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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phoebe, Junior
+
+Author: Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+Release Date: April 28, 2009 [EBook #28629]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHOEBE, JUNIOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Marcia Brooks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chronicles of Carlingford
+
+PHOEBE, JUNIOR
+
+MRS OLIPHANT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+   CHAP.                               PAGE
+
+      I. THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS            1
+
+     II. THE LEADING MEMBER               9
+
+    III. MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL           16
+
+     IV. A COUNTRY PARTY                 26
+
+      V. SELF-DEVOTION                   31
+
+     VI. A MORNING CALL                  38
+
+    VII. SHOPPING                        45
+
+   VIII. THE DORSETS                     52
+
+     IX. COMING HOME                     59
+
+      X. PAPA                            67
+
+     XI. PHÅ’BE'S PREPARATIONS            74
+
+    XII. GRANGE LANE                     81
+
+   XIII. THE TOZER FAMILY                88
+
+    XIV. STRANGERS                       96
+
+     XV. A DOMESTIC CRISIS              104
+
+    XVI. THE NEW GENTLEMAN              113
+
+   XVII. A PUBLIC MEETING               119
+
+  XVIII. MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS              127
+
+    XIX. THE NEW CHAPLAIN               134
+
+     XX. THAT TOZER GIRL!               142
+
+    XXI. A NEW FRIEND                   148
+
+   XXII. A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT          155
+
+  XXIII. TIDED OVER                     164
+
+   XXIV. A VISIT                        169
+
+    XXV. TEA                            177
+
+   XXVI. THE HALL                       185
+
+  XXVII. A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES      192
+
+ XXVIII. THE NEW PUPIL                  200
+
+   XXIX. URSULA'S ENTRÉES               209
+
+    XXX. SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE       217
+
+   XXXI. SOCIETY                        224
+
+  XXXII. LOVE-MAKING                    230
+
+ XXXIII. A DISCLOSURE                   236
+
+  XXXIV. AN EXTRAVAGANCE                244
+
+   XXXV. THE MILLIONNAIRE               251
+
+  XXXVI. FATHER AND SON                 258
+
+ XXXVII. A PLEASANT EVENING             267
+
+XXXVIII. AN EXPEDITION                  273
+
+  XXXIX. A CATASTROPHE                  281
+
+     XL. THE SINNED-AGAINST             287
+
+    XLI. A MORNING'S WORK               298
+
+   XLII. A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK           307
+
+  XLIII. THE CONFLICT                   312
+
+   XLIV. PHÅ’BE'S LAST TRIAL             326
+
+    XLV. THE LAST                       336
+
+
+
+
+PHÅ’BE, JUNIOR.
+
+A Last Chronicle of Carlingford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS.
+
+
+Miss Phoebe Tozer, the only daughter of the chief deacon and leading
+member of the Dissenting connection in Carlingford, married, shortly
+after his appointment to the charge of Salem Chapel, in that town, the
+Reverend Mr. Beecham, one of the most rising young men in the
+denomination. The marriage was in many ways satisfactory to the young
+lady's family, for Mr. Beecham was himself the son of respectable people
+in a good way of business, and not destitute of means; and the position
+was one which they had always felt most suitable for their daughter, and
+to which she had been almost, it may be said, brought up. It is,
+however, scarcely necessary to add that it was not quite so agreeable to
+the other leading members of the congregation. I should be very sorry to
+say that each family wished that preferment for its own favourite
+daughter; for indeed there can be no doubt, as Mrs. Pigeon asserted
+vigorously, that a substantial grocer, whose father before him had
+established an excellent business, and who had paid for his pew in Salem
+as long as any one could recollect, and supported every charity, and
+paid up on all occasions when extra expense was necessary, was in every
+way a more desirable son-in-law than a poor minister who was always
+dependent on pleasing the chapel folks, and might have to turn out any
+day. Notwithstanding, however, the evident superiority of the
+establishment thus attained by Maria Pigeon, there is a certain
+something attached to the position of a clerical caste, even among such
+an independent body as the congregation at Salem Chapel, which has its
+own especial charms, and neither the young people who had been her
+companions nor the old people who had patronized and snubbed her, felt
+any satisfaction in seeing Phoebe thus advanced over them to the honours
+and glories inalienable from the position of minister's wife. All her
+little airs of bridal vanity were considered as so many offensive
+manifestations of delight and exultation in her rise in life. Her
+_trousseau_, though pronounced by all competent judges not half so
+abundant or fine as Maria Pigeon's, still called forth comments which
+nobody ventured to indulge in, in respect to the grocer's blooming
+bride. A grocer's lady has a right to anything her parents can afford;
+but to see a minister's wife swelling herself up, and trying to ape the
+quality, filled the town with virtuous indignation. The sight of young
+Mrs. Beecham walking about with her card-case in her hand, calling on
+the Miss Hemmingses, shaking hands with Mrs. Rider the doctor's wife,
+caused unmitigated disgust throughout all the back streets of
+Carlingford; and "_that_ Phoebe a-sweeping in as if the chapel belonged
+to her," was almost more than the oldest sitter could bear. Phoebe, it
+must be added, felt her elevation to the full, and did not spare her
+congregation. Sometimes she would have the audacity to walk from the
+vestry to the pew, as if she were an office-bearer, instead of coming in
+humbly by the door as became a woman. She would sit still ostentatiously
+until every one had gone, waiting for her husband. She quite led the
+singing, everybody remarked, paying no more attention to the choir than
+if it did not exist; and once she had even paused on her way to her
+seat, and turned down the gas, which was blazing too high, with an air
+of proprietorship that nobody could endure.
+
+"Does Salem belong to them Tozers, I should like to know?" said Mrs.
+Brown. "Brown would never be outdone by him in subscriptions you may be
+sure, nor Mr. Pigeon neither, if the truth was known. I never gave my
+money to build a castle for the Tozers."
+
+Thus the whole congregation expressed itself with more or less
+eloquence, and though the attendance never diminished, everybody being
+too anxious to see "what they would do next," the feeling could not be
+ignored. Phoebe herself, with a courage which developed from the moment
+of her marriage, took the initiative.
+
+"It never answers," she said, solemnly, "to marry one of the flock; I
+knew it, Henery, and I told you so; and if you would be so infatuated,
+and marry me when I told you not, for your own interests--"
+
+"They're all jealous of you, my pet, that's what it is," said Mr.
+Beecham, and laughed. He could bear the annoyance in consideration of
+that sweet consciousness of its cause which stole over all his being.
+Phoebe laughed, too, but not with so delicious a gratification. She felt
+that there were people, even in Salem, who might be jealous of him.
+
+"The end of it all is, we must not stay here," she said. "You must find
+another sphere for your talents, Henery, and I'm sure it will not be
+difficult. If you get put on that deputation that is going down to the
+North, suppose you take a few of your best sermons, dear. That can never
+do any harm--indeed it's sure to do good, to some poor benighted soul at
+least, that perhaps never heard the truth before. And likewise, perhaps,
+to some vacant congregation. I have always heard that chapels in the
+North were very superior to here. A different class of society, and
+better altogether. These Pigeons and Browns, and people are not the sort
+of society for you."
+
+"Well, there's truth in that," said Mr. Beecham, pulling up his
+shirt-collar. "Certainly it isn't the sort of thing one was accustomed
+to." And he lent a serious ear to the suggestion about the sermons. The
+consequence was that an invitation followed from a chapel in the North,
+where indeed Mrs. Phoebe found herself in much finer society, and grew
+rapidly in importance and in ideas. After this favourable start, the
+process went on for many years by which a young man from Homerton was
+then developed into the influential and highly esteemed pastor of an
+important flock. Things may be, and probably are, differently managed
+now-a-days. Mr. Beecham had unbounded fluency and an unctuous manner of
+treating his subjects. It was eloquence of a kind, though not of an
+elevated kind. Never to be at a loss for what you have to say is a
+prodigious advantage to all men in all positions, but doubly so to a
+popular minister. He had an unbounded wealth of phraseology. Sentences
+seemed to melt out of his mouth without any apparent effort, all set in
+a certain cadence. He had not, perhaps, much power of thought, but it is
+easy to make up for such a secondary want when the gift of expression is
+so strong. Mr. Beecham rose, like an actor, from a long and successful
+career in the provinces, to what might be called the Surrey side of
+congregational eminence in London; and from thence attained his final
+apotheosis in a handsome chapel near Regent's Park, built of the whitest
+stone, and cushioned with the reddest damask, where a very large
+congregation sat in great comfort and listened to his sermons with a
+satisfaction no doubt increased by the fact that the cushions were soft
+as their own easy-chairs, and that carpets and hot-water pipes kept
+everything snug under foot.
+
+It was the most comfortable chapel in the whole connection. The seats
+were arranged like those of an amphitheatre, each line on a slightly
+higher level than the one in front of it, so that everybody saw
+everything that was going on. No dimness or mystery was wanted there;
+everything was bright daylight, bright paint, red cushions, comfort and
+respectability. It might not be a place very well adapted for saying
+your prayers in, but then you could say your prayers at home--and it was
+a place admirably adapted for hearing sermons in, which you could not do
+at home; and all the arrangements were such that you could hear in the
+greatest comfort, not to say luxury. I wonder, for my own part, that the
+poor folk about did not seize upon the Crescent Chapel on the cold
+Sunday mornings, and make themselves happy in those warm and ruddy pews.
+It would be a little amusing to speculate what all the well-dressed
+pew-holders would have done had this unexpected answer to the appeal
+which Mr. Beecham believed himself to make every Sunday to the world in
+general, been literally given. It would have been extremely embarrassing
+to the Managing Committee and all the office-bearers, and would have, I
+fear, deeply exasperated and offended the occupants of those family
+pews; but fortunately this difficulty never did occur. The proletariat
+of Marylebone had not the sense or the courage, or the profanity, which
+you will, to hit upon this mode of warming themselves. The real
+congregation embraced none of the unwashed multitude. Its value in mere
+velvet, silk, lace, trinkets, and furs was something amazing, and the
+amount these comfortable people represented in the way of income would
+have amounted to a most princely revenue. The little Salems and
+Bethesdas, with their humble flocks, could not be supposed to belong to
+the same species; and the difference was almost equally marked between
+such a place of worship as the Crescent Chapel and the parish churches,
+which are like the nets in the Gospel, and take in all kinds of fish,
+bad and good. The pew-holders in the Crescent Chapel were universally
+well off; they subscribed liberally to missionary societies, far more
+liberally than the people in St. Paul's close by did to the S. P. G.
+They had everything of the best in the chapel, as they had in their
+houses. They no more economized on their minister than they did on their
+pew-cushions, and they spent an amount of money on their choir which
+made the singing-people at St. Paul's gnash their teeth. From all this
+it will be seen that the atmosphere of the Crescent Chapel was of a
+very distinct and individual kind. It was a warm, luxurious air,
+perfumy, breathing of that refinement which is possible to mere wealth.
+I do not say there might not be true refinement besides, but the surface
+kind, that which you buy from upholsterers and tailors and dressmakers,
+which you procure ready made at schools, and which can only be kept up
+at a very high cost, abounded and pervaded the place. Badly dressed
+people felt themselves out of place in that brilliant sanctuary; a muddy
+footprint upon the thick matting in the passages was looked at as a
+crime. Clean dry feet issuing out of carriage or cab kept the aisles
+unstained, even on the wettest day. We say cab, because many of the
+people who went to the Crescent Chapel objected to take out their own
+carriages or work their own horses on Sunday; and there were many more
+who, though they did not possess carriages, used cabs with a freedom
+incompatible with poverty. As a general rule, they were much better off
+than the people at St. Paul's, more universally prosperous and
+well-to-do. And they were at the same time what you might safely call
+well-informed people--people who read the newspapers, and sometimes the
+magazines, and knew what was going on. The men were almost all liberal
+in politics, and believed in Mr. Gladstone with enthusiasm; the women
+often "took an interest" in public movements, especially of a charitable
+character. There was less mental stagnation among them probably than
+among many of their neighbours. Their life was not profound nor high,
+but still it was life after a sort. Such was the flock which had invited
+Mr. Beecham to become their pastor when he reached the climax of his
+career. They gave him a very good salary, enough to enable him to have a
+handsome house in one of the terraces overlooking Regent's Park. It is
+not a fashionable quarter, but it is not to be despised in any way. The
+rooms were good-sized and lofty, and sometimes have been known to
+suffice for very fine people indeed, a fact which the Beechams were well
+aware of; and they were not above the amiable weakness of making it
+known that their house was in a line with that of Lady Cecilia Burleigh.
+This single fact of itself might suffice to mark the incalculable
+distance between the Reverend Mr. Beecham of the Crescent Chapel, and
+the young man who began life as minister of Salem in Carlingford. And
+the development outside was not less remarkable than the development
+within.
+
+It is astonishing how our prejudices change from youth to middle age,
+even without any remarkable interposition of fortune; I do not say
+dissipate, or even dispel, which is much more doubtful--but they
+change. When Mr. and Mrs. Beecham commenced life, they had both the
+warmest feeling of opposition to the Church and everything churchy. All
+the circumstances of their lives had encouraged this feeling. The
+dislike of the little for the great, the instinctive opposition of a
+lower class towards the higher, intensified that natural essence of
+separatism, that determination to be wiser than one's neighbour, which
+in the common mind lies at the bottom of all dissent. In saying this we
+no more accuse Dissenters in religion than Dissenters in politics, or in
+art, or in criticism. The first dissenter in most cases is an original
+thinker, to whom his enforced departure from the ways of his fathers is
+misery and pain. Generally he has a hard struggle with himself before he
+can give up, for the superlative truth which has taken possession of
+him, all the habits, the pious traditions of his life. He is the real
+Nonconformist--half martyr, half victim, of his convictions. But that
+Nonconformity which has come to be the faith in which a large number of
+people are trained is a totally different business, and affects a very
+different kind of sentiments. Personal and independent conviction has no
+more to do with it than it has to do with the ardour of a Breton peasant
+trained in deepest zeal of Romanism, or the unbounded certainty of any
+other traditionary believer. For this reason we may be allowed to
+discuss the changes of feeling which manifested themselves in Mr. and
+Mrs. Beecham without anything disrespectful to Nonconformity. Not being
+persons of original mind, they were what their training and
+circumstances, and a flood of natural influences, made them. They began
+life, feeling themselves to be of a hopelessly low social caste, and
+believing themselves to be superior to their superiors in that
+enlightenment which they had been brought up to believe distinguished
+the connection. The first thing which opened their minds to a dawning
+doubt whether their enlightenment was, in reality, so much greater than
+that of their neighbours, was the social change worked in their position
+by their removal from Carlingford. In the great towns of the North,
+Dissent attains its highest social elevation, and Chapel people are no
+longer to be distinguished from Church people except by the fact that
+they go to Chapel instead of Church, a definition so simple as to be
+quite overwhelming to the unprepared dissenting intelligence, brought up
+in a little Tory borough, still holding for Church and Queen. The
+amazing difference which this made in the sentiments of Mrs. Phoebe
+Beecham, _née_ Tozer, it is quite impossible to describe. Her sudden
+introduction to "circles" which Mrs. Pigeon had never entered, and to
+houses at the area-door of which Mr. Brown, the dairyman, would have
+humbly waited, would have turned the young woman's head, had she not
+felt the overpowering necessity of keeping that organ as steady as
+possible, to help her to hold her position in the new world. Phoebe was a
+girl of spirit, and though her head went round and round, and everything
+felt confused about her, she did manage desperately to hold her own and
+to avoid committing herself; but I cannot attempt to tell how much her
+social elevation modified her sectarian zeal. Phoebe was only a woman, so
+that I am free to assign such motives as having a serious power over
+her. Let us hope Mr. Beecham, being a man and a pastor, was moved in a
+more lofty, intellectual, and spiritual way.
+
+But however that may be, the pair went conjugally together in this
+modification of sentiment, and by the time they reached the lofty
+eminence of the Crescent Chapel, were as liberal-minded Nonconformists
+as heart could desire. Mr. Beecham indeed had many friends in the Low,
+and even some in the Broad Church. He appeared on platforms, to promote
+various public movements, along with clergymen of the Church. He spoke
+of "our brethren within the pale of the Establishment" always with
+respect, sometimes even with enthusiasm. "Depend upon it, my dear Sir,"
+he would even say sometimes to a liberal brother, "the Establishment is
+not such an unmitigated evil as some people consider it. What should we
+do in country parishes where the people are not awakened? They do the
+dirty work for us, my dear brother--the dirty work." These sentiments
+were shared, but perhaps not warmly, by Mr. Beecham's congregation, some
+of whom were hot Voluntaries, and gave their ministers a little trouble.
+But the most part took their Nonconformity very quietly, and were
+satisfied to know that their chapel was the first in the connection, and
+their minister justly esteemed as one of the most eloquent. The
+Liberation Society held one meeting at the Crescent Chapel, but it was
+not considered a great success. At the best, they were no more than
+lukewarm Crescent-Chapelites, not political dissenters. Both minister
+and people were Liberal, that was the creed they professed. Some of the
+congregations Citywards, and the smaller chapels about Hampstead and
+Islington, used the word Latitudinarian instead; but that, as the
+Crescent Chapel people said, was a word always applied by the bigoted
+and ignorant to those who held in high regard the doctrines of Christian
+charity. They were indeed somewhat proud of their tolerance, their
+impartiality, their freedom from old prejudices. "That sort of thing
+will not do now-a-days," said Mr. Copperhead, who was a great railway
+contractor and one of the deacons, and who had himself a son at Oxford.
+If there had been any bigotry in the Crescent, Mr. Copperhead would have
+had little difficulty in transferring himself over the way to St. Paul's
+Church, and it is astonishing what an effect that fact had upon the mind
+of Mr. Beecham's flock.
+
+Mr. Beecham's house was situated in Regent's Park, and was constructed
+on the ordinary model of such houses. On the ground-floor was a handsome
+dining-room, a room which both Mr. and Mrs. Beecham twenty years before
+would have considered splendid, but which now they condescended to, as
+not so large as they could wish, but still comfortable. The drawing-room
+above was larger, a bright and pleasant room, furnished with
+considerable "taste." Behind the dining-room, a smaller room was Mr.
+Beecham's study, or the library, as it was sometimes called. It was
+lined with book-cases containing a very fair collection of books, and
+ornamented with portraits (chiefly engravings) of celebrated ministers
+and laymen in the connection, with a bust of Mr. Copperhead over the
+mantelpiece. This bust had been done by a young sculptor whom he
+patronized, for the great man's own house. When it was nearly completed,
+however, a flaw was found in the marble, which somewhat detracted from
+its perfection. The flaw was in the shoulder of the image, and by no
+means serious; but Mr. Copperhead was not the man to pass over any such
+defect. After a long and serious consultation over it, which made the
+young artist shake in his shoes, a solution was found for the
+difficulty.
+
+"Tell you what, Sir," said Mr. Copperhead; "I'll give it to the
+minister. It'll look famous in his little study. Works of art don't
+often come his way; and you'll get a block of the best, Mr.
+Chipstone--the very best, Sir, no expense spared--and begin another for
+me."
+
+This arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to all parties, though I
+will not say that it was not instrumental in bringing about certain
+other combinations which will be fully discussed in this history. The
+Beechams were mightily surprised when the huge marble head, almost as
+large as a Jupiter, though perhaps not otherwise so imposing, arrived at
+the Terrace; but they were also gratified.
+
+"It is quite like receiving us into his own family circle," Mrs. Beecham
+said with a glance at her daughter, Phoebe, junior, who, with all her
+pink fingers outspread, was standing in adoration before that image of
+wealth and fabulous luxury.
+
+"What a grand head it is!" cried the young enthusiast, gazing rapt upon
+the complacent marble whisker so delightfully curled and bristling with
+realistic force.
+
+"It looks well, I must say, it looks well," said Mr. Beecham himself,
+rubbing his hands, "to receive such a token of respect from the leading
+member of the flock." And certainly no more perfect representation of a
+bell-wether ever adorned any shepherd's sanctuary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LEADING MEMBER.
+
+
+Mr. Copperhead, to whom so much allusion has been made, was a well-known
+man in other regions besides that of the Crescent Chapel. His name,
+indeed, may be said to have gone to the ends of the earth, from whence
+he had conducted lines of railway, and where he had left docks, bridges,
+and light-houses to make him illustrious. He was one of the greatest
+contractors for railways and other public works in England, and, by
+consequence, in the world. He had no more than a very ordinary
+education, and no manners to speak of; but at the same time he had that
+kind of faculty which is in practical work what genius is in literature,
+and, indeed, in its kind is genius too, though it neither refines nor
+even (oddly enough) enlarges the mind to which it belongs. He saw the
+right track for a road through a country with a glance of his eye; he
+mastered all the points of nature which were opposed to him in the
+rapidest survey, though scientifically he was great in no branch of
+knowledge. He could rule his men as easily as if they were so many
+children; and, indeed, they were children in his hands. All these gifts
+made it apparent that he must have been a remarkable and able man; but
+no stranger would have guessed as much from his appearance or his talk.
+There were people, indeed, who knew him well, and who remained
+incredulous and bewildered, trying to persuade themselves that his
+success must be owing to pure luck, for that he had nothing else to
+secure it. The cause of this, perhaps, was that he knew nothing about
+books, and was one of those jeering cynics who are so common under one
+guise or another. Fine cynics are endurable, and give a certain zest
+often to society, which might become too civil without them; but your
+coarse cynic is not pleasant. Mr. Copperhead's eye was as effectual in
+quenching emotion of any but the coarsest kind as water is against
+fire. People might be angry in his presence--it was the only passion he
+comprehended; but tenderness, sympathy, sorrow, all the more generous
+sentiments, fled and concealed themselves when this large, rich, costly
+man came by. People who were brought much in contact with him became
+ashamed of having any feelings at all; his eye upon them seemed to
+convict them of humbug. Those eyes were very light grey, prominent, with
+a jeer in them which was a very powerful moral instrument. His own
+belief was that he could "spot" humbug wherever he saw it, and that
+nothing could escape him; and, I suppose, so much humbug is there in
+this world that his belief was justified. But there are few more awful
+people than those ignoble spectators whose jeer arrests the moisture in
+the eye, and strangles the outcry on their neighbour's lip.
+
+Mr. Copperhead had risen from the ranks; yet not altogether from the
+ranks. His father before him had been a contractor, dealing chiefly with
+canals and roads, and the old kind of public works; a very rough
+personage indeed, but one to whose fingers gold had stuck, perhaps
+because of the clay with which they were always more or less smeared.
+This ancestor had made a beginning to the family, and given his son a
+name to start with. _Our_ Mr. Copperhead had married young, and had
+several sons, who were all in business, and all doing well; less
+vigorous, but still moderately successful copies of their father. When,
+however, he had thus done his duty to the State, the first Mrs.
+Copperhead having died, he did the only incomprehensible action of his
+life--he married a second time, a feeble, pretty, pink-and-white little
+woman, who had been his daughter's governess; married her without rhyme
+or reason, as all his friends and connections said. The only feasible
+motive for this second union seemed to be a desire on Mr. Copperhead's
+part to have something belonging to him which he could always jeer at,
+and in this way the match was highly successful. Mrs. Copperhead the
+second was gushing and susceptible, and as good a butt as could be
+imagined. She kept him in practice when nobody else was at hand. She was
+one of those naturally refined but less than half-educated, timid
+creatures who are to be found now and then painfully earning the bread
+which is very bitter to them in richer people's houses, and preserving
+in their little silent souls some fetish in the shape of a scrap of
+gentility, which is their sole comfort, or almost their sole comfort.
+Mrs. Copperhead's fetish was the dear recollection that she was "an
+officer's daughter;" or rather this had been her fetish in the days when
+she had nothing, and was free to plume herself on the reflected glory.
+Whether in the depths of her luxurious abode, at the height of her good
+fortune, she still found comfort in the thought, it would be hard to
+tell. Everybody who had known her in her youth thought her the most
+fortunate of women. Her old school companions told her story for the
+encouragement of their daughters, as they might have told a fairy tale.
+To see her rolling in her gorgeous carriage, or bowed out of a shop
+where all the daintiest devices of fashion had been placed at her feet,
+filled passers-by with awe and envy. She could buy whatever she liked,
+festoon herself with finery, surround herself with the costliest
+knick-knacks; the more there were of them, and the costlier they were,
+the better was Mr. Copperhead pleased. She had everything that heart
+could desire. Poor little woman! What a change from the
+governess-chrysalis who was snubbed by her pupil and neglected by
+everybody! and yet I am not sure that she did not--so inconsistent is
+human nature--look back to those melancholy days with a sigh.
+
+This lady was the mother of Clarence Copperhead, the young man who was
+at Oxford, her only child, upon whom (of course) she doted with the
+fondest folly; and whom his father jeered at more than at any one else
+in the world, more even than at his mother, yet was prouder of than of
+all his other sons and all his possessions put together. Clarence, whom
+I will not describe, as he will, I trust, show himself more effectually
+by his actions, was like his mother in disposition, or so, at least, she
+made herself happy by thinking; but by some freak of nature he was like
+his father in person, and carried his mouse's heart in a huge frame,
+somewhat hulking and heavy-shouldered, with the same roll which
+distinguished Mr. Copperhead, and which betrayed something of the
+original navvy who was the root of the race. He had his father's large
+face too, and a tendency towards those demonstrative and offensive
+whiskers which are the special inheritance of the British Philistine.
+But instead of the large goggle eyes, always jeering and impudent, which
+lighted up the paternal countenance, Clarence had a pair of mild brown
+orbs, repeated from his mother's faded face, which introduced the oddest
+discord into his physiognomy generally. In the family, that is to say
+among the step-brothers and step-sisters who formed Mr. Copperhead's
+first family, the young fellow bore no other name than that of the
+curled darling, though, indeed, he was as far from being curled as any
+one could be. He was not clever; he had none of the energy of his race,
+and promised to be as useless in an office as he would have been in a
+cutting or a yard full of men. I am not sure that this fact did not
+increase secretly his father's exultation and pride in him. Mr.
+Copperhead was fond of costly and useless things; he liked them for
+their cost, with an additional zest in his sense of the huge vulgar use
+and profit of most things in his own life. This tendency, more than any
+appreciation of the beautiful, made him what is called a patron of art.
+It swelled his personal importance to think that he was able to hang up
+thousands of pounds, so to speak, on his walls, knowing all the time
+that he could make thousands more by the money had he invested it in
+more useful ways. The very fact that he could afford to refrain from
+investing it, that he could let it lie there useless, hanging by so many
+cords and ribbons, was sweet to him. And so also it was sweet to him to
+possess a perfectly useless specimen of humanity, which had cost him a
+great deal, and promised to cost him still more. He had plenty of useful
+sons as he had of useful money. The one who was of no use was the apex
+and glory of the whole.
+
+But these three made up a strange enough family party, as may be
+supposed. The original Copperheads, the first family, who were all of
+the same class and nature, would have made a much noisier, less
+peaceable household; but they would have been a much jollier and really
+more harmonious one. Mr. Copperhead himself somewhat despised his elder
+sons, who were like himself, only less rich, less vigorous, and less
+self-assertive. He saw, oddly enough, the coarseness of their manners,
+and even of their ways of thinking; but yet he was a great deal more
+comfortable, more at his ease among them, than he was when seated
+opposite his trembling, deprecating, frightened little wife, or that
+huge youth who cost him so much and returned him so little. Now and
+then, at regular periodical intervals, the head of the family would go
+down to Blackheath to dine and spend the night with his son Joe, the
+second and the favourite, where there were romping children and a
+portly, rosy young matron, and loud talk about City dinners, contracts,
+and estimates. This refreshed him, and he came home with many chuckles
+over the imperfections of the family.
+
+"My sons buy their wives by the hundred-weight," he would say jocularly
+at breakfast the day after; "thirteen stone if she is a pound, is Mrs.
+Joe. Expensive to keep up in velvet and satin, not to speak of mutton
+and beef. Your mother comes cheap," he would add aside to Clarence, with
+a rolling laugh. Thus he did not in the least exempt his descendants
+from the universal ridicule which he poured on all the world; but when
+he sat down opposite his timid little delicate wife, and by his
+University man, who had very little on the whole to say for himself,
+Mr. Copperhead felt the increase in gentility as well as the failure in
+jollity. "You are a couple of ghosts after Joe and his belongings, you
+two. Speak louder, I say, young fellow. You don't expect me to hear that
+penny-whistle of yours," he would say, chuckling at them, with a mixture
+of pride and disdain. They amused him by their dulness and silence, and
+personal awe of him. He was quite out of his element between these two,
+and yet the very fact pleasantly excited his pride.
+
+"I speak as gentlemen generally speak," said Clarence, who was sometimes
+sullen when attacked, and who knew by experience that his father was
+rarely offended by such an argument.
+
+"And I am sure, dear, your papa would never wish you to do otherwise,"
+said anxious Mrs. Copperhead, casting a furtive frightened glance at her
+husband. He rolled out a mighty laugh from the head of the table where
+he was sitting. He contemplated them with a leer that would have been
+insulting, had he not been the husband of one and the father of the
+other. The laugh and the look called forth some colour on Mrs.
+Copperhead's cheek, well as she was used to them; but her son was less
+susceptible, and ate his breakfast steadily, and did not care.
+
+"A pretty pair you are," said Mr. Copperhead. "I like your gentility.
+How much _foie gras_ would you eat for breakfast, I wonder, my lad, if
+you had to work for it? Luckily for you, I wasn't brought up to talk, as
+you say, like a gentleman. I'd like to see you managing a field of
+navvies with that nice little voice of yours--ay, or a mob before the
+hustings, my boy. You're good for nothing, you are; a nice delicate
+piece of china for a cupboard, like your mother before you. However,
+thank Heaven, we've got the cupboard," he said with a laugh, looking
+round him; "a nice big 'un, too, well painted and gilded; and the time
+has come, through not talking like a gentleman, that I can afford you.
+You should hear Joe. When that fellow talks, his house shakes.
+Confounded bad style of house, walls like gingerbread. How the boards
+don't break like pie-crust under Mrs. Joe's fairy foot, I can't make
+out. By Jove, ma'am, one would think I starved you, to see you beside
+your daughter-in-law. Always had a fine healthy appetite had Mrs. Joe."
+
+There was nothing to answer to this speech, and therefore a dead silence
+ensued. When the master of the house is so distinctly the master,
+silence is apt to ensue after his remarks. Mrs. Copperhead sipped her
+tea, and Clarence worked steadily through his breakfast, and the head of
+the family crumpled the Times, which he read at intervals. All sorts of
+jokes had gone on at Joe's table the morning before, and there had been
+peals of laughter, and Mrs. Joe had even administered a slap upon her
+husband's ruddy cheek for some pleasantry or other. Mr. Copperhead, as
+he looked at his son and his wife, chuckled behind the Times. When they
+thought he was occupied they made a few gentle remarks to each other.
+They had soft voices, with that indescribable resemblance in tone which
+so often exists between mother and son. Dresden china; yes, that was the
+word; and to see his own resemblance made in that delicate _pâte_, and
+elevated into that region of superlative costliness, tickled Mr.
+Copperhead, and in the most delightful way.
+
+"How about your ball?" was his next question, "or Clarence's ball, as
+you don't seem to take much interest in it, ma'am? You are afraid of
+being brought in contact with the iron pots, eh? You might crack or go
+to pieces, who knows, and what would become of me, a wretched widower."
+Mr. Copperhead himself laughed loudly at this joke, which did not excite
+any mirth from the others, and then he repeated his question, "How about
+the ball?"
+
+"The invitations are all sent out, Mr. Copperhead; ninety-five--I--I
+mean a hundred and thirty-five. I--I beg your pardon, they were in two
+lots," answered the poor woman nervously. "A hundred and
+thirty-eight--and there is--a few more--"
+
+"Take your time, ma'am, take your time, we'll get at the truth at last,"
+said her husband; and he laid down his paper and looked at her. He was
+not angry nor impatient. The twinkle in his eye was purely humorous. Her
+stumblings amused him, and her nervousness. But oddly enough, the most
+furious impatience could not have more deeply disconcerted her.
+
+"There are a few more--some old friends of mine," she went on, confused.
+"They were once rather--kind--took an interest; that is--"
+
+"Oh, the baronet and his daughters," said Mr. Copperhead, "by all means
+let's have the baronet and his daughters. Though as for their taking an
+interest--if you had not been a rich man's wife, ma'am, living in a
+grand house in Portland Place--"
+
+"It was not now," she said, hurriedly. "I do not suppose that any one
+takes an interest--in me now--"
+
+Mr. Copperhead laughed, and nodded his head. "Not many, ma'am, I should
+think--not many. You women must make up your minds to that. It's all
+very well to take an interest in a pretty girl; but when you come to a
+certain age--Well, let's proceed, the baronet--"
+
+"And his two girls--"
+
+"Ah, there's two girls! that's for you, Clarence, my boy. I thought
+there must be a motive. Think that fellow a good _parti_, eh? And I
+would not say they were far wrong if he behaves himself. Make a note of
+the baronet's daughter, young man. Lord, what a world it is!" said Mr.
+Copperhead, reflectively. "I should not wonder if you had been scheming,
+too."
+
+"I would not for the world!" cried the poor little woman, roused for
+once. "I would not for anything interfere with a marriage. That is the
+last thing you need fear from me. Whether it was a girl I was fond of,
+or a girl I disliked--so long as she was Clarence's choice. Oh, I know
+the harm that is done by other people's meddling--nothing, nothing,
+would induce me to interfere."
+
+Mr. Copperhead laid down his paper, and looked at her. I suppose,
+however little a man may care for his wife, he does not relish the idea
+that she married him for anything but love. He contemplated her still
+with amused ridicule, but with something fiercer in his eyes. "Oh--h!"
+he said, "you don't like other people to interfere? not so much as to
+say, it's a capital match, eh? You'll get so and so, and so and so, that
+you couldn't have otherwise--carriages perhaps, and plenty of money in
+your pocket (which it may be you never had in your life before), and
+consideration, and one of the finest houses in London, let us say in
+Portland Place. You don't like that amount of good advice, eh? Well, I
+do--I mean to interfere with my son, to that extent at least--you can do
+what you like. But as you're a person of prodigious influence, and
+strong will, and a great deal of character, and all that," Mr.
+Copperhead broke out with a rude laugh, "I'm afraid of you, I am--quite
+afraid."
+
+Fortunately, just at this moment his brougham came round, and the great
+man finished his coffee at a gulp, and got up. "You look out for the
+baronet's daughters, then--" he said, "and see all's ready for this ball
+of yours; while I go and work to pay the bills, that's my share. You do
+the ornamental, and I do the useful, ha, ha! I'll keep up my share."
+
+It was astonishing what a difference came upon the room the moment he
+disappeared. Somehow it had been out of harmony. His voice, his look,
+his heavy person, even his whiskers had been out of character. Now the
+air seemed to flutter after the closing of the door like water into
+which something offensive has sunk, and when the ripples of movement
+were over the large handsome room had toned down into perfect accord
+with its remaining inhabitants. Mrs. Copperhead's eyes were rather
+red--not with tears, but with the inclination to shed tears, which she
+carefully restrained in her son's presence. He still continued to eat
+steadily--he had an admirable appetite. But when he had finished
+everything on his plate, he looked up and said, "I hope you don't mind,
+mamma; I don't suppose you do; but I don't like the way my father speaks
+to you."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" cried the mother, with an affected little smile, "why
+should I mind? I ought to know by this time that it's only your papa's
+way."
+
+"I suppose so--but I don't like it," said the young man, decisively. He
+did not notice, however, as after second thoughts he returned to the
+game-pie, that his mother's eyes were redder than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL.
+
+
+This ball was an event, not only in Mr. Copperhead's household, but even
+in the connection itself, to which the idea of balls, as given by
+leading members of the flock, was somewhat novel. Not that the young
+people were debarred from that amusement, but it was generally attained
+in a more or less accidental manner, and few professing Christians
+connected with the management of the chapel had gone the length of
+giving such an entertainment openly and with design. Mr. Copperhead,
+however, was in a position to triumph over all such prejudices. He was
+so rich that any community would have felt it ought to extend a certain
+measure of indulgence to such a man. Very wealthy persons are like
+spoilt children, their caprices are allowed to be natural, and even when
+we are angry with them we excuse the vagaries to which money has a
+right. This feeling of indulgence goes a very great way, especially
+among the classes engaged in money-making, who generally recognize a
+man's right to spend, and feel the sweetness of spending more acutely
+than the hereditary possessors of wealth. I do not believe that his
+superior knowledge of the best ways of using money profitably ever
+hinders a money-making man from lavish expenditure; but it gives him a
+double zest in spending, and it makes him, generally, charitable towards
+the extravagances of persons still richer than himself. A ball, there
+was no doubt, was a worldly-minded entertainment, but still, the chapel
+reflected, it is almost impossible not to be a little worldly-minded
+when you possess such a great share of the world's goods, and that, of
+course, it could not be for himself that Mr. Copperhead was doing this,
+but for his son. His son, these amiable casuists proceeded, was being
+brought up to fill a great position, and no doubt society did exact
+something, and as Mr. Copperhead had asked all the chief chapel people,
+his ball was looked upon with very indulgent eyes. The fact that the
+minister and his family were going staggered some of the more particular
+members a little, but Mr. Beecham took high ground on the subject and
+silenced the flock. "The fact that a minister of religion is one of the
+first persons invited, is sufficient proof of the way our friend means
+to manage everything," said the pastor. "Depend upon it, it would be
+good for the social relations of the country if your pastors and
+teachers were always present. It gives at once a character to all the
+proceedings." This, like every other lofty assertion, stilled the
+multitude. Some of the elder ladies, indeed, groaned to hear, even at
+the prayer-meetings, a whisper between the girls about this ball and
+what they were going to wear; but still it was Christmas, and all the
+newspapers, and a good deal of the light literature which is especially
+current at that season, persistently represented all the world as in a
+state of imbecile joviality, and thus, for the moment, every objection
+was put down.
+
+To nobody, however, was the question, what to wear, more interesting
+than to Phoebe, junior, who was a very well-instructed young woman, and
+even on the point of dress had theories of her own. Phoebe had, as her
+parents were happy to think, had every advantage in her education. She
+had possessed a German governess all to herself, by which means, even
+Mr. Beecham himself supposed, a certain amount of that philosophy which
+Germans communicate by their very touch must have got into her, besides
+her music and the language which was her primary study. And she had
+attended lectures at the ladies' college close by, and heard a great
+many eminent men on a great many different subjects. She had read, too,
+a great deal. She was very well got up in the subject of education for
+women, and lamented often and pathetically the difficulty they lay under
+of acquiring the highest instruction; but at the same time she
+patronized Mr. Ruskin's theory that dancing, drawing, and cooking were
+three of the higher arts which ought to be studied by girls. It is not
+necessary for me to account for the discrepancies between those two
+systems, in the first place because I cannot, and in the second place,
+because there is in the mind of the age some ineffable way of
+harmonizing them which makes their conjunction common. Phoebe was
+restrained from carrying out either to its full extent. She was not
+allowed to go in for the Cambridge examinations because Mr. Beecham felt
+the connection might think it strange to see his daughter's name in the
+papers, and, probably, would imagine he meant to make a schoolmistress
+of her, which he thanked Providence he had no need to do. And she was
+not allowed to educate herself in the department of cooking, to which
+Mrs. Beecham objected, saying likewise, thank Heaven, they had no need
+of such messings; that she did not wish her daughter to make a slave of
+herself, and that Cook would not put up with it. Between these two
+limits Phoebe's noble ambition was confined, which was a "trial" to her.
+But she did what she could, bating neither heart nor hope. She read
+Virgil at least, if not Sophocles, and she danced and dressed though she
+was not allowed to cook.
+
+As she took the matter in this serious way, it will be understood that
+the question of dress was not a mere frivolity with her. A week before
+the ball she stood in front of the large glass in her mother's room,
+contemplating herself, not with that satisfaction which it is generally
+supposed a pretty young woman has in contemplating her own image. She
+was decidedly a pretty young woman. She had a great deal of the hair of
+the period, nature in her case, as (curiously, yet very truly) in so
+many others, having lent herself to the prevailing fashion. How it comes
+about I cannot tell, but it is certain that there does exist at this
+present moment, a proportion of golden-haired girls which very much
+exceeds the number we used to see when golden hair had not become
+fashionable--a freak of nature which is altogether independent of dyes
+and auriferous fluid, and which probably has influenced fashion
+unawares. To be sure the pomades of twenty years ago are, Heaven be
+praised! unknown to this generation, and washing also has become the
+fashion, which accounts for something. Anyhow, Phoebe, junior, possessed
+in perfection the hair of the period. She had, too, the complexion which
+goes naturally with those sunny locks--a warm pink and white, which, had
+the boundaries between the pink and the white been a little more
+distinct, would have approached perfection too. This was what she was
+thinking when she looked at herself in her mother's great glass. Mrs.
+Beecham stood behind her, more full-blown and more highly-coloured than
+she, but very evidently the rose to which this bud would come in time.
+Phoebe looked at her own reflection, and then at her mother's, and sighed
+such a profound sigh as only lungs in the most excellent condition could
+produce.
+
+"Mamma," she said, with an accent of despair, "I am too pink, a great
+deal too pink! What am I to do?"
+
+"Nonsense, my pet," said Mrs. Beecham; "you have a lovely complexion;"
+and she threw a quantity of green ribbons which lay by over her child's
+hair and shoulders. A cloud crossed the blooming countenance of Phoebe,
+junior. She disembarrassed herself of the ribbons with another sigh.
+
+"Dear mamma," she said, "I wish you would let me read with you now and
+then, about the theory of colours, for instance. Green is the
+complementary of red. If you want to bring out my pink and make it more
+conspicuous than ever, of course you will put me in a green dress. No,
+mamma, dear, not that--I should look a fright; and though I dare say it
+does not matter much, I object to looking a fright. Women are, I
+suppose, more ornamental than men, or, at least, everybody says so; and
+in that case it is our duty to keep it up."
+
+"You are a funny girl, with your theories of colour," said Mrs. Beecham.
+"In my time, fair girls wore greens and blues, and dark girls wore reds
+and yellows. It was quite simple. Have a white tarlatan, then; every
+girl looks well in that."
+
+"You don't see, mamma," said Phoebe, softly, suppressing in the most
+admirable manner the delicate trouble of not being understood, "that a
+thing every girl looks well in, is just the sort of thing that no one
+looks _very_ well in. White shows no invention. It is as if one took no
+trouble about one's dress."
+
+"And neither one ought, Phoebe," said her mother. "That is very true. It
+is sinful to waste time thinking of colours and ribbons, when we might
+be occupied about much more important matters."
+
+"That is not my opinion at all," said Phoebe. "I should like people to
+think I had taken a great deal of trouble. Think of all the trouble that
+has to be taken to get up this ball!"
+
+"I fear so, indeed; and a great deal of expense," said Mrs. Beecham,
+shaking her head. "Yes, when one comes to think of that. But then, you
+see, wealth has its duties. I don't defend Mr. Copperhead--"
+
+"I don't think he wants to be defended, mamma. I think it is all
+nonsense about wasting time. What I incline to, if you won't be shocked,
+is black."
+
+"Black!" The suggestion took away Mrs. Beecham's breath. "As if you were
+fifty! Why, I don't consider myself old enough for black."
+
+"It is a pity," said Phoebe, with a glance at her mother's full colours;
+but that was really of so much less importance. "Black would throw me
+up," she added seriously, turning to the glass. "It would take off this
+pink look. I don't mind it in the cheeks, but I am pink all over; my
+white is pink. Black would be a great deal the best for both of us. It
+would tone us down," said Phoebe, decisively, "and it would throw us up."
+
+"But for you, a girl under twenty, my dear--"
+
+"Mamma, what does it matter? The question is, am I to look my best?
+which I think is my duty to you and to Providence; or am I just," said
+Phoebe, with indignation, "to look a little insipidity--a creature with
+no character--a little girl like everybody else?"
+
+The consequence of this solemn appeal was that both the Phoebes went to
+Mr. Copperhead's ball in black; the elder in velvet, with Honiton lace
+(point, which Phoebe, with her artistic instincts, would have much
+preferred, being unattainable); the younger in tulle, flounced to
+distraction, and largely relieved with blue. And the consequence of this
+toilette, and of the fact that Phoebe did her duty by her parents and by
+Providence, and looked her very best, was that Clarence Copperhead fell
+a hopeless victim to her fascinations, and scarcely could be induced to
+leave her side all night. The ball was about as remarkable a ball as
+could have been seen in London. The son of the house had contemplated
+with absolute despair the list of invitations. He had deprecated the
+entertainment altogether. He had said, "We know nobody," with a
+despairing impertinence which called forth one of his father's roars of
+laughter. And though Mr. Copperhead had done all he could to assume the
+position of that typical Paterfamilias who is condemned to pay for those
+pleasures of his family which are no pleasure to him, yet common-sense
+was too much for him, and everybody felt that he was in reality the
+giver and enjoyer of the entertainment. It was Mr., not Mrs.
+Copperhead's ball. It was the first of the kind which had ever taken
+place in his house; the beginning of a new chapter in his social
+existence. Up to this moment he had not shown any signs of being smitten
+with that craze for "Society," which so often and so sorely affects the
+millionnaire. He had contented himself hitherto with heavy and showy
+dinners, costing Heaven knows how much a head (Mr. Copperhead knew, and
+swelled visibly in pride and pleasure as the cost increased), which he
+consumed in company with twenty people or so of kindred tastes to
+himself, who appreciated the cost and understood his feelings. On such
+people, however, his Dresden china was thrown away. Joe and Mrs. Joe
+were much more in their way than the elegant University man and the
+well-bred mother, who was "a poor little dowdy," they all said.
+Therefore the fact had been forced upon Mr. Copperhead that his circle
+must be widened and advanced, if his crowning glories were to be
+appreciated as they deserved.
+
+The hunger of wealth for that something above wealth which the
+bewildered rich man only discovers the existence of when he has
+struggled to the highest pinnacle of advancement in his own way, began
+to seize this wealthy neophyte. To be sure, in this first essay, the
+company which he assembled in his fine rooms in Portland Place, to see
+all his fine things and celebrate his glory, was not a fine company, but
+they afforded more gratification to Mr. Copperhead than if they had been
+ever so fine. They were people of his own class, his old friends,
+invited to be dazzled, though standing out to the utmost of their power,
+and refusing, so far as in them lay, to admit how much dazzled they
+were. It was a more reasonable sort of vanity than the commoner kind,
+which aims at displaying its riches to great personages, people who are
+not dazzled by any extent of grandeur, and in whose bosoms no jealousy
+is excited towards the giver of the feast. Mr. Copperhead's friends had
+much more lively feelings; they walked about through the great rooms,
+with their wives on their arms, in a state of semi-defiance, expressing
+no admiration, saying to each other, "This must have cost Copperhead a
+pretty penny," as they met in doorways; while the ladies put their
+flowery and jewelled heads together and whispered, "Did you ever see
+such extravagance? And what a dowdy _she_ is with it all!" This was the
+under-current of sentiment which flowed strong in all the passages, and
+down the rapids of the great staircase; a stream of vigorous human
+feeling, the existence of which was as deeply gratifying to the
+entertainer as the sweetest flattery. The lord and the ladies who might
+have been tempted to his great house would not have had a thought to
+spare for Mr. Copperhead; but the unwilling applause of his own class
+afforded him a true triumph.
+
+Amid this throng of people, however, there could be little doubt that
+the one young lady who attracted his son was the least eligible person
+there, being no other than Phoebe Beecham, the pastor's daughter. Almost
+the only other utterly ineligible girl was a pale little maiden who
+accompanied Sir Robert Dorset and his daughters, and who was supposed to
+be either their governess or their humble companion. The Dorsets were
+the only people who had any pretensions to belong to "society," in all
+those crowded rooms. They were distantly related to Mrs. Copperhead,
+and had been, she gratefully thought, kind to her in her youth, and
+they had no particular objection to be kind to her now that she was
+rich, though the Baronet, as Mr. Copperhead always called him, winced at
+so rampant a specimen of wealth, and "the girls" did not see what good
+it was to keep up relations with a distant cousin, who though so
+prodigiously rich was of no possible use, and could neither make parties
+for them, nor chaperon them to the houses of the great. When they had
+received her present invitation, they had accepted it with surprise and
+hesitation. Chance only had brought them to London at that time of the
+year, the most curious time surely to choose for a ball, but convenient
+enough as affording a little amusement at a season when little amusement
+was ordinarily to be had. Sir Robert had consented to go, as a man with
+no occupation elsewhere might consent to go to the Cannibal Islands, to
+see how the savages comported themselves. And little Ursula May, another
+poor relative on the other side of the house, whom they had charitably
+brought up to town with them, might go too, they decided, to such a
+gathering. There was no Lady Dorset, and the girls were "girls" only by
+courtesy, having passed the age to which that title refers. Such good
+looks as they had were faded, and they were indifferently dressed. This
+last circumstance arose partly from the fact that they never dressed
+very well, and partly because they did not think it necessary to put
+themselves to much trouble for poor Mrs. Copperhead's ball. Their little
+companion, Ursula, was in a white frock, the sort of dress which Phoebe
+had rebelled against. She was all white and had never been to a ball
+before. This little party, which represented the aristocracy at the
+Copperhead's ball, went to the entertainment with a little expectation
+in their minds: What sort of people would be there? Would they be
+"frights?" They were not likely to be interesting in any other way, the
+Miss Dorsets knew; but to little Ursula a ball was a ball, and meant
+delight and glory she was aware, though she did not quite know how. The
+expectations of the party, however, were strangely disappointed. Instead
+of being "a set of frights," Mrs. Copperhead's guests were found to be
+resplendent in toilette. Never, even under a ducal roof, had these
+ladies found themselves in such a gorgeous assembly, and never before,
+perhaps, even at the Duchess's grandest receptions, had they been unable
+to discover a single face they knew. Sir Robert was even more appalled
+by this discovery than his daughters were. He put up his glass and
+peered more and more wistfully into the crowd. "Don't know a soul," he
+repeated at intervals. Poor Sir Robert! he had not thought it possible
+that such an event could happen to him within the four seas. Accordingly
+the Dorsets clung, somewhat scared, to Mrs. Copperhead's side, and
+Ursula along with them, who looked at the crowd still more wistfully
+than Sir Robert did, and thought how nice it would be to know somebody.
+Unfortunately the Miss Dorsets were not attractive in personal
+appearance. Clarence Copperhead, though he was not indifferent to a
+baronet, was yet not sufficiently devoted to the aristocracy to do more
+than dance once, as was his bounden duty, with each of the sisters. "It
+seems so strange not to know any one," these ladies said. "Isn't it?"
+said Clarence. "_I_ don't know a soul." But then he went off and danced
+with Phoebe Beecham, and the Miss Dorsets stood by Mrs. Copperhead,
+almost concealing behind them the slight little snow-white figure of
+little Ursula May.
+
+Clarence was a very well-behaved young man on the whole. He knew his
+duty, and did it with a steady industry, working off his dances in the
+spirit of his navvy forefather. But he returned between each duty dance
+to the young lady in black, who was always distinguishable among so many
+young ladies in white, and pink, and green, and blue. The Miss Dorsets
+and Ursula looked with interest and something like envy at that young
+lady in black. She had so many partners that she scarcely knew how to
+manage them all, and the son of the house returned to her side with a
+pertinacity that could not pass unremarked. "Why should one girl have so
+much and another girl so little?" Ursula said to herself; but, to be
+sure, she knew nobody, and the young lady in black knew everybody. On
+the whole, however, it became evident to Ursula that a ball was not
+always a scene of unmixed delight.
+
+"It is very kind of you to remember what old friends we are," said
+Phoebe. "But, Mr. Clarence, don't be more good to me than you ought to
+be. I see your mother looking for you, and Mr. Copperhead might not like
+it. Another time, perhaps, we shall be able to talk of old days."
+
+"There is no time like the present," said the young man, who liked his
+own way. I do not mean to say that it was right of Phoebe to dance with
+him, especially dances she had promised to other people. But he was the
+personage of the evening, and that is a great temptation. Mr. Copperhead
+himself came up to them more than once, with meaning in his eyes.
+
+"Don't be too entertaining, Miss Phoebe," he said; for he saw no reason
+why he should not speak plainly in his own house, especially to the
+minister's daughter. "Don't be too entertaining. This is Clarence's
+ball, and he ought to be civil to other people too."
+
+"Oh, please go away!" cried Phoebe, after this admonition. But Clarence
+was sullen, and stood his ground.
+
+"We are going to have our waltz out," he said. "It is not my ball a
+bit--let him entertain his people himself. How should I know such a set
+of guys? I know nobody but you and the Dorset girls, who are in society.
+Parents are a mistake," said the young man, half rebellious, half
+sullen, "they never understand. Perhaps you don't feel that, but I
+should think girls must see it sometimes as well as men."
+
+"Girls don't use such strong expressions," said Phoebe, smiling, as they
+flew off in the uncompleted waltz. She danced very well, better than
+most of the ladies present, and that was the reason Clarence assigned to
+his mother for his preference of her. But when Mr. Copperhead saw that
+his remonstrance was unheeded by the young people, he went up to Mrs.
+Beecham, with a rich man's noble frankness and courage. "I am delighted
+to see you here, ma'am, and I hope you have remarked how well Miss Phoebe
+is entertaining my boy. Do you see them dancing? She's been away from
+you a long time, Mrs. Beecham, as girls will when they get hold of
+somebody that pleases them. Shouldn't you like me to go and fetch her
+back?" Mrs. Beecham, with cheeks that were very full blown indeed, and
+required a great deal of fanning, called back her child to her side at
+the end of that dance. She scolded Phoebe behind her fan, and recalled
+her to a sense of duty. "A pastor's daughter has to be doubly
+particular," she said; "what if your poor papa was to get into trouble
+through your thoughtlessness?"
+
+"I was not thoughtless, mamma; forgive me for answering back," said
+Phoebe, very meekly; and she showed no signs of sulkiness, though
+Clarence was carried off and kept from approaching her again.
+
+Unfortunately, however, when Clarence was removed from Phoebe, he fell
+into still greater peril. The eldest Miss Dorset and her mother, both of
+them with equally benevolent intentions, introduced him simultaneously
+to Ursula May. "The poor little girl has not danced once," Mrs.
+Copperhead, who had recollections of standing by herself for a whole
+evening, unnoticed, whispered in his ear, and Miss Dorset spoke to him
+still more plainly. "We brought her," she said, "but I cannot get her
+partners, for I don't know anybody." And what could Clarence do but
+offer himself? And Ursula, too, was a good dancer, and very pretty--far
+prettier than Phoebe.
+
+"Confound him! there he is now for ever with that girl in white," said
+his father to himself, with great rage. Dozens of good partners in pink
+and blue were going about the room. What did the boy mean by bestowing
+himself upon the two poor ones, the black and the white. This disturbed
+Mr. Copperhead's enjoyment, as he stood in the doorway of the ball-room,
+looking round upon all the splendour that was his, and feeling disposed,
+like Nebuchadnezzar, to call upon everybody to come and worship him. He
+expanded and swelled out with pride and complacency, as he looked round
+upon his own greatness, and perceived the effect made upon the
+beholders. When that effect did not seem sufficiently deep, he called
+here and there upon a lingerer for applause. "That's considered a very
+fine Turner," he said, taking one of them into a smaller room. "Come
+along here, you know about that sort of thing--I don't. I should be
+ashamed to tell you how much I gave for it; all that money hanging there
+useless, bringing in nothing! But when I do buy anything I like it to be
+the very best that is to be had."
+
+"I'd as soon have a good chromo," said the person addressed, "which
+costs a matter of a five-pound note, and enough too, to hang up against
+a wall. But you can afford it, Copperhead. You've the best right of any
+man I know to be a fool if you like."
+
+The great man laughed, but he scarcely liked the compliment. "I am a
+fool if you like," he said, "the biggest fool going. I like a thing that
+costs a deal, and is of no use. That's what I call luxury. My boy,
+Clarence, and my big picture, they're dear; but I can afford 'em, if
+they were double the price."
+
+"If I were you," said his friend, "I wouldn't hang my picture in this
+little bit of a hole, nor let my boy waste his time with all the
+riff-raff in the room. There's Smith's girl and Robinson's niece, both
+of them worth a cool hundred thousand; and you leave him to flourish
+about all over the place with a chit in a white frock, and another in a
+black one. I call that waste, not luxury, for my part."
+
+"I don't want to sell either the boy or the picture," said the rich man,
+with a laugh. But nevertheless he was annoyed that his son should be
+such an ass. Miss Smith and Miss Robinson were as fine as their
+milliners could make them. The first of these ladies had an emerald
+locket almost as big as a warming-pan, and Miss Robinson's pearls were a
+little fortune in themselves; but the chosen objects of that young
+idiot's attentions wore nothing but trumpery twopenny-halfpenny
+trinkets, and gowns which had been made at home for all Mr. Copperhead
+knew. Confound him! the father breathed hotly to himself. Thus it will
+be seen that unmixed pleasure is not to be had in this world, even in
+the midst of envious friends and the most splendid entertainment which
+money could supply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A COUNTRY PARTY.
+
+
+"Very funny, now," said Sir Robert. "I don't know that such a thing ever
+happened to me before. Give you my word for it, I didn't know a single
+soul, not one; and there must have been a couple of hundred or so there.
+Jove! I never thought there were as many people in England that I didn't
+know."
+
+"How could you know Mr. Copperhead's friends?" said Sophy Dorset. "What
+I wonder is, that she should have asked us. Not but that it was amusing
+enough, once in a way, just to see how such people look."
+
+"They looked very much like other people, my dear. Finer, though. I
+haven't seen so many jewels at an evening party for ages. Very much like
+other people. Fatter, perhaps, the men, but not the women. I notice,"
+said Sir Robert, who himself was spare, "that City men generally have a
+tendency to fat."
+
+"They are so rich," said Miss Dorset, with gentle disgust.
+
+She was the quiet one, never saying much. Sophy, who was lively,
+conducted the conversation. They were all seated at breakfast, later
+than usual, on the morning after the Copperheads' ball. It was a hazy
+morning, and the party were seated in a large sitting-room in the "very
+central" locality of Suffolk Street, looking down that straight little
+street upon the stream of carriages and omnibuses in the foggy distance.
+It was not for pleasure that this country party had come to London. Sir
+Robert's second son, who was in India, had sent his eldest children home
+to the care of his father and sisters. They were expected at Portsmouth
+daily, and the aunts, somewhat excited by the prospect of their charge,
+had insisted upon coming to town to receive them. As for Ursula May, who
+was a poor relation on the late Lady Dorset's side, as Mrs. Copperhead
+had been a poor relation on Sir Robert's, London at any season was a
+wonder and excitement to her, and she could not sufficiently thank the
+kind relations who had given her this holiday in her humdrum life. She
+was the daughter of a poor clergyman in the little town of Carlingford,
+a widower with a large family. Ursula was the eldest daughter, with the
+duties of a mother on her much burdened hands; and she had no special
+inclination towards these duties, so that a week's escape from them was
+a relief to her at any time. And a ball! But the ball had not been so
+beatific as Ursula hoped. In her dark blue serge dress, close up to the
+throat and down to the wrists, she did not look so pale as she had done
+in her snow-white garments on the previous night; but she was at the
+best of times a shadowy little person, with soft, dark brown hair, dark
+brown eyes, and no more colour than the faintest of wild rose tints; but
+the youthfulness, and softness, and roundness of the girl showed to full
+advantage beside the more angular development of the Miss Dorsets, who
+were tall, and had lost the first smooth curves of youth. To Ursula, not
+yet twenty, these ladies looked very mature, almost aged, being one of
+them ten, and the other eight years older than herself. She looked up to
+them with great respect; but she felt, all the same--how could she help
+it?--that in some things, though the Miss Dorsets were her superiors, it
+was best to be Ursula May.
+
+"Poor Clara!" said Sir Robert. "She was always a frightened creature.
+When I recollect her, a poor little governess, keeping behind backs at
+the nursery parties--and to see her in all her splendour now!"
+
+"She would keep behind backs still, if she could," said Miss Dorset.
+
+"Think of that, Ursula," cried Sophy; "there is an example for you. She
+was a great deal worse off than you are; and to see her now, as papa
+says! You may have a house in Portland Place too, and ask us to balls,
+and wear diamonds. Think of that! Though last night you looked as
+frightened as she."
+
+"Don't put such demoralizing ideas into the child's head. How it is that
+girls are not ruined," said Miss Dorset, shaking her head, "ruined! by
+such examples, I cannot tell. They must have stronger heads than we
+think. As poor as Cinderella one day, and the next as rich as the
+Queen--without any merit of theirs, all because some chance man happens
+to take a fancy to them."
+
+"Quite right," said Sir Robert; "quite right, my dear. It is the natural
+course of affairs."
+
+Miss Dorset shook her head. She went on shaking her head as she poured
+out the tea. She was not given to eloquence, but the subject inspired
+her.
+
+"Don't think of it, Ursula; it is not the sort of thing that good girls
+ought to think of," and the elder sister made signs to Sophy, who was
+reckless, and did not mind the moral effect of the suggestion.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Copperhead! I shall never have a house in Portland Place, nor
+any diamonds, except Aunt Mary's old brooch. I shall live and die an old
+maid, and nobody will waste a thought upon me," said Sophy, who made
+this prophecy at her ease, not expecting it to come true; "but I don't
+envy poor Clara, and if you marry such a man as Mr. Copperhead, though I
+shall admire you very much, Ursula, I shan't envy you."
+
+"Is young Mr. Copperhead as bad as his father?" said Ursula, simply.
+
+She was so far from thinking what meaning could be attached to her
+words, that she stopped and looked, wondering, from one to another when
+they laughed.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" said Sir Robert; "not so bad, either!"
+
+Poor Ursula was extremely serious. She turned with relief to Miss
+Dorset, who was serious too.
+
+"My dear, we don't know much about Clarence; he is a heavy young man. I
+don't think he is attractive. Have you had a letter from the Parsonage
+this morning?" said Anne Dorset, with a very grave face; and as it
+turned out that Ursula had a letter, Miss Dorset immediately plunged
+into discussion of it. The girl did not understand why the simple little
+epistle should be so interesting, nor did she perceive yet what the
+laughter was about. To tell the truth, Ursula, who was not clever, had
+thought young Mr. Copperhead very _nice_. He had asked her to dance when
+nobody else did; he had talked to her as much as he could have talked to
+Sophy Dorset herself. He had rehabilitated her in her own eyes after the
+first disappointment and failure of the evening, and she was prepared to
+think, whatever might be said about the father, that the son was "very
+kind" and very agreeable. Why should they laugh? Ursula concluded that
+there must be some private joke of their own about Clarence (what a
+pretty, interesting, superior name Clarence was!) which she could not be
+permitted to know.
+
+"If you talk like that," said Anne Dorset to Sophy, "you will set her
+little head afloat about good matches, and spoil her too."
+
+"And a very good thing," said Sophy. "If you had put the idea into my
+head, I should not be Sophy Dorset now. Why shouldn't she think of a
+good match? Can she live there for ever in that dreadful Parsonage,
+among all those children whom she does not know how to manage? Don't be
+absurd, Anne; except an elder daughter like you here and there, you
+know, girls must marry if they are to be of any consequence in the
+world. Let them get it into their heads; we can't change what is the
+course of nature, as papa says."
+
+"Oh, Sophy! it is so unwomanly."
+
+"Never mind; when a man chuckles and jeers at me because I am unmarried,
+I think it is unmanly; but they all do it, and no one finds any fault."
+
+"Not all surely; not near _all_."
+
+"Don't they? Not to our faces, perhaps; but whenever they write,
+whenever they speak in public. When men are so mean, why should we train
+girls up to unnatural high-mindedness? Why, that is the sort of girl who
+ought to make a good marriage; to 'catch' somebody, or have somebody
+'hooked' for her. She is pretty, and soft, and not very wise. I am doing
+the very best thing in the world for her, when I laugh at love and all
+that nonsense, and put a good match into her mind."
+
+Miss Dorset turned away with a sigh, and shook her head. It was all she
+could do. To encounter Sophy in argument was beyond her power, and if it
+had not been beyond her power, what would have been the good of it?
+Sophy had a story which, unfortunately, most people knew. She had been
+romantic, and she had been disappointed. Five or six years before, she
+had been engaged to a clergyman, who, finding that the good living he
+was waiting for in order to marry was not likely to come through Sir
+Robert's influence, intimated to his betrothed his serious doubt whether
+they were likely to be happy together, and broke off the engagement. He
+married somebody else in six months, and Sophy was left to bear the
+shame as she might. To be sure, a great many people were highly
+indignant with him at the moment; his sin, however, was forgotten long
+ago, so far as he was concerned; but nobody forgot that Sophy had been
+jilted, and she did not forget it herself, which was worse. Therefore
+Miss Dorset attempted no argument with her sister. She shook her gentle
+head, and said nothing. Anne was the elder sister born, the
+maiden-mother, who is a clearly defined type of humanity, though rare,
+perhaps, like all the finer sorts. She resolved in her own mind to take
+private means for the fortification and preservation of Ursula, whose
+position, as elder sister of a motherless family, interested her
+especially as being like her own; but Anne owned within herself that
+she had never been so young as little Ursula May.
+
+Ursula, for her part, thought very little about the question which had
+thus moved her cousins. She thought Mr. Clarence Copperhead was very
+nice, and that if she had but known as many people, and had as many
+partners as that young lady in black, she would have enjoyed the ball
+very much. After all, now that it was over, she felt that she had
+enjoyed it. Three dances were a great deal better than none at all, and
+to have that pretty white frock given to her by Sir Robert was no small
+matter. Besides, for in this as in other things the uses of adversity
+are sometimes sweet, the pretty dress, which no doubt would have been
+torn and crumpled had she danced much, was almost quite fresh now, and
+would do very well at Carlingford if there should be any balls
+there--events which happened occasionally, though Ursula had never been
+lucky enough to go to any of them. And Cousin Sophy had given her a set
+of Venetian beads and Cousin Anne a bracelet. This good fortune was
+quite enough to fill her mind with satisfaction, and prevent any undue
+meditation upon good matches or the attentions of Clarence Copperhead.
+Ursula was as different as possible from Phoebe Beecham. She had no
+pretensions to be intellectual. She preferred the company even of her
+very smallest brothers and sisters to the conversation of her papa,
+though he was known to be one of the most superior men in the diocese.
+Even when her elder brother Reginald, of whom she was very fond, came
+home from college, Ursula was more than indifferent to the privileged
+position of elder sister, by which she was permitted to sit up and
+assist at the talks which were carried on between him and his father.
+Reginald was very clever too; he was making his own way at the
+university by means of scholarships, the only way in which a son of Mr.
+May's was likely to get to the university at all, and to hear him talk
+with his father about Greek poetry and philosophy was a very fine thing
+indeed; how Phoebe Beecham, if the chance had been hers, would have
+prized it; but Ursula did not enjoy the privilege. She preferred a
+pantomime, or the poorest performance in a theatre, or even Madame
+Tussaud's exhibition. She preferred even to walk about the gay streets
+with Miss Dorset's maid, and look into the shop-windows and speculate
+what was going to be worn next season. Poor little girl! with such
+innocent and frivolous tastes, it may be supposed she did not find her
+position as elder sister and housekeeper a very congenial one. Her
+father was no more than Incumbent of St. Roque, an old perpetual curacy
+merged in a district church, which was a poor appointment for an
+elderly man with a family; he was very clever and superior, but not a
+man who got on, or who did much to help his children to get on; and had
+Ursula been of the kind of those who suffer and deny themselves by
+nature, she would have had her hands full, and abundant opportunity
+afforded her to exercise those faculties. But she was not of this frame
+of mind. She did what she was obliged to do as well as time and
+opportunity permitted; but she did not throw herself with any enthusiasm
+into her duties. To keep seven children in good condition and discipline
+in a small house, on a small income, is more, it must be allowed, than
+most girls of twenty are equal to; only enthusiasm and self-devotion
+could make such a task possible, and these qualifications poor little
+Ursula did not possess. Oh! how glad she was to get away from it all,
+from having to think of Janey and Johnny, and Amy and little Robin. She
+was not anxious about how things might be going on in her absence, as
+kind Miss Dorset thought she must be. The happiness of escaping was
+first and foremost in her thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SELF-DEVOTION.
+
+
+"Mr. Copperhead's manner is not pleasant sometimes, that is quite true.
+We must make allowances, my dear. Great wealth, you know, has its
+temptations. You can't expect a man with so much money and so many
+people under him to have the same consideration for other people's
+feelings. He says to this man go and he goeth, and to that man come and
+he cometh."
+
+"That is all very well," said Phoebe; "but he has no right, that I can
+think of, to be rude to mamma and me."
+
+"He was not exactly rude, my dear," said Mrs. Beecham. "We must not say
+he was rude. Clarence ought to have divided his attentions more equally,
+we must admit, and his father was annoyed--for the moment. I have no
+doubt he has forgotten all about it long ago, and will be as pleasant as
+ever next time we meet."
+
+"I am quite sure of it," said the pastor, "and at the worst it was but
+his manner--only his manner. In short, at the committee meeting
+yesterday nothing could have been nicer. He went even out of his way to
+send, as it were, a kind message to Phoebe. 'I needn't ask if Miss Phoebe
+enjoyed herself,' he said. Depend upon it, my dear, if there was a
+temporary annoyance it is both forgotten and forgiven, so far as Mr.
+Copperhead is concerned."
+
+"Forgiven!" Phoebe said to herself; but she thought it wiser to say
+nothing audible on the subject. Her father and mother, it was evident,
+were both disposed to extend any amount of toleration to the leading
+member. It was he who was the best judge as to what he had a right to be
+annoyed about. The family party were in Mr. Beecham's study, where the
+large bust of Mr. Copperhead stood on the mantelpiece, the chief
+decoration. How could any one be so wicked as to rebel against the
+influence of so great a personage? Phoebe had her own ideas, but she was
+wise and kept them to herself.
+
+"And now," said Mrs. Beecham, solemnly, "what is to be done, my dear,
+about this letter from my good papa?"
+
+Phoebe was standing in front of a book-case, apparently looking for a
+book. She said nothing; but it was easy to perceive by the erectness of
+her shoulders, and the slight movement that ran through her, that her
+attention was fully engaged.
+
+"Ah, yes indeed, what about it?" the pastor said. He put down the pen,
+which he had been holding in his hand by way of symbol that, amiable as
+he was, his attention to his woman-kind was an encroachment upon time
+which might be more usefully employed. But this was a serious question;
+he had no suggestion to offer, but he sat and twiddled his thumbs, and
+looked at his wife with interest suddenly aroused.
+
+"There is a great deal to be thought of," said Mrs. Beecham, "it is not
+a simple matter of family devotion. Of course if I had no other ties,
+nor other duties, everything would be easy. I should go at once to my
+poor suffering mamma."
+
+Mrs. Beecham was a clever woman, but she had not been able to get it out
+of her mind, owing to the imperfections of her education in youth, that
+it was a vulgar thing to say father and mother. "But in the present
+circumstances," she continued, her husband having given his assent to
+this speech, "it is clear that I cannot do what I wish. I have you to
+think of, my dear, and the children, and the duties of my position. On
+the other hand, of course I could not wish, as poor mamma's only
+daughter, to have my sister-in-law called in. She is not the kind of
+person; she is underbred, uneducated. Of course she would be thinking of
+her own children, and what would be best for them. My parents have done
+all that ought to be expected from them for Tom. Considering all things,
+what they have to dispose of ought to go to Phoebe and Tozer. But Mrs.
+Tom would not see that."
+
+"It is very true, my dear; I don't suppose she would," said Mr. Beecham,
+with an anxious air.
+
+"Mrs. Tom," said his wife, with some heat, "would think her own had the
+first claim. She maintained it to my very face, and after that what have
+we to expect? It's us that are Tozers," she said; "as for you, Phoebe,
+you belong to another family. I put it in my own language of course, not
+in her vulgar way."
+
+"It is a very serious question altogether," said the pastor, with some
+solemnity. "I don't see how you can get away, and I don't know what is
+to be done."
+
+"Whatever is to be done, I won't leave poor mamma in the hands of Mrs.
+Tom," cries Mrs. Beecham, "not whatever it costs me. She's capable of
+anything, that woman is. To have her in the same town is bad enough, but
+in the same house nursing poor mamma! You and I would never see a penny
+of the money, Henery, nor our children--not a penny! besides the
+vexation of seeing one's own parents turned against one. I know very
+well how it would be."
+
+Mr. Beecham ceased twiddling his thumbs. The crisis was too serious for
+that indulgence. "The position is most difficult," he said, "I see it
+all. It is easy to see it for that matter, but to decide what are we to
+do is not easy. To go back to Carlingford after so many changes, would
+it be good for you?"
+
+"It would kill me," said Mrs. Beecham, with energy, "you know it would
+kill me. Envy drove us out, and envy would bring me to the grave. I
+don't deceive myself, that is what I see before me, if I tear myself
+from all my duties and go. But on the other hand----"
+
+"Listen, mamma!" cried Phoebe, turning round suddenly; "if grandmamma is
+ill, and you are afraid to leave her alone, why not send me?"
+
+Both her parents turned towards Phoebe, as she spoke; they listened to
+her with wonder and consternation, yet with admiring looks. Then they
+looked at each other consulting, alarmed. "You!" said Mrs. Beecham, and
+"You!" echoed the pastor, repeating in his great astonishment what his
+wife said.
+
+"Yes, indeed, me--why not me? it would be only my duty," said Phoebe,
+with great composure. "And there is nothing to keep me from going. I
+almost think I should like it--but anyhow, mamma, if you think it
+necessary, whether I like it or not--"
+
+"Phoebe, my darling, you are the best child in the world," cried her
+mother, rising up, and going to her hastily. She gave her a kiss of
+maternal enthusiasm, and then she looked at her husband. "But should we
+take advantage of it?" she said.
+
+"You see, my dear," said Mr. Beecham, hesitating, "you might find many
+things different from what you are used to. Your grandpapa Tozer is an
+excellent man--a most excellent man--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said his wife, with some impatience. She was as conscious as
+he was of the great elevation in the social scale that had occurred to
+both of them since they left Carlingford, and knew as well as he did
+that the old people had remained stationary, while the younger ones had
+made such advances; but still she did not like to hear her husband
+criticize her father. What there was to be said, she preferred to say
+herself. "Yes, yes," she said, "Phoebe knows there is a difference; they
+are old-fashioned folks, and don't live quite as we live. Some things
+would strike you very strangely, my dear, some things you would not
+like; and then Phoebe may be, for anything I can tell, at a turning-point
+in her own life."
+
+"If you mean about the Copperheads, mamma, dismiss that from your mind,"
+said Phoebe. "There is no sort of hurry. We may be thrown together in
+after-life, and of course no one can tell what may happen, but in the
+mean time there is nothing of the sort in my mind--nor in any one
+else's. Do not think of that for a moment. I am at no turning-point. I
+am quite ready and quite willing to go wherever you please."
+
+Once more the parent pair looked at each other. They had been very
+careful not to bring their children into contact, since they were
+children, with the homelier circumstances of the life in which they
+themselves had both taken their origin. They had managed this really
+with great skill and discretion. Instead of visiting the Tozers at
+Carlingford, they had appointed meetings at the sea-side, by means of
+which the children were trained in affectionate acquaintance with their
+grandparents, without any knowledge of the shop. And Mr. Tozer, who was
+only a butterman at Carlingford, presented all the appearance of an old
+Dissenting minister out of it--old-fashioned, not very refined perhaps,
+as Mrs. Beecham allowed, but very kind, and the most doting of
+grandfathers. The wisp of white neckcloth round his neck, and his black
+coat, and a certain unction of manner all favoured the idea.
+Theoretically, the young people knew it was not so, but the impression
+on their imagination was to this effect. Mrs. Tozer was only
+"grandmamma." She was kind too, and if rather gorgeous in the way of
+ribbons, and dressing generally in a manner which Phoebe's taste
+condemned, yet she came quite within the range of that affectionate
+contempt with which youth tolerates the disadvantages of its seniors.
+But the butterman's shop! and the entire cutting off from everything
+superior to the grocers and poulterers of Carlingford--how would Phoebe
+support it? This was what Mr. and Mrs. Beecham asked each other with
+their eyes--and there was a pause. For the question was a tremendous
+one, and neither knew in what way to reply.
+
+"Phoebe, you are a very sensible girl--" said her father at last,
+faltering.
+
+"I beg your pardon, papa. I don't think you are treating me as if I were
+sensible," said Phoebe. "I know well enough that grandpapa is in
+business--if that is what you are afraid of--"
+
+"Has been in business," said Mrs. Beecham. "Your grandpapa has retired
+for some time. To be sure," she added, turning to her husband, "it is
+only Tom that has the business, and as I consider Mrs. Tom
+objectionable, Phoebe need not be brought in contact--"
+
+"If Phoebe goes to Carlingford," said the pastor, "she must not be
+disagreeable to any one. We must make up our minds to that. They must
+not call her stuck up and proud."
+
+"Henery," said Mrs. Beecham, "I can put up with a great deal; but to
+think of a child of mine being exposed to the tongues of those Browns
+and Pigeons and Mrs. Tom, is more than I can bear. What I went through
+myself, you never knew, nor any one breathing--the looks they gave me,
+the things they kept saying, the little nods at one another every time I
+passed! Was it my fault that I was better educated, and more refined
+like, than they were? In Mr. Vincent's time, before you came, Henery, he
+was a very gentleman-like young man, and he used to come to the ----
+High Street constantly to supper. It wasn't my doing. I never asked
+him--no more than I did you!"
+
+"Your father used to ask me," said Mr. Beecham, doubtfully. "It was very
+kind. A young pastor expects it in a new place; and a great many things
+arise, there is no doubt, in that way."
+
+"Not by my doing," said the lady; "and when we were married, Henery, the
+things I did to please them! Thank Heaven, they know the difference now;
+but if they were to set themselves, as I could quite expect of them,
+against my child--"
+
+"Mamma," said Phoebe, tranquilly, "I think you forget that it is me you
+are talking of. I hope I know what a pastor's daughter owes to herself.
+I have had my training. I don't think you need be frightened for me."
+
+"No; I think Phoebe could manage them if any one could," said her father,
+complacently.
+
+She smiled with a gracious response to this approval. She had a book in
+her hand, which of itself was a proof of Phoebe's pretensions. It was, I
+think, one of the volumes of Mr. Stuart Mill's "Dissertations." Phoebe
+was not above reading novels or other light literature, but this only in
+the moments dedicated to amusement, and the present hour was morning, a
+time not for amusement, but for work.
+
+"Phoebe don't know Carlingford, nor the folks there," said Mrs. Beecham,
+flushed by the thought, and too much excited to think of the elegancies
+of diction. She had suffered more than her husband had, and retained a
+more forcible idea of the perils; and in the pause which ensued, all
+these perils crowded into her mind. As her own ambition rose, she had
+felt how dreadful it was to be shut in to one small circle of very small
+folks. She had felt the injurious line of separation between the
+shopkeepers and the rest of the world; at least she thought she had felt
+it. As a matter of fact, I think it very doubtful whether Phoebe Tozer
+had felt anything of the kind; but she thought so now; and then it was a
+fact that she was born Phoebe Tozer, and was used to that life, whereas
+Phoebe Beecham had no such knowledge. She had never been aware of the
+limitations of a small Dissenting community in a small town, and though
+she knew how much the Crescent congregation thought of a stray
+millionnaire like Mr. Copperhead (a thing which seemed too natural to
+Miss Beecham to leave any room for remark), her mother thought that it
+might have a bad effect upon Phoebe's principles in every way, should she
+find out the lowly place held by the connection in such an
+old-fashioned, self-conceited, Tory town as Carlingford. What would
+Phoebe think? how would she manage to associate with the Browns and the
+Pigeons? Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from the shop; but
+the shop was still there, greasy and buttery as ever, and Mrs. Beecham's
+own respected papa was still "the butterman." How would Phoebe bear it?
+This was the uppermost thought in her mind.
+
+"You know, my darling," she said afterwards, when they had left the
+study, and were seated, talking it over, in the drawing-room, "there
+will be a great deal to put up with. I am silly; I don't like even to
+hear your papa say anything about dear old grandpapa. He is my own, and
+I ought to stand up for him; but even with grandpapa, you will have a
+great deal to put up with. They don't understand our ways. They are
+used to have things so different. They think differently, and they talk
+differently. Even with your sense, Phoebe, you will find it hard to get
+on."
+
+"I am not at all afraid, I assure you, mamma."
+
+"You are not afraid, because you don't know. I know, and I am afraid.
+You know, we are not great people, Phoebe. I have always let you know
+that--and that it is far finer to elevate yourself than to be born to a
+good position. But when you see really the place which poor dear
+grandpapa and grandmamma think so much of, I am sure I don't know what
+you will say."
+
+"I shall not say much. I shall not say anything, mamma. I am not
+prejudiced," said Phoebe. "So long as an occupation is honest and
+honourable, and you can do your duty in it, what does it matter? One
+kind of work is just as good as another. It is the spirit in which it is
+done."
+
+"Oh, honest!" said Mrs. Beecham, half relieved, half affronted. "Of
+course, it was all that. Nothing else would have answered papa. Your
+uncle Tom has the--business now. You need not go there, my dear, unless
+you like. I am not fond of Mrs. Tom. We were always, so to speak, above
+our station; but she is not at all above it. She is just adapted for it;
+and I don't think she would suit you in the least. So except just for a
+formal call, I don't think you need go there, and even that only if
+grandmamma can spare you. You must be civil to everybody, I suppose; but
+you need not go further; they are not society for you. You will hear
+people talk of me by my Christian name, as if we were most intimate; but
+don't believe it, Phoebe. I always felt aspirations towards a very
+different kind of life."
+
+"Oh, don't be afraid, mamma," said Phoebe, calmly; "I shall be able to
+keep them at a distance. You need not fear."
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the anxious mother; "but not too much at a distance
+either. That is just what is so difficult. If they can find an excuse
+for saying that my child is stuck up! Oh! nothing would please them more
+than to be able to find out something against my child. When you have
+apparently belonged to that low level, and then have risen," said Mrs.
+Beecham, with a hot colour on her cheek, "there is nothing these kind of
+people will not say."
+
+These conversations raised a great deal of thought in Phoebe's mind; but
+they did not change her resolution. If it was necessary that some one
+should go to look after her grandmamma, and keep all those vulgar people
+at bay, and show to the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's
+daughter could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as
+herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain tragical sense
+of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what
+she would have to "put up with," as of something much more solemn than
+the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome. Phoebe felt
+herself something like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes and made
+her preparations. She was going among barbarians, a set of people who
+would not understand her, probably, and whom she would have to "put up
+with." But what of that? Strong in a sense of duty, and superior to all
+lesser inducements, she felt herself able to triumph. Mrs. Beecham
+assisted with very divided feelings at the preparations. It was on her
+lips to say, "Never mind the evening dresses; you will not want them."
+But then the thought occurred to her that to let the Carlingford folks
+see what her daughter had been used to, even if she had no use for such
+things, would be sweet.
+
+"No, Henery; she shall take them all," she said to her husband. "They
+shall see the kind of society my child is in; very different from their
+trumpery little teas! They shall see that you and I, we grudge nothing
+for Phoebe--and I dare be sworn there is not one of them like her, not
+even among the quality! I mean," said Mrs. Beecham, hastily, with a
+flush of distress at her own failure in gentility, "among those who
+think themselves better than we are. But Phoebe will let them see what a
+pastor's family is out of their dirty little town. She will bring them
+to their senses. Though I hesitated at first when it was spoken of, I am
+very glad now."
+
+"Yes; Phoebe is a girl to find her level anywhere," said the pastor,
+complacently. And they forgot what she would have to put up with in
+their satisfaction and admiration for herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A MORNING CALL.
+
+
+Sir Robert Dorset and his daughter called, as in duty bound, upon their
+relation two days after her ball. "You had better come with us, Ursula,"
+said Miss Dorset. "Sophy does not care about visits, and Mrs. Copperhead
+asked a great many questions about you. She is very tender-hearted to
+the ---- young." Anne had almost said to the poor, for it is difficult
+to remember always that the qualifications by which we distinguish our
+friends when they are not present, are not always satisfactory to their
+own ears. "She was like you once, you know," she added, half
+apologetically. Ursula, who was not in the least disposed to take
+offence, did not ask how, but assented, as she would have assented had
+Cousin Anne told her to get ready to go to the moon. She went upstairs
+and put on her little felt hat, which had been made handsome by the long
+drooping feather bestowed upon her by Sophy, and the blue serge jacket
+which corresponded with her dress. She had not any great opinion of her
+own good looks, but she hoped that she was "lady-like," notwithstanding
+the simplicity of her costume. This was her only aspiration. In her
+heart she admired the tall straight angular kind of beauty possessed by
+her cousins, and did not think much of her own roundness and softness,
+which seemed to Ursula a very inferior "style;" but yet if she looked
+lady-like that was always something, and both Sir Robert and his
+daughter looked at her approvingly as she stood buttoning her gloves,
+waiting for them.
+
+"If there are other city gentlemen there mind you make yourself very
+agreeable, Ursula," said Cousin Sophy, which vexed the girl a little.
+Whether the people were city gentlemen or not, of course, she said to
+herself, she would try to be _nice_--was not that a girl's first duty?
+She tried for her part to be _nice_ to everybody, to talk when she
+could, and receive the recompense of pleased looks. To walk with her
+friends up the long line of Regent Street, with many a sidelong glance
+into the shop-windows, was very pleasant to Ursula. Sometimes even
+Cousin Anne would be tempted to stop and look, and point things out to
+her father. Unfortunately, the things Miss Dorset remarked were chiefly
+handsome pieces of furniture, beautiful carpets, and the like, which
+were totally out of Ursula's way.
+
+"There is just the kind of carpet I want for the drawing-room," Anne
+said, looking at something so splendid that Ursula thought it was good
+enough for the Queen. But Sir Robert shook his head.
+
+"The drawing-room carpet will do very well," he said. "It will last out
+my day, and your brother will prefer to please himself."
+
+This brought a little cloud upon Anne Dorset's placid face, for she too,
+like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was not agreeable to think
+of as mistress in the old house. She went on quickly after that looking
+in at no more shops. Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as
+Ursula thought) had on the whole more painful feelings in looking at
+them, than had the little girl beside her, whose whole thoughts were
+occupied by the question whether she would have enough money left to buy
+her sister Janey one of those new neckties which were "the fashion."
+Janey did not often get anything that was the fashion. But at any rate
+Ursula made notes and laid up a great many things in her mind to tell
+Janey of--which would be next best.
+
+Mrs. Copperhead was seated in a corner of her vast drawing-room when her
+visitors arrived, and her pale little countenance brightened at sight of
+them. They were the nearest approach to "her own people" that the poor
+soul possessed. She received their compliments upon her ball with
+deprecating looks.
+
+"I am sure you are very good--very good to say so. I am afraid it was
+not much amusement to you. They were not the kind of people--"
+
+"I scarcely knew a soul," said Sir Robert; "it was a curious sensation.
+It does one good now and then to have a sensation like that. It shows
+you that after all you are not such a fine fellow as you thought
+yourself. Once before I experienced something of the same feeling. It
+was at a ball at the Tuileries--but even then, after a while, I found
+English people I knew, though I didn't know the French grandees; but, by
+Jove! except yourself and Mr. Copperhead, Clara, I knew nobody here."
+
+Mrs. Copperhead felt the implied censure more than she was intended to
+feel it.
+
+"Mr. Copperhead does not care about cultivating fashionable people," she
+said, with a little spirit. "He prefers his old friends."
+
+"That is very nice of him," cried Anne, "so much the kindest way. I
+liked it so much. At most balls we go to, people come and ask me to
+dance for duty, pretending not to see that my dancing days are over."
+
+"She talks nonsense," said Sir Robert. "Clara, I must trust to you to
+put this notion out of Anne's head. Why should her dancing days be over?
+I am not a Methuselah, I hope. She has no right to shelve herself so
+early, has she? I hope to see her make a good match before I die."
+
+"So long as she is happy--" said Mrs. Copperhead, faltering. She was not
+any advocate for good matches. "Oh, there is Mr. Copperhead!" she added,
+with a little start, as a resounding knock was heard. "He does not often
+come home so early; he will be very glad to see you, Sir Robert. Are you
+going to stay long in town, Miss May?"
+
+"Not long, only till the children arrive," said Anne, looking
+compassionately at the rich man's nervous wife. She had been quiet
+enough, so long as she was alone. Now a little fever seemed to be
+awakened in her. She turned to Ursula and began to talk to her quickly--
+
+"Do you like being in town? It is not a good time of the year. It is
+nicer in May, when everything looks cheerful; but I always live in
+London. You will come back for the season, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh no," said Ursula. "I never was in London before. Cousin Anne brought
+me for a great pleasure. I have been twice to the theatre, and at the
+ball here."
+
+"Oh yes, I forgot, you were at the ball--and you danced, did you dance?
+I cannot remember. There were so many people. Oh yes, I recollect. I
+spoke to Clarence--"
+
+"I danced three times," said Ursula. "I never was at a ball before. It
+was very nice. Mr. Copperhead was so kind--"
+
+"What is that about Mr. Copperhead being kind? Was I kind? I am always
+kind--ask my wife, she will give me a good character," said the master
+of the house, coming up to them. "Ah, the Baronet! how do you do, Sir
+Robert? I don't often see you in my house."
+
+"You saw us the other evening," said Sir Robert, courteously, "and we
+have just come, Anne and I, to let Clara know how much we enjoyed
+it. It was really splendid. I don't know when I have seen so
+much--um--luxury--so great a display of--of--beautiful things--and--and
+wealth."
+
+"Glad to hear you were pleased," said Mr. Copperhead, "no expense was
+spared at least. I don't often throw away my money in that way, but when
+I do I like things to be regardless of expense. That is our way in the
+city; other people have to make a deal of gentility go a long way, but
+with us, who don't stand on our gentility--"
+
+"It is not much to stand upon, certainly, in the way of giving balls,"
+said Sir Robert. "I quite agree with you that money should not be spared
+when a good effect is to be produced. Anne, my dear, if you have said
+all you have to say to Clara, you must recollect that we have a great
+deal to do--"
+
+"You are not going the moment I come in," said Mr. Copperhead. "Come, we
+must have some tea or something. Not that I care very much for tea, but
+I suppose you'll be shocked if I offer you anything else in the
+afternoon. Haven't you ordered tea, Mrs. Copperhead? I can't teach my
+wife hospitality, Sir Robert--not as I understand it. She'd see you come
+and go a dozen times, I'll be bound, without once thinking of offering
+anything. That ain't my way. Tea! and directly, do you hear."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Copperhead, in a nervous tremor; "bring tea, Burton,
+please. It is rather early, but I do so hope you will stay." She gave
+Miss Dorset an appealing glance, and Anne was too kind to resist the
+appeal.
+
+"To be sure they'll stay," said Mr. Copperhead. "Ladies never say no to
+a cup of tea, and ours ought to be good if there's any virtue in money.
+Come and look at my Turner, Sir Robert. I ain't a judge of art, but it
+cost a precious lot, if that is any test. They tell me it's one of the
+best specimens going. Come this way."
+
+"You won't mind?" said poor Mrs. Copperhead. "He is very hospitable, he
+cannot bear that any one should go without taking something. It is
+old-fashioned, but then Mr. Copperhead--"
+
+"It is a most kind fashion, I think," said Anne Dorset, who had a
+superstitious regard for other people's feelings, "and Mr. Copperhead is
+quite right, I never say no to a cup of tea."
+
+Just then Clarence came in with his hands in his pockets, so curiously
+like his father in his large somewhat loose figure, as unlike him in
+aspect and expression, that even the gentle Anne could scarcely help
+smiling. When he had shaken hands with Miss Dorset he dropped naturally
+into a seat beside Ursula, who, dazzled by his position as son of the
+house, and flattered by what she called his "kindness," was as much
+pleased by this sign of preference as if Clarence Copperhead had been a
+hero.
+
+"I hope you have recovered my father's ball," he said.
+
+"Recovered! Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Yes, you think it uncivil; but I myself have scarcely recovered yet.
+The sort of people he chose to collect--people whom nobody knew."
+
+"But, Mr. Copperhead," said Ursula, "if it was his old friends, as your
+mother says, how much more noble of him than if they had been fine
+people he did not care for! As for me, I don't know any one anywhere. It
+was all the same to me."
+
+"That was very lucky for you," said the young man. "My good cousins did
+not take it so easily. They are your cousins, too?"
+
+"Oh, yes--they are so good," cried Ursula. "Cousin Sophy laughs at me
+sometimes, but Cousin Anne is as kind as an angel. They have always been
+good to us all our lives."
+
+"You live near them, perhaps? Sir Robert has been kind enough to ask me
+to the Hall."
+
+"No, not near. We live at Carlingford. It is not a place like the
+Dorsets'; it is a poor little town where papa is one of the clergymen.
+We are not county people like them," said Ursula, with anxious honesty,
+that he might not have a false idea of her pretensions. "I have never
+been anywhere all my life, and that is why they brought me here. It was
+by far the most beautiful party I ever saw," she added, with a little
+enthusiasm. "I never was at a real dance before."
+
+"I am glad you thought it pretty," said Clarence. "I suppose it was
+pretty; when the rooms are nice," and he looked round the handsome room,
+not without a little complacency, "and when there is plenty of light and
+flowers, and well-dressed people, I suppose no dance can help being a
+pretty sight. That was about all. There was no one worth pointing out."
+
+"Oh, there were some very pretty people," said Ursula; "there was a
+young lady in black. She was always dancing. I should have liked to know
+her. You danced with her a great many times, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Ah!" said Clarence. He was not more foolish than his neighbours, but it
+flattered him that his dancing with one person should have been noticed,
+especially by a pretty creature, who herself had attracted him and
+shared the privilege. "That was Miss Beecham. I did not dance with her
+above three or four times. Of course," he said, apologetically, "we are
+old friends."
+
+Ursula did not know why he should apologize. She did not intend to
+flirt, not having any knowledge of that pastime as yet. She was quite
+simple in her mention of the other girl, who had attracted her
+attention. Now having said all she could remember to say, she stopped
+talking, and her eyes turned to the elder Mr. Copperhead, who came back,
+followed by Sir Robert. There was a largeness about the rich man, which
+Ursula, not used to rich men, gazed at with surprise. He seemed to
+expand himself upon the air, and spread out his large person, as she had
+never known any one else do. And Sir Robert, following him, looked so
+strangely different. He was very reluctant to be so led about, and, as
+it were, patronized by the master of the house, and his repugnance took
+a curious form. His nose was slightly drawn up, as if an odour of
+something disagreeable had reached him. Ursula, in her innocence,
+wondered what it was.
+
+"Here's the Baronet, Clarence," said Mr. Copperhead, who was slightly
+flushed; "and he doubts the Turner being genuine. My Turner! Go off at
+once to those picture people, Christie, whatever you call them, and tell
+them I want proofs that it's genuine. I am not the sort of man, by
+George! to be cheated, and they ought to know that. They have had many a
+hundred pounds of my money, but they shall never have another penny if I
+don't get proofs. It ain't pleasant, I can tell you, to hear the
+Baronet, or any one else for that matter, running down my pictures."
+
+"I did not run it down," said Sir Robert, with another little curl of
+his nostrils. (What could there be in this grand big house that could
+make a disagreeable smell?) "I only said that I had seen copies that
+were so wonderfully good that none but an expert could tell the
+difference; that was all. I don't say that yours is one of them."
+
+"No; nor no one shall!" cried Mr. Copperhead. "We shall have the
+experts, as you call them, and settle it. By George! there shall be
+nothing uncertain in my house. You can tell the men it is Sir Robert
+Dorset who suggested it. There's nothing like a title (even when it
+isn't much of a title) to keep people up to their work. Not meaning any
+disrespect to Sir Robert, I could buy him and his up five times over.
+But I ain't Sir Robert, and never will be. Say Sir Robert, Clarence, my
+boy; that'll bear weight."
+
+"It was an unfortunate observation on my part," said Sir Robert,
+stiffly. "I have a picture myself, which I bought for a Correggio, and
+which is a mere copy, I believe, though a very nice one. I hold my
+tongue on the subject, and nobody is the wiser. Anne, my dear, I think
+we must go now."
+
+"That would never suit me," said the rich man; "holding my tongue ain't
+my way, is it, Mrs. Copperhead? What! going, after all, without your
+tea? I am afraid, ma'am, the Baronet is touchy, and doesn't like what I
+said. But nobody minds me, I assure you. I say what I think, but I don't
+mean any harm."
+
+"Oh, no," said Anne, drawing herself up, while her father took leave of
+poor little tremulous Mrs. Copperhead. "We really must go; we have
+stayed longer than we meant to stay. Ursula--"
+
+"Your little companion?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Ah; you should take care,
+Miss Dorset, of these little persons. They stand in the way of the young
+ladies themselves often enough, I can tell you. And so can Mrs.
+Copperhead; she knows."
+
+He laughed, and both Anne and Ursula became aware that something
+offensive was meant; but what it was, neither of them could make out.
+Mrs. Copperhead, whose intelligence had been quickened on that point,
+perceived it, and trembled more and more.
+
+"Good-bye, dear," she said to Ursula in an agony. "Though we are not
+cousins, we are connections, through your kind Cousin Anne; for she lets
+me call her my Cousin Anne too. Perhaps you will come and pay me a visit
+sometimes, if--if you can be spared."
+
+"Oh, yes; I should be very glad," said Ursula, confused.
+
+She did not understand why Sir Robert should be in such a hurry, when
+both young Mr. Copperhead and his mother were so kind. As for the other
+Mr. Copperhead, he did not interest Ursula. But he went down to the door
+with them in an excess of civility, offering Anne his arm, which she was
+obliged to take, much against her will; and even Ursula felt a passing
+pang of humiliation when the footman threw open the great door before
+them, and no carriage was visible.
+
+"Oh, you are walking!" said Mr. Copperhead, with one of his big laughs.
+
+After all, a laugh could hurt nobody. Why was it that they all felt
+irritated and injured? Even Sir Robert grew scarlet, and when they were
+outside on the broad pavement turned almost angrily upon his daughter.
+
+"I tell you what, Anne," he said; "not if it was to save my life, shall
+I ever enter that brute's doors again."
+
+"Oh, papa; poor Mrs. Copperhead!" cried kind Anne, with a wail in her
+voice. That was all the reply she made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SHOPPING.
+
+
+Next day a telegram came from Southampton, announcing the arrival of the
+little Dorsets, which Ursula rejoiced over with the rest, yet was
+dreadfully sorry for in her heart. "Now we shall be able to get home,"
+the sisters said, and she did her best to smile; but to say that she was
+glad to leave London, with all its delights, the bright streets and the
+shop-windows, and the theatres, and the excitement of being "on a
+visit," would be a great deal more than the truth. She was glad,
+sympathetically, and to please the others; but for herself, her heart
+fell. It was still winter, and winter is not lively in Carlingford; and
+there was a great deal to do at home, and many things "to put up with."
+To be sure, that was her duty, this was only her pleasure; but at
+twenty, pleasure is so much more pleasant than duty. Ursula did not at
+all rebel, nor did she make painful contrasts in her mind, as so many
+young people do; asking why are others so well off, and I so badly off?
+but her heart sank. All the mendings, all the keepings in order, the
+dinners to be invented with a due regard for the butcher's bill, the
+tradespeople to be kept in good humour, the servant to be managed, and
+papa, who was more difficult than the servant, and more troublesome than
+the children! If Ursula sighed over the prospect, I don't think the
+severest of recording angels would put a very bad mark against her. She
+had been free of all this for ten wonderful days. No torn frocks, no
+unpleasant baker, no hole in the carpet, no spoiled mutton-chops, had
+disturbed her repose. All these troubles, no doubt, were going on as
+usual at home, and Janey and the maid were struggling with them as best
+they could. Had Ursula been very high-minded and given up to her duty,
+no doubt she would have been too much moved by the thought of what her
+young sister might be enduring in her absence, to get the good of her
+holiday; but I fear this was not how she felt it. Janey, no doubt, would
+get through somehow; and it was very sweet to escape for ever so short a
+time, and have a real rest. Therefore, it must be allowed that, when
+Ursula went to her bed-room after this news arrived, she relieved
+herself by "a good cry." Two or three days longer, what difference could
+that have made to those children? But after her headache was relieved in
+this way, the cloud dispersed a little. The thought of all she had to
+tell Janey consoled her. She counted over the spare contents of her
+purse, and calculated that, after all, she would have enough to buy the
+necktie; and she had all her presents to exhibit; the ball-dress, that
+unhoped-for acquisition; the Venetian beads; the bracelet, "Which is
+really good--_good_ gold; fancy!" said Ursula to herself, weighing it in
+her hand. How Janey would be interested, how she would be dazzled! There
+was a great deal of consolation in this thought. In the afternoon her
+cousins took her out "shopping," an occupation which all young girls and
+women like. They bought a great many things "for the spring," and "for
+the children," while Ursula looked on with admiration. To be able to buy
+things three months in advance, three months before they could possibly
+be wanted, what luxury! and yet the Dorsets were not rich, or so, at
+least, people said.
+
+"Now, Ursula," said Cousin Anne, "we have made all our purchases.
+Suppose you choose frocks for the children at home."
+
+"Oh, me?" cried poor Ursula, forgetting grammar. She blushed very red,
+and looked, not without indignation, into Anne Dorset's mild eyes. "You
+know I have not any money; you know we can't afford it!" she cried, with
+starting tears.
+
+"But I can," said Cousin Anne; "at least, I have some money just now.
+Money always goes, whether one buys things or not," she added, with a
+little sigh. "It runs through one's fingers. When one has something to
+show for it, that is always a satisfaction. Come, this would be pretty
+for little Amy; but it is you who must choose."
+
+"But, Cousin Anne! Dresses! If it was a necktie or a ribbon; but
+frocks--"
+
+"Frocks would be most useful, wouldn't they? One for Amy, and one for
+Janey. I suppose Robin does not wear frocks now?"
+
+"He has been in knickerbockers these two years," said Ursula, half
+proud, half sorry; "and the worst of it is, they can't be made at home.
+Papa says, boys' clothes made at home are always spoiled, and the tailor
+is so dear. Oh, Cousin Anne, are you really, really going to be so very,
+very good--!"
+
+Mrs. Copperhead came into the shop while they were choosing. Poor little
+woman! she who trembled so in her own house, how everybody bowed down
+before her at Messrs. Margrove and Snelcher's! It was all she could do
+to extricate herself from a crowd of anxious officials, all eager to
+supply her with everything that heart could desire, when she saw the
+little party. She came up to them, almost running in her eagerness, her
+small pale face flushed, and leaned on Anne Dorset's chair and whispered
+to her.
+
+"You will not be angry, dear kind Anne. You are always so good to
+everybody. Oh, forgive me! forgive me!"
+
+Ursula could not help hearing what she said.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive _you_, Mrs. Copperhead."
+
+"Oh, dear Anne! But I am more than myself, you know! He does not mean
+it; he never was brought up to know better. He thinks that is how people
+behave--"
+
+"Please don't say anything, dear Mrs. Copperhead."
+
+"Not if you will forgive--not if you will promise to forgive. Poor
+Clarence is heart-broken!" cried the poor woman. "He is so frightened
+for what you must think."
+
+"We don't think anything," said Sophy, breaking in; "it is one of our
+good qualities as a family that we never think. Come and help us; we are
+choosing frocks for Ursula's sisters. She has two. What are their ages,
+Ursula? You, who live in town, and know the fashions, come and help us
+to choose."
+
+And how respectful all the shopmen grew when the nameless country party
+was joined by the great Mrs. Copperhead--or rather the great Mr.
+Copperhead's wife, at whose command was unlimited credit, and all the
+contents of the shop if she chose. One hurried forward to give her a
+chair, and quite a grand personage, a "head man," came from another
+counter to take the charge of pleasing such a customer. Ursula could not
+but look upon the whole transaction with awe. Mrs. Copperhead was a very
+humble, timid woman, and Mr. Copperhead was not nice; but it was
+something to command the reverence of all the people in such a grand
+shop--a shop which Ursula by herself would scarcely have ventured to
+enter, and in which she felt timid and overwhelmed, saying, "Sir" to the
+gentleman who was so good as to ask what she wanted. But here Mrs.
+Copperhead was not afraid. She gave herself up with her whole heart to
+the delightful perplexity of choice, and when that matter was settled,
+looked round with searching eyes.
+
+"Don't they want something else?" she said, "it is so long since I have
+bought any children's things. It reminds me of the days when Clarence
+was little, when I took such pride in his dress. Come with me into the
+cloak room, my dear, I am sure they must want jackets or something."
+
+Ursula resisted with pitiful looks at Cousin Anne, and Sophy whispered
+into Mrs. Copperhead's ear an explanation, which, instead of quenching
+her ardour, brought it up instantly to boiling point. Her pale little
+languid countenance glowed and shone. She took both Ursula's hands in
+hers, half smiling, half crying.
+
+"Oh, my dear," she said, "you can give me such a pleasure, if you will!
+You know we are connections, almost relations. Let me send them
+something. Dear children, I wish I could see them. Come and look at the
+little jackets and mantles. I have often thought, if Providence had
+given me a little girl, what pleasure I should have had in dressing her.
+Hats too! I am sure they must want hats. Come, my dear, come and look at
+them." Ursula did not know what to do. A little pride and a great deal
+of shyness kept her back, but Mrs. Copperhead was too much in earnest to
+be crossed. She bought a couple of very smart little upper garments for
+Amy and Janey, and then, clandestinely taking no one into her
+confidence, for Ursula herself, and gave secret orders to have them all
+sent to the Dorsets' lodgings that night. She was quite transformed so
+long as this transaction lasted. Her languid countenance grew bright,
+her pale eyes lighted up.
+
+"You have given me such a pleasure," she said, holding Ursula's hands,
+and standing up on tip-toe to kiss her. "I am so much obliged to you. I
+could almost think that Clarence was little again, or that he had got a
+little sister, which was always my heart's desire. Ah, well! often,
+often, it seems better for us not to have our heart's desire, my dear;
+at least I suppose that is how it must be."
+
+"I do not know how to thank you," said Ursula, "you have been so
+kind--so very kind."
+
+"I have been kind to myself," said Mrs. Copperhead, "I have so enjoyed
+it; and, my dear," she added, with some solemnity, still holding Ursula
+by the hands, "promise you will do me one favour more. It will be such a
+favour. Whenever you want anything for yourself or your sister will you
+write to me? I am always in London except in autumn, and I should so
+like to do your commissions. People who live in London know how to get
+bargains, my dear. You must promise to let me do them for you. It will
+make me so happy. Promise!" cried the little woman, quite bright in her
+excitement. Ursula looked at the two others who were looking on, and did
+not know what to say.
+
+"She thinks you are too expensive an agent for her," said Sophy Dorset,
+"and I think so too."
+
+Mrs. Copperhead's face faded out of its pleasant glow.
+
+"There are two things I have a great deal too much of," she said, "money
+and time. I am never so happy as when I am buying things for children,
+and I can see that she will trust me--won't you, my dear? Must we say
+good-bye now? Couldn't I take you anywhere? Look at that big carriage,
+all for me alone, a little light woman. Let me take you somewhere. No!
+Ah, Cousin Anne, you have not forgiven us for all you said."
+
+"We have some other things to do," said Anne, drawing back. As for
+Ursula, she would not at all have objected to the splendour of the
+carriage. And her heart was melted by the lonely little woman's pathetic
+looks. But the other ladies stood out. They stood by while poor Mrs.
+Copperhead got into the carriage and drove off, her pale reproachful
+little face looking at them wistfully from the window. It was afternoon
+by this time, getting dark, and it was a tolerably long walk along the
+lighted, crowded streets.
+
+"Cousin Anne, I am afraid we have hurt her feelings," said Ursula; "why
+wouldn't you go?"
+
+"Go!" cried mild Anne Dorset; "get into that man's carriage after
+yesterday? Not for the world! I can put up with a great deal, but I
+can't go so far as that."
+
+"She never did any harm," said Sophy, "poor little soul! You see now,
+Ursula, don't you, how fine it is to marry a rich man, and have
+everything that your heart can desire?"
+
+Ursula looked at her wondering. To tell the truth, Mrs. Copperhead's
+eagerness to buy everything she could think of for the unknown children
+at Carlingford, the manner with which she was regarded in the great
+shop, her lavish liberality, her beautiful carriage, and all the fine
+things about her, had brought Ursula to this very thought, that it was
+extremely fine to marry a rich man. Sophy's irony was lost upon her
+simple-minded cousin, and so indeed was Mrs. Copperhead's pathos. That
+she was very kind, and that she was not very happy, were both apparent,
+but Ursula did not connect the unhappiness with the fact that she was a
+rich man's wife. Mr. Copperhead certainly was not very _nice_; but when
+people got so old as that, they never were very happy, Ursula thought,
+and what had the money to do with it? She looked confused and puzzled at
+Sophy, wondering what she meant. Yes, indeed, to marry a rich man, to be
+able to buy presents for everyone, to make the children at home
+perfectly happy without any trouble to one's self! Could any one doubt
+that it was very nice? Alas! Ursula did not think it at all likely that
+this would ever be in her power.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Copperhead!" said Anne, as they made their way along the
+crowded street, where it was difficult for them to walk together, much
+less to maintain any conversation. And presently Ursula, keeping as
+close as possible to her cousin's side, but compelled to make way
+continually for other passers-by, lost herself in a maze of fancies, to
+which the misty afternoon atmosphere, and the twinkling lights, and the
+quickly passing crowds lent a confused but not unpleasing background.
+She was glad that the noise made all talk impossible, and that she could
+dream on quietly as they glided and pressed their way through the
+current of people in Oxford Street and Regent Street, as undisturbed as
+if she had been shut up in her own room--nay, more so--for the external
+sights and sounds which flitted vaguely by her, disguised those dreams
+even from herself. Mrs. Copperhead had once been poorer than she was, a
+poor little governess. What if somewhere about, in some beautiful house,
+with just such a carriage at the door, a beautiful young hero should be
+waiting who would give all those dazzling delights to Ursula? Then what
+frocks she would buy, what toys, what ornaments! She would not stop at
+the girls, but drive to the best tailor's boldly, and bid him send down
+some one to take Johnnie's measure, and Robin's, and even Reginald's;
+and then she would go to the toy-shop, and to the bookseller, and I
+can't tell where besides; and finally drive down in the fairy chariot
+laden with everything that was delightful, to the very door. She would
+not go in any vulgar railway. She would keep everything in her own
+possession, and give each present with her own hands--a crowning delight
+which was impossible to Mrs. Copperhead--and how clearly she seemed to
+see herself drawing up, with panting horses, high-stepping and splendid,
+to the dull door of the poor parsonage, where scarcely anything better
+than a pony-carriage ever came! How the children would rush to the
+window, and "even papa," out of his study; and what a commotion would
+run through Grange Lane, and even up into the High Street, where the
+butcher and the baker would remember with a shiver how saucy they had
+sometimes been--when they saw what a great lady she was.
+
+A dreamy smile hovered upon Ursula's face as she saw all the little
+scenes of this little drama, mixed up with gleams of the shop-windows,
+and noises of the streets, and great ghosts of passing omnibuses, and
+horses steaming in the frosty air. How many girls, like her, go dreaming
+about the prosaic streets? It was not, perhaps, a very elevated or
+heroic dream, but the visionary chariot full of fine things for the
+children, was better than Cinderella's pumpkin carriage, or many another
+chariot of romance. Her cousins, who were so much her elders, and who
+shuddered in their very souls at the thought of poor Mrs. Copperhead,
+and who were talking earnestly about the children they expected next
+morning, and what was to be done with them, had no clue to Ursula's
+thoughts. They did not think much of them, one way or another, but took
+great care not to lose her from their side, and that she should not be
+frightened by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And
+they were very glad to get back to the comparative quiet of Suffolk
+Street, and to take off their bonnets and take their cup of tea. But
+Ursula, for her part, was sorry when the walk was over. She had enjoyed
+it so much. It was half Regent Street and half Carlingford, with the
+pleasure of both mixed up together; and she was half little Ursula May
+with her head in the air, and half that very great lady in the
+dream-chariot, who had it in her power to make everybody so happy.
+Between poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened
+little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and
+money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so much to do,
+what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which fancy could bridge over so
+easily. But the dream was broken when she got indoors; not even the
+quiet of her own little room could bring back in all their glory the
+disturbed images that had floated before her in the street.
+
+This was Ursula's last day in town, and there can be no doubt that it
+was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy's suggestion, to put a great
+many ideas into her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE DORSETS.
+
+
+Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering
+babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of
+the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though
+they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindostanee, which
+had brought them "home" at this inhospitable time of the year; and to
+get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the
+anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture
+of emotions, anxious to be "very fond" of them, yet feeling difficulties
+in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with
+big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour.
+They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange
+faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not
+understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little
+heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their
+new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily
+conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The
+obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts to win
+their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and
+poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so
+strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness,
+and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her
+still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand
+could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power
+on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they
+were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which
+stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself,
+had made up her mind to "take no notice of the little wretches."
+
+"Fancy!" she said; "shrinking at Anne--Anne, of all people in the world!
+There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little
+disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are
+John's children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must
+be like their mother. I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to
+love."
+
+"Oh, much, Sophy," said Anne, drying her eyes; "they are our own flesh
+and blood."
+
+"I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and blood; at least,
+they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her,
+can I?--whom I never saw?"
+
+The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.
+
+"I hope they will get to like us," she said. "Poor little darlings!
+everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don't wonder that
+they are frightened, and cry when any one comes near them. We must trust
+to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them--"
+
+"I am going to help little Ursula with her packing," said Sophy hastily;
+and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was in disorder, and threw
+herself down in a chair by the fire, "Anne is too good to live," she
+cried. "She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things
+like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and
+clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre--_Anne!_ why, a
+little dog knows better--as I said before."
+
+"I don't think they are very pretty children," said Ursula, not knowing
+how to reply.
+
+"Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?" said Sophy, who was
+relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. "The whole
+question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image
+that does not know you, that can't respond to you, and won't perhaps
+when it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing
+like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people it
+belongs to like it by instinct--but the rest of the world--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy!" cried Ursula, her eyes round with alarm and horror.
+
+"You think I ought to be fond of them because they are my brother's
+children? We are not always very fond even of our brothers, Ursula.
+Don't scream; at your age it is different; but when they marry and have
+separate interests--if these mites go on looking at me with those big
+scared eyes as if they expected me to box their ears, I shall do it some
+day--I know I shall; instead of going on my knees to them, like Anne,
+to curry favour. If they had been like our family, why, that would have
+been some attraction. Are you pleased to go home, or would you prefer to
+stay here?"
+
+"In London?" said Ursula, with a long-drawn breath, her hands
+involuntarily clasping each other. "Oh! I hope you won't think me very
+silly, but I do like London. Yes, I am pleased--I have so many presents
+to take to them, thanks to you and to Cousin Anne, and to Mrs.
+Copperhead. I am ashamed to be carrying away so much. But Carlingford is
+not like London," she added, with a sigh.
+
+"No, it is a pretty soft friendly country place, not a great
+cold-hearted wilderness."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy!"
+
+"My poor little innocent girl! Don't you think it is desolate and
+cold-hearted, this great sea of people who none of them care one straw
+for you?"
+
+"I have seen nothing but kindness," said Ursula, with a little heat of
+virtuous indignation; "there is you, and Mrs. Copperhead; and even the
+gentlemen were kind--or at least they meant to be kind."
+
+"The gentlemen?" said Sophy, amused. "Do you mean the Copperheads?
+Clarence perhaps? He is coming to Easton, Ursula. Shall I bring him into
+Carlingford to see you?"
+
+"If you please, Cousin Sophy," said the girl, simply. She had not been
+thinking any thoughts of "the gentlemen" which could make her blush, but
+somehow her cousin's tone jarred upon her, and she turned round to her
+packing. The room was littered with the things which she was putting
+into her box, that box which had grown a great deal too small now,
+though it was quite roomy enough when Ursula left home.
+
+"Ursula, I think you are a good little thing on the whole--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy, forgive me! No, I am not good."
+
+"Forgive you! for what? Yes, you are on the whole a good little thing;
+not a saint, like Anne; but then you have perhaps more to try your
+temper. We were always very obedient to her, though we worried her, and
+papa always believed in her with all his heart. Perhaps you have more to
+put up with. But, my dear, think of poor Mrs. Copperhead, for example--"
+
+"Why do you always call her poor Mrs. Copperhead? she is very rich. She
+can make other people happy when she pleases. She has a beautiful house,
+and everything--"
+
+"And a bear, a brute of a husband."
+
+"Ah! Does she mind very much?" asked Ursula, with composure. This
+drawback seemed to her insignificant, in comparison with Mrs.
+Copperhead's greatness. It was only Sophy's laugh that brought her to
+herself. She said with some haste, putting in her dresses, with her back
+turned, "I do not mean to say anything silly. When people are as old as
+she is, do they mind? It cannot matter so much what happens when you are
+old."
+
+"Why? but never mind, the theory is as good as many others," said Sophy.
+"You would not mind then marrying a man like that, to have everything
+that your heart could desire?"
+
+"Cousin Sophy, I am not going to--marry any one," said Ursula, loftily,
+carrying her head erect. "I hope I am not like that, thinking of such
+things. I am very, very sorry that you should have such an opinion of
+me, after living together ten days."
+
+She turned away with all the forlorn pride of injury, and there were
+tears in her voice. Sophy, who dared not laugh in reply, to make the
+young heroine more angry, hastened to apologize.
+
+"It was a silly question," she said. "I have a very good opinion of you,
+Ursula. Ten days is a long time, and I know you as if we had been
+together all your life. I am sure you do not think anything a nice girl
+ought not to think; but I hope you will never be deceived and persuaded
+to marry any one who is like Mr. Copperhead. I mean who is not nice and
+young, and good, like yourself."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried the girl, with energy. "But most likely I shall not
+marry any one," she added, with a half sigh; "Janey may, but the eldest
+has so much to do, and so much to think of. Cousin Anne has never
+married."
+
+"Nor Cousin Sophy either." Sophy's laugh sounded hard to the girl.
+"Never mind, you will not be like us. You will marry, most likely, a
+clergyman, in a pretty parsonage in the country."
+
+"I do not think I am very fond of clergymen," said Ursula, recovering
+her ease and composure. "They are always in and about, and everything
+has to be kept so quiet when they are studying; and then the parish
+people are always coming tramping upstairs with their dirty feet. When
+you have only one servant it is very, very troublesome. Sir Robert never
+gives any trouble," she said, once more, with a soft little sigh.
+
+"Papa?" said Sophy, somewhat surprised; "but you would not--" she was
+going to say, marry papa; but when she looked at Ursula's innocent
+gravity, her absolute unconsciousness of the meanings which her chance
+words might bear, she refrained. "I think I must send Seton to help
+you," she said, "you can not get through all that packing by yourself."
+
+"Oh yes, I am not tired. I have put in all my old things. The rest are
+your presents. Oh, Cousin Sophy!" said the girl, coming quickly to her
+and stealing two arms round her, "you have been so good to me! as if it
+was not enough to give me this holiday, the most delightful I ever had
+in my life--to send me home loaded with all these beautiful things! I
+shall never forget it, never, never, if I were to live a hundred years!"
+
+"My dear!" cried Sophy, startled by the sudden energy of this embrace.
+Sophy was not emotional, but her eyes moistened and her voice softened
+in spite of herself. "But you must let me send Seton to you," she said,
+hurrying away. She was excited by the day's events, and did not trust
+herself to make any further response; for if she "gave way" at all, who
+could tell how far the giving way might go? Her brother John had been
+married at the time when Sophy too ought to have been married, had all
+gone well--and, perhaps, some keen-piercing thought that she too might
+have had little children belonging to her, had given force and sharpness
+to her objections to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had
+shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed
+her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in
+the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature,
+and was resting in an easy chair, and pondering what she could do to
+make the children love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence of
+Mrs. John.
+
+"I have been talking to Ursula, who is always refreshing," said Sophy.
+"I wonder whom that child will marry. She gave me to understand, in her
+awkward, innocent way, that she preferred papa. A laugh does one good,"
+Sophy added, slightly rubbing her eyes. Anne made no immediate answer.
+She scarcely heard indeed what her sister said.
+
+"I think we shall get on after a while," she said, softly. "They said
+their prayers very prettily, poor darlings, and let me kiss them without
+crying. After a while we shall get on, I don't fear."
+
+"Anne!" cried Sophy, "you are too much for mere human nature: you are
+too bad or too good for anything. I begin to hate these little wretches
+when I hear you speak of them so."
+
+"Hush!" said Anne, "I know you don't mean it. Easton will be very
+strange to them at first. I could not go to India for my part. A crust
+of bread at home would be better. Think of parting with your children
+just when they come to an age to understand?"
+
+"John, I suppose, did not take children into consideration when he went
+away. You speak as if children were all one's life."
+
+"A great part of it," said Anne, gently. "No, dear, I am not clever like
+you, and perhaps it is what you will call a low view; but after all it
+runs through everything. The flowers are used for the seed, and
+everything in the world is intended to keep the world going. Yes, even
+I, that is the good of me. I shall never be a mother, but what does that
+matter? There are so many children left on the world whom somebody must
+bring up."
+
+"And who are brought to you when they need you, and taken from you when
+they need you no longer," said Sophy, indignantly; "you are left to bear
+the trouble--others have the recompense."
+
+"It is so in this world, my dear, all the way down, from God himself.
+Always looking for reward is mean and mercenary. When we do nothing,
+when we are of no use, what a poor thing life is," said Anne, with a
+little colour rising in her cheeks, "not worth having. I think we have
+only a right to our existence when we are doing something. And I have my
+wages; I like to be of a little consequence," she said, laughing.
+"Nobody is of any consequence who does not do something."
+
+"In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence than you."
+
+"So be it--I don't object," said Anne; "but I don't think so, for they
+have to be directed and guided. To be without a housemaid is dreadful.
+The moment you think of that, you see how important the people who work
+are; everything comes to a stand-still without Mary, whereas there are
+ladies whose absence would make no difference."
+
+"I, for instance."
+
+"You are very unkind to say so, Sophy; all the same, if you were to do
+more, you would be happier, my dear."
+
+"To do what? go on my knees to those wax dolls, and entreat them to let
+me pet them and make idols of them--as you will do?"
+
+"Well, how are you getting on now?" said Sir Robert, coming in. "Ah! I
+see, you have the window open; but the room is still very warm. When
+they get to Easton they will have their own rooms of course. I don't
+want to reflect upon John, but it is rather a burden this he has saddled
+us with. Mrs. John's mother is living, isn't she? I think something
+might have been _said_ at least, on her part, some offer to take her
+share."
+
+Sophy gave her sister a malicious glance, but promptly changed her tone,
+and took up her position in defence of the arrangement, with that ease
+which is natural in a family question.
+
+"Of course," she said, "your grandchildren, Dorsets, and the heir,
+probably, as Robert has no boy, could go nowhere, papa, but to us. It
+may be a bore, but at least John showed so much sense; for nothing else
+could be----"
+
+"John does not show very much sense in an ordinary way. What did he want
+with a wife and children at his age? The boy is five, isn't he? and the
+father only thirty--absurd! I did not marry till I was thirty, though I
+had succeeded before that time, and was the only son and the head of the
+family. John was always an ass," said Sir Robert, with a crossness which
+sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the room was higher
+than usual, and the habits of his evening interfered with. He was
+capable of sacrificing something of much more importance to his family,
+but scarcely of sacrificing his comfort, which is the last and most
+painful of efforts.
+
+"That may be very true," said Sophy, "but all the same, it is only right
+that the children should be with us. Mrs. John's people are not well
+off. Her mother has a large family of her own. The little things would
+have been spoiled, or they would have been neglected; and after all,
+they are Dorsets, though they are not like John."
+
+"Well, well, I suppose you are right," said Sir Robert, grumbling, "and,
+thank Heaven, to-morrow we shall be at home."
+
+Anne had scarcely said a word, though it was she who was most deeply
+concerned about the children. She gave her sister a hug when Sir Robert
+relapsed into the evening paper, and then stole upstairs to look at the
+poor babies as they lay asleep. She was not a mother, and never would
+be. People, indeed, called her an old maid, and with reason enough,
+though she was little over thirty; for had she been seventy, she could
+not have been more unlikely to marry. It was not her vocation. She had
+plenty to do in the world without that, and was satisfied with her life.
+The sad reflection that the children whom she tended were not her own,
+did not visit her mind, as, perhaps, it had visited Sophy's, making her
+angry through the very yearning of nature. Anne was of a different
+temperament, she said a little prayer softly in her heart for the
+children and for her sister as she stooped over the small beds. "God
+bless the children--and, oh, make my Sophy happy!" she said. She had
+never asked for nor thought of happiness to herself. It had come to her
+unconsciously, in her occupations, in her duties, as natural as the soft
+daylight, and as little sought after. But Sophy was different. Sophy
+wanted material for happiness--something to make her glad; she did not
+possess it, like her sister, in the quiet of her own heart. And from the
+children's room Anne went to Ursula's, where the girl, tired with her
+packing, was brushing her pretty hair out before she went to bed.
+Everything was ready, the drawers all empty, the box full to
+overflowing, and supplemented by a large parcel in brown paper; and what
+with the fatigue and the tumult of feeling in her simple soul, Ursula
+was ready to cry when her cousin came in and sat down beside her.
+
+"I have been so happy, Cousin Anne. You have been so good to me," she
+said.
+
+"My dear, everybody will be good to you," said Miss Dorset, "so long as
+you trust everybody, Ursula. People are more good than bad. I hope when
+you come to Easton you will be still happier."
+
+Ursula demurred a little to this, though she was too shy to say much.
+"Town is so cheerful," she said. It was not Sir Robert's way of looking
+at affairs.
+
+"There is very little difference in places," said Anne, "when your heart
+is light you are happy everywhere." Ursula felt that it was somewhat
+derogatory to her dignity to have her enjoyment set down to the score of
+a light heart. But against such an assertion what could she say?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+COMING HOME.
+
+
+The party which set out from Suffolk Street next morning was a mighty
+one; there were the children, the ayah, the new nurse whom Anne had
+engaged in town, to take charge of her little nephews as soon as they
+got accustomed to their new life; and Seton, the ancient serving-woman,
+whom the sisters shared between them; and Sir Robert's man, not to speak
+of Sir Robert himself and the Miss Dorsets and Ursula. Easton was within
+a dozen miles of Carlingford, so that they all travelled together as far
+as that town. The Dorset party went farther on to the next station, from
+which they had still six miles to travel by carriage. They set down
+Ursula on the platform with her box and her parcel, and took leave of
+her, and swept out of the station again, leaving her rather forlorn and
+solitary among the crowd. "Disgraceful of May not to send some one to
+meet the child. I suppose he knew she was coming," said Sir Robert. And
+Ursula had something of the same feeling, as she stood looking wistfully
+about her. But as soon as the train was gone, her name was called in a
+somewhat high-pitched voice, and turning round she found herself hugged
+by Janey, while Johnnie, fresh from school, seized her bag out of her
+hand by way of showing his satisfaction.
+
+"We didn't come up till we could make sure that the Dorsets were out of
+the way," said Janey, "and, oh, is it really you? I am so glad to get
+you home."
+
+"Why didn't you want to see the Dorsets? They are the kindest friends we
+have in the world," said Ursula. "How is papa? Is he in a good humour?
+And the rest? Why did not some more come to meet me? I made sure there
+would be four at least."
+
+"Amy and Robin have gone out to tea--they didn't want to go; but papa
+insisted. Oh, he is very well on the whole. And Reginald is at home, of
+course, but I thought you would like me best. Johnnie came to carry the
+bag," said Janey with a natural contempt for her younger brother. "What
+a big parcel! You must have been getting quantities of presents, or else
+you must have packed very badly, for I am sure there was lots of room in
+the trunk when you went away."
+
+"Oh, Janey, if you only knew what I have got there!"
+
+"What?" said Janey, with quiet but composed interest. It never occurred
+to her that she could have any individual concern in the contents of the
+parcels. She was a tall girl who had outgrown all her frocks, or rather
+did outgrow them periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders,
+which would not curl or _crêper_, or do anything that hair ought to do.
+She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts of
+impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the kind of
+angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, but very maladroit,
+who is a greater nuisance to herself and everybody else than even a
+school-boy, which is saying a good deal. Things broke in her hands as
+they never broke in anybody else's; stuffs tore, furniture fell to the
+ground as she passed by. Ursula carefully kept her off the parcel and
+gave it to Johnnie. One of the railway porters, when all the rest of the
+passengers were disposed of, condescended to carry her trunk, and thus
+they set out on their way home. The parsonage was close to St. Roque, at
+the other end of Grange Lane. They had to walk all the way down that
+genteel and quiet suburban road, by the garden walls over which, at
+this season, no scent of flowers came, or blossomed branches hung forth.
+There were red holly-berries visible, and upon one mossy old tree a gray
+bunch of mistletoe could be seen on the other side of the street. But
+how quiet it was! They scarcely met a dozen people between the station
+and St. Roque.
+
+"Oh, Janey, is everybody dead?" said Ursula. "How dull it is! You should
+see London----"
+
+"Ursula," said Janey firmly, "once for all, I am not going to stand this
+London! A nasty, smoky, muddy place, no more like Carlingford than--I am
+like you. You forget I have been in London; you are not speaking to
+ignorant ears," said Janey, drawing herself up, "and your letters were
+quite bad enough. You are not going to talk of nothing but your
+disagreeable London here. Talk to people who have never seen it!" said
+the girl, elevating her shoulders with the contempt of knowledge.
+
+"That time you were at the dentist's--" said Ursula, "and call that
+seeing London! Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy took me everywhere. We went
+to drive in the Park. We went to the Museum and the National Gallery.
+And, oh! Janey, listen! we went to the theatre: think of that!"
+
+"Well, I should like to go to the theatre," said Janey, with a sigh.
+"But you told me in your letter. That's what comes of being the eldest.
+Unless you get married, or something, nobody will ever think of taking
+_me_."
+
+"You are five years younger than I am," said Ursula, with dignity.
+"Naturally, people don't think of a girl at your age. You must wait till
+you are older, as I have had to do. Janey! guess what is in _that_?"
+
+"Your new dress--your ball-dress. If it isn't crumpled as you said, you
+can't have danced very much. I know my dress will be in tatters if I
+ever go to a ball."
+
+"I danced as much as I wished. I did not know many people," said Ursula,
+drawing herself up. "Of course at this time of the year nobody is in
+town, and we hardly knew any one--and of course--"
+
+"Of course, you only knew the fashionable people who are out of town in
+winter," cried Janey, with a laugh which echoed along the street. Ursula
+had not come home from London to be laughed at by her younger sister,
+she who had been petted by the Dorsets, and whose opinion even Sir
+Robert had asked on various occasions. She felt this downfall all the
+more deeply that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with
+Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over again,
+and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many experiences acquired
+in that momentous time. Poor Ursula! ten days is quite long enough to
+form habits at her age, and she had been taken care of, as young ladies
+are taken care of in society; accompanied or attended wherever she went,
+and made much of. To find herself thus left to arrive and get home as
+she pleased, with nobody but Janey to meet her, was a terrible
+falling-off; and to be laughed at by Janey was the last step of all.
+Tears filled her eyes, she turned her shoulder to her companion,
+averting her head; and this was all poor Ursula had to look to. The
+dreary Carlingford street, papa finding fault, everything going wrong,
+and Janey laughing at her! To be Cousin Anne's maid, or governess to the
+little Indian children would be better than this. For five minutes more
+she walked on in offended silence, saying nothing, though Janey, like
+the school-girl she was, made frequent use of her elbow to move her
+sister.
+
+"Ursula!" the girl said at last, with a more potent nudge, "what's the
+matter? won't you speak to me?" And Janey, who had her own
+disappointment too, and had expected to be received with enthusiasm,
+burst out crying, regardless of appearances, in the middle of the
+street.
+
+"Janey, for Heaven's sake--people will see you! I am sure it is I who
+should cry, not you," said Ursula, in sudden distress.
+
+"I don't care who sees me," sobbed Janey. "You have been enjoying
+yourself while we have stayed at home, and instead of being pleased to
+come back, or glad to see us--Oh, how can you be so cold-hearted?" she
+said with a fresh burst of tears.
+
+Here the other side of the question suddenly dawned upon Ursula. She had
+been enjoying herself while the others stayed at home. It was quite
+true. Instead of feeling the shock of difference she should have thought
+of those who had never been so lucky as she was, who had never seen
+anything out of Carlingford. "Don't be so foolish, Janey," she said, "I
+_am_ glad;--and I have brought you such beautiful presents. But when you
+do nothing but laugh----"
+
+"I am sure I didn't laugh to hurt. I only laughed for fun!" cried Janey,
+drying her eyes not without a little indignation; and thus peace was
+made, for indeed one was dying to tell all that happened, and the other
+dying to hear. They walked the rest of the way with their heads very
+close together, so absorbed that the eldest brother, coming out of the
+gate as they approached, stood looking at them with a smile on his face
+for some time before they saw him. A slight young man, not very tall,
+with dark hair, like Ursula's, and a somewhat anxious expression, in
+correct English clerical dress.
+
+"Has it all begun already?" he said, when they came close up to him, but
+without perceiving him, Ursula's face inspired with the pleasure of
+talking, as Janey's was with the eager delight of listening. The house
+was built in the ecclesiastical style, with gables and mullioned
+windows, which excluded the light, at least, whether or not they
+inspired passers-by with a sense of correct art, as they were intended
+to do. It was next door to the church, and had a narrow strip of
+shrubbery in front, planted with somewhat gloomy evergreens. The gate
+and door stood always open, except when Mr. May himself, coming or
+going, closed them momentarily, and it cannot be denied that there were
+outward and visible signs of a large, somewhat unruly family inside.
+
+"Oh, Reginald!" cried Ursula. "You have come home!"
+
+"Yes--for good," he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Or for bad--who
+can tell? At all events, here I am."
+
+"Why should it be for bad?" cried Janey, whose voice was always audible
+half-way up the street. "Oh, Ursula, something very nice has happened.
+He is to be warden of the old college, fancy! That _is_ being provided
+for, papa says; and a beautiful old house."
+
+"Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some old person who
+was chosen."
+
+"But papa says he can live at home and let the house," cried Janey.
+"There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman, papa thinks; it
+is nice, because there is no work--but look at Reginald, he does not
+like it a bit; he is never satisfied, I am sure, I wish it was me--"
+
+"Come in," said Reginald hastily, "I don't want all my affairs, and my
+character besides, to be proclaimed from the house-tops." Janey stopped
+indignant, to make some reply, and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she
+feared, with an energetic pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been
+playing in the little square hall, which was strewed with doll's
+clothes, and with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation.
+Some old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one of
+which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of Anne Dorset's
+orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these imperfections.
+
+"Oh, what a muddle!" she cried; "I don't wonder that Reginald does not
+care for living at home."
+
+"Oh, I wish papa heard you!" cried Janey loudly, as Ursula led the way
+into the drawing-room, which was not much tidier than the hall. There
+was a basket-full of stockings to be mended, standing on the old
+work-table. Ursula felt, with a sinking of the heart, that they were
+waiting for her arrival, and that Janey had done nothing to them. More
+toys and more old school-books were tossed about upon the faded old
+carpet. The table-cover hung uneven, one end of it dragging upon the
+floor. The fire was burning very low, stifled in dust and white ashes.
+How dismal it looked! not like a place to come home to. "Oh, I don't
+wonder Reginald is vexed to be made to live at home," she said once
+again to herself, with tears in her eyes.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself," her brother said, as she dropped
+wearily into the old easy-chair. "We have missed you very much; but I
+don't suppose you missed us. London was very pleasant, I suppose, even
+at this time of the year?"
+
+"Oh, pleasant!" said Ursula. "If you had been with me, how you would
+have liked it! Suffolk Street is only an inn, but it is a very nice inn,
+what they call a private hotel. Far better than the great big places on
+the American principle, Sir Robert says. But we dined at one of those
+big places one day, and it was very amusing. Scores of people, and great
+mirrors that made them look hundreds. And such quantities of lights and
+servants; but Sir Robert thought Suffolk Street very much the best. And
+I went to two theatres and to a ball. They were so kind. Sophy Dorset
+laughs at me sometimes, but Anne is an angel," said Ursula fervently. "I
+never knew any one so good in my life."
+
+"That is not saying much," said Janey, "for none of us are very good,
+and you know nobody else. Anne Dorset is an old maid."
+
+"Oh, Janey! how dare you?"
+
+"And, for that matter, so is Sophy. Papa says so. He says she was
+jilted, and that she will never get a husband."
+
+"Hold your tongue," said Reginald fiercely, "if we are to hear what my
+father says at second hand through an imp like you--"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Janey, mocking, "that is because you are not friends
+with papa."
+
+"Janey, come and help me to take off my things," said Ursula, seeing
+that Reginald would probably proceed to strong measures and box his
+sister's ears. "If you were older, you would not talk like that," she
+said, with dignity, as they went upstairs. "Oh, dear Janey, you can't
+think how different Cousin Anne and Sophy are, who are not girls, like
+us. They never talk unkindly of other people. You would get to think it
+childish, as I do, if you had been living with Cousin Anne."
+
+"Stuff!" said Janey. "Papa is not childish, I hope. And it was he who
+said all that. I don't care what your fine Cousin Anne does."
+
+Notwithstanding, the reproof thus administered went to Janey's heart;
+for to a girl of fifteen, whose next sister is almost twenty, the
+reproach of being childish is worse than any other. She blushed
+fiery-red, and though she scoffed, was moved. Besides, though it suited
+her to quote him for the moment, she was very far from putting any
+unbounded faith in papa.
+
+"Just wait a moment! See what Cousin Anne, whom you think so little of,
+has sent you," said Ursula, sitting down on the floor with the great
+parcel in her lap, carefully undoing the knots; for she had read Miss
+Edgeworth's stories in her youth, and would not have cut the strings for
+the world; and when the new dresses, in all their gloss and softness,
+were spread out upon the old carpet, which scarcely retained one trace
+of colour, Janey was struck dumb.
+
+"Is that," she said, faltering and conscience-stricken, "for _me_?"
+
+"This is for you; though you think them old maids--and that they will
+never get husbands," said Ursula, indignantly. "What a thing for a girl
+to say! And, indeed, I don't think Cousin Anne will ever get a husband.
+There is not one in the world half good enough for her--not one! Yes,
+this is for you. They went themselves, and looked over half the things
+in the shop before they could get one to please them. They did not say,
+'Janey is an unkind little thing, that will repeat all she hears about
+us, and does not care for us a bit.' They said, 'Ursula, we must choose
+frocks for Janey and Amy. Come and help us to get what they will like
+best.'"
+
+Janey's lips quivered, and two very big tears came into her eyes. She
+was stricken with the deepest compunction, but her pride did not permit
+her to give in all at once.
+
+"I dare say you told her how badly off we were," she said.
+
+"I told her nothing about it, and she did not say a word--not a word, as
+if it were a charity--only to please you--to let you see that you were
+remembered; but I dare say it is quite true after all," said Ursula,
+with lofty irony, "that Cousin Anne will never get a husband, and that
+they are old maids."
+
+"Oh, you know I didn't mean it!" said Janey, giving way to her tears.
+
+Then Ursula got up and took off her hat and smoothed her hair, feeling
+satisfied with her success, and went downstairs again to Reginald, who
+was seated on the dingy sofa waiting for her, to answer her questions
+about the great event which had happened since she had been away.
+Ursula's mind was full of the shock of the sharp impression made by her
+return, though the impression itself began to wear away.
+
+"I can understand why you don't care about living at home," she said.
+"Oh I wonder if I could do anything to mend it! I am so glad you have
+got something, Reginald. If you have a good servant, you might be quite
+comfortable by yourself, and we could come and see you. I should not
+feel it a bit--not a single bit; and it would be so much nicer for you."
+
+"You are mistaken," said her brother. "It is not staying at home I
+object to. We are not very tidy or very comfortable, perhaps, but we all
+belong to each other, at least. It is not that, Ursula."
+
+"What is it, then? Janey says," said Ursula, drawing a long breath of
+awe and admiration, "that you are to have two hundred and fifty pounds a
+year."
+
+"For doing nothing," he said.
+
+"For doing nothing?" She looked up at him a little bewildered, for his
+tone struck Ursula as not at all corresponding with the delightful
+character of the words he said. "But, Reginald, how nice, how very nice
+it sounds! How lucky you must have been! How could it happen that such a
+delightful thing should come to one of us? We are always so unlucky,
+papa says."
+
+"If you think this luck--" said Reginald. "He does, and he is quite
+pleased; but how do you suppose I can be pleased? Thrust into a place
+where I am not wanted--where I can be of no use. A dummy, a practical
+falsehood. How can I accept it, Ursula? I tell you it is a sinecure!"
+
+Ursula looked at him with eyes round with wonder. He seemed to be
+speaking in some different language of which she understood nothing.
+"What is a sinecure?" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PAPA.
+
+
+"Ursula has come back!" cried the little ones, who had returned from
+their tea-party, running to meet their father at the door.
+
+Mr. May was very good, except by moments, to his younger children. He
+was not, indeed, an unkind father to any of them; but he had never
+forgiven Providence for leaving him with his motherless family upon his
+hands, a man so utterly unfit for the task. Perhaps he did not put this
+exactly into words, but he felt it deeply, and had never got over it.
+There were so many things that he could have done better, and there were
+so many people who could have done this better; and yet it was precisely
+to him, not a person adapted to the charge of children, that it had been
+given to do it! This seemed to argue a want of judgment in the
+regulation of mortal affairs, which irritated him all the more because
+he was a clergyman, and had to persuade other people that everything
+that happened to them was for the best. He was a man of some culture,
+and literary power, and wrote very pleasant "thoughtful" papers for some
+of the Church magazines; but these compositions, though very easy to
+read, were only brought into the world by elaborate precautions on the
+part of the family, which scarcely dared to speak above its breath when
+papa was "writing;" for on such occasions he could be very savage, as
+the occasional offender knew. He was a man with an imposing person,
+good-looking, and of very bland and delightful manners, when he chose.
+But yet he had never made friends, and was now at fifty-five the
+incumbent of St. Roque, with a small income and a humble position in the
+church hierarchy of Carlingford. He preached better than any other of
+the Carlingford clergymen, looked better, had more reputation out of the
+place; and was of sufficiently good family, and tolerably well
+connected. Yet he never got on, never made any real advance in life.
+Nobody could tell what was the cause of this, for his opinions were
+moderate and did not stand in his way--indeed within the limits of
+moderation he had been known to modify his principles, now inclining
+towards the high, then towards the low, according as circumstances
+required, though never going too far in either direction. Such a man
+ought to have been successful, according to all rules, but he was not.
+He was generally in debt and always needy. His eldest son, James, was in
+India, doing well, and had often sent a contribution towards the comfort
+of the family, and especially to help Reginald at College. But James had
+married a year before, and accordingly was in a less favourable position
+for sending help. And indeed these windfalls had never produced much
+effect upon the family, who heard of James' gifts vaguely without
+profiting by them. All this _donna à penser_ to the elder children.
+Having no softening medium of a mother's eyes to look at their father
+through, they were more bold in judging him than, perhaps, they ought to
+have been; and he did not take pains to fascinate his children, or throw
+the glamour of love into their eyes. He took it for granted, frankly and
+as a part of nature, that he himself was the first person to be
+considered in all matters. So he was, of course--so the father, the
+bread-winner, the head of the family, ought to be; and when he has a
+wife to keep him upon that pedestal, and to secure that his worship
+shall be respected, it becomes natural, and the first article of the
+family creed; but somehow when a man has to set forth and uphold this
+principle himself, it is less successful; and in Mr. May's case it was
+not successful at all. He was not severe or tyrannical, so that they
+might have rebelled. He only held the conviction quite honestly and
+ingeniously, that his affairs came first, and were always to be attended
+to. Nothing could be said against this principle--but it tells badly in
+the management of a family unless, indeed, as we have said, it is
+managed through the medium of the mother, who takes away all imputation
+of selfishness by throwing an awful importance and tender sanctity over
+all that happens to be desirable or necessary for "papa."
+
+Mr. May had no wife to watch over the approaches of his study, and talk
+of him with reverential importance to her children. This was not his
+fault, but his misfortune. Bitterly had he mourned and resented the blow
+which took her from him, and deeply felt the loss she was to him. This
+was how he spoke of it always, the loss to him; and probably poor Mrs.
+May, who had adored and admired her husband to the last day of her life,
+would have been more satisfied with this way of mourning for her than
+any other; but naturally Ursula, who thought of the loss to herself and
+the other children, found fault with this limitation of the misfortune.
+A man who has thus to fight for himself does not appear in an amiable
+aspect to his family, to whom, as to all young creatures, it seemed
+natural that _they_ should be the first objects; and as they were a
+great trouble and burden to him, perhaps the children did not always
+bear their most amiable aspect to their father. Both looked selfish to
+the other, and Mr. May, no doubt, could have made out quite as good a
+case as the children did. He thought all young people were selfish,
+taking everything they could, trying to extract even the impossible from
+the empty purse and strained patience of their elders; and they thought
+that he was indifferent to them, thinking about himself, as it is a
+capital sin in a parent to do; and both of them were right and both
+wrong, as indeed may be said in every case to which there are two sides.
+
+"Ursula has come!" cried the two little ones. Amy and Robin could read
+their father's face better than they could read those instruments of
+torture called printed books, and they saw that he was in a good humour,
+and that they were safe to venture upon the playful liberty of seizing
+him, one by each hand, and dragging him in. He was a tall man, and the
+sight of him triumphantly dragged in by these imps, the youngest of whom
+was about up to his knees, was pretty, and would have gone to the heart
+of any spectator. He was not himself unconscious of this, and when he
+was in a good humour, and the children were neat and tolerably dressed,
+he did not object to being seen by the passers-by dragged up his own
+steps by those two little ones. The only passers-by, however, on this
+occasion were a retired shopkeeper and his wife, who had lately bought
+one of the oldest houses in Grange Lane, and who had come out for a walk
+as the day was fine. "Mark my words, Tozer," the lady was saying,
+"that's a good man though he's a church parson. Them as children hangs
+onto like that, ain't got no harm in them."
+
+"He's a rum un, he is," said Mr. Tozer in reply. It was a pity that the
+pretty spectacle of the clergyman with his little boy and girl should
+have been thus thrown away upon a couple of Dissenters, yet it was not
+without its effect. Amy pulled one arm and Robin pulled the other. They
+were dark-haired children like all the Mays, and as this peculiarity is
+rare among children, it gave these two a certain piquancy.
+
+"Well, well," he said, "take me to Ursula," and after he had kissed his
+newly-arrived daughter, he sat down in the faded drawing-room with much
+geniality, and took one child on each knee.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself, Ursula," he said; "of course, we have
+missed you. Janey has done her best, but she is not very clever at
+housekeeping, nor does she understand many things that people require,
+as you have learned to do."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you have missed me!" said Ursula, "I mean sorry; I
+have enjoyed myself very, very much. The Dorsets were so kind, kinder
+than anybody ever was before."
+
+"And, papa, they have sent me a new dress."
+
+"And me too, papa," chirruped little Amy on his knee.
+
+"You too, Mouse! it was very kind of them; and you went to the Tower and
+did all the lions, Ursula? that is the lot of country cousins, and the
+Dorsets would spare you nothing, I suppose."
+
+"We went to much better things," said Ursula, producing her theatres and
+her ball as she had done before. "And, oh, papa, I like them so much. I
+wish we lived a little nearer. Those poor little Indian children, I fear
+they will be too much for Cousin Anne; they look so pale and so peevish,
+not like our children here."
+
+"Well, they are not pale at all events," said Mr. May, putting them
+down; "run and play like good children. You will have heard that we have
+had something happening to us, even in this quiet place, while you were
+away."
+
+"Oh, I was so astonished," said Ursula, "but Reginald doesn't seem to
+like it. That is so odd; I should have thought he would have been
+overjoyed to get something. He used to talk so about having no
+interest."
+
+"Reginald is like a great many other people. He does not know his own
+mind," said Mr. May, his countenance overcasting. Ursula knew that sign
+of coming storms well enough, but she was too much interested to
+forbear.
+
+"What is a sinecure, papa?" she asked, her brother's last word still
+dwelling in her mind.
+
+"A piece of outrageous folly," he cried, getting up and striding about
+the room, "all springing from the foolish books boys read now-a-days,
+and the nonsense that is put into their minds. Mean! it means that your
+brother is an ass, that is what it means. After all the money that has
+been spent upon him--"
+
+"But, papa, we have not spent much, have we? I thought it was his
+scholarship?" said Ursula with injudicious honesty. Her father turned
+upon her indignantly.
+
+"I am not aware that I said we. _We_ have nothing to spend upon any one,
+so far as I know. I said I--the only person in the house who earns any
+money or is likely to do so, if Reginald goes on in this idiotical way."
+
+Ursula grew red. She was Mr. May's own daughter, and had a temper too.
+"If I could earn any money I am sure I would," she cried, "and only too
+glad. I am sure it is wanted badly enough. But how is a girl to earn any
+money? I wish I knew how."
+
+"You little fool, no one was thinking of you. Do a little more in the
+house, and nobody will ask you to earn money. Yes, this is the shape
+things are taking now-a-days," said Mr. May, "the girls are mad to earn
+anyhow, and the boys, forsooth, have a hundred scruples. If women would
+hold their tongues and attend to their own business, I have no doubt we
+should have less of the other nonsense. The fact is everything is
+getting into an unnatural state. But if Reginald thinks I am going to
+maintain him in idleness at his age--"
+
+"Papa, for Heaven's sake don't speak so loud, he will hear you!" said
+Ursula, letting her fears of a domestic disturbance overweigh her
+prudence.
+
+"He will hear me? I wish him to hear me," said Mr. May, raising his
+voice. "Am I to be kept from saying what I like, how I like, in my own
+house, for fear that Reginald should hear me, forsooth! Ursula, I am
+glad to have you at home; but if you take Reginald's part in his folly,
+and set yourself against the head of the family, you had better go back
+again and at once. _He_ may defy me, but I shall not be contradicted by
+a chit of a girl, I give you my word for that."
+
+Ursula was silent; she grew pale now after her redness of hasty and
+unconsidered self-defence. Oh, for Cousin Anne to shield and calm her;
+what a difference it made to plunge back again thus into trouble and
+strife.
+
+"He thinks it better to be idle at his father's expense than to do a
+little work for a handsome salary," said Mr. May; "everything is right
+that is extracted from his father's pocket, though it is contrary to a
+high code of honour to accept a sinecure. Fine reasoning that, is it
+not? The one wrongs nobody, while the other wrongs you and me and all
+the children, who want every penny I have to spend; but Reginald is much
+too fine to think of that. He thinks it quite natural that I should go
+on toiling and stinting myself."
+
+"Papa, it may be very wrong what he is doing; but if you think he wants
+to take anything from you--"
+
+"Hold your tongue," said her father; "I believe in deeds, not in words.
+He has it in his power to help me, and he chooses instead, for a
+miserable fantastic notion of his own, to balk all my care for him. Of
+course the hospital was offered to him out of respect for me. No one
+cares for _him_. He is about as much known in Carlingford as--little Amy
+is. Of course it is to show their respect to me. And here he comes with
+his fantastic nonsense about a sinecure! Who is he that he should make
+such a fuss? Better men than he is have held them, and will to the end
+of the chapter. A sinecure! what does he call a sinecure?"
+
+"That is just what I want to know," said Ursula under her breath, but
+her father did not, fortunately, hear this ejaculation. Reginald had
+gone out, and happily was not within hearing, and Mr. May calmed down by
+degrees, and told Ursula various circumstances about the parish and the
+people which brought him down out of his anger and comforted her after
+that passage of arms. But the commotion left him in an excitable state,
+a state in which he was very apt to say things that were disagreeable,
+and to provoke his children to wrath in a way which Ursula thought was
+very much against the scriptural rule.
+
+"Things in the parish are going on much as usual," he said, "Mrs. Sam
+Hurst is as kind as ever."
+
+"Indeed!" said Ursula with a suppressed snort of anger. Mr. May gave the
+kind of offensive laugh, doubly offensive to every woman, which men give
+when their vanity is excited, and when there is, according to the common
+expression, a lady in the case.
+
+"Yes, she is very kind," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "She has had
+the children to tea a great many times since you have been away. To show
+my sense of her kindness, you must ask her one of these days. A woman
+who understands children is always a valuable friend for a man in my
+position--and also, Ursula, for a girl in yours."
+
+"She may understand children, but they are not fond of her," said
+Ursula, with a gleam of malice which restored her father to good humour.
+He had no more idea of marrying a second time than of flying. He was
+tenderly attached in his way to his wife's memory, and quite
+sufficiently troubled by the number of dwellers in his house already;
+but he rather liked, as a good-looking man in his wane generally does,
+to think that he could marry if he pleased, and to hold the possibility
+over the heads of his household, as a chastisement of all their sins
+against him which he could use at any time. All the Mays grew hot and
+angry at the name of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and their fear and anger delighted
+their father. He liked to speak of her to provoke them, and partly for
+that, partly for other reasons of his own, kept up a decorous
+semi-flirtation with his neighbour who lived next door, and thus excited
+the apprehensions and resentment of the girls every day of their lives.
+When Ursula thought of Mrs. Sam Hurst she wished for the Dorsets no
+more. It was above all things, she felt, her duty to be here on the spot
+to defend the family from that woman's machinations. The idea put energy
+into her. She ceased to be tired, ceased to feel herself, "after her
+journey," capable of nothing but sitting still and hearing of all that
+had been done since she went away.
+
+In the course of the evening, however, Ursula took advantage of a quiet
+moment to look into the dictionary and make herself quite safe about the
+meaning of the word sinecure. It was not the first time she had heard
+it, as may be supposed. She had heard of lucky people who held
+sinecures, and she had heard them denounced as evil things, but without
+entering closely into the meaning. Now she had a more direct interest in
+it, and it must be confessed that she was not at all frightened by the
+idea, or disposed to reject it as Reginald did. Ursula had not learnt
+much about public virtue, and to get a good income for doing nothing, or
+next to nothing, seemed to her an ideal sort of way of getting one's
+livelihood. She wished with a sigh that there were sinecures which could
+be held by girls. But no, in that as in other things "gentlemen" kept
+all that was good to themselves; and Ursula was disposed to treat
+Reginald's scruples with a very high hand. But she did not choose that
+her father should attack him with all these disagreeable speeches about
+maintaining him in idleness, and taunts about the money that had been
+spent on his education. That was not the way to manage him, the girl
+felt; but Ursula resolved to take her brother in hand herself, to argue
+with him how foolish it was, to point out to him that if he did not take
+it some one else would, and that the country would not gain anything
+while he would lose, to laugh at his over delicacy, to show him how
+delightful it would be if he was independent, and what a help to all his
+brothers and sisters. In short, it seemed quite simple to Ursula, and
+she felt her path mapped out before her, and triumphed in every stage of
+her argument, inventing the very weakest replies for Reginald to make.
+Full of the inspiration of this purpose, she felt that it was in every
+way well that she had come home. With Reginald settled close by, going
+away no longer, standing by her in her difficulties, and even perhaps,
+who could tell? taking her to parties, and affording her the means now
+and then of asking two or three people to tea, the whole horizon of her
+life brightened for Ursula. She became reconciled to Carlingford. All
+that had to be done was to show Reginald what his duty was, and how
+foolish he was to hesitate, and she could not allow herself to suppose
+that _when it was put before him properly_ there could long remain much
+difficulty upon that score.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PHÅ’BE'S PREPARATIONS.
+
+
+A few days after Ursula's return home, another arrival took place in
+Carlingford. Phoebe Beecham, after considering the case fully, and
+listening with keen interest to all the indications she could pick up as
+to the peculiarities of her grandfather's house, and the many things in
+life at Carlingford which were "unlike what she had been used to," had
+fully made up her mind to dare the difficulties of that unknown
+existence, and to devote herself in her mother's place to the care of
+her grandmother and the confusion of Mrs. Tom. This was partly
+undertaken out of a sense of duty, partly out of that desire for change
+and the unknown, which has to content itself in many cases with the very
+mildest provision, and partly because Phoebe's good sense perceived the
+necessity of the matter. She was by no means sure what were the special
+circumstances that made "Mrs. Tom" disagreeable to her mother, but she
+was deeply sensible of the importance of preventing Mrs. Tom from
+securing to herself and her family all that Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had to
+leave. Phoebe was not mercenary in her own person, but she had no idea of
+giving up any "rights," and she felt it of the utmost importance that
+her brother, who was unfortunately by no means so clever as herself,
+should be fully provided against all the contingencies of life. She was
+not concerned about herself in that particular. Phoebe felt it a matter
+of course that she should marry, and marry well. Self-confidence of this
+assured and tranquil sort serves a great many excellent purposes--it
+made her even generous in her way. She believed in her star, in her own
+certain good-fortune, in herself; and therefore her mind was free to
+think and to work for other people. She knew very well by all her mother
+said, and by all the hesitations of both her parents, that she would
+have many disagreeable things to encounter in Carlingford, but she felt
+so sure that nothing could really humiliate _her_, or pull her down from
+her real eminence, that the knowledge conveyed no fears to her mind.
+When this confidence in her own superiority to all debasing influences
+is held by the spotless princess in the poem, it is the most beautiful
+of human sentiments, and why it should not be equally elevated when
+entertained by a pink and plump modern young woman, well up in all
+nineteenth century refinements, and the daughter of the minister of the
+Crescent Chapel, it would be hard to say. Phoebe held it with the
+strongest faith.
+
+"Their ways of thinking, perhaps, and their ways of living, are not
+those which I have been used to," she said; "but how does that affect
+me? I am myself whatever happens; even if poor dear grandmamma's habits
+are not refined, which I suppose is what you mean, mamma, that does not
+make me unrefined. A lady must always be a lady wherever she is--Una,"
+she continued, using strangely enough the same argument which has
+occurred to her historian, "is not less a princess when she is living
+among the satyrs. Of course, I am not like Una--and neither are they
+like the wild people in the wood."
+
+Mrs. Beecham did not know much about Una, except that she was somebody
+in a book; but she kissed her daughter, and assured her that she was "a
+real comfort," and devoted herself to her comfort for the few days that
+remained, doing everything that it was possible to do to show her love,
+and, so to speak, gratitude to the good child who was thus throwing
+herself into the breach. The Beechams were in no want of money to buy
+what pleased them, and the mother made many additions to Phoebe's
+wardrobe which that young lady herself thought quite unnecessary, not
+reflecting that other sentiments besides that of simple love for herself
+were involved.
+
+"They shall see that my daughter is not just like one of their
+common-looking girls," Mrs. Beecham said to her husband; and he shared
+the feeling, though he could not but think within himself that her
+aspect was of very much more importance than the appearance of Phoebe
+Tozer's child could possibly be as _his_ daughter.
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," he replied, "vulgar people of that sort
+are but too ready to look down upon a pastor's family. They ought to be
+made to see the difference."
+
+The consequence of this was that Phoebe was fitted out like a young
+princess going on her travels. Ursula May would have been out of her
+wits with delight, had half these fine things come her way; but Phoebe
+took them very calmly.
+
+"I have never undervalued dress," she said, "as some girls do; I think
+it is a very important social influence. And even without that, mamma,
+so long as it pleases you--" So with this mixture of philosophy and
+affection all went well.
+
+"We must call on Mrs. Copperhead before you go; they would think it
+strange, after all the interest they have shown in us."
+
+"Have they shown an interest in us?" said Phoebe. "Of course we must
+call--and Mrs. Copperhead is a lady, but as for Mr. Copperhead, mamma--"
+
+"Hush! he is the leading member, and very influential in the connection.
+A pastor's family must not be touchy, Phoebe. We must put up with a great
+many things. There ought to be peace among brethren, you know, and
+harmony is the first thing that is essential in a church--"
+
+"I wonder if harmony would be as essential, supposing Mr. Copperhead to
+come to grief, mamma."
+
+"Phoebe! slang from you--who have always set your face against it."
+
+"What can one talk but slang when one thinks of such a person?" said
+Phoebe gravely; and thus saying she opened the door for her mother, and
+they went out in their best gowns to pay their visit. Mrs. Copperhead
+was very civil to the pastor's family. It was not in her to be uncivil
+to any one; but in her soft heart she despised them a little, and
+comported herself to them with that special good behaviour and dignified
+restraint which the best natured people reserve for their inferiors. For
+though she went to chapel, taken there by Mr. Copperhead, she was
+"church" at heart. The interest which Mrs. Beecham took in everything,
+and the praises she bestowed on the ball, did not relax her coldness.
+They were too well off, too warm and silken to call forth her
+sympathies, and there was little in common between them to afford any
+ground for meeting.
+
+Yes, Mr. Copperhead was quite well--she was quite well--her son was
+quite well. She hoped Mr. Beecham was well. She had heard that most
+people were pleased with the ball, thank you. Oh, Miss Beecham was going
+away--indeed! She hoped the weather would be good; and then Mrs.
+Copperhead sat erect upon her sofa, and did not try to say any more.
+Though she had not the heart of a mouse, she too could play the great
+lady when occasion served. Clarence, however, was much more hospitable
+than his mother. He liked Phoebe, who could talk almost as if she was in
+society, as girls talk in novels. He knew, of course, that she was not
+in society, but she was a girl whom a fellow could get on with, who had
+plenty to say for herself, who was not a lay figure like many young
+ladies; and then she was pretty, pink, and golden, "a piece of colour"
+which was attractive to the eye. He soon found out where she was going,
+and let her know that he himself intended a visit to the neighbourhood.
+
+"The Dorsets live near," he said. "Relations of my mother. You saw them
+at the ball. I dare say you will meet them somewhere about." This, it
+is to be feared, Clarence said in something of his mother's spirit, with
+a warm sense of superiority, for he knew that the pastor's daughter was
+very unlikely to meet the Dorsets. Phoebe, however, was equal to the
+occasion.
+
+"I am not at all likely to meet them," she said with a gracious smile.
+"For one thing, I am not going to enjoy myself, but to nurse a sick
+person. And sick people don't go to parties. Besides, you know the
+foolish prejudices of society, properly so called. I think them foolish
+because they affect me," said Phoebe, with engaging frankness. "If they
+did not affect me, probably I should think them all right."
+
+"What foolish prejudices?" said Clarence, thinking she was about to say
+something about her inferior position, and already feeling flattered
+before she spoke.
+
+"About Dissenters, you know," she said; "of course, you must be aware
+that we are looked down upon in society. It does not matter, for when
+people have any sense, as soon as they know us they do us justice; but
+of course you must be aware that the prejudice exists."
+
+Clarence did know, and with some bitterness; for Mr. Copperhead, though
+he did not care much, perhaps, about religion, cared for his chapel, and
+stood by it with unswerving strictness. His son, who was an Oxford man,
+and respectful of all the prejudices of society, did not like this. But
+what could he do against the obstinate dissentership of his father?
+This, as much as anything else, had acted upon the crowd the night of
+the ball, and made them all nobodies. He hesitated to make any reply,
+and his face flushed with shame and displeasure. Phoebe felt that she had
+avenged upon Clarence his mother's haughty politeness. She had brought
+home to him a sense of the social inferiority which was common to them
+both. Having done this, she was satisfied, and proceeded to soften the
+blow.
+
+"It cannot fall upon you, who are in so much better a position, as it
+does upon us," said Phoebe. "We are the very head and front of the
+offending, a Dissenting minister's family!--Society and its charms are
+not for us. And I hope we know our place," she said, with mock humility;
+"when people have any sense and come to know us it is different; and for
+the foolish ones I don't care. But you see from that, I am not likely to
+meet your cousins, am I?" she added with a laugh.
+
+"If you mean that they are among the foolish ones----"
+
+"Oh, no; I don't. But you can't suppose they will take the trouble to
+find _me_ out. Why should they? People entirely out of my range, and
+that have nothing to do with me. So you may be quite sure I am right
+when I say we sha'n't meet."
+
+"Well," said Clarence, piqued, "I am going to Easton, and I shall see
+you, if Mrs. Beecham will give me permission to call."
+
+"She will give you the address along with that; but till then,
+good-bye," said Phoebe. To tell the truth, she had no desire to see
+Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. Perhaps he meant something, perhaps
+he did not--at this stage of the proceedings it was a matter of
+indifference to Phoebe, who certainly had not allowed "her affections" to
+become engaged. If he did mean anything, was it likely that he could
+support unmoved the grandfather and grandmother who were, or had been,
+"in trade?" On the other hand, was it not better that he should know the
+worst? Phoebe was no husband-hunter. She contemplated the issue with calm
+and composure, however it might turn out.
+
+"He asked me if he might call," said Mrs. Beecham, in some excitement.
+"I don't care much to have you seen, my darling, out of your own
+father's house."
+
+"Just as you please, mamma--just as it suits best," said Phoebe,
+dismissing the subject. She was not anxious. A good deal depended on
+whether he meant anything or nothing, but even that did not conclude the
+subject, for she had not made up her own mind.
+
+"Why didn't you tell them about the Mays?" said Clarence, as the two
+ladies went out. "They live in Carlingford, and I should think it would
+be pleasant on both sides."
+
+"My dear boy, you forget the difference of position," said Mrs.
+Copperhead. "They are Dissenters."
+
+"Oh, I like that," cried Clarence, half angry, as himself sharing the
+disadvantages of the connection. "A needy beggar like May has a great
+deal to stand upon. I like that."
+
+"But it is true all the same," said Mrs. Copperhead, shaking her head.
+"And you can see the difference at once. I dare say Miss Beecham is a
+very clever young woman, but between her and Miss May what a difference
+there is! Any one can see it--"
+
+"I am afraid then I am stupid, for I can't see it, mother. They are both
+pretty girls, but for amusing you and that sort of thing give me Phoebe.
+She is worth twenty of the other. As sharp as a needle, and plenty to
+say for herself. This is the kind of girl I like."
+
+"I am very sorry for it. I hope that is not the kind of wife you will
+like," said Mrs. Copperhead, with a sigh.
+
+"Oh, wife! they haven't a penny, either the one or the other," said
+Clarence, with delightful openness, "and we may be sure that would not
+suit the governor even if it suited me."
+
+In the mean time Mrs. Beecham and Phoebe were walking up the broad
+pavement of Portland Place towards their home.
+
+"It is pleasant to see the mother and the son together," said Mrs.
+Beecham, who was determined to see everything in the best light that
+concerned the Copperheads. "They are so devoted to each other, and,
+Phoebe, dear--I don't like to talk in this way to a sensible girl like
+you, but you must see it with your own eyes. You have certainly made a
+great impression upon Clarence Copperhead. When he said he hoped to see
+you in Carlingford, and asked, might he call? it was exactly like asking
+my permission to pay you his addresses; it is very flattering, but it is
+embarrassing as well."
+
+"I do not feel particularly flattered, mamma; and I think if I were you
+I would not give him the address."
+
+Mrs. Beecham looked anxiously in her daughter's face.
+
+"Is it from prudence, Phoebe, or is it that you don't like him, that you
+wouldn't have him if he asked you?"
+
+"We must wait till he does ask me," said Phoebe, decisively. "Till then I
+can't possibly tell. But I don't want him at Carlingford. I know that
+grandpapa and grandmamma are--in trade."
+
+"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Beecham, in a subdued voice.
+
+"Dissenters, and in trade; and he is going to stay with the Dorsets,
+fine county people. Don't give him the address; if we meet by chance,
+there is no harm done. I am not ashamed of any one belonging to me. But
+you can say that you don't think his father would like him to be
+visiting me at Carlingford--which I am sure would be quite true."
+
+"Indeed he might go much farther without finding any one so well worth
+visiting," said the mother, indignant, to which Phoebe nodded her head in
+tranquil assent.
+
+"That is neither here nor there," she said; "you can always tell him so,
+and that will please Mr. Copperhead, if ever he comes to hear of it. He
+thought at one time that I was too entertaining. One knows what that
+means. I should like him to see how little I cared."
+
+"But, my dear, Clarence Copperhead would be worth--a little attention.
+He could give a girl--a very nice position," Mrs. Beecham faltered,
+looking at her daughter between every word.
+
+"I am not saying anything against Clarence Copperhead," said Phoebe, with
+composure, "but I should like his dear papa to know how little I care,
+and that you have refused him my address."
+
+This was all she said on the subject. Phoebe was quite ready to allow
+that Clarence was everything that her mother had said, and she had fully
+worked out her own theory on marriage, which will probably be hereafter
+expounded in these pages, so that she was not at all shocked by having
+his advantages thus pointed out to her. But there was no hurry, she said
+to herself. If it was not Clarence Copperhead, it would be some one
+else, and why should she, at this early stage of her career, attempt to
+precipitate the designs of Providence? She had plenty of time before
+her, and was in no hurry for any change; and a genuine touch of nature
+in her heart made her anxious for an opportunity of showing her
+independence to that arrogant and offensive "leading member," who made
+the life of the office-bearers in the Crescent a burden to them. If she
+could only so drive him into a corner, that he should be obliged to come
+to her in his despair, and beg her to accept his son's hand to save him
+from going off in a galloping consumption, that would have been a
+triumph after Phoebe's heart. To be sure this was a perfectly vain and
+wildly romantic hope--it was the only bit of wild and girlish romance in
+the bosom of a very well-educated, well-intentioned, and sensible young
+woman. She had seen her parents put up with the arrogance of the
+millionnaire for a long time without rebelling any more than they did;
+but Mr. Copperhead had gone further than Phoebe could bear; and
+thoroughly as she understood her own position, and all its interests,
+this one vain fancy had found a footing in her mind. If she could but
+humble him and make him sue to her. It was not likely, but for such a
+triumph the sensible Phoebe would have done much. It was the one point on
+which she was silly, but on that she was as silly as any cynic could
+desire.
+
+And thus with a huge trunk full of charming dresses, a dressing-case fit
+for any bride, the prettiest travelling costume imaginable, and
+everything about her fit, Mrs. Beecham fondly thought, for a duke's
+daughter, Phoebe junior took her departure, to be the comfort of her
+grandmamma, and to dazzle Carlingford. Her fond parents accompanied her
+to the station and placed her in a carriage, and fee'd a guard heavily
+to take care of and watch over her. "Not but that Phoebe might be safely
+trusted to take care of herself anywhere," they said. In which
+expression of their pride in their daughter, the observant reader may
+see a proof of their own origin from the humbler classes. They would
+probably have prided themselves on her timidity and helplessness had
+they been a little better born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+GRANGE LANE.
+
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from business several years before. They
+had given up the shop with its long established connection, and all its
+advantages, to Tom, their son, finding themselves to have enough to live
+upon in ease, and indeed luxury; and though Mrs. Tozer found the house
+in Grange Lane shut in by the garden walls to be much duller than her
+rooms over the shop in High Street, where she saw everything that was
+going on, yet the increase in gentility was unquestionable. The house
+which they were fortunate enough to secure in this desirable locality
+had been once in the occupation of Lady Weston, and there was
+accordingly an aroma of high life about it, although somebody less
+important had lived in it in the mean time, and it had fallen into a
+state of considerable dilapidation, which naturally made it cheaper. Mr.
+Tozer had solidly repaired all that was necessary for comfort, but he
+had not done anything in those external points of paint and decoration,
+which tells so much in the aspect of a house. Lady Weston's taste had
+been florid, and the walls continued as she had left them, painted and
+papered with faded wreaths, which were apt to look dissipated, as they
+ought to have been refreshed and renewed years before. But outside,
+where the wreaths do not fade, there was a delightful garden charmingly
+laid out, in which Lady Weston had once held her garden parties, and
+where the crocuses and other spring bulbs, which had been put in with a
+lavish hand, during Lady Weston's extravagant reign, had already begun
+to blow. The violets were peeping out from among their leaves on a
+sheltered bank, and Christmas roses, overblown, making a great show with
+their great white stars, in a corner. Tozer himself soon took a great
+interest in this little domain out of doors, and was for ever pottering
+about the flowers, obeying, with the servility of ignorance, the
+gardener's injunctions. Mrs. Tozer, however, who was in weak health, and
+consequently permitted to be somewhat cross and contradictory, regretted
+the High Street.
+
+"Talk of a garden," she said, "a thing as never changes except according
+to the seasons! Up in the town there was never a day the same, something
+always happening--Soldiers marching through, or Punch and Judy, or a
+row at the least. It is the cheerfullest place in the whole world, I do
+believe; shut up here may do for the gentry, but I likes the streets and
+what's going on. You may call me vulgar if you please, but so I do."
+
+Tozer prudently said nothing to such outbursts except a soothing
+exhortation to wait till summer, when she would find the benefit of the
+fresh air, not to speak of the early vegetables; and he himself found
+the garden an unspeakable resource. At first, indeed, he would stroll up
+to the shop of a morning, especially if any new consignment of
+first-rate York hams, or cheese, was coming in, which he loved to turn
+over and test by smell and touch; but by and by the ancient butterman
+made a discovery, such as we are all apt to make when we get old and
+step out of the high road of life. He found out that his son did not
+appreciate his advice, and that Mrs. Tom cared still less for his
+frequent appearances. Indeed, he himself once saw her bounce out of the
+shop as he entered, exclaiming audibly, "Here's that fussy old man
+again." Tozer was an old man, it is true, but nobody (under eighty)
+cares to have the epithet flung in his teeth; and to be in the way is
+always unpleasant. He had self-command enough to say nothing about it,
+except in a very modified shape to his wife, who was ready enough to
+believe anything unpleasant about Mrs. Tom; but he took to gardening
+with ardour from that day; and learned all about the succession of the
+flowers, and how long one set lasted, and which kind should be put into
+the ground next. He would even take off his coat and do a tolerable
+day's work under the gardener's direction, to the great advantage of his
+health and temper, while Mrs. Tozer grumbled upstairs. She was getting
+more and more helpless about the house, unable to see after the stout
+maid-of-all-work, who in her turn grumbled much at the large house, for
+which one maid was not enough. Many altercations took place in
+consequence between the mistress and servant.
+
+"The ungrateful hussy hasn't even as many rooms to do as she had in the
+High Street, when there was the 'prentices' beds to make," Mrs. Tozer
+said indignantly to her husband; but Jane on her side pointed to the
+length of passage, the stairs, the dining and drawing-rooms, where there
+had once only been a parlour.
+
+"Cook and 'ousemaid's little enough," said Jane; "there did ought to be
+a man in this kind of 'ouse; but as there's only two in family,
+shouldn't say nothing if I had a girl under me."
+
+Things were gravitating towards this girl at the time of Phoebe's
+arrival; but nothing had as yet been finally decided upon. Jane,
+however, had bestirred herself to get the young lady's room ready with
+something like alacrity. A young person coming to the house promised a
+little movement and change, which was always something, and Jane had no
+doubt that Phoebe would be on her side in respect to the "girl." "She'll
+want waiting upon, and there'll always be sending of errands," Jane said
+to herself. She knew by experience "what young 'uns is in a house."
+
+There was something, perhaps, in all the preparations for her departure
+which had thrown dust in Phoebe Beecham's eyes. She had been too
+sharp-sighted not to see into her mother's qualms and hesitations about
+her visit to Carlingford, and the repeated warnings of both parents as
+to the "difference from what she had been accustomed to;" and she
+thought she had fully prepared herself for what she was to encounter.
+But probably the elaborate outfit provided by her mother and the
+importance attached to her journey had to some degree obliterated this
+impression, for it is certain that when Phoebe saw an old man in a shabby
+coat, with a wisp of a large white neckcloth round his throat, watching
+anxiously for the arrival of the train as it came up, she sustained a
+shock which she had not anticipated. It was about five years since she
+had seen her grandfather, an interval due to hazard rather than purpose,
+though, on the whole, the elder Beechams had not been sorry to keep
+their parents and their children apart. Phoebe, however, knew her
+grandfather perfectly well as soon as she saw him, though he had not
+perceived her, and was wandering anxiously up and down in search of her.
+She held back in her corner for the moment, to overcome the shock. Yes,
+there could be no doubt about it; there he was, he whom she was going to
+visit, under whose auspices she was about to appear in Carlingford. He
+was not even like an old Dissenting minister, which had been her
+childish notion of him. He looked neither more nor less than what he
+was, an old shopkeeper, very decent and respectable, but a little shabby
+and greasy, like the men whose weekly bills she had been accustomed to
+pay for her mother. She felt an instant conviction that he would call
+her "Ma'am," if she went up to him, and think her one of the quality.
+Poor Phoebe! she sat back in her corner and gave a gasp of horror and
+dismay, but having done this, she was herself again. She gave herself a
+shake, like one who is about to take a plunge, rose lightly to her feet,
+took up her bag, and stepped out of the carriage, just as Mr. Tozer
+strolled anxiously past for the third time.
+
+"Grandpapa!" she cried with a smile. Mr. Tozer was almost as much taken
+aback by this apparition as Phoebe herself had been. He knew that his
+daughter had made great strides in social elevation, and that her
+children, when he had seen them last, had been quite like "gentlefolk's
+children;" but to see this young princess step forth graciously out of a
+first-class carriage, and address him as "grandpapa," took away his
+breath.
+
+"Why--why--why, Miss! you ain't little Phoebe?" he cried, scared out of
+his seven senses, as he afterwards said.
+
+"Yes, indeed, I am little Phoebe," she said, coming up and kissing him
+dutifully. She was half-disgusted, he half-frightened; but yet it was
+right, and Phoebe did it. "I have only two boxes and a bag," she said,
+"besides my dressing-case. If you will get a cab, grandpapa, I will go
+and see after the luggage."
+
+Old Tozer thought he could have carried the bag himself, and left the
+boxes to follow; but he succumbed humbly and obeyed.
+
+"She don't seem a bit proud," he said to himself; "but, good Lord,
+what'll she ever say to my old woman?"
+
+He saw the contrast very clearly between his wife and this splendid
+grandchild. It did not strike him so much in his own case.
+
+"How is grandmamma?" said Phoebe, blandly; "better, I hope? Mamma was so
+sorry not to come herself; but you know, of course, she has a great many
+things to do. People in town are obliged to keep up certain appearances.
+You are a great deal better off in the country, grandpapa."
+
+"Lord bless you, my dear, do you call Carlingford the country?" said Mr.
+Tozer. "That is all you know about it. Your granny and I are humble
+folks, but the new minister at Salem is one as keeps up appearances with
+the best. Your mother was always inclined for that. I hope she has not
+brought you up too fine for the likes of us."
+
+"I hope not, indeed," said Phoebe. "No fear of my being too fine for my
+duty, grandpapa. Do you live down this nice road? How pretty it is! how
+delightful these gardens must be in summer. I beg your pardon for
+calling it the country. It is so quiet and so nice, it seems the country
+to me."
+
+"Ah, to be sure; brought up in the London smoke," said Mr. Tozer. "I
+don't suppose, now, you see a bit of green from year's end to year's
+end? Very bad for the 'ealth, that is; but I can't say you look poorly
+on it. Your colour's fresh, so was your mother's before you. To be sure,
+she wasn't cooped up like you."
+
+"Oh, we do get a little fresh air sometimes--in the parks, for
+instance," said Phoebe. She was somewhat piqued by the idea that she was
+supposed to live in London smoke.
+
+"Ah, the parks are always something; but I suppose it takes you a day's
+journey to get at them," said Mr. Tozer, shaking his head. "You mustn't
+mind your grandmother's temper just at first, my dear. She's old, poor
+soul, and she ain't well, and she's sometimes cross above a bit. But
+she'll be that proud of you, she won't know if she's on her 'eels or 'er
+'ead; and as for a cross word now and again, I hope as you won't mind--"
+
+"I shan't mind anything, grandpapa," said Phoebe, sweetly, "so long as I
+can be of use."
+
+And these were, indeed, the dutiful sentiments with which she made her
+entry upon this passage in her life, not minding anything but to be of
+use. The first glimpse of old Tozer, indeed, made it quite evident to
+Phoebe that nothing but duty could be within her reach. Pleasure,
+friends, society, the thought of all such delights must be abandoned.
+And as for Clarence Copperhead and the Miss Dorsets, the notion of
+meeting or receiving them was too absurd. But Duty remained, and Phoebe
+felt herself capable of the sacrifice demanded from her. That confidence
+in herself which we have already indicated as a marked feature in her
+character, gave her the consoling certainty that she could not suffer
+from association with her humble relations. Whosoever saw her must do
+her justice, and that serene conviction preserved her from all the
+throes of uneasy pride which afflict inferior minds in similar
+circumstances. She had no wish to exhibit her grandfather and
+grandmother in their lowliness, nor to be ostentatious of her homely
+origin, as some people are in the very soreness of wounded pride; but if
+hazard produced the butterman in the midst of the finest of her
+acquaintances, Phoebe would still have been perfectly at her ease. She
+would be herself, whatever happened.
+
+In the mean time, however, it was apparent that Duty was what she had to
+look to; Duty, and that alone. She had come here, not to amuse herself,
+not to please herself, but to do her duty; and having thus concluded
+upon her object, she felt comparatively happy, and at her ease.
+
+Mrs. Tozer had put on her best cap, which was a very gorgeous creation.
+She had dressed herself as if for a party, with a large brooch,
+enclosing a curl of various coloured hair cut from the heads of her
+children in early life, which fastened a large worked collar over a
+dress of copper-coloured silk, and she rustled and shook a good deal as
+she came downstairs into the garden to meet her grandchild, with some
+excitement and sense of the "difference" which could not but be felt on
+one side as well as on the other. She, too, was somewhat frightened by
+the appearance of the young lady, who was her Phoebe's child, yet was so
+unlike any other scion of the Tozer race; and felt greatly disposed to
+curtsey and say "Ma'am" to her.
+
+"You've grown a deal and changed a deal since I saw you last," she said,
+restraining this impression, and receiving Phoebe's kiss with gratified,
+yet awe-struck feeling; and then her respectful alarm getting too much
+for her, she added, faltering, "You'll find us but humble folks; perhaps
+not altogether what you've been used to--"
+
+Phoebe did not think it expedient to make any reply to this outburst of
+humility.
+
+"Grandmamma, I am afraid you have over-exerted yourself, coming
+downstairs to meet me," she said, taking the old lady's hand, and
+drawing it within her arm. "Yes, I have grown; I am tall enough to be of
+some use; but you must not treat me as if I were a stranger. No, no;
+never mind my room. I am not tired; the journey is nothing. Let me take
+you back to your chair and make you comfortable. I feel myself quite at
+home already. The only odd thing is that I have never been here before."
+
+"Ah, my dear, your mother thought too much of you to send you to the
+likes of us; that's the secret of it. She was always fond of fine folks,
+was my Phoebe; and I don't blame her, bringing you up quite the lady as
+she's done."
+
+"You must not find fault with mamma," said Phoebe, smiling. "What a nice
+cozy room! This is the dining-room, I suppose; and here is your cushion,
+and your footstool at this nice window. How pleasant it is, with the
+crocuses in all the borders already! I am not at all tired; but I am
+sure it must be tea-time, and I should so like a cup of tea."
+
+"We thought," said Mrs. Tozer, "as perhaps you mightn't be used to tea
+at this time of day."
+
+"Oh, it is the right time; it is the fashionable hour," said Phoebe;
+"everybody has tea at five. I will run upstairs first, and take off my
+hat, and make myself tidy. Jane--is that her name?--don't trouble,
+grandmamma; Jane will show me the way."
+
+"Well?" said Mr. Tozer to Mrs. Tozer, as Phoebe disappeared. The two old
+people looked at each other with a little awe; but she, as was her
+nature, took the most depressing view. She shook her head.
+
+"She is a deal too fine for us, Tozer," she said. "She'll never make
+herself 'appy in our quiet way. Phoebe's been and brought her up quite
+the lady. It ain't as her dress is much matter. I'd have given her a
+silk myself, and never thought of it twice; and something lively like
+for a young person, 'stead of that gray stuff, as her mother might wear.
+But all the same, she ain't one of our sort. She'll never make herself
+'appy with you and me."
+
+"Well," said Tozer, who was more cheerful, "she ain't proud, not a bit;
+and as for manners, you don't pay no more for manners. She came up and
+give me a kiss in the station, as affectionate as possible. All I can
+say for her is as she ain't proud."
+
+Mrs. Tozer shook her head; but even while she did so, pleasanter dreams
+stole into her soul.
+
+"I hope I'll be well enough to get to chapel on Sunday," she said, "just
+to see the folk's looks. The minister needn't expect much attention to
+his sermon. 'There's Phoebe Tozer's daughter!' they'll all be saying, and
+a-staring, and a-whispering. It ain't often as anything like her is seen
+in chapel, that's a fact," said the old lady, warming into the
+exultation of natural pride.
+
+Phoebe, it must be allowed, had a good cry when she got within the
+shelter of her own room, which had been very carefully prepared for her,
+with everything that was necessary for comfort, according to her
+grandmother's standard; but where the "tent" bed hung with old-fashioned
+red and brown chintz, and the moreen curtains drooping over the window,
+and the gigantic flowers on the carpet, made Phoebe's soul sick within
+her. Notwithstanding all her courage, her heart sank. She had expected
+"a difference," but she had not looked for her grandfather's greasy coat
+and wisp of neckcloth, or her grandmother's amazing cap, or the
+grammatical peculiarities in which both indulged. She had a good hot fit
+of crying, and for the moment felt so discouraged and depressed, that
+the only impulse in her mind was to run away. But her temperament did
+not favour panics, and giving in was not in her. If somebody must do it,
+why should not she do it? she said to herself. How many times had she
+heard in sermons and otherwise that no one ought to look for the sweet
+without the bitter, and that duty should never be avoided or refused
+because it is unpleasant? Now was the time to put her principles to the
+test; and the tears relieved her, and gave her something of the feeling
+of a martyr, which is always consolatory and sweet; so she dried her
+eyes, and bathed her face, and went downstairs cheerful and smiling,
+resolved that, at all costs, her duty should be done, however
+disagreeable it might be. What a good thing the new fashion of five
+o'clock tea is for people who have connections in an inferior path of
+life who make tea a meal, and don't dine, or dine in the middle of the
+day! This was the thought that passed through Phoebe's mind as she went
+into the dining-room, and found the table covered, not to say groaning
+under good things. She took her place at it, and poured out tea for the
+old people, and cut bread-and-butter with the most gracious philosophy.
+Duchesses did the same every day; the tea-table had renewed its ancient
+sway, even in fashionable life. It cannot be told what a help and
+refreshment this thought was to Phoebe's courageous heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE TOZER FAMILY.
+
+
+When Phoebe woke next morning, under the huge flowers of the old
+fashioned cotton drapery of her "tent" bed, to see the faint daylight
+struggling in through the heavy curtains which would not draw back from
+the window, the discouragement of her first arrival for a moment
+overpowered her again--and with even more reason--for she had more fully
+ascertained the resources of the place in which she found herself. There
+were no books, except some old volumes of sermons and a few back numbers
+of the Congregational Magazine, no visitors, so far as she could make
+out, no newspaper but the Carlingford Weekly Gazette, nothing but her
+grandmother's gossip about the chapel and Mrs. Tom to pass the weary
+hours away. Even last night Mrs. Tozer had asked her whether she had not
+any work to beguile the long evening, which Phoebe occupied much more
+virtuously, from her own point of view, in endeavouring to amuse the old
+people by talking to them. Though it was morning, and she ought to have
+been refreshed and encouraged by the repose of the night, it was again
+with a few hot tears that Phoebe contemplated her prospects. But this was
+only a passing weakness. When she went down to breakfast, she was again
+cheerful as the crocuses that raised their heads along the borders with
+the promise of summer in them. The sun was shining, the sky was frosty,
+but blue. After all, her present sufferings could not endure for ever.
+Phoebe hurried to get dressed, to get her blue fingers warned by the
+dining-room fire. It is needless to say that there was no fire, or
+thought of a fire in the chilly room, with its red and brown hangings,
+in which Mrs. Tozer last night had hoped she would be happy. "No fear of
+that, grandmamma," she had answered cheerfully. This was as much a lie,
+she felt, as if it had been said with the wickedest intentions--was it
+as wrong? How cold it was, and yet how stifling! She could scarcely
+fasten the ribbon at her neck, her fingers were so cold.
+
+"Yes, grandpapa, it is brighter than in London. We don't live in the
+city, you know. We live in rather a pretty neighbourhood looking out on
+Regent's Park, but it is seldom so bright as the country. Sometimes the
+fog blows up our way, when the wind is in the east; but it is warmer, I
+think," said Phoebe, with a little shiver, stooping over the dining-room
+fire.
+
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Tozer, shaking her head, "it's your mother as has spoilt
+you, I don't make no doubt, with fires and things. That takes the
+hardiness out of young folks. A little bit of cold is wholesome, it
+stirs up the blood. Them as is used to fires is always taking cold. One
+good fire in the sitting-room, that's always been my principle, and them
+as is cold if they can't warm theirselves with movin' about, which is
+far the best, let them come and warm their fingers when they please--as
+you may be doing now."
+
+"Perhaps it is a very good principle, grandmamma," said Phoebe, "when one
+is used to it; but the country is colder than town. Where there are
+fires on every side you must have more warmth than in a detached house
+like this. But it is only my hands after all. Shall I make the tea?"
+
+"You should wear mittens like me--I always did in the High Street,
+especial when I was going and coming to the shop, helping serve, when
+the children were young and I had the time for it. Ah! we've done with
+all that now. We're more at our ease, but I can't say as we're much
+happier. A shop is a cheerful sort of thing. I dare say your mother has
+told you--"
+
+"No," said Phoebe, under her breath; but the reply was not noticed. She
+nearly dropped the teapot out of her hand when she heard the word--Shop!
+Yes, to be sure, that was what being "in trade" meant, but she had never
+quite realized it till now. Phoebe was going through a tremendous piece
+of mental discipline in these first days. She writhed secretly, and
+moaned to herself--why did not mamma tell me? but she sat quite still
+outside, and smiled as if it was all quite ordinary and natural, and
+she had heard about the shop all her life. It seemed cruel and unkind to
+have sent her here without distinct warning of what she was going to
+meet. But Phoebe was a good girl, and would not blame her father and
+mother. No doubt they meant it "for the best."
+
+"Is Uncle Tom," she said, faltering somewhat, "in the--shop now?"
+
+"If I'm able," said Mrs. Tozer, "I'll walk that far with you this
+morning--or Tozer, I mean your grandfather, will go. It's a tidy house
+o' business, though I say it as shouldn't, seeing it was him and me as
+made it all; though I don't hold with Mrs. Tom's nonsense about the new
+windows. Your Uncle Tom is as innocent as innocent, but as for her, she
+ain't no favourite of mine, and I makes no bones about saying so, I
+don't mind who hears."
+
+"She ain't so bad as you make her out," said Tozer. "She's kind enough
+in her way. Your grandmother is a-going to show you off--that's it, my
+dear. She can't abide Tom's wife, and she wants to show her as you're
+far finer than her girls. I don't say no. It's nat'ral, and I'm not one
+as stands against nature; but don't you be prejudiced by my old woman
+there. She _is_ a prejudiced one. Nothing in the world will make her
+give up a notion when she's took it into her head."
+
+"No, nothing; and ain't I always right in the end? I should think you've
+proved that times enough," said the old woman. "Yes, I'll take a little,
+my dear, since you press me so pretty. Folks take many a thing when
+they're pressed as they wouldn't touch if there was no one to say, take
+a bit. Tozer, he never thinks of that; he's always had the best o'
+appetites; but as for me, if I get's a cup o' tea that's all as I cares
+for. You'll see as she'll take my view, when she's once been to the High
+Street. She's her mother's daughter, and Phoebe can't abide that woman,
+no more than me."
+
+"Have they got many children?" said Phoebe. "I know there are two girls,
+but as I have never seen them--Are they as old as I am?" she asked, with
+a tremulous feeling at her heart. If there were girls in the shop in the
+High Street, with whom she would have to be on familiar terms, as her
+cousins and equals, Phoebe did not feel that she could put up with that.
+
+"The eldest, Polly, is only twelve," said Tozer; "but never you mind, my
+dear, for you shan't be without company. There's a deal of families with
+daughters like yourself. Your grandmother won't say nothing against it;
+and as for me, I think there's nought so cheery as young folks. You
+shall have a fire in the drawing-room, and as many tea-parties as you
+like. For the young men, I can't say as there's many, but girls is
+plenty, and as long as you're content with that--"
+
+Mrs. Tozer regarded him with withering contempt across the table.
+
+"You're clever ones, you men," she said. "Families with daughters! Do
+you think the Greens and the Robbins is company for _her_? I dare say as
+you've heard your mother speak of Maria Pigeon, my dear? She married
+John Green the grocer, and very well to do and respectable they may be,
+but nobody but the likes of your grandfather would think of you and them
+making friends."
+
+"Indeed I don't care for making friends," said Phoebe, "you must remember
+that I came not for society, but to wait upon you, dear grandmamma. I
+don't want young friends. At home I always go out with my mother; let me
+take walks with you, when you are able. I am glad Uncle Tom's children
+are little. I don't want company. My work--and the garden--and to sit
+with grandmamma, that is all I care for. I shall be as happy as the day
+is long," said this martyr, smiling benignly over the aches in her
+heart.
+
+Her grandparents looked at her with ever-growing pride. Was not this the
+ideal young woman, the girl of the story-books, who cared about nothing
+but her duty?
+
+"That's very nice of you, my dear; but you ain't going to hide yourself
+up in a corner," said Tozer. And, "Never fear, I'll take her wherever
+it's fit for her to go to," his wife added, looking at her with pride.
+Phoebe felt, in addition to all the rest, that she was to be made a show
+of to all the connection, as a specimen of what the Tozer blood could
+come to, and she did not even feel sure that something of the same
+feeling had not been in her mother's bosom when she fitted her out so
+perfectly. Phoebe Tozer had left contemporaries and rivals in
+Carlingford, and the thought of dazzling and surpassing them in her
+offspring as in her good fortune had still some sweetness for her mind.
+"Mamma meant it too!" Phoebe junior said to herself with a sigh.
+Unfortunately for her, she did everybody credit who belonged to her, and
+she must resign herself to pay the penalty. Perhaps there was some
+compensation in that thought.
+
+And indeed Phoebe did not wonder at her grandmother's pride when she
+walked up with her to High Street, supporting her on her arm. She
+recognised frankly that there were not many people like herself about,
+few who had so much the air of good society, and not one who was so well
+dressed. There were excuses to be made then for the anxiety of the old
+people to produce her in the little world which was everything to them,
+and with her usual candour and good sense she acknowledged this, though
+she winced a little when an occasional acquaintance drifted across Mrs.
+Tozer's path, and was introduced with pride to "my granddaughter," and
+thrust forth an ungloved hand, with an exclamation of, "Lord bless us,
+Phoebe's eldest! I hope I see you well, Miss." Phoebe continued urbane,
+though it cost her many a pang. She had to keep on a perpetual argument
+with herself as she went along slowly, holding up her poor grandmother's
+tottering steps. "If this is what we have really sprung from, this is my
+own class, and I ought to like it; if I don't like it, it must be my
+fault. I have no right to feel myself better than they are. It is not
+position that makes any difference, but individual character," Phoebe
+said to herself. She got as much consolation out of this as is to be
+extracted from such rueful arguments in general; but it was after all
+indifferent comfort, and had not her temperament given her a strong hold
+of herself, and power of subduing her impulses, it is much to be feared
+that Phoebe would have dropped her grandmother's arm as they approached
+the station, and run away. She did waver for a moment as she came in
+sight of it. On that side lay freedom, comfort, the life she had been
+used to, which was not very elevated indeed, but felt like high rank in
+comparison with this. And she knew her parents would forgive her and
+defend her if she went back to them, unable to support the martyrdom
+which she had rashly taken upon herself. But then how weak that would
+be, Phoebe thought to herself, drawing Mrs. Tozer's arm more tightly
+within her own--how small! how it would hurt the feelings of the old
+people, how it would vex and embarrass her father and mother! Lastly, it
+might peril her brother's interests and her own, which, to do her
+justice, was the last thing she thought of, and yet was not undeserving
+of notice in its way.
+
+"Lean on me more heavily, grandmamma," she said at last, finally
+concluding and throwing off this self-discussion. She could not prolong
+it further. It was unworthy of her. Hence-forward she had made up her
+mind to set her face like a flint, and no longer leave the question of
+her persistence in her domestic mission an open question. Whatever she
+might have "to put up with," it was now decided once for all.
+
+"Bless us all, if this ain't grandmamma," said Mrs. Tom. It was not
+often, as she herself said with pride, that she required to be in the
+shop, which was very much improved now from its old aspect. Ill luck,
+however, brought her here to-day. She stood at the door which led from
+the shop to the house, dividing the counter, talking to a lady who was
+making a complaint upon the quality of cheese or butter. Mrs. Tozer had
+led Phoebe that way in order to point out to her the plate-glass windows
+and marble slabs for the cheese, of which, though they were one of her
+grievances against Mrs. Tom, she was secretly proud.
+
+"I don't deny but what they've done a deal," said the old woman, "show
+and vanity as I call it. I wish they may do as well for themselves with
+all their plate-glass as me and Tozer did without it; but it ain't often
+as you'll see a handsomer shop," she added, contemplating fondly the
+scene of her early labours. If a squire looks fondly at his land, and a
+sailor at his ship (when ships were worth looking at), why should not a
+shopkeeper regard his shop with the same affectionate feelings? Mrs. Tom
+Tozer had just taken leave of her remonstrant customer with a curtsey,
+and an assurance that the faults complained of should be remedied, when
+she caught sight of the infirm old woman leaning on Phoebe's arm, and
+made the exclamation already quoted.
+
+"Lord bless us all! if it ain't grandmamma, and Phoebe's daughter along
+o' her, I'll lay you sixpence," said Mrs. Tom in the extremity of her
+surprise, and at the highest pitch of her voice. The lady customer was
+still in the shop, and when she heard this she turned round and gave the
+new-comers a stare. (It was not very wonderful, Phoebe allowed to herself
+with secret anguish). She gave old Mrs. Tozer a familiar nod. "This is
+quite a long walk for you now-a-days," she said, gazing at Phoebe, though
+she addressed the old woman.
+
+"Thank ye, ma'am, I am a deal better," said Mrs. Tozer, "especially as
+I've got my granddaughter to take care of me."
+
+"Oh! is this young--person your granddaughter," said the customer with
+another stare, and then she nodded again and went away wondering.
+"Well," Phoebe said to herself, "one little sting more or less what did
+it matter?" and she went on through the shop supporting her grandmother,
+keenly sensible of the looks that encountered her on every side. Mrs.
+Tom stood leaning against the counter, waiting for them without making
+any advance. She was smart and good-looking, with a malicious gleam in a
+pair of bright black beady eyes.
+
+"How are you, granny?" she said, "I declare you're looking quite young
+again, and as spry as twenty. Come in and rest; and this young lady as
+is with you, I don't think as I need ask her name, the likeness speaks
+for itself. It's Phoebe Beecham, ain't it? Bless us all! I'd have known
+her anywhere, I would; the very moral of her mother, and of you too,
+granny. As you stand there now, you're as like as two peas."
+
+Unconsciously Phoebe cast a look upon her grandmother. She did not think
+she was vain. To be unconscious that she had some personal advantages
+would, of course, be impossible; but a thrill crept through her when she
+looked at the old woman by her side, wrinkled and red, in her
+copper-coloured gown. As like as two peas! was that possible? Phoebe's
+heart sank for the moment to her shoes, and a pitiful look of restrained
+pain came to her face. This was assailing her in her tenderest point.
+
+"Am I so like you, grandmamma?" she said, faltering; but added quickly,
+"then I cannot be like mamma. How do you do? My mother wished me to come
+at once, to bring her kind regards. Is my uncle at home?"
+
+"No, Miss, your uncle ain't at home," said Mrs. Tom, "but you might be
+civil, all the same, and put a name to me, more nor if I was a dog. I'm
+your aunt, I am--and I likes all my titles, I do--and proper respect."
+
+"Surely," said Phoebe, with a bow and a gracious smile--but she did not
+add that name. She was pleased to think that "Tom's wife" was her
+mother's favourite aversion, and that a dignified resistance to her
+claims was, so to speak, her duty. It even amused her to think of the
+ingenuity required throughout a long conversation for the clever and
+polite eluding of this claim.
+
+"I hope as you mean to let us in, Amelia," said Mrs. Tozer, "for it
+ain't often as I takes so long a walk. I would never have thought of it
+but for Phoebe--Phoebe junior, as Tozer calls her. She's been used to
+things very different, but I'm thankful to say she ain't a bit proud.
+She couldn't be more attentive to me if I was the queen, and talks of
+your children as pretty as possible, without no nonsense. It ain't often
+as you see that in a girl brought up like she's been."
+
+"I don't pretend to know nothing of how she's been brought up," said
+Mrs. Tom, "and I don't think as there's no occasion for pride here.
+We're all well-to-do, and getting on in the world--thanks to Him as
+gives the increase. I don't see no opening for pride here. Me and your
+mother were never very good friends, Phoebe, since that's your name; but
+if there's anything I can do for you, or my family, you won't ask twice.
+Grandmother's ain't a very lively house, not like mine, as is full of
+children. Come in, Granny. I'm always speaking of making the stairs
+wider, and a big window on the landing; but folks can't do everything
+at once, and we'll have to do with it a bit longer. We've done a deal
+already to the old place."
+
+"More than was wanted, or was thought upon in my time," said the old
+lady, to whom this was as the trumpet of battle. "The stairs did well
+enough for me, and I can't think what Tom can want changing things as
+he's been used to all his life."
+
+"Oh, it ain't Tom," said his wife, her face lighting up with
+satisfaction. "Tom wouldn't mind if the place was to come to bits about
+our ears. He's like you, granny, he's one of the stand-still ones. It
+ain't Tom, it's me."
+
+This little passage of arms took place as they were going upstairs,
+which cost poor Mrs. Tozer many pantings and groaning, and placed Phoebe
+for once on Mrs. Tom's side, for a window on the landing would have been
+a wonderful improvement, there was no denying. When, at last, they had
+toiled to the top, fighting their way, not only through the obscurity,
+but through an atmosphere of ham and cheese which almost choked Phoebe,
+the old lady was speechless with the exertion, though the air was to her
+as the air of Paradise. Phoebe placed her on a chair and undid her
+bonnet-strings, and for a minute was really alarmed. Mrs. Tom, however,
+took it with perfect equanimity.
+
+"She's blown a bit; she ain't as young as she was, nor even as she
+thinks for," said that sympathetic person. "Come, Granny, cheer up. Them
+stairs ain't strange to you. What's the good of making a fuss? Sit down
+and get your breath," she went on, pulling forward a chair; then turning
+to Phoebe, she shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows. "She's
+breaking fast, that's what it is," said Mrs. Tom under her breath, with
+a nod of her head.
+
+"This is the room as your mother spent most of her life in when she was
+like you," said Mrs. Tozer, when she regained her breath. "It was here
+as she met your father first. The first time I set my eyes on him,
+'That's the man for my Phoebe,' I said to myself; and sure enough, so it
+turned out."
+
+"You didn't miss no way of helping it on, neither, granny, if folks do
+you justice," said Mrs. Tom. "Mothers can do a deal when they exerts
+themselves; and now Phoebe has a daughter of her own, I dare be sworn
+she's just as clever, throwing the nice ones and the well-off ones in
+her way. It's a wonder to me as she hasn't gone off yet, with all her
+opportunities--two or three and twenty, ain't you, Miss Phoebe? I should
+have thought you'd have married long afore now."
+
+"I stall be twenty my next birthday," said Phoebe. "My cousins are a
+great deal younger, I hear; are they at school? I hope I shall see them
+before I go."
+
+"Oh, you'll see 'em fast enough," said their mother, "they're 'aving
+their music lesson. I don't hold with sending girls to school. I likes
+to keep them under my own eye. I suppose I needn't ask you now if you
+play?"
+
+"A very little," said Phoebe, who rather piqued herself upon her music,
+and who was learned in Bach and Beethoven, and had an opinion of her own
+about Wagner. Mrs. Tom brightened visibly, for her girls played not a
+little, but a great deal.
+
+"And draw?--but I needn't ask, for living in London, you've got masters
+at your very door."
+
+"Not at all, I am sorry to say," said Phoebe, with a pathetic tone of
+regret in her voice.
+
+"Lord bless us! Now who'd have thought it? I think nothing a sacrifice
+to give mine the best of education," said Mrs. Tom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+STRANGERS.
+
+
+"Well, Ursula, how do you do?" said Mrs. Sam Hurst, meeting her young
+neighbour with outstretched hands. She was a portly good-looking woman
+with an active mind, and nothing, or next to nothing to do, and instead
+of being affronted as some persons might have been, she was amused, and
+indeed flattered, by the suspicion and alarm with which all the young
+Mays regarded her. Whether she had the least intention of ever giving
+any justification to their alarms it would be impossible to say, for
+indeed to a sensible woman of forty-five, well to do and comfortable, a
+husband with "a temper of his own," and a large poor unruly family, was,
+perhaps, not so tempting as he appeared to be to his jealous children.
+Anyhow she was not at all angry with them for being jealous and afraid
+of her. She was cordial in her manner to the Mays as to everybody she
+knew. She asked how Ursula had enjoyed herself, where she had been, what
+she had seen, and a hundred questions more.
+
+"It is quite delightful to see somebody who has something to tell," she
+said when the interrogation was over. "I ask everybody what news, and
+no one has any news, which is dreadful for me."
+
+"How can you care for news?" said Ursula, "news! what interest can there
+be in mere news that doesn't concern us?"
+
+"You are very foolish, my dear," said Mrs. Hurst; "what's to become of
+you when you're old, if you don't like to hear what's going on? I'm
+thankful to say I take a great deal, of interest in my fellow-creatures
+for my part. Now listen, I'll tell you a piece of news in return for all
+your information about London. When I was in Tozer's shop to-day--I
+always go there, though they are Dissenters; after all, you know, most
+tradespeople are Dissenters; some are sorry for it, some think it quite
+natural that gentle-people and tradespeople should think differently in
+religious matters; however, what I say is, you can't tell the difference
+in butter and bacon between church and dissent, can you now? and Tozer's
+is the best shop in the town, certainly the best shop. So as I was in
+Tozer's as I tell you, who should come in but old Mrs. Tozer, who once
+kept it herself--and by her side, figure my astonishment, a young lady!
+yes, my dear, actually a young lady, in appearance, of course--I mean in
+appearance--for, as you shall hear, it could be no more than that. So
+nicely dressed, nothing vulgar or showy, a gown that Elise might have
+made, and everything to correspond, in perfect taste. Fancy! and you may
+imagine how I stared. I could not take my eyes off her. I was so
+astonished that I rubbed up my old acquaintance with the old woman, and
+asked her how her rheumatism was. I _hope_ it is rheumatism. At all
+events I called it so, and then she told me as proud as a peacock that
+it was her granddaughter; fancy, her granddaughter! did you ever hear of
+such a thing? The other woman in the shop, the present Tozer, called out
+to her by name. Phoebe they called her. Poor girl, I was so sorry for
+her. A lady in appearance, and to have to submit to that!"
+
+"Oughtn't ladies to be called Phoebe?" asked Janey. "Why not? It's rather
+a pretty name."
+
+"That is so like Janey," said Mrs. Hurst; "I know she is the clever one;
+but she never can see what one means. It is not being called Phoebe, it
+is because of her relations that I am sorry for her. Poor girl!
+educating people out of their sphere does far more harm than good, I
+always maintain. To see that nice-looking, well-dressed girl in Tozer's
+shop, with all the butter boys calling her Phoebe--"
+
+"The butter boys are as good as any one else," cried Janey, whose
+tendencies were democratic. "I dare say she likes her relations as well
+as we like ours, and better, though they do keep a shop."
+
+"Oh, Janey!" cried Ursula, whose feelings were touched; then she
+remembered that her sympathies ought not to flow in the same channel
+with those of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and continued coldly, "If she had not
+liked them she need not have come to see them."
+
+"That is all you know, you girls. You don't know the plague of
+relations, and how people have got to humble themselves to keep money in
+the family, or keep up appearances, especially people that have risen in
+the world. I declare I think they pay dear for rising in the world, or
+their poor children pay dear--"
+
+"You seem to take a great deal of interest in the Tozers," said Ursula,
+glad to administer a little correction; "even if they came to St.
+Roque's I could understand it--but Dissenters!" This arrow struck home.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Hurst, colouring, "of all people to take an interest
+in Dissenters I am the last; but I was struck, I must admit, to see that
+old Mrs. Tozer, looking like an old washerwoman, with a girl in a
+twenty-guinea dress, you may take my word for it, though as plain as
+that little brown frock of yours, Ursula. That was a sight to wake any
+one up."
+
+Ursula looked down at the little brown frock thus contemptuously
+referred to, with mingled offence and consciousness of inferiority. It
+had not cost as many shillings, and had been made up at home, and was
+not a shining example of the dressmaker's art. "If you value people
+according to what their dress costs--"
+
+"I can't know much about her moral qualities, can I?" said Mrs. Hurst,
+"and I don't suppose she has any position, being old Tozer's grandchild.
+But she wasn't amiss in her looks, and I declare I should have taken her
+for a lady if I had met her in the street. It shows how one may be taken
+in. And this is a lesson for you, young girls; you must never trust to
+appearances. I confess I'd like to find out some more about her. Going
+in, Ursula? Well, my dear, perhaps I'll step in for a talk in the
+evening. You must be dull after your gaiety. Tell your dear papa," said
+Mrs. Hurst with a laugh, "that I am coming to sit with you after tea.
+Now mind you give him my message. He does not like to miss me when I
+come to the Parsonage, does he now? Good-bye for the present. Till eight
+o'clock."
+
+"Oh, how I hate her," cried Janey, "except sometimes when she makes me
+laugh and I feel tempted to like her; but I always resist it. Do you
+think really, Ursula, that papa could be--such a--stupid--"
+
+"Oh, please don't ask me," cried Ursula. "How can I tell? I don't know
+what he may do; but if he does--and if she does--oh, then, Janey--"
+
+"Yes, indeed, then!" said Janey, breathing hard. This mysterious threat
+seemed very horrible to both of them, though what they meant by it, it
+would have been very hard for either of them to tell. They waited within
+the little shrubbery whispering to each other till they heard Mrs. Hurst
+close her own door, for they did not want any more of her society,
+though they had no intention of going in. When she was safe out of the
+way, they stole out and continued their walk in the opposite direction.
+
+"I wanted to have gone into the town," said Ursula. "It _is_ hard to
+have that woman next door; one can't go anywhere or do anything! I
+wanted some braid for your new frock, Janey, and twist to make the
+button-holes; but if we had said we were going up into Carlingford, she
+would have come too. Never mind; a walk is better than nothing. Walk
+fast, and let us try how far we can go before tea."
+
+Upon this idea the two girls set out walking as if for a race, which did
+them all the good in the world, quickening the blood in their veins,
+sending the colour to their cheeks, and dispersing all the cobwebs from
+their minds, since they soon got into the spirit of the race, and
+pursued it with eagerness, with little outbursts of laughter, and
+breathless adjurations to each other to keep within the proper pace, and
+not to run. It was not a very inviting road along which they took their
+walk. Beyond St. Roque the land was divided into allotments for the
+working people, not very tidily kept, and rough with cut cabbages,
+plants, and dug-up potatoes. Beyond this lay a great turnip-field,
+somewhat rank in smell, and the east wind swept chill along the open
+road, which was not sheltered by a single tree, so that the attractions
+of the way soon palled upon pedestrians. Looking back to Grange Lane,
+the snug and sheltered look of that genteel adjunct to the town was
+comforting to behold. Even Grange Lane was not gay; a line of garden
+walls, however they may shelter and comfort the gardens within, are not
+lovely without; but yet the trees, though leafless, waved over the red
+lines of brick, and the big laurels hung out bushes of dark verdure and
+long floating sprays of ivy.
+
+"Let's turn back; perhaps she may not be at the window," cried Ursula.
+"It is so dull here."
+
+Janey stopped short in the heat of the walk, objecting for the moment.
+
+"I wish you had not gone to London. You never used to care for the
+streets and the shops; now a regular good walk is too much for you,"
+cried Janey.
+
+"With a turnip-field on one side and a potato-field on the other!" said
+Ursula, in high disdain.
+
+"I tell you what!" cried Janey. "I don't think I like you since you came
+back. The Dorsets are fine people, and we are not fine. There are no
+grand parties, nor theatres, nor balls at Carlingford. When we go out
+here, we go to walk, not to see things, as you have been used to doing.
+I don't know what you mean by it; nineteen years with us, and one
+fortnight with them! and the fortnight counts for more than all the
+years!"
+
+Janey was not in the habit of restraining her voice any more than
+anything else about her, and she spoke this out with loud school-girl
+tones, reckless who might hear her. In most cases she might have done
+this with the utmost impunity, and how was she to know, as she said to
+her sister afterwards, in self-defence, that any one, especially any
+gentleman, could be lurking about, spying upon people, among those nasty
+allotments? There was some one there, however, who came down the muddy
+path, all cut up by the wheel-barrows, with a smile upon his face. A
+gentleman? Janey called him so without a doubt on the subject; but
+Ursula, more enlightened and slightly irritated, had her doubts. He was
+dressed, not with any care of morning costume, but wore a black
+frock-coat of the most formal description, with a white cravat
+carelessly tied, semi-clerical, and yet not clerical. He had a smile on
+his face, which, on the whole, was rather a handsome face, and looked at
+them, showing evident signs of having heard what Janey said. To be sure,
+he did not say anything, but Ursula felt that his look was just the same
+as if he had spoken, and coloured high, resenting the intrusion. By this
+stranger's side was one of the men who had been working at the
+allotments, whose hands were not clean, and whose boots were heavy with
+the clinging, clayey soil. When they had nearly reached the road, the
+gentleman turned round and shook hands with his companion, and then
+walked on towards Carlingford, throwing another look towards the girls
+as he passed. It would be hard to say whether curiosity or anger was
+strongest in Ursula. In Janey, the former sentiment carried everything
+before it.
+
+"Oh, I wonder who he is?" she cried, low, but eager, in her sister's
+ear. "Who can he be, Ursula, who can he be? We know all the men about
+here, every one, as well as we know Reginald. Oh, Ursula, who do you
+think he can be?"
+
+"He is very impertinent," cried Ursula, with an angry blush. "How should
+I know? And oh! how very silly of you, Janey, to talk so loud, and make
+impudent men stare at us so."
+
+"Impudent!" cried Janey. "I didn't talk loud. He looked rather nice, on
+the contrary. Why, he laughed! Do you call that impudent? It can't be
+anybody from the town, because we know everybody; and did you see him
+shaking hands with that man? How very funny! Let us run in and tell Mrs.
+Sam Hurst, and ask her who she thinks he is. She is sure to know."
+
+"Janey," said Ursula, severely, "if you live very long, you will be as
+great a gossip and as fond of news as Mrs. Sam Hurst herself."
+
+"I don't care," cried Janey; "you're just as fond of news as I am, only
+you won't confess it. I am dying to know who he is. He is quite
+nice-looking, and tall and grand. A new gentleman! Come, quick, Ursula;
+let us get back and see where he goes."
+
+"Janey!" cried the elder sister. She was half curious herself, but
+Ursula was old enough to know better, and to be ashamed of the other's
+naïve and undisguised curiosity. "Oh, what would Cousin Anne say! A girl
+running after a gentleman (even if he is a gentleman), to see where he
+goes!"
+
+"Well!" cried Janey, "if she wants to know, what else is she to do? Who
+cares for Cousin Anne? She is an old maid. Why, if it had been a lady, I
+shouldn't have minded. There are so many ladies; but a new gentleman! If
+you won't come on, I will run by myself. How pleased Mrs. Sam Hurst will
+be!"
+
+"I thought you hated Mrs. Sam Hurst?"
+
+"So I do when I think of papa; but when there's anything going on, or
+anything to find out, I like her dearly. She's such fun! She never
+shilly-shallies, like you. She's not an old maid like your Cousin Anne
+that you are always talking of. Come along! if anybody else finds out
+who he is before we do," cried Janey, with almost despairing energy, "I
+shall break my heart!"
+
+Ursula stoically resisted the tug upon her, but she went back to Grange
+Lane, to which, indeed, she had turned her face before they met the
+stranger, and she could not help seeing the tall black figure in front
+of her which Janey watched so eagerly. Ursula was not eager, but she
+could not help seeing him. He walked up the street quickly, not as if he
+thought himself of interest to any one, but when he had got half way up
+Grange Lane, crossed to speak to somebody. This filled Janey with
+consternation.
+
+"He is not such a stranger after all," she cried. "He knows some one. He
+will not be quite a discovery. Who is it he is talking to, I wonder? He
+is standing at one of the doors, but it is not Miss Humphreys, nor Miss
+Griffiths, nor any of the Charters. Perhaps she is a stranger too. If he
+is married he won't be half so interesting, for there are always plenty
+of ladies. Perhaps he has just come by the railway to spend the day--but
+then there is nothing to see in Carlingford, and how did he know that
+man at the lots? Oh, Ursula, why don't you answer me? why don't you say
+something? have you no feeling? I am sure it don't matter a bit to me,
+for I am not out; I am never asked to parties--but I take an interest
+for you other girls' sake."
+
+Before this time, however, Ursula had found a new object of interest.
+She had not been quite so unmoved as Janey supposed. A new gentleman was
+a thing to awaken anybody who knew Carlingford, for, indeed, gentlemen
+were scarce in the society of the little town, and even at the most mild
+of tea-parties it is ludicrous to see one man (and that most likely a
+curate) among a dozen ladies--so that even when she appeared to Janey to
+wonder, she felt that her sister's curiosity was not unjustifiable. But
+while thus engaged in the enterprise of discovering "a new gentleman"
+for the good of society, Ursula's eyes and her attention were caught by
+another interest. The stranger had crossed the street to talk to a lady,
+who had been walking down the Lane, and whom Ursula felt she had seen
+somewhere. Who was it? Certainly not Miss Humphreys, nor Miss Griffiths,
+nor any other of the well-known young ladies of Grange Lane. The setting
+sun, which had come out suddenly after a dull day, threw a slanting,
+long-drawn ray up the street, which fell upon the strangers, as they
+stood talking. This ray caught the young lady's hair, and flashed back a
+reflection out of the shining coils which looked to Ursula (being dark
+herself, she admired golden hair more than anything) as bright as the
+sunshine. And in the light she caught the out-line of a pretty head, and
+of a nose slightly "tip-tilted," according to the model which the
+Laureate has brought into fashion. Where had she seen her before? She
+remembered all at once with a rush of bewildered pleasure.
+
+"Janey! Oh, Janey!" she cried, "Listen! This is too extraordinary. There
+is the young lady in black!"
+
+Janey, as may be supposed, had heard every detail of Mrs. Copperhead's
+ball, and knew what Ursula meant as well as Ursula herself did. She grew
+pale with excitement and curiosity. "No!" she said, "you can't mean it.
+Are you sure, are you quite sure? Two new people in one day! Why,
+everybody must be coming to Carlingford. It makes me feel quite
+strange!" said this susceptible young woman; "the young lady in black!"
+
+"Oh, yes, there can't be any mistake," said Ursula, hurrying on in her
+excitement, "I looked at her so much. I couldn't mistake her. Oh, I
+wonder if she will know me, I wonder if she will speak to me! or if she
+is going to see the Dorsets, or what has brought her to Carlingford.
+Only fancy, Janey, the young lady in black whom I have talked so much
+of; oh, I wonder, I do wonder what has brought her here."
+
+They were on the opposite side of the lane, so that their hurried
+approach did not startle the strangers; but Phoebe, looking up at the
+sound of the footsteps, saw a face she knew looking wistfully, eagerly
+at her, with evident recognition. Phoebe had a faculty quite royal of
+remembering faces, and it took but a moment to recall Ursula's to her.
+Another moment was spent in a rapid discussion with herself, as to
+whether she should give or withhold the salutation which the girl
+evidently sought. But what harm could it do? and it would be pleasant to
+know some one; and if on finding out who she was, Miss Dorset's little
+relation shrank from her acquaintance, why then, Phoebe said to herself,
+"I shall be no worse than before." So she sent a smile and a bow across
+the road and said, "How do you do?" in a pause of her conversation.
+Ursula was too shy to feel on equal terms with the young lady in black,
+who was so much more self-possessed than she was. She blushed and
+smiled, answered, "Quite well, thank you," across the lane like a child,
+and notwithstanding a great many pokes from Janey's energetic elbow,
+went on without further response.
+
+"Oh, why can't you run across and speak to her?" cried Janey, "oh, how
+funny you are, and how disagreeable! would _I_ pass any one I knew, like
+that!"
+
+"You don't understand, you are only a child," said Ursula, frightened
+and agitated, yet full of dignity, "we have only met--in society. When
+you are introduced to any one in society it does not count. Perhaps they
+might not want to know you; perhaps--but anyhow you can't rush up to
+them like two girls at school. You have to wait and see what they will
+do."
+
+"Well, I declare!" cried Janey; "then what is the good of society? You
+know them, and yet you mustn't know them. I would never be such a fool
+as that. Fancy looking at her across the lane and saying 'quite well,
+thank you,' after she had begun to speak. I suppose that's Cousin Anne's
+way? I should have rushed across and asked where she was staying, and
+when she would come to see us. Ursula, oh," cried Janey, suddenly
+changing her tone, and looking at her sister with eyes which had widened
+to twice their natural size with the grandeur of the idea, "you will
+have to ask her to tea!"
+
+"Oh, you silly girl, do you think she would come? you should have seen
+her at the ball. She knew everybody, and had such quantities of
+partners. Mr. Clarence Copperhead was always dancing with her. Fancy her
+coming to tea with us." But Ursula herself was somewhat breathless with
+the suggestion. When a thing has been once said, there is always a
+chance that it may be done, and the two girls walked up very quickly
+into the High Street after this, silent, with a certain awe of
+themselves and their possibilities. It might be done, now that it had
+been said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A DOMESTIC CRISIS.
+
+
+The interest shown by the two girls in the stranger whom they had noted
+with so much attention was not destined to meet with any immediate
+reward. Neither he, nor "the young lady in black," whom he hurried
+across the street to meet, could be heard of, or was seen for full two
+days afterwards, to the great disappointment of the young Mays. Ursula,
+especially, who had been entertaining vague but dazzling thoughts of a
+companionship more interesting than Janey's, more novel and at the same
+time more equal than that which was extended to her by the Miss
+Griffiths in Grange Lane, who were so much better off and had so much
+less to do than she. Ursula did not recollect the name of the fortunate
+girl who was so much in the ascendant at Mr. Copperhead's ball, though
+Phoebe had been introduced to her; but she did recollect her popularity
+and general friendliness, and the number of partners she had, and all
+those delightful signs of greatness which impress a poor little
+stranger, to whom her first dance is not unmingled pleasure. She
+whispered to Janey about her even in the drawing-room when all the
+family were assembled.
+
+"Do you think she will call?" said Ursula, asking counsel even of
+Janey's inexperience, of which she was so contemptuous on other
+occasions.
+
+"Call! how can she, if she is a stranger?" said Janey.
+
+"As if you knew anything about it!" Ursula retorted with great
+injustice.
+
+"If I don't know, then why do you ask me?" complained Janey with reason.
+The room looked more cheerful since Ursula had come home. The fire, no
+longer choked with cinders, burned clear and red. The lamp, though it
+was a cheap one, and burned paraffin oil, did not smell. The old
+curtains were nicely drawn, and the old covers smoothed over the chairs.
+All this did not make them look less old; but it made their antiquity
+natural and becoming. Johnnie, the school-boy, was learning his lessons
+on the rug before the fire. Reginald sat writing, with a candle all to
+himself, at a writing-table in a corner. Ursula and Janey were working
+at the centre table by the light of the lamp. They had no time, you may
+imagine, for fancy-work. Janey, with many contortions of her person,
+especially of her mouth, with which she seemed to follow the movements
+of her needle, was stitching up a sleeve of her new frock which Miss
+Dorset had sent her, and which a poor dress-maker, who "went out," was
+at this moment making up in the schoolroom; while Ursula was still busy
+with the basket of stockings which she had found awaiting her on their
+return. What Reginald was doing at the writing-table was probably a
+great deal less useful, but the girls respected his occupation as no one
+ever thought of respecting theirs, and carried on their conversation
+under their breath, not to interrupt him. The little children had gone
+to bed, tea was over, and several hours of the long winter evening still
+before them. Janey had given over lessons, partly because there was no
+one to insist upon her doing them. Once in a week or so her father gave
+her a lecture for her ignorance, and ordered her into his study to do a
+long sum in arithmetic out of the first old "Colenso" that could be
+picked up; and about once a week too, awakening suddenly to a sense of
+her own deficiencies, she would "practise" energetically on the old
+piano. This was all that was being done for Janey in the way of
+education. She was fifteen, and as Johnnie, and Amy, and Robin were at
+an age when school is a necessity, the only retrenchment possible was to
+keep Janey at home. Ursula had got what education she possessed in the
+same irregular way. It was not much. Besides reading and writing, she
+had pretty manners, which came by nature like those other gifts. A girl
+is not so badly off who can read and write and has pretty manners. Janey
+possessed the two first faculties, but neither had nor apparently could
+acquire the third. The two dark brown heads were close together as they
+worked--Ursula's shining and neat, and carefully arranged, Janey's rough
+with elf-locks; but they were more interesting than Reginald, though he
+was so much better informed. As for Johnnie, he lay extended on the rug,
+his head slightly raised on his two hands, his book on a level with the
+rest of his person, saying over his lesson to himself with moving lips.
+And now and then, when the girls' whispered chatter was silent, the
+sound of Reginald's pen scratching across the paper would fill up the
+interval; it was a sound which filled them all with respect.
+
+This peaceful domestic scene was broken in upon by the entry of Mr. May.
+From the moment that he closed the hall-door behind him, coming in, a
+little thrill ran through the family party. The girls looked at each
+other when they heard that sound, and Johnnie, without stopping his
+inward repetition, shifted himself and his book adroitly, with the
+cleverness of practice, to the side instead of the front of the fire.
+Reginald's pen stopped its scratching, and he wheeled round on his chair
+to give an appealing glance at his sisters.
+
+"What is it now?" he said hurriedly. Every one knew that when the door
+was closed like that it meant something like a declaration of war. But
+they had not much time to wait and wonder. Mr. May came in, pushing the
+door wide open before him, and admitting a gust of chill air of the
+January night. He looked at the peaceable domestic scene with a "humph"
+of dissatisfaction, because there was nothing to find fault with, which
+is as great a grievance as another when one is in the mood for
+grievances. He had come in cross and out of sorts, with a private cause
+for his ill-temper, which he did not choose to reveal, and it would have
+been a relief to him had he found them all chattering or wasting their
+time, instead of being occupied in this perfectly dutiful way--even
+Johnnie at his lessons, repeating them over under his breath. What was
+the world coming to? Mr. May was disappointed. Instead of leading up to
+it gradually by a general _battue_ of his children all round, he had to
+open upon his chief subject at once, which was not nearly so agreeable a
+way.
+
+"What are you doing, Reginald?" he asked, roughly, pulling his chair to
+the other side of the fire, opposite the corner to which Johnnie had
+scuffled out of the way. "I have come in especially to speak to you. It
+is time this shilly-shallying was done with. Do you mean to accept the
+College chaplaincy or not? an answer must be given, and that at once.
+Are you so busy that you can't attend to what I say?"
+
+"I am not busy at all, sir," said Reginald, in a subdued voice, while
+his sisters cast sympathetic looks at him. Both the girls, it is true,
+thought him extremely foolish, but what of that? Necessarily they were
+on his side against papa.
+
+"I thought as much; indeed it would be hard to say what you could find
+to be busy at. But look here, this must come to an end one way or
+another. You know my opinion on the subject."
+
+"And you know mine, sir," said Reginald, rising and coming forward to
+the fire. "I don't say anything against the old College. For an old man
+it might be quite a justifiable arrangement--one who had already spent
+his strength in work--but for me--of course there is nothing in the
+world to do."
+
+"And two hundred and fifty a year for the doing of it--not to speak of
+the house, which you could let for fifty more."
+
+"Father! don't you see that is just the very thing that I object to, so
+much for nothing."
+
+"You prefer nothing for nothing," said Mr. May, with a smile; "well, I
+suppose that is more fair, perhaps--to the public;--but how about me? A
+son of three-and-twenty depending upon me for everything, useless and
+bringing in nothing, does not suit me. You are all the same," he said,
+"all taking from me, with a thousand wants, education, clothes,
+amusement--"
+
+"I am sure," said the irrepressible Janey, "it is not much clothes we
+get, and as for amusements--and education!"
+
+"Hold your tongue," cried her father. "Here are six of you, one more
+helpless than another, and the eldest the most helpless of all. I did
+not force you into the Church. You might have gone out to James if you
+had liked--but you chose an academical career, and then there was
+nothing else for it. I gave you a title to orders. You are my curate
+just now--so called; but you know I can't pay a curate, and you know I
+can't afford to keep you. Providence--" said Mr. May, sitting up in his
+chair, with a certain solemnity, "Providence itself has stepped in to
+make your path clear. Here is better than a living, a provision for you.
+I don't bid you take it for life; take it for a year or two till you can
+hear of something better. Now what on earth is your objection to this?"
+
+The girls had both turned their faces towards their brother. Janey,
+always the first in action, repeated almost unconsciously. "Yes, what
+on earth, Reginald, can be your objection to this?"
+
+Reginald stood in the middle of the room and looked helplessly at them.
+Against his father alone he might have made a stand--but when the united
+family thus gazed at him with inquiring and reproachful looks, what was
+he to say?
+
+"Objection!" he faltered, "you know very well what my objection is. It
+is not honest work--it is no work. It is a waste of money that might be
+better employed; it is a sinecure."
+
+"And what do you call your nominal curateship," said his father, "is not
+that a sinecure too?"
+
+"If it is," said Reginald, growing red, but feeling bolder, for here the
+family veered round, and placed itself on his side, "it is of a contrary
+kind. It is _sine_ pay. My work may be bad, though I hope not, but my
+pay is nothing. I don't see any resemblance between the two."
+
+"Your pay nothing!" cried the father, enraged; "what do you call your
+living, your food that you are so fastidious about, your floods of beer
+and all the rest of it--not to speak of tailors' bills much heavier than
+mine?"
+
+"Which are never paid."
+
+"Whose fault is it that they are never paid? yours and the others who
+weigh me down to the ground, and never try to help or do anything for
+themselves. Never paid! how should I have gone on to this period and
+secured universal respect if they had never been paid? I have had to pay
+for all of you," said Mr. May, bitterly, "and all your vagaries;
+education, till I have been nearly ruined; dresses and ribbons, and a
+hundred fooleries for these girls, who are of no use, who will never
+give me back a farthing."
+
+"Papa!" cried Ursula and Janey in one breath.
+
+"Hold your tongues! useless impedimenta, not even able to scrub the
+floors, and make the beds, which is all you could ever be good for--and
+you must have a servant forsooth to do even that. But why should I speak
+of the girls?" he added, with a sarcastic smile, "they can do nothing
+better, poor creatures; but you! who call yourself a man--a University
+man, save the mark--a fine fellow with the Oxford stamp upon you,
+twenty-three your next birthday. It is a fine thing that I should still
+have to support you."
+
+Reginald began to walk up and down the room, stung beyond bearing--not
+that he had not heard it all before, but to get accustomed to such
+taunts is difficult, and it is still more difficult for a young and
+susceptible mind to contradict all that is seemly and becoming in
+nature, and to put forth its own statement in return. Reginald knew that
+his education had in reality cost his father very little, and that his
+father knew this. He was aware, too, much more distinctly than Mr. May
+knew, of James's remittances on his account; but what could he say? It
+was his father who insulted him, and the young man's lips were closed;
+but the effort was a hard one. He could not stand still there and face
+the man who had so little consideration for his feelings. All he could
+do was to keep his agitation and irritation down by that hurried
+promenade about the room, listening as little as he could, and answering
+not at all.
+
+"Oh, papa! how can you?" cried Janey, seizing the first pause. Janey was
+not old enough to understand the delicacy that closed Reginald's lips,
+and the impulse of self-defence was stirring in her; "how dare you talk
+to Ursula so? I mayn't be much use, but Ursula! nice and comfortable you
+were when she was away! as if you didn't say so ten times in a morning;
+to be sure that was to make me feel uncomfortable. Scrub floors!" cried
+Janey, in the violence of her resentment. "I'll go out and be a
+maid-of-all-work whenever you please. I am sure it would be much happier
+than here."
+
+"Hold your tongue," said Mr. May, "you scolding and Ursula crying;
+that's the beauty of the feminine element in a house. I ought to be very
+thankful, oughtn't I, that I have girls to furnish this agreeable
+variety? But as for you, Reginald," his father added, "mark my words, if
+you determine to reject this windfall that Providence has blown into
+your hands, it must be done at once. No further play of I would and I
+would not, if you please, here; and if it does not suit you, you will
+please to understand that I have no further need for a curate that suits
+me still less. I want your room. If nothing else can be done, I must try
+to take a pupil to add a little to the income which has so many claims
+upon it; and I don't mean to go on keeping you--this is plain enough, I
+hope."
+
+"Very plain, sir," said Reginald, who had grown as pale as he was red
+before.
+
+"I am glad to hear it; you will write to the Corporation at once,
+accepting or rejecting at your pleasure; but this must be done to-night.
+I must insist on its being done to-night; and if you find yourself
+sufficiently bold to reject an income," said Mr. May with emphasis, "and
+go off into the world without a penny in your pocket, I wash my hands of
+it; it is nothing to me."
+
+Then there was a pause. The father of the family sat down in his chair,
+and looked round him with the happy consciousness that he had made
+everybody miserable. The girls were both crying, Reginald pale and
+desperate, coming and going through the room. No one had escaped but
+Johnnie, who, happy in insignificance, lay all his length on the other
+side of the fire, and lifted his face from his book to watch the
+discomfiture of the others. Johnnie had no terrors on his own account.
+He had done nothing to call forth the paternal wrath. Mr. May could not
+resist this temptation.
+
+"Is that a way to learn lessons as they ought to be learnt?" he cried
+suddenly, throwing one of his darts at the unthinking boy. "Get up this
+moment, and sit down to a table somewhere. Your own room, where there is
+nobody to disturb you, is better than amid the chit-chat here; do you
+hear me? get up, sir, and go."
+
+Johnnie stumbled to his feet appalled; he was too much startled to say
+anything. He took his books across the room to the writing-table which
+Reginald had abandoned in a similar way. But by the time he reached that
+haven, he came to himself, and recovering his courage muttered something
+about the hardship to which he was thus exposed, as boys have a way of
+doing; upon which Mr. May got suddenly up, seized him by the shoulders
+and turned him out of the drawing-room. "I said your own room, sir,"
+cried this impartial father, distributing to all alike an equal share of
+his urbanities. When he had accomplished this, he stood for a moment and
+looked at the rest of his confused and uncomfortable family. "There is
+not much cheerful society to be had here this evening, I perceive," he
+said. "It is pleasant to come in from one's cares and find a reception
+like this, don't you think? Let some one bring me some coffee to my
+study. I am going to write."
+
+"Whose fault is it that he gets such a reception?" burst forth Janey,
+the moment her father had closed the door. "Who does it all, I wonder?
+Who treats us like a set of wretches without any feeling? I can't hush,
+I won't hush! Oh, shouldn't I be glad to go out as a housemaid, to do
+anything!"
+
+"Oh, Janey, hush! we can't help ourselves, we are obliged to put up with
+it," said Ursula; "but Reginald, he is not obliged, he can save himself
+when he likes. Oh, I know, I know papa is unreasonable; but, Reginald,
+aren't you a little bit unreasonable too?"
+
+"Don't you begin to reproach me," cried the young man, "I have had
+enough for one day. Have I been such a charge upon him, Ursula? What has
+he spent upon me? Next to nothing. That tailor's bill he spoke of, he
+knew as well as I do that I paid it by the tutorship I had in the
+vacation. It is his bill that is not paid, not mine. And then James's
+money--"
+
+"Oh, never mind that, never mind the past," cried Ursula, "think of the
+present, that's what you ought to do. Oh, Reginald, think; if _I_ had
+the chance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year! there is nothing I
+would not do for it. I would scrub floors, as he said, I would do
+anything, the dirtiest work. You will be independent, able to do what
+you please, and never to ask papa for anything. Reginald, think! Oh,
+dear, dear, I wish I knew how to talk to you. To be independent, able to
+please yourself!"
+
+"I shall be independent anyhow after to-night," he said. "Ursula, you
+will help me to pack my things, won't you? It is leaving you here, you
+girls, with nobody to stand up for you; it is that I feel most."
+
+"Oh, Reginald, don't go and leave us," cried Janey, leaning on the back
+of his chair; "what can we do without you? When he comes in, in a rage
+like to-night, as long as you are here one can bear it. Oh, Reginald,
+can't you, can't you take the chaplaincy? Think what it would be for
+us."
+
+"Yes, I will pack your things," said Ursula, "I will help you to get out
+of it, though we must stay and put up with it all, and never, never
+escape. But where will you go? You have no money, not enough scarcely to
+pay your railway fare. You would have to take to teaching; and where are
+you to go?"
+
+"I have some friends left," cried Reginald, his lips quivering, "some
+people care for me still and would hold out a hand. I am--not--quite so
+badly off as he thinks; I could go to town, or to Oxford--or--"
+
+"You don't know where; and here is a nice old-fashioned house all ready
+for you to step into, and an income," cried Ursula, her tone deepening
+to mark the capital letter; "an Income, quite sure and ready--without
+any difficulty, without any trouble, all if you say yes. Oh, only think
+what a comfort for us all to be able to rush to you when we are in
+trouble! Think of Johnnie and Robin; and that delightful wainscoted room
+for your study, with the book-cases all ready--and plenty of money to
+buy books." This being the highest point to which Ursula could reach,
+she dropped down after it into an insinuating half whisper, "And plenty
+of work to do; dear Reginald, plenty of work in the parish, you may be
+sure, if you will only help the Rector; or here where you are working
+already, and where you may be sure nobody will think of paying you. Oh,
+Reginald, there is plenty, plenty of work."
+
+The young man was already beginning to melt. "Do you think so?" he
+said.
+
+"Think!" cried Janey, "I am sure you may do all papa's work for him and
+welcome, if that is all. For my part I think you are very silly, both
+Ursula and you. Work! Pay is far better if you weren't such a pair of
+simpletons. After all, he has a little reason to be angry. Good
+gracious! why shouldn't you take it? Some one else will, if you won't. I
+would in a minute, and so would Ursula if we could. And why should you
+be so much grander than anybody else? I think it is quite childish for
+my part."
+
+"Reginald, never mind her, she is only a child and doesn't understand
+('Child yourself,' cried Janey). I don't understand very well, but still
+I can see what you want. Oh, you might find such quantities of work,
+things nobody is ever found to do. What do the fellows do at Oxford that
+they get that money for? I have heard you say you would be very glad to
+get a fellowship--"
+
+"That is different, that is a reward of scholarship."
+
+"Well, and so is this too," said Ursula; "it is (I am sure) because the
+old men knew you were one that would be kind. You were always kind,
+Reginald, that is what it is for."
+
+"The old men have nothing to do with it," he said, shaking his head, "it
+is the Corporation, and they are--"
+
+"Very rich men, Reginald dear, a great many of them, very sensible! what
+does it matter about their education? And then you would be a really
+educated man, always ready to do anything that was wanted in
+Carlingford. Don't you see that was their meaning? They pay you for that
+which is not work, but they will find you plenty of work they don't pay
+for. That is what they mean; and oh, Reginald, to run over to you there
+in that pretty wainscoted room, and to have you coming in to us every
+day, and to know that you were there to stand by us!"
+
+Here once more Ursula began to cry. As for Janey, she made a dash at the
+writing-table and brought him paper and pens and ink, "Say yes, say
+yes," she cried; "oh, Reginald, if it was only to spite papa!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE NEW GENTLEMAN.
+
+
+It seems difficult to imagine what connection there could be between
+Phoebe Beecham's appearance in Grange Lane and the interview which took
+place there between her and the "new gentleman," and Mr. May's sudden
+onslaught upon his family, which ended in Reginald's acceptance of the
+chaplaincy. But yet the connection was very distinct. Not even the Mays,
+in their excitement over the appearance of a stranger in Carlingford,
+could be more surprised than Phoebe was when her solitary walk was
+interrupted by the apparition across the street of a known person, a
+face familiar to her in other regions. "Mr. Northcote!" she cried, with
+a little start of surprise. As for the stranger, he made but two steps
+across Grange Lane in his delight at the sight of her. Not that he was
+Phoebe's lover, or possessed by any previous enthusiasm for the girl whom
+he had met about half-a-dozen times in his life, and of whom he knew
+little more than that she was the daughter of a "brother clergyman;" for
+both Mr. Beecham and he were in the habit of using that word, whether
+appropriate or inappropriate. This was the explanation of the white
+necktie and the formal dress which had puzzled Ursula.
+
+Horace Northcote was not of Mr. Beecham's class. He was not well-to-do
+and genial, bent upon keeping up his congregation and his popularity,
+and trying to ignore as much as he could the social superiority of the
+Church without making himself in any way offensive to her. He was a
+political Nonconformist, a vigorous champion of the Disestablishment
+Society, more successful on the platform than in the pulpit, and
+strenuously of opinion in his heart of hearts that the Church was the
+great drawback to all progress in England, an incubus of which the
+nation would gladly be rid. His dress was one of the signs of his
+character and meaning. Strong in a sense of his own clerical position,
+he believed in uniform as devoutly as any Ritualist, but he would not
+plagiarise the Anglican livery and walk about in a modified soutane and
+round hat like "our brethren in the Established Church," as Mr. Beecham
+kindly called them. To young Northcote they were not brethren, but
+enemies, and though he smiled superior at the folly which stigmatised
+an M.B. waistcoat, yet he scorned to copy. Accordingly his frock coat
+was not long, but of the extremest solemnity of cut and hue, his white
+tie was of the stiffest, his tall hat of the most uncompromising
+character. He would not veil for a day in easier and more ordinary
+habiliments the distinct position he assumed as clerical, yet not of the
+clergy; a teacher of men, though not a priest of the Anglican
+inspiration. He could not help feeling that his appearance, as he moved
+about the streets, was one which might well thrill Anglican bosoms with
+a flutter of terror. He was the Church's avowed enemy, and upon this he
+stood as his claim to the honour of those who thought with him. This was
+very different from the views held by the pastor of the Crescent Chapel,
+who was very willing to be on the best terms with the Church, and would
+have liked to glide into closer and closer amity, and perhaps finally to
+melt away altogether in her broad bosom, like a fat raindrop
+contributing noiselessly to swell the sea. It was not, however, any
+feeling of this difference which made Phoebe draw herself back
+instinctively after the first start of recognition. Across her mind,
+even while she held out her hand to the stranger, there flashed a sudden
+recollection of her grandmother and her grandfather, and all the homely
+belongings which he, a minister of the connection, could not be kept in
+ignorance of. It was but a momentary pang. Phoebe was not so foolish as
+to shrink before the inevitable, or to attempt by foolish expedients to
+stave off such a danger. She shrank for a second, then drew herself up
+and shook off all such ignoble cares. "I am myself whatever happens,"
+was her reflection; and she said with something like security:
+
+"I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Northcote; what an unexpected pleasure to
+see you here!"
+
+"It is a most unexpected pleasure for me, I assure you," he said, "and a
+very great one." He spoke with unaffected honesty; for indeed his plunge
+into the society of Salem Chapel had given him a shock not easily got
+over, and the appearance of a being of his own species, among all these
+excellent poulterers and grocers, was a relief unspeakable; and then he
+added, "May I walk with you, if you are going to walk?"
+
+"Surely," said Phoebe with momentary hesitation, and it was just at this
+moment that she perceived Ursula on the other side of the road, and,
+glad of the diversion, waved her hand to her, and said, "How do you do?"
+
+"A friend of yours?" said Mr. Northcote, following her gesture with his
+eyes, and feeling more and more glad that he had met her. "I passed
+those young ladies just now, and heard some of their conversation,
+which amused me. Do they belong to our people? If you will not be angry,
+Miss Beecham, I must say that I should be glad to meet somebody
+belonging to us, who is not--who is more like--the people one meets
+elsewhere."
+
+"Well," said Phoebe, "we are always talking of wanting something
+original; I think on the whole I am of your opinion; still there is
+nothing very great or striking about most of the people one meets
+anywhere."
+
+"Yes; society is flat enough," said the young man. "But--it is strange
+and rather painful, though perhaps it is wrong to say so--why, I wonder,
+are all our people of one class? Perhaps you have not seen much of them
+here? All of one class, and that--"
+
+"Not an attractive class," said Phoebe, with a little sigh. "Yes, I
+know."
+
+"Anything but an attractive class; not the so-called working men and
+such like. One can get on with them. It is very unpleasant to have to
+say it; buying and selling now as we have it in Manchester does not
+contract the mind. I suppose we all buy and sell more and less. How is
+it? When it is tea and sugar--"
+
+"Or butter and cheese," said Phoebe with a laugh, which she could not
+quite keep from embarrassment. "I must be honest and tell you before you
+go any further. You don't know that I belong to the Tozers, Mr.
+Northcote, who are in that line of business. Don't look so dreadfully
+distressed. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you, had you not been sure to
+find out. Old Mr. Tozer is my grandfather, and I am staying there. It is
+quite simple. Papa came to Carlingford when he was a young clergyman,
+newly ordained. He was pastor at Salem Chapel, and married mamma, who
+was the daughter of one of the chief members. I did not know myself when
+I came to Carlingford that they actually kept a shop, and I did not like
+it. Don't apologize, please. It is a very difficult question," said
+Phoebe philosophically, partly to ease herself, partly to set him at his
+ease, "what is best to do in such a case. To be educated in another
+sphere and brought down to this, is hard. One cannot feel the same for
+one's relations; and yet one's poor little bit of education, one's petty
+manners, what are these to interfere with blood relationships? And to
+keep everybody down to the condition they were born, why, that is the
+old way--"
+
+"Miss Beecham, I don't know what to say. I never meant--I could not
+tell. There are excellent, most excellent people in all classes."
+
+"Exactly so," said Phoebe, with a laugh. "We all know that; one man is as
+good as another--if not better. A butterman is as good as a lord; but--"
+she added, with a little elevation of her eyebrows and shrug of her
+shoulders, "not so pleasant to be connected with. And you don't say
+anything about my difficulty, Mr. Northcote. You don't realize it
+perhaps, as I do. Which is best: for everybody to continue in the
+position he was born in, or for an honest shopkeeper to educate his
+children and push them up higher until they come to feel themselves
+members of a different class, and to be ashamed of him? Either way, you
+know, it is hard."
+
+Northcote was at his wit's end. He had no fellow-feeling for this
+difficulty. His friends were all much better off than he was as a poor
+minister. They were Manchester people, with two or three generations of
+wealth behind them, relations of whom nobody need be ashamed; and he was
+himself deeply humiliated and distressed to have said anything which
+could humiliate Phoebe, who rose immeasurably in his estimation in
+consequence of her bold avowal, though he himself would have sacrificed
+a great deal rather than put himself on the Tozer level. He did not know
+what to say.
+
+"Miss Beecham, you know as well as I do, how falsely our opinions are
+formed in this respect, how conventional we are. What is position after
+all? To a grand Seigneur, for instance, the difference between his
+steward and his laquais seems nothing, but to the steward it is a great
+gulf. I--I mean--the whole question is conventional--position, or
+station, or rank--"
+
+Phoebe smiled. "I don't think that is quite the question," she said, "but
+never mind. I suppose you are here on some mission? You would not come
+to Carlingford for pleasure."
+
+"Nay," said Northcote, with a reproachful tone. "I should have thought
+you must have heard of our Meeting. It is for to-night. I have come from
+the Disestablishment Society with some other friends; but it has been my
+fate to come on before to make the arrangements. The others come
+to-day."
+
+"A hard fate, Mr. Northcote."
+
+"I thought so this morning. I have not been much in the way of the
+country congregations. I was confounded; but, Miss Beecham, I no longer
+think my fate hard since I have met you. Your noble simplicity and
+frankness have taught me a lesson."
+
+"It is not noble at all," said Phoebe; "if I had not been sure you must
+find out I should have said nothing about it. Now I fear I must turn
+back."
+
+"But you will come to the Meeting," he said, turning with her. He felt
+it necessary to be obsequious to Phoebe, after the terrible mistake he
+had made.
+
+"Not unless grandpapa insists. I should like to hear your speech," said
+Phoebe; "but I don't object to the Established Church as you do, neither
+does papa when you push him hard. I don't think England would be much
+nicer if we were all Dissenters. To be sure we might be more civil to
+each other."
+
+"If there were no Dissenters, you mean."
+
+"It comes to much the same thing; congregations are not pleasant
+masters, are they, Mr. Northcote? I know some people--one at least,"
+said Phoebe, "who is often very insolent to papa; and we have to put up
+with it--for the sake of peace, papa says. I don't think in the Church
+that any leading member could be so insolent to a clergyman."
+
+"That is perhaps rather--forgive me--a narrow, personal view."
+
+"Wait till you get a charge, and have to please the congregation and the
+leading members!" cried Phoebe. "I know what you are thinking: it is just
+like a woman to look at a public question so. Very well; after all women
+are half the world, and their opinion is as good as another."
+
+"I have the greatest respect for your opinion," said young Northcote;
+"but we must not think of individual grievances. The system, with all
+its wrongs, is what occupies me. I have heard something--even here--this
+very day--What is it, my good friend? I am busy now--another time; or if
+you want me, my lodgings are--"
+
+A glance, half of pain, half of fun, came into Phoebe's eyes. "It is
+grandpapa!" she said.
+
+"You shouldn't speak in that tone, sir, not to your elders, and maybe
+your betters," said Tozer, in his greasy old coat. "Ministers take a
+deal upon them; but an old member like me, and one as has stood by the
+connection through thick and thin, ain't the one to be called your good
+friend. Well, if you begs pardon, of course there ain't no more to be
+said; and if you know our Phoebe--Phoebe, junior, as I calls her. What of
+the meeting, Mr. Northcote? I hope you'll give it them Church folks 'ot
+and strong, sir. They do give themselves airs, to be sure, in
+Carlingford. Most of our folks is timid, seeing for one thing as their
+best customers belong to the Church. That don't touch me, not
+now-a-days," said Tozer, with a laugh, "not that I was ever one as
+concealed my convictions. I hope you'll give it 'em 'ot and strong."
+
+"I shall say what I think," said the young man bewildered. He was by no
+means broken into the ways of the connection, and his pride rebelled at
+the idea of being schooled by this old shopkeeper; but the sight of
+Phoebe standing by not only checked his rebellious sentiments, but filled
+him with a sympathetic thrill of feeling. What it must be for that girl
+to own this old man, to live with him, and feel herself shut into his
+society and friends of his choosing--to hear herself spoken of as Phoebe,
+junior! The idea made him shiver, and this caught old Tozer's always
+hospitable eye.
+
+"You're chilly," he said, "and I don't wonder after the dreadful weather
+we've had. Few passes my door without a bite or a sup, specially at
+tea-time, Mr. Nor'cote, which is sociable time, as I always says. Come
+in and warm yourself and have a cup of tea. There is nothing as pleases
+my old woman so much as to get out her best tea-things for a minister;
+she 'as a great respect for ministers, has Mrs. Tozer, sir; and now
+she's got Phoebe to show off as well as the chiney. Come along, sir, I
+can't take no refusal. It's just our time for tea."
+
+Northcote made an unavailing attempt to get away, but partly it appeared
+to him that to refuse the invitation might look to Phoebe like a pretence
+of superiority on his part, and partly he was interested in herself, and
+was very well aware he should get no company so good in Carlingford,
+even with the drawback of the old shop-people among whom she lived. How
+strange it was to see her in the dress of which Mrs. Sam Hurst had
+raved, and of which even the young Nonconformist vaguely divined the
+excellence, putting her daintily-gloved hand upon old Tozer's greasy
+sleeve, walking home with the shuffling old man, about whose social
+position no one could make the least mistake! He turned with them, with
+a sensation of thankfulness that it was in Grange Lane, Carlingford,
+where nobody knew him. As for Phoebe, no such comfort was in her mind;
+everybody knew her here, or rather, everybody knew old Tozer. No
+disguise was possible to her. The only way to redeem the position was to
+carry it with a high hand, as she did, holding her head erect, and
+playing her part so that all the world might see and wonder. "I think
+you had better come, Mr. Northcote, and have some tea," she said
+graciously, when the awe-stricken young man was floundering in efforts
+to excuse himself. Old Tozer chuckled and rubbed his hands.
+
+"Take Phoebe's advice," he said, "Phoebe's the sensiblest girl I know; so
+was her mother before her, as married one of the most popular preachers
+in the connection, though I say it as shouldn't. My old woman always
+said as our Phoebe was cut out for a minister's wife. And Phoebe junior's
+just such another," cried the admiring grandfather. Heavens above! did
+this mean traps and snares for himself, or did the old shopkeeper think
+of him, Horace Northcote, as another possible victim? If he had but
+known with what sincere compassionate toleration Phoebe regarded him, as
+a young man whom she might be kind to, he might have been saved all
+alarm on this point. The idea that a small undistinguished Dissenting
+minister should think her capable of marrying him, was a humiliation
+which did not enter into Phoebe's head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A PUBLIC MEETING.
+
+
+Phoebe's philosophy, however, was put to the test when, after the young
+pastor had taken tea and got himself away from the pressing
+hospitalities of the Tozers, her grandfather also disappeared to put on
+his best coat in order to attend the Meeting. Mrs. Tozer, left alone
+with her granddaughter, immediately proceeded to evolve her views as to
+what Phoebe was expected to do.
+
+"I never see you out o' that brown thing, Phoebe," she said; "ain't you
+got a silk dress, child, or something that looks a bit younger-looking?
+I'd have thought your mother would have took more pride in you. Surely
+you've got a silk dress."
+
+"Oh, yes, more than one," said Phoebe, "but this is considered in better
+taste."
+
+"Taste, whose taste?" cried the old lady; "my Phoebe didn't ought to care
+for them dingy things, for I'm sure she never got no such example from
+me. I've always liked what was bright-looking, if it was only a print. A
+nice blue silk now, or a bright green, is what you'd look pretty in with
+your complexion. Go now, there's a dear, and put on something very nice,
+something as will show a bit; you're going with your grandfather to this
+Meeting."
+
+"To the Meeting? oh, I hope not," said Phoebe with fervour.
+
+"And why should you hope not? isn't it natural as a young creature like
+you should get out a bit when she can, and see what's to be seen? I
+don't hold with girls moping in a house. Besides, it's very instructive,
+as I've always heard: and you as is clever, of course you'll understand
+every word. Mr. Northcote is a nicish-looking sort of young man.
