It was as Mr. Joseph had said. His brother, George Albert Dacre Foxley, of Foxley Manor, Notts, was indeed contemplating marriage with Milly, niece of Mrs. Cox, landlady of the Ipswich Inn. If it seem strange, remember that he had passed the meridian of his years, health was gone, life rapidly passing away and it was impossible now for him to make any new departure in his life or habits. He had become firmly attached to Mrs. Cox's comfortable mÉnage and wanted nothing more. Never in England, even while in the enjoyment of fairly good health and luxurious surroundings had he ever felt so completely at rest, satisfied with himself and his small immediate world, every want cared for, every wish guessed at, and the best of company to his idea—company that called for nothing but pure naturalness. He could smoke for hours in Mrs. Cox's kitchen, or in her neat yard or even in the chintz-hung drawing-room and no one would interrupt him with dissertations on politics, art or literature. Like all Englishmen of the quiet country-loving stamp, he cared little about politics except when some general crisis assented itself, and knew less about art or literature. He thought Wilkie and Landseer about the summit of the one and Byron the chief modern pillar of the other. Twenty years ago, Tennyson had not made a very deep impression on a mind of his calibre. Yet this handsome, quiet, delicate gentleman when he did choose to talk had such an audience as is not given to many men, for Mrs. Cox would leave her work (if she dared) and Milly would listen with her young eyes fastened in a kind of ecstasy on the dark ones turned to hers, and Squires would come along with his hands in his trousers pockets and his fiddle under his arm, and Bess would put her paws upon her master's knees and devour him with her own dark eyes—a quintette of friends unsurpassed in the world for loyal attachment and generous devotion. What if what he had to tell was but some simple story of hunting England, or some bald description of London life seen under the surveillance of a tutor fifteen or twenty years previous to the time of narration—he was their oracle, prophet, God, what you will, and they were his dearest, yes, his very dearest friends. When Mr. Joseph appeared as one of this happy circle, it became more boisterous of course though not necessarily any happier, for it was already as happy as it could be. But the news from town and the occasional English mail, flowers and a cheap new novel—these were some of the simple delights that Mr. Joseph used to bring with him. During the first couple of years, both the brothers would saunter out to the Miss Dexters' or to the Rectory, Mr. Joseph in particular, never failing to appear on Saturday nights at choir-practice and Sunday evening service—but Mr. George gradually discontinued his visits as I have hinted and towards the fourth year of his stay hardly ever went beyond the Inn. For at the back the small terraced garden met the orchard, and the orchard sloping down met a small pebbly brook, and the brook flowing along in sweet rippling fashion met the most charming of wheat covered golden meadows in which it was pleasant and good to stroll and which moreover all belonged to that matchless paragon among landladies, Mrs. Cox. In those days people grew their own kitchen stuff, and their own fruit and their own grain, fed their own live stock, made their own butter and cheese, cured their own hams, laid their own eggs, even brewed their own beer. Now, everything is different, and let no confiding Englishman, allured by my tempting picture come out to Canada today in search of such a Utopia for he will not find it. Moreover all this pleasant prospect of wood and stream and meadow and orchard lay well behind the Inn, let it be understood, and it was perfectly possible for Mr. George Foxley to have all the air, walking and exploration he desired and even a little shooting and fishing if he wanted them without, as I have said, going beyond it. When he grew really weak, he was obliged to give up both the latter occupations of course, but he still walked or strolled a great deal, generally with Milly by his side. She would leave anything she was at when he called her and opening the little gate by the one hawthorn tree leading into the orchard, see him safe down the slope to the side of the little brook where she would give him her arm, and thus their walk would commence in earnest. Four years had brought a great change in Milly. New ideas, new habits, association with such thorough and high-bred gentleman and the natural desire to improve and grow worthy of such dearly esteemed company, had altered her completely. Where before she had been pink, now she was pale; thin, where she had been plump; her features actually aquiline from the girlish snub of the rounded contour four years back, her hair, three shades darker, her dress, almost that of a lady. The most perfect sympathy appeared to exist, and really did, between these two strangely met natures.

