Читать книгу: «The Young Step-Mother; Or, A Chronicle of Mistakes», страница 40

CHAPTER XXX

Miss Goldsmith went to spend Christmas with an old friend, leaving Ulick more liberty than he had enjoyed for a long time. He used it a good deal at Willow Lawn, and was there of course on Christmas-day. After dinner the decoration of the church was under discussion. The Bayford neighbourhood was unpropitious to holly, and Sophy and Genevieve had hardly ever seen any, except that Genevieve remembered the sooty bits sold in London. Something passed about sending for a specimen from Fairmead, but Albinia said that would not answer, for her brother’s children were in despair at the absence of berries, and had ransacked Colonel Bury’s plantations in vain.

The next day, about twilight, Albinia and Sophy were arranging some Christmas gifts for the old women, in the morning-room; Genevieve was to come and help them on her return from the child in Tibb’s Alley.

‘Oh, here she comes, up the garden,’ said Sophy, who was by the window.

Presently Albinia heard a strange sound as of tightened breath, and looking up saw Sophy deathly pale, with her eyes fixed on the window. In terror she flew to her side, but Sophy spoke not, she only clutched her hand with fingers cold and tight as iron, and gazed with dilated eyes. Albinia looked—

Ulick had come from the house—there was a scarlet-berried spray in Genevieve’s hand, which she was trying to make him take again—his face was all pleading and imploring—she turned hastily from him, and they saw her cheek glowing with crimson—she tried to force back the holly spray—but her hand was caught—he was kissing it. No, she had rent it away—she had fled in through the conservatory—they heard the doors—she had rushed up to her own room.

Sophy’s grasp grew more rigid—she panted for breath.

‘My child! my child!’ said Albinia, throwing her arms round her, expecting her to faint. ‘Oh! could I have imagined such treason?’ Her eyes flashed, and her frame quivered with indignation. ‘He shall never come into this house again!’

‘Mamma! hush!’ said Sophy, releasing herself from her embrace, and keeping her body upright, though obliged to seat herself on the nearest chair. ‘It is not treason,’ she said slowly, as though her mouth were parched.

‘Contemptible fickleness!’ burst out Albinia, but Sophy implored silence by a gesture.

‘No,’ she said; ‘it was a dream, a degrading, humiliating dream; but it is over.’

‘There is no degradation except to the base trifler I once thought better things of.’

‘He has not trifled,’ said Sophy. ‘Wait! hush!’

There was a composure about her that awed Albinia, who stood watching in suspense while she went to the bed-room, drank some water, cooled her brow, pushed back her hair, and sitting down again in the same collected manner, which gave her almost a look of majesty, she said, ‘Promise me, mamma, that all shall go on as if this folly had never crossed our minds.’

‘I can’t! I can’t, Sophy!’ said Albinia in the greatest agitation. ‘I can’t unknow that you have been shamefully used.’

‘Then you will lead papa to break his promise to Genevieve, and lower me not only in my own eyes, but in those of every one.’

‘He little knew that he was bringing her here to destroy his daughter’s happiness. So that was why she held off from Mr. Hope,’ cried Albinia, burning with such indignation, that on some one she must expend it, but a tirade against the artfulness of the little French witch was cut off short by an authoritative—

‘Don’t, mamma! You are unjust! How can she help being loveable!’

‘He had no business to know whether she was or not.’

‘You are wrong, mamma. The absurdity was in thinking I ever was so.’

‘Very little absurd,’ said Albinia, twining her arms round Sophy.

‘Don’t make me silly,’ hastily said Sophy, her voice trembling for a moment; ‘I want to tell you all about it, and you will see that no one is to blame. The perception has been growing on me for a long time, but I was weak enough to indulge in the dream. It was very sweet!’ There again she struggled not to break down, gained the victory, and went on, ‘I don’t think I should have dared to imagine it myself, but I saw others thought it, who knew more; I knew the incredible was sometimes true, and every little kindness he did—Oh! how foolish! as if he could help doing kindnesses! My better sense told me he did not really distinguish me; but there was something that would feed upon every word and look. Then last year I was wakened by the caricature business. That opened my eyes, for no one who had that in him would have turned my sister into derision. I was sullen then and proud, and when—when humanity and compassion brought him to me in my distress—oh! why—why could not I have been reasonable, and not have selfishly fed on what I thought was revived?’

‘He had no right—’ began Albinia, fiercely.

