‘Hullo, Jack, is this really you?’

The speaker was the Rev. Percy Spencer, as completely arrayed a curate as could be found in all the parishes of England. John sprang up from his seat, and contemplated him with an amused scrutiny which suddenly ended in a burst of laughter. Percy did not refuse to join a little, but only a little, in the laugh, conscious of the difference between his long clerical coat and high waistcoat, and the soft hat he held in his hands, and those gayer garments, resplendent ties and canes in the height of the fashion, which had distinguished him in his university days. John had not seen him since he had assumed the severe simplicity of this priestly garb, and he was willing to allow a momentary merriment; but he soon resumed the little air of seriousness and responsibility which became his position.

‘I daresay,’ he said, ‘you find me a little changed; so I am. It makes a vast difference on a man, on his feelings as well as on his clothes, when he becomes a priest. But, all the same, I’m delighted to see you, and I hope Cattley has given you a good breakfast after your journey.’

Cattley! John, notwithstanding that he felt himself rather a fine fellow, had preserved, probably because of having been so far removed from the scene of them, all the traditions and reverential usages of his youth, and to have called his old tutor Cattley would have been no more possible to him than to have thrown stones at the old church-tower which presided over the village. Percy, too, thought himself a fine fellow, a much finer fellow than John, and the young layman naturally saw the absurd aspect of that conviction in the person of the young priest.

‘I am very well,’ he said, ‘I have had a capital breakfast, and everything here looks delightful and like itself—even Mr. Cattley; only you and I have changed, I think.’

‘You’re not so big as you promised to be,’ said Percy, with satisfaction. ‘I thought you’d have grown twice that height. Dick is six foot, don’t you know. That’s all very well for one in a family, but you can’t go on doing it. I suppose you’re going now to see—Aunt Mary? You’re expected, of course. Cattley, there’s a good fellow, do put me up a little to the manners and customs of Feather Lane.’

‘If I go now will it be too early for—the ladies?’ said John, ‘as I see you’ve got business on hand.’

‘Oh, not at all; no business in particular; only I’m taking hold of the work, and Cattley is giving it up. Things are a little different, don’t you know, from what they were when he took it up. I daresay I shall have to make changes,’ Percy said.

‘Every new man does that,’ said mild Mr. Cattley, ‘and undoes them again two or three times probably before he finds the right way.’

‘I hope,’ said Percy, ‘I shan’t be so long about it as that; but if you’re ready, Jack, I’ll step along with you. You mightn’t find Aunt Mary by yourself. She’s busier than ever in the parish, more busy than she has any occasion to be; but ladies seldom attain the juste milieu.’

Mr. Cattley’s eyes flashed a little at this, but he only permitted himself to say,

‘You must give up those pretty speeches about ladies if you mean to do much good in the parish. Shall I see you back to dinner, John?’

‘They’re sure to keep him to lunch,’ said Percy, not sorry to pay back to ‘Old Cattley’ an answering prick: for the curate, in deference perhaps to Mrs. Sibley, had always continued to call his mid-day meal his dinner. ‘Hadn’t you better come too? Aunt Mary will want both of you; and then you can tell her yourself when you are going away. I hope I can give as good as I get,’ said this young ecclesiastic, as he led the way out of the house. ‘Old Cattley is too much of a good thing with his advices and his prophecies, as if we had not learnt a thing or two since his time. And he doesn’t want to go, don’t you know, not a bit. He has hung on here years longer than he ought to have done. My father did not mind waiting till I was ready to step in; but an old fellow like that is quite out of date for a curate. I’ll have a great deal of trouble to work the parish into what’s wanted now.’

‘Perhaps I don’t know what’s wanted now,’ said John, with some suppressed resentment. ‘I always thought Mr. Cattley the model of everything a clergyman should be.’

‘That’s a very nice little speech,’ said the Rev. Percy; ‘but, bless your heart, he’s not a churchman at all—not a bit of him. Even Aunt Mary sees it now. He’s so much her slave, that she has always stuck to him, but I think even she sees it now.’

There was a little pause, and then John said, falteringly,

‘I hope Mrs. Egerton is quite well?’

‘Oh! she’s well enough, thanks. She’s grown stout. Ladies of her age generally do. She likes to mess about in the parish, and Cattley has always given in to her: but I mean to put my foot down, and make an end of that sort of thing. I shall have it entirely in my hands, of course; for my father, you know, doesn’t trouble himself much to interfere.’

‘And I hope the rector is—quite well?’ said John.

‘Oh, thanks, he’s well enough.’

