"'_I_ have had more homes than one,' I said; 'but with me I do not think it has been divided. At least, one of the homes has been so much dearer than the others.'

"'Do you not think so because it is the latest, and your feelings about it are freshest?' he asked.

"I laughed. 'A bad guess. It is not my present home. This one was near a river.'

"'Exactly.'

"This time the 'exactly' did not seem so appropriate as before, and I explained further.

"'For one thing we were there when I was at an age when attachment to a place gets most deeply rooted, I think. As a mere child one enjoys and suffers like a kitten from hour to hour. But when one is just old enough to form a.s.sociations and weave dreams, and yet is still a child--it is then, I fancy, that a home gets almost bound up with one's life.'

"He simply said 'Yes,' and I went on. Why, I can hardly tell, except that to talk on any subject beyond mere current chit-chit, and be understood, was a luxury we did not often taste at the tea-parties of the town.

"'And yet I don't know if my theory will hold good, even in our case,'

I went on, 'for my father was quite as much devoted to the place as we were, and fell in love with it quite as early. But the foreign name was the first attraction to him, I think.'

"'It was abroad, then?' he asked.

"I explained, and again I can hardly tell why, but I went on talking till I had given him nearly as full a history of Reka Dom as I have given to you. For one thing he seemed amazingly interested in the recital, and drew out many particulars by questions; and then the song had filled my head with tender memories, and happy little details of old times, and it was always pleasant to prose about the River Home, as indeed, my child, it is pleasant still.

"We were laughing over some childish reminiscence, when Miss Martha tapped me on the shoulder and said rather louder than usual--

"'Dear Mary, there are some engravings here, my love, I should like you to look at.'

"I felt rather astonished, for I knew every book and picture in the house as well as I knew my own, but I followed her to a table, when she added, in a fluttering whisper--

"'You'll excuse my interrupting you, my love, I'm sure; but it was becoming quite particular.'

"I blushed redder than the crimson silk binding of the 'Keepsake'

before me. I wished I could honestly have misunderstood Miss Martha's meaning. But I could not. Had I indeed talked too much and too long to a gentleman and a stranger? (It startled me to reflect how rapidly we had pa.s.sed that stage of civil commonplace which was the normal condition of my intercourse with the gentlemen of the town.) I was certainly innocent of any intentional transgression of those bounds of reticence and decorum which are a young lady's best friends, but as to the length of my conversation with the merchant I felt quite uncertain and unspeakably alarmed.

"I was indulging a few hasty and dismal reflections when Miss Martha continued--

"'When I was young, dear Mary, I remember a valuable piece of advice that was given me by my excellent friend and schoolmistress, Miss Peckham, "If you are only slightly acquainted with a gentleman, talk of indifferent matters. If you wish to be friendly but not conspicuous, talk of _his_ affairs; but only if you mean to be very intimate, speak of yourself;"' and adding, 'I'm sure you'll forgive me, my love,' Miss Martha fluttered from the table.

"At the moment I was feeling provoked both with her and with myself, and did not feel so sure about the forgiveness as she professed to be; but of one thing I felt perfectly certain. Nothing but sheer necessity should induce me to speak another syllable to the London merchant.

"Circ.u.mstances did not altogether favour my resolution. I scrupulously avoided so much as a look at Mr. Smith, though in some mysterious way I became conscious that he and my father were having a long _tete-a-tete_ conversation in a corner. I devoted myself exclusively to the rector's wife till supper, and then I carefully chose the opposite side of the table to that to which the merchant seemed to be going. But when I was fairly seated, for some reason he gave up his place to someone else, and when it was impossible for me to change my seat, he took the one next to it. It was provoking, but I steadily resisted his attempts to talk, and kept my face as much averted as possible. Once or twice he helped me to something on the table, but I barely thanked him, and never lifted my eyes to his face. I could not, however, avoid seeing the hand that helped me, and idly noticing a ring that I had remarked before, when he was playing. It was a fine blue stone, a lapis lazuli, curiously and artistically set. 'Rich merchants can afford such baubles!' I thought. It was very tasteful, however, and did not look like English work. There was something engraven upon it, which did not look like English either. Was it Greek? I glanced at it with some curiosity, for it reminded me of--but that was nonsense, a fancy that came because the subject was in my mind. At this moment the hand and ring were moved close to me and I looked again.

"It was not a fancy. There was no mistaking the inscription this time.

I had learnt it too thoroughly--written it too often--loved it too well--it was _Reka Dom_.

"For a moment I sat in blind astonishment. Then the truth suddenly flashed upon me. The merchant's name was the name of our predecessors at Reka Dom. True, it was such a common one that I had met more than one family of Smiths since then without dreaming of any connection between them and the River House. And yet, of course, it was there that the Misses Brooke had known him. Before our time. Which could he be? He was too young to be the father, and there was no John among the little Russians--unless, yes, it was the English version of one of the Russian names--and this was Ivan.

"It crowned my misfortunes. What would Miss Martha say if she knew what had been the subject of our conversation? Would that that excellent rule which had been the guide of her young ladyhood had curtailed the conversational propensities of mine! I thought of the three degrees of intimacy with a shudder. Why had we not been satisfied with discussing the merits of the song?

