Girls such as we were got little time for sentimental brooding, however, and though up-stairs in the little attic where Joyce and I had always slept, I threw myself on the bed and looked sadly out across the marsh with eyes that saw none of its plaintive placidity, mother soon waked me from day-dreams, and called me down-stairs to active employment that did its best to drive love and its torments from my mind.

The squire was ill; he had taken a bad cold out partridge-shooting, and mother was making him some of her special orange-jelly as a salve for his cough.

Those who were interested in the Conservative success at the elections were much concerned at the squire's illness just at this time; and Mr. Hoad, who had, it seems, been round that afternoon, had been heard to declare that it was all to "our" good that the squire should not have been able to hold forth at the rival meeting that evening.

But mother did not regard the matter in that light, and I believe she told Mr. Hoad so. I was not present; it had happened at the time I had been gone to the station, but according to Joyce, she had told him so very plainly. Mother, as I have often said, was as loyal to squire as if he had been her own son, and on this occasion so, I believe, was father also. Looking back to that time, I seem to remember the sort of rough stand-aloofness which had characterized father's attitude towards the squire, giving place of late to a curious sort of half-unwilling consideration and tenderness.

When mother called me from my bedroom to the kitchen, she was full of the squire's illness. "I hope it's nothing serious," she kept saying; "and that he won't go worrying himself any way about this accident to his nephew."

"Oh, you have heard about it, have you?" answered I. "Well, I don't see why the squire can't afford to worry a little about it, I'm sure. And I'm certain he does; anybody with any heart in them would." I said it bitterly, but I did not anger mother.

"Well, there, Margaret," she said, abruptly, "you know I never did like the young man, and I can't pretend to break my heart over this. I'm sorry he's come to harm, of course, but I can't help feeling glad Joyce takes it as she does. We can't expect her to forget all at once, but please God she will forget, and things perhaps be even as I hoped for."

"I can't think how you can suppose it would please God your daughter should be a fickle, shallow-hearted creature, I'm sure," said I, hotly.

"You and I never were of one mind over that matter, were we?" smiled mother, quite good-temperedly. "But the day'll come when perhaps you'll say I was right. You're but a child yet; you know nothing about such things saving what you've got out of books, and that ain't much like it. Perhaps you may come to know what it is yourself one day, and then you'll tell the difference between the real stuff and the make-believe."

A child! Was my waywardness, my impetuosity, my passionate longing only childishness? Now that I am a woman, I wonder whether mother was partly right in her simple intuition? Only partly: I did know something about "such things."

"I don't believe Joyce hasn't taken it to heart," said I, doggedly.

"Well, her eyes aren't so heavy as yours by a long way," answered mother. "I don't know what's come to you of late. You used not to be mopy. Nobody could say it of you whatever else they might say. You had your tantrums, and you always have been a dreadful one for wearing out your clothes, but mopy you were not. But I'm sure you fret more over this business than Joyce herself does. I've no patience with you. As for any work you do for me, I'd as soon have your room as your company. I like to see a body put her heart into whatever comes to hand, if it's only boiling a potato. You take my word for it, my girl, it's the only way to be happy."

The tears came into my eyes, for I knew very well that mother was right. I turned away that she should not see them, for I was ashamed of tears, but she did see them nevertheless.

"There, there," she added, kindly; "I don't want to rate you. Be a good girl, and look more like yourself again. Half-hearted ways won't bring anybody on; and as for your complexion, well, you used to have a skin that I could boast of. 'Red hair she may have,' I used to say, 'but look at her skin.' And now it's no better than curds and whey. Come, get the muslin and strain off that jelly."

I did as I was bid, but I'm afraid not with my whole heart. Had it come to that, that anybody could say of me, Margaret Maliphant, that I had taken to moping after anybody?

"You shall take it up to the Manor yourself and leave it with the house-keeper, as soon as it's set, in the morning," said mother, tasting the liquid to see that it had just enough flavoring in it. "You can say it's from an old friend, and then it won't hurt her feelings."

We finished the job and set it down to cool before we went in to tea. Joyce was there, with her hair smoothed and her face fresh, and I had red cheeks from stooping over the fire, and red eyes from something else that I would not remember. But I forced myself to look Harrod boldly in the face, asking what had become of father, and learning that they had been up to "The Elms" together, and that the walk had been too much for him.

"Mr. Maliphant will take things so hard," added the bailiff, and the words sounded sadly familiar to me.

Father came in presently and handed me a letter addressed to Frank.

"Take that up to the Manor presently, Meg," said he; "and get the address and ask for news."

