The same afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Harper and Miss Valery drove to Kingcombe, to see if in that quaint little town there was a house suitable for the young couple. They had not said a word to either of the Miss Harpers concerning this sudden arrangement, agreeing that the father of the household ought to be shown the respect of receiving the first information.

“And then,” said Nathanael, “I trust mainly to Anne Valery to overcome his scruples. Anne can do anything she likes with my father. Don't you remember,” he continued, leaning over to the front seat where the two ladies were, and looking quite cheerful, as though a great load had been taken off his mind—“don't you remember—I do, though I was such a little boy—how there was one day a grand family tumult because Frederick wanted his commission, and my father refused it—how you walked up and down the garden, first with one and then with the other, persuading everybody to be friends, while Uncle Brian and I”—

“There, that will do,” said Miss Valery. “Never mind old times, but let us look forward to the future. Here we are at Kingcombe. Agatha, how do you like the place?”

And Agatha, on this glowing autumn afternoon, eagerly examined her future home.

It was a rather noteworthy country town; small, clean, with an air of sober preservation, reminding one of a well-kept, dignified, healthy old age. It wore its antiquity with a sort of pride, as if its quaint streets, intersecting one another in cruciform shape, still kept the impress of mediaeval feet, baron's or priest's, in the days when Kingcombe had sixteen churches and a castle to boot—as if the Roman walls which enclosed it lay solemnly conscious that, at night, ghosts of old Latin warriors glided over the smooth turf of those great earthen mounds where the town's-children played. Even the very river, which came up to the town narrow and slow, with perhaps one sailing-barge on it visible far across the flat country, and looking like a boat taking an insane pedestrian excursion over the meadows—even the river seemed to run silently, as if remembering the time when it had floated up Danish ships with their fierce barbarian freight, and landed them just under that red sand-cliff, where the lazy cows now stood, and the innocent blackberry-bushes grew.

It was a curious place Kingcombe, or so Agatha thought.

“How strange it is,” Mr. Harper observed. “All these old spots seem to me like places beheld in a dream. Uncle Brian often used to talk about them. I think to this day he remembers everything and everybody about Kingcombe.”

“Does he?”

“And that some day or other he will come back again I do most firmly believe. Do not you, Anne?”

“Yes.” As she spoke, her hand involuntarily was pressed upon her side. Agatha wondered she responded so coldly and with so melancholy a look, to such a joyous prospect as Uncle Brian's return would surely be to all the family.

But here they were in Kingcombe streets—very quiet, sleepy streets, which seemed to have taken an undisturbed doze for a few centuries, to atone for the terrible excitements there created successively by Danish, Roman, Saxon, and baronial ruffians. The poor little town seemed determined to spend its old age in peace and solitude, for you might have planted a cannonade at the market-place, and swept down East Street, West Street, North Street, and South Street, without laying more than a dozen official murders on your soul. There was indeed great reason for Mrs. Harper's innocent inquiry—“Where are all the people gone to?”

“Except on market-days, we rarely see more street passengers than now in Kingcombe,” Aline Valery answered, smiling. “You will get accustomed to that and many other things when you are a country lady. Now, shall we drive to the Dugdales, or look first at the two houses I told you of?”

Mr. Harper preferred the latter course, under fear, his wife merrily declared, of being circumvented by Mrs. Dugdale. The brother and sister, she had already discovered, seemed on as pleasant terms as fire and water, since, as Harrie punningly averred, one invariably “put out” the other. They did not squabble—Nathanael Harper never squabbled—but they always met with a gentle hissing, like water sprinkled on coals. Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always occurring in large families, was mightily amused thereat.

The first house the little party looked over was, as Emma Thornycroft would have phrased it, “a love of a place!” Dining-room, drawing-rooms, conservatory, gardens—quite a gentleman's mansion. Agatha set her heart upon it at once, and it blotted out even her lingering regret over the lost home in the Regent's Park. She ran over the rooms with the glee of a child, and only came back to her husband to urge him to take it, giving her this thing and that thing necessary to its beautification.

He patted her cheek with a pleased yet sad look.