One day, they had sat down at the side of the brook as a couple of children would have done to cast in sticks and leaves and watch them float by. Sometimes these would get caught in the numberless little eddies that such a stream possesses and be whirled round and round until it was necessary to dislodge them and send them on their way after the others. One fine yellow leaf on this November day attracted Mr. Foxley's attention particularly, for it was obstinate in returning again and again to a cosy little bay formed by a couple of large stones. Often as he poked it out, back it came into the bay and anchored itself contentedly on the calm water.

Milly laughed.

“He has found a haven,” said Mr. George. “Yes, without doubt he has found his haven. What do you think, Milly?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Don't call me sir, child. What makes you do so?”

“There is nothing else I can call you, is there,—sir.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Foxley. He lay back at full length on the grass and put his hands over his eyes. The river rippled on and Milly watched him anxiously. “Is the leaf there still, Milly?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now!” said Mr. Foxley in a warning tone. “I tell you I won't have it.”

“No, sir—I beg your pardon, Mr. George.”

“Nor that either,” said Mr. Foxley, slowly rising into a sitting posture again. He had another poke at the yellow leaf. “Call me Dacre, my child, will you?” Milly no longer watched him with those loving, anxious, eyes. She was trembling from head to foot and had she spoken, she must have wept. Mr. Foxley's voice was of itself enough to make any woman weep, it was so soft, so tender, so subdued and indrawn. Once more he said, “Call me Dacre, my child!” That pleading voice, so low, so musical, and that it should plead to her? They were so close together that he could feel her tremble. Weak as he was, he was the stronger of the two for a moment, and turning slightly towards her met her rapturous eyes, and heard her call him the name he wanted to hear. The same instant they kissed, a long thrilling dark-enfolding kiss that was the first Milly had ever known from a man and might have been, for its purity and restraint, the first also that he had ever given to a woman.

“Have I found my haven too, like the wise leaf of autumn? Have I! Tell me, my child, my darling!”

“O sir, dearest sir—I mean, dear Dacre, it is I who have found mine. If indeed you care for me, sir!”

Mr. Foxley laid his head just on her shoulder, then let it slide into her lap, taking her trembling hands and putting them over his eyes.

“I do more than care for you, my child. I love you. Stoop and kiss me. There. Don't take your head away again like that. Leave it. Your face against mine. Your lips on mine. Is it a haven, child? Truly, yes or no?”

“Dear Dacre!”

“Well!”

“You know it is. And I have always wanted so much to—to—care for you, but I did not dare.”

“Dare! There is no dare about it my child. If you will give me your young life—how old are you now, love?”

“Nineteen,” whispered Milly into his ear.

“Only nineteen, and such a tall girl, with such long hair—if you will give it to me and be happy in giving it, child, that must be thought of, there is no one else—”

“You know there is not, sir.”

“Then I will do all I can to deserve it. And nobody must call you Milly any more. You are Mildred now. Miss Mildred if you like and soon, very soon, to bear another name, mine. It is a good one, child.”

“I am sure of it, dear Dacre, and too good—far too good—for me.”

“Do you know how old I am, my child?”

“I heard your brother say.”

“And did he dare? What did he say it was, my age?”

“He said—you were forty-one.”

“Then he was out. It is more than that I am exactly forty-three; I say exactly, for, Milly, this is my birthday, and—I cannot hope—neither of as must dare to hope, child—that I shall see many more. You will marry me whenever I say, my love?”

The girl bent over him in a passion of weeping.

“There is nothing I would not do for you, dear sir—”

“Except call me by my dearly-beloved third name!”

It began to turn cold as they sat by the stream and Milly or Mildred as she is henceforth to be called, drying her eyes, fell into a fever over her lover and besought him to return to the house.

