They took him home and put him to bed, and there he lay, hardly speaking, and generally sleeping. There he still was on the Monday, when Julius came to inquire after him, and was taken up-stairs at once by Jenny, with the greeting, "So the son and heir is come, Julius?"

"Yes, and I never saw my mother more exulting. When Rosamond ran down to tell her, she put her arms round her neck and cried. She who never had a tear through all last year. I met your father and mother half-way, and they told me I might come on."

"I think nothing short of such news would have made mamma leave this boy," said Jenny; "but she must have her jubilee with Mrs.

Poynsett."

"And I'm quite well," said Herbert, who had been grasping Julius's hand, with a wonderful look in his eyes; "yes, really--the doctor said so."

"Yes, he did," said Jenny, "only he said we were to let him alone, and that he was not to get up till he felt quite rested."

"And I shall get up to dinner," said Herbert, so sleepily, that Julius doubted it. "I hope to come back before Sunday."

"What does your doctor say to that?"

"He says," replied Jenny, "that this gentleman must be rational; that he has nothing the matter with him now, but that he is low, and ripe for anything. Don't laugh, you naughty boy, he said you were ripe for anything, and that he must--yes, he _must_--be turned out to grass somehow or other for the winter, and do nothing at all."

"I begin to see what you are driving at, Mrs. Joan, you look so triumphant."

"_Yes_," said Jenny, blushing a little, and looking quite young again; "I believe poor mamma would be greatly reconciled to it, if Herbert were to see me out to Natal."

"Is that to be the way?"

"It would be very absurd to make Archie come home again for me,"

said Jenny. "And everything else is most happily smoothed for me, you know; Edith has come quite to take my place at home; mamma learnt to depend on her much more than on me while I was with Herbert."

"And it has made her much more of a woman," added Herbert.

"Then you know that full statement poor Mr. Moy put forth when he left the place, on his wife's death, quite removed all lingering hesitation on papa's part," added Jenny.

"It ought, I am sure!" said Julius.

"So, now, if Herbert will go out with me, it seems to me to be all right," said Jenny, colouring deeply, as she made this lame and impotent conclusion.

"My father wishes it," said Herbert. "I believe he meant to see you to-day to ask leave of absence for me. That is what he wishes; but I have made up my mind that I ought to resign the curacy--where I have never been any use to you--though, if I had been well, I meant to have worked a year with you as a priest."

"I don't like to lose you, but I think you are right. Your beginning with me was a mistake. There is not enough work for three of us; but you know Easterby would be delighted to have you at St.

Nicholas. He says his most promising people talk of what you said to them when they were ill, and he asked me if you could possibly come to him."

"I think it would be better to begin in a new place, further from home," said Herbert, quietly.

And both knew what he meant, and how hard it would be to be the clergyman he had learnt to wish to be, if his mother were at hand to be distressed by all he did or did not do.

"But, any way," added Herbert, "I hope to have some time longer at Compton before I go. Next Sunday, if I only _can_."

His mind was evidently full of the Feast of the Sunday, and Julius answered, "Whichever Sunday you are strong enough, of course, dear fellow. You had better come with him, Jenny, and sleep at the Rectory."

"Oh! thank you. I should like nothing so much; and I think they will spare me that one day."

"You will come in for a grand gathering, that is, if poor Cecil accepts. Miles thinks she ought to be godmother."

"Oh!"

"And no one has said a word of any cloud. It is better he should know nothing."

"And oh! Julius, is it true that her father has bought Sirenwood for her?"

"Quite true. You know it was proposed at first, but the trustees doubted of the title; but when all that was cleared up, it turned out to be a better investment than Swanslea, and so they settled it, without much reference to her."

"She will let it, of course?"

"I suppose so."

"You don't think she will come to the christening?"

"I cannot tell; Rose has had one or two very sad letters from her.

She wanted us very much to come to Dunstone, and was much disappointed that we were prevented. I fancy her heart has turned to us, and that it is very sore, poor thing."