"Margaret is going up in the morning with some jelly for the squire; I suppose that'll do," said mother. "I don't expect it's near so bad as it was made out. Those things are always worse in the telling, and these young beaus are just the ones to get a sorry tale abroad about themselves."

"Hush, hush, mother; that's not like your kind heart," said father, reproachfully; and mother laughed, and said she had meant no harm to him, and Joyce looked down on her plate uncomfortably.

But I heard nothing, and as soon as I had swallowed my meal I got up and went out. I recollect with what relief I welcomed Reuben on the terrace with his old dog, and began to talk of commonplace simple things. Feeling hurt me too much, and Reuben did not foster feeling.

"Dear old Luck," said I, stooping down to pat the dog, who looked up at me with tender eyes out of his dusky black and white face, and would have wagged his tail if there had been a long enough piece of it to wag. "I hope there has been no more talk of shooting you. We couldn't spare the sight of you about the farm."

"Nay," said Reuben, shaking his head; "when the dog goes, Reuben'll go too. No mistake about that. He's been my luck, and when they take him they take me."

"Ah, well, you aren't either of you going yet a while," said I, consolingly. "There's lots of life in you both."

"Ay, miss, ay," grinned the old man, well pleased. "We sent the sheep home last night, Luck and I; didn't we, old boy? Beale he have taken his sweetheart on a spree somewhere out Eastbourne way, and he asked me to see to the folding. I'm spry in the summer-time, and I was pleased enough. But I wouldn't have none o' them ondependable, skittish young uns. Not I."

"Whom do you mean?" I asked.

"Nay, I place no dependence on young things," repeated he, doggedly. "They're sure to have their eye on a bit of fun somewheres, and they be allays for trying new dodges. Now, Luck he's safe and he's sure. He's got sperience, Luck has. He knows."

He nodded his head to and fro with an air of profound wisdom, and I burst out laughing.

It did me good. I had not laughed that day.

"What? You mean the young sheep-dog, I suppose?" I said.

"Ay, miss," answered Reuben. "A 'andsome young chap enough, but ondependable." He paused, waiting for me to speak, but I saw whither he was drifting, and was silent. "There's others besides dogs as is ondependable!" he added, slowly. "Such as we durstn't understand the ways o' them that are learned. Nay, would we presume? But there's others as is ondependable. Poor master! But the Lord knows what is best for us all."

"Well, He is sending us glorious weather for the crops, anyway," said I, with determined cheerfulness. "It's quite too hot for me."

"Ay, so be it for the 'ops, miss," grinned the old man.

"I don't believe it," cried I.

He took me by the arm and led me forward to the edge of the cliff, whence we could see the marsh in its whole wide expanse. The day, as I had said, had been very hot, but the sun had set now—it was full seven o'clock, and the long twilight had begun her peaceful reign, exquisite in sober tints and fragrant coolness of silent air. The plain was slowly sinking into mystery, but silver-gray upon the bosom of the dikes, clearly defining their long, straight lines wherever they crossed the marsh; ribbons of white mist unrolled themselves in the dim light.

"They're thicker than that back yonder," said he, "where the 'op-gardens be."

"Well, what harm do the mists do?" laughed I. "The hops haven't got the rheumatics."

"Nay, miss, but the mists, this 'ot weather, and the scalding sun atop'll spoil 'em worse nor they'll 'arm my old bones. They'll be as brown as brushwood."

Reuben delivered this speech in a low tragic whisper, and with the most ominous of expressions, holding my arm the while.

"Oh, Reuben, you always were a gloomy creature," said I. "I believe you like making the worst of things."

"Nay, it's the Lord's doing," said Reuben, piously; "but if he had a-planted Early Perlifics they would ha' been all safe and garnered by now."

"Well, it isn't you that'll be afflicted if the hops fail, Reuben," said I, tartly, "so you needn't be so pious and resigned over it;" and with that I walked off back into the house.

What Reuben had said had set me thinking. I wondered whether it was neither altogether distress at Frank's accident, nor fatigue from the walk, that had made father depressed at tea-time. He was not in the dwelling-room, neither was mother. There were papers strewn over the table, and an inkstand with pen aslant across it stood in the midst. The papers were evidently accounts, and somebody had been working at them.

I supposed it might be Trayton Harrod, for he was still there, contrary to his wont; but he was not seated at the table. He was standing up before the big, empty fireplace, and in one of the deep spindle-railed chairs at the side sat my sister Joyce. I fancied that he moved a little as I came in, but I was not sure.