Standing face to face, he put her arms around his neck.

“Before we go, dear child, you are sure you love me?”

“O do not ask me again, dear Dacre!”

“That is right. And you know how old I am?”

Another assent.

“And that you are to marry me whenever I say?”

“If I can.”

“Of course you can. And that you are to give me all the love you possibly have to give and more and more. I shall be exacting!”

“Dear Dacre!”

“Very well. Remember all those clauses, and now take me back to the house. And some day, my child, I will tell you all my life and what it was—or rather who it was—that sent me out of England, dear England—”

“Ah! you love it still,” murmured Mildred, looking at the ground.

“I shall always love it now, since I have found my happiness in Canada, but once I hated it, Milly, yes, I hated it!”

So was accomplished the wooing of Mr. George Foxley. He was earnestly and sincerely in love. The girl had grown up under his eye as it were and was in fact almost a part of himself already. Marriage would complete the refining and gilding process. The tones of her voice, her accent, her pronunciation, her habits of sitting, of standing, of walking were all more or less unconsciously imitated from him, she had modelled herself upon him, she was indeed his “child” as he loved to call her. For a month these two people enjoyed as pure and perfect and isolated an happiness as can be experienced on earth. Then it became necessary to inform Mr. Joseph and worthy Mrs. Cox. As if Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Cox didn't know! There are two things that nothing can hide in this life. One is, the light in the eyes of a girl who has found herself loved by the man she adores, and the other is, the unutterable content in the mien of that man himself. And there is no phase of passion sweeter, nor purer, nor warmer, nor more satisfying, than that which is the result of a young girl's affection for a man many years older than herself.

As for the telling, Mr. George, though he could talk fast enough and fluently enough to Mildred, hated much talk or fuss about anything and so made everything the easier by informing his brother, Mr. Joseph, by note. A few lines sufficed as preparation for the news and he ended by requesting him to purchase some small and inexpensive gift as from himself in appreciation of the occasion. Mr. Joseph with characteristic good taste and delicate feeling, concluded that flowers, though perishable, were the most appropriate purchase he could light upon, and consequently walked out from town a certain Saturday afternoon late in November with a monster affair in smilax and roses in his hand. When it was placed, though not by himself, in Mildred's hands she felt a disappointment she could not altogether conceal.

“Never mind,” said Mr. George at full length on a sofa with Milly beside him on a chair. He did indeed prove a most exacting lover. For a long time her share of daily work in the Inn and out of it, had been growing less and less, until now she hardly did anything at all besides wait on her master, lover and friend, prepare what he eat, read to him, and sit by him for hours, never leaving him in the evenings till long after twelve and then it was understood that in case of night attacks of the dreadful pleurisy and asthma combined that were slowing killing him, she would always be at hand to come at the sound of his bell—or indeed his voice, for Milly, sleeping in the room opposite his own, always left both doors open and would lie fully dressed on her bed night after night, listening in the dark, with wide open eyes and strained ears, for the slightest cough or sigh that came from that worshipped one across the narrow hall.

“Never mind,” said he on that Saturday night “My brother is busy just now. Don't you remember, he found it difficult to come out last week. It's an awful grind for Joseph, poor Joseph! But he enjoys life, I think; at the present moment I expect he is flirting audaciously in town with some charming girl. Or some fearfully plain one. You never know who next, with my brother. He'll turn up on Monday.”

And Mr. Joseph did turn up on Monday. Farmer Wise had fetched some doctor from Orangetown on Sunday, who after examining his injury, pronounced it incurable. Mr. Joseph was as stoical as Englishmen are generally expected to be and saw that it was absolutely imperative to tell his brother.

“I brought it on myself” he said to the farmer, “At least I try to believe I did. By Jove! to think—to think of some men! Well, I must tell my brother.”

