The next day Mr Lambert, standing at the door of his study with his hands full of papers, called Bryda as she passed.

'Step in a moment, Miss Palmer,' the lawyer said, surveying her with his keen eyes, which gleamed under bushy eyebrows.

As Bryda obeyed and followed Mr Lambert into the room he shut the door.

'Mr Bayfield was here yesterday, as you may be aware.'

'I knew he was in Bristol, sir,' Bryda said, her voice faltering.

'Well, he has consented to await your decision before proceeding to recover the debt which your grandfather is unable to pay.'

'My decision, sir,' Bryda said, with some dignity, 'is made, and can never be altered.'

'Well, well, Bayfield is not the only man who has been taken at first sight with a pretty face. He says, if you will marry him, he will let your grandfather go scot-free. He has told you as much, I believe.'

Bryda's crimson cheeks was sufficient answer, but she said firmly,--

'I told the Squire my decision was made. I will not marry him.'

'That is your own affair, but it seems to me, you'll excuse me for saying so, you are throwing away a good chance. Young Bayfield seems to have got a great deal of practical knowledge in America, and I do not doubt will soon retrieve his fortunes. But he wants ready money, and this three hundred pounds is of importance to him. Still, he will waive his claim, it seems, if you consent to his proposal, and put in the scale with the gold you appear to weigh a good deal more. That is all I have to say. I felt bound to tell you what passed yesterday between me and Mr Bayfield. And, Miss Palmer, pardon me, but do not encourage that apprentice of mine to talk to you. You may find him troublesome. He is half mad, I think, and he does the most preposterous things, aiming the shafts of his so-called wit at those above him in station--his old master at Colston's School for one, and I thrashed him for his pains. I am seriously thinking I must break the indentures and be quit of him, with his rubbish and nonsense about old parchments, wasting his time when he ought to be learning his business. My mother seems very well satisfied with _you_, Miss Palmer, and I hope you will remain with us, unless you give the Squire the preference!' This was said with a laugh which made Bryda's heart swell with indignation as the lawyer bustled off to his office, where Chatterton had been an hour and more before him.

Bryda clasped her hands, and exclaimed,--

'He would not dare to speak to me like this if I were not poor. The apprentice is right, poverty is a curse, though Betty will not have it so; and how shameful of the Squire to speak of private affairs to Mr Lambert--about _me_. No, not even to save poor old grandfather will I have any more to do with him. After all, if the stock is sold, there will be the garden and the poultry and the dairy. I forget, though, if there are no cows there will be no milk--still there will be a roof over grandfather's head, and Silas will stand by him.'

Bryda continued to win favour with Mrs Lambert, and she snatched many an odd half-hour to read, taking a book from the cedar-lined bookcase and reading while Mrs Lambert dosed in her chair, or was engaged with some crony who looked in for a gossip, when Bryda had only eyes for her book, not ears for what was being said by the furthest window of the little parlour.

_The Vicar of Wakefield_ fed Bryda's romance, and Milton fired her enthusiasm by his lofty strain. With the book on her knee, and some fine lace of Mrs Lambert's in her hand, which she was supposed to be darning, Bryda committed to heart 'Lycidas,' and 'L'Allegro,' while the faithful Abdiel in the larger poem became a living personage to her.

Writing to Bet was more difficult to achieve, but she used to kneel at the window seat in her little attic and set down the thoughts of every day as they occurred to her. As the month passed she felt some uneasiness for fear Mr Bayfield should make any further sign.

To take a stroll at a slow and measured pace with Mrs Lambert was one of her duties. Sometimes the old lady would go to the pump-room and drink a glass of the water, and Bryda was quietly amused to watch the gay crowd flitting here and there in the sunshine of the beautiful summer weather.

Sometimes a short cough struck upon her ear, and her heart would go out in sympathy with some hectic invalids who, with the invariable desire of consumptive patients to appear better than they are, would sink exhausted on one of the benches, and then start up again to walk with a gaily dressed beau to the strains of the band playing under the row of trees before the houses.

'She will die before July is out,' Bryda heard someone near her say of a girl who had just recovered from a violent fit of coughing, and was placed in a sedan chair by her mother, resisting it and saying,--

'I had much rather walk. Don't make a fuss, pray.'

'Death so near, and life so sweet,' thought Bryda, and then she recalled the elegy on the dead lamb, and the same shrinking from the unknown and the inevitable oppressed her.

One morning, when the dreaded month had nearly expired, Bryda was dispatched on a message to a shop celebrated for Bath buns, to buy a shilling's worth for the 'tea company' Mrs Lambert expected that afternoon. And she was also to call in at the grocer's and buy some allspice and orange peel for a tasty pudding which Mr Lambert wanted for a supper he was to give to some friends. Bryda looked as fresh as a rose just gathered as she set out on her errand, Mrs Lambert's large leather purse in her hand, and the directions as to her purchases in her mind, which had been repeated at least a dozen times.