There was not a word of Elly on the one side nor the other. John felt a chill, so far as he was concerned, which he could not himself understand. He had been so full of her, thinking more of her than of all the rest of the village put together. And now he did not even inquire for her! He walked along the road under the fresh green of the trees, while Percy entered more largely into all the new things he was about to do. John did not take very much interest in it. It would have pleased him a great deal more to hear the simplest thing about her whose name he had not ventured to pronounce. It was but a short way between Mr. Cattley’s door and the rectory, but Percy had managed to unfold a great many of his plans, and show clearly enough that he meant to turn the parish upside down, before they reached the door. John, to tell the truth, gave but a very distracted attention. His eyes were inspecting the house, every window and opening. It seemed so strange that she should not at least be looking out for him somewhere, expecting him. Elly! Why, she had been about the same as a sister. She had been more than his sister: she had been his comrade and play-fellow: and to think that he had not the courage to ask for her, and that she did not so much as look out of a window to see whether he was coming! It was neither possible nor natural that such a thing should be.

Percy’s voice ran on in a sort of complacent sing-song, while this thought took possession of John’s mind. What did he care for what the fellow was going to do in the parish? His self-assurance was intolerable to John, notwithstanding that he himself, in his way, was quite as much disposed to think well of his own new methods, and despise his elders, as Percy could do. But that is a thing which looks much less natural in another than it does in our own case. And John’s suspense and surprise were becoming more and more highly wrought. Could it be possible that Elly was not at home, that she was absent just when he looked for her, that she might perhaps never have heard that he was coming? This thought roused a great anger in his mind—he jumped at it with a flash of sudden conviction. She had never received his letter. She had never heard——

When suddenly the door opened, and some one came out, meeting them: a young lady nearly as tall as John, with brown hair of a warm shade, plaited in endless coils round the back of her head, with a stately carriage, a long white dress almost touching the ground; but, what was far better than all the rest, two hands held out.

‘After all, I was the first to see you,’ she cried. ‘Oh, Jack, did he tell you? I was looking over the garden-wall when you passed: but you never looked up. Oh, Jack, welcome home!’

And this was Elly! He took the hands she held out to him, and grasped them tight, and stared at her, but with changing looks, and the most extraordinary revolution going on in his mind. So this was Elly! He felt himself grow red, he felt himself stare; he was speechless, and had not a word to say. He had a kind of certainty that he must be disappointing to her, and that she expected him, naturally, to say something. But he could not find a word to say.

At last she tried to draw her fingers out of his clasp, and grew red, and laughed.

‘I daresay it is my fault. My hands are not so solid as they used to be. You—you hurt me a little, Jack!’

He dropped them as if they had been on fire, and burst into excuses.

‘How horrible of me!—how disgusting. As if I oughtn’t to have known. As if I shouldn’t have been sure——’ And here John’s voice seemed to die away in his throat, and he stood, now averting his eyes, now giving her a sudden shame-faced glance, crimson covering his face, and shame and perturbation his soul.

Why should he have been so much ashamed? and why should the sight of Elly have discomposed him so? Who can tell? It was a climax, and it was at the same time a contradiction. That Elly! How was he ever to suppose she would grow to be like that? And yet of course that was just how she must have grown, he said to himself—or rather, which is truer, himself said to him—as he stood staring, lost in disappointment and trouble, and self-disgust and delight. And the strange thing was, that she too grew confused and embarrassed under his gaze. She had been, perhaps, to tell the truth, a little embarrassed from the first, not knowing how to get the first meeting over, anxious to get it over, and have the new system of intercourse begun.

‘Well, Sandford,’ said Percy, ‘you seem to find my sister as much changed as you found me? Where’s Aunt Mary, Elinor? Of course she is full of curiosity to see the great conqueror that is to be——’

‘Of course she wants to see Jack, if that is what you mean,’ said Elly. She made a little pause before his name, and grew red as she said it, which was wonderful, confusing, extraordinary beyond measure to John, who did not know what to make of it all, neither of himself nor of her, nor of Percy, who called him Sandford and Elly Elinor. Something had happened; something had changed in a way he had not thought of nor anticipated: and he did not know whether he was most happy or unhappy at the change. He followed Elly in, looking at her, at her tallness, her slimness, the sweep of her long dress, her shining coils of hair, not tossing on her shoulders any longer in those tumbled curls, every one of which had seemed to have an independent life of its own, but so smooth and orderly in endless plaits. He was not quite sure if he was walking on solid ground or floating after her upon the golden morning air in which her white figure seemed to float glorified. He had to shake himself out of this dream, as Mrs. Egerton came out with hands outstretched, and the rector in the background, who never took much notice, added a word of welcome. They were both exactly the same, the lady a little stouter, as her nephew had said; and the house was the same, restoring his balance a little by means of its steady unalterableness, every ornament in its habitual place, nothing changed.

So long as he did not look at Elly, John felt the giddiness go off, and his head got steady again. He was taken into Mrs. Egerton’s room and had to give an account of himself, which, stimulated by her questions, he did in great detail. Elly kept a little behind, out of sight, as this examination went on. Perhaps she had guessed by sympathy or otherwise that the sight of her made John’s head go round. Mrs. Egerton was immensely interested in John’s account of himself, but it seemed by-and-by to pall upon Percy, who went out declaring that he must go to his work and that ‘Old Cattley’ was waiting for him, a phrase which John thought did not please Mrs. Egerton any more than it pleased himself. Percy added a word to his sister as he went out.

