Those who saw Dinglewood only after the improvements had been made could scarcely be able to form to themselves any idea of what it was before the Greshams came. I call them improvements because everybody used the word; but I cannot say I thought the house improved. It was an old-fashioned red-brick house, nothing to speak of architecturally—in the style of Kensington Palace and Kew, and the rest of those old homely royal houses. The drawing-room opened its tall narrow windows upon a little terrace, which was very green and grassy, and pleasant. I should be sorry to undertake to say why it was called Dinglewood. Mr. Coventry made very merry over the name when he had it. He used to say it was because there were no trees; but that was not strictly the case. It was quite open and bare, it is true, towards the river, which we could not see from the Green; but there was a little grove of trees which interposed between us and the house, as if to shut out Dinglewood from the vulgarity of neighbours. It was a popular house in a quiet way when the Coventrys were there. They did not give parties, or pretend to take much trouble in the way of society, for Lady Sarah was always delicate; but when we were tired with our view on the Green, and our lawns and trees, we were always welcome on the Dinglewood terrace, where the old people were constantly to be found sitting out in the summer afternoons, Lady Sarah on her sofa, and Mr. Coventry with the newspapers and his great dog. The lawn went sloping down towards the river, which lay still and white under the sunshine, with a little green island, and a little gray house making a centre to the picture. As long as the sloping bank was lawn it was closely cut and kept like velvet; but when it became field these niceties stopped, and Lady Sarah’s pet Alderney stood up to her knees in the cool clover. There was an old mulberry-tree close to the wall of the house, which shaded the sofa; and a gloomy yew on the other side did the same thing for Mr. Coventry, though he was an old Indian and a salamander, and could bear any amount of sunshine. Lady Sarah’s perpetual occupation was knitting. She knitted all sorts of bright-coloured things in brilliant German wool with big ivory pins, and her husband used to read the news to her. They read all the debates together, stopping every now and then to exchange their sentiments. Lady Sarah would say with her brisk little voice, ‘He might have made a better point there. I don’t see that he proves his case. I don’t agree with that;’ and Mr. Coventry would stop and lay down the paper on his knees, and discuss it leisurely. There was no reason why they should not do it at their leisure. The best part of the summer days were spent thus by the old couple; and the sunshine lay warm and still round them, and the leaves rustled softly, and the cool grass kept growing under their peaceful old feet. These feet tread mortal soil no longer, and all this has nothing in the world to do with my story. But it was a pretty sight in its way. They were not rich, and the furniture and carpets were very faded, and everything very different from what it came to be afterwards; yet we were all very fond of Mr. Coventry and his old wife, and the old-fashioned house was appropriate to them. I like to think of them even now.

We were all anxious, of course, after Mr. Coventry’s death, to know who would buy the house (Lady Sarah could not bear it after he was gone, and indeed lived only a year after him); and when it was known that young Mr. Gresham was the purchaser, it made quite a sensation on the Green. He was the son of old Gresham, who had bought Bishop’s Hope, a noble place at Cookesley, about a dozen miles off, but had made all his fortune as a stockbroker, and, they say, not even the best kind of that. His son had succeeded him in business, and had lately married somebody in his own class. He was a nice-looking young fellow enough, and had been brought up at Eton, to be sure, like so many of those people’s sons; but still one felt that it was bringing in a new element to the Green. If his wife had been, as so often happens, a gentlewoman, it would have made things comparatively easy. But she was only the daughter of a mercantile man like himself, and there was great discussion among us as to what we should do when they came. Some families made up their minds at once not to call; and some, on the other hand, declared that such rich people were sure to fÊter the whole county, and that everybody would go to them. ‘If they had only been a little rich, it would never have answered; but they are frightfully rich, and, of course, we must all go down on our knees,’ Lottie Stoke said. She was the most eager of all to know them; for her youth was passing away, and she was not likely to marry, and the Stokes were poor. I confess I was curious myself to see how things would turn out.

Their first step however was one which took us all by surprise. Young Gresham dashed over in his Yankee waggon from Cookesley to go over the house, and the same day a charming barouche made the tour of the Green, with a very pretty young woman in it, and a lovely little girl, and a matchless tiny Skye terrier—all going to inspect Dinglewood. The arms on the carriage were quartered to the last possibility of quartering, as if they had come through generations of heiresses and gentlemen of coat-armour, and the footman was powdered and dazzling to behold. Altogether it was by far the finest equipage that had been seen in these parts for a long time. Not to speak of Lady Denzil’s, or the other great people about, her Majesty’s own carriage, that she drives about the neighbourhood in, was not to be compared to it. Its emblazoned panels brushed against the privet hedges in poor old Lady Sarah’s drive, which was only wide enough for her little pony-carriage, and I have no doubt were scratched and spoiled; but the next thing we heard about Dinglewood was that a flood of workmen had come down upon it, and that everything was to be changed. Young Mrs. Gresham liked the situation, but the house was far too small for her. My maid told me a new dining-room and drawing-room, with bed-rooms over, were to be added, and already the people had set to work. We all looked on thunderstruck while these ‘improvements’ were going on: he had a right to do it, no doubt, as he had bought it, but still it did seem a great piece of presumption. The pretty terrace was all cut up, and the poor old mulberry-tree perished in the changes, though it is true that they had the sense not to spoil the view. They added two wings to the old house, with one sumptuous room in each. Poor Lady Sarah’s drawing-room, which was good enough for her, these millionaires made into a billiard-room, and put them all en suite, making a passage thus between their two new wings. I don’t deny, as I have already said, that they had a perfect right to do it; but all the same it was very odd to us.

And then heaps of new furniture came down from town; the waggons that brought it made quite a procession along the road. All this grandeur and display had a bad effect upon the neighbourhood. It really looked as if these new people were already crowing over us, whose carpets and hangings were a little faded and out of fashion. There was a general movement of indignation on the Green. All this expense might be well enough, for those who could afford it, in a town-house, people said, but in the country it was vulgar and stupid. Everything was gilded and ornamented and expensive in the new Dinglewood; Turkey carpets all over the house, and rich silk curtains and immense mirrors. Then after a while ‘the family’ arrived. They came with such a flutter of fine carriages as had never been seen before among us. The drive had been widened, down which Lady Sarah’s old gray pony used to jog so comfortably, and there was nothing to be seen all day long but smooth, shining panels and high-stepping horses whisking in and out. In the first place there was Mr. Gresham’s Yankee waggon, with a wicked-looking beast in it, which went like the wind. Then there would be a cosy brougham carrying Mrs. Gresham to Shoreton shopping, or taking out the nurse and baby for an airing; and after lunch came the pretty open carriage with the armorial bearings and the men in powder. We were too indignant to look round at first when these vehicles passed; but custom does a great deal, and one’s feelings soften in spite of one’s self. Of all the people on the Green, Lottie Stoke was the one who did most for the new people. ‘I mean to make mamma call,’ she said: and she even made a round of visits for the purpose of saying it. ‘Why shouldn’t we all call on them? I think it is mean to object to them for being rich. It looks as if we were ashamed of being poor; and they are sure to have quantities of people from town, and to enjoy themselves—people as good as we are, Mrs. Mulgrave: they are not so particular in London.’

‘My dear Lottie,’ said I, ‘I have no doubt the Greshams themselves are quite as good as we are. That is not the question. There are social differences, you know.’

‘Oh, yes! I know,’ cried Lottie; ‘I have heard of them all my life, but I don’t see what the better we are, for all our nicety; and I mean to make mamma call.’

She was not so good as her word however, for Mrs. Stoke was a timid woman, and waited to see what the people would do. And in the meantime the Greshams themselves, independent of their fine house and their showy carriages, presented themselves as it were before us for approval. They walked to church on Sunday without any show, which made quite a revulsion in their favour; and she was very pretty and sweet-looking, and he was so like a gentleman that you could never have told the difference. And the end of it all was, that one fine morning Lady Denzil, without saying a word to any one, called; and after that, everybody on the Green.

I do not pretend to say that there was not a little air of newness about these young people. They were like their house, a little too bright, too costly, too luxurious. Mrs. Gresham gave herself now and then pretty little airs of wealth, which, to do her justice, were more in the way of kindness to others than display for herself. There was a kind of munificence about her which made one smile, and yet made one grow red and hot and just a little angry. It might not have mattered if she had been a princess, but it did not answer with a stockbroker’s wife. She was so anxious to supply you with anything or everything you wanted. ‘Let me send it,’ she would say in a lavish way, whenever there was any shortcoming, and opened her pretty mouth and stared with all her pretty eyes when her offers were declined. She wanted that delicate sense of other people’s pride, which a true great lady always has. She did not understand why one would rather have one’s own homely maid to wait, than borrow her powdered slave; and would rather walk than be taken up in her fine carriage. This bewildered her, poor little woman. She thought it was unkind of me in particular. ‘You can’t really prefer to drive along in the dust in your little low carriage,’ she said, with a curious want of perception that my pony carriage was my own. This was the only defect I found in her, and it was a failing which leant to virtue’s side. Her husband was more a man of the world, but he too had money written all over him. They were dreadfully rich, and even in their freest moment they could not get rid of it—and they were young and open-hearted, and anxious to make everybody happy. They had people down from town as Lottie prophesied—fashionable people sometimes, and clever people, and rich people. We met all kinds of radicals, and artists, and authors, and great travellers at Dinglewood. The Greshams were rather proud of their literary acquaintances indeed, which was surprising to us. I have seen old Sir Thomas look very queer when he was told he was going to meet So-and-So, who had written some famous book. ‘Who is the fellow?’ he said privately to me with a comical look, for he was not very literary in his tastes;—neither were the Greshams for that matter: but then, having no real rank, they appreciated a little distinction, howsoever it came; whereas the second cousin of any poor lord or good old decayed family was more to the most of us than Shakespeare himself or Raphael; though of course it would have been our duty to ourselves to be very civil to either of those gentlemen had we met them at dinner anywhere on the Green.

