Hester Morley's promise

Little Aston is one of those small midland towns, lying in the midst of an agricultural district, which offer no attraction to tourists, and where very few events seem to happen. Every family in it, even to the lowest classes, possesses a staid respectability and decency, which is chiefly the heritage of those who live in isolated places, divided from the busier, and perhaps the more wicked, world by a girdle of corn-fields and meadows. The population cannot be more than five thousand, which in these days constitutes little more than a family party, whose members must be very closely allied. A large proportion of the townspeople consist of professional men, and people with means, who keep up the tone of its society. The grosser vices, if there be any, hide themselves diligently from the microscopic scrutiny of the town. Murder has never stained its precincts with blood; suicide is almost unheard of; intrigue is unsuspected. There are scandals, but scandals of the gentler kind, such as one might whisper of one's own mother's son. From day to day, and from year to year, its narrow stream of life flows in commonplace channels, seldom quickened into rougher and swifter currents. There are births, deaths, and marriages; old men retiring from business, and young men attempting small innovations; but the town of Little Aston is always very orderly, and strictly respectable.

Some years ago the centre of respectability was the Market Square, and to dwell elsewhere was to be a grade or two lower in society, and to be inadmissible to the selecter circle. But the next best place was Chapel Street, opening out of the north-west corner of the Square. It was narrow, and very dull, even upon market days; the dullest street in the town. The shops were dark and dingy, and about half-way along it, they gave place to small, poor houses, built capriciously, each one of differing height and size. Nearly at the end stood a large and ugly chapel, with a pretentious portico, supported by four square pillars of red brick, and surmounted by a pediment and architrave of blue and yellow tiles. This chapel gave its name to the street.

A few houses distant from the entrance into the Square stood a very old and very dingy dwelling, which had undergone but little alteration from the date of its erection, a century and a half before. Not that there was any of the picturesqueness of antiquity about it; its aspect was only gloomy and weather-beaten, the windows being of small panes of discoloured glass, and its walls blackened by smoke and age. The roof formed three gables, and the moss and house-leek grew along the gutters, and choked up the water-pipes. It was a large building, occupying more basement than would have sufficed for two handsome modern houses. It was on the north side of the street, which the sun never gladdened, and looked as if a perpetual cloud overshadowed it. Whether the gloom was within or without one could scarcely tell. The street was narrow, and the side pavement exceedingly so; yet the old house thrust upon it two ancient bow windows, with casements painted black, and small dark panes through which a passer-by with good sight might decipher the titles of long rows of books, the bindings and lettering of which were faded by damp, rather than by excess of light. The books were dry, judged by modern taste. They were certainly old, and mostly theological; with here and there a lighter volume of religious biography. Latin amid Greek classics might have been found among them. Between the two windows was a door, always closed, but which rang a bell as it opened; and the black lintel above it bore, in dim and tarnished letters, the words "John Morley, Bookseller." Within, the shop was always dusky, partly because of the books filling the windows; and partly because of its northern frontage; a cool and pleasant shade in summer, but in winter a very den of chill and darkness. As you opened the heavy door, and entered the shop to the tinkle of a noisy bell, John Morley himself would step down into it from some apartment beyond, and meet you face to face. It was less like addressing a tradesman behind his counter, than the meeting of friends or acquaintances. Most of his customers shook hands with him.

At the first glance it would have been said that John Morley was a grave and bookish man; at the second, that he was solemn; at the third, that he was sorrow- stricken. Some souls have a vast capacity for sorrow, and drink it in as a parched land drinks in water. There was no glimmer of sunshine about him any more than about his dwelling. Like it, he was stationed on the northern side of life, where no laughter or splendor of sunlight could fall upon him. Involuntarily, every voice was lowered to a subdued and respectful tone. Not a sound from the rest of the premises penetrated to the dusky and quiet shop; and when John Morley bowed out his customer, and closed the door as upon some departing guest, the little bell rang loudly, like one jingling to the hard pull of a schoolboy in an empty house.

The rest of the dwelling consisted of a number of half furnished rooms, with steps down or steps up into them, as the fashion is in old buildings; with low, long casements, high and narrow doors, stained ceilings, amid half-wainscoted walls. The windows at the back looked upon an enclosed yard, part of which had, a long time ago, been slanted as a garden. A few melancholy lilacs and thin privet bushes still sucked a feeble life out of the sooty mould, and sent up slender black branches and a handful of pale leaves, to catch any stray sunbeams which might shine over the surrounding walls. There was a rambling range of outbuildings, including a stable filled to the rafters with rubbish; above which was a small room with a shelving roof, which was approached by an outside staircase. A sad and sombre little room, with dingy ivy-leaves growing round the door, and tapping at the dusty panes of its lattice window, as if in parody of ivied doors and windows in the country. This room--nobody knew why--bore the name of the nursery; though no children, within the memory of man, had ever played in it.

About a mile from Little Aston stood Aston Court, a handsome, bran new, desirable family mansion, with pleasure-grounds, conservatories and gardens, all surrounded by a fine, well-timbered park. The old court had been bought and pulled down ten years ago by David Waldron, Esq., M.P., a famous man among the dissenters, and naturally the great man of the chapel at the end of Chapel Street. The portico had been built in honor of him. The church at Little Aston--by which we mean that "congregation of faithful men" worshipping in the dissenters' chapel--had been small and of no repute, before the advent of Mr. Waldron. It had been looked upon as low and vulgar, fitted only for the poorer classes. There had been but one member of any standing, of any education or tongues on his lips more aptly than the rector himself, and who knew the whole origin, motive, and history of dissent. That man was John Morley.

If these two, David Waldron, M.P., and John Morley, bookseller, had met each other in the aisles of the parish church, they would have kept to their own legitimate spheres, and been no more to one another than the squire and his tradesman. But they were brought together on the democratic platform of a church-fellowship, in which all the members were professedly equal. They called themselves brethren. All the rest of the brethren were content to look up to Mr. Waldron from a long way off, as a brother far above them; and they were quite willing that he who helped to rule the nation should rule their church absolutely. But John Morley was a deacon; like Mr. Waldron; he was also a trustee, like Mr. Waldron. He knew what equality and fraternity meant, if Mr. Waldron had political influence, John Morley had literary influence; for he could use his pen well in defence of their sect and its tenets. These two men held a somewhat uneasy position with regard to one another. John Morley was the Mordecai in the gate; but let it be understood that Mr. Waldron was a very worthy Haman, a really good man, only a little jealous of the homage and authority he believed to be his due.

The room behind John Morley's shop was spacious enough; but it had a low ceiling crossed by a massive beam, and it was lighted only by a long low casement of small panes and thick woodwork, opening upon the mournful garden at the back. It looked like an addition to the crowded shop in front; for the walls were lined with shelves closely packed with books, dull and dark in their bindings, with narrow strips of crimson baize, which had long lost their bright tint, nailed along the edge of each shelf. The furniture was heavy and old; the carpet threadbare and faded. No curtains shut out the black night when it pressed against the window outside. On the table, during the daytime, there usually lay a pile of business books, a ledger, a day-book, which no neat, meddlesome hand of woman moved from time to time. No woman's work lay side by side with them, neither sewing nor knitting; such as had once, for a brief space of two years, sometimes ruffled John Morley a little by its disorder and interference with his own more important occupations. He had remembered them often, when they could come in his way no more, with a pang too sharp to be shown by any other sign than the deepening shadow under his eyes, and the threads of white growing plainer in his dark hair. In this room, haunted by memories becoming more and more dreamlike, John Morley had spent his evenings alone, without companions, and wishing for none, having his books and his remembrances only; the latter dying away softly and slowly, as if they had merely lingered for a while out of pure good nature, before leaving him to his solitude.

This room was not, however, yet solitary at six o'clock one winter's evening; though John Morley was occupied with a customer in his shop. It was unlighted, except by a good fire burning brightly in the grate. Stretched at full length upon the hearth lay a little girl, reading by the fire-light, her face glowing partly with the heat, and partly with the interest excited by her book. Her hair, cut short over the forehead, had been flaxen, then golden, and was now taking a sunny chestnut shade of brown. The eyes were large, well opened, and clear, with that peculiar gaze of wonder and innocence which some children's eyes still retain at the age of ten years. In spite of the glow upon the face, it was grave and sad--as sad as a child's face can be. You might have seen, looking at her closely, and reading rightly the expression of the eyes and mouth with its sweet and pliant lips, that this was a child whose life would be most completely shaped and colored by the temperaments of those around her. She could never be childishly gay while others were suffering; nor grave in the presence of mirth. By a more direct necessity of her nature than most others possess, she would weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice. Only encircle her with gladness, and she would be the most joyous among the happy; here she was the most subdued among her mournful and sad surroundings.

This child caught at last the sound of animated voices, and lifted up her head, which had been bent over her book. A minute or two afterwards she crossed the room quietly to the door which connected it with the shop, and pushed it open far enough to get a glimpse of the talkers. She could see her father's face, and she leaned forward more eagerly to look at it. She could hardly remember to have seen it without its profound and unbroken gloom, which never lightened when looking at her. But now the gloom was gone; the dark eyes glittered, the stern lips smiled and the heavy eyebrows expanded with an unmistakable pleasure, as he gazed into the face turned towards him. This face the child could not see. The little solitary heart was as quickly troubled as the surface of a mountain tarn, which lies open to every breath that blows; and the tears came, she did not know why, into her eyes.

"Come in, and see my little girl now," said John Morley, in a tone which reached her ears.

The child shrank back shyly, and retreated to the hearth, reaching it just in time to turn, and front the stranger, who seemed to hesitate for a moment on the threshold of the comfortless and sombre room. The face was girlish and exceedingly pretty, set round with rich masses of fair hair, and lit up with blue eyes, which appeared to shine into the gloom, and disperse it. Her hesitation, if it were hesitation, was gone in an instant, and she crossed the floor with a light and eager step to the child, who waited timidly her approach. She laid her arm about her shoulders, and stooped down to kiss her cheek.

"What is your name, my dear?" she asked, in a gay young voice, which seemed to thrill through the child's sensitive frame.

"Hester Morley," she answered, speaking with quaint self-possession, and in measured tones: "what is your name, and where do you come from?"

"My name is Rose Mary," said the stranger, with a laugh breaking through the long, dull silence of the place, with a promise of more music like it: "is it a pretty name, Hester?"

"I think so," replied the child after a moment's musing; "does my father like it?"

"Oh you droll little creature!" exclaimed the girl, with a sidelong glance at John Morley's radiant face. "I daresay he does, but I shan't ask him. How old are you, Hester?"

"I am nine years old," she said, sighing as if she had found the nine years a heavy burden ; "but you are older than me. How old are you, Rose Mary?"

"Oh, fie!" she cried, lowering her voice to a mock whisper "you must never ask a lady her age; that is always a secret. But I will tell you; only you must never, never tell your papa. I am twenty-three years old; positively an old woman. What an odd little mortal you are!"

The girl's manner had a light and graceful vivacity about it, full of charm and novelty to both of her grave listeners. She glanced again at John Morley with an expression which the child could not altogether comprehend, but which caused her to withdraw her hand from hers. John Morley came forward to the hearth, and laid his hand upon his little daughter's head.

"She has been sadly neglected," he said, looking fondly at the pretty girl beside him; "but you will soon put her right: Hester, this lady has promised to be your mother."

Hester neither spoke nor moved, except that her clear eyes went quickly from the one face to the other; but dwelt longest on the sombre, yet handsome, features most familiar to her.

"Don't you understand, my little Hester?" asked Rose, putting her hand through John Morley's arm with a coquettish and caressing gesture. "I am going to be your mamma, and take care of you."

