Half a mile or so above Teddington Lock—where you are quite above the low tides, which leave the mud-banks in long stretches and spoil the beauty of the splendid river; where the stream flows on evenly between its banks, only sometimes swifter and stronger, sometimes slower and more sluggish; where you may lie and listen a whole summer's day to the murmurous wash of the current among the lilies and the reeds,—there stands a house, noticeable among other houses by reason of its warm red brick, its many gables, and its wealth of creepers. Its gardens and lawns slope gently down to the river's edge; the willows hang over it, letting their long leaves, like maidens' fingers, lie lightly on the cool surface of the water; there is a boat-house, where a boat used to lie, but it is empty now—ivy covers it over, dark ivy that contrasts with the lighter greens of the sweet May foliage; the lilacs and laburnums are exulting in the transient glory of foliage and flower; the wisteria hangs its purple clusters like grapes upon the wall; there are greenhouses and vineries; there are flower-beds bright with the glories of modern gardening; and there are old-fashioned round plots of ground innocent of bedding-out, where flourish the good old-fashioned flowers, stocks, pansies, boy's-love, sweet-william, and the rest, which used to be cultivated for their perfume and colour long before bedding-out was thought of; an old brick wall runs down to the river's edge as a boundary on either side, thick and warm, with peaches, plums, and apricots trained in formal lines, and crowned with wall-flowers and long grasses, like the walls of some old castle. Behind are rooms which open upon the lawn; round the windows clamber the roses waiting for the suns of June; and if you step into the house from the garden, you will enter a dainty drawing-room, light and sunny, adorned with all manner of feminine things, and you will find, besides, boudoirs, studies, all sorts of pretty rooms into which the occupants of the house may retire, the time they feel disposed to taste the joys of solitude.

The house of a lady. Does any one ever consider what thousands of these dainty homes exist in England? All about the country they stand—houses where women live away their innocent and restful lives, lapped from birth to death in an atmosphere of peace and warmth. Such luxury as they desire is theirs, for they are wealthy enough to purchase all they wish. Chiefly they love the luxury of Art, and fill their portfolios with water-colours. But their passions even for Art are apt to be languid, and they mostly desire to continue in the warm air, perfumed like the wind that cometh from the sweet south, which they have created round themselves. The echoes of the outer world fall upon their ears like the breaking of the rough sea upon a shore so far off that the wild dragging of the shingle, with its long-drawn cry, sounds like a distant song. These ladies know nothing of the fiercer joys of life, and nothing of its pains. The miseries of the world they understand not, save that they have been made picturesque in novels. They have no ambition, and take no part in any battles. They have not spent their strength in action, and therefore feel no weariness. Society is understood to mean a few dinners, with an occasional visit to the wilder dissipations of town; and their most loved entertainments are those gatherings known as garden parties. Duty means following up in a steady but purposeless way some line of study which will never be mastered. Good works mean subscription to societies. Many a kind lady thinks in her heart of hearts that the annual guinea to a missionary society will be of far more avail to her future welfare than a life of purity and innocence. The Christian virtues naturally find their home in such a house. They grow of their own accord, like the daisies, the buttercups, and the field convolvulus: Love, Joy, Peace, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance, all the things against which there is no law—which of them is not to be seen abundantly blossoming and luxuriant in the cottages and homes of these English ladies?

In this house by the river lived Mrs. L'Estrange. Her name was Agatha, and everybody who knew her called her Agatha L'Estrange. When a woman is always called by her Christian name, it is a sign that she is loved and lovable. If a man, on the other hand, gets to be known, without any reason for the distinction, by his Christian name, it is generally a sure sign that he is sympathetic, but blind to his own interests. She was a widow, and childless. She had been a widow so long, her husband had been so much older than herself, her married life had been so short, and the current of her life so little disturbed by it, that she had almost forgotten that she was once a wife. She had an ample income; she lived in the way that she loved; she gathered her friends about her; she sometimes, but at rare intervals, revisited society; mostly she preferred her quiet life in the country. Girls came from London to stay with her, and wondered how Agatha managed to exist. When the season was over, leaving its regrets and its fatigues, with the usual share of hollowness and Dead-Sea fruit they came again, and envied her tranquil home.

