomed than his own. He had lived there all his life, and scarcely noticed the noise which would almost have deafened a stranger. The sound he had heard was the clicking of the gate, and after a pause it was followed by the appearance of his nephew Reuben, who looked about him with a dazzled and uncertain gaze.

"Well, Reuben lad," said the old man; but his voice was lost for his nephew in the noise which shook the air. "Dost not see me ?" he cried, speaking loudly this time.

"I'm fresh from the sunlight," Reuben shouted with unnecessary force. "You spoke before? I couldn't hear you for the bells."

The old man with a half-humorous gesture put his hands to his ears.

"No need to shout a man's head off," he answered. "Come outside."

Reuben understood the gesture, though he could not hear the words, and the two left the room together, and came out upon the back garden. The sound of the bells was still clear and loud, but by no means so overwhelming as it had been within-doors.

"That's better," said Reuben. "They're making noise enough for young Sennacherib's wedding."

"Young Sennacherib?" asked his uncle. "Young Eld? Is young Eld to be married?"

"Didn't you know that? The procession is coming along the road this minute. Old Sennacherib disapproves of the match, and we've had a scene the like of which was never known in Heydon Hay before."

"Ay?" said Ezra, with grave interest, slowly, and with the look of a man long imprisoned, to whom outside things are strange, but interesting still. "As how?"

"Why thus," returned Reuben, with a laugh in his eyes. "Old Sennacherib comes to his gate and awaits the wedding party. Young Snac, with his bride upon his arm, waves a braggart handkerchief at the oldster, and out walks papa, plants himself straight in front of the company, and brings all to a halt. 'I should like to tell thee,' says the old fellow before them all, rolling that, bull-dog head of his, 'as I've made my will an' cut thee off with a shillin'!'"

"Dear me!" said Ezra, seriously; "dear me! And what answer made young Snac to this?"

"Young Snac," said Reuben, "was equal to his day. 'All right,' says he, 'gi'e me the shillin' now, an' we'll drop in at the "Goat" and split a quart together.' 'All right,' said the old bulldog; 'it's th' on'y chance I shall ever light upon of mekin' a profit out o' thee.' He lugs out a leather bag, finds a shilling, bites it to make sure of its value, hands it to the young bull-dog, and at the 'Goat' they actually pull up together, and young Snac spends the money then and there. 'Bring out six pints,' cries Snac the younger. 'Fo'penny ale's as much as a father can expect when his loving son is a-spendin' the whole of his inheritance upon him.' Everybody sipped, the bride included, and the bull-dogs clinked their mugs together. I sipped myself, being invited as a bystander, and toasted father and son together."

"But, mind thee, lad," said Ezra, "it's scarcely to be touched upon as a laughing matter. Drollery of a sort theer is in it, to be sure; but what Sennacherib Eld says he sticks to. When he bites he holds. He was ever of that nature."

"I know," said Reuben; "but young Nip-and-Fasten has the breed of old Bite-and-Hold-Fast in him, and if the old man keeps his money the young one will manage to get along without it."

At this moment the bells ceased their clangour.--"They've gone into the church, Reuben," said the old man. "I'll do no less than wish 'em happiness, though there's fewer that finds it than seeks it by that gate."

"It's like other gates in that respect, I suppose," Reuben answered.

"Well, yes," returned the elder man, lingeringly. "But it's the gate that most of 'em fancy, and thereby it grows the saddest to look at, lad. Come indoors again. There'll be no more bells this yet-a-while."

Reuben followed him into the cloistral odours and shadows of the sitting-room. Ezra took his old seat and kept silence for the space of two or three minutes.

"You said you wanted to speak to me, uncle," said the younger man at length.

"Yes, yes," said Ezra, rising as if from a dream. "You're getting to have a very pretty hand on the fiddle, Reuben, amid--well, it's a shame to bury anything that has a value. This" --he arose and laid a hand on the topmost book of the great pile of music--"this has never seen the light for a good five-and-twenty year. Theer's some of it forgot, notwithstanding that it's all main good music. But theer's no room i' the world for th' old-fangled an' the new-fangled. One nail drives out another. But I've been thinking thee mightst find a thing or two herein as would prove of value, and it's yours if you see fit to take it away."

"Why, it's a library," said Reuben. "You are very good, uncle, but--"

"Tek it, lad, tek it, if you'd like it, and make no words. And if it shouldn't turn out to have been worth the carrying you can let th' old chap think it was--eh?"

"Worth the carrying?" said Reuben, with a half-embarrassed little laugh. "I'm pretty sure you had no rubbish on your shelves, uncle." He began to turn over the leaves of the topmost book.

"'Etudes,' " he read, "'pour deux violins, par Joseph Manzini.' This looks good. Who was Joseph Manzini? I never heard of him."

"Manzini?" asked the old man with a curious eagerness-- "Manzini." His voice changed altogether, and fell into a dreamy and retrospective tone. He laid a hand upon the open pages, and smoothed them with a touch which looked like a caress.

"Who was he?" asked Reuben. "Did you know him?"

"No, lad" returned the old man, coming out of his dream, and smiling as he spoke, "I never knew him. What should bring me to know a German musician as was great in his own day?"

"I thought you spoke as if you knew him," said Reuben.

"Hast a quick ear," replied Ezra, "and a searching fancy. No, lad, no; I never knew him. But that was the last man I ever handled bow and fiddle for. I left that open"--he tapped the book with his fingers and then closed it as he spoke--"I left that open on my table when I was called away on business to London. I found it open when I came home again, and I closed it, for I never touched a bow again. I'd heard Paganini in the mean time. Me and 'Saiah Eld tried that through together, and since then I've never drawn a note out o' catgut."

"I could never altogether understand it, uncle," said Reuben. "What could the man's playing have been like?"

"What was it like?" returned the older man. "What is theer as it wa'n't like? I couldn't tell thee, lad--I couldn't tell thee. It was like a lost soul a-wailing i' the pit. It was like an angel asinging afore the Lord. It was like that passage i' the Book o' Job, where 'tis said as 'twas the dead o' night when deep sleep falleth upon men, and a vision passed afore his face, and the hair of his flesh stood up. It was like the winter tempest i' the trees, and a little brook in summer weather. It was like as if theer was a livin' soul within the thing, and sometimes he'd trick it and soothe it, and it'd laugh and sing to do the heart good, an' another time he'd tear it by the roots till it shrilled to chill your blood."