"Yes, I understand," said the child, nodding her head, "you are going to be my stepmother. I have read all about it in books, and Lawson has told me about it. My real mother is dead; and my father is going to marry you. Yes, I know all about it. At first the stepmother is very kind, and is very fond of the children; but as soon as she has a baby of her own, she gets cross with the others, and everything is quite different."

John Morley's face flushed and darkened while his little daughter spoke in her measured tones; but Rose laughed her blithe and musical laugh again, and fell down on her knees before Hester, so as to bring her bright face on a level with the child's serious eyes.

"Look at me, little Hetty!" she cried, "just look at me. Do I look as if I could ever be cross or unkind? I'm not an old dragon of a stepmother. I shall want somebody to play with me, and your papa is years and years too old to play; but you and I will have fine games together. Oh! I am sure you will love me."

Hester gazed into the blue eyes of the girl with the deep, full, unconscious scrutiny of a child. The color came and went upon Rose's cheeks, and her lips pouted under this inspection. At last Hester half held out her small hand to her future stepmother, but checked herself, looking up to her father.

"Will it make you happy?" she asked with a grave air.

"Happier than I could tell you," answered John Morley passionately.

"I like you," she said, turning to Rose, "and we shall all be very happy--at first."

"No! no! no! Not at first; but always," cried the girl, pressing kiss after kiss upon Hester's mouth, "we will love one another very dearly. You will be very glad to have me for your mamma?'

"Yes," answered Hester, still regarding her wistfully. And you promise me to be like my own daughter," continued Rose, half playfully, "for ever and ever? You will love, honor and succor me,--those are the words, I think,--as if I were your mother? When I am old and ugly, and nobody cares for me, you will care for me and never forsake me. Let me whisper a little secret, Hester. Your father will grow tired of me by-and-by, and we shall quarrel sometimes, and he will be very angry, and dreadfully cross; oh! so cross! But you must never get tired or cross with me. You must try to be exactly, just exactly, the same, as if you were born my own little girl. Will you promise me this, Hetty?"

She had spoken quite as much to John Morley as to Hester, with little coquettish charms and prettinesses which infatuated him. Hester's small, serious countenance deepened with thought, as she deliberated for a minute or two, gazing into her father's beaming face.

"Ought I to promise, father?" she asked at last.

"Certainly," answered John Morley; "she is to be your mother. You cannot be too good a child to her."

"God hears me promise," said the little girl, with simple solemnity; "I promise that I will be the same as if I had been born your daughter. I do promise it."

The gloomy room was silent again as Hester's childish voice ceased speaking; and the girl, who still knelt before her, grew pale, and the tears sprang into her eyes. John Morley also felt a passing chill and shadow of doubt crossing the brightness of his new joy. It was a gloomy niche in a gloomy household, which he was about to fill up with this gay and girlish creature. She glanced round the room with its dingy rows of books, and peeped up into John Morley's face, already marked with austere lines; and an involuntary shudder ran through her. But the next moment she laughed merrily. She embraced Hester with warmth, and held out her hand for John Morley to assist her in rising from her knees. It was one of her charming ways to seem to require help upon the slightest occasions.

"Thank you," she said, giving him a smile which made his heart beat quickly again with delight: "this is a queer child! She made me feel, I can't tell you how solemn! It was almost like being married, and hearing you vow all you will have to vow, you know. Are you quite sure you will be as much in earnest?"

John Morley murmured a reply which could not reach Hester's ears.

"Well! I must go now," she said. "I ought to be back already at that wretched school. Oh! I am tired to death of it; I long to get away from it. I believe I am only marrying you to be sure of never going back to it. There, now! It is such a shame for a pretty girl like me, and I am a pretty girl you know, to be chained to a long table, hearing stupid dolts repeat stupid lessons. You will save my life, sir; and I thank you a thousand times for it"

She curtseyed to him playfully, kissed Hester, and tripped away lightly out of the dark room, which seemed darker than ever after she had left it.

When John Morley returned to the sitting-room, he busied himself for some minutes in lighting the lamp, and setting everything into unbroken order, without once venturing to meet the eyes of his little girl, who still kept her station upon the hearth, watching him timidly but steadily. There was an undefined shyness and disquietude in his feelings towards her, which he could not well have explained to himself. He was accustomed to perform these small feminine duties of setting his room in order; but to-night he found himself embarrassed and awkward, with Hester's eyes upon him. After completing his methodical arrangements, he reached down a thick old volume from the bookshelves, and appeared to absorb himself in its contents.

But he was not reading. Hester was not to be deceived by the transparent artifice; and he felt it uneasily, and moved restlessly in his arm-chair, shading his eyes with his thin and scholarly hand. But all his features were kindled with a sunshine from within, brighter and stronger than a smile. For he would not smile; though he could not dim the light in his eyes, or make harsh again the strange softness which was smoothing away the rigid lines upon his face. Hester comprehended, but vaguely and as a child only, that a sad life, solitary and unnatural, was coming to an end, and that already the light shone upon him from afar off. Her young heart was full of sympathy for him; but for some time she kept silence. Her short life had been full of lessons of reserve and taciturnity.

"Father," she said after a long while,--and he put down his hand, and looked across to her, where she sat in a large, deep, old arm-chair which had always been her mother's seat,--" I am not at all sorry to have a stepmother."

The child's approbation had something quaint about it, but its oddity did not seem to strike her father; though he allowed a vivid smile to flit across his face as he heard it.

"Will it be long before you are tired of my stepmother?" inquired Hester.

"I shall never be tired of her!" he answered.

"But you are tired of me," she continued, "and you are tired of my mother, or else you would not want to marry another wife. So I thought you would get tired of Rose Mary some day."

"Hester," said John Morley, his face over-clouded again, "I should never have been tired of your mother if she had lived."

"But you tell me she does live," persisted the child, "and Lawson says she comes back sometimes and walks about the house, though I cannot see her. Sometimes I think I can feel her kissing me very softly. Perhaps she is here this evening, and heard me promise to be like a daughter to my stepmother. Do you think she would like it, father?"

It was seldom that Hester spoke so freely and fluently; but this evening she was excited, her cheeks were crimson, and her large gray eyes were lit up. John Morley lowered his voice, and looked stealthily round the room as he answered her.

'My love, if your poor mother, who was very dear to me,--dearer than you can think,--could know of this, I am sure she would rejoice for your sake as well as mine. I am doing what I believe to be good for you as well as for myself. You need some woman to stand in a close relationship to you; and you will need it more as you grow older. Rose will be a second mother to you."

"You are quite sure?" said Hester, with a childish love of reiterated and positive assurance.

"Quite sure," he answered.

Perhaps he had had but little thought of his child till this evening, but now he began to believe that she had been his chief consideration; and as he turned back to his book, he said to himself several times, "Certainly, Rose will be a second mother to her."

The silence which followed seemed scarcely like a silence to him; while the eager face of Hester was bent forward out of her great arm-chair, and her speaking eyes were fastened upon him. But he would give no attention to her eloquent looks; and in a few minutes she seemed aware of this, for she nestled down into her mother's chair, as she might have nestled into her mother's lap, and produced a book which she had kept wrapped up in her pinafore since the first interruption of her evening's reading. John Morley and his daughter sat thus for half an hour, no sound reaching them from without; when the sharp tinkle of the shop-bell broke upon the stillness.

The persons who entered were two men, one old, the other elderly; unlike in feature, yet possessing an undefinable and subtle resemblance, which linked them together, and seemed also to link them to John Morley. It might have been that the order of their thoughts, and the convictions and conclusions at which they had arrived, had been the same; for the brain works out its own family likenesses. It was evident that in some way or other they belonged to one class; though John Morley, a handsomer man than either of the others, had also most the look of a scholar. The smallest, meekest, and eldest of the three men was distinguished as a minister by his dress, and the spotless whiteness of a large neckcloth, which served to withdraw the eye from dwelling upon his somewhat feeble features. The third was a robust, thick-set, elderly man, with a square and massive face, and with the air of one not much accustomed to be gainsaid, yet who would not altogether dislike to meet with a worthy antagonist.

"Brother Morley, we come as friends," said the minister.

With a courteous but formal bow John Morley ushered his guests into his sitting-room, and set chairs for them at the table; as if they were about to sit in committee. The minister alone took any notice of Hester, who slipped down from her high seat upon their entrance, to offer them a shy welcome. She was used to listen earnestly to the discussions and controversies often held in her father's parlor.

This evening, however, there was some difficulty in introducing the subject of conversation, and when the minister broke silence it was in a faltering, apologetic voice.

"Brother Morley," he said, "cannot you divine the purport of our visit to-night?"

Over John Morley's face closed again much of the old gloom and austerity, as he looked from one to the other of his visitors; gazing longest and hardest into the square set face of the younger man; who regarded him, in his turn, with an unflinching judicial eye. The three men were three brothers doubtless, though the weakness and mercifulness of age were creeping over the eldest.

"We are come," he continued, deprecatingly, "because certain rumors have reached the ears of the church--"

"The church has many ears, and long ones," interrupted John Morley, with a grim smile, "but no doubt it has heard correctly. I apprehend the purport of these rumors."

"But brother," pursued the minister, in his most soothing accents, "it is not as if you were one of the unknown and inconsiderable members of the church. You are one of our chief men; a polished pillar in the temple. We come only to expostulate and beseech. It is written in the Scriptures, 'Thou shalt rebuke thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him.'"

The minister gazed at John Morley with mingled entreaty and sadness; but his companion, who was eager to pursue the assault with greater vigor, quickly broke the reverential pause which followed his quotation from the Bible.

"Come, brother Morley," he said, speaking as if he were a brother very far removed, "there's no need to beat longer about the bush. You are thinking of taking a second wife."

"That is essentially a domestic arrangement, Mr. Waldron," said John Morley, girding himself willingly for the contest "the church has nothing to do with it. If it were a question of moral discipline the church must needs take note of it. But it has no voice in this matter neither of assent, nor veto."

"Tush, brother!" answered Mr. Waldron, sharply: We come but semi-officially. As your brethren, we are bound to watch your conduct; and if your choice had fallen upon a godly woman, not a word would have been said. But when we see one of ourselves about to form an ensnaring union, our constitution as a pure chord, gives us the right, and lays it upon us as a duty, to warn, rebuke, and protest. This marriage ought not to be."

"Yes, dear brother," said the minister, emboldened by Mr. Waldron's words, and pressing into the breach he had made, "the rule of the apostle is simple: 'Be ye not un equally yoked with unbelievers.'"

"The unbeliever," replied John Morley slowly, "signified to the early church the heathen and idolater. My future wife has been baptized, and is probably a communicant in the Church of England; therefore she cannot be called an unbeliever in that sense. But there is another saying of the apostle: 'The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.' I trust that this marriage may prove the entrance into a purer faith and truer creed for my wife."

There was a short silence again, while Mr. Waldron drew a well-worn Bible out of his pocket, and turned over its pages impatiently.

"Listen then, John Morley," he said; "in the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah, beginning at the twenty-third verse, it is thus written :-

" 'In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.

" 'And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

" 'Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things! yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless, even him did outlandish women cause to sin.

" 'Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?' "

Mr. Waldron read the passage with an evidently keen sympathy with the indignant governor; and he looked hard into John Morley's rigid face. The latter was not a man to yield quietly to the arbitrary rule even of Nehemiah the Tirshatha; and he met the judicial frown bent upon him with cool composure.

"Yet it had been permitted to the ancient Jews," he said, "under the rule of Moses, when they saw among the captives a damsel who pleased them, to take her to wife. Also David, the man after God's own heart, took to wife Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur."