She was first cousin to Lawrence Colquhoun, whom she still, from force of habit, regarded as a boy. He was very nearly the same age as herself, and they had been brought up together. There was nothing about his life that she did not know, except one thing—the reason of his abrupt disappearance four years before. She was his confidante: as a boy he told her all his dreams of greatness; as a young man all his dreams of love and pleasure. She knew the soft and generous nature, out of which great men cannot be formed, which was his. She saw the lofty dreams die away; and she hoped for him that he would keep something of the young ideal. He did. Lawrence Colquhoun was a man about town; but he retained his good-nature. It is not usual among the young gentlemen who pursue pleasure as a profession; it is not expected of them, after a few years of idleness, gambling, and the rest, to have any good-nature surviving, or any thought left at all, except for themselves; therefore Lawrence Colquhoun's case was unusual, and popularity proportional. He tired of garrison life; he sold out; he remained about town; the years ran on, and he neither married nor talked of marrying. But he used to go down to his cousin once a week, and talk to her about his idle life. There came a day when he left off coming, or if he came at all, his manner to his cousin was altered. He became gloomy; and one day she heard, in a brief and unsatisfactory letter, that he was going to travel for a lengthened period. The letter came from Scotland, and was as brief as a dinner invitation.

He went; he was away for four years; during that time he never once wrote to her; she heard nothing of him or from him.

One day, without any notice, he appeared again.

He was very much the same as when he left England—men alter little between thirty and fifty—only a little graver; his beard a little touched with the grey hairs which belong to the eighth lustrum; his eyes a little crows-footed; his form a little filled out. The gloom was gone, however; he was again the kindly Lawrence, the genial Lawrence, Lawrence the sympathetic, Lawrence the lazy.

He walked in as if he had been away a week. Agatha heard a step upon the gravel-walk, and knew it. Her heart beat a little—although a woman may be past forty she may have a heart still—and her eyes sparkled. She was sitting at work—some little useless prettiness. On the work-table lay a novel, which she read in the intervals of stitching; the morning was bright and sunny, with only a suspicion of east wind, and her windows were open; flowers stood upon her table; flowers in pots and vases stood in her windows; such flowers as bloom in May were bright in her garden, and the glass doors of her conservatory showed a wealth of flowers within. A house full of flowers, and herself a flower too—call her a rose fully blown, or call her a glory of early autumn—a handsome woman still, sweet and to be loved, with the softness of her tranquil life in every line of her face, and her warmth of heart in every passing expression.

She started when she heard his step, because she recognised it. Then she sat up and smiled to herself. She knew how her cousin would come back.

In fact he walked in at her open window, and held out his hand without saying a word. Then he sat down, and took a single glance at his cousin first and the room afterwards.

"I have not seen you lately, Lawrence," said Agatha, as if he had been away for a month or so.

"No; I have been in America."

"Really! You like America?" She waited for him to tell her what he would.

"Yes. I came back yesterday. You are looking well, Agatha."

"I am very well."

"And you have got a new picture on the wall. Where did you buy this?"

"At Agnew's, three years ago. It was in the Exhibition. Now I think of it, you have been away for four years, Lawrence."

"I like it. Have you anything to tell me, Agatha?"

"Nothing that will interest you. The house is the same. We have had several dreadful winters, and I have been in constant fear that my shrubs would be killed. Some of them were. My dog Pheenie is dead, and I never intend to have another. The cat that you used to tease is well. My aviary has increased; my horses are the same you knew four years ago; my servants are the same; and my habits, I am thankful to say, have not deteriorated to my knowledge, although I am four years older."

"And your young ladies—the traps you used to set for me when I was four years younger, Agatha—where are they?"

"Married, Lawrence, all of them. What a pity that you could not fix yourself! But it is never too late to mend. At one time I feared you would be attracted by Victoria Pengelley."

Lawrence Colquhoun visibly changed colour, but Agatha was not looking at him.

"That would have been a mistake. I thought so then, and I know it now. She is a cold and bloodless woman, Lawrence. Besides, she is married, thank goodness. We must find you some one else."

"My love days are over," he said, with a harsh and grating voice. "I buried them before I went abroad."

"You will tell me all about that some day, when you feel communicative. Meantime, stay to dinner, and enliven me with all your adventures. You may have some tea if you like, but I do not invite you, because you will want to go away again directly afterwards. Lawrence, what do you intend to do, now you are home again? Are you going to take up the old aimless life, or shall you be serious?"

"I think the aimless life suits me best. And it certainly is the slowest. Don't you think, Agatha, that as we have got to get old and presently to die, we may as well go in for making the time go slow? That is the reason why I have never done anything."

"I never do anything myself, except listen to what other people tell me. But I find the days slip away all too quickly."

