"Three at least; and Deerbrook has been so hot about it--"

"You should send round the book to cool them. It is enough to freeze one to look at the plates of those polar books."

"Sending round the book is exactly the thing I wanted to do, and could not. Mrs Rowland insists that Mrs Enderby ordered it in; and Mrs Grey demands to have it first; and Mr Rowland is certain that you bespoke it before anybody else. I was afraid of the responsibility of acting in so nice a case. An everlasting quarrel might come out of it: so I covered it, and put in the list, all ready to be sent at a moment's warning; and then I amused myself with it while you were away. Now, brother, what will you do?"

"The truth of the matter is, that I ordered it in myself, as Mr Rowland says. But Mrs Enderby shall have it at once, because she is ill. It is a fine large type for her; and she will pore over the plates, and forget Deerbrook and all her own ailments, in wondering how the people will get out of the ice."

"Do you remember, Margaret," said Hester, "how she looked one summer day,--like a ghost from the grave,--when she came down from her books, and had even forgotten her shawl?"

"Oh, about the battle!" cried Margaret, laughing.

"What battle?" asked Hope. "An historical one, I suppose, and not that of the Rowlands and Greys. Mrs Enderby is of a higher order than the rest of us Deerbrook people: she gets most of her news, and all her battles, out of history."

"Yes: she alighted among us to tell us that such a great, such a wonderful battle had been fought, at a place called Blenheim, by the Duke of Marlborough, who really seemed a surprisingly clever man: it was such a good thought of his to have a swamp at one end of his line, and to put some of his soldiers behind some bushes, so that the enemy could not get at them! and he won the battle."

"This book will be the very thing for her," said Margaret. "It is only a pity that it did not come in at Midsummer instead of Christmas. I am afraid she will sympathise so thoroughly that Phoebe will never be able to put on coals enough to warm her."

"Nay," said Mr Hope, "it is better as it is. She must be told now, at all events: whereas, if this book came to her at Midsummer, it would chill her whole month of July. She would start every time she looked out of her window, and saw the meadows green."

"I hope she is not really very ill," said Hester.

"You were thinking the same thought that I was," said her husband, starting up from the sofa. "It is certainly my business to go and see her to-night, if she wishes it. I will step down into the surgery, and learn if there is any message from her."

"And if there is not from her, there will be from some one else," said Hester, sorrowfully. "What a cold night for you to go out, and leave this warm room!"

Mr Hope laughed as he observed what an innocent speech that was for a surgeon's wife. It was plain that her education in that capacity had not begun. And down he went.

"Here are some things for you, cards and notes," said Margaret to her sister, as she opened a drawer of the writing-table: "one from Mrs Grey, marked 'Private.' I do not suppose your husband may not see it; but that is your affair. My duty is to give it you privately."

"One of the Grey mysteries, I suppose," said Hester, colouring, and tearing open the letter with some vehemence: "These mysteries were foolish enough before; they are ridiculous now. So, you are going out?"

cried she, as her husband came in with his hat on.

"Yes; the old lady will be the easier for my seeing her this evening; and I shall carry her the Polar Sea. Where is pen and ink, Margaret?

We do not know the ways of our own house yet."

Margaret brought pen and ink; and while Mr Hope wrote down the dates in the Book Society's list, Hester exclaimed against Mrs Grey for having sent her a letter marked "Private," now that she was married.

"If you mean it not to be private, you shall tell me about it when I come back," said her husband. "If I see Mrs Enderby to-night, I must be gone."

It was not twenty minutes before he was seated by his own fireside again. His wife looked disturbed; and was so; she even forgot to inquire after Mrs Enderby.

"There is Mrs Grey's precious letter!" said she. "She may mean to be very kind to me: I dare say she does: but she might know that it is not kindness to write so of my husband."

"I do not see that she writes any harm of me, my dear," said he, laying the letter open upon the table. "She only wants to manage me a little: and that is her way, you know."

"So exceedingly impertinent!" cried Hester, turning to Margaret. "She wants me to use my influence, quietly, and without betraying her, to make my husband--," she glanced into her husband's face, and checked her communication. "In short," she said, "Mrs Grey wants to be meddling between my husband and one of his patients."

"Well, what then?" said Margaret.

"What then? Why, if she is to be interfering already in our affairs--if she is to be always fancying that she has anything to do with Edward,-- and we living so near,--I shall never be able to bear it."

And Hester's eyes overflowed with tears.

"My dear! is it possible?" cried Edward. "Such a trifle--."

"It is no trifle," said Hester, trying to command her voice; "it can never be a trifle to me that any one shows disrespect to you. I shall never be able to keep terms with any one who does."

Margaret believed that nothing would be easier than to put a stop to any such attempts--if indeed they were serious. Mrs Grey was so fond of Hester that she would permit anything from her; and it would be easy for Hester to say that, not wishing to receive any exclusively private letters, she had shown Mrs Grey's to her husband, though to no one else: and that it was to be the principle of the family not to interfere, more or less, with Mr Hope's professional affairs.

"Or, better still, take no notice of the matter in any way whatever, this time," said Mr Hope. "We can let her have her way while we keep our own, cannot we? So, let us put the mysterious epistle into the fire--shall we? I wait your leave," said he, laughing, as he held the letter over the flame.

"It is your property."