"You heard him often?" asked Reuben.

"Never but once" said Ezra shaking his head with great decision. "Never but once. He wa'n't a man to hear too often. 'Twas a thing to know and to carry away. A glory to have looked at once, but not to live in the midst on. Too bright for common eyes, lad--too bright for common eyes."

"I've heard many speak of his playing," said Reuben. "But there are just as many opinions as there are people."

"There's no disputing in these matters," the older man answered. "I've heard him talked of as a Charley Tann, which I tek to be a kind of humbugging pretender, but 'twas plain to see for a man with a soul behind his wescut as the man was wore to a shadow with his feeling for his music. 'Twas partly the man's own sufferin' and triumphin' as had such a power over me. It is with music as th' other passions. Theer's love, for example. A lad picks out a wench, and spends his heart and natur' in her behalf as free as if there'd niver been a wench i' the world afore, and niver again would be. And after all a wench is a commonish sort of a object, and even the wench the lad's in love with is a commonish sort o' creature among wenches. But what's that to him, if her chances to be just the sort his soul and body cries after?"

"Ah!" said Reuben, "if his soul cries after her. But if he values goodness his soul will cry after it, and if he values beauty his soul will cry after that. I never heard Paganini, but he was a great player, or a real lover of music like you would never have found what he wanted in him."

"Yes, lad," his uncle answered, falling suddenly into his habitual manner, "the man was a player. Thee canst have the music any time thee likst to send for it."

Reuben knew the old man and his ways. The talkative fit was evidently over, and he might sit and talk, if he would, from then till evening, and get no more than a monosyllable here and there in return for his pains.

"It will take a hand-cart to carry the books," he said "but I will take Manzini now if you will let me." The old man, contenting himself with a mere nod in answer, he took up the old-fashioned oblong folio, tucked it under his arm, and shook hands with the donor. "This is a princely gift, uncle," he said, with the natural exaggeration of a grateful youngster. "I don't know how to say thank you for it."

Ezra smiled, but said nothing. Reuben, repeating his leave-taking, went away, and coming suddenly upon the bright sunlight and the renewed clangour of the bells was half stunned by the noise and dazzled by the glare. With all this clash and brilliance, as if they existed because of her and were a part of her presence, appeared Ruth Fuller in the act of passing Ezra's house. Ruth had brightness, but it was rather of the twilight sort than this; and the music which seemed fittest to salute her apparition might have been better supplied by these same bells at a distance of a mile or two. Reuben was perturbed, as any mere mortal might expect to be on encountering a goddess.

Let us see the goddess as well as may be.

She was country bred to begin with, and though to Heydon Hay her appearance smacked somewhat of the town, a dweller in towns would have called her rustic. She wore a straw hat which was in the fashion of the time, and to the eyes of the time looked charming, though twenty years later we call it ugly and speak no more than truth. Beneath this straw hat very beautiful and plenteous brown hair escaped in defiance of authority, and frolicked into curls and wavelets, disporting itself on a forehead of creamy tone and smoothness, and just touching the eyebrows, which were of a slightly darker brown, faintly arched on the lower outline and more prominently arched on the upper. Below the brows brown eyes, as honest as the day, and with a frank smile always ready to break through the dream which pretty often filled them. A short upper lip delicately curved and curiously mobile, a full lower lip, a chin expressive of great firmness, hut softened by a dimpled hollow in the very middle of its roundness, a nose neither Grecian nor tilted, but betwixt the two, and delightful, and a complexion familiar with sun and air, wholesome, robust, and fine. In stature she was no more than on a level with Reuben's chin, but Reuben was taller than common, standing six feet in his stockings. This fact of superior height was not in itself sufficient to account for the graceful inclination of the body which always characterised Reuben when he talked with Ruth. There was a tender and unconscious deference in this attitude which told more to the least observant observer than Reuben would willingly have had known.

Ezra Gold saw the chance encounter through the window and watched the pair as they shook hands. They walked away together, for they were bound in the same direction, and the old man rose from his seat and walked to the window to look after them.

"Well, well, lad," he said, speaking half aloud, after the fashion of men who spend much of their time alone, "theer's beauty and goodness theer, I fancy. Go thy ways, lad, and be happy."

They were out of sight already, and Ezra, with his hands folded behind him, paced twice or thrice along the room. Pausing before one of the green baize bags, he lifted it from its nail, and having untied the string that fastened it, he drew forth with great tenderness an unstrung violin, and carrying it to the light sat down and turned it over and over in his hands. Then he took the neck with his left hand, and placing the instrument upright upon his knee caressed it with his right.

"Poor lass," he said, "a' might think as thee was grieved to have had ne'er a soul to sing to all these years. I've a half-mind to let thee have a song now, but I doubt thee couldst do nought but screech at me. I've forgotten how to ask a lady of thy make to sing. Shalt go to Reuben, lass; he'll mek thee find thy voice again. Rare and sweet it used to be--rare and sweet."

He fell into a fit of coughing which shook him from head to foot, but even in the midst of the paroxysm he made shift to lay down the violin with perfect tenderness. When the fit was over he lay back in his chair with his arms depending feebly at his sides, panting a little, but smiling like a man at peace.

There had been a long spell of fair weather, and the Earl of Barfield had carried on his warfare against all and sundry who permitted the boughs of their garden trees to overhang the public highway, for a space of little less than a month. The campaign had been conducted with varying success, but the old nobleman counted as many victories as fights, and was disposed on the whole to be content with himself. He was an old and experienced warrior in this cause, and had learned to look with a philosophic eye upon reverses.

But on the day following that which saw the introduction of his lordship's parliamentary nominee to the quartette party, his lordship encountered a check which called for all the resources of philosophy. He was routed by his own henchman, Joseph Beaker.

The defeat arrived in this wise. His lordship having carefully arranged his rounds so that Joseph should carry the ladder all the long distances, whilst he himself bore it all the short ones, had found himself so flurried by the defeat he had encountered at the hands of Miss Blythe, that he had permitted Joseph to take up the ladder and carry it away from where it had leaned against the apple-tree in the little old lady's garden. This unforeseen incident had utterly disarranged his plans, and since he had been inadvised enough to post his servitor in the particulars of the campagn, Joseph had been quick to discover his own advantage.

"We will go straight on to Willis's, Joseph," said his lordship, when they began their rounds that afternoon. The stroke was simple, but if it should only succeed was effective.

