Mrs. Brownlow had intended to go at once to London on her return to England, but the joint entreaties of Armine and Barbara prevailed on her to give them one week at Belforest, now in that early spring beauty in which they had first seen it.

How delightful the arrival was! Easter had been very late, so it was the last week of the vacation, and dear old Friar John’s handsome face was the first thing they saw at the station, and then his father’s portly form, with a tall pretty creature on each side of him, causing Babie to fall back with a cry of glad amazement, “Oh! Essie and Ellie! Such women!”

Then the train stopped, and there was a tumult of embracings and welcomes, in the midst of which Jock appeared, having just come by the down train.

“You’ll all come to dinner this evening?” entreated Caroline. “My love to Ellen. Tell her you must all of you come.”

It was a most delightsome barouche full that drove from the station. Jock took the reins, and turned over coachman and footman to the break, and in defiance of dignity, his mother herself sprang up beside him. The sky was blue, the hedges were budding with pure light-green above, and resplendent with rosy campion and white spangles of stitchwort below. Stars of anemone, smiling bunches of primrose, and azure clouds of bluebell made the young hearts leap as at that first memorable sight. Armine said he was ready to hurrah and throw up his hat, and though Elvira declared that she saw nothing to be so delighted about, they only laughed at her.

Gorgeous rhododendrons and gay azaleas rose in brilliant masses nearer the house, beds of hyacinths and jonquils perfumed the air, judiciously arranged parterres of gay little Van Thol tulips and white daisies flashed on the eyes of the arriving party, while the exquisite fresh green provoked comparisons with parched Africa.

Bobus was standing on the steps to receive them, and when they had crossed the hall, with due respect to its Roman mosaic pavement, they found the Popinjay bowing, dancing, and chattering for joy, and tea and coffee for parched throats in the favourite Dresden set in the morning room, the prettiest and cosiest in the house.

“How nice it is! We are all together except Janet,’ exclaimed Babie.

“And Janet is coming to us in London,” said her mother. “Did you see her on her way to Edinburgh boys?”

“No,” said Jock. “She never let us know she was there.”

“But I’ll tell you an odd thing I have just found out,” said Bobus. “It seems she came down here on her way, unknown to anyone, got out at the Woodside station, and walked across here. She told Brock that she wanted something out of the drawers of her library-table, of which the key had been lost, and desired him to send for Higg to break it open; but Brock wouldn’t hear of it. He said his Missus had left him in charge, and he could not be answerable to her for having locks picked without her authority—or leastways the Colonel’s. He said Miss Brownlow was in a way about it, and said as how it was her own private drawer that no one had a right to keep her out of, but he stood to his colours; he said the house was Mrs. Brownlow’s, and under his care, and he would have no tampering with locks, except by her authority or the Colonel’s. He even offered to send to Kenminster if she would write a note to my uncle, but she said she had not time, and walked off again, forbidding him to mention that she had been here.”

“Janet always was a queer fish!” said Jock.

“Poor Janet, I suppose she wanted some of her notes of lectures,” said her mother. “Brock’s sound old house-dog instinct must have been very inconvenient to her. I must write and ask what she wanted.”

“But she forbade him to mention it,” said Bobus.

“Of course that was only to avoid the fuss there would have been if it had been known that she had been here without coming to Kencroft. By the bye, I didn’t tell Brock those good people were coming to dinner. How well the dear old Monk looks, and how charming Essie and Ellie! But I shall never know them apart, now they are both the same size.”

“You won’t feel that difficulty long,” said Bobus. “There really is no comparison between them.”

“Just the insipid English Mees,” said Elvira. “You should hear what the French think of the ordinary English girl!”

“So much the better,” said Bobus. “No respectable English girl would wish for a foreigner’s insulting admiration.”

“Well done, Bobus! I never heard such an old-fashioned insular sentiment from you. One would think it was your namesake. By the bye, where is the great Rob?”

“At Aldershot,” said Jock. “I assure you he improves as he grows older. I had him to dine the other day at our mess, and he cut a capital figure by judiciously holding his tongue and looking such a fine fellow, that people were struck with him.”