When he did tell him late on Monday night, having been driven over by Farmer Wise himself, with his poor eyes bandaged and the sturdy farmer's hand to guide him into the little back parlor where Mr. George and Mildred sat alone, for Mrs. Cox had been ordered out by that exacting gentleman as early as eight o'clock. Nothing but the presence of Mildred herself and the love divine and human that filled Mr. George's breast to overflowing could have saved him from succumbing to the painful shock.

“Well, I should think you are cured now, my poor Joseph!” said his brother presently.

“Of what, in heaven's name?” said poor Mr. Joseph. “By Jove to think—to think of some men, George! What had I done, what had I done?”

“I do think of them,” said Mr. Foxley gravely. “I do think of them. And but for my happiness here,” touching Mildred's dress reverently, “I could wish—” wistfully, “That we had never come here—'twas I who brought you my poor Joseph, 'twas I, 'twas I.”

“Oh! that's rubbish!” pronounced Mr. Joseph energetically. “The main point is now, how am I to get my living. God! I am perfectly useless! They won't take me back in town there.”

“Dear Mr. Joseph,” said Mildred, with her eyes shining on the brother of her lover. “You will live with us of course, with—Dacre, Dacre and me, and my aunt. We all love you—see,” and Milly rose, first pressing Mr. George's fingers as they touched her dress in passing and giving him a look which was meant to keep him in order for a few moments, “no one can nurse you as well as I can—ask Dacre—let me take off that bandage and put it on again more comfortably for you! Will you, dear Mr. Joseph?” Mr. Joseph groaned and hid his face against Milly's heaving breast.

“She is to be your angel as well as mine, perhaps,” murmured his brother.

“I have always been so active,” groaned poor Mr. Joseph, “What is to become of me? To live here with you would have been beautiful, but now—the simple thought of existence at all anywhere is unbearable! And the money—good God, George, how can I Help giving way!”

Some few other such scenes had naturally to be gone through before any course could be suggested to Mr. Joseph. Mrs. Cox had been taken into confidence, and Farmer Wise made to understand that nothing must be said about the unhappy affair. Mr. Joseph wrote into town explaining in some way his resignation of the rather important clerkship he had but just begun to fill creditably, and sending for all his belongings took to Mrs. Cox's remaining little room under the roof in the character of an invalid. The secret was admirably kept, even by the doctor who had been written to and who had seen a similar case some years ago.

“A jealous devil, I suppose,” said he, when he read Mr. George Foxley's note.

“Well, he might have come off worse. But I should like to know who the country lass was that he'd been sparkin', and who revenged herself like that.”

A few weeks afterwards Mildred was married to George Albert Dacre Foxley, of Foxley Manor, Notts, by the Rev. Mr. Higgs in the village church. Her lover looked wonderfully well and strong on the occasion and was so happy that he was actually mischievously inclined during the ceremony, nearly causing his bride to laugh out audibly. Handsome and distinguished and aristocratic a gentleman as he looked, Mildred was not unworthy of him, as a straighter, firmer, more composed and more smiling a bride never entered a church. The girl was too happy to know what nervousness meant nor self-consciousness. She sat with her lover after he was dressed and had lain down a few moments to rest, until it was time to start in the carriage which Mr. Rattray had in the most unexpected manner offered them and which Mr. George accepted with the easy languid grace that characterized his acceptance of most things in this world excepting Milly. He had plenty of force and passion and to spare concerning that gift. Stipulating that “Squires” must sit on the box seat, he and Milly and Mrs. Cox, an ideal little wedding party, drove off in actually high glee, laughing and chatting and joking immoderately to the amazement of the villagers, prominent among whom were Mrs. Woods and “Woods” himself, rescued in a dazed condition from the back premises of the “Temperance Hotel” according to popular local tradition, and Mrs. Lyman, B. Rattray, nÉe Maria Higgs. Mr. Joseph alas! could not be present.