"We bain't agoin' to pass Widder Hotchkiss, be we, governor?" demanded Joseph, who saw through the device. His lordship decided not to hear the question, and walked on a little ahead, swinging the billhook and the saw.

Joseph Beaker revolved in his mind his own plan of action. In front of Widow Hotchkiss's cottage the trees were unusually luxuriant, and the boughs hung unusually low. When they were reached Joseph contrived to entangle his ladder and to bring himself to a standstill, with every appearance of naturalness.

"My blessed," he mumbled, "this here's a disgrace to the parish, gaffer. Theer's nothin' in all Heydon Hay as can put a patch on it. Thee bissent agoin' past this, beest? Her's as smallsperited as a rabbit--the widder is."

"We'll take it another time, Joseph," said his lordship, striving to cover his confusion by taking a bigger pinch of snuff than common--"another time, Joseph, another time."

"Well," said Joseph, tossing his lopsided head, as if he had at last fathomed the folly and weakness of human nature, and resigned himself to his own mournful discoveries, "I should niver ha' thought it." He made a show of shouldering the ladder disgustedly, but dropped it again. "We fled afore a little un yesterday," he said. "I did look for a show o' courage here, governor." His lordship hesitated. "Why, look at it," pursued Joseph, waving a hand towards the overhanging verdure; "it 'ud be a sinful crime to go by it."

"Put up the ladder, Joseph," replied his lordship in a voice of sudden resolve. The Hotchkiss case was a foregone victory for him, and his own desires chimed with Joseph's arguments, even whilst he felt himself out-generalled.

The widow sweetened the business by a feeble protest, and the Earl of Barfield was lordly with her.

"Must come down, my good woman," said his lordship firmly, "must come down. Obstruct the highway. Disgrace to the parish."

"That's what I said," mumbled Joseph, as he steadied the ladder from below. The widow watched the process wistfully, and my lord chopped and sawed with unwonted gusto. Branch after branch fell into the lane, and the aged nobleman puffed and sweated with his grateful labour. He had not had such a joyful turn for many a day. The widow moaned like a winter wind in a keyhole, and when his lordship at last descended from his perch she was wiping her eyes with her apron.

"I knowin' full well what poor folks has got to put up with at the hands o' them as the Lord has set in authority," said the widow, "but it's cruel hard to have a body's bits o' trees chopped and lopped i' that way. When ourn was alive his lordship niver laid a hand upon 'em. Ourn 'ud niver ha' bent himself to put up wi' it, that be niver would, and Lord Barfield knows it, for though be was no better nor a market gardener, he was one o' them as knowed what was becomin' between man and man, be he niver so lowly, and his lordship the lord o' the manor for miles around."

"Tut, tut, my good woman," returned his lordship. "Pooh, pooh! Do for firewood. Nice and dry against the winter. Much better there than obstructing the highroad--much better. Joseph Beaker, take the ladder."

"My turn next time," replied Joseph. "Carried it here."

His lordship, a little abashed, feigned to consider and took snuff.

"Quite right, Joseph," he answered, "quite right. Quite right to remind me. Perfectly fair." But he was a good deal blown and wearied with his exertions, and though anxious to escape the moanings of the widow, he had no taste for the exercise which awaited him. He braced himself for the task, however, and handing the tools to his henchman manfully shouldered the ladder and started away with it. The lane was circuitous, and when once he had rounded the first corner he paused and set down his burden. "It's unusually warm to-day, Joseph," he said, mopping at his wrinkled forehead.

"Theer's a coolish breeze," replied Joseph, "and a plenty o' shadder."

"Do you know, Joseph," said the earl in a casual tone, "I think I shall have to get you to take this turn. I am a little tired."

"Carried it last turn," said Joseph, decidedly. "A bargain's a bargain."

"Certainly, certainly," returned his lordship, "a bargain is a bargain, Joseph." He sat down upon one of the lower rungs of the ladder and fanned himself with a pocket-handkerchief. "But you know, Joseph," he began again after a pause, "nobody pushes a bargain too hard. If you carry the ladder this time I will carry it next. Come now. What do you say to that?"

"It's a quarter of a mile from here to Willis's," said Joseph, "and it ain't five score yards from theer to the Tan Yard. Theer's some," he added with an almost philosophic air, "as knows when they are well off,"

"I'll give you an extra penny," said his lordship, condescending to bargain.

"I'll do it for a extry sixpince," replied Joseph.

"I'll make it twopence," said his lordship,-- "twopence and a screw of snuff."

"I'll do it for a extry sixpince," Joseph repeated doggedly.

Noblesse oblige. There was a point beyond which the Earl of Barfield could not haggle. He surrendered, but it galled him, and the agreeable sense of humour with which he commonly regarded Joseph Beaker failed him for the rest of that afternoon. It happened also that the people who remained to be encountered one and all opposed him, and with the exception of his triumph over the Widow Hotchkiss the day was a day of failure.

When, therefore, his lordship turned his steps homeward he was in a mood to be tart with anybody, and it befell that Ferdinand was the first person on whom he found an opportunity of venting his gathered sours. The young gentleman heaved in sight near the lodge gates, smoking a cigar and gazing about him with an air of lazy nonchalance which had very much the look of being practised in hours of private leisure. Behind him came the valet, bearing the big square colourbox, the camp-stool, and the clumsy field-easel.

"Daubing again, I presume?" said his lordship snappishly.

"Yes," said Ferdinand, holding his cigar at arm's-length and flicking at the ash with his little finger, "daubing again."

His lordship felt the tone and gesture to be irritating and offensive.

"Joseph Beaker," he said, "take the ladder to the stables. I have done with you for to-day. Upon my word, Ferdinand," he continued, when Joseph had shambled through the gateway with the ladder, "I think you answer me with very little consideration for--In short, I think your manner a little wanting in--I don't care to be addressed in that way, Ferdinand."

"I am sorry, sir," said Ferdinand. "I did not mean to be disrespectful. You spoke of my daubing. I desired to admit the justice of the term. Nothing more, I assure you."

His lordship in his irritated mood felt the tone to be more irritating and offensive than before.

"I tell you candidly, Ferdinand, that I do not approve of the manner in which you spend your time here. If you imagine that you can walk over the course here without an effort you are very much mistaken. I take this idleness and indifference very ill, sir, very ill indeed, and if we are beaten I shall know on whom the blame will rest. The times are not what they were, Ferdinand; and constitutional principles are in danger."