“There,” said Armine, slyly, “he has the seal of the Guards’ approval.”

Jock could afford to laugh at himself, for he was entirely devoid of conceit, but he added, good humouredly—

“Well, youngster, I can tell you it goes for something. I wasn’t at all sure whether the ass mightn’t get his head out of the lion-skin.”

“Oh, yes! they are all lions and no asses in the Guards,” said Babie; whereupon Jock fell on her, and they had a playful skirmish.

Nobody came to dinner but John and his two sisters. It had turned out that the horse had been too much worked to be used again, and there was a fine moon, so that the three had walked over together. Esther and Eleanor Brownlow had always been like twins, and were more than ever so now, when both were at the same height of five feet eight, both had the same thick glossy dark-brown hair, done in the very same rich coils, the same clearly-cut regular profiles, oval faces, and soft carnation cheeks, with liquid brown eyes, under pencilled arches. Caroline was in confusion how to distinguish them, and trusted at first solely to the little coral charms which formed Esther’s ear-rings, but gradually she perceived that Esther was less plump and more mobile than her sister—her colour was more variable, and she seemed as timid as ever, while Eleanor was developing the sturdy Friar texture. Their aunt had been the means of sending them to a good school, and they had a much more trained and less homely appearance than Jessie at the same age, and seemed able to take their part in conversation with their cousins, though Essie was manifestly afraid of her aunt. They had always been fond of Barbara, and took eager possession of her, while John’s Oxford talk was welcome to all,—and it was a joyous evening of interchange of travellers’ anecdotes and local and family news, but without any remarkable feature till the time came for the cousins to return. They had absolutely implored not to be sent home in the carriage, but to walk across the park in the moonlight; and it was such a lovely night that when Bobus and Jock took up their hats to come with them, Babie begged to go too, and the same desire strongly possessed her mother, above all when John said, “Do come, Mother Carey;” and “rowed her in a plaidie.”

That youthful inclination to frolic had come on her, and she only waited to assure herself that Armine did not partake of her madness, but was wisely going to bed. Allen was holding out a scarf to Elvira, but she protested that she hated moonlight, and that it was a sharp frost, and she went back to the fire.

As they went down the steps in the dark shadow of the house, John gave his aunt his arm, and she felt that he liked to have her leaning on him, as they walked in the strong contrasts of white light and dark shade in the moonshine, and pausing to look at the wonderful snowy appearance of the white azaleas, the sparkling of the fountain, and the stars struggling out in the pearly sky; but John soon grew silent, and after they had passed the garden, said—

“Aunt Caroline, if you don’t mind coming on a little way, I want to ask you something.”

The name, Aunt Caroline, alarmed her, but she professed her readiness to hear.

“You have always been so kind to me” (still more alarming, thought she); “indeed,” he added, “I may say I owe everything to you, and I should like to know that you would not object to my making medicine my profession.”

“My dear Johnny!” in an odd, muffled voice.

“Had you rather not?” he began.

“Oh, no! Oh, no, no! It is the very thing. Only when you began I was so afraid you wanted to marry some dreadful person!”

“You needn’t be afraid of that. Ars Medico, will be bride enough for me till I meet another Mother Carey, and that I shan’t do in a hurry.”

“You silly fellow, you aren’t practising the smoothness of tongue of the popular physician.”

“Don’t you think I mean it?” said John, rather hurt.

“My dear boy, you must excuse me. It is not often one gets so many compliments in a breath, besides having one of the first wishes of one’s heart granted.”

“Do you mean that you really wished this?”

“So much that I am saying, ‘Thank God!’ in my heart all the time.”

“Well, my father and mother thought you might be wishing me to be a barrister, or something swell.”