+Ministers mayn't be much," said Mrs. Tozer, "though just see how your
+papa has got on, my dear. Nobody else as Phoebe could have married would
+have got up in the world like that; you may make a deal more money in
+trade, but it ain't so genteel, there's always that to be said. Now it's
+just as well as you should have your chance with the rest and let
+yourself be seen, Phoebe. Run, there's a darling, and put on something
+bright, and a nice lace collar. You can have mine if you like. I
+shouldn't grudge nothing, not a single thing I've got, to see you
+looking as nice as the best there; and so you will if you take a little
+pains. I'd do up my hair a bit higher if I was you; why, Phoebe, I
+declare! you haven't got a single pad. Now what is the use of neglecting
+yourself, and letting others get ahead of you like that?"
+
+"Pads are going out of fashion, grandmamma," said Phoebe gravely, "so are
+bright colours for dresses. You can't think what funny shades we wear in
+town. But must I go to this Meeting? I should not like to leave you
+alone. It is so much nicer for me to be here."
+
+"You _are_ a good girl, you are," said Mrs. Tozer admiringly, "and me as
+was frightened for a fine lady from London! But Tozer would say as it
+was my doing. He would say as it wasn't natural for a young creature;
+and, bless you, they'll all be there in their best--that Pigeon and the
+others, and Mrs. Tom. I just wish I could go too, to see you outshine
+'em all, which you'll do if you take pains. Take a little more pains
+with your hair, Phoebe, mount it up a bit higher, and if you want
+anything like a bit of lace or a brooch or that, just you come to me. I
+should like Mrs. Tom to see you with that brooch as she's always wanting
+for Minnie. Now why should I give my brooch to Minnie? I don't see no
+reason for it, for my part."
+
+"Certainly not, grandmamma," said Phoebe, "you must wear your brooches
+yourself, that is what I like a great deal better than giving them
+either to Minnie or me."
+
+"Ah, but there ain't a many like you, my sweet," cried the old woman,
+wiping her eyes. "You're my Phoebe's own daughter, but you're a touch
+above her, my darling, and us too, that's what you are. Run now and
+dress, or I don't know what Tozer will say to me. He's set his heart on
+showing you off to-night."
+
+Thus adjured, Phoebe went away reluctantly. It is unnecessary to say that
+her disinterestedness about her grandmother's brooch was not perhaps so
+noble as it appeared on the outside. The article in question was a kind
+of small warming-pan in a very fine solid gold mount, set with large
+pink topazes, and enclosing little wavy curls of hair, one from the head
+of each young Tozer of the last generation. It was a piece of jewelry
+very well known in Carlingford, and the panic which rose in Phoebe's
+bosom when it was offered for her own personal adornment is more easily
+imagined than described. She went upstairs feeling that she had escaped,
+and took out a black silk dress at which she looked lovingly.
+
+"But grandmamma would think it was no better than this," she said to
+herself, and after much searchings of heart she chose a costume of
+Venetian blue, one soft tint dying into another like the lustre on a
+piece of old glass, which in her own opinion was a great deal too good
+for the occasion. "Some one will tread on it to a certainty, and the
+colours don't show in candle-light; but I must try to please
+grandmamma," she said heroically. When it was put on with puffings of
+lace such as Mrs. Tozer had never seen, and was entirely ignorant of the
+value of, at the throat and sleeves, Phoebe wrapt a shawl round her in
+something of the same dim gorgeous hue, covered with embroidery, an
+Indian rarity which somebody had bestowed upon Mrs. Beecham, and which
+no one had used or thought of till Phoebe's artistic eye fell upon it. It
+was a great deal too fine for Carlingford. An opera-cloak bought in
+Oxford Street for a pound or two would have much more impressed the
+assembly to which Phoebe was bound. Mrs. Tozer inspected her when she
+went downstairs, with awe, yet dissatisfaction.
+
+"I dare say as it's all very fine, and it ain't like other folks,
+anybody can see; but I'd dress you different, my dear, if you was in my
+hands," said the old woman, walking round and round her. As for Tozer,
+he too showed less admiration than if he had known better.
+
+"I got a fly, thinking as you'd have some fallal or other on you; but,
+bless my heart, you could have walked in that gown," he said. So that
+Phoebe's toilette, which would have been mightily admired in a London
+drawing-room, could not be said to be a success. She was somewhat
+discouraged by this, notwithstanding that she knew so very much better;
+and accordingly set out in the fly with her grandfather in his best
+coat, feeling, generally, in a depressed condition.
+
+"It is clear that I must take to the pinks and blues to please them,"
+she said to herself with a sigh. She could triumph over the slight that
+might be shown to herself in consequence of her relations; but those
+sneers at her dress went to Phoebe's heart.
+
+The Music Hall was full of a miscellaneous crowd when Phoebe, following
+her grandfather, went in; and the seats allotted to these important
+people were on the platform, where, at least, Tozer's unacknowledged
+object of showing her off could be amply gratified. This arrangement did
+not, on the whole, displease Phoebe. Since she must be exhibited, it
+seemed better, on the whole, to be exhibited there, than in a less
+distinguished place; and all the speakers knew her, which was something.
+She sat down with some complaisance, and let her Indian scarf droop from
+her shoulders, and her pretty dress show itself.
+
+"I declare if that isn't Phoebe, junior," said Mrs. Tom audibly, in the
+middle of the hall, "making a show of herself; but, Lord bless us, for
+all their grandeur, how she do dress, to be sure. A bit of a rag of an
+old shawl, and a hat on! the same as she wears every day. I've got more
+respect for them as comes to instruct us than that."
+
+And, indeed, Mrs. Tom was resplendent in a red _sortie de bal_, with a
+brooch almost as big as that envied one of Mrs. Tozer's stuck into her
+gown, and a cap covered with flowers upon her head. This was the usual
+fashion of the Salem ladies on such rare occasions. The meeting of the
+Disestablishment Society was to them what a ball is to worldly-minded
+persons who frequent such vanities. The leading families came out _en
+masse_ to see and to be seen. It would be wrong to say that they did not
+enter into all the arguments and recognise the intellectual feast set
+before them; no doubt they did this just as well as if they had come in
+their commonest attire; but still the seriousness of the occasion was,
+no doubt, modified by being thus made into a dissipation. The men were
+not so fine, perhaps, because it is more difficult for men to be
+fine--but they were all in their Sunday clothes; and the younger ones
+were in full bloom of coloured satin cravats and fine waistcoats. Some
+of them were almost as fine a sight as the ladies in their ribbons and
+flowers.
+
+"I suppose by the look of them this must be an influential
+community--people of some pretensions," said an obese elderly minister,
+who had seated himself by Phoebe, and whose eyes were dazzled by the
+display. "I never expected all this dress in a quiet country place."
+
+"Oh, yes! they are people of much pretension," said Phoebe gravely.
+
+And then the proceedings began. Old Mr. Green, the grocer, whose son had
+married Maria Pigeon, and who had long been retired from business,
+occupying a house in the country and "driving his carriage," was in the
+chair; and the proceedings went on according to the routine of such
+assemblies, with differing degrees of earnestness on the part of the
+speakers. To most of these gentlemen it was the ordinary occupation of
+their lives; and they made their hearers laugh at well-known stories,
+and enjoyed their own wit, and elicited familiar cheers, and made hits
+such as they had made for years on the same subject, which was a
+comfortable _cheval de bataille_, not at all exciting to themselves,
+though they were quite willing to excite their audience, if that
+audience would allow itself to be excited. Things jogged on thus for the
+first hour very pleasantly! the Meeting was not excited, but it was
+amused and enjoyed itself. It was an intellectual treat, as Pigeon said
+to Brown, and if the younger people did not like it so well as they
+would have liked a ball, the elder people liked it a great deal better,
+and the hall rang with applause and with laughter as one speaker
+succeeded another. It was pleasant to know how unstable "the Church" was
+on her foundation; that aristocratical Church which looked down upon
+Dissent, and of which the poorest adherent gave himself airs much above
+Chapel folks; and how much loftier a position the Nonconformist held,
+who would have nothing to say to State support.
+
+"For my part," said one of the speakers, "I would rather abandon my
+sacred calling to-morrow, or make tents as St. Paul did in its exercise,
+than put on the gilded fetters of the State, and pray or preach as an
+Archbishop told me; nay, as a Cabinet Council of godless worldlings
+directed. There are many good men among the clergy of the Church of
+England; but they are slaves, my friends, nothing but slaves, dragged at
+the chariot wheels of the State; ruled by a caste of hard-headed
+lawyers; or binding themselves in the rotten robes of tradition. It is
+we only who can dare to say that we are free!"
+
+At this sentiment, the Meeting fairly shouted with applause and delight
+and self-complacency; and the speaker, delighted too, and tasting all
+the sweetness of success, gave place to the next, and came and sat down
+by Phoebe, to whose society the younger men were all very glad to escape.
+
+"Miss Beecham, you are fashionably calm," whispered the orator, "you
+don't throw yourself, like the rest of us, into this great agitation."
+
+"Have you a leading member?" whispered Phoebe back again; "and does he
+never drag you at his chariot wheels? Have you deacons that keep you up
+to the mark? Have you people you must drink tea with when they ask you,
+or else they throw up their sittings? I am thinking, of course, of
+papa."
+
+"Have I deacons? Have I leading members? Miss Beecham, you are cruel--"
+
+"Hush!" said Phoebe, settling herself in her chair. "Here is somebody who
+is in dreadful earnest. Don't talk, Mr. Northcote is going to speak."
+
+Thus it will be seen that the Minister's daughter played her _rôle_ of
+fine lady and _bel esprit_ very fairly in an atmosphere so unlike the
+air that fine ladies breathe. Phoebe paid no more attention to the
+discomfited man at her elbow. She gathered up her shawl in her hand with
+a seeming careless movement, and let it drop lightly across her knee,
+where the gold threads in the embroidery caught the light; and she took
+off her hat, which she had thought proper to wear to show her sense that
+the Meeting was not an evening party; and prepared herself to listen.
+Her complexion and her hair, and the gold threads in the rich Indian
+work, thus blazed out together upon the startled audience. Many of them
+were as much struck by this as by the beginning of Mr. Northcote's
+speech, though it was very different from the other speeches. The others
+had been routine agitation, this was fiery conviction, crude, and
+jumping at conclusions, but still an enthusiasm in its way. Mr.
+Northcote approached his subject gradually, and his hearers, at first
+disappointed by the absence of their familiar watch-words, were dull,
+and bestowed their attention on Phoebe; but before he had been speaking
+ten minutes Phoebe was forgotten even by her uncle and aunt, the two
+people most interested in her. It would be dangerous to repeat to a
+reader, probably quite uninterested in the controversy, Mr. Northcote's
+speech, in which he laid hold of some of those weak points which the
+Church, of course, has in common with every other institution in the
+world. Eloquence has a way of evaporating in print, even when the report
+is immediate. But his peroration was one which startled his hearers out
+of a calm abstract interest to all that keen personal feeling which
+accompanies the narrative of facts known to an audience, and affecting
+people within their own locality.
+
+"I have only been in this place three days," said the speaker, "but in
+that short time I have heard of one of the most flagrant abuses which I
+have been indicating to you. There is in this town, as you all know, an
+institution called the College; what was its original object I do not
+know. Nests of idle pauperism, genteelly veiled under such a name, do
+exist, I know, over all the country; but it is at least probable that
+some educational purpose was in the mind of the pious founder who
+established it. The pious founder! how immense are the revenues, how
+incalculable the means of doing good, which have been locked up in
+uselessness, or worse than uselessness, by men who have purchased a pass
+into the kingdom of heaven at the last moment by such gifts, and become
+pious founders just before they ceased to be miserable sinners! Whatever
+may have been the original intention of the College, however, it is
+clear that it was meant for something more than the pitiful use it is
+put to now. This old foundation, ladies and gentlemen, which might
+provide half the poor children in Carlingford with a wholesome
+education, is devoted to the maintenance of six old men, need I say
+Churchmen?" (here the speaker was interrupted by mingled hisses and
+ironical "hear, hears")--"and a chaplain to say their prayers for them.
+Six old men: and one able-bodied parson to say their prayers for them.
+What do you think of this, my friends? I understand that this heavy and
+onerous duty has been offered--not to some other mouldy old gentleman,
+some decayed clergyman who might have ministered in peace to the decayed
+old burghers without any interference on my part: for a refuge for the
+aged and destitute has something natural in it, even when it is a wrong
+appropriation of public money. No, this would have been some faint
+approach perhaps to justice, some right in wrong that would have closed
+our mouths. But no! it is given to a young gentleman, able-bodied, as I
+have said, who has appeared more than once in the cricket-field with
+your victorious Eleven, who is fresh from Oxford, and would no more
+condescend to consider himself on a footing of equality with the humble
+person who addresses you, than I would, having the use of my hands,
+accept a disgraceful sinecure! Yes, my friends, this is what the State
+Church does. She so cows the spirit and weakens the hearts of her
+followers that a young man at the very beginning of his career, able to
+teach, able to work, able to dig, educated and trained and cultured, can
+stoop to accept a good income in such a position as this. Think of it!
+Six old men, able surely, if they are good for anything, to mumble their
+prayers for themselves somehow; yet provided with an Oxford scholar, an
+able-bodied young man, to read the service for them daily! He thinks it
+very fine, no doubt, a good income and a good house for life, and
+nothing to do but to canter over morning and evening prayer at a
+swinging pace, as we have all heard it done: morning prayer, let us see,
+half an hour--or you may throw in ten minutes, in case the six should
+mumble their Amens slowly--and twenty minutes for the evening, one hour
+a day. Here it is under your very eyes, people of Carlingford, a
+charming provision for the son of one of your most respected clergymen.
+Why, it is in your newspaper, where I read it! Can I give a more
+forcible instance of the way in which a State Church cuts honesty and
+honour out of men's hearts."
+
+A great many people noticed that when Mr. Northcote ended this with a
+thundering voice, some one who had been listening near the door in an
+Inverness cape, and hat over his brows, gave himself a sudden impetuous
+shake which shook the crowd, and turning round made his way out, not
+caring whom he stumbled against. The whole assembly was in a hubbub when
+the orator ceased, and whispers ran freely round among all the groups in
+the front. "That's young May he means." "In course it's young May.
+Infernal job, as I've always said." "Oh hush, Pigeon, don't swear! but
+it do seem a black burning shame, don't it?" "Bravo, Mr. Nor'cote!"
+called out old Tozer, on the platform, "that's what I call giving forth
+no uncertain sound. That's laying it into them 'ot and 'ot."
+
+This was the climax of the Meeting. Everything else was flat after such
+a decided appeal to personal knowledge. Phoebe alone gave a frigid
+reception to the hero of the evening.
+
+"I dislike personalities," she said, pointedly. "They never do a cause
+any good; and it isn't gentlemanly; don't you think so, Mr. Sloely;" and
+she turned away from Northcote, who had come to speak to her, and
+devoted herself to the man at her elbow, whom she had snubbed a little
+while before. Mr. Northcote said to himself that this was untrue, and
+brought up a hundred very good reasons why he should have employed such
+an example, but the reproof stung him to the quick, for to be
+ungentlemanly was the reproach of all others most calculated to go to
+his heart.
+
+But nobody knew how Mr. May went home in his Inverness cape, breathing
+fire and flame, nor of the execution he did thereupon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS.
+
+
+Mr. May went into his study and closed the door. He poked the fire--he
+put himself into his easy-chair--he drew his writing-book towards him,
+and opened it at where a half-written sheet lay waiting. And then he
+paused, rubbed his hands softly together, and falling back again,
+laughed quietly to himself.
+
+Yes; he who had stormed out of the drawing-room like a whirlwind, having
+discomfited everybody, leaving the girls in tears, and the boys in a
+white heat of passion, when he reached the profoundest depths of his own
+retirement, laughed. What did it mean? Of all the people in the world,
+his children would have been most entirely thunderstruck by this
+self-betrayal. They could not have understood it. They were acquainted
+with his passions, and with his moments of good temper. They knew when
+he was amiable, and when he was angry, by instinct, by the gleam of his
+eye, by the way in which he shut the door; but this was something
+totally unknown to them. The truth was that Mr. May, like many other
+people, having a naturally bad temper, which he indulged freely when he
+pleased, had attained the power of using it when it suited him to use
+it, without being suspected by anybody. A bad temper is a possession
+like another, and may be made skilful use of like other things which,
+perhaps, in themselves, are not desirable. He could work himself up into
+fury, and launch the doom he felt disposed to launch, like a burning and
+fizzing thunder-bolt from a hand which was, in reality, not at all
+excited; and like most other people who possess such an unrevealed
+power, it pleased him very much when he persuaded his surroundings that
+it was an impulse of rage which moved him. He had been at the Meeting at
+the Music Hall, "to hear what those fellows had to say for themselves."
+Contempt, unbounded but wrathful, was the feeling in his mind towards
+"those fellows;" but he felt that young Northcote's eloquence, reported
+in next day's papers, was quite enough to quash for ever all hopes of
+his son's acceptance of the chaplaincy. So he walked home as fast as his
+legs would carry him, and burst into his house, as we have seen, with a
+semblance of passion so perfect as to deceive his entire family and
+fill the place with anger and tears. Upon which, withdrawing from the
+scene of conflict, he threw himself down in his easy-chair and chuckled,
+recovering his composure by slow degrees.
+
+When, however, this private indulgence was over, Mr. May's face grew
+dark enough. He pushed his writing away from him, and pulling out a
+drawer in his writing-table, which was full of papers of a very
+unliterary aspect, betook himself to the consideration of them, with
+anything but laughter in his looks, or in his mind. Letters upon blue
+paper in straight up and down handwriting--other papers, also blue, with
+ruled lines and numerals, for which Mr. May was more frightened than he
+would have been for a charge of cavalry. These were the very
+unattractive contents of this drawer. He brought two or three of them
+out in a bundle and read them over, one after another, with contracted
+brows. Debt is an idiosyncrasy like other things. Some people keep clear
+of it miraculously, some seem to drop into it without cause or meaning,
+and to spend all their lives afterwards in vain attempts to get out. Mr.
+May was one of these unfortunate men. He could not tell himself where
+his money went to. Poor man! it was not so much he had, and there was a
+large family to be fed and clothed, and schooled after a sort. But still
+other people on incomes as small as his had managed to maintain their
+families without dropping into this hopeless condition. He had been in
+debt since ever he could remember; and to be sure it was not the pain
+and trouble to him that it is to many people. So long as, by hook or by
+crook, he could manage to stave off the evil day, so long was he happy
+enough, and he had managed this by all sorts of semi-miraculous
+windfalls up to the present time. James's remittances had been like
+heavenly dew to him. It is true that these remittances had been intended
+to keep Reginald at Oxford, and perhaps something of the special
+hardness with which he regarded Reginald arose from the fact that he had
+done him wrong in this respect, and had appropriated what was intended
+for him. But after all, he had said to himself, the maintenance of the
+house in comfort, the keeping clean of the family name, and the staving
+off disagreeable revelations of the family's poverty, were more, for
+even Reginald's comfort, than a little more money in his pocket, which
+everybody knew was very dangerous for a young man.
+
+Mr. May had always a bill coming due, which James's remittances arrived
+just in time to meet. Indeed, this was the normal condition of his life.
+He had always a bill coming due--a bill which some good-humoured banker
+had to be coaxed into renewing, or which was paid at the last moment by
+some skilful legerdemain in the way of pouring out of one vessel into
+another, transferring the debt from one quarter to another, so that
+there may have been said to be always a certain amount of quite
+fictitious and visionary money floating about Mr. May, money which
+existed only in the shape of symbol, and which, indeed, belonged to
+nobody--which was borrowed here to-day, and paid there to-morrow, to be
+re-borrowed and repaid in the same way, never really reaching anybody's
+pocket, or representing anything but that one thing which money is
+supposed to be able to extinguish--debt. When human affairs reach this
+very delicate point, and there is nothing at any moment, except a
+semi-miraculous windfall, to keep a man going, the crisis is very
+serious. And it was no wonder that Mr. May was anxious to drive his son
+into accepting any possible appointment, and that he occasionally railed
+unreasonably at his family. Unless a hundred pounds or so fell down from
+the skies within the next ten days, he saw nothing before him but ruin.
+This, it is needless to say, is very far from being a comfortable
+position. The _sourde_ agitation, excitement, feverish hope and fear of
+the sufferer might well affect his temper. If he could not get a hundred
+pounds within ten days, he did not know what he was to do.
+
+And nobody could say (he thought to himself) that he was an expensive
+man; he had no expensive habits. He liked good living, it is true, and a
+glass of good wine, but this amount of regard for the table does not
+ruin men. He liked books also, but he did not buy them, contenting
+himself with such as the library could afford, and those which he could
+obtain by the reviews he wrote for the Church Magazines. How then was it
+that he never could get rid of that rapidly maturing bill? He could not
+tell. Keeping out of debt is one thing, and getting rid of it when you
+have once taken its yoke upon your neck is another. His money, when he
+had any, "slipped through his fingers," as people say. When James's
+remittance or any other piece of good fortune gave him enough to pay
+that hundred pounds without borrowing elsewhere, he borrowed elsewhere
+all the same. It was a mysterious fatality, from which he seemed unable
+to escape. In such circumstances a crisis must come sooner or later, and
+it appeared to him that now at least, after many hairbreadth escapes,
+the crisis had come.
+
+What was he to do? There was no chance, alas! of money from James, and
+even if Reginald accepted the chaplaincy, and was willing at once to
+come to his father's aid, there was no hope that he would have anything
+for some time--for chaplains incomes are not, any more than other
+people's, generally paid in advance. He leaned back in his chair and
+went over again, for the hundredth time, the list of all the people he
+could borrow from, or who would "back" a bill for him, and he was still
+employed in this melancholy and hopeless enumeration, when a low knock
+came to the door, and a maid-of-all-work, pushing it open, thrust in a
+homely little man in a dusty-brown coat, who put up a hand to his
+forehead as he came in with a salutation which was half charity
+school-boy, half awkward recruit. Beyond this there was no ceremony
+about his entrance, no leave asked or question made. Betsy knew very
+well that he was to come in when he pleased, and that her master did not
+deny himself to Cotsdean. Mr. May received him with a familiar nod, and
+pointed hastily to a chair. He did not even take the trouble to put away
+those blue papers, which he would have done if any other individual,
+even if one of his children had come into the room.
+
+"Good evening, Cotsdean," he said, in a friendly tone. "Well, what
+news?"
+
+"Nothing as is pleasant, sir," said the man, sitting down on a corner of
+his chair. "I've been to the bank, and it's no use my explaining, or
+begging ever so hard. They won't hear of it. 'We've done it times and
+times,' they says to me, 'and we won't do it no more. That's flat,' and
+so indeed it is flat, sir, as you may say downright Dunstable; but that
+ain't no advantage to you and me."
+
+"Yes, it is, Cotsdean," said the clergyman, "it is a decided advantage,
+for it shows there is nothing to be hoped from that quarter, and that is
+always good--even though it's bad bad, as bad as can be--"
+
+"You may say so, sir," said Cotsdean. "I don't know what's to be done no
+more than the babe unborn, and it's wearing me to death, that's what
+it's doing. When I looks round on my small family, it's all I can do not
+to cry out loud. What's to become of my children, Mr. May? Yours, sir,
+they'll never want friends, and a hundred or so here or there, that
+don't ruin gentlefolks; but without selling up the business, how am I
+ever to get a hundred pounds? It ain't equal, sir, I swear it ain't. You
+gets the money, and you takes it easy, and don't hold your head not a
+bit lower; but me as has no good of it (except in the way o' a bit of
+custom that is a deal more in looks than anything else), and has to go
+round to all the folks, to Mr. Brownlow, at the bank, and I don't know
+who, as if it was for me! I suffers in my credit, sir, and I suffers in
+my spirits, and I suffers in my health; and when the smash comes,
+what's to become of my poor children? It's enough to put a man beside
+himself, that's what it is."
+
+Here the poor man's eyes grew bloodshot, partly with rubbing them,
+partly with tears. He rubbed them with the sleeve of his rough coat, and
+the tears were very real, though few in number. Cotsdean's despair was
+indeed tragical enough, but its outside had in it a dash of comedy,
+which, though he was in no mirthful mood, caught the quick eye of Mr.
+May. He was himself very painfully affected, to tell the truth, but yet
+it cost him an effort not to smile.
+
+"Cotsdean," he said, "have I ever failed you yet? You have done a good
+deal for me, I don't deny it--you have had all the trouble, but beyond
+that what have you suffered except in imagination? If you choose to
+exaggerate dangers, it is not my fault. Your children are as safe as--as
+safe as the Bank of England. Now, have I ever failed you? answer me
+that."
+
+"I can't say as you have, sir," said Cotsdean, "but it's dreadful work
+playing with a man's ruin, off and on like this, and nobody knowing what
+might happen, or what a day or an hour might bring forth."
+
+"That is very true," said Mr. May. "I might die, that is what you mean;
+very true, though not quite so kind as I might have expected from an old
+friend--a very old friend."
+
+"I am sure, Sir, I beg your pardon," cried the poor man, "it wasn't
+that; but only just as I'm driven out o' my seven senses with thinking
+and thinking."
+
+"My dear Cotsdean, don't think; there could not be a more unnecessary
+exercise; what good does your thinking do, but to make you unhappy?
+leave that to me. We have been driven into a corner before now, but
+nothing has ever happened to us. You will see something will turn up
+this time. I ask you again, have I ever failed you? you know best."
+
+"No, sir," said Cotsdean, somewhat doubtfully. "No, I didn't say as you
+had. It's only--I suppose I ain't so young as I once was--and a man's
+feelin's, sir, ain't always in his own control."
+
+"You must take care that it is only to me that you make such an
+exhibition as this," said Mr. May. "Who is there? oh, my coffee! put it
+on the table. If you are seen coming here to me with red eyes and this
+agitated appearance," he went on, waiting pointedly till the door was
+closed, "it will be supposed there is some family reason for
+it--again--"
+
+"Oh, lor', Sir! you know--"
+
+"Yes, I know very well," said the clergyman. "I know that there couldn't
+be a better wife, and that bygones are bygones; but you must remember
+and take care; everybody doesn't know you--and her--so well as I do.
+When you come to see your clergyman in this agitated state, I put it to
+yourself, Cotsdean, I put it to your good sense, what is anybody to
+think? You must take great care not to betray yourself to anybody but
+me."
+
+The man looked at him with a half-gasp of consternation, bewildered by
+the very boldness with which he was thus set down. Betray himself--he
+drew a long breath, as if he had received a _douche_ of cold water in
+his face, which was indeed very much like the effect that this
+extraordinary address produced--betray himself! Poor Cotsdean's
+struggles and sufferings arose, at the present moment, entirely from the
+fact that he had allowed himself to be made use of for Mr. May's
+occasions, and both the men were perfectly aware of this. But though he
+gasped, Cotsdean was too much under the influence of his clergyman to do
+anything more. Had he been a Dissenter, he would have patronized young
+Northcote, who was as good a man as Mr. May (or far better if truth were
+told), with the frankest certainty of his own superior position, but
+being a humble churchman he yielded to his clergyman as to one of the
+powers that be. It is a curious difference. He sat still on the edge of
+his chair, while Mr. May walked across the room to the table by the
+door, where his _café noir_ had been placed, and took his cup and drank
+it. He was not civil enough to ask his visitor to share it, indeed it
+never would have occurred to him, though he did not hesitate to use poor
+Cotsdean for his own purpose, to treat him otherwise than as men treat
+their servants and inferiors. When he had finished his coffee, he went
+leisurely back into his former place.
+
+"You have nothing to suggest," he said, "nothing to advise? Well, I must
+try what I can do. It will be hard work, but still I must do it, you
+know," added Mr. May, in a gracious tone. "I have never concealed from
+you, Cotsdean, how much I appreciated your assistance; everything of
+this sort is so much worse in my position than in yours. You understand
+that? A gentleman--and a clergyman--has things expected from him which
+never would be thought of in your case. I have never omitted to
+acknowledge my obligations to you--and you also owe some obligations to
+me."
+
+"I don't deny as you've been very kind, sir," said Cotsdean,
+half-grateful, half-sullen; then he wavered a little. "I never denied
+it, _her_ and me could never have 'it it off but for you. I don't forget
+a favour--nobody can say that of me. I ain't forgot it in this case."
+
+"I don't say that you have forgotten it. I have always put the utmost
+confidence in you; but, my good fellow, you must not come to me in this
+down-in-the-mouth way. Have I ever failed you? We've been hard pressed
+enough at times, but something has always turned up. Have not I told you
+a hundred times Providence will provide?"
+
+"If you put it like that, sir--"
+
+"I do put it like that. I have always been helped, you know, sometimes
+when it seemed the last moment. Leave it to me. I have no more doubt,"
+said Mr. May, lifting up a countenance which was by no means so
+untroubled as could have been wished, "that when the time comes all will
+be well, than I have of the sun rising to-morrow--which it will," he
+added with some solemnity, "whether you and I live to see it or not.
+Leave it all, I say, to me."
+
+Cotsdean did not make any reply. He was overawed by this solemnity of
+tone, and knew his place too well to set himself up against his
+clergyman; but still it cannot be denied that the decision was less
+satisfactory than one of much less exalted tone might have been. He had
+not the courage to say anything--he withdrew with his hat in his hand,
+and a cloud over his face. But as he left the house the doubt in his
+soul breathed itself forth. "If so be as neither me nor him see it rise,
+what good will that do to my family," said Cotsdean to himself, and went
+his way to his closed shop, through all the sacks of seeds and dry
+rustling grain, with a heavy heart. He was a corn-factor in a tolerable
+business, which, as most of the bankers of Carlingford knew, he had some
+difficulty in carrying along, being generally in want of money; but this
+was not so rare a circumstance that any special notice should be taken
+of it. Everybody who knew thought it was very kind of Mr. May to back
+him up as he did, and even to put his name to bills for poor Cotsdean,
+to whom, indeed, he was known to have been very kind in many ways. But
+nobody was aware how little of these said bills went to Cotsdean, and
+how much to Mr. May.
+
+When he was gone, the clergyman threw himself back again into his chair
+with a pale face. Providence, which he treated like some sort of neutral
+deity, and was so very sure of having on his side when he spoke to
+Cotsdean, did not feel so near to him, or so much under his command,
+when Cotsdean was gone. There were still two days; but if before that he
+could not make some provision, what was to be done? He was not a cruel
+or bad man, and would have suffered keenly had anything happened to poor
+Cotsdean and his family on his account. But they must be sacrificed if
+it came to that, and the thought was very appalling. What was he to do?
+His friends were exhausted, and so were his expedients. There was no
+longer any one he could borrow from, or who would take even a share of
+his burden on their shoulders. What was he to do?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE NEW CHAPLAIN.
+
+
+It cannot be denied that, reluctant as Reginald May had been to accept
+the chaplaincy of which so much had been said, he had no sooner fairly
+done so, and committed himself beyond remedy, than a certain sense of
+relief began to steal over the young man's mind. He had made the leap.
+Moved, at last, by arguments which, perhaps, were not worth very much
+logically, and which even while he yielded to them he saw the weakness
+of, he felt sure that when he woke in the morning, and realized what he
+had done, fearful feelings of remorse would seize him. But, curiously
+enough, this was not so; and his first sensation was relief that the
+conflict was over, and that he had no more angry remonstrances to meet
+with, or soft pleadings from Ursula, or assaults of rude abruptness from
+Janey. All that was over; and then a warm glow of independence and
+competency came over the young man. You may be sure he had no fire in
+his rooms to make him warm, and it was a chill January morning, with
+snow in the heavy sky, and fog in the yellow air; but, notwithstanding,
+there came a glow of comfort over him.
+
+Independent!--free to go where he pleased, buy what he liked, spend his
+time as best seemed to him, with a "position" of his own; even a house
+of his own. He laughed softly to himself at this new idea. It did not
+somehow hurt him as he thought it would, this sinecure he had accepted.
+Could he not make it up, as Ursula said, "work for the town in other
+ways without pay, since the town had given him pay without work?" A
+genial feeling of toleration came over Reginald's mind. Why should he
+have made such a fuss about it? It was natural that his father should
+insist, and, now that it was done, he himself did not wish it undone, as
+he had expected to do. After all, if you judged matters with such
+rigidity, who was there without guilt? what public appointment was
+given and held according to abstract right, as, formally speaking, it
+ought to be? Those in the highest offices were appointed, not because of
+their personal excellence, but because of being some other man's son or
+brother; and yet, on the whole, public duty was well done, and the
+unjust ruler and hireling priest were exceptions. Even men whose entry
+into the fold was very precipitate, over the wall, violently, or by some
+rat-hole of private interest, made very good shepherds, once they were
+inside. Nothing was perfect in this world, and yet things were more good
+than evil; and if he himself made it his study to create for himself an
+ideal position, to become a doer of all kinds of volunteer work, what
+would it matter that his appointment was not an ideal appointment? It
+seemed very strange to him, and almost like an interposition of
+Providence in his favour, that he should feel in this way, for Reginald
+was not aware that such revulsions of feeling were very natural
+phenomena, and that the sensation, after any great decision, is almost
+invariably one of relief. To be sure it upset this manly state of mind a
+little when, coming down to breakfast, his father gave him a nod, and
+said briefly, "I am glad you have seen your duty at last."
+
+This made him almost resolve to throw it up again; but the feeling was
+momentary. Why should he give it up? It had made him independent
+(already he thought of his independence as a thing accomplished), and he
+would make full amends to the Church and to Carlingford for taking two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year without working for it. Surely he could
+do that. He did not grudge work, but rather liked it, and would be ready
+to do anything, he did not care what, to make his sinecure into a
+volunteer's outpost for every good work. Yes, that was the way to look
+at it. And it was a glorious independence. Two hundred and fifty pounds
+a year!
+
+"And the house," cried Ursula, when Mr. May had left the
+breakfast-table, and left them free to chatter. "The house--I don't
+think you are likely to find a tenant for it. The houses in Grange Lane
+are so cheap now; and some people object to the poor old men. I think
+you must keep the house. Furnishing will be an expense; but, of course,
+when you have a certain income, that makes such a difference; and you
+can come and see us every day."
+
+"Why can't he live at home?" said Janey; "we are so poor; he ought to
+come and pay us something for his board, and help us to get on."
+
+"What can you know about it, at your age?" said Ursula. "We have not got
+proper rooms for Reginald. He ought, at least, to have a study of his
+own, as well as a bed-room, now that he has an appointment. No, you must
+go to the College, Reginald; and, perhaps, you might have one of the
+boys with you, say Johnnie, which would be a great saving--for he has an
+appetite; he eats more than two of the rest of us do. You might take one
+of them with you--to save the bills a little--if you like."
+
+"Take me," said Janey, "I have a good appetite too; and then I'm a girl,
+which is a great deal more useful. I could keep your house. Oh,
+Reginald! mayn't we go out and see it? I want to see it. I have never
+once been over the College--not in all my life."
+
+"We might as well go, don't you think, Ursula?" he said, appealing to
+her with a delightful mixture of helplessness and supremacy. Yesterday,
+he had not been able to assert any exclusive claim to sixpence. Now he
+had a house--a house all his own. It pleased him to think of taking the
+girls to it; and as for having one of them, he was ready to have them
+all to live with him. Ursula thought fit to accede graciously to this
+suggestion, when she had looked after her numerous household duties.
+Janey, in the mean time, had been "practising" in one of her periodical
+fits of diligence.
+
+"For, you know, if Reginald did really want me to keep house for him,"
+said Janey, "(you have too much to do at home; or, of course, he would
+like you best), it would be dreadful if people found out how little I
+know."
+
+"You ought to go to school," said Ursula, gravely. "It is a dreadful
+thing for a girl never to have had any education. Perhaps Reggie might
+spare a little money to send you to school; or, perhaps, papa--"
+
+"School yourself!" retorted Janey, indignant; but then she thought
+better of it. "Perhaps just for a year to finish," she added in a
+doubtful tone. They thought Reginald could do anything on that wonderful
+two hundred and fifty pounds a year.
+
+The College was a picturesque old building at the other side of
+Carlingford, standing in pretty grounds with some fine trees, under
+which the old men sat and amused themselves in the summer mornings. On
+this chilly wintry day none of them were visible, except the cheerful
+old soul bent almost double, but with a chirruppy little voice like a
+superannuated sparrow, who acted as porter, and closed the big gates
+every night, and fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He
+trotted along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show them
+the chaplain's rooms.
+
+"The old gentlemen is all as pleased as Punch," said Joe. "We was a
+feared as it might be somebody foreign--not a Carlingford gentleman; and
+some parsons is queer, saving your presence, Mr. May; but we knows where
+you comes from, and all about you, as one of the old gentlemen was just
+a-saying to me. Furnished, Miss? Lord bless you, yes! they're furnished.
+It's all furnished, is College. You'll think as the things look a bit
+queer; they wasn't made not this year, nor yet last year, I can tell
+you; and they ain't in the fashion. But if so be as you don't stand by
+fashion, there they is," said Joe, throwing open the door.
+
+The young people went in softly, their excitement subdued into a kind of
+awe. An empty house, furnished, is more desolate, more overwhelming to
+the imagination, than a house which is bare. For whom was it waiting,
+all ready there, swept and garnished? Or were there already unseen
+inhabitants about, writing ghostly letters on the tables, seated on the
+chairs? Even Janey was hushed.
+
+"I'd rather stay at home, after all," she whispered in Ursula's ear
+under her breath.
+
+But after awhile they became familiar with the silent place, and awoke
+the echoes in it with their voices and new life. Nothing so young had
+been in the College for years. The last chaplain had been an old man and
+an old bachelor; and the pensioners were all solitary, living a sort of
+monastic life, each in his room, like workers in their cells. When
+Janey, surprised by some unexpected joke, burst into one of her peals of
+laughter, the old building echoed all through it, and more than one
+window was put up and head projected to know the cause of this
+profanation.
+
+"Joe!" cried one portentous voice; "what's happened? what's the meaning
+of this?"
+
+"It's only them a-laughing, sir," said Joe, delighting in the vagueness
+of his rejoinder. "They ain't used to it, that's the truth; but laugh
+away, Miss, it'll do you good," he added benignly. Joe was of a cheerful
+spirit, notwithstanding his infirmities, and he foresaw lightsome days.
+
+Somewhat taken aback, however, by the commotion produced by Janey's
+laugh, the young party left the College, Ursula carrying with her sundry
+memoranda and measurements for curtains and carpets. "You must have
+curtains," she said, "and I think a carpet for the study. The other room
+will do; but the study is cold, it has not the sunshine. I wonder if we
+might go and look at some, all at once."
+
+Here the three paused in the road, and looked at each other somewhat
+overcome by the grandeur of the idea. Even Reginald, notwithstanding his
+Oxford experience, held his breath a little at the thought of going
+right off without further consideration, and buying carpets and
+curtains. As for Janey, she laughed again in pure excitement and
+delight.
+
+"Fancy going into Holden's, walking right in, as if we had the Bank in
+our pockets, and ordering whatever we like," she cried.
+
+"I suppose we must have them!" said Reginald, yielding slowly to the
+pleasure of acquisition. Ursula was transformed by the instinct of
+business and management into the leader of the party.
+
+"Of course you must have them," she said, with the air of a woman who
+had ordered curtains all her life, "otherwise you will catch cold, and
+that is not desirable," and she marched calmly towards Holden's, while
+Janey dropped behind to smother the laughter which expressed her amazed
+delight in this new situation. It is doubtful whether Holden would have
+given them so good a reception had the Miss Mays gone to hint to order
+curtains for the Parsonage--for the Carlingford tradesmen were very well
+aware of the difficulties, in point of payment, which attended Mr. May's
+purchases. But Holden was all smiles at the idea of fitting up the rooms
+in the College.
+
+"Carpets? I have a Turkey carpet that would just suit one of those old
+rooms--old-fashioned rooms are so much thought of at present," said the
+man of furniture.
+
+"Yes--I suppose that would do," said Reginald, with a side look at his
+sister, to know if he was right. Ursula slew him with a glance of her
+brown eyes. She was almost grand in superior knowledge and righteous
+indignation.
+
+"Turkey! are you out of your senses? Do you think we have the Bank in
+our pockets," she whispered to him angrily, "as Janey says?"
+
+"How was I to know? He said so," said the alarmed chaplain, cowed,
+notwithstanding his income.
+
+"_He_ said so! that is just like you boys, taking whatever everyone
+tells you. Why, a Turkey carpet costs a fortune. Mr. Holden, I think, if
+you please, Brussels will do; or some of those new kinds, a jumble of
+colours without any decided pattern. Not too expensive," said Ursula
+solemnly, the colour mounting to her face. They were all rather brought
+down from their first delight and grandeur when this was said--for
+stipulating about expense made a difference all at once. The delightful
+sensation of marching into Holden's as if the world belonged to them was
+over; but Janey was touched to see that Holden still remained civil,
+and did not express, in his countenance, the contempt he must have felt.
+
+When this was over, and Mr. Holden had kindly suggested the idea of
+sending various stuffs to the College, "that they might judge of the
+effect," the party went home, slightly subdued. The air was heavy and
+yellow, and prophesied snow; but a very red wintry sun had managed to
+make an opening temporarily in the clouds, and threw a ruddy ray down
+Grange Lane, bringing out the few passengers who were coming and going
+under the old garden walls. Ursula clasped her hands together, and came
+to a stop suddenly, when she turned her eyes that way.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "here she is--she is coming! all by herself, and we
+can't help meeting her--the young lady in black!"
+
+"Shall we speak to her?" said Janey with a little awe.
+
+"Who is the young lady in black?" said Reginald, "this girl who is
+coming up? I never saw her before in Carlingford. Is she some one you
+have met with the Dorsets? She don't look much like Grange Lane."
+
+"Oh, hush! here she is," said Ursula, losing all that importance of
+aspect which her position as leader of the expedition had given her. A
+pretty blush of expectation came over her face--her dimples revealed
+themselves as if by magic. You will think it strange, perhaps, that the
+sight of one girl should produce this effect upon another. But then
+Phoebe represented to Ursula the only glimpse she had ever had into a
+world which looked gay and splendid to the country girl--a world in
+which Phoebe had appeared to her as a princess reigning in glory and
+delight. Ursula forgot both her companions and her recent occupation.
+Would the young lady in black notice her; stop, perhaps, and talk to
+her--remember her? Her eyes began to glow and dance with excitement. She
+stumbled as she went on in her anxiety, fixing her eyes upon the
+approaching figure. Phoebe, for her part, was taking a constitutional
+walk up and down Grange Lane, and she too was a little moved,
+recognizing the girl, and wondering what it would be wisest to
+do--whether to speak to her, and break her lonely promenade with a
+little society, or remember her "place," and save herself from further
+mortification by passing the clergyman's daughter, who was a cousin of
+the Dorsets, with a bow.
+
+"The Dorsets wouldn't recognise me, nor Miss May either," Phoebe said to
+herself, "_if they knew_--"
+
+But Ursula looked so wistful as they approached each other that she had
+not the courage to keep to this wise resolution. Though she was only the
+granddaughter of Tozer, the butterman, she was much more a woman of the
+world than this pretty blushing girl who courted her notice. She put out
+her hand instinctively when they met. "It can't harm anybody but myself,
+after all," she thought.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you remember me," cried Ursula. "I knew you in a
+moment. Have you come to stay here? This is my brother, Reginald, and my
+little sister, Janey," (how Janey scowled at that _little!_ and with
+reason, for she was by half an inch the taller of the two). "Are you
+taking a walk? I do hope you like Carlingford. I do hope you are going
+to stay. That is our house down at the end of the lane, close to St.
+Roque's. Papa is the clergyman there. It will be so delightful," said
+Ursula, repeating herself in her excitement, "if you are going to stay."
+
+"I am going to stay for some time," said Phoebe graciously, "I don't
+quite know how long. I came here shortly after I saw you in town. My
+grandfather lives here. Grange Lane is very nice for a walk. Grandmamma
+is an invalid, so that I don't leave her very often. It was great luck
+finding you just as I had come out; for it is not cheerful walking
+alone."
+
+Phoebe felt perfectly sure that through each of the three heads turned
+towards her a hurried inquiry was going on as to which of those enclosed
+houses contained the grandmother who was an invalid; but no sort of
+enlightenment followed the inquiry, and as for Ursula it terminated
+abruptly in her mind with a rush of cordiality. She was not at an age
+when friendship pauses to make any inquiry into grandmothers.
+
+"I am so glad! for if you are not going anywhere in particular, we may
+all walk together. Janey knows you quite well. I have talked of you so
+often," (here Phoebe gave a gracious bow and smile to Janey, who was not
+quite sure that she liked to be thus patronized), "and so does my
+brother," said Ursula, more doubtfully. "Do you like Carlingford? Have
+you seen many people? Oh! I do hope you will stay."
+
+"I have not seen anybody," said Phoebe. "My people are not much in
+society. When one is old and sick, I don't suppose one cares--"
+
+"There is no society to speak of in Carlingford," said Reginald. "It is
+like most other country towns. If you like it we shall be sure your
+liking is quite disinterested, for it has no social charms--"
+
+When had Reginald said so many words at a time to a young lady before?
+The girls exchanged glances. "I think it is pretty," said Phoebe, closing
+the subject. "It is going to snow, don't you think? I suppose you skate
+like all the young ladies now. It seems the first thing any one thinks
+of when the winter begins."
+
+"Do you skate?" said Ursula, her eyes brighter and opener than ever.
+
+"Oh, a little--as everybody does! Perhaps if there is no society," said
+Phoebe, turning to Reginald for the first time, "people are free here
+from the necessity of doing as everybody does. I don't think there is
+any such bondage in the world--dressing, living, working, amusing
+yourself--you have to do everything as other people do it. So I skate--I
+can't help myself; and a hundred foolish things beside."
+
+"But I should think it _delightful_," cried Ursula, "I have always
+envied the boys. They look so warm when we are all shivering. Reginald,
+if it freezes will you teach us? I think I should like it better than
+anything in the world."
+
+"Yes," said Reginald, "if Miss--if we can make up a party--if you," he
+added with a perfectly new inflection in his voice, "will come too."
+
+"I see you don't know my name," said Phoebe, with a soft little laugh.
+"It is Beecham. One never catches names at a party. I remembered yours
+because of a family in a novel that I used to admire very much in my
+girlish days--"
+
+"Oh! I know," cried Janey, "the Daisy Chain. We are not a set of prigs
+like those people. We are not goody, whatever we are; we--"
+
+"I don't suppose Miss Beecham cares for your opinion of the family
+character," said Reginald in a tone that made Janey furious. Thus
+discoursing they reached the gates of the Parsonage, where Ursula was
+most eager that her friend should come in. And here Mr. May joined them,
+who was impressed, like everybody else, by Phoebe's appearance, and made
+himself so agreeable that Reginald felt eclipsed and driven into the
+background. Ursula had never been so satisfied with her father in her
+life; though there was a cloud on Mr. May's soul, it suited him to show
+a high good-humour with everybody in recompense for his son's
+satisfactory decision, and he was, indeed, in a state of high
+complacence with himself for having managed matters so cleverly that the
+very thing which should have secured Reginald's final abandonment of the
+chaplaincy determined him, on the contrary, to accept it. And he admired
+Phoebe, and was dazzled by her self-possession and knowledge of the
+world. He supported Ursula's invitation warmly; but the stranger freed
+herself with graceful excuses. She had her patient to attend to.
+
+"That is a very lady-like young woman," said Mr. May, when they had
+gone in, after watching regretfully their new acquaintance's progress
+through Grange Lane. "You met her in town, did you? A friend of the
+Dorsets? Where is she living, I wonder; and whom does she belong to? One
+does not often see that style of thing here."
+
+"I never saw any one like her before," said Ursula fervently; and they
+were still all uniting in admiration of Phoebe--when--
+
+But such an interruption demands another page.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THAT TOZER GIRL!
+
+
+"Well, who is she?" cried Mrs. Sam Hurst, too curious to think of the
+ordinary decorums. She had no bonnet on, but a light "cloud" of white
+wool over her cap, and her whole aspect was full of eagerness and
+excitement. "Why didn't you tell me you knew her? Who is she? I am dying
+to know."
+
+"Who is--who?" said Ursula, rather glad of the opportunity of being
+politely rude to Mrs. Sam Hurst before papa. "How is any one to find out
+from the way you speak? She? who is she?"
+
+"That is just what I want you to tell me," said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with
+imperturbable good-humour. "You, Mr. May, you are always good to me,
+though Ursula has her little tempers--the girl you were talking to at
+the door. I stood and watched from the window, and I scarcely could
+contain myself sufficiently not to bounce out in the middle of the talk.
+Now do tell, as the Americans say. Who is that Tozer girl?"
+
+"That Tozer girl!" Ursula gave a little shriek, and grew first red and
+then pale with horror and dismay.
+
+"Yes; I told you about her; so well dressed and looking so nice. That
+was she; with the very same dress, such a charming dress! so much style
+about it. Who is she, Ursula? Mr. May, tell me who is she? You can't
+imagine how much I want to know."
+
+Ursula dropped into a chair, looking like a little ghost, faint and
+rigid. She said afterwards to Janey that she felt in the depths of her
+heart that it must be true. She could have cried with pain and
+disappointment, but she would not give Mrs. Sam Hurst the pleasure of
+making her cry.
+
+"There must be some mistake," said Reginald, interposing. "This is a
+lady--my sister met her in town with the Dorsets."
+
+"Oh, does she know the Dorsets too?" said the inquirer. "That makes it
+still more interesting. Yes, that is the girl that is with the Tozers;
+there can be no mistake about it. She is the granddaughter. She was at
+the Meeting last night. I had it from the best authority--on the
+platform with old Tozer. And, indeed, Mr. May, how any one that had been
+there could dare to look you in the face!--"
+
+"I was there myself," said Mr. May. "It amused me very much. Tell me now
+about this young person. Is she an impostor, taking people in, or what
+is it all about? Ursula looks as if she was in the trick herself, and
+had been found out."
+
+"I am _sure_ she is not an impostor," said Ursula. "An impostor! If you
+had seen her as I saw her, at a great, beautiful, splendid ball. I never
+saw anything like it. I was nobody there--nobody--and neither were
+Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy--but Miss Beecham! It is a mistake, I
+suppose," the girl said, raising herself up with great dignity; "when
+people are always trying for news, they get the wrong news sometimes, I
+don't doubt. You may be sure it is a mistake."
+
+"That's me," said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with a laugh; "that is one of Ursula's
+assaults upon poor me. Yes, I confess it, I am fond of news; and I never
+said she was an impostor. Poor girl, I am dreadfully sorry for her. I
+think she is a good girl, trying to do her duty to her relations. She
+didn't choose her own grandfather. I dare say, if she'd had any say in
+it, she would have made a very different choice. But whether your papa
+may think her a proper friend for you--being Tozer's granddaughter, Miss
+Ursula, that's quite a different business, I am bound to say."
+
+Again Ursula felt herself kept from crying by sheer pride, and nothing
+else. She bit her lips tight; she would not give in. Mrs. Hurst to
+triumph over her, and to give her opinion as to what papa might think
+proper! Ursula turned her back upon Mrs. Hurst, which was not civil,
+fearing every moment some denunciation from papa. But nothing of the
+kind came. He asked quite quietly after a while, "Where did you meet
+this young lady?" without any perceptible inflection of anger in his
+tone.
+
+"Why, papa," cried Janey, distressed to be kept so long silent,
+"everybody knows where Ursula met her; no one has heard of anything else
+since she came home. She met her of course at the ball. You know;
+Reginald, _you_ know! The ball where she went with Cousin Anne."
+
+"Never mind Cousin Anne; I want the name of the people at whose house it
+was."
+
+"Copperhead, papa," said Ursula, rousing herself. "If Cousin Anne does
+not know a lady from a common person, who does, I wonder? It was Cousin
+Anne who introduced me to her (I think). Their name was Copperhead, and
+they lived in a great, big, beautiful house, in the street where
+ambassadors and quantities of great people live. I forget the name of
+it; but I know there was an ambassador lived there, and Cousin Anne
+said----"
+
+"Copperhead! I thought so," said Mr. May. "When Ursula has been set
+a-going on the subject of Cousin Anne, there is nothing rational to be
+got from her after that for an hour or two. You take an interest in this
+young lady," he said shortly, turning to Mrs. Sam Hurst, who stood by
+smiling, rather enjoying the commotion she had caused.
+
+"Who, I? I take an interest in anybody that makes a stir, and gives us
+something to talk about," said Mrs. Hurst, frankly. "You know my
+weakness. Ursula despises me for it, but you know human nature. If I did
+not take an interest in my neighbours what would become of me--a poor
+lone elderly woman, without either chick or child?"
+
+She rounded off this forlorn description of herself with a hearty laugh,
+in which Janey, who had a secret kindness for their merry neighbour,
+though she feared her "for papa," joined furtively. Mr. May, however,
+did not enter into the joke with the sympathy which he usually showed to
+Mrs. Hurst. He smiled, but there was something _distrait_ and
+pre-occupied in his air.
+
+"How sorry we all are for you," he said; "your position is truly
+melancholy. I am glad, for your sake, that old Tozer has a pretty
+granddaughter to beguile you now and then out of recollection of your
+cares."
+
+There was a sharp tone in this which caught Mrs. Hurst's ear, and she
+was not disposed to accept any sharpness from Mr. May. She turned the
+tables upon him promptly.
+
+"What a disgraceful business that Meeting was! Of course, you have seen
+the paper. There ought to be some way of punishing those agitators that
+go about the country, taking away people's characters. Could not you
+bring him up for libel, or Reginald? I never knew anything so shocking.
+To come to your own town, your own neighbourhood, and to strike you
+through your son! It is the nastiest, most underhanded, unprincipled
+attack I ever heard of."
+
+"What is that?" asked Reginald.
+
+He was not easily roused by Carlingford gossip, but there was clearly
+more in this than met the eye.
+
+"An Anti-State Church Meeting," said Mr. May, "with special compliments
+in it to you and me. It is not worth our while to think of it. Your
+agitators, my dear Mrs. Hurst, are not worth powder and shot. Now,
+pardon me, but I must go to work. Will you go and see the sick people in
+Back Grove Street, Reginald? I don't think I can go to-day."
+
+"I should like to know what was in the paper," said the young man, with
+an obstinacy that filled the girls with alarm. They had been in hopes
+that everything between father and son was to be happy and friendly, now
+that Reginald was about to do what his father wished.
+
+"Oh, you shall see it," said Mrs. Hurst, half alarmed too; "but it is
+not anything, as your father says; only we women are sensitive. We are
+always thinking of things which, perhaps, were never intended to harm
+us. Ursula, you take my advice, and don't go and mix yourself up with
+Dissenters and that kind of people. The Tozer girl may be very nice, but
+she is still Tozer's granddaughter, after all."
+
+Reginald followed the visitor out of the room, leaving his sisters very
+ill at ease within, and his father not without anxieties which were so
+powerful, indeed, that he relieved his mind by talking of them to his
+daughters--a most unusual proceeding.
+
+"That woman will set Reginald off at the nail again," he cried; "after
+he had begun to see things in a common-sense light. There was an attack
+made upon him last night on account of that blessed chaplaincy, which
+has been more trouble to me than it is worth. I suppose he'll throw it
+up now. But I wash my hands of the matter. I wonder how you girls can
+encourage that chattering woman to come here."
+
+"Papa!" cried Janey, ever on the defensive, "we _hate_ her! It is you
+who encourage her to come here."
+
+"Oh, hush!" cried Ursula, with a warning glance; it was balm to her soul
+to hear her father call Mrs. Hurst _that woman_. "We have been to see
+the house," she said; "it was very nice. I think Reginald liked it,
+papa."
+
+"Ah, well," said Mr. May, "girls and boys are queer articles. I dare say
+the house, if he likes it, will weigh more with him than justice or
+common sense. So Copperhead was the people's name? What would be wanted,
+do you think, Ursula, to make Reginald's room into a comfortable room
+for a pupil? Comfortable, recollect; not merely what would do; and one
+that has been used, I suppose, to luxury. You can look over it and let
+me know."
+
+"Are we going to take a pupil, papa?" cried Janey, with widening eyes.
+
+"I don't know what you could teach him," he said. "Manners, perhaps? Let
+me know, Ursula. The room is not a bad room; it would want a new carpet,
+curtains, perhaps--various things. Make me out a list. The Copperheads
+have a son, I believe. Did you see him at that fine ball of yours?"
+
+"Oh! papa, he danced with me twice; he was very kind," said Ursula, with
+a blush; "and he danced all the night with Miss Beecham. It must be a
+falsehood about her being old Tozer's granddaughter. Mr. Clarence
+Copperhead was always by her side. I think Mrs. Hurst must have made it
+all up out of her own head."
+
+Mr. May gave a little short laugh.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Hurst!" he said, recovering his temper; "how bitter you all
+are against her. So he danced with you twice? You must try to make him
+comfortable, Ursula, if he comes here."
+
+"Is Mr. Clarence Copperhead coming here?"
+
+Ursula was struck dumb by this piece of news. The grand house in
+Portland Place, and all Sophy Dorset's questions and warnings, came
+suddenly back to her mind. She blushed fiery red; she could not tell
+why. Coming here! How strange it would be, how extraordinary, to have to
+order dinner for him, and get his room in order, and have him in the
+drawing-room in the evenings! How should she know what to say to him? or
+would papa keep him always at work, reading Greek or something
+downstairs? All this flashed through her mind with the rapidity of
+lightning. Mr. May made no reply. He was walking up and down the room
+with his hands behind him, as was his habit when he was "busy." Being
+busy was separated from being angry by the merest visionary line in Mr.
+May's case; his children never ventured on addressing him at such
+moments, and it is impossible to describe how glad they were when he
+withdrew to his own room before Reginald's return; but not a minute too
+soon. The young man came back, looking black as night. He threw himself
+into a chair, and then he got up again, and began also to walk about the
+room like his father. At first he would make no reply to the questions
+of the girls.
+
+"It is exactly what I expected," he said; "just what I looked for. I
+knew it from the first moment."
+
+It was Janey, naturally, who had least patience with this unsatisfactory
+utterance.
+
+"If it was just what you expected, and you looked for it all the time,
+why should you make such a fuss now?" she cried. "I declare, for all you
+are young, and we are fond of you, you are almost as bad as papa."
+
+Reginald did not take any notice of this address; he went on repeating
+the same words at intervals.
+
+"A child might have known it. Of course, from the beginning one knew how
+it must be." Then he suddenly faced round upon Ursula, who was nearly
+crying in excitement and surprise. "But if they think I am to be driven
+out of a resolution I have made by what they say--if they think that I
+will be bullied into giving up because of their claptrap," he cried,
+looking sternly at her, "then you will find you are mistaken. You will
+find I am not such a weak idiot as you suppose. Give up! because some
+demagogue from a Dissenting Committee takes upon him to criticise my
+conduct. If you think I have so little self-respect, so little stamina,"
+he said, fiercely, "you will find you have made a very great mistake."
+
+"Oh, Reginald, _me_?" cried Ursula, with tears in her eyes; "did I ever
+think anything unkind of you? did I ever ask you to do anything that was
+disagreeable? You should not look as if it was me."
+
+Then he threw himself down again on the old sofa, which creaked and
+tottered under the shock.
+
+"Poor little Ursula!" he cried, with a short laugh. "Did you think I
+meant you? But if they thought they would master me by these means,"
+said Reginald with pale fury, "they never made a greater mistake, I can
+tell you. A parcel of trumpery agitators, speechifiers, little petty
+demagogues, whom nobody ever heard of before. A fine thing, indeed, to
+have all the shopkeepers of Carlingford sitting in committee on one's
+conduct, isn't it--telling one what one ought to do? By Jupiter! It's
+enough to make a man swear!"
+
+"I declare!" cried Janey loudly, "how like Reginald is to papa! I never
+saw it before. When he looks wicked like that, and sets his teeth--but I
+am not going to be pushed, not by my brother or any one!" said the girl,
+growing red, and making a step out of his reach. "I won't stand it. I am
+not a child any more than you."
+
+Janey's wrath was appeased, however, when Reginald produced the paper
+and read Northcote's speech aloud. In her interest she drew nearer and
+nearer, and read the obnoxious column over his shoulder, joining in
+Ursula's cries of indignation. By the time the three had thus got
+through it, Reginald's own agitation subsided into that fierce amusement
+which is the frequent refuge of the assaulted.
+
+"Old Green in the chair! and old Tozer and the rest have all been
+sitting upon me," he said, with that laugh which is proverbially
+described as from the wrong side of the mouth, whatever that may be.
+Ursula said nothing in reply, but in her heart she felt yet another
+stab. Tozer! This was another complication. She had taken so great a
+romantic interest in the heroine of that ball, which was the most
+entrancing moment of Ursula's life, that it seemed a kind of disloyalty
+to her dreams to give up thus completely, and dethrone the young lady in
+black; but what could the poor girl do? In the excitement of this
+question the personality of Reginald's special assailant was lost
+altogether: the girls did not even remember his name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A NEW FRIEND.
+
+
+After this there followed an exciting interval for the family at the
+Parsonage. Reginald, with the impatience of anger, insisted upon
+transporting himself to the College at once, and entering upon "his
+duties," such as they were, in defiance of all public comment. And Mr.
+May, delighted with the head-strong resentment which served his purpose
+so well, promoted it by all the means in his power, goading his son on,
+if he showed any signs of relaxing, by references to public opinion, and
+what the Liberation Society would say. Before those curtains were ready,
+which the girls had ordered with so much pride, or the carpet laid down,
+he had taken possession, and his room in the Parsonage was already
+turned upside down preparing for a new inmate. Many and strange were the
+thoughts in Ursula's mind about this new inmate. She remembered Clarence
+Copperhead as a full-grown man, beyond, it seemed to her, the age at
+which pupilage was possible. What was he coming to Carlingford for? What
+was he coming to the Parsonage for? What could papa do with a pupil
+quite as old as Reginald, who, in his own person, had often taken
+pupils? Ursula had read as many novels as were natural at her age, and
+can it be supposed that she did not ask herself whether there was any
+other meaning in it? Could he be coming to Carlingford on account of
+Miss Beecham; or, on account of--any one else? Ursula never whispered,
+even to her own imagination, on account of me. But it is not to be
+supposed that the unbidden inarticulate thought did not steal in,
+fluttering her girlish soul. Everybody knows that in fiction, at least,
+such things occur continually, and are the most natural things in the
+world; and to Ursula, beyond her own little commonplace world, which she
+somewhat despised, and the strange world undeciphered and wonderful to
+which the Dorsets had introduced her for those ten brief days in London,
+the world of fiction was the only sphere she knew; and in that sphere
+there could be no such natural method of accounting for a young man's
+actions as that of supposing him to be "in love." The question remained,
+was it with Miss Beecham, or was it with--anybody else? Such an inquiry
+could not but flutter her youthful bosom. She made his room ready for
+him, and settled how he was to be disposed of, with the strangest sense
+of something beneath, which her father would never suspect, but which,
+perhaps, she alone might know.
+
+Clarence Copperhead was a more imposing figure to Ursula than he was in
+reality. She had seen him only twice, and he was a big and full-grown
+"gentleman," while Ursula only realised herself as a little girl. She
+was not even aware that she had any intelligence to speak of, or that
+she would be a fit person to judge of "a gentleman." To be sure she had
+to do many things which wanted thought and sense; but she was too
+unthoughtful of herself to have decided this as yet, or to have created
+any private tribunal at which to judge a new-comer of Clarence
+Copperhead's dimensions. A much greater personage than she was, an
+individual whose comings and goings could not be without observation,
+whose notice would be something exciting and strange, was what she took
+him to be. And Ursula was excited. Did Mrs. Copperhead, that kind little
+woman, know why he was coming--was she in his confidence? And how was
+Ursula to entertain him, to talk to him--a gentleman accustomed to so
+much better society? She did not say anything to Janey on this subject,
+though Janey was not without her curiosities too, and openly indulged in
+conjectures as to the new pupil.
+
+"I wonder if he will be fine. I wonder if he will be very good," said
+Janey. "I wonder if he will fall in love with Ursula. Pupils, in books,
+always do; and then there is a dreadful fuss and bother, and the girl is
+sent away. It is hard for the girl; it is always supposed to be her
+fault. I would not allow papa to take any pupils if it was me."
+
+"And much your papa would care for your permission," said Mrs. Sam
+Hurst. "But so far I agree with you, Janey, that before he has pupils,
+or anything of that sort, there ought to be a lady in the house. He
+should marry--"
+
+"Marry! we don't want a lady in the house," cried Janey, "we are ladies
+ourselves, I hope. Marry! if he does, I, for one, will do all I can to
+make his life miserable," said the girl with energy. "What should he
+want to marry for when he has daughters grown up? There are enough of us
+already, I should think."
+
+"Too many," said Mrs. Sam Hurst with a sigh. It gave her the greatest
+secret delight to play upon the girl's fears.
+
+Besides this, however, Ursula had another pre-occupation. In that
+cordial meeting with the young lady who had turned out to be a person in
+such an embarrassing position, there had been a great deal said about
+future meetings, walks, and expeditions together, and Ursula had been
+very desirous that Phoebe should fix some time for their first encounter.
+She thought of this now with blushes that seemed to burn her cheeks. She
+was afraid to go out, lest she should meet the girl she had been so
+anxious to make a friend of. Not that, on her own account, after the
+first shock, Ursula would have been hard-hearted enough to deny her
+acquaintance to Tozer's granddaughter. In the seclusion of her chamber,
+she had cried over the downfall of her ideal friend very bitterly, and
+felt the humiliation for Phoebe more cruelly than that young lady felt it
+for herself; but Ursula, however much it might have cost her, would have
+stood fast to her friendship had she been free to do as she pleased.
+
+"I did not like her for her grandfather," she said to Janey, of whom, in
+this case, she was less unwilling to make a confidant. "I never thought
+of the grandfather. What does it matter to me if he were a sweep instead
+of old Tozer?"
+
+"Old Tozer is just as bad as if he were a sweep," said Janey; "if you
+had ever thought of her grandfather, and known he was old Tozer, you
+would have felt it would not do."
+
+"What is there about a grandfather? I don't know if we ever had any,"
+said Ursula. "Mamma had, for the Dorsets are her relations--but papa.
+Mr. Griffiths's grandfather was a candle-maker; I have heard papa say
+so--and they go everywhere."
+
+"But he is dead," said Janey, with great shrewdness, "and he was rich."
+
+"You little nasty calculating thing! Oh, how I hate rich people; how I
+hate this horrid world, that loves money and loves fine names, and does
+not care for people's selves whether they are bad or good! I shall never
+dare to walk up Grange Lane again," said Ursula, with tears. "Fancy
+changing to her, after being so glad to see her! fancy never saying
+another word about the skating, or the walk to the old mill! How she
+will despise me for being such a miserable creature! and she will think
+it is all my own fault."
+
+At this moment Mr. May, from the door of his study, called "Ursula!"
+repeating the call with some impatience when she paused to dry her eyes.
+She ran down to him quickly, throwing down her work in her haste. He was
+standing at the door, and somehow for the first time the worn look about
+his eyes struck Ursula with a touch of pity. She had never noticed it
+before: a look of suppressed pain and anxiety, which remained about his
+eyes though the mouth smiled. It had never occurred to her to be sorry
+for her father before, and the idea struck her as very strange now.
+
+"Come in," he said, "I want to speak to you. I have been thinking about
+the young woman--this friend of yours. We are all among the Dissenters
+now-a-days, whatever Mrs. Sam Hurst may say. You seem to have taken a
+fancy to this Tozer girl?"
+
+"Don't call her so, papa, please. She is a lady in herself, as good a
+lady as any one."
+
+"Well! I don't say anything against her, do I? So you hold by your
+fancy? You are not afraid of Grange Lane and Mrs. Sam Hurst."
+
+"I have not seen her again," said Ursula, cast down. "I have not been
+out at all. I could not bear to be so friendly one day, and then to pass
+as if one did not know her the next. I cannot do it," cried the girl, in
+tears; "if I see her, I must just be the same as usual to her, whatever
+you say."
+
+"Very well, _be_ the same as usual," said Mr. May; "that is why I called
+you. I have my reasons. Notwithstanding Tozer, be civil to the girl. I
+have my reasons for what I say."
+
+"Do you mean it, papa!" said Ursula, delighted. "Oh, how good of you!
+You don't mind--you really don't mind? Oh! I can't tell you how thankful
+I am; for to pretend to want to be friends, and then to break off all in
+a moment because of a girl's grandfather----"
+
+"Don't make a principle of it, Ursula. It is quite necessary, in an
+ordinary way, to think of a girl's grandfather--and a boy's too, for
+that matter. No shopkeeping friends for me; but in this individual case
+I am willing to make an exception. For the moment, you see, Dissenters
+are in the ascendant. Young Copperhead is coming next week. Now, go."
+
+Ursula marched delighted upstairs. "Janey, run and get your hat," she
+said; "I am going out. I am not afraid of any one now. Papa is a great
+deal nicer than he ever was before. He says I may see Miss Beecham as
+much as I like. He says we need not mind Mrs. Sam Hurst. I am so glad! I
+shall never be afraid of that woman any more."
+
+Janey was taken altogether by surprise. "I hope he is not going to fall
+in love with Miss Beecham," she said suspiciously. "I have heard Betsy
+say that old gentlemen often do."
+
+"He is not so foolish as to fall in love with anybody," said Ursula,
+with dignity. "Indeed, Janey, you ought to have much more respect for
+papa. I wish you could be sent to school and learn more sense. You give
+your opinion as if you were--twenty--more than that. I am sure I never
+should have ventured to say such things when I was a child like you."
+
+"Child yourself!" said Janey indignant; which was her last resource when
+she had nothing more to say; but Ursula was too busy putting aside her
+work and preparing for her walk to pay any attention. In proportion as
+she had been subdued and downcast heretofore, she was gay now. She
+forgot all about old Tozer; about the Dissenters' meeting, and the man
+who had made an attack upon poor Reginald. She flew to her room for her
+hat and jacket, and ran downstairs, singing to herself. Janey only
+overtook her, out of breath, as she emerged into the road from the
+Parsonage door.
+
+"What a dreadful hurry you are in," said Janey. "I always get ready so
+much quicker than you do. Is it all about this girl, because she is new?
+I never knew you were so fond of new people before."
+
+But that day they went up and down Grange Lane fruitlessly, without
+seeing anything of Phoebe, and Ursula returned home disconsolate. In the
+evening Reginald intimated carelessly that he had met Miss Beecham. "She
+is much better worth talking to than most of the girls one meets with,
+whoever her grandfather may be," he said, evidently with an instant
+readiness to stand on the defensive.
+
+"Oh, did you talk to her," said Ursula, "without knowing? Reginald, papa
+has no objections. He says we may even have her here, if we please."
+
+"Well, of course I suppose he must guide you in that respect," said
+Reginald, "but it does not matter particularly to me. Of course I talked
+to her. Even my father could not expect that his permission was needed
+for me."
+
+At which piece of self-assertion the girls looked at him with admiring
+eyes. Already they felt there was a difference. Reginald at home,
+nominal curate, without pay or position, was a different thing from
+Reginald with an appointment, a house of his own, and two hundred and
+fifty pounds a year. The girls looked at him admiringly, but felt that
+this was never likely to be their fate. In everything the boys had so
+much the best of it; and yet it was almost a comfort to think that they
+had seen Reginald himself trembling before papa. Reginald had a great
+deal to tell them about the college, about the old men who made a
+hundred daily claims on his attention, and the charities which he had to
+administer, doles of this and that, and several charity schools of a
+humble class.
+
+"As for my time, it is not likely to hang on my hands as I thought. I
+can't be a parish Quixote, as we planned, Ursula, knocking down
+windmills for other people," he said, adjusting his round edge of
+collar. He was changed; he was important, a personage in his own sight,
+no longer to be spoken of as Mr. May's son. Janey ventured on a little
+laugh when he went away, but Ursula did not like the change.
+
+"Never mind," cried Janey; "I hope Copperhead will be nice. We shall
+have him to talk to, when he comes."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ursula, in a kind of despair, "who taught you to call
+gentlemen like that by their name? There is nothing so vulgar. Why,
+Cousin Anne says--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Anne!" cried Janey, shaking her head, and dancing away.
+After that she was aware there was nothing for it but flight.
+
+Next day, however, they were more successful. Phoebe, though very little
+older than Ursula, was kind to the country girls, and talked to them
+both, and drew them out. She smiled when she heard of Clarence
+Copperhead, and told them that he was not very clever, but she did not
+think there was any harm in him.
+
+"It is his father who is disagreeable," said Phoebe; "didn't you think
+so? You know, papa is a minister, Miss May," (she did not say clergyman
+when she spoke to a churchwoman, for what was the use of exciting any
+one's prejudices?) "and Mr. Copperhead comes to our church. You may be
+very thankful, in that respect, that you are not a dissenter. But it
+will be very strange to see Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. I have
+known him since I was no bigger than your little sister. To tell the
+truth," said Phoebe, frankly, "I think I am rather sorry he is coming
+here."
+
+"Why?" cried bold Janey, who was always inquisitive.
+
+Miss Phoebe only smiled and shook her head; she made no distinct reply.
+
+"Poor fellow, I suppose he has been 'plucked,' as the gentlemen call
+it, or 'ploughed,' does your brother say? University slang is very
+droll. He has not taken his degree, I suppose, and they want him to work
+before going up again. I am sorry for your father, too, for I don't
+think it will be very easy to get anything into Clarence Copperhead's
+mind. But there is no harm at all in him, and he used to be very nice to
+his mother. Mamma and I liked him for that; he was always very nice to
+his mother."
+
+"Will you come in and have some tea?" said Ursula. "Do, please. I hope,
+now that I have met you again, you will not refuse me. I was afraid you
+had gone away, or something--"
+
+Ursula, however, could not help looking guilty as she spoke, and Phoebe
+perceived at once that there had been some reason for the two or three
+days disappearance of the girls from Grange Lane.
+
+"You must tell me first," she said, with a smile, "whether you know who
+I am. If you ask me after that, I shall come. I am old Mr. Tozer's
+granddaughter, who had a shop in the High Street. My uncle has a shop
+there now. I do not like it myself," said Phoebe, with the masterly
+candour that distinguished her, "and no one else can be expected to like
+it. If you did not know--"
+
+"Oh, we heard directly," cried Janey; "Mrs. Sam Hurst told us. She came
+shrieking, 'Who is she?' before your back was turned that day; for she
+wondered to see you with old Tozer--"
+
+"Janey!" cried Ursula, with horror. "Of course we know; and please will
+you come? Every new person in Carlingford gets talked over, and if an
+angel were to walk about, Mrs. Sam Hurst would never rest till she had
+found out where he came from."
+
+"And, perhaps, whether he had a broken feather in his wing," said Phoebe.
+"I am very glad you don't mind. It will be very pleasant to come. I will
+run in and tell them, and then I will join you. Grandmamma is an
+invalid, and would like to know where I am."
+
+And the news made a considerable flutter in the dim room where Mrs.
+Tozer sat between the fire and the window, looking out upon the crocuses
+and regretting the High Street.
+
+"But run and put on another dress, dear. What will they think of you in
+that everlasting brown frock as you're so fond of? I'd like them to see
+as my grandchild could dress as nice as any lady in the land."
+
+"She'll not see much finery there," said Tozer; "they're as poor as
+church mice, are them Mays, and never a penny to pay a bill when it's
+wanted. I don't think as Phoebe need mind her dressing to go there."
+
+"And you'll send for me if you want me, grandmamma; you will be sure to
+send?"
+
+But for the brown frock, Mrs. Tozer's satisfaction would have been
+unalloyed as she watched her granddaughter walking across the garden.
+
+"She's at home among the quality, she is," said the old woman; "maybe
+more so than she is with you and me; but there ain't a better girl in
+all England, and that I'll say for her, though if she would think a
+little more about her clothes, as is nat'ral at her age, it would be
+more pleasing to me."
+
+"The worst dress as Phoebe has is better than anything belonging to them
+Mays," said Tozer.
+
+He did not care for the parson at St. Roque; though he was pleased that
+his child should be among "the quality." But it was on that evening that
+poor old Mrs. Tozer had one of her attacks, and Phoebe had to be summoned
+back at an early hour. The servant went down with an umbrella and a
+note, to bring her home; and that trifling incident had its influence
+upon after affairs, as the reader shall shortly see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT.
+
+
+It was something of a comfort to Phoebe to find that the "tea" to which
+Ursula asked her was a family meal, such as Mr. and Mrs. Tozer indulged
+in, in Grange Lane, with no idea of dinner to follow, as in more refined
+circles. This, she said to herself benignly, must be "country fashion,"
+and she was naturally as bland and gracious at the Parsonage tea-table
+as anybody from town, knowing better, but desiring to make herself
+thoroughly agreeable, could be. She amused Mr. May very much, who felt
+the serene young princess, accepting her vulgar relations with gentle
+resignation, and supported by a feeling of her own innate dignity, to be
+something quite new to him. Phoebe had no objection to talk upon the
+subject, for, clever as she was, she was not so clever as to see through
+Mr. May's amused show of interest in her trials, but believed
+ingenuously that he understood and felt for her, and was, perhaps, at
+last, the one noble, impartial, and generous Churchman who could see
+the difficulties of cultivated Dissenters, and enter into them
+sympathetically. Why Mr. May took the trouble to draw her out on this
+point it is more difficult to explain. Poor man, he was in a state of
+semi-distraction over Cotsdean's bill. The ten days had shortened into
+three, and he was no nearer finding that hundred pounds than ever. Even
+while he smiled and talked to Phoebe, he was repeating over and over to
+himself the terrible fact which could not now be ignored. "17th, 18th,
+19th, and Friday will be the 20th," he was saying to himself. If that
+20th came without any help, Cotsdean would be virtually made a bankrupt;
+for of course all his creditors would make a rush upon him, and all his
+affairs would be thrown open to the remorseless public gaze, if the
+bill, which had been so often renewed, had to be dishonoured at last.
+Mr. May had a conscience, though he was not careful of his money, and
+the fear of ruin to Cotsdean was a very terrible and real oppression to
+him. The recollection was upon him like a vulture in classic story,
+tearing and gnawing, as he sat there and smiled over the cup of tea
+Ursula gave him, feeling amused all the same at Phoebe's talk. He could
+scarcely have told why he had permitted his daughter to pursue her
+acquaintance with Tozer's granddaughter. Partly it was because of
+Clarence Copperhead; out of curiosity, as, being about to be brought in
+contact with some South Sea Islander or Fijian, one would naturally wish
+to see another who was thrown in one's way by accident, and thus prepare
+one's self for the permanent acquaintance. And she amused him. Her
+cleverness, her ease, her conversational powers, her woman of the world
+aspect, did not so much impress him, perhaps, as they did others; but
+the complacency and innocent confidence of youth that were in her, and
+her own enjoyment of the situation, notwithstanding the mortifications
+incurred--all this amused Mr. May. He listened to her talk, sometimes
+feeling himself almost unable to bear it, for the misery of those words,
+which kept themselves ringing in a dismal chorus in his own mind, and
+yet deriving a kind of amusement and distraction from it all the same.
+
+"One of your friends was very hard upon my son--and myself--at your
+Meeting the other night, Miss Beecham."
+
+"He was very injudicious," said Phoebe, shaking her head. "Indeed I did
+not approve. Personalities never advance any cause. I said so to him.
+Don't you think the Church has herself to blame for those political
+Dissenters, Mr. May? You sneer at us, and look down upon us--"
+
+"I? I don't sneer at anybody."
+
+"I don't mean you individually; but Churchmen do. They treat us as if
+we were some strange kind of creatures, from the heart of Africa
+perhaps. They don't think we are just like themselves: as well educated;
+meaning as well; with as much right to our own ideas."
+
+Mr. May could scarcely restrain a laugh. "Just like themselves." The
+idea of a Dissenter setting up to be as well educated, and as capable of
+forming an opinion, as a cultivated Anglican, an Oxford man, and a
+beneficed clergyman, was too novel and too foolish not to be somewhat
+startling as well. Mr. May was aware that human nature is strangely
+blind to its own deficiencies, but was it possible that any delusion
+could go so far as this? He did laugh a little--just the ghost of a
+laugh--at the idea. But what is the use of making any serious opposition
+to such a statement? The very fact of contesting the assumption seemed
+to give it a certain weight.
+
+"Whenever this is done," said Phoebe, with serene philosophy, "I think
+you may expect a revulsion of feeling. The class to which papa belongs
+is very friendly to the Established Church, and wishes to do her every
+honour."
+
+"Is it indeed? We ought to be much gratified," said Mr. May.
+
+Phoebe gave him a quick glance, but he composed his face and met her look
+meekly. It actually diverted him from his pre-occupation, and that is a
+great deal to say.
+
+"We would willingly do her any honour; we would willingly be friends,
+even look up to her, if that would please her," added Phoebe, very
+gravely, conscious of the importance of what she was saying; "but when
+we see clergymen, and common persons also, who have never had one
+rational thought on the subject, always setting us down as ignorant and
+uncultured, because we are Dissenters----"
+
+"But no one does that," said Ursula, soothingly, eager to save her new
+friend's feelings. She paused in the act of pouring out the children's
+second cup of tea, and looked up at her with eyes full of caressing and
+flattering meaning. "No one, at least, I am sure," she added, faltering,
+remembering suddenly things she had heard said of Dissenters, "who knows
+_you_."
+
+"It is not I that ought to be thought of, it is the general question.
+Then can you wonder that a young man like the gentleman we were talking
+of, clever and energetic, and an excellent scholar (and very good in
+philosophy, too--he was at Jena for two or three years), should be made
+bitter when he feels himself thrust back upon a community of small
+shopkeepers?"
+
+Mr. May could not restrain another short laugh.
+
+"We must not join in the vulgar abuse of shopkeepers," he said.
+
+Phoebe's colour rose. She raised her head a little, then perceiving the
+superiority of her former position, smiled.
+
+"I have no right to do so. My people, I suppose, were all shopkeepers to
+begin with; but this gives me ways of knowing. Grandpapa is very kind
+and nice--really nice, Mr. May; but he has not at all a wide way of
+looking at things. I feel it, though they are so kind to me. I have been
+brought up to think in such a different way; and if I feel it, who am
+fond of them, think how that young minister must feel it, who was
+brought up in a totally different class?"
+
+"What kind of class was this one brought up in?" said Mr. May, with a
+laugh. "He need not have assaulted Reginald, if he had been born a
+prince. We had done him no harm."
+
+"That is making it entirely a private question," said Phoebe, suavely,
+"which I did not mean to do. When such a man finds out abuses--what he
+takes to be abuses--in the Church, which treats him like a roadside
+ranter, may not he feel a right to be indignant? Oh, I am not so. I
+think such an office as that chaplaincy is very good, one here and there
+for the reward of merit; and I think he was very right to take it; but
+still it would not do, would it, to have many of them? It would not
+answer any good purpose," she said, administering a little sting
+scientifically, "if all clergymen held sinecures."
+
+These words were overheard by Reginald, who just then came in, and to
+whom it was startling to find Phoebe serenely seated at tea with his
+family. The hated word sinecure did not seem to affect him from her lips
+as it would have done from any one else's. He came in quite
+good-humouredly, and said with a smile--
+
+"You are discussing me. What about me? Miss Beecham, I hope you take my
+side."
+
+"I take everybody's side," said Phoebe; "for I try to trace people's
+motives. I can sympathise both with you and those who assailed you."
+
+"Oh, that Dissenting fellow. I beg your pardon, Miss Beecham, if you are
+a Dissenter; but I cannot help it. We never go out of our way to attack
+them and their chapels and coteries, and why should they spring at our
+throats on every occasion? I think it is hard, and I can't say I have
+any charity to spare for this individual. What had we done to him?
+Ursula, give me some tea."
+
+"Miss Beecham, I leave the cause of the Church in younger and, I hope,
+abler hands," said Mr. May, getting up.
+
+Partly it was that Reginald's onslaught made him see for the first time
+certain weak points in the situation; partly it was that his private
+care became too clamorous, and he could not keep on further. He went
+away quite abruptly, and went downstairs to his study, and shut himself
+in there; and the moment he had closed the door, all this amusement
+floated away, and the vulture gripped at him, beak and talons digging
+into his very soul. Good God! what was he to do? He covered his face
+with his hands, and turned round and round mentally in that darkness to
+see if anywhere there might be a gleam of light; but none was visible
+east or west. A hundred pounds, only a hundred pounds; a bagatelle, a
+thing that to many men was as small an affair as a stray sixpence; and
+here was this man, as good, so to speak, as any--well educated, full of
+gifts and accomplishments, well born, well connected, not a prodigal nor
+open sinner, losing himself in the very blackness of darkness, feeling
+that a kind of moral extinction was the only prospect before him, for
+want of this little sum. It seemed incredible even to himself, as he sat
+and brooded over it. Somehow, surely, there must be a way of
+deliverance. He looked piteously about him in his solitude, appealing to
+the very blank walls to save him. What could they do? His few books, his
+faded old furniture, would scarcely realize a hundred pounds if they
+were sold to-morrow. All his friends had been wearied out, all natural
+resources had failed. James might any day have sent the money, but he
+had not done so--just this special time, when it was so hard to get it,
+James, too, had failed; and the hours of this night were stealing away
+like thieves, so swift and so noiseless, to be followed by the others;
+and Cotsdean, poor soul, his faithful retainer, would be broken and
+ruined. To do Mr. May justice, if it had been only himself who could be
+ruined, he would have felt it less; but it went to his very heart to
+think of poor Cotsdean, who had trusted in him so entirely, and to whom,
+indeed, he had been very kind in his day. Strife and discord had been in
+the poor man's house, and perpetual wretchedness, and Mr. May had
+managed, he himself could scarcely tell how, to set it right. He had
+frightened and subdued the passionate wife, and quenched the growing
+tendencies to evil, which made her temper worse than it was by nature,
+and had won her back to soberness and some kind of peace, changing the
+unhappy house into one of comparative comfort and cheerfulness. Most
+people like those best to whom they have been kind, whom they have
+served or benefited, and in this way Mr. May was fond of Cotsdean, who
+in his turn had been a very good friend to his clergyman, serving him as
+none of his own class could have done, going in the face of all his own
+prejudices and the timorousness of nature, on his account. And the
+result was to be ruin--ruin unmitigated to the small man who was in
+business, and equally disastrous, though in a less creditable way, to
+his employer. It was with a suppressed anguish which is indescribable
+that he sat there, with his face covered, looking this approaching
+misery in the face. How long he had been there, he could scarcely
+himself tell, when he heard a little commotion in the hall, the sounds
+of running up and down stairs, and opening of doors. He was in a
+feverish and restless condition, and every stir roused him. Partly
+because of that impatience in his mind, and partly because every new
+thing seemed to have some possibility of hope in it, he got up and went
+to the door. Before he returned to his seat, something might have
+occurred to him, something might have happened--who could tell? It might
+be the postman with a letter containing that remittance from James,
+which still would set all right. It might be--he rose suddenly, and
+opening the door, held it ajar and looked out; the front door was open,
+and the night air blowing chilly into the house, and on the stairs,
+coming down, he heard the voices of Ursula and Phoebe. Ursula was pinning
+a shawl round her new friend, and consoling her.
+
+"I hope you will find it is nothing. I am so sorry," she said.
+
+"Oh, I am not very much afraid," said Phoebe. "She is ill, but not very
+bad, I hope; and it is not dangerous. Thank you so much for letting me
+come."
+
+"You will come again?" said Ursula, kissing her; "promise that you will
+come again."
+
+Mr. May listened with a certain surface of amusement in his mind. How
+easy and facile these girlish loves and fancies were! Ursula knew
+nothing of this stranger, and yet so free were the girl's thoughts, so
+open her heart to receive impressions, that on so short knowledge she
+had received the other into it with undoubting confidence and trust. He
+did not come forward himself to say good-bye, but he perceived that
+Reginald followed downstairs, and took his hat from the table, to
+accompany Phoebe home. As they closed the outer door behind them, the
+last gust thus forcibly shut in made a rush through the narrow hall, and
+carried a scrap of paper to Mr. May's feet. He picked it up almost
+mechanically, and carried it with him to the light, and looked at it
+without thought. There was not much in it to interest any one. It was
+the little note which Tozer had sent to his granddaughter by the maid,
+not prettily folded, to begin with, and soiled and crumpled by the
+bearer.
+
+"Your grandmother is took bad with one of her attacks. Come back
+directly. She wants you badly.
+
+"SAML. TOZER."
+
+This was all that was in it. Mr. May opened it out on his table with a
+half-smile of that same superficial amusement which the entire incident
+had caused him--the contact, even momentary, of his own household with
+that of Tozer, the old Dissenting butterman, was so droll an event. Then
+he sank down on his chair again with a sigh, the amusement dying out all
+at once, purely superficial as it was. Amusement! how strange that even
+the idea of amusement should enter his head in the midst of his despair.
+His mind renewed that horrible mechanical wandering through the dismal
+circle of might-be's which still survived amid the chaos of his
+thoughts. Once or twice there seemed to gleam upon him a stray glimmer
+of light through a loophole, but only to throw him back again into the
+darkness. Now and then he roused himself with a look of real terror in
+his face, when there came a noise outside. What he was afraid of was
+poor Cotsdean coming in with his hand to his forehead, and his
+apologetic "Beg your pardon, sir." If he came, what could he say to him?
+Two days--only two days more! If Mr. May had been less sensible and less
+courageous, he would most likely have ended the matter by a pistol or a
+dose of laudanum; but fortunately he was too rational to deliver himself
+by this desperate expedient, which, of course, would only have made the
+burden more terrible upon the survivors. If Cotsdean was to be ruined,
+and there was no remedy, Mr. May was man enough to feel that it was his
+business to stand by him, not to escape in any dastardly way; but in the
+mean time to face Cotsdean, and tell him that he had done and could do
+nothing, seemed more than the man who had caused his ruin could bear. He
+moved about uneasily in his chair in the anguish of his mind. As he did
+so, he pushed off some of his papers from the table with his elbow. It
+was some sort of break in his feverish musings to pick them up again in
+a bundle, without noticing what they were. He threw them down in a
+little heap before him. On the top, as it chanced, came the little dirty
+scrap of paper, which ought to have been tossed into the fire or the
+waste-paper basket. Saml. Tozer! What was Saml. Tozer to him that his
+name should stare him in the face in this obtrusive way? Tozer, the old
+butterman! a mean and ignorant person, as far beneath Mr. May's level as
+it is possible to imagine, whose handwriting it was very strange to see
+on anything but a bill. He fixed his eyes upon it mechanically; he had
+come, as it were, to the end of all things in those feverish musings; he
+had searched through his whole known world for help, and found there
+nothing and nobody to help him. Those whom he had once relied on were
+exhausted long ago; his friends had all dropped off from him, as far, at
+least, as money was concerned. Some of them might put out a hand to keep
+him and his children from starvation even now, but to pay Cotsdean's
+bill, never. There was no help anywhere, nor any hope. Natural ways and
+means were all exhausted, and though he was a clergyman, he had no such
+faith in the supernatural as to hope much for the succour of Heaven.
+Heaven! what could Heaven do for him? Bank-notes did not drop down out
+of the skies. There had been a time when he had felt full faith in
+"Providence;" but he seemed to have nothing to expect now from that
+quarter more than from any other. Samuel Tozer! why did that name always
+come uppermost, staring into his very eyes? It was a curious signature,
+the handwriting very rude and unrefined, with odd, illiterate dashes,
+and yet with a kind of rough character in it, easy to identify, not
+difficult to copy--
+
+What was it that brought beads of moisture all at once to Mr. May's
+forehead? He started up suddenly, pushing his chair with a hoarse
+exclamation, and walked up and down the room quickly, as if trying to
+escape from something. His heart jumped up in his breast, like a thing
+possessed of separate life, and thumped against his side, and beat with
+loud pulsations in his ears. When he caught sight of himself in the
+mirror over the mantelpiece, he started as if he had seen a ghost. Some
+one else seemed to see him; seemed to pounce upon and seize him out of
+that glass. He retreated from the reach of it, almost staggering; then
+he returned to his table. What thought was it that had struck him so
+wildly, like a sudden squall upon a boat? He sat down, and covered his
+face with his hands; then putting out one finger, stealthily drew the
+paper towards him, and studied it closely from under the shadow of the
+unmoved hand, which half-supported, half-covered his face. Well! after
+all, what would be the harm? A gain of three months' time, during which
+every sort of arrangement could be made so nicely; supplies got
+anywhere, everywhere; the whole machinery of being set easily in motion
+again, and no harm done to any one: this was the real force of the
+idea--no harm done to any one! Long before the three months were out,
+that hundred pounds--a paltry business, a nothing, when a man had time
+before him--could be got, one might make sure; and where was the harm?
+_He_ would never know it. Poor Cotsdean need never have the slightest
+burden upon his conscience. Here, in the stillness of his own room, it
+could all be done as easily as possible, without a soul being taken into
+confidence, except that bloodless wretch in the glass with his staring
+face, Mr. May said to himself, only dimly sensible that this wretch was
+himself. No, it would harm no one, that was clear; it never need be
+known to any one. It was a mere act of borrowing, and borrowing was
+never accounted a crime; borrowing not money even, only a name, and for
+so short a time. No harm; it could do no one in the world any harm.
+
+While these reasonings went on in his mind, his heart dropped down again
+into its right place; his pulse ceased to beat like the pistons of a
+steam-engine; he came gradually to himself. After all, what was it? Not
+such a great matter; a loan of something which would neither enrich him
+who took, nor impoverish him who, without being aware of it, should
+give--a nothing! Why people should entertain the prejudices they did on
+the subject, it was difficult to see, though, perhaps, he allowed
+candidly to himself, it might be dangerous for any ignorant man to
+follow the same strain of thinking; but in the hands of a man who was
+not ignorant, who knew, as he himself did, exactly how far to go, and
+what might be _innocently_ done; _innocently_ done--in his own mind he
+put a great stress on this--why, what was it? A thing which might be of
+use in an emergency, and which was absolutely no harm.
+
+Mr. May was late in leaving his room that night. It was understood in
+the family that he "was writing," and all was kept very quiet in the
+house; yet not sufficiently quiet, for Janey, when she brought in the
+coffee, placing it on the table close to the door, was startled by the
+fierceness of the exclamation with which her father greeted her
+entrance.
+
+"What do you want prying here?" he said, dropping his hand over the
+writing.
+
+"Prying himself!" said Janey, furiously, when she was up again in the
+cheerful light of the drawing-room; "a great deal there is to pry into
+in that dreadful old study."
+
+"Hush! he never likes to be disturbed in his writing," said Ursula,
+soothingly.
+
+And he sat at his "writing" to a much later hour than usual, and he
+stumbled upstairs to his bed-room in the dead of the night, with the
+same scared pale face which he had seen in the glass. Such a look as
+that when it once comes upon a man's face takes a long time to glide
+away; but his heart beat more tranquilly, and the blood flowed even in
+his veins. After all, where was the harm?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+TIDED OVER.
+
+
+Next morning, Cotsdean was mournfully turning over his ledger in the
+High Street, wondering whether he should go back to Mr. May on another
+forlorn expedition, or whether he should betray his overwhelming anxiety
+to his wife, who knew nothing about the state of affairs. The shop was
+what is called a corn-factor's shop, full of sacks of grain, with knots
+of wheat-ears done up ornamentally in the window, a stock not very
+valuable, but sufficient, and showing a good, if not a very important,
+business. A young man behind, attended to what little business was going
+on; for the master himself was too much pre-occupied to think of bushels
+of seed. He was as uneasy as Mr. May had been on the previous night, and
+in some respects even more unhappy; for he had no resource except a sort
+of dumb faith in his principle, a feeling that he must be able to find
+out some way of escape--chequered by clouds of despondency, sometimes
+approaching despair. For Cotsdean, too, felt vaguely that things were
+approaching a crisis--that a great many resources had been
+exhausted--that the pitcher which had gone so often to the well must, at
+last, be broken, and that it was as likely the catastrophe was coming
+now as at any other time. He said to himself that never in his previous
+experience had things seemed so blank as at present; never had the
+moment of fate approached so nearly without any appearance of
+deliverance. He had not even the round of possibilities before him which
+were in Mr. May's mind, however hopeless, at this particular moment, he
+might find them.
+
+Cotsdean, for his part, had nothing to think of but Mr. May. Would he
+find some way out of it still, he who was always so clever, and must, in
+his position, have always "good friends?" How the poor man wished that
+he had never been led into this fatal course--that he had insisted, long
+ago, on the settlement which must come some time, and which did not get
+any easier by putting it off; but then, who was he to stand against his
+clergyman? He did not feel able now to make any stand against him. If he
+had to be ruined--he must be ruined: what could he do? The man who had
+brought him to this, held him in such subjection that he could not
+denounce or accuse him even now. He was so much better, higher, abler,
+stronger than himself, that Cotsdean's harshest sentiment was a dumb
+feeling of injury; a feeling much more likely to lead him to miserable
+tears than to resistance. His clergyman--how was he to stand against his
+clergyman? This was the burden of his thoughts. And still, perhaps,
+there might be salvation and safety in the resources, the power, and
+cleverness, and superior strength of the man for whom, in his humility,
+he had risked everything. Poor Cotsdean's eyes were red with
+sleeplessness and thinking, and the constant rubbings he administered
+with the sleeve of his rough coat. He hung helpless, in suspense,
+waiting to see what his chief would say to him; if he would send for
+him--if he would come. And in the intervals of these anxious thoughts,
+he asked himself should he tell poor Sally--should he prepare her for
+her fate? She and her children might be turned out of house and home,
+very probably would be, he said to himself, leaping to the extreme
+point, as men in his condition are apt to do. They might take everything
+from him; they might bring all his creditors on him in a heap; they
+might sell him up; his shop by which he made his daily bread, and
+everything he had, and turn his children out into the streets. Once more
+he rubbed his sleeve over his eyes, which were smarting with
+sleeplessness and easily-coming tears. He turned over the pages of the
+ledger mechanically. There was no help in it--no large debts owing to
+him that could be called in; no means of getting any money; and nothing
+could he do but contemplate the miseries that might be coming, and wait,
+wait, wondering dully whether Mr. May was doing anything to avert this
+ruin, and whether, at any moment, he might walk in, bringing safety in
+the very look of his bold eyes. Cotsdean was not bold; he was small and
+weakly, and nervous, and trembled at a sharp voice. He was not a man
+adapted for vigorous struggling with the world. Mr. May could do it, in
+whose hands was the final issue. He was a man who was afraid of no one;
+and whose powers nobody could deny. Surely now, even at the last moment,
+he would find help somehow. It seemed profane to entertain a doubt that
+he would be able to do it even at the very last.
+
+But Cotsdean had a miserable morning; he could do nothing. Minute by
+minute, hour by hour, he waited to be called to the Parsonage; now and
+then he went out to the door of his shop and looked out wistfully down
+the street where it ended in the distance of Grange Lane. Was that the
+maid from the Parsonage coming up across the road? Were these the young
+ladies, who, though they knew nothing about the matter at issue, very
+frequently brought a note, or message, from their father to Cotsdean?
+But he was deceived in these guesses as well as in so many others. All
+the world seemed out of doors that morning, but nobody came. The ruddy
+sunshine shone full down the street, glorifying it with rays of warm
+gold, and tinting the mists and clouds which lurked in the corners. It
+had been heavy and overcast in the morning, but at noon the clouds had
+cleared away, and that big red globe of fire had risen majestically out
+of the mists, and everybody was out. But no one, except humble people in
+the ordinary way of business, came to Cotsdean. Bushels of grain for
+chickens, pennyworths of canary seed--oh! did any one think he could pay
+a hundred pounds out of these?--a hundred pounds, the spending of which
+had not been his, poor man; which was indeed spent long ago, and
+represented luxuries past and over, luxuries which were not Cotsdean's.
+Strange that a mere lump of money should live like this, long after it
+was, to all intents and purposes, dead, and spent and gone!
+
+Then came the hour of dinner, when his Sally called him to the room
+behind the shop, from which an odour of bacon and fine big beans--beans
+which were represented in his shop in many a sackful. He went in
+unwillingly in obedience to her command, but feeling unable to eat, soon
+left the table, sending the young man to fill his place, with whose
+appetite no obstacle of care or thought interfered. Poor Cotsdean felt
+that the smell of the dinner made him sick--though he would have liked
+to eat had he been able--the smell of the bacon which he loved, and the
+sight of the small children whom he loved still better, and poor Sally,
+his wife, still red in the face from dishing it up. Sally was anxious
+about her husband's want of appetite.
+
+"What ails you, John?" she said, pathetically; "it wasn't as if you were
+out last night, nor nothing o' that sort. A man as is sober like you
+don't ought to turn at his dinner."
+
+She was half sorry, and half aggrieved, poor woman, feeling as if some
+blame of her cookery must be involved.
+
+"It's the bile," said poor Cotsdean, with that simplicity of statement
+which is common in his class. "Don't you take on, Sally, I'll be a deal
+better by supper-time----or worse," he added to himself. Yes, he would
+make an effort to eat at supper-time; perhaps it might be the last meal
+he should eat in his own comfortable home.
+
+He had been out at the shop door, gazing despairingly down the road; he
+had come in and sold some birdseed, wondering--oh, what good would that
+penny do him?--he who wanted a hundred pounds? and was standing
+listening with a sad heart to the sound of the knives and forks and
+chatter of the children, when suddenly all at once Mr. May walked into
+the shop, changing dismay into hope. What a thing it was to be a
+gentleman and a clergyman. Cotsdean could not but think! The very sight
+of Mr. May inspired him with courage; even though probably he had no
+money in his pocket, it was a supporting thing only to see him, and hear
+the sound of his free unrestrained step. He came in with a friendly nod
+to his humble helper; then he glanced round the shop, to see that no one
+was present, and then he said, "All right, Cotsdean," in a voice that
+was as music to the little corn-factor's ears. His heart, which had been
+beating so low, jumped up in his bosom; his appetite came back with a
+leap; he asked himself would the bacon be cold? and cried, "God be
+praised, sir," in a breath.
+
+Mr. May winced slightly; but why should it be wrong to be grateful to
+God in any circumstances? he asked himself, having become already
+somewhat composed in his ideas on this particular point.
+
+"Are we quite alone?" he said. "Nobody within hearing? I have not
+brought you the money, but a piece of paper that is as good as the
+money. Take it: you will have no difficulty in discounting this; the man
+is as well known as the Carlingford Bank, and as safe, though I dare say
+you will be surprised at the name."
+
+Cotsdean opened out the new bill with trembling hands. "Tozer!" he said
+faintly, between relief and dismay.
+
+"Yes. You must know that I am taking a pupil--one who belongs to a very
+rich Dissenting family in London. Tozer knows something about him, from
+his connection with the body, and through this young man I have got to
+know something of _him_. He does it upon the admirable security of the
+fees I am to receive with this youth; so you see, after all, there is no
+mystery about it. Better not wait for to-morrow, Cotsdean. Go at once,
+and get it settled. You see," said Mr. May, ingratiatingly, "it is a
+little larger than the other--one hundred and fifty, indeed--but that
+does not matter with such an excellent name."
+
+"Tozer!" said Cotsdean, once more bewildered. He handled the piece of
+paper nervously, and turned it upside down, and round about, with a
+sense that it might melt in his hold. He did not like the additional
+fifty added. Why should another fifty be added? but so it was, and there
+seemed nothing for him but to take the immediate relief and be thankful.
+
+"I'd rather, sir, as Tozer hadn't known nothing about it; and why should
+he back a bill for me as ain't one of my friends, nor don't know nothing
+about me? and fifty more added on," said Cotsdean. It was the nearest he
+had gone to standing up against his clergyman; he did not like it. To be
+Mr. May's sole stand-by and agent, even at periodical risk of ruin, was
+possible to him; but a pang of jealousy, alarm, and pain came into his
+mind when he saw the new name. This even obliterated the immediate sense
+of relief that was in his mind.
+
+"Come three months it'll have to be paid," said Cotsdean, "and Tozer
+ain't a man to stand it if he's left to pay; he'd sell us up, Mr. May.
+He ain't one of the patient ones, like--some other folks; and there's
+fifty pounds put on. I don't see my way to it. I'd rather it was just
+the clear hundred, if it was the same to you."
+
+"It is not the same to me," said Mr. May, calmly. "Come, there is no
+cause to make any fuss. There it is, and if you don't like to make use
+of it, you must find some better way. Bring the fifty pounds, less the
+expenses, to me to-night. It is a good bit of paper, and it delivers us
+out of a mess which I hope we shall not fall into again."
+
+"So you said before, sir," said the corn-factor sullenly.
+
+"Cotsdean, you forget yourself; but I can make allowance for your
+anxiety. Take it, and get it settled before the bank closes; pay in the
+money to meet the other bill, and bring me the balance. You will find no
+difficulty with Tozer's name; and what so likely as that one respectable
+tradesman should help another? By the way, the affair is a private one
+between us, and it is unnecessary to say anything to him about it; the
+arrangement, you understand, is between him and me."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir," said Cotsdean, with a deprecatory movement of
+his hand to his forehead; "but it is me as will be come upon first if
+anything happens, and that fifty pounds--"
+
+"Have you ever found me to fail you, Cotsdean? If you knew the anxiety I
+have gone through, that you might be kept from harm, the sleepless
+nights, the schemes, the exertions! You may suppose it was no ordinary
+effort to ask a man like Tozer."
+
+Cotsdean was moved by the touching tone in which his partner in trouble
+spoke; but terror gave him a certain power. He grumbled still, not
+altogether vanquished.
+
+"I don't say nothing against that, sir," he said, not meeting Mr. May's
+eye; "but when it comes to be paid, sir, I'm the first in it, and where
+is that other fifty to come from? That's what I'm a thinking for--for
+I'm the first as they'd haul up after all."
+
+"You!" said Mr. May, "what could they get from you? You are not worth
+powder and shot. Don't be ridiculous, my good fellow. I never avoid my
+responsibilities, as you know. I am as good, I hope, for that fifty as
+for all that went before. Have you ever known me leave you or any one in
+the lurch?"
+
+"No, sir, I can't say as--I don't suppose I have. I've always put my
+trust in you like in Providence itself," he cried, hastily, holding his
+breath.
+
+"Then do as I tell you," said Mr. May, waving his hand with careless
+superiority; and though his heart was aching with a hundred anxious
+fears, he left the shop with just that mixture of partial offence and
+indifference which overawed completely his humble retainer. Cotsdean
+trembled at his own guilty folly and temerity. He did not dare to call
+his patron back again, to ask his pardon. He did not venture to go back
+to the table and snatch a bit of cold bacon. He was afraid he had
+offended his clergyman, what matter that he was hungry for his dinner?
+He called the young man from the bacon, which was now cold and all but
+eaten up, and snatched at his hat and went out to the bank. It was all
+he could do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A VISIT.
+
+
+
+     "DEAR MAY,
+
+     "Young Copperhead, the young fellow whom you have
+     undertaken to coach, is coming to the Hall for a few days
+     before he enters upon his studies, and Anne wishes me to
+     ask you to come over on Tuesday to dine and sleep, and to
+     make acquaintance with him. You can carry him back with you
+     if it suits you. In my private opinion, he is a cub of the
+     most disagreeable kind; but the girls like his mother, who
+     is a kind of cousin, as you know. It is not only because he
+     has failed to take his degree (you know how I hate the
+     hideous slang in which this fact is generally stated), but
+     that his father, who is one of the rich persons who abound
+     in the lower circles of society, is ambitious, and would
+     like to see him in Parliament, and that sort of thing--a
+     position which cannot be held creditably without some sort
+     of education: at least, so I am myself disposed to think.
+     Therefore, your pleasing duty will be to get him up in a
+     little history and geography, so that he may not get quite
+     hopelessly wrong in any of the modern modifications of
+     territory, for instance; and in so much Horace as may
+     furnish him with a few stock quotations, in case he should
+     be called upon, in the absence of any more hopeful
+     neophyte, to move the Address. He is a great hulking
+     fellow, not very brilliant, you may suppose, but not so
+     badly mannered as he might be, considering his parentage. I
+     don't think he'll give you much trouble in the house; but
+     he will most probably bore you to death, and in that case
+     your family ought to have a claim, I should think, for
+     compensation. Anyhow, come and see him, and us, before you
+     begin your hard task.
+
+     "Very truly yours,
+           "R. DORSET."
+
+     "Anne makes me open my letter to say that Ursula must come
+     too. We will send a carriage to meet you at the station."
+
+This letter caused considerable excitement in the Parsonage. It was the
+first invitation to dinner which Ursula had ever received. The
+dinner-parties in Carlingford were little frequented by young ladies.
+The male population was not large enough to afford a balance for the
+young women of the place, who came together in the evening, and took all
+the trouble of putting on their pretty white frocks, only to sit in rows
+in the drawing-room, waiting till the old gentlemen came in from the
+dining-room, after which everybody went away. There were no young
+gentlemen to speak of in Carlingford, so that when any one was bold
+enough to attempt a dancing-party, or anything of an equally amusing
+description, friends were sent out in all directions, as the beaters are
+sent into the woods to bring together the unfortunate birds for a
+_battue_, to find men. These circumstances will explain the flutter in
+Ursula's innocent bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr.
+May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened at
+periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially "cross." On
+this occasion there was no black mark against him in the family
+reckoning, and yet he was more kind than any one had ever known him.
+Instead of making any objections, he decided at once that Ursula must
+go, and told her to put on her prettiest frock, and make herself look
+very nice.
+
+"You must let Anne Dorset see that you care to please her," he said.
+"Anne is a very good woman, and her approval is worth having."
+
+"Oh, papa!" cried Janey, "when you are always calling her an old maid!"
+
+"L'un n'empêche pas l'autre," he said, which puzzled Janey, whose French
+was very deficient. Even Ursula, supposed to be the best French scholar
+in the family, was not quite sure what it meant; but it was evidently
+something in favour of Cousin Anne, which was sweet to the grateful
+girl.
+
+Janey, though suffering bitterly under the miserable consciousness of
+being only fourteen, and not asked anywhere, helped with disinterested
+zeal to get her sister ready, and consoled herself by orders for
+unlimited muffins and cake for tea.
+
+"There will only be the children," she said, resignedly, and felt
+herself _incomprise_; but indeed, the attractions of a good romp
+afterwards, no one being in the house to restrain the spirits of the
+youthful party, made even Janey amends.
+
+As for Reginald, who was not asked, he was, it must be allowed, rather
+sulky too, and he could not solace himself either with muffins or romps.
+His rooms at the College were very pleasant rooms, but he was used to
+home; and though the home at the Parsonage was but faded, and not in
+such perfect order as it might have been, the young man felt even his
+wainscoted study dull without the familiar voices, the laughter and
+foolish family jokes, and even the little quarrels which kept life
+always astir. He walked with Ursula to the station, whither her little
+box with her evening dress had gone before her, in a half-affronted
+state of mind.
+
+"What does he want with a pupil?" Reginald was saying, as he had said
+before. "A fellow no one knows, coming and taking possession of the
+house as if it belonged to him. There is plenty to do in the parish
+without pupils, and if I were not on the spot he would get into trouble,
+I can tell you. A man that has been ploughed, 'a big hulking fellow'
+(Sir Robert says so, not I). Mind, I'll have no flirting, Ursula; that
+is what always happens with a pupil in the house."
+
+"Reginald, how dare you--"
+
+"Oh, yes, I dare; my courage is quite equal to facing you, even if you
+do shoot thunderbolts out of your eyes. Mind you, I won't have it. There
+is a set of fellows who try it regularly, and if you were above them,
+would go in for Janey; and it would be great fun and great promotion for
+Janey; she would feel herself a woman directly; so you must mind her as
+well as yourself. I don't like it at all," Reginald went on. "Probably
+he will complain of the dinners you give him, as if he were in an inn.
+Confound him! What my father means by it, I can't tell."
+
+"Reginald, you ought not to swear," said Ursula. "It is dreadfully
+wicked in a clergyman. Poor papa meant making a little more money. What
+else could he mean? And I think it is very good of him, for it will
+bother him most. Mr. Copperhead is very nice, Reginald. I saw him in
+London, you know. I thought he was very----".
+
+"Ah! oh!" said Reginald, "I forgot that. You met him in London? To be
+sure, and it was there you met Miss Beecham. I begin to see. Is he
+coming here after her, I should like to know? She doesn't look the sort
+of girl to encourage that sort of thing."
+
+"The sort of girl to encourage that sort of thing! How strangely you
+talk when you get excited: isn't that rather vulgar? I don't know if he
+is coming after Miss Beecham or not," said Ursula, who thought the
+suggestion uncalled for, "but in a very short time you can judge for
+yourself."
+
+"Ah--indignation!" said the big brother, who like most big brothers
+laughed at Ursula's exhibition of offended dignity; "and, by the way,
+Miss Beecham--you have not seen her since that night when she was sent
+for. Will not she think it strange that you never sent to inquire?"
+
+"I sent Betsey--"
+
+"But if Miss Beecham had been somebody else, you would have gone
+yourself," he said, being in a humour for finding fault. "If poor old
+Mrs. Tozer had been what you call a lady--"
+
+"I thought you were much more strong than I am against the Dissenters?"
+said Ursula, "ever since that man's speech; and, indeed, always, as long
+as I can recollect."
+
+"She is not a mere Dissenter," said Reginald. "I think I shall call as I
+go home. She is the cleverest girl I ever met; not like one of you
+bread-and-butter girls, though she is not much older than you. A man
+finds a girl like that worth talking to," said the young clergyman,
+holding himself erect. Certainly Reginald had not improved; he had grown
+ever so much more self-important since he got a living of his own.
+
+"And if I was to say, 'Mind, I won't have it, Reginald?'" cried Ursula,
+half-laughing, half-angry. "I think that is a great deal worse than a
+pupil. But Miss Beecham is very dignified, and you may be sure she will
+not think much of a call from you. Heaven be praised! that is one thing
+you can't get into your hands; we girls are always good for something
+there. Men may think themselves as grand as they please," said Ursula,
+"but their visits are of no consequence; it is ladies of the family who
+must _call_!" After this little out-break, she came down at once to her
+usual calm. "I will ask Cousin Anne what I ought to do; I don't think
+Miss Beecham wanted me to go then--"
+
+"I shall go," said Reginald, and he left Ursula in her father's keeping,
+who met them at the station, and went off at once, with a pleasant sense
+of having piqued her curiosity, to Grange Lane.
+
+It was still early, for the trains which stopped at the little country
+station next to the Hall were very few and inconvenient, and the sun,
+though setting, was still shining red from over St. Roque's upon Grange
+Lane. The old red walls grew redder still in the frosty night, and the
+sky began to bloom into great blazing patches of colour upon the wintry
+clearness of the blue. There was going to be a beautiful sunset, and
+such a thing was always to be seen from Grange Lane better than anywhere
+else in Carlingford. Reginald went down the road slowly, looking at it,
+and already almost forgetting his idea of calling on Miss Beecham. To
+call on Miss Beecham would be to call on old Tozer, the butterman, to
+whom alone the visit would be naturally paid; and this made him laugh
+within himself. So he would have passed, no doubt, without the least
+attempt at intruding on the privacy of the Tozers, had not the
+garden-door opened before he got so far, and Phoebe herself came out,
+with her hands in her muff, to take a little walk up and down as she did
+daily. She did not take her hand out of its warm enclosure to give it to
+him; but nodded with friendly ease in return to his salutation.
+
+"I have come out to see the sunset," said Phoebe; "I like a little air
+before the day is over, and grandmamma, when she is poorly, likes her
+room to be very warm."
+
+"I hope Mrs. Tozer is better. I hope you have not been anxious."
+
+"Oh, no! it is chronic; there is no danger. But she requires a great
+deal of attendance; and I like to come out when I can. Oh, how fine it
+is! what colour! I think, Mr. May, you must have a _spécialité_ for
+sunsets at Carlingford. I never saw them so beautiful anywhere else."
+
+"I am glad there is something you like in Carlingford."
+
+"Something! there is a very great deal; and that I don't like too," she
+said with a smile. "I don't care for the people I am living among,
+which is dreadful. I don't suppose you have ever had such an experience,
+though you must know a great deal more in other ways than I. All the
+people that come to inquire about grandmamma are very kind; they are as
+good as possible; I respect them, and all that, but----Well, it must be
+my own fault, or education. It is education, no doubt, that gives us
+those absurd ideas."
+
+"Don't call them absurd," said Reginald, "indeed I can enter into them
+perfectly well. I don't _know_ them, perhaps, in my own person; but I
+can perfectly understand the repugnance, the distress--"
+
+"The words are too strong," said Phoebe, "not so much as that;
+the--annoyance, perhaps, the nasty disagreeable struggle with one's self
+and one's pride; as if one were better than other people. I dislike
+myself, and despise myself for it; but I can't help it. We have so
+little power over ourselves."
+
+"I hope you will let my sister do what she can to deliver you," said
+Reginald; "Ursula is not like you; but she is a good little thing, and
+she is able to appreciate you. I was to tell you she had been called
+suddenly off to the Dorsets', with whom my father and she have gone to
+pass the night--to meet, I believe, a person you know."
+
+"Oh, Clarence Copperhead; he is come then? How odd it will be to see him
+here. His mother is nice, but his father is----Oh, Mr. May! if you only
+knew the things people have to put up with. When I think of Mr.
+Copperhead, and his great, ugly, staring wealth, I feel disposed to hate
+money--especially among Dissenters. It would be better if we were all
+poor."
+
+Reginald said nothing; he thought so too. In that case there would be a
+few disagreeable things out of a poor clergyman's way, and assaults like
+that of Northcote upon himself would be impossible; but he could
+scarcely utter these virtuous sentiments.
+
+"Poverty is the desire of ascetics, and this is not an ascetic age," he
+said at length, with a half-laugh at himself for his stiff speech.
+
+"You may say it is not an ascetic age; but yet I suppose the
+Ritualists----. Perhaps you are a Ritualist yourself, Mr. May? I know as
+little personally about the church here, as you do about Salem Chapel. I
+like the service--so does papa--and I like above all things the
+independent standing of a clergyman; the feeling he must have that he is
+free to do his duty. That is why I like the church; for other things of
+course I like our own body best."
+
+"I don't suppose such things can be argued about, Miss Beecham. I wish
+I knew something of my father's new pupil. I don't like having a
+stranger in the house; my father is fond of having his own way."
+
+"It is astonishing how often parents are so," said Phoebe, demurely; "and
+the way they talk of their experience! as if each new generation did not
+know more than the one that preceded it."
+
+"You are pleased to laugh, but I am quite in earnest. A pupil is a
+nuisance. For instance, no man who has a family should ever take one. I
+know what things are said."
+
+"You mean about the daughters? That is true enough, there are always
+difficulties in the way; but you need not be afraid of Clarence
+Copperhead. He is not the fascinating pupil of a church-novel. There's
+nothing the least like the Heir of Redclyffe about him."
+
+"You are very well up in Miss Yonge's novels, Miss Beecham."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe; "one reads Scott for Scotland (and a few other
+things), and one reads Miss Yonge for the church. Mr. Trollope is good
+for that too, but not so good. All that I know of clergymen's families I
+have got from her. I can recognize you quite well, and your sister, but
+the younger ones puzzle me; they are not in Miss Yonge; they are too
+much like other children, too naughty. I don't mean anything
+disagreeable. The babies in Miss Yonge are often very naughty too, but
+not the same. As for you, Mr. May----"
+
+"Yes. As for me?"
+
+"Oh, I know everything about you. You are a fine scholar, but you don't
+like the drudgery of teaching. You have a fine mind, but it interferes
+with you continually. You have had a few doubts--just enough to give a
+piquancy; and now you have a great ideal, and mean to do many things
+that common clergymen don't think of. That was why you hesitated about
+the chaplaincy? See how much I have got out of Miss Yonge. I know you as
+well as if I had known you all my life; a great deal better than I know
+Clarence Copperhead; but then, no person of genius has taken any trouble
+about him."
+
+"I did not know I had been a hero of fiction," said Reginald, who had a
+great mind to be angry. All this time they were walking briskly backward
+and forward before Tozer's open door, the Anglican, in his long black
+coat, following the lively movements of Tozer's granddaughter, only
+because he could not help himself. He was irritated, yet he was pleased.
+A young man is pleased to be thought of, even when the notice is but
+barely complimentary. Phoebe must have thought of him a good deal before
+she found him out in this way; but he was irritated all the same.
+
+"You are, however," she answered lightly. "Look at that blaze of
+crimson, Mr. May; and the blue which is so clear and so unfathomable.
+Winter is grander than summer, and even warmer--to look at; with its
+orange, and purple, and gold. What poor little dirty, dingy things we
+are down here, to have all this exhibited every evening for our
+delight!"
+
+"That is true," he said; and as he gazed, something woke in the young
+man's heart--a little thrill of fancy, if not of love. It is hard to
+look at a beautiful sunset, and then see it reflected in a girl's face,
+and not to feel something--which may be nothing, perhaps. His heart gave
+a small jump, not much to speak of. Phoebe did not talk like the other
+young ladies in Grange Lane.
+
+"Mr. May, Mr. May!" she cried suddenly, "please go away! I foresee a
+disastrous encounter which alarms me. You can't fight, but there is no
+saying what you might do to each other. Please go away!"
+
+"What is the matter?" he said. "I don't understand any encounter being
+disastrous here. Why should I go away?"
+
+She laughed, but there was a certain fright in her tone. "Please!" she
+said, "I see Mr. Northcote coming this way. He will stop to speak to me.
+It is the gentleman who attacked you in the Meeting. Mr. May," she added
+entreatingly, between laughter and fright, "do go, please."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Reginald, roused; "I am not
+afraid. Let him come on. This wall shall fly from its firm base as soon
+as I."
+
+Phoebe clasped her hands in dismay, which was partially real. "The
+typical churchman," she said, with a glance at Reginald's figure, which
+was not displeasing to him, "and the typical Dissenter! and what am I to
+do between them? Oh, I wish you would go away."
+
+"Not an inch," said the young champion. Phoebe was frightened, but she
+was delighted. "I shall introduce him to you," she said threatening.
+
+"I don't mind," he replied; "nothing on earth should induce me to fly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+TEA.
+
+
+Now here was a business! The typical Anglican and the typical Dissenter,
+as Phoebe said, with only that clever young woman to keep them from
+flying at each other's throats; the one obstinately holding his place by
+her side (and Phoebe began to have a slight consciousness that, being
+without any chaperon, she ought not to have kept Reginald May at her
+side; but in the Tozer world, who knew anything of chaperons?), the
+other advancing steadily, coming up the Lane out of the glow of the
+sunset, showing square against it in his frock-coat and high hat, formal
+and demagogical, not like his rival. The situation pleased Phoebe, who
+liked to "manage;" but it slightly frightened her as well, though the
+open door behind, and the long garden with its clouds of crocuses, was a
+city of refuge always within reach.
+
+"Is it really you, Mr. Northcote?" she said. "You look as if you had
+dropped out of that lovely sunset I have been watching so long--and I
+thought you were at the other end of the world."
+
+"I have been at the other end of England, which comes to the same
+thing," said Northcote, in a voice which was harsh by nature, and
+somewhat rough with cold; "and now they have sent me back to Salem
+Chapel, to take Mr. Thorpe's place for three months. They asked for me,
+I believe; but that you must know better than I do."
+
+It was not in the nature of man not to be a little proud in the
+circumstances, and it is quite possible that he considered Phoebe to have
+something to do with the flattering request.
+
+"No, I have not heard; but I am glad," said Phoebe; "and if it is not
+wicked to say so, I am glad Mr. Thorpe is to be away. Let us hope it
+will do him good. I am sure it will do the rest of us good, at all
+events."
+
+Northcote made no answer; but he looked at the other, and several
+questions began to tremble on his lips. That this was a Churchman did
+not immediately occur to him; for, indeed, various young pastors of his
+own body put on the livery which he himself abjured, and the sight of it
+as a servile copy filled him with a certain contempt.
+
+"Mr. May has been stopped in his way by the beauty of the skies," said
+Phoebe, rather enjoying the position as she got used to it. "Mr.
+Northcote--Mr. May. It is not easy to pass such an exhibition as that,
+is it?--and given to us all for love, and nothing for reward," she
+added; for she was a well read young woman, and did not hesitate to
+suffer this to appear.
+
+And then there was a momentary pause. Northcote was confused, it must be
+allowed, by thus coming face to face, without previous warning, with the
+man whom he had so violently assailed. Reginald had the best of it in
+every way, for he was the man injured, and had it in his power to be
+magnanimous; and he had the advantage of full warning, and had prepared
+himself. Besides, was not he the superior by every social rule? And that
+consciousness is always sweet.
+
+"If Mr. Northcote is new to Carlingford, he will probably not know what
+a fine point of view we have here. That, like so many other things,"
+said Reginald, pointedly, "wants a little personal experience to find it
+out."
+
+"For that matter, to see it once is as good as seeing it a hundred
+times," said Northcote, somewhat sharply; for to give in was the very
+last thing he thought of. A little glow of anger came over him. He
+thought Phoebe had prepared this ordeal for him, and he was vexed, not
+only because she had done it, but because his sense of discomfiture
+might afford a kind of triumph to that party in the connection which was
+disposed, as he expressed it, to "toady the Church."
+
+"Pardon me, I don't think you can judge of anything at a first view."
+
+"And, pardon me, I think you see everything most sharply and clearly at
+a first view," said the Nonconformist, who was the loudest; "certainly
+in all matters of principle. After a while, you are persuaded against
+your will to modify this opinion and that, to pare off a little here,
+and tolerate a little there. Your first view is the most correct."
+
+"Well," said Phoebe, throwing herself into the breach, "I am glad you
+don't agree, for the argument is interesting. Will you come in and fight
+it out? You shall have some tea, which will be pleasant, for it shall be
+hot. I really cannot stay out any longer; it is freezing here."
+
+The new-comer prepared to follow; but Reginald hesitated. Pride
+whispered that to go into the house of Tozer, the butterman, was
+something monstrous; but then it might be amusing. This "Dissenting
+fellow," no doubt, was a drawback; but a kind of angry antagonism and
+disdain half-attracted him even to the Dissenting fellow. It might be
+well, on the whole, to see what kind of being such a person was. All
+curious phenomena are attractive to a student. "The proper study of
+mankind is man," Reginald said to himself. Before he had got through
+this little argument with himself, Phoebe had gone in, and Northcote,
+whose disgust at the interposition of an adversary had no such softening
+of curiosity, followed her abruptly, without any of those graces which
+are current in society. This rudeness offended the other, who was about
+to walk on indignant, when Phoebe turned back, and looked out at him from
+the open door.
+
+"Are not you coming, Mr. May?" she said softly, looking at him with the
+least little shrug of her shoulders.
+
+Reginald yielded without further resistance. But he felt fully that to
+see him, the chaplain of the old College, walking down through Tozer's
+garden, between the two rows of closed-up crocuses which glimmered
+ghostly by the side of the path, was one of the strangest sights in the
+world.
+
+Phoebe, to tell the truth, was a little confused as to where to convey
+her captive, out of whom she meant to get a little amusement for the
+long winter afternoon. For a girl of her active mind, it may easily be
+imagined that a succession of long days with Mrs. Tozer was somewhat
+monotonous. She did her duty like a hero, and never complained; but
+still, if a little amusement was possible, it was worth having. She
+carried in her two young men as naughty boys carry stag-beetles, or
+other such small deer. If they would fight it would be fun; and if they
+would not fight, why, it might be fun still, and more amusing than
+grandmamma. She hesitated between the chilly drawing-room, where a fire
+was lighted, but where there was no evidence of human living, and the
+cozy parlour, where Mrs. Tozer sat in her best cap, still wheezy, but
+convalescent, waiting for her tea, and not indisposed to receive such
+deputations of the community as might come to ask for her. Finally,
+Phoebe opened the door of that sanctuary, which was dazzling with bright
+fire-light after the gloom outside. It was a very comfortable interior,
+arranged by Phoebe to suit her own ideas rather than those of grandmamma,
+though grandmamma's comfort had been her chief object. The tea-things
+were sparkling upon the table, the kettle singing by the fire, and Mrs.
+Tozer half-dozing in the tranquillity and warmth.
+
+"Grandmamma, I have brought Mr. May and Mr. Northcote to see you," she
+said.
+
+The poor old lady almost sprang from her chair in amazement.
+
+"Lord bless us, Phoebe, Mr. May!"
+
+"Don't disturb yourself, grandmamma; they will find seats. Yes, we were
+all looking at the sunset, and as I knew tea must be ready--I know you
+want it, dear granny--I asked them to have some. Here it is, as I told
+you, quite hot, and very fragrant this cold night. How cold it is
+outside! I think it will freeze, and that skating may come off at last,
+Mr. May, that you were talking of, you remember? You were to teach your
+sisters to skate."
+
+"Yes, with the advantage of your example."
+
+Reginald had put himself in a corner, as far away as possible from the
+old woman in the chair. His voice, he felt, had caught a formal tone. As
+for the other, his antagonist, he had assumed the front of the
+battle--even, in Tozer's absence, he had ventured to assume the front of
+the fire. He was not the sort of man Reginald had expected, almost hoped
+to see--a fleshy man, loosely put together, according to the nature, so
+far as he knew it, of Dissenters; but a firmly knit, clean-limbed young
+man, with crisp hair curling about his head, and a gleam of energy and
+spirit in his eye. The gentler Anglican felt by no means sure of a
+speedy victory, even of an intellectual kind. The young man before him
+did not look a slight antagonist. They glared at each other, measuring
+their strength; they did not know, indeed, that they had been brought in
+here to this warmth and light, like the stag-beetles, to make a little
+amusement for Phoebe; but they were quite ready to fight all the same.
+
+"Mr. Northcote, sir, I'm glad to see you. Now this is friendly; this is
+what I calls as it should be, when a young pastor comes in and makes
+free, without waiting for an invitation," said Tozer kindly, bustling
+in; "that speech of yours, sir, was a rouser; that 'it 'em off, that
+did, and you can see as the connection ain't ungrateful. What's that you
+say, Phoebe? what? I'm a little hard of hearing. Mr.--May!"
+
+"Mr. May was good enough to come in with me, grandpapa. We met at the
+door. We have mutual friends, and you know how kind Miss May has been,"
+said Phoebe, trembling with sudden fright, while Reginald, pale with rage
+and embarrassment, stood up in his corner. Tozer was embarrassed too. He
+cleared his throat and rubbed his hands, with a terrible inclination to
+raise one of them to his forehead. It was all that he could do to get
+over this class instinct. Young May, though he had been delighted to
+hear him assailed in the Meeting, was a totally different visitor from
+the clever young pastor whom he received with a certain consciousness of
+patronage. Tozer did not know that the Northcotes were infinitely
+richer, and quite as well-born and well-bred in their ways as the Mays,
+and that his young Dissenting brother was a more costly production, as
+well as a more wealthy man, than the young chaplain in his long coat;
+but if he had known this it would have made no difference. His relation
+to the one was semi-servile, to the other condescending and superior. In
+Reginald May's presence, he was but a butterman who supplied the family;
+but to Horace Northcote he was an influential member of society, with
+power over a Minister's individual fate.
+
+"I assure you, sir, as I'm proud to see you in my house," he said, with
+a duck of his head, and an ingratiating but uncomfortable smile. "Your
+father, I hope, as he's well, sir, and all the family? We are a kind of
+neighbours now; not as we'd think of taking anything upon us on account
+of living in Grange Lane. But Phoebe here--Phoebe, junior, as we call's
+her--she's a cut above us, and I'm proud to see any of her friends in my
+'umble 'ouse. My good lady, sir," added Tozer, with another duck,
+indicating with a wave of his hand his wife, who had already once risen,
+wheezy, but knowing her manners, to make a kind of half-bow,
+half-curtsey from her chair.
+
+"You are very kind," said Reginald, feeling himself blush furiously, and
+not knowing what to say. The other young man stood with his back to the
+fire, and a sneer, which he intended to look like a smile, on his face.
+
+And as for Phoebe, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding all her
+resources, even she was exquisitely uncomfortable for a minute or two.
+The young people all felt this, but to Tozer it seemed that he had
+managed everything beautifully, and a sense of elation stole over him.
+To be visited in this manner by the gentry, "making free," and "quite in
+a friendly way," was an honour he had never looked for. He turned to
+Northcote with great affability and friendliness.
+
+"Well," he said, "Mr. Northcote, sir, it can't be denied as this is a
+strange meeting; you and Mr. May, as mightn't be, perhaps, just the best
+of friends, to meet quite comfortable over a cup of tea. But ain't it
+the very best thing that could happen? Men has their public opinions,
+sir, as every one should speak up bold for, and stick to; that's my way
+of thinking. But I wouldn't bring it no farther; not, as might be said,
+into the domestic circle. I'm clean against that. You say your say in
+public, whatever you may think on a subject, but you don't bear no
+malice; it ain't a personal question; them's my sentiments. And I don't
+know nothing more elevatin', nothing more consolin', than for two public
+opponents, as you may say, to meet like this quite cozy and comfortable
+over a cup o' tea."
+
+"It is a pleasure, I assure you, which I appreciate highly," said
+Reginald, finding his voice.
+
+"And which fills me with delight and satisfaction," said Northcote.
+Those stag-beetles which Phoebe, so to speak, had carried in in her
+handkerchief, were only too ready to fight.
+
+"You had better have some tea first," she said breathless, "before you
+talk so much of its good effects. Sit down, grandpapa, and have your
+muffin while it is hot; I know that is what you like. Do you care about
+china, Mr. May? but every one cares for china now-a-days. Look at that
+cup, and fancy grandmamma having this old service in use without knowing
+how valuable it is. Cream Wedgwood! You may fancy how I stared when I
+saw it; and in everyday use! most people put it up on brackets, when
+they are so lucky as to possess any. Tell Mr. May, grandmamma, how you
+picked it up. Mr. Northcote, there is an article in this review that I
+want you to look at. Papa sent it to me. It is too metaphysical for me,
+but I know you are great in metaphysics--"
+
+"I am greater in china; may not I look at the Wedgwood first?"
+
+"Perhaps you will turn over the literature to me," said Reginald,
+"reviews are more in my way than teacups, though I say it with
+confusion. I know how much I am behind my age."
+
+"And I too," whispered Phoebe, behind the book which she had taken up.
+"Don't tell any one. It is rare, I know; and everybody likes to have
+something that is rare; but I don't really care for it the least in the
+world. I have seen some bits of Italian _faience_ indeed--but English
+pottery is not like Italian, any more than English skies."
+
+"You have the advantage of me, Miss Beecham, both as regards the pottery
+and the skies."
+
+"Ah, if it is an advantage; bringing poetry down to prose is not always
+an advantage, is it? Italy is such a dream--so long as one has never
+been there."
+
+"Yes, it is a dream," said Reginald, with enthusiasm, "to everybody, I
+think; but when one has little money and much work all one's
+life--poverty stands in the way of all kinds of enjoyment."
+
+"Poverty is a nice friendly sort of thing; a ground we can all meet on,"
+said Phoebe. "But don't let us say that to grandpapa. How odd people are!
+he knows you are not Croesus, but still he has a sort of feeling that you
+are a young prince, and do him the greatest honour in coming to his
+house; and yet, all the same, he thinks that money is the very grandest
+thing in existence. See what prejudice is! He would not allow that he
+had any class-reverence, and yet he can no more get rid of it--"
+
+"Miss Beecham, it is very difficult for me to say anything on such a
+subject."
+
+"Very difficult, and you show your delicacy by not saying anything. But
+you know, apart from this, which is not gratifying, I am rather proud of
+grandpapa's way of looking at some things. About saying out your
+opinions in public, and yet bearing no malice, for instance. Now, Mr.
+Northcote is the very Antipodes to you; therefore you ought to know him
+and find out what he means. It would be better for you both. That is
+what I call enlarging the mind," said Phoebe with a smile; which was, to
+tell the truth, a very pretty smile, and filled with a soft lustre the
+blue eyes with which she looked at him. Whether it was this, or the
+cogency of her argument, that moved the young Anglican, it would be hard
+to say.
+
+"If you are to be the promoter of this new science, I don't object to
+studying under you," he said with a great deal of meaning in his voice.
+
+Phoebe gave him another smile, though she shook her head; and then she
+turned to the hero on the other side.
+
+"Is it genuine, Mr. Northcote? is it as fine as I thought? There now, I
+told you, grandmamma! Have you been telling Mr. Northcote how you picked
+it up? I am sure you will present him with a cup and saucer for his
+collection in return for his praises."
+
+"Not for the world," said Northcote, with profound seriousness; "break a
+set of cream Wedgwood! what do you take me for, Miss Beecham? I don't
+mean to say that I would not give my ears to have it--all; but to break
+the set--"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon! I was not prepared for such delicacy of
+feeling--such conscientiousness--"
+
+"Ah!" said Northcote, with a long-drawn breath, "I don't think you can
+understand the feelings of an enthusiast. A set of fine China is like a
+poem--every individual bit is necessary to the perfection of the whole.
+I allow that this is not the usual way of looking at it; but my pleasure
+lies in seeing it entire, making the tea-table into a kind of lyric,
+elevating the family life by the application of the principles of
+abstract beauty to its homeliest details. Pardon, Miss Beecham, but Mrs.
+Tozer is right, and you are wrong. The idea of carrying off a few lines
+of a poem in one's pocket for one's collection--"
+
+"Now that's what I call speaking up," said Mrs. Tozer, the first time
+she had opened her lips, "that's just what I like. Mr. Northcote has a
+deal more sense than the like of you. He knows what's what. Old things
+like this as might have been my granny's, they're good enough for every
+day, they're very nice for common use; but they ain't no more fit to be
+put away in cupboards and hoarded up like fine china, no more than I am.
+Mr. Northcote should see our best--that's worth the looking at; and if
+I'd known as the gentleman was coming--but you can't put an old head on
+young shoulders. Phoebe's as good as gold, and the trouble she takes with
+an old woman like me is wonderful; but she can't be expected to think of
+everything, can she now, at her age?"
+
+The two young men laughed--it was the first point of approach between
+them, and Phoebe restrained a smile, giving them a look from one to
+another. She gave Reginald his cup of tea very graciously.
+
+"Mr. Northcote prefers the Wedgwood, and Mr. May doesn't mind,
+grandmamma," she said sweetly. "So it is as well to have the best china
+in the cupboard. Grandpapa, another muffin--it is quite hot; and I know
+that is what you like best."
+
+"Well, I'll say that for Phoebe," said Tozer, with his mouth full, "that
+whether she understands china or not I can't tell, but she knows what a
+man likes, which is more to the purpose for a young woman. That's what
+she does; and looks after folk's comforts as I never yet saw her match.
+She's a girl in a thousand, is Phoebe, junior. There be them as is more
+for dress," he added, fond and greasy, looking at her seated modestly in
+that gown, which had filled with awe and admiration the experienced mind
+of Mrs. Sam Hurst; "and plays the pianny, and that sort of style of
+girl; but for one as minds the comforts of them about her----" Tozer
+turned back to the table, and made a gulp of his last piece of muffin.
+Eloquence could have no more striking climax; the proof of all his
+enthusiasm, was it not there?
+
+"Don't you play, Miss Beecham?" said Reginald, half-amused, half-angry.
+
+"A little," said Phoebe, with a laugh. She had brought down a small
+cottage piano out of the drawing-room, where nobody ever touched it,
+into a dark corner out of reach of the lamp. It was the only
+accomplishment upon which she prided herself. She got up from the table,
+when she had poured out another cup of tea for her grandfather, and
+without saying a word went to the little piano. It was not much of an
+instrument, and Reginald May was very little of a _connoisseur_.
+Northcote, who knew her gifts, gave himself up to listening, but the
+Tozers looked on, shaking their heads, and it was only after some time
+had passed, that Reginald began to understand that he was listening to
+something which he had never heard before. Ursula's school-girl tunes
+had never interested him very much; he did not know what this was which
+seemed to creep into his heart by his ears. He got up by and by, and
+stole towards the piano bewildered.
+
+"It'll soon be over, sir," said Tozer, encouragingly. "Don't you run
+away, Mr. May. Them are queer tunes, I allow, but they don't last long,
+and your company's an honour. As for the playing, it'll soon be over;
+you needn't run away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE HALL.
+
+
+It is unnecessary to say that the dinner party in the Hall bore very
+little resemblance to those simple amusements in No. 6, Grange Lane.
+There were three or four people to meet Mr. May, who, as an orator and
+literary man, had greater reputation even such a little way from home
+than he had in his own town. He was a very good preacher, and those
+articles of his were much admired as "thoughtful" papers, searching into
+many mental depths, and fathoming the religious soul with wonderful
+insight. Ladies especially admired them; the ladies who were
+intellectual, and found pleasure in the feeling of being more advanced
+than their neighbours. The Rector's wife of the parish in which the
+Dorsets lived applied herself with great vigour to the art of drawing
+him out. She asked him questions with that air of delightful submission
+to an intellectual authority which some ladies love to assume, and which
+it pleases many men to accept. His daughters were not at all reverential
+of Mr. May, and it soothed him to get marks of devotion and literary
+submission out of doors. Even Sophy Dorset had gone through the phase of
+admiration for her cousin. This had been dissipated, it is true, long
+ago; but yet she did not laugh, as she usually did, at the believers in
+him. She listened to Mrs. Rector plying him with eager questions, asking
+his advice on that point and the other, and smiled, but was charitable.
+As for Cousin Anne, she was charitable by nature, and all the world got
+the advantage of it. Little Ursula was one of her prime favourites--a
+motherless girl, who was the eldest, and who had to work for the family,
+was of all others the thing which moved her sympathies most. The little
+Indian children had long ere this yielded to the charms of Aunt Anne.
+They followed her wherever she went like little spaniels, hanging on by
+her dress. She had to go up to the nursery to hear them say their
+prayers before she dressed for dinner.
+
+"You see, this is a proof that with children one should never be
+discouraged," she said; "for they did not take to me at first;" and she
+turned her mild countenance, beaming with soft light, upon Ursula. To be
+hampered by these babies clinging about her, to have them claiming
+imperiously her attention and her time, however she might be engaged; to
+give up to them the moments of leisure in which otherwise she might have
+had a little quiet and repose, this was what Anne Dorset considered as
+her recompense.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could be as good to Amy and Robin! But I feel as if I
+should like to shake them often," cried Ursula, "even though I love them
+with all my heart. Oh! Cousin Anne, I don't think there is any one like
+you."
+
+"Yes, that is what she thinks her reward," said Sophy. "I should like
+something better, if it was I. Don't copy her, Ursula. It is better to
+have children of your own, and get other people to nurse them. Anne, you
+see, likes it. I want you to marry, and get all the good things in this
+life. Let us leave the self-denials to her; she likes them, you
+perceive."
+
+"I don't know why you should always talk of marrying to me, Cousin
+Sophy," said Ursula with gentle reproach. "I hope I am not a girl to
+think of such things."
+
+"And why not? Is it not the first duty of woman, you little simpleton?"
+said Sophy Dorset, with a laugh.
+
+But Ursula could not imagine that it was only in this general way that
+her cousin spoke. She could not but feel that this big Clarence
+Copperhead, with the diamond buttons, and that huge expanse of
+shirt-front, had something to do with Sophy's talk. There was six feet
+of him, which is a thing that goes a long way with a girl; and he was
+not bad-looking. And why did he come to Carlingford, having nothing in
+the world to do with the place? and coming to Carlingford, why was papa
+sought out, of all people, to be his tutor? Certainly the circumstances
+were such as invited conjecture, especially when added on to Sophy's
+allusions. He took Ursula in to dinner, which fluttered her somewhat;
+and though he was much intent upon the dinner itself, and studied the
+_menu_ with a devotion which would have made her tremble for her
+housekeeping, had she been sufficiently disengaged to notice it, he yet
+found time to talk a little between the courses.
+
+"I did not expect, when I saw you in London, that we were to meet again
+so soon, Miss May," was the perfectly innocent remark with which he
+opened the conversation.
+
+Ursula would have said it herself had he not said it, and all she could
+do was to answer, "No, indeed," with a smile.
+
+"And I am coming to your father to be coached," continued the young man.
+"It is a funny coincidence, don't you think so? I am glad you came to
+that ball, Miss May. It makes me feel that I know you. I don't like
+starting off afresh, all at once, among people I don't know."
+
+"No," said Ursula; "I should not like it either. But there are other
+people you know in Carlingford. There is the lady who was at the
+ball--the young lady in black, I used to call her--Miss Beecham; you
+must know her better than you know me."
+
+"Who? Phoebe? really!" he said, elevating his eyebrows. "Phoebe in
+Carlingford! By Jove! how the governor will laugh! I should like to
+know," with a conscious smile on his countenance, "what _she_ is doing
+there."
+
+"Her grandmamma is ill, and she is nursing her," said Ursula simply, at
+which young Copperhead laughed again.
+
+"Oh, that is how it is! Very good of her, don't you think? Shouldn't
+suppose she would be amusing, the old granny, and Phoebe likes to be
+amused. I must go to see her as soon as I can get there. You know, we
+are Dissenters at home, Miss May. Good joke, isn't it? The governor will
+not hear a word against them. As a matter of fact, nobody does go to
+chapel in our rank of life; but the governor sometimes is as obstinate
+as an old pig."
+
+"I suppose he likes it best," said Ursula, gently; and here a new course
+came round, and for the moment Clarence had something else to do. He
+resumed after the _entrées_, which were poor, as he made a mental note.
+
+"Is there anything to do at Carlingford, Miss May? I hope you skate. I
+am not much in the hunting way; nor your father, I suppose? for, to be
+sure, a hunting parson would never do. I am too heavy a weight for most
+horses, and the good of galloping over the country all day, after a poor
+brute of a fox!--but we must not say that before Sir Robert. I suppose
+it is dull?" he said, somewhat pathetically, looking in her face.
+
+"We don't think it dull, Mr. Copperhead. It may be, perhaps, for a
+gentleman."
+
+"That's it," said Clarence. "I don't know if it's because women have
+more resources, or because they want less; but you always get on better
+than we do, somehow; very lucky for you. You don't expect so much. I
+believe that's what it is."
+
+"Then that shows we are the most sensible," said Ursula, roused, and a
+little indignant.
+
+He paused, to make his choice between the inevitable turkey and the
+inevitable beef.
+
+"I hope it's braised," he said, in a devout undertone. "You don't expect
+so much, Miss May, that's what it is; you're always in the house. You
+don't care for exercise. Bless you, if I didn't take exercise, I should
+be fifteen stone before you could turn round. How much are you? about
+eight, perhaps; not much more. That makes a deal of difference: you
+don't require to keep yourself down."
+
+Ursula did not make any answer. She was prepared to look upon him very
+favourably, and accept what he said as full of originality and force;
+but the tone the conversation had taken was not entirely to her mind.
+Phoebe could have managed it; but Ursula was not Phoebe. She was more
+disposed to take offence at the young man's tone than to guide it into
+better ways.
+
+"I hope your mother is well," she said at last, falteringly, after a
+long pause. Ursula thought her companion would remark this pause, and
+think her displeased. She might have saved herself the trouble, for it
+was the braised turkey which kept Clarence quiet, not offence.
+
+"Oh, quite well, I thank you. Not so well as when I am at home; she
+don't like parting with me," he said, "but, of course, I can't be always
+at my mother's apron-strings. Women forget that."
+
+"She was very kind when I was in London."
+
+"Yes, that just pleases her; she is never so happy as when she is buying
+things for somebody," he replied, betraying an acquaintance with the
+exact manner of the kindness which somewhat disturbed poor Ursula: "that
+is exactly her way. I dare say she'll come and see the Dorsets while I'm
+here."
+
+Then there was again a pause, and Clarence turned to speak to some one
+at his other side.
+
+"No, I don't hunt much," he said; "I have come into the country to be
+coached. My father's a modern sort of man, and wants a fellow to be up
+in history, and that sort of thing. Bore--yes; and I dare say
+Carlingford is very dull. Oh, yes, I will go out with the hounds now and
+then, if there is not a frost. I should rather like a frost for my
+part."
+
+It was a hunting lady who had started this new conversation, into which
+the stranger had drifted away, leaving Ursula stranded. She was slightly
+piqued, it must be allowed, and when Sophy asked her after dinner how
+she liked her companion, made a dignified reply.
+
+"I have no doubt he is very nice," she said; "I don't know much of
+gentlemen. He talks of papa as if he were a school-master, and thinks
+Carlingford will be dull."
+
+"So it is, Ursula. I have often heard you say so."
+
+"Yes, perhaps; but a stranger ought to be civil," said the girl,
+offended; and she went and entrenched herself by the side of Cousin
+Anne, where the new pupil could not come near her. Indeed he did not
+seem very anxious to do so, as Ursula soon saw. She blushed very hotly
+all by herself, under Cousin Anne's shadow: that she could have been so
+absurd as ever to think--But his size, and the weight over which he had
+lamented, and his abundant whiskers and large shirt front, made it quite
+impossible for Ursula to think of him as a person to be educated. It
+must be Miss Beecham, she said to herself.
+
+No thoughts of this kind crossed Mr. Clarence Copperhead's mind, as he
+stretched his big limbs before the drawing-room fire after dinner, and
+said "Brava!" when the ladies sang. He knew "Brava" was the right thing
+to say. He liked to be at the Hall, which he had never visited before,
+and to know that it was undeniable gentry which surrounded him, and
+which at the piano was endeavouring to gain his approbation. He was so
+much his father's son that he had a sense of pleasure and triumph in
+being thus elevated; and he had a feeling, more or less, of contempt for
+the clergyman, "only a parson," who was to be his coach. He felt the
+power and the beauty of money almost as much as his father did. What was
+there he could not buy with it? the services of the most learned pundit
+in existence, for what was learning? or the prettiest woman going to be
+his wife, if that was what he wanted. It may be supposed then that he
+had very little attention indeed to bestow upon a girl like Ursula, who
+was only the daughter of his coach--nobody at all in particular--and
+that her foolish fancies on the subject might have been spared. He aired
+himself on the hearth-rug with great satisfaction, giving now and then a
+shake to one of his long limbs, and a furtive glance to see that all was
+perfect in the _sit_ of the garment that clothed it. He had been
+ploughed it is true, but that did not interfere much with his mental
+satisfaction; for, after all, scholarship was a thing cultivated chiefly
+by dons and prigs, and poor men; and no doubt this other poor man, the
+parson, would be able to put all into his head that was necessary, just
+as much as would pay, and no more--a process the mere thought of which
+made Clarence yawn, yet which he had wound up his noble mind to submit
+to.
+
+"Mind you, I don't say I am going to work," he had said to his mother;
+"but if you think he can put it into me, he may try," and he repeated
+much the same sentiment, with a difference, to Sophy Dorset, who by way
+of civility, while the Rector's wife paid court to Mr. May, talked to
+Clarence a little, from the corner of the ottoman close to the fire.
+
+"Work! well, I suppose so, after a sort. I don't mean to make myself ill
+with midnight oil and that sort of thing," he said (he was not at all
+clear in his mind as to how the midnight oil was applied), "but if Mr.
+May can get it into me, I'll give him leave; for one thing, I suppose
+there will be nothing else to do."
+
+"Not much in Carlingford; there are neither pictures, nor museums, nor
+fine buildings, nor anything of the sort; and very little society; a few
+tea-parties, and one ball in the season."
+
+Mr. Clarence Copperhead shrugged his large shoulders.
+
+"I shan't go to the tea-parties, that's certain," he said; "a fellow
+must hunt a little, I suppose, as the place is so destitute. As for
+pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad
+is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do
+it at home would be beyond a joke."
+
+"Have you seen the box of curious things John sent me with the
+children?" said Sophy. "They are on the table at the end of the
+room,--yataghans, and I don't know what other names they have, all sorts
+of Indian weapons. I should think you would be interested in them."
+
+"Thanks, Cousin Sophy, I am very well where I am," he said. He looked at
+her in such a way that she might have appropriated this remark as a
+compliment, had she pleased; but Sophy laughed, and it is to be feared
+did not feel the compliment, for she turned right round to somebody
+else, and took no more notice of Clarence. He was so fully satisfied
+with himself that he had not any strong sense of neglect, though he had
+but little conversation with the company. He was quite satisfied to
+exhibit himself and his shirt-front before the fire.
+
+Next day he accompanied the Mays back to Carlingford. Mr. May had
+enjoyed his visit. His mind was free for the moment; he had staved off
+the evil day, and he had a little money in his pocket, the remains of
+that extra fifty pounds which he had put on to Tozer's bill. With some
+of it he had paid some urgent debts, and he had presented five pounds to
+Cotsdean to buy his wife a gown, and he had a little money in his
+pockets. So that in every way he was comfortable and more at ease than
+usual. The reckoning was four months off, which was like an eternity to
+him in his present mood of mind, and of course he would get the money
+before that time. There was so much time, indeed, that to begin to think
+of the ways and means of paying it at this early period seemed absurd.
+He was to have three hundred pounds for the year of Copperhead's
+residence with him, if he stayed so long, and that would do, if nothing
+else. Therefore Mr. May was quite easy in his mind, not in the least
+feeling the possibility of trouble in store for him. And the visit had
+been pleasant. He had enlarged his acquaintance, and that among the very
+sort of people he cared to know. He had been very well received by all
+the Dorsets, and introduced by Sir Robert as a relation, and he had
+received some personal incense about his works and his gifts which was
+sweet to him. Therefore he was in very good spirits, and exceedingly
+amiable. He conversed with his future pupil urbanely, though he had not
+concealed his entire concurrence in Sir Robert's opinion that he was "a
+cub."
+
+"What have you been reading lately?" he asked, when they had been
+transferred from the Dorsets' carriage, to the admiration and by the
+obsequious cares of all the attendant officials, into the railway
+carriage. Mr. May liked the fuss and liked the idea of that superiority
+which attended the Dorsets' guests. He had just been explaining to his
+companions that Sir Robert was the Lord of the Manor, and that all the
+homage done to him was perfectly natural; and he was in great
+good-humour even with this cub.
+
+"Well, I've not been reading very much," said Clarence, candidly. "What
+was the good? The governor did not want me to be a parson, or a lawyer,
+or anything of that sort, and a fellow wants some sort of a motive to
+read. I've loafed a good deal, I'm afraid. I got into a very good set,
+you know, first chop--Lord Southdown, and the Beauchamps, and that lot;
+and--well, I suppose we were idle, and that's the truth."
+
+"I see," said Mr. May; "a good deal of smoke and billiards, and so
+forth, and very little work."
+
+"That's about it," said the young man, settling himself and his
+trousers, which were the objects of a great deal of affectionate care on
+his part. He gave them furtive pulls at the knees, and stroked them down
+towards the ankle, as he got himself comfortably into his seat.
+
+Mr. May looked at him with scientific observation, and Ursula with
+half-affronted curiosity; his self-occupation was an offence to the
+girl, but it was only amusing to her father. "An unmitigated cub," Mr.
+May pronounced to himself; but there where he sat he represented three
+hundred a-year, and that, at least, was not to be despised. Ursula was
+not so charitable as her father; she was not amused by him in the
+slightest degree. Had he come down to Carlingford in humble worship of
+her pretty eyes, and with a romantic intention of making himself
+agreeable to her, the captivating flattery would have prepossessed
+Ursula, and prepared her to see him in a very pleasant light, and put
+the best interpretation upon all he did and said. But this pretty
+delusion being dissipated, Ursula was angry with herself for having been
+so foolish, and naturally angry with Clarence for having led her into
+it, though he was quite without blame in the matter. She looked at him
+in his corner--he had taken the best corner, without consulting her
+inclinations--and thought him a vulgar coxcomb, which perhaps he was.
+But she would not have been so indignant except for that little bit of
+injured feeling, for which really, after all, he was not justly to
+blame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES.
+
+
+After the evening at Grange Lane which has been described, Reginald May
+met Northcote in the street several times, as was unavoidable,
+considering the size of the place, and the concentration of all business
+in Carlingford within the restricted length of the High Street. The two
+young men bowed stiffly to each other at first; then by dint of seeing
+each other frequently, got to inclinations a little more friendly, until
+at length one day when Northcote was passing by the College, as Reginald
+stood in the old doorway, the young chaplain feeling magnanimous on his
+own ground, and somewhat amused by the idea which suddenly presented
+itself to him, asked his Dissenting assailant if he would not come in
+and see the place. Reginald had the best of it in every way. It was he
+who was the superior, holding out a hand of favour and kindness to one
+who here at least, was beneath him in social consideration; and it was
+he who was the assailed, and, so to speak, injured party, and who
+nevertheless extended to his assailant a polite recognition, which,
+perhaps, no one else occupying the same position would have given. He
+was amused by his own magnanimity, and enjoyed it, and the pleasure of
+heaping coals of fire upon his adversary's head was entirely delightful
+to him.
+
+"I know you do not approve of the place or me," he said, forgetting in
+that moment of triumph all his own objections to it, and the ground upon
+which these objections were founded. "Come in and see it, will you? The
+chapel and the rooms are worth seeing. They are fair memorials of the
+past, however little the foundation may be to your mind."
+
+He laughed as he spoke, but without ill-humour; for it is easy to be
+good-humoured when one feels one's self on the gaining, not the losing
+side. As for Northcote, pride kept him from any demonstration of
+unwillingness to look at what the other had to show. He would not for
+worlds have betrayed himself. It was expedient for him, if he did not
+mean to acknowledge himself worsted, to put on a good face and accept
+the politeness cheerfully. So that it was on the very strength of the
+conflict which made them first aware of each other's existence, that
+they thus came together. The Dissenter declared his entire delight in
+being taken to see the place, and with secret satisfaction, not easily
+put into words, the Churchman led the way. They went to all the rooms
+where the old men sat, some dozing by the fire, some reading, some busy
+about small businesses; one had a turning-lathe, another was
+illuminating texts, a third had a collection of curiosities of a
+heterogeneous kind, which he was cleaning and arranging, writing neat
+little labels in the neatest little hand for each article.
+
+"The charity of our ancestors might have been worse employed," said
+Reginald. "A home for the old and poor is surely as fine a kind of
+benevolence as one could think of--if benevolence is to be tolerated at
+all."
+
+"Ye-es," said Northcote. "I don't pretend to disapprove of benevolence.
+Perhaps the young who have a future before them, who can be of use to
+their country, are better objects still."
+
+"Because they will pay," said Reginald; "because we can get something
+out of them in return; while we have already got all that is to be had
+out of the old people? A very modern doctrine, but not so lovely as the
+old-fashioned way."
+
+"I did not mean that," said the other, colouring. "Certainly it ought to
+pay; everything, I suppose, is meant to pay one way or other. The life
+and progress of the young, or the gratified sentiment of the benefactor,
+who feels that he has provided for the old--which is the noblest kind of
+payment? I think the first, for my part."
+
+"For that matter, there is a large and most flourishing school, which
+you will come across without fail if you work among the poor. Do you
+work among the poor? Pardon my curiosity; I don't know."
+
+"It depends upon what you call the poor," said the other, who did not
+like to acknowledge the absence of this element in Salem Chapel; "if you
+mean the destitute classes, the lowest level, no; but if you mean the
+respectable, comfortable--"
+
+"Persons of small income?" said Reginald. "I mean people with no incomes
+at all; people without trades, or anything to earn a comfortable living
+by; labouring people, here to-day and away to-morrow; women who take in
+washing, and men who go about hunting for a day's work. These are the
+kind of people the Church is weighted with."
+
+"I don't see any trace of them," said the Nonconformist. "Smooth lawns,
+fine trees, rooms that countesses might live in. I can't see any trace
+of them here."
+
+"There is no harm in a bit of grass and a few trees, and the rooms are
+cheaper in their long continuance than any flimsy new rubbish that could
+be built."
+
+"I know I am making an unfortunate quotation," said Northcote; "but
+there is reason in it. It might be sold for so much, and given to the
+poor."
+
+"Cheating the poor, in the first place," said Reginald, warmly concerned
+for what he felt to be his own; "just as the paddock an old horse dies
+in might bear a crop instead, and pay the owner; but what would become
+of the old horse?"
+
+"Half-quarter of this space would do quite as well for your pensioners,
+and they might do without--"
+
+"A chaplain!" said Reginald, laughing in spite of himself. "I know you
+think so. It is a sinecure."
+
+"Well, I think they may say their prayers for themselves; a young man
+like you, full of talent, full of capability--I beg your pardon," said
+Northcote, "you must excuse me, I grudge the waste. There are so many
+things more worthy of you that you might do."
+
+"What, for example?"
+
+"Anything almost," cried the other; "digging, ploughing,
+building--anything! And for me too."
+
+This he said in an undertone; but Reginald heard, and did not carry his
+magnanimity so far as not to reply.
+
+"Yes," he said; "if I am wasted reading prayers for my old men, what are
+you, who come to agitate for my abolition? _I_ think, too, almost
+anything would be better than to encourage the ignorant to make
+themselves judges of public institutions, which the wisest even find too
+delicate to meddle with. The digging and the ploughing might be a good
+thing for more than me."
+
+"I don't say otherwise," said the young Dissenter, following into the
+old fifteenth-century chapel, small but perfect, the young priest of the
+place. They stood together for a moment under the vaulted roof, both
+young, in the glory of their days, both with vague noble meanings in
+them, which they knew so poorly how to carry out. They meant everything
+that was fine and great, these two young men, standing upon the
+threshold of their life, knowing little more than that they were
+fiercely opposed to each other, and meant to reform the world each in
+his own way; one by careful services and visitings of the poor, the
+other by the Liberation Society and overthrow of the State Church; both
+foolish, wrong and right, to the utmost bounds of human possibility. How
+different they felt themselves standing there, and yet how much at one
+they were without knowing it! Northcote had sufficient knowledge to
+admire the perfect old building. He followed his guide with a certain
+humility through the details, which Reginald had already learned by
+heart.
+
+"There is nothing so perfect, so beautiful, so real now-a-days," said
+the young Churchman, with a natural expansion of mind over the beauty to
+which he had fallen heir. It seemed to him, as he looked up at the tall
+windows with their graceful tracery, that he was the representative of
+all who had worked out their belief in God within these beautiful walls,
+and of all the perpetual worshippers who had knelt among the old brasses
+of the early founders upon the worn floor. The other stood beside him
+with a half envy in his mind. The Dissenter did not feel himself the
+heir of those centuries in the same unhesitating way. He tried to feel
+that he was the heir of something better and more spiritual, yet felt a
+not ungenerous grudge that he could not share the other kinship too.
+
+"It is very beautiful and noble," he said. "I should like to feel for it
+as you do; but what I should like still better would be to have the same
+clear certainty of faith, the same conviction that what they were doing
+was the only right thing to do which made both building and prayer so
+unfaltering in those days. We can't be so sure even of the span of an
+arch now."
+
+"No--nor can you be content with the old span, even though it is clearly
+the best by all rules," said Reginald. The other smiled; he was the most
+speculative of the two, being perhaps the most thoughtful; and he had no
+fifteenth-century chapel to charm, nor old foundation to give him an
+anchor. He smiled, but there was a little envy in his mind. Even to have
+one's life set out before one within clear lines like this, would not
+that be something? If it had but been possible, no doubt saying prayers
+for the world, even with no better than the old men of the College to
+say amen, had something more beautiful in it than tours of agitation for
+the Liberation Society; but Northcote knew that for him it was not
+possible, any more than was the tonsure of Reginald's predecessor, who
+had said mass when first those pinnacles were reared towards heaven.
+After he had smiled he sighed, for the old faith was more lovely than
+all the new agitations; he felt a little ashamed of the Liberation
+Society, so long as he stood under that groined and glorious roof.
+
+"May!" said some one, coming in suddenly. "I want you to go to the
+hospital for me. I am obliged to go off to town on urgent
+business--convocation work; and I must get a lawyer's opinion about the
+reredos question; there is not a moment to lose. Go and see the people
+in the pulmonary ward, there's a good fellow; and there are two or three
+bad accidents; and that old woman who is ill in Brown's cottage, you saw
+her the other day; and the Simmonds in Back Grove Street. I should have
+had a day's work well cut out, if I had not had this summons to town;
+but the reredos question is of the first importance, you know."
+
+"I'll go," said Reginald. There is nothing more effectual in showing us
+the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption than to hear it
+sympathetically, through the ears, as it were, of a sceptic. Reginald,
+seeing Northcote's keen eyes gleam at the sound of the Rector's voice,
+instinctively fell into sympathy with him, and heard the speech through
+him; and though he himself felt the importance of the reredos, yet he
+saw in a moment how such a question would take shape in the opinion of
+the young Dissenter, in whom he clearly saw certain resemblances to
+himself. Therefore he assented very briefly, taking out his note-book to
+put down the special cases of which the Rector told him. They had a
+confidential conversation in a corner, during which the new-comer
+contemplated the figure of Northcote in his strange semi-clerical
+garments with some amaze. "Who is your friend?" he said abruptly, for he
+was a rapid man, losing no time about anything.
+
+"It is not my friend at all; it is my enemy who denounced me at the
+Dissenters' meeting."
+
+"Pah!" cried the Rector, curling up his nostrils, as if some
+disagreeable smell had reached him. "A Dissenter here! I should not have
+expected it from you, May."
+
+"Nor I either," said Reginald; but his colour rose. He was not disposed
+to be rebuked by any rector in Carlingford or the world.
+
+"Are you his curate," said Northcote, "that he orders you about as if
+you were bound to do his bidding? I hope, for your own sake, it is not
+so."
+
+Now it was Reginald's turn to smile. He was young, and liked a bit of
+grandiloquence as well as another.
+
+"Since I have been here," he said, "in this sinecure, as you call
+it--and such it almost is--I have been everybody's curate. If the others
+have too much work, and I too little, my duty is clear, don't you
+think?"
+
+Northcote made no reply. Had he known what was about to be said to him,
+he might have stirred up his faculties to say something; but he had not
+an idea that Reginald would answer him like this, and it took him aback.
+He was too honest himself not to be worsted by such a speech. He bowed
+his head with genuine respect. The apology of the Churchman whom he had
+assaulted, filled him with a kind of reverential confusion; he could
+make no reply in words. And need it be said that Reginald's heart too
+melted altogether when he saw how he had confounded his adversary? That
+silent assent more than made up for the noisy onslaught. That he should
+have thus overcome Northcote made Northcote appear his friend. He was
+pleased and satisfied beyond the reach of words.
+
+"Will you come to the hospital with me?" he said; and they walked out
+together, the young Dissenter saying very little, doing what he could to
+arrange those new lights which had suddenly flashed upon his favourite
+subject, and feeling that he had lost his landmarks, and was confused in
+his path. When the logic is taken out of all that a man is doing, what
+is to become of him? This was what he felt; an ideal person in
+Reginald's place could not have made a better answer. Suddenly somehow,
+by a strange law of association, there came into his mind the innocent
+talk he had overheard between the two girls who were, he was aware,
+May's sisters. A certain romantic curiosity about the family came into
+his mind. Certainly they could not be an ordinary family like others.
+There must be something in their constitution to account for this sudden
+downfall, which he had encountered in the midst of all his theories. The
+Mays must be people of a different strain from others; a peculiar race,
+to whom great thoughts were familiar; he could not believe that there
+was anything common or ordinary in their blood. He went out in silence,
+with the holder of the sinecure which he had so denounced, but which now
+seemed to him to be held after a divine fashion, in a way which common
+men had no idea of. Very little could he say, and that of the most
+commonplace kind. He walked quite respectfully by the young clergyman's
+side along the crowded High Street, though without any intention of
+going to the hospital, or of actually witnessing the kind of work
+undertaken by his new friend. Northcote himself had no turn that way. To
+go and minister at a sick-bed had never been his custom; he did not
+understand how to do it; and though he had a kind of sense that it was
+the right thing to do, and that if any one demanded such a service of
+him he would be obliged to render it, he was all in the dark as to how
+he could get through so painful an office; whereas May went to it
+without fear, thinking of it only as the most natural thing in the
+world. Perhaps, it is possible, Northcote's ministrations, had he been
+fully roused, would have been, in mere consequence of the reluctance of
+his mind, to undertake them, more real and impressive than those which
+Reginald went to discharge as a daily though serious duty; but in any
+case it was the Churchman whose mode was the more practical, the more
+useful. They had not gone far together, when they met the Rector
+hurrying to the railway; he cast a frowning, dissatisfied look at
+Northcote, and caught Reginald by the arm, drawing him aside.
+
+"Don't be seen walking about with that fellow," he said; "it will injure
+you in people's minds. What have you to do with a Dissenter--a
+demagogue? Your father would not like it any more than I do. Get rid of
+him, May."
+
+"I am sorry to displease either you or my father," said Reginald
+stiffly; "but, pardon me, in this respect I must judge for myself."
+
+"Don't be pig-headed," said the spiritual ruler of Carlingford; but he
+had to rush off for his train, and had no time to say more. He left
+Reginald hot and angry, doubly disposed, as was natural, to march
+Northcote over all the town, and show his intimacy with him. Get rid of
+an acquaintance whom he chose to extend his countenance to, to please
+the Rector! For a man so young as Reginald May, and so lately made
+independent, such an act of subserviency was impossible indeed.
+
+Before they entered the hospital, however, another encounter happened of
+a very different character. Strolling along in the centre of the
+pavement, endeavouring after the almost impossible combination of a yawn
+and a cigar, they perceived a large figure in a very long great-coat,
+and with an aspect of languor and _ennui_ which was unmistakable a
+hundred yards off. This apparition called a sudden exclamation from
+Northcote.
+
+"If it was possible," he said, "I should imagine I knew that man. Are
+there two like him? but I can't fancy what he can be doing here."
+
+"_That_ fellow!" said Reginald. "It's a pity if there are two like him.
+I can't tell you what a nuisance he is to me. His name is Copperhead;
+he's my father's pupil."
+
+"Then it _is_ Copperhead! I thought there could not be another. He gives
+a sort of odd familiar aspect to the place all at once."
+
+"Then you are a friend of his!" said Reginald, with a groan. "Pardon the
+natural feelings of a man whose father has suddenly chosen to become a
+coach. I hate it, and my dislike to the thing is reflected on the person
+of the pupil. I suppose that's what my antipathy means."
+
+"He does not merit antipathy. He is a bore, but there is no harm in him.
+Ah! he is quickening his pace; I am afraid he has seen us; and anybody
+he knows will be a godsend to him, I suppose."
+
+"I am off," said Reginald; "you will come again? that is," he added,
+with winning politeness, "I shall come and seek you out. We are each the
+moral Antipodes of the other, Miss Beecham says--from which she argues
+that we should be acquainted and learn the meaning of our differences."
+
+"I am much obliged to Miss Beecham."
+
+"Why, Northcote!" said Clarence Copperhead, bearing down upon them in
+his big grey Ulster, like a ship in full sail. "Morning, May; who'd have
+thought to see you here. Oh, don't turn on my account! I'm only taking a
+walk; it don't matter which way I go."
+
+"I am very much hurried. I was just about to hasten off to an
+appointment. Good-bye, Northcote," said Reginald. "We shall meet again
+soon, I hope."
+
+"By Jove! this is a surprise," said Clarence; "to see you here, where I
+should as soon have thought of looking for St. Paul's; and to find you
+walking about cheek by jowl with that muff, young May, who couldn't be
+civil, I think, if he were to try. What is the meaning of it? I suppose
+you're just as much startled to see me. I'm with a coach; clever, and a
+good scholar and a good family, and all that; father to that young
+sprig: so there ain't any mystery about me. What's brought you here?"
+
+"Work," said Northcote, curtly. He did not feel disposed to enter into
+any kind of explanation.
+
+"Oh, work! Now I do wonder that a fellow like you, with plenty of money
+in your pocket, should go in for work as you do. What's the good of it?
+and in the Dissenting parson line of all things in the world! When a
+fellow has nothing, you can understand it; he must get his grub somehow.
+That's what people think of you, of course. Me, I don't do anything, and
+everybody knows I'm a catch, and all that sort of thing. Now I don't say
+(for I don't know) if your governor has as much to leave behind him as
+mine--But halt a bit! You walk as if we were going in for athletics, and
+doing a two mile."
+
+"I'm sorry to see you so easily blown," said Northcote, not displeased
+in his turn to say something unpleasant. "What is it? or are you only
+out of training?"
+
+"That's it," said Clarence, with a gasp. "I'm awfully out of training,
+and that's the fact. We do, perhaps, live too well in Portland Place;
+but look here--about what we were saying--"
+
+"Do you live with the Mays?"
+
+"Worse luck! It's what you call plain cooking; and bless us all, dinner
+in the middle of the day, and the children at table. But I've put a stop
+to that; and old May ain't a bad old fellow--don't bother me with work
+more than I like, and none of your high mightiness, like that fellow.
+I'll tell you what, Northcote, you must come and see me. I haven't got a
+sitting-room of my own, which is a shame, but I have the use of their
+rooms as much as I like. The sisters go flying away like a flock of
+pigeons. I'll tell you what, I'll have you asked to dinner. Capital fun
+it will be. A High Church parson cheek by jowl with a red-hot Dissenter,
+and compelled to be civil. By Jove! won't it be a joke?"
+
+"It is not a joke that either of us will enjoy."
+
+"Never mind, _I'll_ enjoy it, by Jove!" said Copperhead. "He daren't say
+no. I'd give sixpence just to see you together, and the Bashaw of two
+tails--the young fellow. They shall have a party; leave it all to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE NEW PUPIL.
+
+
+Mr. May, since the bargain was fairly concluded with the Copperheads,
+had thought a great deal about the three hundred a-year he was to get
+for his pupil. It almost doubled his income in a moment, and that has a
+great effect upon the imagination. It was true he would have another
+person to maintain on this additional income, but still that additional
+person would simply fill Reginald's place, and it did not at first
+occur to him that what was good enough for himself, Mr. May, of St.
+Roque's, was not good enough for any _parvenu_ on the face of the earth.
+Therefore the additional income represented a great deal of additional
+comfort, and that general expansion of expenditure, not going into any
+special extravagances, but representing a universal ease and enlargement
+which was congenial to him, and which was one of the great charms of
+money in his eyes. To be sure, when he reflected on the matter, he felt
+that the first half-year of Clarence's payment ought to be appropriated
+to that bill, which for the present had brought him so much relief; but
+this would be so entirely to lose the benefit of the money so far as he
+was himself concerned, that it was only in moments of reflection that
+this appeared urgent. The bill to which Tozer's signature had been
+appended did not oppress his conscience. After all, what was it? Not a
+very large sum, a sum which when put to it, and with time before him, he
+could so easily supply; and as for any other consideration, it was
+really, when you came to think of it, a quite justifiable expedient, not
+to be condemned except by squeamish persons, and which being never
+known, could do no harm in the world. He had not harmed anybody by what
+he had done. Tozer, who was quite able to pay it over and over again,
+would never know of it; and in what respect, he asked himself, was it
+worse to have done this than to have a bill really signed by a man of
+straw, whose "value received" meant nothing in the world but a simple
+fiction? Cotsdean was no more than a man of straw; if left to himself,
+he could not pay anything, nor had he anything really to do with the
+business for which his name stood sponsor; and Tozer's name was merely
+placed there in the same fictitious way, without any trouble to Tozer,
+or burden of responsibility. What was the difference, except that it
+saved trouble and anxiety to everybody except the principal in the
+affair--he who ought to bear the brunt? Mr. May recognised this without
+doubt. It was he who had reaped the advantage; and whether Cotsdean was
+the instrument who knew all about it, or Tozer, who did not know
+anything about it, it was he, Mr. May, whose natural duty it was to meet
+the claim and pay the money. He was an honest man; if he was
+occasionally a little slow in his payments, no one could throw any doubt
+upon his character. But, of course, should any unforeseen emergency
+arise, the pupil at once made that straight. Mr. May felt that he had
+only to go to the bank, which generally did not encourage his visits,
+and tell them of his pupil, to have the money at once. Nobody could
+reject such unmistakeable security. So that really there was no further
+occasion for so much as thinking of Tozer; that was provided for; with
+the freest conscience in the world he might put it out of his mind. But
+how he could feel this so strongly, and at the same time revel in the
+consciousness of a fuller purse, more to enjoy, and more to spend, is a
+mystery which it would be difficult to solve. He did so, and many others
+have done so besides him, eating their cake, yet believing that they had
+their cake with the fullest confidence. He was a sensible man, rather
+priding himself on his knowledge of business, with much experience in
+human nature, and a thoughtful sense (fully evidenced in his writings)
+of all the strange inconsistencies and self-deceits of mankind; but he
+dropped into this strain of self-delusion with the calmest satisfaction
+of mind, and was as sure of his own good sense and kindness as if he had
+never in all his life taken a step out of the rigidest of the narrow
+ways of uprightness.
+
+Some part of this illusion, however, was sharply dispelled at a very
+early date. Clarence Copperhead, who was not likely to err by means of
+too much consideration for the feelings of others, grumbled frankly at
+the mid-day meal.
+
+"I don't understand a two o'clock dinner," he said; "it's lunch, that's
+what I call it; and I won't be disagreeable about the kids, but I must
+have my dinner. Bless you! a man can't live without his dinner. What is
+he to do? It is the sort of thing you can look forward to, whatever
+happens. If it's a wet day, or anything of that sort, there's always
+dinner; and after it's over, if there's music or a rubber, why that's
+all very well; or if a man feels a bit sleepy, it doesn't matter. Why,
+dinner's your stand-by, wherever you are. I'd as soon do without my
+head, for my part."
+
+Ursula hastened to tell her father this with dismay in her looks.
+
+"I've always heard that late dinners were so expensive; you require
+twice as many dishes. At two, one has only what is necessary; but at
+seven, you require to have fish, and soup, and _entrées_, and all sorts
+of things, besides the joint. It was disgraceful of him to say it!"
+cried Ursula; "and I think he ought to be made to follow our plan,
+whatever it is, and not do everything he likes here."
+
+"That is all very true," said Mr. May; "but he is right about the
+dinner; it is a great deal more agreeable."
+
+"And expensive, papa."
+
+"Well, perhaps it is a great deal to expect at your age; but if you read
+your cookery-book, as I have often said, when you were reading those
+novels, and learned how to toss up little dishes out of nothing, and
+make _entrées_, and so forth, at next to no expense--"
+
+The tears came into Ursula's eyes at this unjust assault.
+
+"Papa," she said, "you ought to know better at your age. One forgives
+the boys for saying such silly things. How can I toss up little dishes
+out of nothing? If you only knew the price of butter, not to talk of
+anything else. Made dishes are the most expensive things! A leg of
+mutton, for instance; there it is, and when one weighs it, one knows
+what it costs; but there is not one of those _entrées_ but costs
+_shillings_ for herbs and truffles and gravy and forcemeat, and a glass
+of white wine here, and a half pint of claret there. It is all very well
+to talk of dishes made out of nothing. The meat may not be very
+much--and men never think of the other things, I suppose."
+
+"It is management that is wanted," said Mr. May, "to throw nothing away,
+to make use of everything, to employ all your scraps. If you once have a
+good sauce--which is as easy as daylight when you take the trouble--you
+can make all sorts of things out of a cold joint; but women never will
+take the trouble, and that is the secret of poor dinners. Not one in
+fifty will do it. If you wanted really to help us, and improve my
+position, you might, Ursula. I can't afford to fall out with Copperhead,
+he is very important to me just at this moment; and perhaps it is better
+that I should give in to him at once about the late dinner."
+
+"You may say it is not my business," said Ursula, "but we have already
+another maid, and now two dinners--for it is just the same as two
+dinners. He will not be any advantage to you like that, and why should
+he be so much harder to please than we are? Reginald never grumbled, who
+was much better bred and better educated than Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"And with so much money to keep up his dignity," said her father
+mockingly. "No, it is not your business, the cookery-book is your
+business, and how to make the best of everything; otherwise I don't want
+any advice from you."
+
+"What did he say?" cried Janey, rushing in as soon as her father had
+left the room. Ursula, a very general consequence of such interviews,
+was sitting by the fire, very red and excited, with tears glistening in
+her eyes.
+
+"Of course I knew what he would say; he says it is not my business, and
+there are to be late dinners, and everything that man chooses to ask
+for. Oh, it is so hard to put up with it!" cried Ursula, her eyes
+flashing through her tears. "I am to read up the cookery-book and learn
+to make _entrées_ for them; but to say we can't afford it is not my
+business. I wonder whose business it is? It is I who have to go to the
+tradespeople and to bear it all if they grumble; and now this horrible
+man, who dares to tell me the coffee is not strong enough, as if I was a
+barmaid--"
+
+"Barmaids don't have to do with coffee, have they?" said matter-of-fact
+Janey; "but the fact is _he is not a gentleman_; why should you mind?
+What does it matter what a person like that says or does? You said so
+yourself, he is not a bit a gentleman. I wonder what Cousin Anne and
+Cousin Sophy could mean."
+
+"It is not their fault; they think of his mother, who is nice, who sent
+those things; but Mr. Copperhead knew about the things, which was not so
+nice of her, was it? But never mind, we must try to make the best of it.
+Get the cookery-book, Janey; perhaps if you were to read it out loud,
+and we were both to try to fix our mind upon it--for something must be
+done," said Ursula gravely. "Papa will never find it out till all the
+money is spent, but we shall be poorer than we were before we had the
+pupil. Who is that, Janey, at the door?"
+
+It was Phoebe, who came in blooming from the cold, in a furred jacket, at
+which the girls looked with unfeigned admiration. "The skating will soon
+come on in earnest now," she said; "grandmamma is better, and I thought
+I might come and see you. I had a long talk with your brother the other
+day, did he tell you? and I made him know Mr. Northcote, one of our
+people. I know you will turn up your pretty nose, Ursula, at a
+Dissenter."
+
+"I should think so," cried Janey; "we have nothing to do with such
+people, being gentlefolks, have we, Ursula? Oh, I forgot! I beg your
+pardon, I didn't mean to say--"
+
+Phoebe smiled upon her serenely. "I am not angry," she said, "I
+understand all that; and in Carlingford I have no right, I suppose, to
+stand upon being a lady, though I always thought I was one. I am only a
+young woman here, and not so bad either for that, if you will promise,
+Janey, not to call me a young person--"
+
+"Oh, Miss Beecham!"
+
+"Mr. Copperhead is a Dissenter," said Ursula, somewhat sullenly, "we put
+up with him because he is rich. Oh, it is all very disagreeable! I don't
+want to know any new people whatever they are; I find the old ones bad
+enough. Reginald hates him too, a big lazy useless being that treats one
+as if one were a chambermaid!"
+
+"Is it Clarence? It is not quite his fault. His mother is a lady, but
+his father is a brute," said Phoebe, "thinking of nothing but his
+horrible money. Clarence is not so bad. It is because he has no
+imagination, and does not understand other people's feelings; he does
+not mean it, poor fellow; he goes trampling about with his big feet upon
+everybody's toes, and never is a bit the wiser. Here he is--he is coming
+in with your father. I suppose there must be a great deal in race," she
+added with a soft little sigh, "Clarence looks a clown, and your father
+such a gentleman. I suppose I show just the same when I stand beside
+you."
+
+Now Phoebe was well aware that this was not the case, and Ursula's
+indignant disclaimer made her rather laugh, because it was so
+unnecessary, than be pleased by its vehemence. There was an old convex
+mirror opposite which reflected the girls in miniature, making a pretty
+picture of them as they sat together, Ursula with her dark locks, and
+Phoebe in her golden hair, and the tall sharp school-girl, Janey, all
+elbows and angles, short petticoats and grey stockings. Janey was the
+only one in whom there could have been suspected any inferiority of
+race; but her awkwardness was that of youth, and her disordered hair and
+dress belonged also to her age, for she was at that troublesome period
+when frocks are constantly getting too short, and sleeves too scanty.
+Janey was shuffling slowly round the visitor, admiring her at every
+point; her garments were not made as dresses were made in Carlingford.
+Their fit and their texture were alike too perfect for anything that
+ever came out of High Street. The furred jacket had not been seen in
+Grange Lane before. Perhaps it was because the cold had become more
+severe, an ordinary and simple reason--or because Clarence Copperhead,
+who knew her, and in whose eyes it was important to bate no jot of her
+social pretensions, was here; and the furred jacket was beyond
+comparison with anything that had been seen for ages in Carlingford. The
+deep border of fur round the velvet, the warm waddings and paddings, the
+close fit up to the throat, were excellencies which warranted Janey's
+tour of inspection. Phoebe perceived it very well, but did not confuse
+the girl by taking any notice, and in her heart she was herself slightly
+pre-occupied, wondering (as Ursula had done) what the man had come here
+for, and what he would say when he saw her. Both of these young women
+had a secret belief that something romantic, something more than the
+mere prose of reading in the first tutor's house that happened to have
+been suggested to him, had brought young Copperhead to such an unlikely
+place as Carlingford. Ursula had by this time learned to reject this
+hypothesis with much indignation at herself for having entertained it,
+but Phoebe still felt slightly fluttered by this possibility, and was
+eager for the entrance of Clarence. She would know at once what had
+brought him, she said to herself, the moment she caught his eye.
+
+And though Mr. May had reconciled himself so completely to the Tozer
+business, the appearance of Tozer's granddaughter gave him a momentary
+shock. "What did you do with my grandfather's letter? he thought her
+eyes said, and the meeting confused and disturbed him. This, however,
+was only for a moment. He was a man to whom it was always possible to
+make himself agreeable to women, and though he felt so easy in his mind
+about Tozer, still it was evident that to conciliate Tozer's relation,
+and that so influential a relation, was on the whole a good thing to do.
+He was going up to her accordingly with outstretched hands, and the most
+amiable inquiries about her grandmother's health, when, to his surprise,
+he was frustrated by Clarence who had come in before him--his large
+person swelling out, as it always seemed to do when he presented himself
+upon a new scene, with importance and grandeur.
+
+"Miss Beecham!" he said, "really, who would have thought it? Now look
+here, I came to Carlingford thinking there was not a soul I knew in the
+place; and here have you turned up all at once, and Northcote (you know
+Northcote?). It is very queer."
+
+"It is odd, isn't it?" said Phoebe quickly. "I was astonished to see Mr.
+Northcote, and though I heard you were coming I am not less surprised to
+see you." "He has not come for me," she said rapidly to herself, "nor
+for Ursula either; then who is it?" Phoebe demanded in the depths of her
+own bosom; that he should have come for nobody at all, but simply for
+his own purposes, to get a little information put into his head, seemed
+incredible to both the girls. Ursula, for her part, had been angry when
+she discovered his want of meaning, though why she would have found it
+hard to say. But Phoebe, for her part, was not angry. She took this like
+other things of the kind, with great and most philosophical calm, but
+she could not outgrow it all at once. For whom was it? His cousins,
+those Miss Dorsets? But they were much older, and not the kind of women
+for whom such an act was likely. Her mind wandered forth lively and
+curious in search of the necessary clue. She could not consent to the
+fact that no clue was necessary where no mystery was.
+
+"I am glad to see that you venture out in this wintry weather," said Mr.
+May; "you set us all a good example. I am always telling my girls that
+cold weather is no sufficient reason for staying indoors. I wish Ursula
+would do as you do."
+
+"Papa, how can you talk so?" said Janey, indignant, "when you know very
+well it is not the cold that keeps Ursula in, but because she has so
+much to do."
+
+"Oh, yes, one knows the sort of things young ladies have to do," said
+Clarence, with a laugh; "read stories, and look up pretty dresses for
+their parties, eh, Miss Janey? and consult the fashion-books. Oh, of
+course you will deny it; but my mother makes me her confidant, and I
+know that's what you all do."
+
+"To be sure," said Phoebe, "we are not so clever as you are, and can't do
+so many things. We know no Latin or Greek to keep our minds instructed;
+we acknowledge our infirmity; and we couldn't play football to save our
+lives. Football is what you do in this season, when you don't hunt, and
+before the ice is bearing? We are poor creatures; we can't parcel out
+our lives, according as it is time for football or cricket. You must not
+be so severe upon girls for being so inferior to you."
+
+("Oh, don't be too hard upon him,") whispered Ursula, in a parenthesis,
+afraid that this irony should drive the pupil to desperation. ("Hard
+upon him! he will never find it out,") Phoebe whispered back in the same
+tone.
+
+"Oh, hang it all, I don't mean to be severe upon girls," said Clarence,
+pulling his moustache with much complacency; "I am sorry for them, I can
+tell you. It ain't their fault; I know heaps of nice girls who feel it
+horribly. What can they do? they can't go in for cricket and football.
+There ought to be something invented for them. To be sure there is
+lawn-tennis, but that's only for summer. I should go mad, I think, if I
+had nothing to do."
+
+"But you have more brain and more strength, you see, than we have; and
+besides, we are used to it," said Phoebe. "I am afraid, Ursula,
+grandmamma will want me, and I must go."
+
+Here Mr. May said something to his daughter which filled Ursula with
+excitement, mingled of pleasure and displeasure.
+
+"Papa says, will you come to dinner to-morrow at seven? It appears there
+is some one you know coming--a Mr. Northcote. I don't know who he is,
+but it will be very kind if you will come on my account," the girl
+concluded, whispering in her ear, "for how shall I ever get through a
+dinner-party? We never gave one in my life before."
+
+"Of course I will come," said Phoebe. "Dinner-parties are not so common
+here that I should neglect the chance. I must thank Mr. May. But I hope
+you know who Mr. Northcote is," she added, laughing. "I gave an account
+of myself loyally, before I permitted you to ask me; but Mr.
+Northcote--Oh, no! he does not belong to----the lower classes; but he is
+a fiery red-hot----"
+
+"What?" cried eager Janey, pressing to the front. "Radical? I am a
+radical too; and Reginald used to be once, and so was Ursula. Oh, I wish
+it was to-night!" said Janey, clasping her hands.
+
+"Not a radical, but a Dissenter; and you who are a clergyman, Mr. May! I
+like you, oh, so much for it. But I wonder what the people will say."
+
+"My dear Miss Beecham," said the suave Churchman, quite ready to seize
+the chance of making a point for himself, "in the Church, fortunately,
+what the people say has not to be studied, as your unfortunate pastors,
+I am informed, have to do. While Mr. Copperhead is under my roof, I make
+his friends welcome--for his sake first, probably afterwards for their
+own."
+
+"Yes, I asked Northcote," said Clarence; "I never thought they would
+have any objection. He's not a common Dissenter, like the most of those
+fellows that have nothing but their salaries. He's well off; he don't
+require, bless you, to keep people in good temper, and toady to 'em,
+like most do. He's as independent as I am; I don't say that he's quite
+as well off; but money always finds its level. I shouldn't have thought
+of asking May to receive a common Dissenting fellow, like the rest."
+
+Phoebe laughed. It did not occur to the accomplished scion of the house
+of Copperhead, nor to the two girls, who were not experienced enough to
+think of such things, what was the meaning expressed in Phoebe's laugh,
+which was not cheerful. Mr. May himself had the advantage of more
+discrimination.
+
+"I hope you will find that, Dissenter or not, I know what is my duty to
+my friends," he said. "What my guests may possess, or the exact nature
+of their opinions on all points, are not subjects to be discussed by
+me."
+
+"Oh, there is nothing to find fault with in _you_," said Phoebe, with
+less than her usual universal courtesy; "you are always kind, Mr. May;"
+and then she laughed again. "Some people are very clever in finding out
+the vulnerable places," she said.
+
+"She is changed," said Clarence, when she was gone. "She is not the
+jolly girl she used to be. She was always a very jolly girl; ready to
+help a fellow out of a scrape, you know. But Northcote's a fearfully
+clever fellow. You should just hear him talk. He and May will go at it
+hammer and tongs, as sure as fate."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+URSULA'S ENTRÉES.
+
+
+It would be difficult to describe the anxiety with which that first
+"late dinner" was regarded by Ursula. Janey, too, had thrown herself
+into it heart and soul, until she received the crushing intimation from
+her father, that her company was not expected at this stately meal; a
+discovery which altogether extinguished poor Janey, accustomed to be
+always in the front whatever occurred, and to whom suggestions of things
+that could not be done by a girl who was not "out," had never presented
+themselves. She retired to her own room dissolved in tears when this
+fearful mandate went forth, and for the rest of the morning was good for
+nothing, her eyes being converted into a sort of red pulp, her rough
+hair doubly dishevelled, her whole being run into tears. She was of no
+more use now to go errands between the kitchen and the drawing-room, or
+to read the cookery-book out loud, which was a process upon which Ursula
+depended very much, to fix in her mind the exact ingredients and painful
+method of preparation of the _entrées_ at which she was toiling. Betsy,
+the former maid-of-all-work, now promoted under the title of cook, could
+be trusted to roast the saddle of mutton, which, on consideration that
+it was "a party," had been thought preferable to a leg, and she could
+boil the fish, after a sort, and make good honest family soup, and the
+rice-pudding or apple-tart, which was the nearest approach to luxury
+indulged in at the Parsonage; but as for _entrées_, Betsy did not know
+what they were. She had heard of made dishes indeed, and respectfully
+afar off had seen them when she was kitchen-maid at Lady Weston's--the
+golden age of her youthful inexperience. But this was so long ago, that
+her recollections were rather confusing than useful to Ursula, when she
+went downstairs to make her first heroic effort.
+
+"La, Miss, that ain't how cook used to do 'em at Lady Weston's," Betsy
+said, looking on with unbelieving eyes. She was sure of this negative,
+but she was not sure of anything else, and utterly failed to give any
+active assistance, after driving the girl desperate with her criticisms.
+Altogether it was a confused and unpleasant day. When Reginald came in
+in the morning, his sister had no time to speak to him, so anxious was
+she and pre-occupied, and the drawing-room was being turned upside down,
+to make it look more modern, more elegant, more like the Dorsets'
+drawing-room, which was the only one Ursula knew. The comfortable round
+table in the middle, round which the family had grouped themselves for
+so long, had been pushed aside into a corner, leaving one fresh patch of
+carpet, quite inappropriate, and unconnected with anything else; and
+instead of the work and the school-books which so often intruded there,
+all that was gaudy and uninteresting in the May library had been
+produced to decorate the table; and even a case of wax flowers, a
+production of thirty years since, which had been respectfully
+transferred to a china closet by Ursula's better taste, but which in the
+dearth of ornament she had brought back again. Reginald carried off the
+wax flowers and replaced the table with his own hands, while Ursula
+scorched her cheeks over the _entrées_ downstairs.
+
+"All this for Northcote," he said, when she ran up for a moment, done up
+in a big white apron, her face crimson with the fire and anxiety
+combined: "for Miss Beecham has been here before, and you made no fuss
+about her then."
+
+"She came to tea," said Ursula. "And I got a cake, which was all any one
+could do; but a dinner is a very different thing." Indeed she had by
+this time come to share her father's opinion, that dinner was the right
+and dignified thing in all cases, and that they had been hitherto living
+in a very higgledy-piggledy way. The dinner had gone to her head.
+
+"Then it is for Northcote, as I say," said Reginald. "Do you know who he
+is?"
+
+"A Dissenter," said Ursula, with a certain languor; "but so, you know,
+is Mr. Copperhead, and he is the chief person here now-a-days. Papa
+thinks there is nobody like him. And so is Phoebe."
+
+"Oh, have you come so far as that?" said Reginald, with a little tinge
+of colour in his face. He laughed, but the name moved him. "It is a
+pretty fresh sort of country name, not quite like such an accomplished
+person."
+
+"Oh, that is just like you men, with your injustice! Because she is
+clever you take it amiss; you are all jealous of her. Look at her pretty
+colour and her beautiful hair; if that is not fresh I should like to
+know what is. She might be Hebe instead of Phoebe," said Ursula, who had
+picked up scraps of classical knowledge in spite of herself.
+
+"You are a little goose," said Reginald, pinching her ear, but he liked
+his sister for her generous partizanship. "Mind you don't come to dinner
+with cheeks like that," he said. "I like my sister to be herself, not a
+cook-maid, and I don't believe in _entrées_;" but he went away smiling,
+and with a certain warmth in his breast. He had gone up and down Grange
+Lane many times at the hour of sunset, hoping to meet Phoebe again, but
+that sensible young woman had no mind to be talked of, and never
+appeared except when she was certain the road was clear. This had
+tantalized Reginald more than he chose to avow, even to himself. Pride
+prevented him from knocking at the closed door. The old Tozers were
+fearful people to encounter, people whom to visit would be to damn
+himself in Carlingford; but then the Miss Griffiths were very insipid by
+the side of Phoebe, and the variety of her talk, though he had seen so
+little of her, seemed to have created a new want in his life. He thought
+of a hundred things which he should like to discuss with her--things
+which did not interest Ursula, and which the people about him did not
+understand much. Society at that time, as may be presumed, was in a poor
+way in Carlingford. The Wentworths and Wodehouses were gone, and many
+other nice people; the houses in Grange Lane were getting deserted, or
+falling into inferior hands, as was apparent by the fact that the
+Tozers--old Tozer, the butterman--had got one of them. The other people
+were mostly relics of a bygone state of things: retired old couples, old
+ladies, spinsters, and widows--excellent people, but not lively to talk
+to--and the Griffiths, above mentioned, put up with in consideration of
+tolerable good looks and "fun," became tiresome when anything better was
+to be had. The mere apparition of Phoebe upon the horizon had been enough
+to show Reginald that there were other kinds of human beings in the
+world. It had not occurred to him that he was in love with her, and the
+idea of the social suicide implied in marrying old Tozer's
+granddaughter, had not so much as once entered his imagination. Had he
+thought of it, he would have pulled that imagination up tight, like an
+unruly horse, the thing being too impossible to bear thinking of. But
+this had never entered his mind. He wanted to see Phoebe to talk to her,
+to be near her, as something very new, captivating and full of
+interest--that was all. No one else within his sphere could talk so
+well. The Rector was very great indeed on the reredos question, and the
+necessity of reviving the disused "Church" customs; but Reginald could
+not go so far as he did as to the importance of the reredos, and was
+quite in doubt whether it was not as well for most people to "direct"
+themselves by their own consciences as to be directed by the spiritual
+head of the parish, who was not over wise in his own concerns. His
+father, Reginald knew, could be very agreeable among strangers, but he
+seldom chose to be so in his own house. All this made the advent of
+Phoebe appear to him like a sudden revelation out of a different world.
+He was an Oxford man, with the best of education, but he was a simpleton
+all the same. He thought he saw in her an evidence of what life was like
+in those intellectual professional circles which a man may hope to get
+into only in London. It was not the world of fashion he was aware, but
+he thought in his simplicity that it was the still higher world of
+culture and knowledge, in which genius, and wit, and intellect stood
+instead of rank or riches. How Tozer's granddaughter had got admission
+there, he did not ask himself, but this was what he thought, and to talk
+to her was a new sensation. He was quite unconscious of anything more.
+
+Nobody knew when Ursula took her place at the head of the table in her
+pretty white dress, which she had worn at the Dorsets', how much toil
+and anxiety the preparations had given her. At the last moment, when her
+mind was so far clear of the _entrées_, &c.--as clear as the mind of an
+inexperienced dinner-giver can be, until the blessed moment when they
+are eaten and done with--she had to take Sarah in hand, who was not very
+clear about the waiting, and to instruct her according to her own very
+imperfect knowledge how to fulfil her duties.
+
+"Think it is not a dinner-party at all, but only just our ordinary
+luncheon, and don't get fluttered; and when I look at you like _this_
+come quite close, and I will whisper what you are to do. And oh, Sarah,
+like a good creature, don't break anything!" said Ursula almost with
+tears.
+
+These were all the directions she could give, and they, it must be
+allowed, were somewhat vague. The excitement was becoming to her. She
+sat down with a dreadful flutter in her heart, but with her eyes shining
+and sparkling. Clarence Copperhead, who extended an arm very carelessly
+to take her downstairs, absolutely certain of being a more important
+person than his guest Northcote, was roused for the first time to the
+consciousness that she was very pretty, which he had not found out
+before. "But no style," he said to himself. Phoebe was the one who had
+style. She sat between Mr. May and the stranger, but devoted herself to
+her host chiefly, displaying a gentle contempt of the younger men in his
+presence. No anxiety was in her mind about the dinner. She did not
+follow the fate of those _entrées_ round the table with terrible
+palpitations, as poor Ursula did; and, alas, the _entrées_ were not
+good, and Ursula had the mortification to see the dishes she had taken
+so much trouble with, rejected by one and another. Reginald ate some,
+for which she blessed him, and so did Phoebe, but Mr. May sent his plate
+away with polite execrations.
+
+"Tell your cook she shall go if she sends up such uneatable stuff again,
+Ursula," her father cried from the other end of the table.
+
+Two big tears dashed up hot and scalding into Ursula's eyes. Oh, how she
+wished she could be dismissed like Betsy! She turned those two little
+oceans of trouble piteously, without knowing it, upon Northcote, who had
+said something to her, without being able to reply to him. And
+Northcote, who was but a young man, though he was a fiery political
+Dissenter, and who had come to the Parsonage with a curious mixture of
+pleasure and reluctance, immediately threw down any arms that nature
+might have provided him with, and fell in love with her there and then
+on the spot! to his own absolute consternation. This was how it
+happened. The moment was not romantic, the situation was not sublime. A
+little motherless housekeeper crying because her father scolded her in
+public for a piece of bad cookery. There is nothing in this to make an
+idyll out of; but such as it was, it proved enough for Horace Northcote;
+he yielded himself on the spot. Not a word was said, for Ursula felt
+that if she tried to talk she must cry, and anything further from her
+troubled thoughts than love it would be impossible to imagine; but then
+and there, so far as the young man was concerned, the story began. He
+talked very little for the rest of the meal, and Ursula did not exert
+herself, though she recovered slightly when the mutton turned out to be
+very good, and was commended; but what was the mutton in comparison with
+her _entrées_, which she had made with her own hands, and which were a
+failure? She was reduced to silence, and she thought that the stranger
+at her left hand was nice, because he did not bother her, and was
+content with a very little talk.
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, did you hear papa about those _entrées_?" she cried, when
+they reached the drawing-room; and sitting down on the stool by the fire
+which Janey usually appropriated, she cried, poor child, with
+undisguised passion. "I had made them myself; I had been busy about them
+all day; I read the cookery-book till my head ached, and took such
+pains! and you heard what he said."
+
+"Yes, dear, I heard him; but he did not think what he was saying, it
+never occurred to him that it was you. Don't shake your little head, I
+am sure of it; you know, Ursula, your papa is very agreeable and very
+clever."
+
+"Yes, I know he is clever; and he can be nice when he likes--"
+
+"Did you like it?" cried Janey, bursting in, red-eyed and dishevelled in
+her morning frock. "Oh, no, I am not dressed, I don't mean to, to let
+him get the better of me, and think I care. Only just for a moment to
+see you two. Oh, isn't Phoebe grand in that dress? She is like a picture;
+you are nothing beside her, Ursula. Tell me, is it nice to have dinner
+instead of tea? Did it go off very well, did you enjoy yourselves? Or
+were you all unhappy, sitting round the table, eating beef and mutton,"
+cried Janey with all the scorn of ignorance, "at that ridiculous hour!"
+
+"I was as miserable as I could be," cried Ursula, "I was not happy at
+all. Enjoy myself! with the _entrées_ on my mind, and after what papa
+said. Oh, run away, Janey, and dress, or else go to bed. Papa will be so
+angry if he comes up and finds you here."
+
+"I should like to make him frantic," cried Janey with vindictive force,
+"I should just like to drive him out of his senses! Never mind, yes, I
+am angry; haven't I a right to be angry? I am as tall as Ursula--I hope
+I know how to behave myself--and when there were people coming, and a
+real dinner--"
+
+"Oh, I hear them," cried Ursula in alarm, and Janey flew off, her hair
+streaming behind her. Phoebe put her arm round Ursula, and raised her
+from the stool. She was not perhaps a perfect young woman, but had her
+own ends to serve like other people; yet she had a friendly soul. She
+gave her friend a kiss to preface her admonition, as girls have a way of
+doing.
+
+"I would not let Janey talk so," she said, "I think you should not talk
+so yourself, Ursula, if you will forgive me, of your papa; he is very
+nice, and so clever. I should try all I could to please him, and I
+should not let any one be disrespectful to him if it was I."
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, if you only knew--"
+
+"Yes, I know, gentlemen don't understand often; but we must do our duty.
+He is nice, and clever, and handsome, and you ought to be proud of him.
+Dry your eyes, here they are really, coming upstairs. You must be
+good-humoured and talk. He is ever so much nicer than the young men,"
+said Phoebe, almost loud enough to be heard, as Clarence Copperhead,
+sauntering in advance of the others with his large shirt-front fully
+displayed, came into the room. He came in half whistling in serene
+indifference. Phoebe had "style," it was true; but she was only a
+Dissenting parson's daughter, and what were two such girls to Clarence
+Copperhead? He came in whistling an opera air, which he let drop only
+after he was well inside the door.
+
+"Miss Beecham, let us have some music. I know you can play," he said.
+
+"If Miss May likes," said Phoebe, covering his rudeness; and then she
+laughed, and added, "if you will accompany me."
+
+"Does Mr. Copperhead play too?"
+
+"Oh beautifully. Has he not let you see his music? Won't you bring it
+here and let us look over it? I dare say there are some things we can
+play together."
+
+"You can play everything," said the young man. "And I'll bring my
+violin, if you like."
+
+He was delighted; he quickened his steps almost into a run as he went
+away.
+
+"You should not laugh at Mr. Copperhead," Ursula retorted on her friend.
+"You should be good-humoured, too. You are better than I am, but you are
+not quite good, after all."
+
+"Violin!" said Mr. May. "Heaven and earth! is there going to be any
+fiddling? Miss Beecham, I did not expect you to bring such a horror upon
+me. I thought I had nothing but good to expect from you."
+
+"Wait till you hear him, sir," said Phoebe.
+
+Mr. May retired to the far corner of the room. He called young Northcote
+to him, who was standing beside Ursula, eager to talk, but not knowing
+how to begin. It was bad enough to be thus withdrawn from his chance of
+making himself agreeable; but the reader may imagine what was the
+Dissenter's feelings when Mr. May, with a smile, turned upon him. Having
+given him a (tolerably) good dinner, and lulled him into a belief that
+his sins against the family were unknown, he looked at him, smiling, and
+began.
+
+"Mr. Northcote, the first time I saw you, you were discoursing at an
+Anti-Establishment Meeting in the Town Hall."
+
+Northcote started. He blushed fiery red. "It is quite true. I wished to
+have told you; not to come here on false pretences; but Copperhead--and
+your son has been very kind--"
+
+"Then I suppose your views are modified. Clergymen no longer appear to
+you the demons in human shape you thought them then; and my son, in
+particular, has lost his horns and hoofs?"
+
+"Mr. May, you are very severe; but I own there is reason--"
+
+"It was you who were severe. I was not quite sure of you till Copperhead
+brought you in. Nay," said the clergyman, rubbing his hands; "do you
+think that I object to the utterance of a real opinion? Certainly not.
+As for Reginald, it was the thing that decided him; I leave you to find
+out how; so that we are positively in your debt. But I hope you don't
+fiddle too. If you like to come with me to my study--"
+
+Northcote gave a longing look round the room, which had become all at
+once so interesting to him. Mr. May was too clear-sighted not to see it.
+He thought, quite impartially, that perhaps it was an excusable
+weakness, even though it was his own society that was the counter
+attraction. They were two nice-looking girls. This was how he put it,
+being no longer young, and father to one of them; naturally, the two
+young men would have described the attraction of Phoebe and Ursula more
+warmly. Clarence Copperhead, who had come in with an armful of music and
+his fiddle, was not thinking of the girls, nor of anything but the sweet
+sounds he was about to make--and himself. When he began to tune his
+violin, Mr. May got up in dismay.
+
+"This is more than mortal can stand," he said, making as though he would
+have gone away. Then he changed his mind, for, after all, he was the
+chaperon of his motherless girl. "Get me the paper, Ursula," he said. It
+would be hard to tell with what feelings Northcote contemplated him. He
+was the father of Ursula, yet he dared to order her about, to bring the
+tears to her eyes. Northcote darted the same way as she was going, and
+caught at the paper on a side-table, and brought it hastily. But alas,
+that was last week's paper! he did not save her the trouble, but he
+brought upon himself a gleam of mischief from her father's eyes. "Mr.
+Northcote thinks me a tyrant to send you for the paper," he said, as he
+took it out of her hands. "Thank him for his consideration. But he was
+not always so careful of your peace of mind," he added, with a laugh.
+
+Ursula looked at him with a wondering question in her eyes; but those
+tears were no longer there which had gone to Northcote's heart.
+
+"I don't know what papa means," she said, softly; and then, "I want to
+beg your pardon, please. I was very silly. Will you try to forget it,
+and not tell any one, Mr. Northcote? The truth was, I thought I had done
+them nicely, and I was vexed. It was very childish," she said, shaking
+her head with something of the same moisture floating back over the
+lustre in her pretty eyes.
+
+"I will never tell any one, you may be sure," said the young man; but
+Ursula did not notice that he declined to give the other pledge, for
+Reginald came up just then with wrath in his eyes.
+
+"Is that idiot going to fiddle all night?" he cried (poor Clarence had
+scarcely begun); "as if anybody wanted to hear him and his tweedle-dees.
+Miss Beecham plays like St. Cecilia, Ursula; and I want to speak to her
+about something. Can't you get that brute beguiled away?"
+
+Clarence was the one who was _de trop_ in the little party; but he
+fiddled beatifically, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, without the
+slightest suspicion of the fact, while Phoebe accompanied him, with
+little smiles at her friends, and shrugs of her shoulders. Reginald felt
+very strongly, though for the first time, that she was over doing the
+Scriptural maxim of being all things to all men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE.
+
+
+After this dinner-party, such as it was, the Parsonage became gradually
+the centre of a little society, such as sometimes forms in the most
+accidental way in a house where there are young men and young women, and
+of which no one can say what momentous results may arise. They came
+together fortuitously, blown to one centre by the merest winds of
+circumstance, out of circles totally different and unlike. Why it was
+that Mr. May, so good a Churchman, permitted two people so entirely out
+of his sphere to become his habitual guests and the companions of his
+children was very perplexing to the outside world, who half in mere
+surprise, and a little in despite, wondered and commented till they were
+tired, or till they had become so familiar with the strange spectacle
+that it ceased to strike them. A rich pupil might be forgiven for being
+a Dissenter, indeed in Carlingford as elsewhere money made up for most
+deficiencies; but even natural complacency towards the rich pupil
+scarcely accounted for the reception of the others. The neighbours could
+never be quite sure whether the family at the Parsonage knew or did not
+know that their new friend Northcote was not only acting as Minister of
+Salem Chapel, but was the assailant of Reginald May at the
+Anti-Establishment Meeting, and various persons in Grange Lane held
+themselves for a long time on the tip-toe of preparation, ready to
+breathe to Mr. May the painful intelligence, in case he was unaware of
+it. But he never gave them the opportunity. Honestly, he had forgotten
+the speaker's name at first, and only recognized him when he was
+introduced by young Copperhead; and then the situation was piquant and
+amused him, especially the evident confusion and consternation of the
+culprit when found out.
+
+"I don't know what he thinks he has done to you," said Clarence, "I
+could scarcely make him come in. He says he is sure you can't wish to
+see him."
+
+This was two days after the dinner, when Horace Northcote came to leave
+a respectful card, hoping that he might see Ursula at a door or window.
+Clarence had seized upon him and dragged him in, in spite of himself.
+
+"On the contrary, I am very glad to see him," said Mr. May, with a
+smile. He looked at the young Dissenter with a jeer in his eyes. He
+liked to punish him, having suddenly perceived that this jeer was much
+more potent than any serious penalty. "If he will promise not to slay
+me, I shan't quarrel with him." Mr. May was in such good spirits at this
+moment that he could afford to joke; his own magnanimity, and the
+other's confused looks of guilt, overcame his gravity. "Come back
+again," he said, holding out his hand; and though Horace retired for the
+moment utterly confounded, yet the attractions of the cheerful house
+overcame, after a while, his sense of humiliation and inappropriateness.
+If the injured family had condoned his offence, why should he mind? and
+the pleasant girlish friendliness, without any _arrière pensée_, of
+Ursula, was enough to have set any man at his ease; the facts of the
+case being that Mrs. Hurst was away upon a long visit, and that, having
+no other gossip within the range of her acquaintance, Ursula did not
+know. Reginald, who did, had the same sense of magnanimity as his father
+had, and began to like the society of the congenial yet different spirit
+which it was so strange to him to find under a guise so unlike his own.
+And Northcote, on his side, finding no house to which he could betake
+himself among those whom Phoebe called "our own people;" found a refuge,
+which gradually became dearer and dearer to him, at the Parsonage, and
+in his profound sense of the generosity of the people who had thus
+received him, felt his own partizanship wax feebler and feebler every
+day. He seemed to see the ground cut from under his feet, as he watched
+the young chaplain at his work. Mr. May, to be sure, was no example of
+pastoral diligence, but he was a pleasant companion, and had put himself
+from the first in that position of moral superiority which naturally
+belongs to an injured person who can forgive heartily and without
+prejudice. And Ursula! He did not venture to call her Ursula, even in
+the secret depths of his heart. There a pronoun was enough, as, indeed,
+incipient Love generally finds it. She spoke to him, smiled at him in
+the street; and immediately life became a _Vita Nuova_ to him. The young
+Dissenter was as Dante, and simple Ursula, with her housekeeping books
+in her hand, became another Beatrice. It is not every one who has the
+capacity for this perfect and absorbing sentiment; but Horace Northcote
+had, and for a long time Ursula was as unconscious of it as heart could
+desire.
+
+Phoebe's admission to the house had been more simple still. A girlish
+fancy on Ursula's part, a fit of good-nature on her father's, and then
+that secret thread of connection with Tozer which no one knew of, and
+the coming of Clarence Copperhead, to please whom Mr. May permitted
+himself to be persuaded to do much; and in addition to all this, her
+good looks, her pretty manners, her cleverness and the deference she had
+always shown in the proper quarter. Mr. May did not enter into the lists
+with his son, or think of offering himself as a suitor to Phoebe; but he
+liked to talk to her, and to watch what he called "her little ways," and
+to hear her play when Clarence and his violin were otherwise disposed
+of. He was an experienced man, priding himself on a knowledge of human
+nature, and Phoebe's "little ways" amused him greatly. What did she
+mean?--to "catch" Clarence Copperhead, who would be a great match, or to
+fascinate Northcote? Oddly enough Mr. May never thought of Reginald,
+though that young man showed an eagerness to talk to Phoebe which was
+more than equal with his own, and had always subjects laid up ready to
+discuss with her, when he could find the opportunity. Sometimes he would
+go up to her in the midst of the little party and broach one of these
+topics straight on end, without preface or introduction, as which was
+her favourite play of Shakespeare, and what did she think of the
+character of King Lear? It was not very wise, not any wiser than his
+neighbour was, who made pretty little Ursula into the ideal lady, the
+most gentle and stately figure in poetry; and yet no doubt there was
+something in both follies that was a great deal better than wisdom. The
+society formed by these two young pairs, with Clarence Copperhead as a
+heavy floating balance, and Mr. May and Janey--one philosophical, wise
+and mistaken; the other sharp-sighted and seeing everything--as
+spectators, was very pleasant to the close little coterie themselves,
+and nobody else got within the charmed circle. They grew more and more
+intimate daily, and had a whole vocabulary of domestic jokes and
+allusions which no one else could understand. It must be allowed,
+however, that the outside world was not pleased with this arrangement on
+either side of the question. The Church people were shocked with the
+Mays for harbouring Dissenters under any circumstances whatever, and
+there had not been a Minister at Salem Chapel for a long time so
+unpopular as Horace Northcote, who was always "engaged" when any of the
+connection asked him to tea, and preached sermons which went over their
+heads, and did not remember them when he met them in the street. Tozer
+was about the only one of the congregation who stood up for the young
+man. The others thanked Heaven that "he was but tempory," and on the
+whole they were right, for certainly he was out of place in his present
+post.
+
+As for Clarence Copperhead, he led an agreeable life enough among all
+these undercurrents of feeling, which he did not recognise with any
+distinctness. He was comfortable enough, pleased with his own
+importance, and too obtuse to perceive that he bored his companions; and
+then he considered himself to be slightly "sweet upon" both the girls.
+Ursula was his favourite in the morning, when he embarrassed her much by
+persistently seeking her company whenever liberated by her father; but
+Phoebe was the queen of the evening, when he would get his fiddle with an
+unfailing complacency which drove Reginald frantic. Whether it was mere
+good-nature or any warmer impulse, Phoebe was strangely tolerant of these
+fiddlings, and would go on playing for hours with serene composure,
+never tired and never impatient. Yet poor Clarence was not an
+accompanyist to be coveted. He was weak in the ear and defective in
+science, but full of a cheerful confidence which was as good as genius.
+
+"Never mind, Miss Phoebe," he would say cheerfully, when he had broken
+down for the twentieth time, "play on and I'll catch you up." He had
+thus a series of trysting places in every page or two, which might have
+been very laughable to an indifferent spectator, but which aggravated
+the Mays, father and son, to an intolerable extent. They were the two
+who suffered. As for Horace Northcote, who was not a great talker, it
+was a not disagreeable shield for his silent contemplation of Ursula,
+and the little things which from time to time he ventured to say to her.
+For conversation he had not the thirst which animated Reginald, and
+Ursula's talk, though lively and natural, was not like Phoebe's; but
+while the music went on he could sit by her in a state of silent
+beatitude, now and then saying something to which Ursula replied if she
+was disposed, or if she was not disposed put aside by a little shake of
+her head, and smiling glance at the piano. Sometimes it was simple
+wilfulness that made her silent; but Northcote set it down to an
+angelical sweetness which would not wound even the worst of performances
+by inattention. They were happy enough sitting there under the shelter
+of the piano, the young man absorbed in the dreams of a young love, the
+girl just beginning to realize the adoration which she was receiving,
+with a timid perception of it--half-frightened, half-grateful. She was
+in spite of herself amused by the idea only half understood, and which
+she could scarcely believe, that this big grown man, so much more
+important than herself in everybody's eyes, should show so much respect
+to a little girl whom her father scolded, whom Reginald sent trotting
+about on all sorts of errands, and whom Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy
+considered a child. It was very strange, a thing to call forth
+inextinguishable laughter, and yet with a strange touch of sweetness in
+it, which almost made her cry in wondering gratitude. What she thought
+of him, Ursula did not ask herself; that he should think _like this_ of
+her was the bewildering, extraordinary, ridiculous fact that at present
+filled her girlish head.
+
+But if they were sweet to Northcote, these evenings were the crown of
+Clarence Copperhead's content and conscious success; he was supremely
+happy, caressing his fiddle between his cheek and his shoulder, and
+raising his pale eyes to the ceiling in an ecstasy. The music, and the
+audience, and the accompanyist all together were delightful to him. He
+could have gone on he felt not only till midnight, but till morning, and
+so on to midnight again, with short intervals for refreshment. Every ten
+minutes or so there occurred a break in the continuity of the strain,
+and a little dialogue between the performers.
+
+"Ah, yes, I have missed a line; never mind; go on, Miss Phoebe, I will
+make up to you," he said.
+
+"It is those accidentals that have been your ruin," said Phoebe laughing;
+"it is a very hard passage, let us turn back and begin again," and then
+the audience would laugh, not very sweetly, and (some of them) make
+acrid observations; but the pianist was good-nature itself, and went
+back and counted and kept time with her head, and with her hand when she
+could take it from the piano, until she had triumphantly tided him over
+the bad passage, or they had come to the point of shipwreck again.
+During these labours, Phoebe, who was really a good musician, ought to
+have suffered horribly; but either she did not, or her good-nature was
+stronger than her good taste, for she went on serenely, sometimes for
+hours together, while her old and her young admirers sat secretly
+cursing (in such ways as are becoming to a clergyman) each in his
+corner. Perhaps she had a slight degree of pleasure in the evident power
+she had over father and son; but it was difficult fully to understand
+her views at this somewhat bewildering period of her life, in which she
+was left entirely to her own resources. She was herself groping a little
+through paths of uncertain footing, enjoying herself a great deal, but
+not seeing clearly where it led to, and having no definite purpose, or
+chart of those unknown countries in her mind.
+
+"How you can go on," said Reginald, on one of these occasions, having at
+length managed to seize upon and get her into a corner, "for hours,
+having your ears sacrificed and your patience tried by these fearful
+discords, and smile through it, is a mystery which I cannot fathom! If
+it was only consideration for your audience, that might be enough to
+move any one--but yourself--"
+
+"I don't seem to feel it so very much myself."
+
+"And yet you are a musician!"
+
+"Don't be too hard upon me, Mr May. I only play--a little. I am not like
+my cousins in the High Street, who are supposed to be very clever at
+music; and then poor Mr. Copperhead is a very old friend."
+
+"Poor Mr. Copperhead! poor us, you mean, who have to listen--and you,
+who choose to play."
+
+"You are very vindictive," she said, with a piteous look. "Why should
+you be so vindictive? I do what I can to please my friends, and--there
+is no doubt about what poor Clarence likes best; if you were to show me
+as plainly what you would like--_quite_ plainly, as he does----"
+
+"Don't you know?" said Reginald, with glowing eyes. "Ah, well! if I may
+show you plainly--quite plainly, with the same results, you may be sure
+not to be left long in doubt. Talk to me! it is easier, and not so
+fatiguing. Here," said the young man, placing a chair for her; "he has
+had your patient services for two hours. Do only half as much for me."
+
+"Ah! but talking is a different thing, and more--difficult--and
+more--personal. Well!" said Phoebe, with a laugh and a blush, taking the
+chair, "I will try, but you must begin; and I cannot promise, you know,
+for a whole hour."
+
+"After you have given that fellow two! and such a fellow! If it was
+Northcote, I might be equally jea--displeased, but I could understand
+it, for he is not a fool."
+
+"I think," said Phoebe, looking towards the other end of the room, where
+Northcote was occupied as usual close to Ursula's work-basket, "that Mr.
+Northcote manages to amuse himself very well without any help of mine."
+
+"Ah!" cried Reginald, startled; for of course it is needless to say that
+the idea of any special devotion to his little sister had never entered
+his mind. He felt disposed to laugh at first when the idea was suggested
+to him, but he gave a second look, and fellow-feeling threw a certain
+enlightenment upon the subject. "That would never do," he said gravely;
+"I wonder I never thought of it before."
+
+"Why would it not do? She is very nice, and he is clever and a rising
+man; and he is very well off; and you said just now he was not a fool."
+
+"Nevertheless it would never do," said Reginald, opposing her pointedly,
+as he had never opposed her before; and he remained silent for a whole
+minute, looking across the room, during which long interval Phoebe sat
+demurely on the chair where he had placed her, looking at him with a
+smile on her face.
+
+"Well?" she said at length, softly, "it was talk you said you wanted,
+Mr. May; but you are not so ready to tune up your violin as Mr.
+Copperhead, though I wait with my fingers on the piano, so to speak."
+
+"I beg your pardon!" he cried, and then their eyes met, and both
+laughed, though, as far as Reginald was concerned, in an embarrassed
+way.
+
+"You perceive," said Phoebe, rising, "that it is not nearly so easy to
+please you, and that you don't know half so exactly what you want, as
+Clarence Copperhead does, though you abuse him, poor fellow. I have got
+something to say to Ursula! though, perhaps, she does not want me any
+more than you do."
+
+"Don't give me up for one moment's distraction; and it was your fault,
+not mine, for suggesting such a startling idea."
+
+Phoebe shook her head, and waved her hand as a parting salutation, and
+then went across the room to where Ursula was sitting, where Horace
+Northcote at least found her very much in his way. She began at once to
+talk low and earnestly on some subject so interesting that it absorbed
+both the girls in a way which was very surprising and unpleasant to the
+young men, neither of whom had been able to interest the one whose
+attention he was specially anxious to secure half so effectually.
+Northcote, from the other side of the table, and Reginald from the other
+end of the room, gazed and gloomed with discomfited curiosity, wondering
+what it could be; while Clarence strutted uneasily about the piano,
+taking up his fiddle now and then, striking a note, and screwing up his
+strings into concord, with many impatient glances. But still the girls
+talked. Was it about their dresses or some nonsense, or was it a more
+serious subject, which could thus be discussed without masculine help?
+but this matter they never fathomed, nor have they found out till this
+hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+SOCIETY.
+
+
+Notwithstanding such little social crosses, however, the society at the
+Parsonage, as thus constituted, was very agreeable. Mr. May, though he
+had his faults, was careful of his daughter. He sat in the drawing-room
+every evening till she retired, on the nights their visitors came, and
+even when it was Clarence only who remained, an inmate of the house, and
+free to go and come as he pleased. Ursula, he felt, must not be left
+alone, and though it is uncertain whether she fully appreciated the care
+he took of her, this point in his character is worth noting. When the
+young party went out together, to skate, for instance, as they did, for
+several merry days, Reginald and Janey were, he considered, sufficient
+guardians for their sister. Phoebe had no chaperon--"Unless you will take
+that serious office upon you, Ursula," she said, shrugging her shoulders
+prettily; but she only went once or twice, so well was she able, even
+when the temptation was strongest, to exercise self-denial, and show her
+perfect power of self-guidance. As for old Tozer and his wife, the idea
+of a chaperon never entered their homely head. Such articles are
+unnecessary in the lower levels of society. They were anxious that their
+child should enjoy herself, and could not understand the reason of her
+staying at home on a bright frosty day, when the Mays came to the door
+in a body to fetch her.
+
+"No, if they'd have gone down on their knees, nor if I had gone down on
+mine, would that girl have left me," cried the old lady, with tears in
+her eyes. "She do behave beautiful to her old granny. If so be as I
+haven't a good night, no power on earth would make that child go
+pleasuring. It's 'most too much at her age."
+
+But Phoebe confided to Ursula that it was not altogether anxiety about
+her grandmother.
+
+"I have nobody of my own to go with. If I took grandpapa with me, I
+don't think it would mend matters. Once or twice it was possible, but
+not every day. Go and enjoy yourself, dear," she said, kissing her
+friend.
+
+Ursula was disposed to cry rather than to enjoy herself, and appealed to
+Reginald, who was deeply touched by Phoebe's fine feeling. He took his
+sister to the ice, but that day he went so far as to go back himself to
+No. 6, actually into the house, to make a humble protest, yet to
+insinuate his admiration. He was much impressed by, and approved highly
+of this reticence, having a very high standard of minor morals for
+ladies, in his mind, like most young men.
+
+"She is not one of the girls who rush about everywhere, and whom one is
+sick of seeing," he said.
+
+"I think it is very silly," cried Janey. "Who cares for a chaperon! and
+why shouldn't Phoebe have her fun, like the rest, instead of shutting
+herself up in a stuffy room with that dreadful old Mrs. Tozer?"
+
+Her brother reproved her so sharply for this speech that Janey withdrew
+in tears, still asking "Why?" as she rushed to her room. Clarence
+Copperhead, for his part, stroked his moustache and said it was a bore.
+
+"For she is the best skater of all the ladies here," he said. "I beg
+your pardon, Miss Ursula. She's got so much go in her, and keeps it up
+like fun. She's the best I know for keeping a fellow from getting tired;
+but as it's Thursday, I suppose she'll be there in the evening."
+
+Clarence never called them anything but Miss Ursula and Miss Phoebe,
+dropping the prefix in his thoughts. He felt that he was "a little sweet
+upon" them both; and, indeed, it had gleamed dully across his mind that
+a man who could marry them both need never be bored, but was likely
+always to find something "to do." Choice, however, being necessary, he
+did not see his way so clearly as to which he would choose. "The
+mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are fatter," he said to
+himself, if not in these immortal words, yet with full appreciation of
+the sentiment. Ursula began to understand dinners with a judicious
+intelligence, which he felt was partly created by his own instructions
+and remarks; but in the evening it was Phoebe who reigned supreme. She
+was so sensible that most likely she could invent a _menu_ all out of
+her own head, he thought, feeling that the girl who got him through the
+"Wedding March" with but six mistakes, was capable of any intellectual
+feat. He had not the slightest doubt that it was in his power to marry
+either of the girls as soon as he chose to intimate his choice; and in
+the mean time he found it very agreeable to maintain a kind of mental
+possibility of future proprietorship of them both.
+
+And thus the pleasant life ran on in the most agreeable absorption and
+abstraction from the world outside. "Don't ask any one else; why should
+we have any one else?" they all said, except Janey, who had condescended
+to appear in the evening in her best frock, though she was not admitted
+at dinner, and who thought a few additional guests, and a round game now
+and then, would be delightful variations upon the ordinary programme;
+but the others did not agree with her. They became more and more
+intimate, mingling the brother and sister relationship with a something
+unnamed, unexpressed, which gave a subtle flavour to their talks and
+flirtations. In that incipient stage of love-making this process is very
+pleasant even to the spectators, full of little excitements and
+surprises, and sharp stings of momentary quarrel, and great revolutions,
+done with a single look, which are infinitely amusing to the lookers-on.
+The house became a real domestic centre, thought of by each and all with
+tender sentiment, such as made its owners somewhat proud of it, they
+could scarcely tell why. Even Mr. May felt a certain complacence in the
+fact that the young men were so fond of the Parsonage, and when he heard
+complaints of the coldness and dullness of domestic intercourse, smiled,
+and said that he did not feel it so, with that pleasant sense of
+something superior in himself to cause this difference, which is sweet
+to the greatest Stoic; for he was not as yet enlightened as to the
+entire indifference of the little circle to any charm in him, and would
+have been utterly confounded had any one told him that to the grave and
+reflective Northcote, whom he had treated with such magnanimous charity,
+binding him (evidently) by bonds of gratitude to himself for ever, it
+was little Ursula, and not her father, who was the magnet of attraction.
+Mr. May was a clever man, and yet it had not occurred to him that any
+comparison between his own society and that of Ursula was possible.
+Ursula! a child! He would have laughed aloud at the thought.
+
+But all this pleasant society, though father and daughter both agreed
+that it cost nothing, for what is a cake and a cup of tea? and the late
+dinners and the extra maid, and the additional fires, and general
+enlargement of expenditure made immense inroads, it must be allowed,
+into the additional income brought by Clarence Copperhead. The first
+quarter's payment was spent, and more than spent, before it came. The
+money that was to be laid up for that bill of Tozer's--perhaps--had now
+no saving peradventure left in it; for the second half would not be due
+till two months after the Tozer bill, and would but be half, even if
+procurable at once. Mr. May felt a slight shock while this gleamed
+across his mind, but only for a moment. There was still a month, and a
+month is a long time, and in the mean time James was almost certain to
+send something, and his Easter offerings might, probably would, this
+year be something worth having. Why they should be better than usual
+this year Mr. May did not explain to himself; his head was a little
+turned it must be supposed by the momentary chance of having more money
+in his hands than he used to have. Already he had got into the habit of
+ordering what he wanted somewhat recklessly, without asking himself how
+the things he ordered were to be paid for, and, as so often happened,
+followed up that first tampering with the rules of right and wrong by a
+general recklessness of the most dangerous kind. He was not so much
+alone as he had been; his house, in which he was infinitely more amiable
+than of old, had become more pleasant to him; he liked his life better.
+His son was independent with an income of his own, and therefore he felt
+much more respect for him, and treated him as a companion. His daughter
+had developed, if not in the way of _entrées_, a talent for dinners
+which raised her very much in his eyes; and naturally the regard shown
+to her by the visitors reacted upon Mr. May, though it had not crossed
+his mind as yet that any one could be in love with Ursula. All this made
+him happier in spite of himself. When you begin to esteem and be proud
+of your children your life is naturally happier than when you scoff and
+jeer at them, and treat them as creatures of inferior mould to yourself.
+Mr. May found out all at once that Reginald was a fine young fellow,
+that Ursula was pretty and pleasant, and that droll Janey, with her
+elf-locks and angles, was amusing at least, if no more. As for the
+little ones, they were considerably thrust into a corner when the elder
+youth forced itself into the front. They learned their lessons in
+corners, and had their tea by themselves, and were much humbled and
+subdued from the moment in which their school-books and toys had
+meandered over the whole house, and their looks and likings had been
+just as important as anything else. When there is no mother to protect
+them, the elder sister's first lover marks a terribly critical period
+for the children of the house. They were banished from the
+drawing-room, except on special occasions, when they came _en grande
+tenue_, in their best things, and were jeered at by Mr. Copperhead. He
+called them "the kids," both Amy and Robin were aware, and they resented
+it unspeakably. Thus the inward happiness of the Mays confined itself to
+the upper regions of the family. Even Betsy regretted the days when, if
+she had more to do, she had at least "her kitchen to herself," and
+nobody to share the credit. There was more fuss and more worry, if a
+trifle less labour, and the increase in consequence which resulted from
+being called cook, instead of maid-of-all-work, was scarcely so sweet in
+possession as had seemed in prospect.
+
+"Them late dinners" were the object of her perpetual railings; "oh, how
+much more comfortable it was, if gentry would but think so, to have your
+dinner at two, and get done with your washing up before you was cleaned,
+or had any occasion to bother yourself about your cap!" When little Amy
+cried over the loneliness of "the children's tea," which they frequently
+had to pour out for themselves, Betty gave her a cake and a kiss, and
+felt disposed to cry too.
+
+"And she don't know, poor child, not the half," said Betty, which was a
+kind of oracular sentence difficult for Betty herself to understand. The
+children had nothing to do with the late dinner; they were sent to bed
+earlier than they used to be, and scolded if any distant sounds of romps
+made itself audible at seven o'clock when their elders were dining; and
+then when the little ones went injured to bed, and Johnnie, indignant,
+worked at his lessons by himself in a corner of the old nursery, deeply
+aware that his school-boy boots and jacket were quite unfit for the
+drawing-room, the grown-up young people ran lightly upstairs, all smiles
+and pleasure, and those delightful evenings began.
+
+The children sometimes could not get to sleep for the piano and the
+raspings of the fiddle, which sounds of mirth suggested nothing but the
+wildest enjoyment to them; and when the door opened now and then, bursts
+of laughter and mingling voices would come out like the sounds the Peri
+heard at the gates of Paradise. The elder ones were happy; their little
+atoms of individual life had all united for the moment into one sunshiny
+and broad foundation, on which everything seemed to rest with that
+strange sense of stability and continuance, which such a moment of
+happiness, though it carries every element of change in it, almost
+invariably brings. It felt as if it might go on for ever, and yet the
+very sentiment that inspired it made separation and convulsion
+inevitable--one of those strange paradoxes which occur every day.
+
+Thus the year crept round, and winter melted away with all its
+amusements, and spring began. Mr. Northcote's time at Salem Chapel was
+more than half over, a fact on which the congregation congratulated
+itself much.
+
+"If so be as he had a settled charge of his own, I shouldn't be sorry to
+see him gone to-morrow," said one of the recent members.
+
+"Settled charge! You take my word," said Mrs. Pigeon, who was getting
+old, but always continued a woman of spirit, "he'll never have a settled
+charge in our connection. He carries on here, 'cause he can't help
+hisself, but he ain't cut out for a pastor, and he's a deal too thick
+with them Church folks. A parson, too! I'd 'a thought he had more
+pride."
+
+"Nay, now, but I don't wish him no harm," said the first speaker; "he's
+a civil spoken gentleman if he ain't so free and so pleasant as a body
+looks for."
+
+"Civil spoken!" said the other; "one of our own ministers in our own
+connection! Bless you! they're our servants, that's what they are. I'd
+like to see one on 'em as 'ud take upon him to be civil spoken to me."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't go as far as that," cried Mrs. Brown; "we pays 'em
+their salary, and we 'as a right to a civil word: but a minister's a
+minister, and I'll show him respect as long as he deserves it. I ain't
+one for being too hard upon ministers, especially when they're young
+men, as has their temptations like, we all know."
+
+"I don't know what you call temptations," said Mrs. Pigeon; "licking the
+dust under the feet of a Church parson! and after speaking up so bold
+against young May and them old cheats at the College. I wish he was gone
+from here, that's what I wish, and our old pastor (if we can't get none
+better) back again. He was one as knew his place, and wouldn't have set
+his foot inside one of them Parsonages. Parsonages, indeed! kept up with
+our money. If ever there was an iniquity on this earth it's a State
+Church, and all the argufying in the world won't put that out of me."
+
+It happened that Northcote was in the poulterer's shop, talking to the
+poulterer himself at this moment, and he heard the conclusion of this
+speech delivered with much unction and force. Such sentiments would have
+charmed him three months ago, and probably he would have thought this
+uneducated but strenuous partisan an extremely intelligent woman. He
+hurried away now with an uncomfortable smile. If an opinion is the
+right opinion, why should it have an air of absurdity thrown upon it by
+being thus uttered in ungrammatical language by a poulterer's wife?
+Truth is the same by whomsoever stated; but yet, was not dogmatism on
+any subject the sign of an inexperienced and uncultivated, or a rude and
+untutored mind? What did this woman know of the Parsonage, which she
+supposed she helped to pay for? What had he himself known three months
+ago of Reginald May, whom he had assaulted so savagely? This Church
+family, which Mrs. Pigeon knew no better than to abuse, with what divine
+charity it had received himself, notwithstanding his public sin against
+it. When he thought of that public sin, Northcote's countenance glowed
+with shame, and it continued to glow with a more agreeable warmth when
+he escaped into thought of the goodness which the Mays had shown him.
+Had there ever been such goodness? Was there ever so sweet a home of the
+heart as that faded, homely drawing-room? His heart beat high, his steps
+quickened; they carried him down Grange Lane in a path so often trod
+that he felt there must be a special track of his own under the garden
+walls, going Parsonage way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+LOVE-MAKING.
+
+
+Mrs. Sam Hurst had been a long time out of Carlingford; she had been
+paying visits among her friends, with whom, though the young Mays would
+never believe it, she was very popular, for she was not ill-natured in
+her gossip, and she was often amusing in the fulness of her interest in
+other people. It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and
+softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange Lane; the
+doors of the houses began to be left open, and the girls at the
+Parsonage had taken to running out and in without their hats, gleaming
+through the little shrubbery in front, and round to the back garden. One
+evening it was so mild that they all (which comprehensive term,
+sometimes extended to "the whole party," began to be commonly used among
+them with that complacence in the exclusiveness of their little coterie,
+which every "set" more or less feels) came downstairs in a body, and
+wandered about among the laurel-bushes in the spring moonlight. There
+was Ursula and Mr. Northcote, Phoebe and Reginald, and Clarence
+Copperhead, with Janey behind, who followed where they went, but did not
+enjoy the ceremony. It was bad enough in the drawing-room; but
+moonlight, who cared about moonlight? Janey said to herself indignantly.
+She was the only one who looked up to Mrs. Hurst's window, where there
+was a faint light, and when the voices became audible Janey perceived
+some one come behind the curtain and look out. The girl was divided
+between her faithful family feud against Mrs. Hurst, and a vague sense
+of satisfaction in her presence as a Marplot, who one way or other would
+infallibly interfere.
+
+"She will say something to papa," said Janey, her heart involuntary
+rising at the thought, though at the same time she shivered to think of
+the treachery involved to all the tenets of the family. Janey sat on the
+steps and listened to the others talking. No one pointed out the stars
+to her, or followed her about as Reginald followed Phoebe. As for Mr.
+Copperhead, Janey thought he was almost as lonely as she was. He had
+lighted his cigar, and was strolling up and down, interrupting both of
+the other pairs occasionally, breaking into the midst of Northcote's
+astronomical lecture abruptly, and stopping Phoebe herself in the middle
+of a sentence. Janey, watching sharply from the steps, noticed, as a
+spectator has it in her power to do, that whereas Northcote was
+extremely impatient of the interruption, and discovered immediately that
+the stars could be seen better from another spot, Phoebe took it quite
+sweetly, and addressed herself to him as she went on, which Reginald did
+not like, Janey was sure. Were they in love with each other? the girl
+asked herself--was this how it was managed? When the moon went under a
+cloud for a moment Clarence Copperhead's vast shirt-front made a kind of
+substitute down below. Janey lost the other two among the bushes, but
+she always beheld that orb of white moving backward and forward with two
+dark figures near. She felt sure Reginald did not want to have him in
+such close neighbourhood; but Phoebe's voice went on talking to both
+alike. Janey was half-pleased, and half-indignant. She had a jealous
+dislike, such as most girls have, to see her brother engrossed by any
+one, but no more did she like to see another man preferred to Reginald;
+she was jealous both ways. As she sat and watched, a slight little creak
+came to her sharp ears, and looking up she saw Mrs. Hurst's drawing-room
+window opened the very least little bit in the world. Ah! Janey said,
+with a long breath. There was nothing she would not have given to have
+talked it all over with Mrs. Hurst, and to hear what she would say, if
+she had not been the traditional adversary against whom all the family
+steeled their hearts.
+
+That was a very pleasant evening; they all remembered it afterwards. It
+was the moment when Ursula discovered all in the darkness, when the moon
+was under that cloud, _what Mr. Northcote meant_. It flashed upon her
+like a sudden light, though they were standing in the shade of a great
+laurel. He did not make any declaration, nor say a word that she could
+remember. And yet all at once, by some magic which is not explainable,
+she found out that that was what he was meaning. This is not an
+admirable sentence; but it is difficult to know how to put it better. It
+was quite a strange discovery. It set her heart beating, thumping
+against her breast. She herself meant nothing whatever, and she never
+thought of any response, or of the time when he might ask her to make a
+response. The sensation of the moment was quite enough for Ursula. She
+was greatly startled, surprised, yet not surprised, touched and full of
+a wondering respect and sympathy, awe and half-amusement. Could it be
+possible, was _that_ what it was? Though he was not conscious of
+betraying himself in any way, Northcote thought he had done something to
+offend her. Her shy silence and withdrawal from him went to his heart;
+never had her society been so sweet, never had he had her so completely
+to himself. What had he done to alarm or offend her? He went home with
+his head full of this, able to think of nothing else.
+
+And Phoebe went home too, escorted by Reginald and Clarence together, to
+her grandfather's door, with her head buzzing with many thoughts. It was
+not her heart that was in a commotion, like little Ursula's. She was
+more experienced, though she was not much older, and had gone through
+such discoveries before now. But a much more perplexing accident had
+befallen her. Reginald May had fallen in love with her, and Clarence
+Copperhead, after considerable resistance and hanging off, was making up
+his mind to propose. Yes. Phoebe felt with unerring instinct that this
+was the state of affairs. He was making up his mind to propose. So much
+of her and so little of her had at length made an end of all the prudent
+hesitations that lay under the crisp pie-crust of that starched and
+dazzling shirt front. That he should never be able to speak a word to
+her without that May! that fellow! "the son of my coach!" poking himself
+in, was a thing which at length had fired his cool blood to fever heat.
+Nobody else could play his accompaniments like that, or pull him through
+the "Wedding March" like that; and who would look better at the head of
+a table, or show better at a ball, or get on better in society? No one
+he knew, certainly. It was true she was only a Minister's daughter, and
+without a penny; for the little fortune Mr. and Mrs. Beecham had
+carefully gathered together and preserved for their daughter, what was
+that to the Copperheads?--nothing, not a penny. But, on the other hand,
+Clarence felt that he himself, or rather his father, was rich enough to
+be able to afford a wife without money. There was no reason why he
+should marry money; and a wife like Phoebe, what a relief that would be,
+in the way of education! No need of any more coaching. She was clever,
+and fond of reading, and so forth. She would get everything up for him,
+if he went into parliament, or that sort of thing; why, she'd keep him
+posted up. "There ain't many girls that could do that," he said to
+himself. She would save him worlds of trouble; save his money even, for
+coaches and that sort of thing cost money; and then that fellow May
+would be out of it; his nose would be put out of joint. These are not
+eloquent sentiments, but so it was that Clarence's natural feelings
+expressed themselves. He had intimated that he would see Miss Phoebe
+home, but May had stalked out side by side with him--had not left them
+for a moment; and Clarence determined that he would not stand it any
+longer. If there was no other way of shaking this fellow off, why, then
+he would make up his mind to it, and propose.
+
+Phoebe somehow saw all this written in his fine countenance, and she saw
+at the same time that poor Reginald, who was (she thought) young and
+simple, and just the sort of poor boy to yield to such folly, was in
+love with her; and her head was buzzing with the double discovery. The
+first was (of course) the most important. She had no time to indulge her
+thoughts while she walked up between them, keeping them in play each
+with a word, talking all the way to fill up the somewhat sulky silence
+between them; but when she got safely within the garden door, and heard
+it shut behind her, and found herself in the quiet of the little green
+enclosure, with the budding trees and the lilac bushes for her only
+companions, the relief was very grateful to her. She could not go in all
+at once to make conversation for grandpapa and grandmamma, and give them
+the account they liked to hear, of how she had "enjoyed herself." She
+took off her hat to be cooler, and walked slowly down under the
+moonlight, her head all throbbing and rustling with thought. The paths
+were bordered with primroses, which made a pale glimmer in the moon, and
+shed a soft fragrance about. Phoebe had nothing to appeal to Heaven
+about, or to seek counsel from Nature upon, as sentimental people might
+do. She took counsel with herself, the person most interested. What was
+the thing she ought to do? Clarence Copperhead was going to propose to
+her. She did not even take the trouble of saying to herself that he
+loved her; it was Reginald who did that, a totally different person, but
+yet the other was more urgent. What was Phoebe to do? She did not dislike
+Clarence Copperhead, and it was no horror to her to think of marrying
+him. She had felt for years that this might be on the cards, and there
+were a great many things in it which demanded consideration. He was not
+very wise, nor a man to be enthusiastic about, but he would be a career
+to Phoebe. She did not think of it humbly like this, but with a big
+capital--a Career. Yes; she could put him into parliament, and keep him
+there. She could thrust him forward (she believed) to the front of
+affairs. He would be as good as a profession, a position, a great work
+to Phoebe. He meant wealth (which she dismissed in its superficial aspect
+as something meaningless and vulgar, but accepted in its higher aspect
+as an almost necessary condition of influence), and he meant all the
+possibilities of future power. Who can say that she was not as romantic
+as any girl of twenty could be? only her romance took an unusual form.
+It was her head that was full of throbbings and pulses, not her heart.
+No doubt there would be difficulties and disagreeables. His father would
+oppose it, and Phoebe felt with a slight shiver that his father's
+opposition was nothing to be laughed at, and that Mr. Copperhead had it
+in him to crush rebellion with a ferocious hand. And would Clarence have
+strength of mind or spirit to hold out? This was a very serious
+question, and one which included all the rest. If she accepted his
+proposal, would he have the heart to stand to it against his father? or
+would her consent simply involve her in a humiliating struggle which
+would end in defeat? That was the great question. If this should be the
+case, what use would there be in any sacrifice that Phoebe might make? A
+struggle with Mr. Copperhead would affect her father's position as much
+or more than her own, and she knew that a great many of the congregation
+would infallibly side with Mr. Copperhead, feeling it a most dangerous
+precedent that a pastor's daughter should be encouraged to think herself
+eligible for promotion so great, and thus interfere with the more
+suitable matrimonial prospects of wealthy young men who might happen to
+attend her father's chapel. Such a thing the conscript fathers of the
+connection would feel ought to be put a stop to with a high hand. So it
+may be supposed that Phoebe had enough to think of, as she strolled
+about in the moonlight alone, between the two borders of primroses.
+Tozer thought she had gone upstairs to take off her "things," and it was
+natural that when a girl got before a looking-glass she should forget
+the progress of time; so that he merely wondered at her non-appearance
+until the little chill of air stole in from the open door, and made Mrs.
+Tozer cough.
+
+"If it ain't our Phoebe a-walking about in the moonlight like a
+play-actor!" said Tozer, in consternation, drawing aside the curtain to
+look out. "I'll tell you what, old woman, the girl's in love; and that's
+what it is." He thought this was a capital joke, and followed his
+witticism with a laugh.
+
+"Not much wonder, neither, with all them young fellows about," said the
+old lady. "You may laugh; but, Tozer, I ain't so easy in my mind as you.
+If it's him as they call Northcote, that don't matter; but if it's that
+big gabby of a Copperhead, there's troubles a-coming; though he's as
+rich, they do say, as Creases, whoever Creases might be, and it would be
+a credit to have the girl make a match like that out of our house."
+
+Whereat Tozer again laughed loud and long.
+
+"Well," he said, "if Mister Creases himself was here, I wouldn't say as
+he was a bit too good for our Phoebe. Don't you trouble your head, old
+woman; Copperhead or t'other one, let her make her choice. Phoebe
+junior's the girl as'll be their match, and you may take my word for
+that. Phoebe's the one as will keep them in their right place, whoever
+they may be."
+
+Phoebe heard this laugh echo out into the quiet of the night. Of course,
+she did not know the cause of it, but it disturbed her in her thoughts.
+Poor, kind, excellent grandpapa, she said to herself, how would he get
+on with Mr. Copperhead? He would touch his forelock to so rich a man. He
+would go down metaphorically upon his knees before so much wealth; and
+what a fool Clarence would be thought on every side for wanting to marry
+her! Even his mother, who was a romantic woman, would not see any
+romance in it if it was she, Phoebe, who was the poor girl whom he wanted
+to marry. Ursula might have been different, who was a clergyman's
+daughter, and consequently a lady by prescriptive right. But herself,
+Tozer's granddaughter, Tom Tozer's niece, fresh from the butter-shop, as
+it were, and redolent of that petty trade which big trade ignores, as
+much as the greatest aristocrat does! Phoebe was too sensible by far to
+vex or distress herself on this point, but she recognised it without any
+hesitation, and the question remained--was it for her advantage to enter
+upon this struggle, about which there could be no mistake, or was it
+not? And this question was very difficult. She did not dislike
+Clarence, but then she was not in love with him. He would be a Career,
+but he was not a Passion, she said to herself with a smile; and if the
+struggle should not turn out successful on her part, it would involve a
+kind of ruin, not to herself only, but to all concerned. What, then, was
+she to do? The only thing Phoebe decided upon was that, if she did enter
+upon that struggle, it _must_ be successful. Of this alone there could
+be no manner of doubt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+A DISCLOSURE.
+
+
+"Well, young ladies!" said Mrs. Sam Hurst, "I left you very quiet, but
+there seems to be plenty going on now-a-days. What a beautiful moon
+there was last night! I put up my window to look at it, and all at once
+I found there was a party going on below. Quite a _fête champêtre_. I
+have newly come from abroad, you know, and it seemed quite congenial. I
+actually rubbed my eyes, and said to myself, 'I can't have come home.
+It's Boulogne still, it isn't Carlingford!'"
+
+"There was no company," said Ursula with dignity; "there was only our
+own party. A friend of Reginald's and a friend of mine join us often in
+the evening, and there is papa's pupil--if you call that a party. We are
+just as quiet as when you went away. We never invite strangers. We are
+as much by ourselves as ever."
+
+"With a friend of Reginald's, and a friend of yours, and papa's pupil!"
+said Mrs. Hurst, laughing; "double your own number, Ursula! and I don't
+suppose Janey counts yet. Why, there is a young man too many. How dare
+you waste the gifts of Providence, you prodigal child? And now let me
+hear who they are."
+
+"You may say Janey doesn't count," cried that young woman in person.
+"Oh, Mrs. Hurst, what a bore they are! If that's society, I don't care
+for society. One always following Ursula about whenever she moves, so
+that you can't say a word to her; and the others pulling poor Phoebe to
+pieces, who hates them, I am sure. Phoebe was so jolly at first. She
+would talk to you, or she would play for you! Why, she taught Johnnie
+and me a part-song to sing with her, and said he had a delightful
+voice; but she never has any time to look at us now," said Janey,
+stopping in this breathless enumeration of wrongs. "She is always taken
+up with those horrible men."
+
+"I suppose you call Reginald a horrible man?" said Ursula, with rising
+colour. "If that was my opinion of my own brother, I should take care
+not to say it, at least."
+
+"Oh, Reginald isn't the worst! There's your Mr. Northcote, and there's
+that Copperhead--Woodenhead, we call him in the nursery. Oh, how papa
+can put up with him, I can't tell! he never had any patience with us.
+You can't think how dull he is, Mrs. Hurst! I suppose girls don't mind
+when a man _goes on_, whether he's stupid or not. I never heard Mr.
+Northcote say much that was interesting either; but he looks clever, and
+that is always something."
+
+"So Mr. Northcote is Ursula's one," said Mrs. Hurst, laughing. "You are
+a perfect jewel, Janey, and I don't know how I should ever find out
+anything that's going on, but for you. Northcote! it is a new name in
+Carlingford. I wonder I have not heard of him already; or have you kept
+him entirely to yourself, and let nobody know that there was a new man
+in the place?"
+
+There was a little pause here. The girls knew nothing about Northcote,
+except the one fact that he was a Dissenter; but as Mrs. Hurst was an
+excellent Churchwoman, much better than they were, who had, perhaps,
+been brought up too completely under the shadow of the Church to believe
+in it implicitly, they hesitated before pronouncing before her that
+unfortunate name.
+
+"I don't know whether you are aware," Ursula said at last, with some
+slowness and reluctance, "that papa's pupil is of a Dissenting family.
+He is related, through his mother, to our cousins, the Dorsets." (This
+fact Ursula put forth with a little triumph, as refuting triumphantly
+any ready conclusion as to the social standing of Dissenters.) "I think
+Mr. Northcote came first to the house with Mr. Copperhead. He is a
+Dissenter too."
+
+"Why, Ursula," cried Mrs. Hurst, "not the man who attacked Reginald in
+the Meeting? It was all in the papers. He made a frightful violent
+speech about the College and the sinecure, and what a disgraceful thing
+it was that your brother, a young man, could accept it. You don't mean
+him?"
+
+Ursula was struck dumb. She looked up at her questioner with her lips
+falling apart a little, with a look of mingled consternation and fear.
+
+"Of course it can't be," said the gossip, who was not ill-natured. "You
+never read the papers, but your papa does, and so does Reginald. Oh,
+you may be sure it is some other Northcote, though I don't know the
+name."
+
+"Ursula doesn't like to tell you," said Janey; "but he's the Dissenting
+Minister, I know he is. Well! I don't care! He is just as good as
+anybody else. I don't go in for your illiberal ways of thinking, as if
+no one was worth talking to except in the Church. Mr. Northcote is very
+nice. I don't mind what you say. Do you mean to tell me that all those
+curates and people who used to plague our lives out were nicer? Mr.
+Saunders, for instance; he is a real good Churchman, I have always heard
+people say--"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Janey; you don't know anything about it," said Mrs.
+Hurst, whom this wonderful disclosure elevated into authority. "A
+Dissenting Minister! Ah, me! what a thing it is for you poor girls to
+have no mother. I did not think your papa would have had so little
+consideration as to expose you to society like that. But men are so
+thoughtless."
+
+"I don't know what right you have to speak of exposing us to society
+like that," cried Ursula, quivering all over with sudden excitement.
+
+She felt as if some one had dug a knife into her, and turned it round in
+the wound.
+
+"Men have so little consideration," repeated Mrs. Hurst, "especially
+when a girl is concerned. Though how your papa could have received a man
+who made such an assault upon him--even if he had passed over the attack
+upon Reginald, he was attacked himself."
+
+"It must be a mistake," said Ursula, growing pale. Her hands came
+together half-unconsciously, and clasped in a mute gesture of appeal.