"Really, sir," returned Ferdinand "one can't be electioneering all the year round. There can't be a dissolution before the autumn. When the time comes I will work as hard as you can ask me to do."

"Pooh, pooh!" said his lordship irritably. "I don't ask you to spout politics. I ask you to show yourself to these people as a serious and thoughtful fellow, and not as a mere dauber of canvas and scraper of fiddles. You come here," he went on, irritated as much by his own speech as by the actual circumstances of the case, "as if you were courting a constituency of dilettanti, and expected to walk in by virtue of your little artistic graces. They don't want a man like that. They won't have a man like that. They're hard-headed fellows, let me tell you. These South Stafford fellows are the very deuce, let me tell you, for knowing all about Free Trade and the Cheap Loaf and the National Debt."

"Very well, sir," said Ferdinand, laughing, "I reform. Instead of carrying easel and porte-couleur Harvey shall go about with a copy of The Wealth of Nations, and when a voter passes I'll stop and consult the volume and make a note. But l'homme serieux is not the only man for election times. I'll wager all I am ever likely to make out of politics that I have secured a vote this afternoon, though I have done nothing more than offer a farmer's wife a little artistic advice about the choice of a bonnet. I told her that yellow was fatal to that charming complexion, and advised blue. Old Holland is proud of his young wife, and I hooked him to a certainty."

"Holland!" cried his lordship more pettishly than ever. "Holland is Conservative to the backbone. We were always sure of Holland."

"Well, well," said Ferdinand in a voice of toleration, "we are at least as sure of him as ever."

The allowance in the young man's manner exasperated the old nobleman. But he liked his young friend in spite of his insolence and tranquil swagger, and he dreaded to say something which might be too strong for the occasion.

"We will talk this question over at another time," he said, controlling himself. "We will talk it over after dinner."

"I must go vote-catching after dinner," returned Ferdinand. "I promised to go and listen to the quartette party this evening."

"Very well," returned his lordship, with a sudden frostiness of manner. "I shall dine alone. Good evening."

He marched away, the senile nodding of his head accentuated into pettishness, and Ferdinand stood looking after him for a second or two with a smile, but presently thinking better of it, he hastened after the angry old man and overtook him.

"I am sorry, sir, if I disappoint you," he said. "I don't want to do that, and I won't do it if I can help it." The earl said nothing, but walked on with an injured air which was almost feminine. "Are you angry at my proposing to go to see old Fuller? I understood you to say yesterday that his vote was undecided, and that nothing was so likely to catch him as a little interest in his musical pursuits."

"I have no objections to offer to your proposal," replied his lordship frostily. "None whatever."

"I am glad to hear that, sir," said Ferdinand, with rather more dryness than was needed. His lordship walked on again, and the young man lingered behind.

The household ways at the Hall were simple, and the hours kept there were early. It was not yet seven o'clock when Ferdinand, having already eaten his lonely dinner, strolled down the drive, cigar in mouth,, bound for old Fuller's garden. He thought less of electioneering and less of music than of the pretty girl he had discovered yesterday. She interested him a little, and piqued him a little. Without being altogether a puppy, he was well aware of his own advantages of person, and was accustomed to attribute to them a fair amount of his own social successes. He was heir to a baronetcy and to the estates that went with it. It was impossible in the course of nature that he should be long kept out of these desirable possessions, for the present baronet was his grandfather, and had long passed the ordinary limits of old age. The old man had outlived his own immediate natural heir, Ferdinand's father, and now, in spite of an extraordinary toughness of constitution, was showing signs of frailty which increased almost day by day. And apart from his own personal advantages, and the future baronetcy and the estates thereto appertaining, the young man felt that as the chosen candidate of the constitutional party for that division of the county at the approaching election, he was something of a figure in the place. It was rather abnormal that any pretty little half rustic girl should treat him with anything but reverence. If the girl had been shy and had blushed and trembled before him a little, he could have understood it. Had she been pert he could have understood it. Young women of the rustic order, if only they were a trifle good-looking, had an old-established licence to be pert to their male social superiors. But this young woman was not at all disposed to tremble before him, and was just as far removed from pertness as from humility.

As he strolled along he bethought him, vaguely enough--for he was not a young gentleman who was accustomed to put too much powder behind his purposes--that it would be rather an agreeable thing than otherwise to charm this young woman, if only just to show her that she could be charmed, and that he could be charming. He had been a little slighted, and it would be nice to be a little revenged. He was not a puppy, in spite of the fact that his head gave house-room to this kind of nonsense. The design is commoner amongst girls than boys, but there are plenty of young men who let their wits stray after this manner at times, and some of them live to laugh at themselves.

But whilst Ferdinand was thinking, an idea occurred to him which caused him to smile languidly. It would be amusing to awaken Barfield's wrath by starting a pronounced flirtation with this village beauty. It was scarcely consistent to have an inward understanding with himself, that if the flirtation should take place it should be kept secret front his noble patron of all men in the world. It would certainly be great fun to take the little hussy from her pedestal. She was evidently disposed to think of herself a good deal more highly than she ought to think, and perhaps it might afford a useful lesson to her to be made a little more pliant, a little less self-opinionated, a little less disposed to snub young gentlemen of unimpeachable attractions. Thinking thus, Ferdinand made up quite a contented mind to be rustic beauty's schoolmaster.

The green door in the garden wall was still a little open when he reached it, but he could hear neither music nor voices.

The evening concert had not yet begun, and he was fain to stroll on a little further. This of itself was something of an offence to his majesty, though he hardly saw on whom to fix it. He did not know his way round to the front of the house, and did not care to present himself at the rear unless there was somebody there to receive him. He lit a new cigar to pass away the time, and re-enacted his first and only interview with the girl he had made up his mind to subjugate. In the course of this mental exercise he experienced anew the sense of slight he had felt at her hands, but in a more piercing manner, He had spoken to her, and she had waved her hand against him as if he had been a child to be silenced. He had spoken to her again, and she had not even responded. In point of fact she had ignored him. The more he looked at it the more remarkable this fact appeared, and the more uncomfortable and the more resolved he felt about it.

When his cigar was smoked half through he sighted the upright and stalwart figure of Reuben Gold, who was striding at a great pace towards him, swinging his violin-case in one hand. Ferdinand paused to await him.