“As if I could—as if I ever could be so glad of anything,” said she with rejoicing that surprised him. “It is the only thing that could make up for none of my own boys taking that line. I can’t tell you now how much depends on it, John, you will know some day. Tell me what put it into your head—”

He told her, as he had told his father nearly four years before, how the dim memory of his uncle had affected him, and how the bent had been decidedly given by his attendance on Jock, and his intercourse with Dr. Medlicott. At Oxford, he had availed himself of all opportunities, and had come out honourably in all examinations, including physical science, and he was now reading for his degree, meaning to go up for honours. His father, finding him steady to his purpose, had consented, and his mother endured, but still hoped his aunt would persuade him out of it. She was so far from any such intention, that a hint of the Magnum Bonum had very nearly been surprised out of her. For the first time since Belforest had come to her, did she feel in the course of carrying out her husband’s injunctions; and she felt strengthened against that attack from Janet to which she looked forward with dread. She talked with John of his plans till they actually reached the lodge gate, and there found Jock, Babie, and Eleanor chattering merrily about fireflies and glowworms a little way behind, and Bobus and Esther paired together much further back. When all had met at the gate and the parting good-nights had been spoken, Bobus became his mother’s companion, and talked all the way home of his great satisfaction at her wandering time being apparently over, of his delight in her coming to settle at home at last, his warm attachment to the place, and his desire to cultivate the neighbouring borough with a view to representing it in Parliament, since Allen seemed to be devoid of ambition, and so much to hate the mud and dust of public life, that he was not likely to plunge into it, unless Elvira should wish for distinction. Then Bobus expatiated on the awkward connection the Goulds would be for Allen, stigmatising the amiable Lisette, who of course by this time had married poor George Gould, as an obnoxious, presuming woman, whom it would be very difficult to keep in her right position. It was not a bad thing that Elvira should have a taste of London society, to make her less likely to fall under her influence.

“That is not a danger I should have apprehended,” said Caroline.

“The woman can fawn, and that is exactly what a haughty being like Elvira likes. She is always pining for a homage she does not get in the family.”

“Except from poor Allen.”

“Except from Allen, but that is a matter of course. He is a slave to be flouted! Did you ever see a greater contrast than that between her and our evening guests?”

“Esther and Eleanor? They have grown up into very sweet-looking girls.”

“Not that there can be any comparison between them. Essie has none of the ponderous Highness in her—only the Serenity.”

“Yes, there is a very pleasant air of innocent candour about their faces—”

“Just what it does a man good to look at. It is like going out into the country on a spring morning. And there is very real beauty too—”

“Yes, Kencroft monopolises all the good looks of the family. What a fine fellow the dear old Friar has grown.”

“If you bring out those two girls this year, you will take the shine out of all the other chaperons!”

“I wonder whether your aunt would like it.”

“She never made any objection to Jessie’s going out with you.”

“No. I should like it very much; I wonder I had not thought of it before, but I had hardly realised that Essie and Ellie were older than Babie, but I remember now, they are eighteen and seventeen.”

“It would be so good for you to have something human and capable of a little consideration to go out with,” added Bobus, “not to be tied to the tail of a will-of-the-wisp like that Elf—I should not like that for you.”

“I am not much afraid,” said Caroline. “You know I don’t stand in such awe of the little donna, and I shall have my Guardsman to take care of me when we are too frivolous for you. But it would be very nice to have those two girls, and make it pleasanter for my Infanta, who will miss Sydney a good deal.”

“I thought the Evelyns were to be in town.”

“Yes, but their house is at the other end of the park. What are Jock and the Infanta looking at?”

Jock and Babie, who were on a good way in advance in very happy and eager conversation, had come to a sudden stop, and now turned round, exclaiming “Look, mother! Here’s the original Robin Goodfellow.”

And on the walk there was a most ludicrous shadow in the moonlight, a grotesque, dancing figure, with one long ear, and a hand held up in warning. It was of course the shadow of the Midas statue, which the boys had never permitted to be restored to its pristine state. One ear had however crumbled away, but in the shadow this gave the figure the air of cocking the other, in the most indescribably comical manner, and the whole four stood gazing and laughing at it. There was a certain threatening attitude about its hand, which, Jock said, looked as if the ghost of old Barnes had come to threaten them for the wasteful expenditure of his hoards. Or, as Babie said, it was more like the ghastly notion of Bertram Risingham in Rokeby, of some phantom of a murdered slave protecting those hoards.