‘He could neither help saving Maurice, nor speaking comfort and support when he found me exhausted and sinking. It was I who was the foolish creature—I hate myself! Well, you know how it has been—I liked to believe it was the thing—I knew he cared less for me than—but I thought it was always so between men and women, and that I would not have petty distrusts. But when she came, I saw what the true—true feeling is—I saw that he felt when she came into the room—I saw how he heard her words and missed mine—I saw—’ Sophy collected herself, and spoke quietly and distinctly, ‘I saw his love, and that it had never been for me.’

There was a pause; Albinia could not bear to look, speak, or move. Sophy’s words carried conviction that swept away her sand castle.

‘Now, mamma,’ said Sophy, earnestly, ‘you own that he has not been false or fickle.’

‘If he has not, he has disregarded the choicest jewel that lay in his way,’ said Albinia with some sharpness.

‘But he has not been that,’ persisted Sophy.

‘Well—no; I suppose not.’

‘And no one can be less to blame than Genevieve.’

‘Little flirt, I’ve no patience with her.’

‘She can’t help her manners,’ repeated Sophy, ‘I feel them so much more charming than mine every moment. She will make him so happy.’

‘What are you talking of, Sophy? He must be mad if he is in earnest. A man of his family pride! His father will never listen to it for a moment.’

‘I don’t know what his father may do,’ said Sophy; ‘but I know what I pray and entreat we may do, and that is, do our utmost to make this come to good.’

‘Sophy, don’t ask it. I could not, I know you could not.’

‘There is no loss of esteem. I honour him as I always did,’ said Sophy. ‘Yes, the more since I see it was all for papa and the right, all unselfish, on that 5th of November. Some day I shall have worn out the selfishness.’

She kept her hand tightly pressed on her heart as she spoke, and Albinia exclaimed, ‘You shall not see it; you overrate your strength; it is my business to prevent you!’

‘Think, mamma,’ said Sophy, rising in her earnestness. ‘Here is a homeless orphan, whom you have taught to love you, whom papa has brought here as to a home, and for Gilbert’s sake. Is it fair—innocent, exemplary as she is—to turn against her because she is engaging and I am not, to cut her off from us, drive her away to the first situation that offers, be it what it may, and with that thought aching and throbbing in her heart? Oh, mamma! would that be mercy or justice?’

‘You are not asking to have it encouraged in the very house with you?’

‘I do not see how else it is to be,’ said Sophy.

‘Let him go after her, if there’s anything in it but Irish folly and French coquetry—’

‘How, mamma? Where? When she is a governess in some strange place? How could he leave his business? How could she attend to him? Oh, mamma! you used to be kind: how can you wish to put two people you love so much to such misery?’

‘Because I can’t put one whom I love better than both, and who deserves it, to greater misery,’ said Albinia, embracing her.

‘Then do not put me to the misery of being ungenerous, and the shame of having my folly suspected.’

Albinia would have argued still, but the children came in, Sophy went away, and there was no possibility of a tete-a-tete. How strange it was to have such a tumult of feeling within, and know that the same must be tenfold multiplied in the hearts of those two girls, and yet go through all the domestic conventionalities, each wearing a mask of commonplace ease, as though nothing had happened!

Genevieve had, Albinia suspected, been crying excessively; for there was that effaced annihilated appearance that tears produced on her, but otherwise she did her part in answering her host, who was very fond of her, and always made her an object of attention. Albinia found herself betraying more abstraction, she was so anxiously watching Sophy, who acquitted herself best of all, had kept tears from her eyes, talked more than usual, and looked brilliant, with a bright colour dyeing her cheeks. She was evidently sustained by eagerness to obtain her generous purpose, and did not yet realize the price.

The spray of holly was lying as if it had been tossed in vexation upon the marble slab in the hall. Albinia, from the stairs, saw Sophy take it up, and waited to see what she would do with it. The Sophy she had once known would have dashed it into the flames, and then have repented. No! Sophy held it tenderly, and looked at the glossy leaves and coral fruit with no angry eye; she even raised it to her lips, but it was to pierce with one of the long prickles till her brow drew together at the smart, and the blood started. Then she began to mount the stairs, and meeting Albinia, said quietly, ‘I was going to take this to Genevieve’s room, it is empty now, but perhaps you had better take care of it for her, out of sight. It will be her greatest treasure to-morrow.’

Mr. Kendal read aloud as usual, but who of his audience attended? Certainly not Albinia. She sat with her head bent over her work, revolving the history of these last two years, and trying to collect herself after the sudden shock, and the angry feelings of disappointment that surged within, in much need of an object of wrath. Alas! who could that object be but that blind, warm-hearted, impulsive Mistress Albinia Kendal?