+"It is not possible; it cannot be true."
+
+"Well, it is very odd that your papa should show such charity, I allow.
+I don't think it is in human nature. And Reginald, what does Reginald
+say? If it is that man, it will be the strangest thing I ever heard of.
+But there could not be two Northcotes, Dissenting Ministers in
+Carlingford, could there? It is very strange. I can't think what your
+papa can have had in his head. He is a man who would do a thing for a
+deep reason, whether he liked it or not. How did this Mr. Northcote come
+first here?"
+
+"Oh, it was through Mr. Copperhead," said Janey. "It was the first
+dinner-party we had. You should have seen the fright Ursula was in! And
+papa would not let me come to dinner, which was a horrid shame. I am
+sure I am big enough, bigger than Ursula."
+
+"If he came with the pupil, that makes it all quite plain. I suppose
+your papa did not want to quarrel with his pupil. What a predicament for
+him, if that was the case! Poor Mr. May! Of course, he did not want to
+be uncivil. Why, it was in the 'Gazette,' and the 'Express,' and all the
+papers; an account of the Meeting, and that speech, and then a leading
+article upon it. I always file the 'Express,' so you can see it if you
+like. But what an embarrassment for your poor papa, Ursula, that you
+should have taken this man up! And Reginald, how could he put up with
+it, a touchy young man, always ready to take offence? You see now the
+drawback of not paying a little attention to what is going on round you.
+How uncomfortable you must have made them! It might be very well to look
+over an offence, not to be unpleasant to the stranger; but that you
+should have thoughtlessly led this man on into the position of an
+intimate--"
+
+"I did nothing of the sort," cried Ursula, growing red and growing pale,
+starting up from her work with a sense of the intolerable which she
+could not restrain. "What have I done to be spoken of so? I never led
+him on, or any one. What you say is cruel, very cruel! and it is not
+true."
+
+"Isn't it true that he was here last night, following you about, as
+Janey says? Oh, I know how these sort of things go on. But you ought to
+think of your papa's position, and you ought to think of Reginald. If it
+was to come to the Bishop's ears that St. Roque's Parsonage was a refuge
+for Dissenters! For I know who _your_ friend is, Ursula! That Tozer
+girl, another of them! Indeed, I assure you, it makes me feel very
+uncomfortable. And Reginald, just at the very beginning of his career."
+
+Ursula did not make any reply. She bent her head down over her work, so
+low that her flushed cheeks could scarcely be seen, and went on
+stitching with energy and passion such as needles and thread are seldom
+the instruments of; and yet how much passion is continually worked away
+through needles and thread! Mrs. Hurst sat still for some time, looking
+at her, very little satisfied to keep silence, but feeling that she had
+discharged an efficient missile, and biting her lips not to say more to
+weaken its effect. When some time had passed in this way, and it was
+apparent that Ursula had no intention of breaking the silence, her
+visitor got up and shook out her skirts with a little flutter of
+indignation.
+
+"You are offended," she said, "though I must say it is very ill on your
+part to be offended. What motive can I have but your good, and regard
+for your poor dear papa? It is he that is always the victim, poor man,
+whether it is your vagaries he has to pay for, or Reginald's
+high-flying. Oh, yes; you may be as angry as you like, Ursula; but you
+will find out the difference if your encouragement of this Dissenter
+interferes with something better--a living for Reginald, perhaps, or
+better preferment for your poor papa."
+
+"Oh!" cried Janey, awe-stricken; "but after all, it was not Ursula; it
+was papa himself. I think he must have done it to please Mr. Copperhead;
+for, Mrs. Hurst, you know Mr. Copperhead is very important. We have all
+to give in to him. He pays papa three hundred a-year."
+
+"Three thousand wouldn't make up for it if it spoilt all your career,"
+cried the indignant woman, and she swept away without saying any more to
+Ursula, who kept quite still over her work without budging. Janey went
+downstairs meekly after her to open the door, whispering an entreaty
+that she would not be angry.
+
+"No, no, I am not angry," said Mrs. Hurst, "but I shall keep it up for a
+day or two. It is the best thing for her. I think she was struck with
+what I said."
+
+Janey stole upstairs again, feeling rather guilty; but Ursula took
+little notice of her. The dinner was ordered and everything settled for
+the day. She was busy with her week's mending and darning, with the
+stockings and other things in a big basket beside her. When she came to
+some articles belonging to Janey, she threw them out with great
+impatience.
+
+"You may surely mend your things yourself, you are big enough. You can
+talk for yourself and me too," cried Ursula with sudden impetuosity; and
+then she sat and worked, her needle flying through the meshes of her
+darning, though it is hard to darn stockings in that impassioned way.
+They were socks of Johnnie's, however, with holes in the heels that you
+could put your fist through, and the way in which the big spans filled
+themselves up under this influence was wonderful to see. Janey, who was
+not fond of mending, set to work quite humbly under the influence of
+this example, and made two or three attempts to begin a conversation but
+without avail.
+
+The girls were seated thus in a disturbed and restless silence, working
+as if for their lives, when the usual little jar of the gate and sound
+of the bell downstairs announced a visitor. On ordinary occasions, they
+were both in the habit of rushing to the window when the gate was opened
+to see who was coming, and Janey had thrown aside her work to do so when
+a look from Ursula stopped her. High-spirited as Janey was, she did not
+dare to disobey that look. By right of the passion that had got
+possession of her, Ursula took the absolute command of the situation in
+a way she had never done before, and some sudden intuition made her
+aware who it was who was coming. The girls both sat there still and
+breathless, waiting for his appearance. He never came in the day, never
+had been seen in the Parsonage at that hour before, and yet Ursula was
+as certain who it was as if she had seen him a mile off. He came into
+the room, himself looking a little breathless and disturbed, and gave a
+quick impatient look at Janey as he went up to her sister. Ursula saw it
+and understood well enough. Janey was in his way; he had come this
+morning with a special purpose. Her heart sank down to her very shoes,
+and then rose again with a feverish and unreal leap. Was it not her duty
+to take the initiative, to cut away the very ground from beneath his
+feet? He took a seat, not far from where she was sitting, and made an
+effort to begin a little ordinary conversation, throwing frequent
+glances at Janey. He said it was a fine day, which was self-evident;
+that he almost feared they would be out; that he had come to--to
+tell her something he had forgotten last night, about--yes,
+about--Cassiopeia's chair, to correct what he said about Orion--yes,
+that was it; and again he looked at Janey, who saw his looks, and
+wondered much what she ought to do--go away, as he evidently wished her,
+or stay and listen, which was the eager desire of her mind. When Ursula
+lifted her head from her darning, and looked at him with cheeks
+alternately white and crimson, Janey felt herself grow hot and
+breathless with kindred excitement, and knew that the moment had come.
+
+"Mr. Northcote," said Ursula, looking at him fixedly, so fixedly that a
+nervous trembling ran over him, "I have a question to ask you. You have
+been coming to us very often, and perhaps papa may know, but I don't. Is
+it true that you made a speech about Reginald when you first came here?"
+
+Janey, looking eagerly on, saw Northcote grow pale, nay, grey in the
+fresh daylight. The colour seemed to ebb out of him. He started very
+slightly, as if waking up, when she began to speak, and then sat looking
+at her, growing greyer and greyer. A moment elapsed before he made any
+reply.
+
+"Yes, I did," he said, with a half-groan of pain in his voice.
+
+"You did! really you did! Oh!" cried Ursula, the hot tears falling
+suddenly out of her eyes, while she still looked at him, "I was hoping
+that it was all some horrible mistake, that you would have laughed. I
+hoped you would laugh and say no."
+
+Northcote cleared his throat; they were waiting for him to defend
+himself. Janey, holding herself on the leash, as it were, keeping
+herself back from springing upon him like a hound. Ursula gazed at him
+with great blazing reproachful eyes; and all he could do was to give
+that sign of embarrassment, of guilt, and confusion. He could not utter
+a word. By the time he had got himself wound up to the point of speech,
+Ursula, impatient, had taken the words out of his mouth.
+
+"Reginald is my brother," she said. "Whatever is against him is against
+us all; we have never had any separate interests. Didn't you think it
+strange, Mr. Northcote, to come to this house, among us all, when you
+had been so unkind to him?"
+
+"Miss May--"
+
+He made a broken sort of outcry and motion of his head, and then cleared
+his throat nervously once more.
+
+"Did you think how your own brothers and sisters would have stood up for
+you? that it would have been an offence to them if anybody had come to
+the house who was not a friend to you? that they would have had a
+right--"
+
+"Miss May," said the culprit; "all this I have felt to the bottom of my
+heart; that I was here on false pretences--that I had no right to be
+here. But this painful feeling was all quenched and extinguished, and
+turned into gratitude by the goodness of your father and brother. I did
+not even know that you had not been told. I thought you were aware from
+the beginning. You were colder than they were, and I thought it was
+natural, quite natural, for it is easier to forgive for one's self than
+for those one loves; and then I thought you melted and grew kinder to
+me, that you saw how all my ideas were changed, all my feelings--my mind
+itself; changed by the great charity, the wonderful goodness I have
+found here!"
+
+"Mr. Northcote!" Ursula had been struggling to break in all the time;
+but while he spoke her words dispersed, her feelings softened, and at
+the end she found nothing but that startled repetition of his name with
+which to answer him. No doubt if he had given her time the eloquence
+would have come back; but he was too much in earnest to be guilty of
+such a mistake.
+
+"What can I say about it?" cried the young man. "It has filled me with
+shame and with happiness. I have been taken in my own trap--those whom I
+attacked as you say--went out of my way to attack, and abused like a
+fool because I knew nothing about them--have shown me what the Bible
+means. Your father and brother knew what I had done, they met me
+separately, quite independent of each other, and both of them held out
+their hands to me; why, except that I had offended them, I cannot tell.
+A stranger, belonging to an obscure class, I had no claim upon them
+except that I had done what ought to have closed their house against
+me. And you know how they have interpreted that. They have shown me what
+the Bible means."
+
+The two girls sat listening, both with their heads bent towards him, and
+their eyes fixed upon his face. When he stopped, Janey got up with her
+work in her lap, and coming a little nearer to Ursula, addressed her in
+a wondering voice.
+
+"Is it _papa_ he is talking of like that?" she said, under her breath.
+
+"Yes," he said, fervently, turning to her. "It is your father. He has
+made charity and kindness real things to me."
+
+"Poor papa!" said Ursula, whose tears were arrested in her eyes by the
+same surprised sensation, half-pleasure, half-pain, which hushed even
+Janey's voice. They were "struck," as Mrs. Hurst had said, but by such a
+strange mingling of feelings that neither knew what to make of them.
+Northcote did not understand what they meant; their words conveyed a
+slight shock of surprise, but no distinct idea to him; and when Janey,
+too much impressed to settle down again, went away after a while
+musingly, carrying her work in the upper skirt of her gown, held like a
+market-woman's apron by her elbow against her side; and he found himself
+to have attained in the very confusion of his intentions to what he
+wished, i.e., an interview with Ursula by herself, he was almost too
+much agitated to take advantage of it. As for Ursula, she had floated a
+hundred miles away from that sensation of last night which, had no
+stronger feeling come in to bewilder her, would have made his errand
+very plain to her mind. She had ceased to think about him, she was
+thinking with a certain tenderness, and wondering, half-awed,
+half-amused, self-questioning, about her father. Was he so good as this?
+had he done this Christian action? were they all perhaps doing papa
+injustice? She was recalled to herself by Northcote's next proceeding.
+He went to the door and closed it after Janey, who had left it open, of
+course, and then he came to the back of the chair on which stood the
+great basket of darning. His voice was tremulous, his eyes liquid and
+shining with emotion.
+
+"Will you forgive me, since they have forgiven me? and may I ask _you_
+something?" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+AN EXTRAVAGANCE.
+
+
+Mr. May did not take any particular notice of what was going on around
+him among the young people. Nobody could have been more startled than
+he, had he been told of the purpose with which Horace Northcote, the
+Dissenting minister, had paid his early morning visit; and though he had
+a half-scornful, half-amused glimmer of insight into the feelings of his
+son, and saw that Clarence Copperhead was heavily veering the same way,
+it did not occur to him that any crisis was approaching. He was enjoying
+himself in his way, and he had not done that for a long time. He dearly
+liked the better way of living, the more liberal strain of housekeeping
+and expenditure; he liked the social meetings in the evening, the talk
+after dinner with the three young men, the half-fatherly flirtation with
+Phoebe, which she too enjoyed much, avowedly preferring him, with pretty
+coquetry, to the others. All this was very pleasant to him; and the
+additional money in his pocket was very pleasant, and when the post came
+in, one of these April mornings, and brought a letter from James,
+enclosing a draft for fifty pounds, his satisfaction was intense. The
+sight of the money brought an itching to his fingers, a restlessness
+about him generally. And yet it was not all that might have been
+desired, only fifty pounds! he had been buoying himself up by vain
+thoughts of how James this time, having been so long writing, would send
+a larger sum, which would at once tide him over the Tozer business, and
+on this account had been giving himself no trouble about it. Never
+before had he been so _insouciant_, although never before had the risk
+been so great. He had suffered so much about it last time, probably,
+that was why he took it so easily now; or was it because his trust in
+the chapter of accidents had grown greater since he was more dependent
+on it? or because of the generally expanded sense of living in him which
+made anxiety uncongenial anyhow? Whatever the cause was, this was the
+effect. A momentary disappointment when he saw how little James's draft
+was--then a sense of that semi-intoxication which comes upon a poor man
+when a sum of money falls into his hands--gradually invaded his soul. He
+tried to settle down to his writing, but did not feel equal to the
+effort. It was too little for the purpose, he said to himself, for which
+he wanted it; but it was enough to do a great many pleasant things with
+otherwise. For the first time he had no urgent bills to swallow it up;
+the very grocer, a long-suffering tradesman who made less fuss than the
+others, and about whom Ursula made less fuss, had been pacified by a
+payment on account of the Copperhead money, and thus had his mouth
+stopped. Barring that bill, indeed, things were in a more comfortable
+state than they had been for a long time in the May household; and
+putting that out of account, James's money would have been the nearest
+approach to luxury--reckoning luxury in its most simple form as money to
+spend without any absolutely forestalling claim upon it--which Mr. May
+had known for years. It is so seldom that poor people have this
+delicious sense of a little, ever so little surplus! and it would be
+hard to say how he could entertain the feeling that it was an overplus.
+There was something of the fumes of desperation perhaps, and impending
+fate in the lightness of heart which seized upon him. He could not keep
+still over his writing. He got up at last, and put James's draft into
+his pocket-book, and got his hat to go out. It was a fine morning, full
+of that exhilaration which belongs only to the spring. He went to the
+bank, and paid in the money, getting a small sum at the same time for
+his own immediate use; but somehow his restlessness was scarcely
+satisfied by that very legitimate piece of business, and he extended his
+walk into the town, and strayed, half by chance, half by intention, to
+the old furniture shop at the other end of the High Street, which was a
+favourite resort of the higher classes in Carlingford, and where
+periodically there was an auction, at which sometimes great bargains
+were to be had. Mr. May went into this dangerous place boldly. The sale
+was going on; he walked into the midst of temptation, forgetting the
+prayer against it, which no doubt he had said that morning. And as evil
+fate would have it, a carved book-case, the very thing he had been
+sighing for, for years, was at that moment the object of the
+auctioneer's praises. It was standing against the wall, a noble piece of
+furniture, in which books would show to an advantage impossible
+otherwise, preserved from dust and damp by the fine old oak and glass
+door. Mr. May's heart gave a little jump. Almost everybody has wished
+for something unattainable, and this had been the object of his desires
+for years. He gave a little start when he saw it, and hurried forward.
+The bidding had actually begun; there was no time to think and consider,
+if he wished to have a chance, and it was going cheap, dead cheap.
+After a minute or two of competition the blood rose to his cheeks, he
+got thoroughly excited. The effect of this excitement was two-fold--not
+only did it drive all thought of prudence out of his head, but it raised
+by several pounds the price of the book-case, which, had he gone about
+it coolly, he might have had at a much cheaper rate. When he suddenly
+woke up to find himself the owner of it, a thrill of consternation ran
+over him--it was all so sudden; and it was perfectly innocent, if only
+he had any money; and to be sure he had James's money, which was not
+enough to do anything else--certainly not to do the thing he wanted it
+for. He tried to laugh at himself for the little thrill of alarm that
+ran through him; but it was too late to recede; and he gave his cheque
+for the money and his directions as to having it sent to the Parsonage,
+with a quake at his heart, yet a little flourish of satisfaction.
+
+"Just what I have been wanting for years," he said, as he examined his
+new acquisition, and the people about looked at him with additional
+respect he felt, not being used to see Mr. May so prompt in payment, and
+so ready with his money. This pleased him also. He walked home with his
+head a little turned still, although there was a quake and flutter
+underneath. Well! he said to himself, who could call it an extravagance?
+a thing he had wanted for years--a thing which was a necessity, not for
+luxury, but everyday use--a thing which was not dear, and which was very
+handsome and substantial, and _really good_; how could any one say it
+was extravagant? Ursula might stare with her big eyes, but she was only
+a silly little girl, and women always were silly about expenses, alarmed
+by a big bold handsome purchase, though there was nobody better at the
+art of frittering away money in pretty nothings. When he got home, he
+began at once nervously to clear the space where it should stand. What
+an improvement it would be! and his books were getting spoiled daily in
+those unsightly, open shelves, entirely spoiled. It was exciting to
+anticipate its arrival, and the admiration and commotion in the house.
+He called in Betsy and gave her orders about it; how, if it came when he
+was absent, it was to be put in that particular place, no other.
+
+"And mind that great care is taken, for it is valuable, and a beautiful
+piece of furniture," he said.
+
+"La, sir!" said Betsy, who was thunderstruck, though she knew it was not
+"her place" to show any feeling. He did not think it was necessary to
+appeal to Ursula on the same subject, but was rather glad to get out
+again, feeling the restlessness which had not been dissipated, but
+rather the reverse. He went and saw one or two poor people, to whom he
+was much more tolerant and kind than his wont, for in general Mr. May
+was not attracted towards the poor; and he gave them a shilling or two
+of the money he had drawn at the bank that morning--though somehow it
+had acquired a certain value in his eyes, and it was with a grudge that
+he took it out of his pocket. I must not spend this, he said to himself;
+but gave the shillings as a kind of tithe or propitiatory offering to
+Providence, that things might go well with him. Why should not things go
+well with him? He was not a bad man, he wronged nobody. He had done
+nothing to-day that a saint might not have done; he wanted the
+book-case, and he had the money, a sum not big enough for any more
+important purpose; but which was far better disposed of so than
+frittered away in nothings, as no doubt it would have otherwise been. By
+the afternoon, when the book-case arrived, he had convinced himself that
+it was not only quite reasonable, but a most lucky chance, a thing he
+could scarcely have hoped for, the opportunity and the money both coming
+in such exact accord with each other. When he returned from his walk the
+girls were looking at it, Ursula somewhat scared, Janey in open
+raptures.
+
+"It is very nice indeed, papa," said the elder girl; "but it must have
+cost a deal of money."
+
+"Be thankful that you haven't got to pay for it," he said, brusquely. He
+was not disposed to stand criticism. How it filled up his bare room, and
+made it, Mr. May thought, all at once into a library, though the old
+writing-table and shabby chairs looked rather worse perhaps than before,
+and suggested renewal in the most urgent way. To make it all of a piece,
+to put a soft Turkey carpet instead of the drugget, how pleasant it
+would be!--not extravagant, only a natural inclination towards the
+seemly, and a desire to have things around him becoming his position. No
+doubt such things were things which he ought to have in his position; a
+gentleman and a scholar, how humiliating it was that nothing but the
+barest elements of comfort should be within his reach. This was not how
+life ought to be; a poor creature like Clarence Copperhead, without
+birth, or breeding, or brains, or anything but money, was able to
+gratify every wish, while he--his senior, his superior! Instead of
+blaming himself, therefore, for his self-indulgence, Mr. May sympathized
+with himself, which is a much less safe thing to do; and accordingly, it
+soon began to appear to him that his self-denial all this time in not
+giving himself what he wanted had been extreme, and that what he had now
+done, in conceding himself so harmless a gratification, was what he
+ought to have done years ago. It was his own money sent to him by his
+dutiful son without conditions; and who had any right to interfere?
+
+When he was at dinner, Betsy came behind his chair under pretence of
+serving him; Betsy, whose place was in the kitchen, who had no right to
+show in the dining-room at all, and whose confused toilette had caught
+Ursula's eye and filled her with horror.
+
+"Please, sir," she said, breathing hot on Mr. May's ear, till he shrank
+with sensitive horror. "Cotsdean's in the kitchen. He says as how he
+must see you; and I can't get him away."
+
+"Ah, Cotsdean? tell him if he has anything to say to me, to write it
+down."
+
+"Which he's done, sir," said Betsy, producing a little bit of paper
+rolled tightly together, "but I wasn't to give it till I'd asked you to
+see him. Oh, please see him, sir, like a dear good gentleman. He looks
+like a man as is going off his head."
+
+"He is a fool," said Mr. May, taking the paper, but setting his teeth as
+he did so. Evidently he must get rid of this fellow--already beginning
+to trouble him, as if he was not the best person to know when and how
+far he could go.
+
+"Tell him I'll attend to it, he need not trouble himself," he said, and
+put the paper into his pocket, and went on with his dinner. Cotsdean,
+indeed! surely there had been enough of him. What were his trumpery
+losses in comparison with what his principal would lose, and how dare
+that fellow turn up thus and press him continually for his own poor
+selfish safety? This was not how Mr. May had felt three months before;
+but everything changes, and he felt that he had a right to be angry at
+this selfish solicitude. Surely it was of as much consequence to him at
+least as to Cotsdean. The man was a fussy disagreeable fool, and nothing
+more.
+
+And as it happened they sat late that night at dinner, without any
+particular reason, because of some discussion into which Clarence and
+Reginald fell, so that it was late before Mr. May got back to his room,
+where his books were lying in a heap waiting their transportation. They
+seemed to appeal to him also, and ask him reproachfully how they had got
+there, and he went to work arranging them all with all the enthusiasm
+natural to a lover of books. He was a book-lover, a man full of fine
+tastes and cultured elegant ways of thinking. If he had been extravagant
+(which he was not) it would have been in the most innocent, nay
+delightful and laudable way. To attach any notion of criminality, any
+suspicion of wrong-doing to such a virtuous indulgence, how unjust it
+would be! There was no company upstairs that evening. Copperhead had
+strolled out with Reginald to smoke his cigar, much against the will of
+the latter, and was boring him all the way to the College with accounts
+of his own lavish expenditure, and how much he had given for this and
+that; his cameos, his diamond studs, the magnificent dressing-case which
+was the wonder of the Parsonage. "Hang it all, what is the good of
+having money if you don't spend it?" said Clarence, and Reginald, who
+had not much money to spend, felt as near hating him as it was in his
+nature to do. Thus Mr. May was released from duty in the drawing-room,
+where Ursula, palpitating with many thoughts which were altogether new
+to her, sat doing her darning, and eluding as well as she could Janey's
+questions. Janey was determinedly conversational that night. She drove
+Ursula nearly out of her senses, and kept Johnnie--who had crept into
+the drawing-room in high delight at finding it for once free to
+him--from learning his lessons.
+
+"Oh, how nice it is to be by ourselves," said Janey, "instead of all
+those new people. I don't mind Phoebe; but strange men in the house, what
+a nuisance they are, always getting in one's way--don't you think so,
+Ursula?"
+
+Ursula made no reply, and after awhile even Janey sank into silence, and
+the drawing-room, usually so gay, got a cold and deserted look. The new
+life which had come in had left its mark, and to go back to what had
+once been so pleasant in the past was no longer possible. Johnnie and
+Janey might like it, having regained their former places, but to Ursula
+the solitude was horrible. She asked herself, with a great blush and
+quiver, what she would do if that temporary filling up of new interests
+and relationships was to fall away, as was likely, and leave her to the
+old life unbroken, to Janey's childish society and questions, and papa's
+imperious and unmodified sway. She grew pale and chill at the very
+thought.
+
+But Mr. May, as we have said, was off duty. He forgot all about Cotsdean
+and the note in his pocket, and set to work with the most boyish
+simplicity of delight to arrange his books in his new shelves. How well
+they looked! never before had their setting done them justice. There
+were books in gorgeous bindings, college prizes which had never shown at
+all, and which now gleamed out in crimson and gold from behind the
+glass, and made their owner's heart beat with pleasure. Alas! to think
+how much innocent pleasure is denied us by the want of that small sum of
+money! and worse still, how an innocent pleasure becomes the reverse of
+innocent when it is purchased by the appropriation of something which
+should have been employed elsewhere. Perhaps, however, the sense of
+guilt which he kept under, added zest in Mr. May's mind to the pleasure
+of his acquisition; he was snatching a fearful joy, Heaven knows how
+soon the penalty might overwhelm him. In the mean time he was determined
+to take the good of it, and enjoy what he had gained.
+
+When the books were all in he sat down at his table and surveyed it,
+rubbing his dusty hands. How much that is childish, how much that is
+fresh, and youthful, and innocent must be in the mind of a man (you
+would say) who could be thus excited about a book-case! and yet this was
+not the kind of man whom you would call unsophisticated and youthful. It
+was probably the state of suppressed excitement in which he was, the
+unreality of his position, that helped him to that sense of elation as
+much as anything else; for emotion is a Proteus ready to take any form,
+and pain itself sometimes finds vent in the quick blazing up of
+fictitious delight, as much as in the moanings that seem more accordant
+with its own nature. He put his hand into his pocket for his pencil to
+make a note of the contents of the new shelves, and then he found
+Cotsdean's note, which he had not forgotten, but which he had felt no
+desire to remember. When he felt it between his fingers his countenance
+fell a little; but he took it out and read it with the smile still upon
+his face. It was a dirty little roll of paper, scribbled in pencil.
+
+     "Rev. Sir,
+
+     "I hope as you are not forgetting the 15th. Pleas excuse
+     anxiety and bad writing, i am a poor nervous man I no, a
+     word of answer just to say as it is all right will much
+     oblidge.
+
+     "Rev. Sir,
+     "Your humble servant,
+     "T. COTSDEAN."
+
+Betsy knocked at the door as he read this, with a request for an answer
+to Mr. Cotsdean's note. "Little Bobby, sir, is waiting for it in the
+kitchen."
+
+"Give Bobby some supper," said Mr. May, "tell him to tell his father
+it's all right, and I shan't forget. You understand? He is a troublesome
+little fool; but it's all right, and I shan't forget, and give the child
+some supper, Betsy. He ought not to be out so late."
+
+"He is a delicate little thing, sir, thankye, sir," said Betsy,
+half-frightened by her master's amiability; and he smiled and repeated,
+
+"Tell him it's all right."
+
+Was it all right, the 15th? Cotsdean must have made a mistake. Mr. May's
+countenance paled, and the laugh went off; he opened a drawer in his
+writing-table and took out a book, and anxiously consulted an entry in
+it. It was the 18th certainly, as clear as possible. Something had been
+written on the opposite page, and had blotted slightly the one on which
+these entries were written; but there it stood, the 18th April. Mr. May
+prided himself on making no mistakes in business. He closed the book
+again with a look of relief, the smile coming back once more to his
+face. The 18th, it was three days additional, and in the time there was
+no doubt that he would find out what was the right thing to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE MILLIONNAIRE.
+
+
+When Mr. May woke next morning, it was not the book-case he thought of,
+but that date which had been the last thing in his mind on the previous
+night. Not the 15th,--the 18th. Certainly he was right, and Cotsdean was
+wrong. Cotsdean was a puzzle-headed being, making his calculations by
+the rule of thumb; but he had put down the date, and there could be no
+possible mistake about it. He got up disposed to smile at the poor man's
+ignorance and fussy restlessness of mind. "I have never left him in the
+lurch, he may trust to me surely in the future," Mr. May said to
+himself, and smiled with a kind of condescending pity for his poor
+agent's timidity; after all, perhaps, as Cotsdean had so little profit
+by it, it was not wonderful that he should be uneasy. After this, it
+might be well if they did anything further of the sort, to divide the
+money, so that Cotsdean too might feel that he had got something for the
+risk he ran; but then, to be sure, if he had not the money he had no
+trouble, except by his own foolish anxiety, for the payment, and always
+a five-pound note or two for his pains. But Mr. May said to himself that
+he would do no more in this way after the present bill was disposed of;
+no, he would make a stand, he would insist upon living within his
+income. He would not allow himself to be subject to these perpetual
+agitations any more. It would require an effort, but after the effort
+was made all would be easy. So he said to himself; and it was the 18th,
+not the 15th, three days more to make his arrangements in. It had come
+to be the 12th now, and up to this moment he had done nothing, having
+that vague faith in the Indian mail which had been realized, and yet had
+not been realized. But still he had nearly a week before him, which was
+enough certainly. Anything that he could do in six months, he said to
+himself, he could easily do in six days--the mere time was nothing; and
+he smiled as he dressed himself leisurely, thinking it all over. Somehow
+everything looked perfectly easy to him this time; last time he had been
+plunged into tragic despair; now, and he did not know why, he took it
+quite easily; he seemed to fear nothing. There were various ways of
+getting the money as natural as the daylight, and in the mean time why
+should he make himself unhappy? As soon as he was ready he went to his
+room and had another look at the book-case which, with his best books in
+it, all in order and ranged in unbroken lines, looked everything a
+book-case ought to look. It made him feel more of a man somehow, more
+like the gentleman and scholar he had meant to be when he started in
+life; he had not intended then to be a poor district incumbent all his
+life, with a family of eight children. His book-case somehow transported
+him back to the days when he had thought of better things for himself,
+and when life had held an ideal for him. Perhaps at the best of times it
+had never been a very high ideal; but when a man is over fifty and has
+given up doing anything but struggle through each day as it comes, and
+get out of his work as best he may, doing what he must, leaving undone
+what he can, any ideal almost seems something higher than himself; but
+the recollection of what he had meant to be, came back to him strongly
+when he looked at his carved oak. It had not been carried out; but still
+he felt rehabilitated and better in his own opinion as he stood beside
+this costly purchase he had made, and felt that it changed his room and
+all his surroundings. It might have been almost wicked to run into such
+an extravagance, but yet it did him good.
+
+"My people came down to the Hall last night," Clarence Copperhead said
+to him at breakfast, "and the Governor is coming over along with Sir
+Robert. He'd like to see you, I am sure, and I suppose they'll be going
+in for sight-seeing, and that sort of thing. He is a dab at
+sight-seeing, is the Governor. I can't think how he can stand it for my
+part."
+
+"Then you must remember that I put myself at his orders for the day,"
+said Mr. May graciously. "Sir Robert is not a bad guide, but I am a
+better, though it sounds modest to say it; and, Ursula, of course Mr.
+Copperhead will take luncheon with us."
+
+"Don't think of that," said Clarence, "he's queer and likes his own way.
+Just as likely as not he'll think he ought to support the hotels of the
+place where he is--sort of local production, you know. I think it's
+nonsense, but that is how it is--that's the man."
+
+"We shall look for him all the same," said Mr. May, with a nod at
+Ursula; and a sudden project sprang up in his mind, wild as projects so
+often are. This father whom his fancy, working upon what Clarence said,
+immediately invested with all the prodigal liberality of a typical rich
+man; this stranger to whom a hundred pounds was less then a penny was to
+himself, would give him the money he wanted. What so easy? He drew a
+long breath, and though he had not been aware that he was anxious, he
+was suddenly conscious of a sense of relief. Yes, to be sure, what so
+simple, what so likely? he would explain his monetary necessities
+lightly and with grace, and Mr. Copperhead would supply them. He was in
+the mildest state of desperation, the painless stage, as may be seen,
+when this strange idea entered into his head. He hugged it, though he
+was a man of the world and might have known better, and it produced a
+kind of elation which would have been a very strange spectacle to any
+looker-on who knew what it meant. The thing seemed done when he next
+thought of it ten minutes later, settled as if it had been so for years.
+Mr. Copperhead would make it all right for him, and after that he would
+undertake such risks no more.
+
+Mr. Copperhead, however, did not come for two days, though Ursula spent
+all the morning and a great deal of trouble in arranging a luncheon for
+him; but on the second morning he came, driven by Sir Robert, who had
+changed horses on the road, and who was in a somewhat irritated and
+excited condition, very glad to get rid of his visitor.
+
+"I hope you don't mind having your toes trodden on, May," he said,
+privately; "that fellow is never happy but when he's insulting some
+one." And indeed Mr. Copperhead began this favourite pastime at once by
+making very big eyes at the sight of Ursula. "A-ha!" he said, rubbing
+his hands, and elevating his eyebrows; and he gave a meaning laugh as he
+shook hands with her, and declared that he did not expect to find young
+ladies here. "I haven't a great deal of education myself, and I never
+knew it could be carried on so pleasantly," he said. "You're a lucky
+young dog, Clar, that's what you are;" and the son laughed with the
+father at this excellent joke, though the rest of the company looked on
+with great gravity. Ursula, for her part, turned with wondering eyes
+from the new-comer to her old friend, Sir Robert.
+
+"What does he mean?" she asked, with an appealing look.
+
+"He is the greatest brute I know," said poor Sir Robert, under his
+breath; and he went off suddenly on the plea of business, leaving his
+unpleasant visitor in Mr. May's hands, who undertook the charge not
+unwillingly, being possessed by his own plan. Mr. Copperhead went all
+over Carlingford. He inspected the town-hall, the infirmary, and the
+church, with the business-like air of a man who was doing his duty.
+
+"Poor little place, but well enough for the country," he said. "A
+country-town's a mistake in my opinion. If I had it in my power I'd raze
+them all to the ground, and have one London and the rest green fields.
+That's your sort, Mr. May. Now you don't produce anything here, what's
+the good of you? All unproductive communities, sir, ought to be swept
+off the face of the earth. I'd let Manchester and those sort of places
+go on till they burst; but a bit of a little piggery like this, where
+there's nothing doing, no trade, no productions of any kind."
+
+"We like it all the same," said Mr. May; "we small sort of people who
+have no enterprise like you--"
+
+"I dare say you like it! To be sure, you can moon about here as much as
+you please, and make believe to do something, and there's nobody to
+contradict you. In a great centre of industry you couldn't live like
+that; you must work or you'll get pushed aside altogether; unless, of
+course, you're a millionnaire to start with," Mr. Copperhead added, with
+a noisy laugh.
+
+"Which I am not certainly--very much the reverse--in short, a poor man
+with a large family, which I suppose is a thing about as objectionable
+in a centre of industry as anything can be."
+
+"The large family ain't objectionable if you make 'em work," said Mr.
+Copperhead; "it all depends on that. There's always objections, you
+know," he said, with a jocular grin, "to pretty girls like that daughter
+of yours put straight in a young fellow's way. You won't mind my saying
+it? They neither work themselves nor let others work--that sort. I think
+we could get on with a deal fewer women, I must allow. There's where
+Providence is in a mistake. We don't want 'em in England; it's a waste
+of raw material. They're bad for the men, and they ain't much good for
+themselves, that I can see."
+
+"You are a little hard upon the ladies, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Not I--we can't do without 'em of course, and the surplus we ought to
+export as we export other surpluses; but I object to them in a young
+man's way, not meaning anything unpleasant to you. And perhaps if I had
+been put up to it sooner--but let's hope there's no mischief done. What
+is this now? some of your antiquities, I suppose. Oh yes, let's have a
+look at it; but I confess it's the present age I like best."
+
+"This is the College," cried Mr. May, swallowing certain sensations
+which impaired his sense of friendliness; "but not an educational
+college, a foundation for old men--decayed citizens, as they are
+called--founded in the fifteenth century. My son is the chaplain, and
+will be very glad to show it you. There are twelve old men here at
+present, very comfortably looked after, thanks to the liberal
+arrangements of the founder. They attend chapel twice a day, where
+Reginald officiates. It is very agreeable to me to have him settled so
+near me."
+
+"Cunning I call it," said Mr. Copperhead, with his hoarse laugh; "does
+you credit; a capital snug nest--nothing to do--and pay--pay good now?
+those old fellows generally managed that; as it was priests that had the
+doing of it, of course they did well for their own kind. Good Lord, what
+a waste of good money all this is!" he continued, as they went into the
+quadrangle, and saw the little park beyond with its few fine trees;
+"half-a-dozen nice villas might be built on this site, and it's just the
+sort of place I should fancy where villas would pay. Why don't the
+Corporation lay hands on it? And your son lives here? Too dull for me; I
+like a little movement going on, but I dare say he likes it; and with
+how much a year?"
+
+"Two hundred and fifty; and some advantages beside--"
+
+"Bravo!" said Mr. Copperhead, "now how many curates could you get for
+that two and a-half? I've got a great respect for you, Mr. May; you know
+what's what. That shows sense, that does. How do you do, sir? fine old
+place you've got here--capital snug appointment. I've just been saying
+to your father I admire his sense, looking out for you a nice fat easy
+appointment like this."
+
+Reginald turned from red to white, and then to portentous blackness. The
+subject was of all others the one least likely to please him.
+
+"It is not very fat," he said, with a look of offence, quite undeserved
+by the chief sufferer, towards his father, "nor very easy. But come in.
+It is rather an interesting old place. I suppose you would like to see
+the Chapel, and the old captain's rooms; they are very fine in their
+way."
+
+"Thank you; we've been seeing a deal already, and I feel tired. I think
+I'll--let you off the chapel. Hallo! here's another old
+friend--Northcote, by George! and what are _you_ doing here I should
+like to know, a blazing young screamer of the Liberation Society, in a
+high and dry parson's rooms? This is as good as a play."
+
+"I suppose one is not required to stay at exactly the same point of
+opinion all one's life," said Northcote, with a half-smile.
+
+"By George! but you are though, when you're a public man; especially
+when you're on a crusade. Haven't I heard you call it a crusade? I can
+tell you that changing your opinion is just the very last thing the
+public will permit you to do. But I shan't tell for my part--make
+yourself easy. Clarence, don't you let it out; your mother, fortunately,
+is out of the way. The world shall never know through me that young
+Northcote, the anti-state Churchman, was discovered hob-nobbing with a
+snug chaplain in a sinecure appointment. Ha, ha! had you there."
+
+"To do Northcote justice," said Mr. May; "he began life in Carlingford
+by pointing out this fact to the neighbourhood; that it was a sinecure,
+and that my son and I--"
+
+"Would it not be more to the point to inspect the chapel?" said
+Reginald, who had been standing by impatiently playing with a big key;
+upon which Mr. Copperhead laughed more loudly than before.
+
+"We'll not trouble the chapel," he said, "railway stations are more in
+my way; you are all a great deal finer than I am, and know a deal more,
+I suppose; but my roughness has served its purpose on the whole, better
+perhaps for some things--yes, for some things, Clar, and you may thank
+your stars, old boy. If you had been a parson's son, by George! there
+would have been no fat appointment waiting for you."
+
+"After all, my son's appointment is not so very fat," said Mr. May,
+forcing a laugh. "It is not so much as many a boy at school gets from
+his father."
+
+"Ah, you mean my boy at school! he's an extravagant dog. His mother and
+he, sir, are made of different clay from me; they are porcelain and I am
+delft. They want fine velvet cupboards to stand themselves in, while I'm
+for the kitchen dresser. That's the difference. But I can afford it,
+thank Heaven. I tell Clarence that he may thank his stars that I can
+afford it, and that he isn't born a poor man's son. He has been plucked
+at Oxford, you know," he said, with a big laugh, thrusting forth his
+chest as Clarence thrust forth his shirt-front, with an apparent
+complacency over the very plucking. My son can afford to be plucked, he
+seemed to say. He got up as he spoke, and approaching the fireplace
+turned his back to it, and gathered up his coat-tails under his arm. He
+was no taller than Mr. May, and very little taller than Reginald; but
+they both shrank into insignificance beside the big self-assertive
+figure. He looked about the room as if he was thinking of "buying up"
+the whole contents of it, and thought very little of them. A glance of
+contempt, a shrug more implied than actual, testified his low opinion of
+everything around. When he withdrew his eyes from the furniture he shook
+out his leg, as Clarence had done his, and gave a pull to his trousers
+that they might sit properly. He had the word "Rich" painted in big
+letters all over him, and he seemed to feel it his vocation to show this
+sense of superiority. Clarence by his side, the living copy of the great
+man's appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his
+father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr.
+Copperhead did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's
+motherly complacency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement.
+He was clever in his way, and Clarence was stupid; and besides he was
+the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods
+and chattels. When he looked at him, a wicked leer of derision awoke in
+his eye.
+
+"Yes, my boy," he said, "thank your stars; you would not make much of it
+if you were a poor man. You're an ornament that costs dear; but I can
+afford you. So, Northcote, you're changing your opinions--going over to
+the Church, eh? Extremes meet, they say; I shouldn't have thought it--"
+
+"I am doing nothing of the kind," said Northcote stoutly. He was not in
+a mood to be taken to task by this Mammon of unrighteousness, and indeed
+had at all times been a great deal too independent and unwilling to
+submit to leading members of the connection. Mr. Copperhead, however,
+showed no resentment. Northcote too, like Clarence, had a father before
+him, and stood on quite a different footing from the ordinary young
+pastor, whose business it was to be humble and accept all that his
+betters might portion out.
+
+"Well," he said, "you can afford to please yourself, and that's always
+something. By the way, isn't it time to have something to eat? If there
+is a good hotel near--"
+
+"Luncheon will be waiting at my house," said Mr. May, who was still
+doing his best to please the man upon whom he had built such wild hopes,
+"and Ursula will be waiting."
+
+"Ah, ah, the young lady! so she will. I wouldn't miss that for
+something; but I don't like putting you to so much expense. My son here
+has an excellent appetite, as you must have found out by this time, and
+for my part so have I. I think it a thousand pities to put you to this
+trouble--and expense."
+
+"Pray don't think of that," said Mr. May with courtesy, which belied his
+feelings, for he would have liked nothing so well as to have knocked
+down his complacent patron. He led the way out, almost with eagerness,
+feeling Mr. Copperhead to be less offensive out of doors than within
+four walls. Was this the sort of man to be appealed to for help as he
+had thought? Probably his very arrogance would make him more disposed
+towards liberality. Probably it would flatter his sense of consequence,
+to have such a request made to him. Mr. May was very much at sea,
+letting I dare not wait upon I would; afraid to speak lest he should
+shut this door of help by so doing, and afraid to lose the chance of any
+succour by not speaking. He tried hard, in spite of all his
+difficulties, to be smooth and agreeable to a man who had so much in his
+power; but it was harder work than he could have thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+FATHER AND SON.
+
+
+Ursula had prepared a very careful luncheon for the stranger. She
+thought him disagreeable, but she had not looked at him much, for,
+indeed, Ursula's mind was much unsettled. Horace Northcote had spoken to
+her that morning, after Mrs. Hurst's visit and her retaliation upon him,
+as no man yet had ever spoken to her before. He had told her a long
+story, though it was briefly done, and could have been expressed in
+three words. He was not of her species of humanity; his ways of
+thinking, his prejudices, his traditions, were all different from hers,
+and yet that had happened to him which happens all over the world in
+every kind of circumstances--without knowing how it was, he had got to
+love her. Yes, he knew very well how it was, or rather, he knew when it
+was, which is all that is to be expected from a lover. It was on the
+evening of the _entrées_, the first dinner-party, and he had gone on
+ever since, deeper and deeper, hearing her say many things which he did
+not agree in, and tracing her life through a score of little habits
+which were not congenial to his, yet loving her more and more for all
+that was new to him, and even for the things which were uncongenial. He
+had told her all this, and Ursula had listened with a kind of awe,
+wondering at the ardour in the young man's eyes, and the warmth with
+which he spoke; wondering and trembling a little. She had guessed what
+he meant the night before, as has been said, and this had touched her
+with a little thrill of awakened feeling; but the innocent girl knew no
+more about passion than a child, and when she saw it, glowing and
+ardent, appealing to her, she was half-alarmed, half-overawed by the
+strange sight. What answer could she make to him? She did not know what
+to say. To reject him altogether was not in Ursula's heart; but she
+could not respond to that strange, new, overwhelming sentiment, which
+put a light in his eyes which she dared not meet; which dazzled her when
+she ventured a glance at him. "Was he to go away?" he asked, his voice,
+too, sounding musical and full of touching chords. Ursula could not tell
+him to go away either. What she did say to him, she never quite knew;
+but at least, whatever it was, it left him hopeful, if unsatisfied.
+
+And since that time her mind had been in a strange confusion, a
+confusion strange but sweet. Gratified vanity is not a pretty title to
+give to any feeling, and yet that mixture of gratification and
+gratitude, and penetrating pleasure in the fact of being elevated from
+an often-scolded and imperfect child to an admired and worshipped woman
+is, perhaps, of all the sensations that feminine youth is conscious of,
+the most poignant in its sweetness. It went through her whole life;
+sometimes it made her laugh when she was all alone, and there was
+nothing of a laughter-producing nature in her way; and sometimes it made
+her cry, both the crying and the laughter being one. It was strange,
+very strange, and yet sweet. Under the influence of this, and of the
+secret homage which Northcote paid her whenever they met; and which she
+now understood as she had never understood it before, the girl's whole
+nature expanded, though she did not know. She was becoming sweet to the
+children, to puzzled Janey, to every one around her. Her little
+petulances were all subdued. She was more sympathetic than she had ever
+been before. And yet she was not in love with her lover. It was only
+that the sunshine of young life had caught her, that the highest
+gratification of youth had fallen to her share unawares. All this might
+have been, and yet some one else come in to secure Ursula's real love;
+but in the mean time she was all the happier, all the better for the
+love which she did not return.
+
+This is a digression from our immediate subject, which was the luncheon
+prepared for Mr. Copperhead. Ursula sent up an urgent message for Phoebe,
+who came to her in her prettiest morning dress, very carefully
+arranged, but with a line of care upon her brow.
+
+"I will come if you wish it, dear," she said; "but I don't want to meet
+Mr. Copperhead. I don't like him."
+
+"Neither do I like him," cried Ursula. "He said something disagreeable
+the little moment he was here. Oh, I don't remember what it was, but
+something. Please stay. What am I to do with them all by myself? If you
+will help me, I may get through."
+
+Phoebe kissed her with a tremulous kiss; perhaps she was not unwilling to
+see with her own eyes what the father of Clarence meant, and what
+brought him here. She sat down at the window, and was the first to see
+them coming along the street.
+
+"What a gentleman your father looks beside them," cried Phoebe; "both of
+them, father and son; though Clarence, after all, is a great deal better
+than his father, less like a British snob."
+
+Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.
+
+"I don't think he is much better than his father," she said.
+
+Phoebe took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped it as if it had
+hurt her. What did it all mean? Ursula, though rays of enlightenment had
+come to her, was still perplexed, and did not understand.
+
+Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon, when Phoebe
+appeared with little Amy May looking like a visitor, newly arrived. She
+had run upstairs after that first sight of him from the window,
+declaring herself unable to be civil to him except at table. The great
+man's face almost grew pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula,
+and then at Clarence, and laughed.
+
+"'Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,'" he
+said. "That's Scripture, ain't it, Miss Ursula? I am not good at giving
+chapter and verse."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Ursula.
+
+She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copperhead, and perfectly unconscious
+of his observation. As for Phoebe, on the contrary, she was slightly
+agitated, her placid surface ruffled a little, and she looked her best
+in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead looked straight at her across the
+table, and laughed in his insolent way.
+
+"So you are here too, Miss Phoebe!" he said. "I might think myself in the
+Crescent if I didn't know better. I met young Northcote just now, and
+now you. What may you be doing here, might one ask? It is what you call
+a curious coincidence, ain't it, Clarence and you both here?"
+
+"I said so when Mr. Clarence came," said Phoebe. "_I_ came to take care
+of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a very lucky thing for me that
+I had met Miss May at your ball, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"By Jove, wasn't it!" said Clarence, roused to some dull sense of what
+was going on. "We owe all the fun we have had here to that, so we do.
+Odd, when one thinks of it; and thought so little of it then, didn't we?
+It's a very queer world."
+
+"So you've been having fun here?" said his father. "I thought you came
+here to work; that's how we old fellows get taken in. Work! with young
+ladies dangling about, and putting things into your head! I ought to
+have known better, don't you think so, Miss Ursula? _You_ could have
+taught me a thing or two."
+
+"I?" said Ursula, startled. "I don't know what I could teach any one. I
+think Mr. Clarence Copperhead has kept to his hours very steadily. Papa
+is rather severe; he never would take any excuse from any of us when we
+were working with him."
+
+"He is not so severe now, I'll be bound," said Mr. Copperhead. "Lets you
+have your fun a little, as Clarence tells me; don't you, May? Girls will
+be girls, and boys, boys, whatever we do; and I am sure, Miss Phoebe, you
+have been very entertaining, as you always were."
+
+"I have done my best," said Phoebe, looking him in the face. "I should
+have had a dull life but for the Parsonage, and I have tried to be
+grateful. I have accompanied your son on the violin a great many
+evenings, and I hope our friends have liked it. Mr. Clarence is a
+promising player, though I should like him to trust less to his ear; but
+we always pulled through."
+
+"Thanks to you," said Clarence, in the middle of his cutlet
+
+He did not quite see why she should flourish this music in his father's
+face; but still he was loyal in a dull fashion, and he was obstinate,
+and did not mean to be "sat upon," to use his own words. As for Phoebe,
+her quick mind caught at once the best line of policy. She determined to
+deliver Ursula, and she determined at the same time to let her future
+father-in-law (if he was to be her father-in-law) see what sort of a
+person he had to deal with. As soon as she made up her mind, her
+agitation disappeared. It was only the uncertainty that had cowed her;
+now she saw what to do.
+
+"So!" said Mr. Copperhead, "musical evenings! I hope you have not
+turned poor Clar's head among you, young ladies. It's not a very strong
+head; and two is more than a match for one. I dare say he has had no
+chance between you."
+
+"Make yourself quite easy," said Phoebe, with her sweetest smile; "he was
+only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and Mr. Northcote are both very
+pleasant companions. Your son is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are
+never bored. You see, he has been accustomed to more brilliant society;
+but as for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very
+happy. And if there has been two to one, it has been the other way."
+
+"I think I must let your people know of your gaieties, Miss Phoebe. If
+your mother sent you here, I don't doubt it was for a purpose, eh? She
+knows what she's about, and she won't like it if she knows you are
+fritting away your chances and your attentions. She has an eye for
+business, has Mrs. Beecham," said the leading member, with a laugh.
+
+"You cannot tell mamma more about me than she knows already," said
+Phoebe, with rising colour.
+
+And by this time every one else at table was uncomfortable. Even
+Clarence, who had a dull appreciation of his father's jokes when they
+were not levelled at himself, and who was by no means indisposed to
+believe that "girls," generally, were "after him," and that even in this
+particular case Phoebe herself might have come to Carlingford on purpose
+to complete his conquest, even Clarence was moved.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by brilliant society," he said. "I know I'm
+the dull one among you clever people. I don't say much, but I know it
+all the same; and it's awfully good of you to pull me through all that
+music. I don't begrudge you your laugh after. Is my mother coming over,
+sir, to see the place?"
+
+"To see what? There is not much in the place," said Mr. Copperhead.
+"You're coming back with me, my boy. I hope it won't inconvenience you,
+May. I've other views for him. Circumstances alter cases, you know. I've
+been turning it over in my head, and I think I can see my way to another
+arrangement."
+
+"That, of course, is entirely in your own hands," said Mr. May, with a
+cheerfulness he did not feel. His heart sank, but every rule of good
+society made it incumbent upon him to show no failure at such a moment.
+"Copperhead, see that your father has some wine. Well, I suppose our
+poor little Carlingford is not much of a place; no trade, no movement,
+no manufactures--"
+
+"The sort of place that should be cleared off the face of the earth,"
+said the millionnaire; "meaning no offence, of course. That's my opinion
+in respect to country towns. What's the good of them? Nests of gossip,
+places where people waste their time, and don't even amuse themselves.
+Give me green fields and London, that is my sort. I don't care if there
+was not another blessed brick in the country. There is always something
+that will grow in a field, corn or fat beasts--not that we couldn't get
+all that cheaper from over the water if it was managed as it ought to
+be. But a place like this, what's the good of it? Almshouses and
+chaplains, and that kind of rubbish, and old women; there's old women by
+the score."
+
+"They must be somewhere, I suppose," said Mr. May. "We cannot kill them
+off, if they are inoffensive, and keep the laws. So that, after all, a
+country town is of use."
+
+"Kill 'em off--no; it's against what you benevolent humbugs call the
+spirit of the time, and Christianity, and all that; but there's such a
+thing as carrying Christianity too far; that's my opinion. There's your
+almshouses now. What's the principle of them? I call it encouraging
+those old beggars to live," said Mr. Copperhead; "giving them permission
+to burden the community as long as they can manage it; a dead mistake,
+depend upon it, the greatest mistake in the world."
+
+"I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of Euthanasia," said
+Phoebe, quietly stepping into the conversation; "but then it would have
+to be with the consent of the victims. When any one found himself
+useless, unnecessary to the world, or unhappy in it--"
+
+"Humbug and nonsense," said Mr. Copperhead. "A likely thing for anybody
+to do. No, it is not a question for law-making. Let 'em die out
+naturally, that's my opinion. Don't do anything to hurry 'em--that is, I
+don't see my way to it; but let 'em go quiet, and don't bring 'em
+cordials and feather-beds, and all that middyeval nonsense, to keep 'em
+going as long as possible. It's wicked, that's what it is."
+
+"At all events," said Mr. May, who, poor man, was bent on pleasing, "it
+is refreshing to hear opinions so bold and original. Something new is
+always a blessing. I cannot say I agree with you--"
+
+"No parson would be bold enough for that. Christianity's been a capital
+thing for the world," said Mr. Copperhead, "I don't say a word against
+it; but in these go-ahead days, sir, we've had enough of it, that's to
+say when it's carried too far. All this fuss about the poor, all the row
+about dragging up a lot of poor little beggars to live that had far
+better die, and your almshouses to keep the old ones going, past all
+nature! Shovel the mould over them, that's the thing for the world; let
+'em die when they ought to die; and let them live who can live--that's
+my way of thinking--and what's more, I'm right."
+
+"What a fine thing for you, Mr. Clarence," cried Phoebe, "who are going
+into Parliament! to take up your father's idea and work it out. What a
+speech you could make on the subject! I saw a hospital once in Paris
+that would make such a wonderful illustration. I'll tell you about it if
+you like. Poor old wretched people whose life was nothing but
+wretchedness kept going, kept living for years and years--why, no one
+could tell; for I am sure it would have been better, far better for them
+to die and be done with it. What a speech you might make when you bring
+a bill into Parliament to abolish almshouses and all sorts of
+charities!" she added with a laugh, turning from Clarence, at whom she
+had been looking, to his father, who was puzzled, and did not know how
+to understand the young woman's eyes.
+
+"I'll never make much of a speech in Parliament," said Clarence; "unless
+you make it for me," he added in an undertone. But no one else was
+speaking, and the undertone was quite audible. Meanwhile Phoebe had not
+ceased to look at his father, and held him with a pair of eyes not like
+the Ancient Mariner's. Mr. Copperhead was confused, his power even of
+insolence was cowed for the moment. He obeyed quite docilely the
+movement made to leave the table. Was it possible that she defied him,
+this Minister's daughter, and measured her strength against his? Mr.
+Copperhead felt as if he could have shaken the impertinent girl, but
+dared not, being where he was.
+
+And lunch being over, Mr. May led his pupil's father into his study. "I
+want to show you what your boy has been doing," he said, pointing to a
+line of books which made the millionnaire's soul shrink within him. "I
+have not bothered him with classics; what was the use as he is not going
+back to Oxford? but I have done my best for him in a practical way. He
+has read history, largely as you see, and as much as I could give him of
+political and constitutional--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Copperhead, reading the titles of some of the books
+under his breath. They impressed him deeply, and took away for a moment
+his self-confidence. It was his habit to boast that he knew nothing
+about books; but in their presence he shrank, feeling that they were
+greater than he, which was, there is little doubt, a sign of grace.
+
+"If you wish to remove Clarence," said Mr. May, "perhaps I had better
+make out a scheme of reading for him."
+
+"Look here," cried the rich man, "I didn't want to remove him; but there
+he is, the first I see of him, cheek for jowl with a good-looking girl.
+I don't mean to say a word against Miss May, I've no doubt she's
+charming; but anyhow there she is side by side with Clar, who is no more
+able to resist that sort of thing--"
+
+Mr. May laughed, and this time with unmitigated amusement. "Do you mean
+Ursula? I think I can answer for it that she made no attempts upon him
+for which resistance would be necessary."
+
+"That's all very well to say; but bless you they do it, every one," said
+Mr. Copperhead, "without exception, when a young fellow's well off and
+well-looking; and as if one wasn't bad enough, you've got Phoebe Beecham.
+You won't tell me she doesn't mean anything?--up to any mischief, a real
+minister's daughter. I don't mean anything uncivil to you or yours. I
+suppose a parson's different; but we know what a minister's daughter is
+in our connection. Like the men themselves, in short, who are always
+pouncing on some girl with a fortune if her relations don't take care.
+And Clarence is as weak as a baby; he takes after his mother--a poor bit
+of a feeble creature, though he's like me in exterior. That's how it is,
+you perceive; I don't quite see my way to letting him go on."
+
+"That is of course precisely as you please," said Mr. May, somewhat
+sharply. He would preserve his dignity even though his heart was
+sinking; but he could not keep that tone of sharpness out of his voice.
+
+"Of course it is as I please. I'll pay up of course for the second three
+months, if you choose, fair and square. I meant him to stay, and I'll
+pay. But that's all. You've no further claim upon me that I know of; and
+I must say that for a tutor, a regular coach, to keep girls in his
+house, daughters, or whatever you choose to call them, is something
+monstrous. It's a thing no fellow's friends would put up with. It's what
+I call dishonourable."
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. May, with all the self-possession he was master of,
+"you will let your son know at once that he must pack and go. I dare
+say, Sir Robert can take him, and we will send the portmanteaux. In such
+a case, it is better there should not be a moment's delay."
+
+"Clarence!" cried Mr. Copperhead, walking to the door and opening it.
+"Come along, look sharp, you're to go. I'll take you with me, do you
+hear? And May will see to sending you your boxes. Quick, come along,
+there's no time to lose."
+
+"Go!" said Clarence, coming in startled, with his eyebrows rising almost
+into his hair. "Go? What do you mean? Out of the Parsonage? The
+Governor's been having too much sherry," he said, coming close to Mr.
+May's arm; he had himself been taking too much of the sherry, for the
+good reason that nobody had taken any notice of what he did, and that he
+had foreseen the excitement that was coming. "You don't mean it, I
+know," he added aloud; "I'll go over for the night if Sir Robert will
+have me, and see my mother--"
+
+"Ask May," said Mr. Copperhead, "you'll believe him, I suppose; he's as
+glad to get rid of you as I am to take you away."
+
+"Is this true?" cried Clarence, roused and wondering, "and if so, what's
+happened? I ain't a baby, you know, to be bundled about from one to
+another. The Governor forgets that."
+
+"Your father," said Mr. May, "chooses to remove you, and that is all I
+choose to say."
+
+"But, by George, I can say a deal more," said Mr. Copperhead. "You
+simpleton, do you think I am going to leave you here where there's
+man-traps about? None of such nonsense for me. Put your things together,
+I tell you. Phoebe Beecham's bad enough at home; but if she thinks she's
+to have you here to pluck at her leisure, she and her friends--"
+
+"W--hew!" said Clarence, with a long whistle. "So that's it. I am very
+sorry, father, if these are your sentiments; but I may as well tell you
+at once I shan't go."
+
+"You--must go."
+
+"No," he said, squaring his shoulders and putting out his shirt front;
+he had never been roused into rebellion before, and perhaps without
+these extra glasses of sherry he would not have had the courage now. But
+what with sherry, and what with _amour propre_, and what with the thing
+he called love, Clarence Copperhead mounted all at once upon a pedestal.
+He had a certain dogged obstinacy in him, suspected by nobody but his
+mother, who had little enough to say in the guidance of her boy. He set
+himself square like a pugilist, which was his notion of resistance. Mr.
+May looked on with a curious mixture of feelings. His own sudden and
+foolish hope was over, and what did it matter to him whether the
+detestable father or the coarse son should win? He turned away from them
+with contempt, which was made sharp by their utter uselessness to
+himself. Had it been possible that he might have what he wanted from
+Mr. Copperhead, his patience would have held out against any trial; but
+the moment that hope was over, what further interest had he in the
+question? He went to his writing-table and sat down there, leaving them
+to fight it out as they would, by themselves. It was no affair of his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+A PLEASANT EVENING.
+
+
+The result, however, was a compromise. Clarence Copperhead went off with
+his father and Sir Robert to the Hall for the night, but was to return
+next day, and Phoebe was left in a condition of some excitement behind
+them, not quite knowing what to think. She was as sure as ever that he
+had made up his mind to propose; but he had not done it, and what effect
+his father's visit, and perhaps his mother's entreaties, might have upon
+him, Phoebe could not tell. The crisis excited her beyond any excitement
+which she would have thought possible in respect to Clarence Copperhead.
+She was more like an applicant for office kept uncertain whether she was
+to have a desirable post or not, than a girl on the eve of a lover's
+declaration. This was her own conception of the circumstances. She did
+not dislike Clarence; quite the reverse. She had no sympathy with
+Ursula's impatience of his heavy vanity. Phoebe had been used to him all
+her life, and had never thought badly of the heavy boy whom she had been
+invited to amuse when she was six years old, and whom she had no
+particular objection to amuse still, let the others wonder at her as
+they might. Poor Reginald, contemplating bitterly her many little
+complacencies to his rival, set them down hastily to an appreciation of
+that rival's worldly advantages, which was not quite a just sentence. It
+was true, and yet it was not true; other feelings mingled in Phoebe's
+worldliness. She did, indeed, perceive and esteem highly the advantages
+which Clarence could give her; but she had not the objections to
+Clarence himself that the others had. She was willing, quite willing, to
+undertake the charge of him, to manage, and guide, and make a man of
+him. And yet, while it was not pure worldliness, much less was it actual
+love which moved her. It was a kind of habitual affection, as for the
+"poor thing, but mine own, sir," of the jester. He was but a poor
+creature, but Phoebe knew she could make something of him, and she had
+no distaste to the task. When she began to perceive that Reginald, in so
+many ways Clarence's superior, was at her disposal, a sense of
+gratification went through Phoebe's mind, and it certainly occurred to
+her that the feeling he might inspire would be a warmer and a more
+delightful one than that which would fall to Clarence Copperhead; but
+she was not tempted thereby to throw Clarence off for the other. No, she
+was pleased, and not unwilling to expend a little tender regret and
+gratitude upon poor Reginald. She was ready to be "kind" to him, though
+every woman knows that is the last thing she ought to be to a rejected
+lover; and she was full of sympathy for the disappointment which,
+nevertheless, she fully intended was to be his lot. This seems
+paradoxical, but it is no more paradoxical than human creatures
+generally are. On this particular evening her heart beat very high on
+account of Clarence, to know if he would have strength of mind to hold
+his own against his father, and if he would come back to her and ask
+her, as she felt certain he meant to do, that one momentous question.
+Her heart would not have been broken had he not done so, but still she
+would have been disappointed. Notwithstanding when the evening came, the
+absence of Clarence was a relief to Phoebe as well as to the rest of the
+party, and she gave herself up to the pleasures of a few hours of
+half-tender intercourse with Reginald, with a sense of enjoyment such as
+she seldom felt. This was very wrong, there is no denying it, but still
+so it was. She was anxious that Clarence should come back to her, and
+ask her to be his wife; and yet she was pleased to be rid of Clarence,
+and to give her whole attention and sympathy to Reginald, trying her
+best to please him. It was very wrong; and yet such things have happened
+before, and will again; and are as natural, perhaps, as the more
+absolute and unwavering passion which has no doubt of its object,
+passion like Northcote's, who had neither eyes nor ears for anything but
+Ursula. The four were alone together that evening, and enjoyed it
+thoroughly. Clarence was away, who, to all but Phoebe, was an
+interruption of their intercourse; and Mr. May was away in his study,
+too much absorbed to think of any duties that ought to have devolved
+upon him as chaperon; and even Janey was out of the way, taking tea with
+Mrs. Hurst. So the two young pairs sat round the table and talked; the
+girls, with a mutual panic, which neither breathed to the other, keeping
+together, avoiding separation into pairs. Ursula out of very shyness and
+fright alone, lest another chapter of the strange, novel, too moving
+love-tale might be poured into her ears; but Phoebe with more settled
+purpose, to prevent any disclosure on the part of Reginald. The evening
+was mixed up of pleasure and pain to the two young men, each eager to
+find himself alone with the girl whom he loved; but it is to be feared
+the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which they
+ought not to have had. Open and outrageous love-making is not half so
+delicate a pastime as that in which nothing distinct dare be said, but
+all is implication, conveyed and understood without words. I know it is
+a dangerous thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession; you
+may say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish to
+give a disagreeable version of it; but, however you choose to explain
+it, this was how it was.
+
+It was with fear and trembling at last that Phoebe went to the piano,
+which was at the other end of the room, after making all the resistance
+which was possible.
+
+"Thank Heaven, that idiot and his fiddle aren't here to-night to
+interfere!" cried Reginald.
+
+Phoebe shook her head at him, but ventured on no words; and how she did
+exert herself on the piano, playing things which were a great deal too
+classical for Reginald, who would have preferred the simplest stock
+piece, under cover of which he might have talked to her hanging over her
+chair, and making belief to turn over the music! This was what he
+wanted, poor fellow. He had no heart nor ears for Beethoven, which Phoebe
+played to him with a tremor in her heart, and yet, the wicked little
+witch, with some enjoyment too.
+
+"This is not the sort of thing you play when Copperhead is here," he
+said at last, driven to resistance.
+
+"Oh, we play Mendelssohn," said Phoebe, with much show of innocence; and
+then she added, "You ought to feel the compliment if I play Beethoven to
+you."
+
+"So I ought, I suppose," said Reginald. "The truth is, I don't care for
+music. Don't take your hands off the keys."
+
+"Why, you have done nothing but worry me to play!"
+
+"Not for the music," said Reginald, quite satisfied to have got his
+will. "Why will you not talk to me and play to me, as I wish?"
+
+"Perhaps, if I knew what you wish--" Phoebe said, in spite of herself.
+
+"Oh, how I should like to tell you! No, not Beethoven; a little, just a
+little music. Heavens!" cried Reginald, as she crashed into a
+fortissimo, "another sonata! Listen, I am not equal to sonatas. Nay,
+Miss Beecham, play me a little nothing--talk to me."
+
+She shook her head at him with a laugh, and went on playing the hardest
+piece of music she could think of, complicating herself in difficult
+chords and sudden accidentals. If there had been anybody there to hear
+who could have understood, Phoebe's performance would, no doubt, have
+appeared a masterpiece of brilliant execution, as it was; but the two
+others were paying not the slightest attention, and as for Reginald, he
+was in a state of tantalized vexation, which half-amused himself, and
+filled the performer with an exhilarating sense of successful mischief.
+Northcote was trying to say--what was he not trying to say?--to Ursula,
+under cover of the music, which was the best shield he could have had;
+and perhaps in reality, though Reginald was tantalized to the utmost
+degree of tantalization, even he had a certain enjoyment in the saucy
+self-defence which was more mischievous than cruel. He stood behind
+Phoebe's chair, now and then meeting her laughing glance with one of
+tender appeal and reproach, pleased to feel himself thus isolated with
+her, and held an arm's-length in so genial a way. He would have his
+opportunity after a while, when there would be no piano to give her a
+momentary refuge, and then he would say out all that was in his heart,
+with no possible shadow of a rival to interfere with him. Angry? no; as
+he stood behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keys, a
+delightful calm stole over Reginald. Now and then she would throw a
+half-mocking glance at him upward over her shoulder, as she swept over
+the resounding board. When the sonata was concluded, Phoebe sprang up
+from the piano, and went back to the table. She proposed that they
+should play a game at cards, to which Ursula agreed. The young men
+shrugged their shoulders and protested; but, after all, what did it
+matter, so long as they were together? They fell into their places quite
+naturally, the very cards assisting; and so the moments flew by. There
+was not so much sound as usual in the old faded drawing-room, which had
+come to look so bright and homelike; not so much sound of voices,
+perhaps less laughter--yet of all the evenings they had spent there
+together, that was the one they looked back upon, all four, with most
+tender recollection. They had been so happy, or, if not happy, so near
+(apparently) to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness
+itself.
+
+"Don't let Reginald come with me," Phoebe whispered, as she kissed her
+friend, and said good night, "or ask Mr. Northcote to come too."
+
+"Why?" said Ursula, with dreamy eyes; her own young tide of life was
+rising, invading, for the moment, her perceptions, and dulling her sense
+of what was going on round her. There was no time, however, for
+anything more to be said, for Reginald was close behind with his hat in
+his hand. Phoebe had to resign herself, and she knew what was coming. The
+only thing was, if possible, to stop the declaration on the way.
+
+"This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without that
+perpetual shadow of Copperhead--"
+
+"Ah, poor Clarence!" said Phoebe. "I wonder how he is getting on away
+from us all to-night."
+
+"Poor Clarence!" echoed Reginald aghast. "You don't mean to say that
+you--miss him, Miss Beecham? I never heard you speak of him in that tone
+before."
+
+"Miss him! no, perhaps not exactly," said Phoebe, with a soft little
+sigh; "but still--I have known him all my life, Mr. May; when we were
+quite little I used to be sent for to his grand nursery, full of lovely
+toys and things--a great deal grander than mine."
+
+"And for that reason--" said Reginald, becoming bitter, with a laugh.
+
+"Nothing for that reason," said Phoebe; "but I noticed it at six as I
+should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little worldly-minded thing,
+don't you think? So you see there are the associations of a great many
+years to make me say Poor Clarence, when anything is the matter with
+him."
+
+"He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly," cried Reginald,
+thoroughly wretched; "but I did not know there was anything the matter."
+
+"I think there will be if he has to leave our little society, where we
+have all been so happy," said Phoebe, softly. "How little one thought,
+coming here a stranger, how pleasant it was to be! I especially, to whom
+coming to Carlingford was rather--perhaps I might say a humiliation. I
+am very fond of grandpapa and grandmamma now, but the first introduction
+was something of a shock--I have never denied it; and if it had not been
+for sweet kind Ursula and you--all."
+
+The little breathless fragmentary pause which Phoebe made between the you
+and the "all," giving just a ghost of emphasis to the pronoun, sounded
+to poor Reginald in his foolishness almost like a caress. How cleverly
+it was managed, with just so much natural feeling in it as gave it
+reality! They were approaching No. 6, and Martha, the maid, already was
+visible at the open door.
+
+"Then you do give me some share--some little share," he cried, with a
+broken voice. "Ah, if you would only let me tell you what your coming
+has been to me. It has opened up my life; I feel everything different,
+the old earth itself; there is a new light upon the whole world--"
+
+"Hush, here is Martha!" cried Phoebe, "she will not understand about new
+lights. Yes, it has been pleasant, very pleasant; when one begins to
+sigh and realize how pleasant a thing has been, I always fear it is
+going to be broken up."
+
+"_Absit omen!_" cried Reginald, fervently, taking the hand she had put
+out to bid him good night, and holding it fast to detain her; and was
+there moisture in the eyes which she lifted to him, and which glistened,
+he thought, though there was only the distant light of a lamp to see
+them by?
+
+"You must not keep me now," cried Phoebe, "here is grandpapa coming. Good
+night, Mr. May, good night."
+
+Was Phoebe a mere coquette _pure et simple_? As soon as she had got safe
+within these walls, she stooped down over the primroses to get rid of
+Martha, and then in the darkness had a cry, all by herself, on one side
+of the wall, while the young lover, with his head full of her, checked,
+but not altogether discouraged, went slowly away on the other. She
+cried, and her heart contracted with a real pang. He was very tender in
+his reverential homage, very romantic, a true lover, not the kind of man
+who wants a wife or wants a clever companion to amuse him, and save him
+the expense of a coach, and be his to refer to in everything. That was
+an altogether different kind of thing. Phoebe went in with a sense in her
+mind that perhaps she had never touched so close upon a higher kind of
+existence, and perhaps never again might have the opportunity; but
+before she had crossed the garden, she had begun once more to question
+whether Clarence would have the fortitude to hold his own against
+everything that father or mother could do to change his mind. Would he
+have the fortitude? Would he come back to her, safe and determined, or
+would he yield to arguments in favour of some richer bride, and come
+back either estranged or at the least doubtful? This gave her a pang of
+profound anxiety at the bottom of her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+AN EXPEDITION.
+
+
+Mr. May did not come upstairs that evening. It was not that he was
+paralysed as he had been on the previous occasion, when he sat as now
+and heard Phoebe go away after her first visit, and when the wind blowing
+in from the open door playfully carried to his feet the scribbled note
+with Tozer's name. He was not stupefied as then, nor was he miserable.
+The threatened withdrawal of Clarence Copperhead was more to him than
+the impending ruin meant by that bill which was so nearly due. He was
+occupied by that to the exclusion of the other. It would be a most
+serious change to him in every way. He had calculated on the continuance
+of this additional income for at least a year, and short of the year it
+would have done him no good, but had simply plunged him into additional
+expense. It was this he was thinking of, and which kept him in his study
+after the young people had assembled. Cotsdean had come again while Mr.
+May was at dinner, which by some curious unconscious aggravation on his
+part was the time he especially chose as most convenient for him; and he
+had again sent a dirty note by Bobby, imploring his principal to think
+of the impending fate, and not to desert him. Mr. May was angry at this
+perpetual appeal. "Why should I desert him, the idiot?" he said to
+himself; and moved by the man's persistence, he took out his pocket-book
+again, and made out beyond all chance of mistake, that it was the 18th.
+Why should the fool insist upon its being the 15th with such perpetual
+iteration? There were the figures as plain as possible, 18th April. Mr.
+May wrote a peremptory note announcing this fact to Cotsdean, and then
+returned to his own thoughts. Sir Robert had asked him to go over that
+morning and spend the day at the Hall with the Copperheads, not knowing
+of any breach between them. He thought he had better do this. If
+Clarence determined to stay, that would be a great thing in his favour,
+and he had seen that the young man's dull spirit was roused; and if that
+hope failed, there might still be advantage even in this sudden breaking
+of the bond. Part of the second quarter was gone, and the father had
+offered three months additional pay. These two payments would make up
+the hundred and fifty pounds at once, and settle the business. Thus, in
+either way, he should be safe, for if Clarence went away the money would
+be paid; and if he stayed, Mr. May himself had made up his mind to risk
+the bold step of going to the bank and asking an advance on this
+inalienable security. All these deliberations made his mind easy about
+the bill. It must come right one way or another; he might have chosen
+perhaps not to run it quite so close; but after all the 15th was only
+to-morrow, and there were still three days. While his mind was full of
+these things he did not care to go upstairs. He heard the voices of the
+young people, but he was too much engrossed with his own calculations to
+care to join them. It was a close thing, he said to himself, a very
+close thing; but still he felt that he could do it--surely he could do
+it. If Mr. Copperhead settled with him--and he was the sort of man, a
+man to whom money was nothing, to do so on the spot if he took it into
+his head--then all was right. And if Mr. Copperhead did not do so, the
+bank, though his past transactions with it had not been encouraging,
+would certainly make all right on account of these Copperhead payments,
+which were as certain as any payments could be. He went to bed early,
+being engrossed by these thoughts, not even saying good-night to Ursula,
+as was his wont; and he made up his mind to take an early breakfast, and
+start the first thing in the morning for the Hall. There was an early
+train which would suit admirably. He could not afford to drive, as Sir
+Robert had done, changing horses half way. He went upstairs to bed,
+somewhat heavily, but not discontented, seeing his way. After all, the
+great thing in life is to see your way. It does not matter so much
+whether that way is great or small, so long as you can see it plain
+before you. Mr. May breathed a sigh of anxiety as he ended the day. He
+had a great many things on his mind; but still he was not altogether
+heavy-hearted or discouraged beyond measure; things, he felt, would
+shape themselves better than he had hoped. He was not perhaps going to
+be so much better off than of old, as he thought possible when Clarence
+Copperhead came. Such delusive prospects do glimmer across a poor man's
+path when any apparent expansion of means occurs to him; but in the
+majority of cases he has to consent to see the fine fictitious glow die
+away. Mr. May was not ignorant of this experience already. A man who is
+over fifty is generally more or less prepared for anything that can
+happen to him in this kind; but he thought he could "get on;" and after
+all that is the sum of life to three parts of mankind.
+
+He was silent at breakfast, but not disagreeable, and Ursula was too
+much taken up with her own concerns to pay much attention to him.
+Ursula's concerns were developing with a rapidity altogether
+extraordinary. In the mind of a girl of twenty, unforestalled by any
+previous experience, the process that goes on between the moment when
+the surprising, overwhelming discovery rushes upon her that some one
+loves her in the old way of romance, until the corresponding moment when
+she finds out that her own heart too has been invaded by this wonderful
+sentiment, which is like nothing that was ever known before, is of a
+very rapid description. It is like the bursting of a flower, which a
+day's sunshine brings to the blooming point like a miracle, though it is
+in reality the simplest result of nature. Already there began to glow a
+haze of brightness about those three months past in which everything had
+begun. When or how it began she could not now tell. The glow of it was
+in her eyes and dazzled her. She heard the voices of the others sounding
+vaguely through this bright mist in which she herself was isolated; when
+she was obliged to reply, she called herself back with an effort, and
+did so--but of her own will she seldom spoke. How Janey chattered, how
+the children maundered on about their little concerns, which were of
+consequence to nobody! Papa was the person whom Ursula really respected
+this morning, for he had more sense than to talk. How could people talk,
+as if there was pleasure in that? But papa had more sense, he had things
+to think of--too. So the girl approved her father, and thought more
+highly of him, and never inquired what it might be that occupied his
+mind, and kept him from noticing even when the children were unruly. And
+it would be giving the reader an unfair idea of the children, if we
+attempted to conceal that they did take advantage of their
+opportunities, and were as unruly as well-conditioned children in the
+circumstances were likely to be. Mr. May took no notice; he took his
+coffee hurriedly and went off to the station.
+
+"If I don't return this evening you need not be alarmed. I shall come
+back at the latest to-morrow morning," he said.
+
+The children all rushed to the window to see him go away; even Ursula
+looking out dreamily remarked him too, as she seldom did; and Mrs. Sam
+Hurst at her window, wondering where her neighbour could be going,
+heaved a deep sigh of admiration, which though she was not "in love," as
+the girls thought, with Mr. May, was a passing tribute to his good looks
+and training. He looked a gentleman every inch of him--an English
+gentleman, spotless in linen, speckless in broadcloth, though his dress
+was far from new; the freshness of sound health and a clear conscience
+on his handsome face, though he was no longer young. His abundant hair,
+steel-grey, slightly crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but
+with a becoming twist in it--clerical, yet not too clerical, a man given
+to no extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of
+the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own comfort by
+marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a great pleasure in making
+his daughters anxious about her "intentions," and that even to be said
+to be in love with such a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.
+
+He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway, and thus
+missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and
+followed him to the train; but too late.
+
+"Well, well," Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, "Old Tozer
+has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between
+'em."
+
+Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on
+such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally an awful and
+respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as
+he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth; but Tozer
+was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten
+times that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean's sense of
+commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill
+in the circumstances should give him a very serious pang. He would not
+be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party
+to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed
+it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with
+two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He
+was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before.
+He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as
+calmly as possible. He was but passive in it. It could not harm him much
+in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much
+astonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it
+between them. It was their affair.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got
+a dog-cart at the little inn at the station to take him over, though
+generally when he went to see the Dorsets it was his custom to walk.
+"But what were a few shillings?" he said to himself, the prodigality of
+desperation having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and
+if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less matter?
+but the discomfort of walking over those muddy roads, and arriving with
+dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the
+Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest
+good-humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another,
+over the stables, the farm-buildings, the farm itself from end to end,
+the preserves, the shrubberies, the greenhouses, everything; all of
+which details he examined with an unfailing curiosity which would have
+been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized
+by a strain of comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May
+went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his
+daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing loudly over a
+picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague
+Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true "Wilson," bought by
+an uncle of Sir Robert's, who had been a connoisseur, from the Master
+himself, in the very country where it was painted; and all these details
+pleased the imagination of the family, who, though probably they would
+have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the acquaintance of
+the best of contemporary painters, were proud that Uncle Charles had
+known Italian Wilson, and had bought a picture out of his studio. A
+Hobbema or a Poussin would scarcely have pleased them as much, for the
+worst of an old Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as
+a copy; whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to be
+copied. They were showing their picture and telling the story to the
+millionnaire with an agreeable sense that, though they were not so rich,
+they must, at least, have the advantage of him in this way.
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Copperhead, "you should see my Turner. Didn't I show you
+my Turner? I don't venture to tell you, Sir Robert, what that picture
+cost me. It's a sin, it is, to keep that amount of capital hanging
+useless upon a bit of wall. The Wilson may be all very well. I ain't a
+judge of art, and I can't give my opinion on that point, though it's a
+common sort of a name, and there don't seem to be much in it; but
+everybody knows what a Turner means. Here's May; he'll be able to tell
+you as well as another. It means a few cool thousands, take my word for
+it. It means, I believe, that heaps of people would give you your own
+price. I don't call it a profitable investment, for it brings in no
+interest; but they tell me it's a thing that grows in value every year.
+And there it is, Sir, hanging up useless on my wall in Portland Place,
+costing a fortune, and bringing in not a penny. But I like it; I like
+it, for I can afford it, by George! Here's May; he knows what that sort
+of thing is; he'll tell you that a Turner is worth its weight in gold."
+
+"Thank you, I don't think I need any information on that subject," said
+Sir Robert. "Besides, I saw your Turner. It is a pretty picture--if it
+is authentic; but Wilson, you know--"
+
+"Wasn't a big-enough swell not to be authentic, eh?" said Mr.
+Copperhead. "Common name enough, and I don't know that I ever heard of
+him in the way of painting; but I don't pretend to be a judge. Here's
+May; now, I dare say he knows all about it. Buying's one thing,
+knowing's another. Your knowing ones, when they've got any money, they
+have the advantage over us, Sir Robert; they can pick up a thing that's
+good, when it happens to come their way, dirt cheap; but fortunately for
+us, it isn't often they've got any money," he added, with a laugh,
+slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a way which made him totter. But the
+clergyman's good-humour was equal even to this assault. It is wonderful
+how patient and tolerant we can all be when the motive is strong enough.
+
+"That is true," he said; "but I fear I have not even the compensation of
+knowledge. I know enough, however, to feel that the possessor of a
+Turner is a public personage, and may be a public benefactor if he
+pleases."
+
+"How that? If you think I am one to go lending my pictures about, or
+leaving them to the nation when I'm done for, that's not my sort. No, I
+keep them to myself. If I consent to have all that money useless, it is
+for myself, you may depend, and not for other people. And I'll leave it
+to my boy Clarence, if he behaves himself. He's a curiosity, too, and
+has a deal of money laid out on him that brings no interest, him and his
+mother. I'll leave it to Clar, if he doesn't make a low marriage, or any
+folly of that kind."
+
+"You should make it an heir-loom," said Sir Robert, with sarcasm too
+fine for his antagonist; "leave it from father to son of your
+descendants, like our family diamonds and plate."
+
+Anne and Sophy looked at each other and smiled, the one sadly, the other
+satirically. The Dorset family jewels were rose-diamonds of small value,
+and the plate was but moderate in quantity, and not very great in
+quality. Poor Sir Robert liked to blow his little trumpet too, but it
+was not so blatant as that of his visitor, whose rude senses did not
+even see the intended malice.
+
+"By George! I think I will," he said. "I'm told it's as safe as the
+bank, and worth more and more every year, and if it don't bring in
+anything, it don't eat anything; eh, May? Look here; perhaps I was
+hasty the other day," he said, pushing the clergyman a little apart from
+the group with a large hand on his shoulder. "Clarence tells me you're
+the best coach he ever saw, and that he's getting on like a house on
+fire."
+
+"He does make progress, I think," answered the tutor, thus gracefully
+complimented.
+
+"But all the same, you know, I had a right to be annoyed. Now a man of
+your sense--for you seem a man of sense, though you're a parson, and
+know what side your bread's buttered on--ought to see that it's an
+aggravating thing when a young fellow has been sent to a coach for his
+instruction, and to keep him out of harm's way, to find him cheek by
+jowl with a nice-looking young woman. That's not what a father has a
+right to expect."
+
+"You couldn't expect me to do away with my daughter because I happened
+to take a pupil?" said Mr. May, half-amused; "but I can assure you that
+she has no designs upon your son."
+
+"So I hear, so I hear," said the other, with a mixture of pique and
+satisfaction. "Won't look at him, Clar tells me; got her eye on some one
+else, little fool! She'll never have such a chance again. As for having
+no designs, that's bosh, you know; all women have designs. I'm a deal
+easier in my mind when I'm told she's got other fish to fry."
+
+"Other fish to fry?" said Mr. May; this time he was wholly amused, and
+laughed. "This is news to me. However, we don't want to discuss my
+little Ursula; about your son it will be well that I should know, for I
+might be forming other engagements. This moment is a time of pecuniary
+pressure with me," he added, with the ingratiating smile and
+half-pathetic frankness of the would-be borrower. "I have not taken
+pupils before, but I want money for the time. My son's settlement in
+life, you see, and--but the father of a large family can always find
+good reasons for wanting money."
+
+"That's it," said Mr. Copperhead, seriously. "Why are you the father of
+a large family? That's what I ask our ministers. It's against all
+political economy, that is. According as you've no money to give 'em,
+you go and have children--when it should be just the other way."
+
+"That may be very true; but there they are, and can't be done away with;
+and I do want money, as it happens, more now than I shall want it a year
+hence, or, perhaps, even six months hence."
+
+"Most people do," said Mr. Copperhead, withdrawing his hand from his
+pocket, and placing his elbow tightly against the orifice of that very
+important part of him. "It's the commonest thing in the world. I want
+money myself, for that matter. I've always got a large amount to make up
+by a certain date, and a bill to pay. But about Clar, that's the
+important matter. As he seems to have set his mind on it, and as you
+assure me there's no danger--man-traps, or that sort of thing, eh?"
+
+The colour came to Mr. May's cheek; but it was only for a moment. To
+have his own daughter spoken of as a man-trap gave him a momentary
+thrill of anger; but, as he would have applied the word quite composedly
+to any other man's daughter, the resentment was evanescent. He did not
+trust himself to answer, however, but nodded somewhat impatiently, which
+made the millionnaire laugh the more.
+
+"Don't like the man-trap?" he said. "Bless you, they're all alike, not
+yours more than the rest. But as I was saying, if it's warranted safe I
+suppose he'll have to stay. But I don't stand any nonsense, May; and
+look here, your music and all that ain't in the agreement. He can have a
+master for his music, he's well enough able to pay for it; but I won't
+have a mistress, by George, to put folly into his head."
+
+"I am to forbid him the drawing-room, I suppose, and take his fiddle
+from him! I have no objections. Between ourselves, as I am not musical,
+it would be very agreeable to me; but perhaps he is rather over the age,
+don't you think, for treatment of that kind?"
+
+Clarence had come in, and stood watching the conversation, with a look
+Mr. Copperhead was not prepared for. Those mild brown eyes, which were
+his mother's share in him, were full a-stare with sullen resolution, and
+his heavy mouth shut like that of a bull-dog. He lingered at the door,
+looking at the conversation which was going on between his father and
+his tutor, and they both noticed him at the same moment, and drew the
+same conclusion. Mr. May was in possession of the _parole_, as the
+French say, and he added instinctively in an undertone,
+
+"Take care; if I were you I would not try him too far."
+
+Mr. Copperhead said nothing; but he stared too, rather aghast at this
+new revelation. What! his porcelain, his Dresden figure of a son, his
+crowning curiosity, was _he_ going to show a will of his own? The despot
+felt a thrill go over him. What kind of a sentiment love was in his mind
+it would be hard to tell; but his pride was all set on this heavy boy.
+To see him a man of note, in Parliament, his name in the papers, his
+speeches printed in the "Times," was the very heaven of his
+expectations. "Son of the famous Copperhead, the great contractor." He
+did not care about such distinction in his own person; but this had
+been his dream ever since Clarence came into being. And now there he
+stood gloomy, obdurate. If he had made up his mind to make a low
+marriage, could his father hinder him--could anything hinder him? Mr.
+Copperhead looked at his son and quailed for the first time in his life.
+
+"May," he said, hurriedly, "do the best you can; he's got all his
+mother's d----d obstinacy, you can see, can't you? but I've set my heart
+on making a man of him--do the best you can."
+
+Mr. May thought to himself afterwards if he had only had the vigour to
+say, "Pay me six months in advance," the thing would have been done. But
+the lingering prejudices of breeding clung about him, and he could not
+do it. Mr. Copperhead, however, was very friendly all the rest of the
+day, and gave him private looks and words aside, to the great admiration
+of the Dorsets, to whom the alliance between them appeared remarkable
+enough.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+A CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+Mr. May left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the warm invitation
+which was given to him to stay. He was rather restless, and though it
+was hard to go out into the dark just as grateful odours began to steal
+through the house, it suited him better to do so than to spend the night
+away from home. Besides, he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook was
+not first-rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation. It was a
+long walk to the station, for they had no horses at liberty to drive
+him, a fact at which he was slightly offended, though he was aware that
+Sir Robert's stable was but a poor one. He set out just as the
+dressing-bell began to ring, fortified with a glass of sherry and a
+biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with
+the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he
+went on; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were
+somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious
+dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at
+all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he
+trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct
+figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing
+past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew
+there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or
+illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct
+wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him
+in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was
+all quite plain before him what to do,--to go to the Bank, to tell them
+what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible.
+The consciousness of having this to do acted upon him like a gentle
+opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into
+a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of
+light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware now far he was going, or
+where he was going, across the country; and even when he arrived at
+Carlingford he roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he
+had to get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a
+sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and
+half-asleep. "If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have
+blamed that," he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy,
+amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he scarcely could tell
+how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and
+looked up at the lights in the windows. There was music going on; Phoebe,
+no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house
+looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of
+that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an
+appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the
+house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness
+stealing over him for Clarence too.
+
+Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phoebe
+"had not intended to come," but was there notwithstanding, persuaded by
+Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had
+celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was
+still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote
+had "not intended to come." Indeed, he had gone further than this, he
+had intended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner,
+he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up
+and down in forlorn contemplation of the lighted windows, had been spied
+by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were
+together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general
+criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation.
+Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was
+occupying, but she was keenly interested in all that was going on, very
+eager to understand the relationships in which the others stood, and to
+see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was
+absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the
+features, expressed a totally different phase of existence from that
+which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears, and
+watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the
+half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a
+soft response fluttering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was
+not destined to be spoken to-night; and it was she who made Phoebe's
+music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no
+danger. Phoebe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even
+Phoebe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey
+been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and
+incipient; they could not come to anything; there were no hairbreadth
+escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her
+best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with
+all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything,
+neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the
+condition of Ursula and Phoebe to one of absolute safety. They were all
+kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful
+observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement and
+mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young
+men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness for Janey's bed-time.
+
+"Do you let her sit up till midnight every night?" said Reginald, with
+indignation.
+
+"Let me sit up!" cried Janey, "as if I was obliged to do what she tells
+me!"
+
+Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked at the
+clock.
+
+"It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock," she said, with a sigh.
+"I should have thought papa would have come home before now. Can he be
+staying at the Hall all night?"
+
+Just then, however, there was the well-known ring at the bell, and
+Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper. Why couldn't
+Janey make herself useful and do that, the little company thought
+indignantly and with one accord, instead of staying here with her sharp
+eyes, putting everybody out? Mr. May's little dinner, or supper, served
+on a tray, was very comfortable, and he ate it with great satisfaction,
+telling Ursula that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.
+
+"The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead was a
+little less disagreeable than he always is; and you may look for
+Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not going to leave us. You
+must take care that he does not fall in love with you, Ursula. That is
+the chief thing they seem to be afraid of."
+
+"Fall in love with _me_!" cried Ursula. "Oh, papa, where are your eyes?
+He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't you see it? It is Phoebe he
+cares for."
+
+Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious smile in his
+eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully whether her father had taken
+much wine at the Hall.
+
+"Ah, ha! is that what they are frightened for?" he said, and then he
+shrugged his shoulders. "She will show bad taste, Ursula; she might do
+better; but I suppose a girl of her class has not the delicacy--So that
+is what they are frightened for! And what are the other fish _you_ have
+to fry?"
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you; that you had other fish
+to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that?
+Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door--just a whiff
+of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go
+into the study and get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed."
+
+"Won't you come upstairs to the drawing-room?" said Ursula, faltering,
+for she was appalled by the idea of explanations. What had she to
+explain, as yet? Mr. May shook his head, with that smile still upon his
+face.
+
+"No, you'll get on excellently well without me. I've had a long walk,
+and I think I'll go to bed."
+
+"You don't look very well, papa."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm well enough; only confused in the head a little with
+fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good-night. Don't keep
+those young fellows late, though one of them is your brother. You can
+say I'm tired. Good-night, my dear."
+
+It was very seldom that he called her "my dear," or, indeed, said
+anything affectionate to his grown-up children. If Ursula had not been
+so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so sure that "they" would
+miss her, she would have been anxious about her father; but as it was,
+she ran upstairs lightly when he stopped speaking, and left him going
+into the study, where already his lamp was burning. Betsy passed her as
+she ran up the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held
+between two folds of her apron. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome
+parish business to bother him, when he was tired already. But Ursula did
+not stop for that. How she wanted to be there again, among "them all,"
+even though Janey still made one! She went in breathless, and gave her
+father's message only half-articulately. He was tired. "We are never to
+mind; he says so." They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May
+being tired, what did that matter? He would, no doubt, be better
+to-morrow; and in the mean time those sweet hours, though so hampered by
+Janey, were very sweet.
+
+Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on his table. He was
+just taking out his medicine from the drawer, and he made a wry face at
+the note and at the pills together.
+
+"Parish?" he said, curtly.
+
+"No, sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He came this morning, after you'd
+gone, and he sent over little Bobby."
+
+"That will do."
+
+A presentiment of pain stole over him. He gave Betsy a nod of dismissal,
+and went on with what he was doing. After he had finished, he took up
+the little note from the table with a look of disgust. It was badly
+scrawled, badly folded, and dirty. Thank Heaven, Cotsdean's
+communications would soon be over now.
+
+Janey had proposed a round game upstairs. They were all humble in their
+desire to conciliate that young despot. Reginald got the cards, and
+Northcote put chairs round the table. He placed Ursula next to himself,
+which was a consolation, and sat down by her, close to her, though not a
+word, except of the most commonplace kind, could be said.
+
+Just then--what was it? an indescribable thrill through the house, the
+sound of a heavy fall. They all started up from their seats to hear what
+it was. Then Ursula, with a cry of apprehension, rushed downstairs, and
+the others after her. Betsy, alarmed, had come out of the kitchen,
+followed by her assistant, and was standing frightened, but irresolute;
+for Mr. May was not a man to be disturbed with impunity. And this might
+be nothing--the falling of a chair or a table, and nothing more.
+
+"What is it?" cried Ursula, in an anxious whisper.
+
+She was the leader in the emergency, for even Reginald held back. Then,
+after a moment's pause, she opened the door, and with a little cry
+rushed in. It was, as they feared, Mr. May who had fallen; but he had so
+far recovered himself as to be able to make efforts to rise. His face
+was towards them. It was very pale, of a livid colour, and covered with
+moisture, great beads standing on his forehead. He smiled vaguely when
+he saw the circle of faces.
+
+"Nothing--nothing--a faintness," he faltered, making again an effort to
+rise.
+
+"What is it, papa? Oh, what's the matter?" cried Janey, rushing at him
+and seizing him by the arm. "Get up! get up! what will people think? Oh,
+Ursula, how queer he looks, and he feels so heavy. Oh, please get up,
+papa!"
+
+"Go away," said Mr. May, "go away. It is--a faintness. I am very well
+where I am--"
+
+But he did not resist when Reginald and Northcote lifted him from the
+floor. He had a piece of paper tightly clasped in his hand. He gave them
+a strange suspicious look all round, and shrank when his eyes fell upon
+Phoebe. "Don't let her know," he said. "Take me away, take me away."
+
+"Reginald will take you upstairs, papa--to your room--to bed; you ought
+to go to bed. It is the long walk that has worn you out. Oh, Reginald,
+don't contradict him, let him go where he pleases. Oh, papa, where _are_
+you going?" cried Ursula, "the other way; you want to go to bed."
+
+"This way, take me--somewhere," said the sufferer; though he could not
+stand he made a step, staggering between them, and an effort to push
+towards the hall door, and when they directed him in the other direction
+to the staircase which led to his room, he struggled feebly yet
+violently with them. "No, no, no, not there!" he cried. The sudden
+confusion, dismay, and alarm into which the family was plunged, the
+strange sense of a catastrophe that came upon them, cannot be told.
+Ursula, calling out all the time that they were not to contradict him,
+insisted imperiously with words and gestures that he should be taken
+upstairs. Janey, altogether overcome, sat down on the lower steps of the
+staircase and cried. Reginald almost as pale as his father, and not
+saying a word, urged him towards the stairs. To get him up to his room,
+resisting as well as he could, and moaning inarticulate remonstrances
+all the way, was no easy business. As the procession toiled along Phoebe
+was left below, the only one in possession of her faculties. She sent
+the housemaid hurriedly off for the doctor, and despatched Betsy to the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hot water is always wanted," said Phoebe; "see that you have enough in
+case he should require a bath."
+
+Then with her usual decision she stepped back into the study. It was not
+vulgar curiosity which was in Phoebe's mind, nor did it occur to her that
+she had no right to investigate Mr. May's private affairs. If she could
+find what had done it, would not that be a great matter, something to
+tell the doctor, to throw light on so mysterious a seizure? Several bits
+of torn paper were lying on the floor; but only one of these was big
+enough to contain any information. It was torn in a kind of triangular
+shape, and contained a corner of a letter, a section of three lines,
+
+                                        "must have mistaken the date
+                                                   presented to-day,
+                                                      paid by Tozer,"
+
+was what she read. She could not believe her eyes. What transactions
+could there be between her grandfather and Mr. May? She secured the
+scrap of paper, furtively putting it into her pocket. It was better to
+say nothing either to the doctor, or any one else, of anything so
+utterly incomprehensible. It oppressed Phoebe with a sense of mystery and
+of personal connection with the mystery, which even her self-possession
+could scarcely bear up against. She went into the kitchen after Betsy,
+avowedly in anxious concern for the boiling of the kettle.
+
+"Hot water is good for everything," said Phoebe; "mamma says a hot bath
+is the best of remedies. Did Mr. May have anything--to worry him, Betsy?
+I suppose it is only fatigue, and that he has taken too long a walk."
+
+"I don't believe in the long walk, Miss," said Betsy, "it's that
+Cotsdean as is always a-tormenting with his dirty letters. When that man
+comes bothering here, master is always put out."
+
+"Cotsdean? I don't know the name."
+
+"Don't say nothing, Miss," said Betsy, sinking her voice, "but you take
+my word it's money. Money's at the bottom of everything. It's something,
+as sure as you're alive, as master has got to pay. I've been a deal with
+gentlefolks," added Betsy, "and ne'er a one of them can abide that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE SINNED-AGAINST.
+
+
+Phoebe's mind was full of many and somewhat agitating thoughts. She went
+upstairs with a restless haste, which she would have been the first to
+condemn, to the room where the others were congregated, when they had
+laid Mr. May on his bed with no small difficulty, and were now
+consulting what to do. Ursula had fallen a little from the position of
+command she had taken up. To get him to bed, to send for the doctor,
+these were evident practical steps to take; but after having done these
+she was bewildered and fell back upon her advisers.
+
+"We can't do anything, we can only wait and watch him," Reginald was
+saying, as Phoebe, herself unseen, looked in at the anxious party; and
+without asking any question she turned and went downstairs again, and
+hastily putting on her shawl and hat, went out, shutting the door
+softly, and ran home on the shady side of Grange Lane, where nobody
+could see her. It was a very quiet road, and she was not disturbed by
+any unreasonable alarms. It was still early when she got home, earlier
+than usual, and her intention was not to stay there at all, but to go
+back again and offer her assistance to Ursula, for whom she had left a
+message to this effect. Phoebe was full of genuine regard and
+friendliness towards the Mays.
+
+She felt that she had obligations to all of them, to the parson-father
+for submitting to her presence, nay, encouraging it, and to Ursula for
+receiving her with that affectionate fervour of friendship which had
+completely changed the tenor of Phoebe's life at Carlingford. She was
+obliged to them, and she knew that she was obliged to them. How
+different these three months would have been but for the Parsonage; what
+a heavy leaden-coloured existence without variety and without interest
+she must have lived; whereas it had gone by like a summer day, full of
+real life, of multiplied interests, of everything that it was most
+desirable to have. Not at home and in London could she have had the
+advantages she had enjoyed here. Phoebe was sensible enough--or perhaps
+we might use a less complimentary word--worldly enough, to count within
+those manifest benefits the advantage of seeing more of Clarence
+Copperhead, and of drawing him within the charmed circle of her
+influence, and she was grateful to the Mays, for this was their doing.
+And then, on the other hand, quite a different thing, her heart was
+touched and softened with gratitude to Reginald for loving her; of all
+her gratitudes, perhaps this indeed was the most truly felt. They had
+given her unbounded kindness, friendliness, everything that is most
+sweet to the solitary; and over and above, as if these were not enough,
+they had made her the exquisite present of a heart, the best thing that
+can be given or received by man. Phoebe felt herself penetrated with
+gratitude for all this, and she resolved that, if anything she could do
+could benefit the Mays, the effort on her part should not be wanting.
+"Paid by Tozer." What had been paid by Tozer? What had her grandfather
+to do with it. Could it be he who had lent money to Mr. May? Then Phoebe
+resolved, with a glow on her face, he should forgive his debtors. She
+went in with her mind fully made up, whatever might happen, to be the
+champion of the sufferer, the saviour of the family. This would show
+them that their kindness had been appreciated. This would prove even to
+Reginald that, though she would not sacrifice her own prospects by
+marrying him, yet that she was grateful to him, to the bottom of her
+heart. Her mind was full of generous ardour as she went in. She knew her
+power; her grandfather had never yet refused her anything, never
+resisted her, and it did not seem likely that he should begin now.
+
+Mrs. Tozer was by herself in the parlour, dozing over the fire. She woke
+up with a little start when Phoebe came in and smiled at the sight of
+her.
+
+"I didn't expect as you'd have come so soon," she said; "you've broke up
+early to-night, darling. Couldn't you have no music? I didn't look for
+you for an hour or more."
+
+"You know, grandmamma, it is Mr. Copperhead who teases me most for
+music, and he is not here."
+
+"Yes, yes, _I_ know," said the old lady, nodding her head with many
+smiles. "I know a deal more about it than you think for, Phoebe, and
+don't you think as I disapprove, for it's quite the other way. But you
+won't tell me as there ain't others as cares for music as well as young
+Copperhead. I've seen one as couldn't take his eyes off of you while you
+were playing."
+
+"Hush, grandmamma; the others like music for music's sake, or perhaps
+for my sake; but Mr Copperhead likes it for his own sake, and therefore
+he is the one who insists upon it. But this is not the reason why I have
+come home so soon. Mr. May has been taken suddenly ill."
+
+"Lord bless us!" cried Mrs. Tozer, "deary, deary me! I'm very sorry,
+poor gentleman, I hope it ain't anything serious. Though he's a church
+parson, he's a very civil-spoken man, and I see his children drag him
+into his own house one day as me and Tozer was passing. I said to Tozer
+at the time, you take my word, whatever folks say, a man as lets his
+children pull him about like that ain't a bad one. And so he's ill, poor
+man! Is there anything as we can do to help, my dear? They ain't rich,
+and they've been as kind to you as if you'd been one of their own."
+
+"I thought that would be the first thing you would ask me," said Phoebe
+gratefully, giving her a kiss--"dear grandmamma, it is like your kind
+heart--and I ran off to see that you were quite well and comfortable,
+thinking perhaps if you did not want me I might go back to poor Ursula
+for the night."
+
+To hear her granddaughter call Miss May by her Christian name was in
+itself a pleasure to Mrs. Tozer. She gave Phoebe a hug. "So you shall, my
+darling, and as for a bottle of good wine or that, anything as is in the
+house, you know you're welcome to it. You go and talk to your
+grandfather; I'm as comfortable as I can be, and if you'd like to run
+back to that poor child--"
+
+"Not before you are in bed," said Phoebe, "but if you please I'll go and
+talk to grandpapa as you said. There are things in which a man may be of
+use."
+
+"To be sure," said Mrs. Tozer, doubtfully; "your grandfather ain't a man
+as is much good in sickness; but I won't say as there ain't some
+things--"
+
+"Yes, grandmamma, I'll take your advice and run and talk to him; and by
+the time I come back you will be ready for bed."
+
+"Do, my dear," said Mrs. Tozer. She was very comfortable, and did not
+care to move just then, and, as Phoebe went away, looked after her with
+dreamy satisfaction. "Bless her! there ain't her match in Carlingford,
+and the gentlefolks sees it," said Mrs. Tozer to herself. But she had no
+idea how Phoebe's heart was beating as she went along the dimly-lighted
+passage, which led to a small room fitted up by Tozer for himself. She
+heard voices in earnest talk as she approached, but this made her only
+the more eager to go in, and see for herself what was going on. There
+could be no doubt, she felt sure of it, that the discussion here had
+some connection with the calamity _there_. What it was she had not the
+slightest idea; but that somehow the two were connected she felt
+certain. The voices were loud as she approached the door.
+
+"I'll find out who done it, and I'll punish him--as sure as that's my
+name, though I never put it on that there paper," Tozer was saying.
+Phoebe opened the door boldly, and went in. She had never seen her
+grandfather look so unlike himself. The knot of the big white
+neckerchief round his neck was pushed away, his eyes were red, giving
+out strange lights of passion. He was standing in front of the fireplace
+gesticulating wildly. Though it was now April and the weather very mild
+and genial, there were still fires in the Tozer sitting-rooms, and as
+the windows were carefully shut, Phoebe felt the atmosphere stifling. The
+other person in the room was a serious, large man, whom she had already
+seen more than once; one of the chief clerks in the bank where Tozer
+kept his account, who had an old acquaintance with the butterman, and
+who was in the habit of coming when the bank had anything to say to so
+sure a customer about rates of investment or the value of money. He was
+seated at one side of the fire, looking very grave and shaking his head
+as the other spoke.
+
+"That is very true, and I don't say anything against it. But, Mr. Tozer,
+I can't help thinking there's some one else in it than Cotsdean."
+
+"What one else? what is the good of coming here to me with a pack of
+nonsense? He's a poor needy creature as hasn't a penny to bless himself
+with, a lot of children, and a wife as drinks. Don't talk to me of some
+one else. That's the sort of man as does all the mischief. What, Phoebe!
+run away to your grandmother, I don't want you here."
+
+"I am very sorry to interrupt you, grandpapa. Mayn't I stay? I have
+something to say to you--"
+
+Tozer turned round and looked at her eagerly. Partly his own fancy, and
+partly his wife's more enlightened observations, had made him aware that
+it was possible that Phoebe might one day have something very interesting
+to reveal. So her words roused him even in the midst of his
+pre-occupation. He looked at her for a second, then he waved his hand
+and said,
+
+"I'm busy; go away, my dear, go away; I can't talk to you now."
+
+Phoebe gave the visitor a look which perplexed him; but which meant, if
+he could but have read it, an earnest entreaty to him to go away. She
+said to herself, impatiently, that he would have understood had he been
+a woman; but as it was he only stared with lack-lustre eyes. What was
+she to do?
+
+"Grandpapa," she said, decisively, "it is too late for business
+to-night. However urgent it may be, you can't do anything to-night. Why,
+it is nearly ten o'clock, and most people are going to bed. See Mr.
+----, I mean this gentleman--to-morrow morning the first thing; for you
+know, however anxious you may be, you can't do anything to-night."
+
+"That is true enough," he said, looking with staring eyes from her to
+his visitor, "and more's the pity. What had to be done should ha' been
+done to-day. It should have been done to-day, sir, on the spot, not left
+over night like this, to give the villain time to get away. It's a
+crime, Phoebe, that's what it is--that's the fact. It's a crime."
+
+"Well, grandpapa, I am very sorry; but it will not mend matters, will
+it, if sitting up like this, and agitating yourself like this, makes you
+ill? That will not do away with the crime. It is bed-time, and poor
+grandmamma is dozing, and wondering what has become of you.
+Grandpapa----"
+
+"Phoebe, go away, it ain't none of your business; you're only a bit of a
+girl, and how can you understand? If you think I'm going to sit down
+with it like an old fool, lose my money, and what is worse nor my money,
+let my very name be forged before my eyes--"
+
+Phoebe gave so perceptible a start that Tozer stopped short, and even the
+banking-clerk looked at her with aroused curiosity.
+
+"Forged!" she cried, with a gasp of dismay; "is it so bad as that?" She
+had never been more near betraying herself, showing a personal interest
+more close than was natural. When she saw the risk she was running, she
+stopped short and summoned all her energies. "I thought some one had
+pilfered something," she said with an attempt at a laugh. "I beg your
+pardon, grandpapa; but anyhow what can you do to-night? You are
+keeping--this gentleman--and yourself out of bed. Please put it off till
+to-morrow."
+
+"I think so too," said the banker's clerk. "I'll come to you in the
+morning as I go to the Bank. Perhaps I may have been wrong; but I think
+there's more in it than meets the eye. To-morrow we can have the man
+Cotsdean up and question him."
+
+"After he's had time to take himself off," said Tozer, vehemently. "You
+take my word he ain't in Carlingford, not now, let alone to-morrow."
+
+"Then that shows," said Phoebe, quietly, "that it is of no use making
+yourself ill to-night. Grandpapa, let this gentleman go--he wants to go;
+and I have something to say to you. You can do anything that is
+necessary to-morrow."
+
+"I think so indeed," said Mr. Simpson, of the Bank, getting up at last,
+"the young lady is quite right. We can't act hastily in a thing like
+this. Cotsdean's a man of good character, Mr. Tozer; all that has to be
+taken into account--and he is not a beggar. If he has done it, we can
+recover something at least; but if he has been taken advantage of--I
+think the young lady is a good counsellor, and that it's much the best
+to wait till to-morrow."
+
+Phoebe seized upon her grandfather's arm to restrain him, and held him
+back. "Good-night," she said; "grandpapa, stay with me, I have something
+to say to you. Listen; you don't think me very silly, do you, grandpapa
+dear?"
+
+"Silly!" he said, listening to the steps of the departing visitor as
+they receded along the passage. "What has a chit like you to do with
+business? I tell you it'll kill me. Me a-signing of accommodation bills
+for a bit of a small shopkeeper like that Cotsdean! I tell you it'll
+make an end of me, that will, unless I gets my money and clears myself
+afore the world. And here you've been and sent away Simpson, and who's
+to manage for me? I ain't a lawyer to know what to do. Get away, get
+away, and leave me to myself, I can't be disturbed with women-folks when
+I've got real business in hand."
+
+"I'll manage for you," said Phoebe; "you need not stare at me like that,
+grandpapa--"
+
+"Go out o' the room this moment, Miss!" he cried furious; "you! here's a
+sort of thing for me to put up with. Sam Tozer wasn't born yesterday
+that a bit of an impudent girl should take upon her to do for him.
+Manage for me! go out o' my sight; I'm a fool, am I, and in my dotage to
+have a pack of women meddling in my affairs?"
+
+Phoebe had never met with such an outburst of coarse anger in her life
+before, and it gave her a shock, as such assaults naturally do to people
+brought up softly, and used to nothing but kindness. For a moment she
+wavered, doubtful whether she should not proudly abandon him and his
+affairs altogether; but this was to abandon her friends too. She
+mastered herself accordingly, and the resentment which she could not
+help feeling--and stood pale but quiet opposite to the infuriated old
+man. His grey eyes seemed to give out sparks of fire. His hair bristled
+up on his head like the coat of a wild animal enraged. He went up and
+down on the hearth-rug like the same animal in a cage, shaking his fist
+at some imaginary culprit.
+
+"Once I get him, see if I let him go," he cried, his voice thick with
+fast-coming words and the foam of fury. "Let the bank do as it likes;
+I'll have him, I will. I'll see justice on the man as has dared to make
+free with my name. It ain't nothing to you, my name; but I've kep' it
+honest, and out of folk's mouths, and see if I'll stand disgrace thrown
+on it now. A bill on me as never had such a thing, not when I was
+struggling to get on! Dash him! damn him!" cried the old man,
+transported with rage. When he had come to this unusual and terrible
+length, Tozer paused dismayed. He had lost his temper before in his
+life; but very seldom had he been betrayed into anything so desperate as
+this. He stopped aghast, and cast a half-frightened look at Phoebe, who
+stood there so quiet, subdued out of her usual force, pale and
+disapproving--his own grandchild, a pastor's daughter! and he had
+forgotten himself thus before her. He blushed hotly, though he was not
+used to blushing, and stopped all at once. After such frightful
+language, so unbecoming a deacon of Salem, so unlike a consistent member
+of the connection, what could he say?
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe softly, "it is not good to be so angry; you are
+made to say things you are sorry for. Will you listen to me now? Though
+you don't think it, and perhaps won't believe it, I have found out
+something quite by chance--"
+
+He went up to her and clutched her by the arm. "Then what are you
+a-standing there for, like a figure in stone? Can't you out with it, and
+ease my mind? Out with it, I tell you! Do you want to drive me out of my
+senses?"
+
+He was so much excited that he shook her in the hot paroxysm of
+returning rage. Phoebe was not frightened, but indignation made her pale.
+She stood without flinching, and looked at him, till poor old Tozer let
+go his hold, and dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands.
+She was too generous to take advantage of him, but went on quietly, as
+if nothing had occurred.
+
+"Grandpapa, as I tell you, I have found out something by chance that has
+to do with the thing that troubles you; but I don't know quite what it
+is. Tell me first, and then--is this the thing?" said Phoebe, curiously,
+taking up a slip of paper from the table, a stamped piece of paper, in a
+handwriting which seemed horribly familiar to her, and yet strange.
+Tozer nodded at her gloomily, holding his head between his hands, and
+Phoebe read over the first few words before her with an aching heart, and
+eyes that seemed to ache in sympathy. Only a few words, but what
+evidence of guilt, what pitiful misery in them! She did not even think
+so much of the name on the back, which was and was not her grandfather's
+name. The rest of the bill was written in a hand disguised and changed;
+but she had seen a great deal of similar writing lately, and she
+recognized it with a sickening at her heart. In the kind of fatherly
+flirtation which had been innocently carried on between Phoebe and her
+friend's father, various productions of his in manuscript had been given
+to her to read. She was said, in the pleasant social jokes of the party,
+to be more skilled in interpreting Mr. May's handwriting than any of his
+family. She stood and gazed at the paper, and her eyes filled with tears
+of pain and pity. The openness of this self-betrayal, veiled as it was
+with a shadow of disguise which could deceive no one who knew him, went
+to Phoebe's heart. What could he have done it for? Mere money, the
+foolish expenses of every day, or, what would be more respectable, some
+vague mysterious claim upon him, which might make desperate expedients
+necessary? She stood, temporarily stupefied, with her eyes full, looking
+at that pitiful, terrible, guilty bit of paper, stupefied by the sudden
+realization of her sudden guess at the truth--though, indeed, the truth
+was so much more guilty and appalling than any guess of hers.
+
+"Well," said Tozer, "you've seen it, and now what do you think of it?
+That's my name, mind you, my name! I hope the Almighty will grant me
+patience. Stuck on to what they calls a kite, an accommodation bill.
+What do you think of that, Miss Phoebe? A-a-ah! if I had hold of him--if
+I had him under my fists--if I had him by the scruff of the neck!"
+
+"Grandpapa, doesn't it say in the Bible we are to forgive when harm is
+done to us?"
+
+Phoebe had begun to tremble all over; for the first time she doubted her
+own power.
+
+He got up again, and began to prowl about the table, round and round,
+with the same wild look in his eyes.
+
+"I am not one as would go again' Scripture," he said, gloomily; "but
+that's a spiritual meaning as you're too young to enter into. You don't
+suppose as Scripture would approve of crime, or let them escape as had
+wronged their fellow-creatures? There wouldn't be no business, no
+justice, no trade, on such a rule as that."
+
+"But, grandpapa--"
+
+"Don't you but me. You've seen me in good spirits and good temper,
+Phoebe, my girl; but you don't know old Sam Tozer when his spirit's up.
+D---- him!" cried the old man, striking his hand violently on the table;
+"and you may tell your father, as is a Minister, that I said so. The
+Bible's spiritual; but there's trade, and there's justice. A man ain't
+clear of what he's done because you forgive him. What's the law for
+else? Forgive! You may forgive him as fast as you like, but he's got to
+be punished all the same."
+
+"But not by you."
+
+"By the law!" cried Tozer. His inflamed eyes seemed to glare upon her,
+his rough grey hair bristled on his head, a hot redness spread across
+his face beneath his fiery eyes, which seemed to scorch the cheek with
+angry flames. "The law that ain't a individual. That's for our
+protection, whether we like it or not. What's that got to do with
+forgiving? Now, looking at it in a public way, I ain't got no right to
+forgive."
+
+"Grandpapa, you have always been so kind, always so good to everybody. I
+have heard of so many things you have done--"
+
+"That is all very well," said Tozer, not without a certain gloomy
+complacence, "so long as you don't touch _me_. But the moment as you
+touches me, I'm another man. That's what I can't bear, nor I won't. Them
+as tries their tricks upon me shan't be let off, neither for wife nor
+child; and don't you think, my girl, though you're Phoebe, junior, that
+you are a-going for to come over me."
+
+Phoebe could not but shiver in her fright and agitation; but distressed
+and excited as she was, she found means to take a step which was
+important indeed, though at the moment she did not fully realize its
+importance, and did it by instinct only. She had a handkerchief in her
+hand, and almost without consciousness of what she was doing, she
+crushed up the miserable bit of paper, which was the cause of so much
+evil and misery, in its folds. He was far too impassioned and excited to
+observe such a simple proceeding. It was the suggestion of a moment,
+carried out in another moment like a flash of lightning. And as soon as
+she had done this, and perceived what she had done, fortitude and
+comfort came back to Phoebe's soul.
+
+"You will not hear what I have found out, and now I do not choose to
+tell you, grandpapa," she said, with an air of offence. "Unless you wish
+to be ill, you will do much better to go to bed. It is your usual hour,
+and I am going to grandmamma. Say good-night, please. I am going out
+again to stay all night. Mr. May is ill, and I ought to help poor
+Ursula."
+
+"You go a deal after them Mays," said Tozer, with a cloud over his face.
+
+"Yes. I wonder whom else I should go after? Who has been kind to me in
+Carlingford except the Mays? Nobody. Who has asked me to go to their
+house, and share everything that is pleasant in it? None of your Salem
+people, grandpapa. I hope I am not ungrateful, and whatever happens, or
+whatever trouble they are in," cried Phoebe, fervently, "I shall stand up
+for them through thick and thin, wherever I go."
+
+The old man looked at her with a startled look.
+
+"You speak up bold," he said; "you won't get put upon for want of
+spirit; and I don't know as what you're saying ain't the right
+thing--though I don't hold with the Church, nor parsons' ways. I'd do a
+deal myself, though you think me so hard and cross, for folks as has
+been kind to you."
+
+"I know you will, grandpapa," said Phoebe, with a slight emphasis which
+startled him, though he did not know why; and she kissed him before she
+went to her grandmother, which she did with a perfectly composed and
+tranquil mind. It was astonishing how the crackle of that bit of paper
+in her handkerchief calmed and soothed her. She recovered her breath,
+her colour, and her spirits. She ran up to her room and changed her
+dress, which was silk, for a soft merino one, which made no rustling;
+and then she folded the bill carefully, and put it into the safe keeping
+of the little purse which she always carried in her pocket. No one would
+think of searching for it there, and she would always have it at hand
+whatever happened. When she had made these needful arrangements, she
+went to old Mrs. Tozer, and took her comfortably upstairs. Never was
+there a more devoted nurse. The old lady chatted cheerfully, yet
+sympathetically, of the poor gentleman and his illness, with the
+half-satisfaction of an invalid in hearing of some one else who is ill.
+
+"And be sure you take him some of the port wine as the doctor ordered,
+and Tozer paid that dear for. I don't care for it, not a bit, Phoebe. I'd
+sooner have it from the grocer's, at two shillings a bottle. That's what
+I've always been used to, when I did take a glass of wine now and again.
+But I dare say as Mr. May would like it, poor gentleman."
+
+When Mrs. Tozer had laid her head, all nodding with white muslin frills,
+edged with cotton lace, upon her pillow, Phoebe, noiseless in her soft
+merino gown, went back, accompanied by Martha, to the Parsonage, where
+Ursula's careworn face lighted a little at sight of her. Ursula had left
+her father for the moment in Betsy's care, to get something that was
+wanted, and she stole into the dining-room on hearing of her friend's
+arrival, and talked a little in a whisper, though the sick man was on
+the upper floor, and could not possibly have heard anything. Northcote
+was still there, sitting with Reginald, too anxious and excited to go
+away; and they all conversed in whispers, the three of them talking
+together for the benefit of the new-comer.
+
+"Not paralysis; at least, he does not think so; a great mental
+shock--but we can't tell a bit what it was--coming when he was
+dreadfully tired, and not able to bear it."
+
+They all spoke together, each of them saying a few words, and kept close
+together in the centre of the room, a curious little half-frightened
+group, overawed and subdued by the sudden change and strange calamity
+dropt into their midst. Phoebe seemed to bring them new life and hope.
+
+"If it is going to be an illness," she said, "you gentlemen had better
+go home and go to bed, to be able to help us when we want help. Anyhow,
+what good can they do, Ursula? They had much better go to bed."
+
+Ursula looked at them with a certain regret; though they could not do
+much good, it was a relief to come and whisper a few words to them now
+and then, giving them news of the patient. But Phoebe was right, and
+there was nothing to be said against her decision. The two young women
+and the faithful Betsy were enough, and, indeed, more than enough to
+watch over Mr. May.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+A MORNING'S WORK.
+
+
+"Go and lie down for an hour," whispered Phoebe. "I am not sleepy at all.
+I have sat up before, and never felt it, you never did, I can see it in
+your poor little white face; and besides, I am steadier, because I am
+not so anxious. Now go, Ursula, if you are really fond of me, as you
+say--"
+
+"Oh, Phoebe! if you think he is a little better. Oh, how horrible it is
+to be sleepy, as if you were all body, and had no heart at all!"
+
+"You have plenty of heart, but you have never been used to this nursing.
+Leave your door open, so that I may call you in a moment. I have sat up
+often. Now go, to please me," said Phoebe. She had another object than
+mere rest to her friend, who at last, very much ashamed and crying
+softly, yet so weary that nothing on this earth seemed so desirable to
+her as sleep, crept to her room, and lay down there as the pale morning
+began to dawn. Betsy slept heavily in an easy-chair outside the door of
+the sick-room. She was there at hand in case anything was wanted, but
+she was happily unconscious where she was, sleeping the sleep of hard
+work and a mind undisturbed. Phoebe had seen that the patient was
+stirring out of the dull doze in which his faculties had been entirely
+stilled and stupefied. He was rousing to uneasiness, if not to full
+consciousness. Two or three times he made a convulsive movement, as if
+to raise himself; once his eyes, which were half open, seemed to turn
+upon her with a vague glimmer of meaning. How strangely she felt towards
+him, as she sat there in the grey of the morning, sole guardian, sole
+confidant of this erring and miserable man! The thought ran through her
+with a strange thrill. He was nothing to her, and yet he was absolutely
+in her power, and in all heaven and earth there seemed no one who was
+capable of protecting him, or cared to do so, except herself only. She
+sat looking at him with a great pity in her mind, determined to be his
+true protector, to deliver him from what he himself had done. She had
+not realized at first what it was he had done, and indeed it was only
+now that its full enormity, or rather its full consequences (which were
+the things that affected her most urgently), made themselves apparent
+to her. Generalizations are unsafe things; and whether it was because
+she was a woman that Phoebe, passing over the crime, fixed her thoughts
+upon the punishment, I do not venture to say; but she did so. After all
+a few lines of writing on a bit of paper is not a crime which affects
+the imagination of the inexperienced. Had it been a malicious slander
+Phoebe would have realized the sin of it much more clearly; but the copy
+of her grandfather's signature did not wound her moral sense in the same
+way, though it was a much more serious offence. That Mr. May could have
+intended to rob him of the money appeared impossible to her; and no
+doubt the borrowing of the signature was wrong--very wrong. Yes, of
+course it was horribly, fatally wrong; but still it did not set her
+imagination aglow with indignant horror, as smaller affairs might have
+done. But the consequences--disgrace, ruin, the loss of his position,
+the shame of his profession, moral death indeed, almost as frightful as
+if he had been hanged for murder. She shivered as she sat by him, veiled
+by the curtain, and thought of her grandfather's vindictive fierceness;
+only she stood between him and destruction, and Phoebe felt that it was
+by no legitimate means that she was doing so, not by her influence over
+her grandfather as she had hoped, but only by an unjustifiable expedient
+which in itself was a kind of crime. This, however, brought a slight
+smile on her face. She took out her little purse from her pocket, and
+looked at the bit of paper carefully folded in it. The faint perfume of
+the Russia leather had already communicated itself to the document,
+which had not been so pleasant in Tozer's hands. As she looked at it
+lying peacefully on her lap, her attention was suddenly called by the
+patient, who sat upright and looked furtively about him, with his hand
+upon the coverings ready to throw them off. His ghastly white face
+peered at her from behind the curtain with wild eagerness--then relaxed,
+when he met her eye, into a kind of idiot smile, a painful attempt to
+divert suspicion, and he fell back again with a groan. The trance that
+had stupefied him was over; he had recovered some kind of consciousness,
+how much or how little she could not tell. His mind now seemed to be set
+upon hiding himself, drawing his coverings over him, and concealing
+himself with the curtain, at which he grasped with an excess of force
+which neutralized itself.
+
+"Mr. May," said Phoebe, softly. "Mr. May! do you know me?"
+
+She could not tell what answer he made, or if he made any answer. He
+crouched down under the bed-clothes, pulling them over his face, trying
+to hide himself from her; from which she divined that he did recognize
+her, confused though his faculties were. Then a hoarse murmuring sound
+seemed to come out of the pillow. It was some time before she could make
+out what it was.
+
+"Where am I?" he said.
+
+With the lightning speed of sympathy and pity, Phoebe divined what his
+terror was. She said, almost whispering,
+
+"At home, in your own bed--at home! and safe. Oh, don't you know me--I
+am Phoebe." Then after a pause, "Tozer's granddaughter; do you know me
+now?"
+
+The strange, scared, white-faced spectre shrank under his covering, till
+she could see no more of him except two wild eyes full of terror which
+was almost madness.
+
+"Listen!" she said eagerly, "try to understand! Oh, Mr. May, try to
+understand! I know about it--I know everything, and you are safe--quite
+safe; you need not have any fear!"
+
+He did not follow what she said, Phoebe perceived with pain and terror.
+Even the impression made by the first sight of her seemed to fade from
+his mind. His grasp relaxed upon the curtains and coverlet; and then the
+hoarse murmuring was resumed. Straining all her ears, she made out that
+he was not speaking to her or any one, but moaned to himself, saying the
+same words over and over again. It took her a long time to make out even
+what these words were. When at last she did make them out they filled
+the girl with an alarm beyond words.
+
+"It used to be hanging," he said. "Hard labour; can I bear hard labour?
+And the children--the children! Hard labour--for life. Hanging--was soon
+over. The children! I cannot bear it. I never was put to--hard
+labour--in all my life."
+
+Phoebe was too sick at heart to listen to more. She drew a little apart,
+but near enough to be seen by him. If he chose to spring up, to fling
+himself from the window, as she had heard of men doing in delirium, who
+could restrain him? Not she, a slight girl, nor Betsy, even if Betsy
+could be roused to the danger. She did not know how long the vigil which
+followed lasted, but it seemed like years to her; and when at last she
+was relieved by the joyful sound of Reginald's voice and footstep coming
+up the stairs, she felt disposed to run to the glass at once, and look
+if her hair had grown white, or her countenance permanently changed with
+the terror. Reginald, for his part, thought of his father in the second
+place only, as children are apt to do; he came up to her first, and
+with a thrill in his voice of surprise and emotion, addressed her
+hastily by her name.
+
+"Phoebe! is it _you_ who are watching--you, darling?"
+
+"Hush! I sent Ursula to bed; she was so tired. Don't leave him. I am
+frightened," cried Phoebe. "He is wandering in his mind. Oh, don't leave
+him, Mr. May!"
+
+"I will do exactly as you tell me," said Reginald, in a confused
+transport of feeling, the very anxiety in his mind helping to destroy
+his self-control. He stooped down and kissed her hands before she could
+divine what he was about to do. "Only you or an angel would have done
+it," he cried, with a tremulous voice.
+
+Was it not natural that he should think that some thought of him had
+made Phoebe so careful of his father? His heart was swelling, too full to
+hold, with a sudden joy, which expanded the pain, and made that greater
+too.
+
+"Oh, what does it matter about me? Mr. May, think what I am saying.
+Don't leave him for a moment. He might throw himself out of the window,
+he might do some harm to himself. Ah! again!" said Phoebe, trembling.
+
+But this time it was only a convulsive start, nothing more. The patient
+dropped down again softly upon his pillows, and relapsed into his doze,
+if doze it could be called, in which his faculties were but
+half-dormant, and his open eyes contradicted all the appearances of
+natural sleep.
+
+When she was relieved from the sick room--and now she had a double
+motive in getting away--Phoebe stole softly into the faded little place
+where Ursula lay, still fast asleep, though fully dressed, and bathed
+her face and strained eyes. "I wonder if my hair is grey underneath,"
+she said to herself. "I wonder nothing has happened to me." But a great
+deal had happened to her. Such a night is rarely encountered by so young
+a creature, or such an alarming charge undertaken. And sudden hot kisses
+upon little, cold, agitated hands, worn by fatigue to nervous perception
+of every touch, are very exciting and strange to a girl. They had given
+her a kind of electric shock. She was not in love with Reginald, and
+therefore she felt it all the more, and her heart was still throbbing
+with the suddenness and excitement of the incident. And after she had
+made an effort to get over this, there remained upon her mind the
+disturbing burden of a knowledge which no one shared, and a
+responsibility which was very heavy and terrible, and too tremendous for
+her slight shoulders. After she had made that hasty toilette, she sat
+down for a moment at the foot of the bed on which Ursula lay sleeping,
+unconscious of all those mysteries, and tried to think. It is not an
+easy process at any time, but after a long night's watching, terror, and
+agitation, it seemed more impossible to Phoebe than it had ever done
+before. And she had so much occasion for thought, so much need of the
+power of judging clearly. What was she to do?--not to-morrow, or next
+week, but now. She had taken the responsibility of the whole upon
+herself by the sudden step she had taken last night; but, bold as she
+had been, Phoebe was ignorant. She did not know whether her theft of the
+bill would really stop the whole proceedings, as had seemed so certain
+last night; and what if she was found out, and compelled to return it,
+and all her labour lost! A panic took possession of her as she sat there
+at the foot of Ursula's bed, and tried to think. But what is the use of
+trying to think? The more you have need of them, the more all mental
+processes fail you. Phoebe could no more think than she could fly. She
+sat down very seriously, and she rose up in despair, and, thought being
+no longer among her possibilities, resolved to do something at once,
+without further delay, which would be a consolation to herself at least.
+How wonderful it was to go out in the fresh early morning, and see the
+people moving about their work, going up and down with indifferent
+faces, quite unconcerned about the day and all it might bring forth! She
+went up Grange Lane with a curious uncertainty as to what she should do
+next, feeling her own extraordinary independence more than anything
+else. Phoebe felt like a man who has been out all night, who has his own
+future all in his hands, nobody having any right to explanation or
+information about what he may choose to do, or to expect from him
+anything beyond what he himself may please to give. Very few people are
+in this absolutely free position, but this was how Phoebe represented it
+to herself, having, like all other girls, unbounded belief in the
+independence and freedom possessed by men. Many times in her life she
+had regarded with envy this independence, which, with a sigh, she had
+felt to be impossible. But now that she had it, Phoebe did not like it.
+What she would have given to have gone to some one, almost any one, and
+told her dilemma, and put the burden a little off her shoulders! But she
+durst not say a word to any one. Very anxious and pre-occupied, she went
+up Grange Lane. Home? She did not know; perhaps she would have thought
+of something before she reached the gate of No. 6. And accordingly, when
+she had lifted her hand to ring the bell, and made a step aside to
+enter, an inspiration came to Phoebe. She turned away from the door and
+went on up into the town, cautiously drawing her veil over her face, for
+already the apprentices were taking down the shutters from her uncle's
+shop, and she might be seen. Cotsdean's shop was late of opening that
+morning, and its master was very restless and unhappy. He had heard
+nothing more about the bill, but a conviction of something wrong had
+crept into his mind. It was an altogether different sensation from the
+anxiety he had hitherto felt. This was no anxiety to speak of, but a
+dull pain and aching conviction that all was not right. When he saw the
+young lady entering the shop, Cotsdean's spirits rose a little, for a
+new customer was pleasant, and though he thought he had seen her, he did
+not know who she was. She was pleasant to look upon, and it was not
+often that any one came so early. He came forward with anxious
+politeness; the boy (who was always late, and a useless creature, more
+expense than he was worth) had not appeared, and therefore Cotsdean was
+alone.
+
+"I wanted to speak to you, please," said Phoebe. "Will you mind if I
+speak very plainly, without any ceremony? Mr. Cotsdean, I am Mr. Tozer's
+granddaughter, and live with him at No. 6 in the Lane. I dare say you
+have often seen me with Miss May."
+
+"Yes--yes, Miss, certainly," he said, with a thrill of alarm and
+excitement running through him. He felt his knees knock together under
+cover of the counter, and yet he did not know what he feared.
+
+"Will you please tell me frankly, in confidence, about----the bill which
+was brought to my grandfather yesterday?" said Phoebe, bringing out the
+question with a rush.
+
+Whether she was doing wrong, whether she might bring insult upon
+herself, whether it was an interference unwarrantable and unjustifiable,
+she could not tell. She was in as great a fright as Cotsdean, and more
+anxious still than he was; but fortunately her agitation did not show.
+
+"What am I to tell you about it, Miss?" said the man, terrified. "Is it
+Mr. Tozer as has sent you? Lord help me! I know as he can sell me up if
+he has a mind; but he knows it ain't me."
+
+"Don't speak so loud," said Phoebe, trembling too. "Nobody must hear; and
+remember, you are never, never to talk of this to any one else; but tell
+me plainly, that there may be no mistake. Is it--Mr. May?"
+
+"Miss Tozer," said Cotsdean, who was shaking from head to foot, "if
+that's your name--I don't want to say a word against my clergyman. He's
+stood by me many a day as I wanted him, and wanted him bad; but as I'm a
+living man, that money was never for me; and now he's a-gone and left me
+in the lurch, and if your grandfather likes he can sell me up, and
+that's the truth. I've got seven children," said the poor man, with a
+sob breaking his voice, "and a missus; and nothing as isn't in the
+business, not a penny, except a pound or two in a savings' bank, as
+would never count. And I don't deny as he could sell me up; but oh!
+Miss, he knows very well it ain't for me."
+
+"Mr. Cotsdean," said Phoebe, impressively, "you don't know, I suppose,
+that Mr. May had a fit when he received your note last night?"
+
+"Lord help us! Oh! God forgive me, I've done him wrong, poor gentleman,
+if that's true."
+
+"It is quite true; he is very, very ill; he can't give you any advice,
+or assist you in any way, should grandpapa be unkind. He could not even
+understand if you told him what has happened."
+
+Once more Cotsdean's knees knocked against each other in the shadow of
+the counter. His very lips trembled as he stood regarding his strange
+visitor with scared and wondering eyes.
+
+"Now listen, please," said Phoebe, earnestly; "if any one comes to you
+about the bill to-day, don't say anything about _him_. Say you got
+it--in the way of business--say anything you please, but don't mention
+_him_. If you will promise me this, I will see that you don't come to
+any harm. Yes, I will; you may say I am not the sort of person to know
+about business, and it is quite true. But whoever comes to you remember
+this--if you don't mention Mr. May, I will see you safely through it; do
+you understand?"
+
+Phoebe leant across the counter in her earnestness. She was not the kind
+of person to talk about bills, or to be a satisfactory security for a
+man in business; but Cotsdean was a poor man, and he was ready to catch
+at a straw in the turbid ocean of debt and poverty which seemed closing
+round him. He gave the required promise with his heart in his mouth.
+
+Then Phoebe returned down the street. Her fatigue began to tell upon her,
+but she knew that she dared not give in, or allow that she was fatigued.
+However heavy with sleep her eyes might be, she must keep awake and
+watchful. Nothing, if she could help it, must so much as turn the
+attention of the world in Mr. May's direction. By this time she was much
+too deeply interested to ask herself why she should do so much for Mr.
+May. He was her charge, her burden, as helpless in her hands as a child;
+and nobody but herself knew anything about it. It was characteristic of
+Phoebe's nature that she had no doubt as to being perfectly right in the
+matter, no qualm lest she should be making a mistake. She felt the
+weight upon her of the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a
+certain half-pleasing sense of the solemnity of the position and of its
+difficulties; but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or
+suffering her fancy to stray further than the facts justified; neither
+was she troubled by any idea of going beyond her sphere by interfering
+thus energetically in her friend's affairs. Phoebe did not easily take
+any such idea into her head. It seemed natural to her to do whatever
+might be wanted, and to act upon her own responsibility. Her
+self-confidence reached the heroic point. She knew that she was right,
+and she knew moreover that in this whole matter she alone was right.
+Therefore the necessity of keeping up, of keeping alert and vigilant, of
+holding in her hand the threads of all these varied complications was
+not disagreeable to her, though she fully felt its importance--nay,
+almost exaggerated it in her own mind if that could be. She felt the
+dangerous character of the circumstances around her, and her heart was
+sore with pity for the culprit, or as she called him to herself the
+chief sufferer; and yet all the same Phoebe felt a certain sense of
+satisfaction in the great role she herself was playing. She felt equal
+to it, though she scarcely knew what was the nest step she ought to
+take. She was walking slowly, full of thought, to Tozer's door,
+pondering upon this, when the sound of rapid wheels behind roused her
+attention, and looking up, surprised, she suddenly saw leaping out of a
+dog-cart the imposing figure of Clarence Copperhead, of whom she had not
+been thinking at all. He came down with a heavy leap, leaving the light
+carriage swinging and quivering behind him with the shock of his
+withdrawal.
+
+"Miss Phoebe!" he said, breathless; "here's luck! I came over to see you,
+and you are the first person I set eyes on--"
+
+He was rather heavy to make such a jump, and it took away his breath.
+
+"To see me?" she said, laughing, though her heart began to stir. "That
+is very odd. I thought you must have come to see poor Mr. May, who is so
+ill. You know--"
+
+"May be hanged!" said the young man; "I mean--never mind--I don't mean
+him any harm, though, by Jove, if you make such a pet of him, I don't
+know what I shall think. Miss Phoebe, I've come over post-haste, as you
+may see; chiefly to see you; and to try a horse as well," he added,
+"which the governor has just bought. He's a very good 'un to go; and
+pleased the governor would be if he knew the use I had put him to," he
+concluded, with a half-laugh.
+
+Phoebe knew as well as he did what that use was. He had brought his
+father's horse out for the first time, to carry him here to propose to
+her, in spite of his father. This was the delicate meaning which it
+amused him to think of. She understood it all, and it brought a glow of
+colour to her face; but it did not steel her heart against him. She knew
+her Clarence, and that his standard of fine feeling and mental elevation
+was not high.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I wish I could speak to you, Miss Phoebe,
+somewhere better than in the street. Yes, in the garden--that will do.
+It ain't much of a place either to make a proposal in, for that's what
+I've come to do; but you don't want me to go down on my knees, or make a
+fuss, eh? I got up in the middle of the night to be here first thing and
+see you. I never had a great deal to say for myself," said Clarence,
+"you won't expect me to make you fine speeches; but I _am_ fond of
+you--awfully fond of you, Phoebe, that's the truth. You suit me down to
+the ground, music and everything. There's no girl I ever met that has
+taken such a hold upon me as you."
+
+Phoebe heard him very quietly, but her heart beat loud. She stood on the
+gravel between the flower-borders, where the primroses were beginning to
+wither, and glanced over her life of the past and that of the future,
+which were divided by this moment like the two beds of flowers; one
+homely, not very distinguished, simple enough--the other exalted by
+wealth to something quite above mediocrity. Her heart swelled, full as
+it was with so many emotions of a totally different kind. She had gained
+a great prize, though it might not be very much to look at; more or
+less, she was conscious this golden apple had been hanging before her
+eyes for years, and now it had dropped into her hand. A gentle glow of
+contentment diffused itself all over her, not transport, indeed, but
+satisfaction, which was better.
+
+"Mr. Copperhead--" she said, softly.
+
+"No, hang it all, call me Clarence, Phoebe, if you're going to have me!"
+he cried, putting out his big hands.
+
+"Grandmamma is looking at us from the window," she said, hurriedly,
+withdrawing a little from him.
+
+"Well, and what does that matter? The old lady won't say a word, depend
+upon it, when she knows. Look here, Phoebe, I'll have an answer. Yes or
+no?"
+
+"Have you got your father's consent--Clarence?"
+
+"Ah, it is yes then! I thought it would be yes," he cried, seizing her
+in his arms. "As for the governor," added Clarence, after an interval,
+snapping his fingers, "I don't care _that_ for the governor. When I've
+set my mind on a thing, it ain't the governor, or twenty governors, that
+will stop me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK.
+
+
+"Have you any notion what was the cause?"
+
+"None," said Reginald. "Oh, no, none at all," said Ursula. They were all
+three standing at the door of the sick-room, in which already a great
+transformation had taken place. The doctor had sent a nurse to attend
+upon the patient. He had told them that their father was attacked by
+some mysterious affection of the brain, and that none of them were equal
+to the responsibility of nursing him. His children thus banished had set
+the door ajar, and were congregated round it watching what went on
+within. They did not know what to do. It was Northcote who was asking
+these questions; it was he who was most active among them. The others
+stood half-stunned, wholly ignorant, not knowing what to do.
+
+"I don't think papa is ill at all," said Janey. "Look how he glares
+about him, just as I've seen him do when he was writing a sermon, ready
+to pounce upon any one that made a noise. He is watching that woman. Why
+should he lie in bed like that, and be taken care of when he is just as
+well as I am? You have made a mistake all the rest of you. I would go
+and speak to him, and tell him to get up and not make all this fuss, if
+it was me."
+
+"Oh, Janey! hold your tongue," said Ursula; but she, too, looked
+half-scared at the bed, and then turned wistful inquiring eyes to
+Northcote. As for Reginald, he stood uncertain, bewildered, all the
+colour gone out of his face, and all the energy out of his heart. He
+knew nothing of his father's affairs, or of anything that might disturb
+his mind. His mind; all that his son knew of this was, that whatsoever
+things disturbed other minds his father had always contemptuously
+scouted all such nonsense. "Take some medicine," Mr. May had been in the
+habit of saying. "Mind! you mean digestion," was it nothing more than
+some complicated indigestion that affected him now?
+
+"Is it anything about--money?" said Northcote.
+
+They all turned and looked at him. The idea entered their minds for the
+first time. Yes, very likely it was money.
+
+"We have always been poor," said Ursula, wistfully. Northcote took her
+hand into his; none of them except Ursula herself paid any attention to
+this involuntary, almost unconscious caress, and even to her it seemed a
+thing of course, and quite natural that he should be one of them, taking
+his share in all that was going on.
+
+"I--am not poor," he said, faltering. "You must not think me
+presumptuous, May. But the first thing to be done is to get him out of
+his difficulties, if he is in difficulties--and you must let me help to
+do it. I think you and I should go out and see about it at once."
+
+"Go--where?" Reginald, like most young people, had taken little notice
+of his father's proceedings. So long as things went smoothly, what had
+he to do with them? When there was a pressure for money, he knew he
+should hear of it, at least in the shape of reproaches and sneers from
+his father at his useless life, and the expenses of the family. But even
+these reproaches had died away of late, since Reginald had possessed an
+income of his own, and since the revenues of the Parsonage had been
+increased by Clarence Copperhead. Reginald was more helpless than a
+stranger. He did not know where to turn. "Do you think we could ask him?
+I am almost of Janey's opinion. I don't think he is so ill as he seems."
+
+And then they all paused and looked again into the room. The nurse was
+moving softly about, putting everything in order, and Mr. May watched
+her from the bed with the keenest attention. His face was still livid
+and ghastly in colour; but his eyes had never been so full of eager fire
+in all the experience of his children. He watched the woman with a close
+attention which was appalling; sometimes he would put his covering half
+aside as if with the intention of making a spring. He was like some
+imprisoned animal seeing a possibility of escape. They looked at him,
+and then at each other, with a miserable helplessness. What could they
+do? He was their father, but they knew nothing about him, and just
+because he was their father they were more slow to understand, more dull
+in divining his secrets than if he had been a stranger. When there came
+at last a suggestion out of the silence, it was Northcote who spoke.
+
+"I don't see how you can leave him, May. It is plain he wants watching.
+I will go if you will let me--if Ursula will say I may," said the young
+man with a little break in his voice. This roused them all to another
+question, quite different from the first one. Her brother and sister
+looked at Ursula, one with a keen pang of involuntary envy, the other
+with a sharp thrill of pleasurable excitement. Oddly enough they could
+all of them pass by their father and leave him out of the question, more
+easily, with less strain of mind, than strangers could. Ursula for her
+part did not say anything; but she looked at her lover with eyes in
+which two big tears were standing. She could scarcely see him through
+those oceans of moisture, bitter and salt, yet softened by the sense of
+trust in him, and rest upon him. When he stooped and kissed her on the
+forehead before them all, the girl did not blush. It was a solemn
+betrothal, sealed by pain, not by kisses.
+
+"Yes, go," she said to him in words which were half sobs, and which he
+understood, but no one else.
+
+"You perceive," he said, "it is not a stranger interfering in your
+affairs, May, but Ursula doing her natural work for her father through
+me--her representative. God bless her! I am Ursula now," he said with a
+broken laugh of joy; then grew suddenly grave again. "You trust me,
+May?"
+
+Poor Reginald's heart swelled; this little scene so calmly transacted
+under his eyes, would it ever happen for him, or anything like it? No,
+his reason told him--and yet; still he was thinking but little of his
+father. He had his duty too, and this happened to be his duty; but no
+warmer impulse was in the poor young fellow's heart.
+
+And thus the day went on. It was afternoon already, and soon the sky
+began to darken. When his children went into the room, Mr. May took no
+notice of them--not that he did not know them; but because his whole
+faculties were fixed upon that woman who was his nurse, and who had all
+her wits about her, and meant to keep him there, and to carry out the
+doctor's instructions should heaven and earth melt away around her. She
+too perceived well enough how he was watching her, and being familiar
+with all the ways, as she thought, of the "mentally afflicted,"
+concluded in her mind that her new patient was further gone than the
+doctor thought.
+
+"I hope as you'll stay within call, sir," she said significantly to
+Reginald; "when they're like that, as soon as they breaks out they're as
+strong as giants; but I hope he won't break out, not to-day."
+
+Reginald withdrew, shivering, from the idea thus presented to him. He
+stole down to his father's study, notwithstanding the warning she had
+given him, and there with a sick heart set to work to endeavour to
+understand his father--nay, more than that, to try to find him out. The
+young man felt a thrill of nervous trembling come over him when he sat
+down in his father's chair and timidly opened some of the drawers. Mr.
+May was in many respects as young a man as his son, and Reginald and he
+had never been on those confidential terms which bring some fathers and
+sons so very close together. He felt that he had no business there
+spying upon his father's privacy. He could not look at the papers which
+lay before him. It seemed a wrong of the first magnitude, wrought
+treacherously, because of the helplessness of the creature most
+concerned. He could not do it. He thrust the papers back again into the
+drawer. In point of fact there were no secrets in the papers, nor much
+to be found out in Mr. May's private life. All its dark side might be
+inferred from, without being revealed in, the little book which lay
+innocently on the desk, and which Reginald looked over, thinking no
+harm. In it there were two or three entries which at length roused his
+curiosity. Cotsdean, October 10th. Cotsdean, January 12th. C. & T. April
+18th. What did this mean? Reginald remembered to have seen Cotsdean
+paying furtive visits in the study. He recollected him as one of the few
+poor people for whom his father had a liking. But what could there be
+between them? He was puzzled, and as Betsy was passing the open door at
+the time, called her in. The evening was falling quickly, the day had
+changed from a beautiful bright morning to a rainy gusty afternoon,
+tearing the leaves and blossoms from the trees, and whirling now and
+then a shower of snowy petals, beautiful but ill-omened snow, across the
+dark window. Beyond that the firmament was dull; the clouds hung low,
+and the day was gone before it ought. When Betsy came in she closed the
+door, not fastening it, but still, Reginald felt, shutting him out too
+much from the sick-bed, to which he might be called at any moment. But
+he was not alarmed by this, though he remarked it. He questioned Betsy
+closely as to his father's possible connection with this man. In such a
+moment, confidential, half-whispered interviews are the rule of a house.
+Every one has so much to ask; so much to say in reply; so many
+particulars to comment upon which the rest may have forgotten. She would
+have liked to enter upon the whole story, to tell how the master was
+took, and how she herself had thought him looking bad when he came in;
+but even to talk about Cotsdean was pleasant.
+
+"I told Miss Beecham," said Betsy, "and I told the other gentleman, Mr.
+Northcote, as was asking me all about it. It's months and months since
+that Cotsdean got coming here--years I may say; and whenever he came
+master looked bad. If you'll believe me, Mr. Reginald, it's money as is
+at the bottom of it all."
+
+"Money? hush, what was that? I thought I heard something upstairs."
+
+"Only the nurse, sir, as is having her tea. I'm ready to take my oath as
+it's money. I've been in service since I was nine years old," said
+Betsy, "I've had a deal of experience of gentlefolks, and it's always
+money as is the thing as sets them off their head. That's what it is. If
+that Cotsdean didn't come here something about money, never you believe
+me no more."
+
+"Cotsdean! a poor shopkeeper! what could he have to do with my father's
+affairs?" Reginald was not speaking to the woman, but drearily to
+himself. If this was the only clue to the mystery, what a poor clue it
+was!
+
+"I dunno, sir," said Betsy, "it ain't for me to tell; but one thing I'm
+sure of--Lord bless us, what's that?"
+
+Reginald rushed to the door, nearly knocking her down as he pushed her
+aside with his hand. When they got outside, it was only the hat-stand in
+the hall that had fallen, something having been torn off from it
+apparently in mad haste, and the door had opened and shut. Reginald
+rushed upstairs, where the nurse was sitting quietly at her tea, the
+bed-curtains being drawn.
+
+"All right, sir; he's in a nice sleep," said that functionary; "I didn't
+light no candles, not to disturb him, poor gentleman."
+
+Reginald tore the curtains aside, then turned and dashed downstairs, and
+out into the windy twilight. In that moment of stillness and darkness
+the patient had escaped. He could see a strange figure walking rapidly,
+already half way up Grange Lane, and rushed on in pursuit without taking
+thought of anything. The sick man had seized upon a long coat which had
+been hanging in the hall, and which reached to his heels. Reginald flew
+on, going as softly as he could, not to alarm him. Where could he be
+going, utterly unclothed except in this big coat? Was it simply madness
+that had seized him, nothing more or less? He followed, with his heart
+beating loudly. There seemed nobody about, no one to whom he could make
+an appeal to help him, even if he could overtake the rapidly progressing
+fugitive. But even while this thought crossed his mind, Reginald saw
+another figure, broad and tall, developing in the distance, coming
+towards them, which stopped short, and put out an arm to stop the
+flight. Even that moment gave him the advantage, and brought him near
+enough to make out that it was Mr. Copperhead.
+
+"The very man I want," he heard him say with his loud voice, putting his
+arm within that of Mr. May, who resisted, but not enough to attract the
+attention of the new-comer, as Reginald came up breathless and placed
+himself on his father's other side. The darkness prevented any
+revelation of the strange appearance of the fugitive, and Mr. Copperhead
+was not lively of perception in respect to people unconnected with
+himself.
+
+"You, too," he cried, nodding at Reginald, "come along. I've come to
+save that boy of mine from a little artful--Come, both of you. The sight
+of a young fellow like himself will shame him more than anything; and
+you, May, you're the very man I want--"
+
+"Not there, not there, for God's sake!" said Mr. May, with a hoarse cry,
+"not there, my God! Reginald! it used to be hanging. Do you mean to give
+me up?"
+
+"Hold him fast," Reginald whispered in desperation, "hold him fast! It
+is madness."
+
+"Lord bless us!" said Mr. Copperhead, but he was a man who was proud of
+his strength, and not given to timidity. He held his captive fast by the
+arm, while Reginald secured him on the other side. "Why, what's this,
+May? rouse yourself up; don't give in, man. No, you ain't mad, not a bit
+of you. Come along, wait here at Tozer's for me, while I do my business;
+and then I'll look after _you_. Come on."
+
+There was a violent but momentary struggle; then all at once the
+struggling man yielded and allowed himself to be dragged within the
+garden-door. Was it because an ordinary policeman, one of the most
+respectful servants of the law, who would have saluted Mr. May with the
+utmost reverence, was just then coming up? He yielded; but he looked at
+his son with a wild despair which made Reginald almost as desperate as
+himself in maddening ignorance and terror.
+
+"Ruin! ruin!" he murmured hoarsely, "worse than death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE CONFLICT.
+
+
+The day which had intervened between Phoebe's morning walk, and this
+darkling flight along the same road, had been full of agitation at the
+house of the Tozers. Phoebe, who would willingly have spared her lover
+anything more than the brief intercourse which was inevitable with her
+relations, could find no means of sending him away without breakfast.
+She had escaped from him accordingly, weary as she was, to make
+arrangements for such a meal as she knew him, even in his most
+sentimental mood, to love--a thing which required some time and
+supervision, though the house was always plentifully provided. When she
+had hastily bathed her face and changed her dress she came back to the
+room where she had left him, to find him in careless conversation with
+Tozer, who only half-recovered from the excitement of last night, but
+much overawed by a visit from so great a personage, had managed to put
+aside the matter which occupied his own thoughts, in order to carry on a
+kind of worship of Clarence, who was the son of the richest man he had
+ever heard of, and consequently appeared to the retired butterman a very
+demigod. Clarence was yawning loudly, his arms raised over his head in
+total indifference to Tozer, when Phoebe came into the room; and the old
+man seized upon the occasion of her entrance to perform another act of
+worship.
+
+"Ah, here's Phoebe at last. Mr. Copperhead's come in from the country, my
+dear, and he's going to make us proud, he is, by accepting of a bit of
+breakfast. I tell him it's a wretched poor place for him as has palaces
+at his command; but what we can give him is the best quality, that I
+answers for--and you're one as knows how things should be, even if we
+ain't grand ourselves."
+
+"Have you palaces at your command, Clarence?" she said, with a smile.
+Notwithstanding the fatigue of the night, the fresh air and her
+ablutions, and the agitation and commotion of her mind, made Phoebe
+almost more animated and brilliant than usual. Her eyes shone with the
+anxiety and excitement of the crisis, and a little, too, with the glory
+and delight of success; for though Clarence Copperhead was not very much
+to brag of in his own person, he still had been the object before her
+for some time back, and she had got him. And yet Phoebe was not
+mercenary, though she was not "in love" with her heavy lover in the
+ordinary sense of the word. She went towards him now, and stood near
+him, looking at him with a smile. He was a big, strong fellow, which is
+a thing most women esteem, and he was not without good looks; and he
+would be rich, and might be thrust into a position which would produce
+both honour and advantage; and lastly, he was her own, which gives even
+the most indifferent article a certain value in some people's eyes.
+
+"Palaces? I don't know, but nice enough houses; and you know you like a
+nice house, Miss Phoebe. Here, I haven't said a word to the old
+gentleman. Tell him; I ain't come all this way for nothing. You've
+always got the right words at your fingers' end. Tell him, and let's get
+it over. I think I could eat some breakfast, I can tell you, after that
+drive."
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, slightly tremulous, "Mr. Copperhead wishes me
+to tell you that--Mr. Copperhead wishes you to know why----"
+
+"Bless us!" cried Clarence with a laugh. "Here is a beating about the
+bush! She has got her master, old gentleman, and that is what she never
+had before. Look here, I'm going to marry Phoebe. That's plain English
+without any phrases, and I don't know what you could say to better it.
+Is breakfast ready? I've earned it for my part."
+
+"Going to marry Phoebe!" Tozer gasped. He had heard from his wife that
+such a glory was possible; but now, when it burst upon him, the dazzling
+delight seemed too good to be true. It thrust the forgery and everything
+out of his head, and took even the power of speech from him. He got up
+and gazed at the young people, one after the other, rubbing his hands,
+with a broad grin upon his face; then he burst forth all at once in
+congratulation.
+
+"God bless you, sir! God bless you both! It's an honour as I never
+looked for. Rising in the world was never no thought of mine; doing your
+duty and trusting to the Lord is what I've always stood by; and it's
+been rewarded. But she's a good girl, Mr. Copperhead; you'll never
+regret it, sir. She's that good and that sensible, as I don't know how
+to do without her. She'll do you credit, however grand you may make her;
+and if it's any comfort to you, as she's connected with them as knows
+how to appreciate a gentleman--" said Tozer, breaking down in his
+enthusiasm, his voice sinking into a whisper in the fulness of his
+heart.
+
+"Grandpapa!" said Phoebe, feeling sharply pricked in her pride, with a
+momentary humiliation, "there are other things to be thought of," and
+she gave him a look of reproach which Tozer did not understand, but
+which Clarence did vaguely. Clarence, for his part, liked the homage,
+and was by no means unwilling that everybody should perceive his
+condescension and what great luck it was for Phoebe to have secured him.
+He laughed, pleased to wave his banner of triumph over her,
+notwithstanding that he loved her. He _was_ very fond of her, that was
+true; but still her good fortune in catching him was, for the moment,
+the thing most in his thoughts.
+
+"Well, old gentleman," he said, "you ain't far wrong there. She _is_ a
+clever one. We shall have a bad time of it with the governor at first;
+for, of course, when there's no money and no connections, a man like the
+governor, that has made himself, ain't likely to be too well pleased."
+
+"As for money, Mr. Copperhead, sir," said Tozer with modest pride, "I
+don't see as there's anything to be said against Phoebe on that point.
+Her mother before her had a pretty bit of money, though I say it, as
+shouldn't--"
+
+"Ah, yes--yes," said Clarence. "To be sure; but a little bit of coin
+like that don't count with us. The governor deals in hundreds of
+thousands; he don't think much of your little bits of fortunes. But I
+don't mind. She suits me down to the ground, does Phoebe; and I don't
+give that for the governor!" cried the young man valiantly. As for Phoebe
+herself, it is impossible to imagine any one more entirely put out of
+her place, and out of all the comfort and satisfaction in her own
+initiative which she generally possessed, than this young woman was,
+while these two men talked over her so calmly. It is doubtful whether
+she had ever been so set aside out of her proper position in her life,
+and her nerves were overstrained and her bodily strength worn out, which
+added to the sense of downfall. With almost a touch of anger in her tone
+she, who was never out of temper, interrupted this talk.
+
+"I think breakfast is ready, grandpapa. Mr. Clarence Copperhead wants
+some refreshment after his exertions, and in preparation for the
+exertions to come. For I suppose your papa is very likely to follow you
+to Carlingford," she added, with a low laugh, turning to her lover. "I
+know Mr. Copperhead very well, and I should not like my first meeting
+with him after I had thwarted all his views."
+
+"Phoebe! you don't mean to desert me? By Jove! I'll face him and twenty
+like him if you'll only stand by me," he cried; which was a speech that
+made amends.
+
+She suffered him to lead her into breakfast less formally than is the
+ordinary fashion, and his hand on her trim waist did not displease the
+girl. No; she understood him, knew that he was no great things; but yet
+he was hers, and she had always meant him to be hers, and Phoebe was
+ready to maintain his cause in the face of all the world.
+
+The breakfast was to Clarence's taste, and so was the company--even old
+Tozer, who sat with his mouth agape in admiration of the young
+potentate, while he recounted his many grandeurs. Clarence gave a great
+deal of information as to prices he had paid for various things, and the
+expenses of his living at Oxford and elsewhere, as he ate the kidneys,
+eggs, and sausages with which Phoebe's care had heaped the table. They
+had no _pâté de foie gras_, it is true, but the simple fare was of the
+best quality, as Tozer had boasted. Mrs. Tozer did not come downstairs
+to breakfast, and thus Phoebe was alone with the two men, who suited each
+other so much better than she could have hoped. The girl sat by them
+languidly, though with a beating heart, wondering, as girls will wonder
+sometimes, if all men were like these, braggards and believers in brag,
+worshippers of money and price. No doubt, young men too marvel when they
+hear the women about them talking across them of _chiffons_, or of
+little quarrels and little vanities. Phoebe had more brains than both of
+her interlocutors put together, and half-a-dozen more added on; but she
+was put down and silenced by the talk. Her lover for the moment had
+escaped from her. She could generally keep him from exposing himself in
+this way, and turn the better side of him to the light; but the presence
+of a believer in him turned the head of Clarence. She could not control
+him any more.
+
+"A good horse is a deuced expensive thing," he said; "the governor gave
+a cool hundred and fifty for that mare that brought me over this
+morning. He bought her from Sir Robert; but he didn't know, Phoebe, the
+use I was going to put her to. If he'd known, he'd have put that hundred
+and fifty in the sea rather than have his beast rattled over the country
+on such an errand." Here he stopped in the midst of his breakfast, and
+looked at her admiringly. "But I don't repent," he added. "I'd do it
+again to-morrow if it wasn't done already. If you stand by me, I'll face
+him, and twenty like him, by Jove!"
+
+"You don't say nothing," said her grandfather. "I wouldn't be so
+ungrateful. Gentlemen like Mr. Copperhead ain't picked up at every
+roadside."
+
+"They ain't, by Jove!" said Clarence; "but she's shy, that's all about
+it," he added, tenderly; "when we're by ourselves, I don't complain."
+
+Poor Phoebe! She smiled a dismal smile, and was very glad when breakfast
+was over. After that she took him into the garden, into the bright
+morning air, which kept her up, and where she could keep her Clarence in
+hand and amuse him, without allowing this revelation of the worst side
+of him. While they were there, Martha admitted the visitor of yesterday,
+Mr. Simpson from the Bank, bringing back to Phoebe's mind all the other
+matter of which it had been full.
+
+"Don't you think you ought to go and see about the horse and the
+dog-cart?" she said suddenly, turning to her lover with one of those
+sudden changes which kept the dull young man amused. "You don't know
+what they may be about."
+
+"They can't be up to much," said Clarence. "Thank you, Miss Phoebe, I
+like you better than the mare."
+
+"But you can't be here all day, and I can't be here all day," she said.
+"I must look after grandmamma, and you ought to go down and inquire
+after poor Mr. May--he is so ill. I have been there all night, helping
+Ursula. You ought to go and ask for him. People don't forget all the
+duties of life because--because a thing of this sort has happened--"
+
+"Because they've popped and been accepted," said graceful Clarence. "By
+Jove! I'll go. I'll tell young May. I'd like to see his face when I tell
+him the news. You may look as demure as you like, but you know what
+spoons he has been upon you, and the old fellow too--made me as jealous
+as King Lear sometimes," cried the happy lover, with a laugh. He meant
+Othello, let us suppose.
+
+"Nonsense, Clarence! But go, please go. I must run to grandmamma."
+
+Mr. Simpson had gone in, and Phoebe's heart had begun to beat loudly in
+her throat; but it was not so easy to get rid of this ardent lover, and
+when at last he did go, he was slightly sulky, which was not a state of
+mind to be encouraged. She rushed upstairs to her grandmother's room,
+which was over the little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could
+already hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the
+noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage. Phoebe
+never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who kissed and wept over
+her, exulting in the news.
+
+"I ain't been so pleased since my Phoebe told me as she was to marry a
+minister," said Mrs. Tozer, "and this is a rise in life a deal grander
+than the best of ministers. But, bless your heart, what shall I do
+without you?" cried the old woman, sobbing.
+
+Presently Tozer came in, with an air of angry abstraction, and began to
+search through drawers and boxes.
+
+"I've lost something," he answered, with sombre looks, to his wife's
+inquiry. Phoebe busied herself with her grandmother, and did not ask what
+it was. It was only when he had searched everywhere that some chance
+movement directed his eyes to her. She was trembling in spite of
+herself. He came up to her, and seized her suddenly by the arm. "By
+George!" he cried, "I'm in a dozen minds to search you!"
+
+"Tozer! let my child alone. How dare you touch her--her as is as good
+as Mr. Copperhead's lady? What's she got to do with your dirty papers?
+Do you think Phoebe would touch them--with a pair of tongs?" cried the
+angry grandmother.
+
+Phoebe shrank with all the cowardice of guilt. Her nerves were unstrung
+by weariness and excitement. And Tozer, with his little red eyes blazing
+upon her, was very different in this fury of personal injury, from the
+grandfather of the morning, who had been ready to see every virtue in
+her.
+
+"I believe as you've got it!" he cried, giving her a shake. It was a
+shot at a venture, said without the least idea of its truth; but before
+the words had crossed his lips, he felt with a wild passion of rage and
+wonder that it was true. "Give it up, you hussy!" he shrieked, with a
+yell of fury, his face convulsed with sudden rage, thickly and with
+sputtering lips.
+
+"Tozer!" cried his wife, flinging herself between them, "take your hands
+off the child. Run, run to your room, my darling; he's out of his
+senses. Lord bless us all, Sam, are you gone stark staring mad?"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, trembling, "if I had it, you may be sure it
+would be safe out of your way. I told you I knew something about it, but
+you would not hear me. Will you hear me now? I'll make it up to
+you--double it, if you like. Grandmamma, it is a poor man he would drive
+to death if he is not stopped. Oh!" cried Phoebe, clasping her hands,
+"after what has happened this morning, will you not yield to me? and
+after all the love you have shown me? I will never ask anything, not
+another penny. I will make it up; only give in to me, give in to me--for
+once in my life! Grandpapa! I never asked anything from you before."
+
+"Give it up, you piece of impudence! you jade! you d--d deceitful----"
+
+He was holding her by the arm, emphasizing every new word by a violent
+shake, while poor old Mrs. Tozer dropped into a chair, weeping and
+trembling.
+
+"Oh! it ain't often as he's like this; but when he is, I can't do
+nothing with him, I can't do nothing with him!" she cried.
+
+But Phoebe's nerves strung themselves up again in face of the crisis. She
+shook him off suddenly with unexpected strength, and moving to a little
+distance, stood confronting him, pale but determined.
+
+"If you think you will get the better of me in this way, you are
+mistaken," she said. "I am not your daughter; how dare you treat me so?
+Grandmamma, forgive me. I have been up all night. I am going to lie
+down," said Phoebe. "If grandpapa has anything more to say against me, he
+can say it to Clarence. I leave myself in his hands."
+
+Saying this, she turned round majestically, but with an anxious heart,
+and walked away to her room, every nerve in her trembling. When she got
+there, Phoebe locked the door hastily, in genuine terror; and then she
+laughed, and then she cried a little. "And to think it was here all the
+time!" she said to herself, taking out the little Russia leather purse
+out of her pocket. She went into the closet adjoining her room, and
+buried it deep in her travelling trunk which was there, relieving
+herself and her mind of a danger. Then--Phoebe did what was possibly the
+most sensible thing in the world, in every point of view. She went to
+bed; undressed herself quietly, rolled up her hair, and lay down with a
+grateful sense of ease and comfort. "When Clarence comes back he will be
+disappointed; but even for Clarence a little disappointment will be no
+harm," said the sensible young woman to herself. And what comfort it was
+to lie down, and feel all the throbs and pulses gradually subsiding, the
+fright going off, the satisfaction of success coming back, and gradually
+a slumberous, delicious ease stealing over her. Of all the clever things
+Phoebe had done in her life, it must be allowed that there was not one so
+masterly as the fact that she, then and there, went to sleep.
+
+All this had taken up a good deal of time. It was twelve when Mr.
+Simpson of the bank disturbed the lovers in the garden, and it was one
+o'clock before Phoebe put a stop to all Tozer's vindictive plans by going
+to bed. What he said to Mr. Simpson, when he went back to him, is not on
+record. That excellent man of business was much put out by the long
+waiting, and intimated plainly enough that he could not allow his time
+to be thus wasted. Mr. Simpson began to think that there was something
+very strange in the whole business. Tozer's house was turned upside down
+by it, as he could hear by the passionate voices and the sound of crying
+and storming in the room above; but Cotsdean was secure in his shop,
+apparently fearing no evil, as he had seen as he passed, peering in with
+curious eyes. What it meant he could not tell; but it was queer, and did
+not look as if the business was straight-forward.
+
+"When you find the bill, or make up your mind what to do, you can send
+for me," he said, and went away, suspicious and half-angry, leaving
+Tozer to his own devices. And the afternoon passed in the most
+uncomfortable lull imaginable. Though he believed his granddaughter to
+have it, he looked again over all his papers, his drawers, his
+waste-basket, every corner he had in which such a small matter might
+have been hid; but naturally his search was all in vain. Clarence
+returned in the afternoon, and was received by poor old Mrs. Tozer, very
+tremulous and ready to cry, who did not know whether she ought to
+distrust Phoebe or not, and hesitated and stumbled over her words till
+the young man thought his father had come in his absence, and that Phoebe
+had changed her mind. This had the effect of making him extremely eager
+and anxious, and of subduing the bragging and magnificent mood which the
+triumphant lover had displayed in the morning. He felt himself "taken
+down a peg or two," in his own fine language. He went to the Parsonage
+and tried very hard to see Ursula, to secure her help in case anything
+had gone wrong, and then to Reginald, whose vexation at the news he felt
+sure of, and hoped to enjoy a sight of. But he could see no one in the
+absorbed and anxious house. What was he to do? He wandered about,
+growing more and more unhappy, wondering if he had been made to fling
+himself into the face of fate for no reason, and sure that he could not
+meet his father without Phoebe's support. He could not even face her
+relations. It was very different from the day of triumph he had looked
+for; but, as Phoebe had wisely divined, this disappointment, and all the
+attending circumstances, did not do him any harm.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Northcote called. He too had acted on
+the information given by Betsy, and had gone to Cotsdean, who made him
+vaguely aware that Tozer had some share in the business in which Mr. May
+was involved, and who, on being asked whether it could be set right by
+money, grew radiant and declared that nothing could be easier. But when
+Northcote saw Tozer, there ensued a puzzling game at cross purposes, for
+Tozer had no notion that Mr. May had anything to do with the business,
+and declined to understand.
+
+"I ain't got nothing to do with parsons, and if you'll take my advice,
+sir, it 'ud be a deal better for you to give 'em up too. You're
+a-aggravating the connection for no good, you are," said Tozer, surely
+by right of his own troubles and perplexities, and glad to think he
+could make some one else uncomfortable too.
+
+"I shall do in that respect as I think proper," said Northcote, who was
+not disposed to submit to dictation.
+
+"Fact is, he's a deal too well off for a minister," Tozer said to his
+wife when the young man disappeared, "they're too independent that sort;
+and I don't know what he means by his Mays and his fine folks. What have
+we got to do with Mr. May?"
+
+"Except that he's been good to the child, Tozer; we can't forget as he's
+been very good to the child."
+
+"Oh, dash the child!" cried the old man, infuriated; "if you say much
+more I'll be sorry I ever let you see her face. What has she done with
+my bill?"
+
+"Bill? if it's only a bill what are you so put out about!" cried Mrs.
+Tozer. "You'll have dozens again at Christmas, if that is all you want."
+
+But the laugh was unsuccessful, and the old man went back to his room to
+nurse his wrath and to wonder what had come to him. Why had his
+granddaughter interfered in his business, and what had he to do with Mr.
+May?
+
+Phoebe got up refreshed and comfortable when it was time for the family
+tea, and came down to her lover, who had come back, and was sitting very
+dejected by old Mrs. Tozer's side. She was fresh and fair, and in one of
+her prettiest dresses, having taken pains for him; and notwithstanding
+Tozer's lowering aspect, and his refusal to speak to her, the meal
+passed over very cheerfully for the rest of the party, and the two young
+people once more withdrew to the garden when it was over. The presence
+of Clarence Copperhead protected Phoebe from all attack. Her grandfather
+dared not fly out upon her as before, or summon her to give up what she
+had taken from him. Whatever happened, this wonderful rise in life, this
+grand match could not be interfered with. He withdrew bitter and
+exasperated to his own den, leaving his poor wife crying and wretched in
+the family sitting-room. Mrs. Tozer knew that her husband was not to be
+trifled with, and that, though the circumstances of Phoebe's betrothal
+subdued him for the moment, this effect in all probability would not
+last; and she sat in terror, watching the moments as they passed, and
+trembling to think what might happen when the young pair came in again,
+or when Clarence at last went away, leaving Phoebe with no protection but
+herself. Phoebe, too, while she kept her dull companion happy, kept
+thinking all the while of the same thing with a great tremor of
+suppressed agitation in her mind; and she did not know what was the next
+step to take--a reflection which took away her strength. She had taken
+the bill from her trunk again and replaced it in her pocket. It was
+safest carried on her person, she felt; but what she was to do next,
+even Phoebe, so fruitful in resources, could not say. When Northcote came
+back in the evening she felt that her game was becoming more and more
+difficult to play. After a brief consultation with herself, she decided
+that it was most expedient to go in with him, taking her big body-guard
+along with her, and confiding in his stupidity not to find out more than
+was indispensable. She took Northcote to her grandfather's room,
+whispering to him on the way to make himself the representative of
+Cotsdean only, and to say nothing of Mr. May.
+
+"Then you know about it?" said Northcote amazed.
+
+"Oh, hush, hush!" cried Phoebe; "offer to pay it on Cotsdean's part, and
+say nothing about Mr. May."
+
+The young man looked at her bewildered; but nodded his head in assent,
+and then her own young man pulled her back almost roughly, and demanded
+to know what she meant by talking to that fellow so. Thus poor Phoebe was
+between two fires. She went in with a fainting yet courageous heart.
+
+"Pay the money!" said Tozer, who by dint of brooding over it all the day
+had come to a white heat, and was no longer to be controlled. "Mr.
+Northcote, sir, you're a minister, and you don't understand business no
+more nor women do. Money's money--but there's more than money here.
+There's my name, sir, as has been made use of in a way!--me go signing
+of accommodation bills! I'd have cut off my hand sooner. There's that
+girl there, she's got it. She's been and stolen it from me, Mr.
+Northcote. Tell her to give it up. You may have some influence, you as
+is a minister. Tell her to give it up, or, by George, she shall never
+have a penny from me! I'll cut her off without even a shilling. I'll put
+her out o' my will--out o' my house."
+
+"I say, Phoebe," said Clarence, "look here, that's serious, that is; not
+that I mind a little pot of money like what the poor old fellow's got;
+but what's the good of throwing anything away?"
+
+"Make her give it up," cried Tozer hoarsely, "or out of this house she
+goes this very night. I ain't the sort of man to be made a fool of. I
+ain't the sort of man--Who's this a-coming? some more of your d--d
+intercessors to spoil justice," cried the old man, "but I won't have
+'em. I'll have nothing to say to them. What, who? Mr. Copperhead's
+father? I ain't ashamed to meet Mr. Copperhead's father; but one thing
+at a time. Them as comes into my house must wait my time," cried the
+butterman, seeing vaguely the group come in, whom we left at his doors.
+"I'm master here. Give up that bill, you brazen young hussy, and go out
+of my sight. How dare you set up your face among so many men? Give it
+up!" he cried, seizing her by the elbow in renewed fury. The strangers,
+though he saw them enter, received no salutation from him. There was one
+small lamp on the table, dimly lighted, which threw a faint glow upon
+the circle of countenances round, into which came wondering the burly
+big Copperhead, holding fast by the shoulder of Mr. May, whose ghastly
+face, contorted with wild anxiety, glanced at Tozer over the lamp. But
+the old man was so much absorbed at first that he scarcely saw who the
+new-comers were.
+
+"What's all this about?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Seems we've come into the
+midst of another commotion. So you're here, Clar! it is you I want, my
+boy. Look here, Northcote, take hold, will you? there's a screw loose,
+and we've got to get him home. Take hold, till I have had a word with
+Clarence. That's a thing that won't take long."
+
+Clarence cast a glance at Phoebe, who even in her own agitation turned
+and gave him a tremulous smile of encouragement. The crisis was so great
+on all sides of her that Phoebe became heroic.
+
+"I am here," she said, with all the steadiness of strong emotion, and
+when he had received this assurance of support, he feared his father no
+more.
+
+"All right, sir," he said almost with alacrity. He was afraid of nothing
+with Phoebe standing by.
+
+"Make her give me up my bill," said Tozer; "I'll hear nothing else till
+this is settled. My bill! It's forgery; that's what it is. Don't speak
+to me about money! I'll have him punished. I'll have him rot in prison
+for it. I'll not cheat the law--You people as has influence with that
+girl, make her give it me. I can't touch him without the bill."
+
+Mr. May had been placed in a chair by the two young men who watched over
+him; but as Tozer spoke he got up, struggling wildly, almost tearing
+himself out of the coat by which they held him. "Let me go!" he said.
+"Do you hear him? Rot in prison! with hard labour; it would kill me! And
+it used to be hanging! My God--my God! Won't you let me go?"
+
+Tozer stopped short, stopped by this passion which was greater than his
+own. He looked wonderingly at the livid face, the struggling figure,
+impressed in spite of himself. "He's gone mad," he said. "Good Lord! But
+he's got nothing to do with it. Can't you take him away?"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe in his ear, "here it is, your bill; it was _he_
+who did it--and it has driven him mad. Look! I give it up to you; and
+there he is--that is your work. Now do what you please--"
+
+Trembling, the old man took the paper out of her hand. He gazed
+wondering at the other, who somehow moved in his excitement by a sense
+that the decisive moment had come, stood still too, his arm half-pulled
+out of his coat, his face wild with dread and horror. For a moment they
+looked at each other in a common agony, neither the one nor the other
+clear enough to understand, but both feeling that some tremendous crisis
+had come upon them. "He--done it!" said Tozer appalled and almost
+speechless. "_He_ done it!" They all crowded round, a circle of scared
+faces. Phoebe alone stood calm. She was the only one who knew the whole,
+except the culprit, who understood nothing with that mad confusion in
+his eyes. But he was overawed too, and in his very madness recognized
+the crisis. He stood still, struggling no longer, with his eyes fixed
+upon the homely figure of the old butterman, who stood trembling,
+thunderstruck, with that fatal piece of paper in his hand.
+
+Tozer had been mad for revenge two moments before--almost as wild as the
+guilty man before him--with a fierce desire to punish and make an
+example of the man who had wronged him. But this semi-madness was
+arrested by the sight of the other madman before him, and by the
+extraordinary shock of this revelation. It took all the strength out of
+him. He had not looked up to the clergyman as Cotsdean did, but he had
+looked up to the gentleman, his customer, as being upon an elevation
+very different from his own, altogether above and beyond him; and the
+sight of this superior being, thus humbled, maddened, gazing at him with
+wild terror and agony, more eloquent than any supplication, struck poor
+old Tozer to the very soul. "God help us all!" he cried out with a
+broken, sobbing voice. He was but a vulgar old fellow, mean, it might
+be, worldly in his way; but the terrible mystery of human wickedness and
+guilt prostrated his common soul with as sharp an anguish of pity and
+shame as could have befallen the most heroic. It seized upon him so that
+he could say or do nothing more, forcing hot and salt tears up into his
+old eyes, and shaking him all over with a tremor as of palsy. The scared
+faces appeared to come closer to Phoebe, to whom these moments seemed
+like years. Had her trust been vain? Softly, but with an excitement
+beyond control, she touched him on the arm.
+
+"That's true," said Tozer, half-crying. "Something's got to be done. We
+can't all stand here for ever, Phoebe; it's him as has to be thought of.
+Show it to him, poor gentleman, if he ain't past knowing; and burn it,
+and let us hear of it no more."
+
+Solemnly, in the midst of them all, Phoebe held up the paper before the
+eyes of the guilty man. If he understood it or not, no one could tell.
+He did not move, but stared blankly at her and it. Then she held it over
+the lamp and let it blaze and drop into harmless ashes in the midst of
+them all. Tozer dropped down into his elbow-chair sniffing and sobbing.
+Mr. May stood quite still, with a look of utter dulness and stupidity
+coming over the face in which so much terror had been. If he understood
+what had passed, it was only in feeling, not in intelligence. He grew
+still and dull in the midst of that strange madness which all the time
+was only half-madness, a mixture of conscious excitement and anxiety
+with that which passes the boundaries of consciousness. For the moment
+he was stilled into stupid idiotcy, and looked at them with vacant
+eyes. As for the others, Northcote was the only one who divined at
+all what this scene meant. To Reginald it was like a scene in a
+pantomime--bewildering dumb show, with no sense or meaning in it. It was
+he who spoke first, with a certain impatience of the occurrence which he
+did not understand.
+
+"Will you come home, sir, now?" he said. "Come home, for Heaven's sake!
+Northcote will give you an arm. He's very ill," Reginald added, looking
+round him pitifully in his ignorance; "what you are thinking of I can't
+tell--but he's ill and--delirious. It was Mr. Copperhead who brought him
+here against my will. Excuse me, Miss Beecham--now I must take him
+home."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe. The tears came into her eyes as she looked at him; he
+was not thinking of her at the moment, but she knew he had thought of
+her, much and tenderly, and she felt that she might never see him again.
+Phoebe would have liked him to know what she had done, and to know that
+what she had done was for him chiefly--in order to recompense him a
+little, poor fellow, for the heart he had given her, which she could not
+accept, yet could not be ungrateful for. And yet she was glad, though
+there was a pang in it, that he should never know, and remain unaware of
+her effort, for his own sake; but the tears came into her eyes as she
+looked at him, and he caught the gleam of the moisture which made his
+heart beat. Something moved her beyond what he knew of; and his heart
+thrilled with tenderness and wonder; but how should he know what it was?
+
+"Give my love to Ursula," she said. "I shall not come to-night as she
+has a nurse, and I think he will be better. Make her rest, Mr. May--and
+if I don't see her, say good-bye to her for me----"
+
+"Good-bye?"
+
+"Yes, good-bye--things have happened--Tell her I hope she will not
+forget me," said Phoebe, the tears dropping down her cheeks. "But oh,
+please never mind me, look at him, he is quite quiet, he is worn out.
+Take him home."
+
+"There is nothing else to be done," said poor Reginald, whose heart
+began to ache with a sense of the unknown which surrounded him on every
+side. He took his father by the arm, who had been standing quite silent,
+motionless, and apathetic. He had no need for any help, for Mr. May went
+with him at a touch, as docile as a child. Northcote followed with grave
+looks and very sad. Tozer had been seated in his favourite chair, much
+subdued, and giving vent now and then to something like a sob. His
+nerves had been terribly shaken. But as he saw the three gentlemen going
+away, nature awoke in the old butterman. He put out his hand and plucked
+Northcote by the sleeve. "I'll not say no to that money, not now, Mr.
+Northcote, sir," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+PHÅ’BE'S LAST TRIAL.
+
+
+"Now if you please," said Mr. Copperhead. "I think it's my turn. I
+wanted May to hear what I had got to say, but as he's ill or mad, or
+something, it is not much good. I can't imagine what all these
+incantations meant, and all your play, Miss Phoebe, eyes and all. That
+sort of thing don't suit us plain folks. If you don't mind following
+your friends, I want to speak to old Tozer here by himself. I don't like
+to have women meddling in my affairs."
+
+"Grandpapa is very tired, and he is upset," said Phoebe. "I don't think
+he can have any more said to him to-night."
+
+"By George, but he shall though, and you too. Look here," said Mr.
+Copperhead, "you've taken in my boy Clarence here. He's been a fool, and
+he always was a fool; but you're not a fool, Miss Phoebe. You know
+precious well what you're about. And just you listen to me; he shan't
+marry you, not if he breaks his heart over it. I ain't a man that thinks
+much of breaking hearts. You and he may talk what nonsense you like, but
+you shan't marry my boy; no, not if there wasn't another woman in the
+world."
+
+"He has asked me," said Phoebe; "but I certainly did not ask him. You
+must give your orders to your son, Mr. Copperhead. You have no right to
+dictate to me. Grandpapa, I think you and I have had enough for
+to-night."
+
+With this Phoebe began to close the shutters, which had been left open,
+and to put away books and things which were lying about. Tozer made a
+feeble attempt to stop her energetic proceedings.
+
+"Talk to the gentleman, Phoebe, if Mr. Copperhead 'as anything to say to
+you--don't, don't you go and offend him, my dear!" the old man cried in
+an anxious whisper; and then he raised himself from the chair, in which
+he had sunk exhausted by the unusual commotions to which he had been
+subjected. "I am sure, sir," Tozer began, "it ain't my wish, nor the
+wish o' my family, to do anything as is against your wishes--"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, interrupting him ruthlessly, "Mr. Copperhead's
+wishes may be a rule to his own family, but they are not to be a rule to
+yours. For my part I won't submit to it. Let him take his son away if he
+pleases--or if he can," she added, turning round upon Clarence with a
+smile. "Mr. Clarence Copperhead is as free as I am to go or to stay."
+
+"By Jove!" cried that young man, who had been hanging in the background,
+dark and miserable. He came close up to her, and caught first her sleeve
+and then her elbow; the contact seemed to give him strength. "Look here,
+sir," he said, ingratiatingly, "we don't want to offend you--_I_ don't
+want to fly in your face; but I can't go on having coaches for ever, and
+here's the only one in the world that can do the business instead of
+coaches. Phoebe knows I'm fond of her, but that's neither here nor there.
+Here is the one that can make something of me. I ain't clever, you know
+it as well as I do--but she is. I don't mind going into parliament,
+making speeches and that sort of thing, if I've got her to back me up.
+But without her I'll never do anything, without her you may put me in a
+cupboard, as you've often said. Let me have her, and I'll make a figure,
+and do you credit. I can't say any fairer," said Clarence, taking the
+rest of her arm into his grasp, and holding her hand. He was stupid--but
+he was a man, and Phoebe felt proud of him, for the moment at least.
+
+"You idiot!" cried his father, "and I was an idiot too to put any faith
+in you; come away from that artful girl. Can't you see that it's all a
+made-up plan from beginning to end? What was she sent down here for but
+to catch you, you oaf, you fool, you! Drop her, or you drop me. That's
+all I've got to say."
+
+"Yes, drop me, Clarence," said Phoebe, with a smile; "for in the mean
+time you hurt me. See, you have bruised my arm. While you settle this
+question with your father, I will go to grandmamma. Pardon me, I take
+more interest in her than in this discussion between him and you."
+
+"You shan't go," cried her lover, "not a step. Look here, sir. If that's
+what it comes to, her before you. What you've made of me ain't much, is
+it? but I don't mind what I go in for, as long as she's to the fore. Her
+before you."
+
+"Is that your last word?" said Mr. Copperhead.
+
+"Yes." His son faced him with a face as set and cloudy as his own. The
+mouth, shut close and sullen, was the same in both; but those brown eyes
+which Clarence got from his mother, and which were usually mild in their
+expression, looking out gently from the ruder face to which they did not
+seem to belong, were now, not clear, but muddy with resolution,
+glimmering with dogged obstinacy from under the drooping eyelids. He was
+not like himself; he was as he had been that day when Mr. May saw him at
+the Dorsets, determined, more than a match for his father, who had only
+the obstinacy of his own nature, not that dead resisting force of two
+people to bring to the battle. Clarence had all the pertinacity that was
+not in his mother, to reinforce his own. Mr. Copperhead stared at his
+son with that look of authority, half-imperious, half-brutal, with which
+he was in the habit of crushing all who resisted him; but Clarence did
+not quail. He stood dull and immovable, his eyes contracted, his face
+stolid, and void of all expression but that of resistance. He was not
+much more than a fool, but just by so much as his father was more
+reasonable, more clear-sighted than himself, was Clarence stronger than
+his father. He held Phoebe by the sleeve, that she might not escape him;
+but he faced Mr. Copperhead with a dull determination that all the
+powers of earth could not shake.
+
+For the moment the father lost his self-control.
+
+"Then I'll go," he said, "and when you've changed your mind, you can
+come to me; but--" here he swore a big oath, "mind what you're about.
+There never was a man yet but repented when he set himself against me."
+
+Clarence made no answer. Talking was not in his way. And Mr. Copperhead
+showed his wondering apprehension of a power superior to his own, by
+making a pause after he had said this, and not going away directly. He
+stopped and tried once more to influence the rebel with that stare.
+"Phoebe--Phoebe--for God's sake make him give in, and don't go against Mr.
+Copperhead!" cried Tozer's tremulous voice, shaken with weakness and
+anxiety. But Phoebe did not say anything. She felt in the hesitation, the
+pause, the despairing last effort to conquer, that the time of her
+triumph had nearly come. When he went away, they all stood still and
+listened to his footsteps going along the passage and through the
+garden. When he was outside he paused again, evidently with the idea of
+returning, but changed his mind and went on. To be left like this, the
+victors on a field of domestic conflict, is very often not at all a
+triumphant feeling, and involves a sense of defeat about as bad as the
+reality experienced by the vanquished. Phoebe, who was imaginative, and
+had lively feeling, felt a cold shiver go over her as the steps went
+away one by one, and began to cry softly, not knowing quite why it was;
+but Clarence, who had no imagination, nor any feelings to speak of, was
+at his ease and perfectly calm.
+
+"What are you crying for?" he said, "the governor can do what he likes.
+I'd marry you in spite of a hundred like him. He didn't know what he was
+about, didn't the governor, when he tackled _me_."
+
+"But, Clarence, you must not break with your father, you must not
+quarrel on my account--"
+
+"That's as it may be," he said, "never you mind. When it's cleverness
+that's wanted, it's you that's wanted to back me up--but I can stick to
+my own way without you; and my way is this," he said, suddenly lifting
+her from the ground, holding her waist between his two big hands, and
+giving her an emphatic kiss. Phoebe was silenced altogether when this had
+happened. He was a blockhead, but he was a man, and could stand up for
+his love, and for his own rights as a man, independent of the world. She
+felt a genuine admiration for her lout at that moment; but this
+admiration was accompanied by a very chill sense of all that might be
+forfeited if Mr. Copperhead stood out. Clarence, poor and disowned by
+his father, would be a very different person from the Clarence
+Copperhead who was going into parliament, and had "a fine position" in
+prospect. She did not form any resolutions as to what she would do in
+that case, for she was incapable of anything dishonourable; but it made
+her shiver as with a cold icy current running over; and as for poor old
+Tozer he was all but whimpering in his chair.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he cried. "A great man like Mr. Copperhead affronted in my
+'umble 'ouse. It's what I never thought to see. A friend of the
+connection like that--your father's leading member. Oh, Phoebe, it was an
+evil day as brought you here to make all this mischief! and if I had
+known what was going on!" cried Tozer, almost weeping in his despair.
+
+"You are tired, grandpapa," said Phoebe. "Don't be frightened about us.
+Mr. Copperhead is very fond of Clarence, and he will give in; or if he
+doesn't give in, still we shall not be worse off than many other
+people." But she said this with a secret panic devouring her soul,
+wondering if it was possible that such a horrible revolution of
+circumstances and change of everything she had looked for, could be.
+Even Clarence was silenced, though immovable. He went away soon after,
+and betook himself to his room at the Parsonage, where all his
+possessions still were, while Phoebe attended upon her grandmother, whose
+agitation and fear she calmed without saying much. Tozer, quite broken
+down, retired to bed; and when they were all disposed of, Phoebe went out
+to the garden, and made a mournful little promenade there, with very
+serious thoughts. If Clarence was to be cast off by his father what
+could she do with him? It was not in Phoebe to abandon the stupid lover,
+who had stood up so manfully for her. No, she must accept her fate
+however the balance turned; but if this dreadful change happened what
+should she do with him? The question penetrated, and made her shiver to
+the depths of her soul; but never even in imagination did she forsake
+him. He was hers now, come good or ill; but the prospect of the ill was
+appalling to her. She went up and down the garden-path slowly in the
+silence, looking up to the stars, with her heart very full. Phoebe felt
+that no usual burden had been put upon her. Last night her occupation
+had been one of the purest charity, and this Providence had seemed to
+recompense in the morning, by dropping at her very feet the prize she
+had long meant to win; but now she was down again after being lifted up
+so high, and a great part of its value was taken out of that prize. Was
+she mercenary or worldly-minded in her choice? It would be hard to say
+so, for she never questioned with herself whether or not she should
+follow Clarence into obscurity and poverty, if things should turn out
+so. She would never abandon him, however bad his case might be; but her
+heart sunk very low when she thought of her future with him, without the
+"career" which would have made everything sweet.
+
+Mr. Copperhead, too, had very serious thoughts on this subject, and sat
+up long drinking brandy-and-water, and knitting his brows, as he turned
+the subject over and over in his mind, recognizing with disgust (in
+which nevertheless there mingled a certain respect) that Clarence would
+not yield, he was as obstinate as himself, or more so. He had gone to
+the inn, where he was alone, without any of his usual comforts. It was
+perhaps the first time in his prosperous life that he had ever been
+really crossed. Joe had never attempted to do it, nor any of the first
+family. They had married, as they had done everything else, according to
+his dictation; and now here was his useless son, his exotic plant, his
+Dresden china, not only asserting a will of his own, but meaning to have
+it; and showing a resolution, a determination equal to his own. His
+mother had never shown anything of this. She had yielded, as every one
+else had yielded (Mr. Copperhead reflected), to whatever he ordered.
+Where had the boy got this unsuspected strength? A kind of smile broke
+unawares over the rich man's face, as he asked himself this question, a
+smile which he chased away with a frown, but which nevertheless had been
+there for a moment roused by a subtle suggestion of self-flattery.
+Where, but from himself, had his gentleman-son (as the millionnaire
+proudly held him to be) got that strength of obstinacy? He chased the
+thought and the smile away with a frown, and went to bed gloomily
+nursing his wrath; but yet this suggestion which he himself had made was
+more flattering to himself than words can say. As for Clarence, the only
+other person deeply concerned, after he had asked for Mr. May, and
+expressed his regret to learn how ill he was, the young man smoked a
+cigar on the doorsteps, and then went peaceably, without either care or
+anxiety, to bed, where he slept very soundly till eight o'clock next
+morning, which was the hour at which he was called, though he did not
+always get up.
+
+When Mr. Copperhead began the new day, he began it with a very unwise
+idea, quickly carried out, as unwise ideas generally are. Feeling that
+he could make nothing of his son, he resolved to try what he could make
+of Phoebe; a young woman, nay, a bit of a girl not more than twenty, and
+a minister's daughter, brought up in reverence of the leading
+member--any resistance on her part seemed really incredible. He could
+not contemplate the idea of giving up all the cherished plans of his
+life by a melodramatic renunciation of his son. To give up Clarence whom
+he had trained to be the very apex and crowning point of his grandeur,
+was intolerable to him. But Mr. Copperhead had heard before now of young
+women, who, goaded to it, had been known to give up their lover rather
+than let their lover suffer on their account, and if this had ever been
+the case, surely it might be so in the present instance. Had he not the
+comfort of the Beecham family in his hands? Could not he make the
+Crescent Chapel too hot to hold them? Could he not awaken the fears of
+scores of other fathers very unlikely to permit their favourite sons to
+stray into the hands of pastors' daughters? There was nothing indeed to
+be said against Mr. Beecham, but still it would be strange if Mr.
+Copperhead, out and away the richest man in the community, could not
+make the Crescent too hot to hold him. He went down the Lane from the
+"George," where he had slept, quite early next morning, with this
+purpose full in his head, and, as good luck (he thought) would have it,
+found Phoebe, who had been restless all night with anxiety, and had got
+up early, once more walking up and down the long garden-path, reflecting
+over all that had happened, and wondering as to what might happen still.
+What a piece of luck it was! He was accustomed to have fortune on his
+side, and it seemed natural to him. He went up to her with scarcely a
+pause for the usual salutations, and plunged at once into what he had to
+say.
+
+"Miss Phoebe, I am glad to find you alone. I wanted a word with you," he
+said, "about the affair of last night. Why shouldn't you and I, the only
+two sensible ones in the business, settle it between ourselves? Old
+Tozer is an old ass, begging your pardon for saying so, and my son is a
+fool--"
+
+"I do not agree to either," said Phoebe gravely, "but never mind, I will
+certainly hear what you have to say."
+
+"What I have to say is this. I will never consent to let my son Clarence
+marry you." Here he was interrupted by a serious little bow of assent
+from Phoebe, which disconcerted and angered him strangely. "This being
+the case," he resumed more hotly, "don't you think we'd better come to
+terms, you and me? You are too sensible a girl, I'll be bound, to marry
+a man without a penny, which is what he would be. He would be properly
+made an end of, Miss Phoebe, if he found out, after all his bravado last
+night, that you were the one to cast him off after all."
+
+"He cannot find that out," said Phoebe with a smile; "unfortunately even
+if I could have done it under brighter circumstances my mouth is closed
+now. I desert him now, when he is in trouble! Of course you do not know
+me, so you are excused for thinking so, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+The rich man stared. She was speaking a language which he did not
+understand. "Look here, Miss Phoebe," he said, "let's understand each
+other. High horses don't answer with me. As for deserting him when he's
+in trouble, if you'll give him up--or desert him, as you call it--he
+need never be in trouble at all. You can stop all that. Just you say no
+to him, and he'll soon be on his knees to me to think no more of it. You
+know who I am," Mr. Copperhead continued with a concealed threat. "I
+have a deal of influence in the connection, though I say it that
+shouldn't, and I'm very well looked on in chapel business. What would
+the Crescent do without me? And if there should be an unpleasantness
+between the minister and the leading member, why, you know, Miss Phoebe,
+no one better, who it is that would go to the wall."
+
+She made no answer, and he thought she was impressed by his arguments.
+He went on still more strongly than before. "Such a clever girl as you
+knows all that," said Mr. Copperhead, "and suppose you were to marry
+Clarence without a penny, what would become of you? What would you make
+of him? He is too lazy for hard work, and he has not brains enough for
+anything else. What would you make of him if you had him? That's what I
+want to know."
+
+"And that is just what I can't tell you," said Phoebe smiling. "It is a
+very serious question. I suppose something will turn up."
+
+"What can turn up? You marry him because he is going into parliament,
+and could give you a fine position."
+
+"I confess," said Phoebe with her usual frankness, "that I did think of
+his career; without that the future is much darker, and rather
+depressing."
+
+"Yes, you see that! A poor clod of a fellow that can't work, and will be
+hanging upon you every day, keeping you from working--that you will
+never be able to make anything of."
+
+"Mr. Copperhead," said Phoebe sweetly, "why do you tell all this to me?
+Your mere good sense will show you that I cannot budge. I have accepted
+him being rich, and I cannot throw him over when he is poor. I may not
+like it--I don't like it--but I am helpless. Whatever change is made, it
+cannot be made by me."
+
+He stared at her in blank wonder and dismay. For a moment he could not
+say anything. "Look here," he faltered at last, "you thought him a great
+match, a rise in the world for you and yours; but he ain't a great match
+any longer. What's the use then of keeping up the farce? You and me
+understand each other. You've nothing to do but to let him off; you're
+young and pretty, you'll easily find some one else. Fools are plenty in
+this world," he added, unable to refrain from that one fling. "Let him
+off and all will be right. What's to prevent you? I'd not lose a moment
+if I were you."
+
+Phoebe laughed. She had a pretty laugh, soft yet ringing like a child's.
+"You and I, I fear, are no rule for each other," she said. "Mr.
+Copperhead, what prevents me is a small thing called honour, that is
+all."
+
+"Honour! that's for men," he said hastily, "and folly for them according
+as you mean it; but for women there's no such thing, it's sham and
+humbug; and look you here, Miss Phoebe," he continued, losing his temper,
+"you see what your father will say to this when you get him into hot
+water with his people! There's more men with sons than me; and if the
+Crescent ain't too hot to hold him within a month--Do you think I'll
+stand it, a beggarly minister and his belongings coming in the way of a
+man that could buy you all up, twenty times over, and more!"
+
+The fury into which he had worked himself took away Mr. Copperhead's
+breath. Phoebe said nothing. She went on by his side with soft steps, her
+face a little downcast, the suspicion of a smile about her mouth.
+
+"By George!" he cried, when he had recovered himself, "you think you can
+laugh at me. You think you can defy me, you, a bit of a girl, as poor as
+Job!"
+
+"I defy no one," said Phoebe. "I cannot prevent you from insulting me,
+that is all; which is rather hard," she added, with a smile, which cost
+her an effort, "seeing that I shall have to drag your son through the
+world somehow, now that you have cast him off. He will not give me up, I
+know, and honour prevents me from giving him up. So I shall have hard
+work enough, without any insults from you. It is a pity," said Phoebe,
+with a sort of sympathetic regret for herself so badly used. "I could
+have made a man of him. I could have backed him up to get on as well as
+most men; but it will certainly be uphill work now."
+
+She did not look at the furious father as she spoke. She was quite calm,
+treating it reflectively, regretfully, as a thing past and over. Mr.
+Copperhead tried to burst forth again in threats and objurgations; but
+in spite of himself, and though she never said another word, the big,
+rich, noisy man was silenced. He went away, threatening to appeal to her
+father, which Phoebe, with a last effort, begged him smilingly to do. But
+this was the last of which she was capable. When she had closed the door
+after him, she rushed upstairs to her room, and cried bitterly.
+Everything was very dark to her. If he did appeal to her father, the
+appeal would spread confusion and dismay through the pastor's heart and
+family; and what was to become of herself, with Clarence on her hands,
+who could do nothing that was useful, and could earn neither his own
+living nor hers? All this was very terrible to Phoebe, and for a moment
+she contemplated the unheard of step of having a headache, and staying
+upstairs. But she reflected that her poor old grandfather had done _his_
+duty, at no small sacrifice, according to her bidding, yesterday; and
+she bathed her eyes heroically, and collected her strength and went
+down to breakfast as usual. It was her duty, which she must do.
+
+As for Mr. Copperhead, he took a long walk, to reflect upon all the
+circumstances, which were complicated enough to cause him much trouble.
+He could not give up his cherished scheme, his Member of Parliament, his
+crown of glory. It was what he had been looking forward to for years. He
+tried to realize the failure of his hopes, and could not--nay, would
+not, feeling it more than he could bear. No; without his gentleman son,
+his University man, his costly, useless production, who was worth so
+much money to him, yet brought in nothing, he felt that he must shrink
+in the opinion of all his friends, even of his own sons, the "first
+family," who had so envied, sneered at, undervalued Clarence, yet had
+been forced to be civil to him, and respect their father's imperious
+will as he chose that it should be respected. What a sorry figure he
+should cut before all of them if he cast off Clarence, and had to
+announce himself publicly as foiled in all his plans and hopes! He could
+not face this prospect; he shrank from it as if it had involved actual
+bodily pain. The men who would laugh at his failure were men of his own
+class, to whom he had bragged at his ease, crowing and exulting over
+them, and he felt that he could not face them if all his grand
+anticipations collapsed. There was nothing for it but to give in. And on
+the other hand this girl Phoebe was a very clever girl, able not only to
+save the expense of coaches, but to cram the boy, and keep him up better
+than any coach could do. She could make his speeches for him, like
+enough, Mr. Copperhead thought, and a great many reasons might be given
+to the world why she had been chosen instead of a richer wife for the
+golden boy. Golden girls, as a general rule, were not of so much use.
+"Fortune ain't worth thinking of in comparison with brains. It was
+brains I wanted, and I've bought 'em dear; but I hope I can afford it,"
+he almost heard himself saying to an admiring, envious assembly; for Mr.
+Copperhead so far deserved his success that he could accept a defeat
+when it was necessary, and make the best of it. When he had nearly ended
+his walk, and had reached in his thoughts to this point, he met his son,
+who was walking up from the Parsonage to No. 6 in the Lane. Clarence
+looked cheerful enough as he walked along, whistling under his breath,
+towards his love; but when he saw his father, a change came over his
+face. Once more his eyelids drooped over his eyes, and those muddy brown
+orbs got fixed in dull obstinacy; once more his upper lip shut down
+sullen and fast upon the lower. The entire expression of his face
+changed. Mr. Copperhead saw this afar off, from the moment his son
+perceived him, and the sight gave to all his thinking that force which
+reality gives to imagination; the risk he was running became doubly
+clear.
+
+"Good morning, Clarence," he said.
+
+"Good morning, sir," responded the other, with lowering brows and
+close-shut mouth.
+
+"I suppose you were coming to the George to me? Come along, I've had no
+breakfast; and let's hope, my boy, that you're in a better mind than
+last night."
+
+"Look here, sir," said Clarence; "you might as well ask one of those
+houses to walk with you to the George, and show a better mind. I'm of
+one mind, and one only. I'll marry Phoebe Beecham, whether you like it or
+not, and no other woman in this world."
+
+"Is that your last word?" said the father, curiously repeating, without
+being aware of it, his question of the previous night.
+
+"That's my last word," said the son, contemplating his father sullenly
+from under the heavy lids of his obstinate eyes.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Copperhead; "then come along to breakfast, for I'm
+hungry, and we can talk it over there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE LAST.
+
+
+This is how Phoebe's difficulties ended. Contrary to her every
+expectation, Mr. Copperhead made a great brag of her powers wherever he
+went. "Money is money," he said, "but brains is brains, all the same--we
+can't get on without 'em--and when you want to make a figure in the
+world, sir, buy a few brains if they fall in your way--that's my style.
+I've done with stupid ones up till now; but when I see there's a want of
+a clever one, I ain't such a fool as to shut my eyes to it. They cost
+dear, but I'm thankful to say I can afford that, ay, and a good deal
+more." Thus everything was satisfactorily arranged. Tozer and his wife
+cried together for joy on the wedding-day, but they did not expect to be
+asked to that ceremony, being well aware that Phoebe, having now
+completely entered into the regions of the great, could not be expected
+to have very much to say to them. "Though I know, the darling, as she'd
+just be the same if she was here, and wouldn't let nobody look down upon
+you and me," said the old woman.
+
+"She's a wonderful girl, she is," said old Tozer. "Wind us all round her
+little finger, that's what she could do--leastways, except when there
+was principle in it, and there I stood firm. But I've done things for
+Phoebe as I wouldn't have done for no other breathing, and she knew it. I
+wouldn't give in to her tho' about church folks being just as good as
+them as is more enlightened. That's agin' reason. But I've done things
+for 'em along of her!--Ah! she's a wonderful girl is Phoebe--Phoebe,
+Junior, as I always call her. There ain't her match between here and
+London, and that's what I'll always say."
+
+But we will not try to describe the glory and joy that filled Mr.
+Beecham's house in the Terrace, when Mrs. Clarence Copperhead went back
+there with all their friends to the wedding-breakfast, which was in the
+very best style, and regardless of expense. Even at that moment it gave
+Phoebe a little pang to see her mother in the bright colours which she
+loved, but which made her so much pinker and fatter than was needful.
+Little Mrs. Copperhead, in dim neutral tints, looked like a little
+shadow beside the pastor's buxom wife, and was frightened and ill at
+ease and sad to the heart to lose her boy, who had been all she
+possessed in the world. Sophy Dorset, specially asked for the purpose
+with Ursula May, who was a bridesmaid, looked on with much admiration at
+the curious people, so rich, so fine, and so overwhelming, among whom
+her father had found it so remarkable to meet not one person whom he
+knew. "Now, Ursula," she said, "if you had played your cards properly
+that beautiful bridegroom and that nice little house in Mayfair, and the
+privilege, perhaps, of writing M.P. after your name some time or other,
+might all have been yours instead of Miss Beecham's. Why did you let her
+carry off the prize?"
+
+"Cousin Sophy!" cried Ursula indignantly. "As if I ever thought of him
+as a prize! But I know you are only laughing at me. The strange thing is
+that she likes him, though I am sure she knew very well that
+Reginald--Oh, when one thinks how many people there are in this world
+who do not get what they wish most--and how many people there are--"
+Ursula paused, involved in her own antithesis, and Sophy ended it for
+her with a sigh.
+
+"Who do--and the one is no happier than the other, most times, little
+Ursula; but you don't understand that, and as you are going to be one
+of the blessed ones, you need not take to making reflections; that is my
+privilege, my dear."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy, why were not you one of those blessed ones too?"
+cried Ursula, clasping her arms suddenly round her kind friend. This, be
+it understood, was after the breakfast was over, and when, in the deep
+gloom which generally concludes a wedding day, everybody had gone home.
+The two were in a magnificent large bedchamber in Portland Place, in the
+vast silent mansion of the Copperheads, where at present there was
+nothing more cheerful than the bridegroom's soft-eyed mother, taking
+herself dreadfully to task for not being happy, and trying not to cry,
+though there was to be a great dinner and entertainment that night.
+
+"Don't you know?" said Sophy, putting her aside with a certain proud
+coldness, and a momentary laugh, "he I loved proved false; that is to
+say, in simple language, he turned out so poor a creature that it is
+very good of me not to despise humanity for his sweet sake. Never mind.
+If all had gone well, and he had been a real man instead of the sham
+image of one, I don't suppose I should have ever been among the blessed
+ones. Anne is, who never thought of such mysteries at all; and so you
+will be, my little Ursula--very happy. I am sure of it--though how you
+can manage to be happy, my dear, marrying a man who is not a good
+Churchman, it is not for me to say."
+
+"Cousin Sophy, have I been brought up in a way to make me so fond of
+Churchmen?" said Ursula solemnly. She could not have told how much or
+how little she knew about her father's behaviour, and the "shock to his
+mental system;" but vaguely and by instinct there was a great deal that
+she did know.
+
+"You have been behind the scenes too much perhaps," said Sophy Dorset,
+shrugging her shoulders, "but don't think any worse of the world than
+you ought, if you can't think very much better. No class is good or bad,
+Ursula. Men are but men all over the world."
+
+This made Ursula cry, though it is difficult to say why. She thought it
+cynical, and probably so will the reader. Perhaps Sophy Dorset abandoned
+the cause of mankind too easily, as most people of her temperament and
+age are disposed to do. Anyhow the evening entertainment took place and
+was very fine, and every honour was done to Clarence Copperhead's
+marriage, especially by his mother, who appeared in the most lovely
+satin that eyes ever saw, and diamonds--and almost succeeded all the
+evening in keeping herself from crying, but not entirely. She did break
+down when the health of bridegroom and bride was drunk as it ought to
+be; but recovered herself hastily when the mother on the other side gave
+her a kiss of sympathy. Though it was an honest kiss it filled poor
+little Mrs. Copperhead's mind with the most unchristian feelings, and
+gave her strength to keep up for the rest of the evening, and do her
+duty to the last. Nevertheless Phoebe was the best of daughters-in-law,
+and ended by making her husband's mother dependent on her for most of
+the comforts of her life. And Clarence got into Parliament, and the
+reader, perhaps (if Parliament is sitting), may have had the luck to
+read a speech in the morning paper of Phoebe's composition, and if he
+ever got the secret of her style would know it again, and might trace
+the course of a public character for years to come by that means. But
+this secret is one which no bribe nor worldly inducement will ever tempt
+our lips to betray.
+
+Northcote was released from the charge of Salem Chapel directly after
+these events, by the return of the minister safe and sound from his
+holiday, to the great delight of the congregation, though they had not
+been very fond of their old pastor before. Now they could not
+sufficiently exult over the happy re-instalment. "The other one never
+crossed our doors from the day he came till now as he's going away,"
+said one indignant member; "nor took no more notice of us chapel folks
+nor if we were dirt beneath his feet." "That time as the Meeting was
+held, when he spoke up again' the sinecure, was the only time as my mind
+was satisfied," cried another. "And a deal came of it after, making
+friends with the very man he had abused." "All his friends was Church
+folks," said a third; "he was a wolf in sheep's clothing, that's what I
+calls him; and a poor moralist as a preacher, with never a rousing word
+in them things as he called his sermons. We're well rid of the likes of
+him, though he may be clever. I don't give much for that kind of
+cleverness; and what's the good of you, minister or not minister, if you
+can't keep consistent and stick to your own side." The chorus was so
+strong that the echo of it moved Tozer, who was a kind of arch-deacon
+and leading member too, in his way, where he sat twiddling his thumbs in
+his little room. "I'm one as is qualified to give what you may call a
+casting vote," said Tozer, "being the oldest deacon in Salem, and one as
+has seen generations coming and going. And as for Church and Chapel,
+I've served 'em both, and seen the colour of their money, and there's
+them as has their obligations to me, though we needn't name no names.
+But this I will say, as I'm cured of clever men and them as is thought
+superior. They ain't to be calculated upon. If any more o' them young
+intellectuals turns up at Carlingford, I'll tell him right out, 'You
+ain't the man for my money.' I'll say to him as bold as brass, 'I've
+been young, and now I'm old, and it's my conviction as clever young men
+ain't the sort for Salem. We want them as is steady-going, and them as
+is consistent; good strong opinions, and none o' your charity, that's
+what we wants here.'" Now Tozer had loved clever young men in his day
+more well than wisely, as everybody knew, and this deliverance carried
+all the more weight in consequence, and was echoed loudly by one general
+hum of content and applause.
+
+Northcote took this very quietly, but he retired, after he had married
+Ursula, from the office of pastor, for which he was not fitted, and from
+the Liberation Society, and various other societies, coming to see that
+Disestablishment was not a panacea for national evils any more than
+other things. He was in the habit of quoting his brother-in-law,
+Reginald May, as the best man he knew; but this did not make him a
+Churchman; for naturally he could not say the same of other members of
+the same class and family. He was shaken out of his strong opinions; but
+it is doubtful how far this was good for him, for he was a man of
+warlike disposition, and not to have something which he could go to the
+stake for--something which he could think the devil's own stronghold to
+assail, was a drawback to him, and cramped his mental development; but
+he was happy in his home with his pretty Ursula, which is probably all
+the reader will care to know. He paid Tozer's hundred and fifty pounds.
+And he made no inquiries, and tried not to ask himself what all that
+strange scene had meant--and whatever it did mean it was over for ever,
+and nobody asked any further questions or made any revelations on the
+subject. As for Mr. May, his mysterious illness went on for some time,
+the doctors never venturing to put any name to it. It was "mental
+shock," and perhaps aberration, though he was sane enough to calm down
+after that incomprehensible scene. Mr. Simpson of the Bank had a good
+guess at the secret of the enigma, but even Tozer got hazy about it
+after a while, and though he knew that he had done Mr. May a wonderful
+service, could scarcely have told what it was--and neither, when it was
+all over, could the culprit have told. He got better and worse for about
+a year, and then he died, his strength failing him without any distinct
+reason, no one could tell how. Reginald got the living and stepped into
+his father's place, making a home for the children, which sharp Janey
+rules over, not so softly or steadily as Ursula, with a love of theories
+and experiments not quite consistent with the higher graces of
+housekeeping, yet with an honest meaning through it all. As the times
+are so unsettled, and no one can tell what may become within a year of
+any old foundation, the trustees have requested Reginald to retain his
+chaplaincy at the old College; so that he is in reality a pluralist, and
+almost rich, though they say the hardest-worked man in Carlingford. He
+has his vagaries too, which no man can live without, but he is the
+kindest guardian to his brothers and sisters, and bears with Janey's
+freaks with exemplary gentleness. And he has a curate, whom in the
+course of nature Janey will probably marry--though this has not yet been
+revealed to either party, who have reached only the first stage of
+hating each other up to this time. It is not thought in the family that
+Reginald will ever marry. She was never worthy of him, the sisters say;
+but he thinks differently, as yet at least. However he is young, and
+things may mend.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
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diff --git a/28629-0.zip b/28629-0.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phoebe, Junior
+
+Author: Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+Release Date: April 28, 2009 [EBook #28629]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHOEBE, JUNIOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Marcia Brooks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chronicles of Carlingford
+
+PHOEBE, JUNIOR
+
+MRS OLIPHANT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+   CHAP.                               PAGE
+
+      I. THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS            1
+
+     II. THE LEADING MEMBER               9
+
+    III. MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL           16
+
+     IV. A COUNTRY PARTY                 26
+
+      V. SELF-DEVOTION                   31
+
+     VI. A MORNING CALL                  38
+
+    VII. SHOPPING                        45
+
+   VIII. THE DORSETS                     52
+
+     IX. COMING HOME                     59
+
+      X. PAPA                            67
+
+     XI. PHOEBE'S PREPARATIONS           74
+
+    XII. GRANGE LANE                     81
+
+   XIII. THE TOZER FAMILY                88
+
+    XIV. STRANGERS                       96
+
+     XV. A DOMESTIC CRISIS              104
+
+    XVI. THE NEW GENTLEMAN              113
+
+   XVII. A PUBLIC MEETING               119
+
+  XVIII. MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS              127
+
+    XIX. THE NEW CHAPLAIN               134
+
+     XX. THAT TOZER GIRL!               142
+
+    XXI. A NEW FRIEND                   148
+
+   XXII. A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT          155
+
+  XXIII. TIDED OVER                     164
+
+   XXIV. A VISIT                        169
+
+    XXV. TEA                            177
+
+   XXVI. THE HALL                       185
+
+  XXVII. A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES      192
+
+ XXVIII. THE NEW PUPIL                  200
+
+   XXIX. URSULA'S ENTRÉES               209
+
+    XXX. SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE       217
+
+   XXXI. SOCIETY                        224
+
+  XXXII. LOVE-MAKING                    230
+
+ XXXIII. A DISCLOSURE                   236
+
+  XXXIV. AN EXTRAVAGANCE                244
+
+   XXXV. THE MILLIONNAIRE               251
+
+  XXXVI. FATHER AND SON                 258
+
+ XXXVII. A PLEASANT EVENING             267
+
+XXXVIII. AN EXPEDITION                  273
+
+  XXXIX. A CATASTROPHE                  281
+
+     XL. THE SINNED-AGAINST             287
+
+    XLI. A MORNING'S WORK               298
+
+   XLII. A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK           307
+
+  XLIII. THE CONFLICT                   312
+
+   XLIV. PHOEBE'S LAST TRIAL            326
+
+    XLV. THE LAST                       336
+
+
+
+
+PHOEBE, JUNIOR.
+
+A Last Chronicle of Carlingford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS.
+
+
+Miss Phoebe Tozer, the only daughter of the chief deacon and leading
+member of the Dissenting connection in Carlingford, married, shortly
+after his appointment to the charge of Salem Chapel, in that town, the
+Reverend Mr. Beecham, one of the most rising young men in the
+denomination. The marriage was in many ways satisfactory to the young
+lady's family, for Mr. Beecham was himself the son of respectable people
+in a good way of business, and not destitute of means; and the position
+was one which they had always felt most suitable for their daughter, and
+to which she had been almost, it may be said, brought up. It is,
+however, scarcely necessary to add that it was not quite so agreeable to
+the other leading members of the congregation. I should be very sorry to
+say that each family wished that preferment for its own favourite
+daughter; for indeed there can be no doubt, as Mrs. Pigeon asserted
+vigorously, that a substantial grocer, whose father before him had
+established an excellent business, and who had paid for his pew in Salem
+as long as any one could recollect, and supported every charity, and
+paid up on all occasions when extra expense was necessary, was in every
+way a more desirable son-in-law than a poor minister who was always
+dependent on pleasing the chapel folks, and might have to turn out any
+day. Notwithstanding, however, the evident superiority of the
+establishment thus attained by Maria Pigeon, there is a certain
+something attached to the position of a clerical caste, even among such
+an independent body as the congregation at Salem Chapel, which has its
+own especial charms, and neither the young people who had been her
+companions nor the old people who had patronized and snubbed her, felt
+any satisfaction in seeing Phoebe thus advanced over them to the honours
+and glories inalienable from the position of minister's wife. All her
+little airs of bridal vanity were considered as so many offensive
+manifestations of delight and exultation in her rise in life. Her
+_trousseau_, though pronounced by all competent judges not half so
+abundant or fine as Maria Pigeon's, still called forth comments which
+nobody ventured to indulge in, in respect to the grocer's blooming
+bride. A grocer's lady has a right to anything her parents can afford;
+but to see a minister's wife swelling herself up, and trying to ape the
+quality, filled the town with virtuous indignation. The sight of young
+Mrs. Beecham walking about with her card-case in her hand, calling on
+the Miss Hemmingses, shaking hands with Mrs. Rider the doctor's wife,
+caused unmitigated disgust throughout all the back streets of
+Carlingford; and "_that_ Phoebe a-sweeping in as if the chapel belonged
+to her," was almost more than the oldest sitter could bear. Phoebe, it
+must be added, felt her elevation to the full, and did not spare her
+congregation. Sometimes she would have the audacity to walk from the
+vestry to the pew, as if she were an office-bearer, instead of coming in
+humbly by the door as became a woman. She would sit still ostentatiously
+until every one had gone, waiting for her husband. She quite led the
+singing, everybody remarked, paying no more attention to the choir than
+if it did not exist; and once she had even paused on her way to her
+seat, and turned down the gas, which was blazing too high, with an air
+of proprietorship that nobody could endure.
+
+"Does Salem belong to them Tozers, I should like to know?" said Mrs.
+Brown. "Brown would never be outdone by him in subscriptions you may be
+sure, nor Mr. Pigeon neither, if the truth was known. I never gave my
+money to build a castle for the Tozers."
+
+Thus the whole congregation expressed itself with more or less
+eloquence, and though the attendance never diminished, everybody being
+too anxious to see "what they would do next," the feeling could not be
+ignored. Phoebe herself, with a courage which developed from the moment
+of her marriage, took the initiative.
+
+"It never answers," she said, solemnly, "to marry one of the flock; I
+knew it, Henery, and I told you so; and if you would be so infatuated,
+and marry me when I told you not, for your own interests--"
+
+"They're all jealous of you, my pet, that's what it is," said Mr.
+Beecham, and laughed. He could bear the annoyance in consideration of
+that sweet consciousness of its cause which stole over all his being.
+Phoebe laughed, too, but not with so delicious a gratification. She felt
+that there were people, even in Salem, who might be jealous of him.
+
+"The end of it all is, we must not stay here," she said. "You must find
+another sphere for your talents, Henery, and I'm sure it will not be
+difficult. If you get put on that deputation that is going down to the
+North, suppose you take a few of your best sermons, dear. That can never
+do any harm--indeed it's sure to do good, to some poor benighted soul at
+least, that perhaps never heard the truth before. And likewise, perhaps,
+to some vacant congregation. I have always heard that chapels in the
+North were very superior to here. A different class of society, and
+better altogether. These Pigeons and Browns, and people are not the sort
+of society for you."
+
+"Well, there's truth in that," said Mr. Beecham, pulling up his
+shirt-collar. "Certainly it isn't the sort of thing one was accustomed
+to." And he lent a serious ear to the suggestion about the sermons. The
+consequence was that an invitation followed from a chapel in the North,
+where indeed Mrs. Phoebe found herself in much finer society, and grew
+rapidly in importance and in ideas. After this favourable start, the
+process went on for many years by which a young man from Homerton was
+then developed into the influential and highly esteemed pastor of an
+important flock. Things may be, and probably are, differently managed
+now-a-days. Mr. Beecham had unbounded fluency and an unctuous manner of
+treating his subjects. It was eloquence of a kind, though not of an
+elevated kind. Never to be at a loss for what you have to say is a
+prodigious advantage to all men in all positions, but doubly so to a
+popular minister. He had an unbounded wealth of phraseology. Sentences
+seemed to melt out of his mouth without any apparent effort, all set in
+a certain cadence. He had not, perhaps, much power of thought, but it is
+easy to make up for such a secondary want when the gift of expression is
+so strong. Mr. Beecham rose, like an actor, from a long and successful
+career in the provinces, to what might be called the Surrey side of
+congregational eminence in London; and from thence attained his final
+apotheosis in a handsome chapel near Regent's Park, built of the whitest
+stone, and cushioned with the reddest damask, where a very large
+congregation sat in great comfort and listened to his sermons with a
+satisfaction no doubt increased by the fact that the cushions were soft
+as their own easy-chairs, and that carpets and hot-water pipes kept
+everything snug under foot.
+
+It was the most comfortable chapel in the whole connection. The seats
+were arranged like those of an amphitheatre, each line on a slightly
+higher level than the one in front of it, so that everybody saw
+everything that was going on. No dimness or mystery was wanted there;
+everything was bright daylight, bright paint, red cushions, comfort and
+respectability. It might not be a place very well adapted for saying
+your prayers in, but then you could say your prayers at home--and it was
+a place admirably adapted for hearing sermons in, which you could not do
+at home; and all the arrangements were such that you could hear in the
+greatest comfort, not to say luxury. I wonder, for my own part, that the
+poor folk about did not seize upon the Crescent Chapel on the cold
+Sunday mornings, and make themselves happy in those warm and ruddy pews.
+It would be a little amusing to speculate what all the well-dressed
+pew-holders would have done had this unexpected answer to the appeal
+which Mr. Beecham believed himself to make every Sunday to the world in
+general, been literally given. It would have been extremely embarrassing
+to the Managing Committee and all the office-bearers, and would have, I
+fear, deeply exasperated and offended the occupants of those family
+pews; but fortunately this difficulty never did occur. The proletariat
+of Marylebone had not the sense or the courage, or the profanity, which
+you will, to hit upon this mode of warming themselves. The real
+congregation embraced none of the unwashed multitude. Its value in mere
+velvet, silk, lace, trinkets, and furs was something amazing, and the
+amount these comfortable people represented in the way of income would
+have amounted to a most princely revenue. The little Salems and
+Bethesdas, with their humble flocks, could not be supposed to belong to
+the same species; and the difference was almost equally marked between
+such a place of worship as the Crescent Chapel and the parish churches,
+which are like the nets in the Gospel, and take in all kinds of fish,
+bad and good. The pew-holders in the Crescent Chapel were universally
+well off; they subscribed liberally to missionary societies, far more
+liberally than the people in St. Paul's close by did to the S. P. G.
+They had everything of the best in the chapel, as they had in their
+houses. They no more economized on their minister than they did on their
+pew-cushions, and they spent an amount of money on their choir which
+made the singing-people at St. Paul's gnash their teeth. From all this
+it will be seen that the atmosphere of the Crescent Chapel was of a
+very distinct and individual kind. It was a warm, luxurious air,
+perfumy, breathing of that refinement which is possible to mere wealth.
+I do not say there might not be true refinement besides, but the surface
+kind, that which you buy from upholsterers and tailors and dressmakers,
+which you procure ready made at schools, and which can only be kept up
+at a very high cost, abounded and pervaded the place. Badly dressed
+people felt themselves out of place in that brilliant sanctuary; a muddy
+footprint upon the thick matting in the passages was looked at as a
+crime. Clean dry feet issuing out of carriage or cab kept the aisles
+unstained, even on the wettest day. We say cab, because many of the
+people who went to the Crescent Chapel objected to take out their own
+carriages or work their own horses on Sunday; and there were many more
+who, though they did not possess carriages, used cabs with a freedom
+incompatible with poverty. As a general rule, they were much better off
+than the people at St. Paul's, more universally prosperous and
+well-to-do. And they were at the same time what you might safely call
+well-informed people--people who read the newspapers, and sometimes the
+magazines, and knew what was going on. The men were almost all liberal
+in politics, and believed in Mr. Gladstone with enthusiasm; the women
+often "took an interest" in public movements, especially of a charitable
+character. There was less mental stagnation among them probably than
+among many of their neighbours. Their life was not profound nor high,
+but still it was life after a sort. Such was the flock which had invited
+Mr. Beecham to become their pastor when he reached the climax of his
+career. They gave him a very good salary, enough to enable him to have a
+handsome house in one of the terraces overlooking Regent's Park. It is
+not a fashionable quarter, but it is not to be despised in any way. The
+rooms were good-sized and lofty, and sometimes have been known to
+suffice for very fine people indeed, a fact which the Beechams were well
+aware of; and they were not above the amiable weakness of making it
+known that their house was in a line with that of Lady Cecilia Burleigh.
+This single fact of itself might suffice to mark the incalculable
+distance between the Reverend Mr. Beecham of the Crescent Chapel, and
+the young man who began life as minister of Salem in Carlingford. And
+the development outside was not less remarkable than the development
+within.
+
+It is astonishing how our prejudices change from youth to middle age,
+even without any remarkable interposition of fortune; I do not say
+dissipate, or even dispel, which is much more doubtful--but they
+change. When Mr. and Mrs. Beecham commenced life, they had both the
+warmest feeling of opposition to the Church and everything churchy. All
+the circumstances of their lives had encouraged this feeling. The
+dislike of the little for the great, the instinctive opposition of a
+lower class towards the higher, intensified that natural essence of
+separatism, that determination to be wiser than one's neighbour, which
+in the common mind lies at the bottom of all dissent. In saying this we
+no more accuse Dissenters in religion than Dissenters in politics, or in
+art, or in criticism. The first dissenter in most cases is an original
+thinker, to whom his enforced departure from the ways of his fathers is
+misery and pain. Generally he has a hard struggle with himself before he
+can give up, for the superlative truth which has taken possession of
+him, all the habits, the pious traditions of his life. He is the real
+Nonconformist--half martyr, half victim, of his convictions. But that
+Nonconformity which has come to be the faith in which a large number of
+people are trained is a totally different business, and affects a very
+different kind of sentiments. Personal and independent conviction has no
+more to do with it than it has to do with the ardour of a Breton peasant
+trained in deepest zeal of Romanism, or the unbounded certainty of any
+other traditionary believer. For this reason we may be allowed to
+discuss the changes of feeling which manifested themselves in Mr. and
+Mrs. Beecham without anything disrespectful to Nonconformity. Not being
+persons of original mind, they were what their training and
+circumstances, and a flood of natural influences, made them. They began
+life, feeling themselves to be of a hopelessly low social caste, and
+believing themselves to be superior to their superiors in that
+enlightenment which they had been brought up to believe distinguished
+the connection. The first thing which opened their minds to a dawning
+doubt whether their enlightenment was, in reality, so much greater than
+that of their neighbours, was the social change worked in their position
+by their removal from Carlingford. In the great towns of the North,
+Dissent attains its highest social elevation, and Chapel people are no
+longer to be distinguished from Church people except by the fact that
+they go to Chapel instead of Church, a definition so simple as to be
+quite overwhelming to the unprepared dissenting intelligence, brought up
+in a little Tory borough, still holding for Church and Queen. The
+amazing difference which this made in the sentiments of Mrs. Phoebe
+Beecham, _née_ Tozer, it is quite impossible to describe. Her sudden
+introduction to "circles" which Mrs. Pigeon had never entered, and to
+houses at the area-door of which Mr. Brown, the dairyman, would have
+humbly waited, would have turned the young woman's head, had she not
+felt the overpowering necessity of keeping that organ as steady as
+possible, to help her to hold her position in the new world. Phoebe was a
+girl of spirit, and though her head went round and round, and everything
+felt confused about her, she did manage desperately to hold her own and
+to avoid committing herself; but I cannot attempt to tell how much her
+social elevation modified her sectarian zeal. Phoebe was only a woman, so
+that I am free to assign such motives as having a serious power over
+her. Let us hope Mr. Beecham, being a man and a pastor, was moved in a
+more lofty, intellectual, and spiritual way.
+
+But however that may be, the pair went conjugally together in this
+modification of sentiment, and by the time they reached the lofty
+eminence of the Crescent Chapel, were as liberal-minded Nonconformists
+as heart could desire. Mr. Beecham indeed had many friends in the Low,
+and even some in the Broad Church. He appeared on platforms, to promote
+various public movements, along with clergymen of the Church. He spoke
+of "our brethren within the pale of the Establishment" always with
+respect, sometimes even with enthusiasm. "Depend upon it, my dear Sir,"
+he would even say sometimes to a liberal brother, "the Establishment is
+not such an unmitigated evil as some people consider it. What should we
+do in country parishes where the people are not awakened? They do the
+dirty work for us, my dear brother--the dirty work." These sentiments
+were shared, but perhaps not warmly, by Mr. Beecham's congregation, some
+of whom were hot Voluntaries, and gave their ministers a little trouble.
+But the most part took their Nonconformity very quietly, and were
+satisfied to know that their chapel was the first in the connection, and
+their minister justly esteemed as one of the most eloquent. The
+Liberation Society held one meeting at the Crescent Chapel, but it was
+not considered a great success. At the best, they were no more than
+lukewarm Crescent-Chapelites, not political dissenters. Both minister
+and people were Liberal, that was the creed they professed. Some of the
+congregations Citywards, and the smaller chapels about Hampstead and
+Islington, used the word Latitudinarian instead; but that, as the
+Crescent Chapel people said, was a word always applied by the bigoted
+and ignorant to those who held in high regard the doctrines of Christian
+charity. They were indeed somewhat proud of their tolerance, their
+impartiality, their freedom from old prejudices. "That sort of thing
+will not do now-a-days," said Mr. Copperhead, who was a great railway
+contractor and one of the deacons, and who had himself a son at Oxford.
+If there had been any bigotry in the Crescent, Mr. Copperhead would have
+had little difficulty in transferring himself over the way to St. Paul's
+Church, and it is astonishing what an effect that fact had upon the mind
+of Mr. Beecham's flock.
+
+Mr. Beecham's house was situated in Regent's Park, and was constructed
+on the ordinary model of such houses. On the ground-floor was a handsome
+dining-room, a room which both Mr. and Mrs. Beecham twenty years before
+would have considered splendid, but which now they condescended to, as
+not so large as they could wish, but still comfortable. The drawing-room
+above was larger, a bright and pleasant room, furnished with
+considerable "taste." Behind the dining-room, a smaller room was Mr.
+Beecham's study, or the library, as it was sometimes called. It was
+lined with book-cases containing a very fair collection of books, and
+ornamented with portraits (chiefly engravings) of celebrated ministers
+and laymen in the connection, with a bust of Mr. Copperhead over the
+mantelpiece. This bust had been done by a young sculptor whom he
+patronized, for the great man's own house. When it was nearly completed,
+however, a flaw was found in the marble, which somewhat detracted from
+its perfection. The flaw was in the shoulder of the image, and by no
+means serious; but Mr. Copperhead was not the man to pass over any such
+defect. After a long and serious consultation over it, which made the
+young artist shake in his shoes, a solution was found for the
+difficulty.
+
+"Tell you what, Sir," said Mr. Copperhead; "I'll give it to the
+minister. It'll look famous in his little study. Works of art don't
+often come his way; and you'll get a block of the best, Mr.
+Chipstone--the very best, Sir, no expense spared--and begin another for
+me."
+
+This arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to all parties, though I
+will not say that it was not instrumental in bringing about certain
+other combinations which will be fully discussed in this history. The
+Beechams were mightily surprised when the huge marble head, almost as
+large as a Jupiter, though perhaps not otherwise so imposing, arrived at
+the Terrace; but they were also gratified.
+
+"It is quite like receiving us into his own family circle," Mrs. Beecham
+said with a glance at her daughter, Phoebe, junior, who, with all her
+pink fingers outspread, was standing in adoration before that image of
+wealth and fabulous luxury.
+
+"What a grand head it is!" cried the young enthusiast, gazing rapt upon
+the complacent marble whisker so delightfully curled and bristling with
+realistic force.
+
+"It looks well, I must say, it looks well," said Mr. Beecham himself,
+rubbing his hands, "to receive such a token of respect from the leading
+member of the flock." And certainly no more perfect representation of a
+bell-wether ever adorned any shepherd's sanctuary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LEADING MEMBER.
+
+
+Mr. Copperhead, to whom so much allusion has been made, was a well-known
+man in other regions besides that of the Crescent Chapel. His name,
+indeed, may be said to have gone to the ends of the earth, from whence
+he had conducted lines of railway, and where he had left docks, bridges,
+and light-houses to make him illustrious. He was one of the greatest
+contractors for railways and other public works in England, and, by
+consequence, in the world. He had no more than a very ordinary
+education, and no manners to speak of; but at the same time he had that
+kind of faculty which is in practical work what genius is in literature,
+and, indeed, in its kind is genius too, though it neither refines nor
+even (oddly enough) enlarges the mind to which it belongs. He saw the
+right track for a road through a country with a glance of his eye; he
+mastered all the points of nature which were opposed to him in the
+rapidest survey, though scientifically he was great in no branch of
+knowledge. He could rule his men as easily as if they were so many
+children; and, indeed, they were children in his hands. All these gifts
+made it apparent that he must have been a remarkable and able man; but
+no stranger would have guessed as much from his appearance or his talk.
+There were people, indeed, who knew him well, and who remained
+incredulous and bewildered, trying to persuade themselves that his
+success must be owing to pure luck, for that he had nothing else to
+secure it. The cause of this, perhaps, was that he knew nothing about
+books, and was one of those jeering cynics who are so common under one
+guise or another. Fine cynics are endurable, and give a certain zest
+often to society, which might become too civil without them; but your
+coarse cynic is not pleasant. Mr. Copperhead's eye was as effectual in
+quenching emotion of any but the coarsest kind as water is against
+fire. People might be angry in his presence--it was the only passion he
+comprehended; but tenderness, sympathy, sorrow, all the more generous
+sentiments, fled and concealed themselves when this large, rich, costly
+man came by. People who were brought much in contact with him became
+ashamed of having any feelings at all; his eye upon them seemed to
+convict them of humbug. Those eyes were very light grey, prominent, with
+a jeer in them which was a very powerful moral instrument. His own
+belief was that he could "spot" humbug wherever he saw it, and that
+nothing could escape him; and, I suppose, so much humbug is there in
+this world that his belief was justified. But there are few more awful
+people than those ignoble spectators whose jeer arrests the moisture in
+the eye, and strangles the outcry on their neighbour's lip.
+
+Mr. Copperhead had risen from the ranks; yet not altogether from the
+ranks. His father before him had been a contractor, dealing chiefly with
+canals and roads, and the old kind of public works; a very rough
+personage indeed, but one to whose fingers gold had stuck, perhaps
+because of the clay with which they were always more or less smeared.
+This ancestor had made a beginning to the family, and given his son a
+name to start with. _Our_ Mr. Copperhead had married young, and had
+several sons, who were all in business, and all doing well; less
+vigorous, but still moderately successful copies of their father. When,
+however, he had thus done his duty to the State, the first Mrs.
+Copperhead having died, he did the only incomprehensible action of his
+life--he married a second time, a feeble, pretty, pink-and-white little
+woman, who had been his daughter's governess; married her without rhyme
+or reason, as all his friends and connections said. The only feasible
+motive for this second union seemed to be a desire on Mr. Copperhead's
+part to have something belonging to him which he could always jeer at,
+and in this way the match was highly successful. Mrs. Copperhead the
+second was gushing and susceptible, and as good a butt as could be
+imagined. She kept him in practice when nobody else was at hand. She was
+one of those naturally refined but less than half-educated, timid
+creatures who are to be found now and then painfully earning the bread
+which is very bitter to them in richer people's houses, and preserving
+in their little silent souls some fetish in the shape of a scrap of
+gentility, which is their sole comfort, or almost their sole comfort.
+Mrs. Copperhead's fetish was the dear recollection that she was "an
+officer's daughter;" or rather this had been her fetish in the days when
+she had nothing, and was free to plume herself on the reflected glory.
+Whether in the depths of her luxurious abode, at the height of her good
+fortune, she still found comfort in the thought, it would be hard to
+tell. Everybody who had known her in her youth thought her the most
+fortunate of women. Her old school companions told her story for the
+encouragement of their daughters, as they might have told a fairy tale.
+To see her rolling in her gorgeous carriage, or bowed out of a shop
+where all the daintiest devices of fashion had been placed at her feet,
+filled passers-by with awe and envy. She could buy whatever she liked,
+festoon herself with finery, surround herself with the costliest
+knick-knacks; the more there were of them, and the costlier they were,
+the better was Mr. Copperhead pleased. She had everything that heart
+could desire. Poor little woman! What a change from the
+governess-chrysalis who was snubbed by her pupil and neglected by
+everybody! and yet I am not sure that she did not--so inconsistent is
+human nature--look back to those melancholy days with a sigh.
+
+This lady was the mother of Clarence Copperhead, the young man who was
+at Oxford, her only child, upon whom (of course) she doted with the
+fondest folly; and whom his father jeered at more than at any one else
+in the world, more even than at his mother, yet was prouder of than of
+all his other sons and all his possessions put together. Clarence, whom
+I will not describe, as he will, I trust, show himself more effectually
+by his actions, was like his mother in disposition, or so, at least, she
+made herself happy by thinking; but by some freak of nature he was like
+his father in person, and carried his mouse's heart in a huge frame,
+somewhat hulking and heavy-shouldered, with the same roll which
+distinguished Mr. Copperhead, and which betrayed something of the
+original navvy who was the root of the race. He had his father's large
+face too, and a tendency towards those demonstrative and offensive
+whiskers which are the special inheritance of the British Philistine.
+But instead of the large goggle eyes, always jeering and impudent, which
+lighted up the paternal countenance, Clarence had a pair of mild brown
+orbs, repeated from his mother's faded face, which introduced the oddest
+discord into his physiognomy generally. In the family, that is to say
+among the step-brothers and step-sisters who formed Mr. Copperhead's
+first family, the young fellow bore no other name than that of the
+curled darling, though, indeed, he was as far from being curled as any
+one could be. He was not clever; he had none of the energy of his race,
+and promised to be as useless in an office as he would have been in a
+cutting or a yard full of men. I am not sure that this fact did not
+increase secretly his father's exultation and pride in him. Mr.
+Copperhead was fond of costly and useless things; he liked them for
+their cost, with an additional zest in his sense of the huge vulgar use
+and profit of most things in his own life. This tendency, more than any
+appreciation of the beautiful, made him what is called a patron of art.
+It swelled his personal importance to think that he was able to hang up
+thousands of pounds, so to speak, on his walls, knowing all the time
+that he could make thousands more by the money had he invested it in
+more useful ways. The very fact that he could afford to refrain from
+investing it, that he could let it lie there useless, hanging by so many
+cords and ribbons, was sweet to him. And so also it was sweet to him to
+possess a perfectly useless specimen of humanity, which had cost him a
+great deal, and promised to cost him still more. He had plenty of useful
+sons as he had of useful money. The one who was of no use was the apex
+and glory of the whole.
+
+But these three made up a strange enough family party, as may be
+supposed. The original Copperheads, the first family, who were all of
+the same class and nature, would have made a much noisier, less
+peaceable household; but they would have been a much jollier and really
+more harmonious one. Mr. Copperhead himself somewhat despised his elder
+sons, who were like himself, only less rich, less vigorous, and less
+self-assertive. He saw, oddly enough, the coarseness of their manners,
+and even of their ways of thinking; but yet he was a great deal more
+comfortable, more at his ease among them, than he was when seated
+opposite his trembling, deprecating, frightened little wife, or that
+huge youth who cost him so much and returned him so little. Now and
+then, at regular periodical intervals, the head of the family would go
+down to Blackheath to dine and spend the night with his son Joe, the
+second and the favourite, where there were romping children and a
+portly, rosy young matron, and loud talk about City dinners, contracts,
+and estimates. This refreshed him, and he came home with many chuckles
+over the imperfections of the family.
+
+"My sons buy their wives by the hundred-weight," he would say jocularly
+at breakfast the day after; "thirteen stone if she is a pound, is Mrs.
+Joe. Expensive to keep up in velvet and satin, not to speak of mutton
+and beef. Your mother comes cheap," he would add aside to Clarence, with
+a rolling laugh. Thus he did not in the least exempt his descendants
+from the universal ridicule which he poured on all the world; but when
+he sat down opposite his timid little delicate wife, and by his
+University man, who had very little on the whole to say for himself,
+Mr. Copperhead felt the increase in gentility as well as the failure in
+jollity. "You are a couple of ghosts after Joe and his belongings, you
+two. Speak louder, I say, young fellow. You don't expect me to hear that
+penny-whistle of yours," he would say, chuckling at them, with a mixture
+of pride and disdain. They amused him by their dulness and silence, and
+personal awe of him. He was quite out of his element between these two,
+and yet the very fact pleasantly excited his pride.
+
+"I speak as gentlemen generally speak," said Clarence, who was sometimes
+sullen when attacked, and who knew by experience that his father was
+rarely offended by such an argument.
+
+"And I am sure, dear, your papa would never wish you to do otherwise,"
+said anxious Mrs. Copperhead, casting a furtive frightened glance at her
+husband. He rolled out a mighty laugh from the head of the table where
+he was sitting. He contemplated them with a leer that would have been
+insulting, had he not been the husband of one and the father of the
+other. The laugh and the look called forth some colour on Mrs.
+Copperhead's cheek, well as she was used to them; but her son was less
+susceptible, and ate his breakfast steadily, and did not care.
+
+"A pretty pair you are," said Mr. Copperhead. "I like your gentility.
+How much _foie gras_ would you eat for breakfast, I wonder, my lad, if
+you had to work for it? Luckily for you, I wasn't brought up to talk, as
+you say, like a gentleman. I'd like to see you managing a field of
+navvies with that nice little voice of yours--ay, or a mob before the
+hustings, my boy. You're good for nothing, you are; a nice delicate
+piece of china for a cupboard, like your mother before you. However,
+thank Heaven, we've got the cupboard," he said with a laugh, looking
+round him; "a nice big 'un, too, well painted and gilded; and the time
+has come, through not talking like a gentleman, that I can afford you.
+You should hear Joe. When that fellow talks, his house shakes.
+Confounded bad style of house, walls like gingerbread. How the boards
+don't break like pie-crust under Mrs. Joe's fairy foot, I can't make
+out. By Jove, ma'am, one would think I starved you, to see you beside
+your daughter-in-law. Always had a fine healthy appetite had Mrs. Joe."
+
+There was nothing to answer to this speech, and therefore a dead silence
+ensued. When the master of the house is so distinctly the master,
+silence is apt to ensue after his remarks. Mrs. Copperhead sipped her
+tea, and Clarence worked steadily through his breakfast, and the head of
+the family crumpled the Times, which he read at intervals. All sorts of
+jokes had gone on at Joe's table the morning before, and there had been
+peals of laughter, and Mrs. Joe had even administered a slap upon her
+husband's ruddy cheek for some pleasantry or other. Mr. Copperhead, as
+he looked at his son and his wife, chuckled behind the Times. When they
+thought he was occupied they made a few gentle remarks to each other.
+They had soft voices, with that indescribable resemblance in tone which
+so often exists between mother and son. Dresden china; yes, that was the
+word; and to see his own resemblance made in that delicate _pâte_, and
+elevated into that region of superlative costliness, tickled Mr.
+Copperhead, and in the most delightful way.
+
+"How about your ball?" was his next question, "or Clarence's ball, as
+you don't seem to take much interest in it, ma'am? You are afraid of
+being brought in contact with the iron pots, eh? You might crack or go
+to pieces, who knows, and what would become of me, a wretched widower."
+Mr. Copperhead himself laughed loudly at this joke, which did not excite
+any mirth from the others, and then he repeated his question, "How about
+the ball?"
+
+"The invitations are all sent out, Mr. Copperhead; ninety-five--I--I
+mean a hundred and thirty-five. I--I beg your pardon, they were in two
+lots," answered the poor woman nervously. "A hundred and
+thirty-eight--and there is--a few more--"
+
+"Take your time, ma'am, take your time, we'll get at the truth at last,"
+said her husband; and he laid down his paper and looked at her. He was
+not angry nor impatient. The twinkle in his eye was purely humorous. Her
+stumblings amused him, and her nervousness. But oddly enough, the most
+furious impatience could not have more deeply disconcerted her.
+
+"There are a few more--some old friends of mine," she went on, confused.
+"They were once rather--kind--took an interest; that is--"
+
+"Oh, the baronet and his daughters," said Mr. Copperhead, "by all means
+let's have the baronet and his daughters. Though as for their taking an
+interest--if you had not been a rich man's wife, ma'am, living in a
+grand house in Portland Place--"
+
+"It was not now," she said, hurriedly. "I do not suppose that any one
+takes an interest--in me now--"
+
+Mr. Copperhead laughed, and nodded his head. "Not many, ma'am, I should
+think--not many. You women must make up your minds to that. It's all
+very well to take an interest in a pretty girl; but when you come to a
+certain age--Well, let's proceed, the baronet--"
+
+"And his two girls--"
+
+"Ah, there's two girls! that's for you, Clarence, my boy. I thought
+there must be a motive. Think that fellow a good _parti_, eh? And I
+would not say they were far wrong if he behaves himself. Make a note of
+the baronet's daughter, young man. Lord, what a world it is!" said Mr.
+Copperhead, reflectively. "I should not wonder if you had been scheming,
+too."
+
+"I would not for the world!" cried the poor little woman, roused for
+once. "I would not for anything interfere with a marriage. That is the
+last thing you need fear from me. Whether it was a girl I was fond of,
+or a girl I disliked--so long as she was Clarence's choice. Oh, I know
+the harm that is done by other people's meddling--nothing, nothing,
+would induce me to interfere."
+
+Mr. Copperhead laid down his paper, and looked at her. I suppose,
+however little a man may care for his wife, he does not relish the idea
+that she married him for anything but love. He contemplated her still
+with amused ridicule, but with something fiercer in his eyes. "Oh--h!"
+he said, "you don't like other people to interfere? not so much as to
+say, it's a capital match, eh? You'll get so and so, and so and so, that
+you couldn't have otherwise--carriages perhaps, and plenty of money in
+your pocket (which it may be you never had in your life before), and
+consideration, and one of the finest houses in London, let us say in
+Portland Place. You don't like that amount of good advice, eh? Well, I
+do--I mean to interfere with my son, to that extent at least--you can do
+what you like. But as you're a person of prodigious influence, and
+strong will, and a great deal of character, and all that," Mr.
+Copperhead broke out with a rude laugh, "I'm afraid of you, I am--quite
+afraid."
+
+Fortunately, just at this moment his brougham came round, and the great
+man finished his coffee at a gulp, and got up. "You look out for the
+baronet's daughters, then--" he said, "and see all's ready for this ball
+of yours; while I go and work to pay the bills, that's my share. You do
+the ornamental, and I do the useful, ha, ha! I'll keep up my share."
+
+It was astonishing what a difference came upon the room the moment he
+disappeared. Somehow it had been out of harmony. His voice, his look,
+his heavy person, even his whiskers had been out of character. Now the
+air seemed to flutter after the closing of the door like water into
+which something offensive has sunk, and when the ripples of movement
+were over the large handsome room had toned down into perfect accord
+with its remaining inhabitants. Mrs. Copperhead's eyes were rather
+red--not with tears, but with the inclination to shed tears, which she
+carefully restrained in her son's presence. He still continued to eat
+steadily--he had an admirable appetite. But when he had finished
+everything on his plate, he looked up and said, "I hope you don't mind,
+mamma; I don't suppose you do; but I don't like the way my father speaks
+to you."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" cried the mother, with an affected little smile, "why
+should I mind? I ought to know by this time that it's only your papa's
+way."
+
+"I suppose so--but I don't like it," said the young man, decisively. He
+did not notice, however, as after second thoughts he returned to the
+game-pie, that his mother's eyes were redder than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL.
+
+
+This ball was an event, not only in Mr. Copperhead's household, but even
+in the connection itself, to which the idea of balls, as given by
+leading members of the flock, was somewhat novel. Not that the young
+people were debarred from that amusement, but it was generally attained
+in a more or less accidental manner, and few professing Christians
+connected with the management of the chapel had gone the length of
+giving such an entertainment openly and with design. Mr. Copperhead,
+however, was in a position to triumph over all such prejudices. He was
+so rich that any community would have felt it ought to extend a certain
+measure of indulgence to such a man. Very wealthy persons are like
+spoilt children, their caprices are allowed to be natural, and even when
+we are angry with them we excuse the vagaries to which money has a
+right. This feeling of indulgence goes a very great way, especially
+among the classes engaged in money-making, who generally recognize a
+man's right to spend, and feel the sweetness of spending more acutely
+than the hereditary possessors of wealth. I do not believe that his
+superior knowledge of the best ways of using money profitably ever
+hinders a money-making man from lavish expenditure; but it gives him a
+double zest in spending, and it makes him, generally, charitable towards
+the extravagances of persons still richer than himself. A ball, there
+was no doubt, was a worldly-minded entertainment, but still, the chapel
+reflected, it is almost impossible not to be a little worldly-minded
+when you possess such a great share of the world's goods, and that, of
+course, it could not be for himself that Mr. Copperhead was doing this,
+but for his son. His son, these amiable casuists proceeded, was being
+brought up to fill a great position, and no doubt society did exact
+something, and as Mr. Copperhead had asked all the chief chapel people,
+his ball was looked upon with very indulgent eyes. The fact that the
+minister and his family were going staggered some of the more particular
+members a little, but Mr. Beecham took high ground on the subject and
+silenced the flock. "The fact that a minister of religion is one of the
+first persons invited, is sufficient proof of the way our friend means
+to manage everything," said the pastor. "Depend upon it, it would be
+good for the social relations of the country if your pastors and
+teachers were always present. It gives at once a character to all the
+proceedings." This, like every other lofty assertion, stilled the
+multitude. Some of the elder ladies, indeed, groaned to hear, even at
+the prayer-meetings, a whisper between the girls about this ball and
+what they were going to wear; but still it was Christmas, and all the
+newspapers, and a good deal of the light literature which is especially
+current at that season, persistently represented all the world as in a
+state of imbecile joviality, and thus, for the moment, every objection
+was put down.
+
+To nobody, however, was the question, what to wear, more interesting
+than to Phoebe, junior, who was a very well-instructed young woman, and
+even on the point of dress had theories of her own. Phoebe had, as her
+parents were happy to think, had every advantage in her education. She
+had possessed a German governess all to herself, by which means, even
+Mr. Beecham himself supposed, a certain amount of that philosophy which
+Germans communicate by their very touch must have got into her, besides
+her music and the language which was her primary study. And she had
+attended lectures at the ladies' college close by, and heard a great
+many eminent men on a great many different subjects. She had read, too,
+a great deal. She was very well got up in the subject of education for
+women, and lamented often and pathetically the difficulty they lay under
+of acquiring the highest instruction; but at the same time she
+patronized Mr. Ruskin's theory that dancing, drawing, and cooking were
+three of the higher arts which ought to be studied by girls. It is not
+necessary for me to account for the discrepancies between those two
+systems, in the first place because I cannot, and in the second place,
+because there is in the mind of the age some ineffable way of
+harmonizing them which makes their conjunction common. Phoebe was
+restrained from carrying out either to its full extent. She was not
+allowed to go in for the Cambridge examinations because Mr. Beecham felt
+the connection might think it strange to see his daughter's name in the
+papers, and, probably, would imagine he meant to make a schoolmistress
+of her, which he thanked Providence he had no need to do. And she was
+not allowed to educate herself in the department of cooking, to which
+Mrs. Beecham objected, saying likewise, thank Heaven, they had no need
+of such messings; that she did not wish her daughter to make a slave of
+herself, and that Cook would not put up with it. Between these two
+limits Phoebe's noble ambition was confined, which was a "trial" to her.