“I don’t wonder he threatens,” said Caroline. “I always thought he meant that audacious trick to have forfeited the hoards.”

“Very lucky he was balked,” said Bobus, “not only for us, but for human nature in general. Fancy how insufferable that Elf would have been if she had been dancing on gold and silver.”

“Take care!” muttered Jock, under his breath. “There’s her swain coming; I see his cigar.”

“And we really shall have it Sunday morning presently,” said his mother, “and I shall get into as great a scrape as I did in the old days of the Folly.”

It was a happy Sunday morning. The Vicar of Woodside had much improved the Church and services with as much assistance in the way of money as he chose to ask for from the lady of Belforest, though hitherto he had had nothing more; but he and his sister augured better things when the lady herself with her daughter and her two youngest sons came across the park in the freshness of the morning to the early Celebration. The sister came out with them and asked them to breakfast. Mrs. Brownlow would not desert Allen and Bobus, but she wished Armine to spare himself more walking. Moreover, Babie discovered that some desertion of teachers would render their aid at the Sunday School desirable on that morning.

This was at present her ideal of Sunday occupation, and she had gained a little fragmentary experience under Sydney’s guidance at Fordham. So she was in a most engaging glow of shy delight, and the tidy little well-trained girls who were allotted to her did not diminish her satisfaction. To say that Armine’s positive enjoyment was equal to hers would not be true, but he had intended all his life to be a clergyman, and he was resolved not to shrink from his first experience of the kind. The boys were too much impressed, by the apparition of one of the young gentlemen from Belforest, to comport themselves ill, but they would probably not have answered his questions even had they been in their own language, and they stared at him in a stolid way, while he disadvantageously contrasted them with the little ready-tongued peasant boys of Italy. However, he had just found the touch of nature which made the world kin, and had made their eyes light up by telling them of a scene he had beheld in Palestine, illustrating the parable they had been repeating, when the change in the Church bells was a signal for leaving off.

Very happy and full of plans were the two young things, much pleased with the clergyman and his sister, who were no less charmed with the little, bright, brown-faced, lustrous-eyed girl, with her eager yet diffident manner and winning vivacity, and with the slender, delicate, thoughtful lad, whose grave courtesy of demeanour sat so prettily upon him.

Though not to compare in numbers, size, or beauty with the Kencroft flock, the Belforest party ranged well in their seat at Church, for Robert never failed to accompany his mother once a day, as a concession due from son to mother. It was far from satisfying her. Indeed there was a dull, heavy ache at her heart whenever she looked at him, for however he might endeavour to conform, like Marcus Aurelius sacrificing to the gods, there was always a certain half-patronising, half-criticising superciliousness about his countenance. Yet, if he came for love of her, still something might yet strike him and win his heart?

Had her years of levity and indifference been fatal to him? was ever her question to herself as she knelt and prayed for him.

She felt encouraged when, at luncheon, she asked Jock to walk with her to Kenminster for the evening service, after looking in at Kencroft, Robert volunteered to be of the party.

Caroline, however, did not think that he was made quite so welcome at Kencroft as his exertion deserved. Colonel and Mrs. Brownlow were sitting in the drawing-room with the blinds down, presumably indulging in a Sunday nap in the heat of the afternoon, for the Colonel shook himself in haste, and his wife’s cap was a little less straight than suited her serene dignity, and though they kissed and welcomed the mother, they were rather short and dry towards Bobus. They said the children had gone out walking, whereupon the two lads said they would try to meet them, and strolled out again.

This left the field free for Caroline to propose the taking the two girls to London with her.

“I am sure,” said Ellen, “you have always been very kind to the children. But indeed, Caroline, I did not think you would have encouraged it.”

“It?—I don’t quite understand,” said Caroline, wondering whether Ellen had suddenly taken an evangelically serious turn.

“There!” said the Colonel, “I told you she was not aware of it,” and on her imploring cry of inquiry, Ellen answered, “Of this folly of Robert.”

