A lawn commanded by the windows of a drawing-room, in which people are settling their plans for the day, can scarcely be considered a fitting locality for the interchange of courtesies not intended for general supervision. The stoppage of Sir Henry's mouth, as described in the preceding chapter, was witnessed by three different persons, all of whom, in their respective degrees, chose to feel aggrieved, disgusted, and surprised. The position was picturesque, no doubt, the accessories in perfect keeping, the strawberry rich and ripe, but such familiarities are apt to breed contempt in the bystanders, especially if of the better-behaved and less tolerant sex. Helen did not approve of these liberties being taken with papa; Mrs. Lascelles, for the first time, doubted whether she had acted wisely in entering on so close an alliance with this reckless adventuress, remembering a certain fable, in which the horse, having called in the assistance of man against his enemy, was never his own master again; while Uncle Joseph, looking pompously out of window, with his hands in his pockets, turned yellow from jealousy, and became speechless with disgust.

There is no pleasanter hour of the day than that which succeeds breakfast in a country-house, while people are organising the occupations, or amusements, as they call them, that must last till dinner; but with the party collected at The Lilies there seemed to be more than the usual diversity of opinion as to how their time should be spent.

Helen "didn't much care about going to the races—wondered if it would rain—feared it would be hot—did feel a little tired this morning," but, being pressed, was obliged to confess, "she enjoyed yesterday very much!" Still, it was evident Helen did not want to go, equally evident she would not explain why.

Uncle Joseph, who had meditated a long walk with Miss Ross, combining exercise and sentiment, would have voted persistently against the Heath, but for the episode of the strawberry, which had so roused his wrath. He now declared "it would be absurd to stay away, when at so short a distance," that "they had better go in the same order as yesterday," and that "he would desire luncheon to be put up at once;" Uncle Joseph wisely considering that important meal a necessity of any "outing" in which pleasure was the avowed object.

Mrs. Lascelles did not the least care how she spent her morning, so long as it was passed in the company of Sir Henry. Goldthred, again, was willing to go anywhere or do anything if he might be with Mrs. Lascelles. Altogether everybody's movements seemed dependent on the baronet, who walked coolly up the lawn to the drawing-room windows, pinning the gauze veil more carefully round his hat.

"What time are we to start?" said he, taking it for granted, as he wished to go himself, that everybody else did. "I'm afraid I must be on the Course early; but that need not hurry the others. Nelly and I can go in my carriage, and I'll order it at once. Or I can take Mr. Goldthred, or do anything anybody likes. Who wants to come with me? You mustn't all speak at once!"

"I don't care about going at all, papa," said Helen, but intercepting a glance from their hostess, which ordered Goldthred, as plainly as eyes could speak, to remain and keep her company, added hastily, "unless there's plenty of room."

"Plenty of room!" echoed Mrs. Lascelles, with her own arrangements in view. "We shall only want one carriage if we take mine. Four of us inside, and Mr. Goldthred, for so short a distance, won't mind sitting on the box. No, that won't do; where are we to put Jin?"

"Jin's not going!" interrupted a voice from the open window of an upper room. "Jin's got a headache, and some letters to write. You won't get her to Ascot to-day unless you drag her with wild horses, so you needn't distress yourselves about Jin!"

Uncle Joseph's face turned from yellow to its normal tint of mottled brown. What a trump of a girl he thought her after all! And, fully convinced she was scheming to pass the whole morning with himself, sorely repented he should have so misjudged her a quarter-of-an-hour ago.

His difficulty now was to avoid joining the rest of the party; but bethinking him of a certain substantial pony in the stable, called "Punch," he declared he thought a thorough shaking would do him good, and expressed his intention of riding that animal to the Course.

"Once they're off," argued Uncle Joseph, "they'll never trouble their heads about their host, and then, my pretty Jin, you and I can come to an understanding at last!"

Even with a party of four, however, it takes time to get pleasure-goers under weigh. Mrs. Lascelles forgot her smelling-bottle, Helen mislaid her shawl; Sir Henry, on whose account they had all hurried themselves, was ten minutes behind everybody else. The carriage stood a good half-hour at the door before it was fairly started, and Uncle Joseph spent that time in his own dressing-room, with his heart beating like a boy's.