In the year that followed this remarkable marriage, the relative positions of the Mr. Foxleys underwent a great change. So much love and so much care lightened the elder brother's existence so materially, that his health actually improved, and by the end of the sixth month of marriage he was able to shoot and fish once more, and walk with his adoring wife without the help of her strong arm and shoulder. Indeed it was she who about this time began to need his assistance during those long strolls by the side of the brook or through the tall grain grown meadows—a matter which astonished them both to the extent of stupefaction. Mr. George took his trouble to Mrs. Cox.

“I don't know what you expected, Mr. George, I don't indeed,” said she, secretly amused at his simplicity. “You went and got married, as was only natural, and now you are frightened at the results, as is only natural.”

“But, my dear lady,” expostulated the perplexed gentleman, “it involves so many things, all manner of complications. For instance, money. I shall have—I really believe, my dear good Mrs. Cox—I shall have to make some money.”

“You!” ejaculated Mrs. Cox.

“I know. It appears hopeless. I never turned a penny, honest or otherwise in my life. Joseph you see—ah! poor Joseph!”

Poor Joseph indeed, darkness for light, solitude for society, enforced idleness for long-continued habits of activity, who could enjoy life under these circumstances—and careful of him as Mildred was, and sympathetic as his brother was, these two were too intensely absorbed in each other to give him all the amusement and attention he craved. He grew thin and weak and slightly perverse and seemed to care more for Mrs. Cox's company than for his brother's. And yet there was nothing wrong with him except his terrible affliction. Mrs. Cox was sure he had something on his mind, and one day she ventured to tell him so. He flushed all over his pale freckled skin, and feeling for her motherly hands took them in his own.

“There is,” he said. “I wonder no one has ever guessed it. Miss Dexter, where is she? Does anyone ever see her?”

“My poor boy, my dear Mr. Joseph,” cried Mrs. Cox. “You did not really care for her, did you? Surely! You did not care for her!”

“No,” said he decidedly. “No, I did not care for her—I didn't, never could have cared for her as George cares for Mildred, say—but she was a lady and kind to me, and I liked to go there, and the fact is—I miss her—and I am so sorry for her! and yet, you know, I am half frightened of her too and afraid to go out, thinking she may meet me and I wouldn't see her coming, you know! Yet she wouldn't do it again, I think!”

“Heaven save us, no, Mr. Joseph! And you so forgiving! Mercy me, and people say men make all the trouble!”

“It's half-and-half, Mrs. Cox, dear old soul,” muttered Mr. Joseph, leaning back on his cushions. “I suppose we were both to blame. I can't, for the life of me, fall to talking of it as a judgment, for before heaven, I had done nothing. Yet I forgot how lonely she was and how proud, and I forgot too, that Ellen—that Ellen—”

“Ay, Mr. Joseph. It was Ellen too. Poor Ellen, that passed away out of it all!”

“And she—Miss Dexter—is still here, still living by herself in the cottage by the oak! I remember so well, Mrs. Cox, the first time my brother and I ever saw that oak!”

“I daresay, Mr. Joseph, I daresay. Yes, she is still there, living in her cottage unloved and unheeded, Mr. Joseph. And may she ever continue so!”

“Oh! don't say that, dear old soul! Don't say that! Do you know, I should like to see her—I mean—meet her once again!”

Mrs. Cox was certain he was not in “his right head” as she said to herself.

“See her again! Meet her, talk to her! The woman who served ye like this! what can you be thinking of? Let me call your brother. There he is coming along the road, brown and bonny, with his wife on his arm, bless them both?”

“Did you say he was brown, Mrs. Cox? My brother brown! What a change! He looks so well then, dear old soul!”

“If you could but see him, Mr. Joseph, you would see how well.”

“Well and brown! And Mildred, she is pale, I suppose, and with her eyes turned up to his and her lips brushing his shoulder every now and then—O I can see them—I suppose they go on a worse than ever.”