"And she bare him Absalom," interrupted Mr. Waldron eagerly, "the rebel and the assassin."

The words were still upon his lips when there came a gentle tap at the door, and it was opened from without before John Morley could reach it. Rose appeared in the doorway; and the minister and Mr. Waldron regarded her with surprised admiration. Again the sombre room seemed the brighter for her presence, and her clear, fresh young voice sounded pleasantly to their ears, after their own grave and deep tones.

"I thought I should find you and Hetty alone, Mr. Morley," she said; smiles and blushes following one another closely upon her fair face; "and the bell did not ring, so I came straight on here. I have only left a book behind me, and I came back to fetch it."

John Morley had approached her, and drawn her hand through his arm with an air of pride. Hester too, as if attracted by some irresistible charm, had descended from her seat, and pressed close beside her. This girl possessed some fascination which drew all hearts to her; though one might know lovelier women, wiser women, women tenfold better. The few words she had uttered were simple; but like the foolish old songs with sweet tunes, which are heard by chance, and which one always wishes to hear once more, the three men were silent in the dull parlor when she ceased speaking, as if they waited to hear her voice again.

"This is the young lady who has consented to be my wife, Mr. Waldron," said John Morley, with an ill-concealed triumph in the effect her appearance had produced.

She stole a bashful look at the great man of the neighborhood, and curtseyed profoundly; a boarding-school curtsey, learnt from a dancing-master, yet not without a certain diffident grace of its own. Mr. Waldron's face relaxed from its severity.

"Well brother," he said, with greater affability than before, "I wish you joy. And you also, my dear; only we must make you one of ourselves as speedily as possible. We have just been speaking of it to John Morley. You must join the church, when you become his wife and the mother of this little girl."

"Yes, sir," murmured the girl, with charming shamefacedness; while a shade of gravity clouded her sunny face for a moment. The old minister came forward, and addressed her in a tone of earnest solemnity.

"It will be the turning-point of your life," he said, "to become the wife of a godly man. Hitherto you have been wandering in the paths of vanity, but here you will be safely enfolded from the snares of this world. Morning, noon, and night a voice will sound in your ears: 'This is the way; walk ye in it.' You will be snatched from the world, and gathered into the bosom of the church."

Once again the girl shivered, and looked in bewilderment at the faces around her, wondering what their strange manner of greeting her might mean. But they had each put on a smile for her, and her nature was buoyant enough in itself to find complacency everywhere. John Morley's handsome face, moreover, wore an expression which any woman would be pleased to see in her future husband; and she bridled her pretty head with a half-affected air of coquetry.

"I must go directly," she said in a girlish tone of importance; "I have a hundred things to do yet to-night. There is my book on the table, Mr. Morley. Thank you very much. Good-night; good-night. Good-bye, my little Hetty."

The door closed upon her, but the three men did not resume their seats, and Hester remained standing on the hearth, listening eagerly for their next words. The controversy had come to an unexpected end. Yet John Morley drew his little daughter within his arms, in an unaccustomed caress, and stroked down her tangled hair with a trembling hand.

"If the church be scandalized," he said, in a voice which he rendered steady by a great effort, "I can withdraw from it. There are other forms of worship and other sects not greatly differing from our own. My intended wife has been brought up in the Established Church. If it be necessary--"

The pause was of even more significance than the words; and the old minister opened his eyes widely in unutterable astonishment. Mr. Waldron was the first to speak.

"It is a matter for expostulation," he said, "not of reproof or censure. Let each man act according to his own conscience. What do you say, Mr. Watson?"

"It is a question encompassed with difficulties," answered the minister diffidently; "and every man must act according to his own inward light. But since brother Morley has gone so far as to promise marriage to this young creature, I do not see how he can conscientiously break off his covenant with her."

With that uttterance the subject seemed settled. A few minutes later Mr. Waldron shook hands with John Morley with distant brotherliness, and went away with the minister. John Morley kissed his child, and bade her go to bed and dream of her new mother. But Hester loitered for a minute or two after he had reopened his large book, as if longing to say something to him. It was evidently an effort, an effort which she felt constrained to make; and at last, when he believed himself to be alone, John Morley heard a small, timid voice speaking from the threshold, and saw Hester looking back at him with anxious eyes. What she had to say before she left him was simply this: "I hope you will not make God angry with you, father."

One of the three gables of John Morley's house rose a story higher than the others, and under its pointed roof was a large attic, lighted by a great dormer window, which overlooked the neighboring buildings, and caught a glimpse of fields and woods beyond, with a range of distant hills, lying blue and cloudlike against the sky line. It was the pleasantest room in the dark old house. Beneath it lay some printing offices, black and grimy, containing ancient presses, covered over with dust and cobwebs; for John Morley had given up the printing business, which his predecessor had carried on, and the attic in the gable was his only workroom. He employed also but one workman, a stranger, who looked like a foreigner, and who had been passing through the town on the tramp the first week after his marriage with Hester's mother. The young wife had taken pity upon the footsore and famishing wanderer, and had persuaded her husband to give him a trial at his professed trade as a bookbinder. This trial was a complete success. He had learned his trade in Paris; his father having been an English artisan, who had married a Frenchwoman from Burgundy. The amount of work accomplished by this single man was marvellous, and the price he set upon it extravagant, yet such was the taste and beauty of the workmanship, that John Morley seldom received less for it than the high sum at which his binder valued it. Throughout the whole county no binding was esteemed unless it had issued from John Morley's workshop.

The binding room, wherein this solitary artisan had worked for ten years, was not only light and sunny, but it was odorous with the pleasant scent of Russia leather and morocco, and in the summer with the flowers which he cultivated in boxes and pots about his window-sill. His press and work-table stood in the wide bay formed by the casement, where the daylight fell upon him, long after the court below and the sombre parlor were obscured in twilight. Over the rusty old grate, which was formed only of a few rude bars of iron fastened into the chimney jamb, stood a rack containing his tools for the printing of his ornamental devices upon the gold-leaf. All around on the shelves and the sloping ceiling were displayed specimens of the tasteful branch of art which he carried on in unbroken monotony from day to day, and from year to year.

He was a man so quiet, perhaps from his ten years of lonely work, that never was any sound heard of him in his attic; which indeed was isolated from the rest of the house by the empty rooms below, though there was a door out of them which communicated with the second floor of the dwelling. There was another entrance to the workroom by a door into a passage running along the side of the house, of which he kept the key, in order to let himself in at any hour; for he was an early riser, and often came to his work at five o'clock in the morning, and remained until late at night; taking neither pleasure nor rest, beyond that absolutely necessary for health. He was a small, tough, withered-looking man, stooping a good deal in the shoulders, and with thin, scanty hair. Always upon reaching the deserted printing offices, it was his custom to exchange his boots for a pair of soundless list slippers, which could make no noise upon the bare boards of his attic. He was a nervous man, starting at every sound, of which however but few ever reached him in his solitude, for the window opened upon the court instead of the street; and whatever rare tumult might be in the latter only came to his ears softened by the distance. So quiet was the gable that the house-sparrows gathered there in numbers, and their shrill, pert chirping seemed the only sound that did not discompose him.

The sole pleasure of this secluded and laborious being was to see Hester push open the door of his attic, and, with her book under her arm, creep quietly in and climb upon a tall chair which stood at a corner of the press. There she watched him spreading the delicate gold-leaf upon the crimson or blue morocco of his bindings, and stamp them carefully with his elegant devices. Very seldom any conversation passed between these two; but sometimes the child mounted upon a ladder, and sat on the highest step, which reached nearly to the ceiling, and there read aloud, in a low, pleasant murmur of a voice, which was as soothing as silence itself, from the book which happened to be the favorite of the day. That was the crowning point of his pleasure; but he never sought it, and never put his sense of delight into words. If Hester ever brought him any book to be mended, however old and stained and worn, he lavished all his art upon it; pondering in his mind what new device he could discover to embellish it. The nursery rhymes and primers of Hester Morley were marvels in the decorative art of bookbinding; though they lay unseen in her bedroom, upon some shelves which he had made for her.

The second marriage of John Morley was solemnized in a distant town, and afterwards he took his young bride a short excursion, while his house was being set in order for her reception. During this time Hester almost lived in the attic, to the inexpressible delight of Lawson; a delight, however, which was mingled with a profound and smouldering resentment against his master. He could not understand how he could need any companionship beside his child's.

"Lawson," said Hester, one day recurring to a subject which had secretly troubled her ever since the visit of Mr. Waldron and the minister to John Morley, "do you think that God will be really angry with my father for being married to another wife?"

"Ay, do I," answered Lawson, in deep accents and brief words.

"But, Lawson," she said, her face growing pale and awe-stricken, "it is a dreadful thing to make God angry. Miss Waldron has taught me all about it at the Sunday school. Don't you know what He did to Sodom and Gomorrah? Suppose He sent down fire from heaven, and burnt all the house up? Or suppose He should strike my father and my new mother dead, like Ananias and Sapphira? I can't help thinking about it all day long, and at nights when I awake. What should God be angry for?"

Lawson stooped over his work, breathing softly on the gold-leaf, and smoothing it out carefully with his smoothest finger.

"If God is angry with my father," continued Hester, sobbing, "I think I should like Him to be angry with me as well. If Ananias and Sapphira had any little children, who would take care of them after they were struck dead? But I don't think He will be angry. Have you ever seen my new mother, Lawson?"

"You must not call her mother," said Lawson; "your mother is in heaven, with God."

"But I've promised to be like her very own daughter for ever and ever," answered Hester; "I don't know what made me promise, only my father said I ought, and it would make him happy. Lawson, I would do anything to make my father happy. And I don't think she will be the same as the stepmothers in books. What was my own mother like, Lawson?"

With slow and quiet movements, for he seemed incapable of any quick or energetic action, Lawson mounted the step ladder, and reached an old portfolio from the highest shelf. From this he drew out an engraving, mounted upon board, and surrounded by an exquisite scroll of gilding and coloring: it was a woman's face only--a sweet, calm, colorless face, long and oval, with a placid serenity approaching to sadness upon it. The child and the work man bent over it some time in silence.

"That was how she looked," he whispered, "the last time I saw her, just before she died; and I promised, and your father promised, on our bended knees, that we'd neither have thought, nor care, nor plan, save for you and your happiness, Miss Hester. And this is the way," he cried, smiting his hands together with a sudden agony of passion which seemed impossible in so quiet and subdued a creature, "that my master keeps his promise ! Yes. God and I do well to be angry."

It might have provoked a smile to hear this puny, shrivelled, insignificant workman identify himself and his impotent resentment with God and His anger. But there was no one to smile, except Hester, who looked up into his face with wide open eyes of terror and amazement.

"Miss Hester," he said, more wildly, "this is how it is. It is seven years ago, and I've been toiling ever since to make a dot for you. Why I've only taken eighteen shillings a week wages from your father, while he gets six or seven, or sometimes ten pounds a week by my work! I found out a new way of bevelling the edges, which nobody knows how to do save myself. There was a very nice little fortune for you already. Everybody was saying John Morley is rich. And so this bold, laughing, flirting, flaunting madam has married him for his money, and she will make it fly like chaff before the wind. We shall all be poor again. I've been keeping down my poor mother and myself, when I might have made money for us both."

" Is your mother very poor?" asked Hester.

"Yes. She is living with my sister in Burgundy," he answered; "both of them are widows, and they are quite poor, but for what I send them, and I haven't sent them as much as I could."

"Is my father very rich, Lawson?" asked Hester again.