“Bobus, do you mean,” she cried. “Oh!” as conviction flashed on her, “I never thought of that.”

“I am sure you did not,” said the Colonel kindly.

“But—but,” she said, bewildered, “if—if you mean Esther—why did you send her over last night, and let him go out to find her now.”

“She is safe, reading to Mrs. Coffinkey,” said Ellen. “I did not know Robert was at home, or I should not have let her come without me.”

“Esther is a very dear, sweet-looking girl,” said Caroline. “If only she were any one else’s daughter! Though that does not sound civil! But I know my dear husband had the strongest feeling about first cousins marrying.”

“Yes, I trusted to your knowing that,” said the Colonel. “And I rely on you not to be weak nor to make the task harder to us. Remembering, too,” he added in a voice of sorrow and pity that made the words sound not unkind, “that even without the relationship, we should feel that there were strong objections.”

“I know! My poor Bobus!” said Caroline, sadly. “That makes it such a pity she is his cousin. Otherwise she might do him so much good.”

“I have not much faith in good done in that manner,” said the Colonel.

Caroline thought him mistaken, but could not argue an abstract question, and came to the personal one. “But how far has it gone? How do you know about it? I see now that I might have detected it in his tone, but one never knows, when one’s children grow up.”

“The Colonel was obliged to tell him in the autumn that we did not approve of flirtations between cousins,” said Mrs. Brownlow.

“And he answered—?”

“That flirtation was the last thing he intended,” said the Colonel. “On which I told him that I would have no nonsense.”

“Was that all?”

“Except that at Christmas he sent her, by way of card, a drawing that must have cost a large sum,” said the Colonel. “We thought it better to let the child keep it without remark, for fear of putting things into her head; though I wrote and told him such expensive trumpery was folly that I was much tempted to forbid. So what does he do on Valentine’s Day but send her a complete set of ornaments like little birds, in Genoa silver—exquisite things. Well, she was very good, dear child. We told her it was not nice or maidenly to take such valuable presents; and she was quite contented and happy when her mother gave her a ring of her own, and we have written to Jessie to send her some pretty things from India.”

“She said she did not care for anything that Ellie did not have too,” added her mother.

“Then you returned them?”

“Yes, and my young gentleman patronisingly replies that he ‘appreciates my reluctance, and reserves them for a future time.’”

“Just like Bobus!” said Caroline. “He never gives up his purpose! But how about dear little Esther? Is she really untouched?”

“I hope so,” replied her mother. “So far it has all been put upon propriety, and so on. I told her, now she was grown up and come home from school she must not run after her cousins as she used to do, and I have called her away sometimes when he has tried to get her alone. Last evening, she told me in a very simple way—like the child she is—that Robert would walk home with her in the moonlight, and hindered her when she tried to join the others, telling me she hoped I should not be angry with her. He seems to have talked to her about this London plan; but I told her on the spot it was impossible.”

“I am afraid it is!” sighed Caroline. “Dear Essie! I will do my best to keep her peace from being ruffled, for I know you are quite right; but I can’t help being sorry for my boy, and he is so determined that I don’t think he will give up easily.”

“You may let him understand that nothing will ever make me consent,” returned the Colonel.

“I will, if he enters on it with me,” said Caroline; “but I think it is advisable as long as possible to prevent it from taking a definite shape.”

Caroline was much better able now to hold her own with her brother and sister-in-law. Not only did her position and the obligations they were under give her weight, but her character had consolidated itself in these years, and she had much more force, and appearance of good sense. Besides, John was a weight in the family now, and his feeling for his aunt was not without effect. They talked of his prospects and of Jessie’s marriage, over their early tea. The elders of the walking party came in with hands full of flowers, namely, the two Johns and Eleanor, but ominously enough, Bobus was not there. He had been lost sight of soon after they had met.

Yes, and at that moment he was loitering at a safe distance from the door of the now invalid and half-blind Mrs. Coffinkey, to whom the Brownlow girls read by turns. She lived conveniently up a lane not much frequented. This was the colloquy which ensued when the tall, well-proportioned maiden, with her fresh, modest, happy face, tripped down the steps:—

“So the Coffinkey is unlocked at last! Stern Proserpine relented!”