She saw plain enough, now it was too late, that there had not been a shadow of sentiment in that lively confiding Irishman, used to intimacy with a herd of cousins, and viewing all connexions as cousins. She remembered his conversation with her brother and her brother’s impression; she thought of the unloverlike dread of ague in Emily’s moonlight walk; she recalled the many occasions when she had thought him remiss, and she could not but acquit him of any designed flirtation, any dangerous tenderness, or what Mdlle. Belmarche would call legerete. He could not be reserved—he was naturally free and open—and how could she have put such a construction on his frankness, when Sophy herself had long been gradually arriving at a conviction of the truth! It was a comfort at least to remember that it had not been the fabrication of her own brain, she had respectable authority for the idea, and she trusted to its prompter to participate in her indignation, argue Ulick out of so poor a match, and at least put a decided veto upon Sophy’s Spartan magnanimity—Sophy’s health and feelings being the subject, she sometimes thought, which concerned him above all.

Ah! but the evil had not been his doing. He had but gossiped out a pleasant conjecture to his wife as a trustworthy help-meet. What business had she to go and telegraph that conjecture, with her significant eyes, to the very last person who ought to have shared it, and then to have kept up the mischief by believing it herself, and acting, looking, and arranging, as on a certainty implied, though not expressed? Mrs. Osborne or Mrs. Drury might have spoken more broadly, they could not have acted worse, thought she to herself.

The notion might never have been suggested; Sophy might have simply enjoyed these years of intimacy, and even if her heart had been touched, it would have been unconsciously, and the pain and shame of unrequited affection have merely been a slight sense of neglect, a small dreariness, lost in eagerness for the happiness of both friends. Now, two years of love that she had been allowed to imagine returned and sanctioned, and love with the depth and force of Sophy’s whole nature—the shame of having loved unasked, the misery of having lived in a delusion—how would they act upon a being of her morbid tendency, frail constitution, and proud spirit? As Albinia thought of the passive endurance of last year’s estrangement, her heart sank within her! Illness—brain-fever—permanent ill-health and crushed spirits—nay, death itself she augured—and all—all her own fault! The last and best of Edmund’s children so cruelly and deeply wounded, and by her folly! She longed to throw herself at his feet and ask his pardon, but it was Sophy’s secret as well as hers, and how could womanhood betray that unrequited love? At least she thought, for noble Sophy’s sake, she would not raise a finger to hinder the marriage, but as to forwarding it, or promoting the courtship under Sophy’s very eyes—that would be like murdering her outright, and she would join Mr. Kendal with all her might in removing their daughter from the trying spectacle. Talk of Aunt Maria! This trouble was ten thousand times worse!

Albinia began to watch the timepiece, longing to have the evening over, that she might prepare Mr. Kendal. It ended at last, and Genevieve took up her candle, bade good-night, and disappeared. Sophy lingered, till coming forward to her father as he stood by the fire, she said, ‘Papa, did you not promise Gilbert that Genevieve should be as another daughter?’

‘I wish she would be, my dear,’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘but she is too independent, and your mamma thinks she would consider it as a mere farce to call her little Albinia’s governess, but if you can persuade her—’

‘What I want you to do, papa, is to promise that she shall be married from this house, as her home, and that you will fit her out as you did Lucy.’

‘Ha! Is she beginning to relent?’

‘No, papa. It will be Ulick O’More.’

‘You don’t mean it!’ exclaimed Mr. Kendal, more taken by surprise than perhaps he had ever been, and looking at his wife, who was standing dismayed, yet admiring the gallant girl who had forestalled her precautions. Obliged to speak, she said, ‘I am afraid so, Sophy and I witnessed a scene to-day.’

‘Afraid?’ said Mr. Kendal; ‘I see no reason to be afraid, if Ulick likes it. They are two of the most agreeable and best people that ever fell in my way, and I shall be delighted if they can arrange it, for they are perfectly suited to each other.’

‘But such a match!’ exclaimed Albinia.

‘As to that, a sensible, economical wife will be worth more to him than an expensive one, with however large a fortune. And for the family pride, I am glad the lad has more sense than I feared; he has a full right to please himself, having won the place he has, and he may make his father consent. He wants a wife—nothing else will keep him from running headlong into speculation, for want of something to do. Yes, I see what you are thinking of, my dear, but you know we could not wish her, as you said yourself, never to form another attachment.’