Julius was right. Cecil did return an answer, whose warmth quite amazed all but Miles and Anne, who thought nothing too much for their son; and she gladly came to attend the christening of the young Raymond. Gladly--yes, she was glad to leave Dunstone. She had gone home weary and sick of her lodging and convalescence, and hoping to find relief in the home that had once been all-sufficient for her, but Dunstone was not changed, and she was. She had not been able to help outgrowing its narrow opinions and formal precisions; and when she came home, crushed with her scarcely realized grief, nothing there had power to comfort her.

There was soothing at first in her step-mother's kindness, and she really loved her father; but their petting admiration soon grew oppressive, after the more bracing air of Compton; and their idolatry of her little brother fretted and tried her all the more, because they thought he must be a comfort to her, and any slight from her might be misconstrued. Mr. Venn's obsequiousness, instead of rightful homage, seemed deprivation of support, and she saw no one, spoke to no one, without the sense of Raymond's vast superiority and her own insensibility to it, loving him a thousand times more than she had loved him in life, and mourning him with an anguish beyond what the most perfect union would have left. She had nothing to do. Self-improvement was a mere oppression, and she longed after nothing so much as the sight of Rosamond, Anne, Julius, or even Frank, and her amiable wishes prevailed to have them invited to Dunstone; but at the times specified there were hindrances. Anne had engagements at home, and Rosamond appeared to the rest of the family to be a perpetual refuge for stray De Lanceys, while Frank had to make up for his long enforced absence by a long unbroken spell of work.

Cecil therefore had seen none of the family till she arrived at Compton. She was perfectly well, she said, and had become a great walker, and so, indeed, she showed herself, for she went out directly after breakfast every morning, and never appeared again till luncheon time; and would take long rides in the afternoon. "It was her only chance of sleep," she said, when remonstrated with.

She did not look ill, but there was a restless, worn air that was very distressing on her young features, and was the more piteous to her relations, that she was just as constrained as ever in her intercourse with them. She was eagerly attentive to Mrs. Poynsett, and evidently so anxious to wait on her that Anne left to her many little services, but if they were alone together, they were tongue- tied, and never went deeper than surface subjects. Mrs. Poynsett never discussed her, never criticized her, never attempted to fathom her, being probably convinced that there was nothing but hard coldness to be met with by probing. Yet there was something striking in Cecil's having made people call her Mrs. Raymond Poynsett, surrendering the Charnock, which she had once brandished in all their faces, and going by the name by which her husband had been best known.

To Anne she was passively friendly, and neither gave nor sought confidences, and Anne was so much occupied with her baby, and all the little household services that had grown on her, as well as with her busy husband, that there was little leisure for them; and though the meeting with Rosamond was at first the most effusive and affectionate of all, afterwards she seemed to avoid tetes-a-tetes with her, and was shyer with her than with Anne.

It was Miles that she got on with best. He had never so fully realized the unhappiness of his brother's married life as those who had watched it; and he simply viewed her as Raymond's loved and loving widow and sincere mourner, and treated her with all brotherly tenderness and reverence for her grief; while she responded with a cordiality and gratitude which made her, when talking to him, a pleasanter person than she had ever been seen at Compton before.

But it was not to Miles, but to Rosamond, that she brought an earnest question, walking in one autumn morning to the Rectory, amid the falling leaves of the Virginian-creeper, and amazing Rosamond, who was writing against time for the Indian mail, by asking--

"Rosamond, will you find out if Mrs. Poynsett would mind my coming to live at Sirenwood?"

"You, Cecil!"

"Yes, I'm old enough. There's no place for me at home, and though I must be miserable anywhere, it will be better where I have something to do, of some real use to somebody. I've been walking all round every day, and seeing what a state it is in--in the hands of creditors all these years."

"But you would be quite alone!"

"I am quite alone as it is."

"And would your father consent?"

"I think he would. I am a burthen to them now. They cannot feel my grief, nor comfort it, and they don't like the sight of it, though I am sure I trouble them with it as little as possible."

"Dear Cecil!" and the ready tears welled up in Rosamond's gray eyes.

"I don't want to talk of it," said Cecil. "If I felt worthy to grieve it would be less dreadful; but it all seems like hypocrisy.

Rosamond, if you were to lose Julius to-morrow, you would not be as unhappy as I am."