But there was no doubt that this new lively household, all astir with new interests, new faces, talk and movement, and pleasant extravagance, woke us all up. They were so rich that they took the lead in many things, in spite of all that could be done to the contrary. None of us could afford so many parties. The Greshams had always something on hand. Instead of our old routine of dinners and croquet-parties, and perhaps two or three dances a year for the young people, there was an endless variety now at Dinglewood; and even if we elders could have resisted Mrs. Gresham’s pretty winning ways on her own account, it would have been wicked to neglect the advantage for our children. Of course this did not apply to me, who have no children; but I was never disposed to stand very much on my dignity, and I liked the young couple. They were so fond of each other, and so good-looking, and so happy, and so ready—too ready—to share their advantages with everybody. Mrs. Gresham sent her man over with I don’t know how much champagne the morning of the day when they were all coming to play croquet on my little lawn, and he wanted to know, with his mistress’s love, whether he should come to help, or if there was anything else I wanted. I had entertained my friends in my quiet way before she was born, and I did not like it. Lottie Stoke happened to be with me when the message arrived, and took the reasonable view, as she had got into the way of doing where the Greshams were concerned.

‘Why should not they send you champagne?’ she said. ‘They are as rich as Croesus, though I am sure I don’t know much about him; and you are a lady living by yourself, and can’t be expected to think of all these things.’

‘My dear Lottie,’ said I—and I confess I was angry—‘if you are not content with what I can give you, you need not come to me. The Greshams can stay away if they like. Champagne in the afternoon when you are playing croquet! It is just like those nouveaux riches. They would think it still finer, I have no doubt, if they could drink pearls, like Cleopatra. Champagne!’

‘They must have meant it for Cup, you know,’ said Lottie, a little abashed.

‘I don’t care what they meant it for,’ said I. ‘You shall have cups of tea; and I am very angry and affronted. I wonder how they think we got on before they came!’

And then I sat down and wrote a little note, which I fear was terribly polite, and sent it and the baskets back with John Thomas, while Lottie went and looked at all the pictures as if she had never seen them before, and hummed little airs under her breath. She had taken up these Greshams in the most curious way. Not that she was an unreasonable partisan; she could see their faults like the rest of us, but she was always ready to make excuses for them. ‘They don’t know any better,’ she would say softly when she was driven to the very extremity of her special pleading. And she said this when I had finished my note and was just sending it away.

‘But why don’t they know better?’ said I; ‘they have had the same education as other people. He was at Eton where a boy should learn how to behave himself, even if he does not learn anything else. And she went to one of the fashionable schools—as good a school as any of you ever went to.’

‘We were never at any school at all,’ said Lottie with a little bitterness. ‘We were always much too poor. We have never learned anything, we poor girls; whereas Ada Gresham has learned everything,’ she added with a little laugh.

It was quite true. Poor little Mrs. Gresham was overflowing with accomplishments. There never was such an education as she had received. She had gone to lectures, and studied thorough bass, and knew all about chemistry, and could sympathize with her husband, as the newspapers say, and enter into all his pursuits. How fine it sounds in the newspapers! Though I was angry, I could not but laugh too—a young woman wanted an elaborate education indeed to be fit to be young Gresham’s wife.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘after all, I don’t suppose she means to be impertinent, Lottie, and I like her. I don’t think her education has done her much harm. Nobody could teach her to understand other people’s feelings; and to be rich like that must be a temptation.’

‘I should like to have such a temptation,’ said Lottie, with a sudden sparkle in her eyes. ‘Fancy there are four Greshams, and they are all as rich. The girl is married, you know, to a railway man; and, by the by,’ she went on suddenly after a pause, ‘they tell me one of the brothers is coming here to-day.’

She said this in an accidental sort of way, but I could see there was nothing accidental about it. She drew her breath hard, poor girl, and a little feverish colour got up in her cheeks. It is common to talk of girls looking out for husbands, and even hunting that important quarry. But when now and then in desperate cases such a thing does actually come before one’s eyes, it is anything but an amusing sight. The Stokes were as poor as the Greshams were rich. Everard had ruined himself, and half-killed everybody belonging to him only the year before; and now poor Lottie saw a terrible chance before her, and rose to it with a kind of tragic valour. I read her whole meaning and resolution in her face, as she said, with an attempt at a smile, these simple-sounding words; and an absolute pang of pity went through me. Poor Lottie!—it was a chance, for her family and for herself—even for poor Everard, whom they all clung to, though he had gone so far astray. What a change it would make in their situation and prospects, and everything about them! You may say it was an ignoble foundation to build family comfort upon. I do not defend it in any way; but when I saw what Lottie meant, my heart ached for her. It did not seem to me ridiculous or base, but tragic and terrible; though to be sure in all likelihood there is nobody who will think so but me.

Before Lottie left me, Mrs. Gresham came rushing over in her pretty summer dress, with her curls and ribbons fluttering in the breeze. She came to ask me why I had been so unkind, and to plead and remonstrate. ‘We have so much, we don’t know what to do with it,’ she said; ‘Harry is always finding out some new vintage or other, and the cellars are overflowing. Why would not you use some of it? We have so much of everything we don’t know what to do.’

‘I would rather not, thanks,’ I said, feeling myself flush; ‘what a lovely day it is. Where are you going for your drive? The woods will be delicious to-day.’

‘Oh, I have so much of the woods,’ cried Mrs. Gresham. ‘I thought of going towards Estcott to make some calls. But, dear Mrs. Mulgrave, about the Champagne?’

‘It is a little too early for the heath,’ said Lottie, steadily looking our visitor in the face. ‘It is always cold there. What they call bracing, you know; but I don’t care about being braced, the wind goes through and through one, even on a sunny day.’

‘It is because you are so thin,’ said Mrs. Gresham; ‘I never feel the cold for my part; but I shall not drive at all to-day—I forgot—I shall go and fetch Harry from the station, and come to you, Mrs. Mulgrave: and you will not be cross, but let me send back John Thomas with—’

‘My dear, I am going to give you some tea,’ said I, ‘and my maids can manage beautifully; the sight of a gorgeous creature like John Thomas distracts them; they can do nothing but stare at his plush and his powder. We shall be very glad to have Mr. Gresham and you.’

‘But—’ she began eagerly. Then she caught Lottie’s look, who had made some sign to her, and stopped short, staring at me with her blue eyes. She could not make it out, and no hint short of positive demonstration could have shown her that she had gone too far. She stopped in obedience to Lottie’s sign, but stared at me all the same. Her prosperity, her wealth, her habit of overcoming everything that looked in the least like a difficulty, had taken even a woman’s instinct from her. She gazed at me, and by degrees her cheeks grew red: she saw she had made a mistake somehow, but even up to that moment could not tell what it was.

‘Harry’s brother is coming with him,’ she said, a little subdued; ‘may I bring him? He is the eldest, but he is not married yet. He is such a man of the world. Of course he might have married when he liked, as early as we did, there was nothing to prevent him: but he got into a fashionable set first, and then he got among the artists. He is quite what they call a Bohemian you know. He paints beautifully—Harry always consults Gerald before buying any pictures; I don’t know what he does with all his money, for he keeps up no establishment, and no horses nor anything. I tell him sometimes he is an old miser, but I am sure I have no reason to say so, for he gives me beautiful presents. I should so like to bring him here.’

‘Yes, bring him by all means,’ said I; but I could not help giving a little sigh as I looked at Lottie, who was listening eagerly. When she saw me look at her, her face flamed scarlet, and she went in great haste to the window to hide it from Mrs. Gresham. She saw I had found her out, and did not know what compassion was in my heart. She gave a wistful glance up into my face as she went away. ‘Don’t despise me!’ it said. Poor Lottie! as if it ever could be lawful to do evil that good might come! They went away together, the poor girl and the rich, happy young wife. Lottie was a little the older of the two, and yet she was not old, and they were both pretty young women. They laid their heads together and talked earnestly as girls do, as they went out of my gate, and nobody could have dreamed that their light feet were entangled in any web of tragedy. The sight of the two who were so unlike, and the thought of the future which might bring them into close connection made me melancholy, I could not have told why.

CHAPTER II

We did not miss the Champagne-cup that afternoon; indeed I do not approve of such beverages for young people, and never sanction anything but tea before dinner. The Dinglewood people were doing their best to introduce these foolish extravagances among us, but I for one would not give in. Young Gresham, though he took some tea, drew his wife aside the moment after, and I heard him question her.

‘It was not my fault, Harry,’ she cried, not knowing I was so near. ‘She sent it all back, and Lottie said I had hurt her feelings. I did not know what to do. She would not even have John Thomas to wait.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Harry Gresham; ‘you should have insisted. We ought not to let her go to any expense. I don’t suppose she has a shilling more than she wants for her own affairs.’

‘But I could not help it,’ said his wife.

I don’t know what Lottie had said to her, but she was evidently a little frightened. As for Harry, I think he would have liked to leave a bank-note for me on one of the tables. People have told me since that it was a very bad sign, and that it is only when people are getting reckless about money that they think of throwing it away in presents; but I cannot say I have had much experience of that weakness. The new brother who had come with them was a very different kind of man. I cannot say I took to him at first. He was not a wealthy, simple-minded, lavish creature like his brother. He was more like other people. Harry Gresham was red and white, like a girl, inclining to be stout, though he was not above thirty, and with the manners which are, or were, supposed to be specially English—downright and straightforward. Gerald was a few years older, a little taller, bronzed with the sun, and bearing the indescribable look of a man who has mixed much with the world. I looked at Lottie Stoke when I made my first observations upon the stranger, and saw that she too was looking at him with a strange expression, half of repugnance, half of wistfulness in her eyes. Lottie had not done her duty in the way of marrying, as she ought to have done, in her early youth. She had refused very good offers, as her mother was too apt to tell with a little bitterness. Now at last, when things were going so badly with the family, she had made up her mind to try; but when she did so she expected a second Harry Gresham, and not this man of the world. She looked at him as a martyr might look standing on the edge of a precipice, gathering up her strength for the plunge, shrinking yet daring. My party was quite dull for the first hour because of this pause which Lottie made on the brink, for she was always the soul of everything. When I saw her all at once rise up from the chair where she had been sitting obstinately beside old Mrs. Beresford, and go up to Mrs. Gresham, who was standing aside with her brother-in-law looking on, I knew she had made up her mind at last, and taken the plunge. An experienced rich young man of the nineteenth century! I thought to myself she might spare her pains.

