"You are very like your sister."

This, though usually a great compliment, disappointed Eleonora, as she answered, rather frigidly, "So people say."

"Have you walked far?"

"To the Outwood Lodge."

"To-day? Was it not very damp in the woods?"

"Oh no, delightful!"

"Lena and I are old friends," said Jenny; "too glad to meet to heed the damp."

Here Raymond entered, with the air of a man who had just locked up a heavy post-bag at the last possible moment; and he too was amazed, though he covered it by asking why the party was so small.

"Rosamond has gone to meet her husband, and Cecil has her guest in her own domains."

Then Jenny asked after his day's work--a county matter, interesting to all the magistracy, and their womankind in their degree; and Eleonora listened in silence, watching with quiet heedfulness Frank's mother and brother.

When Frank himself came in, his face was a perfect study; and the colour mantled in her cheeks, so that Jenny trusted that both were touched by the wonderful beauty that a little softness and timidity brought out on the features, usually so resolutely on guard. But when, in the later evening, Jenny crept in to her old friend, hoping to find that the impression had been favourable, she only heard, "Exactly like her sister, who always had the making of a fine countenance."

"The mask--yes, but Lena has the spirit behind the mask. Poor girl!

she is not at all happy in the atmosphere her sister has brought home."

"Then I wish they would marry her!"

"Won't you believe how truly nice and good she is?"

"That will not make up for the connection. My heart sank, Jenny, from the time I heard that those Vivians were coming back. I kept Frank away as long as I could--but there's no help for it. It seems the fate of my boys to be the prey of those sirens."

"Well, then, dear Mrs. Poynsett, do pray believe, on my word, that Eleonora is a different creature!"

"Is there no hope of averting it? I thought Camilla would--poor Frank is such insignificant game!"

"And when it does come, don't be set against her, please, dear Mrs.

Poynsett. Be as kind to her--as you were to me," whispered Jenny, nestling up, and hiding her face.

"My dear, but I knew you! You were no such case."

"Except that you all were horribly vexed with us, because we couldn't help liking each other," said Jenny.

"Ah! my poor child! I only wish you could have liked any one else!"

"Do you?" said Jenny, looking up. "Oh no, you don't! You would not have me for your supplementary child, if I had," she added playfully; then very low--"It is because the thought of dear Archie, even ending as it did, is my very heart's joy, that I want you to let them have theirs!"

And then came a break, which ended the pleading; and Jenny was obliged to leave Compton without much notion as to the effect of her advice, audacious as she knew it to have been.

CHAPTER XIV Neither Land Nor Water

A light that never was on sea or land.--WORDSWORTH

Nothing could be prettier than Rosamond's happiness in welcoming her school-boy brothers, and her gratitude to Mrs. Poynsett for inviting them, declaring that she liked boys. Her sons, however, dreaded the inroad of two wild Irish lads, and held council what covers and what horses could most safely be victimized to them, disregarding all testimony in their favour from interested parties. When, therefore, Terence and Thomas de Lancey made their appearance, and were walked in for exhibition by their proud and happy sister, there was some surprise at the sight of two peculiarly refined, quiet boys, with colourless complexions, soft, sleepy, long-lashed, liquid brown eyes, the lowest of full voices, and the gentlest of manners, as if nothing short of an explosion could rouse them.

And it was presently manifest that their sister had said rather too little than too much of Terry's abilities. Not only had he brought home a huge pile of prizes, but no sooner was the seance after dinner broken up, than he detained Julius, saying, in a very meek and modest tone, "Rose says you know all the books in the library."

"Rose undertakes a great deal for me. What is this the prelude to?"

"I wanted to ask if I might just look at any book about the physical geography of Italy, or the History of Venice, or the Phoenicians."

"Why, Terry?"

"It is for the Prize Essay," explained the boy; "the subject is the effect of the physical configuration of a country upon the character of a nation."

Julius drew a long breath, astounded at the march of intellect since his time. "They don't expect such things of fellows like you!" he said.

"Only of the sixth, but the fifth may go in for it, and I want to get up to the Doctor himself; I thought, as I was coming to such a jolly library, I might try; and if I do pretty well, I shall be put up, if any more fellows leave. Do you think I may use the books?

I'm librarian, so I know how to take care of them."

"You can be trusted for that, you book-worm," said Julius; "here's the library, but I fear I don't know much about those modern histories. My mother is a great reader, and will direct us. Let us come to her."