"Agatha, I am in a difficulty. That is one of the reasons why I have come to see you to day."

"Poor Lawrence! You always are in a difficulty."

"This time it is not my fault; but it is serious. Agatha, I have got—a——"

I do not know why he hesitated, but his cousin caught him up with a little cry.

"Not a wife, Lawrence; not a wife without telling me!"

"No, Agatha," he flushed crimson, "not a wife. That would have been a great deal worse. What I have got is a ward."

"A ward?"

"Do you remember Dick Fleming, who was killed in the hunting-field about fifteen years ago?"

"Yes, perfectly. He was one of my swains ever so long ago, before I married my poor dear husband."

Agatha had used the formula of her "poor dear husband" for more than twenty years; so long, in fact, that it was become a mere collocation of words, and had no longer any meaning, certainly no sadness.

"He left a daughter, then a child of four or five. And he made me one of that child's guardians. The other was a Mr. Dyson, who took her and brought her up. He is dead, and the young lady, now nineteen years of age, comes to me."

"But, Lawrence, what on earth are you going to do with a girl of nineteen?"

"I don't know, Agatha. I cannot have her with me in the Albany, can I?"

"Not very well, I think."

"I cannot take a small house in Chester Square, and give evening-parties for my ward and myself, can I?"

"Not very well, Lawrence."

"She is staying with my lawyer, Jagenal; a capital fellow, but his house is hardly the right place for a young lady."

"Lawrence, what will you do? This is a very serious responsibility."

"Very."

"What sort of a girl is she?"

"Phillis Fleming is what you would call, I think, a beautiful girl. She is tall, and has a good figure. Her eyes are brown, and her hair is brown, with lots of it. Her features are small, and not too regular. She has got a very sweet smile, and I should say a good temper, so long as she has her own way."

"No, doubt," said Agatha. "Pray, go on; you seem to have studied her appearance with a really fatherly care."

"She has a very agreeable voice; a naivete in manner that you should like; she is clever and well informed."

"Is she strong-minded, Lawrence?"

"NO," said Lawrence, with emphasis, "she is not. She has excellent ideas on the subject of her sex."

"Always in extremes, of course, though I am not certain what."

"She wants, so far as I can see, nothing but the society of some amiable accomplished gentlewoman——"

"Lawrence, you are exactly the same as you always were. You begin by flattery. Now I know what you came here for."

"An amiable accomplished gentlewoman, who would exercise a gradual and steady influence upon her."

"You want her to stay with me, Lawrence. And you are keeping something back. Tell me instantly. You say she is beautiful. It must be something else. Are her manners in any way unusual? Does she drop h's, and eat with her knife?"

"No, her manners are, I should say, perfect.'

"Temper good, you say; manner perfect; appearance graceful. What can be the reserved objection? My dear cousin, you pique my curiosity. She is sometimes, probably insane?"

"No, Agatha, not that I know of. It is only that her guardian brought her up in entire seclusion from the world, and would not have her taught to read and write."

"How very remarkable!"

"On the other hand, she can draw. She draws everything and everybody. She has got a book full of drawings which she calls her diary. They are the record of her life. She will show them to you, and tell you all her story. You will take her for a little while, Agatha, will you?"

Of course she said "Yes." She had never refused Lawrence Colquhoun anything in her life. Had he been a needy man he would have been dangerous. But Lawrence Colquhoun wanted nothing for himself.

"My dear Agatha, it is very good of you. You will find the most splendid material to work upon, better than you ever had. The girl is different from any other girl you have ever known. She talks and thinks like a boy. She is as strong and active as a young athlete. I believe she would outrun Atalanta; and yet I think she is a thorough woman at heart."

"I should not at all wonder at her being a thorough woman at heart. Most of us are. But, Lawrence, you must not fall in love with your own ward."

He laughed a little uneasily.

"I am too old for a girl of nineteen," he replied.

"At any rate, you have excited my curiosity. Let her come, Lawrence, as soon as you please. I want to see this paragon of girls, who is more ignorant than a charity school girl."

"On the contrary, Agatha, she is better informed than most girls of her age. If she is not well read she is well told."

"But really, Lawrence, think. She cannot read, even."

"Not if you gave her a basketful of tracts. But that is rather a distinction now. At least she will never want to go in for what they call the Higher Education, will she?"

"She must learn to read; but will she ever master Spelling?"

"Very few people do; they only pretend. I am weak myself in spelling. Phillis does not want to be a certificated Mistress, Agatha."

