"Well," Miriam remarked, "it will be a very interesting affair to watch."

"Confound your impudence!"

"You're sure to have heaps of children," she warned him.

"Hope so."

"You'll forget how many there are, and mix them up with the dogs and the cats and the geese. They'll be very dirty."

"And perfectly happy."

"Oh, yes. Now Helen's will always be clean little prigs who couldn't be naughty if they tried. I shall like yours best, John, though they won't be clean enough to kiss."

"Shut up!" he said.

"I shall be a lovely aunt. I shall come from London Town with a cornucopia of presents. We're beginning to go," she went on. "First John, and then me, as soon as I am twenty-one."

"But Rupert will be here," Helen said quickly.

"He'll marry, too, and you'll be left with Notya. Somebody will have to look after her old age. And as you've always been so fond of her--!"

"There would be the moor," Helen said, answering all her unspoken thoughts.

"It wouldn't comfort me!"

"Don't worry, my dear," John said kindly; "the G.o.ds are surely tender with the good."

"But she won't grow old," Helen said earnestly. "I don't believe she could grow old. It would be terrible." And it was of Mildred Caniper and not of herself she thought.

CHAPTER XV

Mildred Caniper was wearing her deaf expression when they went into the house, and getting supper ready as a form of reproof. John was another of her failures. He had chosen work she despised for him, and now, though it was impossible to despise Lily Brent, it was impossible not to disapprove of such a marriage for a Caniper. But when she was helpless, Mrs. Caniper had learnt to preserve her pride in suavity, and as they sat down to supper she remarked that she would call on Lily Brent tomorrow.

"How funny!" Helen said at once.

Miriam darted a look meant to warn Helen that Notya was in no mood for controversy, and John frowned in readiness to take offence.

"Why funny?" he growled.

"I was just wondering if Notya would put on a hat and gloves to do it."

She turned to Mildred Caniper. "Will you?"

"I'm afraid I have not considered such a detail."

"None of us," Helen went on blandly, "has ever put on a hat to go to the farm. I should hate any of us to do it. Notya, you can't."

"You forget," Mildred Caniper said in her coldest tones, "that I have not been accustomed to going there."

"Well, do notice Lily's primroses," Helen said pleasantly. "They're like sunshine, and she's like--"

"No, please," John begged.

"I wonder why Rupert has not come to supper," Mildred Caniper said, changing the subject, and Helen wondered pityingly why one who had known unhappiness should not be eager to spare others.

"But," Miriam began, her interest overcoming dread of her stepmother's prejudices, "we shall have to wear hats for John's wedding. I shall have a new one and a new dress, a dusky blue, I think, with a sheen on it."

"Did you mention my wedding?" John asked politely.

"Yes. And a peac.o.c.k's feather in my hat. No, that's unlucky, but so beautiful."

"Nothing beautiful," Helen said, "can be unlucky."

"I wouldn't risk it. But what can I have?"

"For my wedding," John announced, "you'll have nothing, unless you want to sit alone in the garden in your new clothes. You're not going to be present at the ceremony. Good Lord! I'll have Rupert and Daniel for witnesses, and we'll come home in time to do the milking, but there'll be no show. It would make me sick."

"Not even a party?"

"What the--what on earth should we have a party for?"

"For fun, of course. Daniel and Zebedee and us." She leaned towards him.

"And George, John, just to show that all's forgiven!" To see if she had dared too much, she cast a glance at Mildred Caniper, but that lady sat in the stillness of determined indifference.

"Not one of you!" John said. "It's our wedding, and we're going to do what we like with it."

"But when you're going to be happy--as I suppose you think you are--you ought to let other people join in. Here's a chance of a little fun--"

"There's nothing funny about being married," Helen said in her deep tones.

"Depends who--whom--you're marrying, doesn't it?" Miriam asked, and looking at Mildred Caniper once more, she found that she need not be afraid, for though the expression was the same, its effect was different. Notya looked as though she could not rouse her energies to active disapproval; as though she would never say her rare, amusing things again, and Miriam was reminded of the turnip lanterns they had made in their youth--hollowness and flickering light within.

The succeeding days encouraged that reminder, for something had gone from Mildred Caniper and left her stubbornly frail in mind and body.

Rupert believed that hope had died in her but the Canipers did not speak of the change which was plain to all of them. She was a presence of flesh and blood, and she would always be a presence, for she had that power, but she approached Mr. Pinderwell in their thoughts, and they began to use towards her the kind of tenderness they felt for him.

Sometimes she became aware of it and let out an irony with a sharpness which sent Helen about the house more gaily and persuaded her that Notya would be better when summer came, for surely no one could resist the sun.

John's soft heart forgave his stepmother's coldness towards his marriage and his bride, and prompted him to a generous suggestion. He made it shyly and earnestly one night in the drawing-room where Mildred Caniper sat under the picture of Mr. Pinderwell's lady.

"Notya," he began, "we want you to come to our wedding, too. Just you and Rupert and Daniel. Will you?"

She looked faintly amused, yet, the next moment, he had a fear that she was going to cry. "Thank you, John."

"We both want you," he said awkwardly, and went nearer.

"I'm glad you have asked me, but I won't come. I'm afraid I should only spoil it. I do spoil things." She smiled at him and looked at the hands on her knee. "It seems to me that that's what I do best."