At last the welcome sound of wheels announced that the coast was clear. He sallied forth eagerly, and, considering his years, with no little alacrity, in pursuit of his ladye-love. Not in her bedroom, certainly, for the door stood wide open! Not in the drawing-room—the dining-room—the billiard-room, nor the boudoir! Zounds! not in the conservatory, nor on the lawn! Beads of perspiration broke out on Uncle Joseph's bald head, and he couldn't tell whether it was anger or anxiety that made him feel as if he was going to choke. Panting, protesting, under a burning sun, he followed the shrubbery walk that brought him to the hay-field, through which a thoroughfare for foot people led to the high road. Here he ran into the very arms of Goldthred, coming back by this short cut for his race-glasses, which he had forgotten, while the carriage waited at the nearest angle of the fragrant meadow, flecked and rippled with its new-mown hay.

Uncle Joseph was without his hat. He must have lost his head also, when, thinking it necessary to account for his disturbed appearance, he inquired vehemently:

"Have you seen Miss Ross? I—I forgot to order dinner before starting. I want to find Miss Ross."

"You won't overtake her," answered Goldthred coolly. "She was half way across the next field when I came into this. She must be at the turnpike by now."

Uncle Joseph waited to hear no more. Breaking wildly from his informant, he dashed off towards the stable, while the latter, recovering his glasses, walked solemnly back to the carriage, and jumped in, as if nothing had happened.

There is, at least, this good quality belonging to a man in love, that he is not easily astonished, nor does he occupy himself with the affairs of others. Goldthred had forgotten his meeting with Uncle Joseph, and dismissed the whole subject from his mind, before the carriage had got twenty yards or Mrs. Lascelles had spoken as many words.

Now Punch was a good stout cob, of that class and calibre which is so prized by gentlemen who have left off reckoning up their age and weight. After fifty, and over fifteen stone, it is needless to be continually balancing the account. Punch possessed capital legs and feet, sloping shoulders, an intelligent head with very small ears, a strong neck, and an exceedingly round stomach. Such an animal, I confess, I cannot but admire, and have no objection to ride, unless I am in a hurry. Even when time presses I bear the creature no malice, but I fear he hates me! Punch could scuttle along at his own pace for a good many miles, safely and perseveringly enough; but against yours, if you were in the habit of riding a thorough-bred hack, he would protest in a very few furlongs. Obviously, to such a quadruped, time was of the utmost importance, and it seemed hard so much of it had to be wasted daily in preparing him for a start.

Docile in his general character, perfectly free from nervousness and vice, he had yet a provoking trick of puffing himself out during the operation of saddling to a size that rendered the roomiest girths in the stable too scanty for his swelling carcase. Ten minutes at least Uncle Joseph and the stable boy butted and tugged and swore, ere, to use the expression of the latter, they could "make tongue and buckle meet." Ten minutes more were wasted in water brushing the pony's mane and blacking his round, well-shaped feet; for the urchin, true to the traditions of his craft, would forego not the smallest rite of that stable discipline in which he had been trained. Altogether, by the time Uncle Joseph was fairly in the saddle for pursuit, Miss Ross had got such a start as, with her light step and agile figure, precluded the possibility of being caught against her will.

Four miles an hour, heel and toe, gracefully and without effort, as if she was dancing, this active young person flitted across the hay-fields, till she reached a humble little cottage standing between the highway and the river's brink. Here she disappeared from Uncle Joseph's sight, who had just viewed her, having bustled Punch along the hot, hard road at a pace which put them both in a white lather.

The rider's first idea was to secure his steed and follow up the chase; but few men act on impulse after—what shall we say?—fifty; and Punch, who had his own opinion about waiting in the sun, might very probably slip his bridle in order to trot home! Reflecting with dismay on such a contingency, in such weather for walking, Uncle Joseph "concluded," as the Americans say, that he would wait where he was, and watch.

Miss Ross, in the mean time, happily unconscious that she was observed, tapped at the cottage-door, which was opened by a dark-eyed urchin of five years or so, whom, to his intense astonishment, she smothered in kisses on the spot. Mrs. Mole, the owner of the cottage, emerging from the gloom of her back kitchen, was aware of a toss of black curls, and a pair of sturdy, struggling legs, not over clean, in the embrace of a radiant being who had dropped, to all appearance, from the clouds.

"Your servant, miss," said the old woman, drying her arms on her apron, while she performed a defiant curtsy. "You've—a—taken quite a fancy to my little lad, seemingly. Yet I don't remember to have ever seen you afore."