"He would have been by the time you wanted your dot," answered Lawson.

"I don't know what a dot is," said Hester.

"It is the money you will want to marry a good husband with," he replied; "and now you will be poor, very poor. It's all over, and I've been a fool, and John Morley is a fool."

He threw himself half across his binding press, and covered his face with his hands, while Hester stood by looking doubtfully at his downcast attitude, and going over in her mind the strange things he had been saying.

"Do you think my own mother knows?" she asked at last in a hushed voice.

"Ay! does she," answered Lawson; "many and many a time she comes up here, and walks about with her soft, quiet feet, which I couldn't hear at all if there was any noise in the room; and she looks over my work, and pushes the right tool towards me, when I don't quite know what to do for the best. Oh, she knows all that goes on in the old house she has left. Don't you think she is often and often with you, Miss Hester, watching over you in your little bed, and sitting by you in the parlor of an evening, when you're reading? Do you never feel her near you?"

"I think I do," whispered the child, pressing close to the visionary man, and laying her small fingers upon his warm living hand.

"She may die yet! She may die yet!" he muttered to himself; "people die easily sometimes. Then we should be all right again. There's no room for two mistresses in one house. I shall never feel her near to me when the other is here. My best work is over. I shall do no more good in the world as long as the other one is alive."

He continued muttering to himself at intervals, while he burnished the gilding under his hands. Hester mounted to her high seat upon the step-ladder, and sat watching the evening clouds, which could be seen slowly sailing towards the west across the field of sky which was visible from the window. Now and then she sighed as a child seldom sighs. The sun went down, and the distant corners of the attic grew dusky, and filled with shadows; and when the child awoke from her long reverie, cold and troubled, she fancied readily that in the darkest of the gloom there stood the soft, light outline of a figure clothed in white, whose dim face was calm and sweet and sad. It was her mother; but she had entered into a covenant to be as a daughter to her father's second wife.

The motives which had determined the second Mrs. Morley to become the wife of a man fifteen years her senior, and altogether different to the beau ideal of a husband which her girlish fancy had painted, were as complex as the motives to such marriages generally are. In the first place she had attained the age of three-and-twenty, yet, though very pretty and engaging, had met with no real opportunity of escaping from the life she hated; that of a governess in a middle-class boarding-school. There was a dreadful possibility that her attractions might fade away before she met with an establishment worthy of her; and she longed to be the mistress of a house of her own. On the other hand, John Morley had the reputation of being rich for his station, and he was a handsomer and more polished man than any of the younger men with whom she was brought into contact. Except one memory, which was sentimentally brooded over in her heart, no one had so nearly touched her frivolous affections as this grave, melancholy, handsome man of middle age, who had abandoned himself to a passionate devotion to her. She felt something of jealousy and triumph in thinking of the young wife, whom he had sorrowed for so austerely, and who was at last forgotten in her grave for her sake. As the last reason, she fancied that the toil and monotony of school life had already stolen away something of the softness and bloom of her fair face. On these grounds she had determined upon becoming John Morley's second wife.

Very naturally she resolved to put his attachment to the test, and not to spare it. She found the new house of which she was the mistress, gloomy, and poverty-stricken in aspect, and she set her heart upon beautifying it. It was a large, rambling old place, much too large for the small family dwelling in it; and she forecast her plans for turning it all into a habitation suitable to herself. But here she met a sudden and unexpected check, even in the first-weeks of her married life. John Morley assured her, with a hundred protestations of his love, that he could not give her permission to do as she pleased with the dreary, half-furnished rooms. One room should be her own, he said, the largest in the house; and she might buy whatever she chose for it. It was a compromise which was disagreeable to her; but she resolved to make the most of it. Upstairs there was a large apartment, extending from the front of the house to the back, and wainscoted with panels of oak throughout, which had been hitherto used as a warehouse. This she fixed upon, insisting upon the fulfilment of her husband's promise; and upon it she lavished all her taste and caprice, while John Morley looked on and laughed, as one laughs at a child playing at keeping house. It was a pleasant time for Rose. She enjoyed the unconditional permission given to her with the full enjoyment of one who has always been obliged to look closely to her expenditure; with a gay good nature she gave up her plans of embellishing the rest of the house, while she concentrated herself upon this room allotted to her. John Morley's home grew full of sound, in the place of its unbroken stillness. The blithe laugh of his young wife rippled from room to room, blended with the quieter but happy tones of his little girl. Now and then there came to his ears notes of music from Rose's piano over head, short, merry tunes, tinkling through the empty rooms, with a suggestion of dancing steps accompanying them; though there was no one to dance except Hester, whose small feet had never before been set to music. The time was as blissful for John Morley as for his second wife, or rather, immeasurably more so.

The pity was that the girl was no more than a school-girl, with nothing but a school-girl's idea of happiness. She was good-natured, and good-tempered, and quite willing to do what she could to please her husband. But it had never entered her mind that his companionship alone would be sufficient for her. She had no wish whatever to reign over her new household unseen and unenvied by her neighbors. As soon as her drawing-room was furnished and decorated after her own taste, she longed to receive guests in it, who would admire and praise it to her satisfaction. There John Morley, reserved and self-contained, made a stand. He wanted no witnesses to his happiness. The people of Little Aston were not of his kind; there were none among them who could become his associates, or whom he would choose to be the friends of his wife. On the one hand were the worldlings, the people who wasted their time at the card-table or in the dance; on the other were the members of the church, ignorant and ill-bred, with whom he had nothing in common beyond the religious conventionalities of church membership. He was separated from the world and the church alike. His wife might welcome to his hearth the old minister and his equally aged wife, whose gentleness could never offend or displease him; but there was no other person whom he could receive into his house with the cordiality of friendship. Mere acquaintances John Morley could not understand. To eat bread at his table was a pledge of living friendliness between host and guest. On this point no charm, or persuasion, or rebellion, could avail his wife anything. He was like a rock; and the poor, silly girl, with her empty mind and light heart, beat against it in vain.

After the first novelty had worn away, John Morley, though retaining his passionate and proud love of his young wife, fell back into his old studious habits; lost himself, and her, and all his new life, in the books which came almost daily to his hand. If she invaded his quiet room where he sat all day long, and which was too heavy and sombre for a butterfly creature like her, to ask him for some new indulgence, or to display some new possession, he put down his book only for a few minutes, and soon grew absent if she prolonged her visit. He had no thought of any unkindness in this neglect. Hester's mother had been willing to sit hour after hour, his silent companion, ready to hear him if he should like to read aloud some sentence which pleased him more than others, a sentence which to her stood alone, with none before or following it, and he had taken it for granted that Rose would do the same. Since she did not do it, but avoided his dull room, he did not complain; but it never occurred to him to alter his own habits. Besides, after the lapse of a few months his eyes were opened to the snare into which he had fallen. He had been guilty of a blunder, he would not call it a sin, which he had formerly blamed harshly in others. He, a chief member of the church, a deacon, had entered into marriage with a worldly woman.

John Morley's creed was colored by his gloomy temperament. He began to look upon Rose, whom he had made his nearest and dearest companion, as a soul which still walked in darkness, under the tyranny of Satan; and whose destiny was an eternal separation from all goodness and happiness. The gayety and charms of his young wife began to make his heart ache. He saw her treading mirthfully along the path leading to ruin and perdition. The possibility of eternal punishment, which he had calmly and philosophically considered from a distance, was brought into his own home, he had himself taken it to his heart; it was the only dowry his wife had brought him. In the quiet of his room this thought presented itself to him with innumerable and stinging variations--that the voice which he heard singing and babbling about his house would one day wail in hopeless anguish, and that the heart which he had won for himself would be pierced through with unutterable and unavailing repentance.

It is no marvel that John Morley set himself with his whole heart and mind to the task of enlightening and converting this beloved, but lost, soul. He argued with his wife; he read to her; he prayed for her. He called in the minister, as he would have called in a physician had she been stricken with some malady. Rose was frightened at first, and yielded readily to tears. But after a while she grew indignant, and then weary. Never before had it been suggested to her that anything was amiss in her. She had been christened and confirmed, and had been a communicant of her church. She ran over the Commandments, and found that she had kept them from her youth up. Certainly if she stood in any kind of danger the whole world was full of souls who were in equal, if not greater, peril. All this commotion was the result of having married an austere and narrow-minded man, who first shut her out from all the pleasures and enjoyments of her age, and then surrounded her with imaginary terrors. She began to harden herself against him; and resolved to bring up Hester after a fashion opposed to the strict rule of her father.

If there was any influence which could have won over the worldly spirit of Rose Morley to the grave but peaceful religion into whose sweet safety John Morley vainly strove to drive her, it would have been the simple faith of the child, who knew nothing of the technical phrases of any creed. Like the child Christ, Hester both asked and answered questions in such a manner as to startle and trouble the giddy mind of her young stepmother. But how could this gay and thoughtless girl help growing weary of her monotonous life, with a husband always burdened with spiritual anxieties for her, and a child who cared less for the plays of childhood than for the thoughts and pursuits of older years? She found herself altogether out of her element--a mere butterfly, which had flown heedlessly into a damp and chilly cave, where it could only fold its wings, and lose the brilliant hours of the summer which was swiftly passing away. The merry laugh and the tinkling of music ceased in the house; her step grew languid, and her voice low; the blue eyes were dimmed, and the cheeks faded; but John Morley saw in the change only what he wished to see--the pain and travail of a soul which was struggling into life.

Mr. Waldron's parliamentary duties deprived the church at Little Aston of his presence, and that of his daughter, during a considerable portion of each year. The church and the minister were perhaps a little more at their ease during their absence; but they felt all the increased importance of their personal attendance at the chapel, and their return was anxiously looked forward to. It had become a point of etiquette for Mr. Watson to proceed at once to Aston Court as soon as the rumor of their arrival reached his ears, in order to congratulate himself and them upon their reunion with the little church of which they were the most conspicuous pillars.

They had come down from London upon the commencement of the long autumnal recess, and Mr. Watson set out the next morning upon his visit of homage. Aston Court was about a mile from Little Aston, but most of the road lay through the fine old park which surrounded the newly-built mansion. Mr. Waldron was a utilitarian, and had sold off the deer which had belonged to the former owner, and divided his park into regular divisions, for the grazing of cattle and the growth of hay. The new house was plain, square, and massive, flanked by two smaller, but equally formal, wings. The windows of plate glass were of uniform size, distributed along the front of the building at even distances, and one large entrance door, with a portico, stood in the exact centre of the ground floor. The garden stretching before it was laid out in long, straight borders of the same breadth and length; and the trees separating it from the park were kept well clipped. The usual reception-room which was the dining room of the mansion, was a large handsome apartment, but heavy and dull. Its principal decoration consisted of two life-size portraits of Luther and Melancthon, excellently painted; the former hard, acute, and intrepid; the latter soft and feminine, with mournful blue eyes which seemed weary of gazing upon life. There was also above the fireplace a richly illuminated and gilded testimonial, signed by a thousand Nonconformists,--inscribed to David Waldron in gratitude for his eminent services in the House of Commons in defence and advancement of the cause of Nonconformity. The middle of this apartment was filled by a long wide table, similar to those seen in committee rooms, and covered with dark leather; a number of leather-covered chairs were ranged along the walls. Curtains of deep crimson damasks, always drawn a little over the window, shed a solemn light into the room--a twilight which was not mournful gloom, but rather a wealthy and grand obscurity.