Just at that moment I saw the gorgeous figure of John Thomas appear at the end of my lawn, and a sudden flush of anger came over me. I got up to see what he wanted, thinking they had sent him back again notwithstanding my refusal. But just before I reached him I perceived that his errand was to his master, to whom he gave a telegram. Mr. Gresham tore it open at my side. He ran his eye over the message, and muttered something between his teeth, and grew red all over in indignation or trouble. Then, seeing me, he turned round, with an effort, with one of his broad smiles.

‘Business even in the midst of pleasure,’ he said. ‘Is it not too bad?’

‘If it is only business—’ said I. Whenever I see one of those telegraph papers, it makes my heart beat. I always think somebody is ill or dead.

‘Only business, by Jove!’ said Harry. His voice was quite subdued, but he laughed—a laugh which sounded strange and not very natural. Then he gave himself a sort of shake, and thrust the thing into his pocket, and offered me his arm, to lead me back to my place. ‘By the by,’ he said, ‘I am going to quarrel with you, Mrs. Mulgrave. When we are so near why don’t you let us be of some use to you? It would give the greatest pleasure both to Ada and me.’

‘Oh, thanks; but indeed I don’t want any help,’ I cried, abruptly coming to a sudden stop before Lady Denzil’s chair.

‘You are so proud,’ he said with a smile, and so left me to plunge into the midst of the game, where they were clamouring for him. He played all the rest of the afternoon, entering into everything with the greatest spirit; and yet I felt a little disturbed. Whether it was for Lottie, or whether it was for Harry Gresham I could not well explain to myself; a feeling came over me like the feeling with which one sometimes wakes in the morning without any reason for it—an uneasy restless sense that something somehow was going wrong.

The Greshams were the last of my party to go away, and I went to the gate with them, as I had a way of doing, and lingered there for a few minutes in the slanting evening light. It was nearly seven o’clock, but they did not dine till eight, and were in no hurry. She wore a very pretty dress—one of those soft pale grays which soil if you look hard at them—and had gathered the long train over her arm like a figure in a picture; for though she was not very refined, Ada Gresham was not a vulgar woman to trail her dress over a dusty road. She had taken her husband’s arm as they went along the sandy brown pathway, and Gerald on the other side carried her parasol and leant towards her to talk. As I looked at them I could not but think of the strange differences of life: how some people have to get through the world by themselves as best they may, and some have care and love and protection on every side of them. These two would have kept the very wind from blowing upon Ada; they were ready to shield her from every pain, to carry her in their arms over any thorns that might come in her way. The sunshine slanted sideways upon them as they went along, throwing fantastic broken shadows of the three figures on the hedgerow, and shining right into my eyes. I think I can see her now leaning on her husband’s arm, looking up to his brother, with the pretty sweep of the gray silk over her arm, the white embroidered skirts beneath, and the soft rose-ribbons that caught the light. Poor Ada! I have other pictures of her, beside this one, in my memory now.

Next day we had a little discussion upon the new brother, in the afternoon when my visitors looked in upon me. We did not confine ourselves to that one subject. We diverged, for instance, to Mrs. Gresham’s toilette, which was so pretty. Lottie Stoke had got a new bonnet for the occasion; but she had made it herself, and though she was very clever, she was not equal to Elise.

‘Fancy having all one’s things made by Elise!’ cried Lucy the little sister, with a rapture of anticipation. ‘If ever I am married, nobody else shall dress me.’

‘Then you had better think no more of curates,’ said some malicious critic, and Lucy blushed. It was not her fault if the curates amused her. They were mice clearly intended by Providence for fun and torture. She was but sixteen and meant no harm, and what else could the kitten do?

Then a great controversy arose among the girls as to the claims of the new brother to be called handsome. The question was hotly discussed on both sides, Lottie alone taking no part in the debate. She sat by very quietly, with none of her usual animation. Nor did she interpose when the Gresham lineage and connection—the little cockney papa who was like a shabby little miser, the mother who was large and affable and splendid, a kind of grand duchess in a mercantile way—were taken in hand. Lottie could give little sketches of them all when she so pleased; but she did not please that day.

‘This new one does not look like a nobody,’ said one of my visitors. ‘He might be the Honourable Gerald for his looks. He is fifty times better than Mr. Gresham, though Mr. Gresham is very nice too.’

‘And he has such a lovely name!’ cried Lucy. ‘Gerald Gresham! Any girl I ever heard of would marry him just for his name.’

‘They have all nice names,’ said the first speaker, who was young too, and attached a certain weight to this particular. ‘They don’t sound like mere rich people. They might be of a good old family to judge by their names.’

‘Yes; she is Ada,’ said Lucy, reflectively, ‘and he is Harry, and the little boy’s name is Percy. But Gerald is the darling! Gerald is the one for me!’

The window was open at the time, and the child was talking incautiously loud, so that I was not much surprised, for my part, when a peal of laughter from outside followed this speech, and Ada, with her brother-in-law in attendance, appeared under the veranda. Of course Lucy was covered with confusion; but her blushes became the little creature, and gave her a certain shy grace which was very pretty to behold. As for Lottie, I think the contrast made her paler. Looking at her beautiful refined head against the light, nobody could help admiring it; but she was not round and dimpled and rosy like her little sister. After a while Gerald Gresham managed to get into the corner where Lottie was, to talk to her; but his eyes sought the younger creature all the same. A man has it all his own way when there is but one in the room. He was gracious to all the girls, like a civilized English sultan; but they were used to that, poor things, and took it very good-naturedly.

‘It is not his fault if he is the only man in the place,’ said Lucy; and she was not displeased, though her cheeks burned more hotly than ever when he took advantage of her incautious speech.

‘I must not let you forget that it is Gerald who is the darling,’ he said laughing. Of course it was quite natural, and meant nothing, and perhaps no one there but Lottie and myself thought anything of this talk; but it touched her, poor girl, with a certain mortification, and had a curious effect upon me. I could not keep myself from thinking, Would it be Lucy after all? After her sister had made up her mind in desperation; after she had screwed her courage to the last fatal point; after she had consciously committed herself and compromised her maiden up-rightness, would it be Lucy who would win the prize without an effort? I cannot describe the effect it had upon me. It made me burn with indignation to think that Lottie Stoke was putting forth all her powers to attract this stranger—this man who was rich, and could buy her if he pleased; and, at the same time, his looks at Lucy filled me with the strangest sense of disappointment. I ought to have been glad that such humiliating efforts failed of success, and yet I was not. I hated them, and yet I could not bear to think they would be in vain.

‘And Harry has gone to town again to-day,’ said Ada, with a pout of her pretty mouth, ‘though he promised to stay and take me up the river. They make his life wretched with those telegrams and things. I ask him, What is the good of going on like this, when we have plenty of money? And then he tells me I am a little fool and don’t understand.’

‘I always feel sure something dreadful has happened whenever I see a telegram,’ said Mrs. Stoke.

‘Oh, we are quite used to them: they are only about business,’ said Ada, taking off her hat and smoothing back, along with a twist of her pretty hair, the slightest half visible pucker of care from her smooth young brow.

‘Only business!’ said Gerald. They were the same words Harry had said the day before, and they struck me somehow. When he caught my eye he laughed, and added something about the strange ideas ladies had. ‘As if any accident, or death, or burial could be half so important as business,’ he said, with the half sneer which we all use as a disguise to our thoughts. And some of the little party exclaimed, and some laughed with him. To be sure, a man in business, like Harry Gresham, or a man of the world, like his brother, must be less startled by such communications than such quiet country people as we were. That was easy enough to see.

That same night, when I came across from the Lodge, where I had been spending the evening, Dinglewood stood blazing out against the sky with all its windows lighted up. Sir Thomas, who was walking across the Green with me, as it was so fine a night, saw me turn my head that way and looked too. The whole house had the air of being lighted up for an illumination. It always had; it revealed itself, its different floors, and even the use of its different rooms to all the world by its lights. The Greshams were the kind of people who have every new improvement that money can procure. They made gas for themselves, and lighted up the entire house, in that curious mercantile, millionaire way which you never see in a real great house. Sir Thomas’s look followed mine, and he shook his gray head a little.

‘I hope no harm will come of it,’ he said; ‘they are going very fast over there, Mrs. Mulgrave. I hope they are able to keep it up.’

‘Able!’ said I, ‘they are frightfully rich;’ and I felt half aggrieved by the very supposition.

‘Yes,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘they would need to be rich. For a little while that may do; but I don’t think any man in business can be rich enough to stand that sort of thing for a long time together.’

‘Oh, they can bear it, no doubt,’ I said, impatient of Sir Thomas’s old-fashioned ways. ‘Of course it was very different in the Coventrys’ time.’

‘Ah, in the Coventrys’ time,’ said Sir Thomas regretfully; ‘one does not often get such neighbours as the Coventrys. Take care of that stone. And now, here we are at your door.’