"And Arithmetic, too."

"Well, my cousin, of course the Rule of Three is as necessary to life as the Use of the Globes, over which the schoolmistresses used to keep such a coil. And it has been about as accessible to poor Phillis as an easy seat to a tombstone cherub. But she can count and multiply and add, and tell you how much things ought to come to; and really when you think of it, a woman does not want much more, does she?"

"It is the mental training, Lawrence. Think of the loss of mental training."

"I feel that, too," he said, with a smile of sympathy. "Think of growing up without the discipline of Vulgar Fractions or Genteel Decimals. One is appalled at imagining what our young ladies would be without it. But you shall teach her what you like, Agatha."

"I am half afraid of her, Lawrence."

"Nonsense, my cousin; she is sweetness itself. Let me bring her to-morrow."

"Yes; she can have the room next to mine." Agatha sighed a little. "Suppose we don't get on together after all. It would be such a disappointment, and such a pain to part."

"Get on, Agatha?—and with you? Well, all the world gets on with you. Was there ever a girl in the world that you did not get on with?"

"Yes, there was. I never got on with Victoria Pengelley—Mrs. Cassilis. Shall you call upon her, Lawrence?"

"No—yes—I don't know, Agatha," he replied, hurriedly; and went away with scant leave-taking. He neither took any tea nor stayed to dinner.

Then Agatha remembered.

"Of course," she said. "How stupid of me! They used to talk about Lawrence and Victoria. Can he think of her still? Why, the woman is as cold as ice and as hard as steel, besides being married. A man who would fall in love with Victoria Pengelley would be capable of falling in love with a marble statue."

"My cousin, Lawrence Colquhoun," she told her friends in her letters—Agatha spent as much time letter-writing as Madame du Deffand—"has come back from his travels. He is not at all changed, except that he has a few grey hairs in his beard. He laughs in the same pleasant way; has the same soft voice; thinks as little seriously about life; and is as perfectly charming as he has always been. He has a ward, a young lady, daughter of an old friend of mine. She is named Phillis Fleming. I am going to have her with me for a while, and I hope you will come and make her acquaintance, but not just yet, not until we are used to each other. I hear nothing but good of her."

Thus did this artful woman gloss over the drawbacks of poor Phillis's education. Her friends were to keep away till such time as Phillis had been drilled, inspected, reviewed, manÆuvred, and taught the social tone. No word, you see, of the little deficiencies which time alone could be expected to fill up. Agatha L'Estrange, in her way, was a woman of the world. She expected, in spite of her cousin's favourable report, to find an awkward, rather pretty, wholly unpresentable hoyden. And she half repented that she had so easily acceded to Lawrence Colquhoun's request.

It was nearly six next day when Phillis arrived. Her guardian drove her out in a dog-cart, her maid following behind with the luggage. This mode of conveyance being rapid, open, and especially adapted for purposes of observation, pleased Phillis mightily; she even preferred it to a hansom cab. She said little on the road, being too busy in the contemplation of men and manners. Also she was yet hardly at home with her new guardian. He was pleasant; he was thoughtful of her; but she had not yet found out how to talk with him. Now, with Jack Dunquerque—and then she began to think how Jack would look driving a dog-cart, and how she should look beside him.

Lawrence Colquhoun looked at his charge with eyes of admiration. Many a prettier girl, he thought, might be seen in a London ballroom or in the Park, but not one brighter or fresher. Where did it come from, this piquant way?

Phillis asked no more questions about Mrs. L'Estrange. Having once made up her mind that she should rebel and return to Mr. Jagenal in case she did not approve of Mr. Colquhoun's cousin, she rested tranquil. To be sure she was perfectly prepared to like her, being still in the stage of credulous curiosity in which every fresh acquaintance seemed to possess all possible virtues. Up to the present she had made one exception; I am sorry to say it was that of the only woman she knew—Mrs. Cassilis. Phillis could not help feeling as if life with Mrs. Cassilis would after a time become tedious. Rather, she thought, life with the Twins.

They arrived at the house by the river. Agatha was in the garden. She looked at her visitor with a little curiosity, and welcomed her with both hands and a kiss. Mrs. Cassilis did not kiss Phillis. In fact, nobody ever had kissed her at all since the day when she entered Abraham Dyson's house. Jack, she remembered, had proposed to commence their friendship with an imitation of the early Christians, but the proposal, somehow, came to nothing. So when Agatha drew her gently towards herself and kissed her softly on the forehead, poor Phillis changed colour and was confused. Agatha thought it was shyness, but Phillis was never shy.