‘But here!’ sighed Albinia, the ground knocked away from under her, yet still clinging to the last possible form of murmur.

‘It will cost us something,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘but no more than we will cheerfully bear, for the sake of one who has such claims upon us; and it will be amply repaid by having such a pair of friends settled close to us.’

‘Then you will, papa?’ said Sophy.

‘Will do what, my dear?’

‘Treat her as—as you did Lucy, papa.’

‘And with much more pleasure, and far more hope, than when we fitted out poor Lucy,’ said Mr. Kendal.

Sophy thanked him, and said ‘Good-night;’ and the look which accompanied her kiss to her step-mother was a binding over to secrecy and non-interference.

‘Is she gone?’ said Mr. Kendal, who had been musing after his last words. ‘Gone to tell her friend, I suppose? I wanted to ask what this scene was.’

‘Oh!’ said Albinia, ‘it was in the garden—we saw it from the window—only he brought her a bit of holly, and was trying to kiss her hand.’

‘Strong premises, certainly. How did she receive the advance?’

‘She would not listen, but made her escape.’

‘Then matters are not in such a state of progress as for me to congratulate her? I suppose that you ladies are the best judges whether he may not meet with the same fate as poor Hope?’

‘Sophy seems to take it for granted that he will not.’

‘Irishman as he is, he must be pretty secure of his ground before coming to such strong measures. Well! I hope we may hear no more of brow-ague. But—’ with sudden recollection—‘I thought, Albinia, you fancied he had some inclination for Sophy?’

Was it not a good wife to suppress the ‘You did’? If she could merrily have said, ‘You told me so,’ it would have been all very well, but her mood would admit of nothing but a grave and guarded answer—‘We did fancy so, but I am convinced it was entirely without reason.’

That superior smile at her lively imagination was more than human nature could bear, without the poor relief of an entreaty that he would not sit meditating, and go to sleep in his chair.

Albinia thought she had recovered equanimity during her night’s rest, but in the midst of her morning toilette, Sophy hurried in, exclaiming, ‘She’ll go away! She is writing letters and packing!’ and she answered, ‘Well, what do you want me to do? You don’t imagine that I can rush into her room and lay hands on her? She will not go upon a wishing-carpet. It will be time to interfere when we know more of the matter.’

Sophy looked blank, and vanished, and Albinia felt excessively vexed at having visited on the chief sufferer her universal crossness with all mankind. She knew she had only spoken common sense, but that made it doubly hateful; and yet she could not but wish Miss Durant anywhere out of sight, and Mr. O’More on the top of the Hill of Howth.

At breakfast, Sophy’s looks betrayed nothing to the uninitiated, though Albinia detected a feverish restlessness and covert impatience, and judged that her sleep had been little. Genevieve’s had perhaps been less, for she was very sallow, with sunken eyes, and her face looked half its usual size; but Albinia could not easily have compassion on the poor little unwitting traitress, even when she began, ‘Dear Mrs. Kendal, will you excuse me if I take a sudden leave? I find it will answer best for me to accept Mrs. Elwood’s invitation; I can then present myself to any lady who may wish to see me, and, as I promised my aunt another visit, I had better go to Hadminster by the three o’clock omnibus.’

Albinia was thankful for the loud opposition which drowned the faint reluctance of her own; Mr. Kendal insisting that she should not leave them; little Awk coaxing her; and Maurice exclaiming, ‘If the ladies want her, let them come after her! One always goes to see a horse.’

‘I’m not so well worth the trouble, Maurice.’

‘I know Ulick O’More would come in to see you when all the piebalds for the show were going by!’

‘Some day you will come to the same good taste,’ said his father, to lessen the general confusion.

‘See a lady instead of a piebald? Never!’ cried Maurice with indignation, that made the most preoccupied laugh; under cover of which Genevieve effected a retreat. Sophy looked imploringly at Albinia—Albinia was moving, but not with alacrity, and Mr. Kendal was saying, ‘I do not understand all this,’ when, scarcely pausing to knock, Ulick opened the door, cheeks and eyes betraying scarcely repressed eagerness.

‘What—where,’ he stammered, as if even his words were startled away; ‘is not Miss Durant well?’

‘She was here just this moment,’ said Mr. Kendal.

‘I will go and see for her,’ said Sophy. ‘Come, children.’