"Good evening, Mr. Gold," he said as Reuben drew near.

"Good evening," said Reuben, raising his eyes for a moment, and nodding with a pre-occupied air. His rapid steps carried him past Ferdinand in an instant, and before the young gentleman could propose to join him he was so far in advance that it was necessary either to shout or run to bring him to a more moderate pace. Ferdinand raised his eye-glass, and surveyed the retreating figure with some indignation, and dropped it with a little click against one of his waistcoat-buttons. Then he smiled somewhat wry-facedly.

"A cool set, upon my word," he murmured. "Boors, pure and simple."

He was half inclined to change his mind and stay away from the al fresco concert, but then the idea of the duty he owed himself in respect to that contumelious young beauty occurred to him, and he decided to go after all. He followed, therefore, in Reuben's hasty footsteps, but at a milder pace, and regaining the green-door looked into the garden and saw the quartette party already assembled. Old Fuller, who was the first to perceive him, came forward with rough heartiness, and shook hands with a burly bow.

"Good evenin', Mr. de Blacquaire," said Fuller. "We're pleased to see you. lf you'd care to tek a hand i'stead of settin' idle by to listen, we shall be glad to mek room. Eh, lads?"

"No, no, thank you, Mr. Fuller," said Ferdinand, "I would rather be a listener." Ruth was standing near the table, and he raised his cap to her. She answered his salute with a smile of welcome, and brought him a chair. "Good evening, Miss Fuller," he said, standing cap in hand before her. "What unusually beautiful weather we are having. Do you know, I am quite charmed with this old garden? There is something delightfully rustic and homely and old-fashioned about it."

"You are looking at the statues?" she said with half a laugh. "They are an idea of father's. He wants to have them painted, but I always stand out against that--they look so much better as they are."

"Painted?" answered Ferdinand with a little grimace, and a little lifting of the hands and shrinking of the body as if the idea hurt him physically. "Oh, no. Pray don't have them painted."

"Well, well. Theer!" cried Fuller. "Here's another as is in favour o' grime an' slime! It's three to three now. Ruth and Reuben have allays been for leavin' 'em i' this way."

"Really, Mr. Fuller," said Ferdinand, "you must be persuaded to leave them as they are. As they are they are charming. It would be quite a crime to paint them. It would be horribly bad taste to paint them!"

After this partisan espousal of her cause, he was a little surprised to notice an indefinable but evident change in the rustic beauty's manner. Perhaps she disliked to hear a stranger accuse her father--however truly--of horribly bad taste, but this did not occur to Ferdinand, who had intended to show her that a gentleman was certain to sympathise with whatever trace of refinement he might discover in her.

"Would it?" said Fuller, simply. "Well, theer's three of a mind, and they'm likely enough to be right. Annyways theer's no danger of a brush coming anigh 'em while the young missis says 'No.' Her word's law i' this house, and has been ever sence her was no higher than the table."

"Wasn't that a ring at the front-door?" asked Sennacherib, holding up his hand.

"Run and see, wench," said Fuller.

Ruth ran down the grass-plot and into the house. She neither shuffled nor ambled, but skimmed over the smooth turf as if she moved by volition, and her feet had had nothing to do with the motion. She had scarce disappeared, when Isaiah, who faced the green door, sung out--"Here's Ezra Gold, and bringin' a fiddle too. Good evenin', Mr. Gold. Beest gooin' to tek another turn at the music?"

"No," said Ezra advancing. "I expected to find Reuben here. I've got it on my mind as the poor old lady here"--he touched the green baize bag he carried beneath his arm--"is in a bit o' danger o' losing her voice through keeping silence all these length o' years, and I want him to see what sort of a tone her's got left in her."

Reuben rose from his seat with sparkling eyes and approached his uncle.

"Is that the old lady I've heard so much about?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Ezra, "it's the old lady herself. I don't know," he went on looking mildly about him, "as theer's another amateur player as I'd trust her to. Wait a bit, lad, while I show her into daylight."

Reuben stood with waiting hands while the old man unknotted the strings at the mouth of the green baize bag, and all eyes watched Ezra's lean fingers. At the instant when the knot was conquered and the mouth of the bag slid open, Ruth's clear voice was heard calling--"Father, here's Aunt Rachel! Come this way, Aunt Rachel. We're going to have a little music."

Ezra Gold, seizing the violin gently by the neck, suffered the green baize bag to fall to the ground at his feet, and then tenderly raising the instrument in both hands looked up and dropped it to the ground. A little cry of dismay escaped from Reuben's lips, and he was on his knees in an instant.

"She's not hurt," he said, examining the violin with delicate care, "not hurt at all."

Then he looked up, and at the sight of his uncle's face rose swiftly to his feet. The old man's eyes were ghastly, and his cheeks, which had usually a hectic flush of colour too clear and bright for health, were of a leaden grey. Ezra's hand was on his heart.

"Not hurt?" he said in a strange voice. "Art sure she's not hurt, lad? That's fortunate."

The colour came back to his face as suddenly as it had disappeared.

"No," said Reuben, tapping the back of the fiddle lightly with his finger-tips and listening to the tone, though he kept his eyes fixed upon his uncle's. "She's as sound as a bell."

"That's well, lad, that's well," said Ezra in the same strange voice. The hands he reached out towards his nephew trembled, and Reuben handed back the precious instrument in some solicitude. It was natural that an old player should prize his favourite instrument, but surely, he thought, a little chance danger to it should scarcely shake a man in this way. Ezra's trembling hands began to tune the strings, and at the sound of Ruth's voice Reuben turned away. His uncle's agitation shocked him. He had known for years, as everybody had known, that Ezra had but a weakly constitution, but he had never seen so striking a sign of it before, and the old man's agitation awoke the young man's fears. There was a very close and tender affection between them.

"Reuben," Ruth was saying, "this is my Aunt Rachel. Aunt, this is Mr. Reuben Gold. I don't suppose you remember him."

"I do not remember Mr. Reuben Gold," said the little old lady, mincingly. "Is Mr. Gold a native of Heydon Hay? I do not think from Mr. Gold's appearance that he was born when I quitted the village. I think I recognise my old friends, the Elds," she went on with an air almost of patronage.

"This will be Mr. Isaiah? Yes! I thought so. Mr. Isaiah was always mild in manner. And this will be Mr. Sennacherib? Yes! Mr. Sennacherib was unruly. I recognise them by their expressions."