+But she did what she could, bating neither heart nor hope. She read
+Virgil at least, if not Sophocles, and she danced and dressed though she
+was not allowed to cook.
+
+As she took the matter in this serious way, it will be understood that
+the question of dress was not a mere frivolity with her. A week before
+the ball she stood in front of the large glass in her mother's room,
+contemplating herself, not with that satisfaction which it is generally
+supposed a pretty young woman has in contemplating her own image. She
+was decidedly a pretty young woman. She had a great deal of the hair of
+the period, nature in her case, as (curiously, yet very truly) in so
+many others, having lent herself to the prevailing fashion. How it comes
+about I cannot tell, but it is certain that there does exist at this
+present moment, a proportion of golden-haired girls which very much
+exceeds the number we used to see when golden hair had not become
+fashionable--a freak of nature which is altogether independent of dyes
+and auriferous fluid, and which probably has influenced fashion
+unawares. To be sure the pomades of twenty years ago are, Heaven be
+praised! unknown to this generation, and washing also has become the
+fashion, which accounts for something. Anyhow, Phoebe, junior, possessed
+in perfection the hair of the period. She had, too, the complexion which
+goes naturally with those sunny locks--a warm pink and white, which, had
+the boundaries between the pink and the white been a little more
+distinct, would have approached perfection too. This was what she was
+thinking when she looked at herself in her mother's great glass. Mrs.
+Beecham stood behind her, more full-blown and more highly-coloured than
+she, but very evidently the rose to which this bud would come in time.
+Phoebe looked at her own reflection, and then at her mother's, and sighed
+such a profound sigh as only lungs in the most excellent condition could
+produce.
+
+"Mamma," she said, with an accent of despair, "I am too pink, a great
+deal too pink! What am I to do?"
+
+"Nonsense, my pet," said Mrs. Beecham; "you have a lovely complexion;"
+and she threw a quantity of green ribbons which lay by over her child's
+hair and shoulders. A cloud crossed the blooming countenance of Phoebe,
+junior. She disembarrassed herself of the ribbons with another sigh.
+
+"Dear mamma," she said, "I wish you would let me read with you now and
+then, about the theory of colours, for instance. Green is the
+complementary of red. If you want to bring out my pink and make it more
+conspicuous than ever, of course you will put me in a green dress. No,
+mamma, dear, not that--I should look a fright; and though I dare say it
+does not matter much, I object to looking a fright. Women are, I
+suppose, more ornamental than men, or, at least, everybody says so; and
+in that case it is our duty to keep it up."
+
+"You are a funny girl, with your theories of colour," said Mrs. Beecham.
+"In my time, fair girls wore greens and blues, and dark girls wore reds
+and yellows. It was quite simple. Have a white tarlatan, then; every
+girl looks well in that."
+
+"You don't see, mamma," said Phoebe, softly, suppressing in the most
+admirable manner the delicate trouble of not being understood, "that a
+thing every girl looks well in, is just the sort of thing that no one
+looks _very_ well in. White shows no invention. It is as if one took no
+trouble about one's dress."
+
+"And neither one ought, Phoebe," said her mother. "That is very true. It
+is sinful to waste time thinking of colours and ribbons, when we might
+be occupied about much more important matters."
+
+"That is not my opinion at all," said Phoebe. "I should like people to
+think I had taken a great deal of trouble. Think of all the trouble that
+has to be taken to get up this ball!"
+
+"I fear so, indeed; and a great deal of expense," said Mrs. Beecham,
+shaking her head. "Yes, when one comes to think of that. But then, you
+see, wealth has its duties. I don't defend Mr. Copperhead--"
+
+"I don't think he wants to be defended, mamma. I think it is all
+nonsense about wasting time. What I incline to, if you won't be shocked,
+is black."
+
+"Black!" The suggestion took away Mrs. Beecham's breath. "As if you were
+fifty! Why, I don't consider myself old enough for black."
+
+"It is a pity," said Phoebe, with a glance at her mother's full colours;
+but that was really of so much less importance. "Black would throw me
+up," she added seriously, turning to the glass. "It would take off this
+pink look. I don't mind it in the cheeks, but I am pink all over; my
+white is pink. Black would be a great deal the best for both of us. It
+would tone us down," said Phoebe, decisively, "and it would throw us up."
+
+"But for you, a girl under twenty, my dear--"
+
+"Mamma, what does it matter? The question is, am I to look my best?
+which I think is my duty to you and to Providence; or am I just," said
+Phoebe, with indignation, "to look a little insipidity--a creature with
+no character--a little girl like everybody else?"
+
+The consequence of this solemn appeal was that both the Phoebes went to
+Mr. Copperhead's ball in black; the elder in velvet, with Honiton lace
+(point, which Phoebe, with her artistic instincts, would have much
+preferred, being unattainable); the younger in tulle, flounced to
+distraction, and largely relieved with blue. And the consequence of this
+toilette, and of the fact that Phoebe did her duty by her parents and by
+Providence, and looked her very best, was that Clarence Copperhead fell
+a hopeless victim to her fascinations, and scarcely could be induced to
+leave her side all night. The ball was about as remarkable a ball as
+could have been seen in London. The son of the house had contemplated
+with absolute despair the list of invitations. He had deprecated the
+entertainment altogether. He had said, "We know nobody," with a
+despairing impertinence which called forth one of his father's roars of
+laughter. And though Mr. Copperhead had done all he could to assume the
+position of that typical Paterfamilias who is condemned to pay for those
+pleasures of his family which are no pleasure to him, yet common-sense
+was too much for him, and everybody felt that he was in reality the
+giver and enjoyer of the entertainment. It was Mr., not Mrs.
+Copperhead's ball. It was the first of the kind which had ever taken
+place in his house; the beginning of a new chapter in his social
+existence. Up to this moment he had not shown any signs of being smitten
+with that craze for "Society," which so often and so sorely affects the
+millionnaire. He had contented himself hitherto with heavy and showy
+dinners, costing Heaven knows how much a head (Mr. Copperhead knew, and
+swelled visibly in pride and pleasure as the cost increased), which he
+consumed in company with twenty people or so of kindred tastes to
+himself, who appreciated the cost and understood his feelings. On such
+people, however, his Dresden china was thrown away. Joe and Mrs. Joe
+were much more in their way than the elegant University man and the
+well-bred mother, who was "a poor little dowdy," they all said.
+Therefore the fact had been forced upon Mr. Copperhead that his circle
+must be widened and advanced, if his crowning glories were to be
+appreciated as they deserved.
+
+The hunger of wealth for that something above wealth which the
+bewildered rich man only discovers the existence of when he has
+struggled to the highest pinnacle of advancement in his own way, began
+to seize this wealthy neophyte. To be sure, in this first essay, the
+company which he assembled in his fine rooms in Portland Place, to see
+all his fine things and celebrate his glory, was not a fine company, but
+they afforded more gratification to Mr. Copperhead than if they had been
+ever so fine. They were people of his own class, his old friends,
+invited to be dazzled, though standing out to the utmost of their power,
+and refusing, so far as in them lay, to admit how much dazzled they
+were. It was a more reasonable sort of vanity than the commoner kind,
+which aims at displaying its riches to great personages, people who are
+not dazzled by any extent of grandeur, and in whose bosoms no jealousy
+is excited towards the giver of the feast. Mr. Copperhead's friends had
+much more lively feelings; they walked about through the great rooms,
+with their wives on their arms, in a state of semi-defiance, expressing
+no admiration, saying to each other, "This must have cost Copperhead a
+pretty penny," as they met in doorways; while the ladies put their
+flowery and jewelled heads together and whispered, "Did you ever see
+such extravagance? And what a dowdy _she_ is with it all!" This was the
+under-current of sentiment which flowed strong in all the passages, and
+down the rapids of the great staircase; a stream of vigorous human
+feeling, the existence of which was as deeply gratifying to the
+entertainer as the sweetest flattery. The lord and the ladies who might
+have been tempted to his great house would not have had a thought to
+spare for Mr. Copperhead; but the unwilling applause of his own class
+afforded him a true triumph.
+
+Amid this throng of people, however, there could be little doubt that
+the one young lady who attracted his son was the least eligible person
+there, being no other than Phoebe Beecham, the pastor's daughter. Almost
+the only other utterly ineligible girl was a pale little maiden who
+accompanied Sir Robert Dorset and his daughters, and who was supposed to
+be either their governess or their humble companion. The Dorsets were
+the only people who had any pretensions to belong to "society," in all
+those crowded rooms. They were distantly related to Mrs. Copperhead,
+and had been, she gratefully thought, kind to her in her youth, and
+they had no particular objection to be kind to her now that she was
+rich, though the Baronet, as Mr. Copperhead always called him, winced at
+so rampant a specimen of wealth, and "the girls" did not see what good
+it was to keep up relations with a distant cousin, who though so
+prodigiously rich was of no possible use, and could neither make parties
+for them, nor chaperon them to the houses of the great. When they had
+received her present invitation, they had accepted it with surprise and
+hesitation. Chance only had brought them to London at that time of the
+year, the most curious time surely to choose for a ball, but convenient
+enough as affording a little amusement at a season when little amusement
+was ordinarily to be had. Sir Robert had consented to go, as a man with
+no occupation elsewhere might consent to go to the Cannibal Islands, to
+see how the savages comported themselves. And little Ursula May, another
+poor relative on the other side of the house, whom they had charitably
+brought up to town with them, might go too, they decided, to such a
+gathering. There was no Lady Dorset, and the girls were "girls" only by
+courtesy, having passed the age to which that title refers. Such good
+looks as they had were faded, and they were indifferently dressed. This
+last circumstance arose partly from the fact that they never dressed
+very well, and partly because they did not think it necessary to put
+themselves to much trouble for poor Mrs. Copperhead's ball. Their little
+companion, Ursula, was in a white frock, the sort of dress which Phoebe
+had rebelled against. She was all white and had never been to a ball
+before. This little party, which represented the aristocracy at the
+Copperhead's ball, went to the entertainment with a little expectation
+in their minds: What sort of people would be there? Would they be
+"frights?" They were not likely to be interesting in any other way, the
+Miss Dorsets knew; but to little Ursula a ball was a ball, and meant
+delight and glory she was aware, though she did not quite know how. The
+expectations of the party, however, were strangely disappointed. Instead
+of being "a set of frights," Mrs. Copperhead's guests were found to be
+resplendent in toilette. Never, even under a ducal roof, had these
+ladies found themselves in such a gorgeous assembly, and never before,
+perhaps, even at the Duchess's grandest receptions, had they been unable
+to discover a single face they knew. Sir Robert was even more appalled
+by this discovery than his daughters were. He put up his glass and
+peered more and more wistfully into the crowd. "Don't know a soul," he
+repeated at intervals. Poor Sir Robert! he had not thought it possible
+that such an event could happen to him within the four seas. Accordingly
+the Dorsets clung, somewhat scared, to Mrs. Copperhead's side, and
+Ursula along with them, who looked at the crowd still more wistfully
+than Sir Robert did, and thought how nice it would be to know somebody.
+Unfortunately the Miss Dorsets were not attractive in personal
+appearance. Clarence Copperhead, though he was not indifferent to a
+baronet, was yet not sufficiently devoted to the aristocracy to do more
+than dance once, as was his bounden duty, with each of the sisters. "It
+seems so strange not to know any one," these ladies said. "Isn't it?"
+said Clarence. "_I_ don't know a soul." But then he went off and danced
+with Phoebe Beecham, and the Miss Dorsets stood by Mrs. Copperhead,
+almost concealing behind them the slight little snow-white figure of
+little Ursula May.
+
+Clarence was a very well-behaved young man on the whole. He knew his
+duty, and did it with a steady industry, working off his dances in the
+spirit of his navvy forefather. But he returned between each duty dance
+to the young lady in black, who was always distinguishable among so many
+young ladies in white, and pink, and green, and blue. The Miss Dorsets
+and Ursula looked with interest and something like envy at that young
+lady in black. She had so many partners that she scarcely knew how to
+manage them all, and the son of the house returned to her side with a
+pertinacity that could not pass unremarked. "Why should one girl have so
+much and another girl so little?" Ursula said to herself; but, to be
+sure, she knew nobody, and the young lady in black knew everybody. On
+the whole, however, it became evident to Ursula that a ball was not
+always a scene of unmixed delight.
+
+"It is very kind of you to remember what old friends we are," said
+Phoebe. "But, Mr. Clarence, don't be more good to me than you ought to
+be. I see your mother looking for you, and Mr. Copperhead might not like
+it. Another time, perhaps, we shall be able to talk of old days."
+
+"There is no time like the present," said the young man, who liked his
+own way. I do not mean to say that it was right of Phoebe to dance with
+him, especially dances she had promised to other people. But he was the
+personage of the evening, and that is a great temptation. Mr. Copperhead
+himself came up to them more than once, with meaning in his eyes.
+
+"Don't be too entertaining, Miss Phoebe," he said; for he saw no reason
+why he should not speak plainly in his own house, especially to the
+minister's daughter. "Don't be too entertaining. This is Clarence's
+ball, and he ought to be civil to other people too."
+
+"Oh, please go away!" cried Phoebe, after this admonition. But Clarence
+was sullen, and stood his ground.
+
+"We are going to have our waltz out," he said. "It is not my ball a
+bit--let him entertain his people himself. How should I know such a set
+of guys? I know nobody but you and the Dorset girls, who are in society.
+Parents are a mistake," said the young man, half rebellious, half
+sullen, "they never understand. Perhaps you don't feel that, but I
+should think girls must see it sometimes as well as men."
+
+"Girls don't use such strong expressions," said Phoebe, smiling, as they
+flew off in the uncompleted waltz. She danced very well, better than
+most of the ladies present, and that was the reason Clarence assigned to
+his mother for his preference of her. But when Mr. Copperhead saw that
+his remonstrance was unheeded by the young people, he went up to Mrs.
+Beecham, with a rich man's noble frankness and courage. "I am delighted
+to see you here, ma'am, and I hope you have remarked how well Miss Phoebe
+is entertaining my boy. Do you see them dancing? She's been away from
+you a long time, Mrs. Beecham, as girls will when they get hold of
+somebody that pleases them. Shouldn't you like me to go and fetch her
+back?" Mrs. Beecham, with cheeks that were very full blown indeed, and
+required a great deal of fanning, called back her child to her side at
+the end of that dance. She scolded Phoebe behind her fan, and recalled
+her to a sense of duty. "A pastor's daughter has to be doubly
+particular," she said; "what if your poor papa was to get into trouble
+through your thoughtlessness?"
+
+"I was not thoughtless, mamma; forgive me for answering back," said
+Phoebe, very meekly; and she showed no signs of sulkiness, though
+Clarence was carried off and kept from approaching her again.
+
+Unfortunately, however, when Clarence was removed from Phoebe, he fell
+into still greater peril. The eldest Miss Dorset and her mother, both of
+them with equally benevolent intentions, introduced him simultaneously
+to Ursula May. "The poor little girl has not danced once," Mrs.
+Copperhead, who had recollections of standing by herself for a whole
+evening, unnoticed, whispered in his ear, and Miss Dorset spoke to him
+still more plainly. "We brought her," she said, "but I cannot get her
+partners, for I don't know anybody." And what could Clarence do but
+offer himself? And Ursula, too, was a good dancer, and very pretty--far
+prettier than Phoebe.
+
+"Confound him! there he is now for ever with that girl in white," said
+his father to himself, with great rage. Dozens of good partners in pink
+and blue were going about the room. What did the boy mean by bestowing
+himself upon the two poor ones, the black and the white. This disturbed
+Mr. Copperhead's enjoyment, as he stood in the doorway of the ball-room,
+looking round upon all the splendour that was his, and feeling disposed,
+like Nebuchadnezzar, to call upon everybody to come and worship him. He
+expanded and swelled out with pride and complacency, as he looked round
+upon his own greatness, and perceived the effect made upon the
+beholders. When that effect did not seem sufficiently deep, he called
+here and there upon a lingerer for applause. "That's considered a very
+fine Turner," he said, taking one of them into a smaller room. "Come
+along here, you know about that sort of thing--I don't. I should be
+ashamed to tell you how much I gave for it; all that money hanging there
+useless, bringing in nothing! But when I do buy anything I like it to be
+the very best that is to be had."
+
+"I'd as soon have a good chromo," said the person addressed, "which
+costs a matter of a five-pound note, and enough too, to hang up against
+a wall. But you can afford it, Copperhead. You've the best right of any
+man I know to be a fool if you like."
+
+The great man laughed, but he scarcely liked the compliment. "I am a
+fool if you like," he said, "the biggest fool going. I like a thing that
+costs a deal, and is of no use. That's what I call luxury. My boy,
+Clarence, and my big picture, they're dear; but I can afford 'em, if
+they were double the price."
+
+"If I were you," said his friend, "I wouldn't hang my picture in this
+little bit of a hole, nor let my boy waste his time with all the
+riff-raff in the room. There's Smith's girl and Robinson's niece, both
+of them worth a cool hundred thousand; and you leave him to flourish
+about all over the place with a chit in a white frock, and another in a
+black one. I call that waste, not luxury, for my part."
+
+"I don't want to sell either the boy or the picture," said the rich man,
+with a laugh. But nevertheless he was annoyed that his son should be
+such an ass. Miss Smith and Miss Robinson were as fine as their
+milliners could make them. The first of these ladies had an emerald
+locket almost as big as a warming-pan, and Miss Robinson's pearls were a
+little fortune in themselves; but the chosen objects of that young
+idiot's attentions wore nothing but trumpery twopenny-halfpenny
+trinkets, and gowns which had been made at home for all Mr. Copperhead
+knew. Confound him! the father breathed hotly to himself. Thus it will
+be seen that unmixed pleasure is not to be had in this world, even in
+the midst of envious friends and the most splendid entertainment which
+money could supply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A COUNTRY PARTY.
+
+
+"Very funny, now," said Sir Robert. "I don't know that such a thing ever
+happened to me before. Give you my word for it, I didn't know a single
+soul, not one; and there must have been a couple of hundred or so there.
+Jove! I never thought there were as many people in England that I didn't
+know."
+
+"How could you know Mr. Copperhead's friends?" said Sophy Dorset. "What
+I wonder is, that she should have asked us. Not but that it was amusing
+enough, once in a way, just to see how such people look."
+
+"They looked very much like other people, my dear. Finer, though. I
+haven't seen so many jewels at an evening party for ages. Very much like
+other people. Fatter, perhaps, the men, but not the women. I notice,"
+said Sir Robert, who himself was spare, "that City men generally have a
+tendency to fat."
+
+"They are so rich," said Miss Dorset, with gentle disgust.
+
+She was the quiet one, never saying much. Sophy, who was lively,
+conducted the conversation. They were all seated at breakfast, later
+than usual, on the morning after the Copperheads' ball. It was a hazy
+morning, and the party were seated in a large sitting-room in the "very
+central" locality of Suffolk Street, looking down that straight little
+street upon the stream of carriages and omnibuses in the foggy distance.
+It was not for pleasure that this country party had come to London. Sir
+Robert's second son, who was in India, had sent his eldest children home
+to the care of his father and sisters. They were expected at Portsmouth
+daily, and the aunts, somewhat excited by the prospect of their charge,
+had insisted upon coming to town to receive them. As for Ursula May, who
+was a poor relation on the late Lady Dorset's side, as Mrs. Copperhead
+had been a poor relation on Sir Robert's, London at any season was a
+wonder and excitement to her, and she could not sufficiently thank the
+kind relations who had given her this holiday in her humdrum life. She
+was the daughter of a poor clergyman in the little town of Carlingford,
+a widower with a large family. Ursula was the eldest daughter, with the
+duties of a mother on her much burdened hands; and she had no special
+inclination towards these duties, so that a week's escape from them was
+a relief to her at any time. And a ball! But the ball had not been so
+beatific as Ursula hoped. In her dark blue serge dress, close up to the
+throat and down to the wrists, she did not look so pale as she had done
+in her snow-white garments on the previous night; but she was at the
+best of times a shadowy little person, with soft, dark brown hair, dark
+brown eyes, and no more colour than the faintest of wild rose tints; but
+the youthfulness, and softness, and roundness of the girl showed to full
+advantage beside the more angular development of the Miss Dorsets, who
+were tall, and had lost the first smooth curves of youth. To Ursula, not
+yet twenty, these ladies looked very mature, almost aged, being one of
+them ten, and the other eight years older than herself. She looked up to
+them with great respect; but she felt, all the same--how could she help
+it?--that in some things, though the Miss Dorsets were her superiors, it
+was best to be Ursula May.
+
+"Poor Clara!" said Sir Robert. "She was always a frightened creature.
+When I recollect her, a poor little governess, keeping behind backs at
+the nursery parties--and to see her in all her splendour now!"
+
+"She would keep behind backs still, if she could," said Miss Dorset.
+
+"Think of that, Ursula," cried Sophy; "there is an example for you. She
+was a great deal worse off than you are; and to see her now, as papa
+says! You may have a house in Portland Place too, and ask us to balls,
+and wear diamonds. Think of that! Though last night you looked as
+frightened as she."
+
+"Don't put such demoralizing ideas into the child's head. How it is that
+girls are not ruined," said Miss Dorset, shaking her head, "ruined! by
+such examples, I cannot tell. They must have stronger heads than we
+think. As poor as Cinderella one day, and the next as rich as the
+Queen--without any merit of theirs, all because some chance man happens
+to take a fancy to them."
+
+"Quite right," said Sir Robert; "quite right, my dear. It is the natural
+course of affairs."
+
+Miss Dorset shook her head. She went on shaking her head as she poured
+out the tea. She was not given to eloquence, but the subject inspired
+her.
+
+"Don't think of it, Ursula; it is not the sort of thing that good girls
+ought to think of," and the elder sister made signs to Sophy, who was
+reckless, and did not mind the moral effect of the suggestion.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Copperhead! I shall never have a house in Portland Place, nor
+any diamonds, except Aunt Mary's old brooch. I shall live and die an old
+maid, and nobody will waste a thought upon me," said Sophy, who made
+this prophecy at her ease, not expecting it to come true; "but I don't
+envy poor Clara, and if you marry such a man as Mr. Copperhead, though I
+shall admire you very much, Ursula, I shan't envy you."
+
+"Is young Mr. Copperhead as bad as his father?" said Ursula, simply.
+
+She was so far from thinking what meaning could be attached to her
+words, that she stopped and looked, wondering, from one to another when
+they laughed.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" said Sir Robert; "not so bad, either!"
+
+Poor Ursula was extremely serious. She turned with relief to Miss
+Dorset, who was serious too.
+
+"My dear, we don't know much about Clarence; he is a heavy young man. I
+don't think he is attractive. Have you had a letter from the Parsonage
+this morning?" said Anne Dorset, with a very grave face; and as it
+turned out that Ursula had a letter, Miss Dorset immediately plunged
+into discussion of it. The girl did not understand why the simple little
+epistle should be so interesting, nor did she perceive yet what the
+laughter was about. To tell the truth, Ursula, who was not clever, had
+thought young Mr. Copperhead very _nice_. He had asked her to dance when
+nobody else did; he had talked to her as much as he could have talked to
+Sophy Dorset herself. He had rehabilitated her in her own eyes after the
+first disappointment and failure of the evening, and she was prepared to
+think, whatever might be said about the father, that the son was "very
+kind" and very agreeable. Why should they laugh? Ursula concluded that
+there must be some private joke of their own about Clarence (what a
+pretty, interesting, superior name Clarence was!) which she could not be
+permitted to know.
+
+"If you talk like that," said Anne Dorset to Sophy, "you will set her
+little head afloat about good matches, and spoil her too."
+
+"And a very good thing," said Sophy. "If you had put the idea into my
+head, I should not be Sophy Dorset now. Why shouldn't she think of a
+good match? Can she live there for ever in that dreadful Parsonage,
+among all those children whom she does not know how to manage? Don't be
+absurd, Anne; except an elder daughter like you here and there, you
+know, girls must marry if they are to be of any consequence in the
+world. Let them get it into their heads; we can't change what is the
+course of nature, as papa says."
+
+"Oh, Sophy! it is so unwomanly."
+
+"Never mind; when a man chuckles and jeers at me because I am unmarried,
+I think it is unmanly; but they all do it, and no one finds any fault."
+
+"Not all surely; not near _all_."
+
+"Don't they? Not to our faces, perhaps; but whenever they write,
+whenever they speak in public. When men are so mean, why should we train
+girls up to unnatural high-mindedness? Why, that is the sort of girl who
+ought to make a good marriage; to 'catch' somebody, or have somebody
+'hooked' for her. She is pretty, and soft, and not very wise. I am doing
+the very best thing in the world for her, when I laugh at love and all
+that nonsense, and put a good match into her mind."
+
+Miss Dorset turned away with a sigh, and shook her head. It was all she
+could do. To encounter Sophy in argument was beyond her power, and if it
+had not been beyond her power, what would have been the good of it?
+Sophy had a story which, unfortunately, most people knew. She had been
+romantic, and she had been disappointed. Five or six years before, she
+had been engaged to a clergyman, who, finding that the good living he
+was waiting for in order to marry was not likely to come through Sir
+Robert's influence, intimated to his betrothed his serious doubt whether
+they were likely to be happy together, and broke off the engagement. He
+married somebody else in six months, and Sophy was left to bear the
+shame as she might. To be sure, a great many people were highly
+indignant with him at the moment; his sin, however, was forgotten long
+ago, so far as he was concerned; but nobody forgot that Sophy had been
+jilted, and she did not forget it herself, which was worse. Therefore
+Miss Dorset attempted no argument with her sister. She shook her gentle
+head, and said nothing. Anne was the elder sister born, the
+maiden-mother, who is a clearly defined type of humanity, though rare,
+perhaps, like all the finer sorts. She resolved in her own mind to take
+private means for the fortification and preservation of Ursula, whose
+position, as elder sister of a motherless family, interested her
+especially as being like her own; but Anne owned within herself that
+she had never been so young as little Ursula May.
+
+Ursula, for her part, thought very little about the question which had
+thus moved her cousins. She thought Mr. Clarence Copperhead was very
+nice, and that if she had but known as many people, and had as many
+partners as that young lady in black, she would have enjoyed the ball
+very much. After all, now that it was over, she felt that she had
+enjoyed it. Three dances were a great deal better than none at all, and
+to have that pretty white frock given to her by Sir Robert was no small
+matter. Besides, for in this as in other things the uses of adversity
+are sometimes sweet, the pretty dress, which no doubt would have been
+torn and crumpled had she danced much, was almost quite fresh now, and
+would do very well at Carlingford if there should be any balls
+there--events which happened occasionally, though Ursula had never been
+lucky enough to go to any of them. And Cousin Sophy had given her a set
+of Venetian beads and Cousin Anne a bracelet. This good fortune was
+quite enough to fill her mind with satisfaction, and prevent any undue
+meditation upon good matches or the attentions of Clarence Copperhead.
+Ursula was as different as possible from Phoebe Beecham. She had no
+pretensions to be intellectual. She preferred the company even of her
+very smallest brothers and sisters to the conversation of her papa,
+though he was known to be one of the most superior men in the diocese.
+Even when her elder brother Reginald, of whom she was very fond, came
+home from college, Ursula was more than indifferent to the privileged
+position of elder sister, by which she was permitted to sit up and
+assist at the talks which were carried on between him and his father.
+Reginald was very clever too; he was making his own way at the
+university by means of scholarships, the only way in which a son of Mr.
+May's was likely to get to the university at all, and to hear him talk
+with his father about Greek poetry and philosophy was a very fine thing
+indeed; how Phoebe Beecham, if the chance had been hers, would have
+prized it; but Ursula did not enjoy the privilege. She preferred a
+pantomime, or the poorest performance in a theatre, or even Madame
+Tussaud's exhibition. She preferred even to walk about the gay streets
+with Miss Dorset's maid, and look into the shop-windows and speculate
+what was going to be worn next season. Poor little girl! with such
+innocent and frivolous tastes, it may be supposed she did not find her
+position as elder sister and housekeeper a very congenial one. Her
+father was no more than Incumbent of St. Roque, an old perpetual curacy
+merged in a district church, which was a poor appointment for an
+elderly man with a family; he was very clever and superior, but not a
+man who got on, or who did much to help his children to get on; and had
+Ursula been of the kind of those who suffer and deny themselves by
+nature, she would have had her hands full, and abundant opportunity
+afforded her to exercise those faculties. But she was not of this frame
+of mind. She did what she was obliged to do as well as time and
+opportunity permitted; but she did not throw herself with any enthusiasm
+into her duties. To keep seven children in good condition and discipline
+in a small house, on a small income, is more, it must be allowed, than
+most girls of twenty are equal to; only enthusiasm and self-devotion
+could make such a task possible, and these qualifications poor little
+Ursula did not possess. Oh! how glad she was to get away from it all,
+from having to think of Janey and Johnny, and Amy and little Robin. She
+was not anxious about how things might be going on in her absence, as
+kind Miss Dorset thought she must be. The happiness of escaping was
+first and foremost in her thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SELF-DEVOTION.
+
+
+"Mr. Copperhead's manner is not pleasant sometimes, that is quite true.
+We must make allowances, my dear. Great wealth, you know, has its
+temptations. You can't expect a man with so much money and so many
+people under him to have the same consideration for other people's
+feelings. He says to this man go and he goeth, and to that man come and
+he cometh."
+
+"That is all very well," said Phoebe; "but he has no right, that I can
+think of, to be rude to mamma and me."
+
+"He was not exactly rude, my dear," said Mrs. Beecham. "We must not say
+he was rude. Clarence ought to have divided his attentions more equally,
+we must admit, and his father was annoyed--for the moment. I have no
+doubt he has forgotten all about it long ago, and will be as pleasant as
+ever next time we meet."
+
+"I am quite sure of it," said the pastor, "and at the worst it was but
+his manner--only his manner. In short, at the committee meeting
+yesterday nothing could have been nicer. He went even out of his way to
+send, as it were, a kind message to Phoebe. 'I needn't ask if Miss Phoebe
+enjoyed herself,' he said. Depend upon it, my dear, if there was a
+temporary annoyance it is both forgotten and forgiven, so far as Mr.
+Copperhead is concerned."
+
+"Forgiven!" Phoebe said to herself; but she thought it wiser to say
+nothing audible on the subject. Her father and mother, it was evident,
+were both disposed to extend any amount of toleration to the leading
+member. It was he who was the best judge as to what he had a right to be
+annoyed about. The family party were in Mr. Beecham's study, where the
+large bust of Mr. Copperhead stood on the mantelpiece, the chief
+decoration. How could any one be so wicked as to rebel against the
+influence of so great a personage? Phoebe had her own ideas, but she was
+wise and kept them to herself.
+
+"And now," said Mrs. Beecham, solemnly, "what is to be done, my dear,
+about this letter from my good papa?"
+
+Phoebe was standing in front of a book-case, apparently looking for a
+book. She said nothing; but it was easy to perceive by the erectness of
+her shoulders, and the slight movement that ran through her, that her
+attention was fully engaged.
+
+"Ah, yes indeed, what about it?" the pastor said. He put down the pen,
+which he had been holding in his hand by way of symbol that, amiable as
+he was, his attention to his woman-kind was an encroachment upon time
+which might be more usefully employed. But this was a serious question;
+he had no suggestion to offer, but he sat and twiddled his thumbs, and
+looked at his wife with interest suddenly aroused.
+
+"There is a great deal to be thought of," said Mrs. Beecham, "it is not
+a simple matter of family devotion. Of course if I had no other ties,
+nor other duties, everything would be easy. I should go at once to my
+poor suffering mamma."
+
+Mrs. Beecham was a clever woman, but she had not been able to get it out
+of her mind, owing to the imperfections of her education in youth, that
+it was a vulgar thing to say father and mother. "But in the present
+circumstances," she continued, her husband having given his assent to
+this speech, "it is clear that I cannot do what I wish. I have you to
+think of, my dear, and the children, and the duties of my position. On
+the other hand, of course I could not wish, as poor mamma's only
+daughter, to have my sister-in-law called in. She is not the kind of
+person; she is underbred, uneducated. Of course she would be thinking of
+her own children, and what would be best for them. My parents have done
+all that ought to be expected from them for Tom. Considering all things,
+what they have to dispose of ought to go to Phoebe and Tozer. But Mrs.
+Tom would not see that."
+
+"It is very true, my dear; I don't suppose she would," said Mr. Beecham,
+with an anxious air.
+
+"Mrs. Tom," said his wife, with some heat, "would think her own had the
+first claim. She maintained it to my very face, and after that what have
+we to expect? It's us that are Tozers," she said; "as for you, Phoebe,
+you belong to another family. I put it in my own language of course, not
+in her vulgar way."
+
+"It is a very serious question altogether," said the pastor, with some
+solemnity. "I don't see how you can get away, and I don't know what is
+to be done."
+
+"Whatever is to be done, I won't leave poor mamma in the hands of Mrs.
+Tom," cries Mrs. Beecham, "not whatever it costs me. She's capable of
+anything, that woman is. To have her in the same town is bad enough, but
+in the same house nursing poor mamma! You and I would never see a penny
+of the money, Henery, nor our children--not a penny! besides the
+vexation of seeing one's own parents turned against one. I know very
+well how it would be."
+
+Mr. Beecham ceased twiddling his thumbs. The crisis was too serious for
+that indulgence. "The position is most difficult," he said, "I see it
+all. It is easy to see it for that matter, but to decide what are we to
+do is not easy. To go back to Carlingford after so many changes, would
+it be good for you?"
+
+"It would kill me," said Mrs. Beecham, with energy, "you know it would
+kill me. Envy drove us out, and envy would bring me to the grave. I
+don't deceive myself, that is what I see before me, if I tear myself
+from all my duties and go. But on the other hand----"
+
+"Listen, mamma!" cried Phoebe, turning round suddenly; "if grandmamma is
+ill, and you are afraid to leave her alone, why not send me?"
+
+Both her parents turned towards Phoebe, as she spoke; they listened to
+her with wonder and consternation, yet with admiring looks. Then they
+looked at each other consulting, alarmed. "You!" said Mrs. Beecham, and
+"You!" echoed the pastor, repeating in his great astonishment what his
+wife said.
+
+"Yes, indeed, me--why not me? it would be only my duty," said Phoebe,
+with great composure. "And there is nothing to keep me from going. I
+almost think I should like it--but anyhow, mamma, if you think it
+necessary, whether I like it or not--"
+
+"Phoebe, my darling, you are the best child in the world," cried her
+mother, rising up, and going to her hastily. She gave her a kiss of
+maternal enthusiasm, and then she looked at her husband. "But should we
+take advantage of it?" she said.
+
+"You see, my dear," said Mr. Beecham, hesitating, "you might find many
+things different from what you are used to. Your grandpapa Tozer is an
+excellent man--a most excellent man--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said his wife, with some impatience. She was as conscious as
+he was of the great elevation in the social scale that had occurred to
+both of them since they left Carlingford, and knew as well as he did
+that the old people had remained stationary, while the younger ones had
+made such advances; but still she did not like to hear her husband
+criticize her father. What there was to be said, she preferred to say
+herself. "Yes, yes," she said, "Phoebe knows there is a difference; they
+are old-fashioned folks, and don't live quite as we live. Some things
+would strike you very strangely, my dear, some things you would not
+like; and then Phoebe may be, for anything I can tell, at a turning-point
+in her own life."
+
+"If you mean about the Copperheads, mamma, dismiss that from your mind,"
+said Phoebe. "There is no sort of hurry. We may be thrown together in
+after-life, and of course no one can tell what may happen, but in the
+mean time there is nothing of the sort in my mind--nor in any one
+else's. Do not think of that for a moment. I am at no turning-point. I
+am quite ready and quite willing to go wherever you please."
+
+Once more the parent pair looked at each other. They had been very
+careful not to bring their children into contact, since they were
+children, with the homelier circumstances of the life in which they
+themselves had both taken their origin. They had managed this really
+with great skill and discretion. Instead of visiting the Tozers at
+Carlingford, they had appointed meetings at the sea-side, by means of
+which the children were trained in affectionate acquaintance with their
+grandparents, without any knowledge of the shop. And Mr. Tozer, who was
+only a butterman at Carlingford, presented all the appearance of an old
+Dissenting minister out of it--old-fashioned, not very refined perhaps,
+as Mrs. Beecham allowed, but very kind, and the most doting of
+grandfathers. The wisp of white neckcloth round his neck, and his black
+coat, and a certain unction of manner all favoured the idea.
+Theoretically, the young people knew it was not so, but the impression
+on their imagination was to this effect. Mrs. Tozer was only
+"grandmamma." She was kind too, and if rather gorgeous in the way of
+ribbons, and dressing generally in a manner which Phoebe's taste
+condemned, yet she came quite within the range of that affectionate
+contempt with which youth tolerates the disadvantages of its seniors.
+But the butterman's shop! and the entire cutting off from everything
+superior to the grocers and poulterers of Carlingford--how would Phoebe
+support it? This was what Mr. and Mrs. Beecham asked each other with
+their eyes--and there was a pause. For the question was a tremendous
+one, and neither knew in what way to reply.
+
+"Phoebe, you are a very sensible girl--" said her father at last,
+faltering.
+
+"I beg your pardon, papa. I don't think you are treating me as if I were
+sensible," said Phoebe. "I know well enough that grandpapa is in
+business--if that is what you are afraid of--"
+
+"Has been in business," said Mrs. Beecham. "Your grandpapa has retired
+for some time. To be sure," she added, turning to her husband, "it is
+only Tom that has the business, and as I consider Mrs. Tom
+objectionable, Phoebe need not be brought in contact--"
+
+"If Phoebe goes to Carlingford," said the pastor, "she must not be
+disagreeable to any one. We must make up our minds to that. They must
+not call her stuck up and proud."
+
+"Henery," said Mrs. Beecham, "I can put up with a great deal; but to
+think of a child of mine being exposed to the tongues of those Browns
+and Pigeons and Mrs. Tom, is more than I can bear. What I went through
+myself, you never knew, nor any one breathing--the looks they gave me,
+the things they kept saying, the little nods at one another every time I
+passed! Was it my fault that I was better educated, and more refined
+like, than they were? In Mr. Vincent's time, before you came, Henery, he
+was a very gentleman-like young man, and he used to come to the ----
+High Street constantly to supper. It wasn't my doing. I never asked
+him--no more than I did you!"
+
+"Your father used to ask me," said Mr. Beecham, doubtfully. "It was very
+kind. A young pastor expects it in a new place; and a great many things
+arise, there is no doubt, in that way."
+
+"Not by my doing," said the lady; "and when we were married, Henery, the
+things I did to please them! Thank Heaven, they know the difference now;
+but if they were to set themselves, as I could quite expect of them,
+against my child--"
+
+"Mamma," said Phoebe, tranquilly, "I think you forget that it is me you
+are talking of. I hope I know what a pastor's daughter owes to herself.
+I have had my training. I don't think you need be frightened for me."
+
+"No; I think Phoebe could manage them if any one could," said her father,
+complacently.
+
+She smiled with a gracious response to this approval. She had a book in
+her hand, which of itself was a proof of Phoebe's pretensions. It was, I
+think, one of the volumes of Mr. Stuart Mill's "Dissertations." Phoebe
+was not above reading novels or other light literature, but this only in
+the moments dedicated to amusement, and the present hour was morning, a
+time not for amusement, but for work.
+
+"Phoebe don't know Carlingford, nor the folks there," said Mrs. Beecham,
+flushed by the thought, and too much excited to think of the elegancies
+of diction. She had suffered more than her husband had, and retained a
+more forcible idea of the perils; and in the pause which ensued, all
+these perils crowded into her mind. As her own ambition rose, she had
+felt how dreadful it was to be shut in to one small circle of very small
+folks. She had felt the injurious line of separation between the
+shopkeepers and the rest of the world; at least she thought she had felt
+it. As a matter of fact, I think it very doubtful whether Phoebe Tozer
+had felt anything of the kind; but she thought so now; and then it was a
+fact that she was born Phoebe Tozer, and was used to that life, whereas
+Phoebe Beecham had no such knowledge. She had never been aware of the
+limitations of a small Dissenting community in a small town, and though
+she knew how much the Crescent congregation thought of a stray
+millionnaire like Mr. Copperhead (a thing which seemed too natural to
+Miss Beecham to leave any room for remark), her mother thought that it
+might have a bad effect upon Phoebe's principles in every way, should she
+find out the lowly place held by the connection in such an
+old-fashioned, self-conceited, Tory town as Carlingford. What would
+Phoebe think? how would she manage to associate with the Browns and the
+Pigeons? Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from the shop; but
+the shop was still there, greasy and buttery as ever, and Mrs. Beecham's
+own respected papa was still "the butterman." How would Phoebe bear it?
+This was the uppermost thought in her mind.
+
+"You know, my darling," she said afterwards, when they had left the
+study, and were seated, talking it over, in the drawing-room, "there
+will be a great deal to put up with. I am silly; I don't like even to
+hear your papa say anything about dear old grandpapa. He is my own, and
+I ought to stand up for him; but even with grandpapa, you will have a
+great deal to put up with. They don't understand our ways. They are
+used to have things so different. They think differently, and they talk
+differently. Even with your sense, Phoebe, you will find it hard to get
+on."
+
+"I am not at all afraid, I assure you, mamma."
+
+"You are not afraid, because you don't know. I know, and I am afraid.
+You know, we are not great people, Phoebe. I have always let you know
+that--and that it is far finer to elevate yourself than to be born to a
+good position. But when you see really the place which poor dear
+grandpapa and grandmamma think so much of, I am sure I don't know what
+you will say."
+
+"I shall not say much. I shall not say anything, mamma. I am not
+prejudiced," said Phoebe. "So long as an occupation is honest and
+honourable, and you can do your duty in it, what does it matter? One
+kind of work is just as good as another. It is the spirit in which it is
+done."
+
+"Oh, honest!" said Mrs. Beecham, half relieved, half affronted. "Of
+course, it was all that. Nothing else would have answered papa. Your
+uncle Tom has the--business now. You need not go there, my dear, unless
+you like. I am not fond of Mrs. Tom. We were always, so to speak, above
+our station; but she is not at all above it. She is just adapted for it;
+and I don't think she would suit you in the least. So except just for a
+formal call, I don't think you need go there, and even that only if
+grandmamma can spare you. You must be civil to everybody, I suppose; but
+you need not go further; they are not society for you. You will hear
+people talk of me by my Christian name, as if we were most intimate; but
+don't believe it, Phoebe. I always felt aspirations towards a very
+different kind of life."
+
+"Oh, don't be afraid, mamma," said Phoebe, calmly; "I shall be able to
+keep them at a distance. You need not fear."
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the anxious mother; "but not too much at a distance
+either. That is just what is so difficult. If they can find an excuse
+for saying that my child is stuck up! Oh! nothing would please them more
+than to be able to find out something against my child. When you have
+apparently belonged to that low level, and then have risen," said Mrs.
+Beecham, with a hot colour on her cheek, "there is nothing these kind of
+people will not say."
+
+These conversations raised a great deal of thought in Phoebe's mind; but
+they did not change her resolution. If it was necessary that some one
+should go to look after her grandmamma, and keep all those vulgar people
+at bay, and show to the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's
+daughter could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as
+herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain tragical sense
+of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what
+she would have to "put up with," as of something much more solemn than
+the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome. Phoebe felt
+herself something like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes and made
+her preparations. She was going among barbarians, a set of people who
+would not understand her, probably, and whom she would have to "put up
+with." But what of that? Strong in a sense of duty, and superior to all
+lesser inducements, she felt herself able to triumph. Mrs. Beecham
+assisted with very divided feelings at the preparations. It was on her
+lips to say, "Never mind the evening dresses; you will not want them."
+But then the thought occurred to her that to let the Carlingford folks
+see what her daughter had been used to, even if she had no use for such
+things, would be sweet.
+
+"No, Henery; she shall take them all," she said to her husband. "They
+shall see the kind of society my child is in; very different from their
+trumpery little teas! They shall see that you and I, we grudge nothing
+for Phoebe--and I dare be sworn there is not one of them like her, not
+even among the quality! I mean," said Mrs. Beecham, hastily, with a
+flush of distress at her own failure in gentility, "among those who
+think themselves better than we are. But Phoebe will let them see what a
+pastor's family is out of their dirty little town. She will bring them
+to their senses. Though I hesitated at first when it was spoken of, I am
+very glad now."
+
+"Yes; Phoebe is a girl to find her level anywhere," said the pastor,
+complacently. And they forgot what she would have to put up with in
+their satisfaction and admiration for herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A MORNING CALL.
+
+
+Sir Robert Dorset and his daughter called, as in duty bound, upon their
+relation two days after her ball. "You had better come with us, Ursula,"
+said Miss Dorset. "Sophy does not care about visits, and Mrs. Copperhead
+asked a great many questions about you. She is very tender-hearted to
+the ---- young." Anne had almost said to the poor, for it is difficult
+to remember always that the qualifications by which we distinguish our
+friends when they are not present, are not always satisfactory to their
+own ears. "She was like you once, you know," she added, half
+apologetically. Ursula, who was not in the least disposed to take
+offence, did not ask how, but assented, as she would have assented had
+Cousin Anne told her to get ready to go to the moon. She went upstairs
+and put on her little felt hat, which had been made handsome by the long
+drooping feather bestowed upon her by Sophy, and the blue serge jacket
+which corresponded with her dress. She had not any great opinion of her
+own good looks, but she hoped that she was "lady-like," notwithstanding
+the simplicity of her costume. This was her only aspiration. In her
+heart she admired the tall straight angular kind of beauty possessed by
+her cousins, and did not think much of her own roundness and softness,
+which seemed to Ursula a very inferior "style;" but yet if she looked
+lady-like that was always something, and both Sir Robert and his
+daughter looked at her approvingly as she stood buttoning her gloves,
+waiting for them.
+
+"If there are other city gentlemen there mind you make yourself very
+agreeable, Ursula," said Cousin Sophy, which vexed the girl a little.
+Whether the people were city gentlemen or not, of course, she said to
+herself, she would try to be _nice_--was not that a girl's first duty?
+She tried for her part to be _nice_ to everybody, to talk when she
+could, and receive the recompense of pleased looks. To walk with her
+friends up the long line of Regent Street, with many a sidelong glance
+into the shop-windows, was very pleasant to Ursula. Sometimes even
+Cousin Anne would be tempted to stop and look, and point things out to
+her father. Unfortunately, the things Miss Dorset remarked were chiefly
+handsome pieces of furniture, beautiful carpets, and the like, which
+were totally out of Ursula's way.
+
+"There is just the kind of carpet I want for the drawing-room," Anne
+said, looking at something so splendid that Ursula thought it was good
+enough for the Queen. But Sir Robert shook his head.
+
+"The drawing-room carpet will do very well," he said. "It will last out
+my day, and your brother will prefer to please himself."
+
+This brought a little cloud upon Anne Dorset's placid face, for she too,
+like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was not agreeable to think
+of as mistress in the old house. She went on quickly after that looking
+in at no more shops. Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as
+Ursula thought) had on the whole more painful feelings in looking at
+them, than had the little girl beside her, whose whole thoughts were
+occupied by the question whether she would have enough money left to buy
+her sister Janey one of those new neckties which were "the fashion."
+Janey did not often get anything that was the fashion. But at any rate
+Ursula made notes and laid up a great many things in her mind to tell
+Janey of--which would be next best.
+
+Mrs. Copperhead was seated in a corner of her vast drawing-room when her
+visitors arrived, and her pale little countenance brightened at sight of
+them. They were the nearest approach to "her own people" that the poor
+soul possessed. She received their compliments upon her ball with
+deprecating looks.
+
+"I am sure you are very good--very good to say so. I am afraid it was
+not much amusement to you. They were not the kind of people--"
+
+"I scarcely knew a soul," said Sir Robert; "it was a curious sensation.
+It does one good now and then to have a sensation like that. It shows
+you that after all you are not such a fine fellow as you thought
+yourself. Once before I experienced something of the same feeling. It
+was at a ball at the Tuileries--but even then, after a while, I found
+English people I knew, though I didn't know the French grandees; but, by
+Jove! except yourself and Mr. Copperhead, Clara, I knew nobody here."
+
+Mrs. Copperhead felt the implied censure more than she was intended to
+feel it.
+
+"Mr. Copperhead does not care about cultivating fashionable people," she
+said, with a little spirit. "He prefers his old friends."
+
+"That is very nice of him," cried Anne, "so much the kindest way. I
+liked it so much. At most balls we go to, people come and ask me to
+dance for duty, pretending not to see that my dancing days are over."
+
+"She talks nonsense," said Sir Robert. "Clara, I must trust to you to
+put this notion out of Anne's head. Why should her dancing days be over?
+I am not a Methuselah, I hope. She has no right to shelve herself so
+early, has she? I hope to see her make a good match before I die."
+
+"So long as she is happy--" said Mrs. Copperhead, faltering. She was not
+any advocate for good matches. "Oh, there is Mr. Copperhead!" she added,
+with a little start, as a resounding knock was heard. "He does not often
+come home so early; he will be very glad to see you, Sir Robert. Are you
+going to stay long in town, Miss May?"
+
+"Not long, only till the children arrive," said Anne, looking
+compassionately at the rich man's nervous wife. She had been quiet
+enough, so long as she was alone. Now a little fever seemed to be
+awakened in her. She turned to Ursula and began to talk to her quickly--
+
+"Do you like being in town? It is not a good time of the year. It is
+nicer in May, when everything looks cheerful; but I always live in
+London. You will come back for the season, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh no," said Ursula. "I never was in London before. Cousin Anne brought
+me for a great pleasure. I have been twice to the theatre, and at the
+ball here."
+
+"Oh yes, I forgot, you were at the ball--and you danced, did you dance?
+I cannot remember. There were so many people. Oh yes, I recollect. I
+spoke to Clarence--"
+
+"I danced three times," said Ursula. "I never was at a ball before. It
+was very nice. Mr. Copperhead was so kind--"
+
+"What is that about Mr. Copperhead being kind? Was I kind? I am always
+kind--ask my wife, she will give me a good character," said the master
+of the house, coming up to them. "Ah, the Baronet! how do you do, Sir
+Robert? I don't often see you in my house."
+
+"You saw us the other evening," said Sir Robert, courteously, "and we
+have just come, Anne and I, to let Clara know how much we enjoyed
+it. It was really splendid. I don't know when I have seen so
+much--um--luxury--so great a display of--of--beautiful things--and--and
+wealth."
+
+"Glad to hear you were pleased," said Mr. Copperhead, "no expense was
+spared at least. I don't often throw away my money in that way, but when
+I do I like things to be regardless of expense. That is our way in the
+city; other people have to make a deal of gentility go a long way, but
+with us, who don't stand on our gentility--"
+
+"It is not much to stand upon, certainly, in the way of giving balls,"
+said Sir Robert. "I quite agree with you that money should not be spared
+when a good effect is to be produced. Anne, my dear, if you have said
+all you have to say to Clara, you must recollect that we have a great
+deal to do--"
+
+"You are not going the moment I come in," said Mr. Copperhead. "Come, we
+must have some tea or something. Not that I care very much for tea, but
+I suppose you'll be shocked if I offer you anything else in the
+afternoon. Haven't you ordered tea, Mrs. Copperhead? I can't teach my
+wife hospitality, Sir Robert--not as I understand it. She'd see you come
+and go a dozen times, I'll be bound, without once thinking of offering
+anything. That ain't my way. Tea! and directly, do you hear."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Copperhead, in a nervous tremor; "bring tea, Burton,
+please. It is rather early, but I do so hope you will stay." She gave
+Miss Dorset an appealing glance, and Anne was too kind to resist the
+appeal.
+
+"To be sure they'll stay," said Mr. Copperhead. "Ladies never say no to
+a cup of tea, and ours ought to be good if there's any virtue in money.
+Come and look at my Turner, Sir Robert. I ain't a judge of art, but it
+cost a precious lot, if that is any test. They tell me it's one of the
+best specimens going. Come this way."
+
+"You won't mind?" said poor Mrs. Copperhead. "He is very hospitable, he
+cannot bear that any one should go without taking something. It is
+old-fashioned, but then Mr. Copperhead--"
+
+"It is a most kind fashion, I think," said Anne Dorset, who had a
+superstitious regard for other people's feelings, "and Mr. Copperhead is
+quite right, I never say no to a cup of tea."
+
+Just then Clarence came in with his hands in his pockets, so curiously
+like his father in his large somewhat loose figure, as unlike him in
+aspect and expression, that even the gentle Anne could scarcely help
+smiling. When he had shaken hands with Miss Dorset he dropped naturally
+into a seat beside Ursula, who, dazzled by his position as son of the
+house, and flattered by what she called his "kindness," was as much
+pleased by this sign of preference as if Clarence Copperhead had been a
+hero.
+
+"I hope you have recovered my father's ball," he said.
+
+"Recovered! Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Yes, you think it uncivil; but I myself have scarcely recovered yet.
+The sort of people he chose to collect--people whom nobody knew."
+
+"But, Mr. Copperhead," said Ursula, "if it was his old friends, as your
+mother says, how much more noble of him than if they had been fine
+people he did not care for! As for me, I don't know any one anywhere. It
+was all the same to me."
+
+"That was very lucky for you," said the young man. "My good cousins did
+not take it so easily. They are your cousins, too?"
+
+"Oh, yes--they are so good," cried Ursula. "Cousin Sophy laughs at me
+sometimes, but Cousin Anne is as kind as an angel. They have always been
+good to us all our lives."
+
+"You live near them, perhaps? Sir Robert has been kind enough to ask me
+to the Hall."
+
+"No, not near. We live at Carlingford. It is not a place like the
+Dorsets'; it is a poor little town where papa is one of the clergymen.
+We are not county people like them," said Ursula, with anxious honesty,
+that he might not have a false idea of her pretensions. "I have never
+been anywhere all my life, and that is why they brought me here. It was
+by far the most beautiful party I ever saw," she added, with a little
+enthusiasm. "I never was at a real dance before."
+
+"I am glad you thought it pretty," said Clarence. "I suppose it was
+pretty; when the rooms are nice," and he looked round the handsome room,
+not without a little complacency, "and when there is plenty of light and
+flowers, and well-dressed people, I suppose no dance can help being a
+pretty sight. That was about all. There was no one worth pointing out."
+
+"Oh, there were some very pretty people," said Ursula; "there was a
+young lady in black. She was always dancing. I should have liked to know
+her. You danced with her a great many times, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Ah!" said Clarence. He was not more foolish than his neighbours, but it
+flattered him that his dancing with one person should have been noticed,
+especially by a pretty creature, who herself had attracted him and
+shared the privilege. "That was Miss Beecham. I did not dance with her
+above three or four times. Of course," he said, apologetically, "we are
+old friends."
+
+Ursula did not know why he should apologize. She did not intend to
+flirt, not having any knowledge of that pastime as yet. She was quite
+simple in her mention of the other girl, who had attracted her
+attention. Now having said all she could remember to say, she stopped
+talking, and her eyes turned to the elder Mr. Copperhead, who came back,
+followed by Sir Robert. There was a largeness about the rich man, which
+Ursula, not used to rich men, gazed at with surprise. He seemed to
+expand himself upon the air, and spread out his large person, as she had
+never known any one else do. And Sir Robert, following him, looked so
+strangely different. He was very reluctant to be so led about, and, as
+it were, patronized by the master of the house, and his repugnance took
+a curious form. His nose was slightly drawn up, as if an odour of
+something disagreeable had reached him. Ursula, in her innocence,
+wondered what it was.
+
+"Here's the Baronet, Clarence," said Mr. Copperhead, who was slightly
+flushed; "and he doubts the Turner being genuine. My Turner! Go off at
+once to those picture people, Christie, whatever you call them, and tell
+them I want proofs that it's genuine. I am not the sort of man, by
+George! to be cheated, and they ought to know that. They have had many a
+hundred pounds of my money, but they shall never have another penny if I
+don't get proofs. It ain't pleasant, I can tell you, to hear the
+Baronet, or any one else for that matter, running down my pictures."
+
+"I did not run it down," said Sir Robert, with another little curl of
+his nostrils. (What could there be in this grand big house that could
+make a disagreeable smell?) "I only said that I had seen copies that
+were so wonderfully good that none but an expert could tell the
+difference; that was all. I don't say that yours is one of them."
+
+"No; nor no one shall!" cried Mr. Copperhead. "We shall have the
+experts, as you call them, and settle it. By George! there shall be
+nothing uncertain in my house. You can tell the men it is Sir Robert
+Dorset who suggested it. There's nothing like a title (even when it
+isn't much of a title) to keep people up to their work. Not meaning any
+disrespect to Sir Robert, I could buy him and his up five times over.
+But I ain't Sir Robert, and never will be. Say Sir Robert, Clarence, my
+boy; that'll bear weight."
+
+"It was an unfortunate observation on my part," said Sir Robert,
+stiffly. "I have a picture myself, which I bought for a Correggio, and
+which is a mere copy, I believe, though a very nice one. I hold my
+tongue on the subject, and nobody is the wiser. Anne, my dear, I think
+we must go now."
+
+"That would never suit me," said the rich man; "holding my tongue ain't
+my way, is it, Mrs. Copperhead? What! going, after all, without your
+tea? I am afraid, ma'am, the Baronet is touchy, and doesn't like what I
+said. But nobody minds me, I assure you. I say what I think, but I don't
+mean any harm."
+
+"Oh, no," said Anne, drawing herself up, while her father took leave of
+poor little tremulous Mrs. Copperhead. "We really must go; we have
+stayed longer than we meant to stay. Ursula--"
+
+"Your little companion?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Ah; you should take care,
+Miss Dorset, of these little persons. They stand in the way of the young
+ladies themselves often enough, I can tell you. And so can Mrs.
+Copperhead; she knows."
+
+He laughed, and both Anne and Ursula became aware that something
+offensive was meant; but what it was, neither of them could make out.
+Mrs. Copperhead, whose intelligence had been quickened on that point,
+perceived it, and trembled more and more.
+
+"Good-bye, dear," she said to Ursula in an agony. "Though we are not
+cousins, we are connections, through your kind Cousin Anne; for she lets
+me call her my Cousin Anne too. Perhaps you will come and pay me a visit
+sometimes, if--if you can be spared."
+
+"Oh, yes; I should be very glad," said Ursula, confused.
+
+She did not understand why Sir Robert should be in such a hurry, when
+both young Mr. Copperhead and his mother were so kind. As for the other
+Mr. Copperhead, he did not interest Ursula. But he went down to the door
+with them in an excess of civility, offering Anne his arm, which she was
+obliged to take, much against her will; and even Ursula felt a passing
+pang of humiliation when the footman threw open the great door before
+them, and no carriage was visible.
+
+"Oh, you are walking!" said Mr. Copperhead, with one of his big laughs.
+
+After all, a laugh could hurt nobody. Why was it that they all felt
+irritated and injured? Even Sir Robert grew scarlet, and when they were
+outside on the broad pavement turned almost angrily upon his daughter.
+
+"I tell you what, Anne," he said; "not if it was to save my life, shall
+I ever enter that brute's doors again."
+
+"Oh, papa; poor Mrs. Copperhead!" cried kind Anne, with a wail in her
+voice. That was all the reply she made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SHOPPING.
+
+
+Next day a telegram came from Southampton, announcing the arrival of the
+little Dorsets, which Ursula rejoiced over with the rest, yet was
+dreadfully sorry for in her heart. "Now we shall be able to get home,"
+the sisters said, and she did her best to smile; but to say that she was
+glad to leave London, with all its delights, the bright streets and the
+shop-windows, and the theatres, and the excitement of being "on a
+visit," would be a great deal more than the truth. She was glad,
+sympathetically, and to please the others; but for herself, her heart
+fell. It was still winter, and winter is not lively in Carlingford; and
+there was a great deal to do at home, and many things "to put up with."
+To be sure, that was her duty, this was only her pleasure; but at
+twenty, pleasure is so much more pleasant than duty. Ursula did not at
+all rebel, nor did she make painful contrasts in her mind, as so many
+young people do; asking why are others so well off, and I so badly off?
+but her heart sank. All the mendings, all the keepings in order, the
+dinners to be invented with a due regard for the butcher's bill, the
+tradespeople to be kept in good humour, the servant to be managed, and
+papa, who was more difficult than the servant, and more troublesome than
+the children! If Ursula sighed over the prospect, I don't think the
+severest of recording angels would put a very bad mark against her. She
+had been free of all this for ten wonderful days. No torn frocks, no
+unpleasant baker, no hole in the carpet, no spoiled mutton-chops, had
+disturbed her repose. All these troubles, no doubt, were going on as
+usual at home, and Janey and the maid were struggling with them as best
+they could. Had Ursula been very high-minded and given up to her duty,
+no doubt she would have been too much moved by the thought of what her
+young sister might be enduring in her absence, to get the good of her
+holiday; but I fear this was not how she felt it. Janey, no doubt, would
+get through somehow; and it was very sweet to escape for ever so short a
+time, and have a real rest. Therefore, it must be allowed that, when
+Ursula went to her bed-room after this news arrived, she relieved
+herself by "a good cry." Two or three days longer, what difference could
+that have made to those children? But after her headache was relieved in
+this way, the cloud dispersed a little. The thought of all she had to
+tell Janey consoled her. She counted over the spare contents of her
+purse, and calculated that, after all, she would have enough to buy the
+necktie; and she had all her presents to exhibit; the ball-dress, that
+unhoped-for acquisition; the Venetian beads; the bracelet, "Which is
+really good--_good_ gold; fancy!" said Ursula to herself, weighing it in
+her hand. How Janey would be interested, how she would be dazzled! There
+was a great deal of consolation in this thought. In the afternoon her
+cousins took her out "shopping," an occupation which all young girls and
+women like. They bought a great many things "for the spring," and "for
+the children," while Ursula looked on with admiration. To be able to buy
+things three months in advance, three months before they could possibly
+be wanted, what luxury! and yet the Dorsets were not rich, or so, at
+least, people said.
+
+"Now, Ursula," said Cousin Anne, "we have made all our purchases.
+Suppose you choose frocks for the children at home."
+
+"Oh, me?" cried poor Ursula, forgetting grammar. She blushed very red,
+and looked, not without indignation, into Anne Dorset's mild eyes. "You
+know I have not any money; you know we can't afford it!" she cried, with
+starting tears.
+
+"But I can," said Cousin Anne; "at least, I have some money just now.
+Money always goes, whether one buys things or not," she added, with a
+little sigh. "It runs through one's fingers. When one has something to
+show for it, that is always a satisfaction. Come, this would be pretty
+for little Amy; but it is you who must choose."
+
+"But, Cousin Anne! Dresses! If it was a necktie or a ribbon; but
+frocks--"
+
+"Frocks would be most useful, wouldn't they? One for Amy, and one for
+Janey. I suppose Robin does not wear frocks now?"
+
+"He has been in knickerbockers these two years," said Ursula, half
+proud, half sorry; "and the worst of it is, they can't be made at home.
+Papa says, boys' clothes made at home are always spoiled, and the tailor
+is so dear. Oh, Cousin Anne, are you really, really going to be so very,
+very good--!"
+
+Mrs. Copperhead came into the shop while they were choosing. Poor little
+woman! she who trembled so in her own house, how everybody bowed down
+before her at Messrs. Margrove and Snelcher's! It was all she could do
+to extricate herself from a crowd of anxious officials, all eager to
+supply her with everything that heart could desire, when she saw the
+little party. She came up to them, almost running in her eagerness, her
+small pale face flushed, and leaned on Anne Dorset's chair and whispered
+to her.
+
+"You will not be angry, dear kind Anne. You are always so good to
+everybody. Oh, forgive me! forgive me!"
+
+Ursula could not help hearing what she said.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive _you_, Mrs. Copperhead."
+
+"Oh, dear Anne! But I am more than myself, you know! He does not mean
+it; he never was brought up to know better. He thinks that is how people
+behave--"
+
+"Please don't say anything, dear Mrs. Copperhead."
+
+"Not if you will forgive--not if you will promise to forgive. Poor
+Clarence is heart-broken!" cried the poor woman. "He is so frightened
+for what you must think."
+
+"We don't think anything," said Sophy, breaking in; "it is one of our
+good qualities as a family that we never think. Come and help us; we are
+choosing frocks for Ursula's sisters. She has two. What are their ages,
+Ursula? You, who live in town, and know the fashions, come and help us
+to choose."
+
+And how respectful all the shopmen grew when the nameless country party
+was joined by the great Mrs. Copperhead--or rather the great Mr.
+Copperhead's wife, at whose command was unlimited credit, and all the
+contents of the shop if she chose. One hurried forward to give her a
+chair, and quite a grand personage, a "head man," came from another
+counter to take the charge of pleasing such a customer. Ursula could not
+but look upon the whole transaction with awe. Mrs. Copperhead was a very
+humble, timid woman, and Mr. Copperhead was not nice; but it was
+something to command the reverence of all the people in such a grand
+shop--a shop which Ursula by herself would scarcely have ventured to
+enter, and in which she felt timid and overwhelmed, saying, "Sir" to the
+gentleman who was so good as to ask what she wanted. But here Mrs.
+Copperhead was not afraid. She gave herself up with her whole heart to
+the delightful perplexity of choice, and when that matter was settled,
+looked round with searching eyes.
+
+"Don't they want something else?" she said, "it is so long since I have
+bought any children's things. It reminds me of the days when Clarence
+was little, when I took such pride in his dress. Come with me into the
+cloak room, my dear, I am sure they must want jackets or something."
+
+Ursula resisted with pitiful looks at Cousin Anne, and Sophy whispered
+into Mrs. Copperhead's ear an explanation, which, instead of quenching
+her ardour, brought it up instantly to boiling point. Her pale little
+languid countenance glowed and shone. She took both Ursula's hands in
+hers, half smiling, half crying.
+
+"Oh, my dear," she said, "you can give me such a pleasure, if you will!
+You know we are connections, almost relations. Let me send them
+something. Dear children, I wish I could see them. Come and look at the
+little jackets and mantles. I have often thought, if Providence had
+given me a little girl, what pleasure I should have had in dressing her.
+Hats too! I am sure they must want hats. Come, my dear, come and look at
+them." Ursula did not know what to do. A little pride and a great deal
+of shyness kept her back, but Mrs. Copperhead was too much in earnest to
+be crossed. She bought a couple of very smart little upper garments for
+Amy and Janey, and then, clandestinely taking no one into her
+confidence, for Ursula herself, and gave secret orders to have them all
+sent to the Dorsets' lodgings that night. She was quite transformed so
+long as this transaction lasted. Her languid countenance grew bright,
+her pale eyes lighted up.
+
+"You have given me such a pleasure," she said, holding Ursula's hands,
+and standing up on tip-toe to kiss her. "I am so much obliged to you. I
+could almost think that Clarence was little again, or that he had got a
+little sister, which was always my heart's desire. Ah, well! often,
+often, it seems better for us not to have our heart's desire, my dear;
+at least I suppose that is how it must be."
+
+"I do not know how to thank you," said Ursula, "you have been so
+kind--so very kind."
+
+"I have been kind to myself," said Mrs. Copperhead, "I have so enjoyed
+it; and, my dear," she added, with some solemnity, still holding Ursula
+by the hands, "promise you will do me one favour more. It will be such a
+favour. Whenever you want anything for yourself or your sister will you
+write to me? I am always in London except in autumn, and I should so
+like to do your commissions. People who live in London know how to get
+bargains, my dear. You must promise to let me do them for you. It will
+make me so happy. Promise!" cried the little woman, quite bright in her
+excitement. Ursula looked at the two others who were looking on, and did
+not know what to say.
+
+"She thinks you are too expensive an agent for her," said Sophy Dorset,
+"and I think so too."
+
+Mrs. Copperhead's face faded out of its pleasant glow.
+
+"There are two things I have a great deal too much of," she said, "money
+and time. I am never so happy as when I am buying things for children,
+and I can see that she will trust me--won't you, my dear? Must we say
+good-bye now? Couldn't I take you anywhere? Look at that big carriage,
+all for me alone, a little light woman. Let me take you somewhere. No!
+Ah, Cousin Anne, you have not forgiven us for all you said."
+
+"We have some other things to do," said Anne, drawing back. As for
+Ursula, she would not at all have objected to the splendour of the
+carriage. And her heart was melted by the lonely little woman's pathetic
+looks. But the other ladies stood out. They stood by while poor Mrs.
+Copperhead got into the carriage and drove off, her pale reproachful
+little face looking at them wistfully from the window. It was afternoon
+by this time, getting dark, and it was a tolerably long walk along the
+lighted, crowded streets.
+
+"Cousin Anne, I am afraid we have hurt her feelings," said Ursula; "why
+wouldn't you go?"
+
+"Go!" cried mild Anne Dorset; "get into that man's carriage after
+yesterday? Not for the world! I can put up with a great deal, but I
+can't go so far as that."
+
+"She never did any harm," said Sophy, "poor little soul! You see now,
+Ursula, don't you, how fine it is to marry a rich man, and have
+everything that your heart can desire?"
+
+Ursula looked at her wondering. To tell the truth, Mrs. Copperhead's
+eagerness to buy everything she could think of for the unknown children
+at Carlingford, the manner with which she was regarded in the great
+shop, her lavish liberality, her beautiful carriage, and all the fine
+things about her, had brought Ursula to this very thought, that it was
+extremely fine to marry a rich man. Sophy's irony was lost upon her
+simple-minded cousin, and so indeed was Mrs. Copperhead's pathos. That
+she was very kind, and that she was not very happy, were both apparent,
+but Ursula did not connect the unhappiness with the fact that she was a
+rich man's wife. Mr. Copperhead certainly was not very _nice_; but when
+people got so old as that, they never were very happy, Ursula thought,
+and what had the money to do with it? She looked confused and puzzled at
+Sophy, wondering what she meant. Yes, indeed, to marry a rich man, to be
+able to buy presents for everyone, to make the children at home
+perfectly happy without any trouble to one's self! Could any one doubt
+that it was very nice? Alas! Ursula did not think it at all likely that
+this would ever be in her power.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Copperhead!" said Anne, as they made their way along the
+crowded street, where it was difficult for them to walk together, much
+less to maintain any conversation. And presently Ursula, keeping as
+close as possible to her cousin's side, but compelled to make way
+continually for other passers-by, lost herself in a maze of fancies, to
+which the misty afternoon atmosphere, and the twinkling lights, and the
+quickly passing crowds lent a confused but not unpleasing background.
+She was glad that the noise made all talk impossible, and that she could
+dream on quietly as they glided and pressed their way through the
+current of people in Oxford Street and Regent Street, as undisturbed as
+if she had been shut up in her own room--nay, more so--for the external
+sights and sounds which flitted vaguely by her, disguised those dreams
+even from herself. Mrs. Copperhead had once been poorer than she was, a
+poor little governess. What if somewhere about, in some beautiful house,
+with just such a carriage at the door, a beautiful young hero should be
+waiting who would give all those dazzling delights to Ursula? Then what
+frocks she would buy, what toys, what ornaments! She would not stop at
+the girls, but drive to the best tailor's boldly, and bid him send down
+some one to take Johnnie's measure, and Robin's, and even Reginald's;
+and then she would go to the toy-shop, and to the bookseller, and I
+can't tell where besides; and finally drive down in the fairy chariot
+laden with everything that was delightful, to the very door. She would
+not go in any vulgar railway. She would keep everything in her own
+possession, and give each present with her own hands--a crowning delight
+which was impossible to Mrs. Copperhead--and how clearly she seemed to
+see herself drawing up, with panting horses, high-stepping and splendid,
+to the dull door of the poor parsonage, where scarcely anything better
+than a pony-carriage ever came! How the children would rush to the
+window, and "even papa," out of his study; and what a commotion would
+run through Grange Lane, and even up into the High Street, where the
+butcher and the baker would remember with a shiver how saucy they had
+sometimes been--when they saw what a great lady she was.
+
+A dreamy smile hovered upon Ursula's face as she saw all the little
+scenes of this little drama, mixed up with gleams of the shop-windows,
+and noises of the streets, and great ghosts of passing omnibuses, and
+horses steaming in the frosty air. How many girls, like her, go dreaming
+about the prosaic streets? It was not, perhaps, a very elevated or
+heroic dream, but the visionary chariot full of fine things for the
+children, was better than Cinderella's pumpkin carriage, or many another
+chariot of romance. Her cousins, who were so much her elders, and who
+shuddered in their very souls at the thought of poor Mrs. Copperhead,
+and who were talking earnestly about the children they expected next
+morning, and what was to be done with them, had no clue to Ursula's
+thoughts. They did not think much of them, one way or another, but took
+great care not to lose her from their side, and that she should not be
+frightened by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And
+they were very glad to get back to the comparative quiet of Suffolk
+Street, and to take off their bonnets and take their cup of tea. But
+Ursula, for her part, was sorry when the walk was over. She had enjoyed
+it so much. It was half Regent Street and half Carlingford, with the
+pleasure of both mixed up together; and she was half little Ursula May
+with her head in the air, and half that very great lady in the
+dream-chariot, who had it in her power to make everybody so happy.
+Between poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened
+little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and
+money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so much to do,
+what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which fancy could bridge over so
+easily. But the dream was broken when she got indoors; not even the
+quiet of her own little room could bring back in all their glory the
+disturbed images that had floated before her in the street.
+
+This was Ursula's last day in town, and there can be no doubt that it
+was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy's suggestion, to put a great
+many ideas into her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE DORSETS.
+
+
+Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering
+babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of
+the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though
+they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindostanee, which
+had brought them "home" at this inhospitable time of the year; and to
+get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the
+anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture
+of emotions, anxious to be "very fond" of them, yet feeling difficulties
+in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with
+big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour.
+They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange
+faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not
+understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little
+heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their
+new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily
+conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The
+obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts to win
+their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and
+poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so
+strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness,
+and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her
+still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand
+could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power
+on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they
+were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which
+stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself,
+had made up her mind to "take no notice of the little wretches."
+
+"Fancy!" she said; "shrinking at Anne--Anne, of all people in the world!
+There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little
+disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are
+John's children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must
+be like their mother. I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to
+love."
+
+"Oh, much, Sophy," said Anne, drying her eyes; "they are our own flesh
+and blood."
+
+"I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and blood; at least,
+they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her,
+can I?--whom I never saw?"
+
+The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.
+
+"I hope they will get to like us," she said. "Poor little darlings!
+everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don't wonder that
+they are frightened, and cry when any one comes near them. We must trust
+to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them--"
+
+"I am going to help little Ursula with her packing," said Sophy hastily;
+and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was in disorder, and threw
+herself down in a chair by the fire, "Anne is too good to live," she
+cried. "She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things
+like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and
+clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre--_Anne!_ why, a
+little dog knows better--as I said before."
+
+"I don't think they are very pretty children," said Ursula, not knowing
+how to reply.
+
+"Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?" said Sophy, who was
+relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. "The whole
+question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image
+that does not know you, that can't respond to you, and won't perhaps
+when it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing
+like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people it
+belongs to like it by instinct--but the rest of the world--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy!" cried Ursula, her eyes round with alarm and horror.
+
+"You think I ought to be fond of them because they are my brother's
+children? We are not always very fond even of our brothers, Ursula.
+Don't scream; at your age it is different; but when they marry and have
+separate interests--if these mites go on looking at me with those big
+scared eyes as if they expected me to box their ears, I shall do it some
+day--I know I shall; instead of going on my knees to them, like Anne,
+to curry favour. If they had been like our family, why, that would have
+been some attraction. Are you pleased to go home, or would you prefer to
+stay here?"
+
+"In London?" said Ursula, with a long-drawn breath, her hands
+involuntarily clasping each other. "Oh! I hope you won't think me very
+silly, but I do like London. Yes, I am pleased--I have so many presents
+to take to them, thanks to you and to Cousin Anne, and to Mrs.
+Copperhead. I am ashamed to be carrying away so much. But Carlingford is
+not like London," she added, with a sigh.
+
+"No, it is a pretty soft friendly country place, not a great
+cold-hearted wilderness."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy!"
+
+"My poor little innocent girl! Don't you think it is desolate and
+cold-hearted, this great sea of people who none of them care one straw
+for you?"
+
+"I have seen nothing but kindness," said Ursula, with a little heat of
+virtuous indignation; "there is you, and Mrs. Copperhead; and even the
+gentlemen were kind--or at least they meant to be kind."
+
+"The gentlemen?" said Sophy, amused. "Do you mean the Copperheads?
+Clarence perhaps? He is coming to Easton, Ursula. Shall I bring him into
+Carlingford to see you?"
+
+"If you please, Cousin Sophy," said the girl, simply. She had not been
+thinking any thoughts of "the gentlemen" which could make her blush, but
+somehow her cousin's tone jarred upon her, and she turned round to her
+packing. The room was littered with the things which she was putting
+into her box, that box which had grown a great deal too small now,
+though it was quite roomy enough when Ursula left home.
+
+"Ursula, I think you are a good little thing on the whole--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy, forgive me! No, I am not good."
+
+"Forgive you! for what? Yes, you are on the whole a good little thing;
+not a saint, like Anne; but then you have perhaps more to try your
+temper. We were always very obedient to her, though we worried her, and
+papa always believed in her with all his heart. Perhaps you have more to
+put up with. But, my dear, think of poor Mrs. Copperhead, for example--"
+
+"Why do you always call her poor Mrs. Copperhead? she is very rich. She
+can make other people happy when she pleases. She has a beautiful house,
+and everything--"
+
+"And a bear, a brute of a husband."
+
+"Ah! Does she mind very much?" asked Ursula, with composure. This
+drawback seemed to her insignificant, in comparison with Mrs.
+Copperhead's greatness. It was only Sophy's laugh that brought her to
+herself. She said with some haste, putting in her dresses, with her back
+turned, "I do not mean to say anything silly. When people are as old as
+she is, do they mind? It cannot matter so much what happens when you are
+old."
+
+"Why? but never mind, the theory is as good as many others," said Sophy.
+"You would not mind then marrying a man like that, to have everything
+that your heart could desire?"
+
+"Cousin Sophy, I am not going to--marry any one," said Ursula, loftily,
+carrying her head erect. "I hope I am not like that, thinking of such
+things. I am very, very sorry that you should have such an opinion of
+me, after living together ten days."
+
+She turned away with all the forlorn pride of injury, and there were
+tears in her voice. Sophy, who dared not laugh in reply, to make the
+young heroine more angry, hastened to apologize.
+
+"It was a silly question," she said. "I have a very good opinion of you,
+Ursula. Ten days is a long time, and I know you as if we had been
+together all your life. I am sure you do not think anything a nice girl
+ought not to think; but I hope you will never be deceived and persuaded
+to marry any one who is like Mr. Copperhead. I mean who is not nice and
+young, and good, like yourself."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried the girl, with energy. "But most likely I shall not
+marry any one," she added, with a half sigh; "Janey may, but the eldest
+has so much to do, and so much to think of. Cousin Anne has never
+married."
+
+"Nor Cousin Sophy either." Sophy's laugh sounded hard to the girl.
+"Never mind, you will not be like us. You will marry, most likely, a
+clergyman, in a pretty parsonage in the country."
+
+"I do not think I am very fond of clergymen," said Ursula, recovering
+her ease and composure. "They are always in and about, and everything
+has to be kept so quiet when they are studying; and then the parish
+people are always coming tramping upstairs with their dirty feet. When
+you have only one servant it is very, very troublesome. Sir Robert never
+gives any trouble," she said, once more, with a soft little sigh.
+
+"Papa?" said Sophy, somewhat surprised; "but you would not--" she was
+going to say, marry papa; but when she looked at Ursula's innocent
+gravity, her absolute unconsciousness of the meanings which her chance
+words might bear, she refrained. "I think I must send Seton to help
+you," she said, "you can not get through all that packing by yourself."
+
+"Oh yes, I am not tired. I have put in all my old things. The rest are
+your presents. Oh, Cousin Sophy!" said the girl, coming quickly to her
+and stealing two arms round her, "you have been so good to me! as if it
+was not enough to give me this holiday, the most delightful I ever had
+in my life--to send me home loaded with all these beautiful things! I
+shall never forget it, never, never, if I were to live a hundred years!"
+
+"My dear!" cried Sophy, startled by the sudden energy of this embrace.
+Sophy was not emotional, but her eyes moistened and her voice softened
+in spite of herself. "But you must let me send Seton to you," she said,
+hurrying away. She was excited by the day's events, and did not trust
+herself to make any further response; for if she "gave way" at all, who
+could tell how far the giving way might go? Her brother John had been
+married at the time when Sophy too ought to have been married, had all
+gone well--and, perhaps, some keen-piercing thought that she too might
+have had little children belonging to her, had given force and sharpness
+to her objections to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had
+shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed
+her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in
+the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature,
+and was resting in an easy chair, and pondering what she could do to
+make the children love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence of
+Mrs. John.
+
+"I have been talking to Ursula, who is always refreshing," said Sophy.
+"I wonder whom that child will marry. She gave me to understand, in her
+awkward, innocent way, that she preferred papa. A laugh does one good,"
+Sophy added, slightly rubbing her eyes. Anne made no immediate answer.
+She scarcely heard indeed what her sister said.
+
+"I think we shall get on after a while," she said, softly. "They said
+their prayers very prettily, poor darlings, and let me kiss them without
+crying. After a while we shall get on, I don't fear."
+
+"Anne!" cried Sophy, "you are too much for mere human nature: you are
+too bad or too good for anything. I begin to hate these little wretches
+when I hear you speak of them so."
+
+"Hush!" said Anne, "I know you don't mean it. Easton will be very
+strange to them at first. I could not go to India for my part. A crust
+of bread at home would be better. Think of parting with your children
+just when they come to an age to understand?"
+
+"John, I suppose, did not take children into consideration when he went
+away. You speak as if children were all one's life."
+
+"A great part of it," said Anne, gently. "No, dear, I am not clever like
+you, and perhaps it is what you will call a low view; but after all it
+runs through everything. The flowers are used for the seed, and
+everything in the world is intended to keep the world going. Yes, even
+I, that is the good of me. I shall never be a mother, but what does that
+matter? There are so many children left on the world whom somebody must
+bring up."
+
+"And who are brought to you when they need you, and taken from you when
+they need you no longer," said Sophy, indignantly; "you are left to bear
+the trouble--others have the recompense."
+
+"It is so in this world, my dear, all the way down, from God himself.
+Always looking for reward is mean and mercenary. When we do nothing,
+when we are of no use, what a poor thing life is," said Anne, with a
+little colour rising in her cheeks, "not worth having. I think we have
+only a right to our existence when we are doing something. And I have my
+wages; I like to be of a little consequence," she said, laughing.
+"Nobody is of any consequence who does not do something."
+
+"In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence than you."
+
+"So be it--I don't object," said Anne; "but I don't think so, for they
+have to be directed and guided. To be without a housemaid is dreadful.
+The moment you think of that, you see how important the people who work
+are; everything comes to a stand-still without Mary, whereas there are
+ladies whose absence would make no difference."
+
+"I, for instance."
+
+"You are very unkind to say so, Sophy; all the same, if you were to do
+more, you would be happier, my dear."
+
+"To do what? go on my knees to those wax dolls, and entreat them to let
+me pet them and make idols of them--as you will do?"
+
+"Well, how are you getting on now?" said Sir Robert, coming in. "Ah! I
+see, you have the window open; but the room is still very warm. When
+they get to Easton they will have their own rooms of course. I don't
+want to reflect upon John, but it is rather a burden this he has saddled
+us with. Mrs. John's mother is living, isn't she? I think something
+might have been _said_ at least, on her part, some offer to take her
+share."
+
+Sophy gave her sister a malicious glance, but promptly changed her tone,
+and took up her position in defence of the arrangement, with that ease
+which is natural in a family question.
+
+"Of course," she said, "your grandchildren, Dorsets, and the heir,
+probably, as Robert has no boy, could go nowhere, papa, but to us. It
+may be a bore, but at least John showed so much sense; for nothing else
+could be----"
+
+"John does not show very much sense in an ordinary way. What did he want
+with a wife and children at his age? The boy is five, isn't he? and the
+father only thirty--absurd! I did not marry till I was thirty, though I
+had succeeded before that time, and was the only son and the head of the
+family. John was always an ass," said Sir Robert, with a crossness which
+sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the room was higher
+than usual, and the habits of his evening interfered with. He was
+capable of sacrificing something of much more importance to his family,
+but scarcely of sacrificing his comfort, which is the last and most
+painful of efforts.
+
+"That may be very true," said Sophy, "but all the same, it is only right
+that the children should be with us. Mrs. John's people are not well
+off. Her mother has a large family of her own. The little things would
+have been spoiled, or they would have been neglected; and after all,
+they are Dorsets, though they are not like John."
+
+"Well, well, I suppose you are right," said Sir Robert, grumbling, "and,
+thank Heaven, to-morrow we shall be at home."
+
+Anne had scarcely said a word, though it was she who was most deeply
+concerned about the children. She gave her sister a hug when Sir Robert
+relapsed into the evening paper, and then stole upstairs to look at the
+poor babies as they lay asleep. She was not a mother, and never would
+be. People, indeed, called her an old maid, and with reason enough,
+though she was little over thirty; for had she been seventy, she could
+not have been more unlikely to marry. It was not her vocation. She had
+plenty to do in the world without that, and was satisfied with her life.
+The sad reflection that the children whom she tended were not her own,
+did not visit her mind, as, perhaps, it had visited Sophy's, making her
+angry through the very yearning of nature. Anne was of a different
+temperament, she said a little prayer softly in her heart for the
+children and for her sister as she stooped over the small beds. "God
+bless the children--and, oh, make my Sophy happy!" she said. She had
+never asked for nor thought of happiness to herself. It had come to her
+unconsciously, in her occupations, in her duties, as natural as the soft
+daylight, and as little sought after. But Sophy was different. Sophy
+wanted material for happiness--something to make her glad; she did not
+possess it, like her sister, in the quiet of her own heart. And from the
+children's room Anne went to Ursula's, where the girl, tired with her
+packing, was brushing her pretty hair out before she went to bed.
+Everything was ready, the drawers all empty, the box full to
+overflowing, and supplemented by a large parcel in brown paper; and what
+with the fatigue and the tumult of feeling in her simple soul, Ursula
+was ready to cry when her cousin came in and sat down beside her.
+
+"I have been so happy, Cousin Anne. You have been so good to me," she
+said.
+
+"My dear, everybody will be good to you," said Miss Dorset, "so long as
+you trust everybody, Ursula. People are more good than bad. I hope when
+you come to Easton you will be still happier."
+
+Ursula demurred a little to this, though she was too shy to say much.
+"Town is so cheerful," she said. It was not Sir Robert's way of looking
+at affairs.
+
+"There is very little difference in places," said Anne, "when your heart
+is light you are happy everywhere." Ursula felt that it was somewhat
+derogatory to her dignity to have her enjoyment set down to the score of
+a light heart. But against such an assertion what could she say?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+COMING HOME.
+
+
+The party which set out from Suffolk Street next morning was a mighty
+one; there were the children, the ayah, the new nurse whom Anne had
+engaged in town, to take charge of her little nephews as soon as they
+got accustomed to their new life; and Seton, the ancient serving-woman,
+whom the sisters shared between them; and Sir Robert's man, not to speak
+of Sir Robert himself and the Miss Dorsets and Ursula. Easton was within
+a dozen miles of Carlingford, so that they all travelled together as far
+as that town. The Dorset party went farther on to the next station, from
+which they had still six miles to travel by carriage. They set down
+Ursula on the platform with her box and her parcel, and took leave of
+her, and swept out of the station again, leaving her rather forlorn and
+solitary among the crowd. "Disgraceful of May not to send some one to
+meet the child. I suppose he knew she was coming," said Sir Robert. And
+Ursula had something of the same feeling, as she stood looking wistfully
+about her. But as soon as the train was gone, her name was called in a
+somewhat high-pitched voice, and turning round she found herself hugged
+by Janey, while Johnnie, fresh from school, seized her bag out of her
+hand by way of showing his satisfaction.
+
+"We didn't come up till we could make sure that the Dorsets were out of
+the way," said Janey, "and, oh, is it really you? I am so glad to get
+you home."
+
+"Why didn't you want to see the Dorsets? They are the kindest friends we
+have in the world," said Ursula. "How is papa? Is he in a good humour?
+And the rest? Why did not some more come to meet me? I made sure there
+would be four at least."
+
+"Amy and Robin have gone out to tea--they didn't want to go; but papa
+insisted. Oh, he is very well on the whole. And Reginald is at home, of
+course, but I thought you would like me best. Johnnie came to carry the
+bag," said Janey with a natural contempt for her younger brother. "What
+a big parcel! You must have been getting quantities of presents, or else
+you must have packed very badly, for I am sure there was lots of room in
+the trunk when you went away."
+
+"Oh, Janey, if you only knew what I have got there!"
+
+"What?" said Janey, with quiet but composed interest. It never occurred
+to her that she could have any individual concern in the contents of the
+parcels. She was a tall girl who had outgrown all her frocks, or rather
+did outgrow them periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders,
+which would not curl or _crêper_, or do anything that hair ought to do.
+She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts of
+impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the kind of
+angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, but very maladroit,
+who is a greater nuisance to herself and everybody else than even a
+school-boy, which is saying a good deal. Things broke in her hands as
+they never broke in anybody else's; stuffs tore, furniture fell to the
+ground as she passed by. Ursula carefully kept her off the parcel and
+gave it to Johnnie. One of the railway porters, when all the rest of the
+passengers were disposed of, condescended to carry her trunk, and thus
+they set out on their way home. The parsonage was close to St. Roque, at
+the other end of Grange Lane. They had to walk all the way down that
+genteel and quiet suburban road, by the garden walls over which, at
+this season, no scent of flowers came, or blossomed branches hung forth.
+There were red holly-berries visible, and upon one mossy old tree a gray
+bunch of mistletoe could be seen on the other side of the street. But
+how quiet it was! They scarcely met a dozen people between the station
+and St. Roque.
+
+"Oh, Janey, is everybody dead?" said Ursula. "How dull it is! You should
+see London----"
+
+"Ursula," said Janey firmly, "once for all, I am not going to stand this
+London! A nasty, smoky, muddy place, no more like Carlingford than--I am
+like you. You forget I have been in London; you are not speaking to
+ignorant ears," said Janey, drawing herself up, "and your letters were
+quite bad enough. You are not going to talk of nothing but your
+disagreeable London here. Talk to people who have never seen it!" said
+the girl, elevating her shoulders with the contempt of knowledge.
+
+"That time you were at the dentist's--" said Ursula, "and call that
+seeing London! Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy took me everywhere. We went
+to drive in the Park. We went to the Museum and the National Gallery.
+And, oh! Janey, listen! we went to the theatre: think of that!"
+
+"Well, I should like to go to the theatre," said Janey, with a sigh.
+"But you told me in your letter. That's what comes of being the eldest.
+Unless you get married, or something, nobody will ever think of taking
+_me_."
+
+"You are five years younger than I am," said Ursula, with dignity.
+"Naturally, people don't think of a girl at your age. You must wait till
+you are older, as I have had to do. Janey! guess what is in _that_?"
+
+"Your new dress--your ball-dress. If it isn't crumpled as you said, you
+can't have danced very much. I know my dress will be in tatters if I
+ever go to a ball."
+
+"I danced as much as I wished. I did not know many people," said Ursula,
+drawing herself up. "Of course at this time of the year nobody is in
+town, and we hardly knew any one--and of course--"
+
+"Of course, you only knew the fashionable people who are out of town in
+winter," cried Janey, with a laugh which echoed along the street. Ursula
+had not come home from London to be laughed at by her younger sister,
+she who had been petted by the Dorsets, and whose opinion even Sir
+Robert had asked on various occasions. She felt this downfall all the
+more deeply that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with
+Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over again,
+and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many experiences acquired
+in that momentous time. Poor Ursula! ten days is quite long enough to
+form habits at her age, and she had been taken care of, as young ladies
+are taken care of in society; accompanied or attended wherever she went,
+and made much of. To find herself thus left to arrive and get home as
+she pleased, with nobody but Janey to meet her, was a terrible
+falling-off; and to be laughed at by Janey was the last step of all.
+Tears filled her eyes, she turned her shoulder to her companion,
+averting her head; and this was all poor Ursula had to look to. The
+dreary Carlingford street, papa finding fault, everything going wrong,
+and Janey laughing at her! To be Cousin Anne's maid, or governess to the
+little Indian children would be better than this. For five minutes more
+she walked on in offended silence, saying nothing, though Janey, like
+the school-girl she was, made frequent use of her elbow to move her
+sister.
+
+"Ursula!" the girl said at last, with a more potent nudge, "what's the
+matter? won't you speak to me?" And Janey, who had her own
+disappointment too, and had expected to be received with enthusiasm,
+burst out crying, regardless of appearances, in the middle of the
+street.
+
+"Janey, for Heaven's sake--people will see you! I am sure it is I who
+should cry, not you," said Ursula, in sudden distress.
+
+"I don't care who sees me," sobbed Janey. "You have been enjoying
+yourself while we have stayed at home, and instead of being pleased to
+come back, or glad to see us--Oh, how can you be so cold-hearted?" she
+said with a fresh burst of tears.
+
+Here the other side of the question suddenly dawned upon Ursula. She had
+been enjoying herself while the others stayed at home. It was quite
+true. Instead of feeling the shock of difference she should have thought
+of those who had never been so lucky as she was, who had never seen
+anything out of Carlingford. "Don't be so foolish, Janey," she said, "I
+_am_ glad;--and I have brought you such beautiful presents. But when you
+do nothing but laugh----"
+
+"I am sure I didn't laugh to hurt. I only laughed for fun!" cried Janey,
+drying her eyes not without a little indignation; and thus peace was
+made, for indeed one was dying to tell all that happened, and the other
+dying to hear. They walked the rest of the way with their heads very
+close together, so absorbed that the eldest brother, coming out of the
+gate as they approached, stood looking at them with a smile on his face
+for some time before they saw him. A slight young man, not very tall,
+with dark hair, like Ursula's, and a somewhat anxious expression, in
+correct English clerical dress.
+
+"Has it all begun already?" he said, when they came close up to him, but
+without perceiving him, Ursula's face inspired with the pleasure of
+talking, as Janey's was with the eager delight of listening. The house
+was built in the ecclesiastical style, with gables and mullioned
+windows, which excluded the light, at least, whether or not they
+inspired passers-by with a sense of correct art, as they were intended
+to do. It was next door to the church, and had a narrow strip of
+shrubbery in front, planted with somewhat gloomy evergreens. The gate
+and door stood always open, except when Mr. May himself, coming or
+going, closed them momentarily, and it cannot be denied that there were
+outward and visible signs of a large, somewhat unruly family inside.
+
+"Oh, Reginald!" cried Ursula. "You have come home!"
+
+"Yes--for good," he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Or for bad--who
+can tell? At all events, here I am."
+
+"Why should it be for bad?" cried Janey, whose voice was always audible
+half-way up the street. "Oh, Ursula, something very nice has happened.
+He is to be warden of the old college, fancy! That _is_ being provided
+for, papa says; and a beautiful old house."
+
+"Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some old person who
+was chosen."
+
+"But papa says he can live at home and let the house," cried Janey.
+"There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman, papa thinks; it
+is nice, because there is no work--but look at Reginald, he does not
+like it a bit; he is never satisfied, I am sure, I wish it was me--"
+
+"Come in," said Reginald hastily, "I don't want all my affairs, and my
+character besides, to be proclaimed from the house-tops." Janey stopped
+indignant, to make some reply, and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she
+feared, with an energetic pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been
+playing in the little square hall, which was strewed with doll's
+clothes, and with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation.
+Some old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one of
+which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of Anne Dorset's
+orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these imperfections.
+
+"Oh, what a muddle!" she cried; "I don't wonder that Reginald does not
+care for living at home."
+
+"Oh, I wish papa heard you!" cried Janey loudly, as Ursula led the way
+into the drawing-room, which was not much tidier than the hall. There
+was a basket-full of stockings to be mended, standing on the old
+work-table. Ursula felt, with a sinking of the heart, that they were
+waiting for her arrival, and that Janey had done nothing to them. More
+toys and more old school-books were tossed about upon the faded old
+carpet. The table-cover hung uneven, one end of it dragging upon the
+floor. The fire was burning very low, stifled in dust and white ashes.
+How dismal it looked! not like a place to come home to. "Oh, I don't
+wonder Reginald is vexed to be made to live at home," she said once
+again to herself, with tears in her eyes.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself," her brother said, as she dropped
+wearily into the old easy-chair. "We have missed you very much; but I
+don't suppose you missed us. London was very pleasant, I suppose, even
+at this time of the year?"
+
+"Oh, pleasant!" said Ursula. "If you had been with me, how you would
+have liked it! Suffolk Street is only an inn, but it is a very nice inn,
+what they call a private hotel. Far better than the great big places on
+the American principle, Sir Robert says. But we dined at one of those
+big places one day, and it was very amusing. Scores of people, and great
+mirrors that made them look hundreds. And such quantities of lights and
+servants; but Sir Robert thought Suffolk Street very much the best. And
+I went to two theatres and to a ball. They were so kind. Sophy Dorset
+laughs at me sometimes, but Anne is an angel," said Ursula fervently. "I
+never knew any one so good in my life."
+
+"That is not saying much," said Janey, "for none of us are very good,
+and you know nobody else. Anne Dorset is an old maid."
+
+"Oh, Janey! how dare you?"
+
+"And, for that matter, so is Sophy. Papa says so. He says she was
+jilted, and that she will never get a husband."
+
+"Hold your tongue," said Reginald fiercely, "if we are to hear what my
+father says at second hand through an imp like you--"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Janey, mocking, "that is because you are not friends
+with papa."
+
+"Janey, come and help me to take off my things," said Ursula, seeing
+that Reginald would probably proceed to strong measures and box his
+sister's ears. "If you were older, you would not talk like that," she
+said, with dignity, as they went upstairs. "Oh, dear Janey, you can't
+think how different Cousin Anne and Sophy are, who are not girls, like
+us. They never talk unkindly of other people. You would get to think it
+childish, as I do, if you had been living with Cousin Anne."
+
+"Stuff!" said Janey. "Papa is not childish, I hope. And it was he who
+said all that. I don't care what your fine Cousin Anne does."
+
+Notwithstanding, the reproof thus administered went to Janey's heart;
+for to a girl of fifteen, whose next sister is almost twenty, the
+reproach of being childish is worse than any other. She blushed
+fiery-red, and though she scoffed, was moved. Besides, though it suited
+her to quote him for the moment, she was very far from putting any
+unbounded faith in papa.
+
+"Just wait a moment! See what Cousin Anne, whom you think so little of,
+has sent you," said Ursula, sitting down on the floor with the great
+parcel in her lap, carefully undoing the knots; for she had read Miss
+Edgeworth's stories in her youth, and would not have cut the strings for
+the world; and when the new dresses, in all their gloss and softness,
+were spread out upon the old carpet, which scarcely retained one trace
+of colour, Janey was struck dumb.
+
+"Is that," she said, faltering and conscience-stricken, "for _me_?"
+
+"This is for you; though you think them old maids--and that they will
+never get husbands," said Ursula, indignantly. "What a thing for a girl
+to say! And, indeed, I don't think Cousin Anne will ever get a husband.
+There is not one in the world half good enough for her--not one! Yes,
+this is for you. They went themselves, and looked over half the things
+in the shop before they could get one to please them. They did not say,
+'Janey is an unkind little thing, that will repeat all she hears about
+us, and does not care for us a bit.' They said, 'Ursula, we must choose
+frocks for Janey and Amy. Come and help us to get what they will like
+best.'"
+
+Janey's lips quivered, and two very big tears came into her eyes. She
+was stricken with the deepest compunction, but her pride did not permit
+her to give in all at once.
+
+"I dare say you told her how badly off we were," she said.
+
+"I told her nothing about it, and she did not say a word--not a word, as
+if it were a charity--only to please you--to let you see that you were
+remembered; but I dare say it is quite true after all," said Ursula,
+with lofty irony, "that Cousin Anne will never get a husband, and that
+they are old maids."
+
+"Oh, you know I didn't mean it!" said Janey, giving way to her tears.
+
+Then Ursula got up and took off her hat and smoothed her hair, feeling
+satisfied with her success, and went downstairs again to Reginald, who
+was seated on the dingy sofa waiting for her, to answer her questions
+about the great event which had happened since she had been away.
+Ursula's mind was full of the shock of the sharp impression made by her
+return, though the impression itself began to wear away.
+
+"I can understand why you don't care about living at home," she said.
+"Oh I wonder if I could do anything to mend it! I am so glad you have
+got something, Reginald. If you have a good servant, you might be quite
+comfortable by yourself, and we could come and see you. I should not
+feel it a bit--not a single bit; and it would be so much nicer for you."
+
+"You are mistaken," said her brother. "It is not staying at home I
+object to. We are not very tidy or very comfortable, perhaps, but we all
+belong to each other, at least. It is not that, Ursula."
+
+"What is it, then? Janey says," said Ursula, drawing a long breath of
+awe and admiration, "that you are to have two hundred and fifty pounds a
+year."
+
+"For doing nothing," he said.
+
+"For doing nothing?" She looked up at him a little bewildered, for his
+tone struck Ursula as not at all corresponding with the delightful
+character of the words he said. "But, Reginald, how nice, how very nice
+it sounds! How lucky you must have been! How could it happen that such a
+delightful thing should come to one of us? We are always so unlucky,
+papa says."
+
+"If you think this luck--" said Reginald. "He does, and he is quite
+pleased; but how do you suppose I can be pleased? Thrust into a place
+where I am not wanted--where I can be of no use. A dummy, a practical
+falsehood. How can I accept it, Ursula? I tell you it is a sinecure!"
+
+Ursula looked at him with eyes round with wonder. He seemed to be
+speaking in some different language of which she understood nothing.
+"What is a sinecure?" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PAPA.
+
+
+"Ursula has come back!" cried the little ones, who had returned from
+their tea-party, running to meet their father at the door.
+
+Mr. May was very good, except by moments, to his younger children. He
+was not, indeed, an unkind father to any of them; but he had never
+forgiven Providence for leaving him with his motherless family upon his
+hands, a man so utterly unfit for the task. Perhaps he did not put this
+exactly into words, but he felt it deeply, and had never got over it.
+There were so many things that he could have done better, and there were
+so many people who could have done this better; and yet it was precisely
+to him, not a person adapted to the charge of children, that it had been
+given to do it! This seemed to argue a want of judgment in the
+regulation of mortal affairs, which irritated him all the more because
+he was a clergyman, and had to persuade other people that everything
+that happened to them was for the best. He was a man of some culture,
+and literary power, and wrote very pleasant "thoughtful" papers for some
+of the Church magazines; but these compositions, though very easy to
+read, were only brought into the world by elaborate precautions on the
+part of the family, which scarcely dared to speak above its breath when
+papa was "writing;" for on such occasions he could be very savage, as
+the occasional offender knew. He was a man with an imposing person,
+good-looking, and of very bland and delightful manners, when he chose.
+But yet he had never made friends, and was now at fifty-five the
+incumbent of St. Roque, with a small income and a humble position in the
+church hierarchy of Carlingford. He preached better than any other of
+the Carlingford clergymen, looked better, had more reputation out of the
+place; and was of sufficiently good family, and tolerably well
+connected. Yet he never got on, never made any real advance in life.
+Nobody could tell what was the cause of this, for his opinions were
+moderate and did not stand in his way--indeed within the limits of
+moderation he had been known to modify his principles, now inclining
+towards the high, then towards the low, according as circumstances
+required, though never going too far in either direction. Such a man
+ought to have been successful, according to all rules, but he was not.
+He was generally in debt and always needy. His eldest son, James, was in
+India, doing well, and had often sent a contribution towards the comfort
+of the family, and especially to help Reginald at College. But James had
+married a year before, and accordingly was in a less favourable position
+for sending help. And indeed these windfalls had never produced much
+effect upon the family, who heard of James' gifts vaguely without
+profiting by them. All this _donna à penser_ to the elder children.
+Having no softening medium of a mother's eyes to look at their father
+through, they were more bold in judging him than, perhaps, they ought to
+have been; and he did not take pains to fascinate his children, or throw
+the glamour of love into their eyes. He took it for granted, frankly and
+as a part of nature, that he himself was the first person to be
+considered in all matters. So he was, of course--so the father, the
+bread-winner, the head of the family, ought to be; and when he has a
+wife to keep him upon that pedestal, and to secure that his worship
+shall be respected, it becomes natural, and the first article of the
+family creed; but somehow when a man has to set forth and uphold this
+principle himself, it is less successful; and in Mr. May's case it was
+not successful at all. He was not severe or tyrannical, so that they
+might have rebelled. He only held the conviction quite honestly and
+ingeniously, that his affairs came first, and were always to be attended
+to. Nothing could be said against this principle--but it tells badly in
+the management of a family unless, indeed, as we have said, it is
+managed through the medium of the mother, who takes away all imputation
+of selfishness by throwing an awful importance and tender sanctity over
+all that happens to be desirable or necessary for "papa."
+
+Mr. May had no wife to watch over the approaches of his study, and talk
+of him with reverential importance to her children. This was not his
+fault, but his misfortune. Bitterly had he mourned and resented the blow
+which took her from him, and deeply felt the loss she was to him. This
+was how he spoke of it always, the loss to him; and probably poor Mrs.
+May, who had adored and admired her husband to the last day of her life,
+would have been more satisfied with this way of mourning for her than
+any other; but naturally Ursula, who thought of the loss to herself and
+the other children, found fault with this limitation of the misfortune.
+A man who has thus to fight for himself does not appear in an amiable
+aspect to his family, to whom, as to all young creatures, it seemed
+natural that _they_ should be the first objects; and as they were a
+great trouble and burden to him, perhaps the children did not always
+bear their most amiable aspect to their father. Both looked selfish to
+the other, and Mr. May, no doubt, could have made out quite as good a
+case as the children did. He thought all young people were selfish,
+taking everything they could, trying to extract even the impossible from
+the empty purse and strained patience of their elders; and they thought
+that he was indifferent to them, thinking about himself, as it is a
+capital sin in a parent to do; and both of them were right and both
+wrong, as indeed may be said in every case to which there are two sides.
+
+"Ursula has come!" cried the two little ones. Amy and Robin could read
+their father's face better than they could read those instruments of
+torture called printed books, and they saw that he was in a good humour,
+and that they were safe to venture upon the playful liberty of seizing
+him, one by each hand, and dragging him in. He was a tall man, and the
+sight of him triumphantly dragged in by these imps, the youngest of whom
+was about up to his knees, was pretty, and would have gone to the heart
+of any spectator. He was not himself unconscious of this, and when he
+was in a good humour, and the children were neat and tolerably dressed,
+he did not object to being seen by the passers-by dragged up his own
+steps by those two little ones. The only passers-by, however, on this
+occasion were a retired shopkeeper and his wife, who had lately bought
+one of the oldest houses in Grange Lane, and who had come out for a walk
+as the day was fine. "Mark my words, Tozer," the lady was saying,
+"that's a good man though he's a church parson. Them as children hangs
+onto like that, ain't got no harm in them."
+
+"He's a rum un, he is," said Mr. Tozer in reply. It was a pity that the
+pretty spectacle of the clergyman with his little boy and girl should
+have been thus thrown away upon a couple of Dissenters, yet it was not
+without its effect. Amy pulled one arm and Robin pulled the other. They
+were dark-haired children like all the Mays, and as this peculiarity is
+rare among children, it gave these two a certain piquancy.
+
+"Well, well," he said, "take me to Ursula," and after he had kissed his
+newly-arrived daughter, he sat down in the faded drawing-room with much
+geniality, and took one child on each knee.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself, Ursula," he said; "of course, we have
+missed you. Janey has done her best, but she is not very clever at
+housekeeping, nor does she understand many things that people require,
+as you have learned to do."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you have missed me!" said Ursula, "I mean sorry; I
+have enjoyed myself very, very much. The Dorsets were so kind, kinder
+than anybody ever was before."
+
+"And, papa, they have sent me a new dress."
+
+"And me too, papa," chirruped little Amy on his knee.
+
+"You too, Mouse! it was very kind of them; and you went to the Tower and
+did all the lions, Ursula? that is the lot of country cousins, and the
+Dorsets would spare you nothing, I suppose."
+
+"We went to much better things," said Ursula, producing her theatres and
+her ball as she had done before. "And, oh, papa, I like them so much. I
+wish we lived a little nearer. Those poor little Indian children, I fear
+they will be too much for Cousin Anne; they look so pale and so peevish,
+not like our children here."
+
+"Well, they are not pale at all events," said Mr. May, putting them
+down; "run and play like good children. You will have heard that we have
+had something happening to us, even in this quiet place, while you were
+away."
+
+"Oh, I was so astonished," said Ursula, "but Reginald doesn't seem to
+like it. That is so odd; I should have thought he would have been
+overjoyed to get something. He used to talk so about having no
+interest."
+
+"Reginald is like a great many other people. He does not know his own
+mind," said Mr. May, his countenance overcasting. Ursula knew that sign
+of coming storms well enough, but she was too much interested to
+forbear.
+
+"What is a sinecure, papa?" she asked, her brother's last word still
+dwelling in her mind.
+
+"A piece of outrageous folly," he cried, getting up and striding about
+the room, "all springing from the foolish books boys read now-a-days,
+and the nonsense that is put into their minds. Mean! it means that your
+brother is an ass, that is what it means. After all the money that has
+been spent upon him--"
+
+"But, papa, we have not spent much, have we? I thought it was his
+scholarship?" said Ursula with injudicious honesty. Her father turned
+upon her indignantly.
+
+"I am not aware that I said we. _We_ have nothing to spend upon any one,
+so far as I know. I said I--the only person in the house who earns any
+money or is likely to do so, if Reginald goes on in this idiotical way."
+
+Ursula grew red. She was Mr. May's own daughter, and had a temper too.
+"If I could earn any money I am sure I would," she cried, "and only too
+glad. I am sure it is wanted badly enough. But how is a girl to earn any
+money? I wish I knew how."
+
+"You little fool, no one was thinking of you. Do a little more in the
+house, and nobody will ask you to earn money. Yes, this is the shape
+things are taking now-a-days," said Mr. May, "the girls are mad to earn
+anyhow, and the boys, forsooth, have a hundred scruples. If women would
+hold their tongues and attend to their own business, I have no doubt we
+should have less of the other nonsense. The fact is everything is
+getting into an unnatural state. But if Reginald thinks I am going to
+maintain him in idleness at his age--"
+
+"Papa, for Heaven's sake don't speak so loud, he will hear you!" said
+Ursula, letting her fears of a domestic disturbance overweigh her
+prudence.
+
+"He will hear me? I wish him to hear me," said Mr. May, raising his
+voice. "Am I to be kept from saying what I like, how I like, in my own
+house, for fear that Reginald should hear me, forsooth! Ursula, I am
+glad to have you at home; but if you take Reginald's part in his folly,
+and set yourself against the head of the family, you had better go back
+again and at once. _He_ may defy me, but I shall not be contradicted by
+a chit of a girl, I give you my word for that."
+
+Ursula was silent; she grew pale now after her redness of hasty and
+unconsidered self-defence. Oh, for Cousin Anne to shield and calm her;
+what a difference it made to plunge back again thus into trouble and
+strife.
+
+"He thinks it better to be idle at his father's expense than to do a
+little work for a handsome salary," said Mr. May; "everything is right
+that is extracted from his father's pocket, though it is contrary to a
+high code of honour to accept a sinecure. Fine reasoning that, is it
+not? The one wrongs nobody, while the other wrongs you and me and all
+the children, who want every penny I have to spend; but Reginald is much
+too fine to think of that. He thinks it quite natural that I should go
+on toiling and stinting myself."
+
+"Papa, it may be very wrong what he is doing; but if you think he wants
+to take anything from you--"
+
+"Hold your tongue," said her father; "I believe in deeds, not in words.
+He has it in his power to help me, and he chooses instead, for a
+miserable fantastic notion of his own, to balk all my care for him. Of
+course the hospital was offered to him out of respect for me. No one
+cares for _him_. He is about as much known in Carlingford as--little Amy
+is. Of course it is to show their respect to me. And here he comes with
+his fantastic nonsense about a sinecure! Who is he that he should make
+such a fuss? Better men than he is have held them, and will to the end
+of the chapter. A sinecure! what does he call a sinecure?"
+
+"That is just what I want to know," said Ursula under her breath, but
+her father did not, fortunately, hear this ejaculation. Reginald had
+gone out, and happily was not within hearing, and Mr. May calmed down by
+degrees, and told Ursula various circumstances about the parish and the
+people which brought him down out of his anger and comforted her after
+that passage of arms. But the commotion left him in an excitable state,
+a state in which he was very apt to say things that were disagreeable,
+and to provoke his children to wrath in a way which Ursula thought was
+very much against the scriptural rule.
+
+"Things in the parish are going on much as usual," he said, "Mrs. Sam
+Hurst is as kind as ever."
+
+"Indeed!" said Ursula with a suppressed snort of anger. Mr. May gave the
+kind of offensive laugh, doubly offensive to every woman, which men give
+when their vanity is excited, and when there is, according to the common
+expression, a lady in the case.
+
+"Yes, she is very kind," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "She has had
+the children to tea a great many times since you have been away. To show
+my sense of her kindness, you must ask her one of these days. A woman
+who understands children is always a valuable friend for a man in my
+position--and also, Ursula, for a girl in yours."
+
+"She may understand children, but they are not fond of her," said
+Ursula, with a gleam of malice which restored her father to good humour.
+He had no more idea of marrying a second time than of flying. He was
+tenderly attached in his way to his wife's memory, and quite
+sufficiently troubled by the number of dwellers in his house already;
+but he rather liked, as a good-looking man in his wane generally does,
+to think that he could marry if he pleased, and to hold the possibility
+over the heads of his household, as a chastisement of all their sins
+against him which he could use at any time. All the Mays grew hot and
+angry at the name of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and their fear and anger delighted
+their father. He liked to speak of her to provoke them, and partly for
+that, partly for other reasons of his own, kept up a decorous
+semi-flirtation with his neighbour who lived next door, and thus excited
+the apprehensions and resentment of the girls every day of their lives.
+When Ursula thought of Mrs. Sam Hurst she wished for the Dorsets no
+more. It was above all things, she felt, her duty to be here on the spot
+to defend the family from that woman's machinations. The idea put energy
+into her. She ceased to be tired, ceased to feel herself, "after her
+journey," capable of nothing but sitting still and hearing of all that
+had been done since she went away.
+
+In the course of the evening, however, Ursula took advantage of a quiet
+moment to look into the dictionary and make herself quite safe about the
+meaning of the word sinecure. It was not the first time she had heard
+it, as may be supposed. She had heard of lucky people who held
+sinecures, and she had heard them denounced as evil things, but without
+entering closely into the meaning. Now she had a more direct interest in
+it, and it must be confessed that she was not at all frightened by the
+idea, or disposed to reject it as Reginald did. Ursula had not learnt
+much about public virtue, and to get a good income for doing nothing, or
+next to nothing, seemed to her an ideal sort of way of getting one's
+livelihood. She wished with a sigh that there were sinecures which could
+be held by girls. But no, in that as in other things "gentlemen" kept
+all that was good to themselves; and Ursula was disposed to treat
+Reginald's scruples with a very high hand. But she did not choose that
+her father should attack him with all these disagreeable speeches about
+maintaining him in idleness, and taunts about the money that had been
+spent on his education. That was not the way to manage him, the girl
+felt; but Ursula resolved to take her brother in hand herself, to argue
+with him how foolish it was, to point out to him that if he did not take
+it some one else would, and that the country would not gain anything
+while he would lose, to laugh at his over delicacy, to show him how
+delightful it would be if he was independent, and what a help to all his
+brothers and sisters. In short, it seemed quite simple to Ursula, and
+she felt her path mapped out before her, and triumphed in every stage of
+her argument, inventing the very weakest replies for Reginald to make.
+Full of the inspiration of this purpose, she felt that it was in every
+way well that she had come home. With Reginald settled close by, going
+away no longer, standing by her in her difficulties, and even perhaps,
+who could tell? taking her to parties, and affording her the means now
+and then of asking two or three people to tea, the whole horizon of her
+life brightened for Ursula. She became reconciled to Carlingford. All
+that had to be done was to show Reginald what his duty was, and how
+foolish he was to hesitate, and she could not allow herself to suppose
+that _when it was put before him properly_ there could long remain much
+difficulty upon that score.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PHOEBE'S PREPARATIONS.
+
+
+A few days after Ursula's return home, another arrival took place in
+Carlingford. Phoebe Beecham, after considering the case fully, and
+listening with keen interest to all the indications she could pick up as
+to the peculiarities of her grandfather's house, and the many things in
+life at Carlingford which were "unlike what she had been used to," had
+fully made up her mind to dare the difficulties of that unknown
+existence, and to devote herself in her mother's place to the care of
+her grandmother and the confusion of Mrs. Tom. This was partly
+undertaken out of a sense of duty, partly out of that desire for change
+and the unknown, which has to content itself in many cases with the very
+mildest provision, and partly because Phoebe's good sense perceived the
+necessity of the matter. She was by no means sure what were the special
+circumstances that made "Mrs. Tom" disagreeable to her mother, but she
+was deeply sensible of the importance of preventing Mrs. Tom from
+securing to herself and her family all that Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had to
+leave. Phoebe was not mercenary in her own person, but she had no idea of
+giving up any "rights," and she felt it of the utmost importance that
+her brother, who was unfortunately by no means so clever as herself,
+should be fully provided against all the contingencies of life. She was
+not concerned about herself in that particular. Phoebe felt it a matter
+of course that she should marry, and marry well. Self-confidence of this
+assured and tranquil sort serves a great many excellent purposes--it
+made her even generous in her way. She believed in her star, in her own
+certain good-fortune, in herself; and therefore her mind was free to
+think and to work for other people. She knew very well by all her mother
+said, and by all the hesitations of both her parents, that she would
+have many disagreeable things to encounter in Carlingford, but she felt
+so sure that nothing could really humiliate _her_, or pull her down from
+her real eminence, that the knowledge conveyed no fears to her mind.
+When this confidence in her own superiority to all debasing influences
+is held by the spotless princess in the poem, it is the most beautiful
+of human sentiments, and why it should not be equally elevated when
+entertained by a pink and plump modern young woman, well up in all
+nineteenth century refinements, and the daughter of the minister of the
+Crescent Chapel, it would be hard to say. Phoebe held it with the
+strongest faith.
+
+"Their ways of thinking, perhaps, and their ways of living, are not
+those which I have been used to," she said; "but how does that affect
+me? I am myself whatever happens; even if poor dear grandmamma's habits
+are not refined, which I suppose is what you mean, mamma, that does not
+make me unrefined. A lady must always be a lady wherever she is--Una,"
+she continued, using strangely enough the same argument which has
+occurred to her historian, "is not less a princess when she is living
+among the satyrs. Of course, I am not like Una--and neither are they
+like the wild people in the wood."
+
+Mrs. Beecham did not know much about Una, except that she was somebody
+in a book; but she kissed her daughter, and assured her that she was "a
+real comfort," and devoted herself to her comfort for the few days that
+remained, doing everything that it was possible to do to show her love,
+and, so to speak, gratitude to the good child who was thus throwing
+herself into the breach. The Beechams were in no want of money to buy
+what pleased them, and the mother made many additions to Phoebe's
+wardrobe which that young lady herself thought quite unnecessary, not
+reflecting that other sentiments besides that of simple love for herself
+were involved.
+
+"They shall see that my daughter is not just like one of their
+common-looking girls," Mrs. Beecham said to her husband; and he shared
+the feeling, though he could not but think within himself that her
+aspect was of very much more importance than the appearance of Phoebe
+Tozer's child could possibly be as _his_ daughter.
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," he replied, "vulgar people of that sort
+are but too ready to look down upon a pastor's family. They ought to be
+made to see the difference."
+
+The consequence of this was that Phoebe was fitted out like a young
+princess going on her travels. Ursula May would have been out of her
+wits with delight, had half these fine things come her way; but Phoebe
+took them very calmly.
+
+"I have never undervalued dress," she said, "as some girls do; I think
+it is a very important social influence. And even without that, mamma,
+so long as it pleases you--" So with this mixture of philosophy and
+affection all went well.
+
+"We must call on Mrs. Copperhead before you go; they would think it
+strange, after all the interest they have shown in us."
+
+"Have they shown an interest in us?" said Phoebe. "Of course we must
+call--and Mrs. Copperhead is a lady, but as for Mr. Copperhead, mamma--"
+
+"Hush! he is the leading member, and very influential in the connection.
+A pastor's family must not be touchy, Phoebe. We must put up with a great
+many things. There ought to be peace among brethren, you know, and
+harmony is the first thing that is essential in a church--"
+
+"I wonder if harmony would be as essential, supposing Mr. Copperhead to
+come to grief, mamma."
+
+"Phoebe! slang from you--who have always set your face against it."
+
+"What can one talk but slang when one thinks of such a person?" said
+Phoebe gravely; and thus saying she opened the door for her mother, and
+they went out in their best gowns to pay their visit. Mrs. Copperhead
+was very civil to the pastor's family. It was not in her to be uncivil
+to any one; but in her soft heart she despised them a little, and
+comported herself to them with that special good behaviour and dignified
+restraint which the best natured people reserve for their inferiors. For
+though she went to chapel, taken there by Mr. Copperhead, she was
+"church" at heart. The interest which Mrs. Beecham took in everything,
+and the praises she bestowed on the ball, did not relax her coldness.
+They were too well off, too warm and silken to call forth her
+sympathies, and there was little in common between them to afford any
+ground for meeting.
+
+Yes, Mr. Copperhead was quite well--she was quite well--her son was
+quite well. She hoped Mr. Beecham was well. She had heard that most
+people were pleased with the ball, thank you. Oh, Miss Beecham was going
+away--indeed! She hoped the weather would be good; and then Mrs.
+Copperhead sat erect upon her sofa, and did not try to say any more.
+Though she had not the heart of a mouse, she too could play the great
+lady when occasion served. Clarence, however, was much more hospitable
+than his mother. He liked Phoebe, who could talk almost as if she was in
+society, as girls talk in novels. He knew, of course, that she was not
+in society, but she was a girl whom a fellow could get on with, who had
+plenty to say for herself, who was not a lay figure like many young
+ladies; and then she was pretty, pink, and golden, "a piece of colour"
+which was attractive to the eye. He soon found out where she was going,
+and let her know that he himself intended a visit to the neighbourhood.
+
+"The Dorsets live near," he said. "Relations of my mother. You saw them
+at the ball. I dare say you will meet them somewhere about." This, it
+is to be feared, Clarence said in something of his mother's spirit, with
+a warm sense of superiority, for he knew that the pastor's daughter was
+very unlikely to meet the Dorsets. Phoebe, however, was equal to the
+occasion.
+
+"I am not at all likely to meet them," she said with a gracious smile.
+"For one thing, I am not going to enjoy myself, but to nurse a sick
+person. And sick people don't go to parties. Besides, you know the
+foolish prejudices of society, properly so called. I think them foolish
+because they affect me," said Phoebe, with engaging frankness. "If they
+did not affect me, probably I should think them all right."
+
+"What foolish prejudices?" said Clarence, thinking she was about to say
+something about her inferior position, and already feeling flattered
+before she spoke.
+
+"About Dissenters, you know," she said; "of course, you must be aware
+that we are looked down upon in society. It does not matter, for when
+people have any sense, as soon as they know us they do us justice; but
+of course you must be aware that the prejudice exists."
+
+Clarence did know, and with some bitterness; for Mr. Copperhead, though
+he did not care much, perhaps, about religion, cared for his chapel, and
+stood by it with unswerving strictness. His son, who was an Oxford man,
+and respectful of all the prejudices of society, did not like this. But
+what could he do against the obstinate dissentership of his father?
+This, as much as anything else, had acted upon the crowd the night of
+the ball, and made them all nobodies. He hesitated to make any reply,
+and his face flushed with shame and displeasure. Phoebe felt that she had
+avenged upon Clarence his mother's haughty politeness. She had brought
+home to him a sense of the social inferiority which was common to them
+both. Having done this, she was satisfied, and proceeded to soften the
+blow.
+
+"It cannot fall upon you, who are in so much better a position, as it
+does upon us," said Phoebe. "We are the very head and front of the
+offending, a Dissenting minister's family!--Society and its charms are
+not for us. And I hope we know our place," she said, with mock humility;
+"when people have any sense and come to know us it is different; and for
+the foolish ones I don't care. But you see from that, I am not likely to
+meet your cousins, am I?" she added with a laugh.
+
+"If you mean that they are among the foolish ones----"
+
+"Oh, no; I don't. But you can't suppose they will take the trouble to
+find _me_ out. Why should they? People entirely out of my range, and
+that have nothing to do with me. So you may be quite sure I am right
+when I say we sha'n't meet."
+
+"Well," said Clarence, piqued, "I am going to Easton, and I shall see
+you, if Mrs. Beecham will give me permission to call."
+
+"She will give you the address along with that; but till then,
+good-bye," said Phoebe. To tell the truth, she had no desire to see
+Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. Perhaps he meant something, perhaps
+he did not--at this stage of the proceedings it was a matter of
+indifference to Phoebe, who certainly had not allowed "her affections" to
+become engaged. If he did mean anything, was it likely that he could
+support unmoved the grandfather and grandmother who were, or had been,
+"in trade?" On the other hand, was it not better that he should know the
+worst? Phoebe was no husband-hunter. She contemplated the issue with calm
+and composure, however it might turn out.
+
+"He asked me if he might call," said Mrs. Beecham, in some excitement.
+"I don't care much to have you seen, my darling, out of your own
+father's house."
+
+"Just as you please, mamma--just as it suits best," said Phoebe,
+dismissing the subject. She was not anxious. A good deal depended on
+whether he meant anything or nothing, but even that did not conclude the
+subject, for she had not made up her own mind.
+
+"Why didn't you tell them about the Mays?" said Clarence, as the two
+ladies went out. "They live in Carlingford, and I should think it would
+be pleasant on both sides."
+
+"My dear boy, you forget the difference of position," said Mrs.
+Copperhead. "They are Dissenters."
+
+"Oh, I like that," cried Clarence, half angry, as himself sharing the
+disadvantages of the connection. "A needy beggar like May has a great
+deal to stand upon. I like that."
+
+"But it is true all the same," said Mrs. Copperhead, shaking her head.
+"And you can see the difference at once. I dare say Miss Beecham is a
+very clever young woman, but between her and Miss May what a difference
+there is! Any one can see it--"
+
+"I am afraid then I am stupid, for I can't see it, mother. They are both
+pretty girls, but for amusing you and that sort of thing give me Phoebe.
+She is worth twenty of the other. As sharp as a needle, and plenty to
+say for herself. This is the kind of girl I like."
+
+"I am very sorry for it. I hope that is not the kind of wife you will
+like," said Mrs. Copperhead, with a sigh.
+
+"Oh, wife! they haven't a penny, either the one or the other," said
+Clarence, with delightful openness, "and we may be sure that would not
+suit the governor even if it suited me."
+
+In the mean time Mrs. Beecham and Phoebe were walking up the broad
+pavement of Portland Place towards their home.
+
+"It is pleasant to see the mother and the son together," said Mrs.
+Beecham, who was determined to see everything in the best light that
+concerned the Copperheads. "They are so devoted to each other, and,
+Phoebe, dear--I don't like to talk in this way to a sensible girl like
+you, but you must see it with your own eyes. You have certainly made a
+great impression upon Clarence Copperhead. When he said he hoped to see
+you in Carlingford, and asked, might he call? it was exactly like asking
+my permission to pay you his addresses; it is very flattering, but it is
+embarrassing as well."
+
+"I do not feel particularly flattered, mamma; and I think if I were you
+I would not give him the address."
+
+Mrs. Beecham looked anxiously in her daughter's face.
+
+"Is it from prudence, Phoebe, or is it that you don't like him, that you
+wouldn't have him if he asked you?"
+
+"We must wait till he does ask me," said Phoebe, decisively. "Till then I
+can't possibly tell. But I don't want him at Carlingford. I know that
+grandpapa and grandmamma are--in trade."
+
+"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Beecham, in a subdued voice.
+
+"Dissenters, and in trade; and he is going to stay with the Dorsets,
+fine county people. Don't give him the address; if we meet by chance,
+there is no harm done. I am not ashamed of any one belonging to me. But
+you can say that you don't think his father would like him to be
+visiting me at Carlingford--which I am sure would be quite true."
+
+"Indeed he might go much farther without finding any one so well worth
+visiting," said the mother, indignant, to which Phoebe nodded her head in
+tranquil assent.
+
+"That is neither here nor there," she said; "you can always tell him so,
+and that will please Mr. Copperhead, if ever he comes to hear of it. He
+thought at one time that I was too entertaining. One knows what that
+means. I should like him to see how little I cared."
+
+"But, my dear, Clarence Copperhead would be worth--a little attention.
+He could give a girl--a very nice position," Mrs. Beecham faltered,
+looking at her daughter between every word.
+
+"I am not saying anything against Clarence Copperhead," said Phoebe, with
+composure, "but I should like his dear papa to know how little I care,
+and that you have refused him my address."
+
+This was all she said on the subject. Phoebe was quite ready to allow
+that Clarence was everything that her mother had said, and she had fully
+worked out her own theory on marriage, which will probably be hereafter
+expounded in these pages, so that she was not at all shocked by having
+his advantages thus pointed out to her. But there was no hurry, she said
+to herself. If it was not Clarence Copperhead, it would be some one
+else, and why should she, at this early stage of her career, attempt to
+precipitate the designs of Providence? She had plenty of time before
+her, and was in no hurry for any change; and a genuine touch of nature
+in her heart made her anxious for an opportunity of showing her
+independence to that arrogant and offensive "leading member," who made
+the life of the office-bearers in the Crescent a burden to them. If she
+could only so drive him into a corner, that he should be obliged to come
+to her in his despair, and beg her to accept his son's hand to save him
+from going off in a galloping consumption, that would have been a
+triumph after Phoebe's heart. To be sure this was a perfectly vain and
+wildly romantic hope--it was the only bit of wild and girlish romance in
+the bosom of a very well-educated, well-intentioned, and sensible young
+woman. She had seen her parents put up with the arrogance of the
+millionnaire for a long time without rebelling any more than they did;
+but Mr. Copperhead had gone further than Phoebe could bear; and
+thoroughly as she understood her own position, and all its interests,
+this one vain fancy had found a footing in her mind. If she could but
+humble him and make him sue to her. It was not likely, but for such a
+triumph the sensible Phoebe would have done much. It was the one point on
+which she was silly, but on that she was as silly as any cynic could
+desire.
+
+And thus with a huge trunk full of charming dresses, a dressing-case fit
+for any bride, the prettiest travelling costume imaginable, and
+everything about her fit, Mrs. Beecham fondly thought, for a duke's
+daughter, Phoebe junior took her departure, to be the comfort of her
+grandmamma, and to dazzle Carlingford. Her fond parents accompanied her
+to the station and placed her in a carriage, and fee'd a guard heavily
+to take care of and watch over her. "Not but that Phoebe might be safely
+trusted to take care of herself anywhere," they said. In which
+expression of their pride in their daughter, the observant reader may
+see a proof of their own origin from the humbler classes. They would
+probably have prided themselves on her timidity and helplessness had
+they been a little better born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+GRANGE LANE.
+
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from business several years before. They
+had given up the shop with its long established connection, and all its
+advantages, to Tom, their son, finding themselves to have enough to live
+upon in ease, and indeed luxury; and though Mrs. Tozer found the house
+in Grange Lane shut in by the garden walls to be much duller than her
+rooms over the shop in High Street, where she saw everything that was
+going on, yet the increase in gentility was unquestionable. The house
+which they were fortunate enough to secure in this desirable locality
+had been once in the occupation of Lady Weston, and there was
+accordingly an aroma of high life about it, although somebody less
+important had lived in it in the mean time, and it had fallen into a
+state of considerable dilapidation, which naturally made it cheaper. Mr.
+Tozer had solidly repaired all that was necessary for comfort, but he
+had not done anything in those external points of paint and decoration,
+which tells so much in the aspect of a house. Lady Weston's taste had
+been florid, and the walls continued as she had left them, painted and
+papered with faded wreaths, which were apt to look dissipated, as they
+ought to have been refreshed and renewed years before. But outside,
+where the wreaths do not fade, there was a delightful garden charmingly
+laid out, in which Lady Weston had once held her garden parties, and
+where the crocuses and other spring bulbs, which had been put in with a
+lavish hand, during Lady Weston's extravagant reign, had already begun
+to blow. The violets were peeping out from among their leaves on a
+sheltered bank, and Christmas roses, overblown, making a great show with
+their great white stars, in a corner. Tozer himself soon took a great
+interest in this little domain out of doors, and was for ever pottering
+about the flowers, obeying, with the servility of ignorance, the
+gardener's injunctions. Mrs. Tozer, however, who was in weak health, and
+consequently permitted to be somewhat cross and contradictory, regretted
+the High Street.
+
+"Talk of a garden," she said, "a thing as never changes except according
+to the seasons! Up in the town there was never a day the same, something
+always happening--Soldiers marching through, or Punch and Judy, or a
+row at the least. It is the cheerfullest place in the whole world, I do
+believe; shut up here may do for the gentry, but I likes the streets and
+what's going on. You may call me vulgar if you please, but so I do."
+
+Tozer prudently said nothing to such outbursts except a soothing
+exhortation to wait till summer, when she would find the benefit of the
+fresh air, not to speak of the early vegetables; and he himself found
+the garden an unspeakable resource. At first, indeed, he would stroll up
+to the shop of a morning, especially if any new consignment of
+first-rate York hams, or cheese, was coming in, which he loved to turn
+over and test by smell and touch; but by and by the ancient butterman
+made a discovery, such as we are all apt to make when we get old and
+step out of the high road of life. He found out that his son did not
+appreciate his advice, and that Mrs. Tom cared still less for his
+frequent appearances. Indeed, he himself once saw her bounce out of the
+shop as he entered, exclaiming audibly, "Here's that fussy old man
+again." Tozer was an old man, it is true, but nobody (under eighty)
+cares to have the epithet flung in his teeth; and to be in the way is
+always unpleasant. He had self-command enough to say nothing about it,
+except in a very modified shape to his wife, who was ready enough to
+believe anything unpleasant about Mrs. Tom; but he took to gardening
+with ardour from that day; and learned all about the succession of the
+flowers, and how long one set lasted, and which kind should be put into
+the ground next. He would even take off his coat and do a tolerable
+day's work under the gardener's direction, to the great advantage of his
+health and temper, while Mrs. Tozer grumbled upstairs. She was getting
+more and more helpless about the house, unable to see after the stout
+maid-of-all-work, who in her turn grumbled much at the large house, for
+which one maid was not enough. Many altercations took place in
+consequence between the mistress and servant.
+
+"The ungrateful hussy hasn't even as many rooms to do as she had in the
+High Street, when there was the 'prentices' beds to make," Mrs. Tozer
+said indignantly to her husband; but Jane on her side pointed to the
+length of passage, the stairs, the dining and drawing-rooms, where there
+had once only been a parlour.
+
+"Cook and 'ousemaid's little enough," said Jane; "there did ought to be
+a man in this kind of 'ouse; but as there's only two in family,
+shouldn't say nothing if I had a girl under me."
+
+Things were gravitating towards this girl at the time of Phoebe's
+arrival; but nothing had as yet been finally decided upon. Jane,
+however, had bestirred herself to get the young lady's room ready with
+something like alacrity. A young person coming to the house promised a
+little movement and change, which was always something, and Jane had no
+doubt that Phoebe would be on her side in respect to the "girl." "She'll
+want waiting upon, and there'll always be sending of errands," Jane said
+to herself. She knew by experience "what young 'uns is in a house."
+
+There was something, perhaps, in all the preparations for her departure
+which had thrown dust in Phoebe Beecham's eyes. She had been too
+sharp-sighted not to see into her mother's qualms and hesitations about
+her visit to Carlingford, and the repeated warnings of both parents as
+to the "difference from what she had been accustomed to;" and she
+thought she had fully prepared herself for what she was to encounter.
+But probably the elaborate outfit provided by her mother and the
+importance attached to her journey had to some degree obliterated this
+impression, for it is certain that when Phoebe saw an old man in a shabby
+coat, with a wisp of a large white neckcloth round his throat, watching
+anxiously for the arrival of the train as it came up, she sustained a
+shock which she had not anticipated. It was about five years since she
+had seen her grandfather, an interval due to hazard rather than purpose,
+though, on the whole, the elder Beechams had not been sorry to keep
+their parents and their children apart. Phoebe, however, knew her
+grandfather perfectly well as soon as she saw him, though he had not
+perceived her, and was wandering anxiously up and down in search of her.
+She held back in her corner for the moment, to overcome the shock. Yes,
+there could be no doubt about it; there he was, he whom she was going to
+visit, under whose auspices she was about to appear in Carlingford. He
+was not even like an old Dissenting minister, which had been her
+childish notion of him. He looked neither more nor less than what he
+was, an old shopkeeper, very decent and respectable, but a little shabby
+and greasy, like the men whose weekly bills she had been accustomed to
+pay for her mother. She felt an instant conviction that he would call
+her "Ma'am," if she went up to him, and think her one of the quality.
+Poor Phoebe! she sat back in her corner and gave a gasp of horror and
+dismay, but having done this, she was herself again. She gave herself a
+shake, like one who is about to take a plunge, rose lightly to her feet,
+took up her bag, and stepped out of the carriage, just as Mr. Tozer
+strolled anxiously past for the third time.
+
+"Grandpapa!" she cried with a smile. Mr. Tozer was almost as much taken
+aback by this apparition as Phoebe herself had been. He knew that his
+daughter had made great strides in social elevation, and that her
+children, when he had seen them last, had been quite like "gentlefolk's
+children;" but to see this young princess step forth graciously out of a
+first-class carriage, and address him as "grandpapa," took away his
+breath.
+
+"Why--why--why, Miss! you ain't little Phoebe?" he cried, scared out of
+his seven senses, as he afterwards said.
+
+"Yes, indeed, I am little Phoebe," she said, coming up and kissing him
+dutifully. She was half-disgusted, he half-frightened; but yet it was
+right, and Phoebe did it. "I have only two boxes and a bag," she said,
+"besides my dressing-case. If you will get a cab, grandpapa, I will go
+and see after the luggage."
+
+Old Tozer thought he could have carried the bag himself, and left the
+boxes to follow; but he succumbed humbly and obeyed.
+
+"She don't seem a bit proud," he said to himself; "but, good Lord,
+what'll she ever say to my old woman?"
+
+He saw the contrast very clearly between his wife and this splendid
+grandchild. It did not strike him so much in his own case.
+
+"How is grandmamma?" said Phoebe, blandly; "better, I hope? Mamma was so
+sorry not to come herself; but you know, of course, she has a great many
+things to do. People in town are obliged to keep up certain appearances.
+You are a great deal better off in the country, grandpapa."
+
+"Lord bless you, my dear, do you call Carlingford the country?" said Mr.
+Tozer. "That is all you know about it. Your granny and I are humble
+folks, but the new minister at Salem is one as keeps up appearances with
+the best. Your mother was always inclined for that. I hope she has not
+brought you up too fine for the likes of us."
+
+"I hope not, indeed," said Phoebe. "No fear of my being too fine for my
+duty, grandpapa. Do you live down this nice road? How pretty it is! how
+delightful these gardens must be in summer. I beg your pardon for
+calling it the country. It is so quiet and so nice, it seems the country
+to me."
+
+"Ah, to be sure; brought up in the London smoke," said Mr. Tozer. "I
+don't suppose, now, you see a bit of green from year's end to year's
+end? Very bad for the 'ealth, that is; but I can't say you look poorly
+on it. Your colour's fresh, so was your mother's before you. To be sure,
+she wasn't cooped up like you."
+
+"Oh, we do get a little fresh air sometimes--in the parks, for
+instance," said Phoebe. She was somewhat piqued by the idea that she was
+supposed to live in London smoke.
+
+"Ah, the parks are always something; but I suppose it takes you a day's
+journey to get at them," said Mr. Tozer, shaking his head. "You mustn't
+mind your grandmother's temper just at first, my dear. She's old, poor
+soul, and she ain't well, and she's sometimes cross above a bit. But
+she'll be that proud of you, she won't know if she's on her 'eels or 'er
+'ead; and as for a cross word now and again, I hope as you won't mind--"
+
+"I shan't mind anything, grandpapa," said Phoebe, sweetly, "so long as I
+can be of use."
+
+And these were, indeed, the dutiful sentiments with which she made her
+entry upon this passage in her life, not minding anything but to be of
+use. The first glimpse of old Tozer, indeed, made it quite evident to
+Phoebe that nothing but duty could be within her reach. Pleasure,
+friends, society, the thought of all such delights must be abandoned.
+And as for Clarence Copperhead and the Miss Dorsets, the notion of
+meeting or receiving them was too absurd. But Duty remained, and Phoebe
+felt herself capable of the sacrifice demanded from her. That confidence
+in herself which we have already indicated as a marked feature in her
+character, gave her the consoling certainty that she could not suffer
+from association with her humble relations. Whosoever saw her must do
+her justice, and that serene conviction preserved her from all the
+throes of uneasy pride which afflict inferior minds in similar
+circumstances. She had no wish to exhibit her grandfather and
+grandmother in their lowliness, nor to be ostentatious of her homely
+origin, as some people are in the very soreness of wounded pride; but if
+hazard produced the butterman in the midst of the finest of her
+acquaintances, Phoebe would still have been perfectly at her ease. She
+would be herself, whatever happened.
+
+In the mean time, however, it was apparent that Duty was what she had to
+look to; Duty, and that alone. She had come here, not to amuse herself,
+not to please herself, but to do her duty; and having thus concluded
+upon her object, she felt comparatively happy, and at her ease.
+
+Mrs. Tozer had put on her best cap, which was a very gorgeous creation.
+She had dressed herself as if for a party, with a large brooch,
+enclosing a curl of various coloured hair cut from the heads of her
+children in early life, which fastened a large worked collar over a
+dress of copper-coloured silk, and she rustled and shook a good deal as
+she came downstairs into the garden to meet her grandchild, with some
+excitement and sense of the "difference" which could not but be felt on
+one side as well as on the other. She, too, was somewhat frightened by
+the appearance of the young lady, who was her Phoebe's child, yet was so
+unlike any other scion of the Tozer race; and felt greatly disposed to
+curtsey and say "Ma'am" to her.
+
+"You've grown a deal and changed a deal since I saw you last," she said,
+restraining this impression, and receiving Phoebe's kiss with gratified,
+yet awe-struck feeling; and then her respectful alarm getting too much
+for her, she added, faltering, "You'll find us but humble folks; perhaps
+not altogether what you've been used to--"
+
+Phoebe did not think it expedient to make any reply to this outburst of
+humility.
+
+"Grandmamma, I am afraid you have over-exerted yourself, coming
+downstairs to meet me," she said, taking the old lady's hand, and
+drawing it within her arm. "Yes, I have grown; I am tall enough to be of
+some use; but you must not treat me as if I were a stranger. No, no;
+never mind my room. I am not tired; the journey is nothing. Let me take
+you back to your chair and make you comfortable. I feel myself quite at
+home already. The only odd thing is that I have never been here before."
+
+"Ah, my dear, your mother thought too much of you to send you to the
+likes of us; that's the secret of it. She was always fond of fine folks,
+was my Phoebe; and I don't blame her, bringing you up quite the lady as
+she's done."
+
+"You must not find fault with mamma," said Phoebe, smiling. "What a nice
+cozy room! This is the dining-room, I suppose; and here is your cushion,
+and your footstool at this nice window. How pleasant it is, with the
+crocuses in all the borders already! I am not at all tired; but I am
+sure it must be tea-time, and I should so like a cup of tea."
+
+"We thought," said Mrs. Tozer, "as perhaps you mightn't be used to tea
+at this time of day."
+
+"Oh, it is the right time; it is the fashionable hour," said Phoebe;
+"everybody has tea at five. I will run upstairs first, and take off my
+hat, and make myself tidy. Jane--is that her name?--don't trouble,
+grandmamma; Jane will show me the way."
+
+"Well?" said Mr. Tozer to Mrs. Tozer, as Phoebe disappeared. The two old
+people looked at each other with a little awe; but she, as was her
+nature, took the most depressing view. She shook her head.
+
+"She is a deal too fine for us, Tozer," she said. "She'll never make
+herself 'appy in our quiet way. Phoebe's been and brought her up quite
+the lady. It ain't as her dress is much matter. I'd have given her a
+silk myself, and never thought of it twice; and something lively like
+for a young person, 'stead of that gray stuff, as her mother might wear.
+But all the same, she ain't one of our sort. She'll never make herself
+'appy with you and me."
+
+"Well," said Tozer, who was more cheerful, "she ain't proud, not a bit;
+and as for manners, you don't pay no more for manners. She came up and
+give me a kiss in the station, as affectionate as possible. All I can
+say for her is as she ain't proud."
+
+Mrs. Tozer shook her head; but even while she did so, pleasanter dreams
+stole into her soul.
+
+"I hope I'll be well enough to get to chapel on Sunday," she said, "just
+to see the folk's looks. The minister needn't expect much attention to
+his sermon. 'There's Phoebe Tozer's daughter!' they'll all be saying, and
+a-staring, and a-whispering. It ain't often as anything like her is seen
+in chapel, that's a fact," said the old lady, warming into the
+exultation of natural pride.
+
+Phoebe, it must be allowed, had a good cry when she got within the
+shelter of her own room, which had been very carefully prepared for her,
+with everything that was necessary for comfort, according to her
+grandmother's standard; but where the "tent" bed hung with old-fashioned
+red and brown chintz, and the moreen curtains drooping over the window,
+and the gigantic flowers on the carpet, made Phoebe's soul sick within
+her. Notwithstanding all her courage, her heart sank. She had expected
+"a difference," but she had not looked for her grandfather's greasy coat
+and wisp of neckcloth, or her grandmother's amazing cap, or the
+grammatical peculiarities in which both indulged. She had a good hot fit
+of crying, and for the moment felt so discouraged and depressed, that
+the only impulse in her mind was to run away. But her temperament did
+not favour panics, and giving in was not in her. If somebody must do it,
+why should not she do it? she said to herself. How many times had she
+heard in sermons and otherwise that no one ought to look for the sweet
+without the bitter, and that duty should never be avoided or refused
+because it is unpleasant? Now was the time to put her principles to the
+test; and the tears relieved her, and gave her something of the feeling
+of a martyr, which is always consolatory and sweet; so she dried her
+eyes, and bathed her face, and went downstairs cheerful and smiling,
+resolved that, at all costs, her duty should be done, however
+disagreeable it might be. What a good thing the new fashion of five
+o'clock tea is for people who have connections in an inferior path of
+life who make tea a meal, and don't dine, or dine in the middle of the
+day! This was the thought that passed through Phoebe's mind as she went
+into the dining-room, and found the table covered, not to say groaning
+under good things. She took her place at it, and poured out tea for the
+old people, and cut bread-and-butter with the most gracious philosophy.
+Duchesses did the same every day; the tea-table had renewed its ancient
+sway, even in fashionable life. It cannot be told what a help and
+refreshment this thought was to Phoebe's courageous heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE TOZER FAMILY.
+
+
+When Phoebe woke next morning, under the huge flowers of the old
+fashioned cotton drapery of her "tent" bed, to see the faint daylight
+struggling in through the heavy curtains which would not draw back from
+the window, the discouragement of her first arrival for a moment
+overpowered her again--and with even more reason--for she had more fully
+ascertained the resources of the place in which she found herself. There
+were no books, except some old volumes of sermons and a few back numbers
+of the Congregational Magazine, no visitors, so far as she could make
+out, no newspaper but the Carlingford Weekly Gazette, nothing but her
+grandmother's gossip about the chapel and Mrs. Tom to pass the weary
+hours away. Even last night Mrs. Tozer had asked her whether she had not
+any work to beguile the long evening, which Phoebe occupied much more
+virtuously, from her own point of view, in endeavouring to amuse the old
+people by talking to them. Though it was morning, and she ought to have
+been refreshed and encouraged by the repose of the night, it was again
+with a few hot tears that Phoebe contemplated her prospects. But this was
+only a passing weakness. When she went down to breakfast, she was again
+cheerful as the crocuses that raised their heads along the borders with
+the promise of summer in them. The sun was shining, the sky was frosty,
+but blue. After all, her present sufferings could not endure for ever.
+Phoebe hurried to get dressed, to get her blue fingers warned by the
+dining-room fire. It is needless to say that there was no fire, or
+thought of a fire in the chilly room, with its red and brown hangings,
+in which Mrs. Tozer last night had hoped she would be happy. "No fear of
+that, grandmamma," she had answered cheerfully. This was as much a lie,
+she felt, as if it had been said with the wickedest intentions--was it
+as wrong? How cold it was, and yet how stifling! She could scarcely
+fasten the ribbon at her neck, her fingers were so cold.
+
+"Yes, grandpapa, it is brighter than in London. We don't live in the
+city, you know. We live in rather a pretty neighbourhood looking out on
+Regent's Park, but it is seldom so bright as the country. Sometimes the
+fog blows up our way, when the wind is in the east; but it is warmer, I
+think," said Phoebe, with a little shiver, stooping over the dining-room
+fire.
+
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Tozer, shaking her head, "it's your mother as has spoilt
+you, I don't make no doubt, with fires and things. That takes the
+hardiness out of young folks. A little bit of cold is wholesome, it
+stirs up the blood. Them as is used to fires is always taking cold. One
+good fire in the sitting-room, that's always been my principle, and them
+as is cold if they can't warm theirselves with movin' about, which is
+far the best, let them come and warm their fingers when they please--as
+you may be doing now."
+
+"Perhaps it is a very good principle, grandmamma," said Phoebe, "when one
+is used to it; but the country is colder than town. Where there are
+fires on every side you must have more warmth than in a detached house
+like this. But it is only my hands after all. Shall I make the tea?"
+
+"You should wear mittens like me--I always did in the High Street,
+especial when I was going and coming to the shop, helping serve, when
+the children were young and I had the time for it. Ah! we've done with
+all that now. We're more at our ease, but I can't say as we're much
+happier. A shop is a cheerful sort of thing. I dare say your mother has
+told you--"
+
+"No," said Phoebe, under her breath; but the reply was not noticed. She
+nearly dropped the teapot out of her hand when she heard the word--Shop!
+Yes, to be sure, that was what being "in trade" meant, but she had never
+quite realized it till now. Phoebe was going through a tremendous piece
+of mental discipline in these first days. She writhed secretly, and
+moaned to herself--why did not mamma tell me? but she sat quite still
+outside, and smiled as if it was all quite ordinary and natural, and
+she had heard about the shop all her life. It seemed cruel and unkind to
+have sent her here without distinct warning of what she was going to
+meet. But Phoebe was a good girl, and would not blame her father and
+mother. No doubt they meant it "for the best."
+
+"Is Uncle Tom," she said, faltering somewhat, "in the--shop now?"
+
+"If I'm able," said Mrs. Tozer, "I'll walk that far with you this
+morning--or Tozer, I mean your grandfather, will go. It's a tidy house
+o' business, though I say it as shouldn't, seeing it was him and me as
+made it all; though I don't hold with Mrs. Tom's nonsense about the new
+windows. Your Uncle Tom is as innocent as innocent, but as for her, she
+ain't no favourite of mine, and I makes no bones about saying so, I
+don't mind who hears."
+
+"She ain't so bad as you make her out," said Tozer. "She's kind enough
+in her way. Your grandmother is a-going to show you off--that's it, my
+dear. She can't abide Tom's wife, and she wants to show her as you're
+far finer than her girls. I don't say no. It's nat'ral, and I'm not one
+as stands against nature; but don't you be prejudiced by my old woman
+there. She _is_ a prejudiced one. Nothing in the world will make her
+give up a notion when she's took it into her head."
+
+"No, nothing; and ain't I always right in the end? I should think you've
+proved that times enough," said the old woman. "Yes, I'll take a little,
+my dear, since you press me so pretty. Folks take many a thing when
+they're pressed as they wouldn't touch if there was no one to say, take
+a bit. Tozer, he never thinks of that; he's always had the best o'
+appetites; but as for me, if I get's a cup o' tea that's all as I cares
+for. You'll see as she'll take my view, when she's once been to the High
+Street. She's her mother's daughter, and Phoebe can't abide that woman,
+no more than me."
+
+"Have they got many children?" said Phoebe. "I know there are two girls,
+but as I have never seen them--Are they as old as I am?" she asked, with
+a tremulous feeling at her heart. If there were girls in the shop in the
+High Street, with whom she would have to be on familiar terms, as her
+cousins and equals, Phoebe did not feel that she could put up with that.
+
+"The eldest, Polly, is only twelve," said Tozer; "but never you mind, my
+dear, for you shan't be without company. There's a deal of families with
+daughters like yourself. Your grandmother won't say nothing against it;
+and as for me, I think there's nought so cheery as young folks. You
+shall have a fire in the drawing-room, and as many tea-parties as you
+like. For the young men, I can't say as there's many, but girls is
+plenty, and as long as you're content with that--"
+
+Mrs. Tozer regarded him with withering contempt across the table.
+
+"You're clever ones, you men," she said. "Families with daughters! Do
+you think the Greens and the Robbins is company for _her_? I dare say as
+you've heard your mother speak of Maria Pigeon, my dear? She married
+John Green the grocer, and very well to do and respectable they may be,
+but nobody but the likes of your grandfather would think of you and them
+making friends."
+
+"Indeed I don't care for making friends," said Phoebe, "you must remember
+that I came not for society, but to wait upon you, dear grandmamma. I
+don't want young friends. At home I always go out with my mother; let me
+take walks with you, when you are able. I am glad Uncle Tom's children
+are little. I don't want company. My work--and the garden--and to sit
+with grandmamma, that is all I care for. I shall be as happy as the day
+is long," said this martyr, smiling benignly over the aches in her
+heart.
+
+Her grandparents looked at her with ever-growing pride. Was not this the
+ideal young woman, the girl of the story-books, who cared about nothing
+but her duty?
+
+"That's very nice of you, my dear; but you ain't going to hide yourself
+up in a corner," said Tozer. And, "Never fear, I'll take her wherever
+it's fit for her to go to," his wife added, looking at her with pride.
+Phoebe felt, in addition to all the rest, that she was to be made a show
+of to all the connection, as a specimen of what the Tozer blood could
+come to, and she did not even feel sure that something of the same
+feeling had not been in her mother's bosom when she fitted her out so
+perfectly. Phoebe Tozer had left contemporaries and rivals in
+Carlingford, and the thought of dazzling and surpassing them in her
+offspring as in her good fortune had still some sweetness for her mind.
+"Mamma meant it too!" Phoebe junior said to herself with a sigh.
+Unfortunately for her, she did everybody credit who belonged to her, and
+she must resign herself to pay the penalty. Perhaps there was some
+compensation in that thought.
+
+And indeed Phoebe did not wonder at her grandmother's pride when she
+walked up with her to High Street, supporting her on her arm. She
+recognised frankly that there were not many people like herself about,
+few who had so much the air of good society, and not one who was so well
+dressed. There were excuses to be made then for the anxiety of the old
+people to produce her in the little world which was everything to them,
+and with her usual candour and good sense she acknowledged this, though
+she winced a little when an occasional acquaintance drifted across Mrs.
+Tozer's path, and was introduced with pride to "my granddaughter," and
+thrust forth an ungloved hand, with an exclamation of, "Lord bless us,
+Phoebe's eldest! I hope I see you well, Miss." Phoebe continued urbane,
+though it cost her many a pang. She had to keep on a perpetual argument
+with herself as she went along slowly, holding up her poor grandmother's
+tottering steps. "If this is what we have really sprung from, this is my
+own class, and I ought to like it; if I don't like it, it must be my
+fault. I have no right to feel myself better than they are. It is not
+position that makes any difference, but individual character," Phoebe
+said to herself. She got as much consolation out of this as is to be
+extracted from such rueful arguments in general; but it was after all
+indifferent comfort, and had not her temperament given her a strong hold
+of herself, and power of subduing her impulses, it is much to be feared
+that Phoebe would have dropped her grandmother's arm as they approached
+the station, and run away. She did waver for a moment as she came in
+sight of it. On that side lay freedom, comfort, the life she had been
+used to, which was not very elevated indeed, but felt like high rank in
+comparison with this. And she knew her parents would forgive her and
+defend her if she went back to them, unable to support the martyrdom
+which she had rashly taken upon herself. But then how weak that would
+be, Phoebe thought to herself, drawing Mrs. Tozer's arm more tightly
+within her own--how small! how it would hurt the feelings of the old
+people, how it would vex and embarrass her father and mother! Lastly, it
+might peril her brother's interests and her own, which, to do her
+justice, was the last thing she thought of, and yet was not undeserving
+of notice in its way.
+
+"Lean on me more heavily, grandmamma," she said at last, finally
+concluding and throwing off this self-discussion. She could not prolong
+it further. It was unworthy of her. Hence-forward she had made up her
+mind to set her face like a flint, and no longer leave the question of
+her persistence in her domestic mission an open question. Whatever she
+might have "to put up with," it was now decided once for all.
+
+"Bless us all, if this ain't grandmamma," said Mrs. Tom. It was not
+often, as she herself said with pride, that she required to be in the
+shop, which was very much improved now from its old aspect. Ill luck,
+however, brought her here to-day. She stood at the door which led from
+the shop to the house, dividing the counter, talking to a lady who was
+making a complaint upon the quality of cheese or butter. Mrs. Tozer had
+led Phoebe that way in order to point out to her the plate-glass windows
+and marble slabs for the cheese, of which, though they were one of her
+grievances against Mrs. Tom, she was secretly proud.
+
+"I don't deny but what they've done a deal," said the old woman, "show
+and vanity as I call it. I wish they may do as well for themselves with
+all their plate-glass as me and Tozer did without it; but it ain't often
+as you'll see a handsomer shop," she added, contemplating fondly the
+scene of her early labours. If a squire looks fondly at his land, and a
+sailor at his ship (when ships were worth looking at), why should not a
+shopkeeper regard his shop with the same affectionate feelings? Mrs. Tom
+Tozer had just taken leave of her remonstrant customer with a curtsey,
+and an assurance that the faults complained of should be remedied, when
+she caught sight of the infirm old woman leaning on Phoebe's arm, and
+made the exclamation already quoted.
+
+"Lord bless us all! if it ain't grandmamma, and Phoebe's daughter along
+o' her, I'll lay you sixpence," said Mrs. Tom in the extremity of her
+surprise, and at the highest pitch of her voice. The lady customer was
+still in the shop, and when she heard this she turned round and gave the
+new-comers a stare. (It was not very wonderful, Phoebe allowed to herself
+with secret anguish). She gave old Mrs. Tozer a familiar nod. "This is
+quite a long walk for you now-a-days," she said, gazing at Phoebe, though
+she addressed the old woman.
+
+"Thank ye, ma'am, I am a deal better," said Mrs. Tozer, "especially as
+I've got my granddaughter to take care of me."
+
+"Oh! is this young--person your granddaughter," said the customer with
+another stare, and then she nodded again and went away wondering.
+"Well," Phoebe said to herself, "one little sting more or less what did
+it matter?" and she went on through the shop supporting her grandmother,
+keenly sensible of the looks that encountered her on every side. Mrs.
+Tom stood leaning against the counter, waiting for them without making
+any advance. She was smart and good-looking, with a malicious gleam in a
+pair of bright black beady eyes.
+
+"How are you, granny?" she said, "I declare you're looking quite young
+again, and as spry as twenty. Come in and rest; and this young lady as
+is with you, I don't think as I need ask her name, the likeness speaks
+for itself. It's Phoebe Beecham, ain't it? Bless us all! I'd have known
+her anywhere, I would; the very moral of her mother, and of you too,
+granny. As you stand there now, you're as like as two peas."
+
+Unconsciously Phoebe cast a look upon her grandmother. She did not think
+she was vain. To be unconscious that she had some personal advantages
+would, of course, be impossible; but a thrill crept through her when she
+looked at the old woman by her side, wrinkled and red, in her
+copper-coloured gown. As like as two peas! was that possible? Phoebe's
+heart sank for the moment to her shoes, and a pitiful look of restrained
+pain came to her face. This was assailing her in her tenderest point.
+
+"Am I so like you, grandmamma?" she said, faltering; but added quickly,
+"then I cannot be like mamma. How do you do? My mother wished me to come
+at once, to bring her kind regards. Is my uncle at home?"
+
+"No, Miss, your uncle ain't at home," said Mrs. Tom, "but you might be
+civil, all the same, and put a name to me, more nor if I was a dog. I'm
+your aunt, I am--and I likes all my titles, I do--and proper respect."
+
+"Surely," said Phoebe, with a bow and a gracious smile--but she did not
+add that name. She was pleased to think that "Tom's wife" was her
+mother's favourite aversion, and that a dignified resistance to her
+claims was, so to speak, her duty. It even amused her to think of the
+ingenuity required throughout a long conversation for the clever and
+polite eluding of this claim.
+
+"I hope as you mean to let us in, Amelia," said Mrs. Tozer, "for it
+ain't often as I takes so long a walk. I would never have thought of it
+but for Phoebe--Phoebe junior, as Tozer calls her. She's been used to
+things very different, but I'm thankful to say she ain't a bit proud.
+She couldn't be more attentive to me if I was the queen, and talks of
+your children as pretty as possible, without no nonsense. It ain't often
+as you see that in a girl brought up like she's been."
+
+"I don't pretend to know nothing of how she's been brought up," said
+Mrs. Tom, "and I don't think as there's no occasion for pride here.
+We're all well-to-do, and getting on in the world--thanks to Him as
+gives the increase. I don't see no opening for pride here. Me and your
+mother were never very good friends, Phoebe, since that's your name; but
+if there's anything I can do for you, or my family, you won't ask twice.
+Grandmother's ain't a very lively house, not like mine, as is full of
+children. Come in, Granny. I'm always speaking of making the stairs
+wider, and a big window on the landing; but folks can't do everything
+at once, and we'll have to do with it a bit longer. We've done a deal
+already to the old place."
+
+"More than was wanted, or was thought upon in my time," said the old
+lady, to whom this was as the trumpet of battle. "The stairs did well
+enough for me, and I can't think what Tom can want changing things as
+he's been used to all his life."
+
+"Oh, it ain't Tom," said his wife, her face lighting up with
+satisfaction. "Tom wouldn't mind if the place was to come to bits about
+our ears. He's like you, granny, he's one of the stand-still ones. It
+ain't Tom, it's me."
+
+This little passage of arms took place as they were going upstairs,
+which cost poor Mrs. Tozer many pantings and groaning, and placed Phoebe
+for once on Mrs. Tom's side, for a window on the landing would have been
+a wonderful improvement, there was no denying. When, at last, they had
+toiled to the top, fighting their way, not only through the obscurity,
+but through an atmosphere of ham and cheese which almost choked Phoebe,
+the old lady was speechless with the exertion, though the air was to her
+as the air of Paradise. Phoebe placed her on a chair and undid her
+bonnet-strings, and for a minute was really alarmed. Mrs. Tom, however,
+took it with perfect equanimity.
+
+"She's blown a bit; she ain't as young as she was, nor even as she
+thinks for," said that sympathetic person. "Come, Granny, cheer up. Them
+stairs ain't strange to you. What's the good of making a fuss? Sit down
+and get your breath," she went on, pulling forward a chair; then turning
+to Phoebe, she shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows. "She's
+breaking fast, that's what it is," said Mrs. Tom under her breath, with
+a nod of her head.
+
+"This is the room as your mother spent most of her life in when she was
+like you," said Mrs. Tozer, when she regained her breath. "It was here
+as she met your father first. The first time I set my eyes on him,
+'That's the man for my Phoebe,' I said to myself; and sure enough, so it
+turned out."
+
+"You didn't miss no way of helping it on, neither, granny, if folks do
+you justice," said Mrs. Tom. "Mothers can do a deal when they exerts
+themselves; and now Phoebe has a daughter of her own, I dare be sworn
+she's just as clever, throwing the nice ones and the well-off ones in
+her way. It's a wonder to me as she hasn't gone off yet, with all her
+opportunities--two or three and twenty, ain't you, Miss Phoebe? I should
+have thought you'd have married long afore now."
+
+"I stall be twenty my next birthday," said Phoebe. "My cousins are a
+great deal younger, I hear; are they at school? I hope I shall see them
+before I go."
+
+"Oh, you'll see 'em fast enough," said their mother, "they're 'aving
+their music lesson. I don't hold with sending girls to school. I likes
+to keep them under my own eye. I suppose I needn't ask you now if you
+play?"
+
+"A very little," said Phoebe, who rather piqued herself upon her music,
+and who was learned in Bach and Beethoven, and had an opinion of her own
+about Wagner. Mrs. Tom brightened visibly, for her girls played not a
+little, but a great deal.
+
+"And draw?--but I needn't ask, for living in London, you've got masters
+at your very door."
+
+"Not at all, I am sorry to say," said Phoebe, with a pathetic tone of
+regret in her voice.
+
+"Lord bless us! Now who'd have thought it? I think nothing a sacrifice
+to give mine the best of education," said Mrs. Tom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+STRANGERS.
+
+
+"Well, Ursula, how do you do?" said Mrs. Sam Hurst, meeting her young
+neighbour with outstretched hands. She was a portly good-looking woman
+with an active mind, and nothing, or next to nothing to do, and instead
+of being affronted as some persons might have been, she was amused, and
+indeed flattered, by the suspicion and alarm with which all the young
+Mays regarded her. Whether she had the least intention of ever giving
+any justification to their alarms it would be impossible to say, for
+indeed to a sensible woman of forty-five, well to do and comfortable, a
+husband with "a temper of his own," and a large poor unruly family, was,
+perhaps, not so tempting as he appeared to be to his jealous children.
+Anyhow she was not at all angry with them for being jealous and afraid
+of her. She was cordial in her manner to the Mays as to everybody she
+knew. She asked how Ursula had enjoyed herself, where she had been, what
+she had seen, and a hundred questions more.
+
+"It is quite delightful to see somebody who has something to tell," she
+said when the interrogation was over. "I ask everybody what news, and
+no one has any news, which is dreadful for me."
+
+"How can you care for news?" said Ursula, "news! what interest can there
+be in mere news that doesn't concern us?"
+
+"You are very foolish, my dear," said Mrs. Hurst; "what's to become of
+you when you're old, if you don't like to hear what's going on? I'm
+thankful to say I take a great deal, of interest in my fellow-creatures
+for my part. Now listen, I'll tell you a piece of news in return for all
+your information about London. When I was in Tozer's shop to-day--I
+always go there, though they are Dissenters; after all, you know, most
+tradespeople are Dissenters; some are sorry for it, some think it quite
+natural that gentle-people and tradespeople should think differently in
+religious matters; however, what I say is, you can't tell the difference
+in butter and bacon between church and dissent, can you now? and Tozer's
+is the best shop in the town, certainly the best shop. So as I was in
+Tozer's as I tell you, who should come in but old Mrs. Tozer, who once
+kept it herself--and by her side, figure my astonishment, a young lady!
+yes, my dear, actually a young lady, in appearance, of course--I mean in
+appearance--for, as you shall hear, it could be no more than that. So
+nicely dressed, nothing vulgar or showy, a gown that Elise might have
+made, and everything to correspond, in perfect taste. Fancy! and you may
+imagine how I stared. I could not take my eyes off her. I was so
+astonished that I rubbed up my old acquaintance with the old woman, and
+asked her how her rheumatism was. I _hope_ it is rheumatism. At all
+events I called it so, and then she told me as proud as a peacock that
+it was her granddaughter; fancy, her granddaughter! did you ever hear of
+such a thing? The other woman in the shop, the present Tozer, called out
+to her by name. Phoebe they called her. Poor girl, I was so sorry for
+her. A lady in appearance, and to have to submit to that!"
+
+"Oughtn't ladies to be called Phoebe?" asked Janey. "Why not? It's rather
+a pretty name."
+
+"That is so like Janey," said Mrs. Hurst; "I know she is the clever one;
+but she never can see what one means. It is not being called Phoebe, it
+is because of her relations that I am sorry for her. Poor girl!
+educating people out of their sphere does far more harm than good, I
+always maintain. To see that nice-looking, well-dressed girl in Tozer's
+shop, with all the butter boys calling her Phoebe--"
+
+"The butter boys are as good as any one else," cried Janey, whose
+tendencies were democratic. "I dare say she likes her relations as well
+as we like ours, and better, though they do keep a shop."
+
+"Oh, Janey!" cried Ursula, whose feelings were touched; then she
+remembered that her sympathies ought not to flow in the same channel
+with those of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and continued coldly, "If she had not
+liked them she need not have come to see them."
+
+"That is all you know, you girls. You don't know the plague of
+relations, and how people have got to humble themselves to keep money in
+the family, or keep up appearances, especially people that have risen in
+the world. I declare I think they pay dear for rising in the world, or
+their poor children pay dear--"
+
+"You seem to take a great deal of interest in the Tozers," said Ursula,
+glad to administer a little correction; "even if they came to St.
+Roque's I could understand it--but Dissenters!" This arrow struck home.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Hurst, colouring, "of all people to take an interest
+in Dissenters I am the last; but I was struck, I must admit, to see that
+old Mrs. Tozer, looking like an old washerwoman, with a girl in a
+twenty-guinea dress, you may take my word for it, though as plain as
+that little brown frock of yours, Ursula. That was a sight to wake any
+one up."
+
+Ursula looked down at the little brown frock thus contemptuously
+referred to, with mingled offence and consciousness of inferiority. It
+had not cost as many shillings, and had been made up at home, and was
+not a shining example of the dressmaker's art. "If you value people
+according to what their dress costs--"
+
+"I can't know much about her moral qualities, can I?" said Mrs. Hurst,
+"and I don't suppose she has any position, being old Tozer's grandchild.
+But she wasn't amiss in her looks, and I declare I should have taken her
+for a lady if I had met her in the street. It shows how one may be taken
+in. And this is a lesson for you, young girls; you must never trust to
+appearances. I confess I'd like to find out some more about her. Going
+in, Ursula? Well, my dear, perhaps I'll step in for a talk in the
+evening. You must be dull after your gaiety. Tell your dear papa," said
+Mrs. Hurst with a laugh, "that I am coming to sit with you after tea.
+Now mind you give him my message. He does not like to miss me when I
+come to the Parsonage, does he now? Good-bye for the present. Till eight
+o'clock."
+
+"Oh, how I hate her," cried Janey, "except sometimes when she makes me
+laugh and I feel tempted to like her; but I always resist it. Do you
+think really, Ursula, that papa could be--such a--stupid--"
+
+"Oh, please don't ask me," cried Ursula. "How can I tell? I don't know
+what he may do; but if he does--and if she does--oh, then, Janey--"
+
+"Yes, indeed, then!" said Janey, breathing hard. This mysterious threat
+seemed very horrible to both of them, though what they meant by it, it
+would have been very hard for either of them to tell. They waited within
+the little shrubbery whispering to each other till they heard Mrs. Hurst
+close her own door, for they did not want any more of her society,
+though they had no intention of going in. When she was safe out of the
+way, they stole out and continued their walk in the opposite direction.
+
+"I wanted to have gone into the town," said Ursula. "It _is_ hard to
+have that woman next door; one can't go anywhere or do anything! I
+wanted some braid for your new frock, Janey, and twist to make the
+button-holes; but if we had said we were going up into Carlingford, she
+would have come too. Never mind; a walk is better than nothing. Walk
+fast, and let us try how far we can go before tea."
+
+Upon this idea the two girls set out walking as if for a race, which did
+them all the good in the world, quickening the blood in their veins,
+sending the colour to their cheeks, and dispersing all the cobwebs from
+their minds, since they soon got into the spirit of the race, and
+pursued it with eagerness, with little outbursts of laughter, and
+breathless adjurations to each other to keep within the proper pace, and
+not to run. It was not a very inviting road along which they took their
+walk. Beyond St. Roque the land was divided into allotments for the
+working people, not very tidily kept, and rough with cut cabbages,
+plants, and dug-up potatoes. Beyond this lay a great turnip-field,
+somewhat rank in smell, and the east wind swept chill along the open
+road, which was not sheltered by a single tree, so that the attractions
+of the way soon palled upon pedestrians. Looking back to Grange Lane,
+the snug and sheltered look of that genteel adjunct to the town was
+comforting to behold. Even Grange Lane was not gay; a line of garden
+walls, however they may shelter and comfort the gardens within, are not
+lovely without; but yet the trees, though leafless, waved over the red
+lines of brick, and the big laurels hung out bushes of dark verdure and
+long floating sprays of ivy.
+
+"Let's turn back; perhaps she may not be at the window," cried Ursula.
+"It is so dull here."
+
+Janey stopped short in the heat of the walk, objecting for the moment.
+
+"I wish you had not gone to London. You never used to care for the
+streets and the shops; now a regular good walk is too much for you,"
+cried Janey.
+
+"With a turnip-field on one side and a potato-field on the other!" said
+Ursula, in high disdain.
+
+"I tell you what!" cried Janey. "I don't think I like you since you came
+back. The Dorsets are fine people, and we are not fine. There are no
+grand parties, nor theatres, nor balls at Carlingford. When we go out
+here, we go to walk, not to see things, as you have been used to doing.
+I don't know what you mean by it; nineteen years with us, and one
+fortnight with them! and the fortnight counts for more than all the
+years!"
+
+Janey was not in the habit of restraining her voice any more than
+anything else about her, and she spoke this out with loud school-girl
+tones, reckless who might hear her. In most cases she might have done
+this with the utmost impunity, and how was she to know, as she said to
+her sister afterwards, in self-defence, that any one, especially any
+gentleman, could be lurking about, spying upon people, among those nasty
+allotments? There was some one there, however, who came down the muddy
+path, all cut up by the wheel-barrows, with a smile upon his face. A
+gentleman? Janey called him so without a doubt on the subject; but
+Ursula, more enlightened and slightly irritated, had her doubts. He was
+dressed, not with any care of morning costume, but wore a black
+frock-coat of the most formal description, with a white cravat
+carelessly tied, semi-clerical, and yet not clerical. He had a smile on
+his face, which, on the whole, was rather a handsome face, and looked at
+them, showing evident signs of having heard what Janey said. To be sure,
+he did not say anything, but Ursula felt that his look was just the same
+as if he had spoken, and coloured high, resenting the intrusion. By this
+stranger's side was one of the men who had been working at the
+allotments, whose hands were not clean, and whose boots were heavy with
+the clinging, clayey soil. When they had nearly reached the road, the
+gentleman turned round and shook hands with his companion, and then
+walked on towards Carlingford, throwing another look towards the girls
+as he passed. It would be hard to say whether curiosity or anger was
+strongest in Ursula. In Janey, the former sentiment carried everything
+before it.
+
+"Oh, I wonder who he is?" she cried, low, but eager, in her sister's
+ear. "Who can he be, Ursula, who can he be? We know all the men about
+here, every one, as well as we know Reginald. Oh, Ursula, who do you
+think he can be?"
+
+"He is very impertinent," cried Ursula, with an angry blush. "How should
+I know? And oh! how very silly of you, Janey, to talk so loud, and make
+impudent men stare at us so."
+
+"Impudent!" cried Janey. "I didn't talk loud. He looked rather nice, on
+the contrary. Why, he laughed! Do you call that impudent? It can't be
+anybody from the town, because we know everybody; and did you see him
+shaking hands with that man? How very funny! Let us run in and tell Mrs.
+Sam Hurst, and ask her who she thinks he is. She is sure to know."
+
+"Janey," said Ursula, severely, "if you live very long, you will be as
+great a gossip and as fond of news as Mrs. Sam Hurst herself."
+
+"I don't care," cried Janey; "you're just as fond of news as I am, only
+you won't confess it. I am dying to know who he is. He is quite
+nice-looking, and tall and grand. A new gentleman! Come, quick, Ursula;
+let us get back and see where he goes."
+
+"Janey!" cried the elder sister. She was half curious herself, but
+Ursula was old enough to know better, and to be ashamed of the other's
+naïve and undisguised curiosity. "Oh, what would Cousin Anne say! A girl
+running after a gentleman (even if he is a gentleman), to see where he
+goes!"
+
+"Well!" cried Janey, "if she wants to know, what else is she to do? Who
+cares for Cousin Anne? She is an old maid. Why, if it had been a lady, I
+shouldn't have minded. There are so many ladies; but a new gentleman! If
+you won't come on, I will run by myself. How pleased Mrs. Sam Hurst will
+be!"
+
+"I thought you hated Mrs. Sam Hurst?"
+
+"So I do when I think of papa; but when there's anything going on, or
+anything to find out, I like her dearly. She's such fun! She never
+shilly-shallies, like you. She's not an old maid like your Cousin Anne
+that you are always talking of. Come along! if anybody else finds out
+who he is before we do," cried Janey, with almost despairing energy, "I
+shall break my heart!"
+
+Ursula stoically resisted the tug upon her, but she went back to Grange
+Lane, to which, indeed, she had turned her face before they met the
+stranger, and she could not help seeing the tall black figure in front
+of her which Janey watched so eagerly. Ursula was not eager, but she
+could not help seeing him. He walked up the street quickly, not as if he
+thought himself of interest to any one, but when he had got half way up
+Grange Lane, crossed to speak to somebody. This filled Janey with
+consternation.
+
+"He is not such a stranger after all," she cried. "He knows some one. He
+will not be quite a discovery. Who is it he is talking to, I wonder? He
+is standing at one of the doors, but it is not Miss Humphreys, nor Miss
+Griffiths, nor any of the Charters. Perhaps she is a stranger too. If he
+is married he won't be half so interesting, for there are always plenty
+of ladies. Perhaps he has just come by the railway to spend the day--but
+then there is nothing to see in Carlingford, and how did he know that
+man at the lots? Oh, Ursula, why don't you answer me? why don't you say
+something? have you no feeling? I am sure it don't matter a bit to me,
+for I am not out; I am never asked to parties--but I take an interest
+for you other girls' sake."
+
+Before this time, however, Ursula had found a new object of interest.
+She had not been quite so unmoved as Janey supposed. A new gentleman was
+a thing to awaken anybody who knew Carlingford, for, indeed, gentlemen
+were scarce in the society of the little town, and even at the most mild
+of tea-parties it is ludicrous to see one man (and that most likely a
+curate) among a dozen ladies--so that even when she appeared to Janey to
+wonder, she felt that her sister's curiosity was not unjustifiable. But
+while thus engaged in the enterprise of discovering "a new gentleman"
+for the good of society, Ursula's eyes and her attention were caught by
+another interest. The stranger had crossed the street to talk to a lady,
+who had been walking down the Lane, and whom Ursula felt she had seen
+somewhere. Who was it? Certainly not Miss Humphreys, nor Miss Griffiths,
+nor any other of the well-known young ladies of Grange Lane. The setting
+sun, which had come out suddenly after a dull day, threw a slanting,
+long-drawn ray up the street, which fell upon the strangers, as they
+stood talking. This ray caught the young lady's hair, and flashed back a
+reflection out of the shining coils which looked to Ursula (being dark
+herself, she admired golden hair more than anything) as bright as the
+sunshine. And in the light she caught the out-line of a pretty head, and
+of a nose slightly "tip-tilted," according to the model which the
+Laureate has brought into fashion. Where had she seen her before? She
+remembered all at once with a rush of bewildered pleasure.
+
+"Janey! Oh, Janey!" she cried, "Listen! This is too extraordinary. There
+is the young lady in black!"
+
+Janey, as may be supposed, had heard every detail of Mrs. Copperhead's
+ball, and knew what Ursula meant as well as Ursula herself did. She grew
+pale with excitement and curiosity. "No!" she said, "you can't mean it.
+Are you sure, are you quite sure? Two new people in one day! Why,
+everybody must be coming to Carlingford. It makes me feel quite
+strange!" said this susceptible young woman; "the young lady in black!"
+
+"Oh, yes, there can't be any mistake," said Ursula, hurrying on in her
+excitement, "I looked at her so much. I couldn't mistake her. Oh, I
+wonder if she will know me, I wonder if she will speak to me! or if she
+is going to see the Dorsets, or what has brought her to Carlingford.
+Only fancy, Janey, the young lady in black whom I have talked so much
+of; oh, I wonder, I do wonder what has brought her here."
+
+They were on the opposite side of the lane, so that their hurried
+approach did not startle the strangers; but Phoebe, looking up at the
+sound of the footsteps, saw a face she knew looking wistfully, eagerly
+at her, with evident recognition. Phoebe had a faculty quite royal of
+remembering faces, and it took but a moment to recall Ursula's to her.
+Another moment was spent in a rapid discussion with herself, as to
+whether she should give or withhold the salutation which the girl
+evidently sought. But what harm could it do? and it would be pleasant to
+know some one; and if on finding out who she was, Miss Dorset's little
+relation shrank from her acquaintance, why then, Phoebe said to herself,
+"I shall be no worse than before." So she sent a smile and a bow across
+the road and said, "How do you do?" in a pause of her conversation.
+Ursula was too shy to feel on equal terms with the young lady in black,
+who was so much more self-possessed than she was. She blushed and
+smiled, answered, "Quite well, thank you," across the lane like a child,
+and notwithstanding a great many pokes from Janey's energetic elbow,
+went on without further response.
+
+"Oh, why can't you run across and speak to her?" cried Janey, "oh, how
+funny you are, and how disagreeable! would _I_ pass any one I knew, like
+that!"
+
+"You don't understand, you are only a child," said Ursula, frightened
+and agitated, yet full of dignity, "we have only met--in society. When
+you are introduced to any one in society it does not count. Perhaps they
+might not want to know you; perhaps--but anyhow you can't rush up to
+them like two girls at school. You have to wait and see what they will
+do."
+
+"Well, I declare!" cried Janey; "then what is the good of society? You
+know them, and yet you mustn't know them. I would never be such a fool
+as that. Fancy looking at her across the lane and saying 'quite well,
+thank you,' after she had begun to speak. I suppose that's Cousin Anne's
+way? I should have rushed across and asked where she was staying, and
+when she would come to see us. Ursula, oh," cried Janey, suddenly
+changing her tone, and looking at her sister with eyes which had widened
+to twice their natural size with the grandeur of the idea, "you will
+have to ask her to tea!"
+
+"Oh, you silly girl, do you think she would come? you should have seen
+her at the ball. She knew everybody, and had such quantities of
+partners. Mr. Clarence Copperhead was always dancing with her. Fancy her
+coming to tea with us." But Ursula herself was somewhat breathless with
+the suggestion. When a thing has been once said, there is always a
+chance that it may be done, and the two girls walked up very quickly
+into the High Street after this, silent, with a certain awe of
+themselves and their possibilities. It might be done, now that it had
+been said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A DOMESTIC CRISIS.
+
+
+The interest shown by the two girls in the stranger whom they had noted
+with so much attention was not destined to meet with any immediate
+reward. Neither he, nor "the young lady in black," whom he hurried
+across the street to meet, could be heard of, or was seen for full two
+days afterwards, to the great disappointment of the young Mays. Ursula,
+especially, who had been entertaining vague but dazzling thoughts of a
+companionship more interesting than Janey's, more novel and at the same
+time more equal than that which was extended to her by the Miss
+Griffiths in Grange Lane, who were so much better off and had so much
+less to do than she. Ursula did not recollect the name of the fortunate
+girl who was so much in the ascendant at Mr. Copperhead's ball, though
+Phoebe had been introduced to her; but she did recollect her popularity
+and general friendliness, and the number of partners she had, and all
+those delightful signs of greatness which impress a poor little
+stranger, to whom her first dance is not unmingled pleasure. She
+whispered to Janey about her even in the drawing-room when all the
+family were assembled.
+
+"Do you think she will call?" said Ursula, asking counsel even of
+Janey's inexperience, of which she was so contemptuous on other
+occasions.
+
+"Call! how can she, if she is a stranger?" said Janey.
+
+"As if you knew anything about it!" Ursula retorted with great
+injustice.
+
+"If I don't know, then why do you ask me?" complained Janey with reason.
+The room looked more cheerful since Ursula had come home. The fire, no
+longer choked with cinders, burned clear and red. The lamp, though it
+was a cheap one, and burned paraffin oil, did not smell. The old
+curtains were nicely drawn, and the old covers smoothed over the chairs.
+All this did not make them look less old; but it made their antiquity
+natural and becoming. Johnnie, the school-boy, was learning his lessons
+on the rug before the fire. Reginald sat writing, with a candle all to
+himself, at a writing-table in a corner. Ursula and Janey were working
+at the centre table by the light of the lamp. They had no time, you may
+imagine, for fancy-work. Janey, with many contortions of her person,
+especially of her mouth, with which she seemed to follow the movements
+of her needle, was stitching up a sleeve of her new frock which Miss
+Dorset had sent her, and which a poor dress-maker, who "went out," was
+at this moment making up in the schoolroom; while Ursula was still busy
+with the basket of stockings which she had found awaiting her on their
+return. What Reginald was doing at the writing-table was probably a
+great deal less useful, but the girls respected his occupation as no one
+ever thought of respecting theirs, and carried on their conversation
+under their breath, not to interrupt him. The little children had gone
+to bed, tea was over, and several hours of the long winter evening still
+before them. Janey had given over lessons, partly because there was no
+one to insist upon her doing them. Once in a week or so her father gave
+her a lecture for her ignorance, and ordered her into his study to do a
+long sum in arithmetic out of the first old "Colenso" that could be
+picked up; and about once a week too, awakening suddenly to a sense of
+her own deficiencies, she would "practise" energetically on the old
+piano. This was all that was being done for Janey in the way of
+education. She was fifteen, and as Johnnie, and Amy, and Robin were at
+an age when school is a necessity, the only retrenchment possible was to
+keep Janey at home. Ursula had got what education she possessed in the
+same irregular way. It was not much. Besides reading and writing, she
+had pretty manners, which came by nature like those other gifts. A girl
+is not so badly off who can read and write and has pretty manners. Janey
+possessed the two first faculties, but neither had nor apparently could
+acquire the third. The two dark brown heads were close together as they
+worked--Ursula's shining and neat, and carefully arranged, Janey's rough
+with elf-locks; but they were more interesting than Reginald, though he
+was so much better informed. As for Johnnie, he lay extended on the rug,
+his head slightly raised on his two hands, his book on a level with the
+rest of his person, saying over his lesson to himself with moving lips.
+And now and then, when the girls' whispered chatter was silent, the
+sound of Reginald's pen scratching across the paper would fill up the
+interval; it was a sound which filled them all with respect.
+
+This peaceful domestic scene was broken in upon by the entry of Mr. May.
+From the moment that he closed the hall-door behind him, coming in, a
+little thrill ran through the family party. The girls looked at each
+other when they heard that sound, and Johnnie, without stopping his
+inward repetition, shifted himself and his book adroitly, with the
+cleverness of practice, to the side instead of the front of the fire.
+Reginald's pen stopped its scratching, and he wheeled round on his chair
+to give an appealing glance at his sisters.
+
+"What is it now?" he said hurriedly. Every one knew that when the door
+was closed like that it meant something like a declaration of war. But
+they had not much time to wait and wonder. Mr. May came in, pushing the
+door wide open before him, and admitting a gust of chill air of the
+January night. He looked at the peaceable domestic scene with a "humph"
+of dissatisfaction, because there was nothing to find fault with, which
+is as great a grievance as another when one is in the mood for
+grievances. He had come in cross and out of sorts, with a private cause
+for his ill-temper, which he did not choose to reveal, and it would have
+been a relief to him had he found them all chattering or wasting their
+time, instead of being occupied in this perfectly dutiful way--even
+Johnnie at his lessons, repeating them over under his breath. What was
+the world coming to? Mr. May was disappointed. Instead of leading up to
+it gradually by a general _battue_ of his children all round, he had to
+open upon his chief subject at once, which was not nearly so agreeable a
+way.
+
+"What are you doing, Reginald?" he asked, roughly, pulling his chair to
+the other side of the fire, opposite the corner to which Johnnie had
+scuffled out of the way. "I have come in especially to speak to you. It
+is time this shilly-shallying was done with. Do you mean to accept the
+College chaplaincy or not? an answer must be given, and that at once.
+Are you so busy that you can't attend to what I say?"
+
+"I am not busy at all, sir," said Reginald, in a subdued voice, while
+his sisters cast sympathetic looks at him. Both the girls, it is true,
+thought him extremely foolish, but what of that? Necessarily they were
+on his side against papa.
+
+"I thought as much; indeed it would be hard to say what you could find
+to be busy at. But look here, this must come to an end one way or
+another. You know my opinion on the subject."
+
+"And you know mine, sir," said Reginald, rising and coming forward to
+the fire. "I don't say anything against the old College. For an old man
+it might be quite a justifiable arrangement--one who had already spent
+his strength in work--but for me--of course there is nothing in the
+world to do."
+
+"And two hundred and fifty a year for the doing of it--not to speak of
+the house, which you could let for fifty more."
+
+"Father! don't you see that is just the very thing that I object to, so
+much for nothing."
+
+"You prefer nothing for nothing," said Mr. May, with a smile; "well, I
+suppose that is more fair, perhaps--to the public;--but how about me? A
+son of three-and-twenty depending upon me for everything, useless and
+bringing in nothing, does not suit me. You are all the same," he said,
+"all taking from me, with a thousand wants, education, clothes,
+amusement--"
+
+"I am sure," said the irrepressible Janey, "it is not much clothes we
+get, and as for amusements--and education!"
+
+"Hold your tongue," cried her father. "Here are six of you, one more
+helpless than another, and the eldest the most helpless of all. I did
+not force you into the Church. You might have gone out to James if you
+had liked--but you chose an academical career, and then there was
+nothing else for it. I gave you a title to orders. You are my curate
+just now--so called; but you know I can't pay a curate, and you know I
+can't afford to keep you. Providence--" said Mr. May, sitting up in his
+chair, with a certain solemnity, "Providence itself has stepped in to
+make your path clear. Here is better than a living, a provision for you.
+I don't bid you take it for life; take it for a year or two till you can
+hear of something better. Now what on earth is your objection to this?"
+
+The girls had both turned their faces towards their brother. Janey,
+always the first in action, repeated almost unconsciously. "Yes, what
+on earth, Reginald, can be your objection to this?"
+
+Reginald stood in the middle of the room and looked helplessly at them.
+Against his father alone he might have made a stand--but when the united
+family thus gazed at him with inquiring and reproachful looks, what was
+he to say?
+
+"Objection!" he faltered, "you know very well what my objection is. It
+is not honest work--it is no work. It is a waste of money that might be
+better employed; it is a sinecure."
+
+"And what do you call your nominal curateship," said his father, "is not
+that a sinecure too?"
+
+"If it is," said Reginald, growing red, but feeling bolder, for here the
+family veered round, and placed itself on his side, "it is of a contrary
+kind. It is _sine_ pay. My work may be bad, though I hope not, but my
+pay is nothing. I don't see any resemblance between the two."
+
+"Your pay nothing!" cried the father, enraged; "what do you call your
+living, your food that you are so fastidious about, your floods of beer
+and all the rest of it--not to speak of tailors' bills much heavier than
+mine?"
+
+"Which are never paid."
+
+"Whose fault is it that they are never paid? yours and the others who
+weigh me down to the ground, and never try to help or do anything for
+themselves. Never paid! how should I have gone on to this period and
+secured universal respect if they had never been paid? I have had to pay
+for all of you," said Mr. May, bitterly, "and all your vagaries;
+education, till I have been nearly ruined; dresses and ribbons, and a
+hundred fooleries for these girls, who are of no use, who will never
+give me back a farthing."
+
+"Papa!" cried Ursula and Janey in one breath.
+
+"Hold your tongues! useless impedimenta, not even able to scrub the
+floors, and make the beds, which is all you could ever be good for--and
+you must have a servant forsooth to do even that. But why should I speak
+of the girls?" he added, with a sarcastic smile, "they can do nothing
+better, poor creatures; but you! who call yourself a man--a University
+man, save the mark--a fine fellow with the Oxford stamp upon you,
+twenty-three your next birthday. It is a fine thing that I should still
+have to support you."
+
+Reginald began to walk up and down the room, stung beyond bearing--not
+that he had not heard it all before, but to get accustomed to such
+taunts is difficult, and it is still more difficult for a young and
+susceptible mind to contradict all that is seemly and becoming in
+nature, and to put forth its own statement in return. Reginald knew that
+his education had in reality cost his father very little, and that his
+father knew this. He was aware, too, much more distinctly than Mr. May
+knew, of James's remittances on his account; but what could he say? It
+was his father who insulted him, and the young man's lips were closed;
+but the effort was a hard one. He could not stand still there and face
+the man who had so little consideration for his feelings. All he could
+do was to keep his agitation and irritation down by that hurried
+promenade about the room, listening as little as he could, and answering
+not at all.
+
+"Oh, papa! how can you?" cried Janey, seizing the first pause. Janey was
+not old enough to understand the delicacy that closed Reginald's lips,
+and the impulse of self-defence was stirring in her; "how dare you talk
+to Ursula so? I mayn't be much use, but Ursula! nice and comfortable you
+were when she was away! as if you didn't say so ten times in a morning;
+to be sure that was to make me feel uncomfortable. Scrub floors!" cried
+Janey, in the violence of her resentment. "I'll go out and be a
+maid-of-all-work whenever you please. I am sure it would be much happier
+than here."
+
+"Hold your tongue," said Mr. May, "you scolding and Ursula crying;
+that's the beauty of the feminine element in a house. I ought to be very
+thankful, oughtn't I, that I have girls to furnish this agreeable
+variety? But as for you, Reginald," his father added, "mark my words, if
+you determine to reject this windfall that Providence has blown into
+your hands, it must be done at once. No further play of I would and I
+would not, if you please, here; and if it does not suit you, you will
+please to understand that I have no further need for a curate that suits
+me still less. I want your room. If nothing else can be done, I must try
+to take a pupil to add a little to the income which has so many claims
+upon it; and I don't mean to go on keeping you--this is plain enough, I
+hope."
+
+"Very plain, sir," said Reginald, who had grown as pale as he was red
+before.
+
+"I am glad to hear it; you will write to the Corporation at once,
+accepting or rejecting at your pleasure; but this must be done to-night.
+I must insist on its being done to-night; and if you find yourself
+sufficiently bold to reject an income," said Mr. May with emphasis, "and
+go off into the world without a penny in your pocket, I wash my hands of
+it; it is nothing to me."
+
+Then there was a pause. The father of the family sat down in his chair,
+and looked round him with the happy consciousness that he had made
+everybody miserable. The girls were both crying, Reginald pale and
+desperate, coming and going through the room. No one had escaped but
+Johnnie, who, happy in insignificance, lay all his length on the other
+side of the fire, and lifted his face from his book to watch the
+discomfiture of the others. Johnnie had no terrors on his own account.
+He had done nothing to call forth the paternal wrath. Mr. May could not
+resist this temptation.
+
+"Is that a way to learn lessons as they ought to be learnt?" he cried
+suddenly, throwing one of his darts at the unthinking boy. "Get up this
+moment, and sit down to a table somewhere. Your own room, where there is
+nobody to disturb you, is better than amid the chit-chat here; do you
+hear me? get up, sir, and go."
+
+Johnnie stumbled to his feet appalled; he was too much startled to say
+anything. He took his books across the room to the writing-table which
+Reginald had abandoned in a similar way. But by the time he reached that
+haven, he came to himself, and recovering his courage muttered something
+about the hardship to which he was thus exposed, as boys have a way of
+doing; upon which Mr. May got suddenly up, seized him by the shoulders
+and turned him out of the drawing-room. "I said your own room, sir,"
+cried this impartial father, distributing to all alike an equal share of
+his urbanities. When he had accomplished this, he stood for a moment and
+looked at the rest of his confused and uncomfortable family. "There is
+not much cheerful society to be had here this evening, I perceive," he
+said. "It is pleasant to come in from one's cares and find a reception
+like this, don't you think? Let some one bring me some coffee to my
+study. I am going to write."
+
+"Whose fault is it that he gets such a reception?" burst forth Janey,
+the moment her father had closed the door. "Who does it all, I wonder?
+Who treats us like a set of wretches without any feeling? I can't hush,
+I won't hush! Oh, shouldn't I be glad to go out as a housemaid, to do
+anything!"
+
+"Oh, Janey, hush! we can't help ourselves, we are obliged to put up with
+it," said Ursula; "but Reginald, he is not obliged, he can save himself
+when he likes. Oh, I know, I know papa is unreasonable; but, Reginald,
+aren't you a little bit unreasonable too?"
+
+"Don't you begin to reproach me," cried the young man, "I have had
+enough for one day. Have I been such a charge upon him, Ursula? What has
+he spent upon me? Next to nothing. That tailor's bill he spoke of, he
+knew as well as I do that I paid it by the tutorship I had in the
+vacation. It is his bill that is not paid, not mine. And then James's
+money--"
+
+"Oh, never mind that, never mind the past," cried Ursula, "think of the
+present, that's what you ought to do. Oh, Reginald, think; if _I_ had
+the chance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year! there is nothing I
+would not do for it. I would scrub floors, as he said, I would do
+anything, the dirtiest work. You will be independent, able to do what
+you please, and never to ask papa for anything. Reginald, think! Oh,
+dear, dear, I wish I knew how to talk to you. To be independent, able to
+please yourself!"
+
+"I shall be independent anyhow after to-night," he said. "Ursula, you
+will help me to pack my things, won't you? It is leaving you here, you
+girls, with nobody to stand up for you; it is that I feel most."
+
+"Oh, Reginald, don't go and leave us," cried Janey, leaning on the back
+of his chair; "what can we do without you? When he comes in, in a rage
+like to-night, as long as you are here one can bear it. Oh, Reginald,
+can't you, can't you take the chaplaincy? Think what it would be for
+us."
+
+"Yes, I will pack your things," said Ursula, "I will help you to get out
+of it, though we must stay and put up with it all, and never, never
+escape. But where will you go? You have no money, not enough scarcely to
+pay your railway fare. You would have to take to teaching; and where are
+you to go?"
+
+"I have some friends left," cried Reginald, his lips quivering, "some
+people care for me still and would hold out a hand. I am--not--quite so
+badly off as he thinks; I could go to town, or to Oxford--or--"
+
+"You don't know where; and here is a nice old-fashioned house all ready
+for you to step into, and an income," cried Ursula, her tone deepening
+to mark the capital letter; "an Income, quite sure and ready--without
+any difficulty, without any trouble, all if you say yes. Oh, only think
+what a comfort for us all to be able to rush to you when we are in
+trouble! Think of Johnnie and Robin; and that delightful wainscoted room
+for your study, with the book-cases all ready--and plenty of money to
+buy books." This being the highest point to which Ursula could reach,
+she dropped down after it into an insinuating half whisper, "And plenty
+of work to do; dear Reginald, plenty of work in the parish, you may be
+sure, if you will only help the Rector; or here where you are working
+already, and where you may be sure nobody will think of paying you. Oh,
+Reginald, there is plenty, plenty of work."
+
+The young man was already beginning to melt. "Do you think so?" he
+said.
+
+"Think!" cried Janey, "I am sure you may do all papa's work for him and
+welcome, if that is all. For my part I think you are very silly, both
+Ursula and you. Work! Pay is far better if you weren't such a pair of
+simpletons. After all, he has a little reason to be angry. Good
+gracious! why shouldn't you take it? Some one else will, if you won't. I
+would in a minute, and so would Ursula if we could. And why should you
+be so much grander than anybody else? I think it is quite childish for
+my part."
+
+"Reginald, never mind her, she is only a child and doesn't understand
+('Child yourself,' cried Janey). I don't understand very well, but still
+I can see what you want. Oh, you might find such quantities of work,
+things nobody is ever found to do. What do the fellows do at Oxford that
+they get that money for? I have heard you say you would be very glad to
+get a fellowship--"
+
+"That is different, that is a reward of scholarship."
+
+"Well, and so is this too," said Ursula; "it is (I am sure) because the
+old men knew you were one that would be kind. You were always kind,
+Reginald, that is what it is for."
+
+"The old men have nothing to do with it," he said, shaking his head, "it
+is the Corporation, and they are--"
+
+"Very rich men, Reginald dear, a great many of them, very sensible! what
+does it matter about their education? And then you would be a really
+educated man, always ready to do anything that was wanted in
+Carlingford. Don't you see that was their meaning? They pay you for that
+which is not work, but they will find you plenty of work they don't pay
+for. That is what they mean; and oh, Reginald, to run over to you there
+in that pretty wainscoted room, and to have you coming in to us every
+day, and to know that you were there to stand by us!"
+
+Here once more Ursula began to cry. As for Janey, she made a dash at the
+writing-table and brought him paper and pens and ink, "Say yes, say
+yes," she cried; "oh, Reginald, if it was only to spite papa!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE NEW GENTLEMAN.
+
+
+It seems difficult to imagine what connection there could be between
+Phoebe Beecham's appearance in Grange Lane and the interview which took
+place there between her and the "new gentleman," and Mr. May's sudden
+onslaught upon his family, which ended in Reginald's acceptance of the
+chaplaincy. But yet the connection was very distinct. Not even the Mays,
+in their excitement over the appearance of a stranger in Carlingford,
+could be more surprised than Phoebe was when her solitary walk was
+interrupted by the apparition across the street of a known person, a
+face familiar to her in other regions. "Mr. Northcote!" she cried, with
+a little start of surprise. As for the stranger, he made but two steps
+across Grange Lane in his delight at the sight of her. Not that he was
+Phoebe's lover, or possessed by any previous enthusiasm for the girl whom
+he had met about half-a-dozen times in his life, and of whom he knew
+little more than that she was the daughter of a "brother clergyman;" for
+both Mr. Beecham and he were in the habit of using that word, whether
+appropriate or inappropriate. This was the explanation of the white
+necktie and the formal dress which had puzzled Ursula.
+
+Horace Northcote was not of Mr. Beecham's class. He was not well-to-do
+and genial, bent upon keeping up his congregation and his popularity,
+and trying to ignore as much as he could the social superiority of the
+Church without making himself in any way offensive to her. He was a
+political Nonconformist, a vigorous champion of the Disestablishment
+Society, more successful on the platform than in the pulpit, and
+strenuously of opinion in his heart of hearts that the Church was the
+great drawback to all progress in England, an incubus of which the
+nation would gladly be rid. His dress was one of the signs of his
+character and meaning. Strong in a sense of his own clerical position,
+he believed in uniform as devoutly as any Ritualist, but he would not
+plagiarise the Anglican livery and walk about in a modified soutane and
+round hat like "our brethren in the Established Church," as Mr. Beecham
+kindly called them. To young Northcote they were not brethren, but
+enemies, and though he smiled superior at the folly which stigmatised
+an M.B. waistcoat, yet he scorned to copy. Accordingly his frock coat
+was not long, but of the extremest solemnity of cut and hue, his white
+tie was of the stiffest, his tall hat of the most uncompromising
+character. He would not veil for a day in easier and more ordinary
+habiliments the distinct position he assumed as clerical, yet not of the
+clergy; a teacher of men, though not a priest of the Anglican
+inspiration. He could not help feeling that his appearance, as he moved
+about the streets, was one which might well thrill Anglican bosoms with
+a flutter of terror. He was the Church's avowed enemy, and upon this he
+stood as his claim to the honour of those who thought with him. This was
+very different from the views held by the pastor of the Crescent Chapel,
+who was very willing to be on the best terms with the Church, and would
+have liked to glide into closer and closer amity, and perhaps finally to
+melt away altogether in her broad bosom, like a fat raindrop
+contributing noiselessly to swell the sea. It was not, however, any
+feeling of this difference which made Phoebe draw herself back
+instinctively after the first start of recognition. Across her mind,
+even while she held out her hand to the stranger, there flashed a sudden
+recollection of her grandmother and her grandfather, and all the homely
+belongings which he, a minister of the connection, could not be kept in
+ignorance of. It was but a momentary pang. Phoebe was not so foolish as
+to shrink before the inevitable, or to attempt by foolish expedients to
+stave off such a danger. She shrank for a second, then drew herself up
+and shook off all such ignoble cares. "I am myself whatever happens,"
+was her reflection; and she said with something like security:
+
+"I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Northcote; what an unexpected pleasure to
+see you here!"
+
+"It is a most unexpected pleasure for me, I assure you," he said, "and a
+very great one." He spoke with unaffected honesty; for indeed his plunge
+into the society of Salem Chapel had given him a shock not easily got
+over, and the appearance of a being of his own species, among all these
+excellent poulterers and grocers, was a relief unspeakable; and then he
+added, "May I walk with you, if you are going to walk?"
+
+"Surely," said Phoebe with momentary hesitation, and it was just at this
+moment that she perceived Ursula on the other side of the road, and,
+glad of the diversion, waved her hand to her, and said, "How do you do?"
+
+"A friend of yours?" said Mr. Northcote, following her gesture with his
+eyes, and feeling more and more glad that he had met her. "I passed
+those young ladies just now, and heard some of their conversation,
+which amused me. Do they belong to our people? If you will not be angry,
+Miss Beecham, I must say that I should be glad to meet somebody
+belonging to us, who is not--who is more like--the people one meets
+elsewhere."
+
+"Well," said Phoebe, "we are always talking of wanting something
+original; I think on the whole I am of your opinion; still there is
+nothing very great or striking about most of the people one meets
+anywhere."
+
+"Yes; society is flat enough," said the young man. "But--it is strange
+and rather painful, though perhaps it is wrong to say so--why, I wonder,
+are all our people of one class? Perhaps you have not seen much of them
+here? All of one class, and that--"
+
+"Not an attractive class," said Phoebe, with a little sigh. "Yes, I
+know."
+
+"Anything but an attractive class; not the so-called working men and
+such like. One can get on with them. It is very unpleasant to have to
+say it; buying and selling now as we have it in Manchester does not
+contract the mind. I suppose we all buy and sell more and less. How is
+it? When it is tea and sugar--"
+
+"Or butter and cheese," said Phoebe with a laugh, which she could not
+quite keep from embarrassment. "I must be honest and tell you before you
+go any further. You don't know that I belong to the Tozers, Mr.
+Northcote, who are in that line of business. Don't look so dreadfully
+distressed. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you, had you not been sure to
+find out. Old Mr. Tozer is my grandfather, and I am staying there. It is
+quite simple. Papa came to Carlingford when he was a young clergyman,
+newly ordained. He was pastor at Salem Chapel, and married mamma, who
+was the daughter of one of the chief members. I did not know myself when
+I came to Carlingford that they actually kept a shop, and I did not like
+it. Don't apologize, please. It is a very difficult question," said
+Phoebe philosophically, partly to ease herself, partly to set him at his
+ease, "what is best to do in such a case. To be educated in another
+sphere and brought down to this, is hard. One cannot feel the same for
+one's relations; and yet one's poor little bit of education, one's petty
+manners, what are these to interfere with blood relationships? And to
+keep everybody down to the condition they were born, why, that is the
+old way--"
+
+"Miss Beecham, I don't know what to say. I never meant--I could not
+tell. There are excellent, most excellent people in all classes."
+
+"Exactly so," said Phoebe, with a laugh. "We all know that; one man is as
+good as another--if not better. A butterman is as good as a lord; but--"
+she added, with a little elevation of her eyebrows and shrug of her
+shoulders, "not so pleasant to be connected with. And you don't say
+anything about my difficulty, Mr. Northcote. You don't realize it
+perhaps, as I do. Which is best: for everybody to continue in the
+position he was born in, or for an honest shopkeeper to educate his
+children and push them up higher until they come to feel themselves
+members of a different class, and to be ashamed of him? Either way, you
+know, it is hard."
+
+Northcote was at his wit's end. He had no fellow-feeling for this
+difficulty. His friends were all much better off than he was as a poor
+minister. They were Manchester people, with two or three generations of
+wealth behind them, relations of whom nobody need be ashamed; and he was
+himself deeply humiliated and distressed to have said anything which
+could humiliate Phoebe, who rose immeasurably in his estimation in
+consequence of her bold avowal, though he himself would have sacrificed
+a great deal rather than put himself on the Tozer level. He did not know
+what to say.
+
+"Miss Beecham, you know as well as I do, how falsely our opinions are
+formed in this respect, how conventional we are. What is position after
+all? To a grand Seigneur, for instance, the difference between his
+steward and his laquais seems nothing, but to the steward it is a great
+gulf. I--I mean--the whole question is conventional--position, or
+station, or rank--"
+
+Phoebe smiled. "I don't think that is quite the question," she said, "but
+never mind. I suppose you are here on some mission? You would not come
+to Carlingford for pleasure."
+
+"Nay," said Northcote, with a reproachful tone. "I should have thought
+you must have heard of our Meeting. It is for to-night. I have come from
+the Disestablishment Society with some other friends; but it has been my
+fate to come on before to make the arrangements. The others come
+to-day."
+
+"A hard fate, Mr. Northcote."
+
+"I thought so this morning. I have not been much in the way of the
+country congregations. I was confounded; but, Miss Beecham, I no longer
+think my fate hard since I have met you. Your noble simplicity and
+frankness have taught me a lesson."
+
+"It is not noble at all," said Phoebe; "if I had not been sure you must
+find out I should have said nothing about it. Now I fear I must turn
+back."
+
+"But you will come to the Meeting," he said, turning with her. He felt
+it necessary to be obsequious to Phoebe, after the terrible mistake he
+had made.
+
+"Not unless grandpapa insists. I should like to hear your speech," said
+Phoebe; "but I don't object to the Established Church as you do, neither
+does papa when you push him hard. I don't think England would be much
+nicer if we were all Dissenters. To be sure we might be more civil to
+each other."
+
+"If there were no Dissenters, you mean."
+
+"It comes to much the same thing; congregations are not pleasant
+masters, are they, Mr. Northcote? I know some people--one at least,"
+said Phoebe, "who is often very insolent to papa; and we have to put up
+with it--for the sake of peace, papa says. I don't think in the Church
+that any leading member could be so insolent to a clergyman."
+
+"That is perhaps rather--forgive me--a narrow, personal view."
+
+"Wait till you get a charge, and have to please the congregation and the
+leading members!" cried Phoebe. "I know what you are thinking: it is just
+like a woman to look at a public question so. Very well; after all women
+are half the world, and their opinion is as good as another."
+
+"I have the greatest respect for your opinion," said young Northcote;
+"but we must not think of individual grievances. The system, with all
+its wrongs, is what occupies me. I have heard something--even here--this
+very day--What is it, my good friend? I am busy now--another time; or if
+you want me, my lodgings are--"
+
+A glance, half of pain, half of fun, came into Phoebe's eyes. "It is
+grandpapa!" she said.
+
+"You shouldn't speak in that tone, sir, not to your elders, and maybe
+your betters," said Tozer, in his greasy old coat. "Ministers take a
+deal upon them; but an old member like me, and one as has stood by the
+connection through thick and thin, ain't the one to be called your good
+friend. Well, if you begs pardon, of course there ain't no more to be
+said; and if you know our Phoebe--Phoebe, junior, as I calls her. What of
+the meeting, Mr. Northcote? I hope you'll give it them Church folks 'ot
+and strong, sir. They do give themselves airs, to be sure, in
+Carlingford. Most of our folks is timid, seeing for one thing as their
+best customers belong to the Church. That don't touch me, not
+now-a-days," said Tozer, with a laugh, "not that I was ever one as
+concealed my convictions. I hope you'll give it 'em 'ot and strong."
+
+"I shall say what I think," said the young man bewildered. He was by no
+means broken into the ways of the connection, and his pride rebelled at
+the idea of being schooled by this old shopkeeper; but the sight of
+Phoebe standing by not only checked his rebellious sentiments, but filled
+him with a sympathetic thrill of feeling. What it must be for that girl
+to own this old man, to live with him, and feel herself shut into his
+society and friends of his choosing--to hear herself spoken of as Phoebe,
+junior! The idea made him shiver, and this caught old Tozer's always
+hospitable eye.
+
+"You're chilly," he said, "and I don't wonder after the dreadful weather
+we've had. Few passes my door without a bite or a sup, specially at
+tea-time, Mr. Nor'cote, which is sociable time, as I always says. Come
+in and warm yourself and have a cup of tea. There is nothing as pleases
+my old woman so much as to get out her best tea-things for a minister;
+she 'as a great respect for ministers, has Mrs. Tozer, sir; and now
+she's got Phoebe to show off as well as the chiney. Come along, sir, I
+can't take no refusal. It's just our time for tea."
+
+Northcote made an unavailing attempt to get away, but partly it appeared
+to him that to refuse the invitation might look to Phoebe like a pretence
+of superiority on his part, and partly he was interested in herself, and
+was very well aware he should get no company so good in Carlingford,
+even with the drawback of the old shop-people among whom she lived. How
+strange it was to see her in the dress of which Mrs. Sam Hurst had
+raved, and of which even the young Nonconformist vaguely divined the
+excellence, putting her daintily-gloved hand upon old Tozer's greasy
+sleeve, walking home with the shuffling old man, about whose social
+position no one could make the least mistake! He turned with them, with
+a sensation of thankfulness that it was in Grange Lane, Carlingford,
+where nobody knew him. As for Phoebe, no such comfort was in her mind;
+everybody knew her here, or rather, everybody knew old Tozer. No
+disguise was possible to her. The only way to redeem the position was to
+carry it with a high hand, as she did, holding her head erect, and
+playing her part so that all the world might see and wonder. "I think
+you had better come, Mr. Northcote, and have some tea," she said
+graciously, when the awe-stricken young man was floundering in efforts
+to excuse himself. Old Tozer chuckled and rubbed his hands.
+
+"Take Phoebe's advice," he said, "Phoebe's the sensiblest girl I know; so
+was her mother before her, as married one of the most popular preachers
+in the connection, though I say it as shouldn't. My old woman always
+said as our Phoebe was cut out for a minister's wife. And Phoebe junior's
+just such another," cried the admiring grandfather. Heavens above! did
+this mean traps and snares for himself, or did the old shopkeeper think
+of him, Horace Northcote, as another possible victim? If he had but
+known with what sincere compassionate toleration Phoebe regarded him, as
+a young man whom she might be kind to, he might have been saved all
+alarm on this point. The idea that a small undistinguished Dissenting
+minister should think her capable of marrying him, was a humiliation
+which did not enter into Phoebe's head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A PUBLIC MEETING.
+
+
+Phoebe's philosophy, however, was put to the test when, after the young
+pastor had taken tea and got himself away from the pressing
+hospitalities of the Tozers, her grandfather also disappeared to put on
+his best coat in order to attend the Meeting. Mrs. Tozer, left alone
+with her granddaughter, immediately proceeded to evolve her views as to
+what Phoebe was expected to do.
+
+"I never see you out o' that brown thing, Phoebe," she said; "ain't you
+got a silk dress, child, or something that looks a bit younger-looking?
+I'd have thought your mother would have took more pride in you. Surely
+you've got a silk dress."
+
+"Oh, yes, more than one," said Phoebe, "but this is considered in better
+taste."
+
+"Taste, whose taste?" cried the old lady; "my Phoebe didn't ought to care
+for them dingy things, for I'm sure she never got no such example from
+me. I've always liked what was bright-looking, if it was only a print. A
+nice blue silk now, or a bright green, is what you'd look pretty in with
+your complexion. Go now, there's a dear, and put on something very nice,
+something as will show a bit; you're going with your grandfather to this
+Meeting."
+
+"To the Meeting? oh, I hope not," said Phoebe with fervour.
+
+"And why should you hope not? isn't it natural as a young creature like
+you should get out a bit when she can, and see what's to be seen? I
+don't hold with girls moping in a house. Besides, it's very instructive,
+as I've always heard: and you as is clever, of course you'll understand
+every word. Mr. Northcote is a nicish-looking sort of young man.
+Ministers mayn't be much," said Mrs. Tozer, "though just see how your
+papa has got on, my dear. Nobody else as Phoebe could have married would
+have got up in the world like that; you may make a deal more money in
+trade, but it ain't so genteel, there's always that to be said. Now it's
+just as well as you should have your chance with the rest and let
+yourself be seen, Phoebe. Run, there's a darling, and put on something
+bright, and a nice lace collar. You can have mine if you like. I
+shouldn't grudge nothing, not a single thing I've got, to see you
+looking as nice as the best there; and so you will if you take a little
+pains. I'd do up my hair a bit higher if I was you; why, Phoebe, I
+declare! you haven't got a single pad. Now what is the use of neglecting
+yourself, and letting others get ahead of you like that?"
+
+"Pads are going out of fashion, grandmamma," said Phoebe gravely, "so are
+bright colours for dresses. You can't think what funny shades we wear in
+town. But must I go to this Meeting? I should not like to leave you
+alone. It is so much nicer for me to be here."
+
+"You _are_ a good girl, you are," said Mrs. Tozer admiringly, "and me as
+was frightened for a fine lady from London! But Tozer would say as it
+was my doing. He would say as it wasn't natural for a young creature;
+and, bless you, they'll all be there in their best--that Pigeon and the
+others, and Mrs. Tom. I just wish I could go too, to see you outshine
+'em all, which you'll do if you take pains. Take a little more pains
+with your hair, Phoebe, mount it up a bit higher, and if you want
+anything like a bit of lace or a brooch or that, just you come to me. I
+should like Mrs. Tom to see you with that brooch as she's always wanting
+for Minnie. Now why should I give my brooch to Minnie? I don't see no
+reason for it, for my part."
+
+"Certainly not, grandmamma," said Phoebe, "you must wear your brooches
+yourself, that is what I like a great deal better than giving them
+either to Minnie or me."
+
+"Ah, but there ain't a many like you, my sweet," cried the old woman,
+wiping her eyes. "You're my Phoebe's own daughter, but you're a touch
+above her, my darling, and us too, that's what you are. Run now and
+dress, or I don't know what Tozer will say to me. He's set his heart on
+showing you off to-night."
+
+Thus adjured, Phoebe went away reluctantly. It is unnecessary to say that
+her disinterestedness about her grandmother's brooch was not perhaps so
+noble as it appeared on the outside. The article in question was a kind
+of small warming-pan in a very fine solid gold mount, set with large
+pink topazes, and enclosing little wavy curls of hair, one from the head
+of each young Tozer of the last generation. It was a piece of jewelry
+very well known in Carlingford, and the panic which rose in Phoebe's
+bosom when it was offered for her own personal adornment is more easily
+imagined than described. She went upstairs feeling that she had escaped,
+and took out a black silk dress at which she looked lovingly.
+
+"But grandmamma would think it was no better than this," she said to
+herself, and after much searchings of heart she chose a costume of
+Venetian blue, one soft tint dying into another like the lustre on a
+piece of old glass, which in her own opinion was a great deal too good
+for the occasion. "Some one will tread on it to a certainty, and the
+colours don't show in candle-light; but I must try to please
+grandmamma," she said heroically. When it was put on with puffings of
+lace such as Mrs. Tozer had never seen, and was entirely ignorant of the
+value of, at the throat and sleeves, Phoebe wrapt a shawl round her in
+something of the same dim gorgeous hue, covered with embroidery, an
+Indian rarity which somebody had bestowed upon Mrs. Beecham, and which
+no one had used or thought of till Phoebe's artistic eye fell upon it. It
+was a great deal too fine for Carlingford. An opera-cloak bought in
+Oxford Street for a pound or two would have much more impressed the
+assembly to which Phoebe was bound. Mrs. Tozer inspected her when she
+went downstairs, with awe, yet dissatisfaction.
+
+"I dare say as it's all very fine, and it ain't like other folks,
+anybody can see; but I'd dress you different, my dear, if you was in my
+hands," said the old woman, walking round and round her. As for Tozer,
+he too showed less admiration than if he had known better.
+
+"I got a fly, thinking as you'd have some fallal or other on you; but,
+bless my heart, you could have walked in that gown," he said. So that
+Phoebe's toilette, which would have been mightily admired in a London
+drawing-room, could not be said to be a success. She was somewhat
+discouraged by this, notwithstanding that she knew so very much better;
+and accordingly set out in the fly with her grandfather in his best
+coat, feeling, generally, in a depressed condition.
+
+"It is clear that I must take to the pinks and blues to please them,"
+she said to herself with a sigh. She could triumph over the slight that
+might be shown to herself in consequence of her relations; but those
+sneers at her dress went to Phoebe's heart.
+
+The Music Hall was full of a miscellaneous crowd when Phoebe, following
+her grandfather, went in; and the seats allotted to these important
+people were on the platform, where, at least, Tozer's unacknowledged
+object of showing her off could be amply gratified. This arrangement did
+not, on the whole, displease Phoebe. Since she must be exhibited, it
+seemed better, on the whole, to be exhibited there, than in a less
+distinguished place; and all the speakers knew her, which was something.
+She sat down with some complaisance, and let her Indian scarf droop from
+her shoulders, and her pretty dress show itself.
+
+"I declare if that isn't Phoebe, junior," said Mrs. Tom audibly, in the
+middle of the hall, "making a show of herself; but, Lord bless us, for
+all their grandeur, how she do dress, to be sure. A bit of a rag of an
+old shawl, and a hat on! the same as she wears every day. I've got more
+respect for them as comes to instruct us than that."
+
+And, indeed, Mrs. Tom was resplendent in a red _sortie de bal_, with a
+brooch almost as big as that envied one of Mrs. Tozer's stuck into her
+gown, and a cap covered with flowers upon her head. This was the usual
+fashion of the Salem ladies on such rare occasions. The meeting of the
+Disestablishment Society was to them what a ball is to worldly-minded
+persons who frequent such vanities. The leading families came out _en
+masse_ to see and to be seen. It would be wrong to say that they did not
+enter into all the arguments and recognise the intellectual feast set
+before them; no doubt they did this just as well as if they had come in
+their commonest attire; but still the seriousness of the occasion was,
+no doubt, modified by being thus made into a dissipation. The men were
+not so fine, perhaps, because it is more difficult for men to be
+fine--but they were all in their Sunday clothes; and the younger ones
+were in full bloom of coloured satin cravats and fine waistcoats. Some
+of them were almost as fine a sight as the ladies in their ribbons and
+flowers.
+
+"I suppose by the look of them this must be an influential
+community--people of some pretensions," said an obese elderly minister,
+who had seated himself by Phoebe, and whose eyes were dazzled by the
+display. "I never expected all this dress in a quiet country place."
+
+"Oh, yes! they are people of much pretension," said Phoebe gravely.
+
+And then the proceedings began. Old Mr. Green, the grocer, whose son had
+married Maria Pigeon, and who had long been retired from business,
+occupying a house in the country and "driving his carriage," was in the
+chair; and the proceedings went on according to the routine of such
+assemblies, with differing degrees of earnestness on the part of the
+speakers. To most of these gentlemen it was the ordinary occupation of
+their lives; and they made their hearers laugh at well-known stories,
+and enjoyed their own wit, and elicited familiar cheers, and made hits
+such as they had made for years on the same subject, which was a
+comfortable _cheval de bataille_, not at all exciting to themselves,
+though they were quite willing to excite their audience, if that
+audience would allow itself to be excited. Things jogged on thus for the
+first hour very pleasantly! the Meeting was not excited, but it was
+amused and enjoyed itself. It was an intellectual treat, as Pigeon said
+to Brown, and if the younger people did not like it so well as they
+would have liked a ball, the elder people liked it a great deal better,
+and the hall rang with applause and with laughter as one speaker
+succeeded another. It was pleasant to know how unstable "the Church" was
+on her foundation; that aristocratical Church which looked down upon
+Dissent, and of which the poorest adherent gave himself airs much above
+Chapel folks; and how much loftier a position the Nonconformist held,
+who would have nothing to say to State support.
+
+"For my part," said one of the speakers, "I would rather abandon my
+sacred calling to-morrow, or make tents as St. Paul did in its exercise,
+than put on the gilded fetters of the State, and pray or preach as an
+Archbishop told me; nay, as a Cabinet Council of godless worldlings
+directed. There are many good men among the clergy of the Church of
+England; but they are slaves, my friends, nothing but slaves, dragged at
+the chariot wheels of the State; ruled by a caste of hard-headed
+lawyers; or binding themselves in the rotten robes of tradition. It is
+we only who can dare to say that we are free!"
+
+At this sentiment, the Meeting fairly shouted with applause and delight
+and self-complacency; and the speaker, delighted too, and tasting all
+the sweetness of success, gave place to the next, and came and sat down
+by Phoebe, to whose society the younger men were all very glad to escape.
+
+"Miss Beecham, you are fashionably calm," whispered the orator, "you
+don't throw yourself, like the rest of us, into this great agitation."
+
+"Have you a leading member?" whispered Phoebe back again; "and does he
+never drag you at his chariot wheels? Have you deacons that keep you up
+to the mark? Have you people you must drink tea with when they ask you,
+or else they throw up their sittings? I am thinking, of course, of
+papa."
+
+"Have I deacons? Have I leading members? Miss Beecham, you are cruel--"
+
+"Hush!" said Phoebe, settling herself in her chair. "Here is somebody who
+is in dreadful earnest. Don't talk, Mr. Northcote is going to speak."
+
+Thus it will be seen that the Minister's daughter played her _rôle_ of
+fine lady and _bel esprit_ very fairly in an atmosphere so unlike the
+air that fine ladies breathe. Phoebe paid no more attention to the
+discomfited man at her elbow. She gathered up her shawl in her hand with
+a seeming careless movement, and let it drop lightly across her knee,
+where the gold threads in the embroidery caught the light; and she took
+off her hat, which she had thought proper to wear to show her sense that
+the Meeting was not an evening party; and prepared herself to listen.
+Her complexion and her hair, and the gold threads in the rich Indian
+work, thus blazed out together upon the startled audience. Many of them
+were as much struck by this as by the beginning of Mr. Northcote's
+speech, though it was very different from the other speeches. The others
+had been routine agitation, this was fiery conviction, crude, and
+jumping at conclusions, but still an enthusiasm in its way. Mr.
+Northcote approached his subject gradually, and his hearers, at first
+disappointed by the absence of their familiar watch-words, were dull,
+and bestowed their attention on Phoebe; but before he had been speaking
+ten minutes Phoebe was forgotten even by her uncle and aunt, the two
+people most interested in her. It would be dangerous to repeat to a
+reader, probably quite uninterested in the controversy, Mr. Northcote's
+speech, in which he laid hold of some of those weak points which the
+Church, of course, has in common with every other institution in the
+world. Eloquence has a way of evaporating in print, even when the report
+is immediate. But his peroration was one which startled his hearers out
+of a calm abstract interest to all that keen personal feeling which
+accompanies the narrative of facts known to an audience, and affecting
+people within their own locality.
+
+"I have only been in this place three days," said the speaker, "but in
+that short time I have heard of one of the most flagrant abuses which I
+have been indicating to you. There is in this town, as you all know, an
+institution called the College; what was its original object I do not
+know. Nests of idle pauperism, genteelly veiled under such a name, do
+exist, I know, over all the country; but it is at least probable that
+some educational purpose was in the mind of the pious founder who
+established it. The pious founder! how immense are the revenues, how
+incalculable the means of doing good, which have been locked up in
+uselessness, or worse than uselessness, by men who have purchased a pass
+into the kingdom of heaven at the last moment by such gifts, and become
+pious founders just before they ceased to be miserable sinners! Whatever
+may have been the original intention of the College, however, it is
+clear that it was meant for something more than the pitiful use it is
+put to now. This old foundation, ladies and gentlemen, which might
+provide half the poor children in Carlingford with a wholesome
+education, is devoted to the maintenance of six old men, need I say
+Churchmen?" (here the speaker was interrupted by mingled hisses and
+ironical "hear, hears")--"and a chaplain to say their prayers for them.
+Six old men: and one able-bodied parson to say their prayers for them.
+What do you think of this, my friends? I understand that this heavy and
+onerous duty has been offered--not to some other mouldy old gentleman,
+some decayed clergyman who might have ministered in peace to the decayed
+old burghers without any interference on my part: for a refuge for the
+aged and destitute has something natural in it, even when it is a wrong
+appropriation of public money. No, this would have been some faint
+approach perhaps to justice, some right in wrong that would have closed
+our mouths. But no! it is given to a young gentleman, able-bodied, as I
+have said, who has appeared more than once in the cricket-field with
+your victorious Eleven, who is fresh from Oxford, and would no more
+condescend to consider himself on a footing of equality with the humble
+person who addresses you, than I would, having the use of my hands,
+accept a disgraceful sinecure! Yes, my friends, this is what the State
+Church does. She so cows the spirit and weakens the hearts of her
+followers that a young man at the very beginning of his career, able to
+teach, able to work, able to dig, educated and trained and cultured, can
+stoop to accept a good income in such a position as this. Think of it!
+Six old men, able surely, if they are good for anything, to mumble their
+prayers for themselves somehow; yet provided with an Oxford scholar, an
+able-bodied young man, to read the service for them daily! He thinks it
+very fine, no doubt, a good income and a good house for life, and
+nothing to do but to canter over morning and evening prayer at a
+swinging pace, as we have all heard it done: morning prayer, let us see,
+half an hour--or you may throw in ten minutes, in case the six should
+mumble their Amens slowly--and twenty minutes for the evening, one hour
+a day. Here it is under your very eyes, people of Carlingford, a
+charming provision for the son of one of your most respected clergymen.
+Why, it is in your newspaper, where I read it! Can I give a more
+forcible instance of the way in which a State Church cuts honesty and
+honour out of men's hearts."
+
+A great many people noticed that when Mr. Northcote ended this with a
+thundering voice, some one who had been listening near the door in an
+Inverness cape, and hat over his brows, gave himself a sudden impetuous
+shake which shook the crowd, and turning round made his way out, not
+caring whom he stumbled against. The whole assembly was in a hubbub when
+the orator ceased, and whispers ran freely round among all the groups in
+the front. "That's young May he means." "In course it's young May.
+Infernal job, as I've always said." "Oh hush, Pigeon, don't swear! but
+it do seem a black burning shame, don't it?" "Bravo, Mr. Nor'cote!"
+called out old Tozer, on the platform, "that's what I call giving forth
+no uncertain sound. That's laying it into them 'ot and 'ot."
+
+This was the climax of the Meeting. Everything else was flat after such
+a decided appeal to personal knowledge. Phoebe alone gave a frigid
+reception to the hero of the evening.
+
+"I dislike personalities," she said, pointedly. "They never do a cause
+any good; and it isn't gentlemanly; don't you think so, Mr. Sloely;" and
+she turned away from Northcote, who had come to speak to her, and
+devoted herself to the man at her elbow, whom she had snubbed a little
+while before. Mr. Northcote said to himself that this was untrue, and
+brought up a hundred very good reasons why he should have employed such
+an example, but the reproof stung him to the quick, for to be
+ungentlemanly was the reproach of all others most calculated to go to
+his heart.
+
+But nobody knew how Mr. May went home in his Inverness cape, breathing
+fire and flame, nor of the execution he did thereupon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS.
+
+
+Mr. May went into his study and closed the door. He poked the fire--he
+put himself into his easy-chair--he drew his writing-book towards him,
+and opened it at where a half-written sheet lay waiting. And then he
+paused, rubbed his hands softly together, and falling back again,
+laughed quietly to himself.
+
+Yes; he who had stormed out of the drawing-room like a whirlwind, having
+discomfited everybody, leaving the girls in tears, and the boys in a
+white heat of passion, when he reached the profoundest depths of his own
+retirement, laughed. What did it mean? Of all the people in the world,
+his children would have been most entirely thunderstruck by this
+self-betrayal. They could not have understood it. They were acquainted
+with his passions, and with his moments of good temper. They knew when
+he was amiable, and when he was angry, by instinct, by the gleam of his
+eye, by the way in which he shut the door; but this was something
+totally unknown to them. The truth was that Mr. May, like many other
+people, having a naturally bad temper, which he indulged freely when he
+pleased, had attained the power of using it when it suited him to use
+it, without being suspected by anybody. A bad temper is a possession
+like another, and may be made skilful use of like other things which,
+perhaps, in themselves, are not desirable. He could work himself up into
+fury, and launch the doom he felt disposed to launch, like a burning and
+fizzing thunder-bolt from a hand which was, in reality, not at all
+excited; and like most other people who possess such an unrevealed
+power, it pleased him very much when he persuaded his surroundings that
+it was an impulse of rage which moved him. He had been at the Meeting at
+the Music Hall, "to hear what those fellows had to say for themselves."
+Contempt, unbounded but wrathful, was the feeling in his mind towards
+"those fellows;" but he felt that young Northcote's eloquence, reported
+in next day's papers, was quite enough to quash for ever all hopes of
+his son's acceptance of the chaplaincy. So he walked home as fast as his
+legs would carry him, and burst into his house, as we have seen, with a
+semblance of passion so perfect as to deceive his entire family and
+fill the place with anger and tears. Upon which, withdrawing from the
+scene of conflict, he threw himself down in his easy-chair and chuckled,
+recovering his composure by slow degrees.
+
+When, however, this private indulgence was over, Mr. May's face grew
+dark enough. He pushed his writing away from him, and pulling out a
+drawer in his writing-table, which was full of papers of a very
+unliterary aspect, betook himself to the consideration of them, with
+anything but laughter in his looks, or in his mind. Letters upon blue
+paper in straight up and down handwriting--other papers, also blue, with
+ruled lines and numerals, for which Mr. May was more frightened than he
+would have been for a charge of cavalry. These were the very
+unattractive contents of this drawer. He brought two or three of them
+out in a bundle and read them over, one after another, with contracted
+brows. Debt is an idiosyncrasy like other things. Some people keep clear
+of it miraculously, some seem to drop into it without cause or meaning,
+and to spend all their lives afterwards in vain attempts to get out. Mr.
+May was one of these unfortunate men. He could not tell himself where
+his money went to. Poor man! it was not so much he had, and there was a
+large family to be fed and clothed, and schooled after a sort. But still
+other people on incomes as small as his had managed to maintain their
+families without dropping into this hopeless condition. He had been in
+debt since ever he could remember; and to be sure it was not the pain
+and trouble to him that it is to many people. So long as, by hook or by
+crook, he could manage to stave off the evil day, so long was he happy
+enough, and he had managed this by all sorts of semi-miraculous
+windfalls up to the present time. James's remittances had been like
+heavenly dew to him. It is true that these remittances had been intended
+to keep Reginald at Oxford, and perhaps something of the special
+hardness with which he regarded Reginald arose from the fact that he had
+done him wrong in this respect, and had appropriated what was intended
+for him. But after all, he had said to himself, the maintenance of the
+house in comfort, the keeping clean of the family name, and the staving
+off disagreeable revelations of the family's poverty, were more, for
+even Reginald's comfort, than a little more money in his pocket, which
+everybody knew was very dangerous for a young man.
+
+Mr. May had always a bill coming due, which James's remittances arrived
+just in time to meet. Indeed, this was the normal condition of his life.
+He had always a bill coming due--a bill which some good-humoured banker
+had to be coaxed into renewing, or which was paid at the last moment by
+some skilful legerdemain in the way of pouring out of one vessel into
+another, transferring the debt from one quarter to another, so that
+there may have been said to be always a certain amount of quite
+fictitious and visionary money floating about Mr. May, money which
+existed only in the shape of symbol, and which, indeed, belonged to
+nobody--which was borrowed here to-day, and paid there to-morrow, to be
+re-borrowed and repaid in the same way, never really reaching anybody's
+pocket, or representing anything but that one thing which money is
+supposed to be able to extinguish--debt. When human affairs reach this
+very delicate point, and there is nothing at any moment, except a
+semi-miraculous windfall, to keep a man going, the crisis is very
+serious. And it was no wonder that Mr. May was anxious to drive his son
+into accepting any possible appointment, and that he occasionally railed
+unreasonably at his family. Unless a hundred pounds or so fell down from
+the skies within the next ten days, he saw nothing before him but ruin.
+This, it is needless to say, is very far from being a comfortable
+position. The _sourde_ agitation, excitement, feverish hope and fear of
+the sufferer might well affect his temper. If he could not get a hundred
+pounds within ten days, he did not know what he was to do.
+
+And nobody could say (he thought to himself) that he was an expensive
+man; he had no expensive habits. He liked good living, it is true, and a
+glass of good wine, but this amount of regard for the table does not
+ruin men. He liked books also, but he did not buy them, contenting
+himself with such as the library could afford, and those which he could
+obtain by the reviews he wrote for the Church Magazines. How then was it
+that he never could get rid of that rapidly maturing bill? He could not
+tell. Keeping out of debt is one thing, and getting rid of it when you
+have once taken its yoke upon your neck is another. His money, when he
+had any, "slipped through his fingers," as people say. When James's
+remittance or any other piece of good fortune gave him enough to pay
+that hundred pounds without borrowing elsewhere, he borrowed elsewhere
+all the same. It was a mysterious fatality, from which he seemed unable
+to escape. In such circumstances a crisis must come sooner or later, and
+it appeared to him that now at least, after many hairbreadth escapes,
+the crisis had come.
+
+What was he to do? There was no chance, alas! of money from James, and
+even if Reginald accepted the chaplaincy, and was willing at once to
+come to his father's aid, there was no hope that he would have anything
+for some time--for chaplains incomes are not, any more than other
+people's, generally paid in advance. He leaned back in his chair and
+went over again, for the hundredth time, the list of all the people he
+could borrow from, or who would "back" a bill for him, and he was still
+employed in this melancholy and hopeless enumeration, when a low knock
+came to the door, and a maid-of-all-work, pushing it open, thrust in a
+homely little man in a dusty-brown coat, who put up a hand to his
+forehead as he came in with a salutation which was half charity
+school-boy, half awkward recruit. Beyond this there was no ceremony
+about his entrance, no leave asked or question made. Betsy knew very
+well that he was to come in when he pleased, and that her master did not
+deny himself to Cotsdean. Mr. May received him with a familiar nod, and
+pointed hastily to a chair. He did not even take the trouble to put away
+those blue papers, which he would have done if any other individual,
+even if one of his children had come into the room.
+
+"Good evening, Cotsdean," he said, in a friendly tone. "Well, what
+news?"
+
+"Nothing as is pleasant, sir," said the man, sitting down on a corner of
+his chair. "I've been to the bank, and it's no use my explaining, or
+begging ever so hard. They won't hear of it. 'We've done it times and
+times,' they says to me, 'and we won't do it no more. That's flat,' and
+so indeed it is flat, sir, as you may say downright Dunstable; but that
+ain't no advantage to you and me."
+
+"Yes, it is, Cotsdean," said the clergyman, "it is a decided advantage,
+for it shows there is nothing to be hoped from that quarter, and that is
+always good--even though it's bad bad, as bad as can be--"
+
+"You may say so, sir," said Cotsdean. "I don't know what's to be done no
+more than the babe unborn, and it's wearing me to death, that's what
+it's doing. When I looks round on my small family, it's all I can do not
+to cry out loud. What's to become of my children, Mr. May? Yours, sir,
+they'll never want friends, and a hundred or so here or there, that
+don't ruin gentlefolks; but without selling up the business, how am I
+ever to get a hundred pounds? It ain't equal, sir, I swear it ain't. You
+gets the money, and you takes it easy, and don't hold your head not a
+bit lower; but me as has no good of it (except in the way o' a bit of
+custom that is a deal more in looks than anything else), and has to go
+round to all the folks, to Mr. Brownlow, at the bank, and I don't know
+who, as if it was for me! I suffers in my credit, sir, and I suffers in
+my spirits, and I suffers in my health; and when the smash comes,
+what's to become of my poor children? It's enough to put a man beside
+himself, that's what it is."
+
+Here the poor man's eyes grew bloodshot, partly with rubbing them,
+partly with tears. He rubbed them with the sleeve of his rough coat, and
+the tears were very real, though few in number. Cotsdean's despair was
+indeed tragical enough, but its outside had in it a dash of comedy,
+which, though he was in no mirthful mood, caught the quick eye of Mr.
+May. He was himself very painfully affected, to tell the truth, but yet
+it cost him an effort not to smile.
+
+"Cotsdean," he said, "have I ever failed you yet? You have done a good
+deal for me, I don't deny it--you have had all the trouble, but beyond
+that what have you suffered except in imagination? If you choose to
+exaggerate dangers, it is not my fault. Your children are as safe as--as
+safe as the Bank of England. Now, have I ever failed you? answer me
+that."
+
+"I can't say as you have, sir," said Cotsdean, "but it's dreadful work
+playing with a man's ruin, off and on like this, and nobody knowing what
+might happen, or what a day or an hour might bring forth."
+
+"That is very true," said Mr. May. "I might die, that is what you mean;
+very true, though not quite so kind as I might have expected from an old
+friend--a very old friend."
+
+"I am sure, Sir, I beg your pardon," cried the poor man, "it wasn't
+that; but only just as I'm driven out o' my seven senses with thinking
+and thinking."
+
+"My dear Cotsdean, don't think; there could not be a more unnecessary
+exercise; what good does your thinking do, but to make you unhappy?
+leave that to me. We have been driven into a corner before now, but
+nothing has ever happened to us. You will see something will turn up
+this time. I ask you again, have I ever failed you? you know best."
+
+"No, sir," said Cotsdean, somewhat doubtfully. "No, I didn't say as you
+had. It's only--I suppose I ain't so young as I once was--and a man's
+feelin's, sir, ain't always in his own control."
+
+"You must take care that it is only to me that you make such an
+exhibition as this," said Mr. May. "Who is there? oh, my coffee! put it
+on the table. If you are seen coming here to me with red eyes and this
+agitated appearance," he went on, waiting pointedly till the door was
+closed, "it will be supposed there is some family reason for
+it--again--"
+
+"Oh, lor', Sir! you know--"
+
+"Yes, I know very well," said the clergyman. "I know that there couldn't
+be a better wife, and that bygones are bygones; but you must remember
+and take care; everybody doesn't know you--and her--so well as I do.
+When you come to see your clergyman in this agitated state, I put it to
+yourself, Cotsdean, I put it to your good sense, what is anybody to
+think? You must take great care not to betray yourself to anybody but
+me."
+
+The man looked at him with a half-gasp of consternation, bewildered by
+the very boldness with which he was thus set down. Betray himself--he
+drew a long breath, as if he had received a _douche_ of cold water in
+his face, which was indeed very much like the effect that this
+extraordinary address produced--betray himself! Poor Cotsdean's
+struggles and sufferings arose, at the present moment, entirely from the
+fact that he had allowed himself to be made use of for Mr. May's
+occasions, and both the men were perfectly aware of this. But though he
+gasped, Cotsdean was too much under the influence of his clergyman to do
+anything more. Had he been a Dissenter, he would have patronized young
+Northcote, who was as good a man as Mr. May (or far better if truth were
+told), with the frankest certainty of his own superior position, but
+being a humble churchman he yielded to his clergyman as to one of the
+powers that be. It is a curious difference. He sat still on the edge of
+his chair, while Mr. May walked across the room to the table by the
+door, where his _café noir_ had been placed, and took his cup and drank
+it. He was not civil enough to ask his visitor to share it, indeed it
+never would have occurred to him, though he did not hesitate to use poor
+Cotsdean for his own purpose, to treat him otherwise than as men treat
+their servants and inferiors. When he had finished his coffee, he went
+leisurely back into his former place.
+
+"You have nothing to suggest," he said, "nothing to advise? Well, I must
+try what I can do. It will be hard work, but still I must do it, you
+know," added Mr. May, in a gracious tone. "I have never concealed from
+you, Cotsdean, how much I appreciated your assistance; everything of
+this sort is so much worse in my position than in yours. You understand
+that? A gentleman--and a clergyman--has things expected from him which
+never would be thought of in your case. I have never omitted to
+acknowledge my obligations to you--and you also owe some obligations to
+me."
+
+"I don't deny as you've been very kind, sir," said Cotsdean,
+half-grateful, half-sullen; then he wavered a little. "I never denied
+it, _her_ and me could never have 'it it off but for you. I don't forget
+a favour--nobody can say that of me. I ain't forgot it in this case."
+
+"I don't say that you have forgotten it. I have always put the utmost
+confidence in you; but, my good fellow, you must not come to me in this
+down-in-the-mouth way. Have I ever failed you? We've been hard pressed
+enough at times, but something has always turned up. Have not I told you
+a hundred times Providence will provide?"
+
+"If you put it like that, sir--"
+
+"I do put it like that. I have always been helped, you know, sometimes
+when it seemed the last moment. Leave it to me. I have no more doubt,"
+said Mr. May, lifting up a countenance which was by no means so
+untroubled as could have been wished, "that when the time comes all will
+be well, than I have of the sun rising to-morrow--which it will," he
+added with some solemnity, "whether you and I live to see it or not.
+Leave it all, I say, to me."
+
+Cotsdean did not make any reply. He was overawed by this solemnity of
+tone, and knew his place too well to set himself up against his
+clergyman; but still it cannot be denied that the decision was less
+satisfactory than one of much less exalted tone might have been. He had
+not the courage to say anything--he withdrew with his hat in his hand,
+and a cloud over his face. But as he left the house the doubt in his
+soul breathed itself forth. "If so be as neither me nor him see it rise,
+what good will that do to my family," said Cotsdean to himself, and went
+his way to his closed shop, through all the sacks of seeds and dry
+rustling grain, with a heavy heart. He was a corn-factor in a tolerable
+business, which, as most of the bankers of Carlingford knew, he had some
+difficulty in carrying along, being generally in want of money; but this
+was not so rare a circumstance that any special notice should be taken
+of it. Everybody who knew thought it was very kind of Mr. May to back
+him up as he did, and even to put his name to bills for poor Cotsdean,
+to whom, indeed, he was known to have been very kind in many ways. But
+nobody was aware how little of these said bills went to Cotsdean, and
+how much to Mr. May.
+
+When he was gone, the clergyman threw himself back again into his chair
+with a pale face. Providence, which he treated like some sort of neutral
+deity, and was so very sure of having on his side when he spoke to
+Cotsdean, did not feel so near to him, or so much under his command,
+when Cotsdean was gone. There were still two days; but if before that he
+could not make some provision, what was to be done? He was not a cruel
+or bad man, and would have suffered keenly had anything happened to poor
+Cotsdean and his family on his account. But they must be sacrificed if
+it came to that, and the thought was very appalling. What was he to do?
+His friends were exhausted, and so were his expedients. There was no
+longer any one he could borrow from, or who would take even a share of
+his burden on their shoulders. What was he to do?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE NEW CHAPLAIN.
+
+
+It cannot be denied that, reluctant as Reginald May had been to accept
+the chaplaincy of which so much had been said, he had no sooner fairly
+done so, and committed himself beyond remedy, than a certain sense of
+relief began to steal over the young man's mind. He had made the leap.
+Moved, at last, by arguments which, perhaps, were not worth very much
+logically, and which even while he yielded to them he saw the weakness
+of, he felt sure that when he woke in the morning, and realized what he
+had done, fearful feelings of remorse would seize him. But, curiously
+enough, this was not so; and his first sensation was relief that the
+conflict was over, and that he had no more angry remonstrances to meet
+with, or soft pleadings from Ursula, or assaults of rude abruptness from
+Janey. All that was over; and then a warm glow of independence and
+competency came over the young man. You may be sure he had no fire in
+his rooms to make him warm, and it was a chill January morning, with
+snow in the heavy sky, and fog in the yellow air; but, notwithstanding,
+there came a glow of comfort over him.
+
+Independent!--free to go where he pleased, buy what he liked, spend his
+time as best seemed to him, with a "position" of his own; even a house
+of his own. He laughed softly to himself at this new idea. It did not
+somehow hurt him as he thought it would, this sinecure he had accepted.
+Could he not make it up, as Ursula said, "work for the town in other
+ways without pay, since the town had given him pay without work?" A
+genial feeling of toleration came over Reginald's mind. Why should he
+have made such a fuss about it? It was natural that his father should
+insist, and, now that it was done, he himself did not wish it undone, as
+he had expected to do. After all, if you judged matters with such
+rigidity, who was there without guilt? what public appointment was
+given and held according to abstract right, as, formally speaking, it
+ought to be? Those in the highest offices were appointed, not because of
+their personal excellence, but because of being some other man's son or
+brother; and yet, on the whole, public duty was well done, and the
+unjust ruler and hireling priest were exceptions. Even men whose entry
+into the fold was very precipitate, over the wall, violently, or by some
+rat-hole of private interest, made very good shepherds, once they were
+inside. Nothing was perfect in this world, and yet things were more good
+than evil; and if he himself made it his study to create for himself an
+ideal position, to become a doer of all kinds of volunteer work, what
+would it matter that his appointment was not an ideal appointment? It
+seemed very strange to him, and almost like an interposition of
+Providence in his favour, that he should feel in this way, for Reginald
+was not aware that such revulsions of feeling were very natural
+phenomena, and that the sensation, after any great decision, is almost
+invariably one of relief. To be sure it upset this manly state of mind a
+little when, coming down to breakfast, his father gave him a nod, and
+said briefly, "I am glad you have seen your duty at last."
+
+This made him almost resolve to throw it up again; but the feeling was
+momentary. Why should he give it up? It had made him independent
+(already he thought of his independence as a thing accomplished), and he
+would make full amends to the Church and to Carlingford for taking two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year without working for it. Surely he could
+do that. He did not grudge work, but rather liked it, and would be ready
+to do anything, he did not care what, to make his sinecure into a
+volunteer's outpost for every good work. Yes, that was the way to look
+at it. And it was a glorious independence. Two hundred and fifty pounds
+a year!
+
+"And the house," cried Ursula, when Mr. May had left the
+breakfast-table, and left them free to chatter. "The house--I don't
+think you are likely to find a tenant for it. The houses in Grange Lane
+are so cheap now; and some people object to the poor old men. I think
+you must keep the house. Furnishing will be an expense; but, of course,
+when you have a certain income, that makes such a difference; and you
+can come and see us every day."
+
+"Why can't he live at home?" said Janey; "we are so poor; he ought to
+come and pay us something for his board, and help us to get on."
+
+"What can you know about it, at your age?" said Ursula. "We have not got
+proper rooms for Reginald. He ought, at least, to have a study of his
+own, as well as a bed-room, now that he has an appointment. No, you must
+go to the College, Reginald; and, perhaps, you might have one of the
+boys with you, say Johnnie, which would be a great saving--for he has an
+appetite; he eats more than two of the rest of us do. You might take one
+of them with you--to save the bills a little--if you like."
+
+"Take me," said Janey, "I have a good appetite too; and then I'm a girl,
+which is a great deal more useful. I could keep your house. Oh,
+Reginald! mayn't we go out and see it? I want to see it. I have never
+once been over the College--not in all my life."
+
+"We might as well go, don't you think, Ursula?" he said, appealing to
+her with a delightful mixture of helplessness and supremacy. Yesterday,
+he had not been able to assert any exclusive claim to sixpence. Now he
+had a house--a house all his own. It pleased him to think of taking the
+girls to it; and as for having one of them, he was ready to have them
+all to live with him. Ursula thought fit to accede graciously to this
+suggestion, when she had looked after her numerous household duties.
+Janey, in the mean time, had been "practising" in one of her periodical
+fits of diligence.
+
+"For, you know, if Reginald did really want me to keep house for him,"
+said Janey, "(you have too much to do at home; or, of course, he would
+like you best), it would be dreadful if people found out how little I
+know."
+
+"You ought to go to school," said Ursula, gravely. "It is a dreadful
+thing for a girl never to have had any education. Perhaps Reggie might
+spare a little money to send you to school; or, perhaps, papa--"
+
+"School yourself!" retorted Janey, indignant; but then she thought
+better of it. "Perhaps just for a year to finish," she added in a
+doubtful tone. They thought Reginald could do anything on that wonderful
+two hundred and fifty pounds a year.
+
+The College was a picturesque old building at the other side of
+Carlingford, standing in pretty grounds with some fine trees, under
+which the old men sat and amused themselves in the summer mornings. On
+this chilly wintry day none of them were visible, except the cheerful
+old soul bent almost double, but with a chirruppy little voice like a
+superannuated sparrow, who acted as porter, and closed the big gates
+every night, and fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He
+trotted along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show them
+the chaplain's rooms.
+
+"The old gentlemen is all as pleased as Punch," said Joe. "We was a
+feared as it might be somebody foreign--not a Carlingford gentleman; and
+some parsons is queer, saving your presence, Mr. May; but we knows where
+you comes from, and all about you, as one of the old gentlemen was just
+a-saying to me. Furnished, Miss? Lord bless you, yes! they're furnished.
+It's all furnished, is College. You'll think as the things look a bit
+queer; they wasn't made not this year, nor yet last year, I can tell
+you; and they ain't in the fashion. But if so be as you don't stand by
+fashion, there they is," said Joe, throwing open the door.
+
+The young people went in softly, their excitement subdued into a kind of
+awe. An empty house, furnished, is more desolate, more overwhelming to
+the imagination, than a house which is bare. For whom was it waiting,
+all ready there, swept and garnished? Or were there already unseen
+inhabitants about, writing ghostly letters on the tables, seated on the
+chairs? Even Janey was hushed.
+
+"I'd rather stay at home, after all," she whispered in Ursula's ear
+under her breath.
+
+But after awhile they became familiar with the silent place, and awoke
+the echoes in it with their voices and new life. Nothing so young had
+been in the College for years. The last chaplain had been an old man and
+an old bachelor; and the pensioners were all solitary, living a sort of
+monastic life, each in his room, like workers in their cells. When
+Janey, surprised by some unexpected joke, burst into one of her peals of
+laughter, the old building echoed all through it, and more than one
+window was put up and head projected to know the cause of this
+profanation.
+
+"Joe!" cried one portentous voice; "what's happened? what's the meaning
+of this?"
+
+"It's only them a-laughing, sir," said Joe, delighting in the vagueness
+of his rejoinder. "They ain't used to it, that's the truth; but laugh
+away, Miss, it'll do you good," he added benignly. Joe was of a cheerful
+spirit, notwithstanding his infirmities, and he foresaw lightsome days.
+
+Somewhat taken aback, however, by the commotion produced by Janey's
+laugh, the young party left the College, Ursula carrying with her sundry
+memoranda and measurements for curtains and carpets. "You must have
+curtains," she said, "and I think a carpet for the study. The other room
+will do; but the study is cold, it has not the sunshine. I wonder if we
+might go and look at some, all at once."
+
+Here the three paused in the road, and looked at each other somewhat
+overcome by the grandeur of the idea. Even Reginald, notwithstanding his
+Oxford experience, held his breath a little at the thought of going
+right off without further consideration, and buying carpets and
+curtains. As for Janey, she laughed again in pure excitement and
+delight.