Hester signed to have it burned; but she could not forget it. She recurred to Mrs Grey, again and again. "So near as they lived," she said--"so much as they must be together."

"The nearer we all live, and the more we must be with our neighbours,"

said her husband, "the more important it is that we should allow each other our own ways. You will soon find what it is to live in a village, my love; and then you will not mind these little trifles."

"If they would meddle only with me," said Hester, "I should not mind. I hope you do not think I should care so much for anything they could say or do about me. If they only would let you alone--"

"That is the last thing we can expect," said Margaret. "Do they let any public man alone? Dr Levitt, or Mr James?"

"Or the parish clerk?" added Mr Hope. "It was reported lately that steps were to be taken to intimate to Owen, that it was a constant habit of his to cough as he took his seat in the desk. I was told once myself, that it was remarked throughout Deerbrook that I seemed to be half whistling as I walked up the street in the mornings; and that it was considered a practice too undignified for my profession."

Hester's colour rose again. Margaret laughed, and asked:

"What did you do?"

"I made my best bow, and thought no more about the matter, till events brought it to mind again at this moment. So, Hester, suppose we think no more of Mrs Grey's hints?" Seeing that her brow did not entirely clear, he took his seat by her, saying:

"Supposing, love, that her letter does not show enough deference to my important self to satisfy you, still it remains that we owe respect to Mrs Grey. She is one of my oldest, and most hospitable, and faithful friends here; and I need say nothing of her attachment to you. Cannot we overlook in her one little error of judgment?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," said Hester, cheerfully. "Then I will say nothing to her unless she asks; and then tell her, as lightly as I may, what Margaret proposed just now. So be it."

And all was bright and smooth again--to all appearance. But this little cloud did not pa.s.s away without leaving its gloom in more hearts than one. As Margaret set down her lamp on her own writing-table, and sank into the chair of whose ease she had bidden Maria make trial, she might have decided, if she had happened at the moment to remember the conversation, that the pleasure of solitude does depend much on the ease of the thoughts. She sat long, wondering how she could have overlooked the obvious probability that Hester, instead of finding the habit of mind of a lifetime altered by the circ.u.mstances of love and marriage, would henceforth suffer from jealousy for her husband in addition to the burden she had borne for herself. Long did Margaret sit there, turning her voluntary musings on the joy of their meeting, and the perfect picture of comfort which their little party had presented; but perpetually recurring, against her will, to the trouble which had succeeded, and following back the track of this cloud, to see whether there were more in the wind--whether it did not come from a horizon of storm.

Yet hers was not the most troubled spirit in the house. Hester's vexation had pa.s.sed away, and she was unconscious, as sufferers of her cla.s.s usually are, of the disturbance she had caused. She presently slept and was at peace. Not so her husband. A strange trouble--a fearful suspicion had seized upon him. He was amazed at the return of his feelings about Margaret, and filled with horror when he thought of the days, and months, and years of close domestic companionship with her, from which there was no escape. There was no escape. The peace of his wife, of Margaret--his own peace in theirs--depended wholly on the deep secrecy in which he should preserve the mistake he had made. It was a mistake. He could scarcely endure the thought; but it was so.

For some months, he had never had a doubt that he was absolutely in the road of duty; and, if some apprehension about his entire happiness had chilled him, from time to time, he had cast them off, as inconsistent with the resolution of his conscience. Now he feared, he felt he had mistaken his duty. As, in the stillness of the night, the apprehension a.s.sailed him, that he had thrown away the opportunity and the promise of his life--that he had desecrated his own home, and doomed to withering the best affections of his nature, he for the moment wished himself dead. But his was a soul never long thrown off its balance. He convinced himself, in the course of a long sleepless night, that whatever might have been his errors, his way was now clear, though difficult. He must devote himself wholly to her whose devotion to him had caused him his present struggles; and he must trust that, if Margaret did not ere long remove from the daily companionship which must be his sorest trial, he should grow perpetually stronger in his self-command. Of one thing he was certain--that no human being suspected the real state of his mind. This was a comfort and support.

Of something else he felt nearly certain--that Margaret loved Philip.

This was another comfort, if he could only feel it so; and he had little doubt that Philip loved her. He had also a deep conviction, which he now aroused for his support--that no consecration of a home is so holy as that of a kindly, self-denying, trustful spirit in him who is the head and life of his house. If there was in himself a love which must be denied, there was also one which might be indulged. Without trammelling himself with vows, he cheered his soul with the image of the life he might yet fulfil, shedding on all under his charge the blessings of his activity, patience, and love; and daily casting off the burden of the day, leaving all care for the morrow to such as, happier than himself, would have the future the image of the present.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

FIRST HOSPITALITY.

The Greys needed only to be asked to come and dine before the rest of the world could have an opportunity of seeing the bride and bridegroom.

They had previously settled among themselves that they should be invited, and the answer was given on the instant. The only doubt was how far down in the family the pleasure ought to extend. Sydney was full of anxiety about it. His mother decided that he ought to be asked, but that perhaps he had better not go, as he would be in the way; and Sophia was sure it would be very dull for him; a sentence which made Sydney rather sulky. But Hester insisted on having him, and pleaded that William Levitt would come and meet him, and if the lads should find the drawing-room dull, there was the surgery, with some very curious things in it, where they might be able to amuse themselves. So Sydney was to take up his lot with the elderly ones, and the little girls were to be somewhat differently entertained another day.