'Exactly what makes me suspicious of his coming the disinterested over me. There's something behind! He is running into debt and destruction among that precious crew about the hospitals.'

'Harry saw nothing wrong, and thought his friends in good style.'

'Every one is in good style with Harry, happy fellow! He is no more a judge than a child of six years old--carries too much sunshine to see shades.'

'A lieutenant in the navy can hardly be the capital officer that our Harry is without some knowledge of men and discipline.'

'I grant you, on his own element; but on sh.o.r.e he goes about in his holiday spectacles, and sees a bird of paradise in every c.o.c.k-sparrow.'

'Isn't _there_ a gla.s.s house that can sometimes make a swan?' said Ethel, slyly touching her father's spectacles; 'but with you both, there's always a something to attract the embellishing process; and between Harry and Aubrey, Dr. Spencer and Sir Matthew, we could hardly fail to have heard of anything amiss.'

'I don't like it.'

'Then it is hard,' said Ethel, with spirit. 'So steady as he has always been, he ought to have the benefit of a little trust.'

'He was never like the others; I don't know what to be at with him! I should not have minded but for that palaver about elder brothers.'

Defend as Ethel might, it was still with a misgiving lest disappointment should have taken a wrong course. It was hard to trust where correspondence was the merest business sc.r.a.p, and neither Christmas nor the sister's marriage availed to call Tom home; and though she had few fears as to dissipation, she did dread hardening and ambition, all the more since she had learnt that Sir Matthew Fleet was affording to him a patronage unprecedented from that quarter.

No year of Etheldred May's life had been so trying as this last. It seemed like her first step away from the aspirations of youth, into the graver fears of womanhood. With all the self-restraint that she had striven to exercise at Coombe, it had been a time of glorious dreams over the two young spirits who seemed to be growing up by her side to be faithful workers, destined to carry out her highest visions; and the boyish devotion of the one, the fraternal reverence of the other, had made her very happy. And now? The first disappointment in Leonard had led--not indeed to less esteem for him, but to that pitying veneration that could only be yielded by a sharing in spirit of the like martyrdom; a continued thankfulness and admiration, but a continual wringing of the heart. And her own child and pupil, Aubrey, had turned aside from the highest path; and in the unavowed consciousness that he was failing in the course he had so often traced out with her, and that all her aid and ready partic.i.p.ation in his present interests were but from her outward not her inward heart, he had never argued the point with her, never consulted her on his destination. He had talked only to his father of his alteration of purpose, and had at least paid her the compliment of not trying to make her profess that she was gratified by the change. In minor matters, he depended on her as much as ever; but Harry was naturally his chief companion, and the prime of his full and perfect confidence had departed, partly in the step from boy to man, but more from the sense that he was not fulfilling the soldiership he had dreamt of with her, and that he had once led her to think his talents otherwise dedicated. She had few fears for his steadiness, but she had some for his health, and he was something taken away from her--a brightness had faded from his image.

And this marriage--with every effort at rejoicing and certainty of Mary's present bliss and probability of future happiness, it was the loss of a sister, and not the gain of a brother, and Mr. Cheviot did his utmost to render the absence of repining a great effort of unselfishness. And even with her father, her possession of Tom's half-revealed secret seemed an impairing of absolute confidence; she could not but hope that her father did her brother injustice, and in her tenderness towards them both this was a new and painful sensation.

Her manner was bright and quaint as ever, her sayings perhaps less edged than usual, because the pain at her heart made her guard her tongue; but she had begun to feel middle-aged, and strangely lonely.

Richard, though always a comfort, would not have entered into her troubles; Harry, in his atmosphere of sailor on sh.o.r.e, had nothing of the confidant, and engrossed his father; Mary and Aubrey were both gone from her, and Gertrude was still a child. She had never so longed after Margaret or Norman. But at least her corner in the Minster, her table at home with her Bible and Prayer-Book, were still the same, and witnessed many an outpouring of her anxiety, many a confession of the words or gestures that she had felt to have been petulant, whether others had so viewed them or not.

CHAPTER XIX

Long among them was seen a maiden, who waited and wondered, Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all things; Fair was she, and young, but alas! before her extended, Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life.--Evangeline.

LONGFELLOW

'Sister, sister! who is it? Going to be married! Oh, do tell us!'

cried Ella Warden--as she now was called--capering round her elder sister, who stood beneath a gas-burner, in a well-furnished bed-room, reading a letter, its enclosure clasped within a very trembling hand.

'Mary May, dear Mary,' answered Averil, still half absently.

'And who?'