‘Good-night!’ said I, ‘and many thanks;’ but I stood outside a little in the balmy evening air, as Sir Thomas went home across the Green. I could not see Dinglewood from my door, and the Lodge, which was opposite, glimmered in a very different way, with faint candles in Lady Denzil’s chamber, and some of the servants’ sleeping rooms, and the soft white lamp-light in the windows below; domestic and necessary lights, not like the blaze in the new house. Sir Thomas plodded quietly home, with his gray head bent and his hands behind him under his coat, in the musing tranquillity of old age; and a certain superstitious feeling came over me. It was my gaze at the illuminated house which made him say those uncomfortable words. I felt as if I had attracted to the Greshams, poor children, in their gaiety and heedlessness, the eye of some sleeping Fate.

CHAPTER III

I have often been impatient in reading books, to find the story go on from one party to another, from one ball to another, as if life had nothing more important in it. But sometimes no doubt it does happen so. The life of the Greshams was made up of balls and parties; they were never alone; Dinglewood blazed out to the skies every evening, and the carriages flashed out and in, and one kind of merry-making or another went on all day. Lottie Stoke was there continually, and there grew up a curious friendship, half strife, half accord, between Gerald and herself. He had nothing to do with the business as it turned out, and consequently was not half so rich as his brother. But still he was very well off. I don’t know what it is about people in business which gives them a kind of primitive character: they are less sophisticated than the rest of us, though possibly not more simple. The Greshams took a simple pleasure in pleasure for itself, without making it a mere medium for other things, as most of us do. They were fond of company, fond of dancing, delighted with picnics, and even with croquet, without any ulterior motive, like children. They were fond even of their wealth, which gave them so many pretty and so many pleasant things. They enjoyed it with all their hearts, and took an innocent, foolish delight in it, which spiteful people set down to purse-pride; but which in reality was more like the open satisfaction of children in their dear possessions. Gerald was a very different being: I never saw him without feeling that his visit was not a mere visit, but had some motive in it. Before Lottie roused him to talk and battle with her, he would look on at their great parties with a curious, anxious, dissatisfied air, as if he suspected or feared something. I think poor Lottie went further than she meant to go: she grew interested herself, when she had meant only to interest him, and was more excited by his presence than he was by hers. They carried on a kind of perpetual duel, very amusing to the spectators: and there was no doubt that he liked it. But he liked Lucy’s funny little shy speeches too; and he had some interest more absorbing, more serious than either, which made his face very grave when the two girls were not there. Harry Gresham had sometimes the air of getting impatient of his brother’s presence. Now and then they passed my house walking together, and not enjoying their walk, according to appearances. Once as I stood at my gate I heard Harry say sharply, ‘In any case Ada has her settlement,’ with a defiant air. And Gerald’s face was full of remonstrance and expostulation. I could not help taking a great interest in these young people, and feeling a little anxious at the general aspect of affairs.

Things were in this state when the ball was given on Mrs. Gresham’s birthday. I had nobody to take charge of for a wonder, and nothing to do but look on. The entire suite of rooms was thrown open, ablaze with light and sweet with flowers. There were great banks of geraniums in every corner where they could be piled, and the whole neighbourhood had been ravaged for roses. The room in which I took refuge was the smallest of all, which had been old Lady Sarah’s boudoir in old times, and was a little removed from the dancing, and cooler than the rest. It had one little projecting window, not large enough to be called a bay, which looked out upon the terrace just above the spot where the old couple used to sit in the summer days. It was open, and the moon streamed in, making a curious contrast with the floods of artificial light. Looking out from it, you could see the Thames, like a silver ribbon, at the bottom or the slope, and the little island and the little house gleaming out white, with intense black shadows. Lottie Stoke came up to me while I stood at the window, and looked out over my shoulder. ‘It looks like the ghost of the river and the ghost of the island,’ she said, putting her pretty arm round my waist with an agitated grasp. ‘I almost think we are all ghosts too.’

‘A curious moment to think so,’ said Gerald Gresham. My back was turned to them, so that I did not see him, but there sounded something like a thrill of excitement in the half laugh of his voice.

‘Not curious at all,’ said Lottie: ‘how many of us are really here do you think? I know where Mrs. Mulgrave is. She is outside on the terrace with old Lady Sarah, listening to the old people’s talk, though I am holding her fast all the same. We are in all sorts of places the real halves of us, but our doubles do the dancing and the laughing, and eat the ices quite as well. It is chilly to be a ghost,’ said Lottie with a laugh; ‘come in from the window, I am sure there is a draught there.’

‘There is no draught,’ said Gerald; ‘you are afraid of being obliged to go into particulars, that is all.’

‘I am not in the least afraid,’ said Lottie. ‘There is Mrs. Damerel. She is in the nursery at the rectory, though you think you have her here. She is counting Agatha’s curl-papers to see if there is the right number, for children are never properly attended to when the mother’s eye is wanting. I don’t know where you are, Mr. Gerald Gresham; that would be too delicate an inquiry. But look, your brother has gone upon ‘Change, though he is in the middle of his guests. He looks as like business as if he had all the Reduced Consols on his mind; he looks as if—— good heavens!’

Lottie stopped, and her tone was so full of alarm and astonishment, that I turned suddenly round to look too, in a fright. Harry Gresham was standing at the door; he had a yellow envelope in his hand, another of those terrible telegrams which are always bringing misery. He had turned round unawares facing us, and facing the stream of people who were always coming and going. I never saw in all my life so ghastly a face. It showed the more that he was so ruddy and cheerful by nature. In a moment every tinge of colour had disappeared from it. His mouth was drawn down, his blue eyes looked awful, shrinking back as it were among the haggard lines of the eyelids. The sight of him struck Lottie dumb, and came upon me like a touch of horror. But Gerald, it was evident, was not taken by surprise. Some crisis which he had been looking for had come at last.

‘He has had some bad news,’ he said; ‘excuse me, my mother is ill—it must be that;’ and he went through the stream of guests, fording the current as it were with noiseless rapidity. As for Lottie, she drew me back into the recess of the window and clung to me and cried—but not for Harry Gresham. Her nerves were at the highest strain, and broke down under this last touch; that was all.

‘I knew something was going to happen,’ she said. ‘I felt it in the air; but I never thought it was coming upon them.’

‘It must be his mother,’ I said, though I did not think so. ‘Hush, Lottie! Don’t frighten her, poor child.’

Lottie was used to restraining herself, and the tears relieved her. She dried her eyes and gave me a nervous hug as she loosed her arm from my waist.

‘I cannot stand this any longer,’ she said; ‘I must go and dance, or something. I know there is trouble coming, and if I sit quiet I shall make a fool of myself. But you will help them if you can,’ she cried in my ear. Alas! what could I do?

By the time she left me the brothers had disappeared, and after half an hour’s waiting, as nothing seemed to come of it, and as the heat increased I went to the window again. The moon had gone off the house, but still shone white and full on the lawn like a great sheet of silvery gauze, bound and outlined by the blackest shadow. My mind had gone away from that temporary interruption. I was not thinking about the Greshams at all, when all at once I heard a rustle under the window. When I looked down two figures were standing there in the shadow. I thought at first they were robbers, perhaps murderers, waiting to waylay some one. All my self-command could not restrain a faint exclamation. There seemed a little struggle going on between the two. ‘You don’t know her,’ said the one; ‘why should you trust her?’ ‘She is safer than the servants,’ said the other, ‘and she is fond of poor Ada.’ If my senses had not been quickened by excitement and alarm I should never have heard what they said. Then something white was held up to me in a hand that trembled.

‘Give it to Ada—when you can,’ said Harry Gresham in a quick, breathless, imperative voice.

I took the bit of paper and clutched it in my hand, not knowing what I did, and then stood stupefied, and saw them glide down in the dark shadow of the house towards the river. Where were they going? What had happened? This could be no sudden summons to a mother’s death-bed. They went cautiously in the darkness the two brothers, keeping among the trees; leaning out of the window as far as I could, I saw Gerald’s slighter figure and poor Harry’s portly one emerge into the moonlight close to the river, just upon the public road. Then I felt some one pull me on the other side. It was Lottie who had come back, excited, to ask if I had found out anything.

‘I thought you were going to stretch out of the window altogether,’ she said, with a half-suspicious glance; and I held my bit of paper tight, with my fan in my other hand.

‘I was looking at the moon,’ I said. ‘It is a lovely night. I am sorry it has gone off the house. And then the rooms are so hot inside.’

‘I should like to walk on the terrace,’ said Lottie, ‘but my cavalier has left me. I was engaged to him for this dance, and he has never come to claim it. Where has he gone?’

‘I suppose he must have left the room,’ I said. ‘I suppose it is their mother who is ill; perhaps they have slipped out quietly not to disturb the guests. If that is the case, you should go and stand by Mrs. Gresham, Lottie. She will want your help.’

‘But they never would be so unkind as to steal away like this and leave everything to Ada!’ cried Lottie. ‘Never! Harry Gresham would not do it for twenty mothers. As for Gerald, I dare say any excuse—’

And here she stopped short, poor girl, with an air of exasperation, and looked ready to cry again.

‘Never mind,’ I said; ‘go to Mrs. Gresham. Don’t say anything, Lottie, but stand by her. She may want it, for anything we know.’

‘As you stood by us,’ said Lottie affectionately; and then she added with a sigh and a faint little smile, ‘But it never could be so bad as that with them.’