"You remember me, Rachel?" said Mr. de Blacquaire, who had been watching the old lady since her arrival. She turned her head in a swift bird-like way and fixed her curiously youthful eyes upon him for an instant. The withered old face lit up with a smile which so transfigured it that for the moment it matched the youth of her eyes.

"Is it possible!" she cried. "Mr. Ferdinand! The dear, dear child!" She seized one of his hands and kissed it, but he drew it away, and putting an arm about her shoulders stooped to kiss her wrinkled cheek. "The grandson," she cried, turning on the others with an air of pride and tender triumph, "of my dear mistress, Lady de Blacquaire. I nursed Mr. Ferdinand in his infancy. I bore him to the font, and in my arms he received his baptismal appellation."

If she had laid claim to the loftiest of worldly distinctions she could scarcely have done it with a greater air of pride.

Ezra's tremulous fingers were still at work at the violin keys when Ruth addressed him.

"I dare say you knew my Aunt Rachel, Mr. Gold," she said. "Heydon Hay was such a little place five-and-twenty years ago that everybody must have known everybody."

"It was my privilege to know Miss Blythe when she lived here," said Ezra, looking up and speaking in a veiled murmur.

The little old lady started, turned pale, drew herself to her full height, and turned away. Sennacherib, who was watching the pair, drove out his clenched fist sideways with intent to nudge his brother Isaiah in the ribs to call his attention to this incident as a confirmation of the history he had told the night before. He miscalculated his distance, and landed on Isaiah's portly waistcoat with such force that the milder brother grunted aloud, and arising demanded with indignation to know why he was thus assaulted. For a mere second Sennacherib was disconcerted, but recovering himself he drew Isaiah on one side and whispered in his ear--

"I on'y meant to gi'e thee a nudge, lad. Dost mind what I tode thee about 'em? Didst tek note how they met?"

"Thinkest thou'rt th' only man with a pair of eyes in his head ?" demanded Isaiah, angrily, and aloud. Sennacherib by winks, and nods, and gestures, entreated him to silence, but for a minute or two Isaiah refused to he pacified, and sat rubbing at his waistcoat and darting looks of vengeance at his brother. "Punchin' a man at my time o' life i' that way," he mumbled wrathfully "it's enough t' upset the systim for a month or more."

Nobody noticed the brethren, however, for the other members of the little party had each his or her preoccupations.

"Mr. Ferdinand," said Miss Blythe, turning suddenly upon the young gentleman, "I must seize this opportunity to ask what news there are of my dear mistress. I know that she is frail, and that correspondence would tax her energies too severely, but I make a point of writing to her once a week and presenting to her my respectful service."

She took his hand again as she addressed him and Ferdinand noticed that it was icy cold. She was trembling all over and her eyes were troubled. He was just about to answer when a sharp twang caught his ear, and turning his head he saw Ezra in the act of handing the violin to Reuben.

"Have you got a fourth string, lad?" asked Ezra, speaking unevenly and with apparent effort "this has gi'en way. I'm no hand at a fiddle now-a-days," he added with a pitiable smile, "or else there's less virtue in catgut than there used to be."

"They make nothing as they used to do," said Reuben. He had drawn a flat tin box from his pocket and had selected a string from it, when Rachel drew Ferdinand on one side.

"Let me bring you a chair, Mr. Ferdinand," she said. "We will sit here and you must tell me of my dear mistress."

"Stay here," said Ferdinand, "I will bring you a chair." He was not sorry to be seen in this amiable light. It was agreeable to bend condescendingly to his grandmother's attached and faithful servitor, and to be observed. There was a genuine kindliness in him, too, towards the little withered old woman who had nursed him in his babyhood, and had taught him his first lessons. He brought the chairs and sat down with his old nurse at the edge of the grass-plot at some little distance from the others.

"We will talk for a little time about my dear mistress," said Rachel, "and then I will ask you to take me away." She leaned forward in her chair looking up at her companion, and laying both hands upon his arm. "I cannot stay here," she went on in a whisper. "There are reasons. There is a person here I have not seen for more than a quarter of a century. You have observed that I am sometimes a little flighty?" She withdrew one of her hands and tapped her forehead.

"My dear Rachel," said Ferdinand, in smiling protestation.

"Yes, yes," she insisted in a mincing whisper, as if she were laying claim to a distinctness. "A little flighty. You do no credit to your own penetration, dear Mr. Ferdinand, if you deny it. That person is the cause. I suffered a great wrong at that person's hands. Let us say no more. Tell me about my dear mistress."

The varnish of unconscious affectation was transparent enough for Ferdinand to see through. The little old woman minced and bridled, and took quaintly sentimental airs, but she was moved a good deal, though in what way he could not guess. He sat and talked to her with a magnificent unbending, and she took his airs as no more than his right, and was well contented with them.

"And now, Reuben," cried Fuller, who like everybody else had noticed Miss Blythe's curious behaviour to Ezra and was disturbed by it. "And now, Reuben, if thee hast got the old lady into fettle let's have a taste of her quality. It's maney an' maney a year now since I had a chance of listenin' to her. Let's have a solo, lad. Gi'e us summat old and flavoursome. Let's have 'The Last Rose o' Summer.'"

Reuben sat down, threw one leg over the other, and began to play. The evening was wonderfully still and quiet, but from far off, the mere ghost of a sound, came the voice of church bells. Their tone was so faint and far away that at the first stroke of the bow they seemed to die, and the lovely strain rose upon the air pure and unmingled with another sound. Rachel ceased her emphatic noddings and her mincing whisper, and sat with her hands folded in her lap to listen. Ezra, with his gaunt hands folded behind him, stood with his habitual stoop more marked than common, and stared at the grass at his feet. Ruth, from her old station by the apple-tree, looked from one to the other. She had heard Sennacherib's story from her father, and her heart was predisposed to read a romance here, little as either of the actors in that obscure drama of so many years ago looked like the figures of a romance now. They had been lovers before she was born, and had quarrelled somehow, and had each lived single. And now when they had met after this great lapse of years, the grey old man trembled, and the wrinkled old woman turned her back upon him. The music was not without its share in the girl's emotion. And there was Reuben, with manly head and great shoulders, with strength and masculine grace in every line of him, to her fancy, drawing the loveliest music from the long-silent violin, and staring up at the evening sky as he played. Ah! if Reuben and she should quarrel and part!