+
+"Fancy going into Holden's, walking right in, as if we had the Bank in
+our pockets, and ordering whatever we like," she cried.
+
+"I suppose we must have them!" said Reginald, yielding slowly to the
+pleasure of acquisition. Ursula was transformed by the instinct of
+business and management into the leader of the party.
+
+"Of course you must have them," she said, with the air of a woman who
+had ordered curtains all her life, "otherwise you will catch cold, and
+that is not desirable," and she marched calmly towards Holden's, while
+Janey dropped behind to smother the laughter which expressed her amazed
+delight in this new situation. It is doubtful whether Holden would have
+given them so good a reception had the Miss Mays gone to hint to order
+curtains for the Parsonage--for the Carlingford tradesmen were very well
+aware of the difficulties, in point of payment, which attended Mr. May's
+purchases. But Holden was all smiles at the idea of fitting up the rooms
+in the College.
+
+"Carpets? I have a Turkey carpet that would just suit one of those old
+rooms--old-fashioned rooms are so much thought of at present," said the
+man of furniture.
+
+"Yes--I suppose that would do," said Reginald, with a side look at his
+sister, to know if he was right. Ursula slew him with a glance of her
+brown eyes. She was almost grand in superior knowledge and righteous
+indignation.
+
+"Turkey! are you out of your senses? Do you think we have the Bank in
+our pockets," she whispered to him angrily, "as Janey says?"
+
+"How was I to know? He said so," said the alarmed chaplain, cowed,
+notwithstanding his income.
+
+"_He_ said so! that is just like you boys, taking whatever everyone
+tells you. Why, a Turkey carpet costs a fortune. Mr. Holden, I think, if
+you please, Brussels will do; or some of those new kinds, a jumble of
+colours without any decided pattern. Not too expensive," said Ursula
+solemnly, the colour mounting to her face. They were all rather brought
+down from their first delight and grandeur when this was said--for
+stipulating about expense made a difference all at once. The delightful
+sensation of marching into Holden's as if the world belonged to them was
+over; but Janey was touched to see that Holden still remained civil,
+and did not express, in his countenance, the contempt he must have felt.
+
+When this was over, and Mr. Holden had kindly suggested the idea of
+sending various stuffs to the College, "that they might judge of the
+effect," the party went home, slightly subdued. The air was heavy and
+yellow, and prophesied snow; but a very red wintry sun had managed to
+make an opening temporarily in the clouds, and threw a ruddy ray down
+Grange Lane, bringing out the few passengers who were coming and going
+under the old garden walls. Ursula clasped her hands together, and came
+to a stop suddenly, when she turned her eyes that way.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "here she is--she is coming! all by herself, and we
+can't help meeting her--the young lady in black!"
+
+"Shall we speak to her?" said Janey with a little awe.
+
+"Who is the young lady in black?" said Reginald, "this girl who is
+coming up? I never saw her before in Carlingford. Is she some one you
+have met with the Dorsets? She don't look much like Grange Lane."
+
+"Oh, hush! here she is," said Ursula, losing all that importance of
+aspect which her position as leader of the expedition had given her. A
+pretty blush of expectation came over her face--her dimples revealed
+themselves as if by magic. You will think it strange, perhaps, that the
+sight of one girl should produce this effect upon another. But then
+Phoebe represented to Ursula the only glimpse she had ever had into a
+world which looked gay and splendid to the country girl--a world in
+which Phoebe had appeared to her as a princess reigning in glory and
+delight. Ursula forgot both her companions and her recent occupation.
+Would the young lady in black notice her; stop, perhaps, and talk to
+her--remember her? Her eyes began to glow and dance with excitement. She
+stumbled as she went on in her anxiety, fixing her eyes upon the
+approaching figure. Phoebe, for her part, was taking a constitutional
+walk up and down Grange Lane, and she too was a little moved,
+recognizing the girl, and wondering what it would be wisest to
+do--whether to speak to her, and break her lonely promenade with a
+little society, or remember her "place," and save herself from further
+mortification by passing the clergyman's daughter, who was a cousin of
+the Dorsets, with a bow.
+
+"The Dorsets wouldn't recognise me, nor Miss May either," Phoebe said to
+herself, "_if they knew_--"
+
+But Ursula looked so wistful as they approached each other that she had
+not the courage to keep to this wise resolution. Though she was only the
+granddaughter of Tozer, the butterman, she was much more a woman of the
+world than this pretty blushing girl who courted her notice. She put out
+her hand instinctively when they met. "It can't harm anybody but myself,
+after all," she thought.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you remember me," cried Ursula. "I knew you in a
+moment. Have you come to stay here? This is my brother, Reginald, and my
+little sister, Janey," (how Janey scowled at that _little!_ and with
+reason, for she was by half an inch the taller of the two). "Are you
+taking a walk? I do hope you like Carlingford. I do hope you are going
+to stay. That is our house down at the end of the lane, close to St.
+Roque's. Papa is the clergyman there. It will be so delightful," said
+Ursula, repeating herself in her excitement, "if you are going to stay."
+
+"I am going to stay for some time," said Phoebe graciously, "I don't
+quite know how long. I came here shortly after I saw you in town. My
+grandfather lives here. Grange Lane is very nice for a walk. Grandmamma
+is an invalid, so that I don't leave her very often. It was great luck
+finding you just as I had come out; for it is not cheerful walking
+alone."
+
+Phoebe felt perfectly sure that through each of the three heads turned
+towards her a hurried inquiry was going on as to which of those enclosed
+houses contained the grandmother who was an invalid; but no sort of
+enlightenment followed the inquiry, and as for Ursula it terminated
+abruptly in her mind with a rush of cordiality. She was not at an age
+when friendship pauses to make any inquiry into grandmothers.
+
+"I am so glad! for if you are not going anywhere in particular, we may
+all walk together. Janey knows you quite well. I have talked of you so
+often," (here Phoebe gave a gracious bow and smile to Janey, who was not
+quite sure that she liked to be thus patronized), "and so does my
+brother," said Ursula, more doubtfully. "Do you like Carlingford? Have
+you seen many people? Oh! I do hope you will stay."
+
+"I have not seen anybody," said Phoebe. "My people are not much in
+society. When one is old and sick, I don't suppose one cares--"
+
+"There is no society to speak of in Carlingford," said Reginald. "It is
+like most other country towns. If you like it we shall be sure your
+liking is quite disinterested, for it has no social charms--"
+
+When had Reginald said so many words at a time to a young lady before?
+The girls exchanged glances. "I think it is pretty," said Phoebe, closing
+the subject. "It is going to snow, don't you think? I suppose you skate
+like all the young ladies now. It seems the first thing any one thinks
+of when the winter begins."
+
+"Do you skate?" said Ursula, her eyes brighter and opener than ever.
+
+"Oh, a little--as everybody does! Perhaps if there is no society," said
+Phoebe, turning to Reginald for the first time, "people are free here
+from the necessity of doing as everybody does. I don't think there is
+any such bondage in the world--dressing, living, working, amusing
+yourself--you have to do everything as other people do it. So I skate--I
+can't help myself; and a hundred foolish things beside."
+
+"But I should think it _delightful_," cried Ursula, "I have always
+envied the boys. They look so warm when we are all shivering. Reginald,
+if it freezes will you teach us? I think I should like it better than
+anything in the world."
+
+"Yes," said Reginald, "if Miss--if we can make up a party--if you," he
+added with a perfectly new inflection in his voice, "will come too."
+
+"I see you don't know my name," said Phoebe, with a soft little laugh.
+"It is Beecham. One never catches names at a party. I remembered yours
+because of a family in a novel that I used to admire very much in my
+girlish days--"
+
+"Oh! I know," cried Janey, "the Daisy Chain. We are not a set of prigs
+like those people. We are not goody, whatever we are; we--"
+
+"I don't suppose Miss Beecham cares for your opinion of the family
+character," said Reginald in a tone that made Janey furious. Thus
+discoursing they reached the gates of the Parsonage, where Ursula was
+most eager that her friend should come in. And here Mr. May joined them,
+who was impressed, like everybody else, by Phoebe's appearance, and made
+himself so agreeable that Reginald felt eclipsed and driven into the
+background. Ursula had never been so satisfied with her father in her
+life; though there was a cloud on Mr. May's soul, it suited him to show
+a high good-humour with everybody in recompense for his son's
+satisfactory decision, and he was, indeed, in a state of high
+complacence with himself for having managed matters so cleverly that the
+very thing which should have secured Reginald's final abandonment of the
+chaplaincy determined him, on the contrary, to accept it. And he admired
+Phoebe, and was dazzled by her self-possession and knowledge of the
+world. He supported Ursula's invitation warmly; but the stranger freed
+herself with graceful excuses. She had her patient to attend to.
+
+"That is a very lady-like young woman," said Mr. May, when they had
+gone in, after watching regretfully their new acquaintance's progress
+through Grange Lane. "You met her in town, did you? A friend of the
+Dorsets? Where is she living, I wonder; and whom does she belong to? One
+does not often see that style of thing here."
+
+"I never saw any one like her before," said Ursula fervently; and they
+were still all uniting in admiration of Phoebe--when--
+
+But such an interruption demands another page.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THAT TOZER GIRL!
+
+
+"Well, who is she?" cried Mrs. Sam Hurst, too curious to think of the
+ordinary decorums. She had no bonnet on, but a light "cloud" of white
+wool over her cap, and her whole aspect was full of eagerness and
+excitement. "Why didn't you tell me you knew her? Who is she? I am dying
+to know."
+
+"Who is--who?" said Ursula, rather glad of the opportunity of being
+politely rude to Mrs. Sam Hurst before papa. "How is any one to find out
+from the way you speak? She? who is she?"
+
+"That is just what I want you to tell me," said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with
+imperturbable good-humour. "You, Mr. May, you are always good to me,
+though Ursula has her little tempers--the girl you were talking to at
+the door. I stood and watched from the window, and I scarcely could
+contain myself sufficiently not to bounce out in the middle of the talk.
+Now do tell, as the Americans say. Who is that Tozer girl?"
+
+"That Tozer girl!" Ursula gave a little shriek, and grew first red and
+then pale with horror and dismay.
+
+"Yes; I told you about her; so well dressed and looking so nice. That
+was she; with the very same dress, such a charming dress! so much style
+about it. Who is she, Ursula? Mr. May, tell me who is she? You can't
+imagine how much I want to know."
+
+Ursula dropped into a chair, looking like a little ghost, faint and
+rigid. She said afterwards to Janey that she felt in the depths of her
+heart that it must be true. She could have cried with pain and
+disappointment, but she would not give Mrs. Sam Hurst the pleasure of
+making her cry.
+
+"There must be some mistake," said Reginald, interposing. "This is a
+lady--my sister met her in town with the Dorsets."
+
+"Oh, does she know the Dorsets too?" said the inquirer. "That makes it
+still more interesting. Yes, that is the girl that is with the Tozers;
+there can be no mistake about it. She is the granddaughter. She was at
+the Meeting last night. I had it from the best authority--on the
+platform with old Tozer. And, indeed, Mr. May, how any one that had been
+there could dare to look you in the face!--"
+
+"I was there myself," said Mr. May. "It amused me very much. Tell me now
+about this young person. Is she an impostor, taking people in, or what
+is it all about? Ursula looks as if she was in the trick herself, and
+had been found out."
+
+"I am _sure_ she is not an impostor," said Ursula. "An impostor! If you
+had seen her as I saw her, at a great, beautiful, splendid ball. I never
+saw anything like it. I was nobody there--nobody--and neither were
+Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy--but Miss Beecham! It is a mistake, I
+suppose," the girl said, raising herself up with great dignity; "when
+people are always trying for news, they get the wrong news sometimes, I
+don't doubt. You may be sure it is a mistake."
+
+"That's me," said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with a laugh; "that is one of Ursula's
+assaults upon poor me. Yes, I confess it, I am fond of news; and I never
+said she was an impostor. Poor girl, I am dreadfully sorry for her. I
+think she is a good girl, trying to do her duty to her relations. She
+didn't choose her own grandfather. I dare say, if she'd had any say in
+it, she would have made a very different choice. But whether your papa
+may think her a proper friend for you--being Tozer's granddaughter, Miss
+Ursula, that's quite a different business, I am bound to say."
+
+Again Ursula felt herself kept from crying by sheer pride, and nothing
+else. She bit her lips tight; she would not give in. Mrs. Hurst to
+triumph over her, and to give her opinion as to what papa might think
+proper! Ursula turned her back upon Mrs. Hurst, which was not civil,
+fearing every moment some denunciation from papa. But nothing of the
+kind came. He asked quite quietly after a while, "Where did you meet
+this young lady?" without any perceptible inflection of anger in his
+tone.
+
+"Why, papa," cried Janey, distressed to be kept so long silent,
+"everybody knows where Ursula met her; no one has heard of anything else
+since she came home. She met her of course at the ball. You know;
+Reginald, _you_ know! The ball where she went with Cousin Anne."
+
+"Never mind Cousin Anne; I want the name of the people at whose house it
+was."
+
+"Copperhead, papa," said Ursula, rousing herself. "If Cousin Anne does
+not know a lady from a common person, who does, I wonder? It was Cousin
+Anne who introduced me to her (I think). Their name was Copperhead, and
+they lived in a great, big, beautiful house, in the street where
+ambassadors and quantities of great people live. I forget the name of
+it; but I know there was an ambassador lived there, and Cousin Anne
+said----"
+
+"Copperhead! I thought so," said Mr. May. "When Ursula has been set
+a-going on the subject of Cousin Anne, there is nothing rational to be
+got from her after that for an hour or two. You take an interest in this
+young lady," he said shortly, turning to Mrs. Sam Hurst, who stood by
+smiling, rather enjoying the commotion she had caused.
+
+"Who, I? I take an interest in anybody that makes a stir, and gives us
+something to talk about," said Mrs. Hurst, frankly. "You know my
+weakness. Ursula despises me for it, but you know human nature. If I did
+not take an interest in my neighbours what would become of me--a poor
+lone elderly woman, without either chick or child?"
+
+She rounded off this forlorn description of herself with a hearty laugh,
+in which Janey, who had a secret kindness for their merry neighbour,
+though she feared her "for papa," joined furtively. Mr. May, however,
+did not enter into the joke with the sympathy which he usually showed to
+Mrs. Hurst. He smiled, but there was something _distrait_ and
+pre-occupied in his air.
+
+"How sorry we all are for you," he said; "your position is truly
+melancholy. I am glad, for your sake, that old Tozer has a pretty
+granddaughter to beguile you now and then out of recollection of your
+cares."
+
+There was a sharp tone in this which caught Mrs. Hurst's ear, and she
+was not disposed to accept any sharpness from Mr. May. She turned the
+tables upon him promptly.
+
+"What a disgraceful business that Meeting was! Of course, you have seen
+the paper. There ought to be some way of punishing those agitators that
+go about the country, taking away people's characters. Could not you
+bring him up for libel, or Reginald? I never knew anything so shocking.
+To come to your own town, your own neighbourhood, and to strike you
+through your son! It is the nastiest, most underhanded, unprincipled
+attack I ever heard of."
+
+"What is that?" asked Reginald.
+
+He was not easily roused by Carlingford gossip, but there was clearly
+more in this than met the eye.
+
+"An Anti-State Church Meeting," said Mr. May, "with special compliments
+in it to you and me. It is not worth our while to think of it. Your
+agitators, my dear Mrs. Hurst, are not worth powder and shot. Now,
+pardon me, but I must go to work. Will you go and see the sick people in
+Back Grove Street, Reginald? I don't think I can go to-day."
+
+"I should like to know what was in the paper," said the young man, with
+an obstinacy that filled the girls with alarm. They had been in hopes
+that everything between father and son was to be happy and friendly, now
+that Reginald was about to do what his father wished.
+
+"Oh, you shall see it," said Mrs. Hurst, half alarmed too; "but it is
+not anything, as your father says; only we women are sensitive. We are
+always thinking of things which, perhaps, were never intended to harm
+us. Ursula, you take my advice, and don't go and mix yourself up with
+Dissenters and that kind of people. The Tozer girl may be very nice, but
+she is still Tozer's granddaughter, after all."
+
+Reginald followed the visitor out of the room, leaving his sisters very
+ill at ease within, and his father not without anxieties which were so
+powerful, indeed, that he relieved his mind by talking of them to his
+daughters--a most unusual proceeding.
+
+"That woman will set Reginald off at the nail again," he cried; "after
+he had begun to see things in a common-sense light. There was an attack
+made upon him last night on account of that blessed chaplaincy, which
+has been more trouble to me than it is worth. I suppose he'll throw it
+up now. But I wash my hands of the matter. I wonder how you girls can
+encourage that chattering woman to come here."
+
+"Papa!" cried Janey, ever on the defensive, "we _hate_ her! It is you
+who encourage her to come here."
+
+"Oh, hush!" cried Ursula, with a warning glance; it was balm to her soul
+to hear her father call Mrs. Hurst _that woman_. "We have been to see
+the house," she said; "it was very nice. I think Reginald liked it,
+papa."
+
+"Ah, well," said Mr. May, "girls and boys are queer articles. I dare say
+the house, if he likes it, will weigh more with him than justice or
+common sense. So Copperhead was the people's name? What would be wanted,
+do you think, Ursula, to make Reginald's room into a comfortable room
+for a pupil? Comfortable, recollect; not merely what would do; and one
+that has been used, I suppose, to luxury. You can look over it and let
+me know."
+
+"Are we going to take a pupil, papa?" cried Janey, with widening eyes.
+
+"I don't know what you could teach him," he said. "Manners, perhaps? Let
+me know, Ursula. The room is not a bad room; it would want a new carpet,
+curtains, perhaps--various things. Make me out a list. The Copperheads
+have a son, I believe. Did you see him at that fine ball of yours?"
+
+"Oh! papa, he danced with me twice; he was very kind," said Ursula, with
+a blush; "and he danced all the night with Miss Beecham. It must be a
+falsehood about her being old Tozer's granddaughter. Mr. Clarence
+Copperhead was always by her side. I think Mrs. Hurst must have made it
+all up out of her own head."
+
+Mr. May gave a little short laugh.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Hurst!" he said, recovering his temper; "how bitter you all
+are against her. So he danced with you twice? You must try to make him
+comfortable, Ursula, if he comes here."
+
+"Is Mr. Clarence Copperhead coming here?"
+
+Ursula was struck dumb by this piece of news. The grand house in
+Portland Place, and all Sophy Dorset's questions and warnings, came
+suddenly back to her mind. She blushed fiery red; she could not tell
+why. Coming here! How strange it would be, how extraordinary, to have to
+order dinner for him, and get his room in order, and have him in the
+drawing-room in the evenings! How should she know what to say to him? or
+would papa keep him always at work, reading Greek or something
+downstairs? All this flashed through her mind with the rapidity of
+lightning. Mr. May made no reply. He was walking up and down the room
+with his hands behind him, as was his habit when he was "busy." Being
+busy was separated from being angry by the merest visionary line in Mr.
+May's case; his children never ventured on addressing him at such
+moments, and it is impossible to describe how glad they were when he
+withdrew to his own room before Reginald's return; but not a minute too
+soon. The young man came back, looking black as night. He threw himself
+into a chair, and then he got up again, and began also to walk about the
+room like his father. At first he would make no reply to the questions
+of the girls.
+
+"It is exactly what I expected," he said; "just what I looked for. I
+knew it from the first moment."
+
+It was Janey, naturally, who had least patience with this unsatisfactory
+utterance.
+
+"If it was just what you expected, and you looked for it all the time,
+why should you make such a fuss now?" she cried. "I declare, for all you
+are young, and we are fond of you, you are almost as bad as papa."
+
+Reginald did not take any notice of this address; he went on repeating
+the same words at intervals.
+
+"A child might have known it. Of course, from the beginning one knew how
+it must be." Then he suddenly faced round upon Ursula, who was nearly
+crying in excitement and surprise. "But if they think I am to be driven
+out of a resolution I have made by what they say--if they think that I
+will be bullied into giving up because of their claptrap," he cried,
+looking sternly at her, "then you will find you are mistaken. You will
+find I am not such a weak idiot as you suppose. Give up! because some
+demagogue from a Dissenting Committee takes upon him to criticise my
+conduct. If you think I have so little self-respect, so little stamina,"
+he said, fiercely, "you will find you have made a very great mistake."
+
+"Oh, Reginald, _me_?" cried Ursula, with tears in her eyes; "did I ever
+think anything unkind of you? did I ever ask you to do anything that was
+disagreeable? You should not look as if it was me."
+
+Then he threw himself down again on the old sofa, which creaked and
+tottered under the shock.
+
+"Poor little Ursula!" he cried, with a short laugh. "Did you think I
+meant you? But if they thought they would master me by these means,"
+said Reginald with pale fury, "they never made a greater mistake, I can
+tell you. A parcel of trumpery agitators, speechifiers, little petty
+demagogues, whom nobody ever heard of before. A fine thing, indeed, to
+have all the shopkeepers of Carlingford sitting in committee on one's
+conduct, isn't it--telling one what one ought to do? By Jupiter! It's
+enough to make a man swear!"
+
+"I declare!" cried Janey loudly, "how like Reginald is to papa! I never
+saw it before. When he looks wicked like that, and sets his teeth--but I
+am not going to be pushed, not by my brother or any one!" said the girl,
+growing red, and making a step out of his reach. "I won't stand it. I am
+not a child any more than you."
+
+Janey's wrath was appeased, however, when Reginald produced the paper
+and read Northcote's speech aloud. In her interest she drew nearer and
+nearer, and read the obnoxious column over his shoulder, joining in
+Ursula's cries of indignation. By the time the three had thus got
+through it, Reginald's own agitation subsided into that fierce amusement
+which is the frequent refuge of the assaulted.
+
+"Old Green in the chair! and old Tozer and the rest have all been
+sitting upon me," he said, with that laugh which is proverbially
+described as from the wrong side of the mouth, whatever that may be.
+Ursula said nothing in reply, but in her heart she felt yet another
+stab. Tozer! This was another complication. She had taken so great a
+romantic interest in the heroine of that ball, which was the most
+entrancing moment of Ursula's life, that it seemed a kind of disloyalty
+to her dreams to give up thus completely, and dethrone the young lady in
+black; but what could the poor girl do? In the excitement of this
+question the personality of Reginald's special assailant was lost
+altogether: the girls did not even remember his name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A NEW FRIEND.
+
+
+After this there followed an exciting interval for the family at the
+Parsonage. Reginald, with the impatience of anger, insisted upon
+transporting himself to the College at once, and entering upon "his
+duties," such as they were, in defiance of all public comment. And Mr.
+May, delighted with the head-strong resentment which served his purpose
+so well, promoted it by all the means in his power, goading his son on,
+if he showed any signs of relaxing, by references to public opinion, and
+what the Liberation Society would say. Before those curtains were ready,
+which the girls had ordered with so much pride, or the carpet laid down,
+he had taken possession, and his room in the Parsonage was already
+turned upside down preparing for a new inmate. Many and strange were the
+thoughts in Ursula's mind about this new inmate. She remembered Clarence
+Copperhead as a full-grown man, beyond, it seemed to her, the age at
+which pupilage was possible. What was he coming to Carlingford for? What
+was he coming to the Parsonage for? What could papa do with a pupil
+quite as old as Reginald, who, in his own person, had often taken
+pupils? Ursula had read as many novels as were natural at her age, and
+can it be supposed that she did not ask herself whether there was any
+other meaning in it? Could he be coming to Carlingford on account of
+Miss Beecham; or, on account of--any one else? Ursula never whispered,
+even to her own imagination, on account of me. But it is not to be
+supposed that the unbidden inarticulate thought did not steal in,
+fluttering her girlish soul. Everybody knows that in fiction, at least,
+such things occur continually, and are the most natural things in the
+world; and to Ursula, beyond her own little commonplace world, which she
+somewhat despised, and the strange world undeciphered and wonderful to
+which the Dorsets had introduced her for those ten brief days in London,
+the world of fiction was the only sphere she knew; and in that sphere
+there could be no such natural method of accounting for a young man's
+actions as that of supposing him to be "in love." The question remained,
+was it with Miss Beecham, or was it with--anybody else? Such an inquiry
+could not but flutter her youthful bosom. She made his room ready for
+him, and settled how he was to be disposed of, with the strangest sense
+of something beneath, which her father would never suspect, but which,
+perhaps, she alone might know.
+
+Clarence Copperhead was a more imposing figure to Ursula than he was in
+reality. She had seen him only twice, and he was a big and full-grown
+"gentleman," while Ursula only realised herself as a little girl. She
+was not even aware that she had any intelligence to speak of, or that
+she would be a fit person to judge of "a gentleman." To be sure she had
+to do many things which wanted thought and sense; but she was too
+unthoughtful of herself to have decided this as yet, or to have created
+any private tribunal at which to judge a new-comer of Clarence
+Copperhead's dimensions. A much greater personage than she was, an
+individual whose comings and goings could not be without observation,
+whose notice would be something exciting and strange, was what she took
+him to be. And Ursula was excited. Did Mrs. Copperhead, that kind little
+woman, know why he was coming--was she in his confidence? And how was
+Ursula to entertain him, to talk to him--a gentleman accustomed to so
+much better society? She did not say anything to Janey on this subject,
+though Janey was not without her curiosities too, and openly indulged in
+conjectures as to the new pupil.
+
+"I wonder if he will be fine. I wonder if he will be very good," said
+Janey. "I wonder if he will fall in love with Ursula. Pupils, in books,
+always do; and then there is a dreadful fuss and bother, and the girl is
+sent away. It is hard for the girl; it is always supposed to be her
+fault. I would not allow papa to take any pupils if it was me."
+
+"And much your papa would care for your permission," said Mrs. Sam
+Hurst. "But so far I agree with you, Janey, that before he has pupils,
+or anything of that sort, there ought to be a lady in the house. He
+should marry--"
+
+"Marry! we don't want a lady in the house," cried Janey, "we are ladies
+ourselves, I hope. Marry! if he does, I, for one, will do all I can to
+make his life miserable," said the girl with energy. "What should he
+want to marry for when he has daughters grown up? There are enough of us
+already, I should think."
+
+"Too many," said Mrs. Sam Hurst with a sigh. It gave her the greatest
+secret delight to play upon the girl's fears.
+
+Besides this, however, Ursula had another pre-occupation. In that
+cordial meeting with the young lady who had turned out to be a person in
+such an embarrassing position, there had been a great deal said about
+future meetings, walks, and expeditions together, and Ursula had been
+very desirous that Phoebe should fix some time for their first encounter.
+She thought of this now with blushes that seemed to burn her cheeks. She
+was afraid to go out, lest she should meet the girl she had been so
+anxious to make a friend of. Not that, on her own account, after the
+first shock, Ursula would have been hard-hearted enough to deny her
+acquaintance to Tozer's granddaughter. In the seclusion of her chamber,
+she had cried over the downfall of her ideal friend very bitterly, and
+felt the humiliation for Phoebe more cruelly than that young lady felt it
+for herself; but Ursula, however much it might have cost her, would have
+stood fast to her friendship had she been free to do as she pleased.
+
+"I did not like her for her grandfather," she said to Janey, of whom, in
+this case, she was less unwilling to make a confidant. "I never thought
+of the grandfather. What does it matter to me if he were a sweep instead
+of old Tozer?"
+
+"Old Tozer is just as bad as if he were a sweep," said Janey; "if you
+had ever thought of her grandfather, and known he was old Tozer, you
+would have felt it would not do."
+
+"What is there about a grandfather? I don't know if we ever had any,"
+said Ursula. "Mamma had, for the Dorsets are her relations--but papa.
+Mr. Griffiths's grandfather was a candle-maker; I have heard papa say
+so--and they go everywhere."
+
+"But he is dead," said Janey, with great shrewdness, "and he was rich."
+
+"You little nasty calculating thing! Oh, how I hate rich people; how I
+hate this horrid world, that loves money and loves fine names, and does
+not care for people's selves whether they are bad or good! I shall never
+dare to walk up Grange Lane again," said Ursula, with tears. "Fancy
+changing to her, after being so glad to see her! fancy never saying
+another word about the skating, or the walk to the old mill! How she
+will despise me for being such a miserable creature! and she will think
+it is all my own fault."
+
+At this moment Mr. May, from the door of his study, called "Ursula!"
+repeating the call with some impatience when she paused to dry her eyes.
+She ran down to him quickly, throwing down her work in her haste. He was
+standing at the door, and somehow for the first time the worn look about
+his eyes struck Ursula with a touch of pity. She had never noticed it
+before: a look of suppressed pain and anxiety, which remained about his
+eyes though the mouth smiled. It had never occurred to her to be sorry
+for her father before, and the idea struck her as very strange now.
+
+"Come in," he said, "I want to speak to you. I have been thinking about
+the young woman--this friend of yours. We are all among the Dissenters
+now-a-days, whatever Mrs. Sam Hurst may say. You seem to have taken a
+fancy to this Tozer girl?"
+
+"Don't call her so, papa, please. She is a lady in herself, as good a
+lady as any one."
+
+"Well! I don't say anything against her, do I? So you hold by your
+fancy? You are not afraid of Grange Lane and Mrs. Sam Hurst."
+
+"I have not seen her again," said Ursula, cast down. "I have not been
+out at all. I could not bear to be so friendly one day, and then to pass
+as if one did not know her the next. I cannot do it," cried the girl, in
+tears; "if I see her, I must just be the same as usual to her, whatever
+you say."
+
+"Very well, _be_ the same as usual," said Mr. May; "that is why I called
+you. I have my reasons. Notwithstanding Tozer, be civil to the girl. I
+have my reasons for what I say."
+
+"Do you mean it, papa!" said Ursula, delighted. "Oh, how good of you!
+You don't mind--you really don't mind? Oh! I can't tell you how thankful
+I am; for to pretend to want to be friends, and then to break off all in
+a moment because of a girl's grandfather----"
+
+"Don't make a principle of it, Ursula. It is quite necessary, in an
+ordinary way, to think of a girl's grandfather--and a boy's too, for
+that matter. No shopkeeping friends for me; but in this individual case
+I am willing to make an exception. For the moment, you see, Dissenters
+are in the ascendant. Young Copperhead is coming next week. Now, go."
+
+Ursula marched delighted upstairs. "Janey, run and get your hat," she
+said; "I am going out. I am not afraid of any one now. Papa is a great
+deal nicer than he ever was before. He says I may see Miss Beecham as
+much as I like. He says we need not mind Mrs. Sam Hurst. I am so glad! I
+shall never be afraid of that woman any more."
+
+Janey was taken altogether by surprise. "I hope he is not going to fall
+in love with Miss Beecham," she said suspiciously. "I have heard Betsy
+say that old gentlemen often do."
+
+"He is not so foolish as to fall in love with anybody," said Ursula,
+with dignity. "Indeed, Janey, you ought to have much more respect for
+papa. I wish you could be sent to school and learn more sense. You give
+your opinion as if you were--twenty--more than that. I am sure I never
+should have ventured to say such things when I was a child like you."
+
+"Child yourself!" said Janey indignant; which was her last resource when
+she had nothing more to say; but Ursula was too busy putting aside her
+work and preparing for her walk to pay any attention. In proportion as
+she had been subdued and downcast heretofore, she was gay now. She
+forgot all about old Tozer; about the Dissenters' meeting, and the man
+who had made an attack upon poor Reginald. She flew to her room for her
+hat and jacket, and ran downstairs, singing to herself. Janey only
+overtook her, out of breath, as she emerged into the road from the
+Parsonage door.
+
+"What a dreadful hurry you are in," said Janey. "I always get ready so
+much quicker than you do. Is it all about this girl, because she is new?
+I never knew you were so fond of new people before."
+
+But that day they went up and down Grange Lane fruitlessly, without
+seeing anything of Phoebe, and Ursula returned home disconsolate. In the
+evening Reginald intimated carelessly that he had met Miss Beecham. "She
+is much better worth talking to than most of the girls one meets with,
+whoever her grandfather may be," he said, evidently with an instant
+readiness to stand on the defensive.
+
+"Oh, did you talk to her," said Ursula, "without knowing? Reginald, papa
+has no objections. He says we may even have her here, if we please."
+
+"Well, of course I suppose he must guide you in that respect," said
+Reginald, "but it does not matter particularly to me. Of course I talked
+to her. Even my father could not expect that his permission was needed
+for me."
+
+At which piece of self-assertion the girls looked at him with admiring
+eyes. Already they felt there was a difference. Reginald at home,
+nominal curate, without pay or position, was a different thing from
+Reginald with an appointment, a house of his own, and two hundred and
+fifty pounds a year. The girls looked at him admiringly, but felt that
+this was never likely to be their fate. In everything the boys had so
+much the best of it; and yet it was almost a comfort to think that they
+had seen Reginald himself trembling before papa. Reginald had a great
+deal to tell them about the college, about the old men who made a
+hundred daily claims on his attention, and the charities which he had to
+administer, doles of this and that, and several charity schools of a
+humble class.
+
+"As for my time, it is not likely to hang on my hands as I thought. I
+can't be a parish Quixote, as we planned, Ursula, knocking down
+windmills for other people," he said, adjusting his round edge of
+collar. He was changed; he was important, a personage in his own sight,
+no longer to be spoken of as Mr. May's son. Janey ventured on a little
+laugh when he went away, but Ursula did not like the change.
+
+"Never mind," cried Janey; "I hope Copperhead will be nice. We shall
+have him to talk to, when he comes."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ursula, in a kind of despair, "who taught you to call
+gentlemen like that by their name? There is nothing so vulgar. Why,
+Cousin Anne says--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Anne!" cried Janey, shaking her head, and dancing away.
+After that she was aware there was nothing for it but flight.
+
+Next day, however, they were more successful. Phoebe, though very little
+older than Ursula, was kind to the country girls, and talked to them
+both, and drew them out. She smiled when she heard of Clarence
+Copperhead, and told them that he was not very clever, but she did not
+think there was any harm in him.
+
+"It is his father who is disagreeable," said Phoebe; "didn't you think
+so? You know, papa is a minister, Miss May," (she did not say clergyman
+when she spoke to a churchwoman, for what was the use of exciting any
+one's prejudices?) "and Mr. Copperhead comes to our church. You may be
+very thankful, in that respect, that you are not a dissenter. But it
+will be very strange to see Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. I have
+known him since I was no bigger than your little sister. To tell the
+truth," said Phoebe, frankly, "I think I am rather sorry he is coming
+here."
+
+"Why?" cried bold Janey, who was always inquisitive.
+
+Miss Phoebe only smiled and shook her head; she made no distinct reply.
+
+"Poor fellow, I suppose he has been 'plucked,' as the gentlemen call
+it, or 'ploughed,' does your brother say? University slang is very
+droll. He has not taken his degree, I suppose, and they want him to work
+before going up again. I am sorry for your father, too, for I don't
+think it will be very easy to get anything into Clarence Copperhead's
+mind. But there is no harm at all in him, and he used to be very nice to
+his mother. Mamma and I liked him for that; he was always very nice to
+his mother."
+
+"Will you come in and have some tea?" said Ursula. "Do, please. I hope,
+now that I have met you again, you will not refuse me. I was afraid you
+had gone away, or something--"
+
+Ursula, however, could not help looking guilty as she spoke, and Phoebe
+perceived at once that there had been some reason for the two or three
+days disappearance of the girls from Grange Lane.
+
+"You must tell me first," she said, with a smile, "whether you know who
+I am. If you ask me after that, I shall come. I am old Mr. Tozer's
+granddaughter, who had a shop in the High Street. My uncle has a shop
+there now. I do not like it myself," said Phoebe, with the masterly
+candour that distinguished her, "and no one else can be expected to like
+it. If you did not know--"
+
+"Oh, we heard directly," cried Janey; "Mrs. Sam Hurst told us. She came
+shrieking, 'Who is she?' before your back was turned that day; for she
+wondered to see you with old Tozer--"
+
+"Janey!" cried Ursula, with horror. "Of course we know; and please will
+you come? Every new person in Carlingford gets talked over, and if an
+angel were to walk about, Mrs. Sam Hurst would never rest till she had
+found out where he came from."
+
+"And, perhaps, whether he had a broken feather in his wing," said Phoebe.
+"I am very glad you don't mind. It will be very pleasant to come. I will
+run in and tell them, and then I will join you. Grandmamma is an
+invalid, and would like to know where I am."
+
+And the news made a considerable flutter in the dim room where Mrs.
+Tozer sat between the fire and the window, looking out upon the crocuses
+and regretting the High Street.
+
+"But run and put on another dress, dear. What will they think of you in
+that everlasting brown frock as you're so fond of? I'd like them to see
+as my grandchild could dress as nice as any lady in the land."
+
+"She'll not see much finery there," said Tozer; "they're as poor as
+church mice, are them Mays, and never a penny to pay a bill when it's
+wanted. I don't think as Phoebe need mind her dressing to go there."
+
+"And you'll send for me if you want me, grandmamma; you will be sure to
+send?"
+
+But for the brown frock, Mrs. Tozer's satisfaction would have been
+unalloyed as she watched her granddaughter walking across the garden.
+
+"She's at home among the quality, she is," said the old woman; "maybe
+more so than she is with you and me; but there ain't a better girl in
+all England, and that I'll say for her, though if she would think a
+little more about her clothes, as is nat'ral at her age, it would be
+more pleasing to me."
+
+"The worst dress as Phoebe has is better than anything belonging to them
+Mays," said Tozer.
+
+He did not care for the parson at St. Roque; though he was pleased that
+his child should be among "the quality." But it was on that evening that
+poor old Mrs. Tozer had one of her attacks, and Phoebe had to be summoned
+back at an early hour. The servant went down with an umbrella and a
+note, to bring her home; and that trifling incident had its influence
+upon after affairs, as the reader shall shortly see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT.
+
+
+It was something of a comfort to Phoebe to find that the "tea" to which
+Ursula asked her was a family meal, such as Mr. and Mrs. Tozer indulged
+in, in Grange Lane, with no idea of dinner to follow, as in more refined
+circles. This, she said to herself benignly, must be "country fashion,"
+and she was naturally as bland and gracious at the Parsonage tea-table
+as anybody from town, knowing better, but desiring to make herself
+thoroughly agreeable, could be. She amused Mr. May very much, who felt
+the serene young princess, accepting her vulgar relations with gentle
+resignation, and supported by a feeling of her own innate dignity, to be
+something quite new to him. Phoebe had no objection to talk upon the
+subject, for, clever as she was, she was not so clever as to see through
+Mr. May's amused show of interest in her trials, but believed
+ingenuously that he understood and felt for her, and was, perhaps, at
+last, the one noble, impartial, and generous Churchman who could see
+the difficulties of cultivated Dissenters, and enter into them
+sympathetically. Why Mr. May took the trouble to draw her out on this
+point it is more difficult to explain. Poor man, he was in a state of
+semi-distraction over Cotsdean's bill. The ten days had shortened into
+three, and he was no nearer finding that hundred pounds than ever. Even
+while he smiled and talked to Phoebe, he was repeating over and over to
+himself the terrible fact which could not now be ignored. "17th, 18th,
+19th, and Friday will be the 20th," he was saying to himself. If that
+20th came without any help, Cotsdean would be virtually made a bankrupt;
+for of course all his creditors would make a rush upon him, and all his
+affairs would be thrown open to the remorseless public gaze, if the
+bill, which had been so often renewed, had to be dishonoured at last.
+Mr. May had a conscience, though he was not careful of his money, and
+the fear of ruin to Cotsdean was a very terrible and real oppression to
+him. The recollection was upon him like a vulture in classic story,
+tearing and gnawing, as he sat there and smiled over the cup of tea
+Ursula gave him, feeling amused all the same at Phoebe's talk. He could
+scarcely have told why he had permitted his daughter to pursue her
+acquaintance with Tozer's granddaughter. Partly it was because of
+Clarence Copperhead; out of curiosity, as, being about to be brought in
+contact with some South Sea Islander or Fijian, one would naturally wish
+to see another who was thrown in one's way by accident, and thus prepare
+one's self for the permanent acquaintance. And she amused him. Her
+cleverness, her ease, her conversational powers, her woman of the world
+aspect, did not so much impress him, perhaps, as they did others; but
+the complacency and innocent confidence of youth that were in her, and
+her own enjoyment of the situation, notwithstanding the mortifications
+incurred--all this amused Mr. May. He listened to her talk, sometimes
+feeling himself almost unable to bear it, for the misery of those words,
+which kept themselves ringing in a dismal chorus in his own mind, and
+yet deriving a kind of amusement and distraction from it all the same.
+
+"One of your friends was very hard upon my son--and myself--at your
+Meeting the other night, Miss Beecham."
+
+"He was very injudicious," said Phoebe, shaking her head. "Indeed I did
+not approve. Personalities never advance any cause. I said so to him.
+Don't you think the Church has herself to blame for those political
+Dissenters, Mr. May? You sneer at us, and look down upon us--"
+
+"I? I don't sneer at anybody."
+
+"I don't mean you individually; but Churchmen do. They treat us as if
+we were some strange kind of creatures, from the heart of Africa
+perhaps. They don't think we are just like themselves: as well educated;
+meaning as well; with as much right to our own ideas."
+
+Mr. May could scarcely restrain a laugh. "Just like themselves." The
+idea of a Dissenter setting up to be as well educated, and as capable of
+forming an opinion, as a cultivated Anglican, an Oxford man, and a
+beneficed clergyman, was too novel and too foolish not to be somewhat
+startling as well. Mr. May was aware that human nature is strangely
+blind to its own deficiencies, but was it possible that any delusion
+could go so far as this? He did laugh a little--just the ghost of a
+laugh--at the idea. But what is the use of making any serious opposition
+to such a statement? The very fact of contesting the assumption seemed
+to give it a certain weight.
+
+"Whenever this is done," said Phoebe, with serene philosophy, "I think
+you may expect a revulsion of feeling. The class to which papa belongs
+is very friendly to the Established Church, and wishes to do her every
+honour."
+
+"Is it indeed? We ought to be much gratified," said Mr. May.
+
+Phoebe gave him a quick glance, but he composed his face and met her look
+meekly. It actually diverted him from his pre-occupation, and that is a
+great deal to say.
+
+"We would willingly do her any honour; we would willingly be friends,
+even look up to her, if that would please her," added Phoebe, very
+gravely, conscious of the importance of what she was saying; "but when
+we see clergymen, and common persons also, who have never had one
+rational thought on the subject, always setting us down as ignorant and
+uncultured, because we are Dissenters----"
+
+"But no one does that," said Ursula, soothingly, eager to save her new
+friend's feelings. She paused in the act of pouring out the children's
+second cup of tea, and looked up at her with eyes full of caressing and
+flattering meaning. "No one, at least, I am sure," she added, faltering,
+remembering suddenly things she had heard said of Dissenters, "who knows
+_you_."
+
+"It is not I that ought to be thought of, it is the general question.
+Then can you wonder that a young man like the gentleman we were talking
+of, clever and energetic, and an excellent scholar (and very good in
+philosophy, too--he was at Jena for two or three years), should be made
+bitter when he feels himself thrust back upon a community of small
+shopkeepers?"
+
+Mr. May could not restrain another short laugh.
+
+"We must not join in the vulgar abuse of shopkeepers," he said.
+
+Phoebe's colour rose. She raised her head a little, then perceiving the
+superiority of her former position, smiled.
+
+"I have no right to do so. My people, I suppose, were all shopkeepers to
+begin with; but this gives me ways of knowing. Grandpapa is very kind
+and nice--really nice, Mr. May; but he has not at all a wide way of
+looking at things. I feel it, though they are so kind to me. I have been
+brought up to think in such a different way; and if I feel it, who am
+fond of them, think how that young minister must feel it, who was
+brought up in a totally different class?"
+
+"What kind of class was this one brought up in?" said Mr. May, with a
+laugh. "He need not have assaulted Reginald, if he had been born a
+prince. We had done him no harm."
+
+"That is making it entirely a private question," said Phoebe, suavely,
+"which I did not mean to do. When such a man finds out abuses--what he
+takes to be abuses--in the Church, which treats him like a roadside
+ranter, may not he feel a right to be indignant? Oh, I am not so. I
+think such an office as that chaplaincy is very good, one here and there
+for the reward of merit; and I think he was very right to take it; but
+still it would not do, would it, to have many of them? It would not
+answer any good purpose," she said, administering a little sting
+scientifically, "if all clergymen held sinecures."
+
+These words were overheard by Reginald, who just then came in, and to
+whom it was startling to find Phoebe serenely seated at tea with his
+family. The hated word sinecure did not seem to affect him from her lips
+as it would have done from any one else's. He came in quite
+good-humouredly, and said with a smile--
+
+"You are discussing me. What about me? Miss Beecham, I hope you take my
+side."
+
+"I take everybody's side," said Phoebe; "for I try to trace people's
+motives. I can sympathise both with you and those who assailed you."
+
+"Oh, that Dissenting fellow. I beg your pardon, Miss Beecham, if you are
+a Dissenter; but I cannot help it. We never go out of our way to attack
+them and their chapels and coteries, and why should they spring at our
+throats on every occasion? I think it is hard, and I can't say I have
+any charity to spare for this individual. What had we done to him?
+Ursula, give me some tea."
+
+"Miss Beecham, I leave the cause of the Church in younger and, I hope,
+abler hands," said Mr. May, getting up.
+
+Partly it was that Reginald's onslaught made him see for the first time
+certain weak points in the situation; partly it was that his private
+care became too clamorous, and he could not keep on further. He went
+away quite abruptly, and went downstairs to his study, and shut himself
+in there; and the moment he had closed the door, all this amusement
+floated away, and the vulture gripped at him, beak and talons digging
+into his very soul. Good God! what was he to do? He covered his face
+with his hands, and turned round and round mentally in that darkness to
+see if anywhere there might be a gleam of light; but none was visible
+east or west. A hundred pounds, only a hundred pounds; a bagatelle, a
+thing that to many men was as small an affair as a stray sixpence; and
+here was this man, as good, so to speak, as any--well educated, full of
+gifts and accomplishments, well born, well connected, not a prodigal nor
+open sinner, losing himself in the very blackness of darkness, feeling
+that a kind of moral extinction was the only prospect before him, for
+want of this little sum. It seemed incredible even to himself, as he sat
+and brooded over it. Somehow, surely, there must be a way of
+deliverance. He looked piteously about him in his solitude, appealing to
+the very blank walls to save him. What could they do? His few books, his
+faded old furniture, would scarcely realize a hundred pounds if they
+were sold to-morrow. All his friends had been wearied out, all natural
+resources had failed. James might any day have sent the money, but he
+had not done so--just this special time, when it was so hard to get it,
+James, too, had failed; and the hours of this night were stealing away
+like thieves, so swift and so noiseless, to be followed by the others;
+and Cotsdean, poor soul, his faithful retainer, would be broken and
+ruined. To do Mr. May justice, if it had been only himself who could be
+ruined, he would have felt it less; but it went to his very heart to
+think of poor Cotsdean, who had trusted in him so entirely, and to whom,
+indeed, he had been very kind in his day. Strife and discord had been in
+the poor man's house, and perpetual wretchedness, and Mr. May had
+managed, he himself could scarcely tell how, to set it right. He had
+frightened and subdued the passionate wife, and quenched the growing
+tendencies to evil, which made her temper worse than it was by nature,
+and had won her back to soberness and some kind of peace, changing the
+unhappy house into one of comparative comfort and cheerfulness. Most
+people like those best to whom they have been kind, whom they have
+served or benefited, and in this way Mr. May was fond of Cotsdean, who
+in his turn had been a very good friend to his clergyman, serving him as
+none of his own class could have done, going in the face of all his own
+prejudices and the timorousness of nature, on his account. And the
+result was to be ruin--ruin unmitigated to the small man who was in
+business, and equally disastrous, though in a less creditable way, to
+his employer. It was with a suppressed anguish which is indescribable
+that he sat there, with his face covered, looking this approaching
+misery in the face. How long he had been there, he could scarcely
+himself tell, when he heard a little commotion in the hall, the sounds
+of running up and down stairs, and opening of doors. He was in a
+feverish and restless condition, and every stir roused him. Partly
+because of that impatience in his mind, and partly because every new
+thing seemed to have some possibility of hope in it, he got up and went
+to the door. Before he returned to his seat, something might have
+occurred to him, something might have happened--who could tell? It might
+be the postman with a letter containing that remittance from James,
+which still would set all right. It might be--he rose suddenly, and
+opening the door, held it ajar and looked out; the front door was open,
+and the night air blowing chilly into the house, and on the stairs,
+coming down, he heard the voices of Ursula and Phoebe. Ursula was pinning
+a shawl round her new friend, and consoling her.
+
+"I hope you will find it is nothing. I am so sorry," she said.
+
+"Oh, I am not very much afraid," said Phoebe. "She is ill, but not very
+bad, I hope; and it is not dangerous. Thank you so much for letting me
+come."
+
+"You will come again?" said Ursula, kissing her; "promise that you will
+come again."
+
+Mr. May listened with a certain surface of amusement in his mind. How
+easy and facile these girlish loves and fancies were! Ursula knew
+nothing of this stranger, and yet so free were the girl's thoughts, so
+open her heart to receive impressions, that on so short knowledge she
+had received the other into it with undoubting confidence and trust. He
+did not come forward himself to say good-bye, but he perceived that
+Reginald followed downstairs, and took his hat from the table, to
+accompany Phoebe home. As they closed the outer door behind them, the
+last gust thus forcibly shut in made a rush through the narrow hall, and
+carried a scrap of paper to Mr. May's feet. He picked it up almost
+mechanically, and carried it with him to the light, and looked at it
+without thought. There was not much in it to interest any one. It was
+the little note which Tozer had sent to his granddaughter by the maid,
+not prettily folded, to begin with, and soiled and crumpled by the
+bearer.
+
+"Your grandmother is took bad with one of her attacks. Come back
+directly. She wants you badly.
+
+"SAML. TOZER."
+
+This was all that was in it. Mr. May opened it out on his table with a
+half-smile of that same superficial amusement which the entire incident
+had caused him--the contact, even momentary, of his own household with
+that of Tozer, the old Dissenting butterman, was so droll an event. Then
+he sank down on his chair again with a sigh, the amusement dying out all
+at once, purely superficial as it was. Amusement! how strange that even
+the idea of amusement should enter his head in the midst of his despair.
+His mind renewed that horrible mechanical wandering through the dismal
+circle of might-be's which still survived amid the chaos of his
+thoughts. Once or twice there seemed to gleam upon him a stray glimmer
+of light through a loophole, but only to throw him back again into the
+darkness. Now and then he roused himself with a look of real terror in
+his face, when there came a noise outside. What he was afraid of was
+poor Cotsdean coming in with his hand to his forehead, and his
+apologetic "Beg your pardon, sir." If he came, what could he say to him?
+Two days--only two days more! If Mr. May had been less sensible and less
+courageous, he would most likely have ended the matter by a pistol or a
+dose of laudanum; but fortunately he was too rational to deliver himself
+by this desperate expedient, which, of course, would only have made the
+burden more terrible upon the survivors. If Cotsdean was to be ruined,
+and there was no remedy, Mr. May was man enough to feel that it was his
+business to stand by him, not to escape in any dastardly way; but in the
+mean time to face Cotsdean, and tell him that he had done and could do
+nothing, seemed more than the man who had caused his ruin could bear. He
+moved about uneasily in his chair in the anguish of his mind. As he did
+so, he pushed off some of his papers from the table with his elbow. It
+was some sort of break in his feverish musings to pick them up again in
+a bundle, without noticing what they were. He threw them down in a
+little heap before him. On the top, as it chanced, came the little dirty
+scrap of paper, which ought to have been tossed into the fire or the
+waste-paper basket. Saml. Tozer! What was Saml. Tozer to him that his
+name should stare him in the face in this obtrusive way? Tozer, the old
+butterman! a mean and ignorant person, as far beneath Mr. May's level as
+it is possible to imagine, whose handwriting it was very strange to see
+on anything but a bill. He fixed his eyes upon it mechanically; he had
+come, as it were, to the end of all things in those feverish musings; he
+had searched through his whole known world for help, and found there
+nothing and nobody to help him. Those whom he had once relied on were
+exhausted long ago; his friends had all dropped off from him, as far, at
+least, as money was concerned. Some of them might put out a hand to keep
+him and his children from starvation even now, but to pay Cotsdean's
+bill, never. There was no help anywhere, nor any hope. Natural ways and
+means were all exhausted, and though he was a clergyman, he had no such
+faith in the supernatural as to hope much for the succour of Heaven.
+Heaven! what could Heaven do for him? Bank-notes did not drop down out
+of the skies. There had been a time when he had felt full faith in
+"Providence;" but he seemed to have nothing to expect now from that
+quarter more than from any other. Samuel Tozer! why did that name always
+come uppermost, staring into his very eyes? It was a curious signature,
+the handwriting very rude and unrefined, with odd, illiterate dashes,
+and yet with a kind of rough character in it, easy to identify, not
+difficult to copy--
+
+What was it that brought beads of moisture all at once to Mr. May's
+forehead? He started up suddenly, pushing his chair with a hoarse
+exclamation, and walked up and down the room quickly, as if trying to
+escape from something. His heart jumped up in his breast, like a thing
+possessed of separate life, and thumped against his side, and beat with
+loud pulsations in his ears. When he caught sight of himself in the
+mirror over the mantelpiece, he started as if he had seen a ghost. Some
+one else seemed to see him; seemed to pounce upon and seize him out of
+that glass. He retreated from the reach of it, almost staggering; then
+he returned to his table. What thought was it that had struck him so
+wildly, like a sudden squall upon a boat? He sat down, and covered his
+face with his hands; then putting out one finger, stealthily drew the
+paper towards him, and studied it closely from under the shadow of the
+unmoved hand, which half-supported, half-covered his face. Well! after
+all, what would be the harm? A gain of three months' time, during which
+every sort of arrangement could be made so nicely; supplies got
+anywhere, everywhere; the whole machinery of being set easily in motion
+again, and no harm done to any one: this was the real force of the
+idea--no harm done to any one! Long before the three months were out,
+that hundred pounds--a paltry business, a nothing, when a man had time
+before him--could be got, one might make sure; and where was the harm?
+_He_ would never know it. Poor Cotsdean need never have the slightest
+burden upon his conscience. Here, in the stillness of his own room, it
+could all be done as easily as possible, without a soul being taken into
+confidence, except that bloodless wretch in the glass with his staring
+face, Mr. May said to himself, only dimly sensible that this wretch was
+himself. No, it would harm no one, that was clear; it never need be
+known to any one. It was a mere act of borrowing, and borrowing was
+never accounted a crime; borrowing not money even, only a name, and for
+so short a time. No harm; it could do no one in the world any harm.
+
+While these reasonings went on in his mind, his heart dropped down again
+into its right place; his pulse ceased to beat like the pistons of a
+steam-engine; he came gradually to himself. After all, what was it? Not
+such a great matter; a loan of something which would neither enrich him
+who took, nor impoverish him who, without being aware of it, should
+give--a nothing! Why people should entertain the prejudices they did on
+the subject, it was difficult to see, though, perhaps, he allowed
+candidly to himself, it might be dangerous for any ignorant man to
+follow the same strain of thinking; but in the hands of a man who was
+not ignorant, who knew, as he himself did, exactly how far to go, and
+what might be _innocently_ done; _innocently_ done--in his own mind he
+put a great stress on this--why, what was it? A thing which might be of
+use in an emergency, and which was absolutely no harm.
+
+Mr. May was late in leaving his room that night. It was understood in
+the family that he "was writing," and all was kept very quiet in the
+house; yet not sufficiently quiet, for Janey, when she brought in the
+coffee, placing it on the table close to the door, was startled by the
+fierceness of the exclamation with which her father greeted her
+entrance.
+
+"What do you want prying here?" he said, dropping his hand over the
+writing.
+
+"Prying himself!" said Janey, furiously, when she was up again in the
+cheerful light of the drawing-room; "a great deal there is to pry into
+in that dreadful old study."
+
+"Hush! he never likes to be disturbed in his writing," said Ursula,
+soothingly.
+
+And he sat at his "writing" to a much later hour than usual, and he
+stumbled upstairs to his bed-room in the dead of the night, with the
+same scared pale face which he had seen in the glass. Such a look as
+that when it once comes upon a man's face takes a long time to glide
+away; but his heart beat more tranquilly, and the blood flowed even in
+his veins. After all, where was the harm?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+TIDED OVER.
+
+
+Next morning, Cotsdean was mournfully turning over his ledger in the
+High Street, wondering whether he should go back to Mr. May on another
+forlorn expedition, or whether he should betray his overwhelming anxiety
+to his wife, who knew nothing about the state of affairs. The shop was
+what is called a corn-factor's shop, full of sacks of grain, with knots
+of wheat-ears done up ornamentally in the window, a stock not very
+valuable, but sufficient, and showing a good, if not a very important,
+business. A young man behind, attended to what little business was going
+on; for the master himself was too much pre-occupied to think of bushels
+of seed. He was as uneasy as Mr. May had been on the previous night, and
+in some respects even more unhappy; for he had no resource except a sort
+of dumb faith in his principle, a feeling that he must be able to find
+out some way of escape--chequered by clouds of despondency, sometimes
+approaching despair. For Cotsdean, too, felt vaguely that things were
+approaching a crisis--that a great many resources had been
+exhausted--that the pitcher which had gone so often to the well must, at
+last, be broken, and that it was as likely the catastrophe was coming
+now as at any other time. He said to himself that never in his previous
+experience had things seemed so blank as at present; never had the
+moment of fate approached so nearly without any appearance of
+deliverance. He had not even the round of possibilities before him which
+were in Mr. May's mind, however hopeless, at this particular moment, he
+might find them.
+
+Cotsdean, for his part, had nothing to think of but Mr. May. Would he
+find some way out of it still, he who was always so clever, and must, in
+his position, have always "good friends?" How the poor man wished that
+he had never been led into this fatal course--that he had insisted, long
+ago, on the settlement which must come some time, and which did not get
+any easier by putting it off; but then, who was he to stand against his
+clergyman? He did not feel able now to make any stand against him. If he
+had to be ruined--he must be ruined: what could he do? The man who had
+brought him to this, held him in such subjection that he could not
+denounce or accuse him even now. He was so much better, higher, abler,
+stronger than himself, that Cotsdean's harshest sentiment was a dumb
+feeling of injury; a feeling much more likely to lead him to miserable
+tears than to resistance. His clergyman--how was he to stand against his
+clergyman? This was the burden of his thoughts. And still, perhaps,
+there might be salvation and safety in the resources, the power, and
+cleverness, and superior strength of the man for whom, in his humility,
+he had risked everything. Poor Cotsdean's eyes were red with
+sleeplessness and thinking, and the constant rubbings he administered
+with the sleeve of his rough coat. He hung helpless, in suspense,
+waiting to see what his chief would say to him; if he would send for
+him--if he would come. And in the intervals of these anxious thoughts,
+he asked himself should he tell poor Sally--should he prepare her for
+her fate? She and her children might be turned out of house and home,
+very probably would be, he said to himself, leaping to the extreme
+point, as men in his condition are apt to do. They might take everything
+from him; they might bring all his creditors on him in a heap; they
+might sell him up; his shop by which he made his daily bread, and
+everything he had, and turn his children out into the streets. Once more
+he rubbed his sleeve over his eyes, which were smarting with
+sleeplessness and easily-coming tears. He turned over the pages of the
+ledger mechanically. There was no help in it--no large debts owing to
+him that could be called in; no means of getting any money; and nothing
+could he do but contemplate the miseries that might be coming, and wait,
+wait, wondering dully whether Mr. May was doing anything to avert this
+ruin, and whether, at any moment, he might walk in, bringing safety in
+the very look of his bold eyes. Cotsdean was not bold; he was small and
+weakly, and nervous, and trembled at a sharp voice. He was not a man
+adapted for vigorous struggling with the world. Mr. May could do it, in
+whose hands was the final issue. He was a man who was afraid of no one;
+and whose powers nobody could deny. Surely now, even at the last moment,
+he would find help somehow. It seemed profane to entertain a doubt that
+he would be able to do it even at the very last.
+
+But Cotsdean had a miserable morning; he could do nothing. Minute by
+minute, hour by hour, he waited to be called to the Parsonage; now and
+then he went out to the door of his shop and looked out wistfully down
+the street where it ended in the distance of Grange Lane. Was that the
+maid from the Parsonage coming up across the road? Were these the young
+ladies, who, though they knew nothing about the matter at issue, very
+frequently brought a note, or message, from their father to Cotsdean?
+But he was deceived in these guesses as well as in so many others. All
+the world seemed out of doors that morning, but nobody came. The ruddy
+sunshine shone full down the street, glorifying it with rays of warm
+gold, and tinting the mists and clouds which lurked in the corners. It
+had been heavy and overcast in the morning, but at noon the clouds had
+cleared away, and that big red globe of fire had risen majestically out
+of the mists, and everybody was out. But no one, except humble people in
+the ordinary way of business, came to Cotsdean. Bushels of grain for
+chickens, pennyworths of canary seed--oh! did any one think he could pay
+a hundred pounds out of these?--a hundred pounds, the spending of which
+had not been his, poor man; which was indeed spent long ago, and
+represented luxuries past and over, luxuries which were not Cotsdean's.
+Strange that a mere lump of money should live like this, long after it
+was, to all intents and purposes, dead, and spent and gone!
+
+Then came the hour of dinner, when his Sally called him to the room
+behind the shop, from which an odour of bacon and fine big beans--beans
+which were represented in his shop in many a sackful. He went in
+unwillingly in obedience to her command, but feeling unable to eat, soon
+left the table, sending the young man to fill his place, with whose
+appetite no obstacle of care or thought interfered. Poor Cotsdean felt
+that the smell of the dinner made him sick--though he would have liked
+to eat had he been able--the smell of the bacon which he loved, and the
+sight of the small children whom he loved still better, and poor Sally,
+his wife, still red in the face from dishing it up. Sally was anxious
+about her husband's want of appetite.
+
+"What ails you, John?" she said, pathetically; "it wasn't as if you were
+out last night, nor nothing o' that sort. A man as is sober like you
+don't ought to turn at his dinner."
+
+She was half sorry, and half aggrieved, poor woman, feeling as if some
+blame of her cookery must be involved.
+
+"It's the bile," said poor Cotsdean, with that simplicity of statement
+which is common in his class. "Don't you take on, Sally, I'll be a deal
+better by supper-time----or worse," he added to himself. Yes, he would
+make an effort to eat at supper-time; perhaps it might be the last meal
+he should eat in his own comfortable home.
+
+He had been out at the shop door, gazing despairingly down the road; he
+had come in and sold some birdseed, wondering--oh, what good would that
+penny do him?--he who wanted a hundred pounds? and was standing
+listening with a sad heart to the sound of the knives and forks and
+chatter of the children, when suddenly all at once Mr. May walked into
+the shop, changing dismay into hope. What a thing it was to be a
+gentleman and a clergyman. Cotsdean could not but think! The very sight
+of Mr. May inspired him with courage; even though probably he had no
+money in his pocket, it was a supporting thing only to see him, and hear
+the sound of his free unrestrained step. He came in with a friendly nod
+to his humble helper; then he glanced round the shop, to see that no one
+was present, and then he said, "All right, Cotsdean," in a voice that
+was as music to the little corn-factor's ears. His heart, which had been
+beating so low, jumped up in his bosom; his appetite came back with a
+leap; he asked himself would the bacon be cold? and cried, "God be
+praised, sir," in a breath.
+
+Mr. May winced slightly; but why should it be wrong to be grateful to
+God in any circumstances? he asked himself, having become already
+somewhat composed in his ideas on this particular point.
+
+"Are we quite alone?" he said. "Nobody within hearing? I have not
+brought you the money, but a piece of paper that is as good as the
+money. Take it: you will have no difficulty in discounting this; the man
+is as well known as the Carlingford Bank, and as safe, though I dare say
+you will be surprised at the name."
+
+Cotsdean opened out the new bill with trembling hands. "Tozer!" he said
+faintly, between relief and dismay.
+
+"Yes. You must know that I am taking a pupil--one who belongs to a very
+rich Dissenting family in London. Tozer knows something about him, from
+his connection with the body, and through this young man I have got to
+know something of _him_. He does it upon the admirable security of the
+fees I am to receive with this youth; so you see, after all, there is no
+mystery about it. Better not wait for to-morrow, Cotsdean. Go at once,
+and get it settled. You see," said Mr. May, ingratiatingly, "it is a
+little larger than the other--one hundred and fifty, indeed--but that
+does not matter with such an excellent name."
+
+"Tozer!" said Cotsdean, once more bewildered. He handled the piece of
+paper nervously, and turned it upside down, and round about, with a
+sense that it might melt in his hold. He did not like the additional
+fifty added. Why should another fifty be added? but so it was, and there
+seemed nothing for him but to take the immediate relief and be thankful.
+
+"I'd rather, sir, as Tozer hadn't known nothing about it; and why should
+he back a bill for me as ain't one of my friends, nor don't know nothing
+about me? and fifty more added on," said Cotsdean. It was the nearest he
+had gone to standing up against his clergyman; he did not like it. To be
+Mr. May's sole stand-by and agent, even at periodical risk of ruin, was
+possible to him; but a pang of jealousy, alarm, and pain came into his
+mind when he saw the new name. This even obliterated the immediate sense
+of relief that was in his mind.
+
+"Come three months it'll have to be paid," said Cotsdean, "and Tozer
+ain't a man to stand it if he's left to pay; he'd sell us up, Mr. May.
+He ain't one of the patient ones, like--some other folks; and there's
+fifty pounds put on. I don't see my way to it. I'd rather it was just
+the clear hundred, if it was the same to you."
+
+"It is not the same to me," said Mr. May, calmly. "Come, there is no
+cause to make any fuss. There it is, and if you don't like to make use
+of it, you must find some better way. Bring the fifty pounds, less the
+expenses, to me to-night. It is a good bit of paper, and it delivers us
+out of a mess which I hope we shall not fall into again."
+
+"So you said before, sir," said the corn-factor sullenly.
+
+"Cotsdean, you forget yourself; but I can make allowance for your
+anxiety. Take it, and get it settled before the bank closes; pay in the
+money to meet the other bill, and bring me the balance. You will find no
+difficulty with Tozer's name; and what so likely as that one respectable
+tradesman should help another? By the way, the affair is a private one
+between us, and it is unnecessary to say anything to him about it; the
+arrangement, you understand, is between him and me."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir," said Cotsdean, with a deprecatory movement of
+his hand to his forehead; "but it is me as will be come upon first if
+anything happens, and that fifty pounds--"
+
+"Have you ever found me to fail you, Cotsdean? If you knew the anxiety I
+have gone through, that you might be kept from harm, the sleepless
+nights, the schemes, the exertions! You may suppose it was no ordinary
+effort to ask a man like Tozer."
+
+Cotsdean was moved by the touching tone in which his partner in trouble
+spoke; but terror gave him a certain power. He grumbled still, not
+altogether vanquished.
+
+"I don't say nothing against that, sir," he said, not meeting Mr. May's
+eye; "but when it comes to be paid, sir, I'm the first in it, and where
+is that other fifty to come from? That's what I'm a thinking for--for
+I'm the first as they'd haul up after all."
+
+"You!" said Mr. May, "what could they get from you? You are not worth
+powder and shot. Don't be ridiculous, my good fellow. I never avoid my
+responsibilities, as you know. I am as good, I hope, for that fifty as
+for all that went before. Have you ever known me leave you or any one in
+the lurch?"
+
+"No, sir, I can't say as--I don't suppose I have. I've always put my
+trust in you like in Providence itself," he cried, hastily, holding his
+breath.
+
+"Then do as I tell you," said Mr. May, waving his hand with careless
+superiority; and though his heart was aching with a hundred anxious
+fears, he left the shop with just that mixture of partial offence and
+indifference which overawed completely his humble retainer. Cotsdean
+trembled at his own guilty folly and temerity. He did not dare to call
+his patron back again, to ask his pardon. He did not venture to go back
+to the table and snatch a bit of cold bacon. He was afraid he had
+offended his clergyman, what matter that he was hungry for his dinner?
+He called the young man from the bacon, which was now cold and all but
+eaten up, and snatched at his hat and went out to the bank. It was all
+he could do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A VISIT.
+
+
+
+     "DEAR MAY,
+
+     "Young Copperhead, the young fellow whom you have
+     undertaken to coach, is coming to the Hall for a few days
+     before he enters upon his studies, and Anne wishes me to
+     ask you to come over on Tuesday to dine and sleep, and to
+     make acquaintance with him. You can carry him back with you
+     if it suits you. In my private opinion, he is a cub of the
+     most disagreeable kind; but the girls like his mother, who
+     is a kind of cousin, as you know. It is not only because he
+     has failed to take his degree (you know how I hate the
+     hideous slang in which this fact is generally stated), but
+     that his father, who is one of the rich persons who abound
+     in the lower circles of society, is ambitious, and would
+     like to see him in Parliament, and that sort of thing--a
+     position which cannot be held creditably without some sort
+     of education: at least, so I am myself disposed to think.
+     Therefore, your pleasing duty will be to get him up in a
+     little history and geography, so that he may not get quite
+     hopelessly wrong in any of the modern modifications of
+     territory, for instance; and in so much Horace as may
+     furnish him with a few stock quotations, in case he should
+     be called upon, in the absence of any more hopeful
+     neophyte, to move the Address. He is a great hulking
+     fellow, not very brilliant, you may suppose, but not so
+     badly mannered as he might be, considering his parentage. I
+     don't think he'll give you much trouble in the house; but
+     he will most probably bore you to death, and in that case
+     your family ought to have a claim, I should think, for
+     compensation. Anyhow, come and see him, and us, before you
+     begin your hard task.
+
+     "Very truly yours,
+           "R. DORSET."
+
+     "Anne makes me open my letter to say that Ursula must come
+     too. We will send a carriage to meet you at the station."
+
+This letter caused considerable excitement in the Parsonage. It was the
+first invitation to dinner which Ursula had ever received. The
+dinner-parties in Carlingford were little frequented by young ladies.
+The male population was not large enough to afford a balance for the
+young women of the place, who came together in the evening, and took all
+the trouble of putting on their pretty white frocks, only to sit in rows
+in the drawing-room, waiting till the old gentlemen came in from the
+dining-room, after which everybody went away. There were no young
+gentlemen to speak of in Carlingford, so that when any one was bold
+enough to attempt a dancing-party, or anything of an equally amusing
+description, friends were sent out in all directions, as the beaters are
+sent into the woods to bring together the unfortunate birds for a
+_battue_, to find men. These circumstances will explain the flutter in
+Ursula's innocent bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr.
+May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened at
+periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially "cross." On
+this occasion there was no black mark against him in the family
+reckoning, and yet he was more kind than any one had ever known him.
+Instead of making any objections, he decided at once that Ursula must
+go, and told her to put on her prettiest frock, and make herself look
+very nice.
+
+"You must let Anne Dorset see that you care to please her," he said.
+"Anne is a very good woman, and her approval is worth having."
+
+"Oh, papa!" cried Janey, "when you are always calling her an old maid!"
+
+"L'un n'empêche pas l'autre," he said, which puzzled Janey, whose French
+was very deficient. Even Ursula, supposed to be the best French scholar
+in the family, was not quite sure what it meant; but it was evidently
+something in favour of Cousin Anne, which was sweet to the grateful
+girl.
+
+Janey, though suffering bitterly under the miserable consciousness of
+being only fourteen, and not asked anywhere, helped with disinterested
+zeal to get her sister ready, and consoled herself by orders for
+unlimited muffins and cake for tea.
+
+"There will only be the children," she said, resignedly, and felt
+herself _incomprise_; but indeed, the attractions of a good romp
+afterwards, no one being in the house to restrain the spirits of the
+youthful party, made even Janey amends.
+
+As for Reginald, who was not asked, he was, it must be allowed, rather
+sulky too, and he could not solace himself either with muffins or romps.
+His rooms at the College were very pleasant rooms, but he was used to
+home; and though the home at the Parsonage was but faded, and not in
+such perfect order as it might have been, the young man felt even his
+wainscoted study dull without the familiar voices, the laughter and
+foolish family jokes, and even the little quarrels which kept life
+always astir. He walked with Ursula to the station, whither her little
+box with her evening dress had gone before her, in a half-affronted
+state of mind.
+
+"What does he want with a pupil?" Reginald was saying, as he had said
+before. "A fellow no one knows, coming and taking possession of the
+house as if it belonged to him. There is plenty to do in the parish
+without pupils, and if I were not on the spot he would get into trouble,
+I can tell you. A man that has been ploughed, 'a big hulking fellow'
+(Sir Robert says so, not I). Mind, I'll have no flirting, Ursula; that
+is what always happens with a pupil in the house."
+
+"Reginald, how dare you--"
+
+"Oh, yes, I dare; my courage is quite equal to facing you, even if you
+do shoot thunderbolts out of your eyes. Mind you, I won't have it. There
+is a set of fellows who try it regularly, and if you were above them,
+would go in for Janey; and it would be great fun and great promotion for
+Janey; she would feel herself a woman directly; so you must mind her as
+well as yourself. I don't like it at all," Reginald went on. "Probably
+he will complain of the dinners you give him, as if he were in an inn.
+Confound him! What my father means by it, I can't tell."
+
+"Reginald, you ought not to swear," said Ursula. "It is dreadfully
+wicked in a clergyman. Poor papa meant making a little more money. What
+else could he mean? And I think it is very good of him, for it will
+bother him most. Mr. Copperhead is very nice, Reginald. I saw him in
+London, you know. I thought he was very----".
+
+"Ah! oh!" said Reginald, "I forgot that. You met him in London? To be
+sure, and it was there you met Miss Beecham. I begin to see. Is he
+coming here after her, I should like to know? She doesn't look the sort
+of girl to encourage that sort of thing."
+
+"The sort of girl to encourage that sort of thing! How strangely you
+talk when you get excited: isn't that rather vulgar? I don't know if he
+is coming after Miss Beecham or not," said Ursula, who thought the
+suggestion uncalled for, "but in a very short time you can judge for
+yourself."
+
+"Ah--indignation!" said the big brother, who like most big brothers
+laughed at Ursula's exhibition of offended dignity; "and, by the way,
+Miss Beecham--you have not seen her since that night when she was sent
+for. Will not she think it strange that you never sent to inquire?"
+
+"I sent Betsey--"
+
+"But if Miss Beecham had been somebody else, you would have gone
+yourself," he said, being in a humour for finding fault. "If poor old
+Mrs. Tozer had been what you call a lady--"
+
+"I thought you were much more strong than I am against the Dissenters?"
+said Ursula, "ever since that man's speech; and, indeed, always, as long
+as I can recollect."
+
+"She is not a mere Dissenter," said Reginald. "I think I shall call as I
+go home. She is the cleverest girl I ever met; not like one of you
+bread-and-butter girls, though she is not much older than you. A man
+finds a girl like that worth talking to," said the young clergyman,
+holding himself erect. Certainly Reginald had not improved; he had grown
+ever so much more self-important since he got a living of his own.
+
+"And if I was to say, 'Mind, I won't have it, Reginald?'" cried Ursula,
+half-laughing, half-angry. "I think that is a great deal worse than a
+pupil. But Miss Beecham is very dignified, and you may be sure she will
+not think much of a call from you. Heaven be praised! that is one thing
+you can't get into your hands; we girls are always good for something
+there. Men may think themselves as grand as they please," said Ursula,
+"but their visits are of no consequence; it is ladies of the family who
+must _call_!" After this little out-break, she came down at once to her
+usual calm. "I will ask Cousin Anne what I ought to do; I don't think
+Miss Beecham wanted me to go then--"
+
+"I shall go," said Reginald, and he left Ursula in her father's keeping,
+who met them at the station, and went off at once, with a pleasant sense
+of having piqued her curiosity, to Grange Lane.
+
+It was still early, for the trains which stopped at the little country
+station next to the Hall were very few and inconvenient, and the sun,
+though setting, was still shining red from over St. Roque's upon Grange
+Lane. The old red walls grew redder still in the frosty night, and the
+sky began to bloom into great blazing patches of colour upon the wintry
+clearness of the blue. There was going to be a beautiful sunset, and
+such a thing was always to be seen from Grange Lane better than anywhere
+else in Carlingford. Reginald went down the road slowly, looking at it,
+and already almost forgetting his idea of calling on Miss Beecham. To
+call on Miss Beecham would be to call on old Tozer, the butterman, to
+whom alone the visit would be naturally paid; and this made him laugh
+within himself. So he would have passed, no doubt, without the least
+attempt at intruding on the privacy of the Tozers, had not the
+garden-door opened before he got so far, and Phoebe herself came out,
+with her hands in her muff, to take a little walk up and down as she did
+daily. She did not take her hand out of its warm enclosure to give it to
+him; but nodded with friendly ease in return to his salutation.
+
+"I have come out to see the sunset," said Phoebe; "I like a little air
+before the day is over, and grandmamma, when she is poorly, likes her
+room to be very warm."
+
+"I hope Mrs. Tozer is better. I hope you have not been anxious."
+
+"Oh, no! it is chronic; there is no danger. But she requires a great
+deal of attendance; and I like to come out when I can. Oh, how fine it
+is! what colour! I think, Mr. May, you must have a _spécialité_ for
+sunsets at Carlingford. I never saw them so beautiful anywhere else."
+
+"I am glad there is something you like in Carlingford."
+
+"Something! there is a very great deal; and that I don't like too," she
+said with a smile. "I don't care for the people I am living among,
+which is dreadful. I don't suppose you have ever had such an experience,
+though you must know a great deal more in other ways than I. All the
+people that come to inquire about grandmamma are very kind; they are as
+good as possible; I respect them, and all that, but----Well, it must be
+my own fault, or education. It is education, no doubt, that gives us
+those absurd ideas."
+
+"Don't call them absurd," said Reginald, "indeed I can enter into them
+perfectly well. I don't _know_ them, perhaps, in my own person; but I
+can perfectly understand the repugnance, the distress--"
+
+"The words are too strong," said Phoebe, "not so much as that;
+the--annoyance, perhaps, the nasty disagreeable struggle with one's self
+and one's pride; as if one were better than other people. I dislike
+myself, and despise myself for it; but I can't help it. We have so
+little power over ourselves."
+
+"I hope you will let my sister do what she can to deliver you," said
+Reginald; "Ursula is not like you; but she is a good little thing, and
+she is able to appreciate you. I was to tell you she had been called
+suddenly off to the Dorsets', with whom my father and she have gone to
+pass the night--to meet, I believe, a person you know."
+
+"Oh, Clarence Copperhead; he is come then? How odd it will be to see him
+here. His mother is nice, but his father is----Oh, Mr. May! if you only
+knew the things people have to put up with. When I think of Mr.
+Copperhead, and his great, ugly, staring wealth, I feel disposed to hate
+money--especially among Dissenters. It would be better if we were all
+poor."
+
+Reginald said nothing; he thought so too. In that case there would be a
+few disagreeable things out of a poor clergyman's way, and assaults like
+that of Northcote upon himself would be impossible; but he could
+scarcely utter these virtuous sentiments.
+
+"Poverty is the desire of ascetics, and this is not an ascetic age," he
+said at length, with a half-laugh at himself for his stiff speech.
+
+"You may say it is not an ascetic age; but yet I suppose the
+Ritualists----. Perhaps you are a Ritualist yourself, Mr. May? I know as
+little personally about the church here, as you do about Salem Chapel. I
+like the service--so does papa--and I like above all things the
+independent standing of a clergyman; the feeling he must have that he is
+free to do his duty. That is why I like the church; for other things of
+course I like our own body best."
+
+"I don't suppose such things can be argued about, Miss Beecham. I wish
+I knew something of my father's new pupil. I don't like having a
+stranger in the house; my father is fond of having his own way."
+
+"It is astonishing how often parents are so," said Phoebe, demurely; "and
+the way they talk of their experience! as if each new generation did not
+know more than the one that preceded it."
+
+"You are pleased to laugh, but I am quite in earnest. A pupil is a
+nuisance. For instance, no man who has a family should ever take one. I
+know what things are said."
+
+"You mean about the daughters? That is true enough, there are always
+difficulties in the way; but you need not be afraid of Clarence
+Copperhead. He is not the fascinating pupil of a church-novel. There's
+nothing the least like the Heir of Redclyffe about him."
+
+"You are very well up in Miss Yonge's novels, Miss Beecham."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe; "one reads Scott for Scotland (and a few other
+things), and one reads Miss Yonge for the church. Mr. Trollope is good
+for that too, but not so good. All that I know of clergymen's families I
+have got from her. I can recognize you quite well, and your sister, but
+the younger ones puzzle me; they are not in Miss Yonge; they are too
+much like other children, too naughty. I don't mean anything
+disagreeable. The babies in Miss Yonge are often very naughty too, but
+not the same. As for you, Mr. May----"
+
+"Yes. As for me?"
+
+"Oh, I know everything about you. You are a fine scholar, but you don't
+like the drudgery of teaching. You have a fine mind, but it interferes
+with you continually. You have had a few doubts--just enough to give a
+piquancy; and now you have a great ideal, and mean to do many things
+that common clergymen don't think of. That was why you hesitated about
+the chaplaincy? See how much I have got out of Miss Yonge. I know you as
+well as if I had known you all my life; a great deal better than I know
+Clarence Copperhead; but then, no person of genius has taken any trouble
+about him."
+
+"I did not know I had been a hero of fiction," said Reginald, who had a
+great mind to be angry. All this time they were walking briskly backward
+and forward before Tozer's open door, the Anglican, in his long black
+coat, following the lively movements of Tozer's granddaughter, only
+because he could not help himself. He was irritated, yet he was pleased.
+A young man is pleased to be thought of, even when the notice is but
+barely complimentary. Phoebe must have thought of him a good deal before
+she found him out in this way; but he was irritated all the same.
+
+"You are, however," she answered lightly. "Look at that blaze of
+crimson, Mr. May; and the blue which is so clear and so unfathomable.
+Winter is grander than summer, and even warmer--to look at; with its
+orange, and purple, and gold. What poor little dirty, dingy things we
+are down here, to have all this exhibited every evening for our
+delight!"
+
+"That is true," he said; and as he gazed, something woke in the young
+man's heart--a little thrill of fancy, if not of love. It is hard to
+look at a beautiful sunset, and then see it reflected in a girl's face,
+and not to feel something--which may be nothing, perhaps. His heart gave
+a small jump, not much to speak of. Phoebe did not talk like the other
+young ladies in Grange Lane.
+
+"Mr. May, Mr. May!" she cried suddenly, "please go away! I foresee a
+disastrous encounter which alarms me. You can't fight, but there is no
+saying what you might do to each other. Please go away!"
+
+"What is the matter?" he said. "I don't understand any encounter being
+disastrous here. Why should I go away?"
+
+She laughed, but there was a certain fright in her tone. "Please!" she
+said, "I see Mr. Northcote coming this way. He will stop to speak to me.
+It is the gentleman who attacked you in the Meeting. Mr. May," she added
+entreatingly, between laughter and fright, "do go, please."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Reginald, roused; "I am not
+afraid. Let him come on. This wall shall fly from its firm base as soon
+as I."
+
+Phoebe clasped her hands in dismay, which was partially real. "The
+typical churchman," she said, with a glance at Reginald's figure, which
+was not displeasing to him, "and the typical Dissenter! and what am I to
+do between them? Oh, I wish you would go away."
+
+"Not an inch," said the young champion. Phoebe was frightened, but she
+was delighted. "I shall introduce him to you," she said threatening.
+
+"I don't mind," he replied; "nothing on earth should induce me to fly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+TEA.
+
+
+Now here was a business! The typical Anglican and the typical Dissenter,
+as Phoebe said, with only that clever young woman to keep them from
+flying at each other's throats; the one obstinately holding his place by
+her side (and Phoebe began to have a slight consciousness that, being
+without any chaperon, she ought not to have kept Reginald May at her
+side; but in the Tozer world, who knew anything of chaperons?), the
+other advancing steadily, coming up the Lane out of the glow of the
+sunset, showing square against it in his frock-coat and high hat, formal
+and demagogical, not like his rival. The situation pleased Phoebe, who
+liked to "manage;" but it slightly frightened her as well, though the
+open door behind, and the long garden with its clouds of crocuses, was a
+city of refuge always within reach.
+
+"Is it really you, Mr. Northcote?" she said. "You look as if you had
+dropped out of that lovely sunset I have been watching so long--and I
+thought you were at the other end of the world."
+
+"I have been at the other end of England, which comes to the same
+thing," said Northcote, in a voice which was harsh by nature, and
+somewhat rough with cold; "and now they have sent me back to Salem
+Chapel, to take Mr. Thorpe's place for three months. They asked for me,
+I believe; but that you must know better than I do."
+
+It was not in the nature of man not to be a little proud in the
+circumstances, and it is quite possible that he considered Phoebe to have
+something to do with the flattering request.
+
+"No, I have not heard; but I am glad," said Phoebe; "and if it is not
+wicked to say so, I am glad Mr. Thorpe is to be away. Let us hope it
+will do him good. I am sure it will do the rest of us good, at all
+events."
+
+Northcote made no answer; but he looked at the other, and several
+questions began to tremble on his lips. That this was a Churchman did
+not immediately occur to him; for, indeed, various young pastors of his
+own body put on the livery which he himself abjured, and the sight of it
+as a servile copy filled him with a certain contempt.
+
+"Mr. May has been stopped in his way by the beauty of the skies," said
+Phoebe, rather enjoying the position as she got used to it. "Mr.
+Northcote--Mr. May. It is not easy to pass such an exhibition as that,
+is it?--and given to us all for love, and nothing for reward," she
+added; for she was a well read young woman, and did not hesitate to
+suffer this to appear.
+
+And then there was a momentary pause. Northcote was confused, it must be
+allowed, by thus coming face to face, without previous warning, with the
+man whom he had so violently assailed. Reginald had the best of it in
+every way, for he was the man injured, and had it in his power to be
+magnanimous; and he had the advantage of full warning, and had prepared
+himself. Besides, was not he the superior by every social rule? And that
+consciousness is always sweet.
+
+"If Mr. Northcote is new to Carlingford, he will probably not know what
+a fine point of view we have here. That, like so many other things,"
+said Reginald, pointedly, "wants a little personal experience to find it
+out."
+
+"For that matter, to see it once is as good as seeing it a hundred
+times," said Northcote, somewhat sharply; for to give in was the very
+last thing he thought of. A little glow of anger came over him. He
+thought Phoebe had prepared this ordeal for him, and he was vexed, not
+only because she had done it, but because his sense of discomfiture
+might afford a kind of triumph to that party in the connection which was
+disposed, as he expressed it, to "toady the Church."
+
+"Pardon me, I don't think you can judge of anything at a first view."
+
+"And, pardon me, I think you see everything most sharply and clearly at
+a first view," said the Nonconformist, who was the loudest; "certainly
+in all matters of principle. After a while, you are persuaded against
+your will to modify this opinion and that, to pare off a little here,
+and tolerate a little there. Your first view is the most correct."
+
+"Well," said Phoebe, throwing herself into the breach, "I am glad you
+don't agree, for the argument is interesting. Will you come in and fight
+it out? You shall have some tea, which will be pleasant, for it shall be
+hot. I really cannot stay out any longer; it is freezing here."
+
+The new-comer prepared to follow; but Reginald hesitated. Pride
+whispered that to go into the house of Tozer, the butterman, was
+something monstrous; but then it might be amusing. This "Dissenting
+fellow," no doubt, was a drawback; but a kind of angry antagonism and
+disdain half-attracted him even to the Dissenting fellow. It might be
+well, on the whole, to see what kind of being such a person was. All
+curious phenomena are attractive to a student. "The proper study of
+mankind is man," Reginald said to himself. Before he had got through
+this little argument with himself, Phoebe had gone in, and Northcote,
+whose disgust at the interposition of an adversary had no such softening
+of curiosity, followed her abruptly, without any of those graces which
+are current in society. This rudeness offended the other, who was about
+to walk on indignant, when Phoebe turned back, and looked out at him from
+the open door.
+
+"Are not you coming, Mr. May?" she said softly, looking at him with the
+least little shrug of her shoulders.
+
+Reginald yielded without further resistance. But he felt fully that to
+see him, the chaplain of the old College, walking down through Tozer's
+garden, between the two rows of closed-up crocuses which glimmered
+ghostly by the side of the path, was one of the strangest sights in the
+world.
+
+Phoebe, to tell the truth, was a little confused as to where to convey
+her captive, out of whom she meant to get a little amusement for the
+long winter afternoon. For a girl of her active mind, it may easily be
+imagined that a succession of long days with Mrs. Tozer was somewhat
+monotonous. She did her duty like a hero, and never complained; but
+still, if a little amusement was possible, it was worth having. She
+carried in her two young men as naughty boys carry stag-beetles, or
+other such small deer. If they would fight it would be fun; and if they
+would not fight, why, it might be fun still, and more amusing than
+grandmamma. She hesitated between the chilly drawing-room, where a fire
+was lighted, but where there was no evidence of human living, and the
+cozy parlour, where Mrs. Tozer sat in her best cap, still wheezy, but
+convalescent, waiting for her tea, and not indisposed to receive such
+deputations of the community as might come to ask for her. Finally,
+Phoebe opened the door of that sanctuary, which was dazzling with bright
+fire-light after the gloom outside. It was a very comfortable interior,
+arranged by Phoebe to suit her own ideas rather than those of grandmamma,
+though grandmamma's comfort had been her chief object. The tea-things
+were sparkling upon the table, the kettle singing by the fire, and Mrs.
+Tozer half-dozing in the tranquillity and warmth.
+
+"Grandmamma, I have brought Mr. May and Mr. Northcote to see you," she
+said.
+
+The poor old lady almost sprang from her chair in amazement.
+
+"Lord bless us, Phoebe, Mr. May!"
+
+"Don't disturb yourself, grandmamma; they will find seats. Yes, we were
+all looking at the sunset, and as I knew tea must be ready--I know you
+want it, dear granny--I asked them to have some. Here it is, as I told
+you, quite hot, and very fragrant this cold night. How cold it is
+outside! I think it will freeze, and that skating may come off at last,
+Mr. May, that you were talking of, you remember? You were to teach your
+sisters to skate."
+
+"Yes, with the advantage of your example."
+
+Reginald had put himself in a corner, as far away as possible from the
+old woman in the chair. His voice, he felt, had caught a formal tone. As
+for the other, his antagonist, he had assumed the front of the
+battle--even, in Tozer's absence, he had ventured to assume the front of
+the fire. He was not the sort of man Reginald had expected, almost hoped
+to see--a fleshy man, loosely put together, according to the nature, so
+far as he knew it, of Dissenters; but a firmly knit, clean-limbed young
+man, with crisp hair curling about his head, and a gleam of energy and
+spirit in his eye. The gentler Anglican felt by no means sure of a
+speedy victory, even of an intellectual kind. The young man before him
+did not look a slight antagonist. They glared at each other, measuring
+their strength; they did not know, indeed, that they had been brought in
+here to this warmth and light, like the stag-beetles, to make a little
+amusement for Phoebe; but they were quite ready to fight all the same.
+
+"Mr. Northcote, sir, I'm glad to see you. Now this is friendly; this is
+what I calls as it should be, when a young pastor comes in and makes
+free, without waiting for an invitation," said Tozer kindly, bustling
+in; "that speech of yours, sir, was a rouser; that 'it 'em off, that
+did, and you can see as the connection ain't ungrateful. What's that you
+say, Phoebe? what? I'm a little hard of hearing. Mr.--May!"
+
+"Mr. May was good enough to come in with me, grandpapa. We met at the
+door. We have mutual friends, and you know how kind Miss May has been,"
+said Phoebe, trembling with sudden fright, while Reginald, pale with rage
+and embarrassment, stood up in his corner. Tozer was embarrassed too. He
+cleared his throat and rubbed his hands, with a terrible inclination to
+raise one of them to his forehead. It was all that he could do to get
+over this class instinct. Young May, though he had been delighted to
+hear him assailed in the Meeting, was a totally different visitor from
+the clever young pastor whom he received with a certain consciousness of
+patronage. Tozer did not know that the Northcotes were infinitely
+richer, and quite as well-born and well-bred in their ways as the Mays,
+and that his young Dissenting brother was a more costly production, as
+well as a more wealthy man, than the young chaplain in his long coat;
+but if he had known this it would have made no difference. His relation
+to the one was semi-servile, to the other condescending and superior. In
+Reginald May's presence, he was but a butterman who supplied the family;
+but to Horace Northcote he was an influential member of society, with
+power over a Minister's individual fate.
+
+"I assure you, sir, as I'm proud to see you in my house," he said, with
+a duck of his head, and an ingratiating but uncomfortable smile. "Your
+father, I hope, as he's well, sir, and all the family? We are a kind of
+neighbours now; not as we'd think of taking anything upon us on account
+of living in Grange Lane. But Phoebe here--Phoebe, junior, as we call's
+her--she's a cut above us, and I'm proud to see any of her friends in my
+'umble 'ouse. My good lady, sir," added Tozer, with another duck,
+indicating with a wave of his hand his wife, who had already once risen,
+wheezy, but knowing her manners, to make a kind of half-bow,
+half-curtsey from her chair.
+
+"You are very kind," said Reginald, feeling himself blush furiously, and
+not knowing what to say. The other young man stood with his back to the
+fire, and a sneer, which he intended to look like a smile, on his face.
+
+And as for Phoebe, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding all her
+resources, even she was exquisitely uncomfortable for a minute or two.
+The young people all felt this, but to Tozer it seemed that he had
+managed everything beautifully, and a sense of elation stole over him.
+To be visited in this manner by the gentry, "making free," and "quite in
+a friendly way," was an honour he had never looked for. He turned to
+Northcote with great affability and friendliness.
+
+"Well," he said, "Mr. Northcote, sir, it can't be denied as this is a
+strange meeting; you and Mr. May, as mightn't be, perhaps, just the best
+of friends, to meet quite comfortable over a cup of tea. But ain't it
+the very best thing that could happen? Men has their public opinions,
+sir, as every one should speak up bold for, and stick to; that's my way
+of thinking. But I wouldn't bring it no farther; not, as might be said,
+into the domestic circle. I'm clean against that. You say your say in
+public, whatever you may think on a subject, but you don't bear no
+malice; it ain't a personal question; them's my sentiments. And I don't
+know nothing more elevatin', nothing more consolin', than for two public
+opponents, as you may say, to meet like this quite cozy and comfortable
+over a cup o' tea."
+
+"It is a pleasure, I assure you, which I appreciate highly," said
+Reginald, finding his voice.
+
+"And which fills me with delight and satisfaction," said Northcote.
+Those stag-beetles which Phoebe, so to speak, had carried in in her
+handkerchief, were only too ready to fight.
+
+"You had better have some tea first," she said breathless, "before you
+talk so much of its good effects. Sit down, grandpapa, and have your
+muffin while it is hot; I know that is what you like. Do you care about
+china, Mr. May? but every one cares for china now-a-days. Look at that
+cup, and fancy grandmamma having this old service in use without knowing
+how valuable it is. Cream Wedgwood! You may fancy how I stared when I
+saw it; and in everyday use! most people put it up on brackets, when
+they are so lucky as to possess any. Tell Mr. May, grandmamma, how you
+picked it up. Mr. Northcote, there is an article in this review that I
+want you to look at. Papa sent it to me. It is too metaphysical for me,
+but I know you are great in metaphysics--"
+
+"I am greater in china; may not I look at the Wedgwood first?"
+
+"Perhaps you will turn over the literature to me," said Reginald,
+"reviews are more in my way than teacups, though I say it with
+confusion. I know how much I am behind my age."
+
+"And I too," whispered Phoebe, behind the book which she had taken up.
+"Don't tell any one. It is rare, I know; and everybody likes to have
+something that is rare; but I don't really care for it the least in the
+world. I have seen some bits of Italian _faience_ indeed--but English
+pottery is not like Italian, any more than English skies."
+
+"You have the advantage of me, Miss Beecham, both as regards the pottery
+and the skies."
+
+"Ah, if it is an advantage; bringing poetry down to prose is not always
+an advantage, is it? Italy is such a dream--so long as one has never
+been there."
+
+"Yes, it is a dream," said Reginald, with enthusiasm, "to everybody, I
+think; but when one has little money and much work all one's
+life--poverty stands in the way of all kinds of enjoyment."
+
+"Poverty is a nice friendly sort of thing; a ground we can all meet on,"
+said Phoebe. "But don't let us say that to grandpapa. How odd people are!
+he knows you are not Croesus, but still he has a sort of feeling that you
+are a young prince, and do him the greatest honour in coming to his
+house; and yet, all the same, he thinks that money is the very grandest
+thing in existence. See what prejudice is! He would not allow that he
+had any class-reverence, and yet he can no more get rid of it--"
+
+"Miss Beecham, it is very difficult for me to say anything on such a
+subject."
+
+"Very difficult, and you show your delicacy by not saying anything. But
+you know, apart from this, which is not gratifying, I am rather proud of
+grandpapa's way of looking at some things. About saying out your
+opinions in public, and yet bearing no malice, for instance. Now, Mr.
+Northcote is the very Antipodes to you; therefore you ought to know him
+and find out what he means. It would be better for you both. That is
+what I call enlarging the mind," said Phoebe with a smile; which was, to
+tell the truth, a very pretty smile, and filled with a soft lustre the
+blue eyes with which she looked at him. Whether it was this, or the
+cogency of her argument, that moved the young Anglican, it would be hard
+to say.
+
+"If you are to be the promoter of this new science, I don't object to
+studying under you," he said with a great deal of meaning in his voice.
+
+Phoebe gave him another smile, though she shook her head; and then she
+turned to the hero on the other side.
+
+"Is it genuine, Mr. Northcote? is it as fine as I thought? There now, I
+told you, grandmamma! Have you been telling Mr. Northcote how you picked
+it up? I am sure you will present him with a cup and saucer for his
+collection in return for his praises."
+
+"Not for the world," said Northcote, with profound seriousness; "break a
+set of cream Wedgwood! what do you take me for, Miss Beecham? I don't
+mean to say that I would not give my ears to have it--all; but to break
+the set--"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon! I was not prepared for such delicacy of
+feeling--such conscientiousness--"
+
+"Ah!" said Northcote, with a long-drawn breath, "I don't think you can
+understand the feelings of an enthusiast. A set of fine China is like a
+poem--every individual bit is necessary to the perfection of the whole.
+I allow that this is not the usual way of looking at it; but my pleasure
+lies in seeing it entire, making the tea-table into a kind of lyric,
+elevating the family life by the application of the principles of
+abstract beauty to its homeliest details. Pardon, Miss Beecham, but Mrs.
+Tozer is right, and you are wrong. The idea of carrying off a few lines
+of a poem in one's pocket for one's collection--"
+
+"Now that's what I call speaking up," said Mrs. Tozer, the first time
+she had opened her lips, "that's just what I like. Mr. Northcote has a
+deal more sense than the like of you. He knows what's what. Old things
+like this as might have been my granny's, they're good enough for every
+day, they're very nice for common use; but they ain't no more fit to be
+put away in cupboards and hoarded up like fine china, no more than I am.
+Mr. Northcote should see our best--that's worth the looking at; and if
+I'd known as the gentleman was coming--but you can't put an old head on
+young shoulders. Phoebe's as good as gold, and the trouble she takes with
+an old woman like me is wonderful; but she can't be expected to think of
+everything, can she now, at her age?"
+
+The two young men laughed--it was the first point of approach between
+them, and Phoebe restrained a smile, giving them a look from one to
+another. She gave Reginald his cup of tea very graciously.
+
+"Mr. Northcote prefers the Wedgwood, and Mr. May doesn't mind,
+grandmamma," she said sweetly. "So it is as well to have the best china
+in the cupboard. Grandpapa, another muffin--it is quite hot; and I know
+that is what you like best."
+
+"Well, I'll say that for Phoebe," said Tozer, with his mouth full, "that
+whether she understands china or not I can't tell, but she knows what a
+man likes, which is more to the purpose for a young woman. That's what
+she does; and looks after folk's comforts as I never yet saw her match.
+She's a girl in a thousand, is Phoebe, junior. There be them as is more
+for dress," he added, fond and greasy, looking at her seated modestly in
+that gown, which had filled with awe and admiration the experienced mind
+of Mrs. Sam Hurst; "and plays the pianny, and that sort of style of
+girl; but for one as minds the comforts of them about her----" Tozer
+turned back to the table, and made a gulp of his last piece of muffin.
+Eloquence could have no more striking climax; the proof of all his
+enthusiasm, was it not there?
+
+"Don't you play, Miss Beecham?" said Reginald, half-amused, half-angry.
+
+"A little," said Phoebe, with a laugh. She had brought down a small
+cottage piano out of the drawing-room, where nobody ever touched it,
+into a dark corner out of reach of the lamp. It was the only
+accomplishment upon which she prided herself. She got up from the table,
+when she had poured out another cup of tea for her grandfather, and
+without saying a word went to the little piano. It was not much of an
+instrument, and Reginald May was very little of a _connoisseur_.
+Northcote, who knew her gifts, gave himself up to listening, but the
+Tozers looked on, shaking their heads, and it was only after some time
+had passed, that Reginald began to understand that he was listening to
+something which he had never heard before. Ursula's school-girl tunes
+had never interested him very much; he did not know what this was which
+seemed to creep into his heart by his ears. He got up by and by, and
+stole towards the piano bewildered.
+
+"It'll soon be over, sir," said Tozer, encouragingly. "Don't you run
+away, Mr. May. Them are queer tunes, I allow, but they don't last long,
+and your company's an honour. As for the playing, it'll soon be over;
+you needn't run away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE HALL.
+
+
+It is unnecessary to say that the dinner party in the Hall bore very
+little resemblance to those simple amusements in No. 6, Grange Lane.
+There were three or four people to meet Mr. May, who, as an orator and
+literary man, had greater reputation even such a little way from home
+than he had in his own town. He was a very good preacher, and those
+articles of his were much admired as "thoughtful" papers, searching into
+many mental depths, and fathoming the religious soul with wonderful
+insight. Ladies especially admired them; the ladies who were
+intellectual, and found pleasure in the feeling of being more advanced
+than their neighbours. The Rector's wife of the parish in which the
+Dorsets lived applied herself with great vigour to the art of drawing
+him out. She asked him questions with that air of delightful submission
+to an intellectual authority which some ladies love to assume, and which
+it pleases many men to accept. His daughters were not at all reverential
+of Mr. May, and it soothed him to get marks of devotion and literary
+submission out of doors. Even Sophy Dorset had gone through the phase of
+admiration for her cousin. This had been dissipated, it is true, long
+ago; but yet she did not laugh, as she usually did, at the believers in
+him. She listened to Mrs. Rector plying him with eager questions, asking
+his advice on that point and the other, and smiled, but was charitable.
+As for Cousin Anne, she was charitable by nature, and all the world got
+the advantage of it. Little Ursula was one of her prime favourites--a
+motherless girl, who was the eldest, and who had to work for the family,
+was of all others the thing which moved her sympathies most. The little
+Indian children had long ere this yielded to the charms of Aunt Anne.
+They followed her wherever she went like little spaniels, hanging on by
+her dress. She had to go up to the nursery to hear them say their
+prayers before she dressed for dinner.
+
+"You see, this is a proof that with children one should never be
+discouraged," she said; "for they did not take to me at first;" and she
+turned her mild countenance, beaming with soft light, upon Ursula. To be
+hampered by these babies clinging about her, to have them claiming
+imperiously her attention and her time, however she might be engaged; to
+give up to them the moments of leisure in which otherwise she might have
+had a little quiet and repose, this was what Anne Dorset considered as
+her recompense.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could be as good to Amy and Robin! But I feel as if I
+should like to shake them often," cried Ursula, "even though I love them
+with all my heart. Oh! Cousin Anne, I don't think there is any one like
+you."
+
+"Yes, that is what she thinks her reward," said Sophy. "I should like
+something better, if it was I. Don't copy her, Ursula. It is better to
+have children of your own, and get other people to nurse them. Anne, you
+see, likes it. I want you to marry, and get all the good things in this
+life. Let us leave the self-denials to her; she likes them, you
+perceive."
+
+"I don't know why you should always talk of marrying to me, Cousin
+Sophy," said Ursula with gentle reproach. "I hope I am not a girl to
+think of such things."
+
+"And why not? Is it not the first duty of woman, you little simpleton?"
+said Sophy Dorset, with a laugh.
+
+But Ursula could not imagine that it was only in this general way that
+her cousin spoke. She could not but feel that this big Clarence
+Copperhead, with the diamond buttons, and that huge expanse of
+shirt-front, had something to do with Sophy's talk. There was six feet
+of him, which is a thing that goes a long way with a girl; and he was
+not bad-looking. And why did he come to Carlingford, having nothing in
+the world to do with the place? and coming to Carlingford, why was papa
+sought out, of all people, to be his tutor? Certainly the circumstances
+were such as invited conjecture, especially when added on to Sophy's
+allusions. He took Ursula in to dinner, which fluttered her somewhat;
+and though he was much intent upon the dinner itself, and studied the
+_menu_ with a devotion which would have made her tremble for her
+housekeeping, had she been sufficiently disengaged to notice it, he yet
+found time to talk a little between the courses.
+
+"I did not expect, when I saw you in London, that we were to meet again
+so soon, Miss May," was the perfectly innocent remark with which he
+opened the conversation.
+
+Ursula would have said it herself had he not said it, and all she could
+do was to answer, "No, indeed," with a smile.
+
+"And I am coming to your father to be coached," continued the young man.
+"It is a funny coincidence, don't you think so? I am glad you came to
+that ball, Miss May. It makes me feel that I know you. I don't like
+starting off afresh, all at once, among people I don't know."
+
+"No," said Ursula; "I should not like it either. But there are other
+people you know in Carlingford. There is the lady who was at the
+ball--the young lady in black, I used to call her--Miss Beecham; you
+must know her better than you know me."
+
+"Who? Phoebe? really!" he said, elevating his eyebrows. "Phoebe in
+Carlingford! By Jove! how the governor will laugh! I should like to
+know," with a conscious smile on his countenance, "what _she_ is doing
+there."
+
+"Her grandmamma is ill, and she is nursing her," said Ursula simply, at
+which young Copperhead laughed again.
+
+"Oh, that is how it is! Very good of her, don't you think? Shouldn't
+suppose she would be amusing, the old granny, and Phoebe likes to be
+amused. I must go to see her as soon as I can get there. You know, we
+are Dissenters at home, Miss May. Good joke, isn't it? The governor will
+not hear a word against them. As a matter of fact, nobody does go to
+chapel in our rank of life; but the governor sometimes is as obstinate
+as an old pig."
+
+"I suppose he likes it best," said Ursula, gently; and here a new course
+came round, and for the moment Clarence had something else to do. He
+resumed after the _entrées_, which were poor, as he made a mental note.
+
+"Is there anything to do at Carlingford, Miss May? I hope you skate. I
+am not much in the hunting way; nor your father, I suppose? for, to be
+sure, a hunting parson would never do. I am too heavy a weight for most
+horses, and the good of galloping over the country all day, after a poor
+brute of a fox!--but we must not say that before Sir Robert. I suppose
+it is dull?" he said, somewhat pathetically, looking in her face.
+
+"We don't think it dull, Mr. Copperhead. It may be, perhaps, for a
+gentleman."
+
+"That's it," said Clarence. "I don't know if it's because women have
+more resources, or because they want less; but you always get on better
+than we do, somehow; very lucky for you. You don't expect so much. I
+believe that's what it is."
+
+"Then that shows we are the most sensible," said Ursula, roused, and a
+little indignant.
+
+He paused, to make his choice between the inevitable turkey and the
+inevitable beef.
+
+"I hope it's braised," he said, in a devout undertone. "You don't expect
+so much, Miss May, that's what it is; you're always in the house. You
+don't care for exercise. Bless you, if I didn't take exercise, I should
+be fifteen stone before you could turn round. How much are you? about
+eight, perhaps; not much more. That makes a deal of difference: you
+don't require to keep yourself down."
+
+Ursula did not make any answer. She was prepared to look upon him very
+favourably, and accept what he said as full of originality and force;
+but the tone the conversation had taken was not entirely to her mind.
+Phoebe could have managed it; but Ursula was not Phoebe. She was more
+disposed to take offence at the young man's tone than to guide it into
+better ways.
+
+"I hope your mother is well," she said at last, falteringly, after a
+long pause. Ursula thought her companion would remark this pause, and
+think her displeased. She might have saved herself the trouble, for it
+was the braised turkey which kept Clarence quiet, not offence.
+
+"Oh, quite well, I thank you. Not so well as when I am at home; she
+don't like parting with me," he said, "but, of course, I can't be always
+at my mother's apron-strings. Women forget that."
+
+"She was very kind when I was in London."
+
+"Yes, that just pleases her; she is never so happy as when she is buying
+things for somebody," he replied, betraying an acquaintance with the
+exact manner of the kindness which somewhat disturbed poor Ursula: "that
+is exactly her way. I dare say she'll come and see the Dorsets while I'm
+here."
+
+Then there was again a pause, and Clarence turned to speak to some one
+at his other side.
+
+"No, I don't hunt much," he said; "I have come into the country to be
+coached. My father's a modern sort of man, and wants a fellow to be up
+in history, and that sort of thing. Bore--yes; and I dare say
+Carlingford is very dull. Oh, yes, I will go out with the hounds now and
+then, if there is not a frost. I should rather like a frost for my
+part."
+
+It was a hunting lady who had started this new conversation, into which
+the stranger had drifted away, leaving Ursula stranded. She was slightly
+piqued, it must be allowed, and when Sophy asked her after dinner how
+she liked her companion, made a dignified reply.
+
+"I have no doubt he is very nice," she said; "I don't know much of
+gentlemen. He talks of papa as if he were a school-master, and thinks
+Carlingford will be dull."
+
+"So it is, Ursula. I have often heard you say so."
+
+"Yes, perhaps; but a stranger ought to be civil," said the girl,
+offended; and she went and entrenched herself by the side of Cousin
+Anne, where the new pupil could not come near her. Indeed he did not
+seem very anxious to do so, as Ursula soon saw. She blushed very hotly
+all by herself, under Cousin Anne's shadow: that she could have been so
+absurd as ever to think--But his size, and the weight over which he had
+lamented, and his abundant whiskers and large shirt front, made it quite
+impossible for Ursula to think of him as a person to be educated. It
+must be Miss Beecham, she said to herself.
+
+No thoughts of this kind crossed Mr. Clarence Copperhead's mind, as he
+stretched his big limbs before the drawing-room fire after dinner, and
+said "Brava!" when the ladies sang. He knew "Brava" was the right thing
+to say. He liked to be at the Hall, which he had never visited before,
+and to know that it was undeniable gentry which surrounded him, and
+which at the piano was endeavouring to gain his approbation. He was so
+much his father's son that he had a sense of pleasure and triumph in
+being thus elevated; and he had a feeling, more or less, of contempt for
+the clergyman, "only a parson," who was to be his coach. He felt the
+power and the beauty of money almost as much as his father did. What was
+there he could not buy with it? the services of the most learned pundit
+in existence, for what was learning? or the prettiest woman going to be
+his wife, if that was what he wanted. It may be supposed then that he
+had very little attention indeed to bestow upon a girl like Ursula, who
+was only the daughter of his coach--nobody at all in particular--and
+that her foolish fancies on the subject might have been spared. He aired
+himself on the hearth-rug with great satisfaction, giving now and then a
+shake to one of his long limbs, and a furtive glance to see that all was
+perfect in the _sit_ of the garment that clothed it. He had been
+ploughed it is true, but that did not interfere much with his mental
+satisfaction; for, after all, scholarship was a thing cultivated chiefly
+by dons and prigs, and poor men; and no doubt this other poor man, the
+parson, would be able to put all into his head that was necessary, just
+as much as would pay, and no more--a process the mere thought of which
+made Clarence yawn, yet which he had wound up his noble mind to submit
+to.
+
+"Mind you, I don't say I am going to work," he had said to his mother;
+"but if you think he can put it into me, he may try," and he repeated
+much the same sentiment, with a difference, to Sophy Dorset, who by way
+of civility, while the Rector's wife paid court to Mr. May, talked to
+Clarence a little, from the corner of the ottoman close to the fire.
+
+"Work! well, I suppose so, after a sort. I don't mean to make myself ill
+with midnight oil and that sort of thing," he said (he was not at all
+clear in his mind as to how the midnight oil was applied), "but if Mr.
+May can get it into me, I'll give him leave; for one thing, I suppose
+there will be nothing else to do."
+
+"Not much in Carlingford; there are neither pictures, nor museums, nor
+fine buildings, nor anything of the sort; and very little society; a few
+tea-parties, and one ball in the season."
+
+Mr. Clarence Copperhead shrugged his large shoulders.
+
+"I shan't go to the tea-parties, that's certain," he said; "a fellow
+must hunt a little, I suppose, as the place is so destitute. As for
+pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad
+is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do
+it at home would be beyond a joke."
+
+"Have you seen the box of curious things John sent me with the
+children?" said Sophy. "They are on the table at the end of the
+room,--yataghans, and I don't know what other names they have, all sorts
+of Indian weapons. I should think you would be interested in them."
+
+"Thanks, Cousin Sophy, I am very well where I am," he said. He looked at
+her in such a way that she might have appropriated this remark as a
+compliment, had she pleased; but Sophy laughed, and it is to be feared
+did not feel the compliment, for she turned right round to somebody
+else, and took no more notice of Clarence. He was so fully satisfied
+with himself that he had not any strong sense of neglect, though he had
+but little conversation with the company. He was quite satisfied to
+exhibit himself and his shirt-front before the fire.
+
+Next day he accompanied the Mays back to Carlingford. Mr. May had
+enjoyed his visit. His mind was free for the moment; he had staved off
+the evil day, and he had a little money in his pocket, the remains of
+that extra fifty pounds which he had put on to Tozer's bill. With some
+of it he had paid some urgent debts, and he had presented five pounds to
+Cotsdean to buy his wife a gown, and he had a little money in his
+pockets. So that in every way he was comfortable and more at ease than
+usual. The reckoning was four months off, which was like an eternity to
+him in his present mood of mind, and of course he would get the money
+before that time. There was so much time, indeed, that to begin to think
+of the ways and means of paying it at this early period seemed absurd.
+He was to have three hundred pounds for the year of Copperhead's
+residence with him, if he stayed so long, and that would do, if nothing
+else. Therefore Mr. May was quite easy in his mind, not in the least
+feeling the possibility of trouble in store for him. And the visit had
+been pleasant. He had enlarged his acquaintance, and that among the very
+sort of people he cared to know. He had been very well received by all
+the Dorsets, and introduced by Sir Robert as a relation, and he had
+received some personal incense about his works and his gifts which was
+sweet to him. Therefore he was in very good spirits, and exceedingly
+amiable. He conversed with his future pupil urbanely, though he had not
+concealed his entire concurrence in Sir Robert's opinion that he was "a
+cub."
+
+"What have you been reading lately?" he asked, when they had been
+transferred from the Dorsets' carriage, to the admiration and by the
+obsequious cares of all the attendant officials, into the railway
+carriage. Mr. May liked the fuss and liked the idea of that superiority
+which attended the Dorsets' guests. He had just been explaining to his
+companions that Sir Robert was the Lord of the Manor, and that all the
+homage done to him was perfectly natural; and he was in great
+good-humour even with this cub.
+
+"Well, I've not been reading very much," said Clarence, candidly. "What
+was the good? The governor did not want me to be a parson, or a lawyer,
+or anything of that sort, and a fellow wants some sort of a motive to
+read. I've loafed a good deal, I'm afraid. I got into a very good set,
+you know, first chop--Lord Southdown, and the Beauchamps, and that lot;
+and--well, I suppose we were idle, and that's the truth."
+
+"I see," said Mr. May; "a good deal of smoke and billiards, and so
+forth, and very little work."
+
+"That's about it," said the young man, settling himself and his
+trousers, which were the objects of a great deal of affectionate care on
+his part. He gave them furtive pulls at the knees, and stroked them down
+towards the ankle, as he got himself comfortably into his seat.
+
+Mr. May looked at him with scientific observation, and Ursula with
+half-affronted curiosity; his self-occupation was an offence to the
+girl, but it was only amusing to her father. "An unmitigated cub," Mr.
+May pronounced to himself; but there where he sat he represented three
+hundred a-year, and that, at least, was not to be despised. Ursula was
+not so charitable as her father; she was not amused by him in the
+slightest degree. Had he come down to Carlingford in humble worship of
+her pretty eyes, and with a romantic intention of making himself
+agreeable to her, the captivating flattery would have prepossessed
+Ursula, and prepared her to see him in a very pleasant light, and put
+the best interpretation upon all he did and said. But this pretty
+delusion being dissipated, Ursula was angry with herself for having been
+so foolish, and naturally angry with Clarence for having led her into
+it, though he was quite without blame in the matter. She looked at him
+in his corner--he had taken the best corner, without consulting her
+inclinations--and thought him a vulgar coxcomb, which perhaps he was.
+But she would not have been so indignant except for that little bit of
+injured feeling, for which really, after all, he was not justly to
+blame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES.
+
+
+After the evening at Grange Lane which has been described, Reginald May
+met Northcote in the street several times, as was unavoidable,
+considering the size of the place, and the concentration of all business
+in Carlingford within the restricted length of the High Street. The two
+young men bowed stiffly to each other at first; then by dint of seeing
+each other frequently, got to inclinations a little more friendly, until
+at length one day when Northcote was passing by the College, as Reginald
+stood in the old doorway, the young chaplain feeling magnanimous on his
+own ground, and somewhat amused by the idea which suddenly presented
+itself to him, asked his Dissenting assailant if he would not come in
+and see the place. Reginald had the best of it in every way. It was he
+who was the superior, holding out a hand of favour and kindness to one
+who here at least, was beneath him in social consideration; and it was
+he who was the assailed, and, so to speak, injured party, and who
+nevertheless extended to his assailant a polite recognition, which,
+perhaps, no one else occupying the same position would have given. He
+was amused by his own magnanimity, and enjoyed it, and the pleasure of
+heaping coals of fire upon his adversary's head was entirely delightful
+to him.
+
+"I know you do not approve of the place or me," he said, forgetting in
+that moment of triumph all his own objections to it, and the ground upon
+which these objections were founded. "Come in and see it, will you? The
+chapel and the rooms are worth seeing. They are fair memorials of the
+past, however little the foundation may be to your mind."
+
+He laughed as he spoke, but without ill-humour; for it is easy to be
+good-humoured when one feels one's self on the gaining, not the losing
+side. As for Northcote, pride kept him from any demonstration of
+unwillingness to look at what the other had to show. He would not for
+worlds have betrayed himself. It was expedient for him, if he did not
+mean to acknowledge himself worsted, to put on a good face and accept
+the politeness cheerfully. So that it was on the very strength of the
+conflict which made them first aware of each other's existence, that
+they thus came together. The Dissenter declared his entire delight in
+being taken to see the place, and with secret satisfaction, not easily
+put into words, the Churchman led the way. They went to all the rooms
+where the old men sat, some dozing by the fire, some reading, some busy
+about small businesses; one had a turning-lathe, another was
+illuminating texts, a third had a collection of curiosities of a
+heterogeneous kind, which he was cleaning and arranging, writing neat
+little labels in the neatest little hand for each article.
+
+"The charity of our ancestors might have been worse employed," said
+Reginald. "A home for the old and poor is surely as fine a kind of
+benevolence as one could think of--if benevolence is to be tolerated at
+all."
+
+"Ye-es," said Northcote. "I don't pretend to disapprove of benevolence.
+Perhaps the young who have a future before them, who can be of use to
+their country, are better objects still."
+
+"Because they will pay," said Reginald; "because we can get something
+out of them in return; while we have already got all that is to be had
+out of the old people? A very modern doctrine, but not so lovely as the
+old-fashioned way."
+
+"I did not mean that," said the other, colouring. "Certainly it ought to
+pay; everything, I suppose, is meant to pay one way or other. The life
+and progress of the young, or the gratified sentiment of the benefactor,
+who feels that he has provided for the old--which is the noblest kind of
+payment? I think the first, for my part."
+
+"For that matter, there is a large and most flourishing school, which
+you will come across without fail if you work among the poor. Do you
+work among the poor? Pardon my curiosity; I don't know."
+
+"It depends upon what you call the poor," said the other, who did not
+like to acknowledge the absence of this element in Salem Chapel; "if you
+mean the destitute classes, the lowest level, no; but if you mean the
+respectable, comfortable--"
+
+"Persons of small income?" said Reginald. "I mean people with no incomes
+at all; people without trades, or anything to earn a comfortable living
+by; labouring people, here to-day and away to-morrow; women who take in
+washing, and men who go about hunting for a day's work. These are the
+kind of people the Church is weighted with."
+
+"I don't see any trace of them," said the Nonconformist. "Smooth lawns,
+fine trees, rooms that countesses might live in. I can't see any trace
+of them here."
+
+"There is no harm in a bit of grass and a few trees, and the rooms are
+cheaper in their long continuance than any flimsy new rubbish that could
+be built."
+
+"I know I am making an unfortunate quotation," said Northcote; "but
+there is reason in it. It might be sold for so much, and given to the
+poor."
+
+"Cheating the poor, in the first place," said Reginald, warmly concerned
+for what he felt to be his own; "just as the paddock an old horse dies
+in might bear a crop instead, and pay the owner; but what would become
+of the old horse?"
+
+"Half-quarter of this space would do quite as well for your pensioners,
+and they might do without--"
+
+"A chaplain!" said Reginald, laughing in spite of himself. "I know you
+think so. It is a sinecure."
+
+"Well, I think they may say their prayers for themselves; a young man
+like you, full of talent, full of capability--I beg your pardon," said
+Northcote, "you must excuse me, I grudge the waste. There are so many
+things more worthy of you that you might do."
+
+"What, for example?"
+
+"Anything almost," cried the other; "digging, ploughing,
+building--anything! And for me too."
+
+This he said in an undertone; but Reginald heard, and did not carry his
+magnanimity so far as not to reply.
+
+"Yes," he said; "if I am wasted reading prayers for my old men, what are
+you, who come to agitate for my abolition? _I_ think, too, almost
+anything would be better than to encourage the ignorant to make
+themselves judges of public institutions, which the wisest even find too
+delicate to meddle with. The digging and the ploughing might be a good
+thing for more than me."
+
+"I don't say otherwise," said the young Dissenter, following into the
+old fifteenth-century chapel, small but perfect, the young priest of the
+place. They stood together for a moment under the vaulted roof, both
+young, in the glory of their days, both with vague noble meanings in
+them, which they knew so poorly how to carry out. They meant everything
+that was fine and great, these two young men, standing upon the
+threshold of their life, knowing little more than that they were
+fiercely opposed to each other, and meant to reform the world each in
+his own way; one by careful services and visitings of the poor, the
+other by the Liberation Society and overthrow of the State Church; both
+foolish, wrong and right, to the utmost bounds of human possibility. How
+different they felt themselves standing there, and yet how much at one
+they were without knowing it! Northcote had sufficient knowledge to
+admire the perfect old building. He followed his guide with a certain
+humility through the details, which Reginald had already learned by
+heart.
+
+"There is nothing so perfect, so beautiful, so real now-a-days," said
+the young Churchman, with a natural expansion of mind over the beauty to
+which he had fallen heir. It seemed to him, as he looked up at the tall
+windows with their graceful tracery, that he was the representative of
+all who had worked out their belief in God within these beautiful walls,
+and of all the perpetual worshippers who had knelt among the old brasses
+of the early founders upon the worn floor. The other stood beside him
+with a half envy in his mind. The Dissenter did not feel himself the
+heir of those centuries in the same unhesitating way. He tried to feel
+that he was the heir of something better and more spiritual, yet felt a
+not ungenerous grudge that he could not share the other kinship too.
+
+"It is very beautiful and noble," he said. "I should like to feel for it
+as you do; but what I should like still better would be to have the same
+clear certainty of faith, the same conviction that what they were doing
+was the only right thing to do which made both building and prayer so
+unfaltering in those days. We can't be so sure even of the span of an
+arch now."
+
+"No--nor can you be content with the old span, even though it is clearly
+the best by all rules," said Reginald. The other smiled; he was the most
+speculative of the two, being perhaps the most thoughtful; and he had no
+fifteenth-century chapel to charm, nor old foundation to give him an
+anchor. He smiled, but there was a little envy in his mind. Even to have
+one's life set out before one within clear lines like this, would not
+that be something? If it had but been possible, no doubt saying prayers
+for the world, even with no better than the old men of the College to
+say amen, had something more beautiful in it than tours of agitation for
+the Liberation Society; but Northcote knew that for him it was not
+possible, any more than was the tonsure of Reginald's predecessor, who
+had said mass when first those pinnacles were reared towards heaven.
+After he had smiled he sighed, for the old faith was more lovely than
+all the new agitations; he felt a little ashamed of the Liberation
+Society, so long as he stood under that groined and glorious roof.
+
+"May!" said some one, coming in suddenly. "I want you to go to the
+hospital for me. I am obliged to go off to town on urgent
+business--convocation work; and I must get a lawyer's opinion about the
+reredos question; there is not a moment to lose. Go and see the people
+in the pulmonary ward, there's a good fellow; and there are two or three
+bad accidents; and that old woman who is ill in Brown's cottage, you saw
+her the other day; and the Simmonds in Back Grove Street. I should have
+had a day's work well cut out, if I had not had this summons to town;
+but the reredos question is of the first importance, you know."
+
+"I'll go," said Reginald. There is nothing more effectual in showing us
+the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption than to hear it
+sympathetically, through the ears, as it were, of a sceptic. Reginald,
+seeing Northcote's keen eyes gleam at the sound of the Rector's voice,
+instinctively fell into sympathy with him, and heard the speech through
+him; and though he himself felt the importance of the reredos, yet he
+saw in a moment how such a question would take shape in the opinion of
+the young Dissenter, in whom he clearly saw certain resemblances to
+himself. Therefore he assented very briefly, taking out his note-book to
+put down the special cases of which the Rector told him. They had a
+confidential conversation in a corner, during which the new-comer
+contemplated the figure of Northcote in his strange semi-clerical
+garments with some amaze. "Who is your friend?" he said abruptly, for he
+was a rapid man, losing no time about anything.
+
+"It is not my friend at all; it is my enemy who denounced me at the
+Dissenters' meeting."
+
+"Pah!" cried the Rector, curling up his nostrils, as if some
+disagreeable smell had reached him. "A Dissenter here! I should not have
+expected it from you, May."
+
+"Nor I either," said Reginald; but his colour rose. He was not disposed
+to be rebuked by any rector in Carlingford or the world.
+
+"Are you his curate," said Northcote, "that he orders you about as if
+you were bound to do his bidding? I hope, for your own sake, it is not
+so."
+
+Now it was Reginald's turn to smile. He was young, and liked a bit of
+grandiloquence as well as another.
+
+"Since I have been here," he said, "in this sinecure, as you call
+it--and such it almost is--I have been everybody's curate. If the others
+have too much work, and I too little, my duty is clear, don't you
+think?"
+
+Northcote made no reply. Had he known what was about to be said to him,
+he might have stirred up his faculties to say something; but he had not
+an idea that Reginald would answer him like this, and it took him aback.
+He was too honest himself not to be worsted by such a speech. He bowed
+his head with genuine respect. The apology of the Churchman whom he had
+assaulted, filled him with a kind of reverential confusion; he could
+make no reply in words. And need it be said that Reginald's heart too
+melted altogether when he saw how he had confounded his adversary? That
+silent assent more than made up for the noisy onslaught. That he should
+have thus overcome Northcote made Northcote appear his friend. He was
+pleased and satisfied beyond the reach of words.
+
+"Will you come to the hospital with me?" he said; and they walked out
+together, the young Dissenter saying very little, doing what he could to
+arrange those new lights which had suddenly flashed upon his favourite
+subject, and feeling that he had lost his landmarks, and was confused in
+his path. When the logic is taken out of all that a man is doing, what
+is to become of him? This was what he felt; an ideal person in
+Reginald's place could not have made a better answer. Suddenly somehow,
+by a strange law of association, there came into his mind the innocent
+talk he had overheard between the two girls who were, he was aware,
+May's sisters. A certain romantic curiosity about the family came into
+his mind. Certainly they could not be an ordinary family like others.
+There must be something in their constitution to account for this sudden
+downfall, which he had encountered in the midst of all his theories. The
+Mays must be people of a different strain from others; a peculiar race,
+to whom great thoughts were familiar; he could not believe that there
+was anything common or ordinary in their blood. He went out in silence,
+with the holder of the sinecure which he had so denounced, but which now
+seemed to him to be held after a divine fashion, in a way which common
+men had no idea of. Very little could he say, and that of the most
+commonplace kind. He walked quite respectfully by the young clergyman's
+side along the crowded High Street, though without any intention of
+going to the hospital, or of actually witnessing the kind of work
+undertaken by his new friend. Northcote himself had no turn that way. To
+go and minister at a sick-bed had never been his custom; he did not
+understand how to do it; and though he had a kind of sense that it was
+the right thing to do, and that if any one demanded such a service of
+him he would be obliged to render it, he was all in the dark as to how
+he could get through so painful an office; whereas May went to it
+without fear, thinking of it only as the most natural thing in the
+world. Perhaps, it is possible, Northcote's ministrations, had he been
+fully roused, would have been, in mere consequence of the reluctance of
+his mind, to undertake them, more real and impressive than those which
+Reginald went to discharge as a daily though serious duty; but in any
+case it was the Churchman whose mode was the more practical, the more
+useful. They had not gone far together, when they met the Rector
+hurrying to the railway; he cast a frowning, dissatisfied look at
+Northcote, and caught Reginald by the arm, drawing him aside.
+
+"Don't be seen walking about with that fellow," he said; "it will injure
+you in people's minds. What have you to do with a Dissenter--a
+demagogue? Your father would not like it any more than I do. Get rid of
+him, May."
+
+"I am sorry to displease either you or my father," said Reginald
+stiffly; "but, pardon me, in this respect I must judge for myself."
+
+"Don't be pig-headed," said the spiritual ruler of Carlingford; but he
+had to rush off for his train, and had no time to say more. He left
+Reginald hot and angry, doubly disposed, as was natural, to march
+Northcote over all the town, and show his intimacy with him. Get rid of
+an acquaintance whom he chose to extend his countenance to, to please
+the Rector! For a man so young as Reginald May, and so lately made
+independent, such an act of subserviency was impossible indeed.
+
+Before they entered the hospital, however, another encounter happened of
+a very different character. Strolling along in the centre of the
+pavement, endeavouring after the almost impossible combination of a yawn
+and a cigar, they perceived a large figure in a very long great-coat,
+and with an aspect of languor and _ennui_ which was unmistakable a
+hundred yards off. This apparition called a sudden exclamation from
+Northcote.
+
+"If it was possible," he said, "I should imagine I knew that man. Are
+there two like him? but I can't fancy what he can be doing here."
+
+"_That_ fellow!" said Reginald. "It's a pity if there are two like him.
+I can't tell you what a nuisance he is to me. His name is Copperhead;
+he's my father's pupil."
+
+"Then it _is_ Copperhead! I thought there could not be another. He gives
+a sort of odd familiar aspect to the place all at once."
+
+"Then you are a friend of his!" said Reginald, with a groan. "Pardon the
+natural feelings of a man whose father has suddenly chosen to become a
+coach. I hate it, and my dislike to the thing is reflected on the person
+of the pupil. I suppose that's what my antipathy means."
+
+"He does not merit antipathy. He is a bore, but there is no harm in him.
+Ah! he is quickening his pace; I am afraid he has seen us; and anybody
+he knows will be a godsend to him, I suppose."
+
+"I am off," said Reginald; "you will come again? that is," he added,
+with winning politeness, "I shall come and seek you out. We are each the
+moral Antipodes of the other, Miss Beecham says--from which she argues
+that we should be acquainted and learn the meaning of our differences."
+
+"I am much obliged to Miss Beecham."
+
+"Why, Northcote!" said Clarence Copperhead, bearing down upon them in
+his big grey Ulster, like a ship in full sail. "Morning, May; who'd have
+thought to see you here. Oh, don't turn on my account! I'm only taking a
+walk; it don't matter which way I go."
+
+"I am very much hurried. I was just about to hasten off to an
+appointment. Good-bye, Northcote," said Reginald. "We shall meet again
+soon, I hope."
+
+"By Jove! this is a surprise," said Clarence; "to see you here, where I
+should as soon have thought of looking for St. Paul's; and to find you
+walking about cheek by jowl with that muff, young May, who couldn't be
+civil, I think, if he were to try. What is the meaning of it? I suppose
+you're just as much startled to see me. I'm with a coach; clever, and a
+good scholar and a good family, and all that; father to that young
+sprig: so there ain't any mystery about me. What's brought you here?"
+
+"Work," said Northcote, curtly. He did not feel disposed to enter into
+any kind of explanation.
+
+"Oh, work! Now I do wonder that a fellow like you, with plenty of money
+in your pocket, should go in for work as you do. What's the good of it?
+and in the Dissenting parson line of all things in the world! When a
+fellow has nothing, you can understand it; he must get his grub somehow.
+That's what people think of you, of course. Me, I don't do anything, and
+everybody knows I'm a catch, and all that sort of thing. Now I don't say
+(for I don't know) if your governor has as much to leave behind him as
+mine--But halt a bit! You walk as if we were going in for athletics, and
+doing a two mile."
+
+"I'm sorry to see you so easily blown," said Northcote, not displeased
+in his turn to say something unpleasant. "What is it? or are you only
+out of training?"
+
+"That's it," said Clarence, with a gasp. "I'm awfully out of training,
+and that's the fact. We do, perhaps, live too well in Portland Place;
+but look here--about what we were saying--"
+
+"Do you live with the Mays?"
+
+"Worse luck! It's what you call plain cooking; and bless us all, dinner
+in the middle of the day, and the children at table. But I've put a stop
+to that; and old May ain't a bad old fellow--don't bother me with work
+more than I like, and none of your high mightiness, like that fellow.
+I'll tell you what, Northcote, you must come and see me. I haven't got a
+sitting-room of my own, which is a shame, but I have the use of their
+rooms as much as I like. The sisters go flying away like a flock of
+pigeons. I'll tell you what, I'll have you asked to dinner. Capital fun
+it will be. A High Church parson cheek by jowl with a red-hot Dissenter,
+and compelled to be civil. By Jove! won't it be a joke?"
+
+"It is not a joke that either of us will enjoy."
+
+"Never mind, _I'll_ enjoy it, by Jove!" said Copperhead. "He daren't say
+no. I'd give sixpence just to see you together, and the Bashaw of two
+tails--the young fellow. They shall have a party; leave it all to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE NEW PUPIL.
+
+
+Mr. May, since the bargain was fairly concluded with the Copperheads,
+had thought a great deal about the three hundred a-year he was to get
+for his pupil. It almost doubled his income in a moment, and that has a
+great effect upon the imagination. It was true he would have another
+person to maintain on this additional income, but still that additional
+person would simply fill Reginald's place, and it did not at first
+occur to him that what was good enough for himself, Mr. May, of St.
+Roque's, was not good enough for any _parvenu_ on the face of the earth.
+Therefore the additional income represented a great deal of additional
+comfort, and that general expansion of expenditure, not going into any
+special extravagances, but representing a universal ease and enlargement
+which was congenial to him, and which was one of the great charms of
+money in his eyes. To be sure, when he reflected on the matter, he felt
+that the first half-year of Clarence's payment ought to be appropriated
+to that bill, which for the present had brought him so much relief; but
+this would be so entirely to lose the benefit of the money so far as he
+was himself concerned, that it was only in moments of reflection that
+this appeared urgent. The bill to which Tozer's signature had been
+appended did not oppress his conscience. After all, what was it? Not a
+very large sum, a sum which when put to it, and with time before him, he
+could so easily supply; and as for any other consideration, it was
+really, when you came to think of it, a quite justifiable expedient, not
+to be condemned except by squeamish persons, and which being never
+known, could do no harm in the world. He had not harmed anybody by what
+he had done. Tozer, who was quite able to pay it over and over again,
+would never know of it; and in what respect, he asked himself, was it
+worse to have done this than to have a bill really signed by a man of
+straw, whose "value received" meant nothing in the world but a simple
+fiction? Cotsdean was no more than a man of straw; if left to himself,
+he could not pay anything, nor had he anything really to do with the
+business for which his name stood sponsor; and Tozer's name was merely
+placed there in the same fictitious way, without any trouble to Tozer,
+or burden of responsibility. What was the difference, except that it
+saved trouble and anxiety to everybody except the principal in the
+affair--he who ought to bear the brunt? Mr. May recognised this without
+doubt. It was he who had reaped the advantage; and whether Cotsdean was
+the instrument who knew all about it, or Tozer, who did not know
+anything about it, it was he, Mr. May, whose natural duty it was to meet
+the claim and pay the money. He was an honest man; if he was
+occasionally a little slow in his payments, no one could throw any doubt
+upon his character. But, of course, should any unforeseen emergency
+arise, the pupil at once made that straight. Mr. May felt that he had
+only to go to the bank, which generally did not encourage his visits,
+and tell them of his pupil, to have the money at once. Nobody could
+reject such unmistakeable security. So that really there was no further
+occasion for so much as thinking of Tozer; that was provided for; with
+the freest conscience in the world he might put it out of his mind. But
+how he could feel this so strongly, and at the same time revel in the
+consciousness of a fuller purse, more to enjoy, and more to spend, is a
+mystery which it would be difficult to solve. He did so, and many others
+have done so besides him, eating their cake, yet believing that they had
+their cake with the fullest confidence. He was a sensible man, rather
+priding himself on his knowledge of business, with much experience in
+human nature, and a thoughtful sense (fully evidenced in his writings)
+of all the strange inconsistencies and self-deceits of mankind; but he
+dropped into this strain of self-delusion with the calmest satisfaction
+of mind, and was as sure of his own good sense and kindness as if he had
+never in all his life taken a step out of the rigidest of the narrow
+ways of uprightness.
+
+Some part of this illusion, however, was sharply dispelled at a very
+early date. Clarence Copperhead, who was not likely to err by means of
+too much consideration for the feelings of others, grumbled frankly at
+the mid-day meal.
+
+"I don't understand a two o'clock dinner," he said; "it's lunch, that's
+what I call it; and I won't be disagreeable about the kids, but I must
+have my dinner. Bless you! a man can't live without his dinner. What is
+he to do? It is the sort of thing you can look forward to, whatever
+happens. If it's a wet day, or anything of that sort, there's always
+dinner; and after it's over, if there's music or a rubber, why that's
+all very well; or if a man feels a bit sleepy, it doesn't matter. Why,
+dinner's your stand-by, wherever you are. I'd as soon do without my
+head, for my part."
+
+Ursula hastened to tell her father this with dismay in her looks.
+
+"I've always heard that late dinners were so expensive; you require
+twice as many dishes. At two, one has only what is necessary; but at
+seven, you require to have fish, and soup, and _entrées_, and all sorts
+of things, besides the joint. It was disgraceful of him to say it!"
+cried Ursula; "and I think he ought to be made to follow our plan,
+whatever it is, and not do everything he likes here."
+
+"That is all very true," said Mr. May; "but he is right about the
+dinner; it is a great deal more agreeable."
+
+"And expensive, papa."
+
+"Well, perhaps it is a great deal to expect at your age; but if you read
+your cookery-book, as I have often said, when you were reading those
+novels, and learned how to toss up little dishes out of nothing, and
+make _entrées_, and so forth, at next to no expense--"
+
+The tears came into Ursula's eyes at this unjust assault.
+
+"Papa," she said, "you ought to know better at your age. One forgives
+the boys for saying such silly things. How can I toss up little dishes
+out of nothing? If you only knew the price of butter, not to talk of
+anything else. Made dishes are the most expensive things! A leg of
+mutton, for instance; there it is, and when one weighs it, one knows
+what it costs; but there is not one of those _entrées_ but costs
+_shillings_ for herbs and truffles and gravy and forcemeat, and a glass
+of white wine here, and a half pint of claret there. It is all very well
+to talk of dishes made out of nothing. The meat may not be very
+much--and men never think of the other things, I suppose."
+
+"It is management that is wanted," said Mr. May, "to throw nothing away,
+to make use of everything, to employ all your scraps. If you once have a
+good sauce--which is as easy as daylight when you take the trouble--you
+can make all sorts of things out of a cold joint; but women never will
+take the trouble, and that is the secret of poor dinners. Not one in
+fifty will do it. If you wanted really to help us, and improve my
+position, you might, Ursula. I can't afford to fall out with Copperhead,
+he is very important to me just at this moment; and perhaps it is better
+that I should give in to him at once about the late dinner."
+
+"You may say it is not my business," said Ursula, "but we have already
+another maid, and now two dinners--for it is just the same as two
+dinners. He will not be any advantage to you like that, and why should
+he be so much harder to please than we are? Reginald never grumbled, who
+was much better bred and better educated than Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"And with so much money to keep up his dignity," said her father
+mockingly. "No, it is not your business, the cookery-book is your
+business, and how to make the best of everything; otherwise I don't want
+any advice from you."
+
+"What did he say?" cried Janey, rushing in as soon as her father had
+left the room. Ursula, a very general consequence of such interviews,
+was sitting by the fire, very red and excited, with tears glistening in
+her eyes.
+
+"Of course I knew what he would say; he says it is not my business, and
+there are to be late dinners, and everything that man chooses to ask
+for. Oh, it is so hard to put up with it!" cried Ursula, her eyes
+flashing through her tears. "I am to read up the cookery-book and learn
+to make _entrées_ for them; but to say we can't afford it is not my
+business. I wonder whose business it is? It is I who have to go to the
+tradespeople and to bear it all if they grumble; and now this horrible
+man, who dares to tell me the coffee is not strong enough, as if I was a
+barmaid--"
+
+"Barmaids don't have to do with coffee, have they?" said matter-of-fact
+Janey; "but the fact is _he is not a gentleman_; why should you mind?
+What does it matter what a person like that says or does? You said so
+yourself, he is not a bit a gentleman. I wonder what Cousin Anne and
+Cousin Sophy could mean."
+
+"It is not their fault; they think of his mother, who is nice, who sent
+those things; but Mr. Copperhead knew about the things, which was not so
+nice of her, was it? But never mind, we must try to make the best of it.
+Get the cookery-book, Janey; perhaps if you were to read it out loud,
+and we were both to try to fix our mind upon it--for something must be
+done," said Ursula gravely. "Papa will never find it out till all the
+money is spent, but we shall be poorer than we were before we had the
+pupil. Who is that, Janey, at the door?"
+
+It was Phoebe, who came in blooming from the cold, in a furred jacket, at
+which the girls looked with unfeigned admiration. "The skating will soon
+come on in earnest now," she said; "grandmamma is better, and I thought
+I might come and see you. I had a long talk with your brother the other
+day, did he tell you? and I made him know Mr. Northcote, one of our
+people. I know you will turn up your pretty nose, Ursula, at a
+Dissenter."
+
+"I should think so," cried Janey; "we have nothing to do with such
+people, being gentlefolks, have we, Ursula? Oh, I forgot! I beg your
+pardon, I didn't mean to say--"
+
+Phoebe smiled upon her serenely. "I am not angry," she said, "I
+understand all that; and in Carlingford I have no right, I suppose, to
+stand upon being a lady, though I always thought I was one. I am only a
+young woman here, and not so bad either for that, if you will promise,
+Janey, not to call me a young person--"
+
+"Oh, Miss Beecham!"
+
+"Mr. Copperhead is a Dissenter," said Ursula, somewhat sullenly, "we put
+up with him because he is rich. Oh, it is all very disagreeable! I don't
+want to know any new people whatever they are; I find the old ones bad
+enough. Reginald hates him too, a big lazy useless being that treats one
+as if one were a chambermaid!"
+
+"Is it Clarence? It is not quite his fault. His mother is a lady, but
+his father is a brute," said Phoebe, "thinking of nothing but his
+horrible money. Clarence is not so bad. It is because he has no
+imagination, and does not understand other people's feelings; he does
+not mean it, poor fellow; he goes trampling about with his big feet upon
+everybody's toes, and never is a bit the wiser. Here he is--he is coming
+in with your father. I suppose there must be a great deal in race," she
+added with a soft little sigh, "Clarence looks a clown, and your father
+such a gentleman. I suppose I show just the same when I stand beside
+you."
+
+Now Phoebe was well aware that this was not the case, and Ursula's
+indignant disclaimer made her rather laugh, because it was so
+unnecessary, than be pleased by its vehemence. There was an old convex
+mirror opposite which reflected the girls in miniature, making a pretty
+picture of them as they sat together, Ursula with her dark locks, and
+Phoebe in her golden hair, and the tall sharp school-girl, Janey, all
+elbows and angles, short petticoats and grey stockings. Janey was the
+only one in whom there could have been suspected any inferiority of
+race; but her awkwardness was that of youth, and her disordered hair and
+dress belonged also to her age, for she was at that troublesome period
+when frocks are constantly getting too short, and sleeves too scanty.
+Janey was shuffling slowly round the visitor, admiring her at every
+point; her garments were not made as dresses were made in Carlingford.
+Their fit and their texture were alike too perfect for anything that
+ever came out of High Street. The furred jacket had not been seen in
+Grange Lane before. Perhaps it was because the cold had become more
+severe, an ordinary and simple reason--or because Clarence Copperhead,
+who knew her, and in whose eyes it was important to bate no jot of her
+social pretensions, was here; and the furred jacket was beyond
+comparison with anything that had been seen for ages in Carlingford. The
+deep border of fur round the velvet, the warm waddings and paddings, the
+close fit up to the throat, were excellencies which warranted Janey's
+tour of inspection. Phoebe perceived it very well, but did not confuse
+the girl by taking any notice, and in her heart she was herself slightly
+pre-occupied, wondering (as Ursula had done) what the man had come here
+for, and what he would say when he saw her. Both of these young women
+had a secret belief that something romantic, something more than the
+mere prose of reading in the first tutor's house that happened to have
+been suggested to him, had brought young Copperhead to such an unlikely
+place as Carlingford. Ursula had by this time learned to reject this
+hypothesis with much indignation at herself for having entertained it,
+but Phoebe still felt slightly fluttered by this possibility, and was
+eager for the entrance of Clarence. She would know at once what had
+brought him, she said to herself, the moment she caught his eye.
+
+And though Mr. May had reconciled himself so completely to the Tozer
+business, the appearance of Tozer's granddaughter gave him a momentary
+shock. "What did you do with my grandfather's letter? he thought her
+eyes said, and the meeting confused and disturbed him. This, however,
+was only for a moment. He was a man to whom it was always possible to
+make himself agreeable to women, and though he felt so easy in his mind
+about Tozer, still it was evident that to conciliate Tozer's relation,
+and that so influential a relation, was on the whole a good thing to do.
+He was going up to her accordingly with outstretched hands, and the most
+amiable inquiries about her grandmother's health, when, to his surprise,
+he was frustrated by Clarence who had come in before him--his large
+person swelling out, as it always seemed to do when he presented himself
+upon a new scene, with importance and grandeur.
+
+"Miss Beecham!" he said, "really, who would have thought it? Now look
+here, I came to Carlingford thinking there was not a soul I knew in the
+place; and here have you turned up all at once, and Northcote (you know
+Northcote?). It is very queer."
+
+"It is odd, isn't it?" said Phoebe quickly. "I was astonished to see Mr.
+Northcote, and though I heard you were coming I am not less surprised to
+see you." "He has not come for me," she said rapidly to herself, "nor
+for Ursula either; then who is it?" Phoebe demanded in the depths of her
+own bosom; that he should have come for nobody at all, but simply for
+his own purposes, to get a little information put into his head, seemed
+incredible to both the girls. Ursula, for her part, had been angry when
+she discovered his want of meaning, though why she would have found it
+hard to say. But Phoebe, for her part, was not angry. She took this like
+other things of the kind, with great and most philosophical calm, but
+she could not outgrow it all at once. For whom was it? His cousins,
+those Miss Dorsets? But they were much older, and not the kind of women
+for whom such an act was likely. Her mind wandered forth lively and
+curious in search of the necessary clue. She could not consent to the
+fact that no clue was necessary where no mystery was.
+
+"I am glad to see that you venture out in this wintry weather," said Mr.
+May; "you set us all a good example. I am always telling my girls that
+cold weather is no sufficient reason for staying indoors. I wish Ursula
+would do as you do."
+
+"Papa, how can you talk so?" said Janey, indignant, "when you know very
+well it is not the cold that keeps Ursula in, but because she has so
+much to do."
+
+"Oh, yes, one knows the sort of things young ladies have to do," said
+Clarence, with a laugh; "read stories, and look up pretty dresses for
+their parties, eh, Miss Janey? and consult the fashion-books. Oh, of
+course you will deny it; but my mother makes me her confidant, and I
+know that's what you all do."
+
+"To be sure," said Phoebe, "we are not so clever as you are, and can't do
+so many things. We know no Latin or Greek to keep our minds instructed;
+we acknowledge our infirmity; and we couldn't play football to save our
+lives. Football is what you do in this season, when you don't hunt, and
+before the ice is bearing? We are poor creatures; we can't parcel out
+our lives, according as it is time for football or cricket. You must not
+be so severe upon girls for being so inferior to you."
+
+("Oh, don't be too hard upon him,") whispered Ursula, in a parenthesis,
+afraid that this irony should drive the pupil to desperation. ("Hard
+upon him! he will never find it out,") Phoebe whispered back in the same
+tone.
+
+"Oh, hang it all, I don't mean to be severe upon girls," said Clarence,
+pulling his moustache with much complacency; "I am sorry for them, I can
+tell you. It ain't their fault; I know heaps of nice girls who feel it
+horribly. What can they do? they can't go in for cricket and football.
+There ought to be something invented for them. To be sure there is
+lawn-tennis, but that's only for summer. I should go mad, I think, if I
+had nothing to do."
+
+"But you have more brain and more strength, you see, than we have; and
+besides, we are used to it," said Phoebe. "I am afraid, Ursula,
+grandmamma will want me, and I must go."
+
+Here Mr. May said something to his daughter which filled Ursula with
+excitement, mingled of pleasure and displeasure.
+
+"Papa says, will you come to dinner to-morrow at seven? It appears there
+is some one you know coming--a Mr. Northcote. I don't know who he is,
+but it will be very kind if you will come on my account," the girl
+concluded, whispering in her ear, "for how shall I ever get through a
+dinner-party? We never gave one in my life before."
+
+"Of course I will come," said Phoebe. "Dinner-parties are not so common
+here that I should neglect the chance. I must thank Mr. May. But I hope
+you know who Mr. Northcote is," she added, laughing. "I gave an account
+of myself loyally, before I permitted you to ask me; but Mr.
+Northcote--Oh, no! he does not belong to----the lower classes; but he is
+a fiery red-hot----"
+
+"What?" cried eager Janey, pressing to the front. "Radical? I am a
+radical too; and Reginald used to be once, and so was Ursula. Oh, I wish
+it was to-night!" said Janey, clasping her hands.
+
+"Not a radical, but a Dissenter; and you who are a clergyman, Mr. May! I
+like you, oh, so much for it. But I wonder what the people will say."
+
+"My dear Miss Beecham," said the suave Churchman, quite ready to seize
+the chance of making a point for himself, "in the Church, fortunately,
+what the people say has not to be studied, as your unfortunate pastors,
+I am informed, have to do. While Mr. Copperhead is under my roof, I make
+his friends welcome--for his sake first, probably afterwards for their
+own."
+
+"Yes, I asked Northcote," said Clarence; "I never thought they would
+have any objection. He's not a common Dissenter, like the most of those
+fellows that have nothing but their salaries. He's well off; he don't
+require, bless you, to keep people in good temper, and toady to 'em,
+like most do. He's as independent as I am; I don't say that he's quite
+as well off; but money always finds its level. I shouldn't have thought
+of asking May to receive a common Dissenting fellow, like the rest."
+
+Phoebe laughed. It did not occur to the accomplished scion of the house
+of Copperhead, nor to the two girls, who were not experienced enough to
+think of such things, what was the meaning expressed in Phoebe's laugh,
+which was not cheerful. Mr. May himself had the advantage of more
+discrimination.
+
+"I hope you will find that, Dissenter or not, I know what is my duty to
+my friends," he said. "What my guests may possess, or the exact nature
+of their opinions on all points, are not subjects to be discussed by
+me."
+
+"Oh, there is nothing to find fault with in _you_," said Phoebe, with
+less than her usual universal courtesy; "you are always kind, Mr. May;"
+and then she laughed again. "Some people are very clever in finding out
+the vulnerable places," she said.
+
+"She is changed," said Clarence, when she was gone. "She is not the
+jolly girl she used to be. She was always a very jolly girl; ready to
+help a fellow out of a scrape, you know. But Northcote's a fearfully
+clever fellow. You should just hear him talk. He and May will go at it
+hammer and tongs, as sure as fate."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+URSULA'S ENTRÉES.
+
+
+It would be difficult to describe the anxiety with which that first
+"late dinner" was regarded by Ursula. Janey, too, had thrown herself
+into it heart and soul, until she received the crushing intimation from
+her father, that her company was not expected at this stately meal; a
+discovery which altogether extinguished poor Janey, accustomed to be
+always in the front whatever occurred, and to whom suggestions of things
+that could not be done by a girl who was not "out," had never presented
+themselves. She retired to her own room dissolved in tears when this
+fearful mandate went forth, and for the rest of the morning was good for
+nothing, her eyes being converted into a sort of red pulp, her rough
+hair doubly dishevelled, her whole being run into tears. She was of no
+more use now to go errands between the kitchen and the drawing-room, or
+to read the cookery-book out loud, which was a process upon which Ursula
+depended very much, to fix in her mind the exact ingredients and painful
+method of preparation of the _entrées_ at which she was toiling. Betsy,
+the former maid-of-all-work, now promoted under the title of cook, could
+be trusted to roast the saddle of mutton, which, on consideration that
+it was "a party," had been thought preferable to a leg, and she could
+boil the fish, after a sort, and make good honest family soup, and the
+rice-pudding or apple-tart, which was the nearest approach to luxury
+indulged in at the Parsonage; but as for _entrées_, Betsy did not know
+what they were. She had heard of made dishes indeed, and respectfully
+afar off had seen them when she was kitchen-maid at Lady Weston's--the
+golden age of her youthful inexperience. But this was so long ago, that
+her recollections were rather confusing than useful to Ursula, when she
+went downstairs to make her first heroic effort.
+
+"La, Miss, that ain't how cook used to do 'em at Lady Weston's," Betsy
+said, looking on with unbelieving eyes. She was sure of this negative,
+but she was not sure of anything else, and utterly failed to give any
+active assistance, after driving the girl desperate with her criticisms.
+Altogether it was a confused and unpleasant day. When Reginald came in
+in the morning, his sister had no time to speak to him, so anxious was
+she and pre-occupied, and the drawing-room was being turned upside down,
+to make it look more modern, more elegant, more like the Dorsets'
+drawing-room, which was the only one Ursula knew. The comfortable round
+table in the middle, round which the family had grouped themselves for
+so long, had been pushed aside into a corner, leaving one fresh patch of
+carpet, quite inappropriate, and unconnected with anything else; and
+instead of the work and the school-books which so often intruded there,
+all that was gaudy and uninteresting in the May library had been
+produced to decorate the table; and even a case of wax flowers, a
+production of thirty years since, which had been respectfully
+transferred to a china closet by Ursula's better taste, but which in the
+dearth of ornament she had brought back again. Reginald carried off the
+wax flowers and replaced the table with his own hands, while Ursula
+scorched her cheeks over the _entrées_ downstairs.
+
+"All this for Northcote," he said, when she ran up for a moment, done up
+in a big white apron, her face crimson with the fire and anxiety
+combined: "for Miss Beecham has been here before, and you made no fuss
+about her then."
+
+"She came to tea," said Ursula. "And I got a cake, which was all any one
+could do; but a dinner is a very different thing." Indeed she had by
+this time come to share her father's opinion, that dinner was the right
+and dignified thing in all cases, and that they had been hitherto living
+in a very higgledy-piggledy way. The dinner had gone to her head.
+
+"Then it is for Northcote, as I say," said Reginald. "Do you know who he
+is?"
+
+"A Dissenter," said Ursula, with a certain languor; "but so, you know,
+is Mr. Copperhead, and he is the chief person here now-a-days. Papa
+thinks there is nobody like him. And so is Phoebe."
+
+"Oh, have you come so far as that?" said Reginald, with a little tinge
+of colour in his face. He laughed, but the name moved him. "It is a
+pretty fresh sort of country name, not quite like such an accomplished
+person."
+
+"Oh, that is just like you men, with your injustice! Because she is
+clever you take it amiss; you are all jealous of her. Look at her pretty
+colour and her beautiful hair; if that is not fresh I should like to
+know what is. She might be Hebe instead of Phoebe," said Ursula, who had
+picked up scraps of classical knowledge in spite of herself.
+
+"You are a little goose," said Reginald, pinching her ear, but he liked
+his sister for her generous partizanship. "Mind you don't come to dinner
+with cheeks like that," he said. "I like my sister to be herself, not a
+cook-maid, and I don't believe in _entrées_;" but he went away smiling,
+and with a certain warmth in his breast. He had gone up and down Grange
+Lane many times at the hour of sunset, hoping to meet Phoebe again, but
+that sensible young woman had no mind to be talked of, and never
+appeared except when she was certain the road was clear. This had
+tantalized Reginald more than he chose to avow, even to himself. Pride
+prevented him from knocking at the closed door. The old Tozers were
+fearful people to encounter, people whom to visit would be to damn
+himself in Carlingford; but then the Miss Griffiths were very insipid by
+the side of Phoebe, and the variety of her talk, though he had seen so
+little of her, seemed to have created a new want in his life. He thought
+of a hundred things which he should like to discuss with her--things
+which did not interest Ursula, and which the people about him did not
+understand much. Society at that time, as may be presumed, was in a poor
+way in Carlingford. The Wentworths and Wodehouses were gone, and many
+other nice people; the houses in Grange Lane were getting deserted, or
+falling into inferior hands, as was apparent by the fact that the
+Tozers--old Tozer, the butterman--had got one of them. The other people
+were mostly relics of a bygone state of things: retired old couples, old
+ladies, spinsters, and widows--excellent people, but not lively to talk
+to--and the Griffiths, above mentioned, put up with in consideration of
+tolerable good looks and "fun," became tiresome when anything better was
+to be had. The mere apparition of Phoebe upon the horizon had been enough
+to show Reginald that there were other kinds of human beings in the
+world. It had not occurred to him that he was in love with her, and the
+idea of the social suicide implied in marrying old Tozer's
+granddaughter, had not so much as once entered his imagination. Had he
+thought of it, he would have pulled that imagination up tight, like an
+unruly horse, the thing being too impossible to bear thinking of. But
+this had never entered his mind. He wanted to see Phoebe to talk to her,
+to be near her, as something very new, captivating and full of
+interest--that was all. No one else within his sphere could talk so
+well. The Rector was very great indeed on the reredos question, and the
+necessity of reviving the disused "Church" customs; but Reginald could
+not go so far as he did as to the importance of the reredos, and was
+quite in doubt whether it was not as well for most people to "direct"
+themselves by their own consciences as to be directed by the spiritual
+head of the parish, who was not over wise in his own concerns. His
+father, Reginald knew, could be very agreeable among strangers, but he
+seldom chose to be so in his own house. All this made the advent of
+Phoebe appear to him like a sudden revelation out of a different world.
+He was an Oxford man, with the best of education, but he was a simpleton
+all the same. He thought he saw in her an evidence of what life was like
+in those intellectual professional circles which a man may hope to get
+into only in London. It was not the world of fashion he was aware, but
+he thought in his simplicity that it was the still higher world of
+culture and knowledge, in which genius, and wit, and intellect stood
+instead of rank or riches. How Tozer's granddaughter had got admission
+there, he did not ask himself, but this was what he thought, and to talk
+to her was a new sensation. He was quite unconscious of anything more.
+
+Nobody knew when Ursula took her place at the head of the table in her
+pretty white dress, which she had worn at the Dorsets', how much toil
+and anxiety the preparations had given her. At the last moment, when her
+mind was so far clear of the _entrées_, &c.--as clear as the mind of an
+inexperienced dinner-giver can be, until the blessed moment when they
+are eaten and done with--she had to take Sarah in hand, who was not very
+clear about the waiting, and to instruct her according to her own very
+imperfect knowledge how to fulfil her duties.
+
+"Think it is not a dinner-party at all, but only just our ordinary
+luncheon, and don't get fluttered; and when I look at you like _this_
+come quite close, and I will whisper what you are to do. And oh, Sarah,
+like a good creature, don't break anything!" said Ursula almost with
+tears.
+
+These were all the directions she could give, and they, it must be
+allowed, were somewhat vague. The excitement was becoming to her. She
+sat down with a dreadful flutter in her heart, but with her eyes shining
+and sparkling. Clarence Copperhead, who extended an arm very carelessly
+to take her downstairs, absolutely certain of being a more important
+person than his guest Northcote, was roused for the first time to the
+consciousness that she was very pretty, which he had not found out
+before. "But no style," he said to himself. Phoebe was the one who had
+style. She sat between Mr. May and the stranger, but devoted herself to
+her host chiefly, displaying a gentle contempt of the younger men in his
+presence. No anxiety was in her mind about the dinner. She did not
+follow the fate of those _entrées_ round the table with terrible
+palpitations, as poor Ursula did; and, alas, the _entrées_ were not
+good, and Ursula had the mortification to see the dishes she had taken
+so much trouble with, rejected by one and another. Reginald ate some,
+for which she blessed him, and so did Phoebe, but Mr. May sent his plate
+away with polite execrations.
+
+"Tell your cook she shall go if she sends up such uneatable stuff again,
+Ursula," her father cried from the other end of the table.
+
+Two big tears dashed up hot and scalding into Ursula's eyes. Oh, how she
+wished she could be dismissed like Betsy! She turned those two little
+oceans of trouble piteously, without knowing it, upon Northcote, who had
+said something to her, without being able to reply to him. And
+Northcote, who was but a young man, though he was a fiery political
+Dissenter, and who had come to the Parsonage with a curious mixture of
+pleasure and reluctance, immediately threw down any arms that nature
+might have provided him with, and fell in love with her there and then
+on the spot! to his own absolute consternation. This was how it
+happened. The moment was not romantic, the situation was not sublime. A
+little motherless housekeeper crying because her father scolded her in
+public for a piece of bad cookery. There is nothing in this to make an
+idyll out of; but such as it was, it proved enough for Horace Northcote;
+he yielded himself on the spot. Not a word was said, for Ursula felt
+that if she tried to talk she must cry, and anything further from her
+troubled thoughts than love it would be impossible to imagine; but then
+and there, so far as the young man was concerned, the story began. He
+talked very little for the rest of the meal, and Ursula did not exert
+herself, though she recovered slightly when the mutton turned out to be
+very good, and was commended; but what was the mutton in comparison with
+her _entrées_, which she had made with her own hands, and which were a
+failure? She was reduced to silence, and she thought that the stranger
+at her left hand was nice, because he did not bother her, and was
+content with a very little talk.
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, did you hear papa about those _entrées_?" she cried, when
+they reached the drawing-room; and sitting down on the stool by the fire
+which Janey usually appropriated, she cried, poor child, with
+undisguised passion. "I had made them myself; I had been busy about them
+all day; I read the cookery-book till my head ached, and took such
+pains! and you heard what he said."
+
+"Yes, dear, I heard him; but he did not think what he was saying, it
+never occurred to him that it was you. Don't shake your little head, I
+am sure of it; you know, Ursula, your papa is very agreeable and very
+clever."
+
+"Yes, I know he is clever; and he can be nice when he likes--"
+
+"Did you like it?" cried Janey, bursting in, red-eyed and dishevelled in
+her morning frock. "Oh, no, I am not dressed, I don't mean to, to let
+him get the better of me, and think I care. Only just for a moment to
+see you two. Oh, isn't Phoebe grand in that dress? She is like a picture;
+you are nothing beside her, Ursula. Tell me, is it nice to have dinner
+instead of tea? Did it go off very well, did you enjoy yourselves? Or
+were you all unhappy, sitting round the table, eating beef and mutton,"
+cried Janey with all the scorn of ignorance, "at that ridiculous hour!"
+
+"I was as miserable as I could be," cried Ursula, "I was not happy at
+all. Enjoy myself! with the _entrées_ on my mind, and after what papa
+said. Oh, run away, Janey, and dress, or else go to bed. Papa will be so
+angry if he comes up and finds you here."
+
+"I should like to make him frantic," cried Janey with vindictive force,
+"I should just like to drive him out of his senses! Never mind, yes, I
+am angry; haven't I a right to be angry? I am as tall as Ursula--I hope
+I know how to behave myself--and when there were people coming, and a
+real dinner--"
+
+"Oh, I hear them," cried Ursula in alarm, and Janey flew off, her hair
+streaming behind her. Phoebe put her arm round Ursula, and raised her
+from the stool. She was not perhaps a perfect young woman, but had her
+own ends to serve like other people; yet she had a friendly soul. She
+gave her friend a kiss to preface her admonition, as girls have a way of
+doing.
+
+"I would not let Janey talk so," she said, "I think you should not talk
+so yourself, Ursula, if you will forgive me, of your papa; he is very
+nice, and so clever. I should try all I could to please him, and I
+should not let any one be disrespectful to him if it was I."
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, if you only knew--"
+
+"Yes, I know, gentlemen don't understand often; but we must do our duty.
+He is nice, and clever, and handsome, and you ought to be proud of him.
+Dry your eyes, here they are really, coming upstairs. You must be
+good-humoured and talk. He is ever so much nicer than the young men,"
+said Phoebe, almost loud enough to be heard, as Clarence Copperhead,
+sauntering in advance of the others with his large shirt-front fully
+displayed, came into the room. He came in half whistling in serene
+indifference. Phoebe had "style," it was true; but she was only a
+Dissenting parson's daughter, and what were two such girls to Clarence
+Copperhead? He came in whistling an opera air, which he let drop only
+after he was well inside the door.
+
+"Miss Beecham, let us have some music. I know you can play," he said.
+
+"If Miss May likes," said Phoebe, covering his rudeness; and then she
+laughed, and added, "if you will accompany me."
+
+"Does Mr. Copperhead play too?"
+
+"Oh beautifully. Has he not let you see his music? Won't you bring it
+here and let us look over it? I dare say there are some things we can
+play together."
+
+"You can play everything," said the young man. "And I'll bring my
+violin, if you like."
+
+He was delighted; he quickened his steps almost into a run as he went
+away.
+
+"You should not laugh at Mr. Copperhead," Ursula retorted on her friend.
+"You should be good-humoured, too. You are better than I am, but you are
+not quite good, after all."
+
+"Violin!" said Mr. May. "Heaven and earth! is there going to be any
+fiddling? Miss Beecham, I did not expect you to bring such a horror upon
+me. I thought I had nothing but good to expect from you."
+
+"Wait till you hear him, sir," said Phoebe.
+
+Mr. May retired to the far corner of the room. He called young Northcote
+to him, who was standing beside Ursula, eager to talk, but not knowing
+how to begin. It was bad enough to be thus withdrawn from his chance of
+making himself agreeable; but the reader may imagine what was the
+Dissenter's feelings when Mr. May, with a smile, turned upon him. Having
+given him a (tolerably) good dinner, and lulled him into a belief that
+his sins against the family were unknown, he looked at him, smiling, and
+began.
+
+"Mr. Northcote, the first time I saw you, you were discoursing at an
+Anti-Establishment Meeting in the Town Hall."
+
+Northcote started. He blushed fiery red. "It is quite true. I wished to
+have told you; not to come here on false pretences; but Copperhead--and
+your son has been very kind--"
+
+"Then I suppose your views are modified. Clergymen no longer appear to
+you the demons in human shape you thought them then; and my son, in
+particular, has lost his horns and hoofs?"
+
+"Mr. May, you are very severe; but I own there is reason--"
+
+"It was you who were severe. I was not quite sure of you till Copperhead
+brought you in. Nay," said the clergyman, rubbing his hands; "do you
+think that I object to the utterance of a real opinion? Certainly not.
+As for Reginald, it was the thing that decided him; I leave you to find
+out how; so that we are positively in your debt. But I hope you don't
+fiddle too. If you like to come with me to my study--"
+
+Northcote gave a longing look round the room, which had become all at
+once so interesting to him. Mr. May was too clear-sighted not to see it.
+He thought, quite impartially, that perhaps it was an excusable
+weakness, even though it was his own society that was the counter
+attraction. They were two nice-looking girls. This was how he put it,
+being no longer young, and father to one of them; naturally, the two
+young men would have described the attraction of Phoebe and Ursula more
+warmly. Clarence Copperhead, who had come in with an armful of music and
+his fiddle, was not thinking of the girls, nor of anything but the sweet
+sounds he was about to make--and himself. When he began to tune his
+violin, Mr. May got up in dismay.
+
+"This is more than mortal can stand," he said, making as though he would
+have gone away. Then he changed his mind, for, after all, he was the
+chaperon of his motherless girl. "Get me the paper, Ursula," he said. It
+would be hard to tell with what feelings Northcote contemplated him. He
+was the father of Ursula, yet he dared to order her about, to bring the
+tears to her eyes. Northcote darted the same way as she was going, and
+caught at the paper on a side-table, and brought it hastily. But alas,
+that was last week's paper! he did not save her the trouble, but he
+brought upon himself a gleam of mischief from her father's eyes. "Mr.
+Northcote thinks me a tyrant to send you for the paper," he said, as he
+took it out of her hands. "Thank him for his consideration. But he was
+not always so careful of your peace of mind," he added, with a laugh.
+
+Ursula looked at him with a wondering question in her eyes; but those
+tears were no longer there which had gone to Northcote's heart.
+
+"I don't know what papa means," she said, softly; and then, "I want to
+beg your pardon, please. I was very silly. Will you try to forget it,
+and not tell any one, Mr. Northcote? The truth was, I thought I had done
+them nicely, and I was vexed. It was very childish," she said, shaking
+her head with something of the same moisture floating back over the
+lustre in her pretty eyes.
+
+"I will never tell any one, you may be sure," said the young man; but
+Ursula did not notice that he declined to give the other pledge, for
+Reginald came up just then with wrath in his eyes.
+
+"Is that idiot going to fiddle all night?" he cried (poor Clarence had
+scarcely begun); "as if anybody wanted to hear him and his tweedle-dees.
+Miss Beecham plays like St. Cecilia, Ursula; and I want to speak to her
+about something. Can't you get that brute beguiled away?"
+
+Clarence was the one who was _de trop_ in the little party; but he
+fiddled beatifically, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, without the
+slightest suspicion of the fact, while Phoebe accompanied him, with
+little smiles at her friends, and shrugs of her shoulders. Reginald felt
+very strongly, though for the first time, that she was over doing the
+Scriptural maxim of being all things to all men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE.
+
+
+After this dinner-party, such as it was, the Parsonage became gradually
+the centre of a little society, such as sometimes forms in the most
+accidental way in a house where there are young men and young women, and
+of which no one can say what momentous results may arise. They came
+together fortuitously, blown to one centre by the merest winds of
+circumstance, out of circles totally different and unlike. Why it was
+that Mr. May, so good a Churchman, permitted two people so entirely out
+of his sphere to become his habitual guests and the companions of his
+children was very perplexing to the outside world, who half in mere
+surprise, and a little in despite, wondered and commented till they were
+tired, or till they had become so familiar with the strange spectacle
+that it ceased to strike them. A rich pupil might be forgiven for being
+a Dissenter, indeed in Carlingford as elsewhere money made up for most
+deficiencies; but even natural complacency towards the rich pupil
+scarcely accounted for the reception of the others. The neighbours could
+never be quite sure whether the family at the Parsonage knew or did not
+know that their new friend Northcote was not only acting as Minister of
+Salem Chapel, but was the assailant of Reginald May at the
+Anti-Establishment Meeting, and various persons in Grange Lane held
+themselves for a long time on the tip-toe of preparation, ready to
+breathe to Mr. May the painful intelligence, in case he was unaware of
+it. But he never gave them the opportunity. Honestly, he had forgotten
+the speaker's name at first, and only recognized him when he was
+introduced by young Copperhead; and then the situation was piquant and
+amused him, especially the evident confusion and consternation of the
+culprit when found out.
+
+"I don't know what he thinks he has done to you," said Clarence, "I
+could scarcely make him come in. He says he is sure you can't wish to
+see him."
+
+This was two days after the dinner, when Horace Northcote came to leave
+a respectful card, hoping that he might see Ursula at a door or window.
+Clarence had seized upon him and dragged him in, in spite of himself.
+
+"On the contrary, I am very glad to see him," said Mr. May, with a
+smile. He looked at the young Dissenter with a jeer in his eyes. He
+liked to punish him, having suddenly perceived that this jeer was much
+more potent than any serious penalty. "If he will promise not to slay
+me, I shan't quarrel with him." Mr. May was in such good spirits at this
+moment that he could afford to joke; his own magnanimity, and the
+other's confused looks of guilt, overcame his gravity. "Come back
+again," he said, holding out his hand; and though Horace retired for the
+moment utterly confounded, yet the attractions of the cheerful house
+overcame, after a while, his sense of humiliation and inappropriateness.
+If the injured family had condoned his offence, why should he mind? and
+the pleasant girlish friendliness, without any _arrière pensée_, of
+Ursula, was enough to have set any man at his ease; the facts of the
+case being that Mrs. Hurst was away upon a long visit, and that, having
+no other gossip within the range of her acquaintance, Ursula did not
+know. Reginald, who did, had the same sense of magnanimity as his father
+had, and began to like the society of the congenial yet different spirit
+which it was so strange to him to find under a guise so unlike his own.
+And Northcote, on his side, finding no house to which he could betake
+himself among those whom Phoebe called "our own people;" found a refuge,
+which gradually became dearer and dearer to him, at the Parsonage, and
+in his profound sense of the generosity of the people who had thus
+received him, felt his own partizanship wax feebler and feebler every
+day. He seemed to see the ground cut from under his feet, as he watched
+the young chaplain at his work. Mr. May, to be sure, was no example of
+pastoral diligence, but he was a pleasant companion, and had put himself
+from the first in that position of moral superiority which naturally
+belongs to an injured person who can forgive heartily and without
+prejudice. And Ursula! He did not venture to call her Ursula, even in
+the secret depths of his heart. There a pronoun was enough, as, indeed,
+incipient Love generally finds it. She spoke to him, smiled at him in
+the street; and immediately life became a _Vita Nuova_ to him. The young
+Dissenter was as Dante, and simple Ursula, with her housekeeping books
+in her hand, became another Beatrice. It is not every one who has the
+capacity for this perfect and absorbing sentiment; but Horace Northcote
+had, and for a long time Ursula was as unconscious of it as heart could
+desire.
+
+Phoebe's admission to the house had been more simple still. A girlish
+fancy on Ursula's part, a fit of good-nature on her father's, and then
+that secret thread of connection with Tozer which no one knew of, and
+the coming of Clarence Copperhead, to please whom Mr. May permitted
+himself to be persuaded to do much; and in addition to all this, her
+good looks, her pretty manners, her cleverness and the deference she had
+always shown in the proper quarter. Mr. May did not enter into the lists
+with his son, or think of offering himself as a suitor to Phoebe; but he
+liked to talk to her, and to watch what he called "her little ways," and
+to hear her play when Clarence and his violin were otherwise disposed
+of. He was an experienced man, priding himself on a knowledge of human
+nature, and Phoebe's "little ways" amused him greatly. What did she
+mean?--to "catch" Clarence Copperhead, who would be a great match, or to
+fascinate Northcote? Oddly enough Mr. May never thought of Reginald,
+though that young man showed an eagerness to talk to Phoebe which was
+more than equal with his own, and had always subjects laid up ready to
+discuss with her, when he could find the opportunity. Sometimes he would
+go up to her in the midst of the little party and broach one of these
+topics straight on end, without preface or introduction, as which was
+her favourite play of Shakespeare, and what did she think of the
+character of King Lear? It was not very wise, not any wiser than his
+neighbour was, who made pretty little Ursula into the ideal lady, the
+most gentle and stately figure in poetry; and yet no doubt there was
+something in both follies that was a great deal better than wisdom. The
+society formed by these two young pairs, with Clarence Copperhead as a
+heavy floating balance, and Mr. May and Janey--one philosophical, wise
+and mistaken; the other sharp-sighted and seeing everything--as
+spectators, was very pleasant to the close little coterie themselves,
+and nobody else got within the charmed circle. They grew more and more
+intimate daily, and had a whole vocabulary of domestic jokes and
+allusions which no one else could understand. It must be allowed,
+however, that the outside world was not pleased with this arrangement on
+either side of the question. The Church people were shocked with the
+Mays for harbouring Dissenters under any circumstances whatever, and
+there had not been a Minister at Salem Chapel for a long time so
+unpopular as Horace Northcote, who was always "engaged" when any of the
+connection asked him to tea, and preached sermons which went over their
+heads, and did not remember them when he met them in the street. Tozer
+was about the only one of the congregation who stood up for the young
+man. The others thanked Heaven that "he was but tempory," and on the
+whole they were right, for certainly he was out of place in his present
+post.
+
+As for Clarence Copperhead, he led an agreeable life enough among all
+these undercurrents of feeling, which he did not recognise with any
+distinctness. He was comfortable enough, pleased with his own
+importance, and too obtuse to perceive that he bored his companions; and
+then he considered himself to be slightly "sweet upon" both the girls.
+Ursula was his favourite in the morning, when he embarrassed her much by
+persistently seeking her company whenever liberated by her father; but
+Phoebe was the queen of the evening, when he would get his fiddle with an
+unfailing complacency which drove Reginald frantic. Whether it was mere
+good-nature or any warmer impulse, Phoebe was strangely tolerant of these
+fiddlings, and would go on playing for hours with serene composure,
+never tired and never impatient. Yet poor Clarence was not an
+accompanyist to be coveted. He was weak in the ear and defective in
+science, but full of a cheerful confidence which was as good as genius.
+
+"Never mind, Miss Phoebe," he would say cheerfully, when he had broken
+down for the twentieth time, "play on and I'll catch you up." He had
+thus a series of trysting places in every page or two, which might have
+been very laughable to an indifferent spectator, but which aggravated
+the Mays, father and son, to an intolerable extent. They were the two
+who suffered. As for Horace Northcote, who was not a great talker, it
+was a not disagreeable shield for his silent contemplation of Ursula,
+and the little things which from time to time he ventured to say to her.
+For conversation he had not the thirst which animated Reginald, and
+Ursula's talk, though lively and natural, was not like Phoebe's; but
+while the music went on he could sit by her in a state of silent
+beatitude, now and then saying something to which Ursula replied if she
+was disposed, or if she was not disposed put aside by a little shake of
+her head, and smiling glance at the piano. Sometimes it was simple
+wilfulness that made her silent; but Northcote set it down to an
+angelical sweetness which would not wound even the worst of performances
+by inattention. They were happy enough sitting there under the shelter
+of the piano, the young man absorbed in the dreams of a young love, the
+girl just beginning to realize the adoration which she was receiving,
+with a timid perception of it--half-frightened, half-grateful. She was
+in spite of herself amused by the idea only half understood, and which
+she could scarcely believe, that this big grown man, so much more
+important than herself in everybody's eyes, should show so much respect
+to a little girl whom her father scolded, whom Reginald sent trotting
+about on all sorts of errands, and whom Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy
+considered a child. It was very strange, a thing to call forth
+inextinguishable laughter, and yet with a strange touch of sweetness in
+it, which almost made her cry in wondering gratitude. What she thought
+of him, Ursula did not ask herself; that he should think _like this_ of
+her was the bewildering, extraordinary, ridiculous fact that at present
+filled her girlish head.
+
+But if they were sweet to Northcote, these evenings were the crown of
+Clarence Copperhead's content and conscious success; he was supremely
+happy, caressing his fiddle between his cheek and his shoulder, and
+raising his pale eyes to the ceiling in an ecstasy. The music, and the
+audience, and the accompanyist all together were delightful to him. He
+could have gone on he felt not only till midnight, but till morning, and
+so on to midnight again, with short intervals for refreshment. Every ten
+minutes or so there occurred a break in the continuity of the strain,
+and a little dialogue between the performers.
+
+"Ah, yes, I have missed a line; never mind; go on, Miss Phoebe, I will
+make up to you," he said.
+
+"It is those accidentals that have been your ruin," said Phoebe laughing;
+"it is a very hard passage, let us turn back and begin again," and then
+the audience would laugh, not very sweetly, and (some of them) make
+acrid observations; but the pianist was good-nature itself, and went
+back and counted and kept time with her head, and with her hand when she
+could take it from the piano, until she had triumphantly tided him over
+the bad passage, or they had come to the point of shipwreck again.
+During these labours, Phoebe, who was really a good musician, ought to
+have suffered horribly; but either she did not, or her good-nature was
+stronger than her good taste, for she went on serenely, sometimes for
+hours together, while her old and her young admirers sat secretly
+cursing (in such ways as are becoming to a clergyman) each in his
+corner. Perhaps she had a slight degree of pleasure in the evident power
+she had over father and son; but it was difficult fully to understand
+her views at this somewhat bewildering period of her life, in which she
+was left entirely to her own resources. She was herself groping a little
+through paths of uncertain footing, enjoying herself a great deal, but
+not seeing clearly where it led to, and having no definite purpose, or
+chart of those unknown countries in her mind.
+
+"How you can go on," said Reginald, on one of these occasions, having at
+length managed to seize upon and get her into a corner, "for hours,
+having your ears sacrificed and your patience tried by these fearful
+discords, and smile through it, is a mystery which I cannot fathom! If
+it was only consideration for your audience, that might be enough to
+move any one--but yourself--"
+
+"I don't seem to feel it so very much myself."
+
+"And yet you are a musician!"
+
+"Don't be too hard upon me, Mr May. I only play--a little. I am not like
+my cousins in the High Street, who are supposed to be very clever at
+music; and then poor Mr. Copperhead is a very old friend."
+
+"Poor Mr. Copperhead! poor us, you mean, who have to listen--and you,
+who choose to play."
+
+"You are very vindictive," she said, with a piteous look. "Why should
+you be so vindictive? I do what I can to please my friends, and--there
+is no doubt about what poor Clarence likes best; if you were to show me
+as plainly what you would like--_quite_ plainly, as he does----"
+
+"Don't you know?" said Reginald, with glowing eyes. "Ah, well! if I may
+show you plainly--quite plainly, with the same results, you may be sure
+not to be left long in doubt. Talk to me! it is easier, and not so
+fatiguing. Here," said the young man, placing a chair for her; "he has
+had your patient services for two hours. Do only half as much for me."
+
+"Ah! but talking is a different thing, and more--difficult--and
+more--personal. Well!" said Phoebe, with a laugh and a blush, taking the
+chair, "I will try, but you must begin; and I cannot promise, you know,
+for a whole hour."
+
+"After you have given that fellow two! and such a fellow! If it was
+Northcote, I might be equally jea--displeased, but I could understand
+it, for he is not a fool."
+
+"I think," said Phoebe, looking towards the other end of the room, where
+Northcote was occupied as usual close to Ursula's work-basket, "that Mr.
+Northcote manages to amuse himself very well without any help of mine."
+
+"Ah!" cried Reginald, startled; for of course it is needless to say that
+the idea of any special devotion to his little sister had never entered
+his mind. He felt disposed to laugh at first when the idea was suggested
+to him, but he gave a second look, and fellow-feeling threw a certain
+enlightenment upon the subject. "That would never do," he said gravely;
+"I wonder I never thought of it before."
+
+"Why would it not do? She is very nice, and he is clever and a rising
+man; and he is very well off; and you said just now he was not a fool."
+
+"Nevertheless it would never do," said Reginald, opposing her pointedly,
+as he had never opposed her before; and he remained silent for a whole
+minute, looking across the room, during which long interval Phoebe sat
+demurely on the chair where he had placed her, looking at him with a
+smile on her face.
+
+"Well?" she said at length, softly, "it was talk you said you wanted,
+Mr. May; but you are not so ready to tune up your violin as Mr.
+Copperhead, though I wait with my fingers on the piano, so to speak."
+
+"I beg your pardon!" he cried, and then their eyes met, and both
+laughed, though, as far as Reginald was concerned, in an embarrassed
+way.
+
+"You perceive," said Phoebe, rising, "that it is not nearly so easy to
+please you, and that you don't know half so exactly what you want, as
+Clarence Copperhead does, though you abuse him, poor fellow. I have got
+something to say to Ursula! though, perhaps, she does not want me any
+more than you do."
+
+"Don't give me up for one moment's distraction; and it was your fault,
+not mine, for suggesting such a startling idea."
+
+Phoebe shook her head, and waved her hand as a parting salutation, and
+then went across the room to where Ursula was sitting, where Horace
+Northcote at least found her very much in his way. She began at once to
+talk low and earnestly on some subject so interesting that it absorbed
+both the girls in a way which was very surprising and unpleasant to the
+young men, neither of whom had been able to interest the one whose
+attention he was specially anxious to secure half so effectually.
+Northcote, from the other side of the table, and Reginald from the other
+end of the room, gazed and gloomed with discomfited curiosity, wondering
+what it could be; while Clarence strutted uneasily about the piano,
+taking up his fiddle now and then, striking a note, and screwing up his
+strings into concord, with many impatient glances. But still the girls
+talked. Was it about their dresses or some nonsense, or was it a more
+serious subject, which could thus be discussed without masculine help?
+but this matter they never fathomed, nor have they found out till this
+hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+SOCIETY.
+
+
+Notwithstanding such little social crosses, however, the society at the
+Parsonage, as thus constituted, was very agreeable. Mr. May, though he
+had his faults, was careful of his daughter. He sat in the drawing-room
+every evening till she retired, on the nights their visitors came, and
+even when it was Clarence only who remained, an inmate of the house, and
+free to go and come as he pleased. Ursula, he felt, must not be left
+alone, and though it is uncertain whether she fully appreciated the care
+he took of her, this point in his character is worth noting. When the
+young party went out together, to skate, for instance, as they did, for
+several merry days, Reginald and Janey were, he considered, sufficient
+guardians for their sister. Phoebe had no chaperon--"Unless you will take
+that serious office upon you, Ursula," she said, shrugging her shoulders
+prettily; but she only went once or twice, so well was she able, even
+when the temptation was strongest, to exercise self-denial, and show her
+perfect power of self-guidance. As for old Tozer and his wife, the idea
+of a chaperon never entered their homely head. Such articles are
+unnecessary in the lower levels of society. They were anxious that their
+child should enjoy herself, and could not understand the reason of her
+staying at home on a bright frosty day, when the Mays came to the door
+in a body to fetch her.
+
+"No, if they'd have gone down on their knees, nor if I had gone down on
+mine, would that girl have left me," cried the old lady, with tears in
+her eyes. "She do behave beautiful to her old granny. If so be as I
+haven't a good night, no power on earth would make that child go
+pleasuring. It's 'most too much at her age."
+
+But Phoebe confided to Ursula that it was not altogether anxiety about
+her grandmother.
+
+"I have nobody of my own to go with. If I took grandpapa with me, I
+don't think it would mend matters. Once or twice it was possible, but
+not every day. Go and enjoy yourself, dear," she said, kissing her
+friend.
+
+Ursula was disposed to cry rather than to enjoy herself, and appealed to
+Reginald, who was deeply touched by Phoebe's fine feeling. He took his
+sister to the ice, but that day he went so far as to go back himself to
+No. 6, actually into the house, to make a humble protest, yet to
+insinuate his admiration. He was much impressed by, and approved highly
+of this reticence, having a very high standard of minor morals for
+ladies, in his mind, like most young men.
+
+"She is not one of the girls who rush about everywhere, and whom one is
+sick of seeing," he said.
+
+"I think it is very silly," cried Janey. "Who cares for a chaperon! and
+why shouldn't Phoebe have her fun, like the rest, instead of shutting
+herself up in a stuffy room with that dreadful old Mrs. Tozer?"
+
+Her brother reproved her so sharply for this speech that Janey withdrew
+in tears, still asking "Why?" as she rushed to her room. Clarence
+Copperhead, for his part, stroked his moustache and said it was a bore.
+
+"For she is the best skater of all the ladies here," he said. "I beg
+your pardon, Miss Ursula. She's got so much go in her, and keeps it up
+like fun. She's the best I know for keeping a fellow from getting tired;
+but as it's Thursday, I suppose she'll be there in the evening."
+
+Clarence never called them anything but Miss Ursula and Miss Phoebe,
+dropping the prefix in his thoughts. He felt that he was "a little sweet
+upon" them both; and, indeed, it had gleamed dully across his mind that
+a man who could marry them both need never be bored, but was likely
+always to find something "to do." Choice, however, being necessary, he
+did not see his way so clearly as to which he would choose. "The
+mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are fatter," he said to
+himself, if not in these immortal words, yet with full appreciation of
+the sentiment. Ursula began to understand dinners with a judicious
+intelligence, which he felt was partly created by his own instructions
+and remarks; but in the evening it was Phoebe who reigned supreme. She
+was so sensible that most likely she could invent a _menu_ all out of
+her own head, he thought, feeling that the girl who got him through the
+"Wedding March" with but six mistakes, was capable of any intellectual
+feat. He had not the slightest doubt that it was in his power to marry
+either of the girls as soon as he chose to intimate his choice; and in
+the mean time he found it very agreeable to maintain a kind of mental
+possibility of future proprietorship of them both.
+
+And thus the pleasant life ran on in the most agreeable absorption and
+abstraction from the world outside. "Don't ask any one else; why should
+we have any one else?" they all said, except Janey, who had condescended
+to appear in the evening in her best frock, though she was not admitted
+at dinner, and who thought a few additional guests, and a round game now
+and then, would be delightful variations upon the ordinary programme;
+but the others did not agree with her. They became more and more
+intimate, mingling the brother and sister relationship with a something
+unnamed, unexpressed, which gave a subtle flavour to their talks and
+flirtations. In that incipient stage of love-making this process is very
+pleasant even to the spectators, full of little excitements and
+surprises, and sharp stings of momentary quarrel, and great revolutions,
+done with a single look, which are infinitely amusing to the lookers-on.
+The house became a real domestic centre, thought of by each and all with
+tender sentiment, such as made its owners somewhat proud of it, they
+could scarcely tell why. Even Mr. May felt a certain complacence in the
+fact that the young men were so fond of the Parsonage, and when he heard
+complaints of the coldness and dullness of domestic intercourse, smiled,
+and said that he did not feel it so, with that pleasant sense of
+something superior in himself to cause this difference, which is sweet
+to the greatest Stoic; for he was not as yet enlightened as to the
+entire indifference of the little circle to any charm in him, and would
+have been utterly confounded had any one told him that to the grave and
+reflective Northcote, whom he had treated with such magnanimous charity,
+binding him (evidently) by bonds of gratitude to himself for ever, it
+was little Ursula, and not her father, who was the magnet of attraction.
+Mr. May was a clever man, and yet it had not occurred to him that any
+comparison between his own society and that of Ursula was possible.
+Ursula! a child! He would have laughed aloud at the thought.
+
+But all this pleasant society, though father and daughter both agreed
+that it cost nothing, for what is a cake and a cup of tea? and the late
+dinners and the extra maid, and the additional fires, and general
+enlargement of expenditure made immense inroads, it must be allowed,
+into the additional income brought by Clarence Copperhead. The first
+quarter's payment was spent, and more than spent, before it came. The
+money that was to be laid up for that bill of Tozer's--perhaps--had now
+no saving peradventure left in it; for the second half would not be due
+till two months after the Tozer bill, and would but be half, even if
+procurable at once. Mr. May felt a slight shock while this gleamed
+across his mind, but only for a moment. There was still a month, and a
+month is a long time, and in the mean time James was almost certain to
+send something, and his Easter offerings might, probably would, this
+year be something worth having. Why they should be better than usual
+this year Mr. May did not explain to himself; his head was a little
+turned it must be supposed by the momentary chance of having more money
+in his hands than he used to have. Already he had got into the habit of
+ordering what he wanted somewhat recklessly, without asking himself how
+the things he ordered were to be paid for, and, as so often happened,
+followed up that first tampering with the rules of right and wrong by a
+general recklessness of the most dangerous kind. He was not so much
+alone as he had been; his house, in which he was infinitely more amiable
+than of old, had become more pleasant to him; he liked his life better.
+His son was independent with an income of his own, and therefore he felt
+much more respect for him, and treated him as a companion. His daughter
+had developed, if not in the way of _entrées_, a talent for dinners
+which raised her very much in his eyes; and naturally the regard shown
+to her by the visitors reacted upon Mr. May, though it had not crossed
+his mind as yet that any one could be in love with Ursula. All this made
+him happier in spite of himself. When you begin to esteem and be proud
+of your children your life is naturally happier than when you scoff and
+jeer at them, and treat them as creatures of inferior mould to yourself.
+Mr. May found out all at once that Reginald was a fine young fellow,
+that Ursula was pretty and pleasant, and that droll Janey, with her
+elf-locks and angles, was amusing at least, if no more. As for the
+little ones, they were considerably thrust into a corner when the elder
+youth forced itself into the front. They learned their lessons in
+corners, and had their tea by themselves, and were much humbled and
+subdued from the moment in which their school-books and toys had
+meandered over the whole house, and their looks and likings had been
+just as important as anything else. When there is no mother to protect
+them, the elder sister's first lover marks a terribly critical period
+for the children of the house. They were banished from the
+drawing-room, except on special occasions, when they came _en grande
+tenue_, in their best things, and were jeered at by Mr. Copperhead. He
+called them "the kids," both Amy and Robin were aware, and they resented
+it unspeakably. Thus the inward happiness of the Mays confined itself to
+the upper regions of the family. Even Betsy regretted the days when, if
+she had more to do, she had at least "her kitchen to herself," and
+nobody to share the credit. There was more fuss and more worry, if a
+trifle less labour, and the increase in consequence which resulted from
+being called cook, instead of maid-of-all-work, was scarcely so sweet in
+possession as had seemed in prospect.
+
+"Them late dinners" were the object of her perpetual railings; "oh, how
+much more comfortable it was, if gentry would but think so, to have your
+dinner at two, and get done with your washing up before you was cleaned,
+or had any occasion to bother yourself about your cap!" When little Amy
+cried over the loneliness of "the children's tea," which they frequently
+had to pour out for themselves, Betty gave her a cake and a kiss, and
+felt disposed to cry too.
+
+"And she don't know, poor child, not the half," said Betty, which was a
+kind of oracular sentence difficult for Betty herself to understand. The
+children had nothing to do with the late dinner; they were sent to bed
+earlier than they used to be, and scolded if any distant sounds of romps
+made itself audible at seven o'clock when their elders were dining; and
+then when the little ones went injured to bed, and Johnnie, indignant,
+worked at his lessons by himself in a corner of the old nursery, deeply
+aware that his school-boy boots and jacket were quite unfit for the
+drawing-room, the grown-up young people ran lightly upstairs, all smiles
+and pleasure, and those delightful evenings began.
+
+The children sometimes could not get to sleep for the piano and the
+raspings of the fiddle, which sounds of mirth suggested nothing but the
+wildest enjoyment to them; and when the door opened now and then, bursts
+of laughter and mingling voices would come out like the sounds the Peri
+heard at the gates of Paradise. The elder ones were happy; their little
+atoms of individual life had all united for the moment into one sunshiny
+and broad foundation, on which everything seemed to rest with that
+strange sense of stability and continuance, which such a moment of
+happiness, though it carries every element of change in it, almost
+invariably brings. It felt as if it might go on for ever, and yet the
+very sentiment that inspired it made separation and convulsion
+inevitable--one of those strange paradoxes which occur every day.
+
+Thus the year crept round, and winter melted away with all its
+amusements, and spring began. Mr. Northcote's time at Salem Chapel was
+more than half over, a fact on which the congregation congratulated
+itself much.
+
+"If so be as he had a settled charge of his own, I shouldn't be sorry to
+see him gone to-morrow," said one of the recent members.
+
+"Settled charge! You take my word," said Mrs. Pigeon, who was getting
+old, but always continued a woman of spirit, "he'll never have a settled
+charge in our connection. He carries on here, 'cause he can't help
+hisself, but he ain't cut out for a pastor, and he's a deal too thick
+with them Church folks. A parson, too! I'd 'a thought he had more
+pride."
+
+"Nay, now, but I don't wish him no harm," said the first speaker; "he's
+a civil spoken gentleman if he ain't so free and so pleasant as a body
+looks for."
+
+"Civil spoken!" said the other; "one of our own ministers in our own
+connection! Bless you! they're our servants, that's what they are. I'd
+like to see one on 'em as 'ud take upon him to be civil spoken to me."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't go as far as that," cried Mrs. Brown; "we pays 'em
+their salary, and we 'as a right to a civil word: but a minister's a
+minister, and I'll show him respect as long as he deserves it. I ain't
+one for being too hard upon ministers, especially when they're young
+men, as has their temptations like, we all know."
+
+"I don't know what you call temptations," said Mrs. Pigeon; "licking the
+dust under the feet of a Church parson! and after speaking up so bold
+against young May and them old cheats at the College. I wish he was gone
+from here, that's what I wish, and our old pastor (if we can't get none
+better) back again. He was one as knew his place, and wouldn't have set
+his foot inside one of them Parsonages. Parsonages, indeed! kept up with
+our money. If ever there was an iniquity on this earth it's a State
+Church, and all the argufying in the world won't put that out of me."
+
+It happened that Northcote was in the poulterer's shop, talking to the
+poulterer himself at this moment, and he heard the conclusion of this
+speech delivered with much unction and force. Such sentiments would have
+charmed him three months ago, and probably he would have thought this
+uneducated but strenuous partisan an extremely intelligent woman. He
+hurried away now with an uncomfortable smile. If an opinion is the
+right opinion, why should it have an air of absurdity thrown upon it by
+being thus uttered in ungrammatical language by a poulterer's wife?
+Truth is the same by whomsoever stated; but yet, was not dogmatism on
+any subject the sign of an inexperienced and uncultivated, or a rude and
+untutored mind? What did this woman know of the Parsonage, which she
+supposed she helped to pay for? What had he himself known three months
+ago of Reginald May, whom he had assaulted so savagely? This Church
+family, which Mrs. Pigeon knew no better than to abuse, with what divine
+charity it had received himself, notwithstanding his public sin against
+it. When he thought of that public sin, Northcote's countenance glowed
+with shame, and it continued to glow with a more agreeable warmth when
+he escaped into thought of the goodness which the Mays had shown him.
+Had there ever been such goodness? Was there ever so sweet a home of the
+heart as that faded, homely drawing-room? His heart beat high, his steps
+quickened; they carried him down Grange Lane in a path so often trod
+that he felt there must be a special track of his own under the garden
+walls, going Parsonage way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+LOVE-MAKING.
+
+
+Mrs. Sam Hurst had been a long time out of Carlingford; she had been
+paying visits among her friends, with whom, though the young Mays would
+never believe it, she was very popular, for she was not ill-natured in
+her gossip, and she was often amusing in the fulness of her interest in
+other people. It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and
+softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange Lane; the
+doors of the houses began to be left open, and the girls at the
+Parsonage had taken to running out and in without their hats, gleaming
+through the little shrubbery in front, and round to the back garden. One
+evening it was so mild that they all (which comprehensive term,
+sometimes extended to "the whole party," began to be commonly used among
+them with that complacence in the exclusiveness of their little coterie,
+which every "set" more or less feels) came downstairs in a body, and
+wandered about among the laurel-bushes in the spring moonlight. There
+was Ursula and Mr. Northcote, Phoebe and Reginald, and Clarence
+Copperhead, with Janey behind, who followed where they went, but did not
+enjoy the ceremony. It was bad enough in the drawing-room; but
+moonlight, who cared about moonlight? Janey said to herself indignantly.
+She was the only one who looked up to Mrs. Hurst's window, where there
+was a faint light, and when the voices became audible Janey perceived
+some one come behind the curtain and look out. The girl was divided
+between her faithful family feud against Mrs. Hurst, and a vague sense
+of satisfaction in her presence as a Marplot, who one way or other would
+infallibly interfere.
+
+"She will say something to papa," said Janey, her heart involuntary
+rising at the thought, though at the same time she shivered to think of
+the treachery involved to all the tenets of the family. Janey sat on the
+steps and listened to the others talking. No one pointed out the stars
+to her, or followed her about as Reginald followed Phoebe. As for Mr.
+Copperhead, Janey thought he was almost as lonely as she was. He had
+lighted his cigar, and was strolling up and down, interrupting both of
+the other pairs occasionally, breaking into the midst of Northcote's
+astronomical lecture abruptly, and stopping Phoebe herself in the middle
+of a sentence. Janey, watching sharply from the steps, noticed, as a
+spectator has it in her power to do, that whereas Northcote was
+extremely impatient of the interruption, and discovered immediately that
+the stars could be seen better from another spot, Phoebe took it quite
+sweetly, and addressed herself to him as she went on, which Reginald did
+not like, Janey was sure. Were they in love with each other? the girl
+asked herself--was this how it was managed? When the moon went under a
+cloud for a moment Clarence Copperhead's vast shirt-front made a kind of
+substitute down below. Janey lost the other two among the bushes, but
+she always beheld that orb of white moving backward and forward with two
+dark figures near. She felt sure Reginald did not want to have him in
+such close neighbourhood; but Phoebe's voice went on talking to both
+alike. Janey was half-pleased, and half-indignant. She had a jealous
+dislike, such as most girls have, to see her brother engrossed by any
+one, but no more did she like to see another man preferred to Reginald;
+she was jealous both ways. As she sat and watched, a slight little creak
+came to her sharp ears, and looking up she saw Mrs. Hurst's drawing-room
+window opened the very least little bit in the world. Ah! Janey said,
+with a long breath. There was nothing she would not have given to have
+talked it all over with Mrs. Hurst, and to hear what she would say, if
+she had not been the traditional adversary against whom all the family
+steeled their hearts.
+
+That was a very pleasant evening; they all remembered it afterwards. It
+was the moment when Ursula discovered all in the darkness, when the moon
+was under that cloud, _what Mr. Northcote meant_. It flashed upon her
+like a sudden light, though they were standing in the shade of a great
+laurel. He did not make any declaration, nor say a word that she could
+remember. And yet all at once, by some magic which is not explainable,
+she found out that that was what he was meaning. This is not an
+admirable sentence; but it is difficult to know how to put it better. It
+was quite a strange discovery. It set her heart beating, thumping
+against her breast. She herself meant nothing whatever, and she never
+thought of any response, or of the time when he might ask her to make a
+response. The sensation of the moment was quite enough for Ursula. She
+was greatly startled, surprised, yet not surprised, touched and full of
+a wondering respect and sympathy, awe and half-amusement. Could it be
+possible, was _that_ what it was? Though he was not conscious of
+betraying himself in any way, Northcote thought he had done something to
+offend her. Her shy silence and withdrawal from him went to his heart;
+never had her society been so sweet, never had he had her so completely
+to himself. What had he done to alarm or offend her? He went home with
+his head full of this, able to think of nothing else.
+
+And Phoebe went home too, escorted by Reginald and Clarence together, to
+her grandfather's door, with her head buzzing with many thoughts. It was
+not her heart that was in a commotion, like little Ursula's. She was
+more experienced, though she was not much older, and had gone through
+such discoveries before now. But a much more perplexing accident had
+befallen her. Reginald May had fallen in love with her, and Clarence
+Copperhead, after considerable resistance and hanging off, was making up
+his mind to propose. Yes. Phoebe felt with unerring instinct that this
+was the state of affairs. He was making up his mind to propose. So much
+of her and so little of her had at length made an end of all the prudent
+hesitations that lay under the crisp pie-crust of that starched and
+dazzling shirt front. That he should never be able to speak a word to
+her without that May! that fellow! "the son of my coach!" poking himself
+in, was a thing which at length had fired his cool blood to fever heat.
+Nobody else could play his accompaniments like that, or pull him through
+the "Wedding March" like that; and who would look better at the head of
+a table, or show better at a ball, or get on better in society? No one
+he knew, certainly. It was true she was only a Minister's daughter, and
+without a penny; for the little fortune Mr. and Mrs. Beecham had
+carefully gathered together and preserved for their daughter, what was
+that to the Copperheads?--nothing, not a penny. But, on the other hand,
+Clarence felt that he himself, or rather his father, was rich enough to
+be able to afford a wife without money. There was no reason why he
+should marry money; and a wife like Phoebe, what a relief that would be,
+in the way of education! No need of any more coaching. She was clever,
+and fond of reading, and so forth. She would get everything up for him,
+if he went into parliament, or that sort of thing; why, she'd keep him
+posted up. "There ain't many girls that could do that," he said to
+himself. She would save him worlds of trouble; save his money even, for
+coaches and that sort of thing cost money; and then that fellow May
+would be out of it; his nose would be put out of joint. These are not
+eloquent sentiments, but so it was that Clarence's natural feelings
+expressed themselves. He had intimated that he would see Miss Phoebe
+home, but May had stalked out side by side with him--had not left them
+for a moment; and Clarence determined that he would not stand it any
+longer. If there was no other way of shaking this fellow off, why, then
+he would make up his mind to it, and propose.
+
+Phoebe somehow saw all this written in his fine countenance, and she saw
+at the same time that poor Reginald, who was (she thought) young and
+simple, and just the sort of poor boy to yield to such folly, was in
+love with her; and her head was buzzing with the double discovery. The
+first was (of course) the most important. She had no time to indulge her
+thoughts while she walked up between them, keeping them in play each
+with a word, talking all the way to fill up the somewhat sulky silence
+between them; but when she got safely within the garden door, and heard
+it shut behind her, and found herself in the quiet of the little green
+enclosure, with the budding trees and the lilac bushes for her only
+companions, the relief was very grateful to her. She could not go in all
+at once to make conversation for grandpapa and grandmamma, and give them
+the account they liked to hear, of how she had "enjoyed herself." She
+took off her hat to be cooler, and walked slowly down under the
+moonlight, her head all throbbing and rustling with thought. The paths
+were bordered with primroses, which made a pale glimmer in the moon, and
+shed a soft fragrance about. Phoebe had nothing to appeal to Heaven
+about, or to seek counsel from Nature upon, as sentimental people might
+do. She took counsel with herself, the person most interested. What was
+the thing she ought to do? Clarence Copperhead was going to propose to
+her. She did not even take the trouble of saying to herself that he
+loved her; it was Reginald who did that, a totally different person, but
+yet the other was more urgent. What was Phoebe to do? She did not dislike
+Clarence Copperhead, and it was no horror to her to think of marrying
+him. She had felt for years that this might be on the cards, and there
+were a great many things in it which demanded consideration. He was not
+very wise, nor a man to be enthusiastic about, but he would be a career
+to Phoebe. She did not think of it humbly like this, but with a big
+capital--a Career. Yes; she could put him into parliament, and keep him
+there. She could thrust him forward (she believed) to the front of
+affairs. He would be as good as a profession, a position, a great work
+to Phoebe. He meant wealth (which she dismissed in its superficial aspect
+as something meaningless and vulgar, but accepted in its higher aspect
+as an almost necessary condition of influence), and he meant all the
+possibilities of future power. Who can say that she was not as romantic
+as any girl of twenty could be? only her romance took an unusual form.
+It was her head that was full of throbbings and pulses, not her heart.
+No doubt there would be difficulties and disagreeables. His father would
+oppose it, and Phoebe felt with a slight shiver that his father's
+opposition was nothing to be laughed at, and that Mr. Copperhead had it
+in him to crush rebellion with a ferocious hand. And would Clarence have
+strength of mind or spirit to hold out? This was a very serious
+question, and one which included all the rest. If she accepted his
+proposal, would he have the heart to stand to it against his father? or
+would her consent simply involve her in a humiliating struggle which
+would end in defeat? That was the great question. If this should be the
+case, what use would there be in any sacrifice that Phoebe might make? A
+struggle with Mr. Copperhead would affect her father's position as much
+or more than her own, and she knew that a great many of the congregation
+would infallibly side with Mr. Copperhead, feeling it a most dangerous
+precedent that a pastor's daughter should be encouraged to think herself
+eligible for promotion so great, and thus interfere with the more
+suitable matrimonial prospects of wealthy young men who might happen to
+attend her father's chapel. Such a thing the conscript fathers of the
+connection would feel ought to be put a stop to with a high hand. So it
+may be supposed that Phoebe had enough to think of, as she strolled
+about in the moonlight alone, between the two borders of primroses.
+Tozer thought she had gone upstairs to take off her "things," and it was
+natural that when a girl got before a looking-glass she should forget
+the progress of time; so that he merely wondered at her non-appearance
+until the little chill of air stole in from the open door, and made Mrs.
+Tozer cough.
+
+"If it ain't our Phoebe a-walking about in the moonlight like a
+play-actor!" said Tozer, in consternation, drawing aside the curtain to
+look out. "I'll tell you what, old woman, the girl's in love; and that's
+what it is." He thought this was a capital joke, and followed his
+witticism with a laugh.
+
+"Not much wonder, neither, with all them young fellows about," said the
+old lady. "You may laugh; but, Tozer, I ain't so easy in my mind as you.
+If it's him as they call Northcote, that don't matter; but if it's that
+big gabby of a Copperhead, there's troubles a-coming; though he's as
+rich, they do say, as Creases, whoever Creases might be, and it would be
+a credit to have the girl make a match like that out of our house."
+
+Whereat Tozer again laughed loud and long.
+
+"Well," he said, "if Mister Creases himself was here, I wouldn't say as
+he was a bit too good for our Phoebe. Don't you trouble your head, old
+woman; Copperhead or t'other one, let her make her choice. Phoebe
+junior's the girl as'll be their match, and you may take my word for
+that. Phoebe's the one as will keep them in their right place, whoever
+they may be."
+
+Phoebe heard this laugh echo out into the quiet of the night. Of course,
+she did not know the cause of it, but it disturbed her in her thoughts.
+Poor, kind, excellent grandpapa, she said to herself, how would he get
+on with Mr. Copperhead? He would touch his forelock to so rich a man. He
+would go down metaphorically upon his knees before so much wealth; and
+what a fool Clarence would be thought on every side for wanting to marry
+her! Even his mother, who was a romantic woman, would not see any
+romance in it if it was she, Phoebe, who was the poor girl whom he wanted
+to marry. Ursula might have been different, who was a clergyman's
+daughter, and consequently a lady by prescriptive right. But herself,
+Tozer's granddaughter, Tom Tozer's niece, fresh from the butter-shop, as
+it were, and redolent of that petty trade which big trade ignores, as
+much as the greatest aristocrat does! Phoebe was too sensible by far to
+vex or distress herself on this point, but she recognised it without any
+hesitation, and the question remained--was it for her advantage to enter
+upon this struggle, about which there could be no mistake, or was it
+not? And this question was very difficult. She did not dislike
+Clarence, but then she was not in love with him. He would be a Career,
+but he was not a Passion, she said to herself with a smile; and if the
+struggle should not turn out successful on her part, it would involve a
+kind of ruin, not to herself only, but to all concerned. What, then, was
+she to do? The only thing Phoebe decided upon was that, if she did enter
+upon that struggle, it _must_ be successful. Of this alone there could
+be no manner of doubt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+A DISCLOSURE.
+
+
+"Well, young ladies!" said Mrs. Sam Hurst, "I left you very quiet, but
+there seems to be plenty going on now-a-days. What a beautiful moon
+there was last night! I put up my window to look at it, and all at once
+I found there was a party going on below. Quite a _fête champêtre_. I
+have newly come from abroad, you know, and it seemed quite congenial. I
+actually rubbed my eyes, and said to myself, 'I can't have come home.
+It's Boulogne still, it isn't Carlingford!'"
+
+"There was no company," said Ursula with dignity; "there was only our
+own party. A friend of Reginald's and a friend of mine join us often in
+the evening, and there is papa's pupil--if you call that a party. We are
+just as quiet as when you went away. We never invite strangers. We are
+as much by ourselves as ever."
+
+"With a friend of Reginald's, and a friend of yours, and papa's pupil!"
+said Mrs. Hurst, laughing; "double your own number, Ursula! and I don't
+suppose Janey counts yet. Why, there is a young man too many. How dare
+you waste the gifts of Providence, you prodigal child? And now let me
+hear who they are."
+
+"You may say Janey doesn't count," cried that young woman in person.
+"Oh, Mrs. Hurst, what a bore they are! If that's society, I don't care
+for society. One always following Ursula about whenever she moves, so
+that you can't say a word to her; and the others pulling poor Phoebe to
+pieces, who hates them, I am sure. Phoebe was so jolly at first. She
+would talk to you, or she would play for you! Why, she taught Johnnie
+and me a part-song to sing with her, and said he had a delightful
+voice; but she never has any time to look at us now," said Janey,
+stopping in this breathless enumeration of wrongs. "She is always taken
+up with those horrible men."
+
+"I suppose you call Reginald a horrible man?" said Ursula, with rising
+colour. "If that was my opinion of my own brother, I should take care
+not to say it, at least."
+
+"Oh, Reginald isn't the worst! There's your Mr. Northcote, and there's
+that Copperhead--Woodenhead, we call him in the nursery. Oh, how papa
+can put up with him, I can't tell! he never had any patience with us.
+You can't think how dull he is, Mrs. Hurst! I suppose girls don't mind
+when a man _goes on_, whether he's stupid or not. I never heard Mr.
+Northcote say much that was interesting either; but he looks clever, and
+that is always something."
+
+"So Mr. Northcote is Ursula's one," said Mrs. Hurst, laughing. "You are
+a perfect jewel, Janey, and I don't know how I should ever find out
+anything that's going on, but for you. Northcote! it is a new name in
+Carlingford. I wonder I have not heard of him already; or have you kept
+him entirely to yourself, and let nobody know that there was a new man
+in the place?"
+
+There was a little pause here. The girls knew nothing about Northcote,
+except the one fact that he was a Dissenter; but as Mrs. Hurst was an
+excellent Churchwoman, much better than they were, who had, perhaps,
+been brought up too completely under the shadow of the Church to believe
+in it implicitly, they hesitated before pronouncing before her that
+unfortunate name.
+
+"I don't know whether you are aware," Ursula said at last, with some
+slowness and reluctance, "that papa's pupil is of a Dissenting family.
+He is related, through his mother, to our cousins, the Dorsets." (This
+fact Ursula put forth with a little triumph, as refuting triumphantly
+any ready conclusion as to the social standing of Dissenters.) "I think
+Mr. Northcote came first to the house with Mr. Copperhead. He is a
+Dissenter too."
+
+"Why, Ursula," cried Mrs. Hurst, "not the man who attacked Reginald in
+the Meeting? It was all in the papers. He made a frightful violent
+speech about the College and the sinecure, and what a disgraceful thing
+it was that your brother, a young man, could accept it. You don't mean
+him?"
+
+Ursula was struck dumb. She looked up at her questioner with her lips
+falling apart a little, with a look of mingled consternation and fear.
+
+"Of course it can't be," said the gossip, who was not ill-natured. "You
+never read the papers, but your papa does, and so does Reginald. Oh,
+you may be sure it is some other Northcote, though I don't know the
+name."
+
+"Ursula doesn't like to tell you," said Janey; "but he's the Dissenting
+Minister, I know he is. Well! I don't care! He is just as good as
+anybody else. I don't go in for your illiberal ways of thinking, as if
+no one was worth talking to except in the Church. Mr. Northcote is very
+nice. I don't mind what you say. Do you mean to tell me that all those
+curates and people who used to plague our lives out were nicer? Mr.
+Saunders, for instance; he is a real good Churchman, I have always heard
+people say--"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Janey; you don't know anything about it," said Mrs.
+Hurst, whom this wonderful disclosure elevated into authority. "A
+Dissenting Minister! Ah, me! what a thing it is for you poor girls to
+have no mother. I did not think your papa would have had so little
+consideration as to expose you to society like that. But men are so
+thoughtless."
+
+"I don't know what right you have to speak of exposing us to society
+like that," cried Ursula, quivering all over with sudden excitement.
+
+She felt as if some one had dug a knife into her, and turned it round in
+the wound.
+
+"Men have so little consideration," repeated Mrs. Hurst, "especially
+when a girl is concerned. Though how your papa could have received a man
+who made such an assault upon him--even if he had passed over the attack
+upon Reginald, he was attacked himself."
+
+"It must be a mistake," said Ursula, growing pale. Her hands came
+together half-unconsciously, and clasped in a mute gesture of appeal.
+"It is not possible; it cannot be true."
+
+"Well, it is very odd that your papa should show such charity, I allow.
+I don't think it is in human nature. And Reginald, what does Reginald
+say? If it is that man, it will be the strangest thing I ever heard of.
+But there could not be two Northcotes, Dissenting Ministers in
+Carlingford, could there? It is very strange. I can't think what your
+papa can have had in his head. He is a man who would do a thing for a
+deep reason, whether he liked it or not. How did this Mr. Northcote come
+first here?"
+
+"Oh, it was through Mr. Copperhead," said Janey. "It was the first
+dinner-party we had. You should have seen the fright Ursula was in! And
+papa would not let me come to dinner, which was a horrid shame. I am
+sure I am big enough, bigger than Ursula."
+
+"If he came with the pupil, that makes it all quite plain. I suppose
+your papa did not want to quarrel with his pupil. What a predicament for
+him, if that was the case! Poor Mr. May! Of course, he did not want to
+be uncivil. Why, it was in the 'Gazette,' and the 'Express,' and all the
+papers; an account of the Meeting, and that speech, and then a leading
+article upon it. I always file the 'Express,' so you can see it if you
+like. But what an embarrassment for your poor papa, Ursula, that you
+should have taken this man up! And Reginald, how could he put up with
+it, a touchy young man, always ready to take offence? You see now the
+drawback of not paying a little attention to what is going on round you.
+How uncomfortable you must have made them! It might be very well to look
+over an offence, not to be unpleasant to the stranger; but that you
+should have thoughtlessly led this man on into the position of an
+intimate--"
+
+"I did nothing of the sort," cried Ursula, growing red and growing pale,
+starting up from her work with a sense of the intolerable which she
+could not restrain. "What have I done to be spoken of so? I never led
+him on, or any one. What you say is cruel, very cruel! and it is not
+true."
+
+"Isn't it true that he was here last night, following you about, as
+Janey says? Oh, I know how these sort of things go on. But you ought to
+think of your papa's position, and you ought to think of Reginald. If it
+was to come to the Bishop's ears that St. Roque's Parsonage was a refuge
+for Dissenters! For I know who _your_ friend is, Ursula! That Tozer
+girl, another of them! Indeed, I assure you, it makes me feel very
+uncomfortable. And Reginald, just at the very beginning of his career."
+
+Ursula did not make any reply. She bent her head down over her work, so
+low that her flushed cheeks could scarcely be seen, and went on
+stitching with energy and passion such as needles and thread are seldom
+the instruments of; and yet how much passion is continually worked away
+through needles and thread! Mrs. Hurst sat still for some time, looking
+at her, very little satisfied to keep silence, but feeling that she had
+discharged an efficient missile, and biting her lips not to say more to
+weaken its effect. When some time had passed in this way, and it was
+apparent that Ursula had no intention of breaking the silence, her
+visitor got up and shook out her skirts with a little flutter of
+indignation.
+
+"You are offended," she said, "though I must say it is very ill on your
+part to be offended. What motive can I have but your good, and regard
+for your poor dear papa? It is he that is always the victim, poor man,
+whether it is your vagaries he has to pay for, or Reginald's
+high-flying. Oh, yes; you may be as angry as you like, Ursula; but you
+will find out the difference if your encouragement of this Dissenter
+interferes with something better--a living for Reginald, perhaps, or
+better preferment for your poor papa."
+
+"Oh!" cried Janey, awe-stricken; "but after all, it was not Ursula; it
+was papa himself. I think he must have done it to please Mr. Copperhead;
+for, Mrs. Hurst, you know Mr. Copperhead is very important. We have all
+to give in to him. He pays papa three hundred a-year."
+
+"Three thousand wouldn't make up for it if it spoilt all your career,"
+cried the indignant woman, and she swept away without saying any more to
+Ursula, who kept quite still over her work without budging. Janey went
+downstairs meekly after her to open the door, whispering an entreaty
+that she would not be angry.
+
+"No, no, I am not angry," said Mrs. Hurst, "but I shall keep it up for a
+day or two. It is the best thing for her. I think she was struck with
+what I said."
+
+Janey stole upstairs again, feeling rather guilty; but Ursula took
+little notice of her. The dinner was ordered and everything settled for
+the day. She was busy with her week's mending and darning, with the
+stockings and other things in a big basket beside her. When she came to
+some articles belonging to Janey, she threw them out with great
+impatience.
+
+"You may surely mend your things yourself, you are big enough. You can
+talk for yourself and me too," cried Ursula with sudden impetuosity; and
+then she sat and worked, her needle flying through the meshes of her
+darning, though it is hard to darn stockings in that impassioned way.
+They were socks of Johnnie's, however, with holes in the heels that you
+could put your fist through, and the way in which the big spans filled
+themselves up under this influence was wonderful to see. Janey, who was
+not fond of mending, set to work quite humbly under the influence of
+this example, and made two or three attempts to begin a conversation but
+without avail.
+
+The girls were seated thus in a disturbed and restless silence, working
+as if for their lives, when the usual little jar of the gate and sound
+of the bell downstairs announced a visitor. On ordinary occasions, they
+were both in the habit of rushing to the window when the gate was opened
+to see who was coming, and Janey had thrown aside her work to do so when
+a look from Ursula stopped her. High-spirited as Janey was, she did not
+dare to disobey that look. By right of the passion that had got
+possession of her, Ursula took the absolute command of the situation in
+a way she had never done before, and some sudden intuition made her
+aware who it was who was coming. The girls both sat there still and
+breathless, waiting for his appearance. He never came in the day, never
+had been seen in the Parsonage at that hour before, and yet Ursula was
+as certain who it was as if she had seen him a mile off. He came into
+the room, himself looking a little breathless and disturbed, and gave a
+quick impatient look at Janey as he went up to her sister. Ursula saw it
+and understood well enough. Janey was in his way; he had come this
+morning with a special purpose. Her heart sank down to her very shoes,
+and then rose again with a feverish and unreal leap. Was it not her duty
+to take the initiative, to cut away the very ground from beneath his
+feet? He took a seat, not far from where she was sitting, and made an
+effort to begin a little ordinary conversation, throwing frequent
+glances at Janey. He said it was a fine day, which was self-evident;
+that he almost feared they would be out; that he had come to--to
+tell her something he had forgotten last night, about--yes,
+about--Cassiopeia's chair, to correct what he said about Orion--yes,
+that was it; and again he looked at Janey, who saw his looks, and
+wondered much what she ought to do--go away, as he evidently wished her,
+or stay and listen, which was the eager desire of her mind. When Ursula
+lifted her head from her darning, and looked at him with cheeks
+alternately white and crimson, Janey felt herself grow hot and
+breathless with kindred excitement, and knew that the moment had come.
+
+"Mr. Northcote," said Ursula, looking at him fixedly, so fixedly that a
+nervous trembling ran over him, "I have a question to ask you. You have
+been coming to us very often, and perhaps papa may know, but I don't. Is
+it true that you made a speech about Reginald when you first came here?"
+
+Janey, looking eagerly on, saw Northcote grow pale, nay, grey in the
+fresh daylight. The colour seemed to ebb out of him. He started very
+slightly, as if waking up, when she began to speak, and then sat looking
+at her, growing greyer and greyer. A moment elapsed before he made any
+reply.
+
+"Yes, I did," he said, with a half-groan of pain in his voice.
+
+"You did! really you did! Oh!" cried Ursula, the hot tears falling
+suddenly out of her eyes, while she still looked at him, "I was hoping
+that it was all some horrible mistake, that you would have laughed. I
+hoped you would laugh and say no."
+
+Northcote cleared his throat; they were waiting for him to defend
+himself. Janey, holding herself on the leash, as it were, keeping
+herself back from springing upon him like a hound. Ursula gazed at him
+with great blazing reproachful eyes; and all he could do was to give
+that sign of embarrassment, of guilt, and confusion. He could not utter
+a word. By the time he had got himself wound up to the point of speech,
+Ursula, impatient, had taken the words out of his mouth.
+
+"Reginald is my brother," she said. "Whatever is against him is against
+us all; we have never had any separate interests. Didn't you think it
+strange, Mr. Northcote, to come to this house, among us all, when you
+had been so unkind to him?"
+
+"Miss May--"
+
+He made a broken sort of outcry and motion of his head, and then cleared
+his throat nervously once more.
+
+"Did you think how your own brothers and sisters would have stood up for
+you? that it would have been an offence to them if anybody had come to
+the house who was not a friend to you? that they would have had a
+right--"
+
+"Miss May," said the culprit; "all this I have felt to the bottom of my
+heart; that I was here on false pretences--that I had no right to be
+here. But this painful feeling was all quenched and extinguished, and
+turned into gratitude by the goodness of your father and brother. I did
+not even know that you had not been told. I thought you were aware from
+the beginning. You were colder than they were, and I thought it was
+natural, quite natural, for it is easier to forgive for one's self than
+for those one loves; and then I thought you melted and grew kinder to
+me, that you saw how all my ideas were changed, all my feelings--my mind
+itself; changed by the great charity, the wonderful goodness I have
+found here!"
+
+"Mr. Northcote!" Ursula had been struggling to break in all the time;
+but while he spoke her words dispersed, her feelings softened, and at
+the end she found nothing but that startled repetition of his name with
+which to answer him. No doubt if he had given her time the eloquence
+would have come back; but he was too much in earnest to be guilty of
+such a mistake.
+
+"What can I say about it?" cried the young man. "It has filled me with
+shame and with happiness. I have been taken in my own trap--those whom I
+attacked as you say--went out of my way to attack, and abused like a
+fool because I knew nothing about them--have shown me what the Bible
+means. Your father and brother knew what I had done, they met me
+separately, quite independent of each other, and both of them held out
+their hands to me; why, except that I had offended them, I cannot tell.
+A stranger, belonging to an obscure class, I had no claim upon them
+except that I had done what ought to have closed their house against
+me. And you know how they have interpreted that. They have shown me what
+the Bible means."
+
+The two girls sat listening, both with their heads bent towards him, and
+their eyes fixed upon his face. When he stopped, Janey got up with her
+work in her lap, and coming a little nearer to Ursula, addressed her in
+a wondering voice.
+
+"Is it _papa_ he is talking of like that?" she said, under her breath.
+
+"Yes," he said, fervently, turning to her. "It is your father. He has
+made charity and kindness real things to me."
+
+"Poor papa!" said Ursula, whose tears were arrested in her eyes by the
+same surprised sensation, half-pleasure, half-pain, which hushed even
+Janey's voice. They were "struck," as Mrs. Hurst had said, but by such a
+strange mingling of feelings that neither knew what to make of them.
+Northcote did not understand what they meant; their words conveyed a
+slight shock of surprise, but no distinct idea to him; and when Janey,
+too much impressed to settle down again, went away after a while
+musingly, carrying her work in the upper skirt of her gown, held like a
+market-woman's apron by her elbow against her side; and he found himself
+to have attained in the very confusion of his intentions to what he
+wished, i.e., an interview with Ursula by herself, he was almost too
+much agitated to take advantage of it. As for Ursula, she had floated a
+hundred miles away from that sensation of last night which, had no
+stronger feeling come in to bewilder her, would have made his errand
+very plain to her mind. She had ceased to think about him, she was
+thinking with a certain tenderness, and wondering, half-awed,
+half-amused, self-questioning, about her father. Was he so good as this?
+had he done this Christian action? were they all perhaps doing papa
+injustice? She was recalled to herself by Northcote's next proceeding.
+He went to the door and closed it after Janey, who had left it open, of
+course, and then he came to the back of the chair on which stood the
+great basket of darning. His voice was tremulous, his eyes liquid and
+shining with emotion.
+
+"Will you forgive me, since they have forgiven me? and may I ask _you_
+something?" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+AN EXTRAVAGANCE.
+
+
+Mr. May did not take any particular notice of what was going on around
+him among the young people. Nobody could have been more startled than
+he, had he been told of the purpose with which Horace Northcote, the
+Dissenting minister, had paid his early morning visit; and though he had
+a half-scornful, half-amused glimmer of insight into the feelings of his
+son, and saw that Clarence Copperhead was heavily veering the same way,
+it did not occur to him that any crisis was approaching. He was enjoying
+himself in his way, and he had not done that for a long time. He dearly
+liked the better way of living, the more liberal strain of housekeeping
+and expenditure; he liked the social meetings in the evening, the talk
+after dinner with the three young men, the half-fatherly flirtation with
+Phoebe, which she too enjoyed much, avowedly preferring him, with pretty
+coquetry, to the others. All this was very pleasant to him; and the
+additional money in his pocket was very pleasant, and when the post came
+in, one of these April mornings, and brought a letter from James,
+enclosing a draft for fifty pounds, his satisfaction was intense. The
+sight of the money brought an itching to his fingers, a restlessness
+about him generally. And yet it was not all that might have been
+desired, only fifty pounds! he had been buoying himself up by vain
+thoughts of how James this time, having been so long writing, would send
+a larger sum, which would at once tide him over the Tozer business, and
+on this account had been giving himself no trouble about it. Never
+before had he been so _insouciant_, although never before had the risk
+been so great. He had suffered so much about it last time, probably,
+that was why he took it so easily now; or was it because his trust in
+the chapter of accidents had grown greater since he was more dependent
+on it? or because of the generally expanded sense of living in him which
+made anxiety uncongenial anyhow? Whatever the cause was, this was the
+effect. A momentary disappointment when he saw how little James's draft
+was--then a sense of that semi-intoxication which comes upon a poor man
+when a sum of money falls into his hands--gradually invaded his soul. He
+tried to settle down to his writing, but did not feel equal to the
+effort. It was too little for the purpose, he said to himself, for which
+he wanted it; but it was enough to do a great many pleasant things with
+otherwise. For the first time he had no urgent bills to swallow it up;
+the very grocer, a long-suffering tradesman who made less fuss than the
+others, and about whom Ursula made less fuss, had been pacified by a
+payment on account of the Copperhead money, and thus had his mouth
+stopped. Barring that bill, indeed, things were in a more comfortable
+state than they had been for a long time in the May household; and
+putting that out of account, James's money would have been the nearest
+approach to luxury--reckoning luxury in its most simple form as money to
+spend without any absolutely forestalling claim upon it--which Mr. May
+had known for years. It is so seldom that poor people have this
+delicious sense of a little, ever so little surplus! and it would be
+hard to say how he could entertain the feeling that it was an overplus.
+There was something of the fumes of desperation perhaps, and impending
+fate in the lightness of heart which seized upon him. He could not keep
+still over his writing. He got up at last, and put James's draft into
+his pocket-book, and got his hat to go out. It was a fine morning, full
+of that exhilaration which belongs only to the spring. He went to the
+bank, and paid in the money, getting a small sum at the same time for
+his own immediate use; but somehow his restlessness was scarcely
+satisfied by that very legitimate piece of business, and he extended his
+walk into the town, and strayed, half by chance, half by intention, to
+the old furniture shop at the other end of the High Street, which was a
+favourite resort of the higher classes in Carlingford, and where
+periodically there was an auction, at which sometimes great bargains
+were to be had. Mr. May went into this dangerous place boldly. The sale
+was going on; he walked into the midst of temptation, forgetting the
+prayer against it, which no doubt he had said that morning. And as evil
+fate would have it, a carved book-case, the very thing he had been
+sighing for, for years, was at that moment the object of the
+auctioneer's praises. It was standing against the wall, a noble piece of
+furniture, in which books would show to an advantage impossible
+otherwise, preserved from dust and damp by the fine old oak and glass
+door. Mr. May's heart gave a little jump. Almost everybody has wished
+for something unattainable, and this had been the object of his desires
+for years. He gave a little start when he saw it, and hurried forward.
+The bidding had actually begun; there was no time to think and consider,
+if he wished to have a chance, and it was going cheap, dead cheap.
+After a minute or two of competition the blood rose to his cheeks, he
+got thoroughly excited. The effect of this excitement was two-fold--not
+only did it drive all thought of prudence out of his head, but it raised
+by several pounds the price of the book-case, which, had he gone about
+it coolly, he might have had at a much cheaper rate. When he suddenly
+woke up to find himself the owner of it, a thrill of consternation ran
+over him--it was all so sudden; and it was perfectly innocent, if only
+he had any money; and to be sure he had James's money, which was not
+enough to do anything else--certainly not to do the thing he wanted it
+for. He tried to laugh at himself for the little thrill of alarm that
+ran through him; but it was too late to recede; and he gave his cheque
+for the money and his directions as to having it sent to the Parsonage,
+with a quake at his heart, yet a little flourish of satisfaction.
+
+"Just what I have been wanting for years," he said, as he examined his
+new acquisition, and the people about looked at him with additional
+respect he felt, not being used to see Mr. May so prompt in payment, and
+so ready with his money. This pleased him also. He walked home with his
+head a little turned still, although there was a quake and flutter
+underneath. Well! he said to himself, who could call it an extravagance?
+a thing he had wanted for years--a thing which was a necessity, not for
+luxury, but everyday use--a thing which was not dear, and which was very
+handsome and substantial, and _really good_; how could any one say it
+was extravagant? Ursula might stare with her big eyes, but she was only
+a silly little girl, and women always were silly about expenses, alarmed
+by a big bold handsome purchase, though there was nobody better at the
+art of frittering away money in pretty nothings. When he got home, he
+began at once nervously to clear the space where it should stand. What
+an improvement it would be! and his books were getting spoiled daily in
+those unsightly, open shelves, entirely spoiled. It was exciting to
+anticipate its arrival, and the admiration and commotion in the house.
+He called in Betsy and gave her orders about it; how, if it came when he
+was absent, it was to be put in that particular place, no other.
+
+"And mind that great care is taken, for it is valuable, and a beautiful
+piece of furniture," he said.
+
+"La, sir!" said Betsy, who was thunderstruck, though she knew it was not
+"her place" to show any feeling. He did not think it was necessary to
+appeal to Ursula on the same subject, but was rather glad to get out
+again, feeling the restlessness which had not been dissipated, but
+rather the reverse. He went and saw one or two poor people, to whom he
+was much more tolerant and kind than his wont, for in general Mr. May
+was not attracted towards the poor; and he gave them a shilling or two
+of the money he had drawn at the bank that morning--though somehow it
+had acquired a certain value in his eyes, and it was with a grudge that
+he took it out of his pocket. I must not spend this, he said to himself;
+but gave the shillings as a kind of tithe or propitiatory offering to
+Providence, that things might go well with him. Why should not things go
+well with him? He was not a bad man, he wronged nobody. He had done
+nothing to-day that a saint might not have done; he wanted the
+book-case, and he had the money, a sum not big enough for any more
+important purpose; but which was far better disposed of so than
+frittered away in nothings, as no doubt it would have otherwise been. By
+the afternoon, when the book-case arrived, he had convinced himself that
+it was not only quite reasonable, but a most lucky chance, a thing he
+could scarcely have hoped for, the opportunity and the money both coming
+in such exact accord with each other. When he returned from his walk the
+girls were looking at it, Ursula somewhat scared, Janey in open
+raptures.
+
+"It is very nice indeed, papa," said the elder girl; "but it must have
+cost a deal of money."
+
+"Be thankful that you haven't got to pay for it," he said, brusquely. He
+was not disposed to stand criticism. How it filled up his bare room, and
+made it, Mr. May thought, all at once into a library, though the old
+writing-table and shabby chairs looked rather worse perhaps than before,
+and suggested renewal in the most urgent way. To make it all of a piece,
+to put a soft Turkey carpet instead of the drugget, how pleasant it
+would be!--not extravagant, only a natural inclination towards the
+seemly, and a desire to have things around him becoming his position. No
+doubt such things were things which he ought to have in his position; a
+gentleman and a scholar, how humiliating it was that nothing but the
+barest elements of comfort should be within his reach. This was not how
+life ought to be; a poor creature like Clarence Copperhead, without
+birth, or breeding, or brains, or anything but money, was able to
+gratify every wish, while he--his senior, his superior! Instead of
+blaming himself, therefore, for his self-indulgence, Mr. May sympathized
+with himself, which is a much less safe thing to do; and accordingly, it
+soon began to appear to him that his self-denial all this time in not
+giving himself what he wanted had been extreme, and that what he had now
+done, in conceding himself so harmless a gratification, was what he
+ought to have done years ago. It was his own money sent to him by his
+dutiful son without conditions; and who had any right to interfere?
+
+When he was at dinner, Betsy came behind his chair under pretence of
+serving him; Betsy, whose place was in the kitchen, who had no right to
+show in the dining-room at all, and whose confused toilette had caught
+Ursula's eye and filled her with horror.
+
+"Please, sir," she said, breathing hot on Mr. May's ear, till he shrank
+with sensitive horror. "Cotsdean's in the kitchen. He says as how he
+must see you; and I can't get him away."
+
+"Ah, Cotsdean? tell him if he has anything to say to me, to write it
+down."
+
+"Which he's done, sir," said Betsy, producing a little bit of paper
+rolled tightly together, "but I wasn't to give it till I'd asked you to
+see him. Oh, please see him, sir, like a dear good gentleman. He looks
+like a man as is going off his head."
+
+"He is a fool," said Mr. May, taking the paper, but setting his teeth as
+he did so. Evidently he must get rid of this fellow--already beginning
+to trouble him, as if he was not the best person to know when and how
+far he could go.
+
+"Tell him I'll attend to it, he need not trouble himself," he said, and
+put the paper into his pocket, and went on with his dinner. Cotsdean,
+indeed! surely there had been enough of him. What were his trumpery
+losses in comparison with what his principal would lose, and how dare
+that fellow turn up thus and press him continually for his own poor
+selfish safety? This was not how Mr. May had felt three months before;
+but everything changes, and he felt that he had a right to be angry at
+this selfish solicitude. Surely it was of as much consequence to him at
+least as to Cotsdean. The man was a fussy disagreeable fool, and nothing
+more.
+
+And as it happened they sat late that night at dinner, without any
+particular reason, because of some discussion into which Clarence and
+Reginald fell, so that it was late before Mr. May got back to his room,
+where his books were lying in a heap waiting their transportation. They
+seemed to appeal to him also, and ask him reproachfully how they had got
+there, and he went to work arranging them all with all the enthusiasm
+natural to a lover of books. He was a book-lover, a man full of fine
+tastes and cultured elegant ways of thinking. If he had been extravagant
+(which he was not) it would have been in the most innocent, nay
+delightful and laudable way. To attach any notion of criminality, any
+suspicion of wrong-doing to such a virtuous indulgence, how unjust it
+would be! There was no company upstairs that evening. Copperhead had
+strolled out with Reginald to smoke his cigar, much against the will of
+the latter, and was boring him all the way to the College with accounts
+of his own lavish expenditure, and how much he had given for this and
+that; his cameos, his diamond studs, the magnificent dressing-case which
+was the wonder of the Parsonage. "Hang it all, what is the good of
+having money if you don't spend it?" said Clarence, and Reginald, who
+had not much money to spend, felt as near hating him as it was in his
+nature to do. Thus Mr. May was released from duty in the drawing-room,
+where Ursula, palpitating with many thoughts which were altogether new
+to her, sat doing her darning, and eluding as well as she could Janey's
+questions. Janey was determinedly conversational that night. She drove
+Ursula nearly out of her senses, and kept Johnnie--who had crept into
+the drawing-room in high delight at finding it for once free to
+him--from learning his lessons.
+
+"Oh, how nice it is to be by ourselves," said Janey, "instead of all
+those new people. I don't mind Phoebe; but strange men in the house, what
+a nuisance they are, always getting in one's way--don't you think so,
+Ursula?"
+
+Ursula made no reply, and after awhile even Janey sank into silence, and
+the drawing-room, usually so gay, got a cold and deserted look. The new
+life which had come in had left its mark, and to go back to what had
+once been so pleasant in the past was no longer possible. Johnnie and
+Janey might like it, having regained their former places, but to Ursula
+the solitude was horrible. She asked herself, with a great blush and
+quiver, what she would do if that temporary filling up of new interests
+and relationships was to fall away, as was likely, and leave her to the
+old life unbroken, to Janey's childish society and questions, and papa's
+imperious and unmodified sway. She grew pale and chill at the very
+thought.
+
+But Mr. May, as we have said, was off duty. He forgot all about Cotsdean
+and the note in his pocket, and set to work with the most boyish
+simplicity of delight to arrange his books in his new shelves. How well
+they looked! never before had their setting done them justice. There
+were books in gorgeous bindings, college prizes which had never shown at
+all, and which now gleamed out in crimson and gold from behind the
+glass, and made their owner's heart beat with pleasure. Alas! to think
+how much innocent pleasure is denied us by the want of that small sum of
+money! and worse still, how an innocent pleasure becomes the reverse of
+innocent when it is purchased by the appropriation of something which
+should have been employed elsewhere. Perhaps, however, the sense of
+guilt which he kept under, added zest in Mr. May's mind to the pleasure
+of his acquisition; he was snatching a fearful joy, Heaven knows how
+soon the penalty might overwhelm him. In the mean time he was determined
+to take the good of it, and enjoy what he had gained.
+
+When the books were all in he sat down at his table and surveyed it,
+rubbing his dusty hands. How much that is childish, how much that is
+fresh, and youthful, and innocent must be in the mind of a man (you
+would say) who could be thus excited about a book-case! and yet this was
+not the kind of man whom you would call unsophisticated and youthful. It
+was probably the state of suppressed excitement in which he was, the
+unreality of his position, that helped him to that sense of elation as
+much as anything else; for emotion is a Proteus ready to take any form,
+and pain itself sometimes finds vent in the quick blazing up of
+fictitious delight, as much as in the moanings that seem more accordant
+with its own nature. He put his hand into his pocket for his pencil to
+make a note of the contents of the new shelves, and then he found
+Cotsdean's note, which he had not forgotten, but which he had felt no
+desire to remember. When he felt it between his fingers his countenance
+fell a little; but he took it out and read it with the smile still upon
+his face. It was a dirty little roll of paper, scribbled in pencil.
+
+     "Rev. Sir,
+
+     "I hope as you are not forgetting the 15th. Pleas excuse
+     anxiety and bad writing, i am a poor nervous man I no, a
+     word of answer just to say as it is all right will much
+     oblidge.
+
+     "Rev. Sir,
+     "Your humble servant,
+     "T. COTSDEAN."
+
+Betsy knocked at the door as he read this, with a request for an answer
+to Mr. Cotsdean's note. "Little Bobby, sir, is waiting for it in the
+kitchen."
+
+"Give Bobby some supper," said Mr. May, "tell him to tell his father
+it's all right, and I shan't forget. You understand? He is a troublesome
+little fool; but it's all right, and I shan't forget, and give the child
+some supper, Betsy. He ought not to be out so late."
+
+"He is a delicate little thing, sir, thankye, sir," said Betsy,
+half-frightened by her master's amiability; and he smiled and repeated,
+
+"Tell him it's all right."
+
+Was it all right, the 15th? Cotsdean must have made a mistake. Mr. May's
+countenance paled, and the laugh went off; he opened a drawer in his
+writing-table and took out a book, and anxiously consulted an entry in
+it. It was the 18th certainly, as clear as possible. Something had been
+written on the opposite page, and had blotted slightly the one on which
+these entries were written; but there it stood, the 18th April. Mr. May
+prided himself on making no mistakes in business. He closed the book
+again with a look of relief, the smile coming back once more to his
+face. The 18th, it was three days additional, and in the time there was
+no doubt that he would find out what was the right thing to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE MILLIONNAIRE.
+
+
+When Mr. May woke next morning, it was not the book-case he thought of,
+but that date which had been the last thing in his mind on the previous
+night. Not the 15th,--the 18th. Certainly he was right, and Cotsdean was
+wrong. Cotsdean was a puzzle-headed being, making his calculations by
+the rule of thumb; but he had put down the date, and there could be no
+possible mistake about it. He got up disposed to smile at the poor man's
+ignorance and fussy restlessness of mind. "I have never left him in the
+lurch, he may trust to me surely in the future," Mr. May said to
+himself, and smiled with a kind of condescending pity for his poor
+agent's timidity; after all, perhaps, as Cotsdean had so little profit
+by it, it was not wonderful that he should be uneasy. After this, it
+might be well if they did anything further of the sort, to divide the
+money, so that Cotsdean too might feel that he had got something for the
+risk he ran; but then, to be sure, if he had not the money he had no
+trouble, except by his own foolish anxiety, for the payment, and always
+a five-pound note or two for his pains. But Mr. May said to himself that
+he would do no more in this way after the present bill was disposed of;
+no, he would make a stand, he would insist upon living within his
+income. He would not allow himself to be subject to these perpetual
+agitations any more. It would require an effort, but after the effort
+was made all would be easy. So he said to himself; and it was the 18th,
+not the 15th, three days more to make his arrangements in. It had come
+to be the 12th now, and up to this moment he had done nothing, having
+that vague faith in the Indian mail which had been realized, and yet had
+not been realized. But still he had nearly a week before him, which was
+enough certainly. Anything that he could do in six months, he said to
+himself, he could easily do in six days--the mere time was nothing; and
+he smiled as he dressed himself leisurely, thinking it all over. Somehow
+everything looked perfectly easy to him this time; last time he had been
+plunged into tragic despair; now, and he did not know why, he took it
+quite easily; he seemed to fear nothing. There were various ways of
+getting the money as natural as the daylight, and in the mean time why
+should he make himself unhappy? As soon as he was ready he went to his
+room and had another look at the book-case which, with his best books in
+it, all in order and ranged in unbroken lines, looked everything a
+book-case ought to look. It made him feel more of a man somehow, more
+like the gentleman and scholar he had meant to be when he started in
+life; he had not intended then to be a poor district incumbent all his
+life, with a family of eight children. His book-case somehow transported
+him back to the days when he had thought of better things for himself,
+and when life had held an ideal for him. Perhaps at the best of times it
+had never been a very high ideal; but when a man is over fifty and has
+given up doing anything but struggle through each day as it comes, and
+get out of his work as best he may, doing what he must, leaving undone
+what he can, any ideal almost seems something higher than himself; but
+the recollection of what he had meant to be, came back to him strongly
+when he looked at his carved oak. It had not been carried out; but still
+he felt rehabilitated and better in his own opinion as he stood beside
+this costly purchase he had made, and felt that it changed his room and
+all his surroundings. It might have been almost wicked to run into such
+an extravagance, but yet it did him good.
+
+"My people came down to the Hall last night," Clarence Copperhead said
+to him at breakfast, "and the Governor is coming over along with Sir
+Robert. He'd like to see you, I am sure, and I suppose they'll be going
+in for sight-seeing, and that sort of thing. He is a dab at
+sight-seeing, is the Governor. I can't think how he can stand it for my
+part."
+
+"Then you must remember that I put myself at his orders for the day,"
+said Mr. May graciously. "Sir Robert is not a bad guide, but I am a
+better, though it sounds modest to say it; and, Ursula, of course Mr.
+Copperhead will take luncheon with us."
+
+"Don't think of that," said Clarence, "he's queer and likes his own way.
+Just as likely as not he'll think he ought to support the hotels of the
+place where he is--sort of local production, you know. I think it's
+nonsense, but that is how it is--that's the man."
+
+"We shall look for him all the same," said Mr. May, with a nod at
+Ursula; and a sudden project sprang up in his mind, wild as projects so
+often are. This father whom his fancy, working upon what Clarence said,
+immediately invested with all the prodigal liberality of a typical rich
+man; this stranger to whom a hundred pounds was less then a penny was to
+himself, would give him the money he wanted. What so easy? He drew a
+long breath, and though he had not been aware that he was anxious, he
+was suddenly conscious of a sense of relief. Yes, to be sure, what so
+simple, what so likely? he would explain his monetary necessities
+lightly and with grace, and Mr. Copperhead would supply them. He was in
+the mildest state of desperation, the painless stage, as may be seen,
+when this strange idea entered into his head. He hugged it, though he
+was a man of the world and might have known better, and it produced a
+kind of elation which would have been a very strange spectacle to any
+looker-on who knew what it meant. The thing seemed done when he next
+thought of it ten minutes later, settled as if it had been so for years.
+Mr. Copperhead would make it all right for him, and after that he would
+undertake such risks no more.
+
+Mr. Copperhead, however, did not come for two days, though Ursula spent
+all the morning and a great deal of trouble in arranging a luncheon for
+him; but on the second morning he came, driven by Sir Robert, who had
+changed horses on the road, and who was in a somewhat irritated and
+excited condition, very glad to get rid of his visitor.
+
+"I hope you don't mind having your toes trodden on, May," he said,
+privately; "that fellow is never happy but when he's insulting some
+one." And indeed Mr. Copperhead began this favourite pastime at once by
+making very big eyes at the sight of Ursula. "A-ha!" he said, rubbing
+his hands, and elevating his eyebrows; and he gave a meaning laugh as he
+shook hands with her, and declared that he did not expect to find young
+ladies here. "I haven't a great deal of education myself, and I never
+knew it could be carried on so pleasantly," he said. "You're a lucky
+young dog, Clar, that's what you are;" and the son laughed with the
+father at this excellent joke, though the rest of the company looked on
+with great gravity. Ursula, for her part, turned with wondering eyes
+from the new-comer to her old friend, Sir Robert.
+
+"What does he mean?" she asked, with an appealing look.
+
+"He is the greatest brute I know," said poor Sir Robert, under his
+breath; and he went off suddenly on the plea of business, leaving his
+unpleasant visitor in Mr. May's hands, who undertook the charge not
+unwillingly, being possessed by his own plan. Mr. Copperhead went all
+over Carlingford. He inspected the town-hall, the infirmary, and the
+church, with the business-like air of a man who was doing his duty.
+
+"Poor little place, but well enough for the country," he said. "A
+country-town's a mistake in my opinion. If I had it in my power I'd raze
+them all to the ground, and have one London and the rest green fields.
+That's your sort, Mr. May. Now you don't produce anything here, what's
+the good of you? All unproductive communities, sir, ought to be swept
+off the face of the earth. I'd let Manchester and those sort of places
+go on till they burst; but a bit of a little piggery like this, where
+there's nothing doing, no trade, no productions of any kind."
+
+"We like it all the same," said Mr. May; "we small sort of people who
+have no enterprise like you--"
+
+"I dare say you like it! To be sure, you can moon about here as much as
+you please, and make believe to do something, and there's nobody to
+contradict you. In a great centre of industry you couldn't live like
+that; you must work or you'll get pushed aside altogether; unless, of
+course, you're a millionnaire to start with," Mr. Copperhead added, with
+a noisy laugh.
+
+"Which I am not certainly--very much the reverse--in short, a poor man
+with a large family, which I suppose is a thing about as objectionable
+in a centre of industry as anything can be."
+
+"The large family ain't objectionable if you make 'em work," said Mr.
+Copperhead; "it all depends on that. There's always objections, you
+know," he said, with a jocular grin, "to pretty girls like that daughter
+of yours put straight in a young fellow's way. You won't mind my saying
+it? They neither work themselves nor let others work--that sort. I think
+we could get on with a deal fewer women, I must allow. There's where
+Providence is in a mistake. We don't want 'em in England; it's a waste
+of raw material. They're bad for the men, and they ain't much good for
+themselves, that I can see."
+
+"You are a little hard upon the ladies, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Not I--we can't do without 'em of course, and the surplus we ought to
+export as we export other surpluses; but I object to them in a young
+man's way, not meaning anything unpleasant to you. And perhaps if I had
+been put up to it sooner--but let's hope there's no mischief done. What
+is this now? some of your antiquities, I suppose. Oh yes, let's have a
+look at it; but I confess it's the present age I like best."
+
+"This is the College," cried Mr. May, swallowing certain sensations
+which impaired his sense of friendliness; "but not an educational
+college, a foundation for old men--decayed citizens, as they are
+called--founded in the fifteenth century. My son is the chaplain, and
+will be very glad to show it you. There are twelve old men here at
+present, very comfortably looked after, thanks to the liberal
+arrangements of the founder. They attend chapel twice a day, where
+Reginald officiates. It is very agreeable to me to have him settled so
+near me."
+
+"Cunning I call it," said Mr. Copperhead, with his hoarse laugh; "does
+you credit; a capital snug nest--nothing to do--and pay--pay good now?
+those old fellows generally managed that; as it was priests that had the
+doing of it, of course they did well for their own kind. Good Lord, what
+a waste of good money all this is!" he continued, as they went into the
+quadrangle, and saw the little park beyond with its few fine trees;
+"half-a-dozen nice villas might be built on this site, and it's just the
+sort of place I should fancy where villas would pay. Why don't the
+Corporation lay hands on it? And your son lives here? Too dull for me; I
+like a little movement going on, but I dare say he likes it; and with
+how much a year?"
+
+"Two hundred and fifty; and some advantages beside--"
+
+"Bravo!" said Mr. Copperhead, "now how many curates could you get for
+that two and a-half? I've got a great respect for you, Mr. May; you know
+what's what. That shows sense, that does. How do you do, sir? fine old
+place you've got here--capital snug appointment. I've just been saying
+to your father I admire his sense, looking out for you a nice fat easy
+appointment like this."
+
+Reginald turned from red to white, and then to portentous blackness. The
+subject was of all others the one least likely to please him.
+
+"It is not very fat," he said, with a look of offence, quite undeserved
+by the chief sufferer, towards his father, "nor very easy. But come in.
+It is rather an interesting old place. I suppose you would like to see
+the Chapel, and the old captain's rooms; they are very fine in their
+way."
+
+"Thank you; we've been seeing a deal already, and I feel tired. I think
+I'll--let you off the chapel. Hallo! here's another old
+friend--Northcote, by George! and what are _you_ doing here I should
+like to know, a blazing young screamer of the Liberation Society, in a
+high and dry parson's rooms? This is as good as a play."
+
+"I suppose one is not required to stay at exactly the same point of
+opinion all one's life," said Northcote, with a half-smile.
+
+"By George! but you are though, when you're a public man; especially
+when you're on a crusade. Haven't I heard you call it a crusade? I can
+tell you that changing your opinion is just the very last thing the
+public will permit you to do. But I shan't tell for my part--make
+yourself easy. Clarence, don't you let it out; your mother, fortunately,
+is out of the way. The world shall never know through me that young
+Northcote, the anti-state Churchman, was discovered hob-nobbing with a
+snug chaplain in a sinecure appointment. Ha, ha! had you there."
+
+"To do Northcote justice," said Mr. May; "he began life in Carlingford
+by pointing out this fact to the neighbourhood; that it was a sinecure,
+and that my son and I--"
+
+"Would it not be more to the point to inspect the chapel?" said
+Reginald, who had been standing by impatiently playing with a big key;
+upon which Mr. Copperhead laughed more loudly than before.
+
+"We'll not trouble the chapel," he said, "railway stations are more in
+my way; you are all a great deal finer than I am, and know a deal more,
+I suppose; but my roughness has served its purpose on the whole, better
+perhaps for some things--yes, for some things, Clar, and you may thank
+your stars, old boy. If you had been a parson's son, by George! there
+would have been no fat appointment waiting for you."