It was into this reception-room that the minister was ushered. It was Saturday morning, and on the next day Mr. Waldron and his daughter would occupy the large curtained pew in the corner of the chapel, which was appropriated to their use. Miss Waldron was seated at the table, a small insignificant person to look at, but the daughter of David Waldron, M.P. She received her pastor with mingled fervor and condescension, and invited him to a seat beside her. Mr. Waldron soon joined them, and a close conversation, a sort of religious gossip, about the affairs of the church and its members, ensued.

"Brother Morley is married again, as you know," said Mr. Watson, after some other subjects had been discussed, "and he is beginning to feel sorely troubled about his young wife. She remains the same worldly, thoughtless creature she was before her marriage."

"Ay! ay!" answered Mr. Waldron, shaking his head, "we gave in too soon there. You and I, as well as John Morley, were smitten with the young woman's beauty."

"Father!" interrupted Miss Waldron, in a tone of reproof.

"It is true," continued Mr. Waldron; "I never felt so checkmated in my life as when she appeared suddenly in the very midst of our expostulation with John Morley. But we must get her into the church. There must be ways and means of winning her over. We will put her into Miss Waldron's hands."

Miss Waldron was one of those persons who are never called by their Christian names even by their nearest relatives. It is possible that, in conversation with her, her father or her brother might sometimes address her by it; but it was not known beyond her own family circle. There seems something significant in this suppression of the name by which one is enrolled under the banner of the cross.

"By what means shall I get at this young woman?" asked Miss Waldron, not at all unwilling to undertake the conversion of Rose Morley, and entering into it as a business.

"I scarcely know," answered Mr. Watson, in perplexity.

"There is my Sunday-school class," continued Miss Waldron, "and my Mother's Meeting on Monday, my Wednesday evening Bible Class, and my Saturday night Female Prayer-meeting."

"I am afraid we could not get her to attend any of these," replied the minister.

"Why not?" inquired Miss Waldron.

"She is quite an educated person," he said, timidly, "and has all the manners of a lady. She has been a governess, and plays very well, and can draw. She holds herself rather above the rest of our people. They are a little unpolished, you know."

"I do not see then what can be done in such a case,' said Miss Waldron, with a stiff and chilly air.

" I recollect," said Mr. Waldron, "she has a good deal the manner of a lady and very pretty she is, too. John Morley has a sweet-looking little girl by his first wife; I like to see that child in chapel. Miss Waldron, I think your only way of getting at her will be to call upon her. You might invite her to return your call. It would do you no harm, and, under God's blessing, might do her a great deal of good."

Miss Waldron mused with an impenetrable face.

"Do, my dear young lady," urged the minister eagerly, seeing a possible avenue by which gospel influences might reach Rose Morley's benighted soul; "your rank and position would give you consequence in her eyes; she is a girl to be touched by them."

"Mr. Watson," she said, with some severity, "we belong to different spheres altogether."

"I know you do," he hastened to say.

"And," she continued, lifting her hand to enjoin silence while she finished speaking, "there would be a danger of fostering her pride; but I will be on my guard against that. I do not desire to shrink from any cross, and I will call upon her. What else can be done for her soul may occur to me; and it is possible I may go so far as to invite her here for conversation with me upon her spiritual welfare. But that is in the future. For the present you may leave the young person in my hands."

Mr. Watson bowed, and thought it would be judicious to say no more upon this subject.

"Your son," he said, in a hesitating and deprecating tone, as if anxious to express his interest in him, yet doubtful how the great man would take it, "is all well with Mr. Robert Waldron?"

The father's face clouded at the mention of this name, but there was no anger against the timorous minister is his reply.

"No, no, my friend," he answered, frankly. "I did wrong in sending my boy to Eton and Oxford. There never was a more hopeful lad, full of good intentions and desires, before he went from home. There were as many signs of grace in him as in Miss Waldron; but the saying is fulfilled, 'One shall be taken and the other left.' Yet in part, if not altogether, it is my sin."

"It will be all well with him yet," said the minister, in a gentle tone of encouragement; "our prayers will not be unanswered, though the answer tarry. Is he with you?"

"We expect him, but only for a few days," said Mr. Waldron; "our household ways are too strict for him, and his habits are such as I cannot tolerate under my roof. Yet he is only gay, not vicious, I trust. But let us talk about something else; my son is no pleasant theme to me."

About an hour later, Mr. Watson, passing by John Morley's shop, looked in for a few minutes to announce to him the arrival of the Waldrons and their expected appearance at chapel the next day--intelligence which made so much impression upon John Morley that he remembered to repeat it to his young wife as she sat moping and dull at the tea-table. It came as a little gleam of light from the outer world, and the effect produced by it would have been astounding to the abstracted husband could he have been made aware of it. Rose had retained a lively impression of the great man whom she had seen and spoken to before her marriage; and she had often cast furtive glances at his large, empty pew in the chapel, to which she accompanied her husband twice every Sunday. Mr. Waldron was by far the greatest man she had ever seen.

The next morning Rose made a very careful and elaborate toilette; and even John Morley, in the midst of his anxious Sabbath thoughts of her as one still upon the brink of eternal peril, could not check the pleasant and flattering admiration which her beauty produced in him. He felt inclined to believe, against all reason and revelation, that she was too fair to be doomed to any misery either in this world or the world to come. With her hand resting on his arm, he walked proudly up the old-fashioned street. The close carriage from Aston Court passed them by; and both he and Rose caught the eye and the hurried salutation of the great Mr. Waldron from his seat beside his daughter, who looked neither to the right hand nor to the left. The chapel was better filled than ordinary, and the minister preached with more than usual animation. At the end of the service, while all the congregation were standing up, but hanging back till the owners of Aston Court should take their departure, Mr. Waldron presented Mrs. Morley to his daughter, and said, in a voice loud enough to be heard half through the place, "Miss Waldron intends to call upon you at half-past eleven o'clock precisely on Tuesday morning next."

At half-past eleven o'clock precisely on Tuesday morning, Miss Waldron, attired in a gown of some dark brown stuff, with a brown bonnet and shawl to match, opened the door of John Morley's shop with such a jerk as to set the little bell tinkling furiously. It caused Mrs. Morley to jump up nervously in her costly and tasty drawing-room on the floor above. She had dressed herself and Hester in very becoming and very light morning dresses, of a pale tint, which would not have been unfit for the handsomest room in Aston Court; and, thus prepared, she awaited the announcement of her distinguished visitor. But Miss Waldron positively declined to penetrate farther into a tradesman's abode than the room which opened out of the shop. It was only because a religious conversation might be liable to interruption in the shop itself that she did not insist upon Mrs. Morley receiving her call there, as a protest against the wild supposition that there was anything like equality between them. But Miss Waldron had taken up her cross this morning, and was willing to bear it even into John Morley's back parlor.

Rose entered the dark, dull room to which she had been summoned with a pretty bashfulness, half matronly and half girlish; and Miss Waldron met her with an awkward embarrassment, for fear of this young person feeling too free with her. When the first stiff courtesies had been exchanged, Miss Waldron took her seat uncomfortably upon the edge of a chair, and looked steadily, almost sternly, into the smiling face of Rose Morley.

"I have called upon you," she said, in an exhortatory voice, "at the united request of my father, who is a deacon, and Mr. Watson, who is the pastor of the church at Little Aston. They desired me to see if anything could be done for you. You do not attend any of my meetings, so I have come to see you here."

"I did not know that you had any meetings,' answered Rose, apologetically; "but I do not think I should feel at home in any of them. I was not brought up to going to chapel"

She spoke nervously, and seemed on the verge of shedding tears. Miss Waldron felt satisfied that her very first words had made an impression upon this frivolous object of Mr. Watson's pastoral solicitude.

"Ah!" she said, "you were brought up in the darkness of the Establishment; but now you are brought to the light you ought to love the light. A very eminent minister told me that, by my birth and rank, I am set as a candle upon a candlestick, and not put in a secret place, or under a bushel, that they which come in may see the light."

She paused, and looked down into her satchel with a sigh, as if exhausted with shining too brilliantly; while Rose, puzzled and shy, could not think of anything to say in response, and Hester, from her usual seat in the old arm-chair, listened and looked inquisitively at their visitor.

"Ah! my dear young"--she was about to say "person," but her eyes fell upon Rose's sweet face and elegant dress, and she checked herself, leaving a blank in her address,--" I came here to-day, not out of idle compliment to you or your husband, but to awaken you to the danger of your condition. It has been well said that we who have the bread of life should not only invite our fellow sinners to partake, but should carry it to them and compel them to eat. You are perishing, you are famishing before my eyes for lack of food, and I must force you to take from my hands what will save you. It is a necessity which is laid upon me."

Rose's trouble and perplexity were increased indefinitely by this speech, and she looked from Miss Waldron to Hester, and back again to Miss Waldron.

"I scarcely understand," she said, blushing deeply; "you know I have always lived among Church people, and I never heard any one talk in this manner before. I am sure you are very kind, but I don't understand clearly about the bread and the light. I have been confirmed, and I used to take the Sacrament sometimes; always at Christmas and Easter. I am very stupid I know, but I scarcely understand you."

"Do you feel no unsatisfied cravings of your immortal soul ?" asked Miss Waldron.

"I don't know," answered Rose, with increasing shamefacedness; "There are a good many things I am not satisfied with. We never have any friends to come in and see us, and we never go out anywhere, except to Mr. Watson's. I expected to be a great deal happier, and more free, when I was married; but I am not so. Mr. Morley has no taste for company, and I am shut up here day after day till I feel more lonely than I could tell you."

"But do you not feel the load of your sins?" pursued Miss Waldron.

"I am sure I'm not very sinful," she said, pouting a little; "I'm not idle, or ill-tempered, or cross. Little Hetty knows that. Oh, no! Miss Waldron, I don't break the Sabbath, or steal, or kill, or--or anything else that breaks the Commandments. No; if I had any sins I would own them. But I am only silly. Yes; I know I am not the clever person Mr. Morley thought me before he married me; and he is disappointed, and I am very dull; I could not bear it but for little Hetty. Little Hetty, my darling, come and kiss me this minute."

In the presence of this strange visitant, who eyed her so coldly and rigidly, the poor, silly, little soul of Rose Morley felt a sudden need of having the warm arms of the child round her neck, and her fond young lips pressed to her mouth. Hester slipped down from her chair, and kissed her stepmother affectionately; then standing beside her, she turned her face towards Miss Waldron.

"Indeed she does not understand,' she said, quaintly and confidentially; "we two have talked about it often and often, and she does not feel like being a very great sinner. We know we are, because we've been taught it over and over again; but she does not. If we hadn't been taught it so often, we shouldn't have believed it all in a minute. You wouldn't believe you were the chief of sinners if nobody had taught you so, would you?"

A dull red flush suffused Miss Waldron's cheek and brow as she listened to Hester's explanation of her stepmother's benighted state. She could not meet the clear frank gaze of the child.

"I was once a sinner," she answered, "when I was a little girl like you; but I became a member of the church before I was much older than you are. Ever since I have had one single object in life--the good of my fellow-creatures."

She remained silent for a minute or two, with closed eyelids; while Hester, stroking her stepmother's hand gently, looked with a child's steady gaze into Miss Waldron's face. Rose Morley felt more bewildered and embarrassed than ever; and dismissed from her mind all idea of offering her guest any refreshment.

"I am going now to my tract district," said Miss Waldron, recalling herself to the present moment. "I trust you will think over seriously what I have said to you; and may the thorns not choke the good seed. Yours is a very interesting case. I have here a small book, written by myself, which gives an account of a young woman who died of a broken heart, but whom I visited on her deathbed, and brought to repentance. I will present it to you, Mrs. Morley. I am about to order a book from your husband, which you can bring down to Aston Court yourself, when it arrives. It will be a nice walk for you and Hester; and we can converse again upon this subject. I am always at home till eleven o'clock in the morning, for I employ two hours after breakfast in reading and meditation."