I often think the poor resent a liberty with so much more dignity than their betters.

For answer, Jin, whose French education had afforded her many useful little hints, slipped a packet of tea into the old woman's hand. It was what they drank at The Lilies, strong, fragrant, and five shillings a pound.

"I haven't the pleasure of knowing you, ma'am," said she civilly; "but I've seen this little angel before, and I can't help admiring him. Have you no more of them?"

Mrs. Mole was sixty if she was a day; but like your grandmother and mine, like everybody's grandmother, Eve herself, she was open to flattery. The supposition that this pretty child might be hers was pleasing; the inference that he had brothers and sisters, possibly younger than himself, gratifying indeed.

"He isn't my own, miss," said she, stroking the child's curls, who clung tight to her gown, with his eyes fixed on Miss Ross. "And more's the pity!—go to the lady, Johnnie, do!—for a sweeter babe, and a 'ealthier, you'll not put your 'and on, not from here to Windsor Castle. He ain't got no mother, miss, nor he don't want none, do you, Johnnie? not so long as you've your old Moley to love ye—that's what he calls me, miss. My name's Mole, miss, askin' your pardon."

The child, who was a bold little fellow enough, having inspected the visitor thoroughly, as children always do inspect an object of apprehension, now took courage to seat himself on her knee, with his finger in his mouth and his eyes fixed on his boots, in undivided attention.

Miss Ross turned the plain little frock down to where, below the sun-burned neck, his skin was white and pure as marble, all but one mottled mark, the size of a five-franc piece. Then she burst out crying, and Johnny, sprawling in haste to the floor, howled hideously for company.

"Deary, deary me!" ejaculated Mrs. Mole, completely softened, and, to use her own expression, "upset," by these signals of distress. "Don't ye take on so, miss. Whist! Johnnie, this moment, or I'll give you something to cry for! Take a glass of water, miss. You've been walking too fast in the sun—or say the word, and I'll make ye a cup o' tea in five minutes."

"A glass of water, please," gasped Miss Ross; and while the old woman went to fetch it, followed by Johnnie, the young one summoned all her self-command not to betray her secret and her relationship to the child.

It was her own Gustave. Of that she could have no doubt since she had laid bare the mark between his shoulders. Perhaps she was sure of him yesterday, shouting at the cottage-door while the carriage passed; perhaps she had been sure all last night, waking every ten minutes from a dream of her boy; all this morning, resolving that nothing should prevent her seeing him to-day; no, not the certainty of calumny, exposure, open shame! Had it been otherwise, she must have broken down more foolishly, more completely. Now she recovered herself, as she had often done before in positions of far greater difficulty. When she took the glass of water from Mrs. Mole's sympathising hand, her voice was steady, her face perfectly calm and serene.

"You are right," she said, "the sun is hot, and I walked here very fast. The sight of this pretty child, too, was rather trying. He reminds me of—of—a nephew I lost long ago. Thank you. I'm better now, but I should like to sit down and rest for half an hour, if I'm not in your way. So—so—this little fellow isn't yours, Mrs. Mole, after all."

Mrs. Mole dearly loved a gossip. So would you or I, if we spent our days in a two-roomed cottage, with no companion but a child, no amusement whatever, no occupation but cleaning household utensils for the purpose of dirtying them forthwith, no daily paper, no exchange of ideas, no exercise of the intellect, beyond a weekly effort to keep awake during the parson's sermon. Gossip, indeed! If it was not for gossip how many good, industrious, hard-living women would go melancholy mad?

"He's not mine, miss. I wishes he wur," she answered, with an elbow in the palm of each hand, an attitude Mrs. Mole considered favourable to conversation. "But, whatever I should do without Johnnie, or Johnnie without me, I know no more than the dead. The sense of that there child, miss, and the ways of 'un, you'd think as he was twelve year old at least. To see him take off his little boots, and fold up his little clothes, every article, and come an' say his little prayers on my knee afore ever he goes to his little bed, it's wonderful, that's what it is!"

The tears were rising to Jin's eyes once more. "Who taught him to say his prayers?" she asked, keeping them down with an effort.