'Mind you insist on having the buns puffy at the top. Don't let them press on you those with a sink in the middle where the comfits lie. They are sure to be heavy; and take care you get the narrow blue ribbon from a roll that is not faded outside at the haberdasher's in the College Green.'

'Mrs Lambert ought to think twice before she sends out that girl a-shopping,' Mrs Symes said to Sam the footboy. 'She is a vast deal too dainty to walk Bristol streets alone. I've seen the fellows turn and stare at her as she crosses the square, and as to Chatterton, he has eyes for nothing when she is by. I declare if ever eyes were like evil eyes they are that mad boy's.'

Then Mrs Symes wiped her face with her apron, and said the kitchen was enough to stifle her, proceeded to pursue her scrubbing and cleaning with great vehemence.

Meanwhile Bryda went gaily on her way. She was very susceptible of the circumstances of the moment, and the summer air playing amongst the sails of the ships, as she got to the quay, and the water rippling at their sides, where the sunbeams danced and sparkled, gave her a sense of life and gladness which for the moment made her forget how near she was standing to the day when the Squire would again put before her the alternative of seeing her grandfather's stock sold, and so ruining him for the future as a farmer--or marrying him.

The idea seemed preposterous to her, and she shrank from it with the shrinking of a pure, high-minded girl.

She had finished her purchases, and carefully counted the change in the large leather purse, when the cathedral bells, chiming as she passed, made her think she would go in for the service.

There were not more than half-a-dozen straggling worshippers, and the prayers were made as short as possible by the irreverent fashion in which they were hurried over. But Bryda's ear caught the words of the anthem, which, by the care of the organist, was really the only devotional part of the service.

It was but a fragment from Handel's _Messiah_, but it was well sung, and the words struck home to Bryda's heart.

_As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. For as by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead._

Death, on which she had so often meditated--death, which had for her so much of darkness and fear--death could be changed by Him who had conquered death--'_All be made alive_.'

The beauty of the music and the words acted like a spell on her, and she forgot the passing of time, till, as the half-dozen old men and women tottered away to their homes, she raised her head to see the verger beckoning to her.

'Service over, we clear the church,' he said, and Bryda rose hastily, and with heightened colour went out again into the summer noontide.

CHAPTER X

A LONG RESPITE.

Bryda had nearly reached the entrance to Dowry Square, fearing she might be reprimanded for delay, when her heart beat fast as she recognised the Squire, Mr Bayfield, crossing over it to meet her.

His manner had changed, and he was gentle and even deferential as he bowed low and addressed Bryda.

'Good-day to you, Miss Palmer. I have come, by your leave, to hear your decision.'

'My decision was made, sir, when I last saw you. I have no more to say.'

'Hearken, fair lady, I am not one to be beaten in the race. See here, I had determined, as you know, to get that money, my lawful due. When I saw you standing at the cross roads like an incarnation of spring's loveliness my courage forsook me. In our future interviews it grew fainter and ever fainter. I love you, madam, and if you will promise to be my wife I swear I will never press that old man again for the money.

I will work honestly to redeem the neglect of the past, at my poor home, and I swear further I will see you its fair mistress ere another year is out.

'Nay, sir,' Bryda said, gathering up all her strength, 'nay, sir, do not swear what is impossible to perform. Not even to save those I love from penury will I accept your proposal.'

'Another suitor is more favoured, I presume. Who is he?'

'Nay, sir,' Bryda said, with heightened colour and flashing eyes, 'there is a limit to such questions. I decline to answer them.'

'Now, see here,' Mr Bayfield went on, 'I give you a proof of my ardent affection. Name a time for the further consideration of this matter, and as I ride back to-day I will give them warning at Bishop's Farm that I extend the time for claiming my dues. Name the time, and I grant it, for your sweet sake, and for yours alone. Speak, and I obey--command me as your slave.'

Bryda hastily went over in her mind the probability that after all this was but a subterfuge, and that Mr Bayfield would not be true to his word. Then she thought of what the joy and relief at the farm would be when a long delay was granted--much might happen in six months--the winter might be hard, and there would be a terrible pinch, perhaps, for the necessaries of life at Bishop's Farm.

But could she trust Mr Bayfield?

She felt a strange recoil from him, and yet something like admiration, for he was a distinctly handsome man, and had an air and bearing far above good Jack Henderson, or any of her old admirers in her native village. After a moment's pause, while she nervously pinched the corners of the paper bag containing the Bath buns, she looked up with her clear guileless eyes into the Squire's face.