‘Isn’t this your day for the schools, Nell?’ which that young lady did not receive with much greater favour. There was a little pause of joint disapproval as he disappeared. In John’s opinion Percy had grown insufferable in his new developement: my sister, Elinor, Nell—all these names, as applied to Elly, were equally intolerable. The pretensions of this new-made priest were more than any man could put up with, John felt, not being at all aware that in himself there were elements of self-complacency very clear to spectators too.

‘I suppose you are not going to the schools to-day, Elly?’ Mrs. Egerton said.

‘No, Aunt Mary, I never said I would go always;—and it is not every day that—Jack comes home.’

These words were delivered with a little suddenness and a tone as of defiance, but Mrs. Egerton did not take up the glove.

‘Percy would like to keep us all to our duties,’ she said, with an ease which made the success of that effort very doubtful, ‘but we don’t at present see our way to absolute obedience. Since you are not going to the schools, sit down, Elly, and keep still. No doubt you distract John’s attention, fluttering about like that. I am sure you do mine.’

John did not say anything. It distracted him still more when she came at her aunt’s order and sat down within sight, and let him see how carefully she was listening, and what interest she took in his narrative—which henceforward became a very broken affair, chiefly elicited by questions to which he replied. He had all the desire in the world to interest and satisfy Elly, but his own interest in all her looks and movements was so great, and his anxiety not to lose a word she said, that the desire was baulked even by its very warmth. Perhaps Mrs. Egerton perceived the ground of the disturbance in the young man’s mind, for she came suddenly to the present, after he began to waver in his narrative of the past.

‘And so,’ she said, ‘you have come to settle about the old house, John? Have you been there yet?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not yet. I did not care to go at once. Being with Mr. Cattley was like old times, without the pain of contrast.’

‘Ah! and that’s a pleasure you will not have very long. I am glad you keep to the “Mr. Cattley,” John. I expect to hear Percy call me Mary tout court one of these days. I am glad some of you boys have a little sense of what is befitting. Mr. Cattley is going, you know.’

‘I am sorry, Mrs. Egerton: and yet I suppose——’

‘One ought to be glad? That is just my feeling. One ought to be glad. He never would have—married or done anything else that is necessary at his age, or asserted himself and his independence, here. But come, tell me: you are going to settle about the old house. Do you mean to sell it, or to let it, or what do you mean to do?’

‘I want to do a silly thing,’ said John.

‘Well! out with it. What is your silly thing? You young men are all so admirably sensible and awake to your own interests. I am rather glad to hear of anything that can be called so.’

‘I should like,’ he said, ‘to keep the house in my own hands. My sister is coming to join me presently.’

‘But you couldn’t stay here—at your age, and getting on so well in your profession.’

‘Oh, no! But it used to be a dream of mine to keep it up in the old way. Would it be very silly? Susie could come when she pleased, and my mother if she pleased. It would be something to think of and come back to.’

‘But then you would require to furnish it and keep some one in it.’

John looked at Elly, and she at him. It was almost the first time that their glances had met. There was a flash of private communication, confidential, charged with intelligence: and then over both the young faces there came something like a flame, a flush of recollection and emotion. That had been their last interview: and how much there was in it which it was confusing to recall now.

‘What are you looking at each other for, you two?’

‘You know, Aunt Mary!’ It was the first time Elly had spoken. ‘The two dear old chairs. Jack, they have been in my room ever since. Often and often I have wondered if they knew. I have taken such care of them. When you take them back, it will seem like losing old friends.’

‘Oh! yes, I remember,’ said Mrs. Egerton. She looked from one to another with a slightly roused look; perhaps she had not been alarmed before. She saw a little excitement in both faces, an unusual colour and light in their eyes, which showed more feeling than was at all necessary. And in the atmosphere altogether there was a sort of electricity, something that was different from the everyday calm.

The watchful family guardian was startled. She had not thought there was any danger. When Percy had fumed and indulged in whatever is the clerical substitute for swearing, and declared that he would not allow any nonsense between that fellow and Elly, his aunt had put him down with calm decision, and an assurance that nothing of the kind was possible. That look produced a change as rapid as itself in Mrs. Egerton’s frame of mind.

‘Do you know,’ she said, with no perceptible change from the maternal kindness of her previous tone, ‘I think it would be rather a silly thing. It would bind you to this little place quite out of the way, with which you have, so to speak, no family connection, for none of your people have belonged here; and you would entail upon yourself a considerable expense, for you can’t furnish a house with two old chairs, whatever may be their associations. I don’t think I would do it, if I were you.’