I did not make her any reply. I was faint and giddy with fear and excitement; and just then, of course, Admiral Fortis’s brother, a hazy old gentleman, who was there on a visit, and havered for hours together, whenever he could get a listener, hobbled up to me. He had got me into a corner as it were, and built entrenchments round me before I knew, and then he began his longest story of how his brother had been appointed to the Bellerophon, and how it was his interest that did it. The thing had happened half a century before, and the Admiral had not been at sea at all for half that time, and here was a present tragedy going on beside us, and the message of fate crushed up with my fan in my hand. Lottie Stoke made her appearance in the doorway several times, casting appealing looks at me. Once she beckoned, and pointed energetically to the drawing-room in which poor little Mrs. Gresham was. But when I got time to think, as I did while the old man was talking, I thought it was best, on the whole, to defer giving my letter, whatever it was. It could not be anything trifling or temporary which made the master of the house steal away in the darkness. I have had a good many things put into my hands to manage, but I don’t think I ever had anything so difficult as this. For I did not know, and could not divine, what the sudden misfortune was which I had to conceal from the world. All this time Mr. Fortis went on complacently with his talk about the old salt-water lords who were dead and gone. He stood over me, and was very animated; and I had to look up to him, and nod and smile, and pretend to listen. What ghosts we were, as Lottie said! My head began to swim at last as Mr. Fortis’s words buzzed in my ear. ‘“My lord,” I said, “my brother’s services—not to speak of my own family influence—”’ This formed a kind of chorus to it, and came in again and again. He was only in the middle of his narrative when Lottie came up, making her way through all obstacles. She was trembling, too, with excitement which had less foundation than mine.

‘I can’t find Mr. Gresham anywhere,’ she whispered. ‘He is not in any of the rooms; none of the servants have seen him, and it is time for supper. What are we to do?’

‘Is Ada alarmed?’ said I.

‘No; she is such a child,’ said Lottie. ‘But she is beginning to wonder. Come and say something to her. Come and do something. Don’t sit for ever listening to that tiresome old man. I shall go crazy if you do not come; and she dancing as if nothing had happened!’

Mr. Fortis had waited patiently while this whispering went on. When I turned to him again he went on the same as ever. ‘This was all to the senior sea-lord, you understand, Mrs. Mulgrave. As for the other—’

‘I hope you will tell me the rest another time,’ I said, like a hypocrite. ‘I must go to Mrs. Gresham. Lottie has come to fetch me. I am so sorry—’

‘Don’t say anything about it,’ said Mr. Fortis. ‘I shall find an opportunity,’ and he offered me his arm. I had to walk with him looking quite at my ease through all those pretty groups, one and another calling to me as I passed. ‘Oh, please tell me if my wreath is all right,’ Nelly Fortis whispered, drawing me from her uncle. ‘Mrs. Mulgrave, will you look if I am torn?’ cried another. Then pair after pair of dancers came whirling along, making progress dangerous. Such a sight at any time, when one is past the age at which one takes a personal interest in it, is apt to suggest a variety of thoughts; but at this moment! Lottie hovered about me, a kind of avant-coureur, clearing the way for me. There was something amazing to me in her excitement, especially as, just at the moment when she was labouring to open a way for me, Ada Gresham went flying past, her blue eyes shining, her cheeks more like roses than ever. She gave me a smiling little nod as her white dress swept over my dark one, and was gone to the opposite end of the room before I could say a word. Lottie drew her breath hard at the sight. Her sigh sounded shrill as it breathed past me. ‘Baby!’ she whispered. ‘Doll!’ And then the tears came to her eyes. I was startled beyond description by her looks. Had she come to care for Gerald in the midst of that worldly dreadful scheme of hers? or what did her agitation mean?

It was time for supper however, and the elders of the party began to look for it; and there were a good many people wondering and inquiring where was Mr. Gresham? where were the brothers? Young ladies stood with injured faces, who had been engaged to dance with Harry or Gerald; and Ada herself, when her waltz was over, began to look about anxiously. By this time I had got rid of Mr. Fortis, and made up my mind what to do. I went up to her and stopped her just as she was asking one of the gentlemen had he seen her husband?—where was Harry? I kept Harry’s bit of paper fast in my hand. I felt by instinct that to give her that would only make matters worse. I made up the best little story I could about old Mrs. Gresham’s illness.

‘They both went off quite quietly, not to disturb the party,’ I said. ‘I was to put off telling you as long as I could, my dear, not to spoil your pleasure. They could not help themselves. They were very much put out at the thought of leaving you. But Sir Thomas will take Mr. Gresham’s place; and you know they were obliged to go.’

Tears sprang to poor Ada’s eyes. ‘Oh, how unkind of Harry,’ she cried, ‘to go without telling me. As if I should have kept on dancing had I known. I don’t understand it at all—to tell you, and go without a word to me!’

‘My dear, he would not spoil your pleasure,’ I said; ‘and it would have been so awkward to send all these people away. And you know she may get better after all.’

‘That is true,’ said easy-minded Ada. ‘It would have been awkward breaking up the party. But it is odd about mamma. She was quite well yesterday. She was to have been here to-night.’

‘Oh, it must have been something sudden,’ I cried, at the end of my invention. ‘Shall I call Sir Thomas? What can I do to be a help to you? You must be Mr. and Mrs. Gresham both in one for to-night.’

Ada put her laced handkerchief up to her eyes and smiled a little faint smile. ‘Will you tell Sir Thomas?’ she said. ‘I feel so bewildered I don’t know what to do.’

Then I commenced another progress in search of Sir Thomas, Lottie Stoke still hovering about me as pale as a spirit. She took my arm as we went on. ‘Was that all a story?’ she whispered in my ear, clasping my arm tightly with her hands. I made her no answer; I dared not venture even to let her see my face. I went and told the same story very circumstantially over again to Sir Thomas. I hope it was not a great sin; indeed it might be quite true for anything I could tell. It was the only natural way of accounting for their mysterious absence; and everybody was extremely sorry, of course, and behaved as well as possible. Old Mrs. Gresham was scarcely known at Dinglewood, and Ada, it was evident, was not very profoundly affected after the first minute by the news, so that, on the whole, the supper-table was lively enough, and the very young people even strayed into the dancing-room after it. But of course we knew better than that when trouble had come to the house. It was not much above one o’clock in the morning when they were all gone. I pretended to go too, shaking off Lottie Stoke as best I could, and keeping out of sight in a corner while they all streamed away. On the whole, I think public opinion was in favour of Harry Gresham’s quiet departure without making any disturbance. ‘He was a very good son,’ people said: and then some of them speculated if the poor lady died, how Harry and his wife would manage to live in the quietness which family affliction demanded. ‘They will bore each other to death,’ said a lively young man. ‘Oh, they are devoted to each other!’ cried a young lady. Not a suspicion entered any one’s mind. The explanation was quite satisfactory to everybody but Lottie Stoke; but then she had seen Harry Gresham’s face.

When I had made quite sure that every one was gone, I stole back quietly into the blazing deserted rooms. Had I ever been disposed to moralize over the scene of a concluded feast, it certainly would not have been at that moment. Yet there was something pathetic in the look of the place—brilliant as day, with masses of flowers everywhere, and that air of lavish wealth, prodigality, luxury—and to feel that one carried in one’s hand something that might turn it into the scene of a tragedy, and wind up its bright story with the darkest conclusion. My heart beat loud as I went in. My poor little victim was still in the dancing-room—the largest and brightest of all. She had thrown herself down on a sofa, with her arms flung over her head like a tired child. Tears were stealing down her pretty cheeks. Her mouth was pouting and melancholy. When she saw me she rose with a sudden start, half annoyed, half pleased, to have some one to pour out her troubles upon. ‘I can’t help crying,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to blame Harry; but it was unkind of him to go away without saying a word to me. We never, never parted in that way before;’ and from tears the poor little woman fell into sobs—grievous, innocent sobs, all about nothing, that broke one’s heart.

‘I have come to tell you something,’ I said, ‘though I don’t know myself what it is. I am afraid it is something worse than you think. I said that because your brother-in-law said it; but I don’t believe it is anything about Mrs. Gresham. Your husband put this into my hand through the window as he went away. Take courage, dear. You want all your courage—you must keep up for the sake of the children, Ada!’

I babbled on, not knowing what words I used, and she stared at me with bewildered eyes. ‘Into your hand through the window!’ she said. She could not understand. She looked at the paper as if it were a charm. Then she opened it slowly, half afraid, half stupefied. Its meaning did not seem to penetrate her mind at first. After a while she gave a loud sudden shriek, and turned her despairing eyes on me. Her cry was so piercing and sudden that it rang through the house and startled every one. She was on the verge of hysterics, and incapable of understanding what was said to her, but the sight of the servants rushing to the door to ask what was the matter brought her to herself. She made a brave effort and recovered something like composure, while I sent them away; and then she held out to me the letter which she had clutched in her hand. It was written in pencil, and some words were illegible. This was what Harry said:—

‘What does it mean?’ cried poor Ada close to my ear. ‘Oh, tell me, you are our friend! What does it mean?’

‘God knows,’ I said. My own mind could not take it in, still less could I express the vague horrors that floated across me. We sat together with the lights blazing round us, the grand piano open, the musicians’ stands still in their places. Ada was dressed like a queen of fairies, or of flowers: her gown was white, covered with showers of rosebuds; and she had a crown of natural roses in her bright hair. I don’t know how it was that her dress and appearance suddenly impressed themselves on me at that moment. It was the horror of the contrast, I suppose. She looked me piteously in the face, giving up all attempt at thought for her own part, seeking the explanation from me. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Why has he gone away? Who is coming after him? Oh, my Harry! my Harry!’ the poor young creature moaned. What could I say? I took her in my arms and kissed her. I could do no more.