+
+"After all, my son's appointment is not so very fat," said Mr. May,
+forcing a laugh. "It is not so much as many a boy at school gets from
+his father."
+
+"Ah, you mean my boy at school! he's an extravagant dog. His mother and
+he, sir, are made of different clay from me; they are porcelain and I am
+delft. They want fine velvet cupboards to stand themselves in, while I'm
+for the kitchen dresser. That's the difference. But I can afford it,
+thank Heaven. I tell Clarence that he may thank his stars that I can
+afford it, and that he isn't born a poor man's son. He has been plucked
+at Oxford, you know," he said, with a big laugh, thrusting forth his
+chest as Clarence thrust forth his shirt-front, with an apparent
+complacency over the very plucking. My son can afford to be plucked, he
+seemed to say. He got up as he spoke, and approaching the fireplace
+turned his back to it, and gathered up his coat-tails under his arm. He
+was no taller than Mr. May, and very little taller than Reginald; but
+they both shrank into insignificance beside the big self-assertive
+figure. He looked about the room as if he was thinking of "buying up"
+the whole contents of it, and thought very little of them. A glance of
+contempt, a shrug more implied than actual, testified his low opinion of
+everything around. When he withdrew his eyes from the furniture he shook
+out his leg, as Clarence had done his, and gave a pull to his trousers
+that they might sit properly. He had the word "Rich" painted in big
+letters all over him, and he seemed to feel it his vocation to show this
+sense of superiority. Clarence by his side, the living copy of the great
+man's appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his
+father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr.
+Copperhead did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's
+motherly complacency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement.
+He was clever in his way, and Clarence was stupid; and besides he was
+the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods
+and chattels. When he looked at him, a wicked leer of derision awoke in
+his eye.
+
+"Yes, my boy," he said, "thank your stars; you would not make much of it
+if you were a poor man. You're an ornament that costs dear; but I can
+afford you. So, Northcote, you're changing your opinions--going over to
+the Church, eh? Extremes meet, they say; I shouldn't have thought it--"
+
+"I am doing nothing of the kind," said Northcote stoutly. He was not in
+a mood to be taken to task by this Mammon of unrighteousness, and indeed
+had at all times been a great deal too independent and unwilling to
+submit to leading members of the connection. Mr. Copperhead, however,
+showed no resentment. Northcote too, like Clarence, had a father before
+him, and stood on quite a different footing from the ordinary young
+pastor, whose business it was to be humble and accept all that his
+betters might portion out.
+
+"Well," he said, "you can afford to please yourself, and that's always
+something. By the way, isn't it time to have something to eat? If there
+is a good hotel near--"
+
+"Luncheon will be waiting at my house," said Mr. May, who was still
+doing his best to please the man upon whom he had built such wild hopes,
+"and Ursula will be waiting."
+
+"Ah, ah, the young lady! so she will. I wouldn't miss that for
+something; but I don't like putting you to so much expense. My son here
+has an excellent appetite, as you must have found out by this time, and
+for my part so have I. I think it a thousand pities to put you to this
+trouble--and expense."
+
+"Pray don't think of that," said Mr. May with courtesy, which belied his
+feelings, for he would have liked nothing so well as to have knocked
+down his complacent patron. He led the way out, almost with eagerness,
+feeling Mr. Copperhead to be less offensive out of doors than within
+four walls. Was this the sort of man to be appealed to for help as he
+had thought? Probably his very arrogance would make him more disposed
+towards liberality. Probably it would flatter his sense of consequence,
+to have such a request made to him. Mr. May was very much at sea,
+letting I dare not wait upon I would; afraid to speak lest he should
+shut this door of help by so doing, and afraid to lose the chance of any
+succour by not speaking. He tried hard, in spite of all his
+difficulties, to be smooth and agreeable to a man who had so much in his
+power; but it was harder work than he could have thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+FATHER AND SON.
+
+
+Ursula had prepared a very careful luncheon for the stranger. She
+thought him disagreeable, but she had not looked at him much, for,
+indeed, Ursula's mind was much unsettled. Horace Northcote had spoken to
+her that morning, after Mrs. Hurst's visit and her retaliation upon him,
+as no man yet had ever spoken to her before. He had told her a long
+story, though it was briefly done, and could have been expressed in
+three words. He was not of her species of humanity; his ways of
+thinking, his prejudices, his traditions, were all different from hers,
+and yet that had happened to him which happens all over the world in
+every kind of circumstances--without knowing how it was, he had got to
+love her. Yes, he knew very well how it was, or rather, he knew when it
+was, which is all that is to be expected from a lover. It was on the
+evening of the _entrées_, the first dinner-party, and he had gone on
+ever since, deeper and deeper, hearing her say many things which he did
+not agree in, and tracing her life through a score of little habits
+which were not congenial to his, yet loving her more and more for all
+that was new to him, and even for the things which were uncongenial. He
+had told her all this, and Ursula had listened with a kind of awe,
+wondering at the ardour in the young man's eyes, and the warmth with
+which he spoke; wondering and trembling a little. She had guessed what
+he meant the night before, as has been said, and this had touched her
+with a little thrill of awakened feeling; but the innocent girl knew no
+more about passion than a child, and when she saw it, glowing and
+ardent, appealing to her, she was half-alarmed, half-overawed by the
+strange sight. What answer could she make to him? She did not know what
+to say. To reject him altogether was not in Ursula's heart; but she
+could not respond to that strange, new, overwhelming sentiment, which
+put a light in his eyes which she dared not meet; which dazzled her when
+she ventured a glance at him. "Was he to go away?" he asked, his voice,
+too, sounding musical and full of touching chords. Ursula could not tell
+him to go away either. What she did say to him, she never quite knew;
+but at least, whatever it was, it left him hopeful, if unsatisfied.
+
+And since that time her mind had been in a strange confusion, a
+confusion strange but sweet. Gratified vanity is not a pretty title to
+give to any feeling, and yet that mixture of gratification and
+gratitude, and penetrating pleasure in the fact of being elevated from
+an often-scolded and imperfect child to an admired and worshipped woman
+is, perhaps, of all the sensations that feminine youth is conscious of,
+the most poignant in its sweetness. It went through her whole life;
+sometimes it made her laugh when she was all alone, and there was
+nothing of a laughter-producing nature in her way; and sometimes it made
+her cry, both the crying and the laughter being one. It was strange,
+very strange, and yet sweet. Under the influence of this, and of the
+secret homage which Northcote paid her whenever they met; and which she
+now understood as she had never understood it before, the girl's whole
+nature expanded, though she did not know. She was becoming sweet to the
+children, to puzzled Janey, to every one around her. Her little
+petulances were all subdued. She was more sympathetic than she had ever
+been before. And yet she was not in love with her lover. It was only
+that the sunshine of young life had caught her, that the highest
+gratification of youth had fallen to her share unawares. All this might
+have been, and yet some one else come in to secure Ursula's real love;
+but in the mean time she was all the happier, all the better for the
+love which she did not return.
+
+This is a digression from our immediate subject, which was the luncheon
+prepared for Mr. Copperhead. Ursula sent up an urgent message for Phoebe,
+who came to her in her prettiest morning dress, very carefully
+arranged, but with a line of care upon her brow.
+
+"I will come if you wish it, dear," she said; "but I don't want to meet
+Mr. Copperhead. I don't like him."
+
+"Neither do I like him," cried Ursula. "He said something disagreeable
+the little moment he was here. Oh, I don't remember what it was, but
+something. Please stay. What am I to do with them all by myself? If you
+will help me, I may get through."
+
+Phoebe kissed her with a tremulous kiss; perhaps she was not unwilling to
+see with her own eyes what the father of Clarence meant, and what
+brought him here. She sat down at the window, and was the first to see
+them coming along the street.
+
+"What a gentleman your father looks beside them," cried Phoebe; "both of
+them, father and son; though Clarence, after all, is a great deal better
+than his father, less like a British snob."
+
+Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.
+
+"I don't think he is much better than his father," she said.
+
+Phoebe took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped it as if it had
+hurt her. What did it all mean? Ursula, though rays of enlightenment had
+come to her, was still perplexed, and did not understand.
+
+Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon, when Phoebe
+appeared with little Amy May looking like a visitor, newly arrived. She
+had run upstairs after that first sight of him from the window,
+declaring herself unable to be civil to him except at table. The great
+man's face almost grew pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula,
+and then at Clarence, and laughed.
+
+"'Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,'" he
+said. "That's Scripture, ain't it, Miss Ursula? I am not good at giving
+chapter and verse."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Ursula.
+
+She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copperhead, and perfectly unconscious
+of his observation. As for Phoebe, on the contrary, she was slightly
+agitated, her placid surface ruffled a little, and she looked her best
+in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead looked straight at her across the
+table, and laughed in his insolent way.
+
+"So you are here too, Miss Phoebe!" he said. "I might think myself in the
+Crescent if I didn't know better. I met young Northcote just now, and
+now you. What may you be doing here, might one ask? It is what you call
+a curious coincidence, ain't it, Clarence and you both here?"
+
+"I said so when Mr. Clarence came," said Phoebe. "_I_ came to take care
+of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a very lucky thing for me that
+I had met Miss May at your ball, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"By Jove, wasn't it!" said Clarence, roused to some dull sense of what
+was going on. "We owe all the fun we have had here to that, so we do.
+Odd, when one thinks of it; and thought so little of it then, didn't we?
+It's a very queer world."
+
+"So you've been having fun here?" said his father. "I thought you came
+here to work; that's how we old fellows get taken in. Work! with young
+ladies dangling about, and putting things into your head! I ought to
+have known better, don't you think so, Miss Ursula? _You_ could have
+taught me a thing or two."
+
+"I?" said Ursula, startled. "I don't know what I could teach any one. I
+think Mr. Clarence Copperhead has kept to his hours very steadily. Papa
+is rather severe; he never would take any excuse from any of us when we
+were working with him."
+
+"He is not so severe now, I'll be bound," said Mr. Copperhead. "Lets you
+have your fun a little, as Clarence tells me; don't you, May? Girls will
+be girls, and boys, boys, whatever we do; and I am sure, Miss Phoebe, you
+have been very entertaining, as you always were."
+
+"I have done my best," said Phoebe, looking him in the face. "I should
+have had a dull life but for the Parsonage, and I have tried to be
+grateful. I have accompanied your son on the violin a great many
+evenings, and I hope our friends have liked it. Mr. Clarence is a
+promising player, though I should like him to trust less to his ear; but
+we always pulled through."
+
+"Thanks to you," said Clarence, in the middle of his cutlet
+
+He did not quite see why she should flourish this music in his father's
+face; but still he was loyal in a dull fashion, and he was obstinate,
+and did not mean to be "sat upon," to use his own words. As for Phoebe,
+her quick mind caught at once the best line of policy. She determined to
+deliver Ursula, and she determined at the same time to let her future
+father-in-law (if he was to be her father-in-law) see what sort of a
+person he had to deal with. As soon as she made up her mind, her
+agitation disappeared. It was only the uncertainty that had cowed her;
+now she saw what to do.
+
+"So!" said Mr. Copperhead, "musical evenings! I hope you have not
+turned poor Clar's head among you, young ladies. It's not a very strong
+head; and two is more than a match for one. I dare say he has had no
+chance between you."
+
+"Make yourself quite easy," said Phoebe, with her sweetest smile; "he was
+only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and Mr. Northcote are both very
+pleasant companions. Your son is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are
+never bored. You see, he has been accustomed to more brilliant society;
+but as for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very
+happy. And if there has been two to one, it has been the other way."
+
+"I think I must let your people know of your gaieties, Miss Phoebe. If
+your mother sent you here, I don't doubt it was for a purpose, eh? She
+knows what she's about, and she won't like it if she knows you are
+fritting away your chances and your attentions. She has an eye for
+business, has Mrs. Beecham," said the leading member, with a laugh.
+
+"You cannot tell mamma more about me than she knows already," said
+Phoebe, with rising colour.
+
+And by this time every one else at table was uncomfortable. Even
+Clarence, who had a dull appreciation of his father's jokes when they
+were not levelled at himself, and who was by no means indisposed to
+believe that "girls," generally, were "after him," and that even in this
+particular case Phoebe herself might have come to Carlingford on purpose
+to complete his conquest, even Clarence was moved.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by brilliant society," he said. "I know I'm
+the dull one among you clever people. I don't say much, but I know it
+all the same; and it's awfully good of you to pull me through all that
+music. I don't begrudge you your laugh after. Is my mother coming over,
+sir, to see the place?"
+
+"To see what? There is not much in the place," said Mr. Copperhead.
+"You're coming back with me, my boy. I hope it won't inconvenience you,
+May. I've other views for him. Circumstances alter cases, you know. I've
+been turning it over in my head, and I think I can see my way to another
+arrangement."
+
+"That, of course, is entirely in your own hands," said Mr. May, with a
+cheerfulness he did not feel. His heart sank, but every rule of good
+society made it incumbent upon him to show no failure at such a moment.
+"Copperhead, see that your father has some wine. Well, I suppose our
+poor little Carlingford is not much of a place; no trade, no movement,
+no manufactures--"
+
+"The sort of place that should be cleared off the face of the earth,"
+said the millionnaire; "meaning no offence, of course. That's my opinion
+in respect to country towns. What's the good of them? Nests of gossip,
+places where people waste their time, and don't even amuse themselves.
+Give me green fields and London, that is my sort. I don't care if there
+was not another blessed brick in the country. There is always something
+that will grow in a field, corn or fat beasts--not that we couldn't get
+all that cheaper from over the water if it was managed as it ought to
+be. But a place like this, what's the good of it? Almshouses and
+chaplains, and that kind of rubbish, and old women; there's old women by
+the score."
+
+"They must be somewhere, I suppose," said Mr. May. "We cannot kill them
+off, if they are inoffensive, and keep the laws. So that, after all, a
+country town is of use."
+
+"Kill 'em off--no; it's against what you benevolent humbugs call the
+spirit of the time, and Christianity, and all that; but there's such a
+thing as carrying Christianity too far; that's my opinion. There's your
+almshouses now. What's the principle of them? I call it encouraging
+those old beggars to live," said Mr. Copperhead; "giving them permission
+to burden the community as long as they can manage it; a dead mistake,
+depend upon it, the greatest mistake in the world."
+
+"I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of Euthanasia," said
+Phoebe, quietly stepping into the conversation; "but then it would have
+to be with the consent of the victims. When any one found himself
+useless, unnecessary to the world, or unhappy in it--"
+
+"Humbug and nonsense," said Mr. Copperhead. "A likely thing for anybody
+to do. No, it is not a question for law-making. Let 'em die out
+naturally, that's my opinion. Don't do anything to hurry 'em--that is, I
+don't see my way to it; but let 'em go quiet, and don't bring 'em
+cordials and feather-beds, and all that middyeval nonsense, to keep 'em
+going as long as possible. It's wicked, that's what it is."
+
+"At all events," said Mr. May, who, poor man, was bent on pleasing, "it
+is refreshing to hear opinions so bold and original. Something new is
+always a blessing. I cannot say I agree with you--"
+
+"No parson would be bold enough for that. Christianity's been a capital
+thing for the world," said Mr. Copperhead, "I don't say a word against
+it; but in these go-ahead days, sir, we've had enough of it, that's to
+say when it's carried too far. All this fuss about the poor, all the row
+about dragging up a lot of poor little beggars to live that had far
+better die, and your almshouses to keep the old ones going, past all
+nature! Shovel the mould over them, that's the thing for the world; let
+'em die when they ought to die; and let them live who can live--that's
+my way of thinking--and what's more, I'm right."
+
+"What a fine thing for you, Mr. Clarence," cried Phoebe, "who are going
+into Parliament! to take up your father's idea and work it out. What a
+speech you could make on the subject! I saw a hospital once in Paris
+that would make such a wonderful illustration. I'll tell you about it if
+you like. Poor old wretched people whose life was nothing but
+wretchedness kept going, kept living for years and years--why, no one
+could tell; for I am sure it would have been better, far better for them
+to die and be done with it. What a speech you might make when you bring
+a bill into Parliament to abolish almshouses and all sorts of
+charities!" she added with a laugh, turning from Clarence, at whom she
+had been looking, to his father, who was puzzled, and did not know how
+to understand the young woman's eyes.
+
+"I'll never make much of a speech in Parliament," said Clarence; "unless
+you make it for me," he added in an undertone. But no one else was
+speaking, and the undertone was quite audible. Meanwhile Phoebe had not
+ceased to look at his father, and held him with a pair of eyes not like
+the Ancient Mariner's. Mr. Copperhead was confused, his power even of
+insolence was cowed for the moment. He obeyed quite docilely the
+movement made to leave the table. Was it possible that she defied him,
+this Minister's daughter, and measured her strength against his? Mr.
+Copperhead felt as if he could have shaken the impertinent girl, but
+dared not, being where he was.
+
+And lunch being over, Mr. May led his pupil's father into his study. "I
+want to show you what your boy has been doing," he said, pointing to a
+line of books which made the millionnaire's soul shrink within him. "I
+have not bothered him with classics; what was the use as he is not going
+back to Oxford? but I have done my best for him in a practical way. He
+has read history, largely as you see, and as much as I could give him of
+political and constitutional--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Copperhead, reading the titles of some of the books
+under his breath. They impressed him deeply, and took away for a moment
+his self-confidence. It was his habit to boast that he knew nothing
+about books; but in their presence he shrank, feeling that they were
+greater than he, which was, there is little doubt, a sign of grace.
+
+"If you wish to remove Clarence," said Mr. May, "perhaps I had better
+make out a scheme of reading for him."
+
+"Look here," cried the rich man, "I didn't want to remove him; but there
+he is, the first I see of him, cheek for jowl with a good-looking girl.
+I don't mean to say a word against Miss May, I've no doubt she's
+charming; but anyhow there she is side by side with Clar, who is no more
+able to resist that sort of thing--"
+
+Mr. May laughed, and this time with unmitigated amusement. "Do you mean
+Ursula? I think I can answer for it that she made no attempts upon him
+for which resistance would be necessary."
+
+"That's all very well to say; but bless you they do it, every one," said
+Mr. Copperhead, "without exception, when a young fellow's well off and
+well-looking; and as if one wasn't bad enough, you've got Phoebe Beecham.
+You won't tell me she doesn't mean anything?--up to any mischief, a real
+minister's daughter. I don't mean anything uncivil to you or yours. I
+suppose a parson's different; but we know what a minister's daughter is
+in our connection. Like the men themselves, in short, who are always
+pouncing on some girl with a fortune if her relations don't take care.
+And Clarence is as weak as a baby; he takes after his mother--a poor bit
+of a feeble creature, though he's like me in exterior. That's how it is,
+you perceive; I don't quite see my way to letting him go on."
+
+"That is of course precisely as you please," said Mr. May, somewhat
+sharply. He would preserve his dignity even though his heart was
+sinking; but he could not keep that tone of sharpness out of his voice.
+
+"Of course it is as I please. I'll pay up of course for the second three
+months, if you choose, fair and square. I meant him to stay, and I'll
+pay. But that's all. You've no further claim upon me that I know of; and
+I must say that for a tutor, a regular coach, to keep girls in his
+house, daughters, or whatever you choose to call them, is something
+monstrous. It's a thing no fellow's friends would put up with. It's what
+I call dishonourable."
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. May, with all the self-possession he was master of,
+"you will let your son know at once that he must pack and go. I dare
+say, Sir Robert can take him, and we will send the portmanteaux. In such
+a case, it is better there should not be a moment's delay."
+
+"Clarence!" cried Mr. Copperhead, walking to the door and opening it.
+"Come along, look sharp, you're to go. I'll take you with me, do you
+hear? And May will see to sending you your boxes. Quick, come along,
+there's no time to lose."
+
+"Go!" said Clarence, coming in startled, with his eyebrows rising almost
+into his hair. "Go? What do you mean? Out of the Parsonage? The
+Governor's been having too much sherry," he said, coming close to Mr.
+May's arm; he had himself been taking too much of the sherry, for the
+good reason that nobody had taken any notice of what he did, and that he
+had foreseen the excitement that was coming. "You don't mean it, I
+know," he added aloud; "I'll go over for the night if Sir Robert will
+have me, and see my mother--"
+
+"Ask May," said Mr. Copperhead, "you'll believe him, I suppose; he's as
+glad to get rid of you as I am to take you away."
+
+"Is this true?" cried Clarence, roused and wondering, "and if so, what's
+happened? I ain't a baby, you know, to be bundled about from one to
+another. The Governor forgets that."
+
+"Your father," said Mr. May, "chooses to remove you, and that is all I
+choose to say."
+
+"But, by George, I can say a deal more," said Mr. Copperhead. "You
+simpleton, do you think I am going to leave you here where there's
+man-traps about? None of such nonsense for me. Put your things together,
+I tell you. Phoebe Beecham's bad enough at home; but if she thinks she's
+to have you here to pluck at her leisure, she and her friends--"
+
+"W--hew!" said Clarence, with a long whistle. "So that's it. I am very
+sorry, father, if these are your sentiments; but I may as well tell you
+at once I shan't go."
+
+"You--must go."
+
+"No," he said, squaring his shoulders and putting out his shirt front;
+he had never been roused into rebellion before, and perhaps without
+these extra glasses of sherry he would not have had the courage now. But
+what with sherry, and what with _amour propre_, and what with the thing
+he called love, Clarence Copperhead mounted all at once upon a pedestal.
+He had a certain dogged obstinacy in him, suspected by nobody but his
+mother, who had little enough to say in the guidance of her boy. He set
+himself square like a pugilist, which was his notion of resistance. Mr.
+May looked on with a curious mixture of feelings. His own sudden and
+foolish hope was over, and what did it matter to him whether the
+detestable father or the coarse son should win? He turned away from them
+with contempt, which was made sharp by their utter uselessness to
+himself. Had it been possible that he might have what he wanted from
+Mr. Copperhead, his patience would have held out against any trial; but
+the moment that hope was over, what further interest had he in the
+question? He went to his writing-table and sat down there, leaving them
+to fight it out as they would, by themselves. It was no affair of his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+A PLEASANT EVENING.
+
+
+The result, however, was a compromise. Clarence Copperhead went off with
+his father and Sir Robert to the Hall for the night, but was to return
+next day, and Phoebe was left in a condition of some excitement behind
+them, not quite knowing what to think. She was as sure as ever that he
+had made up his mind to propose; but he had not done it, and what effect
+his father's visit, and perhaps his mother's entreaties, might have upon
+him, Phoebe could not tell. The crisis excited her beyond any excitement
+which she would have thought possible in respect to Clarence Copperhead.
+She was more like an applicant for office kept uncertain whether she was
+to have a desirable post or not, than a girl on the eve of a lover's
+declaration. This was her own conception of the circumstances. She did
+not dislike Clarence; quite the reverse. She had no sympathy with
+Ursula's impatience of his heavy vanity. Phoebe had been used to him all
+her life, and had never thought badly of the heavy boy whom she had been
+invited to amuse when she was six years old, and whom she had no
+particular objection to amuse still, let the others wonder at her as
+they might. Poor Reginald, contemplating bitterly her many little
+complacencies to his rival, set them down hastily to an appreciation of
+that rival's worldly advantages, which was not quite a just sentence. It
+was true, and yet it was not true; other feelings mingled in Phoebe's
+worldliness. She did, indeed, perceive and esteem highly the advantages
+which Clarence could give her; but she had not the objections to
+Clarence himself that the others had. She was willing, quite willing, to
+undertake the charge of him, to manage, and guide, and make a man of
+him. And yet, while it was not pure worldliness, much less was it actual
+love which moved her. It was a kind of habitual affection, as for the
+"poor thing, but mine own, sir," of the jester. He was but a poor
+creature, but Phoebe knew she could make something of him, and she had
+no distaste to the task. When she began to perceive that Reginald, in so
+many ways Clarence's superior, was at her disposal, a sense of
+gratification went through Phoebe's mind, and it certainly occurred to
+her that the feeling he might inspire would be a warmer and a more
+delightful one than that which would fall to Clarence Copperhead; but
+she was not tempted thereby to throw Clarence off for the other. No, she
+was pleased, and not unwilling to expend a little tender regret and
+gratitude upon poor Reginald. She was ready to be "kind" to him, though
+every woman knows that is the last thing she ought to be to a rejected
+lover; and she was full of sympathy for the disappointment which,
+nevertheless, she fully intended was to be his lot. This seems
+paradoxical, but it is no more paradoxical than human creatures
+generally are. On this particular evening her heart beat very high on
+account of Clarence, to know if he would have strength of mind to hold
+his own against his father, and if he would come back to her and ask
+her, as she felt certain he meant to do, that one momentous question.
+Her heart would not have been broken had he not done so, but still she
+would have been disappointed. Notwithstanding when the evening came, the
+absence of Clarence was a relief to Phoebe as well as to the rest of the
+party, and she gave herself up to the pleasures of a few hours of
+half-tender intercourse with Reginald, with a sense of enjoyment such as
+she seldom felt. This was very wrong, there is no denying it, but still
+so it was. She was anxious that Clarence should come back to her, and
+ask her to be his wife; and yet she was pleased to be rid of Clarence,
+and to give her whole attention and sympathy to Reginald, trying her
+best to please him. It was very wrong; and yet such things have happened
+before, and will again; and are as natural, perhaps, as the more
+absolute and unwavering passion which has no doubt of its object,
+passion like Northcote's, who had neither eyes nor ears for anything but
+Ursula. The four were alone together that evening, and enjoyed it
+thoroughly. Clarence was away, who, to all but Phoebe, was an
+interruption of their intercourse; and Mr. May was away in his study,
+too much absorbed to think of any duties that ought to have devolved
+upon him as chaperon; and even Janey was out of the way, taking tea with
+Mrs. Hurst. So the two young pairs sat round the table and talked; the
+girls, with a mutual panic, which neither breathed to the other, keeping
+together, avoiding separation into pairs. Ursula out of very shyness and
+fright alone, lest another chapter of the strange, novel, too moving
+love-tale might be poured into her ears; but Phoebe with more settled
+purpose, to prevent any disclosure on the part of Reginald. The evening
+was mixed up of pleasure and pain to the two young men, each eager to
+find himself alone with the girl whom he loved; but it is to be feared
+the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which they
+ought not to have had. Open and outrageous love-making is not half so
+delicate a pastime as that in which nothing distinct dare be said, but
+all is implication, conveyed and understood without words. I know it is
+a dangerous thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession; you
+may say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish to
+give a disagreeable version of it; but, however you choose to explain
+it, this was how it was.
+
+It was with fear and trembling at last that Phoebe went to the piano,
+which was at the other end of the room, after making all the resistance
+which was possible.
+
+"Thank Heaven, that idiot and his fiddle aren't here to-night to
+interfere!" cried Reginald.
+
+Phoebe shook her head at him, but ventured on no words; and how she did
+exert herself on the piano, playing things which were a great deal too
+classical for Reginald, who would have preferred the simplest stock
+piece, under cover of which he might have talked to her hanging over her
+chair, and making belief to turn over the music! This was what he
+wanted, poor fellow. He had no heart nor ears for Beethoven, which Phoebe
+played to him with a tremor in her heart, and yet, the wicked little
+witch, with some enjoyment too.
+
+"This is not the sort of thing you play when Copperhead is here," he
+said at last, driven to resistance.
+
+"Oh, we play Mendelssohn," said Phoebe, with much show of innocence; and
+then she added, "You ought to feel the compliment if I play Beethoven to
+you."
+
+"So I ought, I suppose," said Reginald. "The truth is, I don't care for
+music. Don't take your hands off the keys."
+
+"Why, you have done nothing but worry me to play!"
+
+"Not for the music," said Reginald, quite satisfied to have got his
+will. "Why will you not talk to me and play to me, as I wish?"
+
+"Perhaps, if I knew what you wish--" Phoebe said, in spite of herself.
+
+"Oh, how I should like to tell you! No, not Beethoven; a little, just a
+little music. Heavens!" cried Reginald, as she crashed into a
+fortissimo, "another sonata! Listen, I am not equal to sonatas. Nay,
+Miss Beecham, play me a little nothing--talk to me."
+
+She shook her head at him with a laugh, and went on playing the hardest
+piece of music she could think of, complicating herself in difficult
+chords and sudden accidentals. If there had been anybody there to hear
+who could have understood, Phoebe's performance would, no doubt, have
+appeared a masterpiece of brilliant execution, as it was; but the two
+others were paying not the slightest attention, and as for Reginald, he
+was in a state of tantalized vexation, which half-amused himself, and
+filled the performer with an exhilarating sense of successful mischief.
+Northcote was trying to say--what was he not trying to say?--to Ursula,
+under cover of the music, which was the best shield he could have had;
+and perhaps in reality, though Reginald was tantalized to the utmost
+degree of tantalization, even he had a certain enjoyment in the saucy
+self-defence which was more mischievous than cruel. He stood behind
+Phoebe's chair, now and then meeting her laughing glance with one of
+tender appeal and reproach, pleased to feel himself thus isolated with
+her, and held an arm's-length in so genial a way. He would have his
+opportunity after a while, when there would be no piano to give her a
+momentary refuge, and then he would say out all that was in his heart,
+with no possible shadow of a rival to interfere with him. Angry? no; as
+he stood behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keys, a
+delightful calm stole over Reginald. Now and then she would throw a
+half-mocking glance at him upward over her shoulder, as she swept over
+the resounding board. When the sonata was concluded, Phoebe sprang up
+from the piano, and went back to the table. She proposed that they
+should play a game at cards, to which Ursula agreed. The young men
+shrugged their shoulders and protested; but, after all, what did it
+matter, so long as they were together? They fell into their places quite
+naturally, the very cards assisting; and so the moments flew by. There
+was not so much sound as usual in the old faded drawing-room, which had
+come to look so bright and homelike; not so much sound of voices,
+perhaps less laughter--yet of all the evenings they had spent there
+together, that was the one they looked back upon, all four, with most
+tender recollection. They had been so happy, or, if not happy, so near
+(apparently) to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness
+itself.
+
+"Don't let Reginald come with me," Phoebe whispered, as she kissed her
+friend, and said good night, "or ask Mr. Northcote to come too."
+
+"Why?" said Ursula, with dreamy eyes; her own young tide of life was
+rising, invading, for the moment, her perceptions, and dulling her sense
+of what was going on round her. There was no time, however, for
+anything more to be said, for Reginald was close behind with his hat in
+his hand. Phoebe had to resign herself, and she knew what was coming. The
+only thing was, if possible, to stop the declaration on the way.
+
+"This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without that
+perpetual shadow of Copperhead--"
+
+"Ah, poor Clarence!" said Phoebe. "I wonder how he is getting on away
+from us all to-night."
+
+"Poor Clarence!" echoed Reginald aghast. "You don't mean to say that
+you--miss him, Miss Beecham? I never heard you speak of him in that tone
+before."
+
+"Miss him! no, perhaps not exactly," said Phoebe, with a soft little
+sigh; "but still--I have known him all my life, Mr. May; when we were
+quite little I used to be sent for to his grand nursery, full of lovely
+toys and things--a great deal grander than mine."
+
+"And for that reason--" said Reginald, becoming bitter, with a laugh.
+
+"Nothing for that reason," said Phoebe; "but I noticed it at six as I
+should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little worldly-minded thing,
+don't you think? So you see there are the associations of a great many
+years to make me say Poor Clarence, when anything is the matter with
+him."
+
+"He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly," cried Reginald,
+thoroughly wretched; "but I did not know there was anything the matter."
+
+"I think there will be if he has to leave our little society, where we
+have all been so happy," said Phoebe, softly. "How little one thought,
+coming here a stranger, how pleasant it was to be! I especially, to whom
+coming to Carlingford was rather--perhaps I might say a humiliation. I
+am very fond of grandpapa and grandmamma now, but the first introduction
+was something of a shock--I have never denied it; and if it had not been
+for sweet kind Ursula and you--all."
+
+The little breathless fragmentary pause which Phoebe made between the you
+and the "all," giving just a ghost of emphasis to the pronoun, sounded
+to poor Reginald in his foolishness almost like a caress. How cleverly
+it was managed, with just so much natural feeling in it as gave it
+reality! They were approaching No. 6, and Martha, the maid, already was
+visible at the open door.
+
+"Then you do give me some share--some little share," he cried, with a
+broken voice. "Ah, if you would only let me tell you what your coming
+has been to me. It has opened up my life; I feel everything different,
+the old earth itself; there is a new light upon the whole world--"
+
+"Hush, here is Martha!" cried Phoebe, "she will not understand about new
+lights. Yes, it has been pleasant, very pleasant; when one begins to
+sigh and realize how pleasant a thing has been, I always fear it is
+going to be broken up."
+
+"_Absit omen!_" cried Reginald, fervently, taking the hand she had put
+out to bid him good night, and holding it fast to detain her; and was
+there moisture in the eyes which she lifted to him, and which glistened,
+he thought, though there was only the distant light of a lamp to see
+them by?
+
+"You must not keep me now," cried Phoebe, "here is grandpapa coming. Good
+night, Mr. May, good night."
+
+Was Phoebe a mere coquette _pure et simple_? As soon as she had got safe
+within these walls, she stooped down over the primroses to get rid of
+Martha, and then in the darkness had a cry, all by herself, on one side
+of the wall, while the young lover, with his head full of her, checked,
+but not altogether discouraged, went slowly away on the other. She
+cried, and her heart contracted with a real pang. He was very tender in
+his reverential homage, very romantic, a true lover, not the kind of man
+who wants a wife or wants a clever companion to amuse him, and save him
+the expense of a coach, and be his to refer to in everything. That was
+an altogether different kind of thing. Phoebe went in with a sense in her
+mind that perhaps she had never touched so close upon a higher kind of
+existence, and perhaps never again might have the opportunity; but
+before she had crossed the garden, she had begun once more to question
+whether Clarence would have the fortitude to hold his own against
+everything that father or mother could do to change his mind. Would he
+have the fortitude? Would he come back to her, safe and determined, or
+would he yield to arguments in favour of some richer bride, and come
+back either estranged or at the least doubtful? This gave her a pang of
+profound anxiety at the bottom of her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+AN EXPEDITION.
+
+
+Mr. May did not come upstairs that evening. It was not that he was
+paralysed as he had been on the previous occasion, when he sat as now
+and heard Phoebe go away after her first visit, and when the wind blowing
+in from the open door playfully carried to his feet the scribbled note
+with Tozer's name. He was not stupefied as then, nor was he miserable.
+The threatened withdrawal of Clarence Copperhead was more to him than
+the impending ruin meant by that bill which was so nearly due. He was
+occupied by that to the exclusion of the other. It would be a most
+serious change to him in every way. He had calculated on the continuance
+of this additional income for at least a year, and short of the year it
+would have done him no good, but had simply plunged him into additional
+expense. It was this he was thinking of, and which kept him in his study
+after the young people had assembled. Cotsdean had come again while Mr.
+May was at dinner, which by some curious unconscious aggravation on his
+part was the time he especially chose as most convenient for him; and he
+had again sent a dirty note by Bobby, imploring his principal to think
+of the impending fate, and not to desert him. Mr. May was angry at this
+perpetual appeal. "Why should I desert him, the idiot?" he said to
+himself; and moved by the man's persistence, he took out his pocket-book
+again, and made out beyond all chance of mistake, that it was the 18th.
+Why should the fool insist upon its being the 15th with such perpetual
+iteration? There were the figures as plain as possible, 18th April. Mr.
+May wrote a peremptory note announcing this fact to Cotsdean, and then
+returned to his own thoughts. Sir Robert had asked him to go over that
+morning and spend the day at the Hall with the Copperheads, not knowing
+of any breach between them. He thought he had better do this. If
+Clarence determined to stay, that would be a great thing in his favour,
+and he had seen that the young man's dull spirit was roused; and if that
+hope failed, there might still be advantage even in this sudden breaking
+of the bond. Part of the second quarter was gone, and the father had
+offered three months additional pay. These two payments would make up
+the hundred and fifty pounds at once, and settle the business. Thus, in
+either way, he should be safe, for if Clarence went away the money would
+be paid; and if he stayed, Mr. May himself had made up his mind to risk
+the bold step of going to the bank and asking an advance on this
+inalienable security. All these deliberations made his mind easy about
+the bill. It must come right one way or another; he might have chosen
+perhaps not to run it quite so close; but after all the 15th was only
+to-morrow, and there were still three days. While his mind was full of
+these things he did not care to go upstairs. He heard the voices of the
+young people, but he was too much engrossed with his own calculations to
+care to join them. It was a close thing, he said to himself, a very
+close thing; but still he felt that he could do it--surely he could do
+it. If Mr. Copperhead settled with him--and he was the sort of man, a
+man to whom money was nothing, to do so on the spot if he took it into
+his head--then all was right. And if Mr. Copperhead did not do so, the
+bank, though his past transactions with it had not been encouraging,
+would certainly make all right on account of these Copperhead payments,
+which were as certain as any payments could be. He went to bed early,
+being engrossed by these thoughts, not even saying good-night to Ursula,
+as was his wont; and he made up his mind to take an early breakfast, and
+start the first thing in the morning for the Hall. There was an early
+train which would suit admirably. He could not afford to drive, as Sir
+Robert had done, changing horses half way. He went upstairs to bed,
+somewhat heavily, but not discontented, seeing his way. After all, the
+great thing in life is to see your way. It does not matter so much
+whether that way is great or small, so long as you can see it plain
+before you. Mr. May breathed a sigh of anxiety as he ended the day. He
+had a great many things on his mind; but still he was not altogether
+heavy-hearted or discouraged beyond measure; things, he felt, would
+shape themselves better than he had hoped. He was not perhaps going to
+be so much better off than of old, as he thought possible when Clarence
+Copperhead came. Such delusive prospects do glimmer across a poor man's
+path when any apparent expansion of means occurs to him; but in the
+majority of cases he has to consent to see the fine fictitious glow die
+away. Mr. May was not ignorant of this experience already. A man who is
+over fifty is generally more or less prepared for anything that can
+happen to him in this kind; but he thought he could "get on;" and after
+all that is the sum of life to three parts of mankind.
+
+He was silent at breakfast, but not disagreeable, and Ursula was too
+much taken up with her own concerns to pay much attention to him.
+Ursula's concerns were developing with a rapidity altogether
+extraordinary. In the mind of a girl of twenty, unforestalled by any
+previous experience, the process that goes on between the moment when
+the surprising, overwhelming discovery rushes upon her that some one
+loves her in the old way of romance, until the corresponding moment when
+she finds out that her own heart too has been invaded by this wonderful
+sentiment, which is like nothing that was ever known before, is of a
+very rapid description. It is like the bursting of a flower, which a
+day's sunshine brings to the blooming point like a miracle, though it is
+in reality the simplest result of nature. Already there began to glow a
+haze of brightness about those three months past in which everything had
+begun. When or how it began she could not now tell. The glow of it was
+in her eyes and dazzled her. She heard the voices of the others sounding
+vaguely through this bright mist in which she herself was isolated; when
+she was obliged to reply, she called herself back with an effort, and
+did so--but of her own will she seldom spoke. How Janey chattered, how
+the children maundered on about their little concerns, which were of
+consequence to nobody! Papa was the person whom Ursula really respected
+this morning, for he had more sense than to talk. How could people talk,
+as if there was pleasure in that? But papa had more sense, he had things
+to think of--too. So the girl approved her father, and thought more
+highly of him, and never inquired what it might be that occupied his
+mind, and kept him from noticing even when the children were unruly. And
+it would be giving the reader an unfair idea of the children, if we
+attempted to conceal that they did take advantage of their
+opportunities, and were as unruly as well-conditioned children in the
+circumstances were likely to be. Mr. May took no notice; he took his
+coffee hurriedly and went off to the station.
+
+"If I don't return this evening you need not be alarmed. I shall come
+back at the latest to-morrow morning," he said.
+
+The children all rushed to the window to see him go away; even Ursula
+looking out dreamily remarked him too, as she seldom did; and Mrs. Sam
+Hurst at her window, wondering where her neighbour could be going,
+heaved a deep sigh of admiration, which though she was not "in love," as
+the girls thought, with Mr. May, was a passing tribute to his good looks
+and training. He looked a gentleman every inch of him--an English
+gentleman, spotless in linen, speckless in broadcloth, though his dress
+was far from new; the freshness of sound health and a clear conscience
+on his handsome face, though he was no longer young. His abundant hair,
+steel-grey, slightly crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but
+with a becoming twist in it--clerical, yet not too clerical, a man given
+to no extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of
+the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own comfort by
+marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a great pleasure in making
+his daughters anxious about her "intentions," and that even to be said
+to be in love with such a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.
+
+He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway, and thus
+missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and
+followed him to the train; but too late.
+
+"Well, well," Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, "Old Tozer
+has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between
+'em."
+
+Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on
+such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally an awful and
+respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as
+he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth; but Tozer
+was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten
+times that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean's sense of
+commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill
+in the circumstances should give him a very serious pang. He would not
+be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party
+to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed
+it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with
+two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He
+was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before.
+He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as
+calmly as possible. He was but passive in it. It could not harm him much
+in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much
+astonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it
+between them. It was their affair.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got
+a dog-cart at the little inn at the station to take him over, though
+generally when he went to see the Dorsets it was his custom to walk.
+"But what were a few shillings?" he said to himself, the prodigality of
+desperation having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and
+if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less matter?
+but the discomfort of walking over those muddy roads, and arriving with
+dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the
+Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest
+good-humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another,
+over the stables, the farm-buildings, the farm itself from end to end,
+the preserves, the shrubberies, the greenhouses, everything; all of
+which details he examined with an unfailing curiosity which would have
+been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized
+by a strain of comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May
+went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his
+daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing loudly over a
+picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague
+Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true "Wilson," bought by
+an uncle of Sir Robert's, who had been a connoisseur, from the Master
+himself, in the very country where it was painted; and all these details
+pleased the imagination of the family, who, though probably they would
+have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the acquaintance of
+the best of contemporary painters, were proud that Uncle Charles had
+known Italian Wilson, and had bought a picture out of his studio. A
+Hobbema or a Poussin would scarcely have pleased them as much, for the
+worst of an old Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as
+a copy; whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to be
+copied. They were showing their picture and telling the story to the
+millionnaire with an agreeable sense that, though they were not so rich,
+they must, at least, have the advantage of him in this way.
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Copperhead, "you should see my Turner. Didn't I show you
+my Turner? I don't venture to tell you, Sir Robert, what that picture
+cost me. It's a sin, it is, to keep that amount of capital hanging
+useless upon a bit of wall. The Wilson may be all very well. I ain't a
+judge of art, and I can't give my opinion on that point, though it's a
+common sort of a name, and there don't seem to be much in it; but
+everybody knows what a Turner means. Here's May; he'll be able to tell
+you as well as another. It means a few cool thousands, take my word for
+it. It means, I believe, that heaps of people would give you your own
+price. I don't call it a profitable investment, for it brings in no
+interest; but they tell me it's a thing that grows in value every year.
+And there it is, Sir, hanging up useless on my wall in Portland Place,
+costing a fortune, and bringing in not a penny. But I like it; I like
+it, for I can afford it, by George! Here's May; he knows what that sort
+of thing is; he'll tell you that a Turner is worth its weight in gold."
+
+"Thank you, I don't think I need any information on that subject," said
+Sir Robert. "Besides, I saw your Turner. It is a pretty picture--if it
+is authentic; but Wilson, you know--"
+
+"Wasn't a big-enough swell not to be authentic, eh?" said Mr.
+Copperhead. "Common name enough, and I don't know that I ever heard of
+him in the way of painting; but I don't pretend to be a judge. Here's
+May; now, I dare say he knows all about it. Buying's one thing,
+knowing's another. Your knowing ones, when they've got any money, they
+have the advantage over us, Sir Robert; they can pick up a thing that's
+good, when it happens to come their way, dirt cheap; but fortunately for
+us, it isn't often they've got any money," he added, with a laugh,
+slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a way which made him totter. But the
+clergyman's good-humour was equal even to this assault. It is wonderful
+how patient and tolerant we can all be when the motive is strong enough.
+
+"That is true," he said; "but I fear I have not even the compensation of
+knowledge. I know enough, however, to feel that the possessor of a
+Turner is a public personage, and may be a public benefactor if he
+pleases."
+
+"How that? If you think I am one to go lending my pictures about, or
+leaving them to the nation when I'm done for, that's not my sort. No, I
+keep them to myself. If I consent to have all that money useless, it is
+for myself, you may depend, and not for other people. And I'll leave it
+to my boy Clarence, if he behaves himself. He's a curiosity, too, and
+has a deal of money laid out on him that brings no interest, him and his
+mother. I'll leave it to Clar, if he doesn't make a low marriage, or any
+folly of that kind."
+
+"You should make it an heir-loom," said Sir Robert, with sarcasm too
+fine for his antagonist; "leave it from father to son of your
+descendants, like our family diamonds and plate."
+
+Anne and Sophy looked at each other and smiled, the one sadly, the other
+satirically. The Dorset family jewels were rose-diamonds of small value,
+and the plate was but moderate in quantity, and not very great in
+quality. Poor Sir Robert liked to blow his little trumpet too, but it
+was not so blatant as that of his visitor, whose rude senses did not
+even see the intended malice.
+
+"By George! I think I will," he said. "I'm told it's as safe as the
+bank, and worth more and more every year, and if it don't bring in
+anything, it don't eat anything; eh, May? Look here; perhaps I was
+hasty the other day," he said, pushing the clergyman a little apart from
+the group with a large hand on his shoulder. "Clarence tells me you're
+the best coach he ever saw, and that he's getting on like a house on
+fire."
+
+"He does make progress, I think," answered the tutor, thus gracefully
+complimented.
+
+"But all the same, you know, I had a right to be annoyed. Now a man of
+your sense--for you seem a man of sense, though you're a parson, and
+know what side your bread's buttered on--ought to see that it's an
+aggravating thing when a young fellow has been sent to a coach for his
+instruction, and to keep him out of harm's way, to find him cheek by
+jowl with a nice-looking young woman. That's not what a father has a
+right to expect."
+
+"You couldn't expect me to do away with my daughter because I happened
+to take a pupil?" said Mr. May, half-amused; "but I can assure you that
+she has no designs upon your son."
+
+"So I hear, so I hear," said the other, with a mixture of pique and
+satisfaction. "Won't look at him, Clar tells me; got her eye on some one
+else, little fool! She'll never have such a chance again. As for having
+no designs, that's bosh, you know; all women have designs. I'm a deal
+easier in my mind when I'm told she's got other fish to fry."
+
+"Other fish to fry?" said Mr. May; this time he was wholly amused, and
+laughed. "This is news to me. However, we don't want to discuss my
+little Ursula; about your son it will be well that I should know, for I
+might be forming other engagements. This moment is a time of pecuniary
+pressure with me," he added, with the ingratiating smile and
+half-pathetic frankness of the would-be borrower. "I have not taken
+pupils before, but I want money for the time. My son's settlement in
+life, you see, and--but the father of a large family can always find
+good reasons for wanting money."
+
+"That's it," said Mr. Copperhead, seriously. "Why are you the father of
+a large family? That's what I ask our ministers. It's against all
+political economy, that is. According as you've no money to give 'em,
+you go and have children--when it should be just the other way."
+
+"That may be very true; but there they are, and can't be done away with;
+and I do want money, as it happens, more now than I shall want it a year
+hence, or, perhaps, even six months hence."
+
+"Most people do," said Mr. Copperhead, withdrawing his hand from his
+pocket, and placing his elbow tightly against the orifice of that very
+important part of him. "It's the commonest thing in the world. I want
+money myself, for that matter. I've always got a large amount to make up
+by a certain date, and a bill to pay. But about Clar, that's the
+important matter. As he seems to have set his mind on it, and as you
+assure me there's no danger--man-traps, or that sort of thing, eh?"
+
+The colour came to Mr. May's cheek; but it was only for a moment. To
+have his own daughter spoken of as a man-trap gave him a momentary
+thrill of anger; but, as he would have applied the word quite composedly
+to any other man's daughter, the resentment was evanescent. He did not
+trust himself to answer, however, but nodded somewhat impatiently, which
+made the millionnaire laugh the more.
+
+"Don't like the man-trap?" he said. "Bless you, they're all alike, not
+yours more than the rest. But as I was saying, if it's warranted safe I
+suppose he'll have to stay. But I don't stand any nonsense, May; and
+look here, your music and all that ain't in the agreement. He can have a
+master for his music, he's well enough able to pay for it; but I won't
+have a mistress, by George, to put folly into his head."
+
+"I am to forbid him the drawing-room, I suppose, and take his fiddle
+from him! I have no objections. Between ourselves, as I am not musical,
+it would be very agreeable to me; but perhaps he is rather over the age,
+don't you think, for treatment of that kind?"
+
+Clarence had come in, and stood watching the conversation, with a look
+Mr. Copperhead was not prepared for. Those mild brown eyes, which were
+his mother's share in him, were full a-stare with sullen resolution, and
+his heavy mouth shut like that of a bull-dog. He lingered at the door,
+looking at the conversation which was going on between his father and
+his tutor, and they both noticed him at the same moment, and drew the
+same conclusion. Mr. May was in possession of the _parole_, as the
+French say, and he added instinctively in an undertone,
+
+"Take care; if I were you I would not try him too far."
+
+Mr. Copperhead said nothing; but he stared too, rather aghast at this
+new revelation. What! his porcelain, his Dresden figure of a son, his
+crowning curiosity, was _he_ going to show a will of his own? The despot
+felt a thrill go over him. What kind of a sentiment love was in his mind
+it would be hard to tell; but his pride was all set on this heavy boy.
+To see him a man of note, in Parliament, his name in the papers, his
+speeches printed in the "Times," was the very heaven of his
+expectations. "Son of the famous Copperhead, the great contractor." He
+did not care about such distinction in his own person; but this had
+been his dream ever since Clarence came into being. And now there he
+stood gloomy, obdurate. If he had made up his mind to make a low
+marriage, could his father hinder him--could anything hinder him? Mr.
+Copperhead looked at his son and quailed for the first time in his life.
+
+"May," he said, hurriedly, "do the best you can; he's got all his
+mother's d----d obstinacy, you can see, can't you? but I've set my heart
+on making a man of him--do the best you can."
+
+Mr. May thought to himself afterwards if he had only had the vigour to
+say, "Pay me six months in advance," the thing would have been done. But
+the lingering prejudices of breeding clung about him, and he could not
+do it. Mr. Copperhead, however, was very friendly all the rest of the
+day, and gave him private looks and words aside, to the great admiration
+of the Dorsets, to whom the alliance between them appeared remarkable
+enough.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+A CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+Mr. May left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the warm invitation
+which was given to him to stay. He was rather restless, and though it
+was hard to go out into the dark just as grateful odours began to steal
+through the house, it suited him better to do so than to spend the night
+away from home. Besides, he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook was
+not first-rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation. It was a
+long walk to the station, for they had no horses at liberty to drive
+him, a fact at which he was slightly offended, though he was aware that
+Sir Robert's stable was but a poor one. He set out just as the
+dressing-bell began to ring, fortified with a glass of sherry and a
+biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with
+the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he
+went on; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were
+somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious
+dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at
+all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he
+trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct
+figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing
+past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew
+there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or
+illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct
+wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him
+in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was
+all quite plain before him what to do,--to go to the Bank, to tell them
+what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible.
+The consciousness of having this to do acted upon him like a gentle
+opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into
+a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of
+light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware now far he was going, or
+where he was going, across the country; and even when he arrived at
+Carlingford he roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he
+had to get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a
+sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and
+half-asleep. "If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have
+blamed that," he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy,
+amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he scarcely could tell
+how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and
+looked up at the lights in the windows. There was music going on; Phoebe,
+no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house
+looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of
+that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an
+appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the
+house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness
+stealing over him for Clarence too.
+
+Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phoebe
+"had not intended to come," but was there notwithstanding, persuaded by
+Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had
+celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was
+still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote
+had "not intended to come." Indeed, he had gone further than this, he
+had intended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner,
+he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up
+and down in forlorn contemplation of the lighted windows, had been spied
+by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were
+together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general
+criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation.
+Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was
+occupying, but she was keenly interested in all that was going on, very
+eager to understand the relationships in which the others stood, and to
+see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was
+absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the
+features, expressed a totally different phase of existence from that
+which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears, and
+watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the
+half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a
+soft response fluttering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was
+not destined to be spoken to-night; and it was she who made Phoebe's
+music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no
+danger. Phoebe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even
+Phoebe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey
+been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and
+incipient; they could not come to anything; there were no hairbreadth
+escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her
+best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with
+all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything,
+neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the
+condition of Ursula and Phoebe to one of absolute safety. They were all
+kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful
+observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement and
+mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young
+men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness for Janey's bed-time.
+
+"Do you let her sit up till midnight every night?" said Reginald, with
+indignation.
+
+"Let me sit up!" cried Janey, "as if I was obliged to do what she tells
+me!"
+
+Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked at the
+clock.
+
+"It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock," she said, with a sigh.
+"I should have thought papa would have come home before now. Can he be
+staying at the Hall all night?"
+
+Just then, however, there was the well-known ring at the bell, and
+Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper. Why couldn't
+Janey make herself useful and do that, the little company thought
+indignantly and with one accord, instead of staying here with her sharp
+eyes, putting everybody out? Mr. May's little dinner, or supper, served
+on a tray, was very comfortable, and he ate it with great satisfaction,
+telling Ursula that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.
+
+"The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead was a
+little less disagreeable than he always is; and you may look for
+Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not going to leave us. You
+must take care that he does not fall in love with you, Ursula. That is
+the chief thing they seem to be afraid of."
+
+"Fall in love with _me_!" cried Ursula. "Oh, papa, where are your eyes?
+He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't you see it? It is Phoebe he
+cares for."
+
+Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious smile in his
+eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully whether her father had taken
+much wine at the Hall.
+
+"Ah, ha! is that what they are frightened for?" he said, and then he
+shrugged his shoulders. "She will show bad taste, Ursula; she might do
+better; but I suppose a girl of her class has not the delicacy--So that
+is what they are frightened for! And what are the other fish _you_ have
+to fry?"
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you; that you had other fish
+to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that?
+Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door--just a whiff
+of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go
+into the study and get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed."
+
+"Won't you come upstairs to the drawing-room?" said Ursula, faltering,
+for she was appalled by the idea of explanations. What had she to
+explain, as yet? Mr. May shook his head, with that smile still upon his
+face.
+
+"No, you'll get on excellently well without me. I've had a long walk,
+and I think I'll go to bed."
+
+"You don't look very well, papa."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm well enough; only confused in the head a little with
+fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good-night. Don't keep
+those young fellows late, though one of them is your brother. You can
+say I'm tired. Good-night, my dear."
+
+It was very seldom that he called her "my dear," or, indeed, said
+anything affectionate to his grown-up children. If Ursula had not been
+so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so sure that "they" would
+miss her, she would have been anxious about her father; but as it was,
+she ran upstairs lightly when he stopped speaking, and left him going
+into the study, where already his lamp was burning. Betsy passed her as
+she ran up the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held
+between two folds of her apron. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome
+parish business to bother him, when he was tired already. But Ursula did
+not stop for that. How she wanted to be there again, among "them all,"
+even though Janey still made one! She went in breathless, and gave her
+father's message only half-articulately. He was tired. "We are never to
+mind; he says so." They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May
+being tired, what did that matter? He would, no doubt, be better
+to-morrow; and in the mean time those sweet hours, though so hampered by
+Janey, were very sweet.
+
+Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on his table. He was
+just taking out his medicine from the drawer, and he made a wry face at
+the note and at the pills together.
+
+"Parish?" he said, curtly.
+
+"No, sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He came this morning, after you'd
+gone, and he sent over little Bobby."
+
+"That will do."
+
+A presentiment of pain stole over him. He gave Betsy a nod of dismissal,
+and went on with what he was doing. After he had finished, he took up
+the little note from the table with a look of disgust. It was badly
+scrawled, badly folded, and dirty. Thank Heaven, Cotsdean's
+communications would soon be over now.
+
+Janey had proposed a round game upstairs. They were all humble in their
+desire to conciliate that young despot. Reginald got the cards, and
+Northcote put chairs round the table. He placed Ursula next to himself,
+which was a consolation, and sat down by her, close to her, though not a
+word, except of the most commonplace kind, could be said.
+
+Just then--what was it? an indescribable thrill through the house, the
+sound of a heavy fall. They all started up from their seats to hear what
+it was. Then Ursula, with a cry of apprehension, rushed downstairs, and
+the others after her. Betsy, alarmed, had come out of the kitchen,
+followed by her assistant, and was standing frightened, but irresolute;
+for Mr. May was not a man to be disturbed with impunity. And this might
+be nothing--the falling of a chair or a table, and nothing more.
+
+"What is it?" cried Ursula, in an anxious whisper.
+
+She was the leader in the emergency, for even Reginald held back. Then,
+after a moment's pause, she opened the door, and with a little cry
+rushed in. It was, as they feared, Mr. May who had fallen; but he had so
+far recovered himself as to be able to make efforts to rise. His face
+was towards them. It was very pale, of a livid colour, and covered with
+moisture, great beads standing on his forehead. He smiled vaguely when
+he saw the circle of faces.
+
+"Nothing--nothing--a faintness," he faltered, making again an effort to
+rise.
+
+"What is it, papa? Oh, what's the matter?" cried Janey, rushing at him
+and seizing him by the arm. "Get up! get up! what will people think? Oh,
+Ursula, how queer he looks, and he feels so heavy. Oh, please get up,
+papa!"
+
+"Go away," said Mr. May, "go away. It is--a faintness. I am very well
+where I am--"
+
+But he did not resist when Reginald and Northcote lifted him from the
+floor. He had a piece of paper tightly clasped in his hand. He gave them
+a strange suspicious look all round, and shrank when his eyes fell upon
+Phoebe. "Don't let her know," he said. "Take me away, take me away."
+
+"Reginald will take you upstairs, papa--to your room--to bed; you ought
+to go to bed. It is the long walk that has worn you out. Oh, Reginald,
+don't contradict him, let him go where he pleases. Oh, papa, where _are_
+you going?" cried Ursula, "the other way; you want to go to bed."
+
+"This way, take me--somewhere," said the sufferer; though he could not
+stand he made a step, staggering between them, and an effort to push
+towards the hall door, and when they directed him in the other direction
+to the staircase which led to his room, he struggled feebly yet
+violently with them. "No, no, no, not there!" he cried. The sudden
+confusion, dismay, and alarm into which the family was plunged, the
+strange sense of a catastrophe that came upon them, cannot be told.
+Ursula, calling out all the time that they were not to contradict him,
+insisted imperiously with words and gestures that he should be taken
+upstairs. Janey, altogether overcome, sat down on the lower steps of the
+staircase and cried. Reginald almost as pale as his father, and not
+saying a word, urged him towards the stairs. To get him up to his room,
+resisting as well as he could, and moaning inarticulate remonstrances
+all the way, was no easy business. As the procession toiled along Phoebe
+was left below, the only one in possession of her faculties. She sent
+the housemaid hurriedly off for the doctor, and despatched Betsy to the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hot water is always wanted," said Phoebe; "see that you have enough in
+case he should require a bath."
+
+Then with her usual decision she stepped back into the study. It was not
+vulgar curiosity which was in Phoebe's mind, nor did it occur to her that
+she had no right to investigate Mr. May's private affairs. If she could
+find what had done it, would not that be a great matter, something to
+tell the doctor, to throw light on so mysterious a seizure? Several bits
+of torn paper were lying on the floor; but only one of these was big
+enough to contain any information. It was torn in a kind of triangular
+shape, and contained a corner of a letter, a section of three lines,
+
+                                        "must have mistaken the date
+                                                   presented to-day,
+                                                      paid by Tozer,"
+
+was what she read. She could not believe her eyes. What transactions
+could there be between her grandfather and Mr. May? She secured the
+scrap of paper, furtively putting it into her pocket. It was better to
+say nothing either to the doctor, or any one else, of anything so
+utterly incomprehensible. It oppressed Phoebe with a sense of mystery and
+of personal connection with the mystery, which even her self-possession
+could scarcely bear up against. She went into the kitchen after Betsy,
+avowedly in anxious concern for the boiling of the kettle.
+
+"Hot water is good for everything," said Phoebe; "mamma says a hot bath
+is the best of remedies. Did Mr. May have anything--to worry him, Betsy?
+I suppose it is only fatigue, and that he has taken too long a walk."
+
+"I don't believe in the long walk, Miss," said Betsy, "it's that
+Cotsdean as is always a-tormenting with his dirty letters. When that man
+comes bothering here, master is always put out."
+
+"Cotsdean? I don't know the name."
+
+"Don't say nothing, Miss," said Betsy, sinking her voice, "but you take
+my word it's money. Money's at the bottom of everything. It's something,
+as sure as you're alive, as master has got to pay. I've been a deal with
+gentlefolks," added Betsy, "and ne'er a one of them can abide that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE SINNED-AGAINST.
+
+
+Phoebe's mind was full of many and somewhat agitating thoughts. She went
+upstairs with a restless haste, which she would have been the first to
+condemn, to the room where the others were congregated, when they had
+laid Mr. May on his bed with no small difficulty, and were now
+consulting what to do. Ursula had fallen a little from the position of
+command she had taken up. To get him to bed, to send for the doctor,
+these were evident practical steps to take; but after having done these
+she was bewildered and fell back upon her advisers.
+
+"We can't do anything, we can only wait and watch him," Reginald was
+saying, as Phoebe, herself unseen, looked in at the anxious party; and
+without asking any question she turned and went downstairs again, and
+hastily putting on her shawl and hat, went out, shutting the door
+softly, and ran home on the shady side of Grange Lane, where nobody
+could see her. It was a very quiet road, and she was not disturbed by
+any unreasonable alarms. It was still early when she got home, earlier
+than usual, and her intention was not to stay there at all, but to go
+back again and offer her assistance to Ursula, for whom she had left a
+message to this effect. Phoebe was full of genuine regard and
+friendliness towards the Mays.
+
+She felt that she had obligations to all of them, to the parson-father
+for submitting to her presence, nay, encouraging it, and to Ursula for
+receiving her with that affectionate fervour of friendship which had
+completely changed the tenor of Phoebe's life at Carlingford. She was
+obliged to them, and she knew that she was obliged to them. How
+different these three months would have been but for the Parsonage; what
+a heavy leaden-coloured existence without variety and without interest
+she must have lived; whereas it had gone by like a summer day, full of
+real life, of multiplied interests, of everything that it was most
+desirable to have. Not at home and in London could she have had the
+advantages she had enjoyed here. Phoebe was sensible enough--or perhaps
+we might use a less complimentary word--worldly enough, to count within
+those manifest benefits the advantage of seeing more of Clarence
+Copperhead, and of drawing him within the charmed circle of her
+influence, and she was grateful to the Mays, for this was their doing.
+And then, on the other hand, quite a different thing, her heart was
+touched and softened with gratitude to Reginald for loving her; of all
+her gratitudes, perhaps this indeed was the most truly felt. They had
+given her unbounded kindness, friendliness, everything that is most
+sweet to the solitary; and over and above, as if these were not enough,
+they had made her the exquisite present of a heart, the best thing that
+can be given or received by man. Phoebe felt herself penetrated with
+gratitude for all this, and she resolved that, if anything she could do
+could benefit the Mays, the effort on her part should not be wanting.
+"Paid by Tozer." What had been paid by Tozer? What had her grandfather
+to do with it. Could it be he who had lent money to Mr. May? Then Phoebe
+resolved, with a glow on her face, he should forgive his debtors. She
+went in with her mind fully made up, whatever might happen, to be the
+champion of the sufferer, the saviour of the family. This would show
+them that their kindness had been appreciated. This would prove even to
+Reginald that, though she would not sacrifice her own prospects by
+marrying him, yet that she was grateful to him, to the bottom of her
+heart. Her mind was full of generous ardour as she went in. She knew her
+power; her grandfather had never yet refused her anything, never
+resisted her, and it did not seem likely that he should begin now.
+
+Mrs. Tozer was by herself in the parlour, dozing over the fire. She woke
+up with a little start when Phoebe came in and smiled at the sight of
+her.
+
+"I didn't expect as you'd have come so soon," she said; "you've broke up
+early to-night, darling. Couldn't you have no music? I didn't look for
+you for an hour or more."
+
+"You know, grandmamma, it is Mr. Copperhead who teases me most for
+music, and he is not here."
+
+"Yes, yes, _I_ know," said the old lady, nodding her head with many
+smiles. "I know a deal more about it than you think for, Phoebe, and
+don't you think as I disapprove, for it's quite the other way. But you
+won't tell me as there ain't others as cares for music as well as young
+Copperhead. I've seen one as couldn't take his eyes off of you while you
+were playing."
+
+"Hush, grandmamma; the others like music for music's sake, or perhaps
+for my sake; but Mr Copperhead likes it for his own sake, and therefore
+he is the one who insists upon it. But this is not the reason why I have
+come home so soon. Mr. May has been taken suddenly ill."
+
+"Lord bless us!" cried Mrs. Tozer, "deary, deary me! I'm very sorry,
+poor gentleman, I hope it ain't anything serious. Though he's a church
+parson, he's a very civil-spoken man, and I see his children drag him
+into his own house one day as me and Tozer was passing. I said to Tozer
+at the time, you take my word, whatever folks say, a man as lets his
+children pull him about like that ain't a bad one. And so he's ill, poor
+man! Is there anything as we can do to help, my dear? They ain't rich,
+and they've been as kind to you as if you'd been one of their own."
+
+"I thought that would be the first thing you would ask me," said Phoebe
+gratefully, giving her a kiss--"dear grandmamma, it is like your kind
+heart--and I ran off to see that you were quite well and comfortable,
+thinking perhaps if you did not want me I might go back to poor Ursula
+for the night."
+
+To hear her granddaughter call Miss May by her Christian name was in
+itself a pleasure to Mrs. Tozer. She gave Phoebe a hug. "So you shall, my
+darling, and as for a bottle of good wine or that, anything as is in the
+house, you know you're welcome to it. You go and talk to your
+grandfather; I'm as comfortable as I can be, and if you'd like to run
+back to that poor child--"
+
+"Not before you are in bed," said Phoebe, "but if you please I'll go and
+talk to grandpapa as you said. There are things in which a man may be of
+use."
+
+"To be sure," said Mrs. Tozer, doubtfully; "your grandfather ain't a man
+as is much good in sickness; but I won't say as there ain't some
+things--"
+
+"Yes, grandmamma, I'll take your advice and run and talk to him; and by
+the time I come back you will be ready for bed."
+
+"Do, my dear," said Mrs. Tozer. She was very comfortable, and did not
+care to move just then, and, as Phoebe went away, looked after her with
+dreamy satisfaction. "Bless her! there ain't her match in Carlingford,
+and the gentlefolks sees it," said Mrs. Tozer to herself. But she had no
+idea how Phoebe's heart was beating as she went along the dimly-lighted
+passage, which led to a small room fitted up by Tozer for himself. She
+heard voices in earnest talk as she approached, but this made her only
+the more eager to go in, and see for herself what was going on. There
+could be no doubt, she felt sure of it, that the discussion here had
+some connection with the calamity _there_. What it was she had not the
+slightest idea; but that somehow the two were connected she felt
+certain. The voices were loud as she approached the door.
+
+"I'll find out who done it, and I'll punish him--as sure as that's my
+name, though I never put it on that there paper," Tozer was saying.
+Phoebe opened the door boldly, and went in. She had never seen her
+grandfather look so unlike himself. The knot of the big white
+neckerchief round his neck was pushed away, his eyes were red, giving
+out strange lights of passion. He was standing in front of the fireplace
+gesticulating wildly. Though it was now April and the weather very mild
+and genial, there were still fires in the Tozer sitting-rooms, and as
+the windows were carefully shut, Phoebe felt the atmosphere stifling. The
+other person in the room was a serious, large man, whom she had already
+seen more than once; one of the chief clerks in the bank where Tozer
+kept his account, who had an old acquaintance with the butterman, and
+who was in the habit of coming when the bank had anything to say to so
+sure a customer about rates of investment or the value of money. He was
+seated at one side of the fire, looking very grave and shaking his head
+as the other spoke.
+
+"That is very true, and I don't say anything against it. But, Mr. Tozer,
+I can't help thinking there's some one else in it than Cotsdean."
+
+"What one else? what is the good of coming here to me with a pack of
+nonsense? He's a poor needy creature as hasn't a penny to bless himself
+with, a lot of children, and a wife as drinks. Don't talk to me of some
+one else. That's the sort of man as does all the mischief. What, Phoebe!
+run away to your grandmother, I don't want you here."
+
+"I am very sorry to interrupt you, grandpapa. Mayn't I stay? I have
+something to say to you--"
+
+Tozer turned round and looked at her eagerly. Partly his own fancy, and
+partly his wife's more enlightened observations, had made him aware that
+it was possible that Phoebe might one day have something very interesting
+to reveal. So her words roused him even in the midst of his
+pre-occupation. He looked at her for a second, then he waved his hand
+and said,
+
+"I'm busy; go away, my dear, go away; I can't talk to you now."
+
+Phoebe gave the visitor a look which perplexed him; but which meant, if
+he could but have read it, an earnest entreaty to him to go away. She
+said to herself, impatiently, that he would have understood had he been
+a woman; but as it was he only stared with lack-lustre eyes. What was
+she to do?
+
+"Grandpapa," she said, decisively, "it is too late for business
+to-night. However urgent it may be, you can't do anything to-night. Why,
+it is nearly ten o'clock, and most people are going to bed. See Mr.
+----, I mean this gentleman--to-morrow morning the first thing; for you
+know, however anxious you may be, you can't do anything to-night."
+
+"That is true enough," he said, looking with staring eyes from her to
+his visitor, "and more's the pity. What had to be done should ha' been
+done to-day. It should have been done to-day, sir, on the spot, not left
+over night like this, to give the villain time to get away. It's a
+crime, Phoebe, that's what it is--that's the fact. It's a crime."
+
+"Well, grandpapa, I am very sorry; but it will not mend matters, will
+it, if sitting up like this, and agitating yourself like this, makes you
+ill? That will not do away with the crime. It is bed-time, and poor
+grandmamma is dozing, and wondering what has become of you.
+Grandpapa----"
+
+"Phoebe, go away, it ain't none of your business; you're only a bit of a
+girl, and how can you understand? If you think I'm going to sit down
+with it like an old fool, lose my money, and what is worse nor my money,
+let my very name be forged before my eyes--"
+
+Phoebe gave so perceptible a start that Tozer stopped short, and even the
+banking-clerk looked at her with aroused curiosity.
+
+"Forged!" she cried, with a gasp of dismay; "is it so bad as that?" She
+had never been more near betraying herself, showing a personal interest
+more close than was natural. When she saw the risk she was running, she
+stopped short and summoned all her energies. "I thought some one had
+pilfered something," she said with an attempt at a laugh. "I beg your
+pardon, grandpapa; but anyhow what can you do to-night? You are
+keeping--this gentleman--and yourself out of bed. Please put it off till
+to-morrow."
+
+"I think so too," said the banker's clerk. "I'll come to you in the
+morning as I go to the Bank. Perhaps I may have been wrong; but I think
+there's more in it than meets the eye. To-morrow we can have the man
+Cotsdean up and question him."
+
+"After he's had time to take himself off," said Tozer, vehemently. "You
+take my word he ain't in Carlingford, not now, let alone to-morrow."
+
+"Then that shows," said Phoebe, quietly, "that it is of no use making
+yourself ill to-night. Grandpapa, let this gentleman go--he wants to go;
+and I have something to say to you. You can do anything that is
+necessary to-morrow."
+
+"I think so indeed," said Mr. Simpson, of the Bank, getting up at last,
+"the young lady is quite right. We can't act hastily in a thing like
+this. Cotsdean's a man of good character, Mr. Tozer; all that has to be
+taken into account--and he is not a beggar. If he has done it, we can
+recover something at least; but if he has been taken advantage of--I
+think the young lady is a good counsellor, and that it's much the best
+to wait till to-morrow."
+
+Phoebe seized upon her grandfather's arm to restrain him, and held him
+back. "Good-night," she said; "grandpapa, stay with me, I have something
+to say to you. Listen; you don't think me very silly, do you, grandpapa
+dear?"
+
+"Silly!" he said, listening to the steps of the departing visitor as
+they receded along the passage. "What has a chit like you to do with
+business? I tell you it'll kill me. Me a-signing of accommodation bills
+for a bit of a small shopkeeper like that Cotsdean! I tell you it'll
+make an end of me, that will, unless I gets my money and clears myself
+afore the world. And here you've been and sent away Simpson, and who's
+to manage for me? I ain't a lawyer to know what to do. Get away, get
+away, and leave me to myself, I can't be disturbed with women-folks when
+I've got real business in hand."
+
+"I'll manage for you," said Phoebe; "you need not stare at me like that,
+grandpapa--"
+
+"Go out o' the room this moment, Miss!" he cried furious; "you! here's a
+sort of thing for me to put up with. Sam Tozer wasn't born yesterday
+that a bit of an impudent girl should take upon her to do for him.
+Manage for me! go out o' my sight; I'm a fool, am I, and in my dotage to
+have a pack of women meddling in my affairs?"
+
+Phoebe had never met with such an outburst of coarse anger in her life
+before, and it gave her a shock, as such assaults naturally do to people
+brought up softly, and used to nothing but kindness. For a moment she
+wavered, doubtful whether she should not proudly abandon him and his
+affairs altogether; but this was to abandon her friends too. She
+mastered herself accordingly, and the resentment which she could not
+help feeling--and stood pale but quiet opposite to the infuriated old
+man. His grey eyes seemed to give out sparks of fire. His hair bristled
+up on his head like the coat of a wild animal enraged. He went up and
+down on the hearth-rug like the same animal in a cage, shaking his fist
+at some imaginary culprit.
+
+"Once I get him, see if I let him go," he cried, his voice thick with
+fast-coming words and the foam of fury. "Let the bank do as it likes;
+I'll have him, I will. I'll see justice on the man as has dared to make
+free with my name. It ain't nothing to you, my name; but I've kep' it
+honest, and out of folk's mouths, and see if I'll stand disgrace thrown
+on it now. A bill on me as never had such a thing, not when I was
+struggling to get on! Dash him! damn him!" cried the old man,
+transported with rage. When he had come to this unusual and terrible
+length, Tozer paused dismayed. He had lost his temper before in his
+life; but very seldom had he been betrayed into anything so desperate as
+this. He stopped aghast, and cast a half-frightened look at Phoebe, who
+stood there so quiet, subdued out of her usual force, pale and
+disapproving--his own grandchild, a pastor's daughter! and he had
+forgotten himself thus before her. He blushed hotly, though he was not
+used to blushing, and stopped all at once. After such frightful
+language, so unbecoming a deacon of Salem, so unlike a consistent member
+of the connection, what could he say?
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe softly, "it is not good to be so angry; you are
+made to say things you are sorry for. Will you listen to me now? Though
+you don't think it, and perhaps won't believe it, I have found out
+something quite by chance--"
+
+He went up to her and clutched her by the arm. "Then what are you
+a-standing there for, like a figure in stone? Can't you out with it, and
+ease my mind? Out with it, I tell you! Do you want to drive me out of my
+senses?"
+
+He was so much excited that he shook her in the hot paroxysm of
+returning rage. Phoebe was not frightened, but indignation made her pale.
+She stood without flinching, and looked at him, till poor old Tozer let
+go his hold, and dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands.
+She was too generous to take advantage of him, but went on quietly, as
+if nothing had occurred.
+
+"Grandpapa, as I tell you, I have found out something by chance that has
+to do with the thing that troubles you; but I don't know quite what it
+is. Tell me first, and then--is this the thing?" said Phoebe, curiously,
+taking up a slip of paper from the table, a stamped piece of paper, in a
+handwriting which seemed horribly familiar to her, and yet strange.
+Tozer nodded at her gloomily, holding his head between his hands, and
+Phoebe read over the first few words before her with an aching heart, and
+eyes that seemed to ache in sympathy. Only a few words, but what
+evidence of guilt, what pitiful misery in them! She did not even think
+so much of the name on the back, which was and was not her grandfather's
+name. The rest of the bill was written in a hand disguised and changed;
+but she had seen a great deal of similar writing lately, and she
+recognized it with a sickening at her heart. In the kind of fatherly
+flirtation which had been innocently carried on between Phoebe and her
+friend's father, various productions of his in manuscript had been given
+to her to read. She was said, in the pleasant social jokes of the party,
+to be more skilled in interpreting Mr. May's handwriting than any of his
+family. She stood and gazed at the paper, and her eyes filled with tears
+of pain and pity. The openness of this self-betrayal, veiled as it was
+with a shadow of disguise which could deceive no one who knew him, went
+to Phoebe's heart. What could he have done it for? Mere money, the
+foolish expenses of every day, or, what would be more respectable, some
+vague mysterious claim upon him, which might make desperate expedients
+necessary? She stood, temporarily stupefied, with her eyes full, looking
+at that pitiful, terrible, guilty bit of paper, stupefied by the sudden
+realization of her sudden guess at the truth--though, indeed, the truth
+was so much more guilty and appalling than any guess of hers.
+
+"Well," said Tozer, "you've seen it, and now what do you think of it?
+That's my name, mind you, my name! I hope the Almighty will grant me
+patience. Stuck on to what they calls a kite, an accommodation bill.
+What do you think of that, Miss Phoebe? A-a-ah! if I had hold of him--if
+I had him under my fists--if I had him by the scruff of the neck!"
+
+"Grandpapa, doesn't it say in the Bible we are to forgive when harm is
+done to us?"
+
+Phoebe had begun to tremble all over; for the first time she doubted her
+own power.
+
+He got up again, and began to prowl about the table, round and round,
+with the same wild look in his eyes.
+
+"I am not one as would go again' Scripture," he said, gloomily; "but
+that's a spiritual meaning as you're too young to enter into. You don't
+suppose as Scripture would approve of crime, or let them escape as had
+wronged their fellow-creatures? There wouldn't be no business, no
+justice, no trade, on such a rule as that."
+
+"But, grandpapa--"
+
+"Don't you but me. You've seen me in good spirits and good temper,
+Phoebe, my girl; but you don't know old Sam Tozer when his spirit's up.
+D---- him!" cried the old man, striking his hand violently on the table;
+"and you may tell your father, as is a Minister, that I said so. The
+Bible's spiritual; but there's trade, and there's justice. A man ain't
+clear of what he's done because you forgive him. What's the law for
+else? Forgive! You may forgive him as fast as you like, but he's got to
+be punished all the same."
+
+"But not by you."
+
+"By the law!" cried Tozer. His inflamed eyes seemed to glare upon her,
+his rough grey hair bristled on his head, a hot redness spread across
+his face beneath his fiery eyes, which seemed to scorch the cheek with
+angry flames. "The law that ain't a individual. That's for our
+protection, whether we like it or not. What's that got to do with
+forgiving? Now, looking at it in a public way, I ain't got no right to
+forgive."
+
+"Grandpapa, you have always been so kind, always so good to everybody. I
+have heard of so many things you have done--"
+
+"That is all very well," said Tozer, not without a certain gloomy
+complacence, "so long as you don't touch _me_. But the moment as you
+touches me, I'm another man. That's what I can't bear, nor I won't. Them
+as tries their tricks upon me shan't be let off, neither for wife nor
+child; and don't you think, my girl, though you're Phoebe, junior, that
+you are a-going for to come over me."
+
+Phoebe could not but shiver in her fright and agitation; but distressed
+and excited as she was, she found means to take a step which was
+important indeed, though at the moment she did not fully realize its
+importance, and did it by instinct only. She had a handkerchief in her
+hand, and almost without consciousness of what she was doing, she
+crushed up the miserable bit of paper, which was the cause of so much
+evil and misery, in its folds. He was far too impassioned and excited to
+observe such a simple proceeding. It was the suggestion of a moment,
+carried out in another moment like a flash of lightning. And as soon as
+she had done this, and perceived what she had done, fortitude and
+comfort came back to Phoebe's soul.
+
+"You will not hear what I have found out, and now I do not choose to
+tell you, grandpapa," she said, with an air of offence. "Unless you wish
+to be ill, you will do much better to go to bed. It is your usual hour,
+and I am going to grandmamma. Say good-night, please. I am going out
+again to stay all night. Mr. May is ill, and I ought to help poor
+Ursula."
+
+"You go a deal after them Mays," said Tozer, with a cloud over his face.
+
+"Yes. I wonder whom else I should go after? Who has been kind to me in
+Carlingford except the Mays? Nobody. Who has asked me to go to their
+house, and share everything that is pleasant in it? None of your Salem
+people, grandpapa. I hope I am not ungrateful, and whatever happens, or
+whatever trouble they are in," cried Phoebe, fervently, "I shall stand up
+for them through thick and thin, wherever I go."
+
+The old man looked at her with a startled look.
+
+"You speak up bold," he said; "you won't get put upon for want of
+spirit; and I don't know as what you're saying ain't the right
+thing--though I don't hold with the Church, nor parsons' ways. I'd do a
+deal myself, though you think me so hard and cross, for folks as has
+been kind to you."
+
+"I know you will, grandpapa," said Phoebe, with a slight emphasis which
+startled him, though he did not know why; and she kissed him before she
+went to her grandmother, which she did with a perfectly composed and
+tranquil mind. It was astonishing how the crackle of that bit of paper
+in her handkerchief calmed and soothed her. She recovered her breath,
+her colour, and her spirits. She ran up to her room and changed her
+dress, which was silk, for a soft merino one, which made no rustling;
+and then she folded the bill carefully, and put it into the safe keeping
+of the little purse which she always carried in her pocket. No one would
+think of searching for it there, and she would always have it at hand
+whatever happened. When she had made these needful arrangements, she
+went to old Mrs. Tozer, and took her comfortably upstairs. Never was
+there a more devoted nurse. The old lady chatted cheerfully, yet
+sympathetically, of the poor gentleman and his illness, with the
+half-satisfaction of an invalid in hearing of some one else who is ill.
+
+"And be sure you take him some of the port wine as the doctor ordered,
+and Tozer paid that dear for. I don't care for it, not a bit, Phoebe. I'd
+sooner have it from the grocer's, at two shillings a bottle. That's what
+I've always been used to, when I did take a glass of wine now and again.
+But I dare say as Mr. May would like it, poor gentleman."
+
+When Mrs. Tozer had laid her head, all nodding with white muslin frills,
+edged with cotton lace, upon her pillow, Phoebe, noiseless in her soft
+merino gown, went back, accompanied by Martha, to the Parsonage, where
+Ursula's careworn face lighted a little at sight of her. Ursula had left
+her father for the moment in Betsy's care, to get something that was
+wanted, and she stole into the dining-room on hearing of her friend's
+arrival, and talked a little in a whisper, though the sick man was on
+the upper floor, and could not possibly have heard anything. Northcote
+was still there, sitting with Reginald, too anxious and excited to go
+away; and they all conversed in whispers, the three of them talking
+together for the benefit of the new-comer.
+
+"Not paralysis; at least, he does not think so; a great mental
+shock--but we can't tell a bit what it was--coming when he was
+dreadfully tired, and not able to bear it."
+
+They all spoke together, each of them saying a few words, and kept close
+together in the centre of the room, a curious little half-frightened
+group, overawed and subdued by the sudden change and strange calamity
+dropt into their midst. Phoebe seemed to bring them new life and hope.
+
+"If it is going to be an illness," she said, "you gentlemen had better
+go home and go to bed, to be able to help us when we want help. Anyhow,
+what good can they do, Ursula? They had much better go to bed."
+
+Ursula looked at them with a certain regret; though they could not do
+much good, it was a relief to come and whisper a few words to them now
+and then, giving them news of the patient. But Phoebe was right, and
+there was nothing to be said against her decision. The two young women
+and the faithful Betsy were enough, and, indeed, more than enough to
+watch over Mr. May.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+A MORNING'S WORK.
+
+
+"Go and lie down for an hour," whispered Phoebe. "I am not sleepy at all.
+I have sat up before, and never felt it, you never did, I can see it in
+your poor little white face; and besides, I am steadier, because I am
+not so anxious. Now go, Ursula, if you are really fond of me, as you
+say--"
+
+"Oh, Phoebe! if you think he is a little better. Oh, how horrible it is
+to be sleepy, as if you were all body, and had no heart at all!"
+
+"You have plenty of heart, but you have never been used to this nursing.
+Leave your door open, so that I may call you in a moment. I have sat up
+often. Now go, to please me," said Phoebe. She had another object than
+mere rest to her friend, who at last, very much ashamed and crying
+softly, yet so weary that nothing on this earth seemed so desirable to
+her as sleep, crept to her room, and lay down there as the pale morning
+began to dawn. Betsy slept heavily in an easy-chair outside the door of
+the sick-room. She was there at hand in case anything was wanted, but
+she was happily unconscious where she was, sleeping the sleep of hard
+work and a mind undisturbed. Phoebe had seen that the patient was
+stirring out of the dull doze in which his faculties had been entirely
+stilled and stupefied. He was rousing to uneasiness, if not to full
+consciousness. Two or three times he made a convulsive movement, as if
+to raise himself; once his eyes, which were half open, seemed to turn
+upon her with a vague glimmer of meaning. How strangely she felt towards
+him, as she sat there in the grey of the morning, sole guardian, sole
+confidant of this erring and miserable man! The thought ran through her
+with a strange thrill. He was nothing to her, and yet he was absolutely
+in her power, and in all heaven and earth there seemed no one who was
+capable of protecting him, or cared to do so, except herself only. She
+sat looking at him with a great pity in her mind, determined to be his
+true protector, to deliver him from what he himself had done. She had
+not realized at first what it was he had done, and indeed it was only
+now that its full enormity, or rather its full consequences (which were
+the things that affected her most urgently), made themselves apparent
+to her. Generalizations are unsafe things; and whether it was because
+she was a woman that Phoebe, passing over the crime, fixed her thoughts
+upon the punishment, I do not venture to say; but she did so. After all
+a few lines of writing on a bit of paper is not a crime which affects
+the imagination of the inexperienced. Had it been a malicious slander
+Phoebe would have realized the sin of it much more clearly; but the copy
+of her grandfather's signature did not wound her moral sense in the same
+way, though it was a much more serious offence. That Mr. May could have
+intended to rob him of the money appeared impossible to her; and no
+doubt the borrowing of the signature was wrong--very wrong. Yes, of
+course it was horribly, fatally wrong; but still it did not set her
+imagination aglow with indignant horror, as smaller affairs might have
+done. But the consequences--disgrace, ruin, the loss of his position,
+the shame of his profession, moral death indeed, almost as frightful as
+if he had been hanged for murder. She shivered as she sat by him, veiled
+by the curtain, and thought of her grandfather's vindictive fierceness;
+only she stood between him and destruction, and Phoebe felt that it was
+by no legitimate means that she was doing so, not by her influence over
+her grandfather as she had hoped, but only by an unjustifiable expedient
+which in itself was a kind of crime. This, however, brought a slight
+smile on her face. She took out her little purse from her pocket, and
+looked at the bit of paper carefully folded in it. The faint perfume of
+the Russia leather had already communicated itself to the document,
+which had not been so pleasant in Tozer's hands. As she looked at it
+lying peacefully on her lap, her attention was suddenly called by the
+patient, who sat upright and looked furtively about him, with his hand
+upon the coverings ready to throw them off. His ghastly white face
+peered at her from behind the curtain with wild eagerness--then relaxed,
+when he met her eye, into a kind of idiot smile, a painful attempt to
+divert suspicion, and he fell back again with a groan. The trance that
+had stupefied him was over; he had recovered some kind of consciousness,
+how much or how little she could not tell. His mind now seemed to be set
+upon hiding himself, drawing his coverings over him, and concealing
+himself with the curtain, at which he grasped with an excess of force
+which neutralized itself.
+
+"Mr. May," said Phoebe, softly. "Mr. May! do you know me?"
+
+She could not tell what answer he made, or if he made any answer. He
+crouched down under the bed-clothes, pulling them over his face, trying
+to hide himself from her; from which she divined that he did recognize
+her, confused though his faculties were. Then a hoarse murmuring sound
+seemed to come out of the pillow. It was some time before she could make
+out what it was.
+
+"Where am I?" he said.
+
+With the lightning speed of sympathy and pity, Phoebe divined what his
+terror was. She said, almost whispering,
+
+"At home, in your own bed--at home! and safe. Oh, don't you know me--I
+am Phoebe." Then after a pause, "Tozer's granddaughter; do you know me
+now?"
+
+The strange, scared, white-faced spectre shrank under his covering, till
+she could see no more of him except two wild eyes full of terror which
+was almost madness.
+
+"Listen!" she said eagerly, "try to understand! Oh, Mr. May, try to
+understand! I know about it--I know everything, and you are safe--quite
+safe; you need not have any fear!"
+
+He did not follow what she said, Phoebe perceived with pain and terror.
+Even the impression made by the first sight of her seemed to fade from
+his mind. His grasp relaxed upon the curtains and coverlet; and then the
+hoarse murmuring was resumed. Straining all her ears, she made out that
+he was not speaking to her or any one, but moaned to himself, saying the
+same words over and over again. It took her a long time to make out even
+what these words were. When at last she did make them out they filled
+the girl with an alarm beyond words.
+
+"It used to be hanging," he said. "Hard labour; can I bear hard labour?
+And the children--the children! Hard labour--for life. Hanging--was soon
+over. The children! I cannot bear it. I never was put to--hard
+labour--in all my life."
+
+Phoebe was too sick at heart to listen to more. She drew a little apart,
+but near enough to be seen by him. If he chose to spring up, to fling
+himself from the window, as she had heard of men doing in delirium, who
+could restrain him? Not she, a slight girl, nor Betsy, even if Betsy
+could be roused to the danger. She did not know how long the vigil which
+followed lasted, but it seemed like years to her; and when at last she
+was relieved by the joyful sound of Reginald's voice and footstep coming
+up the stairs, she felt disposed to run to the glass at once, and look
+if her hair had grown white, or her countenance permanently changed with
+the terror. Reginald, for his part, thought of his father in the second
+place only, as children are apt to do; he came up to her first, and
+with a thrill in his voice of surprise and emotion, addressed her
+hastily by her name.
+
+"Phoebe! is it _you_ who are watching--you, darling?"
+
+"Hush! I sent Ursula to bed; she was so tired. Don't leave him. I am
+frightened," cried Phoebe. "He is wandering in his mind. Oh, don't leave
+him, Mr. May!"
+
+"I will do exactly as you tell me," said Reginald, in a confused
+transport of feeling, the very anxiety in his mind helping to destroy
+his self-control. He stooped down and kissed her hands before she could
+divine what he was about to do. "Only you or an angel would have done
+it," he cried, with a tremulous voice.
+
+Was it not natural that he should think that some thought of him had
+made Phoebe so careful of his father? His heart was swelling, too full to
+hold, with a sudden joy, which expanded the pain, and made that greater
+too.
+
+"Oh, what does it matter about me? Mr. May, think what I am saying.
+Don't leave him for a moment. He might throw himself out of the window,
+he might do some harm to himself. Ah! again!" said Phoebe, trembling.
+
+But this time it was only a convulsive start, nothing more. The patient
+dropped down again softly upon his pillows, and relapsed into his doze,
+if doze it could be called, in which his faculties were but
+half-dormant, and his open eyes contradicted all the appearances of
+natural sleep.
+
+When she was relieved from the sick room--and now she had a double
+motive in getting away--Phoebe stole softly into the faded little place
+where Ursula lay, still fast asleep, though fully dressed, and bathed
+her face and strained eyes. "I wonder if my hair is grey underneath,"
+she said to herself. "I wonder nothing has happened to me." But a great
+deal had happened to her. Such a night is rarely encountered by so young
+a creature, or such an alarming charge undertaken. And sudden hot kisses
+upon little, cold, agitated hands, worn by fatigue to nervous perception
+of every touch, are very exciting and strange to a girl. They had given
+her a kind of electric shock. She was not in love with Reginald, and
+therefore she felt it all the more, and her heart was still throbbing
+with the suddenness and excitement of the incident. And after she had
+made an effort to get over this, there remained upon her mind the
+disturbing burden of a knowledge which no one shared, and a
+responsibility which was very heavy and terrible, and too tremendous for
+her slight shoulders. After she had made that hasty toilette, she sat
+down for a moment at the foot of the bed on which Ursula lay sleeping,
+unconscious of all those mysteries, and tried to think. It is not an
+easy process at any time, but after a long night's watching, terror, and
+agitation, it seemed more impossible to Phoebe than it had ever done
+before. And she had so much occasion for thought, so much need of the
+power of judging clearly. What was she to do?--not to-morrow, or next
+week, but now. She had taken the responsibility of the whole upon
+herself by the sudden step she had taken last night; but, bold as she
+had been, Phoebe was ignorant. She did not know whether her theft of the
+bill would really stop the whole proceedings, as had seemed so certain
+last night; and what if she was found out, and compelled to return it,
+and all her labour lost! A panic took possession of her as she sat there
+at the foot of Ursula's bed, and tried to think. But what is the use of
+trying to think? The more you have need of them, the more all mental
+processes fail you. Phoebe could no more think than she could fly. She
+sat down very seriously, and she rose up in despair, and, thought being
+no longer among her possibilities, resolved to do something at once,
+without further delay, which would be a consolation to herself at least.
+How wonderful it was to go out in the fresh early morning, and see the
+people moving about their work, going up and down with indifferent
+faces, quite unconcerned about the day and all it might bring forth! She
+went up Grange Lane with a curious uncertainty as to what she should do
+next, feeling her own extraordinary independence more than anything
+else. Phoebe felt like a man who has been out all night, who has his own
+future all in his hands, nobody having any right to explanation or
+information about what he may choose to do, or to expect from him
+anything beyond what he himself may please to give. Very few people are
+in this absolutely free position, but this was how Phoebe represented it
+to herself, having, like all other girls, unbounded belief in the
+independence and freedom possessed by men. Many times in her life she
+had regarded with envy this independence, which, with a sigh, she had
+felt to be impossible. But now that she had it, Phoebe did not like it.
+What she would have given to have gone to some one, almost any one, and
+told her dilemma, and put the burden a little off her shoulders! But she
+durst not say a word to any one. Very anxious and pre-occupied, she went
+up Grange Lane. Home? She did not know; perhaps she would have thought
+of something before she reached the gate of No. 6. And accordingly, when
+she had lifted her hand to ring the bell, and made a step aside to
+enter, an inspiration came to Phoebe. She turned away from the door and
+went on up into the town, cautiously drawing her veil over her face, for
+already the apprentices were taking down the shutters from her uncle's
+shop, and she might be seen. Cotsdean's shop was late of opening that
+morning, and its master was very restless and unhappy. He had heard
+nothing more about the bill, but a conviction of something wrong had
+crept into his mind. It was an altogether different sensation from the
+anxiety he had hitherto felt. This was no anxiety to speak of, but a
+dull pain and aching conviction that all was not right. When he saw the
+young lady entering the shop, Cotsdean's spirits rose a little, for a
+new customer was pleasant, and though he thought he had seen her, he did
+not know who she was. She was pleasant to look upon, and it was not
+often that any one came so early. He came forward with anxious
+politeness; the boy (who was always late, and a useless creature, more
+expense than he was worth) had not appeared, and therefore Cotsdean was
+alone.
+
+"I wanted to speak to you, please," said Phoebe. "Will you mind if I
+speak very plainly, without any ceremony? Mr. Cotsdean, I am Mr. Tozer's
+granddaughter, and live with him at No. 6 in the Lane. I dare say you
+have often seen me with Miss May."
+
+"Yes--yes, Miss, certainly," he said, with a thrill of alarm and
+excitement running through him. He felt his knees knock together under
+cover of the counter, and yet he did not know what he feared.
+
+"Will you please tell me frankly, in confidence, about----the bill which
+was brought to my grandfather yesterday?" said Phoebe, bringing out the
+question with a rush.
+
+Whether she was doing wrong, whether she might bring insult upon
+herself, whether it was an interference unwarrantable and unjustifiable,
+she could not tell. She was in as great a fright as Cotsdean, and more
+anxious still than he was; but fortunately her agitation did not show.
+
+"What am I to tell you about it, Miss?" said the man, terrified. "Is it
+Mr. Tozer as has sent you? Lord help me! I know as he can sell me up if
+he has a mind; but he knows it ain't me."
+
+"Don't speak so loud," said Phoebe, trembling too. "Nobody must hear; and
+remember, you are never, never to talk of this to any one else; but tell
+me plainly, that there may be no mistake. Is it--Mr. May?"
+
+"Miss Tozer," said Cotsdean, who was shaking from head to foot, "if
+that's your name--I don't want to say a word against my clergyman. He's
+stood by me many a day as I wanted him, and wanted him bad; but as I'm a
+living man, that money was never for me; and now he's a-gone and left me
+in the lurch, and if your grandfather likes he can sell me up, and
+that's the truth. I've got seven children," said the poor man, with a
+sob breaking his voice, "and a missus; and nothing as isn't in the
+business, not a penny, except a pound or two in a savings' bank, as
+would never count. And I don't deny as he could sell me up; but oh!
+Miss, he knows very well it ain't for me."
+
+"Mr. Cotsdean," said Phoebe, impressively, "you don't know, I suppose,
+that Mr. May had a fit when he received your note last night?"
+
+"Lord help us! Oh! God forgive me, I've done him wrong, poor gentleman,
+if that's true."
+
+"It is quite true; he is very, very ill; he can't give you any advice,
+or assist you in any way, should grandpapa be unkind. He could not even
+understand if you told him what has happened."
+
+Once more Cotsdean's knees knocked against each other in the shadow of
+the counter. His very lips trembled as he stood regarding his strange
+visitor with scared and wondering eyes.
+
+"Now listen, please," said Phoebe, earnestly; "if any one comes to you
+about the bill to-day, don't say anything about _him_. Say you got
+it--in the way of business--say anything you please, but don't mention
+_him_. If you will promise me this, I will see that you don't come to
+any harm. Yes, I will; you may say I am not the sort of person to know
+about business, and it is quite true. But whoever comes to you remember
+this--if you don't mention Mr. May, I will see you safely through it; do
+you understand?"
+
+Phoebe leant across the counter in her earnestness. She was not the kind
+of person to talk about bills, or to be a satisfactory security for a
+man in business; but Cotsdean was a poor man, and he was ready to catch
+at a straw in the turbid ocean of debt and poverty which seemed closing
+round him. He gave the required promise with his heart in his mouth.
+
+Then Phoebe returned down the street. Her fatigue began to tell upon her,
+but she knew that she dared not give in, or allow that she was fatigued.
+However heavy with sleep her eyes might be, she must keep awake and
+watchful. Nothing, if she could help it, must so much as turn the
+attention of the world in Mr. May's direction. By this time she was much
+too deeply interested to ask herself why she should do so much for Mr.
+May. He was her charge, her burden, as helpless in her hands as a child;
+and nobody but herself knew anything about it. It was characteristic of
+Phoebe's nature that she had no doubt as to being perfectly right in the
+matter, no qualm lest she should be making a mistake. She felt the
+weight upon her of the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a
+certain half-pleasing sense of the solemnity of the position and of its
+difficulties; but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or
+suffering her fancy to stray further than the facts justified; neither
+was she troubled by any idea of going beyond her sphere by interfering
+thus energetically in her friend's affairs. Phoebe did not easily take
+any such idea into her head. It seemed natural to her to do whatever
+might be wanted, and to act upon her own responsibility. Her
+self-confidence reached the heroic point. She knew that she was right,
+and she knew moreover that in this whole matter she alone was right.
+Therefore the necessity of keeping up, of keeping alert and vigilant, of
+holding in her hand the threads of all these varied complications was
+not disagreeable to her, though she fully felt its importance--nay,
+almost exaggerated it in her own mind if that could be. She felt the
+dangerous character of the circumstances around her, and her heart was
+sore with pity for the culprit, or as she called him to herself the
+chief sufferer; and yet all the same Phoebe felt a certain sense of
+satisfaction in the great role she herself was playing. She felt equal
+to it, though she scarcely knew what was the nest step she ought to
+take. She was walking slowly, full of thought, to Tozer's door,
+pondering upon this, when the sound of rapid wheels behind roused her
+attention, and looking up, surprised, she suddenly saw leaping out of a
+dog-cart the imposing figure of Clarence Copperhead, of whom she had not
+been thinking at all. He came down with a heavy leap, leaving the light
+carriage swinging and quivering behind him with the shock of his
+withdrawal.
+
+"Miss Phoebe!" he said, breathless; "here's luck! I came over to see you,
+and you are the first person I set eyes on--"
+
+He was rather heavy to make such a jump, and it took away his breath.
+
+"To see me?" she said, laughing, though her heart began to stir. "That
+is very odd. I thought you must have come to see poor Mr. May, who is so
+ill. You know--"
+
+"May be hanged!" said the young man; "I mean--never mind--I don't mean
+him any harm, though, by Jove, if you make such a pet of him, I don't
+know what I shall think. Miss Phoebe, I've come over post-haste, as you
+may see; chiefly to see you; and to try a horse as well," he added,
+"which the governor has just bought. He's a very good 'un to go; and
+pleased the governor would be if he knew the use I had put him to," he
+concluded, with a half-laugh.
+
+Phoebe knew as well as he did what that use was. He had brought his
+father's horse out for the first time, to carry him here to propose to
+her, in spite of his father. This was the delicate meaning which it
+amused him to think of. She understood it all, and it brought a glow of
+colour to her face; but it did not steel her heart against him. She knew
+her Clarence, and that his standard of fine feeling and mental elevation
+was not high.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I wish I could speak to you, Miss Phoebe,
+somewhere better than in the street. Yes, in the garden--that will do.
+It ain't much of a place either to make a proposal in, for that's what
+I've come to do; but you don't want me to go down on my knees, or make a
+fuss, eh? I got up in the middle of the night to be here first thing and
+see you. I never had a great deal to say for myself," said Clarence,
+"you won't expect me to make you fine speeches; but I _am_ fond of
+you--awfully fond of you, Phoebe, that's the truth. You suit me down to
+the ground, music and everything. There's no girl I ever met that has
+taken such a hold upon me as you."
+
+Phoebe heard him very quietly, but her heart beat loud. She stood on the
+gravel between the flower-borders, where the primroses were beginning to
+wither, and glanced over her life of the past and that of the future,
+which were divided by this moment like the two beds of flowers; one
+homely, not very distinguished, simple enough--the other exalted by
+wealth to something quite above mediocrity. Her heart swelled, full as
+it was with so many emotions of a totally different kind. She had gained
+a great prize, though it might not be very much to look at; more or
+less, she was conscious this golden apple had been hanging before her
+eyes for years, and now it had dropped into her hand. A gentle glow of
+contentment diffused itself all over her, not transport, indeed, but
+satisfaction, which was better.
+
+"Mr. Copperhead--" she said, softly.
+
+"No, hang it all, call me Clarence, Phoebe, if you're going to have me!"
+he cried, putting out his big hands.
+
+"Grandmamma is looking at us from the window," she said, hurriedly,
+withdrawing a little from him.
+
+"Well, and what does that matter? The old lady won't say a word, depend
+upon it, when she knows. Look here, Phoebe, I'll have an answer. Yes or
+no?"
+
+"Have you got your father's consent--Clarence?"
+
+"Ah, it is yes then! I thought it would be yes," he cried, seizing her
+in his arms. "As for the governor," added Clarence, after an interval,
+snapping his fingers, "I don't care _that_ for the governor. When I've
+set my mind on a thing, it ain't the governor, or twenty governors, that
+will stop me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK.
+
+
+"Have you any notion what was the cause?"
+
+"None," said Reginald. "Oh, no, none at all," said Ursula. They were all
+three standing at the door of the sick-room, in which already a great
+transformation had taken place. The doctor had sent a nurse to attend
+upon the patient. He had told them that their father was attacked by
+some mysterious affection of the brain, and that none of them were equal
+to the responsibility of nursing him. His children thus banished had set
+the door ajar, and were congregated round it watching what went on
+within. They did not know what to do. It was Northcote who was asking
+these questions; it was he who was most active among them. The others
+stood half-stunned, wholly ignorant, not knowing what to do.
+
+"I don't think papa is ill at all," said Janey. "Look how he glares
+about him, just as I've seen him do when he was writing a sermon, ready
+to pounce upon any one that made a noise. He is watching that woman. Why
+should he lie in bed like that, and be taken care of when he is just as
+well as I am? You have made a mistake all the rest of you. I would go
+and speak to him, and tell him to get up and not make all this fuss, if
+it was me."
+
+"Oh, Janey! hold your tongue," said Ursula; but she, too, looked
+half-scared at the bed, and then turned wistful inquiring eyes to
+Northcote. As for Reginald, he stood uncertain, bewildered, all the
+colour gone out of his face, and all the energy out of his heart. He
+knew nothing of his father's affairs, or of anything that might disturb
+his mind. His mind; all that his son knew of this was, that whatsoever
+things disturbed other minds his father had always contemptuously
+scouted all such nonsense. "Take some medicine," Mr. May had been in the
+habit of saying. "Mind! you mean digestion," was it nothing more than
+some complicated indigestion that affected him now?
+
+"Is it anything about--money?" said Northcote.
+
+They all turned and looked at him. The idea entered their minds for the
+first time. Yes, very likely it was money.
+
+"We have always been poor," said Ursula, wistfully. Northcote took her
+hand into his; none of them except Ursula herself paid any attention to
+this involuntary, almost unconscious caress, and even to her it seemed a
+thing of course, and quite natural that he should be one of them, taking
+his share in all that was going on.
+
+"I--am not poor," he said, faltering. "You must not think me
+presumptuous, May. But the first thing to be done is to get him out of
+his difficulties, if he is in difficulties--and you must let me help to
+do it. I think you and I should go out and see about it at once."
+
+"Go--where?" Reginald, like most young people, had taken little notice
+of his father's proceedings. So long as things went smoothly, what had
+he to do with them? When there was a pressure for money, he knew he
+should hear of it, at least in the shape of reproaches and sneers from
+his father at his useless life, and the expenses of the family. But even
+these reproaches had died away of late, since Reginald had possessed an
+income of his own, and since the revenues of the Parsonage had been
+increased by Clarence Copperhead. Reginald was more helpless than a
+stranger. He did not know where to turn. "Do you think we could ask him?
+I am almost of Janey's opinion. I don't think he is so ill as he seems."
+
+And then they all paused and looked again into the room. The nurse was
+moving softly about, putting everything in order, and Mr. May watched
+her from the bed with the keenest attention. His face was still livid
+and ghastly in colour; but his eyes had never been so full of eager fire
+in all the experience of his children. He watched the woman with a close
+attention which was appalling; sometimes he would put his covering half
+aside as if with the intention of making a spring. He was like some
+imprisoned animal seeing a possibility of escape. They looked at him,
+and then at each other, with a miserable helplessness. What could they
+do? He was their father, but they knew nothing about him, and just
+because he was their father they were more slow to understand, more dull
+in divining his secrets than if he had been a stranger. When there came
+at last a suggestion out of the silence, it was Northcote who spoke.
+
+"I don't see how you can leave him, May. It is plain he wants watching.
+I will go if you will let me--if Ursula will say I may," said the young
+man with a little break in his voice. This roused them all to another
+question, quite different from the first one. Her brother and sister
+looked at Ursula, one with a keen pang of involuntary envy, the other
+with a sharp thrill of pleasurable excitement. Oddly enough they could
+all of them pass by their father and leave him out of the question, more
+easily, with less strain of mind, than strangers could. Ursula for her
+part did not say anything; but she looked at her lover with eyes in
+which two big tears were standing. She could scarcely see him through
+those oceans of moisture, bitter and salt, yet softened by the sense of
+trust in him, and rest upon him. When he stooped and kissed her on the
+forehead before them all, the girl did not blush. It was a solemn
+betrothal, sealed by pain, not by kisses.
+
+"Yes, go," she said to him in words which were half sobs, and which he
+understood, but no one else.
+
+"You perceive," he said, "it is not a stranger interfering in your
+affairs, May, but Ursula doing her natural work for her father through
+me--her representative. God bless her! I am Ursula now," he said with a
+broken laugh of joy; then grew suddenly grave again. "You trust me,
+May?"
+
+Poor Reginald's heart swelled; this little scene so calmly transacted
+under his eyes, would it ever happen for him, or anything like it? No,
+his reason told him--and yet; still he was thinking but little of his
+father. He had his duty too, and this happened to be his duty; but no
+warmer impulse was in the poor young fellow's heart.
+
+And thus the day went on. It was afternoon already, and soon the sky
+began to darken. When his children went into the room, Mr. May took no
+notice of them--not that he did not know them; but because his whole
+faculties were fixed upon that woman who was his nurse, and who had all
+her wits about her, and meant to keep him there, and to carry out the
+doctor's instructions should heaven and earth melt away around her. She
+too perceived well enough how he was watching her, and being familiar
+with all the ways, as she thought, of the "mentally afflicted,"
+concluded in her mind that her new patient was further gone than the
+doctor thought.
+
+"I hope as you'll stay within call, sir," she said significantly to
+Reginald; "when they're like that, as soon as they breaks out they're as
+strong as giants; but I hope he won't break out, not to-day."
+
+Reginald withdrew, shivering, from the idea thus presented to him. He
+stole down to his father's study, notwithstanding the warning she had
+given him, and there with a sick heart set to work to endeavour to
+understand his father--nay, more than that, to try to find him out. The
+young man felt a thrill of nervous trembling come over him when he sat
+down in his father's chair and timidly opened some of the drawers. Mr.
+May was in many respects as young a man as his son, and Reginald and he
+had never been on those confidential terms which bring some fathers and
+sons so very close together. He felt that he had no business there
+spying upon his father's privacy. He could not look at the papers which
+lay before him. It seemed a wrong of the first magnitude, wrought
+treacherously, because of the helplessness of the creature most
+concerned. He could not do it. He thrust the papers back again into the
+drawer. In point of fact there were no secrets in the papers, nor much
+to be found out in Mr. May's private life. All its dark side might be
+inferred from, without being revealed in, the little book which lay
+innocently on the desk, and which Reginald looked over, thinking no
+harm. In it there were two or three entries which at length roused his
+curiosity. Cotsdean, October 10th. Cotsdean, January 12th. C. & T. April
+18th. What did this mean? Reginald remembered to have seen Cotsdean
+paying furtive visits in the study. He recollected him as one of the few
+poor people for whom his father had a liking. But what could there be
+between them? He was puzzled, and as Betsy was passing the open door at
+the time, called her in. The evening was falling quickly, the day had
+changed from a beautiful bright morning to a rainy gusty afternoon,
+tearing the leaves and blossoms from the trees, and whirling now and
+then a shower of snowy petals, beautiful but ill-omened snow, across the
+dark window. Beyond that the firmament was dull; the clouds hung low,
+and the day was gone before it ought. When Betsy came in she closed the
+door, not fastening it, but still, Reginald felt, shutting him out too
+much from the sick-bed, to which he might be called at any moment. But
+he was not alarmed by this, though he remarked it. He questioned Betsy
+closely as to his father's possible connection with this man. In such a
+moment, confidential, half-whispered interviews are the rule of a house.
+Every one has so much to ask; so much to say in reply; so many
+particulars to comment upon which the rest may have forgotten. She would
+have liked to enter upon the whole story, to tell how the master was
+took, and how she herself had thought him looking bad when he came in;
+but even to talk about Cotsdean was pleasant.
+
+"I told Miss Beecham," said Betsy, "and I told the other gentleman, Mr.
+Northcote, as was asking me all about it. It's months and months since
+that Cotsdean got coming here--years I may say; and whenever he came
+master looked bad. If you'll believe me, Mr. Reginald, it's money as is
+at the bottom of it all."
+
+"Money? hush, what was that? I thought I heard something upstairs."
+
+"Only the nurse, sir, as is having her tea. I'm ready to take my oath as
+it's money. I've been in service since I was nine years old," said
+Betsy, "I've had a deal of experience of gentlefolks, and it's always
+money as is the thing as sets them off their head. That's what it is. If
+that Cotsdean didn't come here something about money, never you believe
+me no more."
+
+"Cotsdean! a poor shopkeeper! what could he have to do with my father's
+affairs?" Reginald was not speaking to the woman, but drearily to
+himself. If this was the only clue to the mystery, what a poor clue it
+was!
+
+"I dunno, sir," said Betsy, "it ain't for me to tell; but one thing I'm
+sure of--Lord bless us, what's that?"
+
+Reginald rushed to the door, nearly knocking her down as he pushed her
+aside with his hand. When they got outside, it was only the hat-stand in
+the hall that had fallen, something having been torn off from it
+apparently in mad haste, and the door had opened and shut. Reginald
+rushed upstairs, where the nurse was sitting quietly at her tea, the
+bed-curtains being drawn.
+
+"All right, sir; he's in a nice sleep," said that functionary; "I didn't
+light no candles, not to disturb him, poor gentleman."
+
+Reginald tore the curtains aside, then turned and dashed downstairs, and
+out into the windy twilight. In that moment of stillness and darkness
+the patient had escaped. He could see a strange figure walking rapidly,
+already half way up Grange Lane, and rushed on in pursuit without taking
+thought of anything. The sick man had seized upon a long coat which had
+been hanging in the hall, and which reached to his heels. Reginald flew
+on, going as softly as he could, not to alarm him. Where could he be
+going, utterly unclothed except in this big coat? Was it simply madness
+that had seized him, nothing more or less? He followed, with his heart
+beating loudly. There seemed nobody about, no one to whom he could make
+an appeal to help him, even if he could overtake the rapidly progressing
+fugitive. But even while this thought crossed his mind, Reginald saw
+another figure, broad and tall, developing in the distance, coming
+towards them, which stopped short, and put out an arm to stop the
+flight. Even that moment gave him the advantage, and brought him near
+enough to make out that it was Mr. Copperhead.
+
+"The very man I want," he heard him say with his loud voice, putting his
+arm within that of Mr. May, who resisted, but not enough to attract the
+attention of the new-comer, as Reginald came up breathless and placed
+himself on his father's other side. The darkness prevented any
+revelation of the strange appearance of the fugitive, and Mr. Copperhead
+was not lively of perception in respect to people unconnected with
+himself.
+
+"You, too," he cried, nodding at Reginald, "come along. I've come to
+save that boy of mine from a little artful--Come, both of you. The sight
+of a young fellow like himself will shame him more than anything; and
+you, May, you're the very man I want--"
+
+"Not there, not there, for God's sake!" said Mr. May, with a hoarse cry,
+"not there, my God! Reginald! it used to be hanging. Do you mean to give
+me up?"
+
+"Hold him fast," Reginald whispered in desperation, "hold him fast! It
+is madness."
+
+"Lord bless us!" said Mr. Copperhead, but he was a man who was proud of
+his strength, and not given to timidity. He held his captive fast by the
+arm, while Reginald secured him on the other side. "Why, what's this,
+May? rouse yourself up; don't give in, man. No, you ain't mad, not a bit
+of you. Come along, wait here at Tozer's for me, while I do my business;
+and then I'll look after _you_. Come on."
+
+There was a violent but momentary struggle; then all at once the
+struggling man yielded and allowed himself to be dragged within the
+garden-door. Was it because an ordinary policeman, one of the most
+respectful servants of the law, who would have saluted Mr. May with the
+utmost reverence, was just then coming up? He yielded; but he looked at
+his son with a wild despair which made Reginald almost as desperate as
+himself in maddening ignorance and terror.
+
+"Ruin! ruin!" he murmured hoarsely, "worse than death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE CONFLICT.
+
+
+The day which had intervened between Phoebe's morning walk, and this
+darkling flight along the same road, had been full of agitation at the
+house of the Tozers. Phoebe, who would willingly have spared her lover
+anything more than the brief intercourse which was inevitable with her
+relations, could find no means of sending him away without breakfast.
+She had escaped from him accordingly, weary as she was, to make
+arrangements for such a meal as she knew him, even in his most
+sentimental mood, to love--a thing which required some time and
+supervision, though the house was always plentifully provided. When she
+had hastily bathed her face and changed her dress she came back to the
+room where she had left him, to find him in careless conversation with
+Tozer, who only half-recovered from the excitement of last night, but
+much overawed by a visit from so great a personage, had managed to put
+aside the matter which occupied his own thoughts, in order to carry on a
+kind of worship of Clarence, who was the son of the richest man he had
+ever heard of, and consequently appeared to the retired butterman a very
+demigod. Clarence was yawning loudly, his arms raised over his head in
+total indifference to Tozer, when Phoebe came into the room; and the old
+man seized upon the occasion of her entrance to perform another act of
+worship.
+
+"Ah, here's Phoebe at last. Mr. Copperhead's come in from the country, my
+dear, and he's going to make us proud, he is, by accepting of a bit of
+breakfast. I tell him it's a wretched poor place for him as has palaces
+at his command; but what we can give him is the best quality, that I
+answers for--and you're one as knows how things should be, even if we
+ain't grand ourselves."
+
+"Have you palaces at your command, Clarence?" she said, with a smile.
+Notwithstanding the fatigue of the night, the fresh air and her
+ablutions, and the agitation and commotion of her mind, made Phoebe
+almost more animated and brilliant than usual. Her eyes shone with the
+anxiety and excitement of the crisis, and a little, too, with the glory
+and delight of success; for though Clarence Copperhead was not very much
+to brag of in his own person, he still had been the object before her
+for some time back, and she had got him. And yet Phoebe was not
+mercenary, though she was not "in love" with her heavy lover in the
+ordinary sense of the word. She went towards him now, and stood near
+him, looking at him with a smile. He was a big, strong fellow, which is
+a thing most women esteem, and he was not without good looks; and he
+would be rich, and might be thrust into a position which would produce
+both honour and advantage; and lastly, he was her own, which gives even
+the most indifferent article a certain value in some people's eyes.
+
+"Palaces? I don't know, but nice enough houses; and you know you like a
+nice house, Miss Phoebe. Here, I haven't said a word to the old
+gentleman. Tell him; I ain't come all this way for nothing. You've
+always got the right words at your fingers' end. Tell him, and let's get
+it over. I think I could eat some breakfast, I can tell you, after that
+drive."
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, slightly tremulous, "Mr. Copperhead wishes me
+to tell you that--Mr. Copperhead wishes you to know why----"
+
+"Bless us!" cried Clarence with a laugh. "Here is a beating about the
+bush! She has got her master, old gentleman, and that is what she never
+had before. Look here, I'm going to marry Phoebe. That's plain English
+without any phrases, and I don't know what you could say to better it.
+Is breakfast ready? I've earned it for my part."
+
+"Going to marry Phoebe!" Tozer gasped. He had heard from his wife that
+such a glory was possible; but now, when it burst upon him, the dazzling
+delight seemed too good to be true. It thrust the forgery and everything
+out of his head, and took even the power of speech from him. He got up
+and gazed at the young people, one after the other, rubbing his hands,
+with a broad grin upon his face; then he burst forth all at once in
+congratulation.
+
+"God bless you, sir! God bless you both! It's an honour as I never
+looked for. Rising in the world was never no thought of mine; doing your
+duty and trusting to the Lord is what I've always stood by; and it's
+been rewarded. But she's a good girl, Mr. Copperhead; you'll never
+regret it, sir. She's that good and that sensible, as I don't know how
+to do without her. She'll do you credit, however grand you may make her;
+and if it's any comfort to you, as she's connected with them as knows
+how to appreciate a gentleman--" said Tozer, breaking down in his
+enthusiasm, his voice sinking into a whisper in the fulness of his
+heart.
+
+"Grandpapa!" said Phoebe, feeling sharply pricked in her pride, with a
+momentary humiliation, "there are other things to be thought of," and
+she gave him a look of reproach which Tozer did not understand, but
+which Clarence did vaguely. Clarence, for his part, liked the homage,
+and was by no means unwilling that everybody should perceive his
+condescension and what great luck it was for Phoebe to have secured him.
+He laughed, pleased to wave his banner of triumph over her,
+notwithstanding that he loved her. He _was_ very fond of her, that was
+true; but still her good fortune in catching him was, for the moment,
+the thing most in his thoughts.
+
+"Well, old gentleman," he said, "you ain't far wrong there. She _is_ a
+clever one. We shall have a bad time of it with the governor at first;
+for, of course, when there's no money and no connections, a man like the
+governor, that has made himself, ain't likely to be too well pleased."
+
+"As for money, Mr. Copperhead, sir," said Tozer with modest pride, "I
+don't see as there's anything to be said against Phoebe on that point.
+Her mother before her had a pretty bit of money, though I say it, as
+shouldn't--"
+
+"Ah, yes--yes," said Clarence. "To be sure; but a little bit of coin
+like that don't count with us. The governor deals in hundreds of
+thousands; he don't think much of your little bits of fortunes. But I
+don't mind. She suits me down to the ground, does Phoebe; and I don't
+give that for the governor!" cried the young man valiantly. As for Phoebe
+herself, it is impossible to imagine any one more entirely put out of
+her place, and out of all the comfort and satisfaction in her own
+initiative which she generally possessed, than this young woman was,
+while these two men talked over her so calmly. It is doubtful whether
+she had ever been so set aside out of her proper position in her life,
+and her nerves were overstrained and her bodily strength worn out, which
+added to the sense of downfall. With almost a touch of anger in her tone
+she, who was never out of temper, interrupted this talk.
+
+"I think breakfast is ready, grandpapa. Mr. Clarence Copperhead wants
+some refreshment after his exertions, and in preparation for the
+exertions to come. For I suppose your papa is very likely to follow you
+to Carlingford," she added, with a low laugh, turning to her lover. "I
+know Mr. Copperhead very well, and I should not like my first meeting
+with him after I had thwarted all his views."
+
+"Phoebe! you don't mean to desert me? By Jove! I'll face him and twenty
+like him if you'll only stand by me," he cried; which was a speech that
+made amends.
+
+She suffered him to lead her into breakfast less formally than is the
+ordinary fashion, and his hand on her trim waist did not displease the
+girl. No; she understood him, knew that he was no great things; but yet
+he was hers, and she had always meant him to be hers, and Phoebe was
+ready to maintain his cause in the face of all the world.
+
+The breakfast was to Clarence's taste, and so was the company--even old
+Tozer, who sat with his mouth agape in admiration of the young
+potentate, while he recounted his many grandeurs. Clarence gave a great
+deal of information as to prices he had paid for various things, and the
+expenses of his living at Oxford and elsewhere, as he ate the kidneys,
+eggs, and sausages with which Phoebe's care had heaped the table. They
+had no _pâté de foie gras_, it is true, but the simple fare was of the
+best quality, as Tozer had boasted. Mrs. Tozer did not come downstairs
+to breakfast, and thus Phoebe was alone with the two men, who suited each
+other so much better than she could have hoped. The girl sat by them
+languidly, though with a beating heart, wondering, as girls will wonder
+sometimes, if all men were like these, braggards and believers in brag,
+worshippers of money and price. No doubt, young men too marvel when they
+hear the women about them talking across them of _chiffons_, or of
+little quarrels and little vanities. Phoebe had more brains than both of
+her interlocutors put together, and half-a-dozen more added on; but she
+was put down and silenced by the talk. Her lover for the moment had
+escaped from her. She could generally keep him from exposing himself in
+this way, and turn the better side of him to the light; but the presence
+of a believer in him turned the head of Clarence. She could not control
+him any more.
+
+"A good horse is a deuced expensive thing," he said; "the governor gave
+a cool hundred and fifty for that mare that brought me over this
+morning. He bought her from Sir Robert; but he didn't know, Phoebe, the
+use I was going to put her to. If he'd known, he'd have put that hundred
+and fifty in the sea rather than have his beast rattled over the country
+on such an errand." Here he stopped in the midst of his breakfast, and
+looked at her admiringly. "But I don't repent," he added. "I'd do it
+again to-morrow if it wasn't done already. If you stand by me, I'll face
+him, and twenty like him, by Jove!"
+
+"You don't say nothing," said her grandfather. "I wouldn't be so
+ungrateful. Gentlemen like Mr. Copperhead ain't picked up at every
+roadside."
+
+"They ain't, by Jove!" said Clarence; "but she's shy, that's all about
+it," he added, tenderly; "when we're by ourselves, I don't complain."
+
+Poor Phoebe! She smiled a dismal smile, and was very glad when breakfast
+was over. After that she took him into the garden, into the bright
+morning air, which kept her up, and where she could keep her Clarence in
+hand and amuse him, without allowing this revelation of the worst side
+of him. While they were there, Martha admitted the visitor of yesterday,
+Mr. Simpson from the Bank, bringing back to Phoebe's mind all the other
+matter of which it had been full.
+
+"Don't you think you ought to go and see about the horse and the
+dog-cart?" she said suddenly, turning to her lover with one of those
+sudden changes which kept the dull young man amused. "You don't know
+what they may be about."
+
+"They can't be up to much," said Clarence. "Thank you, Miss Phoebe, I
+like you better than the mare."
+
+"But you can't be here all day, and I can't be here all day," she said.
+"I must look after grandmamma, and you ought to go down and inquire
+after poor Mr. May--he is so ill. I have been there all night, helping
+Ursula. You ought to go and ask for him. People don't forget all the
+duties of life because--because a thing of this sort has happened--"
+
+"Because they've popped and been accepted," said graceful Clarence. "By
+Jove! I'll go. I'll tell young May. I'd like to see his face when I tell
+him the news. You may look as demure as you like, but you know what
+spoons he has been upon you, and the old fellow too--made me as jealous
+as King Lear sometimes," cried the happy lover, with a laugh. He meant
+Othello, let us suppose.
+
+"Nonsense, Clarence! But go, please go. I must run to grandmamma."
+
+Mr. Simpson had gone in, and Phoebe's heart had begun to beat loudly in
+her throat; but it was not so easy to get rid of this ardent lover, and
+when at last he did go, he was slightly sulky, which was not a state of
+mind to be encouraged. She rushed upstairs to her grandmother's room,
+which was over the little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could
+already hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the
+noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage. Phoebe
+never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who kissed and wept over
+her, exulting in the news.
+
+"I ain't been so pleased since my Phoebe told me as she was to marry a
+minister," said Mrs. Tozer, "and this is a rise in life a deal grander
+than the best of ministers. But, bless your heart, what shall I do
+without you?" cried the old woman, sobbing.
+
+Presently Tozer came in, with an air of angry abstraction, and began to
+search through drawers and boxes.
+
+"I've lost something," he answered, with sombre looks, to his wife's
+inquiry. Phoebe busied herself with her grandmother, and did not ask what
+it was. It was only when he had searched everywhere that some chance
+movement directed his eyes to her. She was trembling in spite of
+herself. He came up to her, and seized her suddenly by the arm. "By
+George!" he cried, "I'm in a dozen minds to search you!"
+
+"Tozer! let my child alone. How dare you touch her--her as is as good
+as Mr. Copperhead's lady? What's she got to do with your dirty papers?
+Do you think Phoebe would touch them--with a pair of tongs?" cried the
+angry grandmother.
+
+Phoebe shrank with all the cowardice of guilt. Her nerves were unstrung
+by weariness and excitement. And Tozer, with his little red eyes blazing
+upon her, was very different in this fury of personal injury, from the
+grandfather of the morning, who had been ready to see every virtue in
+her.
+
+"I believe as you've got it!" he cried, giving her a shake. It was a
+shot at a venture, said without the least idea of its truth; but before
+the words had crossed his lips, he felt with a wild passion of rage and
+wonder that it was true. "Give it up, you hussy!" he shrieked, with a
+yell of fury, his face convulsed with sudden rage, thickly and with
+sputtering lips.
+
+"Tozer!" cried his wife, flinging herself between them, "take your hands
+off the child. Run, run to your room, my darling; he's out of his
+senses. Lord bless us all, Sam, are you gone stark staring mad?"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, trembling, "if I had it, you may be sure it
+would be safe out of your way. I told you I knew something about it, but
+you would not hear me. Will you hear me now? I'll make it up to
+you--double it, if you like. Grandmamma, it is a poor man he would drive
+to death if he is not stopped. Oh!" cried Phoebe, clasping her hands,
+"after what has happened this morning, will you not yield to me? and
+after all the love you have shown me? I will never ask anything, not
+another penny. I will make it up; only give in to me, give in to me--for
+once in my life! Grandpapa! I never asked anything from you before."
+
+"Give it up, you piece of impudence! you jade! you d--d deceitful----"
+
+He was holding her by the arm, emphasizing every new word by a violent
+shake, while poor old Mrs. Tozer dropped into a chair, weeping and
+trembling.
+
+"Oh! it ain't often as he's like this; but when he is, I can't do
+nothing with him, I can't do nothing with him!" she cried.
+
+But Phoebe's nerves strung themselves up again in face of the crisis. She
+shook him off suddenly with unexpected strength, and moving to a little
+distance, stood confronting him, pale but determined.
+
+"If you think you will get the better of me in this way, you are
+mistaken," she said. "I am not your daughter; how dare you treat me so?
+Grandmamma, forgive me. I have been up all night. I am going to lie
+down," said Phoebe. "If grandpapa has anything more to say against me, he
+can say it to Clarence. I leave myself in his hands."
+
+Saying this, she turned round majestically, but with an anxious heart,
+and walked away to her room, every nerve in her trembling. When she got
+there, Phoebe locked the door hastily, in genuine terror; and then she
+laughed, and then she cried a little. "And to think it was here all the
+time!" she said to herself, taking out the little Russia leather purse
+out of her pocket. She went into the closet adjoining her room, and
+buried it deep in her travelling trunk which was there, relieving
+herself and her mind of a danger. Then--Phoebe did what was possibly the
+most sensible thing in the world, in every point of view. She went to
+bed; undressed herself quietly, rolled up her hair, and lay down with a
+grateful sense of ease and comfort. "When Clarence comes back he will be
+disappointed; but even for Clarence a little disappointment will be no
+harm," said the sensible young woman to herself. And what comfort it was
+to lie down, and feel all the throbs and pulses gradually subsiding, the
+fright going off, the satisfaction of success coming back, and gradually
+a slumberous, delicious ease stealing over her. Of all the clever things
+Phoebe had done in her life, it must be allowed that there was not one so
+masterly as the fact that she, then and there, went to sleep.
+
+All this had taken up a good deal of time. It was twelve when Mr.
+Simpson of the bank disturbed the lovers in the garden, and it was one
+o'clock before Phoebe put a stop to all Tozer's vindictive plans by going
+to bed. What he said to Mr. Simpson, when he went back to him, is not on
+record. That excellent man of business was much put out by the long
+waiting, and intimated plainly enough that he could not allow his time
+to be thus wasted. Mr. Simpson began to think that there was something
+very strange in the whole business. Tozer's house was turned upside down
+by it, as he could hear by the passionate voices and the sound of crying
+and storming in the room above; but Cotsdean was secure in his shop,
+apparently fearing no evil, as he had seen as he passed, peering in with
+curious eyes. What it meant he could not tell; but it was queer, and did
+not look as if the business was straight-forward.
+
+"When you find the bill, or make up your mind what to do, you can send
+for me," he said, and went away, suspicious and half-angry, leaving
+Tozer to his own devices. And the afternoon passed in the most
+uncomfortable lull imaginable. Though he believed his granddaughter to
+have it, he looked again over all his papers, his drawers, his
+waste-basket, every corner he had in which such a small matter might
+have been hid; but naturally his search was all in vain. Clarence
+returned in the afternoon, and was received by poor old Mrs. Tozer, very
+tremulous and ready to cry, who did not know whether she ought to
+distrust Phoebe or not, and hesitated and stumbled over her words till
+the young man thought his father had come in his absence, and that Phoebe
+had changed her mind. This had the effect of making him extremely eager
+and anxious, and of subduing the bragging and magnificent mood which the
+triumphant lover had displayed in the morning. He felt himself "taken
+down a peg or two," in his own fine language. He went to the Parsonage
+and tried very hard to see Ursula, to secure her help in case anything
+had gone wrong, and then to Reginald, whose vexation at the news he felt
+sure of, and hoped to enjoy a sight of. But he could see no one in the
+absorbed and anxious house. What was he to do? He wandered about,
+growing more and more unhappy, wondering if he had been made to fling
+himself into the face of fate for no reason, and sure that he could not
+meet his father without Phoebe's support. He could not even face her
+relations. It was very different from the day of triumph he had looked
+for; but, as Phoebe had wisely divined, this disappointment, and all the
+attending circumstances, did not do him any harm.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Northcote called. He too had acted on
+the information given by Betsy, and had gone to Cotsdean, who made him
+vaguely aware that Tozer had some share in the business in which Mr. May
+was involved, and who, on being asked whether it could be set right by
+money, grew radiant and declared that nothing could be easier. But when
+Northcote saw Tozer, there ensued a puzzling game at cross purposes, for
+Tozer had no notion that Mr. May had anything to do with the business,
+and declined to understand.
+
+"I ain't got nothing to do with parsons, and if you'll take my advice,
+sir, it 'ud be a deal better for you to give 'em up too. You're
+a-aggravating the connection for no good, you are," said Tozer, surely
+by right of his own troubles and perplexities, and glad to think he
+could make some one else uncomfortable too.
+
+"I shall do in that respect as I think proper," said Northcote, who was
+not disposed to submit to dictation.
+
+"Fact is, he's a deal too well off for a minister," Tozer said to his
+wife when the young man disappeared, "they're too independent that sort;
+and I don't know what he means by his Mays and his fine folks. What have
+we got to do with Mr. May?"
+
+"Except that he's been good to the child, Tozer; we can't forget as he's
+been very good to the child."
+
+"Oh, dash the child!" cried the old man, infuriated; "if you say much
+more I'll be sorry I ever let you see her face. What has she done with
+my bill?"
+
+"Bill? if it's only a bill what are you so put out about!" cried Mrs.
+Tozer. "You'll have dozens again at Christmas, if that is all you want."
+
+But the laugh was unsuccessful, and the old man went back to his room to
+nurse his wrath and to wonder what had come to him. Why had his
+granddaughter interfered in his business, and what had he to do with Mr.
+May?
+
+Phoebe got up refreshed and comfortable when it was time for the family
+tea, and came down to her lover, who had come back, and was sitting very
+dejected by old Mrs. Tozer's side. She was fresh and fair, and in one of
+her prettiest dresses, having taken pains for him; and notwithstanding
+Tozer's lowering aspect, and his refusal to speak to her, the meal
+passed over very cheerfully for the rest of the party, and the two young
+people once more withdrew to the garden when it was over. The presence
+of Clarence Copperhead protected Phoebe from all attack. Her grandfather
+dared not fly out upon her as before, or summon her to give up what she
+had taken from him. Whatever happened, this wonderful rise in life, this
+grand match could not be interfered with. He withdrew bitter and
+exasperated to his own den, leaving his poor wife crying and wretched in
+the family sitting-room. Mrs. Tozer knew that her husband was not to be
+trifled with, and that, though the circumstances of Phoebe's betrothal
+subdued him for the moment, this effect in all probability would not
+last; and she sat in terror, watching the moments as they passed, and
+trembling to think what might happen when the young pair came in again,
+or when Clarence at last went away, leaving Phoebe with no protection but
+herself. Phoebe, too, while she kept her dull companion happy, kept
+thinking all the while of the same thing with a great tremor of
+suppressed agitation in her mind; and she did not know what was the next
+step to take--a reflection which took away her strength. She had taken
+the bill from her trunk again and replaced it in her pocket. It was
+safest carried on her person, she felt; but what she was to do next,
+even Phoebe, so fruitful in resources, could not say. When Northcote came
+back in the evening she felt that her game was becoming more and more
+difficult to play. After a brief consultation with herself, she decided
+that it was most expedient to go in with him, taking her big body-guard
+along with her, and confiding in his stupidity not to find out more than
+was indispensable. She took Northcote to her grandfather's room,
+whispering to him on the way to make himself the representative of
+Cotsdean only, and to say nothing of Mr. May.
+
+"Then you know about it?" said Northcote amazed.
+
+"Oh, hush, hush!" cried Phoebe; "offer to pay it on Cotsdean's part, and
+say nothing about Mr. May."
+
+The young man looked at her bewildered; but nodded his head in assent,
+and then her own young man pulled her back almost roughly, and demanded
+to know what she meant by talking to that fellow so. Thus poor Phoebe was
+between two fires. She went in with a fainting yet courageous heart.
+
+"Pay the money!" said Tozer, who by dint of brooding over it all the day
+had come to a white heat, and was no longer to be controlled. "Mr.
+Northcote, sir, you're a minister, and you don't understand business no
+more nor women do. Money's money--but there's more than money here.
+There's my name, sir, as has been made use of in a way!--me go signing
+of accommodation bills! I'd have cut off my hand sooner. There's that
+girl there, she's got it. She's been and stolen it from me, Mr.
+Northcote. Tell her to give it up. You may have some influence, you as
+is a minister. Tell her to give it up, or, by George, she shall never
+have a penny from me! I'll cut her off without even a shilling. I'll put
+her out o' my will--out o' my house."
+
+"I say, Phoebe," said Clarence, "look here, that's serious, that is; not
+that I mind a little pot of money like what the poor old fellow's got;
+but what's the good of throwing anything away?"
+
+"Make her give it up," cried Tozer hoarsely, "or out of this house she
+goes this very night. I ain't the sort of man to be made a fool of. I
+ain't the sort of man--Who's this a-coming? some more of your d--d
+intercessors to spoil justice," cried the old man, "but I won't have
+'em. I'll have nothing to say to them. What, who? Mr. Copperhead's
+father? I ain't ashamed to meet Mr. Copperhead's father; but one thing
+at a time. Them as comes into my house must wait my time," cried the
+butterman, seeing vaguely the group come in, whom we left at his doors.
+"I'm master here. Give up that bill, you brazen young hussy, and go out
+of my sight. How dare you set up your face among so many men? Give it
+up!" he cried, seizing her by the elbow in renewed fury. The strangers,
+though he saw them enter, received no salutation from him. There was one
+small lamp on the table, dimly lighted, which threw a faint glow upon
+the circle of countenances round, into which came wondering the burly
+big Copperhead, holding fast by the shoulder of Mr. May, whose ghastly
+face, contorted with wild anxiety, glanced at Tozer over the lamp. But
+the old man was so much absorbed at first that he scarcely saw who the
+new-comers were.
+
+"What's all this about?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Seems we've come into the
+midst of another commotion. So you're here, Clar! it is you I want, my
+boy. Look here, Northcote, take hold, will you? there's a screw loose,
+and we've got to get him home. Take hold, till I have had a word with
+Clarence. That's a thing that won't take long."
+
+Clarence cast a glance at Phoebe, who even in her own agitation turned
+and gave him a tremulous smile of encouragement. The crisis was so great
+on all sides of her that Phoebe became heroic.
+
+"I am here," she said, with all the steadiness of strong emotion, and
+when he had received this assurance of support, he feared his father no
+more.
+
+"All right, sir," he said almost with alacrity. He was afraid of nothing
+with Phoebe standing by.
+
+"Make her give me up my bill," said Tozer; "I'll hear nothing else till
+this is settled. My bill! It's forgery; that's what it is. Don't speak
+to me about money! I'll have him punished. I'll have him rot in prison
+for it. I'll not cheat the law--You people as has influence with that
+girl, make her give it me. I can't touch him without the bill."
+
+Mr. May had been placed in a chair by the two young men who watched over
+him; but as Tozer spoke he got up, struggling wildly, almost tearing
+himself out of the coat by which they held him. "Let me go!" he said.
+"Do you hear him? Rot in prison! with hard labour; it would kill me! And
+it used to be hanging! My God--my God! Won't you let me go?"
+
+Tozer stopped short, stopped by this passion which was greater than his
+own. He looked wonderingly at the livid face, the struggling figure,
+impressed in spite of himself. "He's gone mad," he said. "Good Lord! But
+he's got nothing to do with it. Can't you take him away?"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe in his ear, "here it is, your bill; it was _he_
+who did it--and it has driven him mad. Look! I give it up to you; and
+there he is--that is your work. Now do what you please--"
+
+Trembling, the old man took the paper out of her hand. He gazed
+wondering at the other, who somehow moved in his excitement by a sense
+that the decisive moment had come, stood still too, his arm half-pulled
+out of his coat, his face wild with dread and horror. For a moment they
+looked at each other in a common agony, neither the one nor the other
+clear enough to understand, but both feeling that some tremendous crisis
+had come upon them. "He--done it!" said Tozer appalled and almost
+speechless. "_He_ done it!" They all crowded round, a circle of scared
+faces. Phoebe alone stood calm. She was the only one who knew the whole,
+except the culprit, who understood nothing with that mad confusion in
+his eyes. But he was overawed too, and in his very madness recognized
+the crisis. He stood still, struggling no longer, with his eyes fixed
+upon the homely figure of the old butterman, who stood trembling,
+thunderstruck, with that fatal piece of paper in his hand.
+
+Tozer had been mad for revenge two moments before--almost as wild as the
+guilty man before him--with a fierce desire to punish and make an
+example of the man who had wronged him. But this semi-madness was
+arrested by the sight of the other madman before him, and by the
+extraordinary shock of this revelation. It took all the strength out of
+him. He had not looked up to the clergyman as Cotsdean did, but he had
+looked up to the gentleman, his customer, as being upon an elevation
+very different from his own, altogether above and beyond him; and the
+sight of this superior being, thus humbled, maddened, gazing at him with
+wild terror and agony, more eloquent than any supplication, struck poor
+old Tozer to the very soul. "God help us all!" he cried out with a
+broken, sobbing voice. He was but a vulgar old fellow, mean, it might
+be, worldly in his way; but the terrible mystery of human wickedness and
+guilt prostrated his common soul with as sharp an anguish of pity and
+shame as could have befallen the most heroic. It seized upon him so that
+he could say or do nothing more, forcing hot and salt tears up into his
+old eyes, and shaking him all over with a tremor as of palsy. The scared
+faces appeared to come closer to Phoebe, to whom these moments seemed
+like years. Had her trust been vain? Softly, but with an excitement
+beyond control, she touched him on the arm.
+
+"That's true," said Tozer, half-crying. "Something's got to be done. We
+can't all stand here for ever, Phoebe; it's him as has to be thought of.
+Show it to him, poor gentleman, if he ain't past knowing; and burn it,
+and let us hear of it no more."
+
+Solemnly, in the midst of them all, Phoebe held up the paper before the
+eyes of the guilty man. If he understood it or not, no one could tell.
+He did not move, but stared blankly at her and it. Then she held it over
+the lamp and let it blaze and drop into harmless ashes in the midst of
+them all. Tozer dropped down into his elbow-chair sniffing and sobbing.
+Mr. May stood quite still, with a look of utter dulness and stupidity
+coming over the face in which so much terror had been. If he understood
+what had passed, it was only in feeling, not in intelligence. He grew
+still and dull in the midst of that strange madness which all the time
+was only half-madness, a mixture of conscious excitement and anxiety
+with that which passes the boundaries of consciousness. For the moment
+he was stilled into stupid idiotcy, and looked at them with vacant
+eyes. As for the others, Northcote was the only one who divined at
+all what this scene meant. To Reginald it was like a scene in a
+pantomime--bewildering dumb show, with no sense or meaning in it. It was
+he who spoke first, with a certain impatience of the occurrence which he
+did not understand.
+
+"Will you come home, sir, now?" he said. "Come home, for Heaven's sake!
+Northcote will give you an arm. He's very ill," Reginald added, looking
+round him pitifully in his ignorance; "what you are thinking of I can't
+tell--but he's ill and--delirious. It was Mr. Copperhead who brought him
+here against my will. Excuse me, Miss Beecham--now I must take him
+home."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe. The tears came into her eyes as she looked at him; he
+was not thinking of her at the moment, but she knew he had thought of
+her, much and tenderly, and she felt that she might never see him again.
+Phoebe would have liked him to know what she had done, and to know that
+what she had done was for him chiefly--in order to recompense him a
+little, poor fellow, for the heart he had given her, which she could not
+accept, yet could not be ungrateful for. And yet she was glad, though
+there was a pang in it, that he should never know, and remain unaware of
+her effort, for his own sake; but the tears came into her eyes as she
+looked at him, and he caught the gleam of the moisture which made his
+heart beat. Something moved her beyond what he knew of; and his heart
+thrilled with tenderness and wonder; but how should he know what it was?
+
+"Give my love to Ursula," she said. "I shall not come to-night as she
+has a nurse, and I think he will be better. Make her rest, Mr. May--and
+if I don't see her, say good-bye to her for me----"
+
+"Good-bye?"
+
+"Yes, good-bye--things have happened--Tell her I hope she will not
+forget me," said Phoebe, the tears dropping down her cheeks. "But oh,
+please never mind me, look at him, he is quite quiet, he is worn out.
+Take him home."
+
+"There is nothing else to be done," said poor Reginald, whose heart
+began to ache with a sense of the unknown which surrounded him on every
+side. He took his father by the arm, who had been standing quite silent,
+motionless, and apathetic. He had no need for any help, for Mr. May went
+with him at a touch, as docile as a child. Northcote followed with grave
+looks and very sad. Tozer had been seated in his favourite chair, much
+subdued, and giving vent now and then to something like a sob. His
+nerves had been terribly shaken. But as he saw the three gentlemen going
+away, nature awoke in the old butterman. He put out his hand and plucked
+Northcote by the sleeve. "I'll not say no to that money, not now, Mr.
+Northcote, sir," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+PHOEBE'S LAST TRIAL.
+
+
+"Now if you please," said Mr. Copperhead. "I think it's my turn. I
+wanted May to hear what I had got to say, but as he's ill or mad, or
+something, it is not much good. I can't imagine what all these
+incantations meant, and all your play, Miss Phoebe, eyes and all. That
+sort of thing don't suit us plain folks. If you don't mind following
+your friends, I want to speak to old Tozer here by himself. I don't like
+to have women meddling in my affairs."
+
+"Grandpapa is very tired, and he is upset," said Phoebe. "I don't think
+he can have any more said to him to-night."
+
+"By George, but he shall though, and you too. Look here," said Mr.
+Copperhead, "you've taken in my boy Clarence here. He's been a fool, and
+he always was a fool; but you're not a fool, Miss Phoebe. You know
+precious well what you're about. And just you listen to me; he shan't
+marry you, not if he breaks his heart over it. I ain't a man that thinks
+much of breaking hearts. You and he may talk what nonsense you like, but
+you shan't marry my boy; no, not if there wasn't another woman in the
+world."
+
+"He has asked me," said Phoebe; "but I certainly did not ask him. You
+must give your orders to your son, Mr. Copperhead. You have no right to
+dictate to me. Grandpapa, I think you and I have had enough for
+to-night."
+
+With this Phoebe began to close the shutters, which had been left open,
+and to put away books and things which were lying about. Tozer made a
+feeble attempt to stop her energetic proceedings.
+
+"Talk to the gentleman, Phoebe, if Mr. Copperhead 'as anything to say to
+you--don't, don't you go and offend him, my dear!" the old man cried in
+an anxious whisper; and then he raised himself from the chair, in which
+he had sunk exhausted by the unusual commotions to which he had been
+subjected. "I am sure, sir," Tozer began, "it ain't my wish, nor the
+wish o' my family, to do anything as is against your wishes--"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, interrupting him ruthlessly, "Mr. Copperhead's
+wishes may be a rule to his own family, but they are not to be a rule to
+yours. For my part I won't submit to it. Let him take his son away if he
+pleases--or if he can," she added, turning round upon Clarence with a
+smile. "Mr. Clarence Copperhead is as free as I am to go or to stay."
+
+"By Jove!" cried that young man, who had been hanging in the background,
+dark and miserable. He came close up to her, and caught first her sleeve
+and then her elbow; the contact seemed to give him strength. "Look here,
+sir," he said, ingratiatingly, "we don't want to offend you--_I_ don't
+want to fly in your face; but I can't go on having coaches for ever, and
+here's the only one in the world that can do the business instead of
+coaches. Phoebe knows I'm fond of her, but that's neither here nor there.
+Here is the one that can make something of me. I ain't clever, you know
+it as well as I do--but she is. I don't mind going into parliament,
+making speeches and that sort of thing, if I've got her to back me up.
+But without her I'll never do anything, without her you may put me in a
+cupboard, as you've often said. Let me have her, and I'll make a figure,
+and do you credit. I can't say any fairer," said Clarence, taking the
+rest of her arm into his grasp, and holding her hand. He was stupid--but
+he was a man, and Phoebe felt proud of him, for the moment at least.
+
+"You idiot!" cried his father, "and I was an idiot too to put any faith
+in you; come away from that artful girl. Can't you see that it's all a
+made-up plan from beginning to end? What was she sent down here for but
+to catch you, you oaf, you fool, you! Drop her, or you drop me. That's
+all I've got to say."
+
+"Yes, drop me, Clarence," said Phoebe, with a smile; "for in the mean
+time you hurt me. See, you have bruised my arm. While you settle this
+question with your father, I will go to grandmamma. Pardon me, I take
+more interest in her than in this discussion between him and you."
+
+"You shan't go," cried her lover, "not a step. Look here, sir. If that's
+what it comes to, her before you. What you've made of me ain't much, is
+it? but I don't mind what I go in for, as long as she's to the fore. Her
+before you."
+
+"Is that your last word?" said Mr. Copperhead.
+
+"Yes." His son faced him with a face as set and cloudy as his own. The
+mouth, shut close and sullen, was the same in both; but those brown eyes
+which Clarence got from his mother, and which were usually mild in their
+expression, looking out gently from the ruder face to which they did not
+seem to belong, were now, not clear, but muddy with resolution,
+glimmering with dogged obstinacy from under the drooping eyelids. He was
+not like himself; he was as he had been that day when Mr. May saw him at
+the Dorsets, determined, more than a match for his father, who had only
+the obstinacy of his own nature, not that dead resisting force of two
+people to bring to the battle. Clarence had all the pertinacity that was
+not in his mother, to reinforce his own. Mr. Copperhead stared at his
+son with that look of authority, half-imperious, half-brutal, with which
+he was in the habit of crushing all who resisted him; but Clarence did
+not quail. He stood dull and immovable, his eyes contracted, his face
+stolid, and void of all expression but that of resistance. He was not
+much more than a fool, but just by so much as his father was more
+reasonable, more clear-sighted than himself, was Clarence stronger than
+his father. He held Phoebe by the sleeve, that she might not escape him;
+but he faced Mr. Copperhead with a dull determination that all the
+powers of earth could not shake.
+
+For the moment the father lost his self-control.
+
+"Then I'll go," he said, "and when you've changed your mind, you can
+come to me; but--" here he swore a big oath, "mind what you're about.
+There never was a man yet but repented when he set himself against me."
+
+Clarence made no answer. Talking was not in his way. And Mr. Copperhead
+showed his wondering apprehension of a power superior to his own, by
+making a pause after he had said this, and not going away directly. He
+stopped and tried once more to influence the rebel with that stare.
+"Phoebe--Phoebe--for God's sake make him give in, and don't go against Mr.
+Copperhead!" cried Tozer's tremulous voice, shaken with weakness and
+anxiety. But Phoebe did not say anything. She felt in the hesitation, the
+pause, the despairing last effort to conquer, that the time of her
+triumph had nearly come. When he went away, they all stood still and
+listened to his footsteps going along the passage and through the
+garden. When he was outside he paused again, evidently with the idea of
+returning, but changed his mind and went on. To be left like this, the
+victors on a field of domestic conflict, is very often not at all a
+triumphant feeling, and involves a sense of defeat about as bad as the
+reality experienced by the vanquished. Phoebe, who was imaginative, and
+had lively feeling, felt a cold shiver go over her as the steps went
+away one by one, and began to cry softly, not knowing quite why it was;
+but Clarence, who had no imagination, nor any feelings to speak of, was
+at his ease and perfectly calm.
+
+"What are you crying for?" he said, "the governor can do what he likes.
+I'd marry you in spite of a hundred like him. He didn't know what he was
+about, didn't the governor, when he tackled _me_."
+
+"But, Clarence, you must not break with your father, you must not
+quarrel on my account--"
+
+"That's as it may be," he said, "never you mind. When it's cleverness
+that's wanted, it's you that's wanted to back me up--but I can stick to
+my own way without you; and my way is this," he said, suddenly lifting
+her from the ground, holding her waist between his two big hands, and
+giving her an emphatic kiss. Phoebe was silenced altogether when this had
+happened. He was a blockhead, but he was a man, and could stand up for
+his love, and for his own rights as a man, independent of the world. She
+felt a genuine admiration for her lout at that moment; but this
+admiration was accompanied by a very chill sense of all that might be
+forfeited if Mr. Copperhead stood out. Clarence, poor and disowned by
+his father, would be a very different person from the Clarence
+Copperhead who was going into parliament, and had "a fine position" in
+prospect. She did not form any resolutions as to what she would do in
+that case, for she was incapable of anything dishonourable; but it made
+her shiver as with a cold icy current running over; and as for poor old
+Tozer he was all but whimpering in his chair.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he cried. "A great man like Mr. Copperhead affronted in my
+'umble 'ouse. It's what I never thought to see. A friend of the
+connection like that--your father's leading member. Oh, Phoebe, it was an
+evil day as brought you here to make all this mischief! and if I had
+known what was going on!" cried Tozer, almost weeping in his despair.
+
+"You are tired, grandpapa," said Phoebe. "Don't be frightened about us.
+Mr. Copperhead is very fond of Clarence, and he will give in; or if he
+doesn't give in, still we shall not be worse off than many other
+people." But she said this with a secret panic devouring her soul,
+wondering if it was possible that such a horrible revolution of
+circumstances and change of everything she had looked for, could be.
+Even Clarence was silenced, though immovable. He went away soon after,
+and betook himself to his room at the Parsonage, where all his
+possessions still were, while Phoebe attended upon her grandmother, whose
+agitation and fear she calmed without saying much. Tozer, quite broken
+down, retired to bed; and when they were all disposed of, Phoebe went out
+to the garden, and made a mournful little promenade there, with very
+serious thoughts. If Clarence was to be cast off by his father what
+could she do with him? It was not in Phoebe to abandon the stupid lover,
+who had stood up so manfully for her. No, she must accept her fate
+however the balance turned; but if this dreadful change happened what
+should she do with him? The question penetrated, and made her shiver to
+the depths of her soul; but never even in imagination did she forsake
+him. He was hers now, come good or ill; but the prospect of the ill was
+appalling to her. She went up and down the garden-path slowly in the
+silence, looking up to the stars, with her heart very full. Phoebe felt
+that no usual burden had been put upon her. Last night her occupation
+had been one of the purest charity, and this Providence had seemed to
+recompense in the morning, by dropping at her very feet the prize she
+had long meant to win; but now she was down again after being lifted up
+so high, and a great part of its value was taken out of that prize. Was
+she mercenary or worldly-minded in her choice? It would be hard to say
+so, for she never questioned with herself whether or not she should
+follow Clarence into obscurity and poverty, if things should turn out
+so. She would never abandon him, however bad his case might be; but her
+heart sunk very low when she thought of her future with him, without the
+"career" which would have made everything sweet.
+
+Mr. Copperhead, too, had very serious thoughts on this subject, and sat
+up long drinking brandy-and-water, and knitting his brows, as he turned
+the subject over and over in his mind, recognizing with disgust (in
+which nevertheless there mingled a certain respect) that Clarence would
+not yield, he was as obstinate as himself, or more so. He had gone to
+the inn, where he was alone, without any of his usual comforts. It was
+perhaps the first time in his prosperous life that he had ever been
+really crossed. Joe had never attempted to do it, nor any of the first
+family. They had married, as they had done everything else, according to
+his dictation; and now here was his useless son, his exotic plant, his
+Dresden china, not only asserting a will of his own, but meaning to have
+it; and showing a resolution, a determination equal to his own. His
+mother had never shown anything of this. She had yielded, as every one
+else had yielded (Mr. Copperhead reflected), to whatever he ordered.
+Where had the boy got this unsuspected strength? A kind of smile broke
+unawares over the rich man's face, as he asked himself this question, a
+smile which he chased away with a frown, but which nevertheless had been
+there for a moment roused by a subtle suggestion of self-flattery.
+Where, but from himself, had his gentleman-son (as the millionnaire
+proudly held him to be) got that strength of obstinacy? He chased the
+thought and the smile away with a frown, and went to bed gloomily
+nursing his wrath; but yet this suggestion which he himself had made was
+more flattering to himself than words can say. As for Clarence, the only
+other person deeply concerned, after he had asked for Mr. May, and
+expressed his regret to learn how ill he was, the young man smoked a
+cigar on the doorsteps, and then went peaceably, without either care or
+anxiety, to bed, where he slept very soundly till eight o'clock next
+morning, which was the hour at which he was called, though he did not
+always get up.
+
+When Mr. Copperhead began the new day, he began it with a very unwise
+idea, quickly carried out, as unwise ideas generally are. Feeling that
+he could make nothing of his son, he resolved to try what he could make
+of Phoebe; a young woman, nay, a bit of a girl not more than twenty, and
+a minister's daughter, brought up in reverence of the leading
+member--any resistance on her part seemed really incredible. He could
+not contemplate the idea of giving up all the cherished plans of his
+life by a melodramatic renunciation of his son. To give up Clarence whom
+he had trained to be the very apex and crowning point of his grandeur,
+was intolerable to him. But Mr. Copperhead had heard before now of young
+women, who, goaded to it, had been known to give up their lover rather
+than let their lover suffer on their account, and if this had ever been
+the case, surely it might be so in the present instance. Had he not the
+comfort of the Beecham family in his hands? Could not he make the
+Crescent Chapel too hot to hold them? Could he not awaken the fears of
+scores of other fathers very unlikely to permit their favourite sons to
+stray into the hands of pastors' daughters? There was nothing indeed to
+be said against Mr. Beecham, but still it would be strange if Mr.
+Copperhead, out and away the richest man in the community, could not
+make the Crescent too hot to hold him. He went down the Lane from the
+"George," where he had slept, quite early next morning, with this
+purpose full in his head, and, as good luck (he thought) would have it,
+found Phoebe, who had been restless all night with anxiety, and had got
+up early, once more walking up and down the long garden-path, reflecting
+over all that had happened, and wondering as to what might happen still.
+What a piece of luck it was! He was accustomed to have fortune on his
+side, and it seemed natural to him. He went up to her with scarcely a
+pause for the usual salutations, and plunged at once into what he had to
+say.
+
+"Miss Phoebe, I am glad to find you alone. I wanted a word with you," he
+said, "about the affair of last night. Why shouldn't you and I, the only
+two sensible ones in the business, settle it between ourselves? Old
+Tozer is an old ass, begging your pardon for saying so, and my son is a
+fool--"
+
+"I do not agree to either," said Phoebe gravely, "but never mind, I will
+certainly hear what you have to say."
+
+"What I have to say is this. I will never consent to let my son Clarence
+marry you." Here he was interrupted by a serious little bow of assent
+from Phoebe, which disconcerted and angered him strangely. "This being
+the case," he resumed more hotly, "don't you think we'd better come to
+terms, you and me? You are too sensible a girl, I'll be bound, to marry
+a man without a penny, which is what he would be. He would be properly
+made an end of, Miss Phoebe, if he found out, after all his bravado last
+night, that you were the one to cast him off after all."
+
+"He cannot find that out," said Phoebe with a smile; "unfortunately even
+if I could have done it under brighter circumstances my mouth is closed
+now. I desert him now, when he is in trouble! Of course you do not know
+me, so you are excused for thinking so, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+The rich man stared. She was speaking a language which he did not
+understand. "Look here, Miss Phoebe," he said, "let's understand each
+other. High horses don't answer with me. As for deserting him when he's
+in trouble, if you'll give him up--or desert him, as you call it--he
+need never be in trouble at all. You can stop all that. Just you say no
+to him, and he'll soon be on his knees to me to think no more of it. You
+know who I am," Mr. Copperhead continued with a concealed threat. "I
+have a deal of influence in the connection, though I say it that
+shouldn't, and I'm very well looked on in chapel business. What would
+the Crescent do without me? And if there should be an unpleasantness
+between the minister and the leading member, why, you know, Miss Phoebe,
+no one better, who it is that would go to the wall."
+
+She made no answer, and he thought she was impressed by his arguments.
+He went on still more strongly than before. "Such a clever girl as you
+knows all that," said Mr. Copperhead, "and suppose you were to marry
+Clarence without a penny, what would become of you? What would you make
+of him? He is too lazy for hard work, and he has not brains enough for
+anything else. What would you make of him if you had him? That's what I
+want to know."
+
+"And that is just what I can't tell you," said Phoebe smiling. "It is a
+very serious question. I suppose something will turn up."
+
+"What can turn up? You marry him because he is going into parliament,
+and could give you a fine position."
+
+"I confess," said Phoebe with her usual frankness, "that I did think of
+his career; without that the future is much darker, and rather
+depressing."
+
+"Yes, you see that! A poor clod of a fellow that can't work, and will be
+hanging upon you every day, keeping you from working--that you will
+never be able to make anything of."
+
+"Mr. Copperhead," said Phoebe sweetly, "why do you tell all this to me?
+Your mere good sense will show you that I cannot budge. I have accepted
+him being rich, and I cannot throw him over when he is poor. I may not
+like it--I don't like it--but I am helpless. Whatever change is made, it
+cannot be made by me."
+
+He stared at her in blank wonder and dismay. For a moment he could not
+say anything. "Look here," he faltered at last, "you thought him a great
+match, a rise in the world for you and yours; but he ain't a great match
+any longer. What's the use then of keeping up the farce? You and me
+understand each other. You've nothing to do but to let him off; you're
+young and pretty, you'll easily find some one else. Fools are plenty in
+this world," he added, unable to refrain from that one fling. "Let him
+off and all will be right. What's to prevent you? I'd not lose a moment
+if I were you."
+
+Phoebe laughed. She had a pretty laugh, soft yet ringing like a child's.
+"You and I, I fear, are no rule for each other," she said. "Mr.
+Copperhead, what prevents me is a small thing called honour, that is
+all."
+
+"Honour! that's for men," he said hastily, "and folly for them according
+as you mean it; but for women there's no such thing, it's sham and
+humbug; and look you here, Miss Phoebe," he continued, losing his temper,
+"you see what your father will say to this when you get him into hot
+water with his people! There's more men with sons than me; and if the
+Crescent ain't too hot to hold him within a month--Do you think I'll
+stand it, a beggarly minister and his belongings coming in the way of a
+man that could buy you all up, twenty times over, and more!"
+
+The fury into which he had worked himself took away Mr. Copperhead's
+breath. Phoebe said nothing. She went on by his side with soft steps, her
+face a little downcast, the suspicion of a smile about her mouth.
+
+"By George!" he cried, when he had recovered himself, "you think you can
+laugh at me. You think you can defy me, you, a bit of a girl, as poor as
+Job!"
+
+"I defy no one," said Phoebe. "I cannot prevent you from insulting me,
+that is all; which is rather hard," she added, with a smile, which cost
+her an effort, "seeing that I shall have to drag your son through the
+world somehow, now that you have cast him off. He will not give me up, I
+know, and honour prevents me from giving him up. So I shall have hard
+work enough, without any insults from you. It is a pity," said Phoebe,
+with a sort of sympathetic regret for herself so badly used. "I could
+have made a man of him. I could have backed him up to get on as well as
+most men; but it will certainly be uphill work now."
+
+She did not look at the furious father as she spoke. She was quite calm,
+treating it reflectively, regretfully, as a thing past and over. Mr.
+Copperhead tried to burst forth again in threats and objurgations; but
+in spite of himself, and though she never said another word, the big,
+rich, noisy man was silenced. He went away, threatening to appeal to her
+father, which Phoebe, with a last effort, begged him smilingly to do. But
+this was the last of which she was capable. When she had closed the door
+after him, she rushed upstairs to her room, and cried bitterly.
+Everything was very dark to her. If he did appeal to her father, the
+appeal would spread confusion and dismay through the pastor's heart and
+family; and what was to become of herself, with Clarence on her hands,
+who could do nothing that was useful, and could earn neither his own
+living nor hers? All this was very terrible to Phoebe, and for a moment
+she contemplated the unheard of step of having a headache, and staying
+upstairs. But she reflected that her poor old grandfather had done _his_
+duty, at no small sacrifice, according to her bidding, yesterday; and
+she bathed her eyes heroically, and collected her strength and went
+down to breakfast as usual. It was her duty, which she must do.
+
+As for Mr. Copperhead, he took a long walk, to reflect upon all the
+circumstances, which were complicated enough to cause him much trouble.
+He could not give up his cherished scheme, his Member of Parliament, his
+crown of glory. It was what he had been looking forward to for years. He
+tried to realize the failure of his hopes, and could not--nay, would
+not, feeling it more than he could bear. No; without his gentleman son,
+his University man, his costly, useless production, who was worth so
+much money to him, yet brought in nothing, he felt that he must shrink
+in the opinion of all his friends, even of his own sons, the "first
+family," who had so envied, sneered at, undervalued Clarence, yet had
+been forced to be civil to him, and respect their father's imperious
+will as he chose that it should be respected. What a sorry figure he
+should cut before all of them if he cast off Clarence, and had to
+announce himself publicly as foiled in all his plans and hopes! He could
+not face this prospect; he shrank from it as if it had involved actual
+bodily pain. The men who would laugh at his failure were men of his own
+class, to whom he had bragged at his ease, crowing and exulting over
+them, and he felt that he could not face them if all his grand
+anticipations collapsed. There was nothing for it but to give in. And on
+the other hand this girl Phoebe was a very clever girl, able not only to
+save the expense of coaches, but to cram the boy, and keep him up better
+than any coach could do. She could make his speeches for him, like
+enough, Mr. Copperhead thought, and a great many reasons might be given
+to the world why she had been chosen instead of a richer wife for the
+golden boy. Golden girls, as a general rule, were not of so much use.
+"Fortune ain't worth thinking of in comparison with brains. It was
+brains I wanted, and I've bought 'em dear; but I hope I can afford it,"
+he almost heard himself saying to an admiring, envious assembly; for Mr.
+Copperhead so far deserved his success that he could accept a defeat
+when it was necessary, and make the best of it. When he had nearly ended
+his walk, and had reached in his thoughts to this point, he met his son,
+who was walking up from the Parsonage to No. 6 in the Lane. Clarence
+looked cheerful enough as he walked along, whistling under his breath,
+towards his love; but when he saw his father, a change came over his
+face. Once more his eyelids drooped over his eyes, and those muddy brown
+orbs got fixed in dull obstinacy; once more his upper lip shut down
+sullen and fast upon the lower. The entire expression of his face
+changed. Mr. Copperhead saw this afar off, from the moment his son
+perceived him, and the sight gave to all his thinking that force which
+reality gives to imagination; the risk he was running became doubly
+clear.
+
+"Good morning, Clarence," he said.
+
+"Good morning, sir," responded the other, with lowering brows and
+close-shut mouth.
+
+"I suppose you were coming to the George to me? Come along, I've had no
+breakfast; and let's hope, my boy, that you're in a better mind than
+last night."
+
+"Look here, sir," said Clarence; "you might as well ask one of those
+houses to walk with you to the George, and show a better mind. I'm of
+one mind, and one only. I'll marry Phoebe Beecham, whether you like it or
+not, and no other woman in this world."
+
+"Is that your last word?" said the father, curiously repeating, without
+being aware of it, his question of the previous night.
+
+"That's my last word," said the son, contemplating his father sullenly
+from under the heavy lids of his obstinate eyes.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Copperhead; "then come along to breakfast, for I'm
+hungry, and we can talk it over there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE LAST.
+
+
+This is how Phoebe's difficulties ended. Contrary to her every
+expectation, Mr. Copperhead made a great brag of her powers wherever he
+went. "Money is money," he said, "but brains is brains, all the same--we
+can't get on without 'em--and when you want to make a figure in the
+world, sir, buy a few brains if they fall in your way--that's my style.
+I've done with stupid ones up till now; but when I see there's a want of
+a clever one, I ain't such a fool as to shut my eyes to it. They cost
+dear, but I'm thankful to say I can afford that, ay, and a good deal
+more." Thus everything was satisfactorily arranged. Tozer and his wife
+cried together for joy on the wedding-day, but they did not expect to be
+asked to that ceremony, being well aware that Phoebe, having now
+completely entered into the regions of the great, could not be expected
+to have very much to say to them. "Though I know, the darling, as she'd
+just be the same if she was here, and wouldn't let nobody look down upon
+you and me," said the old woman.
+
+"She's a wonderful girl, she is," said old Tozer. "Wind us all round her
+little finger, that's what she could do--leastways, except when there
+was principle in it, and there I stood firm. But I've done things for
+Phoebe as I wouldn't have done for no other breathing, and she knew it. I
+wouldn't give in to her tho' about church folks being just as good as
+them as is more enlightened. That's agin' reason. But I've done things
+for 'em along of her!--Ah! she's a wonderful girl is Phoebe--Phoebe,
+Junior, as I always call her. There ain't her match between here and
+London, and that's what I'll always say."
+
+But we will not try to describe the glory and joy that filled Mr.
+Beecham's house in the Terrace, when Mrs. Clarence Copperhead went back
+there with all their friends to the wedding-breakfast, which was in the
+very best style, and regardless of expense. Even at that moment it gave
+Phoebe a little pang to see her mother in the bright colours which she
+loved, but which made her so much pinker and fatter than was needful.
+Little Mrs. Copperhead, in dim neutral tints, looked like a little
+shadow beside the pastor's buxom wife, and was frightened and ill at
+ease and sad to the heart to lose her boy, who had been all she
+possessed in the world. Sophy Dorset, specially asked for the purpose
+with Ursula May, who was a bridesmaid, looked on with much admiration at
+the curious people, so rich, so fine, and so overwhelming, among whom
+her father had found it so remarkable to meet not one person whom he
+knew. "Now, Ursula," she said, "if you had played your cards properly
+that beautiful bridegroom and that nice little house in Mayfair, and the
+privilege, perhaps, of writing M.P. after your name some time or other,
+might all have been yours instead of Miss Beecham's. Why did you let her
+carry off the prize?"
+
+"Cousin Sophy!" cried Ursula indignantly. "As if I ever thought of him
+as a prize! But I know you are only laughing at me. The strange thing is
+that she likes him, though I am sure she knew very well that
+Reginald--Oh, when one thinks how many people there are in this world
+who do not get what they wish most--and how many people there are--"
+Ursula paused, involved in her own antithesis, and Sophy ended it for
+her with a sigh.
+
+"Who do--and the one is no happier than the other, most times, little
+Ursula; but you don't understand that, and as you are going to be one
+of the blessed ones, you need not take to making reflections; that is my
+privilege, my dear."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy, why were not you one of those blessed ones too?"
+cried Ursula, clasping her arms suddenly round her kind friend. This, be
+it understood, was after the breakfast was over, and when, in the deep
+gloom which generally concludes a wedding day, everybody had gone home.
+The two were in a magnificent large bedchamber in Portland Place, in the
+vast silent mansion of the Copperheads, where at present there was
+nothing more cheerful than the bridegroom's soft-eyed mother, taking
+herself dreadfully to task for not being happy, and trying not to cry,
+though there was to be a great dinner and entertainment that night.
+
+"Don't you know?" said Sophy, putting her aside with a certain proud
+coldness, and a momentary laugh, "he I loved proved false; that is to
+say, in simple language, he turned out so poor a creature that it is
+very good of me not to despise humanity for his sweet sake. Never mind.
+If all had gone well, and he had been a real man instead of the sham
+image of one, I don't suppose I should have ever been among the blessed
+ones. Anne is, who never thought of such mysteries at all; and so you
+will be, my little Ursula--very happy. I am sure of it--though how you
+can manage to be happy, my dear, marrying a man who is not a good
+Churchman, it is not for me to say."
+
+"Cousin Sophy, have I been brought up in a way to make me so fond of
+Churchmen?" said Ursula solemnly. She could not have told how much or
+how little she knew about her father's behaviour, and the "shock to his
+mental system;" but vaguely and by instinct there was a great deal that
+she did know.
+
+"You have been behind the scenes too much perhaps," said Sophy Dorset,
+shrugging her shoulders, "but don't think any worse of the world than
+you ought, if you can't think very much better. No class is good or bad,
+Ursula. Men are but men all over the world."
+
+This made Ursula cry, though it is difficult to say why. She thought it
+cynical, and probably so will the reader. Perhaps Sophy Dorset abandoned
+the cause of mankind too easily, as most people of her temperament and
+age are disposed to do. Anyhow the evening entertainment took place and
+was very fine, and every honour was done to Clarence Copperhead's
+marriage, especially by his mother, who appeared in the most lovely
+satin that eyes ever saw, and diamonds--and almost succeeded all the
+evening in keeping herself from crying, but not entirely. She did break
+down when the health of bridegroom and bride was drunk as it ought to
+be; but recovered herself hastily when the mother on the other side gave
+her a kiss of sympathy. Though it was an honest kiss it filled poor
+little Mrs. Copperhead's mind with the most unchristian feelings, and
+gave her strength to keep up for the rest of the evening, and do her
+duty to the last. Nevertheless Phoebe was the best of daughters-in-law,
+and ended by making her husband's mother dependent on her for most of
+the comforts of her life. And Clarence got into Parliament, and the
+reader, perhaps (if Parliament is sitting), may have had the luck to
+read a speech in the morning paper of Phoebe's composition, and if he
+ever got the secret of her style would know it again, and might trace
+the course of a public character for years to come by that means. But
+this secret is one which no bribe nor worldly inducement will ever tempt
+our lips to betray.
+
+Northcote was released from the charge of Salem Chapel directly after
+these events, by the return of the minister safe and sound from his
+holiday, to the great delight of the congregation, though they had not
+been very fond of their old pastor before. Now they could not
+sufficiently exult over the happy re-instalment. "The other one never
+crossed our doors from the day he came till now as he's going away,"
+said one indignant member; "nor took no more notice of us chapel folks
+nor if we were dirt beneath his feet." "That time as the Meeting was
+held, when he spoke up again' the sinecure, was the only time as my mind
+was satisfied," cried another. "And a deal came of it after, making
+friends with the very man he had abused." "All his friends was Church
+folks," said a third; "he was a wolf in sheep's clothing, that's what I
+calls him; and a poor moralist as a preacher, with never a rousing word
+in them things as he called his sermons. We're well rid of the likes of
+him, though he may be clever. I don't give much for that kind of
+cleverness; and what's the good of you, minister or not minister, if you
+can't keep consistent and stick to your own side." The chorus was so
+strong that the echo of it moved Tozer, who was a kind of arch-deacon
+and leading member too, in his way, where he sat twiddling his thumbs in
+his little room. "I'm one as is qualified to give what you may call a
+casting vote," said Tozer, "being the oldest deacon in Salem, and one as
+has seen generations coming and going. And as for Church and Chapel,
+I've served 'em both, and seen the colour of their money, and there's
+them as has their obligations to me, though we needn't name no names.
+But this I will say, as I'm cured of clever men and them as is thought
+superior. They ain't to be calculated upon. If any more o' them young
+intellectuals turns up at Carlingford, I'll tell him right out, 'You
+ain't the man for my money.' I'll say to him as bold as brass, 'I've
+been young, and now I'm old, and it's my conviction as clever young men
+ain't the sort for Salem. We want them as is steady-going, and them as
+is consistent; good strong opinions, and none o' your charity, that's
+what we wants here.'" Now Tozer had loved clever young men in his day
+more well than wisely, as everybody knew, and this deliverance carried
+all the more weight in consequence, and was echoed loudly by one general
+hum of content and applause.
+
+Northcote took this very quietly, but he retired, after he had married
+Ursula, from the office of pastor, for which he was not fitted, and from
+the Liberation Society, and various other societies, coming to see that
+Disestablishment was not a panacea for national evils any more than
+other things. He was in the habit of quoting his brother-in-law,
+Reginald May, as the best man he knew; but this did not make him a
+Churchman; for naturally he could not say the same of other members of
+the same class and family. He was shaken out of his strong opinions; but
+it is doubtful how far this was good for him, for he was a man of
+warlike disposition, and not to have something which he could go to the
+stake for--something which he could think the devil's own stronghold to
+assail, was a drawback to him, and cramped his mental development; but
+he was happy in his home with his pretty Ursula, which is probably all
+the reader will care to know. He paid Tozer's hundred and fifty pounds.
+And he made no inquiries, and tried not to ask himself what all that
+strange scene had meant--and whatever it did mean it was over for ever,
+and nobody asked any further questions or made any revelations on the
+subject. As for Mr. May, his mysterious illness went on for some time,
+the doctors never venturing to put any name to it. It was "mental
+shock," and perhaps aberration, though he was sane enough to calm down
+after that incomprehensible scene. Mr. Simpson of the Bank had a good
+guess at the secret of the enigma, but even Tozer got hazy about it
+after a while, and though he knew that he had done Mr. May a wonderful
+service, could scarcely have told what it was--and neither, when it was
+all over, could the culprit have told. He got better and worse for about
+a year, and then he died, his strength failing him without any distinct
+reason, no one could tell how. Reginald got the living and stepped into
+his father's place, making a home for the children, which sharp Janey
+rules over, not so softly or steadily as Ursula, with a love of theories
+and experiments not quite consistent with the higher graces of
+housekeeping, yet with an honest meaning through it all. As the times
+are so unsettled, and no one can tell what may become within a year of
+any old foundation, the trustees have requested Reginald to retain his
+chaplaincy at the old College; so that he is in reality a pluralist, and
+almost rich, though they say the hardest-worked man in Carlingford. He
+has his vagaries too, which no man can live without, but he is the
+kindest guardian to his brothers and sisters, and bears with Janey's
+freaks with exemplary gentleness. And he has a curate, whom in the
+course of nature Janey will probably marry--though this has not yet been
+revealed to either party, who have reached only the first stage of
+hating each other up to this time. It is not thought in the family that
+Reginald will ever marry. She was never worthy of him, the sisters say;
+but he thinks differently, as yet at least. However he is young, and
+things may mend.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phoebe, Junior
+
+Author: Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+Release Date: April 28, 2009 [EBook #28629]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHOEBE, JUNIOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Marcia Brooks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<h3>Chronicles of Carlingford</h3>
+
+<h1>PHOEBE, JUNIOR</h1>
+
+<h2>MRS OLIPHANT</h2>
+
+
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a>
+<hr>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC" width="70%">
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><small>CHAP.</small></td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  <td align='left'><small>PAGE</small></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>I.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>II.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE LEADING MEMBER</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>III.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>IV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A COUNTRY PARTY</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>V.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>SELF-DEVOTION</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>VI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A MORNING CALL</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>VII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>SHOPPING</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>VIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE DORSETS</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>IX.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>COMING HOME</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>X.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>PAPA</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>XI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>PH&#338;BE'S PREPARATIONS</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>XII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>GRANGE LANE</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>XIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE TOZER FAMILY</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>XIV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>STRANGERS</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>XV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A DOMESTIC CRISIS</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>XVI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE NEW GENTLEMAN</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>XVII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A PUBLIC MEETING</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>XVIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>XIX.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE NEW CHAPLAIN</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>XX.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THAT TOZER GIRL!</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>XXI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A NEW FRIEND</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>XXII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>XXIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>TIDED OVER</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>XXIV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A VISIT</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>XXV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>TEA</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>XXVI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE HALL</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>XXVII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_192">192</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>XXVIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE NEW PUPIL</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>XXIX.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>URSULA'S ENTR&Eacute;ES</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_209">209</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>XXX.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>XXXI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>SOCIETY</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><b>XXXII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>LOVE-MAKING</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_230">230</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b>XXXIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A DISCLOSURE</td><td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"><b>XXXIV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>AN EXTRAVAGANCE</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"><b>XXXV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE MILLIONNAIRE</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"><b>XXXVI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>FATHER AND SON</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"><b>XXXVII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A PLEASANT EVENING</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"><b>XXXVIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>AN EXPEDITION</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX"><b>XXXIX.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A CATASTROPHE</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XL"><b>XL.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE SINNED-AGAINST</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI"><b>XLI.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A MORNING'S WORK</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+ <td align='right'><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII"><b>XLII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII"><b>XLIII.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE CONFLICT</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_312">312</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV"><b>XLIV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>PH&#338;BE'S LAST TRIAL</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV"><b>XLV.</b></a></td>
+  <td align='left'>THE LAST</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td>...</td>
+  <td align='right'><a href="#Page_336">336</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr>
+<h1>PH&#338;BE, JUNIOR.</h1>
+
+<h3>A Last Chronicle of Carlingford.</h3>
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Ph&#339;be Tozer, the only daughter of the chief deacon
+and leading member of the Dissenting connection in Carlingford,
+married, shortly after his appointment to the charge of
+Salem Chapel, in that town, the Reverend Mr. Beecham, one
+of the most rising young men in the denomination. The
+marriage was in many ways satisfactory to the young lady's
+family, for Mr. Beecham was himself the son of respectable
+people in a good way of business, and not destitute of means;
+and the position was one which they had always felt most
+suitable for their daughter, and to which she had been almost,
+it may be said, brought up. It is, however, scarcely necessary
+to add that it was not quite so agreeable to the other leading
+members of the congregation. I should be very sorry to say
+that each family wished that preferment for its own favourite
+daughter; for indeed there can be no doubt, as Mrs. Pigeon
+asserted vigorously, that a substantial grocer, whose father
+before him had established an excellent business, and who had
+paid for his pew in Salem as long as any one could recollect, and
+supported every charity, and paid up on all occasions when
+extra expense was necessary, was in every way a more desirable
+son-in-law than a poor minister who was always dependent on
+pleasing the chapel folks, and might have to turn out any day.
+Notwithstanding, however, the evident superiority of the
+establishment thus attained by Maria Pigeon, there is a certain
+something attached to the position of a clerical caste, even
+among such an independent body as the congregation at Salem
+Chapel, which has its own especial charms, and neither the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+young people who had been her companions nor the old people
+who had patronized and snubbed her, felt any satisfaction in
+seeing Ph&#339;be thus advanced over them to the honours and
+glories inalienable from the position of minister's wife. All
+her little airs of bridal vanity were considered as so many
+offensive manifestations of delight and exultation in her rise in
+life. Her <i>trousseau</i>, though pronounced by all competent judges
+not half so abundant or fine as Maria Pigeon's, still called forth
+comments which nobody ventured to indulge in, in respect to
+the grocer's blooming bride. A grocer's lady has a right to
+anything her parents can afford; but to see a minister's wife
+swelling herself up, and trying to ape the quality, filled the
+town with virtuous indignation. The sight of young Mrs.
+Beecham walking about with her card-case in her hand, calling
+on the Miss Hemmingses, shaking hands with Mrs. Rider the
+doctor's wife, caused unmitigated disgust throughout all the
+back streets of Carlingford; and &ldquo;<i>that</i> Ph&#339;be a-sweeping in as
+if the chapel belonged to her,&rdquo; was almost more than the oldest
+sitter could bear. Ph&#339;be, it must be added, felt her elevation
+to the full, and did not spare her congregation. Sometimes she
+would have the audacity to walk from the vestry to the pew, as
+if she were an office-bearer, instead of coming in humbly by the
+door as became a woman. She would sit still ostentatiously
+until every one had gone, waiting for her husband. She quite
+led the singing, everybody remarked, paying no more attention
+to the choir than if it did not exist; and once she had even paused
+on her way to her seat, and turned down the gas, which was
+blazing too high, with an air of proprietorship that nobody
+could endure.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Does Salem belong to them Tozers, I should like to know?&rdquo;
+said Mrs. Brown. &ldquo;Brown would never be outdone by him
+in subscriptions you may be sure, nor Mr. Pigeon neither, if
+the truth was known. I never gave my money to build a castle
+for the Tozers.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thus the whole congregation expressed itself with more or
+less eloquence, and though the attendance never diminished,
+everybody being too anxious to see &ldquo;what they would do next,&rdquo;
+the feeling could not be ignored. Ph&#339;be herself, with a
+courage which developed from the moment of her marriage,
+took the initiative.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It never answers,&rdquo; she said, solemnly, &ldquo;to marry one of the
+flock; I knew it, Henery, and I told you so; and if you would
+be so infatuated, and marry me when I told you not, for your
+own interests&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They're all jealous of you, my pet, that's what it is,&rdquo; said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+Mr. Beecham, and laughed. He could bear the annoyance in
+consideration of that sweet consciousness of its cause which
+stole over all his being. Ph&#339;be laughed, too, but not with so
+delicious a gratification. She felt that there were people, even
+in Salem, who might be jealous of him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The end of it all is, we must not stay here,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;You must find another sphere for your talents, Henery, and
+I'm sure it will not be difficult. If you get put on that deputation
+that is going down to the North, suppose you take a few
+of your best sermons, dear. That can never do any harm&mdash;indeed
+it's sure to do good, to some poor benighted soul at
+least, that perhaps never heard the truth before. And likewise,
+perhaps, to some vacant congregation. I have always
+heard that chapels in the North were very superior to here.
+A different class of society, and better altogether. These
+Pigeons and Browns, and people are not the sort of society for
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, there's truth in that,&rdquo; said Mr. Beecham, pulling
+up his shirt-collar. &ldquo;Certainly it isn't the sort of thing one
+was accustomed to.&rdquo; And he lent a serious ear to the suggestion
+about the sermons. The consequence was that an
+invitation followed from a chapel in the North, where indeed
+Mrs. Ph&#339;be found herself in much finer society, and grew
+rapidly in importance and in ideas. After this favourable start,
+the process went on for many years by which a young man
+from Homerton was then developed into the influential and
+highly esteemed pastor of an important flock. Things may
+be, and probably are, differently managed now-a-days. Mr.
+Beecham had unbounded fluency and an unctuous manner of
+treating his subjects. It was eloquence of a kind, though not
+of an elevated kind. Never to be at a loss for what you have
+to say is a prodigious advantage to all men in all positions, but
+doubly so to a popular minister. He had an unbounded
+wealth of phraseology. Sentences seemed to melt out of his
+mouth without any apparent effort, all set in a certain cadence.
+He had not, perhaps, much power of thought, but it is easy to
+make up for such a secondary want when the gift of expression
+is so strong. Mr. Beecham rose, like an actor, from a long
+and successful career in the provinces, to what might be called
+the Surrey side of congregational eminence in London; and
+from thence attained his final apotheosis in a handsome chapel
+near Regent's Park, built of the whitest stone, and cushioned
+with the reddest damask, where a very large congregation sat
+in great comfort and listened to his sermons with a satisfaction
+no doubt increased by the fact that the cushions were soft as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+their own easy-chairs, and that carpets and hot-water pipes
+kept everything snug under foot.</p>
+
+<p>It was the most comfortable chapel in the whole connection.
+The seats were arranged like those of an amphitheatre, each
+line on a slightly higher level than the one in front of it, so
+that everybody saw everything that was going on. No dimness
+or mystery was wanted there; everything was bright daylight,
+bright paint, red cushions, comfort and respectability.
+It might not be a place very well adapted for saying your
+prayers in, but then you could say your prayers at home&mdash;and
+it was a place admirably adapted for hearing sermons in,
+which you could not do at home; and all the arrangements
+were such that you could hear in the greatest comfort, not
+to say luxury. I wonder, for my own part, that the poor
+folk about did not seize upon the Crescent Chapel on the
+cold Sunday mornings, and make themselves happy in those
+warm and ruddy pews. It would be a little amusing to
+speculate what all the well-dressed pew-holders would have
+done had this unexpected answer to the appeal which Mr.
+Beecham believed himself to make every Sunday to the world
+in general, been literally given. It would have been extremely
+embarrassing to the Managing Committee and all
+the office-bearers, and would have, I fear, deeply exasperated
+and offended the occupants of those family pews; but fortunately
+this difficulty never did occur. The proletariat of
+Marylebone had not the sense or the courage, or the profanity,
+which you will, to hit upon this mode of warming themselves.
+The real congregation embraced none of the unwashed multitude.
+Its value in mere velvet, silk, lace, trinkets, and furs
+was something amazing, and the amount these comfortable
+people represented in the way of income would have amounted
+to a most princely revenue. The little Salems and Bethesdas,
+with their humble flocks, could not be supposed to belong to
+the same species; and the difference was almost equally marked
+between such a place of worship as the Crescent Chapel and
+the parish churches, which are like the nets in the Gospel, and
+take in all kinds of fish, bad and good. The pew-holders in the
+Crescent Chapel were universally well off; they subscribed
+liberally to missionary societies, far more liberally than the
+people in St. Paul's close by did to the S. P. G. They had
+everything of the best in the chapel, as they had in their houses.
+They no more economized on their minister than they did on
+their pew-cushions, and they spent an amount of money on
+their choir which made the singing-people at St. Paul's gnash
+their teeth. From all this it will be seen that the atmosphere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+of the Crescent Chapel was of a very distinct and individual
+kind. It was a warm, luxurious air, perfumy, breathing of
+that refinement which is possible to mere wealth. I do not
+say there might not be true refinement besides, but the surface
+kind, that which you buy from upholsterers and tailors and
+dressmakers, which you procure ready made at schools, and
+which can only be kept up at a very high cost, abounded and
+pervaded the place. Badly dressed people felt themselves out
+of place in that brilliant sanctuary; a muddy footprint upon
+the thick matting in the passages was looked at as a crime.
+Clean dry feet issuing out of carriage or cab kept the aisles
+unstained, even on the wettest day. We say cab, because
+many of the people who went to the Crescent Chapel objected
+to take out their own carriages or work their own horses on
+Sunday; and there were many more who, though they did not
+possess carriages, used cabs with a freedom incompatible with
+poverty. As a general rule, they were much better off than
+the people at St. Paul's, more universally prosperous and well-to-do.
+And they were at the same time what you might safely
+call well-informed people&mdash;people who read the newspapers,
+and sometimes the magazines, and knew what was going on.
+The men were almost all liberal in politics, and believed in Mr.
+Gladstone with enthusiasm; the women often &ldquo;took an interest&rdquo;
+in public movements, especially of a charitable character.
+There was less mental stagnation among them probably than
+among many of their neighbours. Their life was not profound
+nor high, but still it was life after a sort. Such was the flock
+which had invited Mr. Beecham to become their pastor when
+he reached the climax of his career. They gave him a very
+good salary, enough to enable him to have a handsome house in
+one of the terraces overlooking Regent's Park. It is not a
+fashionable quarter, but it is not to be despised in any way.
+The rooms were good-sized and lofty, and sometimes have been
+known to suffice for very fine people indeed, a fact which the
+Beechams were well aware of; and they were not above the
+amiable weakness of making it known that their house was in
+a line with that of Lady Cecilia Burleigh. This single fact of
+itself might suffice to mark the incalculable distance between
+the Reverend Mr. Beecham of the Crescent Chapel, and the
+young man who began life as minister of Salem in Carlingford.
+And the development outside was not less remarkable than the
+development within.</p>
+
+<p>It is astonishing how our prejudices change from youth to
+middle age, even without any remarkable interposition of
+fortune; I do not say dissipate, or even dispel, which is much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+more doubtful&mdash;but they change. When Mr. and Mrs.
+Beecham commenced life, they had both the warmest feeling
+of opposition to the Church and everything churchy. All the
+circumstances of their lives had encouraged this feeling. The
+dislike of the little for the great, the instinctive opposition of a
+lower class towards the higher, intensified that natural essence
+of separatism, that determination to be wiser than one's neighbour,
+which in the common mind lies at the bottom of all
+dissent. In saying this we no more accuse Dissenters in
+religion than Dissenters in politics, or in art, or in criticism.
+The first dissenter in most cases is an original thinker, to
+whom his enforced departure from the ways of his fathers is
+misery and pain. Generally he has a hard struggle with himself
+before he can give up, for the superlative truth which has
+taken possession of him, all the habits, the pious traditions of
+his life. He is the real Nonconformist&mdash;half martyr, half
+victim, of his convictions. But that Nonconformity which has
+come to be the faith in which a large number of people are
+trained is a totally different business, and affects a very different
+kind of sentiments. Personal and independent conviction
+has no more to do with it than it has to do with the ardour of
+a Breton peasant trained in deepest zeal of Romanism, or the
+unbounded certainty of any other traditionary believer. For
+this reason we may be allowed to discuss the changes of feeling
+which manifested themselves in Mr. and Mrs. Beecham without
+anything disrespectful to Nonconformity. Not being persons
+of original mind, they were what their training and circumstances,
+and a flood of natural influences, made them. They
+began life, feeling themselves to be of a hopelessly low social
+caste, and believing themselves to be superior to their superiors
+in that enlightenment which they had been brought up to believe
+distinguished the connection. The first thing which opened
+their minds to a dawning doubt whether their enlightenment
+was, in reality, so much greater than that of their neighbours,
+was the social change worked in their position by their removal
+from Carlingford. In the great towns of the North, Dissent
+attains its highest social elevation, and Chapel people are no
+longer to be distinguished from Church people except by the
+fact that they go to Chapel instead of Church, a definition so
+simple as to be quite overwhelming to the unprepared dissenting
+intelligence, brought up in a little Tory borough, still
+holding for Church and Queen. The amazing difference which
+this made in the sentiments of Mrs. Ph&#339;be Beecham, <i>n&eacute;e</i>
+Tozer, it is quite impossible to describe. Her sudden introduction
+to &ldquo;circles&rdquo; which Mrs. Pigeon had never entered, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+to houses at the area-door of which Mr. Brown, the dairyman,
+would have humbly waited, would have turned the young
+woman's head, had she not felt the overpowering necessity of
+keeping that organ as steady as possible, to help her to hold
+her position in the new world. Ph&#339;be was a girl of spirit, and
+though her head went round and round, and everything felt
+confused about her, she did manage desperately to hold her
+own and to avoid committing herself; but I cannot attempt to
+tell how much her social elevation modified her sectarian zeal.
+Ph&#339;be was only a woman, so that I am free to assign such
+motives as having a serious power over her. Let us hope Mr.
+Beecham, being a man and a pastor, was moved in a more
+lofty, intellectual, and spiritual way.</p>
+
+<p>But however that may be, the pair went conjugally together
+in this modification of sentiment, and by the time they reached
+the lofty eminence of the Crescent Chapel, were as liberal-minded
+Nonconformists as heart could desire. Mr. Beecham
+indeed had many friends in the Low, and even some in the
+Broad Church. He appeared on platforms, to promote various
+public movements, along with clergymen of the Church. He
+spoke of &ldquo;our brethren within the pale of the Establishment&rdquo;
+always with respect, sometimes even with enthusiasm. &ldquo;Depend
+upon it, my dear Sir,&rdquo; he would even say sometimes to a
+liberal brother, &ldquo;the Establishment is not such an unmitigated
+evil as some people consider it. What should we do in country
+parishes where the people are not awakened? They do the
+dirty work for us, my dear brother&mdash;the dirty work.&rdquo; These
+sentiments were shared, but perhaps not warmly, by Mr.
+Beecham's congregation, some of whom were hot Voluntaries,
+and gave their ministers a little trouble. But the most part
+took their Nonconformity very quietly, and were satisfied to
+know that their chapel was the first in the connection, and
+their minister justly esteemed as one of the most eloquent.
+The Liberation Society held one meeting at the Crescent
+Chapel, but it was not considered a great success. At the
+best, they were no more than lukewarm Crescent-Chapelites,
+not political dissenters. Both minister and people were
+Liberal, that was the creed they professed. Some of the congregations
+Citywards, and the smaller chapels about Hampstead
+and Islington, used the word Latitudinarian instead; but
+that, as the Crescent Chapel people said, was a word always
+applied by the bigoted and ignorant to those who held in high
+regard the doctrines of Christian charity. They were indeed
+somewhat proud of their tolerance, their impartiality, their
+freedom from old prejudices. &ldquo;That sort of thing will not do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+now-a-days,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, who was a great railway
+contractor and one of the deacons, and who had himself a son
+at Oxford. If there had been any bigotry in the Crescent,
+Mr. Copperhead would have had little difficulty in transferring
+himself over the way to St. Paul's Church, and it is astonishing
+what an effect that fact had upon the mind of Mr.
+Beecham's flock.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beecham's house was situated in Regent's Park, and
+was constructed on the ordinary model of such houses. On
+the ground-floor was a handsome dining-room, a room which
+both Mr. and Mrs. Beecham twenty years before would have
+considered splendid, but which now they condescended to, as
+not so large as they could wish, but still comfortable. The
+drawing-room above was larger, a bright and pleasant room,
+furnished with considerable &ldquo;taste.&rdquo; Behind the dining-room,
+a smaller room was Mr. Beecham's study, or the library, as it
+was sometimes called. It was lined with book-cases containing
+a very fair collection of books, and ornamented with portraits
+(chiefly engravings) of celebrated ministers and laymen
+in the connection, with a bust of Mr. Copperhead over the
+mantelpiece. This bust had been done by a young sculptor
+whom he patronized, for the great man's own house. When
+it was nearly completed, however, a flaw was found in the
+marble, which somewhat detracted from its perfection. The
+flaw was in the shoulder of the image, and by no means
+serious; but Mr. Copperhead was not the man to pass over
+any such defect. After a long and serious consultation over
+it, which made the young artist shake in his shoes, a solution
+was found for the difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell you what, Sir,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead; &ldquo;I'll give it to
+the minister. It'll look famous in his little study. Works of
+art don't often come his way; and you'll get a block of the
+best, Mr. Chipstone&mdash;the very best, Sir, no expense spared&mdash;and
+begin another for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to all parties,
+though I will not say that it was not instrumental in bringing
+about certain other combinations which will be fully discussed
+in this history. The Beechams were mightily surprised when
+the huge marble head, almost as large as a Jupiter, though perhaps
+not otherwise so imposing, arrived at the Terrace; but they
+were also gratified.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is quite like receiving us into his own family circle,&rdquo; Mrs.
+Beecham said with a glance at her daughter, Ph&#339;be, junior,
+who, with all her pink fingers outspread, was standing in adoration
+before that image of wealth and fabulous luxury.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a grand head it is!&rdquo; cried the young enthusiast,
+gazing rapt upon the complacent marble whisker so delightfully
+curled and bristling with realistic force.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It looks well, I must say, it looks well,&rdquo; said Mr. Beecham
+himself, rubbing his hands, &ldquo;to receive such a token of respect
+from the leading member of the flock.&rdquo; And certainly no more
+perfect representation of a bell-wether ever adorned any shepherd's
+sanctuary.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LEADING MEMBER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead, to whom so much allusion has been made,
+was a well-known man in other regions besides that of the
+Crescent Chapel. His name, indeed, may be said to have gone
+to the ends of the earth, from whence he had conducted lines
+of railway, and where he had left docks, bridges, and light-houses
+to make him illustrious. He was one of the greatest
+contractors for railways and other public works in England,
+and, by consequence, in the world. He had no more than a
+very ordinary education, and no manners to speak of; but at
+the same time he had that kind of faculty which is in practical
+work what genius is in literature, and, indeed, in its kind is
+genius too, though it neither refines nor even (oddly enough)
+enlarges the mind to which it belongs. He saw the right track
+for a road through a country with a glance of his eye; he
+mastered all the points of nature which were opposed to him
+in the rapidest survey, though scientifically he was great in no
+branch of knowledge. He could rule his men as easily as if
+they were so many children; and, indeed, they were children
+in his hands. All these gifts made it apparent that he must
+have been a remarkable and able man; but no stranger would
+have guessed as much from his appearance or his talk. There
+were people, indeed, who knew him well, and who remained
+incredulous and bewildered, trying to persuade themselves that
+his success must be owing to pure luck, for that he had nothing
+else to secure it. The cause of this, perhaps, was that he knew
+nothing about books, and was one of those jeering cynics who
+are so common under one guise or another. Fine cynics are
+endurable, and give a certain zest often to society, which might
+become too civil without them; but your coarse cynic is not
+pleasant. Mr. Copperhead's eye was as effectual in quenching<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+emotion of any but the coarsest kind as water is against fire.
+People might be angry in his presence&mdash;it was the only passion
+he comprehended; but tenderness, sympathy, sorrow, all the
+more generous sentiments, fled and concealed themselves when
+this large, rich, costly man came by. People who were brought
+much in contact with him became ashamed of having any feelings
+at all; his eye upon them seemed to convict them of humbug.
+Those eyes were very light grey, prominent, with a jeer
+in them which was a very powerful moral instrument. His
+own belief was that he could &ldquo;spot&rdquo; humbug wherever he saw
+it, and that nothing could escape him; and, I suppose, so much
+humbug is there in this world that his belief was justified. But
+there are few more awful people than those ignoble spectators
+whose jeer arrests the moisture in the eye, and strangles the
+outcry on their neighbour's lip.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead had risen from the ranks; yet not altogether
+from the ranks. His father before him had been a contractor,
+dealing chiefly with canals and roads, and the old kind of public
+works; a very rough personage indeed, but one to whose fingers
+gold had stuck, perhaps because of the clay with which they
+were always more or less smeared. This ancestor had made a
+beginning to the family, and given his son a name to start with.
+<i>Our</i> Mr. Copperhead had married young, and had several sons,
+who were all in business, and all doing well; less vigorous, but
+still moderately successful copies of their father. When, however,
+he had thus done his duty to the State, the first Mrs.
+Copperhead having died, he did the only incomprehensible
+action of his life&mdash;he married a second time, a feeble, pretty,
+pink-and-white little woman, who had been his daughter's
+governess; married her without rhyme or reason, as all his
+friends and connections said. The only feasible motive for this
+second union seemed to be a desire on Mr. Copperhead's part
+to have something belonging to him which he could always jeer
+at, and in this way the match was highly successful. Mrs.
+Copperhead the second was gushing and susceptible, and as
+good a butt as could be imagined. She kept him in practice
+when nobody else was at hand. She was one of those naturally
+refined but less than half-educated, timid creatures who are to
+be found now and then painfully earning the bread which is
+very bitter to them in richer people's houses, and preserving in
+their little silent souls some fetish in the shape of a scrap of
+gentility, which is their sole comfort, or almost their sole comfort.
+Mrs. Copperhead's fetish was the dear recollection
+that she was &ldquo;an officer's daughter;&rdquo; or rather this had
+been her fetish in the days when she had nothing, and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+free to plume herself on the reflected glory. Whether in
+the depths of her luxurious abode, at the height of her good
+fortune, she still found comfort in the thought, it would
+be hard to tell. Everybody who had known her in her youth
+thought her the most fortunate of women. Her old school
+companions told her story for the encouragement of their
+daughters, as they might have told a fairy tale. To see her
+rolling in her gorgeous carriage, or bowed out of a shop where
+all the daintiest devices of fashion had been placed at her feet,
+filled passers-by with awe and envy. She could buy whatever
+she liked, festoon herself with finery, surround herself
+with the costliest knick-knacks; the more there were of them,
+and the costlier they were, the better was Mr. Copperhead
+pleased. She had everything that heart could desire. Poor
+little woman! What a change from the governess-chrysalis
+who was snubbed by her pupil and neglected by everybody!
+and yet I am not sure that she did not&mdash;so inconsistent is
+human nature&mdash;look back to those melancholy days with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>This lady was the mother of Clarence Copperhead, the young
+man who was at Oxford, her only child, upon whom (of course)
+she doted with the fondest folly; and whom his father jeered
+at more than at any one else in the world, more even than at
+his mother, yet was prouder of than of all his other sons and
+all his possessions put together. Clarence, whom I will not
+describe, as he will, I trust, show himself more effectually by
+his actions, was like his mother in disposition, or so, at least,
+she made herself happy by thinking; but by some freak of nature
+he was like his father in person, and carried his mouse's
+heart in a huge frame, somewhat hulking and heavy-shouldered,
+with the same roll which distinguished Mr. Copperhead, and
+which betrayed something of the original navvy who was the
+root of the race. He had his father's large face too, and a
+tendency towards those demonstrative and offensive whiskers
+which are the special inheritance of the British Philistine. But
+instead of the large goggle eyes, always jeering and impudent,
+which lighted up the paternal countenance, Clarence had a pair
+of mild brown orbs, repeated from his mother's faded face,
+which introduced the oddest discord into his physiognomy
+generally. In the family, that is to say among the step-brothers
+and step-sisters who formed Mr. Copperhead's first
+family, the young fellow bore no other name than that of the
+curled darling, though, indeed, he was as far from being curled
+as any one could be. He was not clever; he had none of the
+energy of his race, and promised to be as useless in an office as
+he would have been in a cutting or a yard full of men. I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+not sure that this fact did not increase secretly his father's
+exultation and pride in him. Mr. Copperhead was fond of
+costly and useless things; he liked them for their cost, with an
+additional zest in his sense of the huge vulgar use and profit of
+most things in his own life. This tendency, more than any
+appreciation of the beautiful, made him what is called a patron
+of art. It swelled his personal importance to think that he
+was able to hang up thousands of pounds, so to speak, on his
+walls, knowing all the time that he could make thousands more
+by the money had he invested it in more useful ways. The
+very fact that he could afford to refrain from investing it, that
+he could let it lie there useless, hanging by so many cords and
+ribbons, was sweet to him. And so also it was sweet to him
+to possess a perfectly useless specimen of humanity, which had
+cost him a great deal, and promised to cost him still more.
+He had plenty of useful sons as he had of useful money. The
+one who was of no use was the apex and glory of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>But these three made up a strange enough family party, as
+may be supposed. The original Copperheads, the first family,
+who were all of the same class and nature, would have made a
+much noisier, less peaceable household; but they would have
+been a much jollier and really more harmonious one. Mr.
+Copperhead himself somewhat despised his elder sons, who
+were like himself, only less rich, less vigorous, and less self-assertive.
+He saw, oddly enough, the coarseness of their manners,
+and even of their ways of thinking; but yet he was a great
+deal more comfortable, more at his ease among them, than he
+was when seated opposite his trembling, deprecating, frightened
+little wife, or that huge youth who cost him so much and
+returned him so little. Now and then, at regular periodical
+intervals, the head of the family would go down to Blackheath
+to dine and spend the night with his son Joe, the second and
+the favourite, where there were romping children and a portly,
+rosy young matron, and loud talk about City dinners, contracts,
+and estimates. This refreshed him, and he came home with
+many chuckles over the imperfections of the family.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My sons buy their wives by the hundred-weight,&rdquo; he would
+say jocularly at breakfast the day after; &ldquo;thirteen stone if she
+is a pound, is Mrs. Joe. Expensive to keep up in velvet and
+satin, not to speak of mutton and beef. Your mother comes
+cheap,&rdquo; he would add aside to Clarence, with a rolling laugh.
+Thus he did not in the least exempt his descendants from the
+universal ridicule which he poured on all the world; but when
+he sat down opposite his timid little delicate wife, and by his
+University man, who had very little on the whole to say for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+himself, Mr. Copperhead felt the increase in gentility as well as
+the failure in jollity. &ldquo;You are a couple of ghosts after Joe
+and his belongings, you two. Speak louder, I say, young fellow.
+You don't expect me to hear that penny-whistle of
+yours,&rdquo; he would say, chuckling at them, with a mixture of
+pride and disdain. They amused him by their dulness and
+silence, and personal awe of him. He was quite out of his
+element between these two, and yet the very fact pleasantly
+excited his pride.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I speak as gentlemen generally speak,&rdquo; said Clarence, who
+was sometimes sullen when attacked, and who knew by experience
+that his father was rarely offended by such an argument.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And I am sure, dear, your papa would never wish you to
+do otherwise,&rdquo; said anxious Mrs. Copperhead, casting a furtive
+frightened glance at her husband. He rolled out a mighty
+laugh from the head of the table where he was sitting. He
+contemplated them with a leer that would have been insulting,
+had he not been the husband of one and the father of the
+other. The laugh and the look called forth some colour on
+Mrs. Copperhead's cheek, well as she was used to them; but
+her son was less susceptible, and ate his breakfast steadily, and
+did not care.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A pretty pair you are,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;I like
+your gentility. How much <i>foie gras</i> would you eat for breakfast,
+I wonder, my lad, if you had to work for it? Luckily for
+you, I wasn't brought up to talk, as you say, like a gentleman.
+I'd like to see you managing a field of navvies with that nice
+little voice of yours&mdash;ay, or a mob before the hustings, my boy.
+You're good for nothing, you are; a nice delicate piece of china
+for a cupboard, like your mother before you. However, thank
+Heaven, we've got the cupboard,&rdquo; he said with a laugh, looking
+round him; &ldquo;a nice big 'un, too, well painted and gilded; and
+the time has come, through not talking like a gentleman, that
+I can afford you. You should hear Joe. When that fellow
+talks, his house shakes. Confounded bad style of house, walls
+like gingerbread. How the boards don't break like pie-crust
+under Mrs. Joe's fairy foot, I can't make out. By Jove, ma'am,
+one would think I starved you, to see you beside your daughter-in-law.
+Always had a fine healthy appetite had Mrs. Joe.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to answer to this speech, and therefore a
+dead silence ensued. When the master of the house is so distinctly
+the master, silence is apt to ensue after his remarks.
+Mrs. Copperhead sipped her tea, and Clarence worked steadily
+through his breakfast, and the head of the family crumpled the
+Times, which he read at intervals. All sorts of jokes had gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+on at Joe's table the morning before, and there had been peals
+of laughter, and Mrs. Joe had even administered a slap upon
+her husband's ruddy cheek for some pleasantry or other. Mr.
+Copperhead, as he looked at his son and his wife, chuckled behind
+the Times. When they thought he was occupied they
+made a few gentle remarks to each other. They had soft voices,
+with that indescribable resemblance in tone which so often
+exists between mother and son. Dresden china; yes, that was
+the word; and to see his own resemblance made in that delicate
+<i>p&acirc;te</i>, and elevated into that region of superlative costliness,
+tickled Mr. Copperhead, and in the most delightful way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How about your ball?&rdquo; was his next question, &ldquo;or Clarence's
+ball, as you don't seem to take much interest in it,
+ma'am? You are afraid of being brought in contact with the
+iron pots, eh? You might crack or go to pieces, who knows,
+and what would become of me, a wretched widower.&rdquo; Mr.
+Copperhead himself laughed loudly at this joke, which did not
+excite any mirth from the others, and then he repeated his
+question, &ldquo;How about the ball?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The invitations are all sent out, Mr. Copperhead; ninety-five&mdash;I&mdash;I
+mean a hundred and thirty-five. I&mdash;I beg your
+pardon, they were in two lots,&rdquo; answered the poor woman nervously.
+&ldquo;A hundred and thirty-eight&mdash;and there is&mdash;a few
+more&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take your time, ma'am, take your time, we'll get at the
+truth at last,&rdquo; said her husband; and he laid down his paper
+and looked at her. He was not angry nor impatient. The
+twinkle in his eye was purely humorous. Her stumblings
+amused him, and her nervousness. But oddly enough, the most
+furious impatience could not have more deeply disconcerted her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There are a few more&mdash;some old friends of mine,&rdquo; she went
+on, confused. &ldquo;They were once rather&mdash;kind&mdash;took an interest;
+that is&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, the baronet and his daughters,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead,
+&ldquo;by all means let's have the baronet and his daughters.
+Though as for their taking an interest&mdash;if you had not been a
+rich man's wife, ma'am, living in a grand house in Portland
+Place&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was not now,&rdquo; she said, hurriedly. &ldquo;I do not suppose
+that any one takes an interest&mdash;in me now&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead laughed, and nodded his head. &ldquo;Not
+many, ma'am, I should think&mdash;not many. You women must
+make up your minds to that. It's all very well to take an interest
+in a pretty girl; but when you come to a certain age&mdash;Well,
+let's proceed, the baronet&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>&ldquo;And his two girls&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, there's two girls! that's for you, Clarence, my boy. I
+thought there must be a motive. Think that fellow a good
+<i>parti</i>, eh? And I would not say they were far wrong if he
+behaves himself. Make a note of the baronet's daughter,
+young man. Lord, what a world it is!&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead,
+reflectively. &ldquo;I should not wonder if you had been
+scheming, too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I would not for the world!&rdquo; cried the poor little woman,
+roused for once. &ldquo;I would not for anything interfere with a
+marriage. That is the last thing you need fear from me.
+Whether it was a girl I was fond of, or a girl I disliked&mdash;so
+long as she was Clarence's choice. Oh, I know the harm that
+is done by other people's meddling&mdash;nothing, nothing, would
+induce me to interfere.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead laid down his paper, and looked at her. I
+suppose, however little a man may care for his wife, he does
+not relish the idea that she married him for anything but love.
+He contemplated her still with amused ridicule, but with something
+fiercer in his eyes. &ldquo;Oh&mdash;h!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you don't like
+other people to interfere? not so much as to say, it's a capital
+match, eh? You'll get so and so, and so and so, that you
+couldn't have otherwise&mdash;carriages perhaps, and plenty of
+money in your pocket (which it may be you never had in your
+life before), and consideration, and one of the finest houses in
+London, let us say in Portland Place. You don't like that
+amount of good advice, eh? Well, I do&mdash;I mean to interfere
+with my son, to that extent at least&mdash;you can do what you like.
+But as you're a person of prodigious influence, and strong will,
+and a great deal of character, and all that,&rdquo; Mr. Copperhead
+broke out with a rude laugh, &ldquo;I'm afraid of you, I am&mdash;quite
+afraid.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, just at this moment his brougham came round,
+and the great man finished his coffee at a gulp, and got up.
+&ldquo;You look out for the baronet's daughters, then&mdash;&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;and see all's ready for this ball of yours; while I go and
+work to pay the bills, that's my share. You do the ornamental,
+and I do the useful, ha, ha! I'll keep up my share.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was astonishing what a difference came upon the room the
+moment he disappeared. Somehow it had been out of harmony.
+His voice, his look, his heavy person, even his whiskers had
+been out of character. Now the air seemed to flutter after the
+closing of the door like water into which something offensive
+has sunk, and when the ripples of movement were over the large
+handsome room had toned down into perfect accord with its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+remaining inhabitants. Mrs. Copperhead's eyes were rather
+red&mdash;not with tears, but with the inclination to shed tears,
+which she carefully restrained in her son's presence. He still
+continued to eat steadily&mdash;he had an admirable appetite. But
+when he had finished everything on his plate, he looked up and
+said, &ldquo;I hope you don't mind, mamma; I don't suppose you
+do; but I don't like the way my father speaks to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, my dear!&rdquo; cried the mother, with an affected little
+smile, &ldquo;why should I mind? I ought to know by this time that
+it's only your papa's way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so&mdash;but I don't like it,&rdquo; said the young man,
+decisively. He did not notice, however, as after second thoughts
+he returned to the game-pie, that his mother's eyes were redder
+than ever.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>This ball was an event, not only in Mr. Copperhead's household,
+but even in the connection itself, to which the idea of balls,
+as given by leading members of the flock, was somewhat novel.
+Not that the young people were debarred from that amusement,
+but it was generally attained in a more or less accidental
+manner, and few professing Christians connected with the
+management of the chapel had gone the length of giving such
+an entertainment openly and with design. Mr. Copperhead,
+however, was in a position to triumph over all such prejudices.
+He was so rich that any community would have felt it ought to
+extend a certain measure of indulgence to such a man. Very
+wealthy persons are like spoilt children, their caprices are
+allowed to be natural, and even when we are angry with them
+we excuse the vagaries to which money has a right. This
+feeling of indulgence goes a very great way, especially among
+the classes engaged in money-making, who generally recognize
+a man's right to spend, and feel the sweetness of spending more
+acutely than the hereditary possessors of wealth. I do not
+believe that his superior knowledge of the best ways of using
+money profitably ever hinders a money-making man from lavish
+expenditure; but it gives him a double zest in spending, and
+it makes him, generally, charitable towards the extravagances
+of persons still richer than himself. A ball, there was no doubt,
+was a worldly-minded entertainment, but still, the chapel reflected,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+it is almost impossible not to be a little worldly-minded
+when you possess such a great share of the world's goods, and
+that, of course, it could not be for himself that Mr. Copperhead
+was doing this, but for his son. His son, these amiable casuists
+proceeded, was being brought up to fill a great position, and no
+doubt society did exact something, and as Mr. Copperhead had
+asked all the chief chapel people, his ball was looked upon with
+very indulgent eyes. The fact that the minister and his family
+were going staggered some of the more particular members a
+little, but Mr. Beecham took high ground on the subject and
+silenced the flock. &ldquo;The fact that a minister of religion is one
+of the first persons invited, is sufficient proof of the way our
+friend means to manage everything,&rdquo; said the pastor. &ldquo;Depend
+upon it, it would be good for the social relations of the country
+if your pastors and teachers were always present. It gives at
+once a character to all the proceedings.&rdquo; This, like every other
+lofty assertion, stilled the multitude. Some of the elder ladies,
+indeed, groaned to hear, even at the prayer-meetings, a whisper
+between the girls about this ball and what they were going to
+wear; but still it was Christmas, and all the newspapers, and
+a good deal of the light literature which is especially current
+at that season, persistently represented all the world as in a
+state of imbecile joviality, and thus, for the moment, every objection
+was put down.</p>
+
+<p>To nobody, however, was the question, what to wear, more
+interesting than to Ph&#339;be, junior, who was a very well-instructed
+young woman, and even on the point of dress had theories of
+her own. Ph&#339;be had, as her parents were happy to think,
+had every advantage in her education. She had possessed a
+German governess all to herself, by which means, even Mr.
+Beecham himself supposed, a certain amount of that philosophy
+which Germans communicate by their very touch must have got
+into her, besides her music and the language which was her
+primary study. And she had attended lectures at the ladies'
+college close by, and heard a great many eminent men on a
+great many different subjects. She had read, too, a great deal.
+She was very well got up in the subject of education for women,
+and lamented often and pathetically the difficulty they lay under
+of acquiring the highest instruction; but at the same time she
+patronized Mr. Ruskin's theory that dancing, drawing, and
+cooking were three of the higher arts which ought to be studied
+by girls. It is not necessary for me to account for the discrepancies
+between those two systems, in the first place because
+I cannot, and in the second place, because there is in the
+mind of the age some ineffable way of harmonizing them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+which makes their conjunction common. Ph&#339;be was restrained
+from carrying out either to its full extent. She
+was not allowed to go in for the Cambridge examinations because
+Mr. Beecham felt the connection might think it strange
+to see his daughter's name in the papers, and, probably, would
+imagine he meant to make a schoolmistress of her, which he
+thanked Providence he had no need to do. And she was not
+allowed to educate herself in the department of cooking, to
+which Mrs. Beecham objected, saying likewise, thank Heaven,
+they had no need of such messings; that she did not wish her
+daughter to make a slave of herself, and that Cook would not
+put up with it. Between these two limits Ph&#339;be's noble ambition
+was confined, which was a &ldquo;trial&rdquo; to her. But she did
+what she could, bating neither heart nor hope. She read
+Virgil at least, if not Sophocles, and she danced and dressed
+though she was not allowed to cook.</p>
+
+<p>As she took the matter in this serious way, it will be understood
+that the question of dress was not a mere frivolity with her.
+A week before the ball she stood in front of the large glass in
+her mother's room, contemplating herself, not with that satisfaction
+which it is generally supposed a pretty young woman
+has in contemplating her own image. She was decidedly a
+pretty young woman. She had a great deal of the hair of the
+period, nature in her case, as (curiously, yet very truly) in so
+many others, having lent herself to the prevailing fashion. How
+it comes about I cannot tell, but it is certain that there does
+exist at this present moment, a proportion of golden-haired girls
+which very much exceeds the number we used to see when
+golden hair had not become fashionable&mdash;a freak of nature
+which is altogether independent of dyes and auriferous fluid, and
+which probably has influenced fashion unawares. To be sure
+the pomades of twenty years ago are, Heaven be praised! unknown
+to this generation, and washing also has become the
+fashion, which accounts for something. Anyhow, Ph&#339;be,
+junior, possessed in perfection the hair of the period. She had,
+too, the complexion which goes naturally with those sunny
+locks&mdash;a warm pink and white, which, had the boundaries between
+the pink and the white been a little more distinct, would
+have approached perfection too. This was what she was
+thinking when she looked at herself in her mother's great glass.
+Mrs. Beecham stood behind her, more full-blown and more
+highly-coloured than she, but very evidently the rose to which
+this bud would come in time. Ph&#339;be looked at her own reflection,
+and then at her mother's, and sighed such a profound
+sigh as only lungs in the most excellent condition could produce.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mamma,&rdquo; she said, with an accent of despair, &ldquo;I am too
+pink, a great deal too pink! What am I to do?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense, my pet,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham; &ldquo;you have a lovely
+complexion;&rdquo; and she threw a quantity of green ribbons which
+lay by over her child's hair and shoulders. A cloud crossed
+the blooming countenance of Ph&#339;be, junior. She disembarrassed
+herself of the ribbons with another sigh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dear mamma,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I wish you would let me read
+with you now and then, about the theory of colours, for instance.
+Green is the complementary of red. If you want to
+bring out my pink and make it more conspicuous than ever, of
+course you will put me in a green dress. No, mamma, dear,
+not that&mdash;I should look a fright; and though I dare say it does
+not matter much, I object to looking a fright. Women are, I
+suppose, more ornamental than men, or, at least, everybody
+says so; and in that case it is our duty to keep it up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are a funny girl, with your theories of colour,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Beecham. &ldquo;In my time, fair girls wore greens and blues,
+and dark girls wore reds and yellows. It was quite simple.
+Have a white tarlatan, then; every girl looks well in that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't see, mamma,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, softly, suppressing in
+the most admirable manner the delicate trouble of not being
+understood, &ldquo;that a thing every girl looks well in, is just the
+sort of thing that no one looks <i>very</i> well in. White shows no
+invention. It is as if one took no trouble about one's dress.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And neither one ought, Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; said her mother. &ldquo;That
+is very true. It is sinful to waste time thinking of colours and
+ribbons, when we might be occupied about much more important
+matters.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is not my opinion at all,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I should like
+people to think I had taken a great deal of trouble. Think of
+all the trouble that has to be taken to get up this ball!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I fear so, indeed; and a great deal of expense,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Beecham, shaking her head. &ldquo;Yes, when one comes to think
+of that. But then, you see, wealth has its duties. I don't
+defend Mr. Copperhead&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't think he wants to be defended, mamma. I think it
+is all nonsense about wasting time. What I incline to, if you
+won't be shocked, is black.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Black!&rdquo; The suggestion took away Mrs. Beecham's
+breath. &ldquo;As if you were fifty! Why, I don't consider myself
+old enough for black.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is a pity,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a glance at her mother's full
+colours; but that was really of so much less importance.
+&ldquo;Black would throw me up,&rdquo; she added seriously, turning to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+the glass. &ldquo;It would take off this pink look. I don't mind
+it in the cheeks, but I am pink all over; my white is pink.
+Black would be a great deal the best for both of us. It would
+tone us down,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, decisively, &ldquo;and it would throw us
+up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But for you, a girl under twenty, my dear&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mamma, what does it matter? The question is, am I to
+look my best? which I think is my duty to you and to Providence;
+or am I just,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with indignation, &ldquo;to look
+a little insipidity&mdash;a creature with no character&mdash;a little girl
+like everybody else?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The consequence of this solemn appeal was that both the
+Ph&#339;bes went to Mr. Copperhead's ball in black; the elder in
+velvet, with Honiton lace (point, which Ph&#339;be, with her artistic
+instincts, would have much preferred, being unattainable); the
+younger in tulle, flounced to distraction, and largely relieved
+with blue. And the consequence of this toilette, and of the
+fact that Ph&#339;be did her duty by her parents and by Providence,
+and looked her very best, was that Clarence Copperhead fell a
+hopeless victim to her fascinations, and scarcely could be induced
+to leave her side all night. The ball was about as
+remarkable a ball as could have been seen in London. The
+son of the house had contemplated with absolute despair the
+list of invitations. He had deprecated the entertainment
+altogether. He had said, &ldquo;We know nobody,&rdquo; with a despairing
+impertinence which called forth one of his father's roars of
+laughter. And though Mr. Copperhead had done all he could
+to assume the position of that typical Paterfamilias who is
+condemned to pay for those pleasures of his family which are
+no pleasure to him, yet common-sense was too much for him,
+and everybody felt that he was in reality the giver and
+enjoyer of the entertainment. It was Mr., not Mrs. Copperhead's
+ball. It was the first of the kind which had ever
+taken place in his house; the beginning of a new chapter
+in his social existence. Up to this moment he had not shown
+any signs of being smitten with that craze for &ldquo;Society,&rdquo;
+which so often and so sorely affects the millionnaire. He had
+contented himself hitherto with heavy and showy dinners,
+costing Heaven knows how much a head (Mr. Copperhead
+knew, and swelled visibly in pride and pleasure as the cost
+increased), which he consumed in company with twenty people
+or so of kindred tastes to himself, who appreciated the cost and
+understood his feelings. On such people, however, his Dresden
+china was thrown away. Joe and Mrs. Joe were much more in
+their way than the elegant University man and the well-bred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+mother, who was &ldquo;a poor little dowdy,&rdquo; they all said. Therefore
+the fact had been forced upon Mr. Copperhead that his
+circle must be widened and advanced, if his crowning glories
+were to be appreciated as they deserved.</p>
+
+<p>The hunger of wealth for that something above wealth which
+the bewildered rich man only discovers the existence of when
+he has struggled to the highest pinnacle of advancement in his
+own way, began to seize this wealthy neophyte. To be sure,
+in this first essay, the company which he assembled in his fine
+rooms in Portland Place, to see all his fine things and celebrate
+his glory, was not a fine company, but they afforded more
+gratification to Mr. Copperhead than if they had been ever so
+fine. They were people of his own class, his old friends,
+invited to be dazzled, though standing out to the utmost of
+their power, and refusing, so far as in them lay, to admit how
+much dazzled they were. It was a more reasonable sort of
+vanity than the commoner kind, which aims at displaying its
+riches to great personages, people who are not dazzled by
+any extent of grandeur, and in whose bosoms no jealousy is
+excited towards the giver of the feast. Mr. Copperhead's
+friends had much more lively feelings; they walked about
+through the great rooms, with their wives on their arms, in a
+state of semi-defiance, expressing no admiration, saying to each
+other, &ldquo;This must have cost Copperhead a pretty penny,&rdquo; as
+they met in doorways; while the ladies put their flowery
+and jewelled heads together and whispered, &ldquo;Did you ever see
+such extravagance? And what a dowdy <i>she</i> is with it all!&rdquo;
+This was the under-current of sentiment which flowed strong
+in all the passages, and down the rapids of the great staircase;
+a stream of vigorous human feeling, the existence of which
+was as deeply gratifying to the entertainer as the sweetest
+flattery. The lord and the ladies who might have been tempted
+to his great house would not have had a thought to spare for
+Mr. Copperhead; but the unwilling applause of his own class
+afforded him a true triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Amid this throng of people, however, there could be little
+doubt that the one young lady who attracted his son was
+the least eligible person there, being no other than Ph&#339;be
+Beecham, the pastor's daughter. Almost the only other
+utterly ineligible girl was a pale little maiden who accompanied
+Sir Robert Dorset and his daughters, and who was
+supposed to be either their governess or their humble companion.
+The Dorsets were the only people who had any
+pretensions to belong to &ldquo;society,&rdquo; in all those crowded
+rooms. They were distantly related to Mrs. Copperhead, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+had been, she gratefully thought, kind to her in her youth, and
+they had no particular objection to be kind to her now that she
+was rich, though the Baronet, as Mr. Copperhead always called
+him, winced at so rampant a specimen of wealth, and &ldquo;the
+girls&rdquo; did not see what good it was to keep up relations with
+a distant cousin, who though so prodigiously rich was of no
+possible use, and could neither make parties for them, nor
+chaperon them to the houses of the great. When they had
+received her present invitation, they had accepted it with
+surprise and hesitation. Chance only had brought them to
+London at that time of the year, the most curious time surely
+to choose for a ball, but convenient enough as affording a little
+amusement at a season when little amusement was ordinarily
+to be had. Sir Robert had consented to go, as a man with no
+occupation elsewhere might consent to go to the Cannibal
+Islands, to see how the savages comported themselves. And
+little Ursula May, another poor relative on the other side of
+the house, whom they had charitably brought up to town with
+them, might go too, they decided, to such a gathering. There
+was no Lady Dorset, and the girls were &ldquo;girls&rdquo; only by
+courtesy, having passed the age to which that title refers.
+Such good looks as they had were faded, and they were indifferently
+dressed. This last circumstance arose partly from the
+fact that they never dressed very well, and partly because they
+did not think it necessary to put themselves to much trouble
+for poor Mrs. Copperhead's ball. Their little companion,
+Ursula, was in a white frock, the sort of dress which Ph&#339;be
+had rebelled against. She was all white and had never been
+to a ball before. This little party, which represented the
+aristocracy at the Copperhead's ball, went to the entertainment
+with a little expectation in their minds: What sort of people
+would be there? Would they be &ldquo;frights?&rdquo; They were not
+likely to be interesting in any other way, the Miss Dorsets
+knew; but to little Ursula a ball was a ball, and meant delight
+and glory she was aware, though she did not quite know how.
+The expectations of the party, however, were strangely disappointed.
+Instead of being &ldquo;a set of frights,&rdquo; Mrs. Copperhead's
+guests were found to be resplendent in toilette. Never,
+even under a ducal roof, had these ladies found themselves in
+such a gorgeous assembly, and never before, perhaps, even at
+the Duchess's grandest receptions, had they been unable to
+discover a single face they knew. Sir Robert was even more
+appalled by this discovery than his daughters were. He put
+up his glass and peered more and more wistfully into the
+crowd. &ldquo;Don't know a soul,&rdquo; he repeated at intervals. Poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+Sir Robert! he had not thought it possible that such an event
+could happen to him within the four seas. Accordingly the
+Dorsets clung, somewhat scared, to Mrs. Copperhead's side,
+and Ursula along with them, who looked at the crowd still
+more wistfully than Sir Robert did, and thought how nice it
+would be to know somebody. Unfortunately the Miss Dorsets
+were not attractive in personal appearance. Clarence Copperhead,
+though he was not indifferent to a baronet, was yet not
+sufficiently devoted to the aristocracy to do more than dance
+once, as was his bounden duty, with each of the sisters. &ldquo;It
+seems so strange not to know any one,&rdquo; these ladies said.
+&ldquo;Isn't it?&rdquo; said Clarence. &ldquo;<i>I</i> don't know a soul.&rdquo; But
+then he went off and danced with Ph&#339;be Beecham, and the
+Miss Dorsets stood by Mrs. Copperhead, almost concealing
+behind them the slight little snow-white figure of little Ursula
+May.</p>
+
+<p>Clarence was a very well-behaved young man on the whole.
+He knew his duty, and did it with a steady industry, working
+off his dances in the spirit of his navvy forefather. But he
+returned between each duty dance to the young lady in black,
+who was always distinguishable among so many young ladies
+in white, and pink, and green, and blue. The Miss Dorsets
+and Ursula looked with interest and something like envy at
+that young lady in black. She had so many partners that she
+scarcely knew how to manage them all, and the son of the
+house returned to her side with a pertinacity that could not
+pass unremarked. &ldquo;Why should one girl have so much and
+another girl so little?&rdquo; Ursula said to herself; but, to be
+sure, she knew nobody, and the young lady in black knew
+everybody. On the whole, however, it became evident to
+Ursula that a ball was not always a scene of unmixed delight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is very kind of you to remember what old friends we
+are,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;But, Mr. Clarence, don't be more good
+to me than you ought to be. I see your mother looking for
+you, and Mr. Copperhead might not like it. Another time,
+perhaps, we shall be able to talk of old days.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is no time like the present,&rdquo; said the young man,
+who liked his own way. I do not mean to say that it was
+right of Ph&#339;be to dance with him, especially dances she had
+promised to other people. But he was the personage of the
+evening, and that is a great temptation. Mr. Copperhead
+himself came up to them more than once, with meaning in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't be too entertaining, Miss Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; he said; for he
+saw no reason why he should not speak plainly in his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+house, especially to the minister's daughter. &ldquo;Don't be too
+entertaining. This is Clarence's ball, and he ought to be civil
+to other people too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, please go away!&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be, after this admonition.
+But Clarence was sullen, and stood his ground.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We are going to have our waltz out,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is not
+my ball a bit&mdash;let him entertain his people himself. How
+should I know such a set of guys? I know nobody but you
+and the Dorset girls, who are in society. Parents are a mistake,&rdquo;
+said the young man, half rebellious, half sullen, &ldquo;they
+never understand. Perhaps you don't feel that, but I should
+think girls must see it sometimes as well as men.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Girls don't use such strong expressions,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be,
+smiling, as they flew off in the uncompleted waltz. She danced
+very well, better than most of the ladies present, and that was
+the reason Clarence assigned to his mother for his preference
+of her. But when Mr. Copperhead saw that his remonstrance
+was unheeded by the young people, he went up to Mrs.
+Beecham, with a rich man's noble frankness and courage. &ldquo;I
+am delighted to see you here, ma'am, and I hope you have remarked
+how well Miss Ph&#339;be is entertaining my boy. Do
+you see them dancing? She's been away from you a long time,
+Mrs. Beecham, as girls will when they get hold of somebody
+that pleases them. Shouldn't you like me to go and fetch her
+back?&rdquo; Mrs. Beecham, with cheeks that were very full blown
+indeed, and required a great deal of fanning, called back her
+child to her side at the end of that dance. She scolded Ph&#339;be
+behind her fan, and recalled her to a sense of duty. &ldquo;A pastor's
+daughter has to be doubly particular,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;what if
+your poor papa was to get into trouble through your thoughtlessness?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was not thoughtless, mamma; forgive me for answering
+back,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, very meekly; and she showed no signs of
+sulkiness, though Clarence was carried off and kept from approaching
+her again.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, however, when Clarence was removed from
+Ph&#339;be, he fell into still greater peril. The eldest Miss Dorset
+and her mother, both of them with equally benevolent intentions,
+introduced him simultaneously to Ursula May. &ldquo;The
+poor little girl has not danced once,&rdquo; Mrs. Copperhead, who
+had recollections of standing by herself for a whole evening,
+unnoticed, whispered in his ear, and Miss Dorset spoke to him
+still more plainly. &ldquo;We brought her,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but I cannot
+get her partners, for I don't know anybody.&rdquo; And what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+could Clarence do but offer himself? And Ursula, too, was a
+good dancer, and very pretty&mdash;far prettier than Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Confound him! there he is now for ever with that girl in
+white,&rdquo; said his father to himself, with great rage. Dozens of
+good partners in pink and blue were going about the room.
+What did the boy mean by bestowing himself upon the two
+poor ones, the black and the white. This disturbed Mr.
+Copperhead's enjoyment, as he stood in the doorway of the
+ball-room, looking round upon all the splendour that was his,
+and feeling disposed, like Nebuchadnezzar, to call upon everybody
+to come and worship him. He expanded and swelled out
+with pride and complacency, as he looked round upon his own
+greatness, and perceived the effect made upon the beholders.
+When that effect did not seem sufficiently deep, he called here
+and there upon a lingerer for applause. &ldquo;That's considered a
+very fine Turner,&rdquo; he said, taking one of them into a smaller
+room. &ldquo;Come along here, you know about that sort of thing&mdash;I
+don't. I should be ashamed to tell you how much I gave
+for it; all that money hanging there useless, bringing in
+nothing! But when I do buy anything I like it to be the very
+best that is to be had.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'd as soon have a good chromo,&rdquo; said the person addressed,
+&ldquo;which costs a matter of a five-pound note, and enough too, to
+hang up against a wall. But you can afford it, Copperhead.
+You've the best right of any man I know to be a fool if you
+like.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The great man laughed, but he scarcely liked the compliment.
+&ldquo;I am a fool if you like,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the biggest fool going. I
+like a thing that costs a deal, and is of no use. That's what I
+call luxury. My boy, Clarence, and my big picture, they're
+dear; but I can afford 'em, if they were double the price.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I were you,&rdquo; said his friend, &ldquo;I wouldn't hang my picture
+in this little bit of a hole, nor let my boy waste his time
+with all the riff-raff in the room. There's Smith's girl and
+Robinson's niece, both of them worth a cool hundred thousand;
+and you leave him to flourish about all over the place with a
+chit in a white frock, and another in a black one. I call that
+waste, not luxury, for my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't want to sell either the boy or the picture,&rdquo; said the
+rich man, with a laugh. But nevertheless he was annoyed that
+his son should be such an ass. Miss Smith and Miss Robinson
+were as fine as their milliners could make them. The first of
+these ladies had an emerald locket almost as big as a warming-pan,
+and Miss Robinson's pearls were a little fortune in themselves;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+but the chosen objects of that young idiot's attentions
+wore nothing but trumpery twopenny-halfpenny trinkets, and
+gowns which had been made at home for all Mr. Copperhead
+knew. Confound him! the father breathed hotly to himself.
+Thus it will be seen that unmixed pleasure is not to be had in
+this world, even in the midst of envious friends and the most
+splendid entertainment which money could supply.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>A COUNTRY PARTY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very funny, now,&rdquo; said Sir Robert. &ldquo;I don't know that
+such a thing ever happened to me before. Give you my word
+for it, I didn't know a single soul, not one; and there must
+have been a couple of hundred or so there. Jove! I never
+thought there were as many people in England that I didn't
+know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How could you know Mr. Copperhead's friends?&rdquo; said
+Sophy Dorset. &ldquo;What I wonder is, that she should have asked
+us. Not but that it was amusing enough, once in a way, just
+to see how such people look.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They looked very much like other people, my dear. Finer,
+though. I haven't seen so many jewels at an evening party
+for ages. Very much like other people. Fatter, perhaps, the
+men, but not the women. I notice,&rdquo; said Sir Robert, who himself
+was spare, &ldquo;that City men generally have a tendency to
+fat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They are so rich,&rdquo; said Miss Dorset, with gentle disgust.</p>
+
+<p>She was the quiet one, never saying much. Sophy, who was
+lively, conducted the conversation. They were all seated at
+breakfast, later than usual, on the morning after the Copperheads'
+ball. It was a hazy morning, and the party were seated
+in a large sitting-room in the &ldquo;very central&rdquo; locality of Suffolk
+Street, looking down that straight little street upon the stream
+of carriages and omnibuses in the foggy distance. It was not
+for pleasure that this country party had come to London. Sir
+Robert's second son, who was in India, had sent his eldest
+children home to the care of his father and sisters. They were
+expected at Portsmouth daily, and the aunts, somewhat excited
+by the prospect of their charge, had insisted upon coming to
+town to receive them. As for Ursula May, who was a poor
+relation on the late Lady Dorset's side, as Mrs. Copperhead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+had been a poor relation on Sir Robert's, London at any season
+was a wonder and excitement to her, and she could not sufficiently
+thank the kind relations who had given her this holiday
+in her humdrum life. She was the daughter of a poor clergyman
+in the little town of Carlingford, a widower with a large
+family. Ursula was the eldest daughter, with the duties of a
+mother on her much burdened hands; and she had no special
+inclination towards these duties, so that a week's escape from
+them was a relief to her at any time. And a ball! But the
+ball had not been so beatific as Ursula hoped. In her dark
+blue serge dress, close up to the throat and down to the wrists,
+she did not look so pale as she had done in her snow-white
+garments on the previous night; but she was at the best of
+times a shadowy little person, with soft, dark brown hair, dark
+brown eyes, and no more colour than the faintest of wild rose
+tints; but the youthfulness, and softness, and roundness of the
+girl showed to full advantage beside the more angular development
+of the Miss Dorsets, who were tall, and had lost the first
+smooth curves of youth. To Ursula, not yet twenty, these
+ladies looked very mature, almost aged, being one of them ten,
+and the other eight years older than herself. She looked up to
+them with great respect; but she felt, all the same&mdash;how could
+she help it?&mdash;that in some things, though the Miss Dorsets
+were her superiors, it was best to be Ursula May.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Clara!&rdquo; said Sir Robert. &ldquo;She was always a frightened
+creature. When I recollect her, a poor little governess,
+keeping behind backs at the nursery parties&mdash;and to see her in
+all her splendour now!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She would keep behind backs still, if she could,&rdquo; said Miss
+Dorset.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Think of that, Ursula,&rdquo; cried Sophy; &ldquo;there is an example
+for you. She was a great deal worse off than you are; and to
+see her now, as papa says! You may have a house in Portland
+Place too, and ask us to balls, and wear diamonds. Think of
+that! Though last night you looked as frightened as she.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't put such demoralizing ideas into the child's head.
+How it is that girls are not ruined,&rdquo; said Miss Dorset, shaking
+her head, &ldquo;ruined! by such examples, I cannot tell. They must
+have stronger heads than we think. As poor as Cinderella one
+day, and the next as rich as the Queen&mdash;without any merit of
+theirs, all because some chance man happens to take a fancy to
+them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Quite right,&rdquo; said Sir Robert; &ldquo;quite right, my dear. It
+is the natural course of affairs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dorset shook her head. She went on shaking her head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+as she poured out the tea. She was not given to eloquence,
+but the subject inspired her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't think of it, Ursula; it is not the sort of thing that
+good girls ought to think of,&rdquo; and the elder sister made signs
+to Sophy, who was reckless, and did not mind the moral effect
+of the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Mrs. Copperhead! I shall never have a house in
+Portland Place, nor any diamonds, except Aunt Mary's old
+brooch. I shall live and die an old maid, and nobody will waste
+a thought upon me,&rdquo; said Sophy, who made this prophecy at
+her ease, not expecting it to come true; &ldquo;but I don't envy
+poor Clara, and if you marry such a man as Mr. Copperhead,
+though I shall admire you very much, Ursula, I shan't envy
+you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is young Mr. Copperhead as bad as his father?&rdquo; said
+Ursula, simply.</p>
+
+<p>She was so far from thinking what meaning could be attached
+to her words, that she stopped and looked, wondering, from one
+to another when they laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ha! ha! ha!&rdquo; said Sir Robert; &ldquo;not so bad, either!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Poor Ursula was extremely serious. She turned with relief
+to Miss Dorset, who was serious too.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, we don't know much about Clarence; he is a
+heavy young man. I don't think he is attractive. Have you
+had a letter from the Parsonage this morning?&rdquo; said Anne
+Dorset, with a very grave face; and as it turned out that
+Ursula had a letter, Miss Dorset immediately plunged into
+discussion of it. The girl did not understand why the simple
+little epistle should be so interesting, nor did she perceive yet
+what the laughter was about. To tell the truth, Ursula, who
+was not clever, had thought young Mr. Copperhead very <i>nice</i>.
+He had asked her to dance when nobody else did; he had
+talked to her as much as he could have talked to Sophy Dorset
+herself. He had rehabilitated her in her own eyes after the
+first disappointment and failure of the evening, and she was
+prepared to think, whatever might be said about the father,
+that the son was &ldquo;very kind&rdquo; and very agreeable. Why
+should they laugh? Ursula concluded that there must be
+some private joke of their own about Clarence (what a pretty,
+interesting, superior name Clarence was!) which she could not
+be permitted to know.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you talk like that,&rdquo; said Anne Dorset to Sophy, &ldquo;you
+will set her little head afloat about good matches, and spoil
+her too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And a very good thing,&rdquo; said Sophy. &ldquo;If you had put the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+idea into my head, I should not be Sophy Dorset now. Why
+shouldn't she think of a good match? Can she live there for
+ever in that dreadful Parsonage, among all those children whom
+she does not know how to manage? Don't be absurd, Anne;
+except an elder daughter like you here and there, you know,
+girls must marry if they are to be of any consequence in the
+world. Let them get it into their heads; we can't change
+what is the course of nature, as papa says.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Sophy! it is so unwomanly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind; when a man chuckles and jeers at me because
+I am unmarried, I think it is unmanly; but they all do it, and
+no one finds any fault.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not all surely; not near <i>all</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't they? Not to our faces, perhaps; but whenever
+they write, whenever they speak in public. When men are so
+mean, why should we train girls up to unnatural high-mindedness?
+Why, that is the sort of girl who ought to make a good
+marriage; to 'catch' somebody, or have somebody 'hooked' for
+her. She is pretty, and soft, and not very wise. I am doing
+the very best thing in the world for her, when I laugh at love and
+all that nonsense, and put a good match into her mind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dorset turned away with a sigh, and shook her head.
+It was all she could do. To encounter Sophy in argument was
+beyond her power, and if it had not been beyond her power,
+what would have been the good of it? Sophy had a story
+which, unfortunately, most people knew. She had been romantic,
+and she had been disappointed. Five or six years before,
+she had been engaged to a clergyman, who, finding that the
+good living he was waiting for in order to marry was not likely
+to come through Sir Robert's influence, intimated to his betrothed
+his serious doubt whether they were likely to be happy
+together, and broke off the engagement. He married somebody
+else in six months, and Sophy was left to bear the shame as
+she might. To be sure, a great many people were highly indignant
+with him at the moment; his sin, however, was forgotten
+long ago, so far as he was concerned; but nobody forgot
+that Sophy had been jilted, and she did not forget it herself,
+which was worse. Therefore Miss Dorset attempted no argument
+with her sister. She shook her gentle head, and said
+nothing. Anne was the elder sister born, the maiden-mother,
+who is a clearly defined type of humanity, though rare, perhaps,
+like all the finer sorts. She resolved in her own mind to take
+private means for the fortification and preservation of Ursula,
+whose position, as elder sister of a motherless family, interested
+her especially as being like her own; but Anne owned within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+herself that she had never been so young as little Ursula
+May.</p>
+
+<p>Ursula, for her part, thought very little about the question
+which had thus moved her cousins. She thought Mr. Clarence
+Copperhead was very nice, and that if she had but known as
+many people, and had as many partners as that young lady in
+black, she would have enjoyed the ball very much. After all,
+now that it was over, she felt that she had enjoyed it. Three
+dances were a great deal better than none at all, and to have
+that pretty white frock given to her by Sir Robert was no
+small matter. Besides, for in this as in other things the uses
+of adversity are sometimes sweet, the pretty dress, which no
+doubt would have been torn and crumpled had she danced
+much, was almost quite fresh now, and would do very well at
+Carlingford if there should be any balls there&mdash;events which
+happened occasionally, though Ursula had never been lucky
+enough to go to any of them. And Cousin Sophy had given
+her a set of Venetian beads and Cousin Anne a bracelet. This
+good fortune was quite enough to fill her mind with satisfaction,
+and prevent any undue meditation upon good matches or the
+attentions of Clarence Copperhead. Ursula was as different
+as possible from Ph&#339;be Beecham. She had no pretensions to
+be intellectual. She preferred the company even of her very
+smallest brothers and sisters to the conversation of her papa,
+though he was known to be one of the most superior men in
+the diocese. Even when her elder brother Reginald, of whom
+she was very fond, came home from college, Ursula was more
+than indifferent to the privileged position of elder sister, by
+which she was permitted to sit up and assist at the talks which
+were carried on between him and his father. Reginald was
+very clever too; he was making his own way at the university
+by means of scholarships, the only way in which a son of Mr.
+May's was likely to get to the university at all, and to hear
+him talk with his father about Greek poetry and philosophy
+was a very fine thing indeed; how Ph&#339;be Beecham, if the
+chance had been hers, would have prized it; but Ursula did
+not enjoy the privilege. She preferred a pantomime, or the
+poorest performance in a theatre, or even Madame Tussuad's
+exhibition. She preferred even to walk about the gay streets
+with Miss Dorset's maid, and look into the shop-windows and
+speculate what was going to be worn next season. Poor little
+girl! with such innocent and frivolous tastes, it may be supposed
+she did not find her position as elder sister and housekeeper
+a very congenial one. Her father was no more than
+Incumbent of St. Roque, an old perpetual curacy merged in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+district church, which was a poor appointment for an elderly
+man with a family; he was very clever and superior, but not a
+man who got on, or who did much to help his children to get
+on; and had Ursula been of the kind of those who suffer and
+deny themselves by nature, she would have had her hands full,
+and abundant opportunity afforded her to exercise those faculties.
+But she was not of this frame of mind. She did what
+she was obliged to do as well as time and opportunity permitted;
+but she did not throw herself with any enthusiasm into her
+duties. To keep seven children in good condition and discipline
+in a small house, on a small income, is more, it must be allowed,
+than most girls of twenty are equal to; only enthusiasm and
+self-devotion could make such a task possible, and these qualifications
+poor little Ursula did not possess. Oh! how glad she
+was to get away from it all, from having to think of Janey and
+Johnny, and Amy and little Robin. She was not anxious
+about how things might be going on in her absence, as kind
+Miss Dorset thought she must be. The happiness of escaping
+was first and foremost in her thoughts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>SELF-DEVOTION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Copperhead's manner is not pleasant sometimes, that
+is quite true. We must make allowances, my dear. Great
+wealth, you know, has its temptations. You can't expect a
+man with so much money and so many people under him to
+have the same consideration for other people's feelings. He
+says to this man go and he goeth, and to that man come and he
+cometh.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is all very well,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;but he has no right,
+that I can think of, to be rude to mamma and me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He was not exactly rude, my dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham.
+&ldquo;We must not say he was rude. Clarence ought to have
+divided his attentions more equally, we must admit, and his
+father was annoyed&mdash;for the moment. I have no doubt he has
+forgotten all about it long ago, and will be as pleasant as ever
+next time we meet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am quite sure of it,&rdquo; said the pastor, &ldquo;and at the worst
+it was but his manner&mdash;only his manner. In short, at the
+committee meeting yesterday nothing could have been nicer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+He went even out of his way to send, as it were, a kind message
+to Ph&#339;be. 'I needn't ask if Miss Ph&#339;be enjoyed herself,'
+he said. Depend upon it, my dear, if there was a temporary
+annoyance it is both forgotten and forgiven, so far as
+Mr. Copperhead is concerned.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forgiven!&rdquo; Ph&#339;be said to herself; but she thought it
+wiser to say nothing audible on the subject. Her father and
+mother, it was evident, were both disposed to extend any
+amount of toleration to the leading member. It was he who
+was the best judge as to what he had a right to be annoyed
+about. The family party were in Mr. Beecham's study, where
+the large bust of Mr. Copperhead stood on the mantelpiece, the
+chief decoration. How could any one be so wicked as to rebel
+against the influence of so great a personage? Ph&#339;be had her
+own ideas, but she was wise and kept them to herself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, solemnly, &ldquo;what is to be
+done, my dear, about this letter from my good papa?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be was standing in front of a book-case, apparently looking
+for a book. She said nothing; but it was easy to perceive
+by the erectness of her shoulders, and the slight movement that
+ran through her, that her attention was fully engaged.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, yes indeed, what about it?&rdquo; the pastor said. He put
+down the pen, which he had been holding in his hand by way
+of symbol that, amiable as he was, his attention to his woman-kind
+was an encroachment upon time which might be more usefully
+employed. But this was a serious question; he had no
+suggestion to offer, but he sat and twiddled his thumbs, and
+looked at his wife with interest suddenly aroused.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is a great deal to be thought of,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham,
+&ldquo;it is not a simple matter of family devotion. Of course if I
+had no other ties, nor other duties, everything would be easy.
+I should go at once to my poor suffering mamma.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Beecham was a clever woman, but she had not been
+able to get it out of her mind, owing to the imperfections of
+her education in youth, that it was a vulgar thing to say father
+and mother. &ldquo;But in the present circumstances,&rdquo; she continued,
+her husband having given his assent to this speech, &ldquo;it
+is clear that I cannot do what I wish. I have you to think of,
+my dear, and the children, and the duties of my position. On
+the other hand, of course I could not wish, as poor mamma's
+only daughter, to have my sister-in-law called in. She is not
+the kind of person; she is underbred, uneducated. Of course
+she would be thinking of her own children, and what would be
+best for them. My parents have done all that ought to be expected
+from them for Tom. Considering all things, what they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+have to dispose of ought to go to Ph&#339;be and Tozer. But Mrs.
+Tom would not see that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is very true, my dear; I don't suppose she would,&rdquo;
+said Mr. Beecham, with an anxious air.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Tom,&rdquo; said his wife, with some heat, &ldquo;would think
+her own had the first claim. She maintained it to my very
+face, and after that what have we to expect? It's us that are
+Tozers,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;as for you, Ph&#339;be, you belong to another
+family. I put it in my own language of course, not in her
+vulgar way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is a very serious question altogether,&rdquo; said the pastor,
+with some solemnity. &ldquo;I don't see how you can get away, and
+I don't know what is to be done.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whatever is to be done, I won't leave poor mamma in the
+hands of Mrs. Tom,&rdquo; cries Mrs. Beecham, &ldquo;not whatever it
+costs me. She's capable of anything, that woman is. To have
+her in the same town is bad enough, but in the same house
+nursing poor mamma! You and I would never see a penny of
+the money, Henery, nor our children&mdash;not a penny! besides
+the vexation of seeing one's own parents turned against one.
+I know very well how it would be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beecham ceased twiddling his thumbs. The crisis was
+too serious for that indulgence. &ldquo;The position is most difficult,&rdquo;
+he said, &ldquo;I see it all. It is easy to see it for that matter,
+but to decide what are we to do is not easy. To go back to
+Carlingford after so many changes, would it be good for you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It would kill me,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, with energy, &ldquo;you
+know it would kill me. Envy drove us out, and envy would
+bring me to the grave. I don't deceive myself, that is what I
+see before me, if I tear myself from all my duties and go. But
+on the other hand&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Listen, mamma!&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be, turning round suddenly;
+&ldquo;if grandmamma is ill, and you are afraid to leave her alone,
+why not send me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Both her parents turned towards Ph&#339;be, as she spoke; they
+listened to her with wonder and consternation, yet with admiring
+looks. Then they looked at each other consulting,
+alarmed. &ldquo;You!&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, and &ldquo;You!&rdquo; echoed
+the pastor, repeating in his great astonishment what his wife
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, indeed, me&mdash;why not me? it would be only my duty,&rdquo;
+said Ph&#339;be, with great composure. &ldquo;And there is nothing to
+keep me from going. I almost think I should like it&mdash;but
+anyhow, mamma, if you think it necessary, whether I like it or
+not&mdash;&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ph&#339;be, my darling, you are the best child in the world,&rdquo;
+cried her mother, rising up, and going to her hastily. She
+gave her a kiss of maternal enthusiasm, and then she looked
+at her husband. &ldquo;But should we take advantage of it?&rdquo; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You see, my dear,&rdquo; said Mr. Beecham, hesitating, &ldquo;you
+might find many things different from what you are used to.
+Your grandpapa Tozer is an excellent man&mdash;a most excellent
+man&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; said his wife, with some impatience. She was
+as conscious as he was of the great elevation in the social scale
+that had occurred to both of them since they left Carlingford,
+and knew as well as he did that the old people had remained
+stationary, while the younger ones had made such advances;
+but still she did not like to hear her husband criticize her
+father. What there was to be said, she preferred to say herself.
+&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;Ph&#339;be knows there is a difference;
+they are old-fashioned folks, and don't live quite as we live.
+Some things would strike you very strangely, my dear, some
+things you would not like; and then Ph&#339;be may be, for anything
+I can tell, at a turning-point in her own life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you mean about the Copperheads, mamma, dismiss that
+from your mind,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;There is no sort of hurry.
+We may be thrown together in after-life, and of course no one
+can tell what may happen, but in the mean time there is nothing
+of the sort in my mind&mdash;nor in any one else's. Do not think
+of that for a moment. I am at no turning-point. I am quite
+ready and quite willing to go wherever you please.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Once more the parent pair looked at each other. They had
+been very careful not to bring their children into contact,
+since they were children, with the homelier circumstances of
+the life in which they themselves had both taken their origin.