Quiet as Terry was, he was neither awkward nor shy; and when Julius had explained his wishes, and Mrs. Poynsett had asked a few good- natured questions, she was charmed as well as surprised at the gentle yet eager modesty with which the low-pitched tones detailed the ideas already garnered up, and inquired for authorities, in which to trace them out, without the least notion of the remarkable powers he was evincing. She was delighted with the boy; Julius guided his researches; and he went off to bed as happy as a king, with his hands full of little dark tarnished French duodecimos, and with a ravenous appetite for the pasture ground he saw before him.

Lower Canada had taught him French, and the stores he found were revelry to him.

Cecil's feelings may be better guessed than described when the return of Mudie's box was hastened that he might have Motley's Dutch Republic. She thought this studiousness mere affectation; but it was indisputable that Terry's soul was in books, and that he never was so happy as when turned loose into the library, dipping here and there, or with an elbow planted on either side of a folio.

Offers of gun or horse merely tormented him, and only his sister could drag him out by specious pleas of need, to help in those Christmas works, where she had much better assistance in Anne and the curates--the one for clubs and coals, the other for decorations.

Mrs. Poynsett was Terry's best friend. He used to come to her in the evening and discuss what he had been reading till she was almost as keen about his success as Frank's. He talked over his ambition, of getting a scholarship, becoming a fellow, and living for ever among the books, for which the scanty supply in his wandering boyhood had but whetted his fervour. He even confided to her what no one else knew but his sister Aileen, his epic in twenty-four books on Brian Boromhe and the Battle of Clontarf; and she was mother enough not to predict its inevitable fate, nor audibly to detect the unconscious plagiarisms, but to be a better listener than even Aileen, who never could be withheld from unfeeling laughter at the touching fate of the wounded warriors who were tied to stakes that they might die fighting.

Tom was a more ordinary youth, even more lazy and quiet in the house, though out of it he amazed Frank and Charlie by his dash, fire, and daring, and witched all the stable-world with noble horsemanship. Hunting was prevented, however, by a frost, which filled every one with excitement as to the practicability of skating.

The most available water was a lake between Sirenwood and Compton; and here, like eagles to the slaughter, gathered, by a sort of instinct, the entire skating population of the neighbourhood on the first day that the ice was hard enough. Rosamond was there, of course, with both her brothers, whom she averred, by a bold figure of speech, to have skated in Canada before they could walk. Anne was there, studying the new phenomena of ice and snow under good- natured Charlie's protection, learning the art with unexpected courage and dexterity. Cecil was there but not shining so much, for her father had been always so nervous about his darling venturing on the ice, that she had no skill in the art; and as Raymond had been summoned to some political meeting, she had no special squire, as her young brother-in-law eluded the being enlisted in her service; and she began to decide that skating was irrational and unwomanly; although Lady Tyrrell had just arrived, and was having her skates put on; and Eleonora was only holding back because she was taking care of the two purple-legged, purple-faced, and purple-haired little Duncombes, whom she kept sliding in a corner, where they could hardly damage themselves or the ice.

Cecil had just thanked Colonel Ross for pushing her in a chair, and on his leaving her was deliberating whether to walk home with her dignity, or watch for some other cavalier, when the drag drew up on the road close by, and from it came Captain and Mrs. Duncombe, with two strangers, who were introduced to her as 'Mrs. Tallboys and the Professor, just fetched from the station.'

The former was exquisitely dressed in blue velvet and sealskin, and had the transparent complexion and delicate features of an American, with brilliant eyes, and a look of much cleverness; her husband, small, sallow, and dark, and apparently out of health. "Are you leaving off skating, Cecil?" asked Mrs. Duncombe; "goodness me, I could go on into next year! But if you are wasting your privileges, bestow them on Mrs. Tallboys, for pity's sake. We came in hopes some good creature had a spare pair of skates. Gussie Moy offered, but hers were yards too long."

"I hope mine are not too small," said Cecil, not quite crediting that an American foot could be as small as that of a Charnock; but she found herself mistaken, they were a perfect fit; and as they were tried, there came a loud laugh, and she saw a tall girl standing by her, whom, in her round felt hat and thick rough coat with metal buttons, she had really taken for one of the Captain's male friends.

"I wouldn't have such small feet," she said; "I shouldn't feel secure of my understanding."

"Mrs. Tallboys would not change with you, Gussie," said Captain Duncombe. "I'd back her any day--"

"What odds will you take, Captain--"