Whether Sophy’s powers over herself or over Genevieve would avail, was an anxious marvel, but it did not last a moment, for Maurice came clattering down to say that Genevieve was gone out into the town. In such a moment! She must have snatched up her bonnet, and fled one way while Ulick entered by the other. He made one step forward, exclaiming, ‘Where is she gone?’ then pausing, broke out, ‘Mrs. Kendal, you must make her give me a hearing, or I shall go mad!’

‘A hearing?’ repeated Mrs. Kendal, with slight malice.

‘Yes; why, don’t you know?’

‘So your time has come, Ulick, has it?’ said Mr. Kendal.

‘Well, and I were worse than an old ledger if it had not, when she was before me! Make her listen to me, Mrs. Kendal, if she do not, I shall never do any more good in this world!’

‘I should have thought,’ said Albinia, ‘that an Irishman would be at no loss for making opportunities.’

‘You don’t know, Mrs. Kendal; she is so fenced in with scruples, humility—I know not what—that she will not so much as hear me out. I’m not such a blockhead as to think myself worthy of her, but I do think, if she would only listen to me, I might stand a chance: and she runs off, as if she thought it a sin to hear a word from my mouth!’

‘It is very honourable to her,’ said Mr. Kendal.

‘Very honourable to her,’ replied Ulick, ‘but cruelly hard upon me.’

‘I think, too,’ continued Mr. Kendal, stimulated thereto by his lady’s severely prudent looks, ‘that you ought—granting Miss Durant to be, as I well know her to be, one of the most excellent persons who ever lived—still to count the cost of opening such an affair. It is not fair upon a woman to bring her into a situation where disappointments may arise which neither may be able to bear.’

‘Do you mean my family, Mr. Kendal? Trust me for getting consent from home. You will write my father a letter, saying what you said just now; Mrs. Kendal will write another to my mother; and I’ll just let them see my heart is set on it, and they’ll not hold out.’

‘Could you bear to see her—looked down on?’ said Albinia.

‘Ha!’ he cried, with flashing eyes. ‘No, believe me, Mrs. Kendal, the O’Mores have too much gentle blood to do like that, even if she were one whom any one could scorn. Why, what is my mother herself but a Goldsmith by birth, and I’d like to see who would cast it up to any of the family that she was not as noble as an O’More! And Genevieve herself—isn’t every look and every movement full of the purest gentility her fathers’ land can show?’

‘I dare say, once accepted, the O’Mores would heartily receive her; but here, in this place, there are some might think it told against you, and might make her uncomfortable.’

‘What care I? I’ve lived and thriven under Bayford scorn many a day. And for her—Oh! I defy anything so base to wound a heart so high as hers, and with me to protect her!’

‘And you can afford it?’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Remember she has her aunt to maintain.’

‘I can,’ said Ulick. ‘I have gone over it all again and again; and recalling his man-of-business nature, he demonstrated that even at present he was well able to support Mdlle. Belmarche, as well as to begin housekeeping, and that there was every reason to believe that his wider and more intelligent system of management would continue to increase his income.’

‘Well, Ulick,’ said Mr. Kendal at last, ‘I wish you success with all my heart, and esteem you for a choice so entirely founded upon the qualities most certain to ensure happiness.’

‘You don’t mean to say that she has not the most glorious eyes, the most enchanting figure!’ exclaimed Ulick, affronted at the compliment that seemed to aver that Genevieve’s external charms were not equal to her sterling merit.

Mr. Kendal and Albinia laughed; and the former excused himself, not quite to the lover’s satisfaction, by declaring the lady much more attractive than many regularly handsome people; but he added, that what he meant was, that he was sure the attachment was built upon a sound foundation. Then he entreated that Mrs. Kendal would persuade her to listen to him, for she had fled from him ever since his betrayal of his sentiments till he was half crazed, and had been walking up and down his room all night. He should do something distracted, if not relieved from suspense before night! And Mr. Kendal got rid of him in the midst of his transports, and turning to Albinia said, ‘We must settle this as fast as possible, or he will lose his head, and get into a scrape.’

‘I do not like such wild behaviour. It is not dignified.’

‘It is only temperament,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Will you speak to her?’

‘Yes, whenever she comes in.’

‘I suspect she has gone out on purpose. Could you not go to find her at the school, or wherever she is likely to be?’

‘I don’t know where to find her. I cannot give up the children’s lessons. Nothing hurts Maurice so much as irregularity.’

He made no answer, but his look of disappointment excited her to observe to herself that she supposed he expected her to run all over the town without ordering dinner first, and she wondered how he would like that!