“Robert! You here?”

“You never used to call me Robert.”

“Mamma says it is time to leave off the other.”

“Perhaps she would like you to call me Mr. Robert Otway Brownlow.”

“Don’t talk of mamma in that way.”

“I would do anything my queen tells me except command my tones when there is an attempt to stiffen her. She is not to be made into buckram.”

“Please, Robert,” as some one met and looked at them, “let me walk on by myself.”

“What? Shall I be the means of getting you into trouble?”

“No, but I ought not—”

“The road is clear now, never mind. In town there are no gossips, that’s one comfort. Mother Carey is propounding the plan now.”

“Oh, but we shall not go. Mamma told me so last night.”

“That was before Mother Carey had talked her over.”

“Do you think she will?”

“I am certain of it! You are a sort of child of Mother Carey’s own, you know, and we can’t do without you.”

“Mother would miss us so, just as we are getting useful.”

“Yes, but Ellie might stay.”

“Oh! we have never been parted. We couldn’t be.”

“Indeed! Is there no one that could make up to you for Ellie?”

“No, indeed!” indignantly.

“Ah, Essie, you are too much of a child yet to understand the force of the love that—”

“Don’t,” broke in Esther, “that is just like people in novels; and mamma would not like it.”

“But if I feel ten times far more for you than ‘the people in novels’ attempt to express?”

“Don’t,” again cried Esther. “It is Sunday.”

“And what of that, my most scriptural little queen?”

“It isn’t a time to talk out of novels,” said Esther, quickening her pace, to reach the frequented road and throng of church-goers.”

“I am not talking out of any novel that ever was written,” said Bobus seriously; but she was speeding on too fast to heed him, and started as he laid a hand on her arm.

“Stay, Essie; you must not rush on like a frightened fawn, or people will stare,” he said; and she slackened her pace, though she shook him off and went on through the numerous passengers on the footpath, with her pretty head held aloft with the stately grace of the startled pheasant, not choosing to seem to hear his attempts at addressing her, and taking refuge at last in the innermost recesses of the family seat at Church, though it was full a quarter to five.

There the rest of the party found her, and as they did not find Bobus, they concluded that all was safe. However, when the two Johns were walking home with Mother Carey, Bobus joined them, and soon made his mother fall behind with him, asking her, “I hope your eloquence prevailed.”

“Far from it, Bobus,” she said. “In fact you have alarmed them.”

“H. S. H. doesn’t improve with age,” he replied carelessly. “She never troubled herself about Jessie.”

“Perhaps no one gave her cause. My dear boy, I am very sorry for you,” and she laid her hand within his arm.

“Have they been baiting you? Poor little Mother Carey!” he said. “Force of habit, you know, that’s all. Never mind them.”

“Bobus, my dear, I must speak, and in earnest. I am afraid you may be going on so as to make yourself and—some one else unhappy, and you ought to know that your father was quite as determined as your uncle against marriages between first cousins.”

“My dear mother, it will be quite time to argue that point when the matter becomes imminent. I am not asking to marry any one before I am called to the bar, and it is very hard if we cannot, in the meantime, live as cousins.”

“Yes, but there must be no attempt to be ‘a little more than kin.’”

“Less than kind comes in on the other side!” said Bobus, in his throat. “I tell you the child is a child who has no soul apart from her sister, and there’s no use in disturbing her till she has grown up to have a heart and a will of her own.”

“Then you promise to let her alone?”

“I pledge myself to nothing,” said Bobus, in an impracticable voice. “I only give warning that a commotion will do nobody any good.”

She knew he had not abandoned his intention, and she also knew she had no power to make him abandon it, so that all she could say was, “As long as you make no move there will be no commotion, but I only repeat my assurance that neither your uncle nor I, acting in the person, of your dear father, will ever consent.”

“To which I might reply, that most people end by doing that against which they have most protested. However, I am not going to stir in the matter for some time to come, and I advise no one else to do so.”