But Reuben had never spoken a word, and the girl, catching herself at this romantic exercise, blushed for shame, and for one swift second hid her face in her hands. Then with a sudden pretence of perfect self-possession, such as only a woman could achieve on such short notice, she glanced with an admirably casual air about her to see that the gesture had not been observed. Nobody looked at her. Her father and the two brothers were watching Reuben, Ezra preserved his old attitude, Ferdinand was fiddling with his eye-glass, and moving his hand and one foot in time to the music, and Rachel's strangely youthful eyes were bright with tears. As the girl looked at her a shining drop brimmed over from each eye, and dropped upon the neat mantle of black silk she wore. The little old maid did not discover that she had been crying until Reuben's solo was over, and then she wiped her eyes composedly, and turned to renew her conversation with Ferdinand.

"Ah!" said Fuller, expelling a great sigh when Reuben laid down his bow upon the table, "theer's a tone! That's a noble instryment, Mr. Gold."

"She'll be the better for being played upon a little," said Ezra, mildly.

"Well, thee seest," said Isaiah, with a look of contemplation, "her's been a leadin' what you might call a hideal sort o' life this five-and-twenty 'ear for a fiddle. Niver a chance of ketchin' cold or gettin' squawky. Allays wrapped up nice and warm and dry. Theer ain't, I dare venture to say a atom o' sap in the whole of her body. Her's as dry as--"

"As I be," interposed Sennacherib. "It 'ud be hard for annything to be dryer. Let's have a drop o' beer, Fuller, and then we'll get to work."

Ruth ran into the house laughing, and the four musicians gathered round the table. Ferdinand arose, strolled towards them, and took up a position behind Sennacherib's chair. Ezra made an uncertain movement or two, and, finally, with grave resolve, crossed the grass-plot, and took the chair the young gentleman had vacated.

"I am informed, Miss Blythe," he said, with a slow, polite formality, "as you have come once more to reside among us." She inclined her head, but vouchsafed no other answer. The movement was prim to the verge of comedy, but it was plain that she meant to be chilly with him. He coughed behind his shaky white hand, and hesitated. "I do not know, Miss Blythe," he began again with new resolve, "in what manner I chanced to 'arn your grave displeasure. That is a thing I never knew." She turned upon him with a swift and vivid scorn. "A thing I never knew," he repeated. "If it is your desire to visit it upon me at this late hour, I have borne it for so many 'ears that I can bear it still. But I should like to ask, if I might be allowed to put the question, how it come to pass. I have allays felt as there was a misunderstandin' i' the case. It is a wise bidding in Holy Writ as says, 'Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath.' And when the sun is the sun of life the thing is the more important."

"My good sir" said Rachel, rising from her seat, and asserting every inch of her small stature, "I desire to hold no communication with you now nor henceforth."

"That should be enough for a man, Miss Blythe," said Ezra mildly. "But why? if I may make so bold."

"I thought," said the little old lady, more starched and prim than ever, "I believed myself to have intimated that our conversation was at an end."

"You was not wont to be cruel nor unjust in your earlier days," Ezra answered. "But it shall be as you wish."

He left the seat, gave her a quaint old fashioned bow, and returned to his former standing-place.

Ruth was back again by this time, and Rachel crossed over to where she stood.

"Niece Ruth," she said, speaking after a fashion which was frequent with her, with an exaggerated motion of the lips, "I shall be obliged to you if you will accompany me to the house."

"Certainly, aunt," the girl answered, and placing an arm around her shoulders, walked away with her. "There is something the matter, dear. What is it?"

"There is nothing the matter," said the old lady, coldly.

"There is something serious the matter," said Ruth. They were in the house by this time, and sheltered from observation. "You are trembling, and your hands are cold. Let me get you a glass of wine."

Aunt Rachel stood erect before her, and answered with frozen rebuke--"in my young days girls were not encouraged to contradict their seniors. I have said there is nothing the matter."

Ruth bent forward and took the two cold dry little hands in her own warm grasp, and looked into her aunt's eyes with tender solicitude. The hands were suddenly snatched away, and Aunt Rachel dropped into a seat, and without preface began to cry. Ruth knelt beside her, twining a firm arm and supple hand about her waist, and drawing down her head softly until its grey curls were pressed against her own ripe cheek. Not a word was spoken, and in five minutes the old maid's tears were over.

"Say nothing of this, my dear," she said as she kissed Ruth, and began to smooth her ruffled ribbons and curls. Her manner was less artificial than common, but the veneer of affectation was too firmly fixed to be peeled off at a moment's notice. "We are all foolish at times. You will find that out for yourself, child, as you grow older. I have been greatly disturbed, my dear, but I shall not again permit my equilibrium to be shaken by the same causes. Tell me, child--is Mr. Ezra Gold often to be found here?"

"Not often" said Ruth. "He seems scarcely ever to move from home."

"I am glad to know it," said Aunt Rachel. "I cannot permit myself to move in the same society with Mr. Ezra Gold."

"We all like him very much," Ruth answered tentatively.

"Ah!" said Aunt Rachel, pinching her lips and nodding. "You do not know him. I know him. A most despicable person. They will tell you that I am a little flighty."

"My dear aunt! What nonsense!"

"It is not nonsense, and you know it. I am a little flighty. At times. And I owe that to Mr. Ezra Gold. I owe a great deal to Mr. Ezra Gold, and that among it. Now, dear, not a word of this to anybody. Will you tell dear Mr. Ferdinand that I shall be honoured if he will grace my humble cottage with his presence? Thank you. Good night, child. And remember, not a word to anybody."

She dropped her veil and walked to the front door with her usual crisp and bird-like carriage. At the door she turned.

"Shun Mr. Ezra Gold, my dear. Shun all people who bear his name. I know them. I have cause to know them. They are cheats. Deceivers. Villains!"

She closed her lips tightly after this, and nodded many times. Then turning abruptly she hopped down the steps which led towards the garden-gate, and disappeared. Ruth stood looking into the quiet street a moment, then closed the door and returned to the garden.

"Not all," she said to herself, as she paused in sight and hearing of the quartette party, who were by this tune deep in an Andante of Haydn's--"not all."