At this moment there came a loud knocking at the door. The house had fallen into deadly stillness, and at that hour of the night, and in the state we were, the sound was horrible. It rang through the place as if it had been uninhabited, waking echoes everywhere. Ada’s very lips grew white—she clasped her small hands over mine holding me fast. ‘It is some one who has forgotten something,’ I said, but my agitation was so great that I felt a difficulty in speaking. We sat and listened in frightful suspense while the door was opened and the sound of voices reached us. It was not Harry who had come back; it was not any one belonging to the place. Suddenly Ada rushed to the door with a flash of momentary petulance which simulated strength. ‘If it is any one for Mr. Gresham, bring him in here,’ she cried imperiously. I hurried after her and took her hand. It was like touching an electric machine. She was so strung to the highest pitch that only to touch her made me thrill and vibrate all over. And then the two men—two homely black figures—startled even in spite of their acquaintance with strange sights, came hesitatingly forward into the blazing light to confront the flower-crowned, jewelled, dazzling creature, made up of rose and lily, and diamond and pearl. They stood thunderstruck before her, notwithstanding the assurance of their trade. Probably they had never in their lives seen such an apparition before. The foremost of the two took off his hat with a look of deprecation. I do not think Ada had the least idea who they were. They were her husband’s enemies, endowed with a certain dignity by that fact. But I knew in a moment, by instinct, that they must be London detectives in search of him, and that the very worst possibility of my fears had come true.

I cannot tell what we said to these men or they to us; they were not harsh nor unfeeling; they were even startled and awe-struck in their rough way, and stepped across the room cautiously, as if afraid of hurting something. We had to take them over all the house, through the rooms in which not a single light had been extinguished. To see us in our ball dresses, amid all that silent useless blaze of light, leading these men about, must have been a dreadful sight. For my part, though my share in it was nothing, I felt my limbs shake under me when we had gone over all the rooms below. But Ada took them all over the house. They asked her questions and she answered them in her simplicity. Crime might have fled out of that honest, joyous home, but it was innocence, candid and open, with nothing to conceal, which dwelt there. I had to interfere at last and tell them we would answer no more questions; and then they comforted and encouraged us in their way. ‘With this fine house and all these pretty things you’ll have a good bit of money yet,’ said the superior of the two; ‘and if Mr. Gresham was to pay up, they might come to terms.’

‘Then is it debt?’ cried I, with a sudden bound of hope.

The man gave a short laugh. ‘It’s debt to the law,’ he said. ‘It’s felony, and that’s bad; but if you could give us a bit of a clue to where he is, and this young lady would see ’em and try, why it mightn’t be so bad after all. Folks often lets a gentleman go when they won’t let a common man.’

‘Would money do it?’ cried poor Ada; ‘and I have my settlement. Oh, I will give you anything, everything I have, if you’ll let my poor Harry go.’

‘We haven’t got him yet, ma’am,’ said the man. ‘If you can find us any clue——’

And it was then I interfered; I could not permit them to go on with their cunning questions to poor Ada. When they went away she sank down on a sofa near that open window in the boudoir from which I had seen Harry disappear. The window had grown by this time ‘a glimmering square,’ full of the blue light of early dawn. The birds began to chirp and stir in the trees; the air which had been so soft and refreshing grew chill, and made us shiver in our light dresses; the roses in Ada’s hair began to fade and shed their petals silently over her white shoulders. As long as the men were present she had been perfectly self-possessed; now suddenly she burst into a wild torrent of tears. ‘Oh, Harry, my Harry, where is he? Why did not he take me with him?’ she cried. I cannot say any more, though I think every particular of that dreadful night is burned in on my memory. Such a night had never occurred in my recollection before.

Then I got Ada to go to bed, and kept off from her the sleepy, insolent man in powder who came to know if he was to sit up for master. ‘Your master has gone to Bishop’s Hope,’ I said, ‘and will not return to-night.’ The fellow received what I said with a sneer. He knew as well, or perhaps better than we did, what had happened. Everybody would know it next day. The happy house had toppled down like a house of cards. Nothing was left but the helpless young wife, the unconscious babies, to fight their battle with the world. There are moments when the sense of a new day begun is positive pain. When poor Ada fell into a troubled sleep, I wrapped myself up and opened the window and let in the fresh morning air. Looking out over the country, I felt as if I could see everything. There was no charitable shadow now to hide a flying figure: every eye would be upon him, every creature spying his flight. Where was Harry? When I looked at the girl asleep—she was but a girl, notwithstanding her babies—and thought of the horror she would wake to, it made my heart sick. And her mother was dead. There seemed no one to stand by her in her trouble but a stranger like me.

CHAPTER IV

When Ada woke however, instead of being, as I was, more hopeless, she was almost sanguine. ‘There is my money, you know,’ she said. ‘After all, so long as it is only money—I will go and see them, as the men said, and they will come to terms. So long as we are together, what do I mind whether we have a large house or a little one? And Harry himself speaks of my settlement. Don’t cry. I was frightened last night; but now I see what to do. Will you come up to town with me by the twelve o’clock train? And you shall see all will come right.’

I had not the heart to say a word. I went home, and changed that wretched evening dress which I had worn all through the night. It was a comfort to throw it off and cast it away from me; and I never wore it again; the very sight of it made me ill ever after. I found Ada almost in high spirits with the strength of her determination and certainty that she was going to redeem her husband and make all right, when I went back. Just before noon however, when she was putting on her bonnet to start, a carriage swept up to the door. I was at the window of the dining-room when it came in sight, waiting for the brougham to convey us to the station. And the rector and his wife were coming up the avenue with ‘kind inquiries,’ in full belief that old Mrs. Gresham was dying, and that the house was ‘in affliction.’ No wonder they started and stared at the sight. It was old Mrs. Gresham herself, in her pink ribbons, fresh and full and splendid, in robust health, and all the colours of the rainbow, who came dashing up with her stately bays, to the door.

I had only time to realize that all our little attempts to keep up appearances were destroyed for ever when the old people came in; for Harry’s father had come too, though no one ever noticed him in presence of his wife. Mrs. Gresham came in smiling and gracious, in her usual affable and rather overwhelming way. She would have dismissed me majestically before she went to her daughter-in-law, but I was in reality too obtuse, by reason of fatigue and excitement, to understand what she meant. When she went to Ada the old man remained with me. He was not an attractive old man, and I had scarcely spoken to him before. He walked about the room looking at everything, while I sat by the window. If he had been an auctioneer valuing the furniture, he could not have been more particular in his investigations. He examined the handsome oak furniture, which was the envy of the Green, the immense mirrors, the great china vases, the pictures on the walls, as if making a mental calculation. Then he came and stood by me, and began to talk. ‘In my time young people were not so extravagant,’ he said. ‘There are thousands of pounds, I believe, sunk in this house.’

‘Mr. Gresham had a great deal of taste,’ I said faltering.

‘Taste! Nonsense. You mean waste,’ said the old man, sitting down astride on a carved chair, and looking at me across the back of it. ‘But I admit the things have their value—they’ll sell. Of course you know Harry has got into a mess?’ he went on. ‘Women think they can hush up these things; but that’s impossible. He has behaved like an idiot, and he must take the consequences. Fortunately the family is provided for. Her friends need not be concerned in that respect.’

‘I am very glad,’ said I, as it was necessary to say something.

‘So am I,’ said old Mr. Gresham. ‘I suppose they would have come upon me if that had not been the case. It’s a bad business; but it is not so bad as it might have been. I can’t make out how a son of mine should have been such an ass. But they all go so fast in these days. I suppose you had a very grand ball last night? A ball!’ he repeated, with a sort of snort. I don’t know if there was any fatherly feeling at all in the man, but if there was he hid it under this mask of harshness and contempt.

‘Will not Mr. Gresham return?’ I asked foolishly; but my mind was too much worn out to have full control of what I said.

The old man gave a shrug, and glanced at me with a mixture of scorn and suspicion. ‘I can’t say what may happen in the future,’ he said dryly. ‘I should advise him not. But Ada can live where she likes—and she will not be badly off.’

Old Mrs. Gresham stayed a long time up-stairs with her daughter-in-law; so long that my patience almost deserted me. Mr. Gresham went off, after sitting silent opposite to me for some time, to look over the house, which was a relief; and no doubt I might have gone too, for we were far too late for the train. But I was too anxious to go away. When the two came down the old lady was just as cheerful and overwhelming as usual, though poor Ada was deadly pale. Mrs. Gresham came in with her rich, bustling, prosperous look, and shook hands with me over again. ‘I am sure I beg your pardon,’ she said; ‘I had so much to say to Ada. We have not met for a whole month; and poor child, they gave her such a fright last night. My dear, don’t you mean to give us some luncheon? Grandpapa never takes lunch; you need not wait for him, but I am quite hungry after my long drive.’

Then poor Ada rose and rang the bell; she was trembling so that she tottered as she moved. I saw that her lips were dry, and she could scarcely speak. She gave her orders so indistinctly that the man could not hear her. ‘Luncheon!’ cried the old lady in her imperious way. ‘Can’t you hear what Mrs. Gresham says? Lunch directly—and tell my people to be at the door in an hour. Ada, a man who stared in my face like that, and pretended not to understand, should not stay another day in my house; you are a great deal too easy. So your ball was interrupted last night, Mrs. Mulgrave,’ she went on with a laugh, ‘and the blame laid on me. Oh, those boys! I hope the good people hereabouts will not take offence. I will never forgive them, though, for giving Ada such a fright, poor child. She thought I was dying, I suppose; and it was only one of Gerald’s sporting scrapes. Some horse was being tampered with, and he would have lost thousands if they had not rushed off; so they made out I was dying, the wretched boys. Ha, ha! I don’t look much like dying to-day.’

‘No, indeed,’ was all I could say. As for Ada she never opened her white lips, except to breathe in little gasps like a woman in a fever. The old lady had all the weight of the conversation to bear; and indeed she was talking not for our benefit, but for that of the servants, who were bringing the luncheon. She looked so rich and assured of herself that I think they were staggered in their certainty of misfortune and believed her for the moment. The young footman, who had just been asking me privately to speak a word for him to secure him another place, gave me a stealthy imploring look, begging me as it were not to betray him. The old gentleman was out, going over the house and grounds, but Mrs. Gresham ate a very good luncheon and continued her large and ample talk. ‘They sent me a message this morning,’ she said, as she ate, ‘and ordered me to come over and make their excuses and set things right. Just like boys! Give me some sherry, John Thomas. I shall scold them well, I promise you, when they come back—upsetting poor Ada’s nerves, and turning the house upside down like this. I don’t know what Ada would have done without you, Mrs. Mulgrave; and I hear you had their stable-men, trainers, or whatever they call them, to puzzle you too.’