She rose to take her leave, offering her hand condescendingly to Mrs. Morley, who was in a flutter of amazement and timidity. If there was any doubt as to Rose's silliness there could be none as to the sweetness of her temper. She could pout a little, and she lost her buoyancy in the dull atmosphere of her new home; but there was no canker of ill-humor or pride in her nature. She was quite unconscious of any impertinence in her visitor, and was perfectly willing to carry anything down to Aston Court for her. In her simple heart she gave Miss Waldron credit for being as saintly as she claimed to be; and with a real hope that she might find in her a guide and friend, who would make clear to her the mysteries of her husband's creed, she looked forward eagerly to the opportunity of meeting with her again.

Whether Hester or Rose Morley felt the most childish pleasure in the prospect of a visit to Aston Court it would be difficult to say. The latter, with her sweet temper and imperturbable self-complacency, could not be sensitive to any impertinence which did not take the form of an open insult; so that she looked forward with delight to the moment she would find herself received upon any terms in the mansion of Mr. Waldron. Hester had been there two or three times at the annual treat of the Sunday scholars, and her imagination had been struck with the larger dimensions and greater magnificence of the house as compared with her own home, which she so rarely quitted.

The memorable morning came--a soft morning towards the end of September, with a fine and tender film of mist hanging about the autumnal trees, and hiding the distant prospect. Already the dark green of the foliage, which had grown almost sombre with the summer's sultry heat, was beginning to brighten with the tints of autumn. A thick, fine dew spangled the grass. The shadows cast by the trees were less clear and sharp than when the sun had shone through a drier atmosphere. There was a brisker activity among the birds, who no longer screened themselves from the heat amidst the innumerable leaves, but fluttered busily about; while the rooks from their rookery amidst the trees which surrounded Aston Court were winging their way in battalions towards the corn-fields, many of which were already cleared of their harvest sheaves. Here and there, from among the short stubble, started up a covey of birds, with a whirr of wings and a swift flight out of danger; while the hares crept timidly along the tall grass, which had shot up again in the rich soil of the park since the hay harvest in June.

To Rose and Hester, coming from the dusty heart of the town, which was nearly as close and crowded as the centre of some populous city, this park was a very garden of Eden; and they entered it with buoyant steps. The face of John Morley's young wife had put on its sweetest smile and fairest grace. There was not a line upon it to betray the weariness and growing discontent she felt with her dull life. In fact she did not feel it dull at that moment, and she was the creature of the moment. Her husband, and the new home of which she was mistress, were as completely blotted out of her mind as though they had no existence. The world consisted only of herself and Hester, and this beautiful park, bathed in the soft light of a September sun. She sang aloud and blithely as she trod lightly along the path, with Hester, as happy as herself, tripping at her side.

Suddenly Rose Morley stopped with an exclamation of surprise, and with a movement as if she were about to take flight--a pretty and graceful movement which, with her heightened color and parted lips, lent to her an additional charm at a moment when an additional charm was not needed. They had just turned a bend in the drive, which was hidden by a cluster of trees, and came unexpectedly upon a young man, strolling idly along with a gun upon his shoulder. Though he wore a velveteen shooting jacket and thick boots, and had no gloves on, he had an air of ease and rank, almost amounting to dignity, which often characterises those who have never been in a dependent position. He was handsome, and his appearance was well cared for. His face resembled a little that of Mr. Waldron; but he was only twenty-two years old, and his expression was more self-satisfied and careless than that of the busy great man. It said, as plainly as expression could say, that he did not like trouble in any guise. His motto would be, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!"

"Rose!" exclaimed this young man, in an accent of wonder, as he came face to face with Mrs. Morley; and the next instant he stretched out his hands, and caught hers in them, as if to prevent her taking the flight which her movement seemed to threaten.

"Robert! oh, Robert!" she answered with a bright smile and blush upon the face she lifted up to him, in an attitude of childish and forgetful delight, while he spoke again in quiet and hurried tones.

"Whatever in the wide world brings you here?" he asked, and a fine ear might have detected a slight tone of vexation in his voice. "It is two years since we bade one another farewell forever at Oxford, and I fancied that you were still there. Are you angry with me yet, Rose? But no; you are too good, too amiable, to be angry long. You were never angry with me, I remember, when my behavior was worst. Rose, I never met such a dear girl as you!"

It seemed to strike him that he had never met with any girl as pretty, for he fastened his eyes upon her face, and his own assumed an air of pleasure and satisfaction.

"Upon my word," he continued, taking one of her gloved hands again in his, "you are prettier than ever, Rose. There is some change in you. What is it? You have lost that little governess primness I used to tease you about, which never sat well upon your face. And your dress is more tasty than it used to be. Have you come into a fortune? Has that rich uncle you told me of died, and made you his heiress? Tell me what wind has blown you into this part of the country?"

"I am married," said Mrs. Morley, with downcast eyes.

"Married!" repeated the young man, an exclamation which he followed by a low, long whistle, that brought his dogs bounding about him, but he kicked them away with something of peevishness and irritation in his manner. "Married, Rose!" he repeated, gazing into her conscious face. "Ah! well, we were no more than friends, you remember; and we can be that still. And who is the good man?" He tried to speak in an easy tone of indifference, but there was an air of chagrin upon his face, which escaped the downcast eyes of Mrs. Morley. She blushed, and stammered; but at last was compelled to speak reluctantly.

"He is a very good man," she answered; "his name is John Morley."

"John Morley the bookseller!" ejaculated the stranger. "Why, Rose, where are your old ambitions flown to? Do you forget that two years ago nothing short of some thousands a year would satisfy you, and I had not that to offer you? I, a poor spendthrift, with a hard-hearted father, and not even an entailed estate, so that he could cut me off with a shilling if he chose. Oh! what fools we were!" He spoke in mingled mockery and regret, with a smile of bitterness, which it was impossible for Rose to comprehend; for catching the brighter glitter of his eyes, and the curl of his lip, she smiled back again gaily.

"Ah!" she said, with one of her most childish pouts, "but nobody else cared a straw about me; and I might have remained a governess all my life."

"Perhaps so," he answered coldly; "but are you really the Mrs. John Morley I am running away from? Miss Waldron said at breakfast she expected you this morning, and I made haste to take myself off; never thinking--who could think?--that it was my old friend, Rose. We were no more than friends, were we? Do you remember our stolen walks together, when everybody believed you were safe in bed? Ah, Rose! you were not made to be a governess."

"No, I was not," she said; "oh! I remember well, But what brings you here, Robert? Are you visiting at Aston Court?"

"Ah!" he said, with some embarrassment, "you only knew me as Robert Hall; but my full name is Robert Hall Waldron!"

He tried to speak as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world to suppress one's chief name; and Rose, who was not critical, accepted the explanation with no other feeling than one of surprise.

"Then you are. Mr. Waldron's son!" she exclaimed. "Why you made me believe he was a shocking, cruel old ogre! Oh! for shame, sir! I have seen him, and spoken to him, and I like him very much; and I am sure, quite sure and certain, that he likes me. He was at our house yesterday, and he would make Mr. Morley call me to speak to him and he said he should like to see me sometimes at Aston Court, and he hoped Miss Waldron would be my friend. There now! And you always told me he was such a dreadful, bad, hard-hearted old Turk!"

"Ah, Rose!" said Robert Waldron, "you are the same sweet-tempered creature as ever. I could swear to that gay voice of yours amidst a thousand--so clear, and merry, and sweet. I should like you to speak to me for ever. Do you sing as you used to do? Will you sing for us at Aston Court? It will not be so dull there now you are near us. You must let me come and see you in your own home, or I shall never believe you are married. I cannot feel that you are John Morley's wife."

"But I am," she answered, with a clear little laugh "and I have a daughter, too, Mr. Robert Hall Waldron. This is my very own little daughter, sir! Hester Morley."

He had not been altogether unconscious of the child's presence before, for it had imparted to him a feeling of more ease and freedom in this unexpected meeting with Rose. But now he looked at her more attentively. The grave and noble face of the child was full of wonder, which had something of a vague sadness in it; and her large earnest eyes were raised to him with an expression of innocent reproach. He felt in an instant that he had wounded her, and it was no part of his nature to hurt any one intentionally. There was no malice in his temperament. He had spoken perhaps slightingly of her father--a slight which Rose had not felt, and he wished to efface the painful impression.

"Hester Morley," he repeated, as if long familiar with the name, "the little girl I have seen sometimes at chapel; Ah! I know you again, you see. Your father is quite a friend of mine, as well as your new mamma. Do you love her very much?"

"Yes, very much," answered Hester, earnestly; "and my father loves her dearly as well. We are a great deal happier than we were before."

She spoke with a childish fervor which touched the impressible nature of Robert Waldron, and for a moment made him feel hardly innocent in his interview with John Morley's silly young wife. Perhaps it would be better to let this first encounter be the last. Yet no harm could come of their intercourse except a little dissatisfaction and discontent on the part of Rose. There had been no positive love-making between them in the old times; but now that she was married, to a tradesman too, she might possibly compare him with her husband, to the disadvantage of the latter. Still, he did not quite like to lose sight of an old friend; and his own home was very dull. The decision was too much trouble for him, and he resolved to cast it upon a chance. If this grave and innocent child gave him permission to enter their secluded home, he would take it as a sign that no harm could come of it. He would not for the world disturb the peace of John Morley or his wife; but he could not quite make up his mind to see no more of Rose. Hester should decide it.

"May I come to see you at your own home, little Hester?" he asked, with his most pleasant smile and voice.

"Would you like to come very much?" she asked, with a wistful look into his eyes.

"Very much," he answered.

"Then we shall like you to come," answered Hester, holding out her hand to him, as if to assure him of a welcome. Robert Waldron clasped the little fingers in his own, with a strange feeling of reverence for the child's faith in him; and when he released them he took off his hat with an unaccustomed deference, and bidding them good-bye, pursued his way along the park, while Hester and Rose Morley went on to Aston Court.

Miss Waldron received them with a distant approach to cordiality, which was more than enough to satisfy Rose. She enjoyed being in the spacious rooms, with a wide garden and park stretching before the windows. There was nothing narrow, confined, or sordid in this place of wealth; and her spirit expanded in it. She felt more at home, even here in Miss Waldron's austere presence, than in the close, dark, built-in rooms of her husband's house. Happily, both she and Hester gave satisfaction, upon the whole, to their patroness. In the amiable yielding of Rose she saw material for moulding a Christian after her own model; and Hester would soon bud into an infant prodigy of grace. Mr. Waldron came in before they left; and Miss Waldron graciously seconded his invitation to come again soon to Aston Court. Naturally, the fresh charm of Rose Morley's pretty face had more effect upon the elderly hard-worked man than upon his daughter; but both were well pleased to have her appear occasionally to relieve the tedium of a country life.

The intercourse between Miss Waldron and Mrs John Morley ripened into a kind of intimacy which continued crude and raw at its nearest approach to mellowness; a sour grape which would have set on edge any other teeth than those of the dull and weary young wife. It was the first winter of her married life, and she seized eagerly upon every chance and every excuse for going to Aston Court. It was at least an opportunity for displaying the too costly and elegant dresses which were lost in the seclusion of her own home. Miss Waldron sharply reproved her for them, and Rose meekly promised to buy no more when they were done with; but in order to wear them out, it was needful to wear them, and Miss Waldron was compelled to acknowledge the logic of her argument. Mr. Waldron liked to see the pretty girl about his house, and to hear her pleasant voice, now speaking, now singing, just as he willed; while Robert, in sheer idleness and without thought, loitered at home, instead of going off on some autumn tour as usual, satisfied with the little ripple of excitement which the near vicinity of Rose kept stirring gently about him.