“Dear, I will give you all I can; be quite sure of that. But”—

“Nay, no buts; I must have this house. Besides, Miss Valery says it is the only house to let in Kingcombe.”

“Except the one I showed you as we passed.”

“Oh, that mean little cottage—impossible. We could never think of living there.”

“Nevertheless, let us look at it. You know we are but just beginning the world, and 'small beginnings make great endings' as Uncle Brian would sagely observe. Come along, my little wife.”

She tried to slip from his hand and appeal to Miss Valery, but Anne had moved forward, and left them alone. There was no resource; and even while Agatha's spirit was rather restive under the coercion, she could not but acknowledge the pleasantness with which it was enforced.

“Well, I'll go with you, but I hereby declare rebellion. I will not have that miserable nutshell of a house,” said she, laughing.

Yet it was a pretty nutshell—quite after the “love in a cottage” fashion—though adorned and perfected by the late Mr. Wilson, an old bachelor.

“Did he die here?” asked Agatha.

“No; in Cornwall,” Anne answered. “He had gone over to look at some property I have lately bought there. The people on it, miners thrown out of work, gave him more anxiety than he could bear, for he was not strong. He said their misery broke his heart.”

Miss Valery spoke softly, but the words caught Nathanael's ear. He looked greatly shocked—and said, in a low tone, “Anne, don't talk of this. If I live, the wrong shall be atoned for.”

Agatha wondered for the moment what wrong there was which made her husband look so pained and humbled. But she forbore to ask questions, and again turned her attention to the house.

“It must have been a charming nest for an old bachelor, and I would have liked it very much myself had I been an old maid. But it would never do for us, you know.”

Nathanael smiled, so loth to contradict her, or thwart her pretty ways.

“Don't you see, Miss Valery;” Agatha continued, gathering apprehensions from his silence, smiling though it was—“Don't you see how different the cases are? This little house might do very well for Mr. Wilson, but then if my husband takes his place as your steward, it is only for amusement. We are rich people, you know.”

“My poor child!” began Anne Valery, looking regretfully, nay, reproachfully at Mr. Harper. But he whispered as he passed:

“Not yet, Anne—for my father's sake—the whole family's—nay, her own. Not just yet!”

Such was his earnestness, such his air of command, that, for the second time, Anne, looking in his face and reading the old likeness there—obeyed him.

Agatha, wondering, uncomfortable, recommenced what she jestingly called “her little rebellion.” “I see, Mr. Harper, your heart is inclining to this place, though why or wherefore I cannot tell. But do incline it back again! We must have the other house—that delicious Honeywood.”

“My dear little wife! Nobody could live at Honeywood under a thousand a year.”

“Well, and have we not that? I am sure I thought I had more money than ever I could do with. How much have I?”

He hesitated—she fancied it was at the thoughtless “I,” and generously changed the expression.

“How much have we?”

“Enough—I will make it enough—to keep you from wanting anything, and give you all the luxuries to which you were born. But not enough to warrant us in living at Honeywood. I cannot do it—not even for your sake, Agatha.”

“I do not see the matter as you do.”

“You cannot, dear! I know that. But in this one thing—when, on various accounts, I can judge better than she can—will not my wife trust me?”

And Anne Valery's glance seemed to echo, “Trust him.”

Agatha, tried to the utmost of her small stock of patience, grew more bitter than she could have believed it possible to be with her husband and Anne Valery.

“You expect too much,” she said, sharply. “I cannot trust, even though I may be compelled to obey.”

Mr. Harper turned round anxiously. “Agatha, what must—what can I do? No,” he muttered to himself, “I can do nothing.” He walked to the window, and stood looking out mutely on the little garden—tiny, but so pretty, with its green verandah, its semicircle of arbutus trees serving as a frame to the hilly landscape beyond, its one wavy acacia, woodbine-clasped, at the foot of which a robin-redbreast was hopping and singing over the few fallen leaves.

While they all thus stood, there came a light foot and a flutter of draperies to the door.

“My patience! what are you all doing here? So, Agatha—Anne! How d'ye do, my worthy brother? Why didn't you all come to our house?”