‘Yes,’ I said, struck dumb with wonder. Was this all an invention, or was she herself deceived? Poor Ada sat with her eyes cast down, and never spoke except in monosyllables; she could scarcely raise to her lips the wine which her mother-in-law made her swallow. I could not but admire the energy and determination of the woman. But at the same time she bewildered me, as she sat eating and drinking, with her elbow on the table and her rich lace mantle sweeping over the white tablecloth, conversing in this confident way. To meet her eyes, which had not a shade of timidity or doubt about them, and see her evident comfort and enjoyment, and believe she was telling a downright lie, was almost more than was possible. ‘I did not know Mr. Gerald was a racing man,’ I faltered, not knowing what to say.

‘Oh, yes, he is on the turf,’ said Mrs. Gresham, shrugging her shoulders; ‘he is on everything that don’t pay. That boy has been a nuisance all his life. Not that there is anything bad about him; but he’s fashionable, you know, and we are known to be rich, and everybody gives him his own way; and Harry’s such a good brother——’ said the rash woman all at once, to show how much at her ease she was. But this was taking a step too much. Ada could bear it no longer. There was a sudden sound of choking sobs, and then she sprang from the table. The strain had gone too far.

‘I hear baby crying; I must go to baby,’ she sobbed; and rushed from the room without any regard to appearances. Even Mrs. Gresham, self-possessed as she was, had gone too far for her own strength. Her lip quivered in spite of herself. She looked steadily down, and crumbled the bread before her in her strong agitated fingers. Then she gave a little laugh, which was not much less significant than tears.

‘Poor little Ada,’ she said, ‘she can’t bear to be crossed. She has had such a happy life, when anything goes contrairy it puts her out.’ Perhaps it was the quivering of her own lip that brought back her vernacular. And then we began to discuss the ball as if nothing had happened. Her husband came in while we were talking, and shrugged his shoulders and muttered disapprobation, but she took no notice. She must have been aware that I knew all; and yet she thought she could bewilder me still.

I went home shortly after, grieved and disgusted and sick at heart, remembering all the wicked stories people tell of mercantile dishonesty, of false bankruptcies, and downright robberies, and the culprits who escape and live in wealth and comfort abroad. This was how it was to be in the case of Harry Gresham. His wife had her settlement, and would go to him, and they would be rich, and well off, though he had as good as stolen his neighbour’s property and squandered it away. Of course I did not know all the particulars then; and I had got to be fond of these young people. I knew very well that Harry was not wicked, and that his little wife was both innocent and good. When one reads such stories in the papers, one says, ‘Wretches!’ and thinks no more of it. But these two were not wretches, and I was fond of them, and it made me sick at heart. I went up-stairs and shut myself into my own room, not being able to see visitors or to hear all the comment that, without doubt, was going on. But it did not mend matters when I saw from my window Mrs. Gresham driving past, lying back in her carriage, sweeping along swift as two superb horses could carry her, with her little old husband in the corner by her side, and a smile on her face, ready to wave her hand in gracious recognition of any one she knew. She was like a queen coming among us, rather than the mother of a man who had fled in darkness and shame. I never despised poor Mrs. Stoke or thought less of her for Everard’s downfall, but I felt scorn and disgust rise in my heart when these people passed my door; though Mrs. Gresham, too, was her son’s champion in her own worldly way.

Some hours later Ada sent me a few anxious pleading words, begging me to go to her. I found her in the avenue, concealing herself among the trees; though it was a warm summer day she was cold and shivering. I do not know any word that can express her pallor. It was not the whiteness of death, but of agonized and miserable life, palpitating in every nerve and straining every faculty.

‘Hush!’ she said. ‘Don’t go to the house—I can’t bear it—I am watching for him—here!’

‘Is he coming back?’ I cried in terror.

‘I do not know; I can’t tell where he is, or where he is going!’ cried poor Ada, grasping my arm; ‘but if he should come back he would be taken. The house is watched. Did you not see that old man sitting under the hedge? There are people everywhere about watching for my Harry; and they tell me I am to stay quiet and take no notice. I think I will die—I wish I could die!’

‘No, my darling!’ I said, crying over her. ‘Tell me what it is? Did they bring you no comfort? He will not come back to be taken. There is no fear. Did they not tell you what it means?’

‘They told me,’ cried Ada, with a violent colour flushing over her face, ‘that I was to keep my money to myself, and not to pay back that—that—what he has taken! It is true; he has taken some money that was not his, and lost it; but he meant to pay it back again, Mrs. Mulgrave. We were so rich; he knew he could pay it all back. And now he has lost everything and can’t pay it. And they will put him in prison. Oh, I wish he had died! I wish we had all died!’ cried Ada, ‘rather than this—rather than to feel what I do to-day!’

‘My dear,’ I cried, ‘don’t say so; we cannot die when we please. It is a terrible misfortune; but when he did not mean it—’

Great tears rushed to Ada’s eyes. ‘He did not mean that,’ she said; ‘but I think he meant me to keep my money and live on it. Oh, what shall I do! They say I will be wicked if I give it up. I will work for him with all my heart. But I cannot go on living like this, and keep what is not mine. If your husband had done it, Mrs. Mulgrave—don’t be angry with me—would not you have sold the cottage and given up everything? And what am I to do?’

‘You must come in and rest,’ I said. ‘Never mind what they said to you. You must do what is right, Ada, and Gerald will stand by you. He will know how to do it. Come in now and rest.’

‘Ah, Gerald!’ cried the poor child, and then she leant on my shoulder and cried. The moment she heard even the name of one man whom she could trust her strength broke down. ‘Gerald will know how to do it,’ she said faintly, as I led her in, and tried to smile at me. It was a gleam of comfort in the darkness.

I cannot describe the period of terrible suspense that followed. I stayed with her, making no pretence of going back to my own house; though when the story came to be in the newspapers all my friends wrote letters to me and disapproved of my conduct. I did not care; one knows one’s own duties better than one’s friends do. The day after the ball hosts of cards, and civil messages, and ‘kind inquiries’ had poured upon Ada; but after that they totally stopped. Not a carriage nor a visitor came near the house for the three last days. The world fell away from us and left the poor young creature to bear her burden alone. In the midst or all this real suffering there was one little incident which affected my temper more than all the rest. Old Thomas Lee, an old man from the village, who used to carry little wares about in a basket, and made his living by it, had taken his place under the hedge close to the gates of Dinglewood, and sat there watching all day long. Of course he was paid to do it, and he was very poor. But I don’t think the money he has earned so has done him much good. I have never given a penny or a penny’s worth to old Lee since that time. Many a sixpence poor Harry had tossed at him as he passed in his Yankee waggon every morning to the station. I had no patience with the wretched old spy. He had the assurance to take off his hat to me when I went into the house he was watching, and I confess that it was with a struggle, no later back than last winter, when the season was at its coldest, that I consented to give him a little help for his children’s sake.

It was nearly a week before we got any letters, and all these long days we watched and waited, glad when every night fell, trembling when every morning rose; watching at the windows, at the gates, everywhere that a peep could be had of the white, blinding, vacant road. Every time the postman went round the Green our hearts grew faint with anxiety: once or twice when the telegraph boy appeared, even I, though I was but a spectator, felt the life die out of my heart. But at last this period of dreadful uncertainty came to a close. It was in the morning by the first post that the letters came. They were under cover to me, and I took them to Ada’s room while she was still sleeping the restless sleep of exhaustion. She sprang up in a moment and caught at her husband’s letter as if it had been a revelation from heaven. The happiest news in the world could not have been more eagerly received. He was safe. He had put the Channel between him and his pursuers. There was no need for further watching. The relief in itself was a positive happiness. Ten days ago it would have been heart-rending to think of Harry Gresham as an escaped criminal, as an exile, for whom return was impossible; disgraced, nameless, and without hope. To-day the news was joyful news; he was safe, if nothing more.

Then for the first time Ada indulged in the luxury of tears—tears that came in floods, like those thunder-showers which ease the hearts of the young. She threw herself on my neck and kissed me again and again. ‘I should have died but for you: I had no mamma of my own to go to,’ she sobbed like a baby. Perhaps the thing that made these childish words go so to my heart was that I had no child.

Of course I expected, and everybody will expect, that after this excitement she should have fallen ill. But she did not. On the contrary, she came down-stairs with me and ate (almost for the first time) and smiled, and played with her children, while I stood by with the feeling that I ought to have a brain fever myself if Ada would not see what was expected of her. But as the day ran on she became grave, and ever graver. She said little, and it was mostly about Gerald; how he must come home and manage everything; how she was determined to take no rest, to listen to no argument, till the money was paid. I went home to my own house that evening, and she made no opposition. I said good-night to her in the nursery, where she was sitting close by her little girl’s bed. She was crying, poor child, but I did not wonder at that; and nurse was a kind woman, and very attentive to her little mistress. I went round to the terrace and out by the garden, without having any particular reason for it. But before I reached the gate some one came tripping after me, and looking round I saw it was Ada, wrapped in a great waterproof cloak. She was going to walk home with me, she said. I resisted her coming, but it was in vain. It was a warm, balmy night, and I could not understand why she should have put on her great cloak. But as soon as she was safe in my little drawing-room, her secret came out. Then she opened her mantle with a smile. On one of her arms hung a bundle; on the other rested her sleeping baby. She laughed at my amaze, and then she cried. ‘I am going to Harry,’ she said; and held her child closer, and dried her eyes and sat immovable, ready to listen to anything I chose to say. Heaven knows I said everything I could think of—of the folly of it, of her foolhardiness; that she was totally unable for the task she was putting on herself; that Harry had Gerald, and could do without her. All which she listened to with a smile, impenetrable, and not to be moved. When I had come to an end of my arguments, she stretched out to me the arm on which the bundle hung, and drew me close to her and kissed me again. ‘You are going to give me some biscuits and a little flask of wine,’ she said, ‘to put in my pocket. I have one of the housekeeper’s old-fashioned pockets, which is of some use. And then you must say “God bless you,” and let me go.’