Nor was John Morley at all discontent with his wife's new friendships. They had restored her old brightness and buoyancy, and they afforded her a pleasant society without entailing upon him the dreaded necessity of receiving and entertaining guests in his own house; for it is needless to say, that it entered into the imagination of no one to conceive the idea of Miss Waldron visiting familiarly under the tradesman's roof. Robert Waldron came often; and Mr. Waldron, whenever he had business to transact with his brother deacon, no longer tarried in the shop, but entered the room behind; when by opening the door, and calling in sonorous tones for Mrs. Morley and Hester, he was always sure of securing a few minutes' lively chat, such as had a wonderful flavor for the dry, hard mind of the puritanical man. But Miss Waldron came never. Still, John Morley was not disturbed. He was too democratic to trouble himself with questions of superiority and inferiority in the social scale. He believed, and he had no reason to believe otherwise, that Miss Waldron was a young woman of eminent piety; all the church said so, and every word and look of her own asserted it. She was interesting herself in the conversation of his young wife, so beloved, yet so worldly, whose condition weighed heavily upon his spirit, and caused him hours of painful and accusing thought. He thanked God fervently for this intimacy; and a brighter glow of brotherly feeling toward the Waldrons was kindled in his heart.

About this time, also, there were new hopes cherished by Mr Waldron for his son. There had been such hopes before, brooded over and fostered in secret; but while they were still callow and unfledged, some fresh outbreak of Robert's had always caused them to perish. He was not vicious; he had never yet been guilty of any flagrant crime; and in the eyes of most fathers he would have seemed a sufficiently promising son. But Mr. Waldron, like John Morley, could not be content with anything short of a decided change from the careless freaks of youth to the complete devotion of himself to religion. He had put both his children under a forcing frame, and his daughter had bloomed into the blossom he had hoped for, though in his secret soul he marvelled at the scanty sweetness and beauty of the growth. But it was not so with his son. Instead of becoming the strong, staunch dissenter, he wished for, he had developed into a lax indifferentism, composed partly of indolence and partly of disgust. He had always been anxious to abridge his visits at home, and prolong those listless sojourns abroad which he professed to enjoy. But this autumn he seemed in no hurry to quit Aston Court. He submitted himself to the rigorous rules of his father's house, was quiet and thoughtful; attended chapel regularly every Sunday morning, and not unfrequently in the evening. In fact, his conduct was blameless, except that he would not listen to the exhortations and reproofs of his sister. In his secret heart Mr. Waldron foretasted the joy which the angels in heaven would experience over his son's repentance.

The visits of Robert Waldron to John Morley's house were ostensibly paid to Hester. The child attached herself to him with a very frank and very warm affection; and his easy nature, which found great delight in the admiration and love of others, returned her fondness. Never did a man--he was scarcely more than a boy yet--drift more aimlessly into a strong current of temptation. He very seldom saw John Morley, who kept close to his business; but Rose's drawing-room became his most frequent resort.

It was a Sunday evening in the depth of winter, with a keen, bitter wind whistling round the house, and moaning under the gables, and with a thick carpet of snow scarcely trodden, lying in the narrow street. John Morley was gone to chapel without his wife, who had been slightly ailing all the week; and Hester had stayed at home to be her companion. Both the servants were gone out also. Though she was really somewhat unwell, never had Rose look so pretty as this night, with a lace cap half covering her fair hair, and a bright-colored shawl hanging gracefully about her, and forming a strong contrast to the unusual delicacy of her face. The drawing-room, where she was sitting with Hester, was well lit up; and a passerby, if there were any, could not fail to notice the brightness of the light within, if he did not hear the tones of the piano which Rose was playing, not being ill enough to give up that pleasure. Apparently some one had seen the light, and heard the music, for there was a knock, twice repeated, at the house door.

Hester lighted a candle, and went downstairs alone, for she had promised her father faithfully not to let Rose be exposed to any cold air during his absence. The key was hard to turn in the lock, and she had to put both her hands and all her strength to it; but at last it yielded, and she opened the door cautiously. A tall figure, well wrapped up, and sprinkled with snow, stood upon the door sill; but Hester's momentary alarm was quickly pacified by hearing a friendly and familiar voice.

"Is your father at home, dear little Hetty?" inquired Robert Waldron.

"Oh, no!" answered Hester, still holding the door in her hand, and keeping the untimely visitor on the outside; "he went to chapel nearly half an hour ago, and he will not come home till late, because there is some meeting after the sermon. Do you want to see him very much, Mr. Robert?"

"Not particularly," he said; "only Miss Waldron, who is not able to come up to chapel to-night, told me to inquire how your mother is. Is she at home, my dear Hetty?"

"Yes," replied Hester; "did you not hear her playing before you knocked?"

"I suppose she is too poorly for me to come in and see her?" he said.

"Oh, no!" she cried eagerly, "if you'd please to come in. Only you must take off your great coat, for it is covered with snow, and you must not touch her with your cold hands. My father never touches her when his hands are cold."

She had admitted him into the old-fashioned entrance, which had a kitchen grate, and many doors entering into it, with the staircase running up one side of it; and she had already turned the key again in the lock, while Robert stood twirling his hat upon his hand, with an aspect of hesitating irresolution. Hester, after locking the door, approached to take from him his hat and coat.

"You are sure I shall do no harm by seeing your mamma. Hetty?" he asked, again leaving the decision of his conduct to the unconscious answer of the child.

"Oh, no!" she said gayly; "she is not so very poorly and she will be very glad to see you, and so shall I. Please to follow me upstairs."

She tripped up lightly before him, holding the candle high above her head, and looking back now and then with a half-childish, half-womanly smile. He was in Rose's drawing-room, speaking to her, while Hester held both his hands to prevent his touching her, before he had well collected his thoughts. He sank into the seat Hester placed for him near the fire, feeling himself in a kind of dream, in which his mind or conscience dare not stir, for fear of dispelling the fleeting vision. He was afraid to think; but from time to time he glanced, almost timidly, at the sweet pallor of Rose's face, and the clear but gentle lustre of her eyes. How much more lovely she was than when he had known her three years ago! They had not much to say to one another; but Rose sighed at times, and then his eyes were raised to her face with an air of perplexity and sadness. He took Hester upon his knee, and read to her that charming child's book, "The Story without an End." Though he read well, he was not conscious of a word beyond the title; but he knew that Rose was listening; and Hester's arm round his neck, and her soft cheek upon his shoulder, made him feel weaker than a reed, with some subtle and clinging influence winding about him he knew not how. The sound of his own voice was the only sound that could be heard; for if there were any footsteps in the streets on a Sunday night at this hour of Divine service, they fell noiselessly upon the snow. Suddenly, upon the utter quiet, there came the sharp and noisy bang of a door falling to in some part of the house; and Robert started nervously from his chair, and looked about him as if for some means of escape, or place of concealment.

"Why it is only a door slamming somewhere," said Hester, with a little laugh of amusement; "I must go and shut it, or else it will be frightening you again."

"Shall I come with you?" asked Robert.

"No, thank you," answered the child, assuming a fine tone of superiority, "I am not frightened. What is there to be afraid of? Besides, I must go and see that the kitchen fire is not gone out, and you must not go there with me."

She lighted a candle, and went out into the dark passage, screening the scarcely lit flame with her hand. Downstairs ran her small, nimble feet; and then Hester almost uttered a shrill scream of terror. In the middle of the lobby stood a bent and spare figure, more sprinkled with snow than Robert had been, and with a faint halo of light shining about it from a little lamp, which was on the point of dying out. In another moment she had recognized Lawson, whose sunken eyes were glancing restlessly around him, as he drew off his heavy boots, and set them cautiously on one side.

"Is that you, Lawson?" asked Hester, her heart still beating fast with fear.

"Yes, it's me," he answered; "I'm uneasy to-night, and I came down to see that all was safe. Let us look in here first."

Upon the other side of the lobby was a door into Mr. Morley's own room; and he stole noiselessly across the quarried floor, and opened it without a sound. There was the light only of a low fire, of embers glowing without flame, and everything looked dim and indistinct by it. He looked around the room eagerly and keenly, and then turned to Hester, who had followed him closely.

"Miss Hester," he whispered, in thick and hurried tones, "I thought I should find your mother here!'

"She is upstairs in the drawing-room," she answered, "only Mr. Robert is there, too."

"No, not her! not her!" he said impatiently, "I mean your own mother. Don't you know, deary, I've never set eyes on her since John Morley brought a strange woman into the house--never? Though my work all goes wrong, and my hand has lost its cunning, she never comes back to show me what to do. But to-night, while I was at chapel, it came all at once into my mind that I should find her sitting here alone in the house, crying and sobbing, with her face hidden in her hands. I fancied she'd be there in her own place; but maybe she is upstairs in my work-room."

"But didn't you know she was ill?" asked Hester, not venturing to call Rose "mother" in Lawson's hearing.

"No. Ill is she?" he said eagerly; "perhaps she'll die. Your mother died easily, Miss Hester. But I'm going upstairs. Will you come with me, little one?"

He called her "little one" in a tone of such strange and pathetic tenderness that Hester put her hand in his, though she was trembling with an undefined fear. They went out together into the snowy court first, to look up to the lattice window in the high gable. The snow hung about it with a ghostly gleam, and the moon shining wanly upon its diamond panes made them glimmer as if with some feeble, unearthly light within. Lawson lifted Hester in his arms and mounted the outer staircase, which led to the old printing-office. Passing through this they came to the foot of the attic steps, winding up into the pale darkness above. Still carrying her in his arms, Lawson ascended them swiftly but soundlessly, as if fearful of scaring away some timid and easily startled presence. The room was full of light from the moon, which shone directly upon the casement--a visionary light, in which the most familiar objects assume an unreal aspect. There stood his press, and his tools growing red with rust; and there the shelves of books, whose gilded bindings shone palely in the gloom. But the room was empty. There was no shadowy figure, sitting alone, with its tearful face hidden in the hands. Hester looked around with mingled dread and love of this unknown mother, so often felt to be present by the man whose heart she could feel beating strongly with anticipation. But neither of them could detect the form they sought in the dimness; and Lawson put down Hester and walked to and fro in the attic, with gestures of lamentation and despair.

"If she would only come again!" he cried, wringing his hands; "if she would but bring me back the cunning of my right hand! But I have lost it, and nobody can re store it to me, save her. Oh! come back! For the sake of your little child, come back!"

A fantastic paroxysm took possession of the usually silent and reticent man. He fell upon his knees, and prayed with groans and cries and strong wrestlings of the body, as if he could prevail by those. He called aloud upon the shadow to return and to take form again before his eyes. He bemoaned the loss of his art, as if it had gone from him forever, while Hester stood at his side, terrified yet brave, willing to welcome this vision, if his prayers should be heard and granted. But no answer came. The pale light fell steadily into the room, but it revealed no apparition. Lawson's voice grew faint, and his sobs feeble; but no spectral messenger came to assauage his passion; and at last, worn out and exhausted he clasped Hester's hand again in his own nerveless fingers, and descended the stairs in silence.

Upon the second floor there was a door of communication between the work-room and the rest of the house, and through this Lawson and Hester passed. A thin line of light from beneath the drawing-room door shone across the farthest end of the passage, and caught Lawson's eye.