"Where's father?" asked I, sharply.

I looked at Joyce, but she did not reply.

"Your father is in the study, I believe," said Harrod. "He was here doing some work with me, and did not feel so very well. I believe your mother is with him."

"Oh, I suppose the news of Captain Forrester's accident upset him," said I. "He is so very fond of him."

There was silence. The fact of Joyce's not speaking somehow exasperated me.

"Do you think that was the reason, Joyce?" asked I.

"I don't know, I'm sure," she answered.

And when she spoke I saw why it was she had not spoken before: she had been crying.

"Dear me!" said I, half frightened. "Is he so bad as that?"

Again she did not answer; it was Harrod who replied for her. "No, no, Miss Margaret," he said; "I assure you it's nothing of consequence."

Which did he mean? Father's illness, or Joyce's distress?

"I must go and see," said I. But I did not move. I was anxious about father, and yet I had not the courage to go and leave those two together. I stood looking at them. Joyce sat just where she had sat that cold spring evening not six months ago, when she had told me that Frank Forrester had asked her to marry him. She even sat forward and clasped her hands over her knees, as she had clasped them then; only there was no bright fire now in the hearth to illumine her golden hair; the hearth was empty, but there was a curious sense of gold in the twilight.

In the flash of a moment the scene came back to me; the strangeness of it; the absence of the glow of romance that I had dreamed of when I had first dreamed of romance for my beautiful sister. I had not guessed then that it was the lack of that golden glow that had chilled me. I had wanted it so; I had felt that, outwardly, everything was fitting for it to be so, and I had chosen to believe that it was so; but now I knew very well that it had never been so.

The fire was dead to-night, but the sense of the glow was there—too, too brightly.

"I must go and see about father," I repeated, in a kind of dull voice. I wondered to hear the sound of it myself.

"Don't you go, Meg," said Joyce. "I haven't washed up the tea-things yet, and Deb is busy. I must make haste. I'll look in as I go past."

Her voice had recovered its serenity, and she spoke brightly and sweetly. "Very well, I'll come, too, in a minute, and help you," answered I, going through the hollow pretence of looking for something that I didn't want.

She got up and glided across the room, and out of the door, with that soft way she had. Harrod had sat down again to the table and the papers.

"What's the matter with Joyce?" I asked, bluntly, almost before the door had closed.

He looked at me with those honest eyes of his. I could see that he scorned to make any pretence, any evasive answer.

"I have been speaking to her of something that distressed her," he said. "I should not have done it. I am sorry. I did not think it would have distressed her."

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what it was. I don't know whether it was natural good-feeling and politeness that prevented me, or whether I simply dreaded the answer. I tried to think that the "something" related to Frank Forrester's accident, but I did not ask. "I did not think it would have distressed her" might point to that explanation, as of course Harrod knew nothing of any relations between her and the captain. It might, but there was an undefined fear within me that it did not.

Harrod dropped his eyes again on the papers on the table, and took up the pen. An insane, wicked desire came upon me to hurt him for innocently hurting me.

"Mr. Harrod," said I, roughly, "Reuben has been talking to me outside. He thinks the hops are looking very badly."

He laid down the pen, and looked up, with an underlip that quivered a little.

"Reuben's opinion is not so infallible as I fancy you suppose, Miss Margaret," said he, trying to smile. "Your father has been round the property, and is, I fancy, quite as well able to judge of it as Reuben Ruck."

"Oh, did father think the hops looked well, then?" asked I.

I thought Harrod winced.

"Hops are a very difficult growth," he answered. "I don't suppose a perfect crop is gathered more than once in twenty years. A hundred chances are against it; your father knew this well enough when he went in for the speculation. He is a reasonable man."

I knew that this was intended as a reproof to me, and I knew that I deserved it. I had prided myself on being wise and calm over the business affairs of the farm, as I should have been if I had been father's son instead of his daughter; I had prided myself that Harrod considered me so by talking things over with me as he often had done. But of late I had not been reasonable. I knew it; I knew that I was straining the very cord that I most counted upon, perhaps even to breaking-point. I knew it, I could have bitten my tongue out, and yet my wounded feelings got the better of me and carried my tongue away. I stood there ashamed, sick at heart. I wanted to make it up, I wanted to be forgiven, but I did not know what to say.

And while I was thinking what to say, the door opened, and father and mother came in. Father's face was pale, and he walked uncertainly.

"There, there, that'll do, Mary," he said, testily. "I'm all right now. The weather is a bit oppressive, that's all. I want to finish this bit of business with Harrod, if you'll leave us quiet."