"We had gone on to talk of him and his homes, and as if that were not enough, had proceeded further to me and mine. I got red as I sat listening to some civil chat from Mr. Ward the curate (eminently in the most innocent stage of the first degree), and trying to recall what we had not spoken of in connection with that Home which had been so beloved of both of us, and that Ivan whose lilies I had tended for years.

"I grew nearly frantic as I thought that he must think that I had known who he was, and wildly indignant with the fancy for small mysteries which had kept Miss Brooke from telling us whom we were going to meet.

"At last the evening came to an end. I was cloaking myself in the hall when the merchant came up and offered his help, which I declined. But he did not go, and stood so that I could not help seeing a distressed look in his eyes, and the nervous way in which he was turning the blue ring upon his finger.

"'I have so wanted to speak to you again,' he said. 'I wanted to say--'

"But at this moment I caught Miss Martha's eye in the parlour doorway, and, dropping a hasty curtsey, I ran to my father.

"'A very nice young fellow,' my father observed, as I took his arm outside; 'a superior, sensible, well informed gentleman, such as you don't meet with every day.'

"I felt quite unequal to answering the remark, and he went on:

"'What funny little ways your old friends have, my dear, to be sure.

Considering how few strangers come to the place, it would have been natural for them to tell us all about the one they asked us to meet; and as they had known both him and us, as tenants of Reka Dom, it was doubly natural that they should speak of him to us, and of us to him.

But he told me that we were just the people present of whom he had not heard a word. He seems both fond of them and to appreciate their little oddities. He told me he remembers, as a boy, that they never would call him Ivan, which is as much his name as any by which a man was ever baptized. They thought it might give him a tendency to affectation to bear so singular a name in England. They always called him John, and keep up the discipline still. When he arrived yesterday they expressed themselves highly satisfied with the general improvement in him, and he said he could hardly help laughing as Miss Martha added, 'And you seem to have quite shaken off that little habit of affectation which--you'll excuse me, dear John--you had as a boy.'

He says that, to the best of his belief, his only approach to affectation consisted in his being rather absent and ungainly, and in a strong aversion from Mr. Brooke.'

"'Did the old gentleman wear that frightful shade in his time?' I asked.

"'Not always,' he says, 'but he looked worse without it. He told me a good deal about him that I had never heard. He remembered hearing it spoken of as a boy. It appears that the brother was very wild and extravagant in his youth; drank, too, I fancy, and gave his poor sisters a world of trouble, after breaking the heart of the widowed mother who had spoiled him. When she died the sisters lived together, and never faltered in their efforts to save him--never shut their doors against him when he would return--and paid his debts over and over again. He spent all his own fortune, and most of theirs, besides being the means of breaking off comfortable marriages for both. Mr.

Smith thinks that a long illness checked his career, and eventually he reformed.'

"'I hope he was grateful to his poor sisters,' I said.

"'One naturally thinks that he must have been so, but Smith's remark was very just. He said, "I fancy he was both penitent and grateful as far as he was able, but I believe he had been too long accustomed to their unqualified self-sacrifice to feel it very sensitively!" And I believe he is right. Such men not seldom reform in conduct if they live long enough, but few eyes that have been blinded by years of selfishness are opened to see clearly in this world.'

"'It ought to make one very tender with the good ladies' little weaknesses,' I said, self-reproachfully; and I walked home in a more peaceful state of mind. I forgave poor Miss Martha; also I was secretly satisfied that my father had found the merchant's conversation attractive. It seemed to give me some excuse for my breach of Miss Peckham's golden rule. Moreover, little troubles and offences which seemed mountains at Bellevue Cottage were apt to dwindle into very surmountable molehills with my larger-minded parents. I was comparatively at ease again. My father had evidently seen nothing unusual in my conduct, so I hoped that it had not been conspicuous. Possibly I might never meet Mr. Smith any more. I rather hoped not. Life is long, and the world wide, and it is sometimes possible to lose sight of people with whom one has disagreeable a.s.sociations. And then it was a wholesome lesson for the future.

"'And what was the old gentleman like?' was Fatima's first question, when I came upstairs. I had just been talking of Mr. Brooke, and no other old gentleman occurred to my memory at that moment.

"'What old gentleman?' I asked dreamily.

"'Miss Martha's old gentleman, the merchant--wasn't he there, after all?'

"I blushed at my stupidity, and at a certain feeling of guiltiness in connection with the person alluded to.

"'Oh, yes, he was there,' I answered; 'but he is not an old gentleman.'

"'What is he, then?' Fatima asked, curiously.

"It is undoubtedly a luxury to be the bearer of a piece of startling intelligence, and it is well not to spoil the enjoyment of it by over haste. I finished unsnapping my necklace, and said, very deliberately--

"'He is one of the little Russians.'

"Fatima's wit jumped more quickly than mine had done. It was she who added--

"'Then he is Ivan.'

"My hopes in reference to Mr. Smith were disappointed. I had not seen the last of him. My mother was at this time from home, and I was housekeeper in her absence. It was on the morning following the Bellevue tea-party that my father said to me--