"Miss Hester," he whispered, "just let me look into the other room, where the light is--the grand new room, you know."

"She is there," answered Hester, with a shrewd look upon her white face.

"Ah! but your mother may be there as well, who knows?" persisted Lawson: "You open the door quietly, and I'll peep in over your shoulder. I saw her as plain as could be only an hour ago."

Hester led him up to the door of the room, where Rose Morley was sitting, and turned the handle with the utmost caution. They gazed in together, unheard and unseen. To Hester's surprise, Robert Waldron was no longer there; but Rose sat in her chair before the fire, with her face hidden in her hands, and sobbing in deep drawn sobs. Lawson caught his breath, and grasped Hester's hand in an unconscious gripe of iron; but she did not utter any cry. They stole downstairs again into the lobby, and then Hester saw upon his face an expression of complete bewilderment and perplexity. Once more he peered into John Morley's dimly-lighted room; and then, shaking his head doubtfully, he opened the outer door, through which the snow came drifting in large flakes, and still with a troubled look upon his face he bade the child good-night, and went out into the quiet street.

Again the sunshine had forsaken the home of John Morley, or only visited it in uncertain gleams of fitful brightness. There were seasons when his young wife sought his dull room as if it were a safe refuge, or a holy sanctuary; and sat there silent and inactive in the great antique chair, where Hester's mother had been wont to sit and watch him with fond eyes, while he worked among his beloved books. Once or twice, in his absence of mind, he had spoken to her without looking up, and called her by the other name, still cherished and familiar in his thoughts, and then Rose had started up quickly, and fled from the room, while he had been all unconscious of the blunder of his tongue. It was a very troubled though profound love which John Morley felt for this girl, so much younger both in life and heart than himself; but it struck deeper roots into his nature every day, in part because it was so troubled. Hester's mother had been his equal, and they had confronted the difficulties of life side by side; mutual helpers, with the self-same thoughts and the self-same hope in the future. This love, which had possessed the equality of friendship, had been a strength to him--a serene satisfaction, which had been all-sufficing while it was his, but the loss of which had robbed him of even his natural energy and content. But for Rose he took the position of a protector and guardian; he stood before her to shield her from the unknown ills of the future. There was a charm and sweetness in this which had been lacking in the more equal marriage with Hester's mother. Even his anxiety about her spiritual welfare,--a little exaggerated by the speculative questions into which his mind naturally ran,-- invested her with deeper and more fascinating interest; and Rose herself would have been startled, and would have shrunk from him in dread, if she could have looked into her husband's heart, and seen how she engrossed his thoughts, his hopes, and his prayers.

She was standing behind his chair one morning, looking down, he could not see how sadly, upon his bowed head, where white lines were mingling with the dark hair. She laid her hand upon it at last, softly and reverently; and as he turned smilingly to her, he caught the expression, half sorrowful and half frightened, imprinted upon her fair face.

"Why, what ails you, my dear?" he asked, putting his arm about her, while Rose sank down upon her knees beside him; "what is the matter with you, my Rose?"

"Nothing, nothing," she sobbed; "only I am such a silly young thing, and you are so wise and good! There is such a dreadful gulf between us two; and it will always be there, forever, and ever, and ever! I shall always be silly and wicked, and you will always be wise and good. Oh, why did you ever marry such a creature as me?"

"Why?" said John Morley earnestly; "because I loved you with my whole heart; and I love you still more, Rose, if that be possible, now you have been my wife for more than a year. But it was selfish of me--a man's selfishness; and I do not know how to make you happy now you belong to me."

"No, no, no!" cried Rose, "it was not selfish. It was good, too good, of you! You said--or you might have said--to yourself, 'Here is a poor, giddy, thoughtless butterfly, just dancing and idling her precious life away; and I, a wise and good man, will take it into my own house, and give all my wisdom and goodness to the task of making it like myself now and in the world to come.' But you cannot; no, you cannot. I ought never to have been the wife of a good man! I ought never, never to have become the mother of little Hetty !"

"Yes, you ought," answered John Morley, stroking the soft hair and the burning cheek which would have dried up any tears, had any fallen upon it; "my house is not the same since you entered it, Rose. You have made us happy, Hester and me; more happy than we can tell you. Is there anything that troubles you specially, my love? Tell me, and if it be within my power the trouble shall be removed. And if it be not, we will pray God together either to take it away, or sanctify it for your good."

"No, there is nothing," answered Rose, kissing his hand again and again, "unless you could take me away from myself, unless you could make me somebody else but the silly, giddy, wicked, good-for-nothing creature I am! If you could only make me like Hester's mother! If you could only make me like Hester!"

Her voice died away in sobs, and her tears came in torrents now, while John Morley, distressed and bewildered, could only soothe her, as he would have soothed a child, till the first hysterical paroxysm had passed over, and he could place her in the old easy-chair, and hasten to bring some water for her to drink. She was very quiet and subdued during the rest of the day, and remained in the gloomy room with her husband, smiling faintly when ever she caught his anxious eye; but at other times regarding his grave face, and his hair streaked with grey, with an expression of mingled pity and dread.

It was only in the evening, when Hester's bedtime came, that she quitted her husband's presence to go upstairs to Hester's room; not to help her to undress, for the child had been long accustomed to do everything for herself, but to sit watching her, and waiting to kiss her when she was in bed. When Hester knelt down to pray, Rose bowed her head, and clasped her hands, as if joining in the child's inaudible petitions: a sign of grace which would have caused the heart of her husband to throb for joy. She laid her head down upon Hester's pillow with her lips close to her ear, after having put out the light, and spoke to her in the darkness.

"Little Hetty," she said, "would you rather live with good people, or with people you love dearly, dearly?"

Hester answered deliberately, after pausing to consider the question:

"I don't think I should love any but good people,' she said.

"But you love me," pursued Rose, "and I'm not good. Would you rather have me as I am, or a very good mamma, as good as Miss Waldron?"

"Oh, but you are good," persisted Hester; "and I'd rather live with you ten times better than Miss Waldron, however good she is. But if you're not quite, quite good yet, you've only to ask God."

"I have asked Him," sobbed Rose, "and I'm more wicked than ever. Oh, Hetty! if you had promised to live with somebody you didn't love, and there came afterwards some one you did love with all your heart, and wanted you to live with them, what would you do, little Hetty?"

Rose's cheek was crimson in the darkness, and her eye was burning, while Hester was silent again for a few minutes, coming to a careful judgment upon the case put before her.

"I should be very, very sorry," she answered at last, "but if I'd promised, I would keep my promise."

John Morley's second wife said no more to her little step-daughter; but she gave her a kiss as tender as her own mother could have given. Only had there been a light in the room, Hester would have seen a face wan as death, and blue eyes filled with terror, bending over her; and she would not have fallen asleep so peacefully as she did with pleasant dreams of her new mother!

A few days after this singular conduct on the part of Rose Morley, she received a letter, informing her that a distant relative, residing a long way from Little Aston, was upon the point of death, and wished to see her once more. John Morley opposed no obstacle to the fulfilment of this desire, and gave his wife every assistance in his power. Her arrangements for her absence were very peculiar. She gathered together every small possession of her own, every little trace of her dwelling there, scattered up and down the habitation, and locked them up in the drawing-room, which, as we know, had been renovated and furnished expressly for her own use. In this way there was no vestige left of her late presence in the home, except an ominous and most mournful void. When John Morley entered his chamber for the first time after her departure, he started, with a vague and sudden fright, at its emptiness; and his eyes sought in vain for some token of his young wife. There was the same sense of dreary chilliness as when all the mementoes of Hester's mother had been cleared away from the place which was to know her no more. Throughout the whole house it was the same; there was no hint left that Rose had ever been one of its inmates; except that an ever-growing gloom of absence and abandonment seemed to hang over every apartment. In his undefined uneasiness he thought of comforting himself with a glance at the gay, bright room, which was all hers; but the door did not yield to his touch. It was locked and the key taken away. The servant, who had some secret suspicions of her own, stole to the door, after her master had left it, and put her eye to the key hole. There was no ray of light in the room, though it was full day; it followed therefore, as a natural inference, that Mrs. John Morley had closed the shutters, and drawn the thick curtain, before she carried away the key, to insure no intrusion into her room during her absence.

She had set out early in the morning; and the day, long and dull, dragged heavily past, both for John Morley and Hester. From time to time her husband traced her journey, saying: "Now she is at such a place;" "At this hour she is waiting at such a station." As evening drew on he sat down to write his first letter to her; a tender yet stately letter, with none of the unmeaning expressions which a man of another stamp might have used. It was an epistle fit for publication, choice and elegant in its phrases; but it was no other than the transcript of his own orderly and elevated mind. Being also a religious man, writing to his wife, who would read the letter at the deathbed of a fellow-mortal, he added some thoughts, solemn, earnest, and devout, which surely could not fail to touch the heart of hearts, even of a giddy and careless girl. And his Rose was not that, he said to himself, with a quick and rare moisture of the eyes, as he recalled her kneeling at his side only a few days ago, with her humble confession of unworthiness; and from the very depths of his soul there went up a fresh cry to God, one of thousands, that He would turn the heart of his wife towards himself.

He directed the cover of his letter with a sort of pride in the characters which ran from his pen, "Mrs. John Morley." She bore his name, and belonged to him. The old glow came back as when in former days he had written the same name, though to another person. His wife! Wherever she went, or whoever admired her, she was still Mrs. John Morley. Good man as he was, he felt as much pride in her attractions as a more worldly husband would have done. It was not at all less sweet to him to think of her gaining homage and favor by her beauty and winsome ways. While he was writing to her the house did not seem quite so empty; there was as it were an affirmation that she had been there, and would be there again in a few days. There was a fine pleasure in having to indite one of his letters to her; and above all in addressing it to Mrs. John Morley. The man had a whole world of unconscious egotism in him.

He was called away abruptly from this agreeable duty by the intrusion of some country-folk, who had come to ask his counsel concerning some question which perplexed them. It was no unusual occurrence with him. Next to the rector, who also was a bookish man, and often condescended to enter his shop, though there was a church bookseller living in the Square, John Morley was reckoned the wisest man to be met with for ten miles round the town, whether in questions of law, physic, or religion. He was, moreover, more corteous than a doctor, less crafty than a lawyer, and more liberal than a priest. Whatever might be the vexed topic of the day it was necessary to discuss it with the well-read bookseller, and to see what new light he could throw upon it. It was a homage palatable to John Morley, even when paid to him by gaping rustics. But to-day, even while he listened, and advised, and adjudged, there was a calm sweet under-current of thought, following his young wife in the progress of her day's journey.

When the hour came for closing the shop, it brought also the time appointed for attending a week-night service at his chapel. He posted his letter on the way, with a silent blessing in his heart upon her who should open it. An unusual fervor was kindled in his spirit. He saw, close at hand, the answer to his many prayers. Rose would come back to him, from the solemn death-bed she was gone to witness, changed just as he would wish her to be changed, not in sweetness of temper, nor even in buoyancy of spirits, but weaned from the world, and purged from earthly tastes and longings. He almost regarded this death as being expressly ordained for the conversion of his wife. Wrapped up in the vivid realization of the scene now being enacted before her eyes, the words of the old preacher fell unheeded upon his ears, and when the hour's service was ended he awoke from his reverie with a start of surprise.

Mr. Waldron joined him on his way home, and having some subject of church discipline to discuss, in which they were both interested, he entered the house with him. A tacit and cool intimacy, rather closer than a mere acquaintanceship, had sprung up between them of late, which both would probably have been slow to admit. John Morley on the one hand, a scholarly, s