'Mr. Cheviot,' said Averil, thoroughly rousing herself, and, with a quick movement, concealing the enclosure in her bosom. 'I remember him; he was very good, when--'

And there she paused; while Ella chattered on: 'Oh, sister, if you were but at home, you would be a bridesmaid now, and perhaps we should.

Little Miss Rivers was Mrs. Ernescliffe's bridesmaid. Don't you remember, Minna, how we saw her in her little cashmere cloak?'

'Oh, don't, Ella!' escaped from Minna, like a cry of pain, as she leant back in a rocking-chair, and recollected who had held her up in his arms to watch Blanche May's wedding procession.

'And how soon will she be married, sister, and where will she live?'

asked the much-excited Ella.

'She will be married in Whitsun week, and as he is headmaster, they will live in Dr. Hoxton's house. Dear, good Mary, how glad I am that she is so full of happiness--her letter quite brims over with it! I wonder if I may work anything to send her.'

'I should like to send her some very beautiful thing indeed,' cried Ella, with emphasis, and eyes dilating at some visionary magnificence.

'Ah, I have nothing to send her but my love! And I may send _her_ that still,' said Minna, looking up wistfully at Averil, who bent down and kissed her.

'And Ave won't let me send mine to Mr. Tom, though I'm sure I do love him the best of them all,' said Ella.

'That wasn't--' half whispered Minna, but turned her head away, with a sigh of oppression and look of resignation, sad in so young a child, though, indeed, the infantine form was fast shooting into tall, lank girlhood. Ella went on: 'I shall send him the objects for his microscope, when I get into the country; for I promised, so sister can't prevent me.'

'Oh, the country!--when shall we go there?' sighed Minna.

'Your head aches to-night, my dear,' said Averil, looking anxiously at her listless att.i.tude, half-opened eyes, and the deep hollows above her collar-bones.

'It always does after the gas is lighted,' said the child, patiently, 'it is always so hot here.'

'It is just like being always in the conservatory at the Grange,' added Ella. 'I do hate this boarding-house. It is very unkind of Henry to keep us here--fifteen weeks now.'

'Oh, Ella,' remonstrated Minna, 'you mustn't say that!'

'But I shall say it,' retorted Ella. 'Rosa Willis says what she pleases, and so shall I. I don't see the sense of being made a baby of, when every one else of our age eats all they like, and is consulted about arrangements, and attends cla.s.ses. And sister owns she does not know half so much as Cora!'

This regular declaration of American independence confounded the two sisters, and made Averil recall the thoughts that had been wandering: 'No, Ella, in some things I have not learnt so much as Cora; but I believe I know enough to teach you, and it has been a comfort to me to keep my two little sisters with me, and not send them to be mixed up among strange girls. Besides, I have constantly hoped that our present way of life would soon be over, and that we should have a home of our own again.'

'And why can't we!' asked Ella, in a much more humble and subdued voice.

'Because Henry cannot hear of anything to do. He thought he should soon find an opening in this new country; but there seem to be so many medical men everywhere that no one will employ or take into partnership a man that nothing is known about; and he cannot produce any of his testimonials, because they are all made out in his old name, except one letter that Dr. May gave him. It is worse for Henry than for us, Ella, and all we can do for him is not to vex him with our grievances.

Poor Averil! her dejected, patient voice, sad soft eyes, and gentle persuasive manner, were greatly changed from those of the handsome, accomplished girl, who had come home to be the family pride and pet; still more, perhaps, from the wilful mistress of the house and the wayward sufferer of last summer.

'And shan't we go to live in the dear beautiful forest, as Cora Muller wishes?'

There was a tap at the door, and the children's faces brightened, though a shade pa.s.sed over Averil's face, as if everything at that moment were oppressive; but she recovered a smile of greeting for the pretty creature who flew up to her with a fervent embrace--a girl a few years her junior, with a fair, delicate face and figure, in a hot-house rose style of beauty.

'Father's come!' she cried.

'How glad you must be!'

'And now,' whispered the children, 'we shall know about going to Indiana.'

'He says Mordaunt is as tall as he is, and that the house is quite fixed for me; but I told him I must have one more term, and then I will take you with me. Ah! I am glad to see the children in white. If you would only change that plain black silk, you would receive so much more consideration.'

'I don't want it, Cora, thank you,' said Averil, indifferently; and, indeed, the simple mourning she still wore was a contrast to her friend's delicate, expensive silk.

'But I want it for you,' pleaded Cora. 'I don't want to hear my Averil censured for English hauteur, and offend my country's feelings, so that she keeps herself from seeing the best side.'

'I see a very good, very dear side of one,' said Averil, pressing the eager hand that was held out to her, 'and that is enough for me. I was not a favourite in my own town, and I have not spirits to make friends here.'