“Indeed and they do, Mr. Joseph. After, breakfast this morning I sent them up into the drawing-room to be out of the way of the drover's meeting to be held in the bar, and when I went up to ask them about the lunch they would take with them on the river this afternoon I heard no sound like and just whispered at the door a bit if I might come in. When I went in, there was your brother standing behind her in a chair, with all her hair down, and a brush in his hand and his wife fast asleep! He looked frightened for a minute when he saw me and I besought him to bring her to, thinking he'd mesmerized her. He'd been brushing it and playing with it and the morning over warm—she had fallen asleep. And I left them, Mr. Joseph, I left them, for they love each other so. And when I think of the honor he has done my girl, and how particular he is that she shall be called Mrs. Foxley—it—”

“Well, well, Mrs. Cox, ours is a good name, and I do not think my brother would have ever allowed any but a good girl to bear it. And if a girl is lovely and gentle and pure-minded, and innocent, and neat, and clean, and refined as your niece was, it matters not about her birth. Birth! O my dear old soul, I am sick of the word! Miss Dexter now, is a lady, you know.”

“Ay.”

“And I must see her again,” enforced Mr. Joseph, brought back to his one idea. “I must see her again.”

Mrs. Cox communicated this intelligence to her niece, Mrs. Foxley.

“I think I can understand why,” said she, lying back in her husband's arms one hot summer night under the trees at the back of the blouse. “It seems a hard wish to understand and a harder one to comply with, but it may have to be done. Dacre—”

“What my darling!”

“When are you going to tell me about your life in England and—and—about the woman who sent you out of it?”

“The woman! I never told you about a woman, child!”

“No. But I guessed. It is sure to have been a woman, Dacre.”

“Well, I don't mind when I tell you. Nothing of all that time is anything to me now. Shall I tell you now?”

“If you please, dearest Dacre. For I must be close to you when I listen to that, and must not have you see me, for I know I shall cry.”

“Dearest child! Well then, it shall be now, for you could scarcely be closer to me than you are now? And if you cry, as you must try not to do, you shall be allowed to cry here upon my breast and I will not look. I can hardly see you as it is, it is so dark. Let me think, how I shall begin. You know Joseph—our poor Joseph—is my only brother and I never had any sisters. My father—you know this too—is an English country gentleman living in one of the most beautiful seats in England. If I were to describe the old place to you, you would want to go, and I could not spare you, so I will only say—well, you have seen those photographs?”

“Yes, dearest Dacre.”

“They only give you a faint idea of what it is. It is Tudor you know—do you know what Tudor is, Mrs. Foxley—and all red brick, weathered all colors, and terraced, with lots of little windows and some big ones with stained glass in them, and urns on the terrace, and a rookery, and an old avenue of poplars, haunted too, and so on, and so on—there's no end to it, Mildred! Yes, it's a fine old place, without doubt Well, that is where I was born. I don't remember my mother. I wish I did. She died when Joseph was born, he is just four years younger than I am. Our youth was passed there—at the Manor, of course, and we had the usual small college education not extending to a university career that gentleman's sons have in England, you know. I didn't make many friends at school, and where we lived, there was no one to visit, and we had very few relations. It is quite unusual I believe for two boys to grow up as we did, in comparative isolation. My father was a kind of Dombey—you know Dombey, Mildred—wrapped up in his old place and the associations of his youth and in his family pride. The Foxleys are better born I believe than half of the aristocracy; we go back to the Conquest on my father's side—a thing which he never permits himself to forget for an instant. Well, Milly, it was a dull life for two lively, affectionate lads like Joseph and me, wasn't it, and had it not been for all this, child, nature, you know, and the trees and the streams and the out-door sports I love so well, I could never have got on at all. Then when I was nineteen—just your age, love—came a change. I, being the elder and heir to the estate was sent off to town—I mean, London, my dear—and the Continent, with a tutor. Joseph—well, I believe I have never fully understood what became of Joseph during the four years I was away, but I suppose he amused himself. He has a knack of doing that I never had, except when I am in the country. Well, this tutor wasn't a bad sort of a fellow and at first we got on splendidly, living in town in chambers, going to the plays and the opera, and dining all over, just wherever I liked or he knew, and excursions oat of London, you know—oh! jolly enough for a little while! Then we went across to Paris—”

“Yes, dearest Dacre?”