“We were coming directly,” Agatha said. “But how did you find out we were at Kingcombe?”

“You little London-lady! As if anybody, especially the much-beloved Anne Valery (saving her presence) and the much-wondered-at Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper, could drive through Kingcombe without the fact being speedily circulated throughout the whole town? Why, my dear, if you must know, the grocer told Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid, and Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid told it to Mrs. Jones at the Library, and Mrs. Jones told Miss Trenchard, who was coming to call on me; so I asked Duke to give the children their dinner, and off I started, tracking you as cleverly as one of Nathanael's Red Indians. And here I am.”

She stopped, breathless, her flounces, veil, and shawl flying abroad in all directions. But she looked so hearty, natural, and good-humoured, that her entrance was quite a relief to Agatha—more especially as, for a great wonder, she asked no questions.

“So, I hear you have been showing Honeywood to Mrs. Harper. Pretty place, isn't it! A pity it's not on your property, Anne, or you would not let it go to ruin unlet. And here is poor Mr. Wilson's old house, with all the furniture just as it was. How melancholy!”

She said “How melancholy!” just in the tone that she would have said “How entertaining!” From circumstances, or from natural peculiarity—that light easy temper which dances like a feather over the troubled waters of life—she had evidently never learnt the meaning of the word sorrow.

“But now,” Harriet continued, “what I come for, is to carry you all off to lunch—the children's dinner. My dear, you must see my boys, your nephews.”

Agatha stood aghast at the idea of having nephews!

“And such boys!” Miss Valery added, interposing. “'The Missus' has good right to be proud of them. If there is one thing in which Harrie succeeds better than another, it is in the management of her children.”

“Bah! they manage themselves; I just leave them to nature,” cried Mrs. Dugdale; but her eye—the mother's eye—twinkled with pleasure all the time, which greatly improved its expression, Agatha thought. She walked off gaily with her sister-in-law, Nathanael following. Anne stayed behind, conversing with the old woman who showed the house. She and Mr. Harper had pointedly avoided any private speech with one another.

“I declare there is Duke!” cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. “Just look at him, meandering up and down the town.” (Agatha laughed at the word; “meandering” seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) “But my husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does yours? I beg your pardon—since you are watching him as if you thought he were running away. Nonsense, Agatha—(I always call everybody by their Christian names)—Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look.”

The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at the door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and earnestly, as men will do—Nathanael having apparently forgotten the bitter cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's heart. At least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry.

Neither spoke to their wives—being busy laying their heads together over a newspaper—until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at her husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage, mild Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young kitten.

“Nay, now, Missus—don't'ee, love; I'm busy.—And you see, Nathanael, as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and as Mr. Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't you think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction.”

“Wouldn't he?” said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician, who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At which unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with “Vote for Trenchard!” stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner shouting:

“Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!—and give us a shilling! Amen!”

“You see now what comes of your politics,” cried his wife, trying to pull him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a perplexed expression troubling his face.

“It's very odd, now: I made Trenchard promise not to give them a penny for drink. Poor fellows! if they only knew better! But I'll tell'ee what it is, Nathanael,” and he used the slight Dorset accent, which always broadened when he was very earnest, “those lads drink because they are starving—drink drowns care. If they had Free-trade they wouldn't be starving: if they were not starving they wouldn't drink. Therefore, hurrah for Free-trade, and, my poor fellows, here's your shilling! Only don't'ee let it go for more drink'; and, hark'ee, remember it's no bribery money o' Mr. Trenchard's, its mine.

“Thank'ee, zir, thank'ee; hurrah for Duke Dugdale and Free-trade!” shouted the men as they staggered off.

Mr. Dugdale stood looking after them with that mild benevolent smile which made his ugly face quite beautiful—at least Agatha thought so;—which was very generous in her, seeing he had not taken the least notice of her all this while; when he did, it was in the most passing way.

“Eh—what, Missus? did you say Mrs. Harper was here?” He shook hands with her, looking in another direction;—then again turned to Nathanael.