"You are in good time, Lawrence. We shall have time for talk before dinner. You may lie about in the garden, if you please, till we come to look for you. Come, my dear, and I will show you your room."

At Highgate Phillis's room was furnished with a massive four post bedstead and adorned with dusky hangings. Solidity, comfort, and that touch of gloom which our grandfathers always lent to their bedrooms, marked the Highgate apartment. At Carnarvon Square she had the "spare room," and it was furnished in much the same manner, only that it was larger, and the curtains were of lighter colour.

She saw now a small room, still with the afternoon sun upon it, with a little iron bedstead in green and gold, and white curtains. There was a sofa, an easy-chair, a table at one of the windows, and one in the centre of the room; there were bookshelves; and there were pictures.

Phillis turned her bright face with a grateful cry of surprise.

"Oh, what a beautiful room!"

"I am glad you like it, my dear. I hope you will be comfortable in it."

Phillis began to look at the pictures on the wall.

She was critical about pictures, and these did not seem very good.

"Do you like the pictures?"

"This one is out of drawing," she said, standing before a water-colour. "I like this better," moving on to the next; "but the painting is not clear."

Agatha remembered what she had paid for these pictures, and hoped the fair critic was wrong. But she was not; she was right.

And then, in her journey round the room, Phillis came to the open window, and cried aloud with surprise and astonishment.

"O Mrs. L'Estrange! is it—it——" she asked, in an awestruck voice, turning grave eyes upon her hostess, as if imploring that no mistake should be made on a matter of such importance. "Is it—really—the Thames?"

"Why, my dear, of course it is."

"I have never seen a river. I have so longed to see a river, and especially the Thames. Do you know—

"And again—Oh, there are swans!

"I am glad you read poetry, my dear."

"But I do not. I cannot read; I only remember. Mrs. L'Estrange, can we get close to it, quite close to the water? I want to see it flowing."

They went back into the garden, where Lawrence was lying in the shade, doing nothing. Phillis looked not at the flowers or the spring blossoms; she hurried Agatha across the lawn, and stood at the edge, gazing at the water.

"I should like," she murmured presently, after a silence—"I should like to be in a boat and drift slowly down between the banks, seeing everything as we passed, until we came to the place where all the ships come up. Jack said he would take me to see the great ships sailing home laden with their precious things. Perhaps he will. But, O Mrs. L'Estrange, how sweet it is! There is the reflection of the tree; see how the swans sail up and down; there are the water-lilies; and look, there are the light and shade chasing each other up the river before the wind."

Agatha let her stay a little longer, and then led her away to show her the flowers and hothouses. Phillis knew all about these and discoursed learnedly. But her thoughts were with the river.

Lawrence went away soon after dinner. It was a full moon, and the night was warm. Agatha and Phillis went into the garden again when Lawrence left them. It was still and silent, and as they stood upon the walk, the girl heard the low murmurous wash of the current singing an invitation among the grasses and reeds of the bank.

"Let us go and look at the river again," she said.

If it was beautiful in the day, with the evening sun upon it, it was ten times as beautiful by night, when the shadows made great blacknesses, and the bright moon silvered all the outlines and threw a long way of light upon the rippling water.

Presently they came in and went to bed.

Agatha, half an hour later, heard Phillis's window open. The girl was looking at the river again in the moonlight. She saw the water glimmer in the moonlight; she heard the whisper of the waves. Her thoughts—they were the long thoughts of a child—went up the stream, and wondered through what meadows and by what hills the stream had flowed; then she followed the current down, and had to picture it among the ships before it was lost in the mighty ocean.

As she looked there passed a boat full of people. They were probably rough and common people, but among them was a woman, and she was singing. Phillis wondered who they were. The woman had a sweet voice. As they rowed by the house one of the men lit a lantern, and the light fell upon their faces, making them clear and distinct for a moment, and then was reflected in the black water below. Two of them were rowing, and the boat sped swiftly on its way down the stream. Phillis longed to be with them on the river.

When they were gone there was silence for a space, and then the night became suddenly musical.

"Jug, jug, jug!" It was the nightingale; but Phillis's brain was excited, and to her it was a song with words. "Come, come, come!" sang the bird. "Stay with us here and rest—and rest. This is better than the town. Here are sweetness and peace; this is the home of love and gentleness; here you shall find the Coping-stone."