Presently she heard him go out at the front door, and felt some contrition.

She had not the heart to seek Sophy to report progress, and did not see her till about eleven o’clock, when she came in hastily with her bonnet on, asking, ‘Well, mamma?’

‘Where have you been, Sophy?’

‘To school,’ she said. ‘Has anything happened?’

‘We have had it out, and I am to speak to her when she comes in,’ said Albinia, glad as perhaps was Sophy of the enigmatical form to which Maurice’s presence restrained the communication.

Sophy went away, but presently returning and taking up her work, but with eyes that betrayed how she was listening; but there was so entire an apparent absence of personal suffering, that Albinia began to discharge the weight from her mind, and believe that the sentiment had been altogether imaginary even on Sophy’s side, and the whole a marvellous figment of her own.

At last, Mr. Kendal’s foot was heard; Sophy started up, and sat down again. He came upstairs, and his face was all smiles.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t think she will go by the three o’clock omnibus.’

‘You have spoken to her?’ cried Albinia in compunction.

‘Has Maurice finished? Then go out, my boy, for the present.’

‘Well?’ said Albinia, interrogatively, and Sophy laid down her work and crossed one hand over the other on her knees, and leant back as though to hinder visible tremor.

‘Yes,’ he said, going on with what had been deferred till Maurice was gone. ‘I thought it hard on him—and as I was going to speak to Edwards, I asked if she were at the Union, where I found her, taking leave of the old women, and giving them little packets of snuff, and small presents, chiefly her own work, I am sure. I took her with me into the fields, and persuaded her at last to talk it over with me. Poor little thing! I never saw a more high-minded, conscientious spirit: she was very unhappy about it, and said she knew it was all her unfortunate manner, she wished to be guarded, but a little excitement and conversation always turned her head, and she entreated me not to hinder her going back to a school-room, out of the way of every one. I told her that she must not blame herself for being more than usually agreeable; but she would not listen, and I could hardly bring her to attend to what I said of young O’More. Poor girl! I believe she was running away from her own heart.’

‘You have prevented her?’ cried Sophy.

‘At least I have induced her to hear his arguments. I told her my opinion of him, which was hardly needed, and what I thought might have more weight—that he has earned the right to please himself, and that I believed she would be better for him than riches. She repeated several times “Not now,” and “Not here;” and I found that she was shocked at the idea of the subject being brought before us. I was obliged to tell her that nothing would gratify any of us so much, and that this was the time to fulfil her promise of considering me as a father.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ murmured Sophy.

‘So finally I convinced her that she owed Ulick a hearing, and I think she felt that to hear was to yield. She had certainly been feeling that flight was the only measure, and between her dread of entrapping him and of hurting our feelings, had persuaded herself it was her duty. The last thing she did was to catch hold of me as I was going, and ask if he knew what her father was.’

‘I dare say it has been the first thing she has said to him,’ said Albinia. ‘She is a noble little creature! But what have you done with them now?’

‘I brought him to her in the parsonage garden. I believe they are walking in the lanes,’ said Mr. Kendal, much gratified with his morning’s work.

‘She deserves him,’ said Sophy; and then her eyes became set, as if looking into far distance.

The walk in the lanes had not ended by luncheon-time, and an afternoon loaded with callers was oppressive, but Sophy kept up well. At last, in the twilight, the door was heard to open, and Genevieve came in alone. They listened, and knew she must have run up to her own room. What did it portend? Albinia must be the one to go and see, so after a due interval, she went up and knocked. Genevieve opened the door, and threw herself into her arms. ‘Dear Mrs. Kendal! Oh! have I done wrong? I am so very happy, and I cannot help it!’

Albinia kissed her, and assured her she had done nothing to repent of.

‘I am so glad you think so. I never dreamt such happiness could be meant for me, and I am afraid lest I should have been selfish and wrong, and bring trouble on him.’

‘We have been all saying you deserve him.’

‘Oh no—no—so good, so noble, so heroic as he is. How could he think of the poor little French teacher! And he will pay my aunt’s fifty pounds! I told him all, and he knew it before, and yet he loves me! Oh! why are people so very good to me?’

‘I could easily find an answer to that question,’ said Albinia. ‘Where is he, my dear?’

‘He is gone home. I would not come into the town with him. It is nothing, you know; no one must hear of it, for he must be free unless his parents consent—and I know they never can,’ she said, shaking her head, sadly, ‘but even then I shall have one secret of happiness—I shall know what has been! But oh! Mrs. Kendal, let me go away—’