“Utterly useless!” cried Harrie, laughing. “He's more misty than usual to-day. Let us leave the men alone, stupid bears as they are! and come up-stairs to the children.”

All this time no one asked or looked for Miss Valery, who had lingered behind, bidding them go forward. It seemed the habit of the family that she should be left to go about in her own fashion, interfered with by nobody, and attended by nobody, save when she came among them to do them good. It was not wonderful; since, having passed that time of youth when a pleasant woman is everybody's petted darling, she had lived to feel herself alone in the world—wife, sister, and child to no one. It always takes a certain amount of moral courage to meet that destiny.

Aided by the beneficial influence of dinner, which in the Dugdales' house seemed to have the mysterious property of extending over an indefinite time, Agatha had succeeded in making friends with her “nephews” to say nothing of a lovely little niece, who would persist in putting chubby arms round “Pa's” neck, and dividing his attention sorely between Free-trade and rice-pudding. Mr. Harper had taken another child on his knee, and was cutting oranges and doing “Uncle Nathanael” to perfection. His wife stole beside him with affection. Why would he not be always as now? Why was he so good, so gentle to others, yet so hard to be understood by her? Was it her own fault? She almost believed so.

On this group, all happy, all united together by those lovely links in the chain of happiness—little children—Anne Valery entered. She passed round the table, having a word, or smile, or kiss for all. Then she went to an arm-chair, looking tired, though joining all the while in the conversation, particularly with Mr. Dugdale, who seemed to have a great regard for her.

“Ah, Miss Valery, I wish you were a man, and could vote for us!” said he, peering from underneath the baby-hands which made a pointed Norman arch over “Pa's” eyes. “You'd be sure to vote on the right side. Didn't we make a convert of you, Brian and I, years before people talked of Free-trade; long before he went out, and I got married to mamma there? Eh, Brian, my lad”—and he patted his youngest boy, throned on Mr. Harper's knee—“if you only grow up such a wise man as your grand-uncle!”

Agatha was amused to see how the idea and recollection of Uncle Brian had permeated through every branch of the Harper family. Almost every family has some such personage, mythical, sublime, exciting the wonder and hero-worship of all the young people. Little Brian opened wide his large grey eyes at the mention of his honoured namesake.

But while he gazed, his papa's pudding-laden spoon stopped half-way on its journey to the baby-mouth that was waiting for it—Duke Dugdale was in a reverie. He did not even hear the little clamourer on his knee.

“Really, now, that's very odd, very odd indeed.” And he felt anxiously in his pocket. “No, I had another coat on that day—mamma, where's my grey overcoat?”

“Duke—what on earth are you talking about? Now, Agatha, confess—isn't my husband the very vaguest, mistiest man you ever knew? Oh, you dear old visionary, what do you want with grey overcoats at dinner-time?”

He smiled patiently—perhaps he did not even hear—put down his little girl, and walked out of the room, his wife anxiously jumping up and following with some pathetic exclamation about “Duke's being so cross!” Which seemed to Agatha the most amusing exaggeration possible.

In a minute or two this most opposite couple—opposite, but fitting like a dovetailed joint—came in merrily together, Harrie holding a letter.

“Would you believe, he got it last week, has been carrying it about ever since, and never thought of it! There, Nathanael, it's yours! Devour it!”

“From Uncle Brian!” cried the young man. At which name there ran a great sensation throughout the family, in all but Miss Valery, who still kept her chair.

“News! news!” cried Harrie, Agatha and the boys gathering round. Mr. Dugdale walked up and down the room—his hands behind him—smiling in benevolent content at everybody and at nobody. Brian and his tiny sister consoled themselves for the little attention they got by slily climbing on the table and embedding their fingers in the rice-pudding.

Nathanael read the letter aloud, as seemed to be the family custom with Uncle Brian's correspondence.

“My dear Boy,” I find the Western solitudes are no nearer heaven than civilisation. My two red friends having escaped and got back, which they did on purpose to tomahawk me—I gave the tribe the slip, and am here in New York. There I accidentally received your letter.