Mr. Foxley stopped a moment to lift his wife's face closer to his own. He kissed it—a long long kiss that entranced them both to the degree of forgetting the story.

“If you would rather not go on—” said Mildred.

“Oh! I must now. Well, we did Paris, and then the other capitals and Nice—Nice was just then coming into vogue, and ran down into Italy—I remember I liked Genoa so much—and then we came back to Paris, for Harfleur—that was the tutor's name, and it doesn't sound like a real one, does it—preferred Paris to any other European town and of course so did I. About this time, his true character began to show itself. He went out frequently without me, smoked quite freely, would order in wine and get me to drink with him, and was very much given to calling me fresh, green, and all that you know. I began to think he was right. I was past twenty-one, and I had never even had a glimpse into the inside of life. Women, now and all that kind of thing—I was positively ignorant of—but to be sure, one quickly learns in Paris.”

For one night, Harfleur asked me in his usual sneering tone how I was going to spend my evening.

“I am going out to a charming soirÉe at the house of Madame de L'Estarre, the most charming woman in Paris,” said he.

“'Then I shall accompany you,' I said, fired by his insulting tone. And I went, Mildred. I suppose I was good-looking, eh, my child—and had sufficient air of distinction about me to impress Madame de L'Estarre, for she left the crowd of waxed and perfumed Frenchmen and devoted herself entirely to me. Although she was—beautiful—she was not tall, and I, standing at her side all that evening, never took my eyes off her dazzling face and her white uncovered bosom. In a week, my child, I had learnt to know and love every feature in that dazzling face and began to dream of the day when I should be allowed to kiss that bosom. Yes, I certainly loved her.”

“I am sure you loved her, Dacre my darling. And how could she help loving you, dear, in return?”

“Oh that is another thing entirely, quite another thing. After that night, Harfleur showed me more respect than he had done for some time previously and we began to hit it off again better. I went to her hotel—her house you know, every day. At first she would always receive me alone, sending anybody away who happened to be there and refusing to admit anybody who came while we were together.—It is difficult, even to my wife, to explain what kind of a woman she was. All that first time, when we would be alone, she would—make love, I suppose it must be called—with her eyes and her hands, and her very skirts and her fan, and the cushion, and the footstool. The room was always beautiful and always dim, and she would greet me with outstretched hands and a shy smile, making room for me beside her on the sofa—she always sat on a sofa. We would talk of nothing at all perhaps but look into each other's eyes, until the force of her look would draw me close, close to her till we were almost in one another's arms, and I could feel her breath coming faster every moment when just as I imagined she would sink upon my shoulder—she would draw herself up with a laugh and push me away, declaring somebody was coming. Then, if nobody came, she would go through the same farce again. This would happen perhaps two or three times a day. In the evening, I was again at her side, night after night regarding her with a devotion that amazed even my friend Harfleur.

“She treats you like a dog. It will kill you yet, George. Come away.” But of course I would not go. I accompanied her to the theatre, to the Bois, to the shops, to church—yes, even to church, Mildred, think of that—and she was very careful and circumspect and all that. I even believe as far as direct actions go, she may have been a virtuous woman, for she certainly, had no other lover when I knew her. She was a widow, enormously rich and nothing to do. Therefore, I suppose she went in for the torturing business as a profession. Her Frenchmen did not mind; that was the secret of her charm with them—so clever, they called her, but it nearly killed me, her cleverness. I grew pale and worn—sleep—I never slept. All my life I had lived without natural affection, and now I was pouring forth upon this woman the love I might have rendered friends, sister, brother, mother, as well as the passion of a young man. I say to you now, Mildred, my wife, that the woman who tramples on the passion of a young man is as bad as the man who slays the innocence of a young girl. And that's what she did. Finally, when this had lasted for a year and a half, and Harfleur had gone back to England, one day, when I was perfectly desperate and could have killed her, Milly, as she lay at full length on her damned sofa—pardon, my dear, no, don't kiss my hand, child, don't—dressed in some rose-colored stuff all trailing about her and her hands clasped under her head, I fell by her on my knees and besought her to tell me what she meant and if she ever could care for me. I give you my word, my dear, and with my hand over your innocent heart, you know I dare not lie—in all that year and a half I had not even touched her lips. You cannot, happily imagine the torture of such a position.