"Well, he didn't know none when he came here first," answered Mrs. Mole apologetically. "He's very young a-course, and he hadn't been taught none maybe. But, Lor' bless ye, that there child didn't want no teaching. Ah! there's children in heaven, I humbly hope, and I'll never believe but they're like my Johnnie!"

"A little tidier I should suppose," thought Miss Ross, but she could have hugged this plain old woman nevertheless, for her kindly, honest heart.

"I can see he's well taken care of," she observed, turning the child's clothes with a mother's hand. "His skin shows how healthy he is, and he's as clean as a new pin."

Mrs. Mole glanced sharply in her visitor's face. "I ask yer pardon, ma'am," she said, "I kep on calling of you 'miss,' and maybe you've children of your own."

Hugging the boy's head to her breast Jin took no notice of this remark, but asked in turn, how long the child had been there.

The question, though simple, produced a narrative of considerable volume, digressive, complicated, not free from tautology, and ample, even exuberant in detail. It comprised Mrs. Mole's girlhood, early life, peculiar character, and extraordinary experiences, together with a sketch of the late Mr. Mole's biography, his failure in the undertaking business, and the reasons which prompted her, the narrator, to accept him for a husband; the birth of two children, with red noses, the image of Mole, both of whom, to use her own expression, she had "buried;" the unaccountable disappearance of their father, taking with him whatever portable property was in their joint possession, including bed and bedding, an eight-day clock, and a warming-pan; the deceitfulness of the male sex in general, and their sad tendency to falsehood, coupled with inebriety; the inscrutable ways of Providence, by which it seemed ordered that her own sex should be "put upon" in all relations of life; the difficulty, which no one could contradict, of earning bread, as a lone woman, with rent and taxes to pay, everything rising in price, except her own labour, and an inflexible determination to keep herself respectable; the matrimonial offer she had received not longer back than five years gone last Easter Monday, from an energetic bargeman, of imposing appearance, and a bad habit of swearing "awful," which offer she could not prudently entertain, partly from uncertainty as to Mole's fate, partly from suspicion of the proposer's solvency, not to say sobriety; the depression of spirits resulting from this disappointment of the affections, and the "lonesomeness" of the cottage in the long winter nights, when she felt as if she "couldn't hardly a-bear it without a drop o' comfort." Finally, the determination she was driven to of taking in a child to nurse, "as should make the little place seem home-like, and help to get a livin' for us both."

"And it's past belief, miss," added Mrs. Mole, "as I put a notice in the weekly paper, an' never heard no more, till a matter of ten weeks ago, when a gentleman brought this here little lad to the door, and left him for me to nurse and look after, quite confident and agreeable. 'Mrs. Mole,' says he—'your name's Mole, or I'm misinformed.' 'Yes, sir,' says I, 'you're right enough so fur as you know.' 'Mrs. Mole,' says he, 'I leave the child with you, an' I've no call to bid you take care of him, for I see it in your face, and you'll be as good as his own mother to him, supposin' he ever had one.' With that he slips a sovereign into my hand. I'm not deceivin' you, miss, and I drops him a curtsy, an', says I, 'Perhaps you'll favour me,' says I, 'with the babe's name,' says I, 'for I wouldn't call him out of it,' says I. It's my belief, miss, as the gentleman wasn't used to childer', an' didn't make no account of such things as nameses, for he thought a bit, an' 'Moses,' says he, 'that's the boy's name,' says he; but he answers much kinder to Johnnie, miss, as you can see for yourself. He was a hasty gentleman, seemingly, an' harbitrary, but a pleasant way with him; an' the child took on an' pined a bit for the first day or two, when he wur gone to London or what-not, but he loves his old Moley best now, don't ye, deary? an' will tell ye, plain as he can speak, he don't want to leave his old Moley, never no more."

Miss Ross was puzzled. But for the mark on the boy's back, and something in her own heart, she would have believed herself mistaken after all.

Who could this man be, then? and how had he obtained possession of her boy? her boy, whom she had mourned so bitterly, believing that he slept beneath the waters of the turbulent Rhone.

"Have you never seen this gentleman again?" she asked, still pressing the child's head to her breast, a position he accepted with perfect equanimity.

"Seen him!" repeated Mrs. Mole. "He comes here once a-week regular and pays, I'll say that for him—pays like the bank. 'Handsome is as handsome does,' says I, an' he's a real gentleman, I make no doubt."