Mother knew better than to say a word. Father sat down in the chair which Harrod got up to give him, and mother and I went out of the room.

My chance of reconciliation that evening was over.

I had to listen to mother's very natural distress about father's fresh indisposition, and her expressions of annoyance at its having been brought on, as she supposed, by the piece of news about "that young good-for-nothing." Then I had the tea-things to wash up with Joyce, and the clean linen to put away. And when all our work was done Trayton Harrod had gone, and I went up into the little attic whence mother had called me in the early evening, and sat down again in the dark to have it out with myself about all the puzzling events of this puzzling day.

Joyce had not yet come up to bed; I was all alone. The twilight was dead; the stars shone above—thousands of stars looking down upon me with a story of courage and hope in their bright eyes—I wonder whether I understood it!

Deborah came in with a candle. She had forgotten to give us one. I was sorry she brought it.

"Lord bless my soul, Margaret, you startled me," said she. "Whatever are you doing? Why don't you get to bed?"

"Joyce hasn't come up yet," I said.

She put down the candle, and came up to me and took hold of me by the shoulders.

"You've been frettin'," said she, sharply, looking down into my eyes. "Now, whatever is that for?"

"How dare you say such a thing?" answered I, pulling myself away. "I've not been fretting. I've nothing to fret about."

"Well, I don't know as you have," answered she; "but you've been fretting for all that. I've seen it for weeks past. What's it for?"

She stood there above me, with her arms akimbo, and her keen, round, dark eyes fixed upon me. It never occurred to her that I was not going to tell her what it was for.

"You've been frettin'," repeated she. "And what call you have to fret because Joyce's beau goes and falls off his horse is more than I can understand."

"I tell you I'm not fretting," repeated I, emphatically. "Of course what should it matter to me? I was surprised that Joyce took it so coolly. Some folk are so quiet. I suppose they feel just the same, but I'm sure you'd never know it. It's a mercy for them they don't make so much noise."

"Oh, that's where it is," said Deb, sagely, as if she had guessed a secret. "You're so set on Joyce frettin' over that young spark. But, Lor' bless my soul, Joyce don't care for him. She never have cared for him, so as to say, properly. She was took at first by his being such a fine fellow and seemin' so fond of her. 'Twas natural enough. And you was so set on it you made her believe she liked him better nor she did. But that ain't what's going to wash. She never loved the fellow."

"It's not true," cried I, with flaming eyes. "She did love him always, and she loves him just as much now."

Deb was not a bit put out by my impetuous sally. She only shook her head quietly, and repeated, "No, she don't. And a precious good thing, too, seeing he's so like to forget her and mate with his own class."

"You're talking nonsense, Deb," cried I, hotly. "Mate with his own class, indeed! We're as good as he any day."

"That may be," answered Deb, calmly, "but he don't think so. He were keen upon her pretty face at first, but he's cooled down now, and sees it wouldn't be a wise thing for him to do. It's a precious good thing Joyce don't care for him."

"I tell you Joyce does care for him," reiterated I, savagely.

"Now, I wonder whatever makes you so set upon Joyce being in love with that young man," said the old woman, looking at me sharply, and without paying the slightest attention to my passionate vindication of my sister's constancy.

"Oh, I know, you want her to marry the squire and be a lady, as mother does," retorted I. "But you needn't bother. The squire'll never propose to her."

"No, you're right there," laughed Deb, with a loud laugh that both puzzled and irritated me. "He won't. I don't rightly see as he could propose to any one in this house till folk are minded to give him a civil word now and then. But that ain't no reason why you should want your sister to wed where she don't love. Nay, Margaret, there's somethin' under that as we don't know of. What is it, eh?"

I looked at Deb defiantly, but her round black eyes were full of a rough and simple sympathy. I knew Deb well enough to recognize the signs of it, and my sore, struggling pride gave way. I forgot all about having insisted a minute ago that I had nothing to fret about, and that I was not fretting. Just as I had used to do when I was a child and mother had whipped me for messing my frock, I put my head upon her broad bosom and began to cry.

Deb offered me no caress; she didn't know how, and she knew well enough I should be ashamed of my unusual behavior later; but after a few minutes she said, grimly: "I thought as much. Bother the men!"

I dried my eyes at that, and between a laugh and a sob I said: "Why should you say that? What have they to do with it?"