Well, that day, she bent over to me on her side and said “What do you want, is it to kiss me? Chut! wait for that till we are married.”

“Do you mean to marry me?” I gasped out. “She said 'yes,' Mildred, and brushed my cheek with her lips. What do you think I did then, Mildred?”

“How can I tell, dearest Dacre!”

“I fainted, dearest. Think of it. But I believed her, you see, and the revulsion was too great. In a moment or two I came to myself with the sounds of laughter in my ears. I was on her sofa—that damned sofa—pardon again, my dear—and she was standing with three of her cursed Frenchmen around her all laughing fit to kill themselves. I saw through it all in a moment. They had been on the other side of the curtains. I went straight up to her and said 'Did you say that you were ready to become my wife?' She only laughed and the men too with her. Then I struck her—on her white breast, Milly—and struck the three Frenchmen on the face one after the other. They were so astonished that not one of them moved, and I parted the curtains, and left the house.”

“Did you never see her again?”

“Never. I left Paris considerably wiser than I had entered it and avoided society generally. I had one year's life in London, and was considered no end of a catch by the mammas, I believe, but you can imagine I did not easily fall a victim. No. That is all my story, my dear, all at least that has been unguessed at by you. My health was very bad at home and beyond my love of sport I cared for nothing. I grew to hate my life in England, even England, though she had done me no harm. Finally, I quarrelled with my father who married again, a woman we both disliked, Joseph and I, and so we turned our backs on the Old World and came out to Canada and to—you.”

Mildred still lay, crying softly, in her husband's arms. “I had sometimes dreamt,” continued Mr. Foxley, “of meeting some young girl who could love me and on whose innocence and sweetness I could rest and whom besides I should really love. It did not dawn upon me when I first saw you, that you were the one I wanted, for we must confess, dear, that you were very plump and rather pink and spoke—”

“Why, Dacre, how can you? I was only fifteen! Cruel!”

“Yes, I know. And how you changed! Now, you are so different that it is not the same Mildred at all. Such is the power of a true love, my child, and we must always be happy,—ours is one of those marriages.”

Theirs was indeed one of those marriages. Mr. Foxley took to farming and enriched his purse as well as his health. Mr. Joseph had an interview with Miss Dexter the nature of which I am not going to reveal, but which resulted in a placid intimacy between the two to the surprise of all save Milly who always said that “she thought she knew why.” Miss Dexter frequently accompanied blind Mr. Joseph on his lonely walks or would sit with him when the others were out, as none but he cared to meet her. Towards his death which occurred in about four years time, she was with him constantly, and died herself in a fortnight after, having left in her will, all her maiden belongings to her “good friend, Farmer Wise.” The farmer was not much moved when informed of this fact, so incomprehensible to the rest of the village. He had always kept the little bottle with its cruel label, and had always feared and avoided poor, proud, foolish, wicked Charlotte Dexter since that Saturday night.

As for Mr. George and his wife, I see a vision of a successful and happy husband and father in the prime of early old age (which means, that at fifty-three one is not old with a young wife and three sweet children) and of Mildred, who is always a little pale, has her eyes constantly turned up to her husband's with her lips brushing her shoulder every now and then.

Still?

Ay, still and forever. And so ends my sketch of how the Mr. Foxleys came, stayed and never went away.