"What does she mean?" demanded Allen.

"I see! It is a story of the children's! 'Marco's Felucca.' I looked at it while I was copying, and thought how pretty it was. And now I remember there were some pencil-marks!"

"Well, it will please the children," graciously said Allen. "I am not sorry; I did not wish to make my debut in a second-rate serial like that, and now I am quit of it. She is quite right. It is not her style of thing."

But Allen did not remember that he had spent the 15 beforehand, so as to make it 25, and this made it fortunate that his mother's group had been purchased by the porcelain works, and another pair ordered.

Thus she could freely leave their gains to Armine and Babie, for the latter declared the sum was alike due to both, since if she had the readiest wit, her brother had the most discrimination, and the best choice of language. The story was only signed A. B., and their mother made a point of the authorship being kept a secret; but little notices of the story in the papers highly gratified the young authors.

Armine, who had returned from a round of visits to St. Cradocke's, Fordham, Kenminster, and Woodside, confirmed the report of Elvira's intended voyage; but till the yacht was ready, the party had gone abroad, leaving the management of the farm, and agency of the estate, to a very worthy man named Whiteside, who had long been a suitor to Mary Gould, and whom she was at last allowed to marry. He had at once made the Kencroft party free of the park and gardens, and indeed John and Armine came laden with gifts in poultry, fruit, and flowers from the dependants on the estate to Mrs. Brownlow.

Armine really looked quite healthy, nothing remaining of his former ethereal air, but a certain expansiveness of brow and dreaminess of eye.

He greatly scrupled at halving the 15 when it was paid, but Barbara insisted that he must take his share, and he then said--

"After all it does not signify, for we can do things together with it, as we have always done."

"What things?"

"Well, I am afraid I do want a few books."

"So do I, terribly."

"And there are some Christmas gifts I want to send to Woodside."

"Woodside! oh!"

"And wouldn't it be pleasant to put the choir at the iron Church into surplices and ca.s.socks for Christmas?"

"Oh, Armie, I do think we might have a little fun out of our own money."

"What fun do you mean?" said Armine.

"I want to subscribe to Rolandi's, and to take in the 'Contemporary,'

and to have one real good Christmas party with tableaux vivants, and charades. Mother says we can't make it a mere surprise party, for people must have real food, and I think it would be more pleasure to all of us than presents and knicknacks."

"Of course you can do it," said Armine, rather disappointed. "And if we had in Percy Stagg, and the pupil teachers, and the mission people--"

"It would be awfully edifying and good-booky! Oh yes, to be sure, nearly as good as hiding your little sooty shoe-blacks in surplices! But, my dear Armie, I am so tired of edifying! Why should I never have any fun?

Come, don't look so dismal. I'll spare five shillings for a gown for old Betty Grey, and if there's anything left out after the party, you shall have it for the surplices, and you'll be Roland Graeme in my tableau?"

The next day Mother Carey found Armine with an elbow on each side of his book and his hands in his hair, looking so dreamily mournful that she apprehended a fresh attack of Petronella, but made her approaches warily.

"What have you there?" she asked.

"Dean Church's lectures," he said.

"Ah! I want to make time to read them! But why have they sent you into doleful dumps?"

"Not they," said Armine; "but I wanted to read Babie a pa.s.sage just now, and she said she had no notion of making Sundays of week days, and ran away. It is not only that, mother, but what is the matter with Babie?

She is quite different."

"Have you only just seen it?"

"No, I have felt something indefinable between us, though I never could bear to speak of it, ever since Bobus went. Do you think he did her any harm?"

"A little, but not much. Shall I tell you the truth, Armine; can you bear it?"

"What! did I disgust her when I was so selfish and discontented?"

"Not so much you, my boy, as the overdoing at Woodside! I can venture to speak of it now, for I fancy you have got over the trance."

"Well, mother," said Armine, smiling back to her in spite of himself, "I have not liked to say so, it seemed a shame; but staying at the Vicarage made me wonder at my being such an egregious a.s.s last year! Do you know, I couldn't help it; but that good lady would seem to me quite mawkish in her flattery! And how she does domineer over that poor brother of hers!

Then the fuss she makes about details, never seeming to know which are accessories and which are principles. I don't wonder that I was an absurdity in the eyes of all beholders. But it is very sad if it has really alienated my dear Infanta from all deeper and higher things!"

"Not so bad as that, my dear; my Babie is a good little girl."

"Oh yes, mother, I did not mean--"

"But it did break that unity between you, and prevent your leading her insensibly. I fancy your two characters would have grown apart anyhow, but this was the moving cause. Now I fancy, so far as I can see, that she is more afraid of being wearied and restrained than of anything else. It is just what I felt for many years of my life."

"No, mother?"

"Yes, my boy; till the time of your illness, serious thought, religion and all the rest, seemed to me a tedious tax; and though I always, I believe, made it a rule to my conscience in practical matters, it has only very, very lately been anything like the real joy I believe it has always been to you. Believe that, and be patient with your little sister, for indeed she is an unselfish, true, faithful little being, and some day she will go deeper."

Armine looked up to his mother, and his eyes were full of tears, as she kissed him, and said--

"You will do her much more good if you sympathise with her in her innocent pleasures than if you insist on dragging her into what she feels like privations."

"Very well, mother," he said. "It is due to her."

And so, though the choir did have at least half Armine's share of the price of "Marco's Felucca," he threw himself most heartily into the Christmas party, was the poet of the versified charade, acted the strong-minded woman who was the chief character in "Blue Bell;" and he and Jock gained universal applause.

Allen hardly appeared at the party. He had a fresh attack of sleepless headache and palpitation, brought on by the departure of Miss Menella for the Continent, and perhaps by the failure of "A Single Eye" with some of the magazines. He dabbled a little with his mother's clay, and produced a nymph, who, as he persuaded her and himself, was a much n.o.bler performance than Andromache, but unfortunately she did not prove equally marketable. And he said it was quite plain that he could not succeed in anything imaginative till his health and spirits had recovered from the blow; but he was ready to do anything.

So Dr. Medlicott brought in one day a medical lecture that he wanted to have translated from the German, and told Allen that it would be well paid for. He began, but it made his head ache; it was not a subject that he could well turn over to Babie; and when Jock brought a message to say the translation must be ready the next day, only a quarter had been attempted. Jock sat up till three o'clock in the morning and finished it, but he could not pain his mother by letting her know that her son had again failed, so Allen had the money, and really believed, as he said, that all Jock had done was to put the extreme end to it, and correct the medical lingo of which he could not be expected to know anything. Allen was always so gentle, courteous, and melancholy, that every one was getting out of the habit of expecting him to do anything but bring home news, discover anything worth going to see, sit at the foot of the table, and give his verdict on the cookery. Babie indeed was sometimes provoked into snapping at him, but he bore it with the amiable magnanimity of one who could forgive a petulant child, ignorant of what he suffered.

Jock was borne up by a great pleasure that winter. One day at dinner, his mother watched his eyes dancing, and heard the old boyish ring of mirth in his laugh, and as she went up stairs at night, he came after and said--

"Fancy, I met Evelyn on the ice to-day. He wants to know if he may call."

"What prevents him?"

"Well, I believe the poor old chap is heartily ashamed of his airs.

Indeed he as good as said so. He has been longing to make a fresh start, only he didn't know how."

"I think he used you very ill, Jock; but if you wish to be on the old terms, I will do as you like."