+They had managed this really with great skill and discretion.
+Instead of visiting the Tozers at Carlingford, they had appointed
+meetings at the sea-side, by means of which the children
+were trained in affectionate acquaintance with their grandparents,
+without any knowledge of the shop. And Mr. Tozer,
+who was only a butterman at Carlingford, presented all the
+appearance of an old Dissenting minister out of it&mdash;old-fashioned,
+not very refined perhaps, as Mrs. Beecham allowed,
+but very kind, and the most doting of grandfathers. The wisp
+of white neckcloth round his neck, and his black coat, and a
+certain unction of manner all favoured the idea. Theoretically,
+the young people knew it was not so, but the impression on
+their imagination was to this effect. Mrs. Tozer was only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+&ldquo;grandmamma.&rdquo; She was kind too, and if rather gorgeous in
+the way of ribbons, and dressing generally in a manner which
+Ph&#339;be's taste condemned, yet she came quite within the range
+of that affectionate contempt with which youth tolerates the
+disadvantages of its seniors. But the butterman's shop! and
+the entire cutting off from everything superior to the grocers
+and poulterers of Carlingford&mdash;how would Ph&#339;be support it?
+This was what Mr. and Mrs. Beecham asked each other with
+their eyes&mdash;and there was a pause. For the question was a
+tremendous one, and neither knew in what way to reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ph&#339;be, you are a very sensible girl&mdash;&rdquo; said her father at
+last, faltering.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon, papa. I don't think you are treating
+me as if I were sensible,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I know well enough
+that grandpapa is in business&mdash;if that is what you are afraid
+of&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has been in business,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham. &ldquo;Your grandpapa
+has retired for some time. To be sure,&rdquo; she added, turning
+to her husband, &ldquo;it is only Tom that has the business, and
+as I consider Mrs. Tom objectionable, Ph&#339;be need not be
+brought in contact&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If Ph&#339;be goes to Carlingford,&rdquo; said the pastor, &ldquo;she must
+not be disagreeable to any one. We must make up our minds
+to that. They must not call her stuck up and proud.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Henery,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, &ldquo;I can put up with a great
+deal; but to think of a child of mine being exposed to the
+tongues of those Browns and Pigeons and Mrs. Tom, is more
+than I can bear. What I went through myself, you never
+knew, nor any one breathing&mdash;the looks they gave me, the
+things they kept saying, the little nods at one another every
+time I passed! Was it my fault that I was better educated,
+and more refined like, than they were? In Mr. Vincent's
+time, before you came, Henery, he was a very gentleman-like
+young man, and he used to come to the &mdash;&mdash; High Street
+constantly to supper. It wasn't my doing. I never asked him&mdash;no
+more than I did you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your father used to ask me,&rdquo; said Mr. Beecham, doubtfully.
+&ldquo;It was very kind. A young pastor expects it in a new place;
+and a great many things arise, there is no doubt, in that way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not by my doing,&rdquo; said the lady; &ldquo;and when we were
+married, Henery, the things I did to please them! Thank
+Heaven, they know the difference now; but if they were to set
+themselves, as I could quite expect of them, against my child&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mamma,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, tranquilly, &ldquo;I think you forget that
+it is me you are talking of. I hope I know what a pastor's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+daughter owes to herself. I have had my training. I don't
+think you need be frightened for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No; I think Ph&#339;be could manage them if any one could,&rdquo;
+said her father, complacently.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled with a gracious response to this approval. She
+had a book in her hand, which of itself was a proof of Ph&#339;be's
+pretensions. It was, I think, one of the volumes of Mr. Stuart
+Mill's &ldquo;Dissertations.&rdquo; Ph&#339;be was not above reading novels
+or other light literature, but this only in the moments dedicated
+to amusement, and the present hour was morning, a time not
+for amusement, but for work.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ph&#339;be don't know Carlingford, nor the folks there,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Beecham, flushed by the thought, and too much excited to
+think of the elegancies of diction. She had suffered more than
+her husband had, and retained a more forcible idea of the
+perils; and in the pause which ensued, all these perils crowded
+into her mind. As her own ambition rose, she had felt how
+dreadful it was to be shut in to one small circle of very small
+folks. She had felt the injurious line of separation between
+the shopkeepers and the rest of the world; at least she thought
+she had felt it. As a matter of fact, I think it very doubtful
+whether Ph&#339;be Tozer had felt anything of the kind; but she
+thought so now; and then it was a fact that she was born
+Ph&#339;be Tozer, and was used to that life, whereas Ph&#339;be Beecham
+had no such knowledge. She had never been aware of the
+limitations of a small Dissenting community in a small town,
+and though she knew how much the Crescent congregation
+thought of a stray millionnaire like Mr. Copperhead (a thing
+which seemed too natural to Miss Beecham to leave any room
+for remark), her mother thought that it might have a bad effect
+upon Ph&#339;be's principles in every way, should she find out the
+lowly place held by the connection in such an old-fashioned,
+self-conceited, Tory town as Carlingford. What would Ph&#339;be
+think? how would she manage to associate with the Browns
+and the Pigeons? Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had
+retired from the shop; but the shop was still there, greasy
+and buttery as ever, and Mrs. Beecham's own respected papa
+was still &ldquo;the butterman.&rdquo; How would Ph&#339;be bear it? This
+was the uppermost thought in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know, my darling,&rdquo; she said afterwards, when they had
+left the study, and were seated, talking it over, in the drawing-room,
+&ldquo;there will be a great deal to put up with. I am silly;
+I don't like even to hear your papa say anything about dear
+old grandpapa. He is my own, and I ought to stand up for
+him; but even with grandpapa, you will have a great deal to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+put up with. They don't understand our ways. They are
+used to have things so different. They think differently, and
+they talk differently. Even with your sense, Ph&#339;be, you will
+find it hard to get on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am not at all afraid, I assure you, mamma.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are not afraid, because you don't know. I know, and
+I am afraid. You know, we are not great people, Ph&#339;be. I
+have always let you know that&mdash;and that it is far finer to elevate
+yourself than to be born to a good position. But when
+you see really the place which poor dear grandpapa and grandmamma
+think so much of, I am sure I don't know what you
+will say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall not say much. I shall not say anything, mamma.
+I am not prejudiced,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;So long as an occupation
+is honest and honourable, and you can do your duty in it, what
+does it matter? One kind of work is just as good as another.
+It is the spirit in which it is done.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, honest!&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, half relieved, half affronted.
+&ldquo;Of course, it was all that. Nothing else would
+have answered papa. Your uncle Tom has the&mdash;business now.
+You need not go there, my dear, unless you like. I am not
+fond of Mrs. Tom. We were always, so to speak, above our
+station; but she is not at all above it. She is just adapted for
+it; and I don't think she would suit you in the least. So except
+just for a formal call, I don't think you need go there,
+and even that only if grandmamma can spare you. You must
+be civil to everybody, I suppose; but you need not go further;
+they are not society for you. You will hear people talk of me
+by my Christian name, as if we were most intimate; but don't
+believe it, Ph&#339;be. I always felt aspirations towards a very
+different kind of life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, don't be afraid, mamma,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, calmly; &ldquo;I
+shall be able to keep them at a distance. You need not fear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, my dear,&rdquo; said the anxious mother; &ldquo;but not too
+much at a distance either. That is just what is so difficult. If
+they can find an excuse for saying that my child is stuck up!
+Oh! nothing would please them more than to be able to find
+out something against my child. When you have apparently
+belonged to that low level, and then have risen,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Beecham, with a hot colour on her cheek, &ldquo;there is nothing
+these kind of people will not say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These conversations raised a great deal of thought in Ph&#339;be's
+mind; but they did not change her resolution. If it was
+necessary that some one should go to look after her grandmamma,
+and keep all those vulgar people at bay, and show to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's daughter
+could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as
+herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain
+tragical sense of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious.
+She thought of what she would have to &ldquo;put up with,&rdquo; as of
+something much more solemn than the reality; more solemn,
+but alas! not so troublesome. Ph&#339;be felt herself something
+like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes and made her
+preparations. She was going among barbarians, a set of people
+who would not understand her, probably, and whom she would
+have to &ldquo;put up with.&rdquo; But what of that? Strong in a sense
+of duty, and superior to all lesser inducements, she felt herself
+able to triumph. Mrs. Beecham assisted with very divided
+feelings at the preparations. It was on her lips to say, &ldquo;Never
+mind the evening dresses; you will not want them.&rdquo; But then
+the thought occurred to her that to let the Carlingford folks
+see what her daughter had been used to, even if she had no use
+for such things, would be sweet.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Henery; she shall take them all,&rdquo; she said to her husband.
+&ldquo;They shall see the kind of society my child is in;
+very different from their trumpery little teas! They shall see
+that you and I, we grudge nothing for Ph&#339;be&mdash;and I dare be
+sworn there is not one of them like her, not even among the
+quality! I mean,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, hastily, with a flush of
+distress at her own failure in gentility, &ldquo;among those who
+think themselves better than we are. But Ph&#339;be will let them
+see what a pastor's family is out of their dirty little town. She
+will bring them to their senses. Though I hesitated at first
+when it was spoken of, I am very glad now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; Ph&#339;be is a girl to find her level anywhere,&rdquo; said the
+pastor, complacently. And they forgot what she would have
+to put up with in their satisfaction and admiration for herself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A MORNING CALL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sir Robert Dorset and his daughter called, as in duty
+bound, upon their relation two days after her ball. &ldquo;You had
+better come with us, Ursula,&rdquo; said Miss Dorset. &ldquo;Sophy does
+not care about visits, and Mrs. Copperhead asked a great many
+questions about you. She is very tender-hearted to the &mdash;&mdash; young.&rdquo;
+Anne had almost said to the poor, for it is difficult to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+remember always that the qualifications by which we distinguish
+our friends when they are not present, are not always satisfactory
+to their own ears. &ldquo;She was like you once, you know,&rdquo;
+she added, half apologetically. Ursula, who was not in the
+least disposed to take offence, did not ask how, but assented, as
+she would have assented had Cousin Anne told her to get
+ready to go to the moon. She went upstairs and put on her
+little felt hat, which had been made handsome by the long
+drooping feather bestowed upon her by Sophy, and the blue
+serge jacket which corresponded with her dress. She had not
+any great opinion of her own good looks, but she hoped that
+she was &ldquo;lady-like,&rdquo; notwithstanding the simplicity of her costume.
+This was her only aspiration. In her heart she admired
+the tall straight angular kind of beauty possessed by her
+cousins, and did not think much of her own roundness and
+softness, which seemed to Ursula a very inferior &ldquo;style;&rdquo; but
+yet if she looked lady-like that was always something, and both
+Sir Robert and his daughter looked at her approvingly as she
+stood buttoning her gloves, waiting for them.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If there are other city gentlemen there mind you make
+yourself very agreeable, Ursula,&rdquo; said Cousin Sophy, which
+vexed the girl a little. Whether the people were city
+gentlemen or not, of course, she said to herself, she would try
+to be <i>nice</i>&mdash;was not that a girl's first duty? She tried for her
+part to be <i>nice</i> to everybody, to talk when she could, and receive
+the recompense of pleased looks. To walk with her friends up
+the long line of Regent Street, with many a sidelong glance into
+the shop-windows, was very pleasant to Ursula. Sometimes
+even Cousin Anne would be tempted to stop and look, and
+point things out to her father. Unfortunately, the things Miss
+Dorset remarked were chiefly handsome pieces of furniture,
+beautiful carpets, and the like, which were totally out of Ursula's
+way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is just the kind of carpet I want for the drawing-room,&rdquo;
+Anne said, looking at something so splendid that Ursula
+thought it was good enough for the Queen. But Sir Robert
+shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The drawing-room carpet will do very well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It
+will last out my day, and your brother will prefer to please
+himself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This brought a little cloud upon Anne Dorset's placid face,
+for she too, like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was
+not agreeable to think of as mistress in the old house. She
+went on quickly after that looking in at no more shops.
+Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as Ursula<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+thought) had on the whole more painful feelings in looking at
+them, than had the little girl beside her, whose whole thoughts
+were occupied by the question whether she would have enough
+money left to buy her sister Janey one of those new neckties
+which were &ldquo;the fashion.&rdquo; Janey did not often get anything
+that was the fashion. But at any rate Ursula made notes and
+laid up a great many things in her mind to tell Janey of&mdash;which
+would be next best.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Copperhead was seated in a corner of her vast drawing-room
+when her visitors arrived, and her pale little countenance
+brightened at sight of them. They were the nearest approach
+to &ldquo;her own people&rdquo; that the poor soul possessed. She received
+their compliments upon her ball with deprecating looks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure you are very good&mdash;very good to say so. I am
+afraid it was not much amusement to you. They were not the
+kind of people&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I scarcely knew a soul,&rdquo; said Sir Robert; &ldquo;it was a curious
+sensation. It does one good now and then to have a sensation
+like that. It shows you that after all you are not such a fine
+fellow as you thought yourself. Once before I experienced
+something of the same feeling. It was at a ball at the Tuileries&mdash;but
+even then, after a while, I found English people I knew,
+though I didn't know the French grandees; but, by Jove! except
+yourself and Mr. Copperhead, Clara, I knew nobody here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Copperhead felt the implied censure more than she was
+intended to feel it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Copperhead does not care about cultivating fashionable
+people,&rdquo; she said, with a little spirit. &ldquo;He prefers his old
+friends.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is very nice of him,&rdquo; cried Anne, &ldquo;so much the kindest
+way. I liked it so much. At most balls we go to, people
+come and ask me to dance for duty, pretending not to see that
+my dancing days are over.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She talks nonsense,&rdquo; said Sir Robert. &ldquo;Clara, I must
+trust to you to put this notion out of Anne's head. Why
+should her dancing days be over? I am not a Methuselah, I
+hope. She has no right to shelve herself so early, has she?
+I hope to see her make a good match before I die.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So long as she is happy&mdash;&rdquo; said Mrs. Copperhead, faltering.
+She was not any advocate for good matches. &ldquo;Oh, there is
+Mr. Copperhead!&rdquo; she added, with a little start, as a resounding
+knock was heard. &ldquo;He does not often come home so early; he
+will be very glad to see you, Sir Robert. Are you going to stay
+long in town, Miss May?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not long, only till the children arrive,&rdquo; said Anne, looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+compassionately at the rich man's nervous wife. She had been
+quiet enough, so long as she was alone. Now a little fever
+seemed to be awakened in her. She turned to Ursula and
+began to talk to her quickly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you like being in town? It is not a good time of the
+year. It is nicer in May, when everything looks cheerful; but
+I always live in London. You will come back for the season, I
+suppose?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh no,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;I never was in London before.
+Cousin Anne brought me for a great pleasure. I have been twice
+to the theatre, and at the ball here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes, I forgot, you were at the ball&mdash;and you danced, did
+you dance? I cannot remember. There were so many people.
+Oh yes, I recollect. I spoke to Clarence&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I danced three times,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;I never was at a ball
+before. It was very nice. Mr. Copperhead was so kind&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is that about Mr. Copperhead being kind? Was
+I kind? I am always kind&mdash;ask my wife, she will give me a
+good character,&rdquo; said the master of the house, coming up to
+them. &ldquo;Ah, the Baronet! how do you do, Sir Robert? I
+don't often see you in my house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You saw us the other evening,&rdquo; said Sir Robert, courteously,
+&ldquo;and we have just come, Anne and I, to let Clara know how
+much we enjoyed it. It was really splendid. I don't know
+when I have seen so much&mdash;um&mdash;luxury&mdash;so great a display of&mdash;of&mdash;beautiful
+things&mdash;and&mdash;and wealth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Glad to hear you were pleased,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;no
+expense was spared at least. I don't often throw away my
+money in that way, but when I do I like things to be regardless
+of expense. That is our way in the city; other people have to
+make a deal of gentility go a long way, but with us, who don't
+stand on our gentility&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not much to stand upon, certainly, in the way of giving
+balls,&rdquo; said Sir Robert. &ldquo;I quite agree with you that money
+should not be spared when a good effect is to be produced.
+Anne, my dear, if you have said all you have to say to Clara,
+you must recollect that we have a great deal to do&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are not going the moment I come in,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead.
+&ldquo;Come, we must have some tea or something. Not
+that I care very much for tea, but I suppose you'll be shocked
+if I offer you anything else in the afternoon. Haven't you ordered
+tea, Mrs. Copperhead? I can't teach my wife hospitality,
+Sir Robert&mdash;not as I understand it. She'd see you come and
+go a dozen times, I'll be bound, without once thinking of offering
+anything. That ain't my way. Tea! and directly, do you hear.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mrs. Copperhead, in a nervous tremor; &ldquo;bring
+tea, Burton, please. It is rather early, but I do so hope you
+will stay.&rdquo; She gave Miss Dorset an appealing glance, and
+Anne was too kind to resist the appeal.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To be sure they'll stay,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;Ladies
+never say no to a cup of tea, and ours ought to be good if there's
+any virtue in money. Come and look at my Turner, Sir Robert.
+I ain't a judge of art, but it cost a precious lot, if that is any
+test. They tell me it's one of the best specimens going. Come
+this way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You won't mind?&rdquo; said poor Mrs. Copperhead. &ldquo;He is
+very hospitable, he cannot bear that any one should go without
+taking something. It is old-fashioned, but then Mr. Copperhead&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is a most kind fashion, I think,&rdquo; said Anne Dorset, who
+had a superstitious regard for other people's feelings, &ldquo;and
+Mr. Copperhead is quite right, I never say no to a cup of tea.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Just then Clarence came in with his hands in his pockets, so
+curiously like his father in his large somewhat loose figure,
+as unlike him in aspect and expression, that even the gentle
+Anne could scarcely help smiling. When he had shaken
+hands with Miss Dorset he dropped naturally into a seat beside
+Ursula, who, dazzled by his position as son of the house, and
+flattered by what she called his &ldquo;kindness,&rdquo; was as much
+pleased by this sign of preference as if Clarence Copperhead
+had been a hero.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you have recovered my father's ball,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Recovered! Mr. Copperhead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you think it uncivil; but I myself have scarcely
+recovered yet. The sort of people he chose to collect&mdash;people
+whom nobody knew.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, Mr. Copperhead,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;if it was his old
+friends, as your mother says, how much more noble of him
+than if they had been fine people he did not care for! As
+for me, I don't know any one anywhere. It was all the same
+to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That was very lucky for you,&rdquo; said the young man. &ldquo;My
+good cousins did not take it so easily. They are your cousins,
+too?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes&mdash;they are so good,&rdquo; cried Ursula. &ldquo;Cousin Sophy
+laughs at me sometimes, but Cousin Anne is as kind as an
+angel. They have always been good to us all our lives.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You live near them, perhaps? Sir Robert has been kind
+enough to ask me to the Hall.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, not near. We live at Carlingford. It is not a place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+like the Dorsets'; it is a poor little town where papa is one of
+the clergymen. We are not county people like them,&rdquo; said
+Ursula, with anxious honesty, that he might not have a false
+idea of her pretensions. &ldquo;I have never been anywhere all my
+life, and that is why they brought me here. It was by far the
+most beautiful party I ever saw,&rdquo; she added, with a little
+enthusiasm. &ldquo;I never was at a real dance before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad you thought it pretty,&rdquo; said Clarence. &ldquo;I
+suppose it was pretty; when the rooms are nice,&rdquo; and he
+looked round the handsome room, not without a little complacency,
+&ldquo;and when there is plenty of light and flowers, and
+well-dressed people, I suppose no dance can help being a
+pretty sight. That was about all. There was no one worth
+pointing out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, there were some very pretty people,&rdquo; said Ursula;
+&ldquo;there was a young lady in black. She was always dancing.
+I should have liked to know her. You danced with her a
+great many times, Mr. Copperhead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Clarence. He was not more foolish than his
+neighbours, but it flattered him that his dancing with one
+person should have been noticed, especially by a pretty creature,
+who herself had attracted him and shared the privilege.
+&ldquo;That was Miss Beecham. I did not dance with her above
+three or four times. Of course,&rdquo; he said, apologetically, &ldquo;we
+are old friends.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula did not know why he should apologize. She did not
+intend to flirt, not having any knowledge of that pastime as
+yet. She was quite simple in her mention of the other girl,
+who had attracted her attention. Now having said all she
+could remember to say, she stopped talking, and her eyes
+turned to the elder Mr. Copperhead, who came back, followed
+by Sir Robert. There was a largeness about the rich man,
+which Ursula, not used to rich men, gazed at with surprise.
+He seemed to expand himself upon the air, and spread out his
+large person, as she had never known any one else do. And
+Sir Robert, following him, looked so strangely different. He
+was very reluctant to be so led about, and, as it were, patronized
+by the master of the house, and his repugnance took a curious
+form. His nose was slightly drawn up, as if an odour of
+something disagreeable had reached him. Ursula, in her innocence,
+wondered what it was.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Here's the Baronet, Clarence,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, who
+was slightly flushed; &ldquo;and he doubts the Turner being
+genuine. My Turner! Go off at once to those picture people,
+Christie, whatever you call them, and tell them I want proofs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+that it's genuine. I am not the sort of man, by George! to
+be cheated, and they ought to know that. They have had
+many a hundred pounds of my money, but they shall never
+have another penny if I don't get proofs. It ain't pleasant, I
+can tell you, to hear the Baronet, or any one else for that
+matter, running down my pictures.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did not run it down,&rdquo; said Sir Robert, with another little
+curl of his nostrils. (What could there be in this grand big
+house that could make a disagreeable smell?) &ldquo;I only said
+that I had seen copies that were so wonderfully good that
+none but an expert could tell the difference; that was all. I
+don't say that yours is one of them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No; nor no one shall!&rdquo; cried Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;We
+shall have the experts, as you call them, and settle it. By
+George! there shall be nothing uncertain in my house. You
+can tell the men it is Sir Robert Dorset who suggested it.
+There's nothing like a title (even when it isn't much of a
+title) to keep people up to their work. Not meaning any disrespect
+to Sir Robert, I could buy him and his up five times
+over. But I ain't Sir Robert, and never will be. Say Sir
+Robert, Clarence, my boy; that'll bear weight.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was an unfortunate observation on my part,&rdquo; said Sir
+Robert, stiffly. &ldquo;I have a picture myself, which I bought for
+a Correggio, and which is a mere copy, I believe, though a
+very nice one. I hold my tongue on the subject, and nobody
+is the wiser. Anne, my dear, I think we must go now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That would never suit me,&rdquo; said the rich man; &ldquo;holding
+my tongue ain't my way, is it, Mrs. Copperhead? What!
+going, after all, without your tea? I am afraid, ma'am, the
+Baronet is touchy, and doesn't like what I said. But nobody
+minds me, I assure you. I say what I think, but I don't
+mean any harm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; said Anne, drawing herself up, while her father
+took leave of poor little tremulous Mrs. Copperhead. &ldquo;We
+really must go; we have stayed longer than we meant to stay.
+Ursula&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your little companion?&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;Ah;
+you should take care, Miss Dorset, of these little persons.
+They stand in the way of the young ladies themselves often
+enough, I can tell you. And so can Mrs. Copperhead; she
+knows.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He laughed, and both Anne and Ursula became aware that
+something offensive was meant; but what it was, neither of
+them could make out. Mrs. Copperhead, whose intelligence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+had been quickened on that point, perceived it, and trembled
+more and more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good-bye, dear,&rdquo; she said to Ursula in an agony. &ldquo;Though
+we are not cousins, we are connections, through your kind
+Cousin Anne; for she lets me call her my Cousin Anne too.
+Perhaps you will come and pay me a visit sometimes, if&mdash;if
+you can be spared.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes; I should be very glad,&rdquo; said Ursula, confused.</p>
+
+<p>She did not understand why Sir Robert should be in such a
+hurry, when both young Mr. Copperhead and his mother were
+so kind. As for the other Mr. Copperhead, he did not interest
+Ursula. But he went down to the door with them in an
+excess of civility, offering Anne his arm, which she was obliged
+to take, much against her will; and even Ursula felt a passing
+pang of humiliation when the footman threw open the great
+door before them, and no carriage was visible.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you are walking!&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, with one of
+his big laughs.</p>
+
+<p>After all, a laugh could hurt nobody. Why was it that
+they all felt irritated and injured? Even Sir Robert grew
+scarlet, and when they were outside on the broad pavement
+turned almost angrily upon his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you what, Anne,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;not if it was to save my
+life, shall I ever enter that brute's doors again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, papa; poor Mrs. Copperhead!&rdquo; cried kind Anne, with
+a wail in her voice. That was all the reply she made.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>SHOPPING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Next day a telegram came from Southampton, announcing
+the arrival of the little Dorsets, which Ursula rejoiced over
+with the rest, yet was dreadfully sorry for in her heart. &ldquo;Now
+we shall be able to get home,&rdquo; the sisters said, and she did her
+best to smile; but to say that she was glad to leave London,
+with all its delights, the bright streets and the shop-windows,
+and the theatres, and the excitement of being &ldquo;on a visit,&rdquo;
+would be a great deal more than the truth. She was glad,
+sympathetically, and to please the others; but for herself, her
+heart fell. It was still winter, and winter is not lively in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+Carlingford; and there was a great deal to do at home, and
+many things &ldquo;to put up with.&rdquo; To be sure, that was her duty,
+this was only her pleasure; but at twenty, pleasure is so much
+more pleasant than duty. Ursula did not at all rebel, nor did
+she make painful contrasts in her mind, as so many young people
+do; asking why are others so well off, and I so badly off? but
+her heart sank. All the mendings, all the keepings in order, the
+dinners to be invented with a due regard for the butcher's bill,
+the tradespeople to be kept in good humour, the servant to be
+managed, and papa, who was more difficult than the servant,
+and more troublesome than the children! If Ursula sighed
+over the prospect, I don't think the severest of recording angels
+would put a very bad mark against her. She had been free of
+all this for ten wonderful days. No torn frocks, no unpleasant
+baker, no hole in the carpet, no spoiled mutton-chops, had disturbed
+her repose. All these troubles, no doubt, were going
+on as usual at home, and Janey and the maid were struggling
+with them as best they could. Had Ursula been very high-minded
+and given up to her duty, no doubt she would have
+been too much moved by the thought of what her young sister
+might be enduring in her absence, to get the good of her holiday;
+but I fear this was not how she felt it. Janey, no doubt,
+would get through somehow; and it was very sweet to escape
+for ever so short a time, and have a real rest. Therefore, it
+must be allowed that, when Ursula went to her bed-room after
+this news arrived, she relieved herself by &ldquo;a good cry.&rdquo; Two
+or three days longer, what difference could that have made to
+those children? But after her headache was relieved in this
+way, the cloud dispersed a little. The thought of all she had to
+tell Janey consoled her. She counted over the spare contents of
+her purse, and calculated that, after all, she would have enough
+to buy the necktie; and she had all her presents to exhibit;
+the ball-dress, that unhoped-for acquisition; the Venetian
+beads; the bracelet, &ldquo;Which is really good&mdash;<i>good</i> gold; fancy!&rdquo;
+said Ursula to herself, weighing it in her hand. How Janey
+would be interested, how she would be dazzled! There was a
+great deal of consolation in this thought. In the afternoon her
+cousins took her out &ldquo;shopping,&rdquo; an occupation which all young
+girls and women like. They bought a great many things &ldquo;for
+the spring,&rdquo; and &ldquo;for the children,&rdquo; while Ursula looked on
+with admiration. To be able to buy things three months in
+advance, three months before they could possibly be wanted,
+what luxury! and yet the Dorsets were not rich, or so, at least,
+people said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now, Ursula,&rdquo; said Cousin Anne, &ldquo;we have made all our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+purchases. Suppose you choose frocks for the children at
+home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, me?&rdquo; cried poor Ursula, forgetting grammar. She
+blushed very red, and looked, not without indignation, into
+Anne Dorset's mild eyes. &ldquo;You know I have not any money;
+you know we can't afford it!&rdquo; she cried, with starting tears.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I can,&rdquo; said Cousin Anne; &ldquo;at least, I have some
+money just now. Money always goes, whether one buys things
+or not,&rdquo; she added, with a little sigh. &ldquo;It runs through one's
+fingers. When one has something to show for it, that is always
+a satisfaction. Come, this would be pretty for little Amy; but
+it is you who must choose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, Cousin Anne! Dresses! If it was a necktie or a
+ribbon; but frocks&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Frocks would be most useful, wouldn't they? One for
+Amy, and one for Janey. I suppose Robin does not wear
+frocks now?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He has been in knickerbockers these two years,&rdquo; said
+Ursula, half proud, half sorry; &ldquo;and the worst of it is, they
+can't be made at home. Papa says, boys' clothes made at home
+are always spoiled, and the tailor is so dear. Oh, Cousin
+Anne, are you really, really going to be so very, very good&mdash;!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Copperhead came into the shop while they were
+choosing. Poor little woman! she who trembled so in her
+own house, how everybody bowed down before her at Messrs.
+Margrove and Snelcher's! It was all she could do to extricate
+herself from a crowd of anxious officials, all eager to supply her
+with everything that heart could desire, when she saw the little
+party. She came up to them, almost running in her eagerness,
+her small pale face flushed, and leaned on Anne Dorset's chair
+and whispered to her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will not be angry, dear kind Anne. You are always
+so good to everybody. Oh, forgive me! forgive me!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula could not help hearing what she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is nothing to forgive <i>you</i>, Mrs. Copperhead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dear Anne! But I am more than myself, you know!
+He does not mean it; he never was brought up to know better.
+He thinks that is how people behave&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Please don't say anything, dear Mrs. Copperhead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not if you will forgive&mdash;not if you will promise to forgive.
+Poor Clarence is heart-broken!&rdquo; cried the poor woman. &ldquo;He
+is so frightened for what you must think.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We don't think anything,&rdquo; said Sophy, breaking in; &ldquo;it is
+one of our good qualities as a family that we never think.
+Come and help us; we are choosing frocks for Ursula's sisters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+She has two. What are their ages, Ursula? You, who live
+in town, and know the fashions, come and help us to choose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And how respectful all the shopmen grew when the nameless
+country party was joined by the great Mrs. Copperhead&mdash;or
+rather the great Mr. Copperhead's wife, at whose command was
+unlimited credit, and all the contents of the shop if she chose.
+One hurried forward to give her a chair, and quite a grand
+personage, a &ldquo;head man,&rdquo; came from another counter to take
+the charge of pleasing such a customer. Ursula could not but
+look upon the whole transaction with awe. Mrs. Copperhead
+was a very humble, timid woman, and Mr. Copperhead was not
+nice; but it was something to command the reverence of all
+the people in such a grand shop&mdash;a shop which Ursula by herself
+would scarcely have ventured to enter, and in which she
+felt timid and overwhelmed, saying, &ldquo;Sir&rdquo; to the gentleman
+who was so good as to ask what she wanted. But here Mrs.
+Copperhead was not afraid. She gave herself up with her
+whole heart to the delightful perplexity of choice, and when
+that matter was settled, looked round with searching eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't they want something else?&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it is so long
+since I have bought any children's things. It reminds me of
+the days when Clarence was little, when I took such pride in
+his dress. Come with me into the cloak room, my dear, I am
+sure they must want jackets or something.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula resisted with pitiful looks at Cousin Anne, and Sophy
+whispered into Mrs. Copperhead's ear an explanation, which,
+instead of quenching her ardour, brought it up instantly to
+boiling point. Her pale little languid countenance glowed
+and shone. She took both Ursula's hands in hers, half smiling,
+half crying.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, my dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you can give me such a pleasure,
+if you will! You know we are connections, almost relations.
+Let me send them something. Dear children, I wish I could
+see them. Come and look at the little jackets and mantles.
+I have often thought, if Providence had given me a little girl,
+what pleasure I should have had in dressing her. Hats too!
+I am sure they must want hats. Come, my dear, come and
+look at them.&rdquo; Ursula did not know what to do. A little
+pride and a great deal of shyness kept her back, but Mrs.
+Copperhead was too much in earnest to be crossed. She
+bought a couple of very smart little upper garments for Amy
+and Janey, and then, clandestinely taking no one into her confidence,
+for Ursula herself, and gave secret orders to have them
+all sent to the Dorsets' lodgings that night. She was quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+transformed so long as this transaction lasted. Her languid
+countenance grew bright, her pale eyes lighted up.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have given me such a pleasure,&rdquo; she said, holding
+Ursula's hands, and standing up on tip-toe to kiss her. &ldquo;I am
+so much obliged to you. I could almost think that Clarence
+was little again, or that he had got a little sister, which was
+always my heart's desire. Ah, well! often, often, it seems
+better for us not to have our heart's desire, my dear; at least
+I suppose that is how it must be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do not know how to thank you,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;you have
+been so kind&mdash;so very kind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have been kind to myself,&rdquo; said Mrs. Copperhead, &ldquo;I
+have so enjoyed it; and, my dear,&rdquo; she added, with some
+solemnity, still holding Ursula by the hands, &ldquo;promise you will
+do me one favour more. It will be such a favour. Whenever
+you want anything for yourself or your sister will you write to
+me? I am always in London except in autumn, and I should
+so like to do your commissions. People who live in London
+know how to get bargains, my dear. You must promise to let
+me do them for you. It will make me so happy. Promise!&rdquo;
+cried the little woman, quite bright in her excitement. Ursula
+looked at the two others who were looking on, and did not
+know what to say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She thinks you are too expensive an agent for her,&rdquo; said
+Sophy Dorset, &ldquo;and I think so too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Copperhead's face faded out of its pleasant glow.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There are two things I have a great deal too much of,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;money and time. I am never so happy as when I am
+buying things for children, and I can see that she will trust me&mdash;won't
+you, my dear? Must we say good-bye now? Couldn't
+I take you anywhere? Look at that big carriage, all for me
+alone, a little light woman. Let me take you somewhere. No!
+Ah, Cousin Anne, you have not forgiven us for all you said.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We have some other things to do,&rdquo; said Anne, drawing
+back. As for Ursula, she would not at all have objected to the
+splendour of the carriage. And her heart was melted by the
+lonely little woman's pathetic looks. But the other ladies
+stood out. They stood by while poor Mrs. Copperhead got
+into the carriage and drove off, her pale reproachful little face
+looking at them wistfully from the window. It was afternoon
+by this time, getting dark, and it was a tolerably long walk
+along the lighted, crowded streets.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cousin Anne, I am afraid we have hurt her feelings,&rdquo; said
+Ursula; &ldquo;why wouldn't you go?&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go!&rdquo; cried mild Anne Dorset; &ldquo;get into that man's
+carriage after yesterday? Not for the world! I can put up
+with a great deal, but I can't go so far as that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She never did any harm,&rdquo; said Sophy, &ldquo;poor little soul!
+You see now, Ursula, don't you, how fine it is to marry a rich
+man, and have everything that your heart can desire?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula looked at her wondering. To tell the truth, Mrs.
+Copperhead's eagerness to buy everything she could think of
+for the unknown children at Carlingford, the manner with
+which she was regarded in the great shop, her lavish liberality,
+her beautiful carriage, and all the fine things about her, had
+brought Ursula to this very thought, that it was extremely fine
+to marry a rich man. Sophy's irony was lost upon her simple-minded
+cousin, and so indeed was Mrs. Copperhead's pathos.
+That she was very kind, and that she was not very happy, were
+both apparent, but Ursula did not connect the unhappiness
+with the fact that she was a rich man's wife. Mr. Copperhead
+certainly was not very <i>nice</i>; but when people got so old as
+that, they never were very happy, Ursula thought, and what
+had the money to do with it? She looked confused and puzzled
+at Sophy, wondering what she meant. Yes, indeed, to marry
+a rich man, to be able to buy presents for everyone, to make
+the children at home perfectly happy without any trouble to
+one's self! Could any one doubt that it was very nice?
+Alas! Ursula did not think it at all likely that this would ever
+be in her power.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Mrs. Copperhead!&rdquo; said Anne, as they made their
+way along the crowded street, where it was difficult for them
+to walk together, much less to maintain any conversation.
+And presently Ursula, keeping as close as possible to her
+cousin's side, but compelled to make way continually for other
+passers-by, lost herself in a maze of fancies, to which the misty
+afternoon atmosphere, and the twinkling lights, and the quickly
+passing crowds lent a confused but not unpleasing background.
+She was glad that the noise made all talk impossible, and that
+she could dream on quietly as they glided and pressed their
+way through the current of people in Oxford Street and Regent
+Street, as undisturbed as if she had been shut up in her own
+room&mdash;nay, more so&mdash;for the external sights and sounds which
+flitted vaguely by her, disguised those dreams even from herself.
+Mrs. Copperhead had once been poorer than she was, a poor
+little governess. What if somewhere about, in some beautiful
+house, with just such a carriage at the door, a beautiful young
+hero should be waiting who would give all those dazzling delights
+to Ursula? Then what frocks she would buy, what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+toys, what ornaments! She would not stop at the girls, but
+drive to the best tailor's boldly, and bid him send down some
+one to take Johnnie's measure, and Robin's, and even
+Reginald's; and then she would go to the toy-shop, and to the
+bookseller, and I can't tell where besides; and finally drive
+down in the fairy chariot laden with everything that was delightful,
+to the very door. She would not go in any vulgar
+railway. She would keep everything in her own possession,
+and give each present with her own hands&mdash;a crowning delight
+which was impossible to Mrs. Copperhead&mdash;and how clearly
+she seemed to see herself drawing up, with panting horses,
+high-stepping and splendid, to the dull door of the poor parsonage,
+where scarcely anything better than a pony-carriage ever
+came! How the children would rush to the window, and
+&ldquo;even papa,&rdquo; out of his study; and what a commotion would
+run through Grange Lane, and even up into the High Street,
+where the butcher and the baker would remember with a shiver
+how saucy they had sometimes been&mdash;when they saw what a
+great lady she was.</p>
+
+<p>A dreamy smile hovered upon Ursula's face as she saw all
+the little scenes of this little drama, mixed up with gleams of
+the shop-windows, and noises of the streets, and great ghosts
+of passing omnibuses, and horses steaming in the frosty air.
+How many girls, like her, go dreaming about the prosaic streets?
+It was not, perhaps, a very elevated or heroic dream, but the
+visionary chariot full of fine things for the children, was better
+than Cinderella's pumpkin carriage, or many another chariot
+of romance. Her cousins, who were so much her elders, and
+who shuddered in their very souls at the thought of poor Mrs.
+Copperhead, and who were talking earnestly about the children
+they expected next morning, and what was to be done with
+them, had no clue to Ursula's thoughts. They did not think
+much of them, one way or another, but took great care not to
+lose her from their side, and that she should not be frightened
+by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And
+they were very glad to get back to the comparative quiet of
+Suffolk Street, and to take off their bonnets and take their cup
+of tea. But Ursula, for her part, was sorry when the walk
+was over. She had enjoyed it so much. It was half Regent
+Street and half Carlingford, with the pleasure of both mixed up
+together; and she was half little Ursula May with her head in
+the air, and half that very great lady in the dream-chariot, who
+had it in her power to make everybody so happy. Between
+poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened
+little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so
+much to do, what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which
+fancy could bridge over so easily. But the dream was broken
+when she got indoors; not even the quiet of her own little room
+could bring back in all their glory the disturbed images that
+had floated before her in the street.</p>
+
+<p>This was Ursula's last day in town, and there can be no
+doubt that it was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy's
+suggestion, to put a great many ideas into her mind.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DORSETS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering
+babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing
+health of the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English
+blood, though they had never seen England, and talked
+nothing but Hindostanee, which had brought them &ldquo;home&rdquo; at
+this inhospitable time of the year; and to get the rooms warm
+enough for them became the entire thought of the anxious aunts,
+who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture of
+emotions, anxious to be &ldquo;very fond&rdquo; of them, yet feeling difficulties
+in the way. They were very white, as Indian children
+so often are, with big blue veins meandering over them, distinct
+as if traced with colour. They were frightened by all the
+novelty round them, and the strange faces, whose very anxiety
+increased their alarming aspect; they did not understand more
+than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little heap,
+leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their
+new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less
+easily conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose.
+The obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts
+to win their confidence, was enough to have discouraged
+the most patient, and poor Anne cried over her failure when
+those atoms of humanity, so strangely individual and distinct
+in their utter weakness, helplessness, and dependence, were
+carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her still with big blue
+eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand could have
+crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power on
+earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried
+when they were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped
+from the hot room, which stifled him, long before; and Sophy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+half angry in spite of herself, had made up her mind to &ldquo;take
+no notice of the little wretches.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fancy!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;shrinking at Anne&mdash;Anne, of all
+people in the world! There is not a little puppy or kitten but
+knows better. Little disagreeable things! Oh, love them!
+Why should I love them? They are John's children, I believe;
+but they are not a bit like him; they must be like their mother.
+I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to love.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, much, Sophy,&rdquo; said Anne, drying her eyes; &ldquo;they are
+our own flesh and blood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and
+blood; at least, they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love
+them for being like her, can I?&mdash;whom I never saw?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope they will get to like us,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Poor little
+darlings! everything strange about them, new faces and places.
+I don't wonder that they are frightened, and cry when any one
+comes near them. We must trust to time. If they only knew
+how I want to love them, to pet them&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am going to help little Ursula with her packing,&rdquo; said
+Sophy hastily; and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was
+in disorder, and threw herself down in a chair by the fire,
+&ldquo;Anne is too good to live,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;She makes me angry
+with her goodness. Little white-faced things like nobody I
+know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and
+clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre&mdash;<i>Anne!</i>
+why, a little dog knows better&mdash;as I said before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't think they are very pretty children,&rdquo; said Ursula,
+not knowing how to reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?&rdquo; said
+Sophy, who was relieving her own mind, not expecting any
+help from Ursula. &ldquo;The whole question of children is one
+that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image that does not
+know you, that can't respond to you, and won't perhaps when
+it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing
+like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people
+it belongs to like it by instinct&mdash;but the rest of the world&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Cousin Sophy!&rdquo; cried Ursula, her eyes round with
+alarm and horror.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You think I ought to be fond of them because they are
+my brother's children? We are not always very fond even of
+our brothers, Ursula. Don't scream; at your age it is different;
+but when they marry and have separate interests&mdash;if these
+mites go on looking at me with those big scared eyes as if they
+expected me to box their ears, I shall do it some day&mdash;I know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+I shall; instead of going on my knees to them, like Anne, to
+curry favour. If they had been like our family, why, that
+would have been some attraction. Are you pleased to go home,
+or would you prefer to stay here?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In London?&rdquo; said Ursula, with a long-drawn breath, her
+hands involuntarily clasping each other. &ldquo;Oh! I hope you
+won't think me very silly, but I do like London. Yes, I am
+pleased&mdash;I have so many presents to take to them, thanks to
+you and to Cousin Anne, and to Mrs. Copperhead. I am
+ashamed to be carrying away so much. But Carlingford is not
+like London,&rdquo; she added, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, it is a pretty soft friendly country place, not a great
+cold-hearted wilderness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Cousin Sophy!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My poor little innocent girl! Don't you think it is desolate
+and cold-hearted, this great sea of people who none of them
+care one straw for you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have seen nothing but kindness,&rdquo; said Ursula, with a
+little heat of virtuous indignation; &ldquo;there is you, and Mrs.
+Copperhead; and even the gentlemen were kind&mdash;or at least
+they meant to be kind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The gentlemen?&rdquo; said Sophy, amused. &ldquo;Do you mean the
+Copperheads? Clarence perhaps? He is coming to Easton,
+Ursula. Shall I bring him into Carlingford to see you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you please, Cousin Sophy,&rdquo; said the girl, simply. She
+had not been thinking any thoughts of &ldquo;the gentlemen&rdquo; which
+could make her blush, but somehow her cousin's tone jarred
+upon her, and she turned round to her packing. The room was
+littered with the things which she was putting into her box,
+that box which had grown a great deal too small now, though
+it was quite roomy enough when Ursula left home.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ursula, I think you are a good little thing on the whole&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Cousin Sophy, forgive me! No, I am not good.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forgive you! for what? Yes, you are on the whole a good
+little thing; not a saint, like Anne; but then you have perhaps
+more to try your temper. We were always very obedient
+to her, though we worried her, and papa always believed in her
+with all his heart. Perhaps you have more to put up with.
+But, my dear, think of poor Mrs. Copperhead, for example&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you always call her poor Mrs. Copperhead? she
+is very rich. She can make other people happy when she
+pleases. She has a beautiful house, and everything&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And a bear, a brute of a husband.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah! Does she mind very much?&rdquo; asked Ursula, with
+composure. This drawback seemed to her insignificant, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+comparison with Mrs. Copperhead's greatness. It was only
+Sophy's laugh that brought her to herself. She said with some
+haste, putting in her dresses, with her back turned, &ldquo;I do not
+mean to say anything silly. When people are as old as she is,
+do they mind? It cannot matter so much what happens when
+you are old.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why? but never mind, the theory is as good as many
+others,&rdquo; said Sophy. &ldquo;You would not mind then marrying a
+man like that, to have everything that your heart could
+desire?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cousin Sophy, I am not going to&mdash;marry any one,&rdquo; said
+Ursula, loftily, carrying her head erect. &ldquo;I hope I am not
+like that, thinking of such things. I am very, very sorry that
+you should have such an opinion of me, after living together
+ten days.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She turned away with all the forlorn pride of injury, and
+there were tears in her voice. Sophy, who dared not laugh in
+reply, to make the young heroine more angry, hastened to
+apologize.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was a silly question,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have a very good
+opinion of you, Ursula. Ten days is a long time, and I know
+you as if we had been together all your life. I am sure you
+do not think anything a nice girl ought not to think; but I
+hope you will never be deceived and persuaded to marry any
+one who is like Mr. Copperhead. I mean who is not nice
+and young, and good, like yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no!&rdquo; cried the girl, with energy. &ldquo;But most likely I
+shall not marry any one,&rdquo; she added, with a half sigh; &ldquo;Janey
+may, but the eldest has so much to do, and so much to think
+of. Cousin Anne has never married.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nor Cousin Sophy either.&rdquo; Sophy's laugh sounded hard to
+the girl. &ldquo;Never mind, you will not be like us. You will
+marry, most likely, a clergyman, in a pretty parsonage in the
+country.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do not think I am very fond of clergymen,&rdquo; said Ursula,
+recovering her ease and composure. &ldquo;They are always in and
+about, and everything has to be kept so quiet when they are
+studying; and then the parish people are always coming
+tramping upstairs with their dirty feet. When you have only
+one servant it is very, very troublesome. Sir Robert never
+gives any trouble,&rdquo; she said, once more, with a soft little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa?&rdquo; said Sophy, somewhat surprised; &ldquo;but you would
+not&mdash;&rdquo; she was going to say, marry papa; but when she looked
+at Ursula's innocent gravity, her absolute unconsciousness of
+the meanings which her chance words might bear, she refrained.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+&ldquo;I think I must send Seton to help you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you can
+not get through all that packing by yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh yes, I am not tired. I have put in all my old things.
+The rest are your presents. Oh, Cousin Sophy!&rdquo; said the
+girl, coming quickly to her and stealing two arms round her,
+&ldquo;you have been so good to me! as if it was not enough to give
+me this holiday, the most delightful I ever had in my life&mdash;to
+send me home loaded with all these beautiful things! I shall
+never forget it, never, never, if I were to live a hundred years!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear!&rdquo; cried Sophy, startled by the sudden energy of
+this embrace. Sophy was not emotional, but her eyes moistened
+and her voice softened in spite of herself. &ldquo;But you
+must let me send Seton to you,&rdquo; she said, hurrying away. She
+was excited by the day's events, and did not trust herself to
+make any further response; for if she &ldquo;gave way&rdquo; at all, who
+could tell how far the giving way might go? Her brother
+John had been married at the time when Sophy too ought to
+have been married, had all gone well&mdash;and, perhaps, some keen-piercing
+thought that she too might have had little children
+belonging to her, had given force and sharpness to her objections
+to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had
+shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room
+and bathed her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she
+went back to Anne in the sitting-room, who had opened the
+window to reduce the temperature, and was resting in an easy
+chair, and pondering what she could do to make the children
+love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence of Mrs. John.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have been talking to Ursula, who is always refreshing,&rdquo;
+said Sophy. &ldquo;I wonder whom that child will marry. She
+gave me to understand, in her awkward, innocent way, that she
+preferred papa. A laugh does one good,&rdquo; Sophy added, slightly
+rubbing her eyes. Anne made no immediate answer. She
+scarcely heard indeed what her sister said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think we shall get on after a while,&rdquo; she said, softly.
+&ldquo;They said their prayers very prettily, poor darlings, and let
+me kiss them without crying. After a while we shall get on, I
+don't fear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Anne!&rdquo; cried Sophy, &ldquo;you are too much for mere human
+nature: you are too bad or too good for anything. I begin to
+hate these little wretches when I hear you speak of them so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Anne, &ldquo;I know you don't mean it. Easton
+will be very strange to them at first. I could not go to India
+for my part. A crust of bread at home would be better.
+Think of parting with your children just when they come to an
+age to understand?&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;John, I suppose, did not take children into consideration
+when he went away. You speak as if children were all one's
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A great part of it,&rdquo; said Anne, gently. &ldquo;No, dear, I am
+not clever like you, and perhaps it is what you will call a low
+view; but after all it runs through everything. The flowers
+are used for the seed, and everything in the world is intended
+to keep the world going. Yes, even I, that is the good of me.
+I shall never be a mother, but what does that matter? There
+are so many children left on the world whom somebody must
+bring up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And who are brought to you when they need you, and
+taken from you when they need you no longer,&rdquo; said Sophy,
+indignantly; &ldquo;you are left to bear the trouble&mdash;others have the
+recompense.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is so in this world, my dear, all the way down, from God
+himself. Always looking for reward is mean and mercenary.
+When we do nothing, when we are of no use, what a poor thing
+life is,&rdquo; said Anne, with a little colour rising in her cheeks,
+&ldquo;not worth having. I think we have only a right to our existence
+when we are doing something. And I have my wages;
+I like to be of a little consequence,&rdquo; she said, laughing. &ldquo;Nobody
+is of any consequence who does not do something.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence
+than you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So be it&mdash;I don't object,&rdquo; said Anne; &ldquo;but I don't think
+so, for they have to be directed and guided. To be without a
+housemaid is dreadful. The moment you think of that, you
+see how important the people who work are; everything comes
+to a stand-still without Mary, whereas there are ladies whose
+absence would make no difference.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I, for instance.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are very unkind to say so, Sophy; all the same, if you
+were to do more, you would be happier, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To do what? go on my knees to those wax dolls, and entreat
+them to let me pet them and make idols of them&mdash;as you
+will do?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, how are you getting on now?&rdquo; said Sir Robert,
+coming in. &ldquo;Ah! I see, you have the window open; but the
+room is still very warm. When they get to Easton they will
+have their own rooms of course. I don't want to reflect upon
+John, but it is rather a burden this he has saddled us with.
+Mrs. John's mother is living, isn't she? I think something
+might have been <i>said</i> at least, on her part, some offer to take
+her share.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sophy gave her sister a malicious glance, but promptly
+changed her tone, and took up her position in defence of the
+arrangement, with that ease which is natural in a family question.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;your grandchildren, Dorsets, and
+the heir, probably, as Robert has no boy, could go nowhere,
+papa, but to us. It may be a bore, but at least John showed
+so much sense; for nothing else could be&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;John does not show very much sense in an ordinary way.
+What did he want with a wife and children at his age? The
+boy is five, isn't he? and the father only thirty&mdash;absurd! I
+did not marry till I was thirty, though I had succeeded before
+that time, and was the only son and the head of the family.
+John was always an ass,&rdquo; said Sir Robert, with a crossness
+which sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the
+room was higher than usual, and the habits of his evening
+interfered with. He was capable of sacrificing something of
+much more importance to his family, but scarcely of sacrificing
+his comfort, which is the last and most painful of efforts.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That may be very true,&rdquo; said Sophy, &ldquo;but all the same, it
+is only right that the children should be with us. Mrs. John's
+people are not well off. Her mother has a large family of her
+own. The little things would have been spoiled, or they would
+have been neglected; and after all, they are Dorsets, though
+they are not like John.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well, I suppose you are right,&rdquo; said Sir Robert,
+grumbling, &ldquo;and, thank Heaven, to-morrow we shall be at
+home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Anne had scarcely said a word, though it was she who was
+most deeply concerned about the children. She gave her
+sister a hug when Sir Robert relapsed into the evening paper,
+and then stole upstairs to look at the poor babies as they lay
+asleep. She was not a mother, and never would be. People,
+indeed, called her an old maid, and with reason enough, though
+she was little over thirty; for had she been seventy, she could
+not have been more unlikely to marry. It was not her vocation.
+She had plenty to do in the world without that, and was
+satisfied with her life. The sad reflection that the children
+whom she tended were not her own, did not visit her mind, as,
+perhaps, it had visited Sophy's, making her angry through the
+very yearning of nature. Anne was of a different temperament,
+she said a little prayer softly in her heart for the children
+and for her sister as she stooped over the small beds. &ldquo;God
+bless the children&mdash;and, oh, make my Sophy happy!&rdquo; she said.
+She had never asked for nor thought of happiness to herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+It had come to her unconsciously, in her occupations, in her
+duties, as natural as the soft daylight, and as little sought after.
+But Sophy was different. Sophy wanted material for happiness&mdash;something
+to make her glad; she did not possess it, like
+her sister, in the quiet of her own heart. And from the children's
+room Anne went to Ursula's, where the girl, tired with
+her packing, was brushing her pretty hair out before she went
+to bed. Everything was ready, the drawers all empty, the box
+full to overflowing, and supplemented by a large parcel in
+brown paper; and what with the fatigue and the tumult of
+feeling in her simple soul, Ursula was ready to cry when her
+cousin came in and sat down beside her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have been so happy, Cousin Anne. You have been so
+good to me,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear, everybody will be good to you,&rdquo; said Miss Dorset,
+&ldquo;so long as you trust everybody, Ursula. People are more
+good than bad. I hope when you come to Easton you will be
+still happier.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula demurred a little to this, though she was too shy to
+say much. &ldquo;Town is so cheerful,&rdquo; she said. It was not Sir
+Robert's way of looking at affairs.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is very little difference in places,&rdquo; said Anne, &ldquo;when
+your heart is light you are happy everywhere.&rdquo; Ursula felt
+that it was somewhat derogatory to her dignity to have her
+enjoyment set down to the score of a light heart. But against
+such an assertion what could she say?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>COMING HOME.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The party which set out from Suffolk Street next morning
+was a mighty one; there were the children, the ayah, the new
+nurse whom Anne had engaged in town, to take charge of her
+little nephews as soon as they got accustomed to their new life;
+and Seton, the ancient serving-woman, whom the sisters shared
+between them; and Sir Robert's man, not to speak of Sir
+Robert himself and the Miss Dorsets and Ursula. Easton was
+within a dozen miles of Carlingford, so that they all travelled
+together as far as that town. The Dorset party went farther on
+to the next station, from which they had still six miles to travel
+by carriage. They set down Ursula on the platform with her
+box and her parcel, and took leave of her, and swept out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+station again, leaving her rather forlorn and solitary among the
+crowd. &ldquo;Disgraceful of May not to send some one to meet the
+child. I suppose he knew she was coming,&rdquo; said Sir Robert.
+And Ursula had something of the same feeling, as she stood
+looking wistfully about her. But as soon as the train was gone,
+her name was called in a somewhat high-pitched voice, and
+turning round she found herself hugged by Janey, while
+Johnnie, fresh from school, seized her bag out of her hand by
+way of showing his satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We didn't come up till we could make sure that the
+Dorsets were out of the way,&rdquo; said Janey, &ldquo;and, oh, is it really
+you? I am so glad to get you home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn't you want to see the Dorsets? They are the
+kindest friends we have in the world,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;How is
+papa? Is he in a good humour? And the rest? Why did
+not some more come to meet me? I made sure there would
+be four at least.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Amy and Robin have gone out to tea&mdash;they didn't want to
+go; but papa insisted. Oh, he is very well on the whole. And
+Reginald is at home, of course, but I thought you would like
+me best. Johnnie came to carry the bag,&rdquo; said Janey with a
+natural contempt for her younger brother. &ldquo;What a big
+parcel! You must have been getting quantities of presents,
+or else you must have packed very badly, for I am sure there
+was lots of room in the trunk when you went away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Janey, if you only knew what I have got there!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo; said Janey, with quiet but composed interest.
+It never occurred to her that she could have any individual
+concern in the contents of the parcels. She was a tall girl who
+had outgrown all her frocks, or rather did outgrow them
+periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders, which
+would not curl or <i>cr&ecirc;per</i>, or do anything that hair ought to do.
+She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts
+of impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the
+kind of angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, but
+very maladroit, who is a greater nuisance to herself and everybody
+else than even a school-boy, which is saying a good deal.
+Things broke in her hands as they never broke in anybody
+else's; stuffs tore, furniture fell to the ground as she passed
+by. Ursula carefully kept her off the parcel and gave it to
+Johnnie. One of the railway porters, when all the rest of the
+passengers were disposed of, condescended to carry her trunk,
+and thus they set out on their way home. The parsonage was
+close to St. Roque, at the other end of Grange Lane. They
+had to walk all the way down that genteel and quiet suburban<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+road, by the garden walls over which, at this season, no scent
+of flowers came, or blossomed branches hung forth. There
+were red holly-berries visible, and upon one mossy old tree a
+gray bunch of mistletoe could be seen on the other side of the
+street. But how quiet it was! They scarcely met a dozen
+people between the station and St. Roque.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Janey, is everybody dead?&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;How dull
+it is! You should see London&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; said Janey firmly, &ldquo;once for all, I am not going
+to stand this London! A nasty, smoky, muddy place, no more
+like Carlingford than&mdash;I am like you. You forget I have been
+in London; you are not speaking to ignorant ears,&rdquo; said
+Janey, drawing herself up, &ldquo;and your letters were quite bad
+enough. You are not going to talk of nothing but your disagreeable
+London here. Talk to people who have never seen
+it!&rdquo; said the girl, elevating her shoulders with the contempt
+of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That time you were at the dentist's&mdash;&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;and
+call that seeing London! Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy took
+me everywhere. We went to drive in the Park. We went to
+the Museum and the National Gallery. And, oh! Janey,
+listen! we went to the theatre: think of that!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I should like to go to the theatre,&rdquo; said Janey, with a
+sigh. &ldquo;But you told me in your letter. That's what comes
+of being the eldest. Unless you get married, or something,
+nobody will ever think of taking <i>me</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are five years younger than I am,&rdquo; said Ursula, with
+dignity. &ldquo;Naturally, people don't think of a girl at your age.
+You must wait till you are older, as I have had to do. Janey!
+guess what is in <i>that</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your new dress&mdash;your ball-dress. If it isn't crumpled as
+you said, you can't have danced very much. I know my dress
+will be in tatters if I ever go to a ball.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I danced as much as I wished. I did not know many
+people,&rdquo; said Ursula, drawing herself up. &ldquo;Of course at this
+time of the year nobody is in town, and we hardly knew any one&mdash;and
+of course&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course, you only knew the fashionable people who are
+out of town in winter,&rdquo; cried Janey, with a laugh which echoed
+along the street. Ursula had not come home from London to
+be laughed at by her younger sister, she who had been petted
+by the Dorsets, and whose opinion even Sir Robert had asked
+on various occasions. She felt this downfall all the more deeply
+that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with
+Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+again, and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many experiences
+acquired in that momentous time. Poor Ursula! ten
+days is quite long enough to form habits at her age, and she
+had been taken care of, as young ladies are taken care of in
+society; accompanied or attended wherever she went, and
+made much of. To find herself thus left to arrive and get
+home as she pleased, with nobody but Janey to meet her, was
+a terrible falling-off; and to be laughed at by Janey was the
+last step of all. Tears filled her eyes, she turned her shoulder
+to her companion, averting her head; and this was all poor
+Ursula had to look to. The dreary Carlingford street, papa
+finding fault, everything going wrong, and Janey laughing at
+her! To be Cousin Anne's maid, or governess to the little
+Indian children would be better than this. For five minutes
+more she walked on in offended silence, saying nothing, though
+Janey, like the school-girl she was, made frequent use of her
+elbow to move her sister.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ursula!&rdquo; the girl said at last, with a more potent nudge,
+&ldquo;what's the matter? won't you speak to me?&rdquo; And Janey,
+who had her own disappointment too, and had expected to be
+received with enthusiasm, burst out crying, regardless of appearances,
+in the middle of the street.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Janey, for Heaven's sake&mdash;people will see you! I am sure
+it is I who should cry, not you,&rdquo; said Ursula, in sudden distress.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't care who sees me,&rdquo; sobbed Janey. &ldquo;You have been
+enjoying yourself while we have stayed at home, and instead of
+being pleased to come back, or glad to see us&mdash;Oh, how can
+you be so cold-hearted?&rdquo; she said with a fresh burst of tears.</p>
+
+<p>Here the other side of the question suddenly dawned upon
+Ursula. She had been enjoying herself while the others
+stayed at home. It was quite true. Instead of feeling the shock
+of difference she should have thought of those who had never
+been so lucky as she was, who had never seen anything out of
+Carlingford. &ldquo;Don't be so foolish, Janey,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I <i>am</i>
+glad;&mdash;and I have brought you such beautiful presents. But
+when you do nothing but laugh&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure I didn't laugh to hurt. I only laughed for fun!&rdquo;
+cried Janey, drying her eyes not without a little indignation;
+and thus peace was made, for indeed one was dying to tell all
+that happened, and the other dying to hear. They walked
+the rest of the way with their heads very close together, so absorbed
+that the eldest brother, coming out of the gate as they
+approached, stood looking at them with a smile on his face for
+some time before they saw him. A slight young man, not very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+tall, with dark hair, like Ursula's, and a somewhat anxious expression,
+in correct English clerical dress.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Has it all begun already?&rdquo; he said, when they came close
+up to him, but without perceiving him, Ursula's face inspired
+with the pleasure of talking, as Janey's was with the eager delight
+of listening. The house was built in the ecclesiastical
+style, with gables and mullioned windows, which excluded the
+light, at least, whether or not they inspired passers-by with a
+sense of correct art, as they were intended to do. It was next
+door to the church, and had a narrow strip of shrubbery in
+front, planted with somewhat gloomy evergreens. The gate
+and door stood always open, except when Mr. May himself,
+coming or going, closed them momentarily, and it cannot be
+denied that there were outward and visible signs of a large,
+somewhat unruly family inside.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Reginald!&rdquo; cried Ursula. &ldquo;You have come home!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&mdash;for good,&rdquo; he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. &ldquo;Or
+for bad&mdash;who can tell? At all events, here I am.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why should it be for bad?&rdquo; cried Janey, whose voice was
+always audible half-way up the street. &ldquo;Oh, Ursula, something
+very nice has happened. He is to be warden of the old
+college, fancy! That <i>is</i> being provided for, papa says; and a
+beautiful old house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some
+old person who was chosen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But papa says he can live at home and let the house,&rdquo; cried
+Janey. &ldquo;There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman,
+papa thinks; it is nice, because there is no work&mdash;but
+look at Reginald, he does not like it a bit; he is never satisfied,
+I am sure, I wish it was me&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said Reginald hastily, &ldquo;I don't want all my
+affairs, and my character besides, to be proclaimed from the
+house-tops.&rdquo; Janey stopped indignant, to make some reply,
+and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she feared, with an energetic
+pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been playing in the
+little square hall, which was strewed with doll's clothes, and
+with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation. Some
+old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one
+of which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of
+Anne Dorset's orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these
+imperfections.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, what a muddle!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;I don't wonder that
+Reginald does not care for living at home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I wish papa heard you!&rdquo; cried Janey loudly, as Ursula<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+led the way into the drawing-room, which was not much
+tidier than the hall. There was a basket-full of stockings to
+be mended, standing on the old work-table. Ursula felt, with
+a sinking of the heart, that they were waiting for her arrival,
+and that Janey had done nothing to them. More toys and
+more old school-books were tossed about upon the faded old
+carpet. The table-cover hung uneven, one end of it dragging
+upon the floor. The fire was burning very low, stifled in dust
+and white ashes. How dismal it looked! not like a place to
+come home to. &ldquo;Oh, I don't wonder Reginald is vexed to be
+made to live at home,&rdquo; she said once again to herself, with tears
+in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you have enjoyed yourself,&rdquo; her brother said, as she
+dropped wearily into the old easy-chair. &ldquo;We have missed you
+very much; but I don't suppose you missed us. London was
+very pleasant, I suppose, even at this time of the year?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, pleasant!&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;If you had been with me,
+how you would have liked it! Suffolk Street is only an inn,
+but it is a very nice inn, what they call a private hotel. Far
+better than the great big places on the American principle, Sir
+Robert says. But we dined at one of those big places one
+day, and it was very amusing. Scores of people, and great
+mirrors that made them look hundreds. And such quantities
+of lights and servants; but Sir Robert thought Suffolk Street
+very much the best. And I went to two theatres and to a ball.
+They were so kind. Sophy Dorset laughs at me sometimes,
+but Anne is an angel,&rdquo; said Ursula fervently. &ldquo;I never knew
+any one so good in my life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is not saying much,&rdquo; said Janey, &ldquo;for none of us are
+very good, and you know nobody else. Anne Dorset is an old
+maid.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Janey! how dare you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And, for that matter, so is Sophy. Papa says so. He says
+she was jilted, and that she will never get a husband.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold your tongue,&rdquo; said Reginald fiercely, &ldquo;if we are to
+hear what my father says at second hand through an imp like
+you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; said Janey, mocking, &ldquo;that is because you are
+not friends with papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Janey, come and help me to take off my things,&rdquo; said
+Ursula, seeing that Reginald would probably proceed to strong
+measures and box his sister's ears. &ldquo;If you were older, you
+would not talk like that,&rdquo; she said, with dignity, as they went
+upstairs. &ldquo;Oh, dear Janey, you can't think how different
+Cousin Anne and Sophy are, who are not girls, like us. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+never talk unkindly of other people. You would get to think
+it childish, as I do, if you had been living with Cousin
+Anne.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Stuff!&rdquo; said Janey. &ldquo;Papa is not childish, I hope. And
+it was he who said all that. I don't care what your fine
+Cousin Anne does.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding, the reproof thus administered went to
+Janey's heart; for to a girl of fifteen, whose next sister is
+almost twenty, the reproach of being childish is worse than any
+other. She blushed fiery-red, and though she scoffed, was
+moved. Besides, though it suited her to quote him for the
+moment, she was very far from putting any unbounded faith in
+papa.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just wait a moment! See what Cousin Anne, whom you
+think so little of, has sent you,&rdquo; said Ursula, sitting down on
+the floor with the great parcel in her lap, carefully undoing the
+knots; for she had read Miss Edgeworth's stories in her youth,
+and would not have cut the strings for the world; and when
+the new dresses, in all their gloss and softness, were spread out
+upon the old carpet, which scarcely retained one trace of colour,
+Janey was struck dumb.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is that,&rdquo; she said, faltering and conscience-stricken, &ldquo;for
+<i>me</i>?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is for you; though you think them old maids&mdash;and
+that they will never get husbands,&rdquo; said Ursula, indignantly.
+&ldquo;What a thing for a girl to say! And, indeed, I don't think
+Cousin Anne will ever get a husband. There is not one in the
+world half good enough for her&mdash;not one! Yes, this is for you.
+They went themselves, and looked over half the things in the
+shop before they could get one to please them. They did not
+say, 'Janey is an unkind little thing, that will repeat all she
+hears about us, and does not care for us a bit.' They said,
+'Ursula, we must choose frocks for Janey and Amy. Come
+and help us to get what they will like best.'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Janey's lips quivered, and two very big tears came into her
+eyes. She was stricken with the deepest compunction, but her
+pride did not permit her to give in all at once.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I dare say you told her how badly off we were,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I told her nothing about it, and she did not say a word&mdash;not
+a word, as if it were a charity&mdash;only to please you&mdash;to let
+you see that you were remembered; but I dare say it is quite
+true after all,&rdquo; said Ursula, with lofty irony, &ldquo;that Cousin
+Anne will never get a husband, and that they are old maids.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you know I didn't mean it!&rdquo; said Janey, giving way
+to her tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then Ursula got up and took off her hat and smoothed her
+hair, feeling satisfied with her success, and went downstairs
+again to Reginald, who was seated on the dingy sofa waiting
+for her, to answer her questions about the great event which
+had happened since she had been away. Ursula's mind was
+full of the shock of the sharp impression made by her return,
+though the impression itself began to wear away.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can understand why you don't care about living at
+home,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Oh I wonder if I could do anything to
+mend it! I am so glad you have got something, Reginald.
+If you have a good servant, you might be quite comfortable
+by yourself, and we could come and see you. I should not feel
+it a bit&mdash;not a single bit; and it would be so much nicer
+for you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are mistaken,&rdquo; said her brother. &ldquo;It is not staying
+at home I object to. We are not very tidy or very comfortable,
+perhaps, but we all belong to each other, at least. It is not
+that, Ursula.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is it, then? Janey says,&rdquo; said Ursula, drawing a
+long breath of awe and admiration, &ldquo;that you are to have two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For doing nothing,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For doing nothing?&rdquo; She looked up at him a little
+bewildered, for his tone struck Ursula as not at all corresponding
+with the delightful character of the words he said. &ldquo;But,
+Reginald, how nice, how very nice it sounds! How lucky you
+must have been! How could it happen that such a delightful
+thing should come to one of us? We are always so unlucky,
+papa says.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you think this luck&mdash;&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;He does, and
+he is quite pleased; but how do you suppose I can be pleased?
+Thrust into a place where I am not wanted&mdash;where I can be
+of no use. A dummy, a practical falsehood. How can I
+accept it, Ursula? I tell you it is a sinecure!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula looked at him with eyes round with wonder. He
+seemed to be speaking in some different language of which she
+understood nothing. &ldquo;What is a sinecure?&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+<h3>PAPA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ursula has come back!&rdquo; cried the little ones, who had
+returned from their tea-party, running to meet their father at
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May was very good, except by moments, to his younger
+children. He was not, indeed, an unkind father to any of
+them; but he had never forgiven Providence for leaving him
+with his motherless family upon his hands, a man so utterly
+unfit for the task. Perhaps he did not put this exactly into
+words, but he felt it deeply, and had never got over it. There
+were so many things that he could have done better, and there
+were so many people who could have done this better; and
+yet it was precisely to him, not a person adapted to the charge
+of children, that it had been given to do it! This seemed to
+argue a want of judgment in the regulation of mortal affairs,
+which irritated him all the more because he was a clergyman,
+and had to persuade other people that everything that happened
+to them was for the best. He was a man of some culture, and
+literary power, and wrote very pleasant &ldquo;thoughtful&rdquo; papers
+for some of the Church magazines; but these compositions,
+though very easy to read, were only brought into the world by
+elaborate precautions on the part of the family, which scarcely
+dared to speak above its breath when papa was &ldquo;writing;&rdquo; for
+on such occasions he could be very savage, as the occasional
+offender knew. He was a man with an imposing person, good-looking,
+and of very bland and delightful manners, when he
+chose. But yet he had never made friends, and was now at
+fifty-five the incumbent of St. Roque, with a small income and
+a humble position in the church hierarchy of Carlingford.
+He preached better than any other of the Carlingford clergymen,
+looked better, had more reputation out of the place;
+and was of sufficiently good family, and tolerably well connected.
+Yet he never got on, never made any real advance in
+life. Nobody could tell what was the cause of this, for his
+opinions were moderate and did not stand in his way&mdash;indeed
+within the limits of moderation he had been known to modify
+his principles, now inclining towards the high, then towards
+the low, according as circumstances required, though never going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+too far in either direction. Such a man ought to have been
+successful, according to all rules, but he was not. He was
+generally in debt and always needy. His eldest son, James,
+was in India, doing well, and had often sent a contribution
+towards the comfort of the family, and especially to help Reginald
+at College. But James had married a year before, and
+accordingly was in a less favourable position for sending help.
+And indeed these windfalls had never produced much effect
+upon the family, who heard of James' gifts vaguely without
+profiting by them. All this <i>donna &agrave; penser</i> to the elder children.
+Having no softening medium of a mother's eyes to look at
+their father through, they were more bold in judging him than,
+perhaps, they ought to have been; and he did not take pains
+to fascinate his children, or throw the glamour of love into
+their eyes. He took it for granted, frankly and as a part of
+nature, that he himself was the first person to be considered
+in all matters. So he was, of course&mdash;so the father, the bread-winner,
+the head of the family, ought to be; and when he has
+a wife to keep him upon that pedestal, and to secure that his
+worship shall be respected, it becomes natural, and the first
+article of the family creed; but somehow when a man has to
+set forth and uphold this principle himself, it is less successful;
+and in Mr. May's case it was not successful at all. He was
+not severe or tyrannical, so that they might have rebelled. He
+only held the conviction quite honestly and ingeniously, that
+his affairs came first, and were always to be attended to. Nothing
+could be said against this principle&mdash;but it tells badly in
+the management of a family unless, indeed, as we have said, it
+is managed through the medium of the mother, who takes away
+all imputation of selfishness by throwing an awful importance
+and tender sanctity over all that happens to be desirable or
+necessary for &ldquo;papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May had no wife to watch over the approaches of his
+study, and talk of him with reverential importance to her
+children. This was not his fault, but his misfortune. Bitterly
+had he mourned and resented the blow which took her from
+him, and deeply felt the loss she was to him. This was how
+he spoke of it always, the loss to him; and probably poor Mrs.
+May, who had adored and admired her husband to the last day
+of her life, would have been more satisfied with this way of
+mourning for her than any other; but naturally Ursula, who
+thought of the loss to herself and the other children, found
+fault with this limitation of the misfortune. A man who has
+thus to fight for himself does not appear in an amiable aspect
+to his family, to whom, as to all young creatures, it seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+natural that <i>they</i> should be the first objects; and as they were
+a great trouble and burden to him, perhaps the children did not
+always bear their most amiable aspect to their father. Both
+looked selfish to the other, and Mr. May, no doubt, could have
+made out quite as good a case as the children did. He thought
+all young people were selfish, taking everything they could, trying
+to extract even the impossible from the empty purse and
+strained patience of their elders; and they thought that he
+was indifferent to them, thinking about himself, as it is a
+capital sin in a parent to do; and both of them were right and
+both wrong, as indeed may be said in every case to which there
+are two sides.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ursula has come!&rdquo; cried the two little ones. Amy and
+Robin could read their father's face better than they could read
+those instruments of torture called printed books, and they saw
+that he was in a good humour, and that they were safe to venture
+upon the playful liberty of seizing him, one by each hand,
+and dragging him in. He was a tall man, and the sight of
+him triumphantly dragged in by these imps, the youngest of
+whom was about up to his knees, was pretty, and would have
+gone to the heart of any spectator. He was not himself unconscious
+of this, and when he was in a good humour, and the
+children were neat and tolerably dressed, he did not object to
+being seen by the passers-by dragged up his own steps by those
+two little ones. The only passers-by, however, on this occasion
+were a retired shopkeeper and his wife, who had lately
+bought one of the oldest houses in Grange Lane, and who had
+come out for a walk as the day was fine. &ldquo;Mark my words,
+Tozer,&rdquo; the lady was saying, &ldquo;that's a good man though he's
+a church parson. Them as children hangs onto like that, ain't
+got no harm in them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He's a rum un, he is,&rdquo; said Mr. Tozer in reply. It was
+a pity that the pretty spectacle of the clergyman with his
+little boy and girl should have been thus thrown away upon a
+couple of Dissenters, yet it was not without its effect. Amy
+pulled one arm and Robin pulled the other. They were dark-haired
+children like all the Mays, and as this peculiarity is
+rare among children, it gave these two a certain piquancy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;take me to Ursula,&rdquo; and after he had
+kissed his newly-arrived daughter, he sat down in the faded drawing-room
+with much geniality, and took one child on each knee.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you have enjoyed yourself, Ursula,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;of
+course, we have missed you. Janey has done her best, but she
+is not very clever at housekeeping, nor does she understand
+many things that people require, as you have learned to do.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I am so glad you have missed me!&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;I
+mean sorry; I have enjoyed myself very, very much. The
+Dorsets were so kind, kinder than anybody ever was before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And, papa, they have sent me a new dress.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And me too, papa,&rdquo; chirruped little Amy on his knee.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You too, Mouse! it was very kind of them; and you went to
+the Tower and did all the lions, Ursula? that is the lot of country
+cousins, and the Dorsets would spare you nothing, I suppose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We went to much better things,&rdquo; said Ursula, producing
+her theatres and her ball as she had done before. &ldquo;And, oh,
+papa, I like them so much. I wish we lived a little nearer.
+Those poor little Indian children, I fear they will be too much
+for Cousin Anne; they look so pale and so peevish, not like
+our children here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, they are not pale at all events,&rdquo; said Mr. May, putting
+them down; &ldquo;run and play like good children. You will
+have heard that we have had something happening to us, even in
+this quiet place, while you were away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I was so astonished,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;but Reginald
+doesn't seem to like it. That is so odd; I should have thought
+he would have been overjoyed to get something. He used to
+talk so about having no interest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reginald is like a great many other people. He does not
+know his own mind,&rdquo; said Mr. May, his countenance overcasting.
+Ursula knew that sign of coming storms well enough,
+but she was too much interested to forbear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is a sinecure, papa?&rdquo; she asked, her brother's last
+word still dwelling in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A piece of outrageous folly,&rdquo; he cried, getting up and
+striding about the room, &ldquo;all springing from the foolish books
+boys read now-a-days, and the nonsense that is put into their
+minds. Mean! it means that your brother is an ass, that is what
+it means. After all the money that has been spent upon him&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, papa, we have not spent much, have we? I thought
+it was his scholarship?&rdquo; said Ursula with injudicious honesty.
+Her father turned upon her indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am not aware that I said we. <i>We</i> have nothing to spend
+upon any one, so far as I know. I said I&mdash;the only person
+in the house who earns any money or is likely to do so, if
+Reginald goes on in this idiotical way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula grew red. She was Mr. May's own daughter, and
+had a temper too. &ldquo;If I could earn any money I am sure I
+would,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and only too glad. I am sure it is wanted
+badly enough. But how is a girl to earn any money? I wish
+I knew how.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You little fool, no one was thinking of you. Do a little
+more in the house, and nobody will ask you to earn money.
+Yes, this is the shape things are taking now-a-days,&rdquo; said Mr.
+May, &ldquo;the girls are mad to earn anyhow, and the boys, forsooth,
+have a hundred scruples. If women would hold their tongues
+and attend to their own business, I have no doubt we should
+have less of the other nonsense. The fact is everything is
+getting into an unnatural state. But if Reginald thinks I am
+going to maintain him in idleness at his age&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa, for Heaven's sake don't speak so loud, he will hear
+you!&rdquo; said Ursula, letting her fears of a domestic disturbance
+overweigh her prudence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He will hear me? I wish him to hear me,&rdquo; said Mr. May,
+raising his voice. &ldquo;Am I to be kept from saying what I like,
+how I like, in my own house, for fear that Reginald should
+hear me, forsooth! Ursula, I am glad to have you at home; but
+if you take Reginald's part in his folly, and set yourself against
+the head of the family, you had better go back again and at
+once. <i>He</i> may defy me, but I shall not be contradicted by a
+chit of a girl, I give you my word for that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula was silent; she grew pale now after her redness of
+hasty and unconsidered self-defence. Oh, for Cousin Anne to
+shield and calm her; what a difference it made to plunge back
+again thus into trouble and strife.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He thinks it better to be idle at his father's expense than
+to do a little work for a handsome salary,&rdquo; said Mr. May;
+&ldquo;everything is right that is extracted from his father's pocket,
+though it is contrary to a high code of honour to accept a
+sinecure. Fine reasoning that, is it not? The one wrongs
+nobody, while the other wrongs you and me and all the children,
+who want every penny I have to spend; but Reginald is much
+too fine to think of that. He thinks it quite natural that I
+should go on toiling and stinting myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa, it may be very wrong what he is doing; but if you
+think he wants to take anything from you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold your tongue,&rdquo; said her father; &ldquo;I believe in deeds,
+not in words. He has it in his power to help me, and he
+chooses instead, for a miserable fantastic notion of his own,
+to balk all my care for him. Of course the hospital was offered
+to him out of respect for me. No one cares for <i>him</i>. He is
+about as much known in Carlingford as&mdash;little Amy is. Of
+course it is to show their respect to me. And here he comes
+with his fantastic nonsense about a sinecure! Who is he that
+he should make such a fuss? Better men than he is have held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+them, and will to the end of the chapter. A sinecure! what
+does he call a sinecure?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is just what I want to know,&rdquo; said Ursula under her
+breath, but her father did not, fortunately, hear this ejaculation.
+Reginald had gone out, and happily was not within hearing,
+and Mr. May calmed down by degrees, and told Ursula various
+circumstances about the parish and the people which brought
+him down out of his anger and comforted her after that passage
+of arms. But the commotion left him in an excitable state, a
+state in which he was very apt to say things that were disagreeable,
+and to provoke his children to wrath in a way which
+Ursula thought was very much against the scriptural rule.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Things in the parish are going on much as usual,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;Mrs. Sam Hurst is as kind as ever.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said Ursula with a suppressed snort of anger.
+Mr. May gave the kind of offensive laugh, doubly offensive
+to every woman, which men give when their vanity is excited,
+and when there is, according to the common expression, a lady
+in the case.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, she is very kind,&rdquo; he said with a twinkle in his eye.
+&ldquo;She has had the children to tea a great many times since
+you have been away. To show my sense of her kindness, you
+must ask her one of these days. A woman who understands
+children is always a valuable friend for a man in my position&mdash;and
+also, Ursula, for a girl in yours.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She may understand children, but they are not fond of her,&rdquo;
+said Ursula, with a gleam of malice which restored her father
+to good humour. He had no more idea of marrying a second
+time than of flying. He was tenderly attached in his way to
+his wife's memory, and quite sufficiently troubled by the number
+of dwellers in his house already; but he rather liked, as a good-looking
+man in his wane generally does, to think that he could
+marry if he pleased, and to hold the possibility over the heads
+of his household, as a chastisement of all their sins against him
+which he could use at any time. All the Mays grew hot and
+angry at the name of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and their fear and anger
+delighted their father. He liked to speak of her to provoke
+them, and partly for that, partly for other reasons of his own,
+kept up a decorous semi-flirtation with his neighbour who lived
+next door, and thus excited the apprehensions and resentment
+of the girls every day of their lives. When Ursula thought of
+Mrs. Sam Hurst she wished for the Dorsets no more. It was
+above all things, she felt, her duty to be here on the spot to
+defend the family from that woman's machinations. The idea
+put energy into her. She ceased to be tired, ceased to feel herself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+&ldquo;after her journey,&rdquo; capable of nothing but sitting still and
+hearing of all that had been done since she went away.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the evening, however, Ursula took advantage
+of a quiet moment to look into the dictionary and make
+herself quite safe about the meaning of the word sinecure. It
+was not the first time she had heard it, as may be supposed.
+She had heard of lucky people who held sinecures, and she
+had heard them denounced as evil things, but without entering
+closely into the meaning. Now she had a more direct interest
+in it, and it must be confessed that she was not at all frightened
+by the idea, or disposed to reject it as Reginald did. Ursula
+had not learnt much about public virtue, and to get a good
+income for doing nothing, or next to nothing, seemed to her an
+ideal sort of way of getting one's livelihood. She wished with
+a sigh that there were sinecures which could be held by girls.
+But no, in that as in other things &ldquo;gentlemen&rdquo; kept all that
+was good to themselves; and Ursula was disposed to treat
+Reginald's scruples with a very high hand. But she did not
+choose that her father should attack him with all these disagreeable
+speeches about maintaining him in idleness, and taunts
+about the money that had been spent on his education. That
+was not the way to manage him, the girl felt; but Ursula
+resolved to take her brother in hand herself, to argue with him
+how foolish it was, to point out to him that if he did not take
+it some one else would, and that the country would not gain
+anything while he would lose, to laugh at his over delicacy, to
+show him how delightful it would be if he was independent, and
+what a help to all his brothers and sisters. In short, it seemed
+quite simple to Ursula, and she felt her path mapped out before
+her, and triumphed in every stage of her argument, inventing
+the very weakest replies for Reginald to make. Full of the inspiration
+of this purpose, she felt that it was in every way well
+that she had come home. With Reginald settled close by,
+going away no longer, standing by her in her difficulties, and
+even perhaps, who could tell? taking her to parties, and affording
+her the means now and then of asking two or three people
+to tea, the whole horizon of her life brightened for Ursula. She
+became reconciled to Carlingford. All that had to be done was
+to show Reginald what his duty was, and how foolish he was
+to hesitate, and she could not allow herself to suppose that <i>when
+it was put before him properly</i> there could long remain much
+difficulty upon that score.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<h3>PH&#338;BE'S PREPARATIONS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>A few days after Ursula's return home, another arrival took
+place in Carlingford. Ph&#339;be Beecham, after considering the
+case fully, and listening with keen interest to all the indications
+she could pick up as to the peculiarities of her grandfather's
+house, and the many things in life at Carlingford which
+were &ldquo;unlike what she had been used to,&rdquo; had fully made up
+her mind to dare the difficulties of that unknown existence,
+and to devote herself in her mother's place to the care of her
+grandmother and the confusion of Mrs. Tom. This was partly
+undertaken out of a sense of duty, partly out of that desire for
+change and the unknown, which has to content itself in many
+cases with the very mildest provision, and partly because
+Ph&#339;be's good sense perceived the necessity of the matter.
+She was by no means sure what were the special circumstances
+that made &ldquo;Mrs. Tom&rdquo; disagreeable to her mother, but she
+was deeply sensible of the importance of preventing Mrs. Tom
+from securing to herself and her family all that Mr. and Mrs.
+Tozer had to leave. Ph&#339;be was not mercenary in her own
+person, but she had no idea of giving up any &ldquo;rights,&rdquo; and
+she felt it of the utmost importance that her brother, who
+was unfortunately by no means so clever as herself, should be
+fully provided against all the contingencies of life. She was
+not concerned about herself in that particular. Ph&#339;be felt
+it a matter of course that she should marry, and marry well.
+Self-confidence of this assured and tranquil sort serves a great
+many excellent purposes&mdash;it made her even generous in her
+way. She believed in her star, in her own certain good-fortune,
+in herself; and therefore her mind was free to think
+and to work for other people. She knew very well by all her
+mother said, and by all the hesitations of both her parents,
+that she would have many disagreeable things to encounter in
+Carlingford, but she felt so sure that nothing could really humiliate
+<i>her</i>, or pull her down from her real eminence, that the
+knowledge conveyed no fears to her mind. When this confidence
+in her own superiority to all debasing influences is held
+by the spotless princess in the poem, it is the most beautiful
+of human sentiments, and why it should not be equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+elevated when entertained by a pink and plump modern young
+woman, well up in all nineteenth century refinements, and the
+daughter of the minister of the Crescent Chapel, it would be
+hard to say. Ph&#339;be held it with the strongest faith.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Their ways of thinking, perhaps, and their ways of living,
+are not those which I have been used to,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but how
+does that affect me? I am myself whatever happens; even if poor
+dear grandmamma's habits are not refined, which I suppose is
+what you mean, mamma, that does not make me unrefined.
+A lady must always be a lady wherever she is&mdash;Una,&rdquo; she
+continued, using strangely enough the same argument which
+has occurred to her historian, &ldquo;is not less a princess when she
+is living among the satyrs. Of course, I am not like Una&mdash;and
+neither are they like the wild people in the wood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Beecham did not know much about Una, except that
+she was somebody in a book; but she kissed her daughter, and
+assured her that she was &ldquo;a real comfort,&rdquo; and devoted herself to
+her comfort for the few days that remained, doing everything that
+it was possible to do to show her love, and, so to speak, gratitude
+to the good child who was thus throwing herself into the breach.
+The Beechams were in no want of money to buy what pleased
+them, and the mother made many additions to Ph&#339;be's wardrobe
+which that young lady herself thought quite unnecessary, not
+reflecting that other sentiments besides that of simple love for
+herself were involved.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They shall see that my daughter is not just like one of their
+common-looking girls,&rdquo; Mrs. Beecham said to her husband; and
+he shared the feeling, though he could not but think within himself
+that her aspect was of very much more importance than the
+appearance of Ph&#339;be Tozer's child could possibly be as <i>his</i>
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are quite right, my dear,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;vulgar people
+of that sort are but too ready to look down upon a pastor's
+family. They ought to be made to see the difference.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The consequence of this was that Ph&#339;be was fitted out like a
+young princess going on her travels. Ursula May would have
+been out of her wits with delight, had half these fine things
+come her way; but Ph&#339;be took them very calmly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have never undervalued dress,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;as some girls
+do; I think it is a very important social influence. And even
+without that, mamma, so long as it pleases you&mdash;&rdquo; So with
+this mixture of philosophy and affection all went well.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We must call on Mrs. Copperhead before you go; they
+would think it strange, after all the interest they have shown
+in us.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have they shown an interest in us?&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;Of
+course we must call&mdash;and Mrs. Copperhead is a lady, but as for
+Mr. Copperhead, mamma&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush! he is the leading member, and very influential in
+the connection. A pastor's family must not be touchy, Ph&#339;be.
+We must put up with a great many things. There ought to
+be peace among brethren, you know, and harmony is the first
+thing that is essential in a church&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if harmony would be as essential, supposing Mr.
+Copperhead to come to grief, mamma.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ph&#339;be! slang from you&mdash;who have always set your face
+against it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What can one talk but slang when one thinks of such a
+person?&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be gravely; and thus saying she opened the
+door for her mother, and they went out in their best gowns to
+pay their visit. Mrs. Copperhead was very civil to the pastor's
+family. It was not in her to be uncivil to any one; but in her
+soft heart she despised them a little, and comported herself to
+them with that special good behaviour and dignified restraint
+which the best natured people reserve for their inferiors. For
+though she went to chapel, taken there by Mr. Copperhead, she
+was &ldquo;church&rdquo; at heart. The interest which Mrs. Beecham
+took in everything, and the praises she bestowed on the ball,
+did not relax her coldness. They were too well off, too warm
+and silken to call forth her sympathies, and there was little in
+common between them to afford any ground for meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Mr. Copperhead was quite well&mdash;she was quite well&mdash;her
+son was quite well. She hoped Mr. Beecham was well.
+She had heard that most people were pleased with the ball,
+thank you. Oh, Miss Beecham was going away&mdash;indeed! She
+hoped the weather would be good; and then Mrs. Copperhead
+sat erect upon her sofa, and did not try to say any more.
+Though she had not the heart of a mouse, she too could play
+the great lady when occasion served. Clarence, however, was
+much more hospitable than his mother. He liked Ph&#339;be, who
+could talk almost as if she was in society, as girls talk in novels.
+He knew, of course, that she was not in society, but she was
+a girl whom a fellow could get on with, who had plenty to say
+for herself, who was not a lay figure like many young ladies;
+and then she was pretty, pink, and golden, &ldquo;a piece of colour&rdquo;
+which was attractive to the eye. He soon found out where she
+was going, and let her know that he himself intended a visit to
+the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Dorsets live near,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Relations of my mother.
+You saw them at the ball. I dare say you will meet them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+somewhere about.&rdquo; This, it is to be feared, Clarence said in
+something of his mother's spirit, with a warm sense of superiority,
+for he knew that the pastor's daughter was very unlikely
+to meet the Dorsets. Ph&#339;be, however, was equal to the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am not at all likely to meet them,&rdquo; she said with a gracious
+smile. &ldquo;For one thing, I am not going to enjoy myself,
+but to nurse a sick person. And sick people don't go to parties.
+Besides, you know the foolish prejudices of society, properly
+so called. I think them foolish because they affect me,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be, with engaging frankness. &ldquo;If they did not affect me,
+probably I should think them all right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What foolish prejudices?&rdquo; said Clarence, thinking she was
+about to say something about her inferior position, and already
+feeling flattered before she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;About Dissenters, you know,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;of course, you
+must be aware that we are looked down upon in society. It
+does not matter, for when people have any sense, as soon as they
+know us they do us justice; but of course you must be aware that
+the prejudice exists.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clarence did know, and with some bitterness; for Mr.
+Copperhead, though he did not care much, perhaps, about
+religion, cared for his chapel, and stood by it with unswerving
+strictness. His son, who was an Oxford man, and respectful
+of all the prejudices of society, did not like this. But what
+could he do against the obstinate dissentership of his father?
+This, as much as anything else, had acted upon the crowd the
+night of the ball, and made them all nobodies. He hesitated
+to make any reply, and his face flushed with shame and displeasure.
+Ph&#339;be felt that she had avenged upon Clarence his
+mother's haughty politeness. She had brought home to him a
+sense of the social inferiority which was common to them both.
+Having done this, she was satisfied, and proceeded to soften
+the blow.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It cannot fall upon you, who are in so much better a
+position, as it does upon us,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;We are the very
+head and front of the offending, a Dissenting minister's family!&mdash;Society
+and its charms are not for us. And I hope we know
+our place,&rdquo; she said, with mock humility; &ldquo;when people have
+any sense and come to know us it is different; and for the
+foolish ones I don't care. But you see from that, I am not
+likely to meet your cousins, am I?&rdquo; she added with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you mean that they are among the foolish ones&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no; I don't. But you can't suppose they will take
+the trouble to find <i>me</i> out. Why should they? People entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+out of my range, and that have nothing to do with me. So
+you may be quite sure I am right when I say we sha'n't meet.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Clarence, piqued, &ldquo;I am going to Easton,
+and I shall see you, if Mrs. Beecham will give me permission
+to call.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She will give you the address along with that; but till then,
+good-bye,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. To tell the truth, she had no desire
+to see Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. Perhaps he meant
+something, perhaps he did not&mdash;at this stage of the proceedings
+it was a matter of indifference to Ph&#339;be, who certainly had
+not allowed &ldquo;her affections&rdquo; to become engaged. If he did
+mean anything, was it likely that he could support unmoved
+the grandfather and grandmother who were, or had been, &ldquo;in
+trade?&rdquo; On the other hand, was it not better that he should
+know the worst? Ph&#339;be was no husband-hunter. She contemplated
+the issue with calm and composure, however it might
+turn out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He asked me if he might call,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, in some
+excitement. &ldquo;I don't care much to have you seen, my darling,
+out of your own father's house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just as you please, mamma&mdash;just as it suits best,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be, dismissing the subject. She was not anxious. A good
+deal depended on whether he meant anything or nothing, but
+even that did not conclude the subject, for she had not made
+up her own mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why didn't you tell them about the Mays?&rdquo; said Clarence,
+as the two ladies went out. &ldquo;They live in Carlingford, and I
+should think it would be pleasant on both sides.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear boy, you forget the difference of position,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Copperhead. &ldquo;They are Dissenters.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I like that,&rdquo; cried Clarence, half angry, as himself
+sharing the disadvantages of the connection. &ldquo;A needy beggar
+like May has a great deal to stand upon. I like that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But it is true all the same,&rdquo; said Mrs. Copperhead, shaking
+her head. &ldquo;And you can see the difference at once. I dare
+say Miss Beecham is a very clever young woman, but between
+her and Miss May what a difference there is! Any one can
+see it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am afraid then I am stupid, for I can't see it, mother.
+They are both pretty girls, but for amusing you and that sort
+of thing give me Ph&#339;be. She is worth twenty of the other.
+As sharp as a needle, and plenty to say for herself. This is
+the kind of girl I like.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am very sorry for it. I hope that is not the kind of wife
+you will like,&rdquo; said Mrs. Copperhead, with a sigh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, wife! they haven't a penny, either the one or the other,&rdquo;
+said Clarence, with delightful openness, &ldquo;and we may be sure
+that would not suit the governor even if it suited me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time Mrs. Beecham and Ph&#339;be were walking up
+the broad pavement of Portland Place towards their home.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is pleasant to see the mother and the son together,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Beecham, who was determined to see everything in the
+best light that concerned the Copperheads. &ldquo;They are so
+devoted to each other, and, Ph&#339;be, dear&mdash;I don't like to talk
+in this way to a sensible girl like you, but you must see it
+with your own eyes. You have certainly made a great impression
+upon Clarence Copperhead. When he said he hoped to see
+you in Carlingford, and asked, might he call? it was exactly
+like asking my permission to pay you his addresses; it is very
+flattering, but it is embarrassing as well.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do not feel particularly flattered, mamma; and I think
+if I were you I would not give him the address.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Beecham looked anxiously in her daughter's face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it from prudence, Ph&#339;be, or is it that you don't like
+him, that you wouldn't have him if he asked you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We must wait till he does ask me,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, decisively.
+&ldquo;Till then I can't possibly tell. But I don't want him at
+Carlingford. I know that grandpapa and grandmamma are&mdash;in
+trade.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Beecham, in a subdued voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Dissenters, and in trade; and he is going to stay with the
+Dorsets, fine county people. Don't give him the address; if
+we meet by chance, there is no harm done. I am not ashamed
+of any one belonging to me. But you can say that you don't
+think his father would like him to be visiting me at Carlingford&mdash;which
+I am sure would be quite true.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed he might go much farther without finding any one
+so well worth visiting,&rdquo; said the mother, indignant, to which
+Ph&#339;be nodded her head in tranquil assent.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is neither here nor there,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;you can always
+tell him so, and that will please Mr. Copperhead, if ever he
+comes to hear of it. He thought at one time that I was too
+entertaining. One knows what that means. I should like
+him to see how little I cared.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, my dear, Clarence Copperhead would be worth&mdash;a
+little attention. He could give a girl&mdash;a very nice position,&rdquo;
+Mrs. Beecham faltered, looking at her daughter between every
+word.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am not saying anything against Clarence Copperhead,&rdquo;
+said Ph&#339;be, with composure, &ldquo;but I should like his dear papa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+to know how little I care, and that you have refused him my
+address.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was all she said on the subject. Ph&#339;be was quite ready
+to allow that Clarence was everything that her mother had said,
+and she had fully worked out her own theory on marriage,
+which will probably be hereafter expounded in these pages, so
+that she was not at all shocked by having his advantages thus
+pointed out to her. But there was no hurry, she said to herself.
+If it was not Clarence Copperhead, it would be some one
+else, and why should she, at this early stage of her career,
+attempt to precipitate the designs of Providence? She had
+plenty of time before her, and was in no hurry for any change;
+and a genuine touch of nature in her heart made her anxious
+for an opportunity of showing her independence to that arrogant
+and offensive &ldquo;leading member,&rdquo; who made the life of the
+office-bearers in the Crescent a burden to them. If she could
+only so drive him into a corner, that he should be obliged to
+come to her in his despair, and beg her to accept his son's hand
+to save him from going off in a galloping consumption, that
+would have been a triumph after Ph&#339;be's heart. To be sure
+this was a perfectly vain and wildly romantic hope&mdash;it was the
+only bit of wild and girlish romance in the bosom of a very
+well-educated, well-intentioned, and sensible young woman.
+She had seen her parents put up with the arrogance of the
+millionnaire for a long time without rebelling any more than they
+did; but Mr. Copperhead had gone further than Ph&#339;be could
+bear; and thoroughly as she understood her own position, and
+all its interests, this one vain fancy had found a footing in her
+mind. If she could but humble him and make him sue to her.
+It was not likely, but for such a triumph the sensible Ph&#339;be
+would have done much. It was the one point on which she
+was silly, but on that she was as silly as any cynic could desire.</p>
+
+<p>And thus with a huge trunk full of charming dresses, a
+dressing-case fit for any bride, the prettiest travelling costume
+imaginable, and everything about her fit, Mrs. Beecham fondly
+thought, for a duke's daughter, Ph&#339;be junior took her departure,
+to be the comfort of her grandmamma, and to dazzle
+Carlingford. Her fond parents accompanied her to the station
+and placed her in a carriage, and fee'd a guard heavily to take
+care of and watch over her. &ldquo;Not but that Ph&#339;be might be
+safely trusted to take care of herself anywhere,&rdquo; they said. In
+which expression of their pride in their daughter, the observant
+reader may see a proof of their own origin from the humbler
+classes. They would probably have prided themselves on her
+timidity and helplessness had they been a little better born.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+<h3>GRANGE LANE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from business several years
+before. They had given up the shop with its long established
+connection, and all its advantages, to Tom, their son, finding
+themselves to have enough to live upon in ease, and indeed
+luxury; and though Mrs. Tozer found the house in Grange
+Lane shut in by the garden walls to be much duller than her
+rooms over the shop in High Street, where she saw everything
+that was going on, yet the increase in gentility was unquestionable.
+The house which they were fortunate enough to secure
+in this desirable locality had been once in the occupation of
+Lady Weston, and there was accordingly an aroma of high life
+about it, although somebody less important had lived in it in
+the mean time, and it had fallen into a state of considerable
+dilapidation, which naturally made it cheaper. Mr. Tozer had
+solidly repaired all that was necessary for comfort, but he had
+not done anything in those external points of paint and decoration,
+which tells so much in the aspect of a house. Lady
+Weston's taste had been florid, and the walls continued as she
+had left them, painted and papered with faded wreaths, which
+were apt to look dissipated, as they ought to have been refreshed
+and renewed years before. But outside, where the wreaths do
+not fade, there was a delightful garden charmingly laid out, in
+which Lady Weston had once held her garden parties, and
+where the crocuses and other spring bulbs, which had been put
+in with a lavish hand, during Lady Weston's extravagant
+reign, had already begun to blow. The violets were peeping
+out from among their leaves on a sheltered bank, and Christmas
+roses, overblown, making a great show with their great
+white stars, in a corner. Tozer himself soon took a great
+interest in this little domain out of doors, and was for ever
+pottering about the flowers, obeying, with the servility of ignorance,
+the gardener's injunctions. Mrs. Tozer, however, who
+was in weak health, and consequently permitted to be somewhat
+cross and contradictory, regretted the High Street.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Talk of a garden,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;a thing as never changes
+except according to the seasons! Up in the town there was
+never a day the same, something always happening&mdash;Soldiers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+marching through, or Punch and Judy, or a row at the least.
+It is the cheerfullest place in the whole world, I do believe;
+shut up here may do for the gentry, but I likes the streets and
+what's going on. You may call me vulgar if you please, but
+so I do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tozer prudently said nothing to such outbursts except a
+soothing exhortation to wait till summer, when she would find
+the benefit of the fresh air, not to speak of the early vegetables;
+and he himself found the garden an unspeakable resource. At
+first, indeed, he would stroll up to the shop of a morning,
+especially if any new consignment of first-rate York hams, or
+cheese, was coming in, which he loved to turn over and test
+by smell and touch; but by and by the ancient butterman
+made a discovery, such as we are all apt to make when we get
+old and step out of the high road of life. He found out that
+his son did not appreciate his advice, and that Mrs. Tom cared
+still less for his frequent appearances. Indeed, he himself
+once saw her bounce out of the shop as he entered, exclaiming
+audibly, &ldquo;Here's that fussy old man again.&rdquo; Tozer was an old
+man, it is true, but nobody (under eighty) cares to have the
+epithet flung in his teeth; and to be in the way is always unpleasant.
+He had self-command enough to say nothing about
+it, except in a very modified shape to his wife, who was ready
+enough to believe anything unpleasant about Mrs. Tom; but
+he took to gardening with ardour from that day; and learned
+all about the succession of the flowers, and how long one set
+lasted, and which kind should be put into the ground next.
+He would even take off his coat and do a tolerable day's work
+under the gardener's direction, to the great advantage of his
+health and temper, while Mrs. Tozer grumbled upstairs. She
+was getting more and more helpless about the house, unable to
+see after the stout maid-of-all-work, who in her turn grumbled
+much at the large house, for which one maid was not enough.
+Many altercations took place in consequence between the
+mistress and servant.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The ungrateful hussy hasn't even as many rooms to do as
+she had in the High Street, when there was the 'prentices' beds
+to make,&rdquo; Mrs. Tozer said indignantly to her husband; but
+Jane on her side pointed to the length of passage, the stairs,
+the dining and drawing-rooms, where there had once only been
+a parlour.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cook and 'ousemaid's little enough,&rdquo; said Jane; &ldquo;there
+did ought to be a man in this kind of 'ouse; but as there's only
+two in family, shouldn't say nothing if I had a girl under
+me.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Things were gravitating towards this girl at the time of
+Ph&#339;be's arrival; but nothing had as yet been finally decided
+upon. Jane, however, had bestirred herself to get the young
+lady's room ready with something like alacrity. A young
+person coming to the house promised a little movement and
+change, which was always something, and Jane had no doubt
+that Ph&#339;be would be on her side in respect to the &ldquo;girl.&rdquo; &ldquo;She'll
+want waiting upon, and there'll always be sending of errands,&rdquo;
+Jane said to herself. She knew by experience &ldquo;what young
+'uns is in a house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was something, perhaps, in all the preparations for her
+departure which had thrown dust in Ph&#339;be Beecham's eyes.
+She had been too sharp-sighted not to see into her mother's
+qualms and hesitations about her visit to Carlingford, and the
+repeated warnings of both parents as to the &ldquo;difference from
+what she had been accustomed to;&rdquo; and she thought she had
+fully prepared herself for what she was to encounter. But
+probably the elaborate outfit provided by her mother and the
+importance attached to her journey had to some degree
+obliterated this impression, for it is certain that when Ph&#339;be
+saw an old man in a shabby coat, with a wisp of a large white
+neckcloth round his throat, watching anxiously for the arrival
+of the train as it came up, she sustained a shock which she had
+not anticipated. It was about five years since she had seen
+her grandfather, an interval due to hazard rather than purpose,
+though, on the whole, the elder Beechams had not been sorry
+to keep their parents and their children apart. Ph&#339;be, however,
+knew her grandfather perfectly well as soon as she saw
+him, though he had not perceived her, and was wandering
+anxiously up and down in search of her. She held back in her
+corner for the moment, to overcome the shock. Yes, there
+could be no doubt about it; there he was, he whom she was
+going to visit, under whose auspices she was about to appear in
+Carlingford. He was not even like an old Dissenting minister,
+which had been her childish notion of him. He looked neither
+more nor less than what he was, an old shopkeeper, very decent
+and respectable, but a little shabby and greasy, like the men
+whose weekly bills she had been accustomed to pay for her
+mother. She felt an instant conviction that he would call her
+&ldquo;Ma'am,&rdquo; if she went up to him, and think her one of the
+quality. Poor Ph&#339;be! she sat back in her corner and gave a
+gasp of horror and dismay, but having done this, she was herself
+again. She gave herself a shake, like one who is about to
+take a plunge, rose lightly to her feet, took up her bag, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+stepped out of the carriage, just as Mr. Tozer strolled anxiously
+past for the third time.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa!&rdquo; she cried with a smile. Mr. Tozer was
+almost as much taken aback by this apparition as Ph&#339;be herself
+had been. He knew that his daughter had made great
+strides in social elevation, and that her children, when he had
+seen them last, had been quite like &ldquo;gentlefolk's children;&rdquo;
+but to see this young princess step forth graciously out of a
+first-class carriage, and address him as &ldquo;grandpapa,&rdquo; took away
+his breath.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;why, Miss! you ain't little Ph&#339;be?&rdquo; he
+cried, scared out of his seven senses, as he afterwards said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, indeed, I am little Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; she said, coming up and
+kissing him dutifully. She was half-disgusted, he half-frightened;
+but yet it was right, and Ph&#339;be did it. &ldquo;I have only
+two boxes and a bag,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;besides my dressing-case. If
+you will get a cab, grandpapa, I will go and see after the
+luggage.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Old Tozer thought he could have carried the bag himself,
+and left the boxes to follow; but he succumbed humbly and
+obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She don't seem a bit proud,&rdquo; he said to himself; &ldquo;but, good
+Lord, what'll she ever say to my old woman?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He saw the contrast very clearly between his wife and this
+splendid grandchild. It did not strike him so much in his own
+case.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How is grandmamma?&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, blandly; &ldquo;better, I
+hope? Mamma was so sorry not to come herself; but you
+know, of course, she has a great many things to do. People in
+town are obliged to keep up certain appearances. You are a
+great deal better off in the country, grandpapa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord bless you, my dear, do you call Carlingford the
+country?&rdquo; said Mr. Tozer. &ldquo;That is all you know about it.
+Your granny and I are humble folks, but the new minister at
+Salem is one as keeps up appearances with the best. Your
+mother was always inclined for that. I hope she has not
+brought you up too fine for the likes of us.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope not, indeed,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;No fear of my being
+too fine for my duty, grandpapa. Do you live down this nice
+road? How pretty it is! how delightful these gardens must
+be in summer. I beg your pardon for calling it the country.
+It is so quiet and so nice, it seems the country to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, to be sure; brought up in the London smoke,&rdquo; said
+Mr. Tozer. &ldquo;I don't suppose, now, you see a bit of green from
+year's end to year's end? Very bad for the 'ealth, that is;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+but I can't say you look poorly on it. Your colour's fresh, so
+was your mother's before you. To be sure, she wasn't cooped
+up like you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, we do get a little fresh air sometimes&mdash;in the parks, for
+instance,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. She was somewhat piqued by the idea
+that she was supposed to live in London smoke.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, the parks are always something; but I suppose it takes
+you a day's journey to get at them,&rdquo; said Mr. Tozer, shaking
+his head. &ldquo;You mustn't mind your grandmother's temper just
+at first, my dear. She's old, poor soul, and she ain't well, and
+she's sometimes cross above a bit. But she'll be that proud of
+you, she won't know if she's on her 'eels or 'er 'ead; and as
+for a cross word now and again, I hope as you won't mind&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shan't mind anything, grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, sweetly,
+&ldquo;so long as I can be of use.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And these were, indeed, the dutiful sentiments with which
+she made her entry upon this passage in her life, not minding
+anything but to be of use. The first glimpse of old Tozer,
+indeed, made it quite evident to Ph&#339;be that nothing but duty
+could be within her reach. Pleasure, friends, society, the
+thought of all such delights must be abandoned. And as for
+Clarence Copperhead and the Miss Dorsets, the notion of
+meeting or receiving them was too absurd. But Duty remained,
+and Ph&#339;be felt herself capable of the sacrifice demanded from
+her. That confidence in herself which we have already indicated
+as a marked feature in her character, gave her the consoling
+certainty that she could not suffer from association with
+her humble relations. Whosoever saw her must do her justice,
+and that serene conviction preserved her from all the throes
+of uneasy pride which afflict inferior minds in similar circumstances.
+She had no wish to exhibit her grandfather and
+grandmother in their lowliness, nor to be ostentatious of her
+homely origin, as some people are in the very soreness of
+wounded pride; but if hazard produced the butterman in the
+midst of the finest of her acquaintances, Ph&#339;be would still
+have been perfectly at her ease. She would be herself, whatever
+happened.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, however, it was apparent that Duty was
+what she had to look to; Duty, and that alone. She had come
+here, not to amuse herself, not to please herself, but to do her
+duty; and having thus concluded upon her object, she felt
+comparatively happy, and at her ease.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tozer had put on her best cap, which was a very gorgeous
+creation. She had dressed herself as if for a party, with
+a large brooch, enclosing a curl of various coloured hair cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+from the heads of her children in early life, which fastened a
+large worked collar over a dress of copper-coloured silk, and
+she rustled and shook a good deal as she came downstairs into
+the garden to meet her grandchild, with some excitement and
+sense of the &ldquo;difference&rdquo; which could not but be felt on one
+side as well as on the other. She, too, was somewhat frightened
+by the appearance of the young lady, who was her Ph&#339;be's
+child, yet was so unlike any other scion of the Tozer race; and
+felt greatly disposed to curtsey and say &ldquo;Ma'am&rdquo; to her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You've grown a deal and changed a deal since I saw you
+last,&rdquo; she said, restraining this impression, and receiving
+Ph&#339;be's kiss with gratified, yet awe-struck feeling; and then
+her respectful alarm getting too much for her, she added, faltering,
+&ldquo;You'll find us but humble folks; perhaps not altogether
+what you've been used to&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be did not think it expedient to make any reply to this
+outburst of humility.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandmamma, I am afraid you have over-exerted yourself,
+coming downstairs to meet me,&rdquo; she said, taking the old lady's
+hand, and drawing it within her arm. &ldquo;Yes, I have grown; I
+am tall enough to be of some use; but you must not treat me
+as if I were a stranger. No, no; never mind my room. I am
+not tired; the journey is nothing. Let me take you back to
+your chair and make you comfortable. I feel myself quite at
+home already. The only odd thing is that I have never been
+here before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, my dear, your mother thought too much of you to
+send you to the likes of us; that's the secret of it. She was
+always fond of fine folks, was my Ph&#339;be; and I don't blame
+her, bringing you up quite the lady as she's done.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must not find fault with mamma,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, smiling.
+&ldquo;What a nice cozy room! This is the dining-room, I suppose;
+and here is your cushion, and your footstool at this nice window.
+How pleasant it is, with the crocuses in all the borders already!
+I am not at all tired; but I am sure it must be tea-time, and I
+should so like a cup of tea.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We thought,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, &ldquo;as perhaps you mightn't
+be used to tea at this time of day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it is the right time; it is the fashionable hour,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;everybody has tea at five. I will run upstairs first,
+and take off my hat, and make myself tidy. Jane&mdash;is that her
+name?&mdash;don't trouble, grandmamma; Jane will show me the
+way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Mr. Tozer to Mrs. Tozer, as Ph&#339;be disappeared.
+The two old people looked at each other with a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+awe; but she, as was her nature, took the most depressing
+view. She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is a deal too fine for us, Tozer,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She'll never
+make herself 'appy in our quiet way. Ph&#339;be's been and brought
+her up quite the lady. It ain't as her dress is much matter. I'd
+have given her a silk myself, and never thought of it twice; and
+something lively like for a young person, 'stead of that gray
+stuff, as her mother might wear. But all the same, she ain't
+one of our sort. She'll never make herself 'appy with you and
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Tozer, who was more cheerful, &ldquo;she ain't
+proud, not a bit; and as for manners, you don't pay no more
+for manners. She came up and give me a kiss in the station,
+as affectionate as possible. All I can say for her is as she ain't
+proud.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tozer shook her head; but even while she did so,
+pleasanter dreams stole into her soul.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope I'll be well enough to get to chapel on Sunday,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;just to see the folk's looks. The minister needn't
+expect much attention to his sermon. 'There's Ph&#339;be Tozer's
+daughter!' they'll all be saying, and a-staring, and a-whispering.
+It ain't often as anything like her is seen in chapel,
+that's a fact,&rdquo; said the old lady, warming into the exultation of
+natural pride.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be, it must be allowed, had a good cry when she got
+within the shelter of her own room, which had been very carefully
+prepared for her, with everything that was necessary for
+comfort, according to her grandmother's standard; but where
+the &ldquo;tent&rdquo; bed hung with old-fashioned red and brown chintz,
+and the moreen curtains drooping over the window, and the
+gigantic flowers on the carpet, made Ph&#339;be's soul sick within
+her. Notwithstanding all her courage, her heart sank. She
+had expected &ldquo;a difference,&rdquo; but she had not looked for her
+grandfather's greasy coat and wisp of neckcloth, or her grandmother's
+amazing cap, or the grammatical peculiarities in which
+both indulged. She had a good hot fit of crying, and for the
+moment felt so discouraged and depressed, that the only impulse
+in her mind was to run away. But her temperament did not
+favour panics, and giving in was not in her. If somebody must
+do it, why should not she do it? she said to herself. How
+many times had she heard in sermons and otherwise that no one
+ought to look for the sweet without the bitter, and that duty
+should never be avoided or refused because it is unpleasant?
+Now was the time to put her principles to the test; and the
+tears relieved her, and gave her something of the feeling of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+martyr, which is always consolatory and sweet; so she dried
+her eyes, and bathed her face, and went downstairs cheerful
+and smiling, resolved that, at all costs, her duty should be
+done, however disagreeable it might be. What a good thing
+the new fashion of five o'clock tea is for people who have connections
+in an inferior path of life who make tea a meal, and don't
+dine, or dine in the middle of the day! This was the thought
+that passed through Ph&#339;be's mind as she went into the dining-room,
+and found the table covered, not to say groaning under
+good things. She took her place at it, and poured out tea for
+the old people, and cut bread-and-butter with the most gracious
+philosophy. Duchesses did the same every day; the tea-table
+had renewed its ancient sway, even in fashionable life. It cannot
+be told what a help and refreshment this thought was to
+Ph&#339;be's courageous heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;"><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TOZER FAMILY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Ph&#339;be woke next morning, under the huge flowers
+of the old fashioned cotton drapery of her &ldquo;tent&rdquo; bed, to see
+the faint daylight struggling in through the heavy curtains
+which would not draw back from the window, the discouragement
+of her first arrival for a moment overpowered her again&mdash;and
+with even more reason&mdash;for she had more fully ascertained
+the resources of the place in which she found herself. There
+were no books, except some old volumes of sermons and a few
+back numbers of the Congregational Magazine, no visitors, so
+far as she could make out, no newspaper but the Carlingford
+Weekly Gazette, nothing but her grandmother's gossip about
+the chapel and Mrs. Tom to pass the weary hours away. Even
+last night Mrs. Tozer had asked her whether she had not any
+work to beguile the long evening, which Ph&#339;be occupied much
+more virtuously, from her own point of view, in endeavouring
+to amuse the old people by talking to them. Though it was
+morning, and she ought to have been refreshed and encouraged
+by the repose of the night, it was again with a few
+hot tears that Ph&#339;be contemplated her prospects. But this
+was only a passing weakness. When she went down to breakfast,
+she was again cheerful as the crocuses that raised their
+heads along the borders with the promise of summer in them.
+The sun was shining, the sky was frosty, but blue. After all,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+her present sufferings could not endure for ever. Ph&#339;be
+hurried to get dressed, to get her blue fingers warned by the
+dining-room fire. It is needless to say that there was no fire,
+or thought of a fire in the chilly room, with its red and brown
+hangings, in which Mrs. Tozer last night had hoped she would
+be happy. &ldquo;No fear of that, grandmamma,&rdquo; she had answered
+cheerfully. This was as much a lie, she felt, as if it had been
+said with the wickedest intentions&mdash;was it as wrong? How
+cold it was, and yet how stifling! She could scarcely fasten
+the ribbon at her neck, her fingers were so cold.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, grandpapa, it is brighter than in London. We don't
+live in the city, you know. We live in rather a pretty neighbourhood
+looking out on Regent's Park, but it is seldom so bright
+as the country. Sometimes the fog blows up our way, when
+the wind is in the east; but it is warmer, I think,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be, with a little shiver, stooping over the dining-room fire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, shaking her head, &ldquo;it's your mother
+as has spoilt you, I don't make no doubt, with fires and things.
+That takes the hardiness out of young folks. A little bit of
+cold is wholesome, it stirs up the blood. Them as is used to
+fires is always taking cold. One good fire in the sitting-room,
+that's always been my principle, and them as is cold if they
+can't warm theirselves with movin' about, which is far the
+best, let them come and warm their fingers when they please&mdash;as
+you may be doing now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps it is a very good principle, grandmamma,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;when one is used to it; but the country is colder
+than town. Where there are fires on every side you must have
+more warmth than in a detached house like this. But it is only
+my hands after all. Shall I make the tea?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You should wear mittens like me&mdash;I always did in the
+High Street, especial when I was going and coming to the shop,
+helping serve, when the children were young and I had the
+time for it. Ah! we've done with all that now. We're more
+at our ease, but I can't say as we're much happier. A shop
+is a cheerful sort of thing. I dare say your mother has told
+you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, under her breath; but the reply was not
+noticed. She nearly dropped the teapot out of her hand when
+she heard the word&mdash;Shop! Yes, to be sure, that was what
+being &ldquo;in trade&rdquo; meant, but she had never quite realized it till
+now. Ph&#339;be was going through a tremendous piece of mental
+discipline in these first days. She writhed secretly, and moaned
+to herself&mdash;why did not mamma tell me? but she sat quite
+still outside, and smiled as if it was all quite ordinary and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+natural, and she had heard about the shop all her life. It
+seemed cruel and unkind to have sent her here without distinct
+warning of what she was going to meet. But Ph&#339;be was a
+good girl, and would not blame her father and mother. No
+doubt they meant it &ldquo;for the best.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is Uncle Tom,&rdquo; she said, faltering somewhat, &ldquo;in the&mdash;shop
+now?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I'm able,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, &ldquo;I'll walk that far with you
+this morning&mdash;or Tozer, I mean your grandfather, will go. It's
+a tidy house o' business, though I say it as shouldn't, seeing it
+was him and me as made it all; though I don't hold with Mrs.
+Tom's nonsense about the new windows. Your Uncle Tom is as
+innocent as innocent, but as for her, she ain't no favourite of
+mine, and I makes no bones about saying so, I don't mind who
+hears.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She ain't so bad as you make her out,&rdquo; said Tozer. &ldquo;She's
+kind enough in her way. Your grandmother is a-going to
+show you off&mdash;that's it, my dear. She can't abide Tom's wife,
+and she wants to show her as you're far finer than her girls.
+I don't say no. It's nat'ral, and I'm not one as stands against
+nature; but don't you be prejudiced by my old woman there.
+She <i>is</i> a prejudiced one. Nothing in the world will make her
+give up a notion when she's took it into her head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, nothing; and ain't I always right in the end? I
+should think you've proved that times enough,&rdquo; said the old
+woman. &ldquo;Yes, I'll take a little, my dear, since you press me
+so pretty. Folks take many a thing when they're pressed as
+they wouldn't touch if there was no one to say, take a bit.
+Tozer, he never thinks of that; he's always had the best o'
+appetites; but as for me, if I get's a cup o' tea that's all as I
+cares for. You'll see as she'll take my view, when she's once
+been to the High Street. She's her mother's daughter, and
+Ph&#339;be can't abide that woman, no more than me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have they got many children?&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I know
+there are two girls, but as I have never seen them&mdash;Are they
+as old as I am?&rdquo; she asked, with a tremulous feeling at her
+heart. If there were girls in the shop in the High Street,
+with whom she would have to be on familiar terms, as her
+cousins and equals, Ph&#339;be did not feel that she could put up
+with that.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The eldest, Polly, is only twelve,&rdquo; said Tozer; &ldquo;but never
+you mind, my dear, for you shan't be without company. There's
+a deal of families with daughters like yourself. Your grandmother
+won't say nothing against it; and as for me, I think
+there's nought so cheery as young folks. You shall have a fire<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+in the drawing-room, and as many tea-parties as you like. For
+the young men, I can't say as there's many, but girls is plenty,
+and as long as you're content with that&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tozer regarded him with withering contempt across the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You're clever ones, you men,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Families with
+daughters! Do you think the Greens and the Robbins is
+company for <i>her</i>? I dare say as you've heard your mother speak
+of Maria Pigeon, my dear? She married John Green the
+grocer, and very well to do and respectable they may be, but
+nobody but the likes of your grandfather would think of you
+and them making friends.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Indeed I don't care for making friends,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;you
+must remember that I came not for society, but to wait upon
+you, dear grandmamma. I don't want young friends. At
+home I always go out with my mother; let me take walks with
+you, when you are able. I am glad Uncle Tom's children are
+little. I don't want company. My work&mdash;and the garden&mdash;and
+to sit with grandmamma, that is all I care for. I shall
+be as happy as the day is long,&rdquo; said this martyr, smiling benignly
+over the aches in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Her grandparents looked at her with ever-growing pride.
+Was not this the ideal young woman, the girl of the story-books,
+who cared about nothing but her duty?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's very nice of you, my dear; but you ain't going to
+hide yourself up in a corner,&rdquo; said Tozer. And, &ldquo;Never fear,
+I'll take her wherever it's fit for her to go to,&rdquo; his wife added,
+looking at her with pride. Ph&#339;be felt, in addition to all the
+rest, that she was to be made a show of to all the connection,
+as a specimen of what the Tozer blood could come to, and she did
+not even feel sure that something of the same feeling had not
+been in her mother's bosom when she fitted her out so perfectly.
+Ph&#339;be Tozer had left contemporaries and rivals in Carlingford,
+and the thought of dazzling and surpassing them in her offspring
+as in her good fortune had still some sweetness for her
+mind. &ldquo;Mamma meant it too!&rdquo; Ph&#339;be junior said to herself
+with a sigh. Unfortunately for her, she did everybody credit
+who belonged to her, and she must resign herself to pay the
+penalty. Perhaps there was some compensation in that
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>And indeed Ph&#339;be did not wonder at her grandmother's
+pride when she walked up with her to High Street, supporting
+her on her arm. She recognised frankly that there were not
+many people like herself about, few who had so much the air of
+good society, and not one who was so well dressed. There were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+excuses to be made then for the anxiety of the old people to
+produce her in the little world which was everything to them,
+and with her usual candour and good sense she acknowledged
+this, though she winced a little when an occasional acquaintance
+drifted across Mrs. Tozer's path, and was introduced with
+pride to &ldquo;my granddaughter,&rdquo; and thrust forth an ungloved
+hand, with an exclamation of, &ldquo;Lord bless us, Ph&#339;be's eldest!
+I hope I see you well, Miss.&rdquo; Ph&#339;be continued urbane,
+though it cost her many a pang. She had to keep on a perpetual
+argument with herself as she went along slowly, holding
+up her poor grandmother's tottering steps. &ldquo;If this is what
+we have really sprung from, this is my own class, and I ought
+to like it; if I don't like it, it must be my fault. I have no
+right to feel myself better than they are. It is not position
+that makes any difference, but individual character,&rdquo; Ph&#339;be
+said to herself. She got as much consolation out of this as is
+to be extracted from such rueful arguments in general; but it
+was after all indifferent comfort, and had not her temperament
+given her a strong hold of herself, and power of subduing her
+impulses, it is much to be feared that Ph&#339;be would have
+dropped her grandmother's arm as they approached the station,
+and run away. She did waver for a moment as she came in
+sight of it. On that side lay freedom, comfort, the life she had
+been used to, which was not very elevated indeed, but felt like
+high rank in comparison with this. And she knew her parents
+would forgive her and defend her if she went back to them,
+unable to support the martyrdom which she had rashly taken
+upon herself. But then how weak that would be, Ph&#339;be
+thought to herself, drawing Mrs. Tozer's arm more tightly
+within her own&mdash;how small! how it would hurt the feelings of
+the old people, how it would vex and embarrass her father and
+mother! Lastly, it might peril her brother's interests and her
+own, which, to do her justice, was the last thing she thought of,
+and yet was not undeserving of notice in its way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lean on me more heavily, grandmamma,&rdquo; she said at last,
+finally concluding and throwing off this self-discussion. She
+could not prolong it further. It was unworthy of her. Hence-forward
+she had made up her mind to set her face like a flint,
+and no longer leave the question of her persistence in her
+domestic mission an open question. Whatever she might have
+&ldquo;to put up with,&rdquo; it was now decided once for all.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bless us all, if this ain't grandmamma,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tom. It
+was not often, as she herself said with pride, that she required to
+be in the shop, which was very much improved now from its old
+aspect. Ill luck, however, brought her here to-day. She stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+at the door which led from the shop to the house, dividing the
+counter, talking to a lady who was making a complaint upon
+the quality of cheese or butter. Mrs. Tozer had led Ph&#339;be
+that way in order to point out to her the plate-glass windows
+and marble slabs for the cheese, of which, though they were
+one of her grievances against Mrs. Tom, she was secretly
+proud.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't deny but what they've done a deal,&rdquo; said the old
+woman, &ldquo;show and vanity as I call it. I wish they may do as
+well for themselves with all their plate-glass as me and Tozer
+did without it; but it ain't often as you'll see a handsomer
+shop,&rdquo; she added, contemplating fondly the scene of her early
+labours. If a squire looks fondly at his land, and a sailor at
+his ship (when ships were worth looking at), why should not a
+shopkeeper regard his shop with the same affectionate feelings?
+Mrs. Tom Tozer had just taken leave of her remonstrant
+customer with a curtsey, and an assurance that the faults complained
+of should be remedied, when she caught sight of the
+infirm old woman leaning on Ph&#339;be's arm, and made the exclamation
+already quoted.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord bless us all! if it ain't grandmamma, and Ph&#339;be's
+daughter along o' her, I'll lay you sixpence,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tom in the
+extremity of her surprise, and at the highest pitch of her voice.
+The lady customer was still in the shop, and when she heard
+this she turned round and gave the new-comers a stare. (It
+was not very wonderful, Ph&#339;be allowed to herself with secret
+anguish). She gave old Mrs. Tozer a familiar nod. &ldquo;This is
+quite a long walk for you now-a-days,&rdquo; she said, gazing at
+Ph&#339;be, though she addressed the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank ye, ma'am, I am a deal better,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer,
+&ldquo;especially as I've got my granddaughter to take care of me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! is this young&mdash;person your granddaughter,&rdquo; said the
+customer with another stare, and then she nodded again and
+went away wondering. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; Ph&#339;be said to herself, &ldquo;one
+little sting more or less what did it matter?&rdquo; and she went on
+through the shop supporting her grandmother, keenly sensible
+of the looks that encountered her on every side. Mrs. Tom
+stood leaning against the counter, waiting for them without
+making any advance. She was smart and good-looking, with a
+malicious gleam in a pair of bright black beady eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How are you, granny?&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I declare you're looking
+quite young again, and as spry as twenty. Come in and rest;
+and this young lady as is with you, I don't think as I need ask
+her name, the likeness speaks for itself. It's Ph&#339;be Beecham,
+ain't it? Bless us all! I'd have known her anywhere, I would;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+the very moral of her mother, and of you too, granny. As you
+stand there now, you're as like as two peas.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Unconsciously Ph&#339;be cast a look upon her grandmother.
+She did not think she was vain. To be unconscious that she
+had some personal advantages would, of course, be impossible;
+but a thrill crept through her when she looked at the old
+woman by her side, wrinkled and red, in her copper-coloured
+gown. As like as two peas! was that possible? Ph&#339;be's
+heart sank for the moment to her shoes, and a pitiful look of
+restrained pain came to her face. This was assailing her in her
+tenderest point.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Am I so like you, grandmamma?&rdquo; she said, faltering; but
+added quickly, &ldquo;then I cannot be like mamma. How do you
+do? My mother wished me to come at once, to bring her kind
+regards. Is my uncle at home?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, Miss, your uncle ain't at home,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tom, &ldquo;but
+you might be civil, all the same, and put a name to me, more
+nor if I was a dog. I'm your aunt, I am&mdash;and I likes all my
+titles, I do&mdash;and proper respect.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a bow and a gracious smile&mdash;but
+she did not add that name. She was pleased to think that
+&ldquo;Tom's wife&rdquo; was her mother's favourite aversion, and that a
+dignified resistance to her claims was, so to speak, her duty. It
+even amused her to think of the ingenuity required throughout
+a long conversation for the clever and polite eluding of this
+claim.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope as you mean to let us in, Amelia,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer,
+&ldquo;for it ain't often as I takes so long a walk. I would never
+have thought of it but for Ph&#339;be&mdash;Ph&#339;be junior, as Tozer
+calls her. She's been used to things very different, but I'm
+thankful to say she ain't a bit proud. She couldn't be more
+attentive to me if I was the queen, and talks of your children
+as pretty as possible, without no nonsense. It ain't often as
+you see that in a girl brought up like she's been.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't pretend to know nothing of how she's been brought
+up,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tom, &ldquo;and I don't think as there's no occasion
+for pride here. We're all well-to-do, and getting on in the
+world&mdash;thanks to Him as gives the increase. I don't see no
+opening for pride here. Me and your mother were never very
+good friends, Ph&#339;be, since that's your name; but if there's
+anything I can do for you, or my family, you won't ask twice.
+Grandmother's ain't a very lively house, not like mine, as is
+full of children. Come in, Granny. I'm always speaking of
+making the stairs wider, and a big window on the landing; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+folks can't do everything at once, and we'll have to do with it
+a bit longer. We've done a deal already to the old place.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;More than was wanted, or was thought upon in my time,&rdquo;
+said the old lady, to whom this was as the trumpet of battle.
+&ldquo;The stairs did well enough for me, and I can't think what
+Tom can want changing things as he's been used to all his
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it ain't Tom,&rdquo; said his wife, her face lighting up with
+satisfaction. &ldquo;Tom wouldn't mind if the place was to come to
+bits about our ears. He's like you, granny, he's one of the
+stand-still ones. It ain't Tom, it's me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This little passage of arms took place as they were going upstairs,
+which cost poor Mrs. Tozer many pantings and groaning,
+and placed Ph&#339;be for once on Mrs. Tom's side, for a window
+on the landing would have been a wonderful improvement,
+there was no denying. When, at last, they had toiled to the
+top, fighting their way, not only through the obscurity, but
+through an atmosphere of ham and cheese which almost choked
+Ph&#339;be, the old lady was speechless with the exertion, though
+the air was to her as the air of Paradise. Ph&#339;be placed her
+on a chair and undid her bonnet-strings, and for a minute
+was really alarmed. Mrs. Tom, however, took it with perfect
+equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She's blown a bit; she ain't as young as she was, nor even
+as she thinks for,&rdquo; said that sympathetic person. &ldquo;Come,
+Granny, cheer up. Them stairs ain't strange to you. What's
+the good of making a fuss? Sit down and get your breath,&rdquo;
+she went on, pulling forward a chair; then turning to Ph&#339;be,
+she shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows. &ldquo;She's
+breaking fast, that's what it is,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tom under her
+breath, with a nod of her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is the room as your mother spent most of her life in
+when she was like you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, when she regained
+her breath. &ldquo;It was here as she met your father first. The
+first time I set my eyes on him, 'That's the man for my
+Ph&#339;be,' I said to myself; and sure enough, so it turned out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You didn't miss no way of helping it on, neither, granny,
+if folks do you justice,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tom. &ldquo;Mothers can do a
+deal when they exerts themselves; and now Ph&#339;be has a
+daughter of her own, I dare be sworn she's just as clever,
+throwing the nice ones and the well-off ones in her way. It's
+a wonder to me as she hasn't gone off yet, with all her opportunities&mdash;two
+or three and twenty, ain't you, Miss Ph&#339;be? I
+should have thought you'd have married long afore now.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I stall be twenty my next birthday,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;My
+cousins are a great deal younger, I hear; are they at school?
+I hope I shall see them before I go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you'll see 'em fast enough,&rdquo; said their mother, &ldquo;they're
+'aving their music lesson. I don't hold with sending girls to
+school. I likes to keep them under my own eye. I suppose I
+needn't ask you now if you play?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A very little,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, who rather piqued herself upon
+her music, and who was learned in Bach and Beethoven, and
+had an opinion of her own about Wagner. Mrs. Tom brightened
+visibly, for her girls played not a little, but a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And draw?&mdash;but I needn't ask, for living in London, you've
+got masters at your very door.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not at all, I am sorry to say,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a pathetic
+tone of regret in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord bless us! Now who'd have thought it? I think
+nothing a sacrifice to give mine the best of education,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Tom.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>STRANGERS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Ursula, how do you do?&rdquo; said Mrs. Sam Hurst,
+meeting her young neighbour with outstretched hands. She
+was a portly good-looking woman with an active mind, and
+nothing, or next to nothing to do, and instead of being affronted
+as some persons might have been, she was amused, and indeed
+flattered, by the suspicion and alarm with which all the young
+Mays regarded her. Whether she had the least intention of
+ever giving any justification to their alarms it would be impossible
+to say, for indeed to a sensible woman of forty-five,
+well to do and comfortable, a husband with &ldquo;a temper of his
+own,&rdquo; and a large poor unruly family, was, perhaps, not so
+tempting as he appeared to be to his jealous children. Anyhow
+she was not at all angry with them for being jealous and afraid
+of her. She was cordial in her manner to the Mays as to everybody
+she knew. She asked how Ursula had enjoyed herself,
+where she had been, what she had seen, and a hundred questions
+more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is quite delightful to see somebody who has something
+to tell,&rdquo; she said when the interrogation was over. &ldquo;I ask<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+everybody what news, and no one has any news, which is
+dreadful for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How can you care for news?&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;news! what
+interest can there be in mere news that doesn't concern us?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are very foolish, my dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst; &ldquo;what's to
+become of you when you're old, if you don't like to hear what's
+going on? I'm thankful to say I take a great deal, of interest
+in my fellow-creatures for my part. Now listen, I'll tell you a
+piece of news in return for all your information about London.
+When I was in Tozer's shop to-day&mdash;I always go there, though
+they are Dissenters; after all, you know, most tradespeople are
+Dissenters; some are sorry for it, some think it quite natural
+that gentle-people and tradespeople should think differently in
+religious matters; however, what I say is, you can't tell the
+difference in butter and bacon between church and dissent, can
+you now? and Tozer's is the best shop in the town, certainly
+the best shop. So as I was in Tozer's as I tell you, who should
+come in but old Mrs. Tozer, who once kept it herself&mdash;and by
+her side, figure my astonishment, a young lady! yes, my dear,
+actually a young lady, in appearance, of course&mdash;I mean in
+appearance&mdash;for, as you shall hear, it could be no more than
+that. So nicely dressed, nothing vulgar or showy, a gown
+that Elise might have made, and everything to correspond,
+in perfect taste. Fancy! and you may imagine how I stared.
+I could not take my eyes off her. I was so astonished that
+I rubbed up my old acquaintance with the old woman, and
+asked her how her rheumatism was. I <i>hope</i> it is rheumatism.
+At all events I called it so, and then she told me as proud as a
+peacock that it was her granddaughter; fancy, her granddaughter!
+did you ever hear of such a thing? The other
+woman in the shop, the present Tozer, called out to her by
+name. Ph&#339;be they called her. Poor girl, I was so sorry
+for her. A lady in appearance, and to have to submit to that!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oughtn't ladies to be called Ph&#339;be?&rdquo; asked Janey. &ldquo;Why
+not? It's rather a pretty name.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is so like Janey,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst; &ldquo;I know she is
+the clever one; but she never can see what one means. It is not
+being called Ph&#339;be, it is because of her relations that I am
+sorry for her. Poor girl! educating people out of their sphere
+does far more harm than good, I always maintain. To see that
+nice-looking, well-dressed girl in Tozer's shop, with all the
+butter boys calling her Ph&#339;be&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The butter boys are as good as any one else,&rdquo; cried Janey,
+whose tendencies were democratic. &ldquo;I dare say she likes her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+relations as well as we like ours, and better, though they do keep
+a shop.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Janey!&rdquo; cried Ursula, whose feelings were touched;
+then she remembered that her sympathies ought not to flow in
+the same channel with those of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and continued
+coldly, &ldquo;If she had not liked them she need not have come to
+see them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is all you know, you girls. You don't know the plague
+of relations, and how people have got to humble themselves to
+keep money in the family, or keep up appearances, especially
+people that have risen in the world. I declare I think they
+pay dear for rising in the world, or their poor children pay
+dear&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You seem to take a great deal of interest in the Tozers,&rdquo;
+said Ursula, glad to administer a little correction; &ldquo;even if
+they came to St. Roque's I could understand it&mdash;but Dissenters!&rdquo;
+This arrow struck home.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst, colouring, &ldquo;of all people to take
+an interest in Dissenters I am the last; but I was struck, I
+must admit, to see that old Mrs. Tozer, looking like an old
+washerwoman, with a girl in a twenty-guinea dress, you may
+take my word for it, though as plain as that little brown frock
+of yours, Ursula. That was a sight to wake any one up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula looked down at the little brown frock thus contemptuously
+referred to, with mingled offence and consciousness of
+inferiority. It had not cost as many shillings, and had been
+made up at home, and was not a shining example of the dressmaker's
+art. &ldquo;If you value people according to what their
+dress costs&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can't know much about her moral qualities, can I?&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Hurst, &ldquo;and I don't suppose she has any position, being
+old Tozer's grandchild. But she wasn't amiss in her looks, and
+I declare I should have taken her for a lady if I had met her
+in the street. It shows how one may be taken in. And this
+is a lesson for you, young girls; you must never trust to appearances.
+I confess I'd like to find out some more about her.
+Going in, Ursula? Well, my dear, perhaps I'll step in for a
+talk in the evening. You must be dull after your gaiety. Tell
+your dear papa,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst with a laugh, &ldquo;that I am
+coming to sit with you after tea. Now mind you give him my
+message. He does not like to miss me when I come to the
+Parsonage, does he now? Good-bye for the present. Till
+eight o'clock.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, how I hate her,&rdquo; cried Janey, &ldquo;except sometimes when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+she makes me laugh and I feel tempted to like her; but I
+always resist it. Do you think really, Ursula, that papa could
+be&mdash;such a&mdash;stupid&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, please don't ask me,&rdquo; cried Ursula. &ldquo;How can I tell?
+I don't know what he may do; but if he does&mdash;and if she does&mdash;oh,
+then, Janey&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, indeed, then!&rdquo; said Janey, breathing hard. This
+mysterious threat seemed very horrible to both of them, though
+what they meant by it, it would have been very hard for either
+of them to tell. They waited within the little shrubbery
+whispering to each other till they heard Mrs. Hurst close her
+own door, for they did not want any more of her society, though
+they had no intention of going in. When she was safe out of
+the way, they stole out and continued their walk in the opposite
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted to have gone into the town,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;It
+<i>is</i> hard to have that woman next door; one can't go anywhere
+or do anything! I wanted some braid for your new frock,
+Janey, and twist to make the button-holes; but if we had said
+we were going up into Carlingford, she would have come too.
+Never mind; a walk is better than nothing. Walk fast, and
+let us try how far we can go before tea.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Upon this idea the two girls set out walking as if for a race,
+which did them all the good in the world, quickening the blood
+in their veins, sending the colour to their cheeks, and dispersing
+all the cobwebs from their minds, since they soon got into the
+spirit of the race, and pursued it with eagerness, with little
+outbursts of laughter, and breathless adjurations to each other
+to keep within the proper pace, and not to run. It was not a
+very inviting road along which they took their walk. Beyond
+St. Roque the land was divided into allotments for the working
+people, not very tidily kept, and rough with cut cabbages,
+plants, and dug-up potatoes. Beyond this lay a great turnip-field,
+somewhat rank in smell, and the east wind swept chill
+along the open road, which was not sheltered by a single tree,
+so that the attractions of the way soon palled upon pedestrians.
+Looking back to Grange Lane, the snug and sheltered look of
+that genteel adjunct to the town was comforting to behold.
+Even Grange Lane was not gay; a line of garden walls, however
+they may shelter and comfort the gardens within, are not
+lovely without; but yet the trees, though leafless, waved over
+the red lines of brick, and the big laurels hung out bushes of
+dark verdure and long floating sprays of ivy.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let's turn back; perhaps she may not be at the window,&rdquo;
+cried Ursula. &ldquo;It is so dull here.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Janey stopped short in the heat of the walk, objecting for
+the moment.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wish you had not gone to London. You never used to
+care for the streets and the shops; now a regular good walk is
+too much for you,&rdquo; cried Janey.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With a turnip-field on one side and a potato-field on the
+other!&rdquo; said Ursula, in high disdain.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I tell you what!&rdquo; cried Janey. &ldquo;I don't think I like
+you since you came back. The Dorsets are fine people, and
+we are not fine. There are no grand parties, nor theatres, nor
+balls at Carlingford. When we go out here, we go to walk,
+not to see things, as you have been used to doing. I don't
+know what you mean by it; nineteen years with us, and one
+fortnight with them! and the fortnight counts for more than
+all the years!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Janey was not in the habit of restraining her voice any more
+than anything else about her, and she spoke this out with loud
+school-girl tones, reckless who might hear her. In most cases
+she might have done this with the utmost impunity, and how
+was she to know, as she said to her sister afterwards, in self-defence,
+that any one, especially any gentleman, could be lurking
+about, spying upon people, among those nasty allotments?
+There was some one there, however, who came down the
+muddy path, all cut up by the wheel-barrows, with a smile
+upon his face. A gentleman? Janey called him so without
+a doubt on the subject; but Ursula, more enlightened and
+slightly irritated, had her doubts. He was dressed, not with
+any care of morning costume, but wore a black frock-coat of
+the most formal description, with a white cravat carelessly
+tied, semi-clerical, and yet not clerical. He had a smile on his
+face, which, on the whole, was rather a handsome face, and
+looked at them, showing evident signs of having heard what
+Janey said. To be sure, he did not say anything, but Ursula
+felt that his look was just the same as if he had spoken, and
+coloured high, resenting the intrusion. By this stranger's side
+was one of the men who had been working at the allotments,
+whose hands were not clean, and whose boots were heavy with
+the clinging, clayey soil. When they had nearly reached the
+road, the gentleman turned round and shook hands with his
+companion, and then walked on towards Carlingford, throwing
+another look towards the girls as he passed. It would be hard
+to say whether curiosity or anger was strongest in Ursula. In
+Janey, the former sentiment carried everything before it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I wonder who he is?&rdquo; she cried, low, but eager, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+her sister's ear. &ldquo;Who can he be, Ursula, who can he be?
+We know all the men about here, every one, as well as we know
+Reginald. Oh, Ursula, who do you think he can be?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is very impertinent,&rdquo; cried Ursula, with an angry
+blush. &ldquo;How should I know? And oh! how very silly of
+you, Janey, to talk so loud, and make impudent men stare at
+us so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Impudent!&rdquo; cried Janey. &ldquo;I didn't talk loud. He
+looked rather nice, on the contrary. Why, he laughed! Do
+you call that impudent? It can't be anybody from the town,
+because we know everybody; and did you see him shaking
+hands with that man? How very funny! Let us run in and
+tell Mrs. Sam Hurst, and ask her who she thinks he is. She
+is sure to know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Janey,&rdquo; said Ursula, severely, &ldquo;if you live very long, you
+will be as great a gossip and as fond of news as Mrs. Sam
+Hurst herself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't care,&rdquo; cried Janey; &ldquo;you're just as fond of news as
+I am, only you won't confess it. I am dying to know who he
+is. He is quite nice-looking, and tall and grand. A new
+gentleman! Come, quick, Ursula; let us get back and see
+where he goes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Janey!&rdquo; cried the elder sister. She was half curious herself,
+but Ursula was old enough to know better, and to be
+ashamed of the other's na&iuml;ve and undisguised curiosity. &ldquo;Oh,
+what would Cousin Anne say! A girl running after a gentleman
+(even if he is a gentleman), to see where he goes!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well!&rdquo; cried Janey, &ldquo;if she wants to know, what else is
+she to do? Who cares for Cousin Anne? She is an old maid.
+Why, if it had been a lady, I shouldn't have minded. There
+are so many ladies; but a new gentleman! If you won't come
+on, I will run by myself. How pleased Mrs. Sam Hurst will
+be!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you hated Mrs. Sam Hurst?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I do when I think of papa; but when there's anything
+going on, or anything to find out, I like her dearly. She's such
+fun! She never shilly-shallies, like you. She's not an old
+maid like your Cousin Anne that you are always talking of.
+Come along! if anybody else finds out who he is before we do,&rdquo;
+cried Janey, with almost despairing energy, &ldquo;I shall break my
+heart!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula stoically resisted the tug upon her, but she went back
+to Grange Lane, to which, indeed, she had turned her face
+before they met the stranger, and she could not help seeing
+the tall black figure in front of her which Janey watched so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+eagerly. Ursula was not eager, but she could not help seeing
+him. He walked up the street quickly, not as if he thought
+himself of interest to any one, but when he had got half way up
+Grange Lane, crossed to speak to somebody. This filled Janey
+with consternation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is not such a stranger after all,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;He knows
+some one. He will not be quite a discovery. Who is it he is
+talking to, I wonder? He is standing at one of the doors, but
+it is not Miss Humphreys, nor Miss Griffiths, nor any of the
+Charters. Perhaps she is a stranger too. If he is married he
+won't be half so interesting, for there are always plenty of
+ladies. Perhaps he has just come by the railway to spend the
+day&mdash;but then there is nothing to see in Carlingford, and how
+did he know that man at the lots? Oh, Ursula, why don't you
+answer me? why don't you say something? have you no feeling?
+I am sure it don't matter a bit to me, for I am not out;
+I am never asked to parties&mdash;but I take an interest for you
+other girls' sake.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Before this time, however, Ursula had found a new object of
+interest. She had not been quite so unmoved as Janey supposed.
+A new gentleman was a thing to awaken anybody who
+knew Carlingford, for, indeed, gentlemen were scarce in the society
+of the little town, and even at the most mild of tea-parties
+it is ludicrous to see one man (and that most likely a
+curate) among a dozen ladies&mdash;so that even when she appeared
+to Janey to wonder, she felt that her sister's curiosity was not
+unjustifiable. But while thus engaged in the enterprise of discovering
+&ldquo;a new gentleman&rdquo; for the good of society, Ursula's
+eyes and her attention were caught by another interest. The
+stranger had crossed the street to talk to a lady, who had been
+walking down the Lane, and whom Ursula felt she had seen
+somewhere. Who was it? Certainly not Miss Humphreys,
+nor Miss Griffiths, nor any other of the well-known young
+ladies of Grange Lane. The setting sun, which had come out
+suddenly after a dull day, threw a slanting, long-drawn ray up
+the street, which fell upon the strangers, as they stood talking.
+This ray caught the young lady's hair, and flashed back a reflection
+out of the shining coils which looked to Ursula (being
+dark herself, she admired golden hair more than anything) as
+bright as the sunshine. And in the light she caught the out-line
+of a pretty head, and of a nose slightly &ldquo;tip-tilted,&rdquo;
+according to the model which the Laureate has brought into
+fashion. Where had she seen her before? She remembered
+all at once with a rush of bewildered pleasure.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Janey! Oh, Janey!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;Listen! This is too
+extraordinary. There is the young lady in black!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Janey, as may be supposed, had heard every detail of Mrs.
+Copperhead's ball, and knew what Ursula meant as well as
+Ursula herself did. She grew pale with excitement and
+curiosity. &ldquo;No!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you can't mean it. Are you sure,
+are you quite sure? Two new people in one day! Why,
+everybody must be coming to Carlingford. It makes me feel
+quite strange!&rdquo; said this susceptible young woman; &ldquo;the young
+lady in black!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, there can't be any mistake,&rdquo; said Ursula, hurrying
+on in her excitement, &ldquo;I looked at her so much. I couldn't
+mistake her. Oh, I wonder if she will know me, I wonder if
+she will speak to me! or if she is going to see the Dorsets, or
+what has brought her to Carlingford. Only fancy, Janey, the
+young lady in black whom I have talked so much of; oh, I
+wonder, I do wonder what has brought her here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They were on the opposite side of the lane, so that their hurried
+approach did not startle the strangers; but Ph&#339;be, looking
+up at the sound of the footsteps, saw a face she knew looking
+wistfully, eagerly at her, with evident recognition. Ph&#339;be had
+a faculty quite royal of remembering faces, and it took but a
+moment to recall Ursula's to her. Another moment was spent
+in a rapid discussion with herself, as to whether she should give
+or withhold the salutation which the girl evidently sought.
+But what harm could it do? and it would be pleasant to know
+some one; and if on finding out who she was, Miss Dorset's
+little relation shrank from her acquaintance, why then, Ph&#339;be
+said to herself, &ldquo;I shall be no worse than before.&rdquo; So she sent
+a smile and a bow across the road and said, &ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo;
+in a pause of her conversation. Ursula was too shy to feel on
+equal terms with the young lady in black, who was so much
+more self-possessed than she was. She blushed and smiled,
+answered, &ldquo;Quite well, thank you,&rdquo; across the lane like a child,
+and notwithstanding a great many pokes from Janey's energetic
+elbow, went on without further response.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, why can't you run across and speak to her?&rdquo; cried
+Janey, &ldquo;oh, how funny you are, and how disagreeable! would
+<i>I</i> pass any one I knew, like that!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't understand, you are only a child,&rdquo; said Ursula,
+frightened and agitated, yet full of dignity, &ldquo;we have only met&mdash;in
+society. When you are introduced to any one in society
+it does not count. Perhaps they might not want to know
+you; perhaps&mdash;but anyhow you can't rush up to them like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+two girls at school. You have to wait and see what they will do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I declare!&rdquo; cried Janey; &ldquo;then what is the good of
+society? You know them, and yet you mustn't know them.
+I would never be such a fool as that. Fancy looking at her
+across the lane and saying 'quite well, thank you,' after she
+had begun to speak. I suppose that's Cousin Anne's way? I
+should have rushed across and asked where she was staying,
+and when she would come to see us. Ursula, oh,&rdquo; cried
+Janey, suddenly changing her tone, and looking at her sister
+with eyes which had widened to twice their natural size with
+the grandeur of the idea, &ldquo;you will have to ask her to tea!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you silly girl, do you think she would come? you should
+have seen her at the ball. She knew everybody, and had such
+quantities of partners. Mr. Clarence Copperhead was always
+dancing with her. Fancy her coming to tea with us.&rdquo; But
+Ursula herself was somewhat breathless with the suggestion.
+When a thing has been once said, there is always a chance
+that it may be done, and the two girls walked up very quickly
+into the High Street after this, silent, with a certain awe of
+themselves and their possibilities. It might be done, now that
+it had been said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>A DOMESTIC CRISIS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The interest shown by the two girls in the stranger whom they
+had noted with so much attention was not destined to meet
+with any immediate reward. Neither he, nor &ldquo;the young
+lady in black,&rdquo; whom he hurried across the street to meet,
+could be heard of, or was seen for full two days afterwards, to
+the great disappointment of the young Mays. Ursula, especially,
+who had been entertaining vague but dazzling thoughts of a
+companionship more interesting than Janey's, more novel and
+at the same time more equal than that which was extended to
+her by the Miss Griffiths in Grange Lane, who were so much
+better off and had so much less to do than she. Ursula did not
+recollect the name of the fortunate girl who was so much in
+the ascendant at Mr. Copperhead's ball, though Ph&#339;be had
+been introduced to her; but she did recollect her popularity
+and general friendliness, and the number of partners she had,
+and all those delightful signs of greatness which impress a poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+little stranger, to whom her first dance is not unmingled pleasure.
+She whispered to Janey about her even in the drawing-room
+when all the family were assembled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you think she will call?&rdquo; said Ursula, asking counsel
+even of Janey's inexperience, of which she was so contemptuous
+on other occasions.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Call! how can she, if she is a stranger?&rdquo; said Janey.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As if you knew anything about it!&rdquo; Ursula retorted with
+great injustice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I don't know, then why do you ask me?&rdquo; complained
+Janey with reason. The room looked more cheerful since
+Ursula had come home. The fire, no longer choked with cinders,
+burned clear and red. The lamp, though it was a cheap one,
+and burned paraffin oil, did not smell. The old curtains were
+nicely drawn, and the old covers smoothed over the chairs. All
+this did not make them look less old; but it made their antiquity
+natural and becoming. Johnnie, the school-boy, was learning
+his lessons on the rug before the fire. Reginald sat writing,
+with a candle all to himself, at a writing-table in a corner.
+Ursula and Janey were working at the centre table by the
+light of the lamp. They had no time, you may imagine, for
+fancy-work. Janey, with many contortions of her person,
+especially of her mouth, with which she seemed to follow the
+movements of her needle, was stitching up a sleeve of her new
+frock which Miss Dorset had sent her, and which a poor dress-maker,
+who &ldquo;went out,&rdquo; was at this moment making up in the
+schoolroom; while Ursula was still busy with the basket of
+stockings which she had found awaiting her on their return.
+What Reginald was doing at the writing-table was probably
+a great deal less useful, but the girls respected his occupation
+as no one ever thought of respecting theirs, and carried on their
+conversation under their breath, not to interrupt him. The
+little children had gone to bed, tea was over, and several hours
+of the long winter evening still before them. Janey had given
+over lessons, partly because there was no one to insist upon her
+doing them. Once in a week or so her father gave her a lecture
+for her ignorance, and ordered her into his study to do a long
+sum in arithmetic out of the first old &ldquo;Colenso&rdquo; that could be
+picked up; and about once a week too, awakening suddenly to
+a sense of her own deficiencies, she would &ldquo;practise&rdquo; energetically
+on the old piano. This was all that was being done
+for Janey in the way of education. She was fifteen, and as
+Johnnie, and Amy, and Robin were at an age when school is a
+necessity, the only retrenchment possible was to keep Janey
+at home. Ursula had got what education she possessed in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+same irregular way. It was not much. Besides reading and
+writing, she had pretty manners, which came by nature like
+those other gifts. A girl is not so badly off who can read and
+write and has pretty manners. Janey possessed the two first
+faculties, but neither had nor apparently could acquire the third.
+The two dark brown heads were close together as they
+worked&mdash;Ursula's shining and neat, and carefully arranged,
+Janey's rough with elf-locks; but they were more interesting
+than Reginald, though he was so much better informed. As
+for Johnnie, he lay extended on the rug, his head slightly raised
+on his two hands, his book on a level with the rest of his person,
+saying over his lesson to himself with moving lips. And now
+and then, when the girls' whispered chatter was silent, the sound
+of Reginald's pen scratching across the paper would fill up the
+interval; it was a sound which filled them all with respect.</p>
+
+<p>This peaceful domestic scene was broken in upon by the
+entry of Mr. May. From the moment that he closed the hall-door
+behind him, coming in, a little thrill ran through the
+family party. The girls looked at each other when they heard
+that sound, and Johnnie, without stopping his inward repetition,
+shifted himself and his book adroitly, with the cleverness of
+practice, to the side instead of the front of the fire. Reginald's
+pen stopped its scratching, and he wheeled round on his chair
+to give an appealing glance at his sisters.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is it now?&rdquo; he said hurriedly. Every one knew that
+when the door was closed like that it meant something like a
+declaration of war. But they had not much time to wait and
+wonder. Mr. May came in, pushing the door wide open before
+him, and admitting a gust of chill air of the January night.
+He looked at the peaceable domestic scene with a &ldquo;humph&rdquo;
+of dissatisfaction, because there was nothing to find fault with,
+which is as great a grievance as another when one is in the
+mood for grievances. He had come in cross and out of sorts,
+with a private cause for his ill-temper, which he did not choose
+to reveal, and it would have been a relief to him had he found
+them all chattering or wasting their time, instead of being
+occupied in this perfectly dutiful way&mdash;even Johnnie at his
+lessons, repeating them over under his breath. What was the
+world coming to? Mr. May was disappointed. Instead of
+leading up to it gradually by a general <i>battue</i> of his children
+all round, he had to open upon his chief subject at once, which
+was not nearly so agreeable a way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What are you doing, Reginald?&rdquo; he asked, roughly, pulling
+his chair to the other side of the fire, opposite the corner
+to which Johnnie had scuffled out of the way. &ldquo;I have come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+in especially to speak to you. It is time this shilly-shallying
+was done with. Do you mean to accept the College chaplaincy
+or not? an answer must be given, and that at once. Are you
+so busy that you can't attend to what I say?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am not busy at all, sir,&rdquo; said Reginald, in a subdued
+voice, while his sisters cast sympathetic looks at him. Both
+the girls, it is true, thought him extremely foolish, but what of
+that? Necessarily they were on his side against papa.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought as much; indeed it would be hard to say what
+you could find to be busy at. But look here, this must come
+to an end one way or another. You know my opinion on the
+subject.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And you know mine, sir,&rdquo; said Reginald, rising and coming
+forward to the fire. &ldquo;I don't say anything against the old
+College. For an old man it might be quite a justifiable arrangement&mdash;one
+who had already spent his strength in work&mdash;but
+for me&mdash;of course there is nothing in the world to do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And two hundred and fifty a year for the doing of it&mdash;not
+to speak of the house, which you could let for fifty more.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Father! don't you see that is just the very thing that I
+object to, so much for nothing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You prefer nothing for nothing,&rdquo; said Mr. May, with a
+smile; &ldquo;well, I suppose that is more fair, perhaps&mdash;to the
+public;&mdash;but how about me? A son of three-and-twenty depending
+upon me for everything, useless and bringing in
+nothing, does not suit me. You are all the same,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;all taking from me, with a thousand wants, education, clothes,
+amusement&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure,&rdquo; said the irrepressible Janey, &ldquo;it is not much
+clothes we get, and as for amusements&mdash;and education!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold your tongue,&rdquo; cried her father. &ldquo;Here are six of
+you, one more helpless than another, and the eldest the most
+helpless of all. I did not force you into the Church. You
+might have gone out to James if you had liked&mdash;but you chose
+an academical career, and then there was nothing else for it.
+I gave you a title to orders. You are my curate just now&mdash;so
+called; but you know I can't pay a curate, and you know I
+can't afford to keep you. Providence&mdash;&rdquo; said Mr. May, sitting
+up in his chair, with a certain solemnity, &ldquo;Providence itself
+has stepped in to make your path clear. Here is better than
+a living, a provision for you. I don't bid you take it for life;
+take it for a year or two till you can hear of something better.
+Now what on earth is your objection to this?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The girls had both turned their faces towards their brother.
+Janey, always the first in action, repeated almost unconsciously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+&ldquo;Yes, what on earth, Reginald, can be your objection to this?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald stood in the middle of the room and looked helplessly
+at them. Against his father alone he might have made
+a stand&mdash;but when the united family thus gazed at him with
+inquiring and reproachful looks, what was he to say?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Objection!&rdquo; he faltered, &ldquo;you know very well what my
+objection is. It is not honest work&mdash;it is no work. It is a
+waste of money that might be better employed; it is a sinecure.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And what do you call your nominal curateship,&rdquo; said his
+father, &ldquo;is not that a sinecure too?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If it is,&rdquo; said Reginald, growing red, but feeling bolder,
+for here the family veered round, and placed itself on his side,
+&ldquo;it is of a contrary kind. It is <i>sine</i> pay. My work may be
+bad, though I hope not, but my pay is nothing. I don't see
+any resemblance between the two.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your pay nothing!&rdquo; cried the father, enraged; &ldquo;what do
+you call your living, your food that you are so fastidious about,
+your floods of beer and all the rest of it&mdash;not to speak of tailors'
+bills much heavier than mine?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Which are never paid.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whose fault is it that they are never paid? yours and the
+others who weigh me down to the ground, and never try to
+help or do anything for themselves. Never paid! how should
+I have gone on to this period and secured universal respect if
+they had never been paid? I have had to pay for all of you,&rdquo;
+said Mr. May, bitterly, &ldquo;and all your vagaries; education, till
+I have been nearly ruined; dresses and ribbons, and a hundred
+fooleries for these girls, who are of no use, who will never give
+me back a farthing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa!&rdquo; cried Ursula and Janey in one breath.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold your tongues! useless impedimenta, not even able to
+scrub the floors, and make the beds, which is all you could ever
+be good for&mdash;and you must have a servant forsooth to do even
+that. But why should I speak of the girls?&rdquo; he added, with
+a sarcastic smile, &ldquo;they can do nothing better, poor creatures;
+but you! who call yourself a man&mdash;a University man, save the
+mark&mdash;a fine fellow with the Oxford stamp upon you, twenty-three
+your next birthday. It is a fine thing that I should still
+have to support you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald began to walk up and down the room, stung beyond
+bearing&mdash;not that he had not heard it all before, but to get
+accustomed to such taunts is difficult, and it is still more difficult
+for a young and susceptible mind to contradict all that is
+seemly and becoming in nature, and to put forth its own statement
+in return. Reginald knew that his education had in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+reality cost his father very little, and that his father knew this.
+He was aware, too, much more distinctly than Mr. May knew,
+of James's remittances on his account; but what could he say?
+It was his father who insulted him, and the young man's lips
+were closed; but the effort was a hard one. He could not
+stand still there and face the man who had so little consideration
+for his feelings. All he could do was to keep his agitation
+and irritation down by that hurried promenade about the room,
+listening as little as he could, and answering not at all.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, papa! how can you?&rdquo; cried Janey, seizing the first
+pause. Janey was not old enough to understand the delicacy
+that closed Reginald's lips, and the impulse of self-defence was
+stirring in her; &ldquo;how dare you talk to Ursula so? I mayn't
+be much use, but Ursula! nice and comfortable you were when
+she was away! as if you didn't say so ten times in a morning;
+to be sure that was to make me feel uncomfortable. Scrub
+floors!&rdquo; cried Janey, in the violence of her resentment. &ldquo;I'll
+go out and be a maid-of-all-work whenever you please. I am
+sure it would be much happier than here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold your tongue,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;you scolding and
+Ursula crying; that's the beauty of the feminine element in a
+house. I ought to be very thankful, oughtn't I, that I have
+girls to furnish this agreeable variety? But as for you, Reginald,&rdquo;
+his father added, &ldquo;mark my words, if you determine to
+reject this windfall that Providence has blown into your hands,
+it must be done at once. No further play of I would and I
+would not, if you please, here; and if it does not suit you, you
+will please to understand that I have no further need for a
+curate that suits me still less. I want your room. If nothing
+else can be done, I must try to take a pupil to add a little to
+the income which has so many claims upon it; and I don't
+mean to go on keeping you&mdash;this is plain enough, I hope.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very plain, sir,&rdquo; said Reginald, who had grown as pale as
+he was red before.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad to hear it; you will write to the Corporation at
+once, accepting or rejecting at your pleasure; but this must
+be done to-night. I must insist on its being done to-night;
+and if you find yourself sufficiently bold to reject an income,&rdquo;
+said Mr. May with emphasis, &ldquo;and go off into the world without
+a penny in your pocket, I wash my hands of it; it is
+nothing to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a pause. The father of the family sat down
+in his chair, and looked round him with the happy consciousness
+that he had made everybody miserable. The girls were
+both crying, Reginald pale and desperate, coming and going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+through the room. No one had escaped but Johnnie, who,
+happy in insignificance, lay all his length on the other side of
+the fire, and lifted his face from his book to watch the discomfiture
+of the others. Johnnie had no terrors on his own account.
+He had done nothing to call forth the paternal wrath. Mr.
+May could not resist this temptation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is that a way to learn lessons as they ought to be learnt?&rdquo;
+he cried suddenly, throwing one of his darts at the unthinking
+boy. &ldquo;Get up this moment, and sit down to a table somewhere.
+Your own room, where there is nobody to disturb you,
+is better than amid the chit-chat here; do you hear me? get
+up, sir, and go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Johnnie stumbled to his feet appalled; he was too much
+startled to say anything. He took his books across the room
+to the writing-table which Reginald had abandoned in a similar
+way. But by the time he reached that haven, he came to himself,
+and recovering his courage muttered something about the
+hardship to which he was thus exposed, as boys have a way of
+doing; upon which Mr. May got suddenly up, seized him by
+the shoulders and turned him out of the drawing-room. &ldquo;I
+said your own room, sir,&rdquo; cried this impartial father, distributing
+to all alike an equal share of his urbanities. When he had
+accomplished this, he stood for a moment and looked at the
+rest of his confused and uncomfortable family. &ldquo;There is not
+much cheerful society to be had here this evening, I perceive,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;It is pleasant to come in from one's cares and find
+a reception like this, don't you think? Let some one bring me
+some coffee to my study. I am going to write.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whose fault is it that he gets such a reception?&rdquo; burst
+forth Janey, the moment her father had closed the door.
+&ldquo;Who does it all, I wonder? Who treats us like a set of
+wretches without any feeling? I can't hush, I won't hush! Oh,
+shouldn't I be glad to go out as a housemaid, to do anything!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Janey, hush! we can't help ourselves, we are obliged
+to put up with it,&rdquo; said Ursula; &ldquo;but Reginald, he is not
+obliged, he can save himself when he likes. Oh, I know, I
+know papa is unreasonable; but, Reginald, aren't you a little
+bit unreasonable too?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you begin to reproach me,&rdquo; cried the young man,
+&ldquo;I have had enough for one day. Have I been such a charge
+upon him, Ursula? What has he spent upon me? Next to
+nothing. That tailor's bill he spoke of, he knew as well as I
+do that I paid it by the tutorship I had in the vacation. It is
+his bill that is not paid, not mine. And then James's
+money&mdash;&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, never mind that, never mind the past,&rdquo; cried Ursula,
+&ldquo;think of the present, that's what you ought to do. Oh,
+Reginald, think; if <i>I</i> had the chance of two hundred and fifty
+pounds a year! there is nothing I would not do for it. I
+would scrub floors, as he said, I would do anything, the dirtiest
+work. You will be independent, able to do what you please,
+and never to ask papa for anything. Reginald, think! Oh,
+dear, dear, I wish I knew how to talk to you. To be independent,
+able to please yourself!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall be independent anyhow after to-night,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Ursula, you will help me to pack my things, won't you? It
+is leaving you here, you girls, with nobody to stand up for you;
+it is that I feel most.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Reginald, don't go and leave us,&rdquo; cried Janey, leaning
+on the back of his chair; &ldquo;what can we do without you?
+When he comes in, in a rage like to-night, as long as you are
+here one can bear it. Oh, Reginald, can't you, can't you take
+the chaplaincy? Think what it would be for us.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I will pack your things,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;I will help
+you to get out of it, though we must stay and put up with it
+all, and never, never escape. But where will you go? You
+have no money, not enough scarcely to pay your railway fare.
+You would have to take to teaching; and where are you to
+go?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have some friends left,&rdquo; cried Reginald, his lips quivering,
+&ldquo;some people care for me still and would hold out a hand. I
+am&mdash;not&mdash;quite so badly off as he thinks; I could go to town,
+or to Oxford&mdash;or&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't know where; and here is a nice old-fashioned
+house all ready for you to step into, and an income,&rdquo; cried
+Ursula, her tone deepening to mark the capital letter; &ldquo;an
+Income, quite sure and ready&mdash;without any difficulty, without
+any trouble, all if you say yes. Oh, only think what a comfort
+for us all to be able to rush to you when we are in trouble!
+Think of Johnnie and Robin; and that delightful wainscoted
+room for your study, with the book-cases all ready&mdash;and plenty
+of money to buy books.&rdquo; This being the highest point to which
+Ursula could reach, she dropped down after it into an insinuating
+half whisper, &ldquo;And plenty of work to do; dear Reginald,
+plenty of work in the parish, you may be sure, if you will only
+help the Rector; or here where you are working already, and
+where you may be sure nobody will think of paying you. Oh,
+Reginald, there is plenty, plenty of work.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The young man was already beginning to melt. &ldquo;Do you
+think so?&rdquo; he said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Think!&rdquo; cried Janey, &ldquo;I am sure you may do all papa's
+work for him and welcome, if that is all. For my part I think
+you are very silly, both Ursula and you. Work! Pay is far
+better if you weren't such a pair of simpletons. After all, he
+has a little reason to be angry. Good gracious! why shouldn't
+you take it? Some one else will, if you won't. I would in a
+minute, and so would Ursula if we could. And why should
+you be so much grander than anybody else? I think it is
+quite childish for my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reginald, never mind her, she is only a child and doesn't
+understand ('Child yourself,' cried Janey). I don't understand
+very well, but still I can see what you want. Oh, you
+might find such quantities of work, things nobody is ever found
+to do. What do the fellows do at Oxford that they get that
+money for? I have heard you say you would be very glad to
+get a fellowship&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is different, that is a reward of scholarship.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, and so is this too,&rdquo; said Ursula; &ldquo;it is (I am sure)
+because the old men knew you were one that would be kind.
+You were always kind, Reginald, that is what it is for.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The old men have nothing to do with it,&rdquo; he said, shaking
+his head, &ldquo;it is the Corporation, and they are&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very rich men, Reginald dear, a great many of them, very
+sensible! what does it matter about their education? And then
+you would be a really educated man, always ready to do anything
+that was wanted in Carlingford. Don't you see that was
+their meaning? They pay you for that which is not work, but
+they will find you plenty of work they don't pay for. That is
+what they mean; and oh, Reginald, to run over to you there in
+that pretty wainscoted room, and to have you coming in to us
+every day, and to know that you were there to stand by us!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Here once more Ursula began to cry. As for Janey, she
+made a dash at the writing-table and brought him paper and
+pens and ink, &ldquo;Say yes, say yes,&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;oh, Reginald, if
+it was only to spite papa!&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE NEW GENTLEMAN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It seems difficult to imagine what connection there could be
+between Ph&#339;be Beecham's appearance in Grange Lane and the
+interview which took place there between her and the &ldquo;new
+gentleman,&rdquo; and Mr. May's sudden onslaught upon his family,
+which ended in Reginald's acceptance of the chaplaincy. But
+yet the connection was very distinct. Not even the Mays, in
+their excitement over the appearance of a stranger in Carlingford,
+could be more surprised than Ph&#339;be was when her solitary
+walk was interrupted by the apparition across the street
+of a known person, a face familiar to her in other regions.
+&ldquo;Mr. Northcote!&rdquo; she cried, with a little start of surprise.
+As for the stranger, he made but two steps across Grange Lane
+in his delight at the sight of her. Not that he was Ph&#339;be's
+lover, or possessed by any previous enthusiasm for the girl
+whom he had met about half-a-dozen times in his life, and of
+whom he knew little more than that she was the daughter of a
+&ldquo;brother clergyman;&rdquo; for both Mr. Beecham and he were in
+the habit of using that word, whether appropriate or inappropriate.
+This was the explanation of the white necktie and the
+formal dress which had puzzled Ursula.</p>
+
+<p>Horace Northcote was not of Mr. Beecham's class. He was
+not well-to-do and genial, bent upon keeping up his congregation
+and his popularity, and trying to ignore as much as he
+could the social superiority of the Church without making
+himself in any way offensive to her. He was a political Nonconformist,
+a vigorous champion of the Disestablishment
+Society, more successful on the platform than in the pulpit,
+and strenuously of opinion in his heart of hearts that the
+Church was the great drawback to all progress in England, an
+incubus of which the nation would gladly be rid. His dress
+was one of the signs of his character and meaning. Strong in
+a sense of his own clerical position, he believed in uniform as
+devoutly as any Ritualist, but he would not plagiarise the
+Anglican livery and walk about in a modified soutane and
+round hat like &ldquo;our brethren in the Established Church,&rdquo; as
+Mr. Beecham kindly called them. To young Northcote they
+were not brethren, but enemies, and though he smiled superior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+at the folly which stigmatised an M.B. waistcoat, yet he scorned
+to copy. Accordingly his frock coat was not long, but of the
+extremest solemnity of cut and hue, his white tie was of the
+stiffest, his tall hat of the most uncompromising character. He
+would not veil for a day in easier and more ordinary habiliments
+the distinct position he assumed as clerical, yet not of
+the clergy; a teacher of men, though not a priest of the Anglican
+inspiration. He could not help feeling that his appearance, as
+he moved about the streets, was one which might well thrill
+Anglican bosoms with a flutter of terror. He was the Church's
+avowed enemy, and upon this he stood as his claim to the
+honour of those who thought with him. This was very different
+from the views held by the pastor of the Crescent Chapel, who
+was very willing to be on the best terms with the Church, and
+would have liked to glide into closer and closer amity, and perhaps
+finally to melt away altogether in her broad bosom, like a
+fat raindrop contributing noiselessly to swell the sea. It was
+not, however, any feeling of this difference which made Ph&#339;be
+draw herself back instinctively after the first start of recognition.
+Across her mind, even while she held out her hand to
+the stranger, there flashed a sudden recollection of her grandmother
+and her grandfather, and all the homely belongings which
+he, a minister of the connection, could not be kept in ignorance
+of. It was but a momentary pang. Ph&#339;be was not so foolish
+as to shrink before the inevitable, or to attempt by foolish expedients
+to stave off such a danger. She shrank for a second,
+then drew herself up and shook off all such ignoble cares. &ldquo;I
+am myself whatever happens,&rdquo; was her reflection; and she said
+with something like security:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Northcote; what an unexpected
+pleasure to see you here!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is a most unexpected pleasure for me, I assure you,&rdquo; he
+said, &ldquo;and a very great one.&rdquo; He spoke with unaffected
+honesty; for indeed his plunge into the society of Salem
+Chapel had given him a shock not easily got over, and the appearance
+of a being of his own species, among all these excellent
+poulterers and grocers, was a relief unspeakable; and then he
+added, &ldquo;May I walk with you, if you are going to walk?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be with momentary hesitation, and it was
+just at this moment that she perceived Ursula on the other
+side of the road, and, glad of the diversion, waved her hand to
+her, and said, &ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A friend of yours?&rdquo; said Mr. Northcote, following her
+gesture with his eyes, and feeling more and more glad that he
+had met her. &ldquo;I passed those young ladies just now, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+heard some of their conversation, which amused me. Do they
+belong to our people? If you will not be angry, Miss
+Beecham, I must say that I should be glad to meet somebody
+belonging to us, who is not&mdash;who is more like&mdash;the people one
+meets elsewhere.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;we are always talking of wanting
+something original; I think on the whole I am of your opinion;
+still there is nothing very great or striking about most of the
+people one meets anywhere.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; society is flat enough,&rdquo; said the young man. &ldquo;But&mdash;it
+is strange and rather painful, though perhaps it is wrong
+to say so&mdash;why, I wonder, are all our people of one class?
+Perhaps you have not seen much of them here? All of one
+class, and that&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not an attractive class,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a little sigh.
+&ldquo;Yes, I know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Anything but an attractive class; not the so-called working
+men and such like. One can get on with them. It is very unpleasant
+to have to say it; buying and selling now as we have
+it in Manchester does not contract the mind. I suppose we all
+buy and sell more and less. How is it? When it is tea and
+sugar&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Or butter and cheese,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be with a laugh, which
+she could not quite keep from embarrassment. &ldquo;I must be
+honest and tell you before you go any further. You don't
+know that I belong to the Tozers, Mr. Northcote, who are in
+that line of business. Don't look so dreadfully distressed. Perhaps
+I shouldn't have told you, had you not been sure to find out.
+Old Mr. Tozer is my grandfather, and I am staying there. It is
+quite simple. Papa came to Carlingford when he was a young
+clergyman, newly ordained. He was pastor at Salem Chapel,
+and married mamma, who was the daughter of one of the chief
+members. I did not know myself when I came to Carlingford
+that they actually kept a shop, and I did not like it. Don't
+apologize, please. It is a very difficult question,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be
+philosophically, partly to ease herself, partly to set him at his
+ease, &ldquo;what is best to do in such a case. To be educated in
+another sphere and brought down to this, is hard. One cannot
+feel the same for one's relations; and yet one's poor little bit
+of education, one's petty manners, what are these to interfere
+with blood relationships? And to keep everybody down to
+the condition they were born, why, that is the old way&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Beecham, I don't know what to say. I never meant&mdash;I
+could not tell. There are excellent, most excellent people
+in all classes.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Exactly so,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a laugh. &ldquo;We all know
+that; one man is as good as another&mdash;if not better. A butterman
+is as good as a lord; but&mdash;&rdquo; she added, with a little elevation
+of her eyebrows and shrug of her shoulders, &ldquo;not so
+pleasant to be connected with. And you don't say anything
+about my difficulty, Mr. Northcote. You don't realize it perhaps,
+as I do. Which is best: for everybody to continue
+in the position he was born in, or for an honest shopkeeper to
+educate his children and push them up higher until they come
+to feel themselves members of a different class, and to be
+ashamed of him? Either way, you know, it is hard.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Northcote was at his wit's end. He had no fellow-feeling
+for this difficulty. His friends were all much better off than
+he was as a poor minister. They were Manchester people, with
+two or three generations of wealth behind them, relations of
+whom nobody need be ashamed; and he was himself deeply
+humiliated and distressed to have said anything which could
+humiliate Ph&#339;be, who rose immeasurably in his estimation in
+consequence of her bold avowal, though he himself would have
+sacrificed a great deal rather than put himself on the Tozer
+level. He did not know what to say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Beecham, you know as well as I do, how falsely our
+opinions are formed in this respect, how conventional we are.
+What is position after all? To a grand Seigneur, for instance,
+the difference between his steward and his laquais seems nothing,
+but to the steward it is a great gulf. I&mdash;I mean&mdash;the
+whole question is conventional&mdash;position, or station, or rank&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be smiled. &ldquo;I don't think that is quite the question,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;but never mind. I suppose you are here on some
+mission? You would not come to Carlingford for pleasure.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; said Northcote, with a reproachful tone. &ldquo;I
+should have thought you must have heard of our Meeting. It
+is for to-night. I have come from the Disestablishment
+Society with some other friends; but it has been my fate to
+come on before to make the arrangements. The others come
+to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A hard fate, Mr. Northcote.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought so this morning. I have not been much in the
+way of the country congregations. I was confounded; but,
+Miss Beecham, I no longer think my fate hard since I have
+met you. Your noble simplicity and frankness have taught
+me a lesson.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not noble at all,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;if I had not been sure
+you must find out I should have said nothing about it. Now
+I fear I must turn back.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you will come to the Meeting,&rdquo; he said, turning with
+her. He felt it necessary to be obsequious to Ph&#339;be, after the
+terrible mistake he had made.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not unless grandpapa insists. I should like to hear your
+speech,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;but I don't object to the Established
+Church as you do, neither does papa when you push him hard.
+I don't think England would be much nicer if we were all Dissenters.
+To be sure we might be more civil to each other.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If there were no Dissenters, you mean.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It comes to much the same thing; congregations are not
+pleasant masters, are they, Mr. Northcote? I know some
+people&mdash;one at least,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;who is often very insolent
+to papa; and we have to put up with it&mdash;for the sake of peace,
+papa says. I don't think in the Church that any leading
+member could be so insolent to a clergyman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is perhaps rather&mdash;forgive me&mdash;a narrow, personal
+view.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wait till you get a charge, and have to please the congregation
+and the leading members!&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I know
+what you are thinking: it is just like a woman to look at a
+public question so. Very well; after all women are half the
+world, and their opinion is as good as another.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have the greatest respect for your opinion,&rdquo; said young
+Northcote; &ldquo;but we must not think of individual grievances.
+The system, with all its wrongs, is what occupies me. I have
+heard something&mdash;even here&mdash;this very day&mdash;What is it, my
+good friend? I am busy now&mdash;another time; or if you want
+me, my lodgings are&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A glance, half of pain, half of fun, came into Ph&#339;be's eyes.
+&ldquo;It is grandpapa!&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You shouldn't speak in that tone, sir, not to your elders,
+and maybe your betters,&rdquo; said Tozer, in his greasy old coat.
+&ldquo;Ministers take a deal upon them; but an old member like
+me, and one as has stood by the connection through thick and
+thin, ain't the one to be called your good friend. Well, if you
+begs pardon, of course there ain't no more to be said; and
+if you know our Ph&#339;be&mdash;Ph&#339;be, junior, as I calls her. What
+of the meeting, Mr. Northcote? I hope you'll give it them
+Church folks 'ot and strong, sir. They do give themselves airs,
+to be sure, in Carlingford. Most of our folks is timid, seeing
+for one thing as their best customers belong to the Church.
+That don't touch me, not now-a-days,&rdquo; said Tozer, with a laugh,
+&ldquo;not that I was ever one as concealed my convictions. I hope
+you'll give it 'em 'ot and strong.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall say what I think,&rdquo; said the young man bewildered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+He was by no means broken into the ways of the connection,
+and his pride rebelled at the idea of being schooled by this old
+shopkeeper; but the sight of Ph&#339;be standing by not only
+checked his rebellious sentiments, but filled him with a sympathetic
+thrill of feeling. What it must be for that girl to own
+this old man, to live with him, and feel herself shut into his
+society and friends of his choosing&mdash;to hear herself spoken of
+as Ph&#339;be, junior! The idea made him shiver, and this caught
+old Tozer's always hospitable eye.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You're chilly,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I don't wonder after the
+dreadful weather we've had. Few passes my door without a
+bite or a sup, specially at tea-time, Mr. Nor'cote, which is
+sociable time, as I always says. Come in and warm yourself
+and have a cup of tea. There is nothing as pleases my old
+woman so much as to get out her best tea-things for a minister;
+she 'as a great respect for ministers, has Mrs. Tozer, sir;
+and now she's got Ph&#339;be to show off as well as the chiney.
+Come along, sir, I can't take no refusal. It's just our time
+for tea.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Northcote made an unavailing attempt to get away, but
+partly it appeared to him that to refuse the invitation might
+look to Ph&#339;be like a pretence of superiority on his part, and
+partly he was interested in herself, and was very well aware he
+should get no company so good in Carlingford, even with the
+drawback of the old shop-people among whom she lived. How
+strange it was to see her in the dress of which Mrs. Sam Hurst
+had raved, and of which even the young Nonconformist vaguely
+divined the excellence, putting her daintily-gloved hand upon
+old Tozer's greasy sleeve, walking home with the shuffling old
+man, about whose social position no one could make the least
+mistake! He turned with them, with a sensation of thankfulness
+that it was in Grange Lane, Carlingford, where nobody
+knew him. As for Ph&#339;be, no such comfort was in her mind;
+everybody knew her here, or rather, everybody knew old Tozer.
+No disguise was possible to her. The only way to redeem the
+position was to carry it with a high hand, as she did, holding
+her head erect, and playing her part so that all the world might
+see and wonder. &ldquo;I think you had better come, Mr. Northcote,
+and have some tea,&rdquo; she said graciously, when the awe-stricken
+young man was floundering in efforts to excuse himself.
+Old Tozer chuckled and rubbed his hands.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take Ph&#339;be's advice,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Ph&#339;be's the sensiblest
+girl I know; so was her mother before her, as married one of
+the most popular preachers in the connection, though I say it
+as shouldn't. My old woman always said as our Ph&#339;be was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+cut out for a minister's wife. And Ph&#339;be junior's just such
+another,&rdquo; cried the admiring grandfather. Heavens above!
+did this mean traps and snares for himself, or did the old shopkeeper
+think of him, Horace Northcote, as another possible
+victim? If he had but known with what sincere compassionate
+toleration Ph&#339;be regarded him, as a young man whom she
+might be kind to, he might have been saved all alarm on this
+point. The idea that a small undistinguished Dissenting
+minister should think her capable of marrying him, was a
+humiliation which did not enter into Ph&#339;be's head.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A PUBLIC MEETING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's philosophy, however, was put to the test when,
+after the young pastor had taken tea and got himself away from
+the pressing hospitalities of the Tozers, her grandfather also
+disappeared to put on his best coat in order to attend the
+Meeting. Mrs. Tozer, left alone with her granddaughter,
+immediately proceeded to evolve her views as to what Ph&#339;be
+was expected to do.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I never see you out o' that brown thing, Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; she said;
+&ldquo;ain't you got a silk dress, child, or something that looks a bit
+younger-looking? I'd have thought your mother would have
+took more pride in you. Surely you've got a silk dress.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, more than one,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;but this is considered
+in better taste.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Taste, whose taste?&rdquo; cried the old lady; &ldquo;my Ph&#339;be
+didn't ought to care for them dingy things, for I'm sure she
+never got no such example from me. I've always liked what
+was bright-looking, if it was only a print. A nice blue silk
+now, or a bright green, is what you'd look pretty in with your
+complexion. Go now, there's a dear, and put on something
+very nice, something as will show a bit; you're going with
+your grandfather to this Meeting.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To the Meeting? oh, I hope not,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be with fervour.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And why should you hope not? isn't it natural as a young
+creature like you should get out a bit when she can, and see
+what's to be seen? I don't hold with girls moping in a house.
+Besides, it's very instructive, as I've always heard: and you as
+is clever, of course you'll understand every word. Mr. Northcote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+is a nicish-looking sort of young man. Ministers mayn't
+be much,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, &ldquo;though just see how your papa
+has got on, my dear. Nobody else as Ph&#339;be could have
+married would have got up in the world like that; you may
+make a deal more money in trade, but it ain't so genteel,
+there's always that to be said. Now it's just as well as you
+should have your chance with the rest and let yourself be seen,
+Ph&#339;be. Run, there's a darling, and put on something bright,
+and a nice lace collar. You can have mine if you like. I
+shouldn't grudge nothing, not a single thing I've got, to see
+you looking as nice as the best there; and so you will if you
+take a little pains. I'd do up my hair a bit higher if I was you;
+why, Ph&#339;be, I declare! you haven't got a single pad. Now
+what is the use of neglecting yourself, and letting others get
+ahead of you like that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pads are going out of fashion, grandmamma,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be gravely, &ldquo;so are bright colours for dresses. You can't
+think what funny shades we wear in town. But must I go to
+this Meeting? I should not like to leave you alone. It is so
+much nicer for me to be here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You <i>are</i> a good girl, you are,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer admiringly,
+&ldquo;and me as was frightened for a fine lady from London! But
+Tozer would say as it was my doing. He would say as it
+wasn't natural for a young creature; and, bless you, they'll all
+be there in their best&mdash;that Pigeon and the others, and Mrs.
+Tom. I just wish I could go too, to see you outshine 'em all,
+which you'll do if you take pains. Take a little more pains
+with your hair, Ph&#339;be, mount it up a bit higher, and if you
+want anything like a bit of lace or a brooch or that, just you
+come to me. I should like Mrs. Tom to see you with that
+brooch as she's always wanting for Minnie. Now why should
+I give my brooch to Minnie? I don't see no reason for it, for
+my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Certainly not, grandmamma,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;you must wear
+your brooches yourself, that is what I like a great deal better
+than giving them either to Minnie or me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, but there ain't a many like you, my sweet,&rdquo; cried the
+old woman, wiping her eyes. &ldquo;You're my Ph&#339;be's own
+daughter, but you're a touch above her, my darling, and us too,
+that's what you are. Run now and dress, or I don't know
+what Tozer will say to me. He's set his heart on showing you
+off to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thus adjured, Ph&#339;be went away reluctantly. It is unnecessary
+to say that her disinterestedness about her grandmother's
+brooch was not perhaps so noble as it appeared on the outside.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+The article in question was a kind of small warming-pan in a
+very fine solid gold mount, set with large pink topazes, and enclosing
+little wavy curls of hair, one from the head of each
+young Tozer of the last generation. It was a piece of jewelry
+very well known in Carlingford, and the panic which rose in
+Ph&#339;be's bosom when it was offered for her own personal adornment
+is more easily imagined than described. She went upstairs
+feeling that she had escaped, and took out a black silk
+dress at which she looked lovingly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But grandmamma would think it was no better than this,&rdquo;
+she said to herself, and after much searchings of heart she
+chose a costume of Venetian blue, one soft tint dying into
+another like the lustre on a piece of old glass, which in her own
+opinion was a great deal too good for the occasion. &ldquo;Some one
+will tread on it to a certainty, and the colours don't show in
+candle-light; but I must try to please grandmamma,&rdquo; she said
+heroically. When it was put on with puffings of lace such as
+Mrs. Tozer had never seen, and was entirely ignorant of the
+value of, at the throat and sleeves, Ph&#339;be wrapt a shawl round
+her in something of the same dim gorgeous hue, covered with
+embroidery, an Indian rarity which somebody had bestowed
+upon Mrs. Beecham, and which no one had used or thought of
+till Ph&#339;be's artistic eye fell upon it. It was a great deal too
+fine for Carlingford. An opera-cloak bought in Oxford Street
+for a pound or two would have much more impressed the
+assembly to which Ph&#339;be was bound. Mrs. Tozer inspected
+her when she went downstairs, with awe, yet dissatisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I dare say as it's all very fine, and it ain't like other folks,
+anybody can see; but I'd dress you different, my dear, if you
+was in my hands,&rdquo; said the old woman, walking round and
+round her. As for Tozer, he too showed less admiration than
+if he had known better.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I got a fly, thinking as you'd have some fallal or other on
+you; but, bless my heart, you could have walked in that gown,&rdquo;
+he said. So that Ph&#339;be's toilette, which would have been
+mightily admired in a London drawing-room, could not be said
+to be a success. She was somewhat discouraged by this, notwithstanding
+that she knew so very much better; and accordingly
+set out in the fly with her grandfather in his best coat,
+feeling, generally, in a depressed condition.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is clear that I must take to the pinks and blues to please
+them,&rdquo; she said to herself with a sigh. She could triumph over
+the slight that might be shown to herself in consequence of her
+relations; but those sneers at her dress went to Ph&#339;be's
+heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Music Hall was full of a miscellaneous crowd when
+Ph&#339;be, following her grandfather, went in; and the seats
+allotted to these important people were on the platform, where,
+at least, Tozer's unacknowledged object of showing her off could
+be amply gratified. This arrangement did not, on the whole,
+displease Ph&#339;be. Since she must be exhibited, it seemed
+better, on the whole, to be exhibited there, than in a less distinguished
+place; and all the speakers knew her, which was
+something. She sat down with some complaisance, and let her
+Indian scarf droop from her shoulders, and her pretty dress show
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I declare if that isn't Ph&#339;be, junior,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tom
+audibly, in the middle of the hall, &ldquo;making a show of herself;
+but, Lord bless us, for all their grandeur, how she do dress, to
+be sure. A bit of a rag of an old shawl, and a hat on! the
+same as she wears every day. I've got more respect for them
+as comes to instruct us than that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, Mrs. Tom was resplendent in a red <i>sortie de
+bal</i>, with a brooch almost as big as that envied one of Mrs.
+Tozer's stuck into her gown, and a cap covered with flowers
+upon her head. This was the usual fashion of the Salem ladies
+on such rare occasions. The meeting of the Disestablishment
+Society was to them what a ball is to worldly-minded persons
+who frequent such vanities. The leading families came out <i>en
+masse</i> to see and to be seen. It would be wrong to say that they
+did not enter into all the arguments and recognise the intellectual
+feast set before them; no doubt they did this just as well
+as if they had come in their commonest attire; but still the
+seriousness of the occasion was, no doubt, modified by being
+thus made into a dissipation. The men were not so fine, perhaps,
+because it is more difficult for men to be fine&mdash;but they
+were all in their Sunday clothes; and the younger ones were
+in full bloom of coloured satin cravats and fine waistcoats.
+Some of them were almost as fine a sight as the ladies in their
+ribbons and flowers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose by the look of them this must be an influential
+community&mdash;people of some pretensions,&rdquo; said an obese elderly
+minister, who had seated himself by Ph&#339;be, and whose eyes
+were dazzled by the display. &ldquo;I never expected all this dress
+in a quiet country place.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes! they are people of much pretension,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>And then the proceedings began. Old Mr. Green, the
+grocer, whose son had married Maria Pigeon, and who had long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+been retired from business, occupying a house in the country
+and &ldquo;driving his carriage,&rdquo; was in the chair; and the proceedings
+went on according to the routine of such assemblies, with
+differing degrees of earnestness on the part of the speakers.
+To most of these gentlemen it was the ordinary occupation of
+their lives; and they made their hearers laugh at well-known
+stories, and enjoyed their own wit, and elicited familiar cheers,
+and made hits such as they had made for years on the same
+subject, which was a comfortable <i>cheval de bataille</i>, not at all
+exciting to themselves, though they were quite willing to excite
+their audience, if that audience would allow itself to be excited.
+Things jogged on thus for the first hour very pleasantly! the
+Meeting was not excited, but it was amused and enjoyed itself.
+It was an intellectual treat, as Pigeon said to Brown, and if
+the younger people did not like it so well as they would have
+liked a ball, the elder people liked it a great deal better, and
+the hall rang with applause and with laughter as one speaker
+succeeded another. It was pleasant to know how unstable
+&ldquo;the Church&rdquo; was on her foundation; that aristocratical
+Church which looked down upon Dissent, and of which the
+poorest adherent gave himself airs much above Chapel folks;
+and how much loftier a position the Nonconformist held, who
+would have nothing to say to State support.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For my part,&rdquo; said one of the speakers, &ldquo;I would rather
+abandon my sacred calling to-morrow, or make tents as St.
+Paul did in its exercise, than put on the gilded fetters of the
+State, and pray or preach as an Archbishop told me; nay, as
+a Cabinet Council of godless worldlings directed. There are
+many good men among the clergy of the Church of England;
+but they are slaves, my friends, nothing but slaves, dragged at
+the chariot wheels of the State; ruled by a caste of hard-headed
+lawyers; or binding themselves in the rotten robes of tradition.
+It is we only who can dare to say that we are free!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At this sentiment, the Meeting fairly shouted with applause
+and delight and self-complacency; and the speaker, delighted
+too, and tasting all the sweetness of success, gave place to the
+next, and came and sat down by Ph&#339;be, to whose society the
+younger men were all very glad to escape.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Beecham, you are fashionably calm,&rdquo; whispered the
+orator, &ldquo;you don't throw yourself, like the rest of us, into this
+great agitation.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you a leading member?&rdquo; whispered Ph&#339;be back
+again; &ldquo;and does he never drag you at his chariot wheels?
+Have you deacons that keep you up to the mark? Have you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+people you must drink tea with when they ask you, or else
+they throw up their sittings? I am thinking, of course, of
+papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have I deacons? Have I leading members? Miss
+Beecham, you are cruel&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, settling herself in her chair. &ldquo;Here
+is somebody who is in dreadful earnest. Don't talk, Mr.
+Northcote is going to speak.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thus it will be seen that the Minister's daughter played her
+<i>r&ocirc;le</i> of fine lady and <i>bel esprit</i> very fairly in an atmosphere so
+unlike the air that fine ladies breathe. Ph&#339;be paid no more
+attention to the discomfited man at her elbow. She gathered
+up her shawl in her hand with a seeming careless movement,
+and let it drop lightly across her knee, where the gold threads
+in the embroidery caught the light; and she took off her hat,
+which she had thought proper to wear to show her sense that
+the Meeting was not an evening party; and prepared herself
+to listen. Her complexion and her hair, and the gold threads
+in the rich Indian work, thus blazed out together upon the
+startled audience. Many of them were as much struck by this
+as by the beginning of Mr. Northcote's speech, though it was
+very different from the other speeches. The others had been
+routine agitation, this was fiery conviction, crude, and jumping
+at conclusions, but still an enthusiasm in its way. Mr. Northcote
+approached his subject gradually, and his hearers, at first
+disappointed by the absence of their familiar watch-words, were
+dull, and bestowed their attention on Ph&#339;be; but before he
+had been speaking ten minutes Ph&#339;be was forgotten even by
+her uncle and aunt, the two people most interested in her. It
+would be dangerous to repeat to a reader, probably quite uninterested
+in the controversy, Mr. Northcote's speech, in which
+he laid hold of some of those weak points which the Church, of
+course, has in common with every other institution in the
+world. Eloquence has a way of evaporating in print, even when
+the report is immediate. But his peroration was one which
+startled his hearers out of a calm abstract interest to all that
+keen personal feeling which accompanies the narrative of facts
+known to an audience, and affecting people within their own
+locality.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have only been in this place three days,&rdquo; said the speaker,
+&ldquo;but in that short time I have heard of one of the most flagrant
+abuses which I have been indicating to you. There is in this
+town, as you all know, an institution called the College; what
+was its original object I do not know. Nests of idle pauperism,
+genteelly veiled under such a name, do exist, I know, over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+all the country; but it is at least probable that some educational
+purpose was in the mind of the pious founder who established
+it. The pious founder! how immense are the revenues, how
+incalculable the means of doing good, which have been locked
+up in uselessness, or worse than uselessness, by men who have
+purchased a pass into the kingdom of heaven at the last
+moment by such gifts, and become pious founders just before
+they ceased to be miserable sinners! Whatever may have been
+the original intention of the College, however, it is clear that
+it was meant for something more than the pitiful use it is put
+to now. This old foundation, ladies and gentlemen, which
+might provide half the poor children in Carlingford with a
+wholesome education, is devoted to the maintenance of six old
+men, need I say Churchmen?&rdquo; (here the speaker was interrupted
+by mingled hisses and ironical &ldquo;hear, hears&rdquo;)&mdash;&ldquo;and a chaplain
+to say their prayers for them. Six old men: and one able-bodied
+parson to say their prayers for them. What do you
+think of this, my friends? I understand that this heavy and
+onerous duty has been offered&mdash;not to some other mouldy old
+gentleman, some decayed clergyman who might have ministered
+in peace to the decayed old burghers without any interference
+on my part: for a refuge for the aged and destitute has something
+natural in it, even when it is a wrong appropriation of
+public money. No, this would have been some faint approach
+perhaps to justice, some right in wrong that would have closed
+our mouths. But no! it is given to a young gentleman, able-bodied,
+as I have said, who has appeared more than once in the
+cricket-field with your victorious Eleven, who is fresh from
+Oxford, and would no more condescend to consider himself on
+a footing of equality with the humble person who addresses you,
+than I would, having the use of my hands, accept a disgraceful
+sinecure! Yes, my friends, this is what the State Church does.
+She so cows the spirit and weakens the hearts of her followers
+that a young man at the very beginning of his career, able to
+teach, able to work, able to dig, educated and trained and cultured,
+can stoop to accept a good income in such a position as
+this. Think of it! Six old men, able surely, if they are good
+for anything, to mumble their prayers for themselves somehow;
+yet provided with an Oxford scholar, an able-bodied young
+man, to read the service for them daily! He thinks it very
+fine, no doubt, a good income and a good house for life, and
+nothing to do but to canter over morning and evening prayer
+at a swinging pace, as we have all heard it done: morning
+prayer, let us see, half an hour&mdash;or you may throw in ten
+minutes, in case the six should mumble their Amens slowly&mdash;and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+twenty minutes for the evening, one hour a day. Here it
+is under your very eyes, people of Carlingford, a charming provision
+for the son of one of your most respected clergymen.
+Why, it is in your newspaper, where I read it! Can I give a
+more forcible instance of the way in which a State Church cuts
+honesty and honour out of men's hearts.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A great many people noticed that when Mr. Northcote
+ended this with a thundering voice, some one who had been
+listening near the door in an Inverness cape, and hat over his
+brows, gave himself a sudden impetuous shake which shook the
+crowd, and turning round made his way out, not caring whom
+he stumbled against. The whole assembly was in a hubbub
+when the orator ceased, and whispers ran freely round among
+all the groups in the front. &ldquo;That's young May he means.&rdquo;
+&ldquo;In course it's young May. Infernal job, as I've always said.&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Oh hush, Pigeon, don't swear! but it do seem a black burning
+shame, don't it?&rdquo; &ldquo;Bravo, Mr. Nor'cote!&rdquo; called out old
+Tozer, on the platform, &ldquo;that's what I call giving forth no uncertain
+sound. That's laying it into them 'ot and 'ot.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was the climax of the Meeting. Everything else was
+flat after such a decided appeal to personal knowledge. Ph&#339;be
+alone gave a frigid reception to the hero of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I dislike personalities,&rdquo; she said, pointedly. &ldquo;They never
+do a cause any good; and it isn't gentlemanly; don't you think
+so, Mr. Sloely;&rdquo; and she turned away from Northcote, who
+had come to speak to her, and devoted herself to the man at
+her elbow, whom she had snubbed a little while before. Mr.
+Northcote said to himself that this was untrue, and brought
+up a hundred very good reasons why he should have employed
+such an example, but the reproof stung him to the quick, for
+to be ungentlemanly was the reproach of all others most calculated
+to go to his heart.</p>
+
+<p>But nobody knew how Mr. May went home in his Inverness
+cape, breathing fire and flame, nor of the execution he did
+thereupon.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+<h3>MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. May went into his study and closed the door. He
+poked the fire&mdash;he put himself into his easy-chair&mdash;he drew
+his writing-book towards him, and opened it at where a half-written
+sheet lay waiting. And then he paused, rubbed his
+hands softly together, and falling back again, laughed quietly
+to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Yes; he who had stormed out of the drawing-room like a
+whirlwind, having discomfited everybody, leaving the girls in
+tears, and the boys in a white heat of passion, when he reached
+the profoundest depths of his own retirement, laughed. What
+did it mean? Of all the people in the world, his children
+would have been most entirely thunderstruck by this self-betrayal.
+They could not have understood it. They were
+acquainted with his passions, and with his moments of good
+temper. They knew when he was amiable, and when he was
+angry, by instinct, by the gleam of his eye, by the way in which
+he shut the door; but this was something totally unknown to
+them. The truth was that Mr. May, like many other people,
+having a naturally bad temper, which he indulged freely when
+he pleased, had attained the power of using it when it suited
+him to use it, without being suspected by anybody. A bad
+temper is a possession like another, and may be made skilful
+use of like other things which, perhaps, in themselves, are not
+desirable. He could work himself up into fury, and launch the
+doom he felt disposed to launch, like a burning and fizzing
+thunder-bolt from a hand which was, in reality, not at all
+excited; and like most other people who possess such an unrevealed
+power, it pleased him very much when he persuaded
+his surroundings that it was an impulse of rage which moved
+him. He had been at the Meeting at the Music Hall, &ldquo;to hear
+what those fellows had to say for themselves.&rdquo; Contempt,
+unbounded but wrathful, was the feeling in his mind towards
+&ldquo;those fellows;&rdquo; but he felt that young Northcote's eloquence,
+reported in next day's papers, was quite enough to quash for
+ever all hopes of his son's acceptance of the chaplaincy. So he
+walked home as fast as his legs would carry him, and burst into
+his house, as we have seen, with a semblance of passion so perfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+as to deceive his entire family and fill the place with anger
+and tears. Upon which, withdrawing from the scene of conflict,
+he threw himself down in his easy-chair and chuckled, recovering
+his composure by slow degrees.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, this private indulgence was over, Mr. May's
+face grew dark enough. He pushed his writing away from
+him, and pulling out a drawer in his writing-table, which was
+full of papers of a very unliterary aspect, betook himself to the
+consideration of them, with anything but laughter in his looks,
+or in his mind. Letters upon blue paper in straight up and
+down handwriting&mdash;other papers, also blue, with ruled lines
+and numerals, for which Mr. May was more frightened than he
+would have been for a charge of cavalry. These were the very
+unattractive contents of this drawer. He brought two or three
+of them out in a bundle and read them over, one after another,
+with contracted brows. Debt is an idiosyncrasy like other
+things. Some people keep clear of it miraculously, some seem
+to drop into it without cause or meaning, and to spend all their
+lives afterwards in vain attempts to get out. Mr. May was one
+of these unfortunate men. He could not tell himself where his
+money went to. Poor man! it was not so much he had, and
+there was a large family to be fed and clothed, and schooled
+after a sort. But still other people on incomes as small as his
+had managed to maintain their families without dropping into
+this hopeless condition. He had been in debt since ever he
+could remember; and to be sure it was not the pain and
+trouble to him that it is to many people. So long as, by hook
+or by crook, he could manage to stave off the evil day, so long
+was he happy enough, and he had managed this by all sorts of
+semi-miraculous windfalls up to the present time. James's remittances
+had been like heavenly dew to him. It is true that
+these remittances had been intended to keep Reginald at
+Oxford, and perhaps something of the special hardness with
+which he regarded Reginald arose from the fact that he had
+done him wrong in this respect, and had appropriated what was
+intended for him. But after all, he had said to himself, the
+maintenance of the house in comfort, the keeping clean of the
+family name, and the staving off disagreeable revelations of the
+family's poverty, were more, for even Reginald's comfort, than
+a little more money in his pocket, which everybody knew was
+very dangerous for a young man.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May had always a bill coming due, which James's remittances
+arrived just in time to meet. Indeed, this was the
+normal condition of his life. He had always a bill coming due&mdash;a
+bill which some good-humoured banker had to be coaxed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+into renewing, or which was paid at the last moment by some
+skilful legerdemain in the way of pouring out of one vessel
+into another, transferring the debt from one quarter to another,
+so that there may have been said to be always a certain amount
+of quite fictitious and visionary money floating about Mr. May,
+money which existed only in the shape of symbol, and which,
+indeed, belonged to nobody&mdash;which was borrowed here to-day,
+and paid there to-morrow, to be re-borrowed and repaid in the
+same way, never really reaching anybody's pocket, or representing
+anything but that one thing which money is supposed to be
+able to extinguish&mdash;debt. When human affairs reach this very
+delicate point, and there is nothing at any moment, except a
+semi-miraculous windfall, to keep a man going, the crisis is very
+serious. And it was no wonder that Mr. May was anxious to
+drive his son into accepting any possible appointment, and that
+he occasionally railed unreasonably at his family. Unless a
+hundred pounds or so fell down from the skies within the next
+ten days, he saw nothing before him but ruin. This, it is needless
+to say, is very far from being a comfortable position. The
+<i>sourde</i> agitation, excitement, feverish hope and fear of the
+sufferer might well affect his temper. If he could not get a
+hundred pounds within ten days, he did not know what he
+was to do.</p>
+
+<p>And nobody could say (he thought to himself) that he was
+an expensive man; he had no expensive habits. He liked good
+living, it is true, and a glass of good wine, but this amount of
+regard for the table does not ruin men. He liked books also,
+but he did not buy them, contenting himself with such as the
+library could afford, and those which he could obtain by the
+reviews he wrote for the Church Magazines. How then was it
+that he never could get rid of that rapidly maturing bill? He
+could not tell. Keeping out of debt is one thing, and getting
+rid of it when you have once taken its yoke upon your neck is
+another. His money, when he had any, &ldquo;slipped through his
+fingers,&rdquo; as people say. When James's remittance or any other
+piece of good fortune gave him enough to pay that hundred
+pounds without borrowing elsewhere, he borrowed elsewhere
+all the same. It was a mysterious fatality, from which he
+seemed unable to escape. In such circumstances a crisis must
+come sooner or later, and it appeared to him that now at least,
+after many hairbreadth escapes, the crisis had come.</p>
+
+<p>What was he to do? There was no chance, alas! of money
+from James, and even if Reginald accepted the chaplaincy, and
+was willing at once to come to his father's aid, there was no
+hope that he would have anything for some time&mdash;for chaplains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+incomes are not, any more than other people's, generally paid
+in advance. He leaned back in his chair and went over again,
+for the hundredth time, the list of all the people he could borrow
+from, or who would &ldquo;back&rdquo; a bill for him, and he was still
+employed in this melancholy and hopeless enumeration, when
+a low knock came to the door, and a maid-of-all-work, pushing
+it open, thrust in a homely little man in a dusty-brown coat,
+who put up a hand to his forehead as he came in with a salutation
+which was half charity school-boy, half awkward recruit.
+Beyond this there was no ceremony about his entrance, no
+leave asked or question made. Betsy knew very well that he
+was to come in when he pleased, and that her master did not
+deny himself to Cotsdean. Mr. May received him with a
+familiar nod, and pointed hastily to a chair. He did not even
+take the trouble to put away those blue papers, which he would
+have done if any other individual, even if one of his children
+had come into the room.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good evening, Cotsdean,&rdquo; he said, in a friendly tone.
+&ldquo;Well, what news?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing as is pleasant, sir,&rdquo; said the man, sitting down on
+a corner of his chair. &ldquo;I've been to the bank, and it's no use
+my explaining, or begging ever so hard. They won't hear of
+it. 'We've done it times and times,' they says to me, 'and
+we won't do it no more. That's flat,' and so indeed it is flat,
+sir, as you may say downright Dunstable; but that ain't no
+advantage to you and me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it is, Cotsdean,&rdquo; said the clergyman, &ldquo;it is a decided
+advantage, for it shows there is nothing to be hoped from that
+quarter, and that is always good&mdash;even though it's bad bad, as
+bad as can be&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may say so, sir,&rdquo; said Cotsdean. &ldquo;I don't know
+what's to be done no more than the babe unborn, and it's wearing
+me to death, that's what it's doing. When I looks round
+on my small family, it's all I can do not to cry out loud.
+What's to become of my children, Mr. May? Yours, sir,
+they'll never want friends, and a hundred or so here or there,
+that don't ruin gentlefolks; but without selling up the business,
+how am I ever to get a hundred pounds? It ain't equal,
+sir, I swear it ain't. You gets the money, and you takes it
+easy, and don't hold your head not a bit lower; but me as has
+no good of it (except in the way o' a bit of custom that is a
+deal more in looks than anything else), and has to go round to
+all the folks, to Mr. Brownlow, at the bank, and I don't know
+who, as if it was for me! I suffers in my credit, sir, and I
+suffers in my spirits, and I suffers in my health; and when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+smash comes, what's to become of my poor children? It's
+enough to put a man beside himself, that's what it is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Here the poor man's eyes grew bloodshot, partly with rubbing
+them, partly with tears. He rubbed them with the sleeve
+of his rough coat, and the tears were very real, though few in
+number. Cotsdean's despair was indeed tragical enough, but
+its outside had in it a dash of comedy, which, though he was in
+no mirthful mood, caught the quick eye of Mr. May. He was
+himself very painfully affected, to tell the truth, but yet it cost
+him an effort not to smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cotsdean,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;have I ever failed you yet? You
+have done a good deal for me, I don't deny it&mdash;you have had
+all the trouble, but beyond that what have you suffered except
+in imagination? If you choose to exaggerate dangers, it is not
+my fault. Your children are as safe as&mdash;as safe as the Bank
+of England. Now, have I ever failed you? answer me that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can't say as you have, sir,&rdquo; said Cotsdean, &ldquo;but it's dreadful
+work playing with a man's ruin, off and on like this, and
+nobody knowing what might happen, or what a day or an hour
+might bring forth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is very true,&rdquo; said Mr. May. &ldquo;I might die, that is
+what you mean; very true, though not quite so kind as I might
+have expected from an old friend&mdash;a very old friend.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am sure, Sir, I beg your pardon,&rdquo; cried the poor man, &ldquo;it
+wasn't that; but only just as I'm driven out o' my seven senses
+with thinking and thinking.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear Cotsdean, don't think; there could not be a more
+unnecessary exercise; what good does your thinking do, but to
+make you unhappy? leave that to me. We have been driven
+into a corner before now, but nothing has ever happened to us.
+You will see something will turn up this time. I ask you again,
+have I ever failed you? you know best.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, sir,&rdquo; said Cotsdean, somewhat doubtfully. &ldquo;No, I
+didn't say as you had. It's only&mdash;I suppose I ain't so young
+as I once was&mdash;and a man's feelin's, sir, ain't always in his own
+control.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must take care that it is only to me that you make
+such an exhibition as this,&rdquo; said Mr. May. &ldquo;Who is there?
+oh, my coffee! put it on the table. If you are seen coming
+here to me with red eyes and this agitated appearance,&rdquo; he
+went on, waiting pointedly till the door was closed, &ldquo;it will be
+supposed there is some family reason for it&mdash;again&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, lor', Sir! you know&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I know very well,&rdquo; said the clergyman. &ldquo;I know
+that there couldn't be a better wife, and that bygones are bygones;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+but you must remember and take care; everybody
+doesn't know you&mdash;and her&mdash;so well as I do. When you come
+to see your clergyman in this agitated state, I put it to yourself,
+Cotsdean, I put it to your good sense, what is anybody to
+think? You must take great care not to betray yourself to anybody
+but me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at him with a half-gasp of consternation,
+bewildered by the very boldness with which he was thus set
+down. Betray himself&mdash;he drew a long breath, as if he had
+received a <i>douche</i> of cold water in his face, which was indeed very
+much like the effect that this extraordinary address produced&mdash;betray
+himself! Poor Cotsdean's struggles and sufferings
+arose, at the present moment, entirely from the fact that he
+had allowed himself to be made use of for Mr. May's occasions,
+and both the men were perfectly aware of this. But though
+he gasped, Cotsdean was too much under the influence of his
+clergyman to do anything more. Had he been a Dissenter, he
+would have patronized young Northcote, who was as good a
+man as Mr. May (or far better if truth were told), with the
+frankest certainty of his own superior position, but being a
+humble churchman he yielded to his clergyman as to one of the
+powers that be. It is a curious difference. He sat still on the
+edge of his chair, while Mr. May walked across the room to the
+table by the door, where his <i>caf&eacute; noir</i> had been placed, and took
+his cup and drank it. He was not civil enough to ask his
+visitor to share it, indeed it never would have occurred to him,
+though he did not hesitate to use poor Cotsdean for his own
+purpose, to treat him otherwise than as men treat their servants
+and inferiors. When he had finished his coffee, he went
+leisurely back into his former place.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have nothing to suggest,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nothing to advise?
+Well, I must try what I can do. It will be hard work, but
+still I must do it, you know,&rdquo; added Mr. May, in a gracious
+tone. &ldquo;I have never concealed from you, Cotsdean, how much
+I appreciated your assistance; everything of this sort is so
+much worse in my position than in yours. You understand
+that? A gentleman&mdash;and a clergyman&mdash;has things expected
+from him which never would be thought of in your case. I
+have never omitted to acknowledge my obligations to you&mdash;and
+you also owe some obligations to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't deny as you've been very kind, sir,&rdquo; said Cotsdean,
+half-grateful, half-sullen; then he wavered a little. &ldquo;I never
+denied it, <i>her</i> and me could never have 'it it off but for you. I
+don't forget a favour&mdash;nobody can say that of me. I ain't forgot
+it in this case.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't say that you have forgotten it. I have always put
+the utmost confidence in you; but, my good fellow, you must
+not come to me in this down-in-the-mouth way. Have I ever
+failed you? We've been hard pressed enough at times, but
+something has always turned up. Have not I told you a
+hundred times Providence will provide?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you put it like that, sir&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do put it like that. I have always been helped, you
+know, sometimes when it seemed the last moment. Leave it to
+me. I have no more doubt,&rdquo; said Mr. May, lifting up a countenance
+which was by no means so untroubled as could have been
+wished, &ldquo;that when the time comes all will be well, than I
+have of the sun rising to-morrow&mdash;which it will,&rdquo; he added
+with some solemnity, &ldquo;whether you and I live to see it or not.
+Leave it all, I say, to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Cotsdean did not make any reply. He was overawed by
+this solemnity of tone, and knew his place too well to set himself
+up against his clergyman; but still it cannot be denied that
+the decision was less satisfactory than one of much less exalted
+tone might have been. He had not the courage to say anything&mdash;he
+withdrew with his hat in his hand, and a cloud over his
+face. But as he left the house the doubt in his soul breathed
+itself forth. &ldquo;If so be as neither me nor him see it rise, what
+good will that do to my family,&rdquo; said Cotsdean to himself, and
+went his way to his closed shop, through all the sacks of seeds
+and dry rustling grain, with a heavy heart. He was a corn-factor
+in a tolerable business, which, as most of the bankers of Carlingford
+knew, he had some difficulty in carrying along, being
+generally in want of money; but this was not so rare a circumstance
+that any special notice should be taken of it. Everybody
+who knew thought it was very kind of Mr. May to back
+him up as he did, and even to put his name to bills for poor
+Cotsdean, to whom, indeed, he was known to have been very
+kind in many ways. But nobody was aware how little of these
+said bills went to Cotsdean, and how much to Mr. May.</p>
+
+<p>When he was gone, the clergyman threw himself back again
+into his chair with a pale face. Providence, which he treated
+like some sort of neutral deity, and was so very sure of having
+on his side when he spoke to Cotsdean, did not feel so near to
+him, or so much under his command, when Cotsdean was gone.
+There were still two days; but if before that he could not make
+some provision, what was to be done? He was not a cruel or
+bad man, and would have suffered keenly had anything happened
+to poor Cotsdean and his family on his account. But they
+must be sacrificed if it came to that, and the thought was very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+appalling. What was he to do? His friends were exhausted,
+and so were his expedients. There was no longer any one he
+could borrow from, or who would take even a share of his
+burden on their shoulders. What was he to do?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NEW CHAPLAIN.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It cannot be denied that, reluctant as Reginald May had
+been to accept the chaplaincy of which so much had been said,
+he had no sooner fairly done so, and committed himself beyond
+remedy, than a certain sense of relief began to steal over the
+young man's mind. He had made the leap. Moved, at last, by
+arguments which, perhaps, were not worth very much logically,
+and which even while he yielded to them he saw the weakness
+of, he felt sure that when he woke in the morning, and realized
+what he had done, fearful feelings of remorse would seize him.
+But, curiously enough, this was not so; and his first sensation
+was relief that the conflict was over, and that he had no more
+angry remonstrances to meet with, or soft pleadings from
+Ursula, or assaults of rude abruptness from Janey. All that
+was over; and then a warm glow of independence and competency
+came over the young man. You may be sure he had
+no fire in his rooms to make him warm, and it was a chill
+January morning, with snow in the heavy sky, and fog in the
+yellow air; but, notwithstanding, there came a glow of comfort
+over him.</p>
+
+<p>Independent!&mdash;free to go where he pleased, buy what
+he liked, spend his time as best seemed to him, with a
+&ldquo;position&rdquo; of his own; even a house of his own. He laughed
+softly to himself at this new idea. It did not somehow hurt
+him as he thought it would, this sinecure he had accepted.
+Could he not make it up, as Ursula said, &ldquo;work for the town
+in other ways without pay, since the town had given him pay
+without work?&rdquo; A genial feeling of toleration came over
+Reginald's mind. Why should he have made such a fuss about
+it? It was natural that his father should insist, and, now that
+it was done, he himself did not wish it undone, as he had
+expected to do. After all, if you judged matters with such
+rigidity, who was there without guilt? what public appointment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+was given and held according to abstract right, as, formally
+speaking, it ought to be? Those in the highest offices were
+appointed, not because of their personal excellence, but because
+of being some other man's son or brother; and yet, on the
+whole, public duty was well done, and the unjust ruler and
+hireling priest were exceptions. Even men whose entry into
+the fold was very precipitate, over the wall, violently, or by some
+rat-hole of private interest, made very good shepherds, once
+they were inside. Nothing was perfect in this world, and yet
+things were more good than evil; and if he himself made it his
+study to create for himself an ideal position, to become a doer
+of all kinds of volunteer work, what would it matter that his
+appointment was not an ideal appointment? It seemed very
+strange to him, and almost like an interposition of Providence
+in his favour, that he should feel in this way, for Reginald was
+not aware that such revulsions of feeling were very natural
+phenomena, and that the sensation, after any great decision, is
+almost invariably one of relief. To be sure it upset this manly
+state of mind a little when, coming down to breakfast, his father
+gave him a nod, and said briefly, &ldquo;I am glad you have seen
+your duty at last.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This made him almost resolve to throw it up again; but the
+feeling was momentary. Why should he give it up? It had
+made him independent (already he thought of his independence
+as a thing accomplished), and he would make full amends to the
+Church and to Carlingford for taking two hundred and fifty
+pounds a year without working for it. Surely he could do that.
+He did not grudge work, but rather liked it, and would be
+ready to do anything, he did not care what, to make his sinecure
+into a volunteer's outpost for every good work. Yes, that was
+the way to look at it. And it was a glorious independence.
+Two hundred and fifty pounds a year!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And the house,&rdquo; cried Ursula, when Mr. May had left the
+breakfast-table, and left them free to chatter. &ldquo;The house&mdash;I
+don't think you are likely to find a tenant for it. The houses
+in Grange Lane are so cheap now; and some people object to
+the poor old men. I think you must keep the house. Furnishing
+will be an expense; but, of course, when you have a certain
+income, that makes such a difference; and you can come and
+see us every day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why can't he live at home?&rdquo; said Janey; &ldquo;we are so poor;
+he ought to come and pay us something for his board, and help
+us to get on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What can you know about it, at your age?&rdquo; said Ursula.
+&ldquo;We have not got proper rooms for Reginald. He ought, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+least, to have a study of his own, as well as a bed-room, now
+that he has an appointment. No, you must go to the College,
+Reginald; and, perhaps, you might have one of the boys with
+you, say Johnnie, which would be a great saving&mdash;for he has
+an appetite; he eats more than two of the rest of us do. You
+might take one of them with you&mdash;to save the bills a little&mdash;if
+you like.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take me,&rdquo; said Janey, &ldquo;I have a good appetite too; and
+then I'm a girl, which is a great deal more useful. I could
+keep your house. Oh, Reginald! mayn't we go out and see it?
+I want to see it. I have never once been over the College&mdash;not
+in all my life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We might as well go, don't you think, Ursula?&rdquo; he said,
+appealing to her with a delightful mixture of helplessness and
+supremacy. Yesterday, he had not been able to assert any
+exclusive claim to sixpence. Now he had a house&mdash;a house all
+his own. It pleased him to think of taking the girls to it;
+and as for having one of them, he was ready to have them all
+to live with him. Ursula thought fit to accede graciously to
+this suggestion, when she had looked after her numerous household
+duties. Janey, in the mean time, had been &ldquo;practising&rdquo;
+in one of her periodical fits of diligence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For, you know, if Reginald did really want me to keep
+house for him,&rdquo; said Janey, &ldquo;(you have too much to do at
+home; or, of course, he would like you best), it would be
+dreadful if people found out how little I know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You ought to go to school,&rdquo; said Ursula, gravely. &ldquo;It is
+a dreadful thing for a girl never to have had any education.
+Perhaps Reggie might spare a little money to send you to
+school; or, perhaps, papa&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;School yourself!&rdquo; retorted Janey, indignant; but then she
+thought better of it. &ldquo;Perhaps just for a year to finish,&rdquo; she
+added in a doubtful tone. They thought Reginald could do
+anything on that wonderful two hundred and fifty pounds a
+year.</p>
+
+<p>The College was a picturesque old building at the other side
+of Carlingford, standing in pretty grounds with some fine trees,
+under which the old men sat and amused themselves in the
+summer mornings. On this chilly wintry day none of them
+were visible, except the cheerful old soul bent almost double,
+but with a chirruppy little voice like a superannuated sparrow,
+who acted as porter, and closed the big gates every night, and
+fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He trotted
+along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show
+them the chaplain's rooms.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+&ldquo;The old gentlemen is all as pleased as Punch,&rdquo; said Joe.
+&ldquo;We was a feared as it might be somebody foreign&mdash;not a
+Carlingford gentleman; and some parsons is queer, saving
+your presence, Mr. May; but we knows where you comes
+from, and all about you, as one of the old gentlemen was just
+a-saying to me. Furnished, Miss? Lord bless you, yes!
+they're furnished. It's all furnished, is College. You'll think
+as the things look a bit queer; they wasn't made not this year,
+nor yet last year, I can tell you; and they ain't in the fashion.
+But if so be as you don't stand by fashion, there they is,&rdquo; said
+Joe, throwing open the door.</p>
+
+<p>The young people went in softly, their excitement subdued
+into a kind of awe. An empty house, furnished, is more desolate,
+more overwhelming to the imagination, than a house which
+is bare. For whom was it waiting, all ready there, swept and
+garnished? Or were there already unseen inhabitants about,
+writing ghostly letters on the tables, seated on the chairs?
+Even Janey was hushed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'd rather stay at home, after all,&rdquo; she whispered in Ursula's
+ear under her breath.</p>
+
+<p>But after awhile they became familiar with the silent
+place, and awoke the echoes in it with their voices and new life.
+Nothing so young had been in the College for years. The last
+chaplain had been an old man and an old bachelor; and the
+pensioners were all solitary, living a sort of monastic life, each
+in his room, like workers in their cells. When Janey, surprised
+by some unexpected joke, burst into one of her peals of
+laughter, the old building echoed all through it, and more than
+one window was put up and head projected to know the cause
+of this profanation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Joe!&rdquo; cried one portentous voice; &ldquo;what's happened?
+what's the meaning of this?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's only them a-laughing, sir,&rdquo; said Joe, delighting in the
+vagueness of his rejoinder. &ldquo;They ain't used to it, that's the
+truth; but laugh away, Miss, it'll do you good,&rdquo; he added
+benignly. Joe was of a cheerful spirit, notwithstanding his
+infirmities, and he foresaw lightsome days.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat taken aback, however, by the commotion produced
+by Janey's laugh, the young party left the College, Ursula
+carrying with her sundry memoranda and measurements for
+curtains and carpets. &ldquo;You must have curtains,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;and I think a carpet for the study. The other room will do;
+but the study is cold, it has not the sunshine. I wonder if we
+might go and look at some, all at once.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Here the three paused in the road, and looked at each other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+somewhat overcome by the grandeur of the idea. Even Reginald,
+notwithstanding his Oxford experience, held his breath a
+little at the thought of going right off without further consideration,
+and buying carpets and curtains. As for Janey, she
+laughed again in pure excitement and delight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fancy going into Holden's, walking right in, as if we had
+the Bank in our pockets, and ordering whatever we like,&rdquo; she
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose we must have them!&rdquo; said Reginald, yielding
+slowly to the pleasure of acquisition. Ursula was transformed
+by the instinct of business and management into the leader of
+the party.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course you must have them,&rdquo; she said, with the air of a
+woman who had ordered curtains all her life, &ldquo;otherwise you
+will catch cold, and that is not desirable,&rdquo; and she marched
+calmly towards Holden's, while Janey dropped behind to
+smother the laughter which expressed her amazed delight in
+this new situation. It is doubtful whether Holden would have
+given them so good a reception had the Miss Mays gone to hint
+to order curtains for the Parsonage&mdash;for the Carlingford tradesmen
+were very well aware of the difficulties, in point of payment,
+which attended Mr. May's purchases. But Holden was
+all smiles at the idea of fitting up the rooms in the College.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Carpets? I have a Turkey carpet that would just suit
+one of those old rooms&mdash;old-fashioned rooms are so much
+thought of at present,&rdquo; said the man of furniture.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&mdash;I suppose that would do,&rdquo; said Reginald, with a side
+look at his sister, to know if he was right. Ursula slew him
+with a glance of her brown eyes. She was almost grand in
+superior knowledge and righteous indignation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Turkey! are you out of your senses? Do you think we
+have the Bank in our pockets,&rdquo; she whispered to him angrily,
+&ldquo;as Janey says?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How was I to know? He said so,&rdquo; said the alarmed
+chaplain, cowed, notwithstanding his income.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>He</i> said so! that is just like you boys, taking whatever
+everyone tells you. Why, a Turkey carpet costs a fortune.
+Mr. Holden, I think, if you please, Brussels will do; or some
+of those new kinds, a jumble of colours without any decided
+pattern. Not too expensive,&rdquo; said Ursula solemnly, the colour
+mounting to her face. They were all rather brought down
+from their first delight and grandeur when this was said&mdash;for
+stipulating about expense made a difference all at once. The
+delightful sensation of marching into Holden's as if the world
+belonged to them was over; but Janey was touched to see that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+Holden still remained civil, and did not express, in his countenance,
+the contempt he must have felt.</p>
+
+<p>When this was over, and Mr. Holden had kindly suggested
+the idea of sending various stuffs to the College, &ldquo;that they
+might judge of the effect,&rdquo; the party went home, slightly subdued.
+The air was heavy and yellow, and prophesied snow;
+but a very red wintry sun had managed to make an opening
+temporarily in the clouds, and threw a ruddy ray down Grange
+Lane, bringing out the few passengers who were coming and
+going under the old garden walls. Ursula clasped her hands
+together, and came to a stop suddenly, when she turned her
+eyes that way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;here she is&mdash;she is coming! all by herself,
+and we can't help meeting her&mdash;the young lady in black!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Shall we speak to her?&rdquo; said Janey with a little awe.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who is the young lady in black?&rdquo; said Reginald, &ldquo;this
+girl who is coming up? I never saw her before in Carlingford.
+Is she some one you have met with the Dorsets? She
+don't look much like Grange Lane.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, hush! here she is,&rdquo; said Ursula, losing all that importance
+of aspect which her position as leader of the expedition
+had given her. A pretty blush of expectation came over her
+face&mdash;her dimples revealed themselves as if by magic. You
+will think it strange, perhaps, that the sight of one girl should
+produce this effect upon another. But then Ph&#339;be represented
+to Ursula the only glimpse she had ever had into a world which
+looked gay and splendid to the country girl&mdash;a world in which
+Ph&#339;be had appeared to her as a princess reigning in glory and
+delight. Ursula forgot both her companions and her recent
+occupation. Would the young lady in black notice her; stop,
+perhaps, and talk to her&mdash;remember her? Her eyes began to
+glow and dance with excitement. She stumbled as she went
+on in her anxiety, fixing her eyes upon the approaching figure.
+Ph&#339;be, for her part, was taking a constitutional walk up and
+down Grange Lane, and she too was a little moved, recognizing
+the girl, and wondering what it would be wisest to do&mdash;whether
+to speak to her, and break her lonely promenade with a little
+society, or remember her &ldquo;place,&rdquo; and save herself from further
+mortification by passing the clergyman's daughter, who was a
+cousin of the Dorsets, with a bow.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Dorsets wouldn't recognise me, nor Miss May either,&rdquo;
+Ph&#339;be said to herself, &ldquo;<i>if they knew</i>&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Ursula looked so wistful as they approached each other
+that she had not the courage to keep to this wise resolution.
+Though she was only the granddaughter of Tozer, the butterman,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+she was much more a woman of the world than this pretty
+blushing girl who courted her notice. She put out her hand
+instinctively when they met. &ldquo;It can't harm anybody but
+myself, after all,&rdquo; she thought.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I am so glad you remember me,&rdquo; cried Ursula. &ldquo;I
+knew you in a moment. Have you come to stay here? This
+is my brother, Reginald, and my little sister, Janey,&rdquo; (how
+Janey scowled at that <i>little!</i> and with reason, for she was by
+half an inch the taller of the two). &ldquo;Are you taking a walk?
+I do hope you like Carlingford. I do hope you are going to
+stay. That is our house down at the end of the lane, close to
+St. Roque's. Papa is the clergyman there. It will be so
+delightful,&rdquo; said Ursula, repeating herself in her excitement,
+&ldquo;if you are going to stay.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am going to stay for some time,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be graciously,
+&ldquo;I don't quite know how long. I came here shortly after I
+saw you in town. My grandfather lives here. Grange Lane
+is very nice for a walk. Grandmamma is an invalid, so that I
+don't leave her very often. It was great luck finding you just
+as I had come out; for it is not cheerful walking alone.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be felt perfectly sure that through each of the three
+heads turned towards her a hurried inquiry was going on as to
+which of those enclosed houses contained the grandmother who
+was an invalid; but no sort of enlightenment followed the
+inquiry, and as for Ursula it terminated abruptly in her mind
+with a rush of cordiality. She was not at an age when friendship
+pauses to make any inquiry into grandmothers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am so glad! for if you are not going anywhere in particular,
+we may all walk together. Janey knows you quite
+well. I have talked of you so often,&rdquo; (here Ph&#339;be gave a
+gracious bow and smile to Janey, who was not quite sure that
+she liked to be thus patronized), &ldquo;and so does my brother,&rdquo;
+said Ursula, more doubtfully. &ldquo;Do you like Carlingford?
+Have you seen many people? Oh! I do hope you will stay.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have not seen anybody,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;My people are
+not much in society. When one is old and sick, I don't suppose
+one cares&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is no society to speak of in Carlingford,&rdquo; said Reginald.
+&ldquo;It is like most other country towns. If you like it we
+shall be sure your liking is quite disinterested, for it has no
+social charms&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When had Reginald said so many words at a time to a young
+lady before? The girls exchanged glances. &ldquo;I think it is
+pretty,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, closing the subject. &ldquo;It is going to snow,
+don't you think? I suppose you skate like all the young ladies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+now. It seems the first thing any one thinks of when the
+winter begins.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you skate?&rdquo; said Ursula, her eyes brighter and opener
+than ever.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, a little&mdash;as everybody does! Perhaps if there is no
+society,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, turning to Reginald for the first time,
+&ldquo;people are free here from the necessity of doing as everybody
+does. I don't think there is any such bondage in the world&mdash;dressing,
+living, working, amusing yourself&mdash;you have to do
+everything as other people do it. So I skate&mdash;I can't help
+myself; and a hundred foolish things beside.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But I should think it <i>delightful</i>,&rdquo; cried Ursula, &ldquo;I have
+always envied the boys. They look so warm when we are
+all shivering. Reginald, if it freezes will you teach us? I
+think I should like it better than anything in the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Reginald, &ldquo;if Miss&mdash;if we can make up a party&mdash;if
+you,&rdquo; he added with a perfectly new inflection in his voice,
+&ldquo;will come too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see you don't know my name,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a soft
+little laugh. &ldquo;It is Beecham. One never catches names at a
+party. I remembered yours because of a family in a novel that
+I used to admire very much in my girlish days&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! I know,&rdquo; cried Janey, &ldquo;the Daisy Chain. We are
+not a set of prigs like those people. We are not goody, whatever
+we are; we&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't suppose Miss Beecham cares for your opinion of
+the family character,&rdquo; said Reginald in a tone that made Janey
+furious. Thus discoursing they reached the gates of the Parsonage,
+where Ursula was most eager that her friend should
+come in. And here Mr. May joined them, who was impressed,
+like everybody else, by Ph&#339;be's appearance, and made himself
+so agreeable that Reginald felt eclipsed and driven into the
+background. Ursula had never been so satisfied with her
+father in her life; though there was a cloud on Mr. May's soul,
+it suited him to show a high good-humour with everybody in
+recompense for his son's satisfactory decision, and he was, indeed,
+in a state of high complacence with himself for having
+managed matters so cleverly that the very thing which should
+have secured Reginald's final abandonment of the chaplaincy
+determined him, on the contrary, to accept it. And he admired
+Ph&#339;be, and was dazzled by her self-possession and knowledge
+of the world. He supported Ursula's invitation warmly; but
+the stranger freed herself with graceful excuses. She had her
+patient to attend to.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is a very lady-like young woman,&rdquo; said Mr. May,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+when they had gone in, after watching regretfully their new
+acquaintance's progress through Grange Lane. &ldquo;You met her
+in town, did you? A friend of the Dorsets? Where is she
+living, I wonder; and whom does she belong to? One does
+not often see that style of thing here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I never saw any one like her before,&rdquo; said Ursula fervently;
+and they were still all uniting in admiration of Ph&#339;be&mdash;when&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But such an interruption demands another page.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THAT TOZER GIRL!</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, who is she?&rdquo; cried Mrs. Sam Hurst, too curious to
+think of the ordinary decorums. She had no bonnet on, but a
+light &ldquo;cloud&rdquo; of white wool over her cap, and her whole aspect
+was full of eagerness and excitement. &ldquo;Why didn't you tell
+me you knew her? Who is she? I am dying to know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who is&mdash;who?&rdquo; said Ursula, rather glad of the opportunity
+of being politely rude to Mrs. Sam Hurst before papa.
+&ldquo;How is any one to find out from the way you speak? She?
+who is she?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is just what I want you to tell me,&rdquo; said Mrs. Sam
+Hurst, with imperturbable good-humour. &ldquo;You, Mr. May,
+you are always good to me, though Ursula has her little
+tempers&mdash;the girl you were talking to at the door. I stood
+and watched from the window, and I scarcely could contain
+myself sufficiently not to bounce out in the middle of the talk.
+Now do tell, as the Americans say. Who is that Tozer girl?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That Tozer girl!&rdquo; Ursula gave a little shriek, and grew
+first red and then pale with horror and dismay.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes; I told you about her; so well dressed and looking so
+nice. That was she; with the very same dress, such a charming
+dress! so much style about it. Who is she, Ursula? Mr.
+May, tell me who is she? You can't imagine how much I want
+to know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula dropped into a chair, looking like a little ghost, faint
+and rigid. She said afterwards to Janey that she felt in the
+depths of her heart that it must be true. She could have cried
+with pain and disappointment, but she would not give Mrs.
+Sam Hurst the pleasure of making her cry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There must be some mistake,&rdquo; said Reginald, interposing.
+&ldquo;This is a lady&mdash;my sister met her in town with the Dorsets.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, does she know the Dorsets too?&rdquo; said the inquirer.
+&ldquo;That makes it still more interesting. Yes, that is the girl
+that is with the Tozers; there can be no mistake about it. She
+is the granddaughter. She was at the Meeting last night. I
+had it from the best authority&mdash;on the platform with old Tozer.
+And, indeed, Mr. May, how any one that had been there could
+dare to look you in the face!&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was there myself,&rdquo; said Mr. May. &ldquo;It amused me very
+much. Tell me now about this young person. Is she an impostor,
+taking people in, or what is it all about? Ursula looks
+as if she was in the trick herself, and had been found out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am <i>sure</i> she is not an impostor,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;An impostor!
+If you had seen her as I saw her, at a great, beautiful,
+splendid ball. I never saw anything like it. I was nobody
+there&mdash;nobody&mdash;and neither were Cousin Anne and Cousin
+Sophy&mdash;but Miss Beecham! It is a mistake, I suppose,&rdquo; the
+girl said, raising herself up with great dignity; &ldquo;when people
+are always trying for news, they get the wrong news sometimes,
+I don't doubt. You may be sure it is a mistake.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's me,&rdquo; said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with a laugh; &ldquo;that is
+one of Ursula's assaults upon poor me. Yes, I confess it, I am
+fond of news; and I never said she was an impostor. Poor
+girl, I am dreadfully sorry for her. I think she is a good girl,
+trying to do her duty to her relations. She didn't choose her
+own grandfather. I dare say, if she'd had any say in it, she
+would have made a very different choice. But whether your
+papa may think her a proper friend for you&mdash;being Tozer's
+granddaughter, Miss Ursula, that's quite a different business,
+I am bound to say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Again Ursula felt herself kept from crying by sheer pride,
+and nothing else. She bit her lips tight; she would not give
+in. Mrs. Hurst to triumph over her, and to give her opinion
+as to what papa might think proper! Ursula turned her back
+upon Mrs. Hurst, which was not civil, fearing every moment
+some denunciation from papa. But nothing of the kind came.
+He asked quite quietly after a while, &ldquo;Where did you meet
+this young lady?&rdquo; without any perceptible inflection of anger
+in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, papa,&rdquo; cried Janey, distressed to be kept so long
+silent, &ldquo;everybody knows where Ursula met her; no one has
+heard of anything else since she came home. She met her of
+course at the ball. You know; Reginald, <i>you</i> know! The
+ball where she went with Cousin Anne.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind Cousin Anne; I want the name of the people
+at whose house it was.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Copperhead, papa,&rdquo; said Ursula, rousing herself. &ldquo;If
+Cousin Anne does not know a lady from a common person, who
+does, I wonder? It was Cousin Anne who introduced me to
+her (I think). Their name was Copperhead, and they lived in
+a great, big, beautiful house, in the street where ambassadors
+and quantities of great people live. I forget the name of it;
+but I know there was an ambassador lived there, and Cousin
+Anne said&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Copperhead! I thought so,&rdquo; said Mr. May. &ldquo;When
+Ursula has been set a-going on the subject of Cousin Anne,
+there is nothing rational to be got from her after that for an
+hour or two. You take an interest in this young lady,&rdquo; he said
+shortly, turning to Mrs. Sam Hurst, who stood by smiling,
+rather enjoying the commotion she had caused.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who, I? I take an interest in anybody that makes a stir,
+and gives us something to talk about,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst, frankly.
+&ldquo;You know my weakness. Ursula despises me for it, but you
+know human nature. If I did not take an interest in my
+neighbours what would become of me&mdash;a poor lone elderly
+woman, without either chick or child?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She rounded off this forlorn description of herself with a
+hearty laugh, in which Janey, who had a secret kindness for
+their merry neighbour, though she feared her &ldquo;for papa,&rdquo; joined
+furtively. Mr. May, however, did not enter into the joke with
+the sympathy which he usually showed to Mrs. Hurst. He
+smiled, but there was something <i>distrait</i> and pre-occupied in his
+air.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How sorry we all are for you,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;your position is
+truly melancholy. I am glad, for your sake, that old Tozer
+has a pretty granddaughter to beguile you now and then out
+of recollection of your cares.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a sharp tone in this which caught Mrs. Hurst's
+ear, and she was not disposed to accept any sharpness from Mr.
+May. She turned the tables upon him promptly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a disgraceful business that Meeting was! Of course,
+you have seen the paper. There ought to be some way of
+punishing those agitators that go about the country, taking
+away people's characters. Could not you bring him up for
+libel, or Reginald? I never knew anything so shocking. To
+come to your own town, your own neighbourhood, and to strike
+you through your son! It is the nastiest, most underhanded,
+unprincipled attack I ever heard of.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; asked Reginald.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was not easily roused by Carlingford gossip, but there
+was clearly more in this than met the eye.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;An Anti-State Church Meeting,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;with
+special compliments in it to you and me. It is not worth our
+while to think of it. Your agitators, my dear Mrs. Hurst, are
+not worth powder and shot. Now, pardon me, but I must go
+to work. Will you go and see the sick people in Back Grove
+Street, Reginald? I don't think I can go to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I should like to know what was in the paper,&rdquo; said the
+young man, with an obstinacy that filled the girls with alarm.
+They had been in hopes that everything between father and son
+was to be happy and friendly, now that Reginald was about to
+do what his father wished.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, you shall see it,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst, half alarmed too;
+&ldquo;but it is not anything, as your father says; only we women
+are sensitive. We are always thinking of things which, perhaps,
+were never intended to harm us. Ursula, you take my advice,
+and don't go and mix yourself up with Dissenters and that kind
+of people. The Tozer girl may be very nice, but she is still
+Tozer's granddaughter, after all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald followed the visitor out of the room, leaving his sisters
+very ill at ease within, and his father not without anxieties
+which were so powerful, indeed, that he relieved his mind by
+talking of them to his daughters&mdash;a most unusual proceeding.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That woman will set Reginald off at the nail again,&rdquo; he
+cried; &ldquo;after he had begun to see things in a common-sense
+light. There was an attack made upon him last night on account
+of that blessed chaplaincy, which has been more trouble
+to me than it is worth. I suppose he'll throw it up now. But
+I wash my hands of the matter. I wonder how you girls can
+encourage that chattering woman to come here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa!&rdquo; cried Janey, ever on the defensive, &ldquo;we <i>hate</i> her!
+It is you who encourage her to come here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, hush!&rdquo; cried Ursula, with a warning glance; it was
+balm to her soul to hear her father call Mrs. Hurst <i>that woman</i>.
+&ldquo;We have been to see the house,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it was very nice.
+I think Reginald liked it, papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;girls and boys are queer articles.
+I dare say the house, if he likes it, will weigh more with him
+than justice or common sense. So Copperhead was the people's
+name? What would be wanted, do you think, Ursula, to
+make Reginald's room into a comfortable room for a pupil?
+Comfortable, recollect; not merely what would do; and one
+that has been used, I suppose, to luxury. You can look over
+it and let me know.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are we going to take a pupil, papa?&rdquo; cried Janey, with
+widening eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know what you could teach him,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Manners,
+perhaps? Let me know, Ursula. The room is not a bad
+room; it would want a new carpet, curtains, perhaps&mdash;various
+things. Make me out a list. The Copperheads have a son, I
+believe. Did you see him at that fine ball of yours?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! papa, he danced with me twice; he was very kind,&rdquo;
+said Ursula, with a blush; &ldquo;and he danced all the night with
+Miss Beecham. It must be a falsehood about her being old
+Tozer's granddaughter. Mr. Clarence Copperhead was always
+by her side. I think Mrs. Hurst must have made it all up out
+of her own head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May gave a little short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Mrs. Hurst!&rdquo; he said, recovering his temper; &ldquo;how
+bitter you all are against her. So he danced with you twice?
+You must try to make him comfortable, Ursula, if he comes
+here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is Mr. Clarence Copperhead coming here?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula was struck dumb by this piece of news. The grand
+house in Portland Place, and all Sophy Dorset's questions and
+warnings, came suddenly back to her mind. She blushed fiery
+red; she could not tell why. Coming here! How strange it
+would be, how extraordinary, to have to order dinner for him,
+and get his room in order, and have him in the drawing-room
+in the evenings! How should she know what to say to him?
+or would papa keep him always at work, reading Greek or
+something downstairs? All this flashed through her mind
+with the rapidity of lightning. Mr. May made no reply. He
+was walking up and down the room with his hands behind him,
+as was his habit when he was &ldquo;busy.&rdquo; Being busy was separated
+from being angry by the merest visionary line in Mr.
+May's case; his children never ventured on addressing him at
+such moments, and it is impossible to describe how glad they
+were when he withdrew to his own room before Reginald's return;
+but not a minute too soon. The young man came back,
+looking black as night. He threw himself into a chair, and
+then he got up again, and began also to walk about the room
+like his father. At first he would make no reply to the questions
+of the girls.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is exactly what I expected,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;just what I
+looked for. I knew it from the first moment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Janey, naturally, who had least patience with this unsatisfactory
+utterance.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If it was just what you expected, and you looked for it all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+the time, why should you make such a fuss now?&rdquo; she cried.
+&ldquo;I declare, for all you are young, and we are fond of you, you
+are almost as bad as papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald did not take any notice of this address; he went
+on repeating the same words at intervals.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A child might have known it. Of course, from the beginning
+one knew how it must be.&rdquo; Then he suddenly faced
+round upon Ursula, who was nearly crying in excitement and
+surprise. &ldquo;But if they think I am to be driven out of a resolution
+I have made by what they say&mdash;if they think that I
+will be bullied into giving up because of their claptrap,&rdquo; he
+cried, looking sternly at her, &ldquo;then you will find you are mistaken.
+You will find I am not such a weak idiot as you
+suppose. Give up! because some demagogue from a Dissenting
+Committee takes upon him to criticise my conduct.
+If you think I have so little self-respect, so little stamina,&rdquo; he
+said, fiercely, &ldquo;you will find you have made a very great
+mistake.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Reginald, <i>me</i>?&rdquo; cried Ursula, with tears in her eyes;
+&ldquo;did I ever think anything unkind of you? did I ever ask you
+to do anything that was disagreeable? You should not look
+as if it was me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then he threw himself down again on the old sofa, which
+creaked and tottered under the shock.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor little Ursula!&rdquo; he cried, with a short laugh. &ldquo;Did
+you think I meant you? But if they thought they would
+master me by these means,&rdquo; said Reginald with pale fury,
+&ldquo;they never made a greater mistake, I can tell you. A parcel
+of trumpery agitators, speechifiers, little petty demagogues,
+whom nobody ever heard of before. A fine thing, indeed, to
+have all the shopkeepers of Carlingford sitting in committee on
+one's conduct, isn't it&mdash;telling one what one ought to do? By
+Jupiter! It's enough to make a man swear!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I declare!&rdquo; cried Janey loudly, &ldquo;how like Reginald is to
+papa! I never saw it before. When he looks wicked like that,
+and sets his teeth&mdash;but I am not going to be pushed, not by
+my brother or any one!&rdquo; said the girl, growing red, and making
+a step out of his reach. &ldquo;I won't stand it. I am not a child
+any more than you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Janey's wrath was appeased, however, when Reginald produced
+the paper and read Northcote's speech aloud. In her
+interest she drew nearer and nearer, and read the obnoxious
+column over his shoulder, joining in Ursula's cries of indignation.
+By the time the three had thus got through it, Reginald's
+own agitation subsided into that fierce amusement which is the
+frequent refuge of the assaulted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Old Green in the chair! and old Tozer and the rest have all
+been sitting upon me,&rdquo; he said, with that laugh which is proverbially
+described as from the wrong side of the mouth, whatever
+that may be. Ursula said nothing in reply, but in her heart
+she felt yet another stab. Tozer! This was another complication.
+She had taken so great a romantic interest in the
+heroine of that ball, which was the most entrancing moment of
+Ursula's life, that it seemed a kind of disloyalty to her dreams
+to give up thus completely, and dethrone the young lady in
+black; but what could the poor girl do? In the excitement
+of this question the personality of Reginald's special assailant
+was lost altogether: the girls did not even remember his name.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>A NEW FRIEND.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After this there followed an exciting interval for the family
+at the Parsonage. Reginald, with the impatience of anger, insisted
+upon transporting himself to the College at once, and
+entering upon &ldquo;his duties,&rdquo; such as they were, in defiance of
+all public comment. And Mr. May, delighted with the head-strong
+resentment which served his purpose so well, promoted
+it by all the means in his power, goading his son on, if he
+showed any signs of relaxing, by references to public opinion,
+and what the Liberation Society would say. Before those
+curtains were ready, which the girls had ordered with so much
+pride, or the carpet laid down, he had taken possession, and
+his room in the Parsonage was already turned upside down
+preparing for a new inmate. Many and strange were the
+thoughts in Ursula's mind about this new inmate. She remembered
+Clarence Copperhead as a full-grown man, beyond, it
+seemed to her, the age at which pupilage was possible. What
+was he coming to Carlingford for? What was he coming to
+the Parsonage for? What could papa do with a pupil quite as
+old as Reginald, who, in his own person, had often taken pupils?
+Ursula had read as many novels as were natural at her age, and
+can it be supposed that she did not ask herself whether there
+was any other meaning in it? Could he be coming to Carlingford
+on account of Miss Beecham; or, on account of&mdash;any
+one else? Ursula never whispered, even to her own imagination,
+on account of me. But it is not to be supposed that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+unbidden inarticulate thought did not steal in, fluttering her
+girlish soul. Everybody knows that in fiction, at least, such
+things occur continually, and are the most natural things in
+the world; and to Ursula, beyond her own little commonplace
+world, which she somewhat despised, and the strange world
+undeciphered and wonderful to which the Dorsets had introduced
+her for those ten brief days in London, the world of
+fiction was the only sphere she knew; and in that sphere there
+could be no such natural method of accounting for a young
+man's actions as that of supposing him to be &ldquo;in love.&rdquo; The
+question remained, was it with Miss Beecham, or was it with&mdash;anybody
+else? Such an inquiry could not but flutter her
+youthful bosom. She made his room ready for him, and settled
+how he was to be disposed of, with the strangest sense of
+something beneath, which her father would never suspect, but
+which, perhaps, she alone might know.</p>
+
+<p>Clarence Copperhead was a more imposing figure to Ursula
+than he was in reality. She had seen him only twice, and he
+was a big and full-grown &ldquo;gentleman,&rdquo; while Ursula only
+realised herself as a little girl. She was not even aware that
+she had any intelligence to speak of, or that she would be a fit
+person to judge of &ldquo;a gentleman.&rdquo; To be sure she had to do
+many things which wanted thought and sense; but she was too
+unthoughtful of herself to have decided this as yet, or to have
+created any private tribunal at which to judge a new-comer of
+Clarence Copperhead's dimensions. A much greater personage
+than she was, an individual whose comings and goings could
+not be without observation, whose notice would be something
+exciting and strange, was what she took him to be. And
+Ursula was excited. Did Mrs. Copperhead, that kind little
+woman, know why he was coming&mdash;was she in his confidence?
+And how was Ursula to entertain him, to talk to him&mdash;a gentleman
+accustomed to so much better society? She did not
+say anything to Janey on this subject, though Janey was not
+without her curiosities too, and openly indulged in conjectures
+as to the new pupil.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wonder if he will be fine. I wonder if he will be very
+good,&rdquo; said Janey. &ldquo;I wonder if he will fall in love with
+Ursula. Pupils, in books, always do; and then there is a
+dreadful fuss and bother, and the girl is sent away. It is hard
+for the girl; it is always supposed to be her fault. I would
+not allow papa to take any pupils if it was me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And much your papa would care for your permission,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Sam Hurst. &ldquo;But so far I agree with you, Janey, that
+before he has pupils, or anything of that sort, there ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+be a lady in the house. He should marry&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Marry! we don't want a lady in the house,&rdquo; cried Janey,
+&ldquo;we are ladies ourselves, I hope. Marry! if he does, I, for
+one, will do all I can to make his life miserable,&rdquo; said the girl
+with energy. &ldquo;What should he want to marry for when he
+has daughters grown up? There are enough of us already, I
+should think.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Too many,&rdquo; said Mrs. Sam Hurst with a sigh. It gave her
+the greatest secret delight to play upon the girl's fears.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, however, Ursula had another pre-occupation.