"What have they to do with it?" cried Deb. "Why, everything. They always have. Folk may say it was the woman made Adam to sin, but she's been punished for it ever since if she did, and it's just about time it should stop. Men are at the bottom of every trouble that comes our way, though we ought to be ashamed to say so. If it's not loving of 'em, it's hating of 'em, and that's just as bad. What I want to see is a man a-worriting his life out for one of us. They take it so easy, they do. But there, dearie me," smiled the old woman, "I weren't always so wise; and you mark my words, if folk go fixin' their hearts on what's not meant for them, they can't expect to be easy nor comfortable no ways. Ah, I'm not talking stuff, I can tell you. Old Deb isn't such a fool as she looks. You wouldn't think I'd ever had a lover, would you, my dear? But I had, once upon a time. I was a smart, bright lass, though I never was pretty, and the lads they were all fond of me. There was one of 'em fond of me for many a long year, just as patient as could be. He was better to do than I was, and would ha' been a good match for the likes o' me. But, Lord, I must needs go snubbin' of 'im, nasty uppish-like as I always was. Ah, many's the time poor mother has told me I was a fool for my pains. I might have had him if I had liked. But I never so much as cared to think he was coming after me. He was a good body for a friend—as you might say, a walking-stick of a summer evening, and there was an end."

"Well, but you couldn't have married him if you didn't like him, anyway, Deb," said I, interested in spite of myself by the story.

"Ah, I should have liked the man well enough if there hadn't been somebody else by, my dear," said Deb, "and that's just the pity. But one fine day there comes along a stranger lad, a lad as I didn't seem to want to snub—well, not for more than the first week. It was hop-picking time, and we used to be in the fields together all day. He never took particular account of me, more than for a joke and a laugh with the rest; but, my dear, he was as the light o' my eyes to me from morning till night again. I'm not ashamed to tell you now, it's so long ago. I dare say they all saw how it was; I dare say I was the jest o' the field. It don't matter now. I don't know as I much minded then, so long as I could get a word from him. He had always been kind and civil, helping me with the poles over the bin when they were too long and heavy for me to lift; and one day I was ailing and couldn't do my work, and he picked for me, and spoke so as I thought he meant courtin'. But, Lor' bless your soul, he didn't. It was only his nice, pleasant way. Afore the hopping was over I saw him kissing Bess Dawe down by 34 tower of a Sunday evening. The girls told me they'd been trysting it all the time, and he was going to wed her."

"Poor Deb," murmured I, softly, "poor Deb!"

"Oh, it's all past and gone now, child," laughed the old woman. "I've forgotten it, I think. It served me right enough for going for to fix my fancy on a man that didn't want none of me."

"I don't see how you could help that," said I, passionately. "I don't see how it's loving at all unless folk can't help it. And how were you to guess he wouldn't want you? It was cruel, cruel!"

"Nay, child, it weren't cruel. It were just natural, just as it had for to be," said Deb, quietly. And then, in her most matter-of-fact tones, she added, "But it were a rare pity I hadn't wedded the other one, for he'd have made me a good husband."

"Oh, how can you talk so?" cried I. "Why, you wouldn't have loved him."

"Maybe it ain't seemly for a woman to love," said Deb, considering. "The run of women marries the men because it's comfortable, and I'm thinkin' it's the best way. When a woman begins loving she do fret so over it. But the men, they takes it cool and easy, and does their work atween whiles."

"Well, I'm very glad you didn't do it that way at all events, Deb," said I.

"Ah, you wouldn't have had a sour old thing to rate ye if I had," laughed Deb. "But, Lor', I'm content enough. If I'd had a 'ome I'd have had cares, and a man alongside the whole blessed time, which I never could abide. But the Bible do tell us man ain't made to bide single, don't it? That's as much as to say a girl durstn't throw away her chances. And so that's what old Deb's story was for."

"If you mean to say Joyce is to marry the squire for fear Frank mightn't be faithful to her, all I have got to answer is, you're a horrible old woman, and I won't be a party to any such thing."

"Well, of all the obstinate, contrairy-headed, blind-eyed young women that ever I see'd in my whole life!" began Deb, planting her arms akimbo and looking me full in the face.

But she got no further in what seemed very much like the beginning of a sound rating of me. Joyce was coming up-stairs. The old boards cracked even under her light footfall. She was very late. Mother had been keeping her talking. Deb just nodded her head at me with an expression of anger, disappointment, impatience, and warning mysteriously mixed, and went down-stairs without so much as a good-night to my sister.

It was the last I ever heard from her on matters relating to the sentiments and affections. Such an upheaval of her busy, business-like temperament I should have thought not possible; it never was possible again to my knowledge, and the strange revelations in that apparently rough nature remain a marvel to me to this day.