‘God bless you, my poor child,’ I said, overcome; ‘but you must not go; little Ada too—’

Then her eyes filled with tears. ‘My pretty darling!’ she said; ‘but grandmamma will take her to Bishop’s Hope. It is only baby that cannot live without his mother. Baby and Harry. What is Gerald? I know he wants me.’

‘But he can wait,’ I cried; ‘and you so young, so delicate, so unused to any trouble!’

‘I can carry my child perfectly,’ said Ada. ‘I never was delicate. There is a train at eleven down to Southampton, I found it out in the book: and after that I know my way. I am a very good traveller,’ she said with a smile, ‘and Gerald must come to settle everything. Give me the biscuits, dear Mrs. Mulgrave, and kiss me and let me go.’

And it had to be so, though I pleaded with her till I was hoarse. When the moment came, I put on my cloak too and walked with her, late as it was, a mile off to the new station, which both she and I had thought too far for walking in the cheerful daylight. I carried the bundle, while she carried the baby, and we looked like two homely country women trudging home. She drew her hood over her head while she got her ticket, and I waited outside. Then in the dark I kissed her for the last time. I could not speak, nor did she. She took the bundle from me, grasping my hand with her soft fingers almost as a man might have done; and we kissed each other with anguish, like people who part for ever. And I have never seen her again.

As I came back, frightened and miserable, all by myself along the moonlit road, I had to pass the Stokes’ cottage. Lottie was leaning out of the window, though it was now nearly midnight, with her face, all pallid in the moon, turned towards Dinglewood. I could scarcely keep myself from calling to her. She did not know what we had been doing, yet her heart had been with us that night.

CHAPTER V

I will not describe the tumult that arose when it was discovered. The servants rushed over to me in a body, and I suggested that they should send for Mrs. Gresham, and that great lady came, in all her splendour, and took little Ada away, and gave everybody ‘notice.’ Then great bills of the auction covered the pillars at the gate, and strangers came in heaps to see the place. In a month everything had melted away like a tale that is told. The Greshams, and their wealth, and their liberality, and their good-nature fell out of the very recollection of the people on the Green, along with the damask and the gilding and the flowers, the fine carriages and the powdered footmen. Everything connected with them disappeared. The new tenant altered the house a second time, and everything that could recall the handsome young couple and their lavish ways was cleared away. Of course there was nothing else talked of for a long time after. Everybody had his or her account of the whole business. Some said poor Harry met his pursuers in the field close to the river, and that Gerald and he fought with them, and left them all but dead in the grass; some said that Ada and I defended the house, and would not let them in; and there were countless romances about the escape and Ada’s secret following after. The imagination of my neighbours made many a fancy sketch of that last scene; but never hit upon anything so touching as my last glimpse of her, with her baby under her cloak, going into the train. I held my peace, and let them talk. She had been as my own child for about a week, just a week of our lives; before that she was a common acquaintance, after it a stranger; but I could not let any vulgar tongues meddle with our relationship or her story in that sacred time.

And after a while the tale fell into oblivion, as every story does if we can but wait long enough. People forgot about the Greshams; sometimes a stranger would observe the name of Mr. Gresham, of Bishop’s Hope, in some list of county charities, and would ask if he was a Gresham of Greshambury, or if he was any connection of the man who ran away. Of course, at the time, it was in all the newspapers. He had taken money that somebody had trusted him with and used it in his speculations. Of course he meant to pay it back; but then a great crash came. The men say there was no excuse for him, and I can see that there is no excuse; but he never meant it, poor Harry! And then the papers were full of further incidents, which were more unusual than Harry’s sin or his flight. The Times devoted a leading article to it which everybody read, holding Mrs. Gresham up to the applause of the world. Ada gave up her settlement and all her own fortune, and ‘one of his brothers,’ the papers said, came forward, too, and most of the money was paid back. But Harry, poor fellow, disappeared. He was as if he had gone down at sea. His name and every sign of his life went out of knowledge—waves of forgetfulness, desertion, exile closed over them. And at Dinglewood they were never either seen or heard of again.

As long as it continued to be in the papers, Lottie Stoke kept in a very excited state. She came to me for ever, finding out every word that was printed about it, dwelling on everything. That evening when the article appeared about Mrs. Gresham’s heroic abandonment of her fortune, and about ‘one of his brothers,’ Lottie came with her eyes lighted up like windows in an illumination, and her whole frame trembling with excitement. She read it all to me, and listened to my comments, and clasped my hand in hers when I cried out, ‘That must be Gerald!’ She sat on the footstool, holding the paper, and gazed up into my face with her eyes like lamps. ‘Then I do not mind!’ she cried, and buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud. And I did not ask her what she meant—I had not the heart.

It was quite years after before I heard anything more of the Greshams, and then it was by way of Lottie Stoke that the news came. She had grown thinner and more worn year by year. She had not had the spirits to go out, and they were so poor that they could have no society at home. And by degrees Lottie came to be considered a little old, which is a dreadful business for an unmarried girl when her people are so poor. Mrs. Stoke did not upbraid her; but still, it may be guessed what her feelings were. But, fortunately, as Lottie sank into the background, Lucy came to the front. She was pretty, and fresh, and gay, and more popular than her sister had ever been. And, by and by, she did fulfil the grand object of existence, and married well. When Lucy told me of her engagement she was very angry with her sister.

‘She says, how can I do it? She asks me if I have forgotten Gerald Gresham?’ cried Lucy. ‘As if I ever cared for Gerald Gresham; or as if anybody would marry him after—— I shall think she cared for him herself if she keeps going on.’

‘Lucy!’ said Lottie, flushing crimson under her hollow eyes. Lucy, for her part, was as bright as happiness, indignation, high health, and undiminished spirits could make her. But, for my part, I liked her sister best.

‘Well!’ she said, ‘and I do think it. You would lecture me about him when we were only having a little fun. As if I ever cared for him. And I don’t believe,’ cried Lucy courageously, ‘that he ever cared for me.’

Her sister kissed her, though she had been so angry. ‘Don’t let us quarrel now when we are going to part,’ she said, with a strange quiver in her voice. Perhaps the child was right; perhaps he had never cared for her, though Lottie and I both thought he did. He cared for neither of them, probably; and there was no chance that he would ever come back to Dinglewood, or show himself where his family had been so disgraced. But yet Lottie brightened up a little after that day, I can scarcely tell why.

Some time after she went on a visit to London in the season; and it was very hard work for her, I know, to get some dresses to go in, for she never would have any of Lucy’s presents. She was six weeks away, and she came back looking a different creature. The very first morning after her return she came over to me, glowing with something to tell. ‘Who do you think I met?’ she said with a soft flush trembling over her face. Her look brought one name irresistibly to my mind. But I would not re-open that old business; I shook my head, and said I did not know.

‘Why, Gerald Gresham!’ she cried. ‘It is true, Mrs. Mulgrave; he is painting pictures now—painting, you understand, not for his pleasure, but like a trade. And he told me about Ada and poor Harry. They have gone to America. It has changed him very much, even his looks; and instead of being rich, he is poor.’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘“one of his brothers.” You always said it was Gerald;’ but I was not prepared for what was to come next.

‘Did not I?’ cried Lottie, triumphant; ‘I knew it all the time.’ And then she paused a little, and sat silent, in a happy brooding over something that was to come. ‘And I think she was right,’ said Lottie softly. ‘He had not been thinking of Lucy; it was not Lucy for whom he cared.’

I took her hands into my own, perceiving what she meant; and then all at once Lottie fell a crying, but not for sorrow.

‘That was how I always deceived myself,’ she said. ‘It was so base of me at first; I wanted to marry him because he was rich. And then I thought it was Lucy he liked; she was so young and so pretty—’ Then she made a long pause, and put my hands upon her hot cheeks and covered herself with them. ‘Your hands are so cool,’ she said, ‘and so soft and kind. I am going to marry him now, Mrs. Mulgrave, and he is poor.’

This is a kind of postscript to the story, but still it is so connected with it that it is impossible to tell the one without the other. We were much agitated about this marriage on the Green. If Gerald Gresham had been rich, it would have been a different matter. But a stockbroker’s son, with disgrace in the family, and poor. I don’t know any one who was not sorry for Mrs. Stoke under this unexpected blow. But I was not sorry for Lottie. Gerald, naturally, is not fond of coming to the Green, but I see them sometimes in London, and I think they suit each other. He tells me of poor Ada every time I see him. And I believe old Mr. Gresham is very indignant at Harry’s want of spirit in not beginning again, and at Ada for giving up her settlement, and at Gerald for expending his money to help them—‘A pack of fools,’ says the old man. But of course they will all, even the shipwrecked family in America, get something from him when he dies. As for the mother, I met her once at Lottie’s door, getting into her fine carriage with the bays, and she was very affable to me. In her opinion it was all Ada’s fault. ‘What can a man do with an extravagant wife who spends all his money before it is made?’ she said as she got into her carriage; and I found it a little hard to keep my temper. But the Greshams and their story, and all the brief splendours of Dinglewood are almost forgotten by this time by everybody on the Green.