When Aunt Rachel had spent a fortnight or thereabouts in Heydon Hay, and had got her own small dwelling-place into precise order, she began to make a round of visits amongst the people she had known in her youth. She had met most of the survivors of that earlier day at the parish church on Sundays, and had had no occasion to find fault with the manner of her reception at their hands. If there was not precisely that warmth of greeting which she felt in her own heart, she found at least a kindly interest in her return and a friendly curiosity as to her past. To her, her return to her birthplace was naturally an event of absorbing interest. To the other inhabitants of the village it was no more than an episode, but nobody being distinctly cold or careless, Rachel was not allowed to see the difference between their standpoint and her own.

In her round of calls she left the house of Sennacherib Eld till last, though she and Mrs. Sennacherib had been schoolfellows and close friends. Perhaps she had not found Sennacherib's manner inviting, or perhaps the fact that Ezra Gold's house lay between her own and his had held her back a little. Everybody had supposed that she and Ezra Gold were going to be married six-and-twenty years ago, Rachel herself being amongst the believers, and having, it must be confessed, admirable ground for the belief. Nobody knew how the match had come to be broken off. It was so old-world a bit of history that even in Heydon Hay, where history dies hard, it had died and been buried long ago. Even Rachel's return could not resuscitate it for more than one or two. But the story that was dead for other people was still alive to her, and as fresh and young--now that it was back in its native air again--as if it had been an affair of yesterday. It was something of a task to her to pass the house in which the faithless lover lived. It would be the first achievement of that feat since Ezra had treated her so shamelessly, and it was almost as difficult after six-and-twenty years as it might have been after as many days.

She clenched her lips tightly as she came in sight of the tall poplars, which stood beyond the spire of the church, and rose to an equal height with it, and at the lych-gate of the church she paused a little, feigning to take interest in one or two tombstones which recorded the death of people she had known. Her troubled eyes took no note of the inscriptions, but in a while she found resolution to go on again. With her little figure drawn uncompromisingly to its fullest height she rounded the corner of the churchyard, and saw the familiar walls. Ezra, contrary to his habit, was standing at the side-door, and looking out upon the street. She was aware of his presence, but walked stiffly past, disregarding him, and he coughed behind his wasted hand. She thought the cough had a sound of embarrassed appeal or deprecation, as perhaps it had, but she refused to take notice of it, except by an added rigidity of demeanour.

Sennacherib's house stood back from the highway a hundred yards or so beyond Ezra's. It was fenced all round by an ill-trimmed hedge of hawthorn, and the only break in the hedge was made by the unpainted wooden gate which led by a brick-paved walk to the three brick steps before the door. The door stood open when Rachel reached it, and the knocker being set high up and out of reach, she tapped upon the woodwork with the handle of her sunshade. This summons eliciting no response, she repeated it, but by-and-by the opening of a door within the house let out upon her the sound of Sennacherib's voice, hitherto audible only as an undefined and surly buzz.

"Who's master i' this house?" Sennacherib was asking. "Thee or me?"

"If brag and swagger could ha' made a man the master," said a feminine voice in tones of feeble resignation, "theer's no doubt it's you, Sennacherib."

"Brag and swagger?" said Sennacherib.

"Lord o' mercy!" replied the feminine voice, "what do you want to shout a body deaf for? Brag and swagger was what I said, Sennacherib. But if you think as a mother's heart is a-going to be overcome by that sort o' talk, and as I shall turn my back upon my very own born child, you've fell into the biggest error of your lifetime."

Rachel rapped again somewhat louder than before.

"Canst choose betwixt that young rip and me?" replied Sennacherib.

"That's right. Let the parish know your hardheartedness. Theer's somebody knockin' at the door. Go and tell 'em what you've made up your wicked mind to. Do!"

Sennacherib thrust his head into the hall and stared frowningly at the visitor through his spectacles.

"Good morning, sir," said Rachel with frigid politeness. "I called for the purpose of paying my respects to Mrs. Eld. If the moment is inauspicious I will call again."

At the sound of her voice Mrs. Sennacherib appeared, a large woman of matronly figure, but dejected aspect. She had been comely, but thirty years of protest and resignation had lifted the inner ends of her eyebrows and depressed the corners of her mouth, until, even in her most cheerful moments, she had a look of meek submission to unmeasured wrongs.

"Dear me" said Mrs. Sennacherib, sailing round her husband, and down the hall, "it's Miss Blythe! Come in, my dear, and tek off your cloak and bonnet. I'm glad to see you. I wondered if you was never comin' to see me. And how be you?" She bent over the little figure of her guest and buried it in an embrace like that of a feather-bed. "It's beautiful weather for the time o' year," she continued, almost tearfully, "and I have been a-thinking of makin' a call upon you, but I'm short of breath, and Eld is such a creetur, he'd rather see a body stop in the house as if it was a prison, than harness the pony and drive me half a mile, to save his life."

"Short o' breath!" said Sennacherib. "Thee talkest like one as is short o' breath! Her talks enough," he added, addressing the visitor, "to break the wind of a Derby race-hoss."

"Ah," said his wife, shaking her head in a kind of doleful triumph, "Miss Blythe won't ha' been long i' the village afore her'll know what manner o' man you be, Sennacherib."

"I'll leave thee to tell her," said Sennacherib, with a grunt of scorn, "If I'd ha' been the manner o' man you'd ha' liked for a husband, I should ha' been despisable. My missis"--he addressed his wife's visitor again--"ought to ha' married a door-mat, then her could ha' wiped her feet upon him wheniver the fancy took her."

With this he took his hat from a peg, stuck it at the back of his head, and marched out at the open front-door.

"Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Sennacherib, "you did a wise thing when you made up your mind to be a single woman. The men's little more than a worrit--the best of 'em--and even the children, as is counted upon for a blessin', brings trouble oftener nor j'y."

The visitor pinched her lips together and nodded, as if to say there was no disputing this glaring statement. The hostess, stooping over her, untied her bonnet-strings as if she had been a child, helped her to remove her mantle, and then ushered her into a sitting-room which looked upon a well-cultivated garden.

"I wouldn't say," pursued the hostess, "as I'd got a bad husband. Not for the world. But he's that hard and unbendin' both i' little things an' big uns. I've suffered under him now for thirty 'ear, but I niver counted as he'd put the lad to the door and forbid his mother to speak to him. Though as for that, my dear, he may forbid and go on forbiddin' as long as theer's a breath in his body, but a mother's heart is a mother's heart, my dear, though the whole world should stand up again her."

"Precisely," said Rachel.