"Is he young or old?" pursued Miss Ross. "Tall or short? Dark or fair? How is he dressed? In one word—what is he like?"

Mrs. Mole, whose memory and perceptive powers in general were failing a little, thereby affording wider scope to her imagination, plunged at once into a comprehensive description, much ornamented and idealised, of the person who had lately become so important an object in her quiet every-day life—a description from which Miss Ross felt she could not have identified any individual simply human; but which was happily cut short by a step on the high road, and a click at the little green gate giving access to the front door of the cottage.

"It's not his day, miss," said Mrs. Mole, pulling her guest to the window. "But here he is, for sure, and you can judge for yourself!"

One glance was enough. Miss Ross, dropping Johnnie (in the safest possible attitude) on the floor, fled to the back kitchen panting for breath.

It was Achille! There could be no doubt about it! The same jaunty air, the same gaudy dress, the same manner, gestures, ways, even to the cigar between his teeth—a little stouter, perhaps, and more prosperous looking than when she saw him last; but still unmistakably the husband who deceived, outraged, deserted her, to whom, if she were really married, she felt she had better have tied a mill-stone round her neck, and plunged herself into the sea!

Escape was her first impulse—escape at any price! He must never find her! He must on no account see her here! With a hasty farewell to Mrs. Mole, who thought all the better of her visitor for the modesty that forbade her to confront a strange gentleman, she vanished through the back-door of the cottage, as Picard, for it was no other, entered at the front, and running down a stony path direct to the river-side found herself wishing only that she could swim, so as to make her plunge, and strike out at once for the opposite shore. Glancing wistfully around, there was yet something in the whole situation that struck her as ludicrous in the extreme. Hemmed in by cottage gardens, escape was out of the question on either side, while to retrace her steps along the stony pathway was to return into the jaws of the enemy. At her feet, the river looked cool, shallow, and inviting. Jin wondered if it would be possible to wade. In her perplexity she clasped her hands and began to laugh. Then she thought of her boy and began to cry. This young person was by no means a subject for hysterics; but her feelings had been cruelly wrought on during the last half-hour, and there is no saying what might have happened if assistance had not arrived at the opportune moment from an unlooked-for quarter.

It has been already stated that Helen Hallaton showed less inclination to go to the races than is usual with a young lady, who has a new bonnet in a box up-stairs, and an excuse for taking it out. Frank Vanguard too, contrary to all precedent, declined driving his team to the Course, and remained tranquilly in barracks with the orderly-officer and the mess-waiters, whilst everybody else was off for the day. I do not suppose these young people understood each other; but I fancy they thought they did, and perhaps this was the reason one only started with her companions under pressure, while the other preferred a skiff and a pair of sculls (not an outrigger observe, in which there is only room for the oarsman) to the box of his drag, and a sustained contest for many miles with the iron mouth of his near wheeler.

This young officer then, stripped to the very verge of decency, came flashing up the stream with steady strokes and strong that brought him alongside of Mrs. Mole's cottage, within a few seconds of Jin's flight from that sanctuary. It is not to be supposed that any amount of pre-occupation would prevent our floating dragoon from resting on his oars to admire the rare and radiant vision: a handsome girl clad in bright transparencies, exhaled as it would seem by an ardent sunshine from the teeming margin of Father Thames.

He thought of Rhodes and Helios, and the picture in last year's exhibition. So thinking, he backed water, of course, with the utmost energy.

"Captain Vanguard," pleaded a voice, he had thought yesterday not without its charm, "will you be a good Samaritan and give me a passage to The Lilies?"

"He would be delighted." Of course he would! To take such a sitter ought to be pleasure enough; but better still to have so good an excuse for calling at The Lilies and finding Miss Hallaton at home.

"I've been visiting a poor woman in that cottage," said Miss Ross, giving him her hand as she stepped lightly into the fragile bark he brought so skilfully to her feet. "But it really is too hot for walking back along the road. I'm in luck. If I hadn't seen you, I do believe I should have jumped in to swim!"

"I'm the lucky one, Miss Ross," answered Frank, looking very manly and handsome, as with lengthened strokes he shot into the stream. "I'm very glad now I didn't go to the races. It's as well too that I brought this skiff instead of the outrigger!"

And Uncle Joseph, quarrelling fiercely with Punch, beheld it all, boiling, chafing, growling, wondering at the perfidy of woman, cursing the imbecility of man.