“You are a foolish boy. When I was young, I think I would rather have died than have married a rich woman, even if she loved me, which no woman ever did. Nevertheless, I hope you will fare better than you deserve.

“Shall you ever come back to America? Not on my account, I pray, though I miss you, and am getting old and lonely. Perhaps it is as well that you left me, and have married and settled. That seems to me now the happier, worthier life for a man to lead. I should like to come and see you, if I could come not quite the beggar I am now. Therefore, I often think I shall go to California.”

There was a light movement among the listening group, as Miss Valery was found quietly to have joined them, and to be leaning over Nathanael's shoulder. He pointed his finger to the letter that she might read it with him. She moved her head in thanks, and he continued:

“If in this or any other form of the mad gold-fever I can heap up a little of that cursed—I mean blessed dust, you may possibly see me in England. Till then—or till death—which seems equally likely, I remain,

“Your affectionate Uncle,

“Brian Locke Harper.

“P.S.—I send this through Marmaduke Dugdale's late agent in New York. Tell my old friend Duke that I congratulate him on having given up merchandising, so that my brother at Kingcombe Holm can no longer reproach him with being the only one of the Harper connection who earns a livelihood.”

This letter, which was trying to read, being sharp and stinging on many points to more than one person present, Nathanael went steadily through, though several times his colour changed. No one made any comment except Agatha, who observed “that Uncle Brian must be rather bitter and sarcastic at heart.”

“No—not bitter,” Anne Valery said,—“only sorrowful. It is often so, when after a hard life men feel themselves growing old. What shall you do, Nathanael?”

“About what? His going to California? Nay, I cannot prevent that. What use in my writing when he gives me such lectures about my marriage?”

“He would not if he knew Agatha. Besides, in this doctrine he is a little wrong. It is of small moment on which side lies the wealth;—love makes all things even.”

Mr. Harper turned away with one of those uneasy looks which Agatha had already begun to notice and speculate over. She made up her mind that at the first possible opportunity she would muster up courage, and claim her right as a wife to know her husband's whole heart.

The epistle produced a considerable change on the family group. The boys were clamorous to know all about California, and whether Uncle Brian would not come home in a gold ship with silver sails; on which subject Nathanael was too full of his own thoughts to give much satisfactory information. Mr. Dugdale had walked out of the window into the garden behind, where Miss Valery followed him, and they two were seen strolling up and down in close conversation. As they passed the window, Agatha noticed that. Anne Valery's cheeks were slightly flushed, and that Mr. Dugdale's “mistiness” of manner had assumed an unusual clearness. He was shaking his companion warmly by the hand.

“Anne, what a wise woman you are! Such a plan would have been years in coming into my head. And it's just the very thing. It will give him occupation and independence without hurting his pride. Moreover”—and a sudden thought dilated his whole countenance with pleasure—“I shouldn't wonder if it brought him home.”

“Hush!”

“Oh yes, I'll remember, we must be very particular. By-the-by, Anne”—here a bright idea seemed to strike the worthy man—“what a help he would be to us against the Protectionists! Wouldn't he see the blessing of Free-trade?”

Anne smiled, with her finger on her lip to stop the conversation; and they stepped in at the window;—Mrs. Harper taking care to glide away, lest they should suspect what she had so unintentionally heard. It was doubtless one of Miss Valery's numerous anonymous charities, which fell as abundant and unnoticed as rain.

“Now”—and Anne startled her godchild Brian by turning up his little rosy chin and kissing him—“now, who will come back with us to that grand family-dinner which the Squire has set his heart upon, and Aunt Mary is so busy-about to-day at Kingcombe Holm?”

All soon started; Agatha being kidnapped, not much against her will, by her gay sister-in-law, and driven across the moors at such a helter-skelter pace that Nathanael, who had insisted upon following them on horseback, received his wife at the door with an evident thanksgiving that she had reached home alive.

Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. Nobody asked what she and Duke Dugdale had conversed about; but Harrie shrewdly suspected he had been talking poor dear Anne to death about the votes of her Kingcombe tenantry, and the probable chances of Mr. Trenchard and Free-trade.