+In that cordial meeting with the young lady who had turned
+out to be a person in such an embarrassing position, there had
+been a great deal said about future meetings, walks, and expeditions
+together, and Ursula had been very desirous that Ph&#339;be
+should fix some time for their first encounter. She thought of
+this now with blushes that seemed to burn her cheeks. She
+was afraid to go out, lest she should meet the girl she had been
+so anxious to make a friend of. Not that, on her own account,
+after the first shock, Ursula would have been hard-hearted
+enough to deny her acquaintance to Tozer's granddaughter.
+In the seclusion of her chamber, she had cried over the downfall
+of her ideal friend very bitterly, and felt the humiliation
+for Ph&#339;be more cruelly than that young lady felt it for herself;
+but Ursula, however much it might have cost her, would have
+stood fast to her friendship had she been free to do as she
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did not like her for her grandfather,&rdquo; she said to Janey,
+of whom, in this case, she was less unwilling to make a confidant.
+&ldquo;I never thought of the grandfather. What does it
+matter to me if he were a sweep instead of old Tozer?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Old Tozer is just as bad as if he were a sweep,&rdquo; said Janey;
+&ldquo;if you had ever thought of her grandfather, and known he
+was old Tozer, you would have felt it would not do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is there about a grandfather? I don't know if we
+ever had any,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;Mamma had, for the Dorsets are
+her relations&mdash;but papa. Mr. Griffiths's grandfather was a
+candle-maker; I have heard papa say so&mdash;and they go everywhere.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But he is dead,&rdquo; said Janey, with great shrewdness, &ldquo;and
+he was rich.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You little nasty calculating thing! Oh, how I hate rich
+people; how I hate this horrid world, that loves money and
+loves fine names, and does not care for people's selves whether
+they are bad or good! I shall never dare to walk up Grange
+Lane again,&rdquo; said Ursula, with tears. &ldquo;Fancy changing to her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+after being so glad to see her! fancy never saying another
+word about the skating, or the walk to the old mill! How she
+will despise me for being such a miserable creature! and she
+will think it is all my own fault.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Mr. May, from the door of his study, called
+&ldquo;Ursula!&rdquo; repeating the call with some impatience when she
+paused to dry her eyes. She ran down to him quickly, throwing
+down her work in her haste. He was standing at the door,
+and somehow for the first time the worn look about his eyes
+struck Ursula with a touch of pity. She had never noticed
+it before: a look of suppressed pain and anxiety, which remained
+about his eyes though the mouth smiled. It had never
+occurred to her to be sorry for her father before, and the idea
+struck her as very strange now.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I want to speak to you. I have been
+thinking about the young woman&mdash;this friend of yours. We
+are all among the Dissenters now-a-days, whatever Mrs. Sam
+Hurst may say. You seem to have taken a fancy to this Tozer
+girl?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't call her so, papa, please. She is a lady in herself, as
+good a lady as any one.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well! I don't say anything against her, do I? So you
+hold by your fancy? You are not afraid of Grange Lane and
+Mrs. Sam Hurst.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have not seen her again,&rdquo; said Ursula, cast down. &ldquo;I
+have not been out at all. I could not bear to be so friendly
+one day, and then to pass as if one did not know her the next.
+I cannot do it,&rdquo; cried the girl, in tears; &ldquo;if I see her, I must
+just be the same as usual to her, whatever you say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very well, <i>be</i> the same as usual,&rdquo; said Mr. May; &ldquo;that is
+why I called you. I have my reasons. Notwithstanding
+Tozer, be civil to the girl. I have my reasons for what I say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you mean it, papa!&rdquo; said Ursula, delighted. &ldquo;Oh,
+how good of you! You don't mind&mdash;you really don't mind?
+Oh! I can't tell you how thankful I am; for to pretend to want
+to be friends, and then to break off all in a moment because of
+a girl's grandfather&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't make a principle of it, Ursula. It is quite necessary,
+in an ordinary way, to think of a girl's grandfather&mdash;and a boy's
+too, for that matter. No shopkeeping friends for me; but in
+this individual case I am willing to make an exception. For
+the moment, you see, Dissenters are in the ascendant. Young
+Copperhead is coming next week. Now, go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula marched delighted upstairs. &ldquo;Janey, run and get
+your hat,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I am going out. I am not afraid of any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+one now. Papa is a great deal nicer than he ever was before.
+He says I may see Miss Beecham as much as I like. He says
+we need not mind Mrs. Sam Hurst. I am so glad! I shall
+never be afraid of that woman any more.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Janey was taken altogether by surprise. &ldquo;I hope he is not
+going to fall in love with Miss Beecham,&rdquo; she said suspiciously.
+&ldquo;I have heard Betsy say that old gentlemen often do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is not so foolish as to fall in love with anybody,&rdquo; said
+Ursula, with dignity. &ldquo;Indeed, Janey, you ought to have
+much more respect for papa. I wish you could be sent to school
+and learn more sense. You give your opinion as if you were&mdash;twenty&mdash;more
+than that. I am sure I never should have
+ventured to say such things when I was a child like you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Child yourself!&rdquo; said Janey indignant; which was her last
+resource when she had nothing more to say; but Ursula was
+too busy putting aside her work and preparing for her walk to
+pay any attention. In proportion as she had been subdued
+and downcast heretofore, she was gay now. She forgot all
+about old Tozer; about the Dissenters' meeting, and the man
+who had made an attack upon poor Reginald. She flew to her
+room for her hat and jacket, and ran downstairs, singing to
+herself. Janey only overtook her, out of breath, as she emerged
+into the road from the Parsonage door.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a dreadful hurry you are in,&rdquo; said Janey. &ldquo;I always
+get ready so much quicker than you do. Is it all about this
+girl, because she is new? I never knew you were so fond of
+new people before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But that day they went up and down Grange Lane fruitlessly,
+without seeing anything of Ph&#339;be, and Ursula returned home
+disconsolate. In the evening Reginald intimated carelessly
+that he had met Miss Beecham. &ldquo;She is much better worth
+talking to than most of the girls one meets with, whoever her
+grandfather may be,&rdquo; he said, evidently with an instant readiness
+to stand on the defensive.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, did you talk to her,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;without knowing?
+Reginald, papa has no objections. He says we may even
+have her here, if we please.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, of course I suppose he must guide you in that
+respect,&rdquo; said Reginald, &ldquo;but it does not matter particularly
+to me. Of course I talked to her. Even my father could not
+expect that his permission was needed for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At which piece of self-assertion the girls looked at him with
+admiring eyes. Already they felt there was a difference.
+Reginald at home, nominal curate, without pay or position,
+was a different thing from Reginald with an appointment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+a house of his own, and two hundred and fifty pounds a
+year. The girls looked at him admiringly, but felt that this
+was never likely to be their fate. In everything the boys had so
+much the best of it; and yet it was almost a comfort to think
+that they had seen Reginald himself trembling before papa.
+Reginald had a great deal to tell them about the college,
+about the old men who made a hundred daily claims on his
+attention, and the charities which he had to administer, doles
+of this and that, and several charity schools of a humble class.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As for my time, it is not likely to hang on my hands as I
+thought. I can't be a parish Quixote, as we planned, Ursula,
+knocking down windmills for other people,&rdquo; he said, adjusting
+his round edge of collar. He was changed; he was important,
+a personage in his own sight, no longer to be spoken of as Mr.
+May's son. Janey ventured on a little laugh when he went
+away, but Ursula did not like the change.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; cried Janey; &ldquo;I hope Copperhead will be
+nice. We shall have him to talk to, when he comes.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; cried Ursula, in a kind of despair, &ldquo;who taught you
+to call gentlemen like that by their name? There is nothing
+so vulgar. Why, Cousin Anne says&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Cousin Anne!&rdquo; cried Janey, shaking her head, and
+dancing away. After that she was aware there was nothing
+for it but flight.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, however, they were more successful. Ph&#339;be,
+though very little older than Ursula, was kind to the country
+girls, and talked to them both, and drew them out. She smiled
+when she heard of Clarence Copperhead, and told them that
+he was not very clever, but she did not think there was any
+harm in him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is his father who is disagreeable,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;didn't
+you think so? You know, papa is a minister, Miss May,&rdquo;
+(she did not say clergyman when she spoke to a churchwoman,
+for what was the use of exciting any one's prejudices?) &ldquo;and
+Mr. Copperhead comes to our church. You may be very
+thankful, in that respect, that you are not a dissenter. But it
+will be very strange to see Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford.
+I have known him since I was no bigger than your little
+sister. To tell the truth,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, frankly, &ldquo;I think I am
+rather sorry he is coming here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; cried bold Janey, who was always inquisitive.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ph&#339;be only smiled and shook her head; she made no
+distinct reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor fellow, I suppose he has been 'plucked,' as the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+gentlemen call it, or 'ploughed,' does your brother say?
+University slang is very droll. He has not taken his degree, I
+suppose, and they want him to work before going up again. I
+am sorry for your father, too, for I don't think it will be very
+easy to get anything into Clarence Copperhead's mind. But
+there is no harm at all in him, and he used to be very nice to
+his mother. Mamma and I liked him for that; he was always
+very nice to his mother.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will you come in and have some tea?&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;Do,
+please. I hope, now that I have met you again, you will not
+refuse me. I was afraid you had gone away, or something&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula, however, could not help looking guilty as she spoke,
+and Ph&#339;be perceived at once that there had been some reason
+for the two or three days disappearance of the girls from
+Grange Lane.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must tell me first,&rdquo; she said, with a smile, &ldquo;whether
+you know who I am. If you ask me after that, I shall come.
+I am old Mr. Tozer's granddaughter, who had a shop in the High
+Street. My uncle has a shop there now. I do not like it myself,&rdquo;
+said Ph&#339;be, with the masterly candour that distinguished
+her, &ldquo;and no one else can be expected to like it. If you did
+not know&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, we heard directly,&rdquo; cried Janey; &ldquo;Mrs. Sam Hurst
+told us. She came shrieking, 'Who is she?' before your back
+was turned that day; for she wondered to see you with old
+Tozer&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Janey!&rdquo; cried Ursula, with horror. &ldquo;Of course we know;
+and please will you come? Every new person in Carlingford
+gets talked over, and if an angel were to walk about, Mrs. Sam
+Hurst would never rest till she had found out where he came
+from.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And, perhaps, whether he had a broken feather in his
+wing,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I am very glad you don't mind. It
+will be very pleasant to come. I will run in and tell them, and
+then I will join you. Grandmamma is an invalid, and would
+like to know where I am.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And the news made a considerable flutter in the dim room
+where Mrs. Tozer sat between the fire and the window, looking
+out upon the crocuses and regretting the High Street.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But run and put on another dress, dear. What will they
+think of you in that everlasting brown frock as you're so fond
+of? I'd like them to see as my grandchild could dress as nice
+as any lady in the land.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She'll not see much finery there,&rdquo; said Tozer; &ldquo;they're
+as poor as church mice, are them Mays, and never a penny to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+pay a bill when it's wanted. I don't think as Ph&#339;be need
+mind her dressing to go there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And you'll send for me if you want me, grandmamma;
+you will be sure to send?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But for the brown frock, Mrs. Tozer's satisfaction would
+have been unalloyed as she watched her granddaughter walking
+across the garden.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She's at home among the quality, she is,&rdquo; said the old
+woman; &ldquo;maybe more so than she is with you and me; but
+there ain't a better girl in all England, and that I'll say for her,
+though if she would think a little more about her clothes, as is
+nat'ral at her age, it would be more pleasing to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The worst dress as Ph&#339;be has is better than anything
+belonging to them Mays,&rdquo; said Tozer.</p>
+
+<p>He did not care for the parson at St. Roque; though he was
+pleased that his child should be among &ldquo;the quality.&rdquo; But it
+was on that evening that poor old Mrs. Tozer had one of her
+attacks, and Ph&#339;be had to be summoned back at an early hour.
+The servant went down with an umbrella and a note, to bring
+her home; and that trifling incident had its influence upon
+after affairs, as the reader shall shortly see.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was something of a comfort to Ph&#339;be to find that the
+&ldquo;tea&rdquo; to which Ursula asked her was a family meal, such as
+Mr. and Mrs. Tozer indulged in, in Grange Lane, with no idea
+of dinner to follow, as in more refined circles. This, she said
+to herself benignly, must be &ldquo;country fashion,&rdquo; and she was
+naturally as bland and gracious at the Parsonage tea-table as
+anybody from town, knowing better, but desiring to make herself
+thoroughly agreeable, could be. She amused Mr. May
+very much, who felt the serene young princess, accepting her
+vulgar relations with gentle resignation, and supported by a
+feeling of her own innate dignity, to be something quite new
+to him. Ph&#339;be had no objection to talk upon the subject, for,
+clever as she was, she was not so clever as to see through Mr.
+May's amused show of interest in her trials, but believed ingenuously
+that he understood and felt for her, and was, perhaps,
+at last, the one noble, impartial, and generous Churchman who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+could see the difficulties of cultivated Dissenters, and enter into
+them sympathetically. Why Mr. May took the trouble to
+draw her out on this point it is more difficult to explain. Poor
+man, he was in a state of semi-distraction over Cotsdean's bill.
+The ten days had shortened into three, and he was no nearer
+finding that hundred pounds than ever. Even while he smiled
+and talked to Ph&#339;be, he was repeating over and over to himself
+the terrible fact which could not now be ignored. &ldquo;17th,
+18th, 19th, and Friday will be the 20th,&rdquo; he was saying to himself.
+If that 20th came without any help, Cotsdean would be
+virtually made a bankrupt; for of course all his creditors
+would make a rush upon him, and all his affairs would be
+thrown open to the remorseless public gaze, if the bill, which
+had been so often renewed, had to be dishonoured at last. Mr.
+May had a conscience, though he was not careful of his money,
+and the fear of ruin to Cotsdean was a very terrible and real
+oppression to him. The recollection was upon him like a vulture
+in classic story, tearing and gnawing, as he sat there and
+smiled over the cup of tea Ursula gave him, feeling amused all
+the same at Ph&#339;be's talk. He could scarcely have told why he
+had permitted his daughter to pursue her acquaintance with
+Tozer's granddaughter. Partly it was because of Clarence
+Copperhead; out of curiosity, as, being about to be brought in
+contact with some South Sea Islander or Fijian, one would
+naturally wish to see another who was thrown in one's way by
+accident, and thus prepare one's self for the permanent acquaintance.
+And she amused him. Her cleverness, her ease, her
+conversational powers, her woman of the world aspect, did not
+so much impress him, perhaps, as they did others; but the
+complacency and innocent confidence of youth that were in her,
+and her own enjoyment of the situation, notwithstanding the
+mortifications incurred&mdash;all this amused Mr. May. He listened
+to her talk, sometimes feeling himself almost unable to
+bear it, for the misery of those words, which kept themselves
+ringing in a dismal chorus in his own mind, and yet deriving a
+kind of amusement and distraction from it all the same.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;One of your friends was very hard upon my son&mdash;and myself&mdash;at
+your Meeting the other night, Miss Beecham.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He was very injudicious,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, shaking her head.
+&ldquo;Indeed I did not approve. Personalities never advance any
+cause. I said so to him. Don't you think the Church has
+herself to blame for those political Dissenters, Mr. May? You
+sneer at us, and look down upon us&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I? I don't sneer at anybody.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't mean you individually; but Churchmen do. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+treat us as if we were some strange kind of creatures, from the
+heart of Africa perhaps. They don't think we are just like
+themselves: as well educated; meaning as well; with as much
+right to our own ideas.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May could scarcely restrain a laugh. &ldquo;Just like themselves.&rdquo;
+The idea of a Dissenter setting up to be as well
+educated, and as capable of forming an opinion, as a cultivated
+Anglican, an Oxford man, and a beneficed clergyman, was too
+novel and too foolish not to be somewhat startling as well.
+Mr. May was aware that human nature is strangely blind to its
+own deficiencies, but was it possible that any delusion could go
+so far as this? He did laugh a little&mdash;just the ghost of a
+laugh&mdash;at the idea. But what is the use of making any serious
+opposition to such a statement? The very fact of contesting
+the assumption seemed to give it a certain weight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Whenever this is done,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with serene philosophy,
+&ldquo;I think you may expect a revulsion of feeling. The
+class to which papa belongs is very friendly to the Established
+Church, and wishes to do her every honour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it indeed? We ought to be much gratified,&rdquo; said Mr.
+May.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gave him a quick glance, but he composed his face
+and met her look meekly. It actually diverted him from his
+pre-occupation, and that is a great deal to say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We would willingly do her any honour; we would willingly
+be friends, even look up to her, if that would please her,&rdquo; added
+Ph&#339;be, very gravely, conscious of the importance of what she
+was saying; &ldquo;but when we see clergymen, and common persons
+also, who have never had one rational thought on the subject,
+always setting us down as ignorant and uncultured,
+because we are Dissenters&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But no one does that,&rdquo; said Ursula, soothingly, eager to
+save her new friend's feelings. She paused in the act of pouring
+out the children's second cup of tea, and looked up at her
+with eyes full of caressing and flattering meaning. &ldquo;No one,
+at least, I am sure,&rdquo; she added, faltering, remembering suddenly
+things she had heard said of Dissenters, &ldquo;who knows
+<i>you</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not I that ought to be thought of, it is the general
+question. Then can you wonder that a young man like the
+gentleman we were talking of, clever and energetic, and an excellent
+scholar (and very good in philosophy, too&mdash;he was at
+Jena for two or three years), should be made bitter when he
+feels himself thrust back upon a community of small shopkeepers?&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. May could not restrain another short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We must not join in the vulgar abuse of shopkeepers,&rdquo; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's colour rose. She raised her head a little, then perceiving
+the superiority of her former position, smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have no right to do so. My people, I suppose, were all
+shopkeepers to begin with; but this gives me ways of knowing.
+Grandpapa is very kind and nice&mdash;really nice, Mr. May; but
+he has not at all a wide way of looking at things. I feel it,
+though they are so kind to me. I have been brought up to
+think in such a different way; and if I feel it, who am fond of
+them, think how that young minister must feel it, who was
+brought up in a totally different class?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What kind of class was this one brought up in?&rdquo; said Mr.
+May, with a laugh. &ldquo;He need not have assaulted Reginald, if
+he had been born a prince. We had done him no harm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is making it entirely a private question,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be,
+suavely, &ldquo;which I did not mean to do. When such a man
+finds out abuses&mdash;what he takes to be abuses&mdash;in the Church,
+which treats him like a roadside ranter, may not he feel a right
+to be indignant? Oh, I am not so. I think such an office as
+that chaplaincy is very good, one here and there for the reward
+of merit; and I think he was very right to take it; but still it
+would not do, would it, to have many of them? It would not
+answer any good purpose,&rdquo; she said, administering a little sting
+scientifically, &ldquo;if all clergymen held sinecures.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These words were overheard by Reginald, who just then came
+in, and to whom it was startling to find Ph&#339;be serenely seated
+at tea with his family. The hated word sinecure did not seem
+to affect him from her lips as it would have done from any one
+else's. He came in quite good-humouredly, and said with a
+smile&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are discussing me. What about me? Miss Beecham,
+I hope you take my side.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I take everybody's side,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;for I try to trace
+people's motives. I can sympathise both with you and those
+who assailed you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, that Dissenting fellow. I beg your pardon, Miss
+Beecham, if you are a Dissenter; but I cannot help it. We
+never go out of our way to attack them and their chapels and
+coteries, and why should they spring at our throats on every
+occasion? I think it is hard, and I can't say I have any charity
+to spare for this individual. What had we done to him?
+Ursula, give me some tea.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Beecham, I leave the cause of the Church in younger
+and, I hope, abler hands,&rdquo; said Mr. May, getting up.</p>
+
+<p>Partly it was that Reginald's onslaught made him see for the
+first time certain weak points in the situation; partly it was
+that his private care became too clamorous, and he could not
+keep on further. He went away quite abruptly, and went
+downstairs to his study, and shut himself in there; and the
+moment he had closed the door, all this amusement floated
+away, and the vulture gripped at him, beak and talons digging
+into his very soul. Good God! what was he to do? He
+covered his face with his hands, and turned round and round
+mentally in that darkness to see if anywhere there might be a
+gleam of light; but none was visible east or west. A hundred
+pounds, only a hundred pounds; a bagatelle, a thing that to
+many men was as small an affair as a stray sixpence; and here
+was this man, as good, so to speak, as any&mdash;well educated, full
+of gifts and accomplishments, well born, well connected, not a
+prodigal nor open sinner, losing himself in the very blackness
+of darkness, feeling that a kind of moral extinction was the
+only prospect before him, for want of this little sum. It
+seemed incredible even to himself, as he sat and brooded over
+it. Somehow, surely, there must be a way of deliverance. He
+looked piteously about him in his solitude, appealing to the
+very blank walls to save him. What could they do? His few
+books, his faded old furniture, would scarcely realize a hundred
+pounds if they were sold to-morrow. All his friends had been
+wearied out, all natural resources had failed. James might
+any day have sent the money, but he had not done so&mdash;just
+this special time, when it was so hard to get it, James, too, had
+failed; and the hours of this night were stealing away like
+thieves, so swift and so noiseless, to be followed by the others;
+and Cotsdean, poor soul, his faithful retainer, would be broken
+and ruined. To do Mr. May justice, if it had been only himself
+who could be ruined, he would have felt it less; but it went
+to his very heart to think of poor Cotsdean, who had trusted in
+him so entirely, and to whom, indeed, he had been very kind in
+his day. Strife and discord had been in the poor man's house,
+and perpetual wretchedness, and Mr. May had managed, he
+himself could scarcely tell how, to set it right. He had frightened
+and subdued the passionate wife, and quenched the growing
+tendencies to evil, which made her temper worse than it
+was by nature, and had won her back to soberness and some
+kind of peace, changing the unhappy house into one of comparative
+comfort and cheerfulness. Most people like those best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+to whom they have been kind, whom they have served or benefited,
+and in this way Mr. May was fond of Cotsdean, who in
+his turn had been a very good friend to his clergyman, serving
+him as none of his own class could have done, going in the face
+of all his own prejudices and the timorousness of nature, on
+his account. And the result was to be ruin&mdash;ruin unmitigated
+to the small man who was in business, and equally disastrous,
+though in a less creditable way, to his employer. It was with
+a suppressed anguish which is indescribable that he sat there,
+with his face covered, looking this approaching misery in the
+face. How long he had been there, he could scarcely himself
+tell, when he heard a little commotion in the hall, the sounds
+of running up and down stairs, and opening of doors. He was
+in a feverish and restless condition, and every stir roused him.
+Partly because of that impatience in his mind, and partly because
+every new thing seemed to have some possibility of hope in it,
+he got up and went to the door. Before he returned to his
+seat, something might have occurred to him, something might
+have happened&mdash;who could tell? It might be the postman
+with a letter containing that remittance from James, which still
+would set all right. It might be&mdash;he rose suddenly, and opening
+the door, held it ajar and looked out; the front door was
+open, and the night air blowing chilly into the house, and on
+the stairs, coming down, he heard the voices of Ursula and
+Ph&#339;be. Ursula was pinning a shawl round her new friend,
+and consoling her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you will find it is nothing. I am so sorry,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I am not very much afraid,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;She is ill,
+but not very bad, I hope; and it is not dangerous. Thank you
+so much for letting me come.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will come again?&rdquo; said Ursula, kissing her; &ldquo;promise
+that you will come again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May listened with a certain surface of amusement in his
+mind. How easy and facile these girlish loves and fancies
+were! Ursula knew nothing of this stranger, and yet so free
+were the girl's thoughts, so open her heart to receive impressions,
+that on so short knowledge she had received the other into it
+with undoubting confidence and trust. He did not come forward
+himself to say good-bye, but he perceived that Reginald
+followed downstairs, and took his hat from the table, to accompany
+Ph&#339;be home. As they closed the outer door behind
+them, the last gust thus forcibly shut in made a rush through
+the narrow hall, and carried a scrap of paper to Mr. May's
+feet. He picked it up almost mechanically, and carried it with
+him to the light, and looked at it without thought. There was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+not much in it to interest any one. It was the little note
+which Tozer had sent to his granddaughter by the maid, not
+prettily folded, to begin with, and soiled and crumpled by the
+bearer.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&ldquo;Your grandmother is took bad with one of her attacks.
+Come back directly. She wants you badly.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right;">&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Saml. Tozer.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This was all that was in it. Mr. May opened it out on his
+table with a half-smile of that same superficial amusement
+which the entire incident had caused him&mdash;the contact, even
+momentary, of his own household with that of Tozer, the old
+Dissenting butterman, was so droll an event. Then he sank
+down on his chair again with a sigh, the amusement dying out
+all at once, purely superficial as it was. Amusement! how
+strange that even the idea of amusement should enter his head
+in the midst of his despair. His mind renewed that horrible
+mechanical wandering through the dismal circle of might-be's
+which still survived amid the chaos of his thoughts. Once or
+twice there seemed to gleam upon him a stray glimmer of light
+through a loophole, but only to throw him back again into the
+darkness. Now and then he roused himself with a look of real
+terror in his face, when there came a noise outside. What he
+was afraid of was poor Cotsdean coming in with his hand to his
+forehead, and his apologetic &ldquo;Beg your pardon, sir.&rdquo; If he
+came, what could he say to him? Two days&mdash;only two days
+more! If Mr. May had been less sensible and less courageous,
+he would most likely have ended the matter by a pistol or a dose
+of laudanum; but fortunately he was too rational to deliver
+himself by this desperate expedient, which, of course, would
+only have made the burden more terrible upon the survivors.
+If Cotsdean was to be ruined, and there was no remedy, Mr. May
+was man enough to feel that it was his business to stand by
+him, not to escape in any dastardly way; but in the mean time
+to face Cotsdean, and tell him that he had done and could
+do nothing, seemed more than the man who had caused his ruin
+could bear. He moved about uneasily in his chair in the anguish
+of his mind. As he did so, he pushed off some of his
+papers from the table with his elbow. It was some sort of
+break in his feverish musings to pick them up again in a
+bundle, without noticing what they were. He threw them
+down in a little heap before him. On the top, as it chanced,
+came the little dirty scrap of paper, which ought to have been
+tossed into the fire or the waste-paper basket. Saml. Tozer!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+What was Saml. Tozer to him that his name should stare him
+in the face in this obtrusive way? Tozer, the old butterman!
+a mean and ignorant person, as far beneath Mr. May's level as
+it is possible to imagine, whose handwriting it was very strange
+to see on anything but a bill. He fixed his eyes upon it mechanically;
+he had come, as it were, to the end of all things in
+those feverish musings; he had searched through his whole
+known world for help, and found there nothing and nobody to
+help him. Those whom he had once relied on were exhausted
+long ago; his friends had all dropped off from him, as far, at
+least, as money was concerned. Some of them might put out
+a hand to keep him and his children from starvation even now,
+but to pay Cotsdean's bill, never. There was no help anywhere,
+nor any hope. Natural ways and means were all exhausted,
+and though he was a clergyman, he had no such faith in the
+supernatural as to hope much for the succour of Heaven.
+Heaven! what could Heaven do for him? Bank-notes did not
+drop down out of the skies. There had been a time when he
+had felt full faith in &ldquo;Providence;&rdquo; but he seemed to have
+nothing to expect now from that quarter more than from any
+other. Samuel Tozer! why did that name always come uppermost,
+staring into his very eyes? It was a curious signature,
+the handwriting very rude and unrefined, with odd, illiterate
+dashes, and yet with a kind of rough character in it, easy to
+identify, not difficult to copy&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>What was it that brought beads of moisture all at once to
+Mr. May's forehead? He started up suddenly, pushing his
+chair with a hoarse exclamation, and walked up and down the
+room quickly, as if trying to escape from something. His heart
+jumped up in his breast, like a thing possessed of separate life,
+and thumped against his side, and beat with loud pulsations
+in his ears. When he caught sight of himself in the mirror
+over the mantelpiece, he started as if he had seen a ghost.
+Some one else seemed to see him; seemed to pounce upon
+and seize him out of that glass. He retreated from the reach
+of it, almost staggering; then he returned to his table. What
+thought was it that had struck him so wildly, like a sudden
+squall upon a boat? He sat down, and covered his face with
+his hands; then putting out one finger, stealthily drew the
+paper towards him, and studied it closely from under the shadow
+of the unmoved hand, which half-supported, half-covered his
+face. Well! after all, what would be the harm? A gain of
+three months' time, during which every sort of arrangement
+could be made so nicely; supplies got anywhere, everywhere;
+the whole machinery of being set easily in motion again, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+no harm done to any one: this was the real force of the idea&mdash;no
+harm done to any one! Long before the three months were
+out, that hundred pounds&mdash;a paltry business, a nothing, when
+a man had time before him&mdash;could be got, one might make
+sure; and where was the harm? <i>He</i> would never know it.
+Poor Cotsdean need never have the slightest burden upon his
+conscience. Here, in the stillness of his own room, it could
+all be done as easily as possible, without a soul being taken
+into confidence, except that bloodless wretch in the glass with
+his staring face, Mr. May said to himself, only dimly sensible
+that this wretch was himself. No, it would harm no one, that
+was clear; it never need be known to any one. It was a mere
+act of borrowing, and borrowing was never accounted a crime;
+borrowing not money even, only a name, and for so short a time.
+No harm; it could do no one in the world any harm.</p>
+
+<p>While these reasonings went on in his mind, his heart dropped
+down again into its right place; his pulse ceased to beat like
+the pistons of a steam-engine; he came gradually to himself.
+After all, what was it? Not such a great matter; a loan of
+something which would neither enrich him who took, nor impoverish
+him who, without being aware of it, should give&mdash;a
+nothing! Why people should entertain the prejudices they did
+on the subject, it was difficult to see, though, perhaps, he
+allowed candidly to himself, it might be dangerous for any
+ignorant man to follow the same strain of thinking; but in the
+hands of a man who was not ignorant, who knew, as he himself
+did, exactly how far to go, and what might be <i>innocently</i>
+done; <i>innocently</i> done&mdash;in his own mind he put a great stress
+on this&mdash;why, what was it? A thing which might be of use in
+an emergency, and which was absolutely no harm.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May was late in leaving his room that night. It was
+understood in the family that he &ldquo;was writing,&rdquo; and all was
+kept very quiet in the house; yet not sufficiently quiet, for
+Janey, when she brought in the coffee, placing it on the table
+close to the door, was startled by the fierceness of the exclamation
+with which her father greeted her entrance.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you want prying here?&rdquo; he said, dropping his
+hand over the writing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Prying himself!&rdquo; said Janey, furiously, when she was up
+again in the cheerful light of the drawing-room; &ldquo;a great deal
+there is to pry into in that dreadful old study.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush! he never likes to be disturbed in his writing,&rdquo; said
+Ursula, soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>And he sat at his &ldquo;writing&rdquo; to a much later hour than
+usual, and he stumbled upstairs to his bed-room in the dead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+the night, with the same scared pale face which he had seen in
+the glass. Such a look as that when it once comes upon a
+man's face takes a long time to glide away; but his heart beat
+more tranquilly, and the blood flowed even in his veins. After
+all, where was the harm?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>TIDED OVER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Next morning, Cotsdean was mournfully turning over his
+ledger in the High Street, wondering whether he should go
+back to Mr. May on another forlorn expedition, or whether he
+should betray his overwhelming anxiety to his wife, who knew
+nothing about the state of affairs. The shop was what is called
+a corn-factor's shop, full of sacks of grain, with knots of wheat-ears
+done up ornamentally in the window, a stock not very
+valuable, but sufficient, and showing a good, if not a very important,
+business. A young man behind, attended to what
+little business was going on; for the master himself was too
+much pre-occupied to think of bushels of seed. He was as uneasy
+as Mr. May had been on the previous night, and in some
+respects even more unhappy; for he had no resource except a
+sort of dumb faith in his principle, a feeling that he must be
+able to find out some way of escape&mdash;chequered by clouds of
+despondency, sometimes approaching despair. For Cotsdean,
+too, felt vaguely that things were approaching a crisis&mdash;that a
+great many resources had been exhausted&mdash;that the pitcher
+which had gone so often to the well must, at last, be broken,
+and that it was as likely the catastrophe was coming now as at
+any other time. He said to himself that never in his previous
+experience had things seemed so blank as at present; never
+had the moment of fate approached so nearly without any appearance
+of deliverance. He had not even the round of possibilities
+before him which were in Mr. May's mind, however
+hopeless, at this particular moment, he might find them.</p>
+
+<p>Cotsdean, for his part, had nothing to think of but Mr. May.
+Would he find some way out of it still, he who was always so
+clever, and must, in his position, have always &ldquo;good friends?&rdquo;
+How the poor man wished that he had never been led into this
+fatal course&mdash;that he had insisted, long ago, on the settlement
+which must come some time, and which did not get any easier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+by putting it off; but then, who was he to stand against
+his clergyman? He did not feel able now to make any
+stand against him. If he had to be ruined&mdash;he must be
+ruined: what could he do? The man who had brought
+him to this, held him in such subjection that he could not
+denounce or accuse him even now. He was so much better,
+higher, abler, stronger than himself, that Cotsdean's harshest
+sentiment was a dumb feeling of injury; a feeling much
+more likely to lead him to miserable tears than to resistance.
+His clergyman&mdash;how was he to stand against his
+clergyman? This was the burden of his thoughts. And still,
+perhaps, there might be salvation and safety in the resources,
+the power, and cleverness, and superior strength of the man
+for whom, in his humility, he had risked everything. Poor Cotsdean's
+eyes were red with sleeplessness and thinking, and the
+constant rubbings he administered with the sleeve of his rough
+coat. He hung helpless, in suspense, waiting to see what his
+chief would say to him; if he would send for him&mdash;if he would
+come. And in the intervals of these anxious thoughts, he
+asked himself should he tell poor Sally&mdash;should he prepare her
+for her fate? She and her children might be turned out of
+house and home, very probably would be, he said to himself,
+leaping to the extreme point, as men in his condition are apt
+to do. They might take everything from him; they might
+bring all his creditors on him in a heap; they might sell him
+up; his shop by which he made his daily bread, and everything
+he had, and turn his children out into the streets. Once more
+he rubbed his sleeve over his eyes, which were smarting with
+sleeplessness and easily-coming tears. He turned over the
+pages of the ledger mechanically. There was no help in it&mdash;no
+large debts owing to him that could be called in; no means
+of getting any money; and nothing could he do but contemplate
+the miseries that might be coming, and wait, wait, wondering
+dully whether Mr. May was doing anything to avert this ruin,
+and whether, at any moment, he might walk in, bringing safety
+in the very look of his bold eyes. Cotsdean was not bold; he
+was small and weakly, and nervous, and trembled at a sharp
+voice. He was not a man adapted for vigorous struggling with
+the world. Mr. May could do it, in whose hands was the final
+issue. He was a man who was afraid of no one; and whose
+powers nobody could deny. Surely now, even at the last
+moment, he would find help somehow. It seemed profane to
+entertain a doubt that he would be able to do it even at the
+very last.</p>
+
+<p>But Cotsdean had a miserable morning; he could do nothing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+Minute by minute, hour by hour, he waited to be called to the
+Parsonage; now and then he went out to the door of his shop
+and looked out wistfully down the street where it ended in the
+distance of Grange Lane. Was that the maid from the Parsonage
+coming up across the road? Were these the young
+ladies, who, though they knew nothing about the matter at
+issue, very frequently brought a note, or message, from their
+father to Cotsdean? But he was deceived in these guesses as
+well as in so many others. All the world seemed out of doors
+that morning, but nobody came. The ruddy sunshine shone full
+down the street, glorifying it with rays of warm gold, and
+tinting the mists and clouds which lurked in the corners. It
+had been heavy and overcast in the morning, but at noon the
+clouds had cleared away, and that big red globe of fire had risen
+majestically out of the mists, and everybody was out. But
+no one, except humble people in the ordinary way of business,
+came to Cotsdean. Bushels of grain for chickens, pennyworths
+of canary seed&mdash;oh! did any one think he could pay a hundred
+pounds out of these?&mdash;a hundred pounds, the spending of
+which had not been his, poor man; which was indeed spent long
+ago, and represented luxuries past and over, luxuries which
+were not Cotsdean's. Strange that a mere lump of money
+should live like this, long after it was, to all intents and purposes,
+dead, and spent and gone!</p>
+
+<p>Then came the hour of dinner, when his Sally called him to
+the room behind the shop, from which an odour of bacon and
+fine big beans&mdash;beans which were represented in his shop in
+many a sackful. He went in unwillingly in obedience to her
+command, but feeling unable to eat, soon left the table, sending
+the young man to fill his place, with whose appetite no obstacle
+of care or thought interfered. Poor Cotsdean felt that the
+smell of the dinner made him sick&mdash;though he would have liked
+to eat had he been able&mdash;the smell of the bacon which he loved,
+and the sight of the small children whom he loved still better,
+and poor Sally, his wife, still red in the face from dishing it up.
+Sally was anxious about her husband's want of appetite.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What ails you, John?&rdquo; she said, pathetically; &ldquo;it wasn't
+as if you were out last night, nor nothing o' that sort. A man
+as is sober like you don't ought to turn at his dinner.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She was half sorry, and half aggrieved, poor woman, feeling
+as if some blame of her cookery must be involved.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It's the bile,&rdquo; said poor Cotsdean, with that simplicity of
+statement which is common in his class. &ldquo;Don't you take on,
+Sally, I'll be a deal better by supper-time&mdash;&mdash;or worse,&rdquo; he
+added to himself. Yes, he would make an effort to eat at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+supper-time; perhaps it might be the last meal he should eat
+in his own comfortable home.</p>
+
+<p>He had been out at the shop door, gazing despairingly down
+the road; he had come in and sold some birdseed, wondering&mdash;oh,
+what good would that penny do him?&mdash;he who wanted a
+hundred pounds? and was standing listening with a sad heart
+to the sound of the knives and forks and chatter of the children,
+when suddenly all at once Mr. May walked into the shop,
+changing dismay into hope. What a thing it was to be a
+gentleman and a clergyman. Cotsdean could not but think!
+The very sight of Mr. May inspired him with courage; even
+though probably he had no money in his pocket, it was a supporting
+thing only to see him, and hear the sound of his free
+unrestrained step. He came in with a friendly nod to his
+humble helper; then he glanced round the shop, to see that no
+one was present, and then he said, &ldquo;All right, Cotsdean,&rdquo; in a
+voice that was as music to the little corn-factor's ears. His
+heart, which had been beating so low, jumped up in his bosom;
+his appetite came back with a leap; he asked himself would
+the bacon be cold? and cried, &ldquo;God be praised, sir,&rdquo; in a
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May winced slightly; but why should it be wrong to be
+grateful to God in any circumstances? he asked himself, having
+become already somewhat composed in his ideas on this particular
+point.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are we quite alone?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Nobody within hearing?
+I have not brought you the money, but a piece of paper that
+is as good as the money. Take it: you will have no difficulty
+in discounting this; the man is as well known as the Carlingford
+Bank, and as safe, though I dare say you will be surprised
+at the name.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Cotsdean opened out the new bill with trembling hands.
+&ldquo;Tozer!&rdquo; he said faintly, between relief and dismay.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. You must know that I am taking a pupil&mdash;one who
+belongs to a very rich Dissenting family in London. Tozer
+knows something about him, from his connection with the
+body, and through this young man I have got to know something
+of <i>him</i>. He does it upon the admirable security of the
+fees I am to receive with this youth; so you see, after all, there
+is no mystery about it. Better not wait for to-morrow,
+Cotsdean. Go at once, and get it settled. You see,&rdquo; said Mr.
+May, ingratiatingly, &ldquo;it is a little larger than the other&mdash;one
+hundred and fifty, indeed&mdash;but that does not matter with such
+an excellent name.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tozer!&rdquo; said Cotsdean, once more bewildered. He handled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+the piece of paper nervously, and turned it upside down, and
+round about, with a sense that it might melt in his hold. He
+did not like the additional fifty added. Why should another
+fifty be added? but so it was, and there seemed nothing for
+him but to take the immediate relief and be thankful.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'd rather, sir, as Tozer hadn't known nothing about it;
+and why should he back a bill for me as ain't one of my friends,
+nor don't know nothing about me? and fifty more added on,&rdquo;
+said Cotsdean. It was the nearest he had gone to standing up
+against his clergyman; he did not like it. To be Mr. May's
+sole stand-by and agent, even at periodical risk of ruin, was
+possible to him; but a pang of jealousy, alarm, and pain came
+into his mind when he saw the new name. This even obliterated
+the immediate sense of relief that was in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come three months it'll have to be paid,&rdquo; said Cotsdean,
+&ldquo;and Tozer ain't a man to stand it if he's left to pay; he'd sell
+us up, Mr. May. He ain't one of the patient ones, like&mdash;some
+other folks; and there's fifty pounds put on. I don't see my
+way to it. I'd rather it was just the clear hundred, if it was
+the same to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not the same to me,&rdquo; said Mr. May, calmly. &ldquo;Come,
+there is no cause to make any fuss. There it is, and if you
+don't like to make use of it, you must find some better way.
+Bring the fifty pounds, less the expenses, to me to-night. It
+is a good bit of paper, and it delivers us out of a mess which
+I hope we shall not fall into again.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So you said before, sir,&rdquo; said the corn-factor sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cotsdean, you forget yourself; but I can make allowance
+for your anxiety. Take it, and get it settled before the bank
+closes; pay in the money to meet the other bill, and bring
+me the balance. You will find no difficulty with Tozer's name;
+and what so likely as that one respectable tradesman should
+help another? By the way, the affair is a private one between
+us, and it is unnecessary to say anything to him about it; the
+arrangement, you understand, is between him and me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Beg your pardon, sir,&rdquo; said Cotsdean, with a deprecatory
+movement of his hand to his forehead; &ldquo;but it is me as will be
+come upon first if anything happens, and that fifty pounds&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you ever found me to fail you, Cotsdean? If you
+knew the anxiety I have gone through, that you might be kept
+from harm, the sleepless nights, the schemes, the exertions!
+You may suppose it was no ordinary effort to ask a man like
+Tozer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Cotsdean was moved by the touching tone in which his partner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+in trouble spoke; but terror gave him a certain power.
+He grumbled still, not altogether vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't say nothing against that, sir,&rdquo; he said, not meeting
+Mr. May's eye; &ldquo;but when it comes to be paid, sir, I'm the
+first in it, and where is that other fifty to come from? That's
+what I'm a thinking for&mdash;for I'm the first as they'd haul up
+after all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You!&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;what could they get from you?
+You are not worth powder and shot. Don't be ridiculous, my
+good fellow. I never avoid my responsibilities, as you know.
+I am as good, I hope, for that fifty as for all that went before.
+Have you ever known me leave you or any one in the
+lurch?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, sir, I can't say as&mdash;I don't suppose I have. I've
+always put my trust in you like in Providence itself,&rdquo; he cried,
+hastily, holding his breath.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then do as I tell you,&rdquo; said Mr. May, waving his hand
+with careless superiority; and though his heart was aching with
+a hundred anxious fears, he left the shop with just that mixture
+of partial offence and indifference which overawed completely
+his humble retainer. Cotsdean trembled at his own guilty
+folly and temerity. He did not dare to call his patron back
+again, to ask his pardon. He did not venture to go back to the
+table and snatch a bit of cold bacon. He was afraid he had
+offended his clergyman, what matter that he was hungry for
+his dinner? He called the young man from the bacon, which
+was now cold and all but eaten up, and snatched at his hat and
+went out to the bank. It was all he could do.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>A VISIT.</h3>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&ldquo;<span class="smcap">Dear May</span>,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Young Copperhead, the young fellow whom you have undertaken
+to coach, is coming to the Hall for a few days before
+he enters upon his studies, and Anne wishes me to ask you
+to come over on Tuesday to dine and sleep, and to make acquaintance
+with him. You can carry him back with you if it
+suits you. In my private opinion, he is a cub of the most disagreeable
+kind; but the girls like his mother, who is a kind of
+cousin, as you know. It is not only because he has failed to
+take his degree (you know how I hate the hideous slang in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+which this fact is generally stated), but that his father, who is
+one of the rich persons who abound in the lower circles of
+society, is ambitious, and would like to see him in Parliament,
+and that sort of thing&mdash;a position which cannot be held creditably
+without some sort of education: at least, so I am myself
+disposed to think. Therefore, your pleasing duty will be to
+get him up in a little history and geography, so that he may
+not get quite hopelessly wrong in any of the modern modifications
+of territory, for instance; and in so much Horace as may
+furnish him with a few stock quotations, in case he should be
+called upon, in the absence of any more hopeful neophyte, to
+move the Address. He is a great hulking fellow, not very
+brilliant, you may suppose, but not so badly mannered as he
+might be, considering his parentage. I don't think he'll give
+you much trouble in the house; but he will most probably bore
+you to death, and in that case your family ought to have a claim,
+I should think, for compensation. Anyhow, come and see him,
+and us, before you begin your hard task.</p>
+
+<center>&ldquo;Very truly yours,</center>
+<p style="text-align: right;">&ldquo;<span class="smcap">R. Dorset.</span>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Anne makes me open my letter to say that Ursula must
+come too. We will send a carriage to meet you at the station.&rdquo;</p></div>
+
+<p>This letter caused considerable excitement in the Parsonage.
+It was the first invitation to dinner which Ursula had ever
+received. The dinner-parties in Carlingford were little frequented
+by young ladies. The male population was not large
+enough to afford a balance for the young women of the place,
+who came together in the evening, and took all the trouble of
+putting on their pretty white frocks, only to sit in rows in the
+drawing-room, waiting till the old gentlemen came in from the
+dining-room, after which everybody went away. There were
+no young gentlemen to speak of in Carlingford, so that when
+any one was bold enough to attempt a dancing-party, or anything
+of an equally amusing description, friends were sent out
+in all directions, as the beaters are sent into the woods to
+bring together the unfortunate birds for a <i>battue</i>, to find men.
+These circumstances will explain the flutter in Ursula's innocent
+bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr.
+May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened
+at periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially
+&ldquo;cross.&rdquo; On this occasion there was no black mark against
+him in the family reckoning, and yet he was more kind than
+any one had ever known him. Instead of making any objections,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+he decided at once that Ursula must go, and told her to
+put on her prettiest frock, and make herself look very nice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must let Anne Dorset see that you care to please her,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;Anne is a very good woman, and her approval is
+worth having.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, papa!&rdquo; cried Janey, &ldquo;when you are always calling her
+an old maid!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;L'un n'emp&ecirc;che pas l'autre,&rdquo; he said, which puzzled Janey,
+whose French was very deficient. Even Ursula, supposed to
+be the best French scholar in the family, was not quite sure
+what it meant; but it was evidently something in favour of
+Cousin Anne, which was sweet to the grateful girl.</p>
+
+<p>Janey, though suffering bitterly under the miserable consciousness
+of being only fourteen, and not asked anywhere,
+helped with disinterested zeal to get her sister ready, and consoled
+herself by orders for unlimited muffins and cake for tea.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There will only be the children,&rdquo; she said, resignedly, and
+felt herself <i>incomprise</i>; but indeed, the attractions of a good
+romp afterwards, no one being in the house to restrain the
+spirits of the youthful party, made even Janey amends.</p>
+
+<p>As for Reginald, who was not asked, he was, it must be
+allowed, rather sulky too, and he could not solace himself
+either with muffins or romps. His rooms at the College were
+very pleasant rooms, but he was used to home; and though
+the home at the Parsonage was but faded, and not in such perfect
+order as it might have been, the young man felt even his
+wainscoted study dull without the familiar voices, the laughter
+and foolish family jokes, and even the little quarrels which
+kept life always astir. He walked with Ursula to the station,
+whither her little box with her evening dress had gone before
+her, in a half-affronted state of mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What does he want with a pupil?&rdquo; Reginald was saying,
+as he had said before. &ldquo;A fellow no one knows, coming and
+taking possession of the house as if it belonged to him. There
+is plenty to do in the parish without pupils, and if I were not
+on the spot he would get into trouble, I can tell you. A man
+that has been ploughed, 'a big hulking fellow' (Sir Robert
+says so, not I). Mind, I'll have no flirting, Ursula; that is
+what always happens with a pupil in the house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reginald, how dare you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, I dare; my courage is quite equal to facing you,
+even if you do shoot thunderbolts out of your eyes. Mind
+you, I won't have it. There is a set of fellows who try it
+regularly, and if you were above them, would go in for Janey;
+and it would be great fun and great promotion for Janey; she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+would feel herself a woman directly; so you must mind her as
+well as yourself. I don't like it at all,&rdquo; Reginald went on.
+&ldquo;Probably he will complain of the dinners you give him, as
+if he were in an inn. Confound him! What my father
+means by it, I can't tell.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reginald, you ought not to swear,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;It is
+dreadfully wicked in a clergyman. Poor papa meant making a
+little more money. What else could he mean? And I think
+it is very good of him, for it will bother him most. Mr. Copperhead
+is very nice, Reginald. I saw him in London, you
+know. I thought he was very&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah! oh!&rdquo; said Reginald, &ldquo;I forgot that. You met him in
+London? To be sure, and it was there you met Miss
+Beecham. I begin to see. Is he coming here after her, I
+should like to know? She doesn't look the sort of girl to
+encourage that sort of thing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The sort of girl to encourage that sort of thing! How
+strangely you talk when you get excited: isn't that rather
+vulgar? I don't know if he is coming after Miss Beecham or
+not,&rdquo; said Ursula, who thought the suggestion uncalled for,
+&ldquo;but in a very short time you can judge for yourself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah&mdash;indignation!&rdquo; said the big brother, who like most
+big brothers laughed at Ursula's exhibition of offended dignity;
+&ldquo;and, by the way, Miss Beecham&mdash;you have not seen her since
+that night when she was sent for. Will not she think it
+strange that you never sent to inquire?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I sent Betsey&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But if Miss Beecham had been somebody else, you would
+have gone yourself,&rdquo; he said, being in a humour for finding
+fault. &ldquo;If poor old Mrs. Tozer had been what you call a
+lady&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought you were much more strong than I am against
+the Dissenters?&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;ever since that man's speech;
+and, indeed, always, as long as I can recollect.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is not a mere Dissenter,&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;I think I
+shall call as I go home. She is the cleverest girl I ever met;
+not like one of you bread-and-butter girls, though she is not
+much older than you. A man finds a girl like that worth talking
+to,&rdquo; said the young clergyman, holding himself erect.
+Certainly Reginald had not improved; he had grown ever so
+much more self-important since he got a living of his own.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And if I was to say, 'Mind, I won't have it, Reginald?'&rdquo;
+cried Ursula, half-laughing, half-angry. &ldquo;I think that is a
+great deal worse than a pupil. But Miss Beecham is very
+dignified, and you may be sure she will not think much of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+call from you. Heaven be praised! that is one thing you can't
+get into your hands; we girls are always good for something
+there. Men may think themselves as grand as they please,&rdquo;
+said Ursula, &ldquo;but their visits are of no consequence; it is
+ladies of the family who must <i>call</i>!&rdquo; After this little out-break,
+she came down at once to her usual calm. &ldquo;I will ask
+Cousin Anne what I ought to do; I don't think Miss Beecham
+wanted me to go then&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall go,&rdquo; said Reginald, and he left Ursula in her
+father's keeping, who met them at the station, and went off at
+once, with a pleasant sense of having piqued her curiosity, to
+Grange Lane.</p>
+
+<p>It was still early, for the trains which stopped at the little
+country station next to the Hall were very few and inconvenient,
+and the sun, though setting, was still shining red from over
+St. Roque's upon Grange Lane. The old red walls grew
+redder still in the frosty night, and the sky began to bloom
+into great blazing patches of colour upon the wintry clearness
+of the blue. There was going to be a beautiful sunset, and
+such a thing was always to be seen from Grange Lane better
+than anywhere else in Carlingford. Reginald went down the
+road slowly, looking at it, and already almost forgetting his idea
+of calling on Miss Beecham. To call on Miss Beecham would
+be to call on old Tozer, the butterman, to whom alone the visit
+would be naturally paid; and this made him laugh within himself.
+So he would have passed, no doubt, without the least attempt
+at intruding on the privacy of the Tozers, had not the
+garden-door opened before he got so far, and Ph&#339;be herself
+came out, with her hands in her muff, to take a little walk up
+and down as she did daily. She did not take her hand out of
+its warm enclosure to give it to him; but nodded with friendly
+ease in return to his salutation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have come out to see the sunset,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;I like
+a little air before the day is over, and grandmamma, when she
+is poorly, likes her room to be very warm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope Mrs. Tozer is better. I hope you have not been
+anxious.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, no! it is chronic; there is no danger. But she requires
+a great deal of attendance; and I like to come out when
+I can. Oh, how fine it is! what colour! I think, Mr. May,
+you must have a <i>sp&eacute;cialit&eacute;</i> for sunsets at Carlingford. I never
+saw them so beautiful anywhere else.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad there is something you like in Carlingford.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Something! there is a very great deal; and that I don't
+like too,&rdquo; she said with a smile. &ldquo;I don't care for the people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+I am living among, which is dreadful. I don't suppose you
+have ever had such an experience, though you must know a great
+deal more in other ways than I. All the people that come to
+inquire about grandmamma are very kind; they are as good as
+possible; I respect them, and all that, but&mdash;&mdash;Well, it must
+be my own fault, or education. It is education, no doubt, that
+gives us those absurd ideas.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't call them absurd,&rdquo; said Reginald, &ldquo;indeed I can enter
+into them perfectly well. I don't <i>know</i> them, perhaps, in my own
+person; but I can perfectly understand the repugnance, the
+distress&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The words are too strong,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;not so much as
+that; the&mdash;annoyance, perhaps, the nasty disagreeable struggle
+with one's self and one's pride; as if one were better than
+other people. I dislike myself, and despise myself for it; but
+I can't help it. We have so little power over ourselves.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you will let my sister do what she can to deliver
+you,&rdquo; said Reginald; &ldquo;Ursula is not like you; but she is a good
+little thing, and she is able to appreciate you. I was to tell you
+she had been called suddenly off to the Dorsets', with whom my
+father and she have gone to pass the night&mdash;to meet, I believe,
+a person you know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Clarence Copperhead; he is come then? How odd it
+will be to see him here. His mother is nice, but his father is&mdash;&mdash;Oh,
+Mr. May! if you only knew the things people have
+to put up with. When I think of Mr. Copperhead, and his
+great, ugly, staring wealth, I feel disposed to hate money&mdash;especially
+among Dissenters. It would be better if we were all
+poor.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald said nothing; he thought so too. In that case
+there would be a few disagreeable things out of a poor clergyman's
+way, and assaults like that of Northcote upon himself
+would be impossible; but he could scarcely utter these virtuous
+sentiments.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poverty is the desire of ascetics, and this is not an ascetic age,&rdquo;
+he said at length, with a half-laugh at himself for his stiff speech.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may say it is not an ascetic age; but yet I suppose
+the Ritualists&mdash;&mdash;. Perhaps you are a Ritualist yourself, Mr.
+May? I know as little personally about the church here, as
+you do about Salem Chapel. I like the service&mdash;so does papa&mdash;and
+I like above all things the independent standing of a
+clergyman; the feeling he must have that he is free to do his
+duty. That is why I like the church; for other things of course
+I like our own body best.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't suppose such things can be argued about, Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+Beecham. I wish I knew something of my father's new pupil.
+I don't like having a stranger in the house; my father is fond of
+having his own way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is astonishing how often parents are so,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be,
+demurely; &ldquo;and the way they talk of their experience! as if
+each new generation did not know more than the one that
+preceded it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are pleased to laugh, but I am quite in earnest. A
+pupil is a nuisance. For instance, no man who has a family
+should ever take one. I know what things are said.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You mean about the daughters? That is true enough,
+there are always difficulties in the way; but you need not be
+afraid of Clarence Copperhead. He is not the fascinating pupil
+of a church-novel. There's nothing the least like the Heir of
+Redclyffe about him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are very well up in Miss Yonge's novels, Miss
+Beecham.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;one reads Scott for Scotland (and a
+few other things), and one reads Miss Yonge for the church.
+Mr. Trollope is good for that too, but not so good. All that
+I know of clergymen's families I have got from her. I can
+recognize you quite well, and your sister, but the younger ones
+puzzle me; they are not in Miss Yonge; they are too much
+like other children, too naughty. I don't mean anything
+disagreeable. The babies in Miss Yonge are often very naughty
+too, but not the same. As for you, Mr. May&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. As for me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I know everything about you. You are a fine scholar,
+but you don't like the drudgery of teaching. You have a fine
+mind, but it interferes with you continually. You have had a
+few doubts&mdash;just enough to give a piquancy; and now you have
+a great ideal, and mean to do many things that common clergymen
+don't think of. That was why you hesitated about the
+chaplaincy? See how much I have got out of Miss Yonge.
+I know you as well as if I had known you all my life; a great
+deal better than I know Clarence Copperhead; but then, no
+person of genius has taken any trouble about him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did not know I had been a hero of fiction,&rdquo; said Reginald,
+who had a great mind to be angry. All this time they were
+walking briskly backward and forward before Tozer's open door,
+the Anglican, in his long black coat, following the lively movements
+of Tozer's granddaughter, only because he could not
+help himself. He was irritated, yet he was pleased. A young
+man is pleased to be thought of, even when the notice is but
+barely complimentary. Ph&#339;be must have thought of him a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+good deal before she found him out in this way; but he was
+irritated all the same.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are, however,&rdquo; she answered lightly. &ldquo;Look at that
+blaze of crimson, Mr. May; and the blue which is so clear and
+so unfathomable. Winter is grander than summer, and even
+warmer&mdash;to look at; with its orange, and purple, and gold.
+What poor little dirty, dingy things we are down here, to have
+all this exhibited every evening for our delight!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; he said; and as he gazed, something woke
+in the young man's heart&mdash;a little thrill of fancy, if not of love.
+It is hard to look at a beautiful sunset, and then see it reflected
+in a girl's face, and not to feel something&mdash;which may be nothing,
+perhaps. His heart gave a small jump, not much to speak of.
+Ph&#339;be did not talk like the other young ladies in Grange
+Lane.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. May, Mr. May!&rdquo; she cried suddenly, &ldquo;please go away!
+I foresee a disastrous encounter which alarms me. You can't
+fight, but there is no saying what you might do to each other.
+Please go away!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don't understand any
+encounter being disastrous here. Why should I go away?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, but there was a certain fright in her tone.
+&ldquo;Please!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I see Mr. Northcote coming this way.
+He will stop to speak to me. It is the gentleman who attacked
+you in the Meeting. Mr. May,&rdquo; she added entreatingly, between
+laughter and fright, &ldquo;do go, please.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall do nothing of the kind,&rdquo; said Reginald, roused; &ldquo;I
+am not afraid. Let him come on. This wall shall fly from its
+firm base as soon as I.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be clasped her hands in dismay, which was partially real.
+&ldquo;The typical churchman,&rdquo; she said, with a glance at Reginald's
+figure, which was not displeasing to him, &ldquo;and the typical Dissenter!
+and what am I to do between them? Oh, I wish you
+would go away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not an inch,&rdquo; said the young champion. Ph&#339;be was
+frightened, but she was delighted. &ldquo;I shall introduce him to
+you,&rdquo; she said threatening.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't mind,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;nothing on earth should induce
+me to fly.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p>
+<h3>TEA.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Now here was a business! The typical Anglican and the
+typical Dissenter, as Ph&#339;be said, with only that clever young
+woman to keep them from flying at each other's throats; the
+one obstinately holding his place by her side (and Ph&#339;be began
+to have a slight consciousness that, being without any chaperon,
+she ought not to have kept Reginald May at her side; but in
+the Tozer world, who knew anything of chaperons?), the other
+advancing steadily, coming up the Lane out of the glow of the
+sunset, showing square against it in his frock-coat and high hat,
+formal and demagogical, not like his rival. The situation
+pleased Ph&#339;be, who liked to &ldquo;manage;&rdquo; but it slightly
+frightened her as well, though the open door behind, and the
+long garden with its clouds of crocuses, was a city of refuge
+always within reach.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it really you, Mr. Northcote?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You look
+as if you had dropped out of that lovely sunset I have been
+watching so long&mdash;and I thought you were at the other end of
+the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have been at the other end of England, which comes to
+the same thing,&rdquo; said Northcote, in a voice which was harsh by
+nature, and somewhat rough with cold; &ldquo;and now they have
+sent me back to Salem Chapel, to take Mr. Thorpe's place for
+three months. They asked for me, I believe; but that you
+must know better than I do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was not in the nature of man not to be a little proud in the
+circumstances, and it is quite possible that he considered
+Ph&#339;be to have something to do with the flattering request.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, I have not heard; but I am glad,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;and
+if it is not wicked to say so, I am glad Mr. Thorpe is to be
+away. Let us hope it will do him good. I am sure it will do
+the rest of us good, at all events.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Northcote made no answer; but he looked at the other, and
+several questions began to tremble on his lips. That this was
+a Churchman did not immediately occur to him; for, indeed,
+various young pastors of his own body put on the livery which
+he himself abjured, and the sight of it as a servile copy filled
+him with a certain contempt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. May has been stopped in his way by the beauty of the
+skies,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, rather enjoying the position as she got used
+to it. &ldquo;Mr. Northcote&mdash;Mr. May. It is not easy to pass
+such an exhibition as that, is it?&mdash;and given to us all for love,
+and nothing for reward,&rdquo; she added; for she was a well read
+young woman, and did not hesitate to suffer this to appear.</p>
+
+<p>And then there was a momentary pause. Northcote was
+confused, it must be allowed, by thus coming face to face, without
+previous warning, with the man whom he had so violently
+assailed. Reginald had the best of it in every way, for he was
+the man injured, and had it in his power to be magnanimous;
+and he had the advantage of full warning, and had prepared
+himself. Besides, was not he the superior by every social rule?
+And that consciousness is always sweet.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If Mr. Northcote is new to Carlingford, he will probably
+not know what a fine point of view we have here. That, like
+so many other things,&rdquo; said Reginald, pointedly, &ldquo;wants a little
+personal experience to find it out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For that matter, to see it once is as good as seeing it a
+hundred times,&rdquo; said Northcote, somewhat sharply; for to give
+in was the very last thing he thought of. A little glow of anger
+came over him. He thought Ph&#339;be had prepared this ordeal
+for him, and he was vexed, not only because she had done it,
+but because his sense of discomfiture might afford a kind of
+triumph to that party in the connection which was disposed, as
+he expressed it, to &ldquo;toady the Church.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pardon me, I don't think you can judge of anything at a
+first view.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And, pardon me, I think you see everything most sharply
+and clearly at a first view,&rdquo; said the Nonconformist, who was
+the loudest; &ldquo;certainly in all matters of principle. After a
+while, you are persuaded against your will to modify this opinion
+and that, to pare off a little here, and tolerate a little there.
+Your first view is the most correct.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, throwing herself into the breach, &ldquo;I
+am glad you don't agree, for the argument is interesting. Will
+you come in and fight it out? You shall have some tea, which
+will be pleasant, for it shall be hot. I really cannot stay out
+any longer; it is freezing here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The new-comer prepared to follow; but Reginald hesitated.
+Pride whispered that to go into the house of Tozer, the butterman,
+was something monstrous; but then it might be amusing.
+This &ldquo;Dissenting fellow,&rdquo; no doubt, was a drawback; but a
+kind of angry antagonism and disdain half-attracted him even
+to the Dissenting fellow. It might be well, on the whole, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+see what kind of being such a person was. All curious
+phenomena are attractive to a student. &ldquo;The proper study of
+mankind is man,&rdquo; Reginald said to himself. Before he had
+got through this little argument with himself, Ph&#339;be had gone
+in, and Northcote, whose disgust at the interposition of an adversary
+had no such softening of curiosity, followed her abruptly,
+without any of those graces which are current in society.
+This rudeness offended the other, who was about to walk on
+indignant, when Ph&#339;be turned back, and looked out at him
+from the open door.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are not you coming, Mr. May?&rdquo; she said softly, looking
+at him with the least little shrug of her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Reginald yielded without further resistance. But he felt
+fully that to see him, the chaplain of the old College, walking
+down through Tozer's garden, between the two rows of closed-up
+crocuses which glimmered ghostly by the side of the path,
+was one of the strangest sights in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be, to tell the truth, was a little confused as to where to
+convey her captive, out of whom she meant to get a little amusement
+for the long winter afternoon. For a girl of her active
+mind, it may easily be imagined that a succession of long days
+with Mrs. Tozer was somewhat monotonous. She did her duty
+like a hero, and never complained; but still, if a little amusement
+was possible, it was worth having. She carried in her two
+young men as naughty boys carry stag-beetles, or other such
+small deer. If they would fight it would be fun; and if they
+would not fight, why, it might be fun still, and more amusing
+than grandmamma. She hesitated between the chilly drawing-room,
+where a fire was lighted, but where there was no evidence
+of human living, and the cozy parlour, where Mrs. Tozer sat
+in her best cap, still wheezy, but convalescent, waiting for her
+tea, and not indisposed to receive such deputations of the community
+as might come to ask for her. Finally, Ph&#339;be opened
+the door of that sanctuary, which was dazzling with bright fire-light
+after the gloom outside. It was a very comfortable
+interior, arranged by Ph&#339;be to suit her own ideas rather than
+those of grandmamma, though grandmamma's comfort had been
+her chief object. The tea-things were sparkling upon the table,
+the kettle singing by the fire, and Mrs. Tozer half-dozing in
+the tranquillity and warmth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandmamma, I have brought Mr. May and Mr. Northcote
+to see you,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>The poor old lady almost sprang from her chair in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord bless us, Ph&#339;be, Mr. May!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't disturb yourself, grandmamma; they will find seats.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+Yes, we were all looking at the sunset, and as I knew tea must
+be ready&mdash;I know you want it, dear granny&mdash;I asked them to
+have some. Here it is, as I told you, quite hot, and very
+fragrant this cold night. How cold it is outside! I think it
+will freeze, and that skating may come off at last, Mr. May,
+that you were talking of, you remember? You were to teach
+your sisters to skate.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, with the advantage of your example.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald had put himself in a corner, as far away as possible
+from the old woman in the chair. His voice, he felt, had caught
+a formal tone. As for the other, his antagonist, he had assumed
+the front of the battle&mdash;even, in Tozer's absence, he had ventured
+to assume the front of the fire. He was not the sort of man
+Reginald had expected, almost hoped to see&mdash;a fleshy man,
+loosely put together, according to the nature, so far as he knew
+it, of Dissenters; but a firmly knit, clean-limbed young man,
+with crisp hair curling about his head, and a gleam of energy
+and spirit in his eye. The gentler Anglican felt by no means
+sure of a speedy victory, even of an intellectual kind. The
+young man before him did not look a slight antagonist. They
+glared at each other, measuring their strength; they did not
+know, indeed, that they had been brought in here to this warmth
+and light, like the stag-beetles, to make a little amusement for
+Ph&#339;be; but they were quite ready to fight all the same.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Northcote, sir, I'm glad to see you. Now this is
+friendly; this is what I calls as it should be, when a young
+pastor comes in and makes free, without waiting for an invitation,&rdquo;
+said Tozer kindly, bustling in; &ldquo;that speech of yours,
+sir, was a rouser; that 'it 'em off, that did, and you can see as
+the connection ain't ungrateful. What's that you say, Ph&#339;be?
+what? I'm a little hard of hearing. Mr.&mdash;May!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. May was good enough to come in with me, grandpapa.
+We met at the door. We have mutual friends, and you know
+how kind Miss May has been,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, trembling with
+sudden fright, while Reginald, pale with rage and embarrassment,
+stood up in his corner. Tozer was embarrassed too.
+He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands, with a terrible
+inclination to raise one of them to his forehead. It was all
+that he could do to get over this class instinct. Young May,
+though he had been delighted to hear him assailed in the
+Meeting, was a totally different visitor from the clever young
+pastor whom he received with a certain consciousness of patronage.
+Tozer did not know that the Northcotes were infinitely
+richer, and quite as well-born and well-bred in their ways as
+the Mays, and that his young Dissenting brother was a more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+costly production, as well as a more wealthy man, than the
+young chaplain in his long coat; but if he had known this it
+would have made no difference. His relation to the one was
+semi-servile, to the other condescending and superior. In
+Reginald May's presence, he was but a butterman who supplied
+the family; but to Horace Northcote he was an influential
+member of society, with power over a Minister's individual
+fate.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I assure you, sir, as I'm proud to see you in my house,&rdquo;
+he said, with a duck of his head, and an ingratiating but uncomfortable
+smile. &ldquo;Your father, I hope, as he's well, sir,
+and all the family? We are a kind of neighbours now; not
+as we'd think of taking anything upon us on account of living
+in Grange Lane. But Ph&#339;be here&mdash;Ph&#339;be, junior, as we call's
+her&mdash;she's a cut above us, and I'm proud to see any of her
+friends in my 'umble 'ouse. My good lady, sir,&rdquo; added Tozer,
+with another duck, indicating with a wave of his hand his wife,
+who had already once risen, wheezy, but knowing her manners,
+to make a kind of half-bow, half-curtsey from her chair.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are very kind,&rdquo; said Reginald, feeling himself blush
+furiously, and not knowing what to say. The other young
+man stood with his back to the fire, and a sneer, which he intended
+to look like a smile, on his face.</p>
+
+<p>And as for Ph&#339;be, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding
+all her resources, even she was exquisitely uncomfortable for
+a minute or two. The young people all felt this, but to Tozer
+it seemed that he had managed everything beautifully, and a
+sense of elation stole over him. To be visited in this manner
+by the gentry, &ldquo;making free,&rdquo; and &ldquo;quite in a friendly way,&rdquo;
+was an honour he had never looked for. He turned to Northcote
+with great affability and friendliness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Mr. Northcote, sir, it can't be denied as
+this is a strange meeting; you and Mr. May, as mightn't be,
+perhaps, just the best of friends, to meet quite comfortable over
+a cup of tea. But ain't it the very best thing that could
+happen? Men has their public opinions, sir, as every one
+should speak up bold for, and stick to; that's my way of
+thinking. But I wouldn't bring it no farther; not, as might
+be said, into the domestic circle. I'm clean against that.
+You say your say in public, whatever you may think on a
+subject, but you don't bear no malice; it ain't a personal
+question; them's my sentiments. And I don't know nothing
+more elevatin', nothing more consolin', than for two public
+opponents, as you may say, to meet like this quite cozy and
+comfortable over a cup o' tea.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is a pleasure, I assure you, which I appreciate highly,&rdquo;
+said Reginald, finding his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And which fills me with delight and satisfaction,&rdquo; said
+Northcote. Those stag-beetles which Ph&#339;be, so to speak, had
+carried in in her handkerchief, were only too ready to fight.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You had better have some tea first,&rdquo; she said breathless,
+&ldquo;before you talk so much of its good effects. Sit down, grandpapa,
+and have your muffin while it is hot; I know that is
+what you like. Do you care about china, Mr. May? but
+every one cares for china now-a-days. Look at that cup, and
+fancy grandmamma having this old service in use without
+knowing how valuable it is. Cream Wedgwood! You may
+fancy how I stared when I saw it; and in everyday use! most
+people put it up on brackets, when they are so lucky as to
+possess any. Tell Mr. May, grandmamma, how you picked it
+up. Mr. Northcote, there is an article in this review that I
+want you to look at. Papa sent it to me. It is too metaphysical
+for me, but I know you are great in metaphysics&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am greater in china; may not I look at the Wedgwood
+first?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps you will turn over the literature to me,&rdquo; said Reginald,
+&ldquo;reviews are more in my way than teacups, though I say
+it with confusion. I know how much I am behind my age.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And I too,&rdquo; whispered Ph&#339;be, behind the book which she
+had taken up. &ldquo;Don't tell any one. It is rare, I know; and
+everybody likes to have something that is rare; but I don't
+really care for it the least in the world. I have seen some bits
+of Italian <i>faience</i> indeed&mdash;but English pottery is not like Italian,
+any more than English skies.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have the advantage of me, Miss Beecham, both as regards
+the pottery and the skies.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, if it is an advantage; bringing poetry down to prose is
+not always an advantage, is it? Italy is such a dream&mdash;so long
+as one has never been there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, it is a dream,&rdquo; said Reginald, with enthusiasm, &ldquo;to
+everybody, I think; but when one has little money and much
+work all one's life&mdash;poverty stands in the way of all kinds of
+enjoyment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poverty is a nice friendly sort of thing; a ground we can
+all meet on,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;But don't let us say that to
+grandpapa. How odd people are! he knows you are not
+Cr&#339;sus, but still he has a sort of feeling that you are a young
+prince, and do him the greatest honour in coming to his house;
+and yet, all the same, he thinks that money is the very grandest
+thing in existence. See what prejudice is! He would not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+allow that he had any class-reverence, and yet he can no more
+get rid of it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Beecham, it is very difficult for me to say anything on
+such a subject.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very difficult, and you show your delicacy by not saying
+anything. But you know, apart from this, which is not gratifying,
+I am rather proud of grandpapa's way of looking at some
+things. About saying out your opinions in public, and yet bearing
+no malice, for instance. Now, Mr. Northcote is the very
+Antipodes to you; therefore you ought to know him and find
+out what he means. It would be better for you both. That
+is what I call enlarging the mind,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be with a smile;
+which was, to tell the truth, a very pretty smile, and filled with
+a soft lustre the blue eyes with which she looked at him.
+Whether it was this, or the cogency of her argument, that
+moved the young Anglican, it would be hard to say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you are to be the promoter of this new science, I don't
+object to studying under you,&rdquo; he said with a great deal of
+meaning in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gave him another smile, though she shook her head;
+and then she turned to the hero on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it genuine, Mr. Northcote? is it as fine as I thought?
+There now, I told you, grandmamma! Have you been telling
+Mr. Northcote how you picked it up? I am sure you will
+present him with a cup and saucer for his collection in return
+for his praises.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not for the world,&rdquo; said Northcote, with profound seriousness;
+&ldquo;break a set of cream Wedgwood! what do you take me
+for, Miss Beecham? I don't mean to say that I would not give
+my ears to have it&mdash;all; but to break the set&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I beg your pardon! I was not prepared for such delicacy
+of feeling&mdash;such conscientiousness&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; said Northcote, with a long-drawn breath, &ldquo;I don't
+think you can understand the feelings of an enthusiast. A set
+of fine China is like a poem&mdash;every individual bit is necessary
+to the perfection of the whole. I allow that this is not the
+usual way of looking at it; but my pleasure lies in seeing it
+entire, making the tea-table into a kind of lyric, elevating the
+family life by the application of the principles of abstract beauty
+to its homeliest details. Pardon, Miss Beecham, but Mrs.
+Tozer is right, and you are wrong. The idea of carrying off a
+few lines of a poem in one's pocket for one's collection&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now that's what I call speaking up,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, the
+first time she had opened her lips, &ldquo;that's just what I like.
+Mr. Northcote has a deal more sense than the like of you. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+knows what's what. Old things like this as might have been
+my granny's, they're good enough for every day, they're very
+nice for common use; but they ain't no more fit to be put away
+in cupboards and hoarded up like fine china, no more than I
+am. Mr. Northcote should see our best&mdash;that's worth the looking
+at; and if I'd known as the gentleman was coming&mdash;but you
+can't put an old head on young shoulders. Ph&#339;be's as good as
+gold, and the trouble she takes with an old woman like me is
+wonderful; but she can't be expected to think of everything,
+can she now, at her age?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The two young men laughed&mdash;it was the first point of approach
+between them, and Ph&#339;be restrained a smile, giving them
+a look from one to another. She gave Reginald his cup of tea
+very graciously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Northcote prefers the Wedgwood, and Mr. May
+doesn't mind, grandmamma,&rdquo; she said sweetly. &ldquo;So it is as
+well to have the best china in the cupboard. Grandpapa,
+another muffin&mdash;it is quite hot; and I know that is what you
+like best.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I'll say that for Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; said Tozer, with his mouth
+full, &ldquo;that whether she understands china or not I can't tell,
+but she knows what a man likes, which is more to the purpose
+for a young woman. That's what she does; and looks after
+folk's comforts as I never yet saw her match. She's a girl in a
+thousand, is Ph&#339;be, junior. There be them as is more for dress,&rdquo;
+he added, fond and greasy, looking at her seated modestly in
+that gown, which had filled with awe and admiration the experienced
+mind of Mrs. Sam Hurst; &ldquo;and plays the pianny, and
+that sort of style of girl; but for one as minds the comforts of
+them about her&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; Tozer turned back to the table, and made
+a gulp of his last piece of muffin. Eloquence could have no
+more striking climax; the proof of all his enthusiasm, was it
+not there?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you play, Miss Beecham?&rdquo; said Reginald, half-amused,
+half-angry.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A little,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a laugh. She had brought down
+a small cottage piano out of the drawing-room, where nobody
+ever touched it, into a dark corner out of reach of the lamp.
+It was the only accomplishment upon which she prided herself.
+She got up from the table, when she had poured out another
+cup of tea for her grandfather, and without saying a word went
+to the little piano. It was not much of an instrument, and
+Reginald May was very little of a <i>connoisseur</i>. Northcote,
+who knew her gifts, gave himself up to listening, but the Tozers
+looked on, shaking their heads, and it was only after some time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+had passed, that Reginald began to understand that he was
+listening to something which he had never heard before.
+Ursula's school-girl tunes had never interested him very much;
+he did not know what this was which seemed to creep into his
+heart by his ears. He got up by and by, and stole towards the
+piano bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It'll soon be over, sir,&rdquo; said Tozer, encouragingly. &ldquo;Don't
+you run away, Mr. May. Them are queer tunes, I allow, but
+they don't last long, and your company's an honour. As for
+the playing, it'll soon be over; you needn't run away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HALL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to say that the dinner party in the Hall bore
+very little resemblance to those simple amusements in No. 6,
+Grange Lane. There were three or four people to meet Mr.
+May, who, as an orator and literary man, had greater reputation
+even such a little way from home than he had in his own town.
+He was a very good preacher, and those articles of his were
+much admired as &ldquo;thoughtful&rdquo; papers, searching into many
+mental depths, and fathoming the religious soul with wonderful
+insight. Ladies especially admired them; the ladies who were
+intellectual, and found pleasure in the feeling of being more
+advanced than their neighbours. The Rector's wife of the
+parish in which the Dorsets lived applied herself with great
+vigour to the art of drawing him out. She asked him questions
+with that air of delightful submission to an intellectual
+authority which some ladies love to assume, and which it pleases
+many men to accept. His daughters were not at all reverential
+of Mr. May, and it soothed him to get marks of devotion and
+literary submission out of doors. Even Sophy Dorset had gone
+through the phase of admiration for her cousin. This had been
+dissipated, it is true, long ago; but yet she did not laugh, as
+she usually did, at the believers in him. She listened to Mrs.
+Rector plying him with eager questions, asking his advice on
+that point and the other, and smiled, but was charitable.
+As for Cousin Anne, she was charitable by nature, and
+all the world got the advantage of it. Little Ursula was one
+of her prime favourites&mdash;a motherless girl, who was the eldest,
+and who had to work for the family, was of all others the
+thing which moved her sympathies most. The little Indian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+children had long ere this yielded to the charms of Aunt Anne.
+They followed her wherever she went like little spaniels, hanging
+on by her dress. She had to go up to the nursery to hear
+them say their prayers before she dressed for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You see, this is a proof that with children one should never
+be discouraged,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;for they did not take to me at
+first;&rdquo; and she turned her mild countenance, beaming with soft
+light, upon Ursula. To be hampered by these babies clinging
+about her, to have them claiming imperiously her attention and
+her time, however she might be engaged; to give up to them
+the moments of leisure in which otherwise she might have had
+a little quiet and repose, this was what Anne Dorset considered
+as her recompense.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I wish I could be as good to Amy and Robin! But I
+feel as if I should like to shake them often,&rdquo; cried Ursula,
+&ldquo;even though I love them with all my heart. Oh! Cousin
+Anne, I don't think there is any one like you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, that is what she thinks her reward,&rdquo; said Sophy. &ldquo;I
+should like something better, if it was I. Don't copy her,
+Ursula. It is better to have children of your own, and get
+other people to nurse them. Anne, you see, likes it. I want
+you to marry, and get all the good things in this life. Let us
+leave the self-denials to her; she likes them, you perceive.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know why you should always talk of marrying to
+me, Cousin Sophy,&rdquo; said Ursula with gentle reproach. &ldquo;I hope
+I am not a girl to think of such things.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And why not? Is it not the first duty of woman, you
+little simpleton?&rdquo; said Sophy Dorset, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>But Ursula could not imagine that it was only in this general
+way that her cousin spoke. She could not but feel that this
+big Clarence Copperhead, with the diamond buttons, and that
+huge expanse of shirt-front, had something to do with Sophy's
+talk. There was six feet of him, which is a thing that goes a
+long way with a girl; and he was not bad-looking. And why
+did he come to Carlingford, having nothing in the world to do
+with the place? and coming to Carlingford, why was papa
+sought out, of all people, to be his tutor? Certainly the circumstances
+were such as invited conjecture, especially when
+added on to Sophy's allusions. He took Ursula in to dinner,
+which fluttered her somewhat; and though he was much intent
+upon the dinner itself, and studied the <i>menu</i> with a devotion
+which would have made her tremble for her housekeeping, had
+she been sufficiently disengaged to notice it, he yet found time to
+talk a little between the courses.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did not expect, when I saw you in London, that we were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+to meet again so soon, Miss May,&rdquo; was the perfectly innocent
+remark with which he opened the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Ursula would have said it herself had he not said it, and all
+she could do was to answer, &ldquo;No, indeed,&rdquo; with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And I am coming to your father to be coached,&rdquo; continued
+the young man. &ldquo;It is a funny coincidence, don't you think
+so? I am glad you came to that ball, Miss May. It makes
+me feel that I know you. I don't like starting off afresh, all
+at once, among people I don't know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Ursula; &ldquo;I should not like it either. But there
+are other people you know in Carlingford. There is the lady
+who was at the ball&mdash;the young lady in black, I used to call
+her&mdash;Miss Beecham; you must know her better than you know
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who? Ph&#339;be? really!&rdquo; he said, elevating his eyebrows.
+&ldquo;Ph&#339;be in Carlingford! By Jove! how the governor will
+laugh! I should like to know,&rdquo; with a conscious smile on his
+countenance, &ldquo;what <i>she</i> is doing there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Her grandmamma is ill, and she is nursing her,&rdquo; said Ursula
+simply, at which young Copperhead laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, that is how it is! Very good of her, don't you think?
+Shouldn't suppose she would be amusing, the old granny, and
+Ph&#339;be likes to be amused. I must go to see her as soon as I
+can get there. You know, we are Dissenters at home, Miss
+May. Good joke, isn't it? The governor will not hear a word
+against them. As a matter of fact, nobody does go to chapel
+in our rank of life; but the governor sometimes is as obstinate
+as an old pig.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose he likes it best,&rdquo; said Ursula, gently; and here a
+new course came round, and for the moment Clarence had something
+else to do. He resumed after the <i>entr&eacute;es</i>, which were
+poor, as he made a mental note.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is there anything to do at Carlingford, Miss May? I
+hope you skate. I am not much in the hunting way; nor
+your father, I suppose? for, to be sure, a hunting parson would
+never do. I am too heavy a weight for most horses, and the
+good of galloping over the country all day, after a poor brute
+of a fox!&mdash;but we must not say that before Sir Robert. I
+suppose it is dull?&rdquo; he said, somewhat pathetically, looking in
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We don't think it dull, Mr. Copperhead. It may be, perhaps,
+for a gentleman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's it,&rdquo; said Clarence. &ldquo;I don't know if it's because
+women have more resources, or because they want less; but
+you always get on better than we do, somehow; very lucky<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+for you. You don't expect so much. I believe that's what it
+is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then that shows we are the most sensible,&rdquo; said Ursula,
+roused, and a little indignant.</p>
+
+<p>He paused, to make his choice between the inevitable turkey
+and the inevitable beef.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope it's braised,&rdquo; he said, in a devout undertone. &ldquo;You
+don't expect so much, Miss May, that's what it is; you're
+always in the house. You don't care for exercise. Bless you,
+if I didn't take exercise, I should be fifteen stone before you
+could turn round. How much are you? about eight, perhaps;
+not much more. That makes a deal of difference: you don't
+require to keep yourself down.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula did not make any answer. She was prepared to look
+upon him very favourably, and accept what he said as full of
+originality and force; but the tone the conversation had taken
+was not entirely to her mind. Ph&#339;be could have managed it; but
+Ursula was not Ph&#339;be. She was more disposed to take offence
+at the young man's tone than to guide it into better ways.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope your mother is well,&rdquo; she said at last, falteringly,
+after a long pause. Ursula thought her companion would remark
+this pause, and think her displeased. She might have
+saved herself the trouble, for it was the braised turkey which
+kept Clarence quiet, not offence.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, quite well, I thank you. Not so well as when I am at
+home; she don't like parting with me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but, of course,
+I can't be always at my mother's apron-strings. Women forget
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She was very kind when I was in London.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, that just pleases her; she is never so happy as when
+she is buying things for somebody,&rdquo; he replied, betraying an
+acquaintance with the exact manner of the kindness which
+somewhat disturbed poor Ursula: &ldquo;that is exactly her way.
+I dare say she'll come and see the Dorsets while I'm here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then there was again a pause, and Clarence turned to speak
+to some one at his other side.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, I don't hunt much,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I have come into the
+country to be coached. My father's a modern sort of man,
+and wants a fellow to be up in history, and that sort of thing.
+Bore&mdash;yes; and I dare say Carlingford is very dull. Oh, yes,
+I will go out with the hounds now and then, if there is not a
+frost. I should rather like a frost for my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was a hunting lady who had started this new conversation,
+into which the stranger had drifted away, leaving Ursula
+stranded. She was slightly piqued, it must be allowed, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+when Sophy asked her after dinner how she liked her companion,
+made a dignified reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have no doubt he is very nice,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I don't know
+much of gentlemen. He talks of papa as if he were a school-master,
+and thinks Carlingford will be dull.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So it is, Ursula. I have often heard you say so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, perhaps; but a stranger ought to be civil,&rdquo; said the
+girl, offended; and she went and entrenched herself by the side
+of Cousin Anne, where the new pupil could not come near her.
+Indeed he did not seem very anxious to do so, as Ursula soon
+saw. She blushed very hotly all by herself, under Cousin
+Anne's shadow: that she could have been so absurd as ever to
+think&mdash;But his size, and the weight over which he had
+lamented, and his abundant whiskers and large shirt front,
+made it quite impossible for Ursula to think of him as a
+person to be educated. It must be Miss Beecham, she said to
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>No thoughts of this kind crossed Mr. Clarence Copperhead's
+mind, as he stretched his big limbs before the drawing-room
+fire after dinner, and said &ldquo;Brava!&rdquo; when the ladies sang. He
+knew &ldquo;Brava&rdquo; was the right thing to say. He liked to be at
+the Hall, which he had never visited before, and to know that it
+was undeniable gentry which surrounded him, and which at
+the piano was endeavouring to gain his approbation. He was so
+much his father's son that he had a sense of pleasure and triumph
+in being thus elevated; and he had a feeling, more or less, of
+contempt for the clergyman, &ldquo;only a parson,&rdquo; who was to be
+his coach. He felt the power and the beauty of money almost
+as much as his father did. What was there he could not buy
+with it? the services of the most learned pundit in existence,
+for what was learning? or the prettiest woman going to be his
+wife, if that was what he wanted. It may be supposed then that
+he had very little attention indeed to bestow upon a girl like
+Ursula, who was only the daughter of his coach&mdash;nobody at all
+in particular&mdash;and that her foolish fancies on the subject might
+have been spared. He aired himself on the hearth-rug with
+great satisfaction, giving now and then a shake to one of his
+long limbs, and a furtive glance to see that all was perfect in
+the <i>sit</i> of the garment that clothed it. He had been ploughed
+it is true, but that did not interfere much with his mental
+satisfaction; for, after all, scholarship was a thing cultivated
+chiefly by dons and prigs, and poor men; and no
+doubt this other poor man, the parson, would be able to
+put all into his head that was necessary, just as much as
+would pay, and no more&mdash;a process the mere thought of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+made Clarence yawn, yet which he had wound up his noble
+mind to submit to.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mind you, I don't say I am going to work,&rdquo; he had said to
+his mother; &ldquo;but if you think he can put it into me, he may
+try,&rdquo; and he repeated much the same sentiment, with a difference,
+to Sophy Dorset, who by way of civility, while the Rector's
+wife paid court to Mr. May, talked to Clarence a little, from
+the corner of the ottoman close to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Work! well, I suppose so, after a sort. I don't mean to
+make myself ill with midnight oil and that sort of thing,&rdquo; he
+said (he was not at all clear in his mind as to how the midnight
+oil was applied), &ldquo;but if Mr. May can get it into me, I'll
+give him leave; for one thing, I suppose there will be nothing
+else to do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not much in Carlingford; there are neither pictures, nor
+museums, nor fine buildings, nor anything of the sort; and
+very little society; a few tea-parties, and one ball in the season.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Clarence Copperhead shrugged his large shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shan't go to the tea-parties, that's certain,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;a
+fellow must hunt a little, I suppose, as the place is so destitute.
+As for pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst
+of going abroad is that you've always got to look at things of
+that sort. To have to do it at home would be beyond a joke.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you seen the box of curious things John sent me with
+the children?&rdquo; said Sophy. &ldquo;They are on the table at the end
+of the room,&mdash;yataghans, and I don't know what other names
+they have, all sorts of Indian weapons. I should think you
+would be interested in them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks, Cousin Sophy, I am very well where I am,&rdquo; he said.
+He looked at her in such a way that she might have appropriated
+this remark as a compliment, had she pleased; but Sophy
+laughed, and it is to be feared did not feel the compliment, for
+she turned right round to somebody else, and took no more
+notice of Clarence. He was so fully satisfied with himself that
+he had not any strong sense of neglect, though he had but little
+conversation with the company. He was quite satisfied to
+exhibit himself and his shirt-front before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Next day he accompanied the Mays back to Carlingford.
+Mr. May had enjoyed his visit. His mind was free for the
+moment; he had staved off the evil day, and he had a little
+money in his pocket, the remains of that extra fifty pounds
+which he had put on to Tozer's bill. With some of it he had paid
+some urgent debts, and he had presented five pounds to Cotsdean
+to buy his wife a gown, and he had a little money in his pockets.
+So that in every way he was comfortable and more at ease than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+usual. The reckoning was four months off, which was like an
+eternity to him in his present mood of mind, and of course he
+would get the money before that time. There was so much
+time, indeed, that to begin to think of the ways and means of
+paying it at this early period seemed absurd. He was to have
+three hundred pounds for the year of Copperhead's residence
+with him, if he stayed so long, and that would do, if nothing
+else. Therefore Mr. May was quite easy in his mind, not in
+the least feeling the possibility of trouble in store for him.
+And the visit had been pleasant. He had enlarged his acquaintance,
+and that among the very sort of people he cared to know.
+He had been very well received by all the Dorsets, and introduced
+by Sir Robert as a relation, and he had received some
+personal incense about his works and his gifts which was sweet
+to him. Therefore he was in very good spirits, and exceedingly
+amiable. He conversed with his future pupil urbanely, though
+he had not concealed his entire concurrence in Sir Robert's
+opinion that he was &ldquo;a cub.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What have you been reading lately?&rdquo; he asked, when they
+had been transferred from the Dorsets' carriage, to the admiration
+and by the obsequious cares of all the attendant officials,
+into the railway carriage. Mr. May liked the fuss and liked
+the idea of that superiority which attended the Dorsets' guests.
+He had just been explaining to his companions that Sir Robert
+was the Lord of the Manor, and that all the homage done to
+him was perfectly natural; and he was in great good-humour
+even with this cub.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I've not been reading very much,&rdquo; said Clarence,
+candidly. &ldquo;What was the good? The governor did not want
+me to be a parson, or a lawyer, or anything of that sort, and a
+fellow wants some sort of a motive to read. I've loafed a good
+deal, I'm afraid. I got into a very good set, you know, first
+chop&mdash;Lord Southdown, and the Beauchamps, and that lot; and&mdash;well,
+I suppose we were idle, and that's the truth.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said Mr. May; &ldquo;a good deal of smoke and billiards,
+and so forth, and very little work.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's about it,&rdquo; said the young man, settling himself and his
+trousers, which were the objects of a great deal of affectionate
+care on his part. He gave them furtive pulls at the knees, and
+stroked them down towards the ankle, as he got himself comfortably
+into his seat.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May looked at him with scientific observation, and
+Ursula with half-affronted curiosity; his self-occupation was
+an offence to the girl, but it was only amusing to her father.
+&ldquo;An unmitigated cub,&rdquo; Mr. May pronounced to himself; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+there where he sat he represented three hundred a-year, and
+that, at least, was not to be despised. Ursula was not so
+charitable as her father; she was not amused by him in the
+slightest degree. Had he come down to Carlingford in humble
+worship of her pretty eyes, and with a romantic intention of
+making himself agreeable to her, the captivating flattery would
+have prepossessed Ursula, and prepared her to see him in a very
+pleasant light, and put the best interpretation upon all he did
+and said. But this pretty delusion being dissipated, Ursula
+was angry with herself for having been so foolish, and naturally
+angry with Clarence for having led her into it, though he was
+quite without blame in the matter. She looked at him in his
+corner&mdash;he had taken the best corner, without consulting her
+inclinations&mdash;and thought him a vulgar coxcomb, which perhaps
+he was. But she would not have been so indignant except for
+that little bit of injured feeling, for which really, after all, he
+was not justly to blame.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After the evening at Grange Lane which has been described,
+Reginald May met Northcote in the street several times, as was
+unavoidable, considering the size of the place, and the concentration
+of all business in Carlingford within the restricted
+length of the High Street. The two young men bowed stiffly
+to each other at first; then by dint of seeing each other frequently,
+got to inclinations a little more friendly, until at length
+one day when Northcote was passing by the College, as Reginald
+stood in the old doorway, the young chaplain feeling magnanimous
+on his own ground, and somewhat amused by the idea
+which suddenly presented itself to him, asked his Dissenting
+assailant if he would not come in and see the place. Reginald
+had the best of it in every way. It was he who was the
+superior, holding out a hand of favour and kindness to one who
+here at least, was beneath him in social consideration; and it
+was he who was the assailed, and, so to speak, injured party, and
+who nevertheless extended to his assailant a polite recognition,
+which, perhaps, no one else occupying the same position would
+have given. He was amused by his own magnanimity, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+enjoyed it, and the pleasure of heaping coals of fire upon his
+adversary's head was entirely delightful to him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know you do not approve of the place or me,&rdquo; he said,
+forgetting in that moment of triumph all his own objections
+to it, and the ground upon which these objections were founded.
+&ldquo;Come in and see it, will you? The chapel and the rooms are
+worth seeing. They are fair memorials of the past, however
+little the foundation may be to your mind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He laughed as he spoke, but without ill-humour; for it is
+easy to be good-humoured when one feels one's self on the
+gaining, not the losing side. As for Northcote, pride kept him
+from any demonstration of unwillingness to look at what the
+other had to show. He would not for worlds have betrayed
+himself. It was expedient for him, if he did not mean to acknowledge
+himself worsted, to put on a good face and accept
+the politeness cheerfully. So that it was on the very strength
+of the conflict which made them first aware of each other's existence,
+that they thus came together. The Dissenter declared
+his entire delight in being taken to see the place, and with
+secret satisfaction, not easily put into words, the Churchman led
+the way. They went to all the rooms where the old men sat,
+some dozing by the fire, some reading, some busy about small
+businesses; one had a turning-lathe, another was illuminating
+texts, a third had a collection of curiosities of a heterogeneous
+kind, which he was cleaning and arranging, writing neat little
+labels in the neatest little hand for each article.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The charity of our ancestors might have been worse employed,&rdquo;
+said Reginald. &ldquo;A home for the old and poor is
+surely as fine a kind of benevolence as one could think of&mdash;if
+benevolence is to be tolerated at all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ye-es,&rdquo; said Northcote. &ldquo;I don't pretend to disapprove of
+benevolence. Perhaps the young who have a future before
+them, who can be of use to their country, are better objects
+still.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because they will pay,&rdquo; said Reginald; &ldquo;because we can
+get something out of them in return; while we have already
+got all that is to be had out of the old people? A very
+modern doctrine, but not so lovely as the old-fashioned way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did not mean that,&rdquo; said the other, colouring. &ldquo;Certainly
+it ought to pay; everything, I suppose, is meant to pay one
+way or other. The life and progress of the young, or the gratified
+sentiment of the benefactor, who feels that he has provided
+for the old&mdash;which is the noblest kind of payment? I think
+the first, for my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For that matter, there is a large and most flourishing school,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+which you will come across without fail if you work among the
+poor. Do you work among the poor? Pardon my curiosity;
+I don't know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It depends upon what you call the poor,&rdquo; said the other,
+who did not like to acknowledge the absence of this element in
+Salem Chapel; &ldquo;if you mean the destitute classes, the lowest
+level, no; but if you mean the respectable, comfortable&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Persons of small income?&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;I mean people
+with no incomes at all; people without trades, or anything to
+earn a comfortable living by; labouring people, here to-day and
+away to-morrow; women who take in washing, and men who go
+about hunting for a day's work. These are the kind of people
+the Church is weighted with.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't see any trace of them,&rdquo; said the Nonconformist.
+&ldquo;Smooth lawns, fine trees, rooms that countesses might live in.
+I can't see any trace of them here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is no harm in a bit of grass and a few trees, and the
+rooms are cheaper in their long continuance than any flimsy
+new rubbish that could be built.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know I am making an unfortunate quotation,&rdquo; said
+Northcote; &ldquo;but there is reason in it. It might be sold for so
+much, and given to the poor.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cheating the poor, in the first place,&rdquo; said Reginald, warmly
+concerned for what he felt to be his own; &ldquo;just as the paddock
+an old horse dies in might bear a crop instead, and pay the
+owner; but what would become of the old horse?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Half-quarter of this space would do quite as well for your
+pensioners, and they might do without&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A chaplain!&rdquo; said Reginald, laughing in spite of himself.
+&ldquo;I know you think so. It is a sinecure.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I think they may say their prayers for themselves; a
+young man like you, full of talent, full of capability&mdash;I beg
+your pardon,&rdquo; said Northcote, &ldquo;you must excuse me, I grudge
+the waste. There are so many things more worthy of you that
+you might do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What, for example?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Anything almost,&rdquo; cried the other; &ldquo;digging, ploughing,
+building&mdash;anything! And for me too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This he said in an undertone; but Reginald heard, and did
+not carry his magnanimity so far as not to reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;if I am wasted reading prayers for my old
+men, what are you, who come to agitate for my abolition? <i>I</i>
+think, too, almost anything would be better than to encourage
+the ignorant to make themselves judges of public institutions,
+which the wisest even find too delicate to meddle with. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+digging and the ploughing might be a good thing for more than
+me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't say otherwise,&rdquo; said the young Dissenter, following
+into the old fifteenth-century chapel, small but perfect, the
+young priest of the place. They stood together for a moment
+under the vaulted roof, both young, in the glory of their days,
+both with vague noble meanings in them, which they knew so
+poorly how to carry out. They meant everything that was fine
+and great, these two young men, standing upon the threshold of
+their life, knowing little more than that they were fiercely opposed
+to each other, and meant to reform the world each in his
+own way; one by careful services and visitings of the poor, the
+other by the Liberation Society and overthrow of the State
+Church; both foolish, wrong and right, to the utmost bounds
+of human possibility. How different they felt themselves standing
+there, and yet how much at one they were without knowing
+it! Northcote had sufficient knowledge to admire the perfect
+old building. He followed his guide with a certain humility
+through the details, which Reginald had already learned by
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is nothing so perfect, so beautiful, so real now-a-days,&rdquo;
+said the young Churchman, with a natural expansion of mind
+over the beauty to which he had fallen heir. It seemed to him,
+as he looked up at the tall windows with their graceful tracery,
+that he was the representative of all who had worked out their
+belief in God within these beautiful walls, and of all the perpetual
+worshippers who had knelt among the old brasses of the
+early founders upon the worn floor. The other stood beside
+him with a half envy in his mind. The Dissenter did not feel
+himself the heir of those centuries in the same unhesitating
+way. He tried to feel that he was the heir of something better
+and more spiritual, yet felt a not ungenerous grudge that he
+could not share the other kinship too.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is very beautiful and noble,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I should like to
+feel for it as you do; but what I should like still better would
+be to have the same clear certainty of faith, the same conviction
+that what they were doing was the only right thing to do which
+made both building and prayer so unfaltering in those days.
+We can't be so sure even of the span of an arch now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No&mdash;nor can you be content with the old span, even though
+it is clearly the best by all rules,&rdquo; said Reginald. The other
+smiled; he was the most speculative of the two, being perhaps
+the most thoughtful; and he had no fifteenth-century chapel
+to charm, nor old foundation to give him an anchor. He smiled,
+but there was a little envy in his mind. Even to have one's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+life set out before one within clear lines like this, would not
+that be something? If it had but been possible, no doubt
+saying prayers for the world, even with no better than the old
+men of the College to say amen, had something more beautiful
+in it than tours of agitation for the Liberation Society; but
+Northcote knew that for him it was not possible, any more than
+was the tonsure of Reginald's predecessor, who had said mass
+when first those pinnacles were reared towards heaven. After
+he had smiled he sighed, for the old faith was more lovely than
+all the new agitations; he felt a little ashamed of the Liberation
+Society, so long as he stood under that groined and glorious
+roof.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May!&rdquo; said some one, coming in suddenly. &ldquo;I want you
+to go to the hospital for me. I am obliged to go off to town
+on urgent business&mdash;convocation work; and I must get a
+lawyer's opinion about the reredos question; there is not a
+moment to lose. Go and see the people in the pulmonary ward,
+there's a good fellow; and there are two or three bad accidents;
+and that old woman who is ill in Brown's cottage, you saw her
+the other day; and the Simmonds in Back Grove Street. I
+should have had a day's work well cut out, if I had not had
+this summons to town; but the reredos question is of the first
+importance, you know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll go,&rdquo; said Reginald. There is nothing more effectual
+in showing us the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption
+than to hear it sympathetically, through the ears, as it were, of
+a sceptic. Reginald, seeing Northcote's keen eyes gleam at
+the sound of the Rector's voice, instinctively fell into sympathy
+with him, and heard the speech through him; and though he
+himself felt the importance of the reredos, yet he saw in a
+moment how such a question would take shape in the opinion
+of the young Dissenter, in whom he clearly saw certain resemblances
+to himself. Therefore he assented very briefly,
+taking out his note-book to put down the special cases of which
+the Rector told him. They had a confidential conversation in
+a corner, during which the new-comer contemplated the figure
+of Northcote in his strange semi-clerical garments with some
+amaze. &ldquo;Who is your friend?&rdquo; he said abruptly, for he was
+a rapid man, losing no time about anything.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not my friend at all; it is my enemy who denounced
+me at the Dissenters' meeting.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pah!&rdquo; cried the Rector, curling up his nostrils, as if some
+disagreeable smell had reached him. &ldquo;A Dissenter here! I
+should not have expected it from you, May.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nor I either,&rdquo; said Reginald; but his colour rose. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+not disposed to be rebuked by any rector in Carlingford or the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Are you his curate,&rdquo; said Northcote, &ldquo;that he orders you
+about as if you were bound to do his bidding? I hope, for your
+own sake, it is not so.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Now it was Reginald's turn to smile. He was young, and
+liked a bit of grandiloquence as well as another.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Since I have been here,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;in this sinecure, as you
+call it&mdash;and such it almost is&mdash;I have been everybody's curate.
+If the others have too much work, and I too little, my duty is
+clear, don't you think?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Northcote made no reply. Had he known what was about
+to be said to him, he might have stirred up his faculties to say
+something; but he had not an idea that Reginald would answer
+him like this, and it took him aback. He was too honest
+himself not to be worsted by such a speech. He bowed his
+head with genuine respect. The apology of the Churchman
+whom he had assaulted, filled him with a kind of reverential
+confusion; he could make no reply in words. And need it be
+said that Reginald's heart too melted altogether when he saw
+how he had confounded his adversary? That silent assent
+more than made up for the noisy onslaught. That he should
+have thus overcome Northcote made Northcote appear his
+friend. He was pleased and satisfied beyond the reach of
+words.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will you come to the hospital with me?&rdquo; he said; and they
+walked out together, the young Dissenter saying very little,
+doing what he could to arrange those new lights which had
+suddenly flashed upon his favourite subject, and feeling that he
+had lost his landmarks, and was confused in his path. When
+the logic is taken out of all that a man is doing, what is to become
+of him? This was what he felt; an ideal person in Reginald's
+place could not have made a better answer. Suddenly
+somehow, by a strange law of association, there came into his
+mind the innocent talk he had overheard between the two girls
+who were, he was aware, May's sisters. A certain romantic
+curiosity about the family came into his mind. Certainly they
+could not be an ordinary family like others. There must be
+something in their constitution to account for this sudden downfall,
+which he had encountered in the midst of all his theories.
+The Mays must be people of a different strain from others; a
+peculiar race, to whom great thoughts were familiar; he could
+not believe that there was anything common or ordinary in
+their blood. He went out in silence, with the holder of the
+sinecure which he had so denounced, but which now seemed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+him to be held after a divine fashion, in a way which common
+men had no idea of. Very little could he say, and that of the
+most commonplace kind. He walked quite respectfully by the
+young clergyman's side along the crowded High Street, though
+without any intention of going to the hospital, or of actually
+witnessing the kind of work undertaken by his new friend.
+Northcote himself had no turn that way. To go and minister
+at a sick-bed had never been his custom; he did not understand
+how to do it; and though he had a kind of sense that it was the
+right thing to do, and that if any one demanded such a service
+of him he would be obliged to render it, he was all in the
+dark as to how he could get through so painful an office;
+whereas May went to it without fear, thinking of it only as the
+most natural thing in the world. Perhaps, it is possible,
+Northcote's ministrations, had he been fully roused, would have
+been, in mere consequence of the reluctance of his mind, to
+undertake them, more real and impressive than those which
+Reginald went to discharge as a daily though serious duty;
+but in any case it was the Churchman whose mode was the
+more practical, the more useful. They had not gone far together,
+when they met the Rector hurrying to the railway; he
+cast a frowning, dissatisfied look at Northcote, and caught
+Reginald by the arm, drawing him aside.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't be seen walking about with that fellow,&rdquo; he said;
+&ldquo;it will injure you in people's minds. What have you to do
+with a Dissenter&mdash;a demagogue? Your father would not like
+it any more than I do. Get rid of him, May.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am sorry to displease either you or my father,&rdquo; said
+Reginald stiffly; &ldquo;but, pardon me, in this respect I must judge
+for myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't be pig-headed,&rdquo; said the spiritual ruler of Carlingford;
+but he had to rush off for his train, and had no time to
+say more. He left Reginald hot and angry, doubly disposed,
+as was natural, to march Northcote over all the town, and show
+his intimacy with him. Get rid of an acquaintance whom he
+chose to extend his countenance to, to please the Rector! For
+a man so young as Reginald May, and so lately made independent,
+such an act of subserviency was impossible indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Before they entered the hospital, however, another encounter
+happened of a very different character. Strolling along in the
+centre of the pavement, endeavouring after the almost impossible
+combination of a yawn and a cigar, they perceived a large
+figure in a very long great-coat, and with an aspect of languor
+and <i>ennui</i> which was unmistakable a hundred yards off. This
+apparition called a sudden exclamation from Northcote.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If it was possible,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I should imagine I knew that
+man. Are there two like him? but I can't fancy what he can
+be doing here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>That</i> fellow!&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;It's a pity if there are two
+like him. I can't tell you what a nuisance he is to me. His
+name is Copperhead; he's my father's pupil.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then it <i>is</i> Copperhead! I thought there could not be
+another. He gives a sort of odd familiar aspect to the place all
+at once.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you are a friend of his!&rdquo; said Reginald, with a groan.
+&ldquo;Pardon the natural feelings of a man whose father has suddenly
+chosen to become a coach. I hate it, and my dislike to
+the thing is reflected on the person of the pupil. I suppose
+that's what my antipathy means.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He does not merit antipathy. He is a bore, but there is
+no harm in him. Ah! he is quickening his pace; I am afraid
+he has seen us; and anybody he knows will be a godsend to
+him, I suppose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am off,&rdquo; said Reginald; &ldquo;you will come again? that is,&rdquo;
+he added, with winning politeness, &ldquo;I shall come and seek
+you out. We are each the moral Antipodes of the other, Miss
+Beecham says&mdash;from which she argues that we should be acquainted
+and learn the meaning of our differences.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am much obliged to Miss Beecham.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Northcote!&rdquo; said Clarence Copperhead, bearing
+down upon them in his big grey Ulster, like a ship in full sail.
+&ldquo;Morning, May; who'd have thought to see you here. Oh,
+don't turn on my account! I'm only taking a walk; it don't
+matter which way I go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am very much hurried. I was just about to hasten off to
+an appointment. Good-bye, Northcote,&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;We
+shall meet again soon, I hope.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By Jove! this is a surprise,&rdquo; said Clarence; &ldquo;to see you
+here, where I should as soon have thought of looking for St.
+Paul's; and to find you walking about cheek by jowl with that
+muff, young May, who couldn't be civil, I think, if he were to try.
+What is the meaning of it? I suppose you're just as much
+startled to see me. I'm with a coach; clever, and a good scholar
+and a good family, and all that; father to that young sprig: so
+there ain't any mystery about me. What's brought you here?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Work,&rdquo; said Northcote, curtly. He did not feel disposed
+to enter into any kind of explanation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, work! Now I do wonder that a fellow like you, with
+plenty of money in your pocket, should go in for work as you
+do. What's the good of it? and in the Dissenting parson line<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+of all things in the world! When a fellow has nothing, you
+can understand it; he must get his grub somehow. That's
+what people think of you, of course. Me, I don't do anything,
+and everybody knows I'm a catch, and all that sort of thing.
+Now I don't say (for I don't know) if your governor has as
+much to leave behind him as mine&mdash;But halt a bit! You walk
+as if we were going in for athletics, and doing a two mile.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm sorry to see you so easily blown,&rdquo; said Northcote, not
+displeased in his turn to say something unpleasant. &ldquo;What is
+it? or are you only out of training?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's it,&rdquo; said Clarence, with a gasp. &ldquo;I'm awfully out of
+training, and that's the fact. We do, perhaps, live too well in
+Portland Place; but look here&mdash;about what we were saying&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you live with the Mays?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Worse luck! It's what you call plain cooking; and bless
+us all, dinner in the middle of the day, and the children at
+table. But I've put a stop to that; and old May ain't a bad
+old fellow&mdash;don't bother me with work more than I like, and
+none of your high mightiness, like that fellow. I'll tell you
+what, Northcote, you must come and see me. I haven't got a
+sitting-room of my own, which is a shame, but I have the use
+of their rooms as much as I like. The sisters go flying away
+like a flock of pigeons. I'll tell you what, I'll have you asked
+to dinner. Capital fun it will be. A High Church parson
+cheek by jowl with a red-hot Dissenter, and compelled to be
+civil. By Jove! won't it be a joke?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not a joke that either of us will enjoy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind, <i>I'll</i> enjoy it, by Jove!&rdquo; said Copperhead.
+&ldquo;He daren't say no. I'd give sixpence just to see you together,
+and the Bashaw of two tails&mdash;the young fellow. They shall
+have a party; leave it all to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NEW PUPIL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. May, since the bargain was fairly concluded with the
+Copperheads, had thought a great deal about the three hundred
+a-year he was to get for his pupil. It almost doubled his
+income in a moment, and that has a great effect upon the
+imagination. It was true he would have another person to
+maintain on this additional income, but still that additional
+person would simply fill Reginald's place, and it did not at first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+occur to him that what was good enough for himself, Mr. May,
+of St. Roque's, was not good enough for any <i>parvenu</i> on the face
+of the earth. Therefore the additional income represented a
+great deal of additional comfort, and that general expansion of
+expenditure, not going into any special extravagances, but
+representing a universal ease and enlargement which was congenial
+to him, and which was one of the great charms of money
+in his eyes. To be sure, when he reflected on the matter, he
+felt that the first half-year of Clarence's payment ought to be
+appropriated to that bill, which for the present had brought
+him so much relief; but this would be so entirely to lose the
+benefit of the money so far as he was himself concerned, that
+it was only in moments of reflection that this appeared urgent.
+The bill to which Tozer's signature had been appended did not
+oppress his conscience. After all, what was it? Not a very
+large sum, a sum which when put to it, and with time before him,
+he could so easily supply; and as for any other consideration,
+it was really, when you came to think of it, a quite justifiable
+expedient, not to be condemned except by squeamish persons,
+and which being never known, could do no harm in the world.
+He had not harmed anybody by what he had done. Tozer,
+who was quite able to pay it over and over again, would never
+know of it; and in what respect, he asked himself, was it worse
+to have done this than to have a bill really signed by a man of
+straw, whose &ldquo;value received&rdquo; meant nothing in the world
+but a simple fiction? Cotsdean was no more than a man of
+straw; if left to himself, he could not pay anything, nor had
+he anything really to do with the business for which his name
+stood sponsor; and Tozer's name was merely placed there in
+the same fictitious way, without any trouble to Tozer, or burden
+of responsibility. What was the difference, except that it saved
+trouble and anxiety to everybody except the principal in the
+affair&mdash;he who ought to bear the brunt? Mr. May recognised
+this without doubt. It was he who had reaped the advantage;
+and whether Cotsdean was the instrument who knew all about
+it, or Tozer, who did not know anything about it, it was he,
+Mr. May, whose natural duty it was to meet the claim and pay
+the money. He was an honest man; if he was occasionally
+a little slow in his payments, no one could throw any doubt
+upon his character. But, of course, should any unforeseen
+emergency arise, the pupil at once made that straight. Mr.
+May felt that he had only to go to the bank, which generally
+did not encourage his visits, and tell them of his pupil, to have
+the money at once. Nobody could reject such unmistakeable
+security. So that really there was no further occasion for so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+much as thinking of Tozer; that was provided for; with the
+freest conscience in the world he might put it out of his mind.
+But how he could feel this so strongly, and at the same time
+revel in the consciousness of a fuller purse, more to enjoy, and
+more to spend, is a mystery which it would be difficult to solve.
+He did so, and many others have done so besides him, eating
+their cake, yet believing that they had their cake with the
+fullest confidence. He was a sensible man, rather priding
+himself on his knowledge of business, with much experience in
+human nature, and a thoughtful sense (fully evidenced in his
+writings) of all the strange inconsistencies and self-deceits of
+mankind; but he dropped into this strain of self-delusion with
+the calmest satisfaction of mind, and was as sure of his own
+good sense and kindness as if he had never in all his life taken
+a step out of the rigidest of the narrow ways of uprightness.</p>
+
+<p>Some part of this illusion, however, was sharply dispelled at
+a very early date. Clarence Copperhead, who was not likely
+to err by means of too much consideration for the feelings of
+others, grumbled frankly at the mid-day meal.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't understand a two o'clock dinner,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it's
+lunch, that's what I call it; and I won't be disagreeable about
+the kids, but I must have my dinner. Bless you! a man can't
+live without his dinner. What is he to do? It is the sort of
+thing you can look forward to, whatever happens. If it's a wet
+day, or anything of that sort, there's always dinner; and after
+it's over, if there's music or a rubber, why that's all very well;
+or if a man feels a bit sleepy, it doesn't matter. Why, dinner's
+your stand-by, wherever you are. I'd as soon do without my
+head, for my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula hastened to tell her father this with dismay in her
+looks.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've always heard that late dinners were so expensive; you
+require twice as many dishes. At two, one has only what is
+necessary; but at seven, you require to have fish, and soup, and
+<i>entr&eacute;es</i>, and all sorts of things, besides the joint. It was disgraceful
+of him to say it!&rdquo; cried Ursula; &ldquo;and I think he
+ought to be made to follow our plan, whatever it is, and not do
+everything he likes here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is all very true,&rdquo; said Mr. May; &ldquo;but he is right
+about the dinner; it is a great deal more agreeable.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And expensive, papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, perhaps it is a great deal to expect at your age; but
+if you read your cookery-book, as I have often said, when you
+were reading those novels, and learned how to toss up little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+dishes out of nothing, and make <i>entr&eacute;es</i>, and so forth, at next
+to no expense&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The tears came into Ursula's eyes at this unjust assault.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you ought to know better at your age.
+One forgives the boys for saying such silly things. How can I
+toss up little dishes out of nothing? If you only knew the
+price of butter, not to talk of anything else. Made dishes are
+the most expensive things! A leg of mutton, for instance;
+there it is, and when one weighs it, one knows what it costs;
+but there is not one of those <i>entr&eacute;es</i> but costs <i>shillings</i> for
+herbs and truffles and gravy and forcemeat, and a glass of white
+wine here, and a half pint of claret there. It is all very well
+to talk of dishes made out of nothing. The meat may not be
+very much&mdash;and men never think of the other things, I suppose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is management that is wanted,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;to
+throw nothing away, to make use of everything, to employ all
+your scraps. If you once have a good sauce&mdash;which is as easy
+as daylight when you take the trouble&mdash;you can make all sorts
+of things out of a cold joint; but women never will take the
+trouble, and that is the secret of poor dinners. Not one in
+fifty will do it. If you wanted really to help us, and improve
+my position, you might, Ursula. I can't afford to fall out with
+Copperhead, he is very important to me just at this moment;
+and perhaps it is better that I should give in to him at once
+about the late dinner.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may say it is not my business,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;but we
+have already another maid, and now two dinners&mdash;for it is just
+the same as two dinners. He will not be any advantage to you
+like that, and why should he be so much harder to please than
+we are? Reginald never grumbled, who was much better bred
+and better educated than Mr. Copperhead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And with so much money to keep up his dignity,&rdquo; said her
+father mockingly. &ldquo;No, it is not your business, the cookery-book
+is your business, and how to make the best of everything;
+otherwise I don't want any advice from you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What did he say?&rdquo; cried Janey, rushing in as soon as her
+father had left the room. Ursula, a very general consequence
+of such interviews, was sitting by the fire, very red and excited,
+with tears glistening in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I knew what he would say; he says it is not my
+business, and there are to be late dinners, and everything that
+man chooses to ask for. Oh, it is so hard to put up with
+it!&rdquo; cried Ursula, her eyes flashing through her tears. &ldquo;I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+to read up the cookery-book and learn to make <i>entr&eacute;es</i> for
+them; but to say we can't afford it is not my business. I
+wonder whose business it is? It is I who have to go to the
+tradespeople and to bear it all if they grumble; and now this
+horrible man, who dares to tell me the coffee is not strong
+enough, as if I was a barmaid&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Barmaids don't have to do with coffee, have they?&rdquo; said
+matter-of-fact Janey; &ldquo;but the fact is <i>he is not a gentleman</i>;
+why should you mind? What does it matter what a person
+like that says or does? You said so yourself, he is not a bit a
+gentleman. I wonder what Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy
+could mean.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not their fault; they think of his mother, who is nice,
+who sent those things; but Mr. Copperhead knew about the
+things, which was not so nice of her, was it? But never mind,
+we must try to make the best of it. Get the cookery-book,
+Janey; perhaps if you were to read it out loud, and we were
+both to try to fix our mind upon it&mdash;for something must be
+done,&rdquo; said Ursula gravely. &ldquo;Papa will never find it out till
+all the money is spent, but we shall be poorer than we were
+before we had the pupil. Who is that, Janey, at the door?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was Ph&#339;be, who came in blooming from the cold, in a
+furred jacket, at which the girls looked with unfeigned admiration.
+&ldquo;The skating will soon come on in earnest now,&rdquo; she
+said; &ldquo;grandmamma is better, and I thought I might come and
+see you. I had a long talk with your brother the other day,
+did he tell you? and I made him know Mr. Northcote, one of
+our people. I know you will turn up your pretty nose, Ursula,
+at a Dissenter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I should think so,&rdquo; cried Janey; &ldquo;we have nothing to do
+with such people, being gentlefolks, have we, Ursula? Oh, I
+forgot! I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to say&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be smiled upon her serenely. &ldquo;I am not angry,&rdquo; she
+said, &ldquo;I understand all that; and in Carlingford I have no
+right, I suppose, to stand upon being a lady, though I always
+thought I was one. I am only a young woman here, and not
+so bad either for that, if you will promise, Janey, not to call me
+a young person&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Miss Beecham!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Copperhead is a Dissenter,&rdquo; said Ursula, somewhat
+sullenly, &ldquo;we put up with him because he is rich. Oh, it is all
+very disagreeable! I don't want to know any new people
+whatever they are; I find the old ones bad enough. Reginald
+hates him too, a big lazy useless being that treats one as if one
+were a chambermaid!&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it Clarence? It is not quite his fault. His mother is
+a lady, but his father is a brute,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;thinking of
+nothing but his horrible money. Clarence is not so bad. It is
+because he has no imagination, and does not understand other
+people's feelings; he does not mean it, poor fellow; he goes
+trampling about with his big feet upon everybody's toes, and
+never is a bit the wiser. Here he is&mdash;he is coming in with your
+father. I suppose there must be a great deal in race,&rdquo; she
+added with a soft little sigh, &ldquo;Clarence looks a clown, and your
+father such a gentleman. I suppose I show just the same when
+I stand beside you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Now Ph&#339;be was well aware that this was not the case, and
+Ursula's indignant disclaimer made her rather laugh, because it
+was so unnecessary, than be pleased by its vehemence. There
+was an old convex mirror opposite which reflected the girls in
+miniature, making a pretty picture of them as they sat together,
+Ursula with her dark locks, and Ph&#339;be in her golden hair, and
+the tall sharp school-girl, Janey, all elbows and angles, short
+petticoats and grey stockings. Janey was the only one in
+whom there could have been suspected any inferiority of race;
+but her awkwardness was that of youth, and her disordered hair
+and dress belonged also to her age, for she was at that troublesome
+period when frocks are constantly getting too short, and
+sleeves too scanty. Janey was shuffling slowly round the
+visitor, admiring her at every point; her garments were not
+made as dresses were made in Carlingford. Their fit and their
+texture were alike too perfect for anything that ever came out
+of High Street. The furred jacket had not been seen in Grange
+Lane before. Perhaps it was because the cold had become
+more severe, an ordinary and simple reason&mdash;or because
+Clarence Copperhead, who knew her, and in whose eyes it was
+important to bate no jot of her social pretensions, was here;
+and the furred jacket was beyond comparison with anything
+that had been seen for ages in Carlingford. The deep border
+of fur round the velvet, the warm waddings and paddings, the
+close fit up to the throat, were excellencies which warranted
+Janey's tour of inspection. Ph&#339;be perceived it very well, but
+did not confuse the girl by taking any notice, and in her heart
+she was herself slightly pre-occupied, wondering (as Ursula had
+done) what the man had come here for, and what he would say
+when he saw her. Both of these young women had a secret
+belief that something romantic, something more than the mere
+prose of reading in the first tutor's house that happened to have
+been suggested to him, had brought young Copperhead to such
+an unlikely place as Carlingford. Ursula had by this time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+learned to reject this hypothesis with much indignation at
+herself for having entertained it, but Ph&#339;be still felt slightly
+fluttered by this possibility, and was eager for the entrance of
+Clarence. She would know at once what had brought him, she
+said to herself, the moment she caught his eye.</p>
+
+<p>And though Mr. May had reconciled himself so completely
+to the Tozer business, the appearance of Tozer's granddaughter
+gave him a momentary shock. &ldquo;What did you do with my
+grandfather's letter? he thought her eyes said, and the meeting
+confused and disturbed him. This, however, was only for a moment.
+He was a man to whom it was always possible to make
+himself agreeable to women, and though he felt so easy in his
+mind about Tozer, still it was evident that to conciliate Tozer's
+relation, and that so influential a relation, was on the whole a
+good thing to do. He was going up to her accordingly with
+outstretched hands, and the most amiable inquiries about her
+grandmother's health, when, to his surprise, he was frustrated
+by Clarence who had come in before him&mdash;his large person
+swelling out, as it always seemed to do when he presented
+himself upon a new scene, with importance and grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Beecham!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;really, who would have thought
+it? Now look here, I came to Carlingford thinking there was
+not a soul I knew in the place; and here have you turned up
+all at once, and Northcote (you know Northcote?). It is very
+queer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is odd, isn't it?&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be quickly. &ldquo;I was astonished
+to see Mr. Northcote, and though I heard you were coming I
+am not less surprised to see you.&rdquo; &ldquo;He has not come for me,&rdquo;
+she said rapidly to herself, &ldquo;nor for Ursula either; then who
+is it?&rdquo; Ph&#339;be demanded in the depths of her own bosom; that
+he should have come for nobody at all, but simply for his own
+purposes, to get a little information put into his head, seemed
+incredible to both the girls. Ursula, for her part, had been
+angry when she discovered his want of meaning, though why
+she would have found it hard to say. But Ph&#339;be, for her part,
+was not angry. She took this like other things of the kind,
+with great and most philosophical calm, but she could not outgrow
+it all at once. For whom was it? His cousins, those
+Miss Dorsets? But they were much older, and not the kind
+of women for whom such an act was likely. Her mind wandered
+forth lively and curious in search of the necessary clue.
+She could not consent to the fact that no clue was necessary
+where no mystery was.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am glad to see that you venture out in this wintry weather,&rdquo;
+said Mr. May; &ldquo;you set us all a good example. I am always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+telling my girls that cold weather is no sufficient reason for
+staying indoors. I wish Ursula would do as you do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa, how can you talk so?&rdquo; said Janey, indignant, &ldquo;when
+you know very well it is not the cold that keeps Ursula in, but
+because she has so much to do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, one knows the sort of things young ladies have to
+do,&rdquo; said Clarence, with a laugh; &ldquo;read stories, and look up
+pretty dresses for their parties, eh, Miss Janey? and consult
+the fashion-books. Oh, of course you will deny it; but my
+mother makes me her confidant, and I know that's what you
+all do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;we are not so clever as you are,
+and can't do so many things. We know no Latin or Greek to
+keep our minds instructed; we acknowledge our infirmity; and
+we couldn't play football to save our lives. Football is what
+you do in this season, when you don't hunt, and before the ice
+is bearing? We are poor creatures; we can't parcel out our
+lives, according as it is time for football or cricket. You must
+not be so severe upon girls for being so inferior to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>(&ldquo;Oh, don't be too hard upon him,&rdquo;) whispered Ursula, in
+a parenthesis, afraid that this irony should drive the pupil to
+desperation. (&ldquo;Hard upon him! he will never find it out,&rdquo;)
+Ph&#339;be whispered back in the same tone.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, hang it all, I don't mean to be severe upon girls,&rdquo; said
+Clarence, pulling his moustache with much complacency; &ldquo;I
+am sorry for them, I can tell you. It ain't their fault; I know
+heaps of nice girls who feel it horribly. What can they do?
+they can't go in for cricket and football. There ought to be
+something invented for them. To be sure there is lawn-tennis,
+but that's only for summer. I should go mad, I think, if I
+had nothing to do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you have more brain and more strength, you see, than
+we have; and besides, we are used to it,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I am
+afraid, Ursula, grandmamma will want me, and I must go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. May said something to his daughter which filled
+Ursula with excitement, mingled of pleasure and displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa says, will you come to dinner to-morrow at seven?
+It appears there is some one you know coming&mdash;a Mr. Northcote.
+I don't know who he is, but it will be very kind if you
+will come on my account,&rdquo; the girl concluded, whispering in
+her ear, &ldquo;for how shall I ever get through a dinner-party?
+We never gave one in my life before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course I will come,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;Dinner-parties are
+not so common here that I should neglect the chance. I
+must thank Mr. May. But I hope you know who Mr. Northcote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+is,&rdquo; she added, laughing. &ldquo;I gave an account of myself
+loyally, before I permitted you to ask me; but Mr. Northcote&mdash;Oh,
+no! he does not belong to&mdash;&mdash;the lower classes; but he
+is a fiery red-hot&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What?&rdquo; cried eager Janey, pressing to the front. &ldquo;Radical?
+I am a radical too; and Reginald used to be once, and so
+was Ursula. Oh, I wish it was to-night!&rdquo; said Janey, clasping
+her hands.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not a radical, but a Dissenter; and you who are a clergyman,
+Mr. May! I like you, oh, so much for it. But I wonder
+what the people will say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My dear Miss Beecham,&rdquo; said the suave Churchman, quite
+ready to seize the chance of making a point for himself, &ldquo;in
+the Church, fortunately, what the people say has not to be
+studied, as your unfortunate pastors, I am informed, have to do.
+While Mr. Copperhead is under my roof, I make his friends
+welcome&mdash;for his sake first, probably afterwards for their own.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I asked Northcote,&rdquo; said Clarence; &ldquo;I never thought
+they would have any objection. He's not a common Dissenter,
+like the most of those fellows that have nothing but their
+salaries. He's well off; he don't require, bless you, to keep
+people in good temper, and toady to 'em, like most do. He's
+as independent as I am; I don't say that he's quite as well off;
+but money always finds its level. I shouldn't have thought of
+asking May to receive a common Dissenting fellow, like the
+rest.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be laughed. It did not occur to the accomplished scion
+of the house of Copperhead, nor to the two girls, who were not
+experienced enough to think of such things, what was the
+meaning expressed in Ph&#339;be's laugh, which was not cheerful.
+Mr. May himself had the advantage of more discrimination.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you will find that, Dissenter or not, I know what is
+my duty to my friends,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What my guests may
+possess, or the exact nature of their opinions on all points, are
+not subjects to be discussed by me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, there is nothing to find fault with in <i>you</i>,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be,
+with less than her usual universal courtesy; &ldquo;you are always
+kind, Mr. May;&rdquo; and then she laughed again. &ldquo;Some people
+are very clever in finding out the vulnerable places,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is changed,&rdquo; said Clarence, when she was gone. &ldquo;She
+is not the jolly girl she used to be. She was always a very
+jolly girl; ready to help a fellow out of a scrape, you know.
+But Northcote's a fearfully clever fellow. You should just
+hear him talk. He and May will go at it hammer and tongs,
+as sure as fate.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>URSULA'S ENTR&Eacute;ES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It would be difficult to describe the anxiety with which that
+first &ldquo;late dinner&rdquo; was regarded by Ursula. Janey, too, had
+thrown herself into it heart and soul, until she received the
+crushing intimation from her father, that her company was not
+expected at this stately meal; a discovery which altogether
+extinguished poor Janey, accustomed to be always in the front
+whatever occurred, and to whom suggestions of things that
+could not be done by a girl who was not &ldquo;out,&rdquo; had never
+presented themselves. She retired to her own room dissolved
+in tears when this fearful mandate went forth, and for the rest
+of the morning was good for nothing, her eyes being converted
+into a sort of red pulp, her rough hair doubly dishevelled, her
+whole being run into tears. She was of no more use now to go
+errands between the kitchen and the drawing-room, or to read
+the cookery-book out loud, which was a process upon which
+Ursula depended very much, to fix in her mind the exact
+ingredients and painful method of preparation of the <i>entr&eacute;es</i>
+at which she was toiling. Betsy, the former maid-of-all-work,
+now promoted under the title of cook, could be trusted to
+roast the saddle of mutton, which, on consideration that it was
+&ldquo;a party,&rdquo; had been thought preferable to a leg, and she could
+boil the fish, after a sort, and make good honest family soup,
+and the rice-pudding or apple-tart, which was the nearest
+approach to luxury indulged in at the Parsonage; but as for
+<i>entr&eacute;es</i>, Betsy did not know what they were. She had heard
+of made dishes indeed, and respectfully afar off had seen them
+when she was kitchen-maid at Lady Weston's&mdash;the golden age
+of her youthful inexperience. But this was so long ago, that
+her recollections were rather confusing than useful to Ursula,
+when she went downstairs to make her first heroic effort.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;La, Miss, that ain't how cook used to do 'em at Lady
+Weston's,&rdquo; Betsy said, looking on with unbelieving eyes. She
+was sure of this negative, but she was not sure of anything else,
+and utterly failed to give any active assistance, after driving
+the girl desperate with her criticisms. Altogether it was a
+confused and unpleasant day. When Reginald came in in the
+morning, his sister had no time to speak to him, so anxious was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+she and pre-occupied, and the drawing-room was being turned
+upside down, to make it look more modern, more elegant, more
+like the Dorsets' drawing-room, which was the only one
+Ursula knew. The comfortable round table in the middle,
+round which the family had grouped themselves for so long, had
+been pushed aside into a corner, leaving one fresh patch of carpet,
+quite inappropriate, and unconnected with anything else;
+and instead of the work and the school-books which so often
+intruded there, all that was gaudy and uninteresting in the May
+library had been produced to decorate the table; and even a
+case of wax flowers, a production of thirty years since, which
+had been respectfully transferred to a china closet by Ursula's
+better taste, but which in the dearth of ornament she had
+brought back again. Reginald carried off the wax flowers and
+replaced the table with his own hands, while Ursula scorched
+her cheeks over the <i>entr&eacute;es</i> downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All this for Northcote,&rdquo; he said, when she ran up for a
+moment, done up in a big white apron, her face crimson with
+the fire and anxiety combined: &ldquo;for Miss Beecham has been
+here before, and you made no fuss about her then.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She came to tea,&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;And I got a cake, which
+was all any one could do; but a dinner is a very different thing.&rdquo;
+Indeed she had by this time come to share her father's opinion,
+that dinner was the right and dignified thing in all cases, and
+that they had been hitherto living in a very higgledy-piggledy
+way. The dinner had gone to her head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then it is for Northcote, as I say,&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;Do
+you know who he is?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A Dissenter,&rdquo; said Ursula, with a certain languor; &ldquo;but
+so, you know, is Mr. Copperhead, and he is the chief person
+here now-a-days. Papa thinks there is nobody like him. And
+so is Ph&#339;be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, have you come so far as that?&rdquo; said Reginald, with a
+little tinge of colour in his face. He laughed, but the name
+moved him. &ldquo;It is a pretty fresh sort of country name, not
+quite like such an accomplished person.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, that is just like you men, with your injustice! Because
+she is clever you take it amiss; you are all jealous of her. Look
+at her pretty colour and her beautiful hair; if that is not fresh
+I should like to know what is. She might be Hebe instead of
+Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; said Ursula, who had picked up scraps of classical
+knowledge in spite of herself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are a little goose,&rdquo; said Reginald, pinching her ear, but
+he liked his sister for her generous partizanship. &ldquo;Mind you
+don't come to dinner with cheeks like that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I like my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+sister to be herself, not a cook-maid, and I don't believe in
+<i>entr&eacute;es</i>;&rdquo; but he went away smiling, and with a certain warmth
+in his breast. He had gone up and down Grange Lane many
+times at the hour of sunset, hoping to meet Ph&#339;be again, but
+that sensible young woman had no mind to be talked of, and
+never appeared except when she was certain the road was clear.
+This had tantalized Reginald more than he chose to avow, even
+to himself. Pride prevented him from knocking at the closed
+door. The old Tozers were fearful people to encounter, people
+whom to visit would be to damn himself in Carlingford;
+but then the Miss Griffiths were very insipid by the side of
+Ph&#339;be, and the variety of her talk, though he had seen so little
+of her, seemed to have created a new want in his life. He
+thought of a hundred things which he should like to discuss
+with her&mdash;things which did not interest Ursula, and which the
+people about him did not understand much. Society at that
+time, as may be presumed, was in a poor way in Carlingford.
+The Wentworths and Wodehouses were gone, and many other
+nice people; the houses in Grange Lane were getting deserted,
+or falling into inferior hands, as was apparent by the fact that
+the Tozers&mdash;old Tozer, the butterman&mdash;had got one of them.
+The other people were mostly relics of a bygone state of
+things: retired old couples, old ladies, spinsters, and widows&mdash;excellent
+people, but not lively to talk to&mdash;and the Griffiths,
+above mentioned, put up with in consideration of tolerable good
+looks and &ldquo;fun,&rdquo; became tiresome when anything better was to
+be had. The mere apparition of Ph&#339;be upon the horizon had
+been enough to show Reginald that there were other kinds of
+human beings in the world. It had not occurred to him that
+he was in love with her, and the idea of the social suicide implied
+in marrying old Tozer's granddaughter, had not so much
+as once entered his imagination. Had he thought of it, he
+would have pulled that imagination up tight, like an unruly
+horse, the thing being too impossible to bear thinking of.
+But this had never entered his mind. He wanted to see
+Ph&#339;be to talk to her, to be near her, as something very new,
+captivating and full of interest&mdash;that was all. No one else
+within his sphere could talk so well. The Rector was very
+great indeed on the reredos question, and the necessity of
+reviving the disused &ldquo;Church&rdquo; customs; but Reginald could
+not go so far as he did as to the importance of the reredos, and
+was quite in doubt whether it was not as well for most people to
+&ldquo;direct&rdquo; themselves by their own consciences as to be directed
+by the spiritual head of the parish, who was not over wise in his
+own concerns. His father, Reginald knew, could be very agreeable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+among strangers, but he seldom chose to be so in his own
+house. All this made the advent of Ph&#339;be appear to him like a
+sudden revelation out of a different world. He was an Oxford
+man, with the best of education, but he was a simpleton all the
+same. He thought he saw in her an evidence of what life was
+like in those intellectual professional circles which a man may
+hope to get into only in London. It was not the world of fashion
+he was aware, but he thought in his simplicity that it was the still
+higher world of culture and knowledge, in which genius, and
+wit, and intellect stood instead of rank or riches. How Tozer's
+granddaughter had got admission there, he did not ask himself,
+but this was what he thought, and to talk to her was a
+new sensation. He was quite unconscious of anything more.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody knew when Ursula took her place at the head of the
+table in her pretty white dress, which she had worn at the
+Dorsets', how much toil and anxiety the preparations had given
+her. At the last moment, when her mind was so far clear of
+the <i>entr&eacute;es</i>, &amp;c.&mdash;as clear as the mind of an inexperienced
+dinner-giver can be, until the blessed moment when they are
+eaten and done with&mdash;she had to take Sarah in hand, who was
+not very clear about the waiting, and to instruct her according
+to her own very imperfect knowledge how to fulfil her duties.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Think it is not a dinner-party at all, but only just our
+ordinary luncheon, and don't get fluttered; and when I look
+at you like <i>this</i> come quite close, and I will whisper what you
+are to do. And oh, Sarah, like a good creature, don't break
+anything!&rdquo; said Ursula almost with tears.</p>
+
+<p>These were all the directions she could give, and they, it
+must be allowed, were somewhat vague. The excitement was
+becoming to her. She sat down with a dreadful flutter in her
+heart, but with her eyes shining and sparkling. Clarence
+Copperhead, who extended an arm very carelessly to take her
+downstairs, absolutely certain of being a more important
+person than his guest Northcote, was roused for the first time
+to the consciousness that she was very pretty, which he had
+not found out before. &ldquo;But no style,&rdquo; he said to himself.
+Ph&#339;be was the one who had style. She sat between Mr. May and
+the stranger, but devoted herself to her host chiefly, displaying
+a gentle contempt of the younger men in his presence. No
+anxiety was in her mind about the dinner. She did not follow
+the fate of those <i>entr&eacute;es</i> round the table with terrible palpitations,
+as poor Ursula did; and, alas, the <i>entr&eacute;es</i> were not
+good, and Ursula had the mortification to see the dishes she
+had taken so much trouble with, rejected by one and another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+Reginald ate some, for which she blessed him, and so did
+Ph&#339;be, but Mr. May sent his plate away with polite execrations.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell your cook she shall go if she sends up such uneatable
+stuff again, Ursula,&rdquo; her father cried from the other
+end of the table.</p>
+
+<p>Two big tears dashed up hot and scalding into Ursula's
+eyes. Oh, how she wished she could be dismissed like Betsy!
+She turned those two little oceans of trouble piteously, without
+knowing it, upon Northcote, who had said something to
+her, without being able to reply to him. And Northcote, who
+was but a young man, though he was a fiery political Dissenter,
+and who had come to the Parsonage with a curious
+mixture of pleasure and reluctance, immediately threw down
+any arms that nature might have provided him with, and
+fell in love with her there and then on the spot! to his
+own absolute consternation. This was how it happened.
+The moment was not romantic, the situation was not sublime.
+A little motherless housekeeper crying because her father
+scolded her in public for a piece of bad cookery. There is
+nothing in this to make an idyll out of; but such as it was, it
+proved enough for Horace Northcote; he yielded himself on
+the spot. Not a word was said, for Ursula felt that if she
+tried to talk she must cry, and anything further from her
+troubled thoughts than love it would be impossible to imagine;
+but then and there, so far as the young man was concerned,
+the story began. He talked very little for the rest of the
+meal, and Ursula did not exert herself, though she recovered
+slightly when the mutton turned out to be very good, and
+was commended; but what was the mutton in comparison
+with her <i>entr&eacute;es</i>, which she had made with her own hands,
+and which were a failure? She was reduced to silence, and
+she thought that the stranger at her left hand was nice,
+because he did not bother her, and was content with a very
+little talk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ph&#339;be, did you hear papa about those <i>entr&eacute;es</i>?&rdquo; she
+cried, when they reached the drawing-room; and sitting down
+on the stool by the fire which Janey usually appropriated, she
+cried, poor child, with undisguised passion. &ldquo;I had made
+them myself; I had been busy about them all day; I read the
+cookery-book till my head ached, and took such pains! and
+you heard what he said.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, dear, I heard him; but he did not think what he was
+saying, it never occurred to him that it was you. Don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+shake your little head, I am sure of it; you know, Ursula,
+your papa is very agreeable and very clever.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I know he is clever; and he can be nice when he
+likes&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you like it?&rdquo; cried Janey, bursting in, red-eyed and
+dishevelled in her morning frock. &ldquo;Oh, no, I am not dressed,
+I don't mean to, to let him get the better of me, and think I
+care. Only just for a moment to see you two. Oh, isn't
+Ph&#339;be grand in that dress? She is like a picture; you are
+nothing beside her, Ursula. Tell me, is it nice to have dinner
+instead of tea? Did it go off very well, did you enjoy yourselves?
+Or were you all unhappy, sitting round the table,
+eating beef and mutton,&rdquo; cried Janey with all the scorn of
+ignorance, &ldquo;at that ridiculous hour!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I was as miserable as I could be,&rdquo; cried Ursula, &ldquo;I was
+not happy at all. Enjoy myself! with the <i>entr&eacute;es</i> on my
+mind, and after what papa said. Oh, run away, Janey, and
+dress, or else go to bed. Papa will be so angry if he comes up
+and finds you here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I should like to make him frantic,&rdquo; cried Janey with
+vindictive force, &ldquo;I should just like to drive him out of his
+senses! Never mind, yes, I am angry; haven't I a right to
+be angry? I am as tall as Ursula&mdash;I hope I know how to
+behave myself&mdash;and when there were people coming, and a real
+dinner&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, I hear them,&rdquo; cried Ursula in alarm, and Janey flew
+off, her hair streaming behind her. Ph&#339;be put her arm
+round Ursula, and raised her from the stool. She was not
+perhaps a perfect young woman, but had her own ends to serve
+like other people; yet she had a friendly soul. She gave her
+friend a kiss to preface her admonition, as girls have a way of
+doing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I would not let Janey talk so,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I think you
+should not talk so yourself, Ursula, if you will forgive me, of
+your papa; he is very nice, and so clever. I should try all I
+could to please him, and I should not let any one be disrespectful
+to him if it was I.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ph&#339;be, if you only knew&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I know, gentlemen don't understand often; but we
+must do our duty. He is nice, and clever, and handsome, and
+you ought to be proud of him. Dry your eyes, here they are
+really, coming upstairs. You must be good-humoured and
+talk. He is ever so much nicer than the young men,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be, almost loud enough to be heard, as Clarence Copperhead,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+sauntering in advance of the others with his large shirt-front
+fully displayed, came into the room. He came in half
+whistling in serene indifference. Ph&#339;be had &ldquo;style,&rdquo; it was
+true; but she was only a Dissenting parson's daughter, and
+what were two such girls to Clarence Copperhead? He came
+in whistling an opera air, which he let drop only after he was
+well inside the door.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Beecham, let us have some music. I know you can
+play,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If Miss May likes,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, covering his rudeness;
+and then she laughed, and added, &ldquo;if you will accompany me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Does Mr. Copperhead play too?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh beautifully. Has he not let you see his music?
+Won't you bring it here and let us look over it? I dare say
+there are some things we can play together.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You can play everything,&rdquo; said the young man. &ldquo;And
+I'll bring my violin, if you like.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was delighted; he quickened his steps almost into a run
+as he went away.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You should not laugh at Mr. Copperhead,&rdquo; Ursula retorted
+on her friend. &ldquo;You should be good-humoured, too. You
+are better than I am, but you are not quite good, after all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Violin!&rdquo; said Mr. May. &ldquo;Heaven and earth! is there
+going to be any fiddling? Miss Beecham, I did not expect
+you to bring such a horror upon me. I thought I had nothing
+but good to expect from you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wait till you hear him, sir,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May retired to the far corner of the room. He called
+young Northcote to him, who was standing beside Ursula,
+eager to talk, but not knowing how to begin. It was bad
+enough to be thus withdrawn from his chance of making himself
+agreeable; but the reader may imagine what was the
+Dissenter's feelings when Mr. May, with a smile, turned upon
+him. Having given him a (tolerably) good dinner, and lulled
+him into a belief that his sins against the family were unknown,
+he looked at him, smiling, and began.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Northcote, the first time I saw you, you were discoursing
+at an Anti-Establishment Meeting in the Town Hall.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Northcote started. He blushed fiery red. &ldquo;It is quite true.
+I wished to have told you; not to come here on false pretences;
+but Copperhead&mdash;and your son has been very kind&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then I suppose your views are modified. Clergymen no
+longer appear to you the demons in human shape you thought
+them then; and my son, in particular, has lost his horns and
+hoofs?&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. May, you are very severe; but I own there is reason&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It was you who were severe. I was not quite sure of you
+till Copperhead brought you in. Nay,&rdquo; said the clergyman,
+rubbing his hands; &ldquo;do you think that I object to the utterance
+of a real opinion? Certainly not. As for Reginald, it
+was the thing that decided him; I leave you to find out how;
+so that we are positively in your debt. But I hope you don't
+fiddle too. If you like to come with me to my study&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Northcote gave a longing look round the room, which had
+become all at once so interesting to him. Mr. May was too
+clear-sighted not to see it. He thought, quite impartially,
+that perhaps it was an excusable weakness, even though it was
+his own society that was the counter attraction. They were
+two nice-looking girls. This was how he put it, being no longer
+young, and father to one of them; naturally, the two young
+men would have described the attraction of Ph&#339;be and Ursula
+more warmly. Clarence Copperhead, who had come in with
+an armful of music and his fiddle, was not thinking of the girls,
+nor of anything but the sweet sounds he was about to make&mdash;and
+himself. When he began to tune his violin, Mr. May got
+up in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is more than mortal can stand,&rdquo; he said, making as
+though he would have gone away. Then he changed his mind,
+for, after all, he was the chaperon of his motherless girl. &ldquo;Get
+me the paper, Ursula,&rdquo; he said. It would be hard to tell with
+what feelings Northcote contemplated him. He was the father
+of Ursula, yet he dared to order her about, to bring the tears
+to her eyes. Northcote darted the same way as she was going,
+and caught at the paper on a side-table, and brought it hastily.
+But alas, that was last week's paper! he did not save her the
+trouble, but he brought upon himself a gleam of mischief
+from her father's eyes. &ldquo;Mr. Northcote thinks me a tyrant
+to send you for the paper,&rdquo; he said, as he took it out of her
+hands. &ldquo;Thank him for his consideration. But he was not
+always so careful of your peace of mind,&rdquo; he added, with a
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Ursula looked at him with a wondering question in her eyes;
+but those tears were no longer there which had gone to Northcote's
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know what papa means,&rdquo; she said, softly; and then,
+&ldquo;I want to beg your pardon, please. I was very silly. Will
+you try to forget it, and not tell any one, Mr. Northcote?
+The truth was, I thought I had done them nicely, and I was
+vexed. It was very childish,&rdquo; she said, shaking her head with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+something of the same moisture floating back over the lustre in
+her pretty eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will never tell any one, you may be sure,&rdquo; said the young
+man; but Ursula did not notice that he declined to give the
+other pledge, for Reginald came up just then with wrath in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is that idiot going to fiddle all night?&rdquo; he cried (poor
+Clarence had scarcely begun); &ldquo;as if anybody wanted to hear
+him and his tweedle-dees. Miss Beecham plays like St. Cecilia,
+Ursula; and I want to speak to her about something. Can't
+you get that brute beguiled away?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clarence was the one who was <i>de trop</i> in the little party;
+but he fiddled beatifically, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling,
+without the slightest suspicion of the fact, while Ph&#339;be accompanied
+him, with little smiles at her friends, and shrugs of
+her shoulders. Reginald felt very strongly, though for the
+first time, that she was over doing the Scriptural maxim of
+being all things to all men.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>After this dinner-party, such as it was, the Parsonage became
+gradually the centre of a little society, such as sometimes
+forms in the most accidental way in a house where there are
+young men and young women, and of which no one can say
+what momentous results may arise. They came together fortuitously,
+blown to one centre by the merest winds of circumstance,
+out of circles totally different and unlike. Why it was
+that Mr. May, so good a Churchman, permitted two people so
+entirely out of his sphere to become his habitual guests and the
+companions of his children was very perplexing to the outside
+world, who half in mere surprise, and a little in despite, wondered
+and commented till they were tired, or till they had become
+so familiar with the strange spectacle that it ceased to
+strike them. A rich pupil might be forgiven for being a Dissenter,
+indeed in Carlingford as elsewhere money made up for
+most deficiencies; but even natural complacency towards the
+rich pupil scarcely accounted for the reception of the others.
+The neighbours could never be quite sure whether the family at
+the Parsonage knew or did not know that their new friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+Northcote was not only acting as Minister of Salem Chapel,
+but was the assailant of Reginald May at the Anti-Establishment
+Meeting, and various persons in Grange Lane held themselves
+for a long time on the tip-toe of preparation, ready to
+breathe to Mr. May the painful intelligence, in case he was unaware
+of it. But he never gave them the opportunity. Honestly,
+he had forgotten the speaker's name at first, and only
+recognized him when he was introduced by young Copperhead;
+and then the situation was piquant and amused him, especially
+the evident confusion and consternation of the culprit when
+found out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know what he thinks he has done to you,&rdquo; said
+Clarence, &ldquo;I could scarcely make him come in. He says he is
+sure you can't wish to see him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This was two days after the dinner, when Horace Northcote
+came to leave a respectful card, hoping that he might see
+Ursula at a door or window. Clarence had seized upon him and
+dragged him in, in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;On the contrary, I am very glad to see him,&rdquo; said Mr. May,
+with a smile. He looked at the young Dissenter with a jeer in
+his eyes. He liked to punish him, having suddenly perceived
+that this jeer was much more potent than any serious penalty.
+&ldquo;If he will promise not to slay me, I shan't quarrel with him.&rdquo;
+Mr. May was in such good spirits at this moment that he could
+afford to joke; his own magnanimity, and the other's confused
+looks of guilt, overcame his gravity. &ldquo;Come back again,&rdquo; he
+said, holding out his hand; and though Horace retired for the
+moment utterly confounded, yet the attractions of the cheerful
+house overcame, after a while, his sense of humiliation and
+inappropriateness. If the injured family had condoned his
+offence, why should he mind? and the pleasant girlish friendliness,
+without any <i>arri&egrave;re pens&eacute;e</i>, of Ursula, was enough to have
+set any man at his ease; the facts of the case being that Mrs.
+Hurst was away upon a long visit, and that, having no other
+gossip within the range of her acquaintance, Ursula did not
+know. Reginald, who did, had the same sense of magnanimity
+as his father had, and began to like the society of the congenial
+yet different spirit which it was so strange to him to find under a
+guise so unlike his own. And Northcote, on his side, finding no
+house to which he could betake himself among those whom
+Ph&#339;be called &ldquo;our own people;&rdquo; found a refuge, which
+gradually became dearer and dearer to him, at the Parsonage,
+and in his profound sense of the generosity of the people who
+had thus received him, felt his own partizanship wax feebler and
+feebler every day. He seemed to see the ground cut from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+under his feet, as he watched the young chaplain at his work.
+Mr. May, to be sure, was no example of pastoral diligence, but
+he was a pleasant companion, and had put himself from the first
+in that position of moral superiority which naturally belongs
+to an injured person who can forgive heartily and without prejudice.
+And Ursula! He did not venture to call her Ursula,
+even in the secret depths of his heart. There a pronoun was
+enough, as, indeed, incipient Love generally finds it. She
+spoke to him, smiled at him in the street; and immediately life
+became a <i>Vita Nuova</i> to him. The young Dissenter was as
+Dante, and simple Ursula, with her housekeeping books in her
+hand, became another Beatrice. It is not every one who has the
+capacity for this perfect and absorbing sentiment; but Horace
+Northcote had, and for a long time Ursula was as unconscious
+of it as heart could desire.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's admission to the house had been more simple still.
+A girlish fancy on Ursula's part, a fit of good-nature on her
+father's, and then that secret thread of connection with Tozer
+which no one knew of, and the coming of Clarence Copperhead,
+to please whom Mr. May permitted himself to be persuaded
+to do much; and in addition to all this, her good looks,
+her pretty manners, her cleverness and the deference she had
+always shown in the proper quarter. Mr. May did not enter
+into the lists with his son, or think of offering himself as a
+suitor to Ph&#339;be; but he liked to talk to her, and to watch
+what he called &ldquo;her little ways,&rdquo; and to hear her play when
+Clarence and his violin were otherwise disposed of. He was an
+experienced man, priding himself on a knowledge of human
+nature, and Ph&#339;be's &ldquo;little ways&rdquo; amused him greatly. What
+did she mean?&mdash;to &ldquo;catch&rdquo; Clarence Copperhead, who would
+be a great match, or to fascinate Northcote? Oddly enough
+Mr. May never thought of Reginald, though that young man
+showed an eagerness to talk to Ph&#339;be which was more than
+equal with his own, and had always subjects laid up ready to
+discuss with her, when he could find the opportunity. Sometimes
+he would go up to her in the midst of the little party
+and broach one of these topics straight on end, without preface
+or introduction, as which was her favourite play of Shakespeare,
+and what did she think of the character of King Lear? It
+was not very wise, not any wiser than his neighbour was, who
+made pretty little Ursula into the ideal lady, the most gentle
+and stately figure in poetry; and yet no doubt there was something
+in both follies that was a great deal better than wisdom.
+The society formed by these two young pairs, with Clarence
+Copperhead as a heavy floating balance, and Mr. May and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+Janey&mdash;one philosophical, wise and mistaken; the other sharp-sighted
+and seeing everything&mdash;as spectators, was very pleasant
+to the close little coterie themselves, and nobody else got within
+the charmed circle. They grew more and more intimate daily,
+and had a whole vocabulary of domestic jokes and allusions which
+no one else could understand. It must be allowed, however,
+that the outside world was not pleased with this arrangement
+on either side of the question. The Church people were
+shocked with the Mays for harbouring Dissenters under any
+circumstances whatever, and there had not been a Minister at
+Salem Chapel for a long time so unpopular as Horace Northcote,
+who was always &ldquo;engaged&rdquo; when any of the connection
+asked him to tea, and preached sermons which went over their
+heads, and did not remember them when he met them in the
+street. Tozer was about the only one of the congregation who
+stood up for the young man. The others thanked Heaven that
+&ldquo;he was but tempory,&rdquo; and on the whole they were right, for
+certainly he was out of place in his present post.</p>
+
+<p>As for Clarence Copperhead, he led an agreeable life enough
+among all these undercurrents of feeling, which he did not
+recognise with any distinctness. He was comfortable enough,
+pleased with his own importance, and too obtuse to perceive
+that he bored his companions; and then he considered himself
+to be slightly &ldquo;sweet upon&rdquo; both the girls. Ursula was his
+favourite in the morning, when he embarrassed her much by
+persistently seeking her company whenever liberated by her
+father; but Ph&#339;be was the queen of the evening, when he
+would get his fiddle with an unfailing complacency which drove
+Reginald frantic. Whether it was mere good-nature or any
+warmer impulse, Ph&#339;be was strangely tolerant of these fiddlings,
+and would go on playing for hours with serene composure,
+never tired and never impatient. Yet poor Clarence was not
+an accompanyist to be coveted. He was weak in the ear and
+defective in science, but full of a cheerful confidence which was
+as good as genius.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Never mind, Miss Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; he would say cheerfully, when
+he had broken down for the twentieth time, &ldquo;play on and I'll
+catch you up.&rdquo; He had thus a series of trysting places in
+every page or two, which might have been very laughable to an
+indifferent spectator, but which aggravated the Mays, father
+and son, to an intolerable extent. They were the two who
+suffered. As for Horace Northcote, who was not a great talker,
+it was a not disagreeable shield for his silent contemplation of
+Ursula, and the little things which from time to time he
+ventured to say to her. For conversation he had not the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+thirst which animated Reginald, and Ursula's talk, though
+lively and natural, was not like Ph&#339;be's; but while the music
+went on he could sit by her in a state of silent beatitude, now
+and then saying something to which Ursula replied if she was
+disposed, or if she was not disposed put aside by a little shake
+of her head, and smiling glance at the piano. Sometimes it
+was simple wilfulness that made her silent; but Northcote set
+it down to an angelical sweetness which would not wound even
+the worst of performances by inattention. They were happy
+enough sitting there under the shelter of the piano, the young
+man absorbed in the dreams of a young love, the girl just
+beginning to realize the adoration which she was receiving,
+with a timid perception of it&mdash;half-frightened, half-grateful.
+She was in spite of herself amused by the idea only half understood,
+and which she could scarcely believe, that this big grown
+man, so much more important than herself in everybody's eyes,
+should show so much respect to a little girl whom her father
+scolded, whom Reginald sent trotting about on all sorts of
+errands, and whom Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy considered
+a child. It was very strange, a thing to call forth inextinguishable
+laughter, and yet with a strange touch of sweetness
+in it, which almost made her cry in wondering gratitude.
+What she thought of him, Ursula did not ask herself; that he
+should think <i>like this</i> of her was the bewildering, extraordinary,
+ridiculous fact that at present filled her girlish head.</p>
+
+<p>But if they were sweet to Northcote, these evenings were
+the crown of Clarence Copperhead's content and conscious
+success; he was supremely happy, caressing his fiddle between
+his cheek and his shoulder, and raising his pale eyes to the
+ceiling in an ecstasy. The music, and the audience, and the
+accompanyist all together were delightful to him. He could
+have gone on he felt not only till midnight, but till morning,
+and so on to midnight again, with short intervals for refreshment.
+Every ten minutes or so there occurred a break in the
+continuity of the strain, and a little dialogue between the performers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, yes, I have missed a line; never mind; go on, Miss
+Ph&#339;be, I will make up to you,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is those accidentals that have been your ruin,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be laughing; &ldquo;it is a very hard passage, let us turn back
+and begin again,&rdquo; and then the audience would laugh, not very
+sweetly, and (some of them) make acrid observations; but the
+pianist was good-nature itself, and went back and counted and
+kept time with her head, and with her hand when she could
+take it from the piano, until she had triumphantly tided him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+over the bad passage, or they had come to the point of shipwreck
+again. During these labours, Ph&#339;be, who was really a
+good musician, ought to have suffered horribly; but either she
+did not, or her good-nature was stronger than her good taste,
+for she went on serenely, sometimes for hours together, while
+her old and her young admirers sat secretly cursing (in such
+ways as are becoming to a clergyman) each in his corner.
+Perhaps she had a slight degree of pleasure in the evident
+power she had over father and son; but it was difficult fully to
+understand her views at this somewhat bewildering period of
+her life, in which she was left entirely to her own resources.
+She was herself groping a little through paths of uncertain
+footing, enjoying herself a great deal, but not seeing clearly
+where it led to, and having no definite purpose, or chart of
+those unknown countries in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How you can go on,&rdquo; said Reginald, on one of these
+occasions, having at length managed to seize upon and get her
+into a corner, &ldquo;for hours, having your ears sacrificed and your
+patience tried by these fearful discords, and smile through it, is
+a mystery which I cannot fathom! If it was only consideration
+for your audience, that might be enough to move any one&mdash;but
+yourself&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't seem to feel it so very much myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And yet you are a musician!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't be too hard upon me, Mr May. I only play&mdash;a
+little. I am not like my cousins in the High Street, who are
+supposed to be very clever at music; and then poor Mr.
+Copperhead is a very old friend.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Mr. Copperhead! poor us, you mean, who have to
+listen&mdash;and you, who choose to play.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are very vindictive,&rdquo; she said, with a piteous look.
+&ldquo;Why should you be so vindictive? I do what I can to
+please my friends, and&mdash;there is no doubt about what poor
+Clarence likes best; if you were to show me as plainly what
+you would like&mdash;<i>quite</i> plainly, as he does&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you know?&rdquo; said Reginald, with glowing eyes.
+&ldquo;Ah, well! if I may show you plainly&mdash;quite plainly, with the
+same results, you may be sure not to be left long in doubt.
+Talk to me! it is easier, and not so fatiguing. Here,&rdquo; said the
+young man, placing a chair for her; &ldquo;he has had your patient
+services for two hours. Do only half as much for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah! but talking is a different thing, and more&mdash;difficult&mdash;and
+more&mdash;personal. Well!&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a laugh and
+a blush, taking the chair, &ldquo;I will try, but you must begin;
+and I cannot promise, you know, for a whole hour.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;After you have given that fellow two! and such a fellow!
+If it was Northcote, I might be equally jea&mdash;displeased, but I
+could understand it, for he is not a fool.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, looking towards the other end of the
+room, where Northcote was occupied as usual close to Ursula's
+work-basket, &ldquo;that Mr. Northcote manages to amuse himself
+very well without any help of mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; cried Reginald, startled; for of course it is needless
+to say that the idea of any special devotion to his little sister
+had never entered his mind. He felt disposed to laugh at first
+when the idea was suggested to him, but he gave a second look,
+and fellow-feeling threw a certain enlightenment upon the subject.
+&ldquo;That would never do,&rdquo; he said gravely; &ldquo;I wonder I
+never thought of it before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why would it not do? She is very nice, and he is clever
+and a rising man; and he is very well off; and you said just
+now he was not a fool.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nevertheless it would never do,&rdquo; said Reginald, opposing
+her pointedly, as he had never opposed her before; and he remained
+silent for a whole minute, looking across the room,
+during which long interval Ph&#339;be sat demurely on the chair
+where he had placed her, looking at him with a smile on her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she said at length, softly, &ldquo;it was talk you said
+you wanted, Mr. May; but you are not so ready to tune up
+your violin as Mr. Copperhead, though I wait with my fingers
+on the piano, so to speak.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I beg your pardon!&rdquo; he cried, and then their eyes met, and
+both laughed, though, as far as Reginald was concerned, in an
+embarrassed way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You perceive,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, rising, &ldquo;that it is not nearly so
+easy to please you, and that you don't know half so exactly
+what you want, as Clarence Copperhead does, though you
+abuse him, poor fellow. I have got something to say to Ursula!
+though, perhaps, she does not want me any more than you do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't give me up for one moment's distraction; and it was
+your fault, not mine, for suggesting such a startling idea.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be shook her head, and waved her hand as a parting
+salutation, and then went across the room to where Ursula was
+sitting, where Horace Northcote at least found her very much in
+his way. She began at once to talk low and earnestly on some
+subject so interesting that it absorbed both the girls in a way
+which was very surprising and unpleasant to the young men,
+neither of whom had been able to interest the one whose attention
+he was specially anxious to secure half so effectually.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+Northcote, from the other side of the table, and Reginald from
+the other end of the room, gazed and gloomed with discomfited
+curiosity, wondering what it could be; while Clarence strutted
+uneasily about the piano, taking up his fiddle now and then,
+striking a note, and screwing up his strings into concord, with
+many impatient glances. But still the girls talked. Was it
+about their dresses or some nonsense, or was it a more serious
+subject, which could thus be discussed without masculine help?
+but this matter they never fathomed, nor have they found out
+till this hour.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOCIETY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Notwithstanding such little social crosses, however, the
+society at the Parsonage, as thus constituted, was very agreeable.
+Mr. May, though he had his faults, was careful of his
+daughter. He sat in the drawing-room every evening till she
+retired, on the nights their visitors came, and even when it
+was Clarence only who remained, an inmate of the house, and
+free to go and come as he pleased. Ursula, he felt, must not
+be left alone, and though it is uncertain whether she fully appreciated
+the care he took of her, this point in his character is
+worth noting. When the young party went out together, to
+skate, for instance, as they did, for several merry days, Reginald
+and Janey were, he considered, sufficient guardians for their
+sister. Ph&#339;be had no chaperon&mdash;&ldquo;Unless you will take that
+serious office upon you, Ursula,&rdquo; she said, shrugging her
+shoulders prettily; but she only went once or twice, so well
+was she able, even when the temptation was strongest, to
+exercise self-denial, and show her perfect power of self-guidance.
+As for old Tozer and his wife, the idea of a chaperon never
+entered their homely head. Such articles are unnecessary in
+the lower levels of society. They were anxious that their child
+should enjoy herself, and could not understand the reason of
+her staying at home on a bright frosty day, when the Mays
+came to the door in a body to fetch her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, if they'd have gone down on their knees, nor if I had
+gone down on mine, would that girl have left me,&rdquo; cried the old
+lady, with tears in her eyes. &ldquo;She do behave beautiful to her old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+granny. If so be as I haven't a good night, no power on earth
+would make that child go pleasuring. It's 'most too much at
+her age.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Ph&#339;be confided to Ursula that it was not altogether
+anxiety about her grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have nobody of my own to go with. If I took grandpapa
+with me, I don't think it would mend matters. Once or
+twice it was possible, but not every day. Go and enjoy yourself,
+dear,&rdquo; she said, kissing her friend.</p>
+
+<p>Ursula was disposed to cry rather than to enjoy herself, and
+appealed to Reginald, who was deeply touched by Ph&#339;be's fine
+feeling. He took his sister to the ice, but that day he went so
+far as to go back himself to No. 6, actually into the house, to
+make a humble protest, yet to insinuate his admiration. He
+was much impressed by, and approved highly of this reticence,
+having a very high standard of minor morals for ladies, in his
+mind, like most young men.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is not one of the girls who rush about everywhere, and
+whom one is sick of seeing,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think it is very silly,&rdquo; cried Janey. &ldquo;Who cares for a
+chaperon! and why shouldn't Ph&#339;be have her fun, like the rest,
+instead of shutting herself up in a stuffy room with that dreadful
+old Mrs. Tozer?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Her brother reproved her so sharply for this speech that
+Janey withdrew in tears, still asking &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; as she rushed
+to her room. Clarence Copperhead, for his part, stroked his
+moustache and said it was a bore.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For she is the best skater of all the ladies here,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon, Miss Ursula. She's got so much go in
+her, and keeps it up like fun. She's the best I know for keeping
+a fellow from getting tired; but as it's Thursday, I suppose
+she'll be there in the evening.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clarence never called them anything but Miss Ursula and
+Miss Ph&#339;be, dropping the prefix in his thoughts. He felt
+that he was &ldquo;a little sweet upon&rdquo; them both; and, indeed,
+it had gleamed dully across his mind that a man who could
+marry them both need never be bored, but was likely always
+to find something &ldquo;to do.&rdquo; Choice, however, being necessary,
+he did not see his way so clearly as to which he would choose.
+&ldquo;The mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are
+fatter,&rdquo; he said to himself, if not in these immortal words, yet
+with full appreciation of the sentiment. Ursula began to
+understand dinners with a judicious intelligence, which he felt
+was partly created by his own instructions and remarks; but
+in the evening it was Ph&#339;be who reigned supreme. She was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+so sensible that most likely she could invent a <i>menu</i> all out of
+her own head, he thought, feeling that the girl who got him
+through the &ldquo;Wedding March&rdquo; with but six mistakes, was
+capable of any intellectual feat. He had not the slightest
+doubt that it was in his power to marry either of the girls as
+soon as he chose to intimate his choice; and in the mean time
+he found it very agreeable to maintain a kind of mental possibility
+of future proprietorship of them both.</p>
+
+<p>And thus the pleasant life ran on in the most agreeable
+absorption and abstraction from the world outside. &ldquo;Don't
+ask any one else; why should we have any one else?&rdquo; they
+all said, except Janey, who had condescended to appear in the
+evening in her best frock, though she was not admitted at dinner,
+and who thought a few additional guests, and a round
+game now and then, would be delightful variations upon the
+ordinary programme; but the others did not agree with her.
+They became more and more intimate, mingling the brother
+and sister relationship with a something unnamed, unexpressed,
+which gave a subtle flavour to their talks and flirtations. In
+that incipient stage of love-making this process is very pleasant
+even to the spectators, full of little excitements and surprises,
+and sharp stings of momentary quarrel, and great revolutions,
+done with a single look, which are infinitely amusing to the
+lookers-on. The house became a real domestic centre, thought
+of by each and all with tender sentiment, such as made its
+owners somewhat proud of it, they could scarcely tell why.
+Even Mr. May felt a certain complacence in the fact that the
+young men were so fond of the Parsonage, and when he heard
+complaints of the coldness and dullness of domestic intercourse,
+smiled, and said that he did not feel it so, with that pleasant
+sense of something superior in himself to cause this difference,
+which is sweet to the greatest Stoic; for he was not as yet enlightened
+as to the entire indifference of the little circle to any
+charm in him, and would have been utterly confounded had
+any one told him that to the grave and reflective Northcote,
+whom he had treated with such magnanimous charity, binding
+him (evidently) by bonds of gratitude to himself for ever, it
+was little Ursula, and not her father, who was the magnet of
+attraction. Mr. May was a clever man, and yet it had not
+occurred to him that any comparison between his own society
+and that of Ursula was possible. Ursula! a child! He would
+have laughed aloud at the thought.</p>
+
+<p>But all this pleasant society, though father and daughter
+both agreed that it cost nothing, for what is a cake and a cup
+of tea? and the late dinners and the extra maid, and the additional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+fires, and general enlargement of expenditure made
+immense inroads, it must be allowed, into the additional income
+brought by Clarence Copperhead. The first quarter's payment
+was spent, and more than spent, before it came. The money
+that was to be laid up for that bill of Tozer's&mdash;perhaps&mdash;had
+now no saving peradventure left in it; for the second half
+would not be due till two months after the Tozer bill, and
+would but be half, even if procurable at once. Mr. May felt
+a slight shock while this gleamed across his mind, but only for a
+moment. There was still a month, and a month is a long time,
+and in the mean time James was almost certain to send something,
+and his Easter offerings might, probably would, this year be something
+worth having. Why they should be better than usual this
+year Mr. May did not explain to himself; his head was a little
+turned it must be supposed by the momentary chance of having
+more money in his hands than he used to have. Already he had
+got into the habit of ordering what he wanted somewhat recklessly,
+without asking himself how the things he ordered were to be
+paid for, and, as so often happened, followed up that first tampering
+with the rules of right and wrong by a general recklessness
+of the most dangerous kind. He was not so much alone as he
+had been; his house, in which he was infinitely more amiable
+than of old, had become more pleasant to him; he liked his life
+better. His son was independent with an income of his own,
+and therefore he felt much more respect for him, and treated
+him as a companion. His daughter had developed, if not in
+the way of <i>entr&eacute;es</i>, a talent for dinners which raised her very
+much in his eyes; and naturally the regard shown to her by
+the visitors reacted upon Mr. May, though it had not crossed
+his mind as yet that any one could be in love with Ursula.
+All this made him happier in spite of himself. When you
+begin to esteem and be proud of your children your life is
+naturally happier than when you scoff and jeer at them, and treat
+them as creatures of inferior mould to yourself. Mr. May
+found out all at once that Reginald was a fine young fellow,
+that Ursula was pretty and pleasant, and that droll Janey, with
+her elf-locks and angles, was amusing at least, if no more. As
+for the little ones, they were considerably thrust into a corner
+when the elder youth forced itself into the front. They learned
+their lessons in corners, and had their tea by themselves, and
+were much humbled and subdued from the moment in which
+their school-books and toys had meandered over the whole house,
+and their looks and likings had been just as important as anything
+else. When there is no mother to protect them, the
+elder sister's first lover marks a terribly critical period for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+children of the house. They were banished from the drawing-room,
+except on special occasions, when they came <i>en grande
+tenue</i>, in their best things, and were jeered at by Mr. Copperhead.
+He called them &ldquo;the kids,&rdquo; both Amy and Robin were
+aware, and they resented it unspeakably. Thus the inward
+happiness of the Mays confined itself to the upper regions of
+the family. Even Betsy regretted the days when, if she had
+more to do, she had at least &ldquo;her kitchen to herself,&rdquo; and
+nobody to share the credit. There was more fuss and more
+worry, if a trifle less labour, and the increase in consequence
+which resulted from being called cook, instead of maid-of-all-work,
+was scarcely so sweet in possession as had seemed in
+prospect.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Them late dinners&rdquo; were the object of her perpetual railings;
+&ldquo;oh, how much more comfortable it was, if gentry would
+but think so, to have your dinner at two, and get done with
+your washing up before you was cleaned, or had any occasion
+to bother yourself about your cap!&rdquo; When little Amy cried
+over the loneliness of &ldquo;the children's tea,&rdquo; which they frequently
+had to pour out for themselves, Betty gave her a cake
+and a kiss, and felt disposed to cry too.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And she don't know, poor child, not the half,&rdquo; said Betty,
+which was a kind of oracular sentence difficult for Betty herself
+to understand. The children had nothing to do with the
+late dinner; they were sent to bed earlier than they used to be,
+and scolded if any distant sounds of romps made itself audible
+at seven o'clock when their elders were dining; and then when
+the little ones went injured to bed, and Johnnie, indignant,
+worked at his lessons by himself in a corner of the old nursery,
+deeply aware that his school-boy boots and jacket were quite
+unfit for the drawing-room, the grown-up young people ran
+lightly upstairs, all smiles and pleasure, and those delightful
+evenings began.</p>
+
+<p>The children sometimes could not get to sleep for the piano
+and the raspings of the fiddle, which sounds of mirth suggested
+nothing but the wildest enjoyment to them; and when the door
+opened now and then, bursts of laughter and mingling voices
+would come out like the sounds the Peri heard at the gates of
+Paradise. The elder ones were happy; their little atoms of
+individual life had all united for the moment into one sunshiny
+and broad foundation, on which everything seemed to rest with
+that strange sense of stability and continuance, which such a
+moment of happiness, though it carries every element of change
+in it, almost invariably brings. It felt as if it might go on for
+ever, and yet the very sentiment that inspired it made separation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+and convulsion inevitable&mdash;one of those strange paradoxes
+which occur every day.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the year crept round, and winter melted away with all
+its amusements, and spring began. Mr. Northcote's time at
+Salem Chapel was more than half over, a fact on which the
+congregation congratulated itself much.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If so be as he had a settled charge of his own, I shouldn't
+be sorry to see him gone to-morrow,&rdquo; said one of the recent
+members.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Settled charge! You take my word,&rdquo; said Mrs. Pigeon,
+who was getting old, but always continued a woman of spirit,
+&ldquo;he'll never have a settled charge in our connection. He
+carries on here, 'cause he can't help hisself, but he ain't cut out
+for a pastor, and he's a deal too thick with them Church folks.
+A parson, too! I'd 'a thought he had more pride.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nay, now, but I don't wish him no harm,&rdquo; said the first
+speaker; &ldquo;he's a civil spoken gentleman if he ain't so free and
+so pleasant as a body looks for.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Civil spoken!&rdquo; said the other; &ldquo;one of our own ministers
+in our own connection! Bless you! they're our servants, that's
+what they are. I'd like to see one on 'em as 'ud take upon him
+to be civil spoken to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, I wouldn't go as far as that,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Brown; &ldquo;we
+pays 'em their salary, and we 'as a right to a civil word: but a
+minister's a minister, and I'll show him respect as long as he
+deserves it. I ain't one for being too hard upon ministers,
+especially when they're young men, as has their temptations
+like, we all know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know what you call temptations,&rdquo; said Mrs. Pigeon;
+&ldquo;licking the dust under the feet of a Church parson! and after
+speaking up so bold against young May and them old cheats
+at the College. I wish he was gone from here, that's what I
+wish, and our old pastor (if we can't get none better) back
+again. He was one as knew his place, and wouldn't have set
+his foot inside one of them Parsonages. Parsonages, indeed!
+kept up with our money. If ever there was an iniquity on this
+earth it's a State Church, and all the argufying in the world
+won't put that out of me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It happened that Northcote was in the poulterer's shop,
+talking to the poulterer himself at this moment, and he heard
+the conclusion of this speech delivered with much unction and
+force. Such sentiments would have charmed him three months
+ago, and probably he would have thought this uneducated but
+strenuous partisan an extremely intelligent woman. He hurried
+away now with an uncomfortable smile. If an opinion is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+right opinion, why should it have an air of absurdity thrown
+upon it by being thus uttered in ungrammatical language by a
+poulterer's wife? Truth is the same by whomsoever stated;
+but yet, was not dogmatism on any subject the sign of an inexperienced
+and uncultivated, or a rude and untutored mind?
+What did this woman know of the Parsonage, which she
+supposed she helped to pay for? What had he himself known
+three months ago of Reginald May, whom he had assaulted so
+savagely? This Church family, which Mrs. Pigeon knew no
+better than to abuse, with what divine charity it had received
+himself, notwithstanding his public sin against it. When he
+thought of that public sin, Northcote's countenance glowed
+with shame, and it continued to glow with a more agreeable
+warmth when he escaped into thought of the goodness which
+the Mays had shown him. Had there ever been such goodness?
+Was there ever so sweet a home of the heart as that faded,
+homely drawing-room? His heart beat high, his steps quickened;
+they carried him down Grange Lane in a path so often
+trod that he felt there must be a special track of his own under
+the garden walls, going Parsonage way.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2>
+
+<h3>LOVE-MAKING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mrs. Sam Hurst had been a long time out of Carlingford;
+she had been paying visits among her friends, with whom,
+though the young Mays would never believe it, she was very
+popular, for she was not ill-natured in her gossip, and she was
+often amusing in the fulness of her interest in other people.
+It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and
+softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange
+Lane; the doors of the houses began to be left open, and the
+girls at the Parsonage had taken to running out and in without
+their hats, gleaming through the little shrubbery in front, and
+round to the back garden. One evening it was so mild that
+they all (which comprehensive term, sometimes extended to
+&ldquo;the whole party,&rdquo; began to be commonly used among them
+with that complacence in the exclusiveness of their little coterie,
+which every &ldquo;set&rdquo; more or less feels) came downstairs in a
+body, and wandered about among the laurel-bushes in the
+spring moonlight. There was Ursula and Mr. Northcote,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+Ph&#339;be and Reginald, and Clarence Copperhead, with Janey
+behind, who followed where they went, but did not enjoy the
+ceremony. It was bad enough in the drawing-room; but
+moonlight, who cared about moonlight? Janey said to herself
+indignantly. She was the only one who looked up to Mrs.
+Hurst's window, where there was a faint light, and when the
+voices became audible Janey perceived some one come behind
+the curtain and look out. The girl was divided between her
+faithful family feud against Mrs. Hurst, and a vague sense of
+satisfaction in her presence as a Marplot, who one way or other
+would infallibly interfere.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She will say something to papa,&rdquo; said Janey, her heart involuntary
+rising at the thought, though at the same time she
+shivered to think of the treachery involved to all the tenets of
+the family. Janey sat on the steps and listened to the others
+talking. No one pointed out the stars to her, or followed her
+about as Reginald followed Ph&#339;be. As for Mr. Copperhead,
+Janey thought he was almost as lonely as she was. He had
+lighted his cigar, and was strolling up and down, interrupting
+both of the other pairs occasionally, breaking into the midst
+of Northcote's astronomical lecture abruptly, and stopping
+Ph&#339;be herself in the middle of a sentence. Janey, watching
+sharply from the steps, noticed, as a spectator has it in her
+power to do, that whereas Northcote was extremely impatient
+of the interruption, and discovered immediately that the stars
+could be seen better from another spot, Ph&#339;be took it quite
+sweetly, and addressed herself to him as she went on, which
+Reginald did not like, Janey was sure. Were they in love
+with each other? the girl asked herself&mdash;was this how it was
+managed? When the moon went under a cloud for a moment
+Clarence Copperhead's vast shirt-front made a kind of substitute
+down below. Janey lost the other two among the
+bushes, but she always beheld that orb of white moving backward
+and forward with two dark figures near. She felt sure
+Reginald did not want to have him in such close neighbourhood;
+but Ph&#339;be's voice went on talking to both alike.
+Janey was half-pleased, and half-indignant. She had a jealous
+dislike, such as most girls have, to see her brother engrossed
+by any one, but no more did she like to see another man preferred
+to Reginald; she was jealous both ways. As she sat
+and watched, a slight little creak came to her sharp ears, and
+looking up she saw Mrs. Hurst's drawing-room window opened
+the very least little bit in the world. Ah! Janey said, with a
+long breath. There was nothing she would not have given to
+have talked it all over with Mrs. Hurst, and to hear what she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+would say, if she had not been the traditional adversary against
+whom all the family steeled their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>That was a very pleasant evening; they all remembered it
+afterwards. It was the moment when Ursula discovered all
+in the darkness, when the moon was under that cloud, <i>what
+Mr. Northcote meant</i>. It flashed upon her like a sudden light,
+though they were standing in the shade of a great laurel. He
+did not make any declaration, nor say a word that she could
+remember. And yet all at once, by some magic which is not
+explainable, she found out that that was what he was meaning.
+This is not an admirable sentence; but it is difficult to know
+how to put it better. It was quite a strange discovery. It set her
+heart beating, thumping against her breast. She herself meant
+nothing whatever, and she never thought of any response,
+or of the time when he might ask her to make a response.
+The sensation of the moment was quite enough for Ursula.
+She was greatly startled, surprised, yet not surprised, touched
+and full of a wondering respect and sympathy, awe and half-amusement.
+Could it be possible, was <i>that</i> what it was?
+Though he was not conscious of betraying himself in any way,
+Northcote thought he had done something to offend her. Her
+shy silence and withdrawal from him went to his heart; never
+had her society been so sweet, never had he had her so completely
+to himself. What had he done to alarm or offend her?
+He went home with his head full of this, able to think of
+nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>And Ph&#339;be went home too, escorted by Reginald and Clarence
+together, to her grandfather's door, with her head buzzing
+with many thoughts. It was not her heart that was in a commotion,
+like little Ursula's. She was more experienced, though
+she was not much older, and had gone through such discoveries
+before now. But a much more perplexing accident had
+befallen her. Reginald May had fallen in love with her, and
+Clarence Copperhead, after considerable resistance and hanging
+off, was making up his mind to propose. Yes. Ph&#339;be felt
+with unerring instinct that this was the state of affairs. He
+was making up his mind to propose. So much of her and so little
+of her had at length made an end of all the prudent hesitations
+that lay under the crisp pie-crust of that starched and dazzling
+shirt front. That he should never be able to speak a word to
+her without that May! that fellow! &ldquo;the son of my coach!&rdquo;
+poking himself in, was a thing which at length had fired his
+cool blood to fever heat. Nobody else could play his accompaniments
+like that, or pull him through the &ldquo;Wedding
+March&rdquo; like that; and who would look better at the head of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+table, or show better at a ball, or get on better in society?
+No one he knew, certainly. It was true she was only a
+Minister's daughter, and without a penny; for the little fortune
+Mr. and Mrs. Beecham had carefully gathered together
+and preserved for their daughter, what was that to the Copperheads?&mdash;nothing,
+not a penny. But, on the other hand,
+Clarence felt that he himself, or rather his father, was
+rich enough to be able to afford a wife without money. There
+was no reason why he should marry money; and a wife like
+Ph&#339;be, what a relief that would be, in the way of education!
+No need of any more coaching. She was clever, and fond of
+reading, and so forth. She would get everything up for him,
+if he went into parliament, or that sort of thing; why, she'd
+keep him posted up. &ldquo;There ain't many girls that could do
+that,&rdquo; he said to himself. She would save him worlds of
+trouble; save his money even, for coaches and that sort of
+thing cost money; and then that fellow May would be out of
+it; his nose would be put out of joint. These are not eloquent
+sentiments, but so it was that Clarence's natural feelings
+expressed themselves. He had intimated that he would see
+Miss Ph&#339;be home, but May had stalked out side by side with
+him&mdash;had not left them for a moment; and Clarence determined
+that he would not stand it any longer. If there was
+no other way of shaking this fellow off, why, then he would
+make up his mind to it, and propose.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be somehow saw all this written in his fine countenance,
+and she saw at the same time that poor Reginald, who was (she
+thought) young and simple, and just the sort of poor boy to
+yield to such folly, was in love with her; and her head was
+buzzing with the double discovery. The first was (of course)
+the most important. She had no time to indulge her thoughts
+while she walked up between them, keeping them in play each
+with a word, talking all the way to fill up the somewhat sulky
+silence between them; but when she got safely within the
+garden door, and heard it shut behind her, and found herself
+in the quiet of the little green enclosure, with the budding trees
+and the lilac bushes for her only companions, the relief was
+very grateful to her. She could not go in all at once to make
+conversation for grandpapa and grandmamma, and give them
+the account they liked to hear, of how she had &ldquo;enjoyed herself.&rdquo;
+She took off her hat to be cooler, and walked slowly
+down under the moonlight, her head all throbbing and rustling
+with thought. The paths were bordered with primroses, which
+made a pale glimmer in the moon, and shed a soft fragrance
+about. Ph&#339;be had nothing to appeal to Heaven about, or to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+seek counsel from Nature upon, as sentimental people might do.
+She took counsel with herself, the person most interested.
+What was the thing she ought to do? Clarence Copperhead
+was going to propose to her. She did not even take the
+trouble of saying to herself that he loved her; it was Reginald
+who did that, a totally different person, but yet the other was
+more urgent. What was Ph&#339;be to do? She did not dislike
+Clarence Copperhead, and it was no horror to her to think of
+marrying him. She had felt for years that this might be on
+the cards, and there were a great many things in it which demanded
+consideration. He was not very wise, nor a man to
+be enthusiastic about, but he would be a career to Ph&#339;be.
+She did not think of it humbly like this, but with a big capital&mdash;a
+Career. Yes; she could put him into parliament, and
+keep him there. She could thrust him forward (she believed)
+to the front of affairs. He would be as good as a profession, a
+position, a great work to Ph&#339;be. He meant wealth (which
+she dismissed in its superficial aspect as something meaningless
+and vulgar, but accepted in its higher aspect as an almost
+necessary condition of influence), and he meant all the possibilities
+of future power. Who can say that she was not as
+romantic as any girl of twenty could be? only her romance
+took an unusual form. It was her head that was full of throbbings
+and pulses, not her heart. No doubt there would be
+difficulties and disagreeables. His father would oppose it, and
+Ph&#339;be felt with a slight shiver that his father's opposition was
+nothing to be laughed at, and that Mr. Copperhead had it in
+him to crush rebellion with a ferocious hand. And would
+Clarence have strength of mind or spirit to hold out? This
+was a very serious question, and one which included all the
+rest. If she accepted his proposal, would he have the heart to
+stand to it against his father? or would her consent simply
+involve her in a humiliating struggle which would end in defeat?
+That was the great question. If this should be the case, what
+use would there be in any sacrifice that Ph&#339;be might make?
+A struggle with Mr. Copperhead would affect her father's position
+as much or more than her own, and she knew that a
+great many of the congregation would infallibly side with Mr.
+Copperhead, feeling it a most dangerous precedent that a
+pastor's daughter should be encouraged to think herself eligible
+for promotion so great, and thus interfere with the more suitable
+matrimonial prospects of wealthy young men who might
+happen to attend her father's chapel. Such a thing the conscript
+fathers of the connection would feel ought to be put a
+stop to with a high hand. So it may be supposed that Ph&#339;be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+had enough to think of, as she strolled about in the moonlight
+alone, between the two borders of primroses. Tozer thought
+she had gone upstairs to take off her &ldquo;things,&rdquo; and it was
+natural that when a girl got before a looking-glass she should
+forget the progress of time; so that he merely wondered at
+her non-appearance until the little chill of air stole in from
+the open door, and made Mrs. Tozer cough.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If it ain't our Ph&#339;be a-walking about in the moonlight
+like a play-actor!&rdquo; said Tozer, in consternation, drawing aside
+the curtain to look out. &ldquo;I'll tell you what, old woman, the
+girl's in love; and that's what it is.&rdquo; He thought this was a
+capital joke, and followed his witticism with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not much wonder, neither, with all them young fellows
+about,&rdquo; said the old lady. &ldquo;You may laugh; but, Tozer, I ain't
+so easy in my mind as you. If it's him as they call Northcote,
+that don't matter; but if it's that big gabby of a Copperhead,
+there's troubles a-coming; though he's as rich, they do say, as
+Creases, whoever Creases might be, and it would be a credit to
+have the girl make a match like that out of our house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Whereat Tozer again laughed loud and long.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if Mister Creases himself was here, I
+wouldn't say as he was a bit too good for our Ph&#339;be. Don't
+you trouble your head, old woman; Copperhead or t'other one,
+let her make her choice. Ph&#339;be junior's the girl as'll be their
+match, and you may take my word for that. Ph&#339;be's the one
+as will keep them in their right place, whoever they may be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be heard this laugh echo out into the quiet of the night.
+Of course, she did not know the cause of it, but it disturbed
+her in her thoughts. Poor, kind, excellent grandpapa, she said
+to herself, how would he get on with Mr. Copperhead? He
+would touch his forelock to so rich a man. He would go down
+metaphorically upon his knees before so much wealth; and
+what a fool Clarence would be thought on every side for wanting
+to marry her! Even his mother, who was a romantic
+woman, would not see any romance in it if it was she, Ph&#339;be,
+who was the poor girl whom he wanted to marry. Ursula
+might have been different, who was a clergyman's daughter, and
+consequently a lady by prescriptive right. But herself, Tozer's
+granddaughter, Tom Tozer's niece, fresh from the butter-shop,
+as it were, and redolent of that petty trade which big trade
+ignores, as much as the greatest aristocrat does! Ph&#339;be was
+too sensible by far to vex or distress herself on this point, but
+she recognised it without any hesitation, and the question remained&mdash;was
+it for her advantage to enter upon this struggle,
+about which there could be no mistake, or was it not? And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+this question was very difficult. She did not dislike Clarence,
+but then she was not in love with him. He would be a Career,
+but he was not a Passion, she said to herself with a smile; and
+if the struggle should not turn out successful on her part, it
+would involve a kind of ruin, not to herself only, but to all concerned.
+What, then, was she to do? The only thing Ph&#339;be
+decided upon was that, if she did enter upon that struggle, it
+<i>must</i> be successful. Of this alone there could be no manner of
+doubt.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A DISCLOSURE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, young ladies!&rdquo; said Mrs. Sam Hurst, &ldquo;I left you
+very quiet, but there seems to be plenty going on now-a-days.
+What a beautiful moon there was last night! I put up my
+window to look at it, and all at once I found there was a party
+going on below. Quite a <i>f&ecirc;te champ&ecirc;tre</i>. I have newly come
+from abroad, you know, and it seemed quite congenial. I
+actually rubbed my eyes, and said to myself, 'I can't have come
+home. It's Boulogne still, it isn't Carlingford!'&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There was no company,&rdquo; said Ursula with dignity; &ldquo;there
+was only our own party. A friend of Reginald's and a friend
+of mine join us often in the evening, and there is papa's pupil&mdash;if
+you call that a party. We are just as quiet as when you
+went away. We never invite strangers. We are as much by
+ourselves as ever.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;With a friend of Reginald's, and a friend of yours, and
+papa's pupil!&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst, laughing; &ldquo;double your own
+number, Ursula! and I don't suppose Janey counts yet. Why,
+there is a young man too many. How dare you waste the gifts
+of Providence, you prodigal child? And now let me hear who
+they are.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may say Janey doesn't count,&rdquo; cried that young
+woman in person. &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Hurst, what a bore they are!
+If that's society, I don't care for society. One always following
+Ursula about whenever she moves, so that you can't say a word
+to her; and the others pulling poor Ph&#339;be to pieces, who hates
+them, I am sure. Ph&#339;be was so jolly at first. She would talk to
+you, or she would play for you! Why, she taught Johnnie and
+me a part-song to sing with her, and said he had a delightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+voice; but she never has any time to look at us now,&rdquo; said
+Janey, stopping in this breathless enumeration of wrongs. &ldquo;She
+is always taken up with those horrible men.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you call Reginald a horrible man?&rdquo; said Ursula,
+with rising colour. &ldquo;If that was my opinion of my own brother,
+I should take care not to say it, at least.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Reginald isn't the worst! There's your Mr. Northcote,
+and there's that Copperhead&mdash;Woodenhead, we call him
+in the nursery. Oh, how papa can put up with him, I can't
+tell! he never had any patience with us. You can't think how
+dull he is, Mrs. Hurst! I suppose girls don't mind when a
+man <i>goes on</i>, whether he's stupid or not. I never heard Mr.
+Northcote say much that was interesting either; but he looks
+clever, and that is always something.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So Mr. Northcote is Ursula's one,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst,
+laughing. &ldquo;You are a perfect jewel, Janey, and I don't know
+how I should ever find out anything that's going on, but for
+you. Northcote! it is a new name in Carlingford. I wonder
+I have not heard of him already; or have you kept him entirely
+to yourself, and let nobody know that there was a new man in
+the place?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause here. The girls knew nothing about
+Northcote, except the one fact that he was a Dissenter; but
+as Mrs. Hurst was an excellent Churchwoman, much better
+than they were, who had, perhaps, been brought up too completely
+under the shadow of the Church to believe in it implicitly,
+they hesitated before pronouncing before her that
+unfortunate name.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know whether you are aware,&rdquo; Ursula said at last,
+with some slowness and reluctance, &ldquo;that papa's pupil is of a
+Dissenting family. He is related, through his mother, to our
+cousins, the Dorsets.&rdquo; (This fact Ursula put forth with a little
+triumph, as refuting triumphantly any ready conclusion as to the
+social standing of Dissenters.) &ldquo;I think Mr. Northcote came
+first to the house with Mr. Copperhead. He is a Dissenter too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, Ursula,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Hurst, &ldquo;not the man who
+attacked Reginald in the Meeting? It was all in the papers.
+He made a frightful violent speech about the College and the
+sinecure, and what a disgraceful thing it was that your brother,
+a young man, could accept it. You don't mean him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula was struck dumb. She looked up at her questioner
+with her lips falling apart a little, with a look of mingled consternation
+and fear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course it can't be,&rdquo; said the gossip, who was not ill-natured.
+&ldquo;You never read the papers, but your papa does,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+and so does Reginald. Oh, you may be sure it is some other
+Northcote, though I don't know the name.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ursula doesn't like to tell you,&rdquo; said Janey; &ldquo;but he's
+the Dissenting Minister, I know he is. Well! I don't care!
+He is just as good as anybody else. I don't go in for your
+illiberal ways of thinking, as if no one was worth talking to
+except in the Church. Mr. Northcote is very nice. I don't
+mind what you say. Do you mean to tell me that all those
+curates and people who used to plague our lives out were nicer?
+Mr. Saunders, for instance; he is a real good Churchman, I
+have always heard people say&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold your tongue, Janey; you don't know anything about
+it,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst, whom this wonderful disclosure elevated
+into authority. &ldquo;A Dissenting Minister! Ah, me! what a
+thing it is for you poor girls to have no mother. I did not
+think your papa would have had so little consideration as to
+expose you to society like that. But men are so thoughtless.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know what right you have to speak of exposing
+us to society like that,&rdquo; cried Ursula, quivering all over with
+sudden excitement.</p>
+
+<p>She felt as if some one had dug a knife into her, and turned
+it round in the wound.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Men have so little consideration,&rdquo; repeated Mrs. Hurst,
+&ldquo;especially when a girl is concerned. Though how your papa
+could have received a man who made such an assault upon him&mdash;even
+if he had passed over the attack upon Reginald, he was
+attacked himself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It must be a mistake,&rdquo; said Ursula, growing pale. Her
+hands came together half-unconsciously, and clasped in a mute
+gesture of appeal. &ldquo;It is not possible; it cannot be true.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, it is very odd that your papa should show such
+charity, I allow. I don't think it is in human nature. And
+Reginald, what does Reginald say? If it is that man, it will
+be the strangest thing I ever heard of. But there could not
+be two Northcotes, Dissenting Ministers in Carlingford, could
+there? It is very strange. I can't think what your papa can
+have had in his head. He is a man who would do a thing for
+a deep reason, whether he liked it or not. How did this Mr.
+Northcote come first here?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, it was through Mr. Copperhead,&rdquo; said Janey. &ldquo;It was
+the first dinner-party we had. You should have seen the
+fright Ursula was in! And papa would not let me come to
+dinner, which was a horrid shame. I am sure I am big enough,
+bigger than Ursula.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If he came with the pupil, that makes it all quite plain. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+suppose your papa did not want to quarrel with his pupil.
+What a predicament for him, if that was the case! Poor Mr.
+May! Of course, he did not want to be uncivil. Why, it was
+in the 'Gazette,' and the 'Express,' and all the papers; an
+account of the Meeting, and that speech, and then a leading
+article upon it. I always file the 'Express,' so you can see it
+if you like. But what an embarrassment for your poor papa,
+Ursula, that you should have taken this man up! And Reginald,
+how could he put up with it, a touchy young man, always
+ready to take offence? You see now the drawback of not paying
+a little attention to what is going on round you. How
+uncomfortable you must have made them! It might be very
+well to look over an offence, not to be unpleasant to the stranger;
+but that you should have thoughtlessly led this man on into the
+position of an intimate&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I did nothing of the sort,&rdquo; cried Ursula, growing red and
+growing pale, starting up from her work with a sense of the
+intolerable which she could not restrain. &ldquo;What have I done
+to be spoken of so? I never led him on, or any one. What
+you say is cruel, very cruel! and it is not true.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Isn't it true that he was here last night, following you about,
+as Janey says? Oh, I know how these sort of things go on.
+But you ought to think of your papa's position, and you ought
+to think of Reginald. If it was to come to the Bishop's ears
+that St. Roque's Parsonage was a refuge for Dissenters! For
+I know who <i>your</i> friend is, Ursula! That Tozer girl, another
+of them! Indeed, I assure you, it makes me feel very uncomfortable.
+And Reginald, just at the very beginning of his career.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula did not make any reply. She bent her head down
+over her work, so low that her flushed cheeks could scarcely
+be seen, and went on stitching with energy and passion such
+as needles and thread are seldom the instruments of; and yet
+how much passion is continually worked away through needles
+and thread! Mrs. Hurst sat still for some time, looking at her,
+very little satisfied to keep silence, but feeling that she had
+discharged an efficient missile, and biting her lips not to say
+more to weaken its effect. When some time had passed in this
+way, and it was apparent that Ursula had no intention of
+breaking the silence, her visitor got up and shook out her skirts
+with a little flutter of indignation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are offended,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;though I must say it is very
+ill on your part to be offended. What motive can I have but
+your good, and regard for your poor dear papa? It is he that
+is always the victim, poor man, whether it is your vagaries he
+has to pay for, or Reginald's high-flying. Oh, yes; you may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+be as angry as you like, Ursula; but you will find out the
+difference if your encouragement of this Dissenter interferes
+with something better&mdash;a living for Reginald, perhaps, or better
+preferment for your poor papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; cried Janey, awe-stricken; &ldquo;but after all, it was not
+Ursula; it was papa himself. I think he must have done it
+to please Mr. Copperhead; for, Mrs. Hurst, you know Mr.
+Copperhead is very important. We have all to give in to him.
+He pays papa three hundred a-year.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Three thousand wouldn't make up for it if it spoilt all your
+career,&rdquo; cried the indignant woman, and she swept away without
+saying any more to Ursula, who kept quite still over her
+work without budging. Janey went downstairs meekly after
+her to open the door, whispering an entreaty that she would
+not be angry.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, no, I am not angry,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hurst, &ldquo;but I shall
+keep it up for a day or two. It is the best thing for her. I
+think she was struck with what I said.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Janey stole upstairs again, feeling rather guilty; but Ursula
+took little notice of her. The dinner was ordered and everything
+settled for the day. She was busy with her week's
+mending and darning, with the stockings and other things
+in a big basket beside her. When she came to some articles
+belonging to Janey, she threw them out with great impatience.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You may surely mend your things yourself, you are big
+enough. You can talk for yourself and me too,&rdquo; cried Ursula
+with sudden impetuosity; and then she sat and worked, her
+needle flying through the meshes of her darning, though it is
+hard to darn stockings in that impassioned way. They were
+socks of Johnnie's, however, with holes in the heels that you
+could put your fist through, and the way in which the big
+spans filled themselves up under this influence was wonderful
+to see. Janey, who was not fond of mending, set to work quite
+humbly under the influence of this example, and made two or
+three attempts to begin a conversation but without avail.</p>
+
+<p>The girls were seated thus in a disturbed and restless
+silence, working as if for their lives, when the usual little jar of
+the gate and sound of the bell downstairs announced a visitor.
+On ordinary occasions, they were both in the habit of rushing
+to the window when the gate was opened to see who was
+coming, and Janey had thrown aside her work to do so when a
+look from Ursula stopped her. High-spirited as Janey was,
+she did not dare to disobey that look. By right of the passion
+that had got possession of her, Ursula took the absolute command
+of the situation in a way she had never done before, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+some sudden intuition made her aware who it was who was
+coming. The girls both sat there still and breathless, waiting
+for his appearance. He never came in the day, never had
+been seen in the Parsonage at that hour before, and yet Ursula
+was as certain who it was as if she had seen him a mile off.
+He came into the room, himself looking a little breathless and
+disturbed, and gave a quick impatient look at Janey as he went
+up to her sister. Ursula saw it and understood well enough.
+Janey was in his way; he had come this morning with a
+special purpose. Her heart sank down to her very shoes, and
+then rose again with a feverish and unreal leap. Was it not
+her duty to take the initiative, to cut away the very ground
+from beneath his feet? He took a seat, not far from where
+she was sitting, and made an effort to begin a little ordinary
+conversation, throwing frequent glances at Janey. He said it
+was a fine day, which was self-evident; that he almost feared
+they would be out; that he had come to&mdash;to tell her something
+he had forgotten last night, about&mdash;yes, about&mdash;Cassiopeia's
+chair, to correct what he said about Orion&mdash;yes, that was it;
+and again he looked at Janey, who saw his looks, and wondered
+much what she ought to do&mdash;go away, as he evidently wished
+her, or stay and listen, which was the eager desire of her mind.
+When Ursula lifted her head from her darning, and looked at
+him with cheeks alternately white and crimson, Janey felt
+herself grow hot and breathless with kindred excitement, and
+knew that the moment had come.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Northcote,&rdquo; said Ursula, looking at him fixedly, so
+fixedly that a nervous trembling ran over him, &ldquo;I have a question
+to ask you. You have been coming to us very often, and
+perhaps papa may know, but I don't. Is it true that you
+made a speech about Reginald when you first came here?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Janey, looking eagerly on, saw Northcote grow pale, nay,
+grey in the fresh daylight. The colour seemed to ebb out of
+him. He started very slightly, as if waking up, when she
+began to speak, and then sat looking at her, growing greyer
+and greyer. A moment elapsed before he made any reply.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, I did,&rdquo; he said, with a half-groan of pain in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You did! really you did! Oh!&rdquo; cried Ursula, the hot
+tears falling suddenly out of her eyes, while she still looked at
+him, &ldquo;I was hoping that it was all some horrible mistake, that
+you would have laughed. I hoped you would laugh and say no.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Northcote cleared his throat; they were waiting for him to
+defend himself. Janey, holding herself on the leash, as it were,
+keeping herself back from springing upon him like a hound.
+Ursula gazed at him with great blazing reproachful eyes; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+all he could do was to give that sign of embarrassment, of
+guilt, and confusion. He could not utter a word. By the
+time he had got himself wound up to the point of speech,
+Ursula, impatient, had taken the words out of his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reginald is my brother,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Whatever is against
+him is against us all; we have never had any separate interests.
+Didn't you think it strange, Mr. Northcote, to come to this
+house, among us all, when you had been so unkind to him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss May&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He made a broken sort of outcry and motion of his head,
+and then cleared his throat nervously once more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Did you think how your own brothers and sisters would
+have stood up for you? that it would have been an offence to
+them if anybody had come to the house who was not a friend
+to you? that they would have had a right&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss May,&rdquo; said the culprit; &ldquo;all this I have felt to the
+bottom of my heart; that I was here on false pretences&mdash;that
+I had no right to be here. But this painful feeling was all
+quenched and extinguished, and turned into gratitude by the
+goodness of your father and brother. I did not even know
+that you had not been told. I thought you were aware from
+the beginning. You were colder than they were, and I
+thought it was natural, quite natural, for it is easier to forgive
+for one's self than for those one loves; and then I thought
+you melted and grew kinder to me, that you saw how all my
+ideas were changed, all my feelings&mdash;my mind itself; changed
+by the great charity, the wonderful goodness I have found
+here!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Northcote!&rdquo; Ursula had been struggling to break in
+all the time; but while he spoke her words dispersed, her
+feelings softened, and at the end she found nothing but that
+startled repetition of his name with which to answer him. No
+doubt if he had given her time the eloquence would have come
+back; but he was too much in earnest to be guilty of such a
+mistake.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What can I say about it?&rdquo; cried the young man. &ldquo;It
+has filled me with shame and with happiness. I have been
+taken in my own trap&mdash;those whom I attacked as you say&mdash;went
+out of my way to attack, and abused like a fool because
+I knew nothing about them&mdash;have shown me what the Bible
+means. Your father and brother knew what I had done, they
+met me separately, quite independent of each other, and both
+of them held out their hands to me; why, except that I had
+offended them, I cannot tell. A stranger, belonging to an
+obscure class, I had no claim upon them except that I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+done what ought to have closed their house against me. And
+you know how they have interpreted that. They have shown
+me what the Bible means.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The two girls sat listening, both with their heads bent towards
+him, and their eyes fixed upon his face. When he
+stopped, Janey got up with her work in her lap, and coming
+a little nearer to Ursula, addressed her in a wondering voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it <i>papa</i> he is talking of like that?&rdquo; she said, under her
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, fervently, turning to her. &ldquo;It is your
+father. He has made charity and kindness real things to me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor papa!&rdquo; said Ursula, whose tears were arrested in
+her eyes by the same surprised sensation, half-pleasure, half-pain,
+which hushed even Janey's voice. They were &ldquo;struck,&rdquo;
+as Mrs. Hurst had said, but by such a strange mingling of
+feelings that neither knew what to make of them. Northcote
+did not understand what they meant; their words conveyed
+a slight shock of surprise, but no distinct idea to him; and
+when Janey, too much impressed to settle down again, went
+away after a while musingly, carrying her work in the upper
+skirt of her gown, held like a market-woman's apron by her
+elbow against her side; and he found himself to have attained
+in the very confusion of his intentions to what he wished, i.e.,
+an interview with Ursula by herself, he was almost too much
+agitated to take advantage of it. As for Ursula, she had
+floated a hundred miles away from that sensation of last night
+which, had no stronger feeling come in to bewilder her, would
+have made his errand very plain to her mind. She had
+ceased to think about him, she was thinking with a certain
+tenderness, and wondering, half-awed, half-amused, self-questioning,
+about her father. Was he so good as this? had he
+done this Christian action? were they all perhaps doing papa
+injustice? She was recalled to herself by Northcote's next
+proceeding. He went to the door and closed it after Janey,
+who had left it open, of course, and then he came to the back
+of the chair on which stood the great basket of darning. His
+voice was tremulous, his eyes liquid and shining with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will you forgive me, since they have forgiven me? and
+may I ask <i>you</i> something?&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+<h3>AN EXTRAVAGANCE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. May did not take any particular notice of what was
+going on around him among the young people. Nobody could
+have been more startled than he, had he been told of the purpose
+with which Horace Northcote, the Dissenting minister,
+had paid his early morning visit; and though he had a half-scornful,
+half-amused glimmer of insight into the feelings of
+his son, and saw that Clarence Copperhead was heavily veering
+the same way, it did not occur to him that any crisis was approaching.
+He was enjoying himself in his way, and he had
+not done that for a long time. He dearly liked the better way
+of living, the more liberal strain of housekeeping and expenditure;
+he liked the social meetings in the evening, the talk after
+dinner with the three young men, the half-fatherly flirtation
+with Ph&#339;be, which she too enjoyed much, avowedly preferring
+him, with pretty coquetry, to the others. All this was very
+pleasant to him; and the additional money in his pocket was
+very pleasant, and when the post came in, one of these April
+mornings, and brought a letter from James, enclosing a draft
+for fifty pounds, his satisfaction was intense. The sight of the
+money brought an itching to his fingers, a restlessness about
+him generally. And yet it was not all that might have been
+desired, only fifty pounds! he had been buoying himself up by
+vain thoughts of how James this time, having been so long
+writing, would send a larger sum, which would at once tide him
+over the Tozer business, and on this account had been giving
+himself no trouble about it. Never before had he been so <i>insouciant</i>,
+although never before had the risk been so great. He
+had suffered so much about it last time, probably, that was why
+he took it so easily now; or was it because his trust in the
+chapter of accidents had grown greater since he was more dependent
+on it? or because of the generally expanded sense of
+living in him which made anxiety uncongenial anyhow?
+Whatever the cause was, this was the effect. A momentary
+disappointment when he saw how little James's draft was&mdash;then
+a sense of that semi-intoxication which comes upon a poor
+man when a sum of money falls into his hands&mdash;gradually
+invaded his soul. He tried to settle down to his writing, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+did not feel equal to the effort. It was too little for the purpose,
+he said to himself, for which he wanted it; but it was
+enough to do a great many pleasant things with otherwise.
+For the first time he had no urgent bills to swallow it up; the
+very grocer, a long-suffering tradesman who made less fuss than
+the others, and about whom Ursula made less fuss, had been
+pacified by a payment on account of the Copperhead money,
+and thus had his mouth stopped. Barring that bill, indeed,
+things were in a more comfortable state than they had been for
+a long time in the May household; and putting that out of
+account, James's money would have been the nearest approach
+to luxury&mdash;reckoning luxury in its most simple form as money
+to spend without any absolutely forestalling claim upon it&mdash;which
+Mr. May had known for years. It is so seldom that
+poor people have this delicious sense of a little, ever so little
+surplus! and it would be hard to say how he could entertain
+the feeling that it was an overplus. There was something of
+the fumes of desperation perhaps, and impending fate in the
+lightness of heart which seized upon him. He could not keep
+still over his writing. He got up at last, and put James's
+draft into his pocket-book, and got his hat to go out. It was
+a fine morning, full of that exhilaration which belongs only to
+the spring. He went to the bank, and paid in the money, getting
+a small sum at the same time for his own immediate use;
+but somehow his restlessness was scarcely satisfied by that very
+legitimate piece of business, and he extended his walk into the
+town, and strayed, half by chance, half by intention, to the old
+furniture shop at the other end of the High Street, which was
+a favourite resort of the higher classes in Carlingford, and
+where periodically there was an auction, at which sometimes
+great bargains were to be had. Mr. May went into this dangerous
+place boldly. The sale was going on; he walked into
+the midst of temptation, forgetting the prayer against it, which
+no doubt he had said that morning. And as evil fate would
+have it, a carved book-case, the very thing he had been sighing
+for, for years, was at that moment the object of the auctioneer's
+praises. It was standing against the wall, a noble piece of furniture,
+in which books would show to an advantage impossible
+otherwise, preserved from dust and damp by the fine old oak
+and glass door. Mr. May's heart gave a little jump. Almost
+everybody has wished for something unattainable, and this had
+been the object of his desires for years. He gave a little start
+when he saw it, and hurried forward. The bidding had actually
+begun; there was no time to think and consider, if he wished
+to have a chance, and it was going cheap, dead cheap. After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+a minute or two of competition the blood rose to his cheeks, he
+got thoroughly excited. The effect of this excitement was two-fold&mdash;not
+only did it drive all thought of prudence out of his
+head, but it raised by several pounds the price of the book-case,
+which, had he gone about it coolly, he might have had at a
+much cheaper rate. When he suddenly woke up to find himself
+the owner of it, a thrill of consternation ran over him&mdash;it
+was all so sudden; and it was perfectly innocent, if only he had
+any money; and to be sure he had James's money, which was
+not enough to do anything else&mdash;certainly not to do the thing
+he wanted it for. He tried to laugh at himself for the little
+thrill of alarm that ran through him; but it was too late to
+recede; and he gave his cheque for the money and his directions
+as to having it sent to the Parsonage, with a quake at his
+heart, yet a little flourish of satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just what I have been wanting for years,&rdquo; he said, as he
+examined his new acquisition, and the people about looked at
+him with additional respect he felt, not being used to see Mr.
+May so prompt in payment, and so ready with his money.
+This pleased him also. He walked home with his head a little
+turned still, although there was a quake and flutter underneath.
+Well! he said to himself, who could call it an extravagance? a
+thing he had wanted for years&mdash;a thing which was a necessity,
+not for luxury, but everyday use&mdash;a thing which was not dear,
+and which was very handsome and substantial, and <i>really good</i>;
+how could any one say it was extravagant? Ursula might
+stare with her big eyes, but she was only a silly little girl, and
+women always were silly about expenses, alarmed by a big bold
+handsome purchase, though there was nobody better at the art
+of frittering away money in pretty nothings. When he got
+home, he began at once nervously to clear the space where it
+should stand. What an improvement it would be! and his
+books were getting spoiled daily in those unsightly, open
+shelves, entirely spoiled. It was exciting to anticipate its
+arrival, and the admiration and commotion in the house. He
+called in Betsy and gave her orders about it; how, if it came
+when he was absent, it was to be put in that particular place,
+no other.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And mind that great care is taken, for it is valuable, and a
+beautiful piece of furniture,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;La, sir!&rdquo; said Betsy, who was thunderstruck, though she
+knew it was not &ldquo;her place&rdquo; to show any feeling. He did not
+think it was necessary to appeal to Ursula on the same subject,
+but was rather glad to get out again, feeling the restlessness
+which had not been dissipated, but rather the reverse. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
+went and saw one or two poor people, to whom he was much
+more tolerant and kind than his wont, for in general Mr. May
+was not attracted towards the poor; and he gave them a shilling
+or two of the money he had drawn at the bank that morning&mdash;though
+somehow it had acquired a certain value in his eyes, and
+it was with a grudge that he took it out of his pocket. I must
+not spend this, he said to himself; but gave the shillings as a
+kind of tithe or propitiatory offering to Providence, that things
+might go well with him. Why should not things go well with
+him? He was not a bad man, he wronged nobody. He had
+done nothing to-day that a saint might not have done; he
+wanted the book-case, and he had the money, a sum not big
+enough for any more important purpose; but which was far
+better disposed of so than frittered away in nothings, as no
+doubt it would have otherwise been. By the afternoon, when
+the book-case arrived, he had convinced himself that it was
+not only quite reasonable, but a most lucky chance, a thing he
+could scarcely have hoped for, the opportunity and the money
+both coming in such exact accord with each other. When he
+returned from his walk the girls were looking at it, Ursula
+somewhat scared, Janey in open raptures.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is very nice indeed, papa,&rdquo; said the elder girl; &ldquo;but it
+must have cost a deal of money.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Be thankful that you haven't got to pay for it,&rdquo; he said,
+brusquely. He was not disposed to stand criticism. How it
+filled up his bare room, and made it, Mr. May thought, all at
+once into a library, though the old writing-table and shabby
+chairs looked rather worse perhaps than before, and suggested
+renewal in the most urgent way. To make it all of a piece, to
+put a soft Turkey carpet instead of the drugget, how pleasant it
+would be!&mdash;not extravagant, only a natural inclination towards
+the seemly, and a desire to have things around him becoming
+his position. No doubt such things were things which he
+ought to have in his position; a gentleman and a scholar, how
+humiliating it was that nothing but the barest elements of
+comfort should be within his reach. This was not how life
+ought to be; a poor creature like Clarence Copperhead, without
+birth, or breeding, or brains, or anything but money, was able
+to gratify every wish, while he&mdash;his senior, his superior! Instead
+of blaming himself, therefore, for his self-indulgence,
+Mr. May sympathized with himself, which is a much less safe
+thing to do; and accordingly, it soon began to appear to him
+that his self-denial all this time in not giving himself what he
+wanted had been extreme, and that what he had now done,
+in conceding himself so harmless a gratification, was what he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+ought to have done years ago. It was his own money sent to him
+by his dutiful son without conditions; and who had any right
+to interfere?</p>
+
+<p>When he was at dinner, Betsy came behind his chair under
+pretence of serving him; Betsy, whose place was in the kitchen,
+who had no right to show in the dining-room at all, and whose confused
+toilette had caught Ursula's eye and filled her with horror.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Please, sir,&rdquo; she said, breathing hot on Mr. May's ear, till
+he shrank with sensitive horror. &ldquo;Cotsdean's in the kitchen.
+He says as how he must see you; and I can't get him away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, Cotsdean? tell him if he has anything to say to me, to
+write it down.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Which he's done, sir,&rdquo; said Betsy, producing a little bit of
+paper rolled tightly together, &ldquo;but I wasn't to give it till I'd
+asked you to see him. Oh, please see him, sir, like a dear good
+gentleman. He looks like a man as is going off his head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is a fool,&rdquo; said Mr. May, taking the paper, but setting
+his teeth as he did so. Evidently he must get rid of this
+fellow&mdash;already beginning to trouble him, as if he was not the
+best person to know when and how far he could go.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell him I'll attend to it, he need not trouble himself,&rdquo; he
+said, and put the paper into his pocket, and went on with his
+dinner. Cotsdean, indeed! surely there had been enough of
+him. What were his trumpery losses in comparison with what
+his principal would lose, and how dare that fellow turn up thus
+and press him continually for his own poor selfish safety? This
+was not how Mr. May had felt three months before; but
+everything changes, and he felt that he had a right to be
+angry at this selfish solicitude. Surely it was of as much consequence
+to him at least as to Cotsdean. The man was a fussy
+disagreeable fool, and nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>And as it happened they sat late that night at dinner, without
+any particular reason, because of some discussion into which
+Clarence and Reginald fell, so that it was late before Mr. May
+got back to his room, where his books were lying in a heap
+waiting their transportation. They seemed to appeal to him
+also, and ask him reproachfully how they had got there, and he
+went to work arranging them all with all the enthusiasm
+natural to a lover of books. He was a book-lover, a man full of
+fine tastes and cultured elegant ways of thinking. If he had
+been extravagant (which he was not) it would have been in the
+most innocent, nay delightful and laudable way. To attach any
+notion of criminality, any suspicion of wrong-doing to such a
+virtuous indulgence, how unjust it would be! There was no
+company upstairs that evening. Copperhead had strolled out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+with Reginald to smoke his cigar, much against the will of the
+latter, and was boring him all the way to the College with
+accounts of his own lavish expenditure, and how much he had
+given for this and that; his cameos, his diamond studs, the magnificent
+dressing-case which was the wonder of the Parsonage.
+&ldquo;Hang it all, what is the good of having money if you don't
+spend it?&rdquo; said Clarence, and Reginald, who had not much money
+to spend, felt as near hating him as it was in his nature to do.
+Thus Mr. May was released from duty in the drawing-room,
+where Ursula, palpitating with many thoughts which were
+altogether new to her, sat doing her darning, and eluding as
+well as she could Janey's questions. Janey was determinedly
+conversational that night. She drove Ursula nearly out of her
+senses, and kept Johnnie&mdash;who had crept into the drawing-room
+in high delight at finding it for once free to him&mdash;from
+learning his lessons.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, how nice it is to be by ourselves,&rdquo; said Janey, &ldquo;instead
+of all those new people. I don't mind Ph&#339;be; but strange
+men in the house, what a nuisance they are, always getting in
+one's way&mdash;don't you think so, Ursula?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula made no reply, and after awhile even Janey sank into
+silence, and the drawing-room, usually so gay, got a cold and
+deserted look. The new life which had come in had left its
+mark, and to go back to what had once been so pleasant in the
+past was no longer possible. Johnnie and Janey might like it,
+having regained their former places, but to Ursula the solitude
+was horrible. She asked herself, with a great blush and quiver,
+what she would do if that temporary filling up of new interests
+and relationships was to fall away, as was likely, and leave her
+to the old life unbroken, to Janey's childish society and questions,
+and papa's imperious and unmodified sway. She grew
+pale and chill at the very thought.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. May, as we have said, was off duty. He forgot all
+about Cotsdean and the note in his pocket, and set to work
+with the most boyish simplicity of delight to arrange his books
+in his new shelves. How well they looked! never before had
+their setting done them justice. There were books in gorgeous
+bindings, college prizes which had never shown at all, and
+which now gleamed out in crimson and gold from behind the
+glass, and made their owner's heart beat with pleasure. Alas!
+to think how much innocent pleasure is denied us by the want
+of that small sum of money! and worse still, how an innocent
+pleasure becomes the reverse of innocent when it is purchased
+by the appropriation of something which should have been employed
+elsewhere. Perhaps, however, the sense of guilt which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+he kept under, added zest in Mr. May's mind to the pleasure
+of his acquisition; he was snatching a fearful joy, Heaven
+knows how soon the penalty might overwhelm him. In the
+mean time he was determined to take the good of it, and enjoy
+what he had gained.</p>
+
+<p>When the books were all in he sat down at his table and
+surveyed it, rubbing his dusty hands. How much that is
+childish, how much that is fresh, and youthful, and innocent
+must be in the mind of a man (you would say) who could be
+thus excited about a book-case! and yet this was not the kind
+of man whom you would call unsophisticated and youthful. It
+was probably the state of suppressed excitement in which he
+was, the unreality of his position, that helped him to that sense
+of elation as much as anything else; for emotion is a Proteus
+ready to take any form, and pain itself sometimes finds vent in
+the quick blazing up of fictitious delight, as much as in the
+moanings that seem more accordant with its own nature. He
+put his hand into his pocket for his pencil to make a note of
+the contents of the new shelves, and then he found Cotsdean's
+note, which he had not forgotten, but which he had felt no
+desire to remember. When he felt it between his fingers his
+countenance fell a little; but he took it out and read it with
+the smile still upon his face. It was a dirty little roll of paper,
+scribbled in pencil.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&ldquo;Rev. Sir,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope as you are not forgetting the 15th. Pleas excuse
+anxiety and bad writing, i am a poor nervous man I no, a word
+of answer just to say as it is all right will much oblidge.</p>
+
+<center>
+&ldquo;Rev. Sir,<br>
+&ldquo;Your humble servant,</center>
+<p style="text-align: right;">&ldquo;<span class="smcap">T. Cotsdean.</span>&rdquo;</p></div>
+
+<p>Betsy knocked at the door as he read this, with a request for
+an answer to Mr. Cotsdean's note. &ldquo;Little Bobby, sir, is
+waiting for it in the kitchen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give Bobby some supper,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;tell him to tell
+his father it's all right, and I shan't forget. You understand?
+He is a troublesome little fool; but it's all right, and I shan't
+forget, and give the child some supper, Betsy. He ought not
+to be out so late.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is a delicate little thing, sir, thankye, sir,&rdquo; said Betsy,
+half-frightened by her master's amiability; and he smiled and
+repeated,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tell him it's all right.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Was it all right, the 15th? Cotsdean must have made a
+mistake. Mr. May's countenance paled, and the laugh went
+off; he opened a drawer in his writing-table and took out a
+book, and anxiously consulted an entry in it. It was the 18th
+certainly, as clear as possible. Something had been written on
+the opposite page, and had blotted slightly the one on which
+these entries were written; but there it stood, the 18th April.
+Mr. May prided himself on making no mistakes in business.
+He closed the book again with a look of relief, the smile coming
+back once more to his face. The 18th, it was three days additional,
+and in the time there was no doubt that he would
+find out what was the right thing to do.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MILLIONNAIRE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Mr. May woke next morning, it was not the book-case
+he thought of, but that date which had been the last thing in
+his mind on the previous night. Not the 15th,&mdash;the 18th.
+Certainly he was right, and Cotsdean was wrong. Cotsdean
+was a puzzle-headed being, making his calculations by the rule
+of thumb; but he had put down the date, and there could be
+no possible mistake about it. He got up disposed to smile at
+the poor man's ignorance and fussy restlessness of mind.
+&ldquo;I have never left him in the lurch, he may trust to me surely
+in the future,&rdquo; Mr. May said to himself, and smiled with a kind
+of condescending pity for his poor agent's timidity; after all,
+perhaps, as Cotsdean had so little profit by it, it was not wonderful
+that he should be uneasy. After this, it might be well if
+they did anything further of the sort, to divide the money, so
+that Cotsdean too might feel that he had got something for the
+risk he ran; but then, to be sure, if he had not the money he
+had no trouble, except by his own foolish anxiety, for the payment,
+and always a five-pound note or two for his pains. But
+Mr. May said to himself that he would do no more in this way
+after the present bill was disposed of; no, he would make a
+stand, he would insist upon living within his income. He
+would not allow himself to be subject to these perpetual agitations
+any more. It would require an effort, but after the effort
+was made all would be easy. So he said to himself; and it
+was the 18th, not the 15th, three days more to make his arrangements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+in. It had come to be the 12th now, and up to
+this moment he had done nothing, having that vague faith in
+the Indian mail which had been realized, and yet had not been
+realized. But still he had nearly a week before him, which
+was enough certainly. Anything that he could do in six
+months, he said to himself, he could easily do in six days&mdash;the
+mere time was nothing; and he smiled as he dressed himself
+leisurely, thinking it all over. Somehow everything looked
+perfectly easy to him this time; last time he had been plunged
+into tragic despair; now, and he did not know why, he took
+it quite easily; he seemed to fear nothing. There were various
+ways of getting the money as natural as the daylight, and in
+the mean time why should he make himself unhappy? As soon
+as he was ready he went to his room and had another look at
+the book-case which, with his best books in it, all in order and
+ranged in unbroken lines, looked everything a book-case ought
+to look. It made him feel more of a man somehow, more like
+the gentleman and scholar he had meant to be when he started
+in life; he had not intended then to be a poor district incumbent
+all his life, with a family of eight children. His book-case somehow
+transported him back to the days when he had thought
+of better things for himself, and when life had held an ideal for
+him. Perhaps at the best of times it had never been a very
+high ideal; but when a man is over fifty and has given up doing
+anything but struggle through each day as it comes, and get
+out of his work as best he may, doing what he must, leaving
+undone what he can, any ideal almost seems something higher
+than himself; but the recollection of what he had meant to be,
+came back to him strongly when he looked at his carved oak.
+It had not been carried out; but still he felt rehabilitated and
+better in his own opinion as he stood beside this costly purchase
+he had made, and felt that it changed his room and all his
+surroundings. It might have been almost wicked to run into
+such an extravagance, but yet it did him good.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;My people came down to the Hall last night,&rdquo; Clarence
+Copperhead said to him at breakfast, &ldquo;and the Governor is
+coming over along with Sir Robert. He'd like to see you, I
+am sure, and I suppose they'll be going in for sight-seeing, and
+that sort of thing. He is a dab at sight-seeing, is the Governor.
+I can't think how he can stand it for my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you must remember that I put myself at his orders
+for the day,&rdquo; said Mr. May graciously. &ldquo;Sir Robert is not a
+bad guide, but I am a better, though it sounds modest to say
+it; and, Ursula, of course Mr. Copperhead will take luncheon
+with us.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't think of that,&rdquo; said Clarence, &ldquo;he's queer and likes
+his own way. Just as likely as not he'll think he ought to
+support the hotels of the place where he is&mdash;sort of local production,
+you know. I think it's nonsense, but that is how it is&mdash;that's
+the man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We shall look for him all the same,&rdquo; said Mr. May, with a
+nod at Ursula; and a sudden project sprang up in his mind,
+wild as projects so often are. This father whom his fancy,
+working upon what Clarence said, immediately invested with
+all the prodigal liberality of a typical rich man; this stranger
+to whom a hundred pounds was less then a penny was to himself,
+would give him the money he wanted. What so easy?
+He drew a long breath, and though he had not been aware that
+he was anxious, he was suddenly conscious of a sense of relief.
+Yes, to be sure, what so simple, what so likely? he would explain
+his monetary necessities lightly and with grace, and Mr.
+Copperhead would supply them. He was in the mildest state
+of desperation, the painless stage, as may be seen, when this
+strange idea entered into his head. He hugged it, though he
+was a man of the world and might have known better, and it
+produced a kind of elation which would have been a very strange
+spectacle to any looker-on who knew what it meant. The
+thing seemed done when he next thought of it ten minutes
+later, settled as if it had been so for years. Mr. Copperhead
+would make it all right for him, and after that he would undertake
+such risks no more.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead, however, did not come for two days, though
+Ursula spent all the morning and a great deal of trouble in
+arranging a luncheon for him; but on the second morning he
+came, driven by Sir Robert, who had changed horses on the
+road, and who was in a somewhat irritated and excited condition,
+very glad to get rid of his visitor.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope you don't mind having your toes trodden on, May,&rdquo;
+he said, privately; &ldquo;that fellow is never happy but when he's
+insulting some one.&rdquo; And indeed Mr. Copperhead began this
+favourite pastime at once by making very big eyes at the sight
+of Ursula. &ldquo;A-ha!&rdquo; he said, rubbing his hands, and elevating
+his eyebrows; and he gave a meaning laugh as he shook
+hands with her, and declared that he did not expect to find
+young ladies here. &ldquo;I haven't a great deal of education myself,
+and I never knew it could be carried on so pleasantly,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;You're a lucky young dog, Clar, that's what you are;&rdquo; and
+the son laughed with the father at this excellent joke, though
+the rest of the company looked on with great gravity. Ursula,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+for her part, turned with wondering eyes from the new-comer
+to her old friend, Sir Robert.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What does he mean?&rdquo; she asked, with an appealing look.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is the greatest brute I know,&rdquo; said poor Sir Robert,
+under his breath; and he went off suddenly on the plea of
+business, leaving his unpleasant visitor in Mr. May's hands,
+who undertook the charge not unwillingly, being possessed by
+his own plan. Mr. Copperhead went all over Carlingford. He
+inspected the town-hall, the infirmary, and the church, with
+the business-like air of a man who was doing his duty.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor little place, but well enough for the country,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;A country-town's a mistake in my opinion. If I had it in
+my power I'd raze them all to the ground, and have one London
+and the rest green fields. That's your sort, Mr. May.
+Now you don't produce anything here, what's the good of
+you? All unproductive communities, sir, ought to be swept
+off the face of the earth. I'd let Manchester and those sort of
+places go on till they burst; but a bit of a little piggery like
+this, where there's nothing doing, no trade, no productions of
+any kind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We like it all the same,&rdquo; said Mr. May; &ldquo;we small sort of
+people who have no enterprise like you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I dare say you like it! To be sure, you can moon about
+here as much as you please, and make believe to do something,
+and there's nobody to contradict you. In a great centre of
+industry you couldn't live like that; you must work or you'll
+get pushed aside altogether; unless, of course, you're a
+millionnaire to start with,&rdquo; Mr. Copperhead added, with a noisy
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Which I am not certainly&mdash;very much the reverse&mdash;in
+short, a poor man with a large family, which I suppose is a
+thing about as objectionable in a centre of industry as anything
+can be.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The large family ain't objectionable if you make 'em work,&rdquo;
+said Mr. Copperhead; &ldquo;it all depends on that. There's always
+objections, you know,&rdquo; he said, with a jocular grin, &ldquo;to pretty
+girls like that daughter of yours put straight in a young fellow's
+way. You won't mind my saying it? They neither work
+themselves nor let others work&mdash;that sort. I think we could
+get on with a deal fewer women, I must allow. There's where
+Providence is in a mistake. We don't want 'em in England;
+it's a waste of raw material. They're bad for the men, and they
+ain't much good for themselves, that I can see.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are a little hard upon the ladies, Mr. Copperhead.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not I&mdash;we can't do without 'em of course, and the surplus
+we ought to export as we export other surpluses; but I object
+to them in a young man's way, not meaning anything unpleasant
+to you. And perhaps if I had been put up to it
+sooner&mdash;but let's hope there's no mischief done. What is this
+now? some of your antiquities, I suppose. Oh yes, let's have
+a look at it; but I confess it's the present age I like best.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is the College,&rdquo; cried Mr. May, swallowing certain
+sensations which impaired his sense of friendliness; &ldquo;but not
+an educational college, a foundation for old men&mdash;decayed
+citizens, as they are called&mdash;founded in the fifteenth century.
+My son is the chaplain, and will be very glad to show it you.
+There are twelve old men here at present, very comfortably
+looked after, thanks to the liberal arrangements of the founder.
+They attend chapel twice a day, where Reginald officiates. It
+is very agreeable to me to have him settled so near me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cunning I call it,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, with his hoarse
+laugh; &ldquo;does you credit; a capital snug nest&mdash;nothing to do&mdash;and
+pay&mdash;pay good now? those old fellows generally managed
+that; as it was priests that had the doing of it, of course they
+did well for their own kind. Good Lord, what a waste of good
+money all this is!&rdquo; he continued, as they went into the
+quadrangle, and saw the little park beyond with its few fine
+trees; &ldquo;half-a-dozen nice villas might be built on this site, and
+it's just the sort of place I should fancy where villas would
+pay. Why don't the Corporation lay hands on it? And your
+son lives here? Too dull for me; I like a little movement
+going on, but I dare say he likes it; and with how much a
+year?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Two hundred and fifty; and some advantages beside&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bravo!&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;now how many curates
+could you get for that two and a-half? I've got a great respect
+for you, Mr. May; you know what's what. That shows sense,
+that does. How do you do, sir? fine old place you've got
+here&mdash;capital snug appointment. I've just been saying to
+your father I admire his sense, looking out for you a nice fat
+easy appointment like this.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald turned from red to white, and then to portentous
+blackness. The subject was of all others the one least likely
+to please him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not very fat,&rdquo; he said, with a look of offence, quite
+undeserved by the chief sufferer, towards his father, &ldquo;nor very
+easy. But come in. It is rather an interesting old place. I
+suppose you would like to see the Chapel, and the old captain's
+rooms; they are very fine in their way.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you; we've been seeing a deal already, and I feel
+tired. I think I'll&mdash;let you off the chapel. Hallo! here's
+another old friend&mdash;Northcote, by George! and what are <i>you</i>
+doing here I should like to know, a blazing young screamer of
+the Liberation Society, in a high and dry parson's rooms?
+This is as good as a play.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose one is not required to stay at exactly the same
+point of opinion all one's life,&rdquo; said Northcote, with a half-smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By George! but you are though, when you're a public
+man; especially when you're on a crusade. Haven't I heard
+you call it a crusade? I can tell you that changing your opinion
+is just the very last thing the public will permit you to do. But
+I shan't tell for my part&mdash;make yourself easy. Clarence, don't
+you let it out; your mother, fortunately, is out of the way.
+The world shall never know through me that young Northcote,
+the anti-state Churchman, was discovered hob-nobbing with a
+snug chaplain in a sinecure appointment. Ha, ha! had you there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To do Northcote justice,&rdquo; said Mr. May; &ldquo;he began life in
+Carlingford by pointing out this fact to the neighbourhood;
+that it was a sinecure, and that my son and I&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Would it not be more to the point to inspect the chapel?&rdquo;
+said Reginald, who had been standing by impatiently playing
+with a big key; upon which Mr. Copperhead laughed more
+loudly than before.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We'll not trouble the chapel,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;railway stations
+are more in my way; you are all a great deal finer than I am,
+and know a deal more, I suppose; but my roughness has
+served its purpose on the whole, better perhaps for some things&mdash;yes,
+for some things, Clar, and you may thank your stars, old
+boy. If you had been a parson's son, by George! there would
+have been no fat appointment waiting for you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;After all, my son's appointment is not so very fat,&rdquo; said
+Mr. May, forcing a laugh. &ldquo;It is not so much as many a boy
+at school gets from his father.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, you mean my boy at school! he's an extravagant dog.
+His mother and he, sir, are made of different clay from me;
+they are porcelain and I am delft. They want fine velvet cupboards
+to stand themselves in, while I'm for the kitchen
+dresser. That's the difference. But I can afford it, thank
+Heaven. I tell Clarence that he may thank his stars that I can
+afford it, and that he isn't born a poor man's son. He has
+been plucked at Oxford, you know,&rdquo; he said, with a big laugh,
+thrusting forth his chest as Clarence thrust forth his shirt-front,
+with an apparent complacency over the very plucking.
+My son can afford to be plucked, he seemed to say. He got up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+as he spoke, and approaching the fireplace turned his back to
+it, and gathered up his coat-tails under his arm. He was no
+taller than Mr. May, and very little taller than Reginald; but
+they both shrank into insignificance beside the big self-assertive
+figure. He looked about the room as if he was thinking
+of &ldquo;buying up&rdquo; the whole contents of it, and thought
+very little of them. A glance of contempt, a shrug more implied
+than actual, testified his low opinion of everything around.
+When he withdrew his eyes from the furniture he shook out
+his leg, as Clarence had done his, and gave a pull to his
+trousers that they might sit properly. He had the word
+&ldquo;Rich&rdquo; painted in big letters all over him, and he seemed to
+feel it his vocation to show this sense of superiority. Clarence
+by his side, the living copy of the great man's appearance and
+manners, strutted and put himself forward like his father, as a
+big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr. Copperhead
+did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's
+motherly complacency. He laughed at him openly, with
+cynical amusement. He was clever in his way, and Clarence
+was stupid; and besides he was the proprietor, and Clarence,
+for all he was porcelain, was his goods and chattels. When he
+looked at him, a wicked leer of derision awoke in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, my boy,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;thank your stars; you would not
+make much of it if you were a poor man. You're an ornament
+that costs dear; but I can afford you. So, Northcote, you're
+changing your opinions&mdash;going over to the Church, eh? Extremes
+meet, they say; I shouldn't have thought it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am doing nothing of the kind,&rdquo; said Northcote stoutly.
+He was not in a mood to be taken to task by this Mammon of
+unrighteousness, and indeed had at all times been a great deal
+too independent and unwilling to submit to leading members
+of the connection. Mr. Copperhead, however, showed no resentment.
+Northcote too, like Clarence, had a father before
+him, and stood on quite a different footing from the ordinary
+young pastor, whose business it was to be humble and accept all
+that his betters might portion out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you can afford to please yourself, and
+that's always something. By the way, isn't it time to have
+something to eat? If there is a good hotel near&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Luncheon will be waiting at my house,&rdquo; said Mr. May, who
+was still doing his best to please the man upon whom he had
+built such wild hopes, &ldquo;and Ursula will be waiting.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, ah, the young lady! so she will. I wouldn't miss that
+for something; but I don't like putting you to so much expense.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+My son here has an excellent appetite, as you must have found
+out by this time, and for my part so have I. I think it a
+thousand pities to put you to this trouble&mdash;and expense.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pray don't think of that,&rdquo; said Mr. May with courtesy,
+which belied his feelings, for he would have liked nothing so
+well as to have knocked down his complacent patron. He led the
+way out, almost with eagerness, feeling Mr. Copperhead to be less
+offensive out of doors than within four walls. Was this the
+sort of man to be appealed to for help as he had thought?
+Probably his very arrogance would make him more disposed
+towards liberality. Probably it would flatter his sense of consequence,
+to have such a request made to him. Mr. May was
+very much at sea, letting I dare not wait upon I would;
+afraid to speak lest he should shut this door of help by so doing,
+and afraid to lose the chance of any succour by not speaking.
+He tried hard, in spite of all his difficulties, to be smooth and
+agreeable to a man who had so much in his power; but it was
+harder work than he could have thought.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>FATHER AND SON.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ursula had prepared a very careful luncheon for the
+stranger. She thought him disagreeable, but she had not
+looked at him much, for, indeed, Ursula's mind was much unsettled.
+Horace Northcote had spoken to her that morning,
+after Mrs. Hurst's visit and her retaliation upon him, as no man
+yet had ever spoken to her before. He had told her a long story,
+though it was briefly done, and could have been expressed in
+three words. He was not of her species of humanity; his ways
+of thinking, his prejudices, his traditions, were all different from
+hers, and yet that had happened to him which happens all over
+the world in every kind of circumstances&mdash;without knowing
+how it was, he had got to love her. Yes, he knew very well
+how it was, or rather, he knew when it was, which is all that is
+to be expected from a lover. It was on the evening of the
+<i>entr&eacute;es</i>, the first dinner-party, and he had gone on ever since,
+deeper and deeper, hearing her say many things which he did
+not agree in, and tracing her life through a score of little habits
+which were not congenial to his, yet loving her more and more
+for all that was new to him, and even for the things which were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+uncongenial. He had told her all this, and Ursula had listened
+with a kind of awe, wondering at the ardour in the young
+man's eyes, and the warmth with which he spoke; wondering
+and trembling a little. She had guessed what he meant the
+night before, as has been said, and this had touched her
+with a little thrill of awakened feeling; but the innocent girl
+knew no more about passion than a child, and when she saw it,
+glowing and ardent, appealing to her, she was half-alarmed,
+half-overawed by the strange sight. What answer could she
+make to him? She did not know what to say. To reject
+him altogether was not in Ursula's heart; but she could not
+respond to that strange, new, overwhelming sentiment, which
+put a light in his eyes which she dared not meet; which dazzled
+her when she ventured a glance at him. &ldquo;Was he to go away?&rdquo;
+he asked, his voice, too, sounding musical and full of touching
+chords. Ursula could not tell him to go away either. What
+she did say to him, she never quite knew; but at least, whatever
+it was, it left him hopeful, if unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>And since that time her mind had been in a strange confusion,
+a confusion strange but sweet. Gratified vanity is not a pretty
+title to give to any feeling, and yet that mixture of gratification
+and gratitude, and penetrating pleasure in the fact of being
+elevated from an often-scolded and imperfect child to an admired
+and worshipped woman is, perhaps, of all the sensations
+that feminine youth is conscious of, the most poignant in its
+sweetness. It went through her whole life; sometimes it made
+her laugh when she was all alone, and there was nothing of a
+laughter-producing nature in her way; and sometimes it made
+her cry, both the crying and the laughter being one. It was
+strange, very strange, and yet sweet. Under the influence of
+this, and of the secret homage which Northcote paid her whenever
+they met; and which she now understood as she had never
+understood it before, the girl's whole nature expanded, though
+she did not know. She was becoming sweet to the children, to
+puzzled Janey, to every one around her. Her little petulances
+were all subdued. She was more sympathetic than she had
+ever been before. And yet she was not in love with her lover.
+It was only that the sunshine of young life had caught her, that
+the highest gratification of youth had fallen to her share unawares.
+All this might have been, and yet some one else come
+in to secure Ursula's real love; but in the mean time she was all
+the happier, all the better for the love which she did not return.</p>
+
+<p>This is a digression from our immediate subject, which was
+the luncheon prepared for Mr. Copperhead. Ursula sent up
+an urgent message for Ph&#339;be, who came to her in her prettiest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+morning dress, very carefully arranged, but with a line of care
+upon her brow.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will come if you wish it, dear,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but I don't
+want to meet Mr. Copperhead. I don't like him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Neither do I like him,&rdquo; cried Ursula. &ldquo;He said something
+disagreeable the little moment he was here. Oh, I don't remember
+what it was, but something. Please stay. What am
+I to do with them all by myself? If you will help me, I may
+get through.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be kissed her with a tremulous kiss; perhaps she was
+not unwilling to see with her own eyes what the father of
+Clarence meant, and what brought him here. She sat down
+at the window, and was the first to see them coming along the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a gentleman your father looks beside them,&rdquo; cried
+Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;both of them, father and son; though Clarence,
+after all, is a great deal better than his father, less like a
+British snob.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't think he is much better than his father,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped
+it as if it had hurt her. What did it all mean? Ursula,
+though rays of enlightenment had come to her, was still perplexed,
+and did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon,
+when Ph&#339;be appeared with little Amy May looking like a
+visitor, newly arrived. She had run upstairs after that first
+sight of him from the window, declaring herself unable to be
+civil to him except at table. The great man's face almost grew
+pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula, and then at
+Clarence, and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;'Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,'&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;That's Scripture, ain't it, Miss Ursula?
+I am not good at giving chapter and verse.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What does it mean?&rdquo; asked Ursula.</p>
+
+<p>She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copperhead, and perfectly
+unconscious of his observation. As for Ph&#339;be, on the contrary,
+she was slightly agitated, her placid surface ruffled a
+little, and she looked her best in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead
+looked straight at her across the table, and laughed in his
+insolent way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So you are here too, Miss Ph&#339;be!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I might
+think myself in the Crescent if I didn't know better. I met
+young Northcote just now, and now you. What may you be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+doing here, might one ask? It is what you call a curious coincidence,
+ain't it, Clarence and you both here?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I said so when Mr. Clarence came,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;<i>I</i>
+came to take care of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a
+very lucky thing for me that I had met Miss May at your ball,
+Mr. Copperhead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By Jove, wasn't it!&rdquo; said Clarence, roused to some dull
+sense of what was going on. &ldquo;We owe all the fun we have
+had here to that, so we do. Odd, when one thinks of it; and
+thought so little of it then, didn't we? It's a very queer
+world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So you've been having fun here?&rdquo; said his father. &ldquo;I
+thought you came here to work; that's how we old fellows get
+taken in. Work! with young ladies dangling about, and putting
+things into your head! I ought to have known better,
+don't you think so, Miss Ursula? <i>You</i> could have taught me
+a thing or two.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I?&rdquo; said Ursula, startled. &ldquo;I don't know what I could
+teach any one. I think Mr. Clarence Copperhead has kept to
+his hours very steadily. Papa is rather severe; he never would
+take any excuse from any of us when we were working with
+him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is not so severe now, I'll be bound,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead.
+&ldquo;Lets you have your fun a little, as Clarence tells me;
+don't you, May? Girls will be girls, and boys, boys, whatever
+we do; and I am sure, Miss Ph&#339;be, you have been very
+entertaining, as you always were.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have done my best,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, looking him in the face.
+&ldquo;I should have had a dull life but for the Parsonage, and I
+have tried to be grateful. I have accompanied your son on the
+violin a great many evenings, and I hope our friends have liked
+it. Mr. Clarence is a promising player, though I should like
+him to trust less to his ear; but we always pulled through.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thanks to you,&rdquo; said Clarence, in the middle of his cutlet</p>
+
+<p>He did not quite see why she should flourish this music in
+his father's face; but still he was loyal in a dull fashion, and he
+was obstinate, and did not mean to be &ldquo;sat upon,&rdquo; to use his
+own words. As for Ph&#339;be, her quick mind caught at once the
+best line of policy. She determined to deliver Ursula, and she
+determined at the same time to let her future father-in-law (if he
+was to be her father-in-law) see what sort of a person he had
+to deal with. As soon as she made up her mind, her agitation
+disappeared. It was only the uncertainty that had cowed her;
+now she saw what to do.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So!&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;musical evenings! I hope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+you have not turned poor Clar's head among you, young ladies.
+It's not a very strong head; and two is more than a match for
+one. I dare say he has had no chance between you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Make yourself quite easy,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with her sweetest
+smile; &ldquo;he was only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and
+Mr. Northcote are both very pleasant companions. Your son
+is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are never bored. You
+see, he has been accustomed to more brilliant society; but as
+for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very
+happy. And if there has been two to one, it has been the
+other way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think I must let your people know of your gaieties, Miss
+Ph&#339;be. If your mother sent you here, I don't doubt it
+was for a purpose, eh? She knows what she's about, and she
+won't like it if she knows you are fritting away your chances
+and your attentions. She has an eye for business, has Mrs.
+Beecham,&rdquo; said the leading member, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You cannot tell mamma more about me than she knows
+already,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with rising colour.</p>
+
+<p>And by this time every one else at table was uncomfortable.
+Even Clarence, who had a dull appreciation of his father's jokes
+when they were not levelled at himself, and who was by no
+means indisposed to believe that &ldquo;girls,&rdquo; generally, were &ldquo;after
+him,&rdquo; and that even in this particular case Ph&#339;be herself might
+have come to Carlingford on purpose to complete his conquest,
+even Clarence was moved.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't know what you mean by brilliant society,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;I know I'm the dull one among you clever people. I don't
+say much, but I know it all the same; and it's awfully good of
+you to pull me through all that music. I don't begrudge you
+your laugh after. Is my mother coming over, sir, to see the
+place?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To see what? There is not much in the place,&rdquo; said Mr.
+Copperhead. &ldquo;You're coming back with me, my boy. I hope
+it won't inconvenience you, May. I've other views for him.
+Circumstances alter cases, you know. I've been turning it
+over in my head, and I think I can see my way to another
+arrangement.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That, of course, is entirely in your own hands,&rdquo; said Mr.
+May, with a cheerfulness he did not feel. His heart sank, but
+every rule of good society made it incumbent upon him to
+show no failure at such a moment. &ldquo;Copperhead, see that
+your father has some wine. Well, I suppose our poor little
+Carlingford is not much of a place; no trade, no movement, no
+manufactures&mdash;&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The sort of place that should be cleared off the face of the
+earth,&rdquo; said the millionnaire; &ldquo;meaning no offence, of course.
+That's my opinion in respect to country towns. What's the
+good of them? Nests of gossip, places where people waste
+their time, and don't even amuse themselves. Give me green
+fields and London, that is my sort. I don't care if there was
+not another blessed brick in the country. There is always
+something that will grow in a field, corn or fat beasts&mdash;not
+that we couldn't get all that cheaper from over the water if it
+was managed as it ought to be. But a place like this, what's
+the good of it? Almshouses and chaplains, and that kind of
+rubbish, and old women; there's old women by the score.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They must be somewhere, I suppose,&rdquo; said Mr. May.
+&ldquo;We cannot kill them off, if they are inoffensive, and keep the
+laws. So that, after all, a country town is of use.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Kill 'em off&mdash;no; it's against what you benevolent humbugs
+call the spirit of the time, and Christianity, and all that;
+but there's such a thing as carrying Christianity too far; that's
+my opinion. There's your almshouses now. What's the principle
+of them? I call it encouraging those old beggars to
+live,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead; &ldquo;giving them permission to burden
+the community as long as they can manage it; a dead
+mistake, depend upon it, the greatest mistake in the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of
+Euthanasia,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, quietly stepping into the conversation;
+&ldquo;but then it would have to be with the consent of the
+victims. When any one found himself useless, unnecessary to
+the world, or unhappy in it&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Humbug and nonsense,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;A likely
+thing for anybody to do. No, it is not a question for law-making.
+Let 'em die out naturally, that's my opinion. Don't
+do anything to hurry 'em&mdash;that is, I don't see my way to it;
+but let 'em go quiet, and don't bring 'em cordials and feather-beds,
+and all that middyeval nonsense, to keep 'em going as
+long as possible. It's wicked, that's what it is.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At all events,&rdquo; said Mr. May, who, poor man, was bent on
+pleasing, &ldquo;it is refreshing to hear opinions so bold and original.
+Something new is always a blessing. I cannot say I agree
+with you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No parson would be bold enough for that. Christianity's
+been a capital thing for the world,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;I
+don't say a word against it; but in these go-ahead days, sir,
+we've had enough of it, that's to say when it's carried too far.
+All this fuss about the poor, all the row about dragging up a
+lot of poor little beggars to live that had far better die, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+your almshouses to keep the old ones going, past all nature!
+Shovel the mould over them, that's the thing for the world;
+let 'em die when they ought to die; and let them live who can
+live&mdash;that's my way of thinking&mdash;and what's more, I'm right.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What a fine thing for you, Mr. Clarence,&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be,
+&ldquo;who are going into Parliament! to take up your father's
+idea and work it out. What a speech you could make on the
+subject! I saw a hospital once in Paris that would make such
+a wonderful illustration. I'll tell you about it if you like.
+Poor old wretched people whose life was nothing but wretchedness
+kept going, kept living for years and years&mdash;why, no one
+could tell; for I am sure it would have been better, far better
+for them to die and be done with it. What a speech you
+might make when you bring a bill into Parliament to abolish
+almshouses and all sorts of charities!&rdquo; she added with a
+laugh, turning from Clarence, at whom she had been looking,
+to his father, who was puzzled, and did not know how to understand
+the young woman's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll never make much of a speech in Parliament,&rdquo; said
+Clarence; &ldquo;unless you make it for me,&rdquo; he added in an
+undertone. But no one else was speaking, and the undertone
+was quite audible. Meanwhile Ph&#339;be had not ceased to look
+at his father, and held him with a pair of eyes not like the
+Ancient Mariner's. Mr. Copperhead was confused, his power
+even of insolence was cowed for the moment. He obeyed
+quite docilely the movement made to leave the table. Was it
+possible that she defied him, this Minister's daughter, and
+measured her strength against his? Mr. Copperhead felt
+as if he could have shaken the impertinent girl, but dared not,
+being where he was.</p>
+
+<p>And lunch being over, Mr. May led his pupil's father into
+his study. &ldquo;I want to show you what your boy has been
+doing,&rdquo; he said, pointing to a line of books which made the
+millionnaire's soul shrink within him. &ldquo;I have not bothered
+him with classics; what was the use as he is not going back to
+Oxford? but I have done my best for him in a practical way.
+He has read history, largely as you see, and as much as I could
+give him of political and constitutional&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, reading the titles of some
+of the books under his breath. They impressed him deeply,
+and took away for a moment his self-confidence. It was his
+habit to boast that he knew nothing about books; but in their
+presence he shrank, feeling that they were greater than he,
+which was, there is little doubt, a sign of grace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you wish to remove Clarence,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;perhaps
+I had better make out a scheme of reading for him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; cried the rich man, &ldquo;I didn't want to remove
+him; but there he is, the first I see of him, cheek for jowl
+with a good-looking girl. I don't mean to say a word against
+Miss May, I've no doubt she's charming; but anyhow there
+she is side by side with Clar, who is no more able to resist that
+sort of thing&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May laughed, and this time with unmitigated amusement.
+&ldquo;Do you mean Ursula? I think I can answer for it
+that she made no attempts upon him for which resistance
+would be necessary.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's all very well to say; but bless you they do it, every
+one,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;without exception, when a young
+fellow's well off and well-looking; and as if one wasn't bad
+enough, you've got Ph&#339;be Beecham. You won't tell me she
+doesn't mean anything?&mdash;up to any mischief, a real minister's
+daughter. I don't mean anything uncivil to you or yours. I
+suppose a parson's different; but we know what a minister's
+daughter is in our connection. Like the men themselves, in
+short, who are always pouncing on some girl with a fortune if
+her relations don't take care. And Clarence is as weak as a
+baby; he takes after his mother&mdash;a poor bit of a feeble creature,
+though he's like me in exterior. That's how it is, you perceive;
+I don't quite see my way to letting him go on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is of course precisely as you please,&rdquo; said Mr. May,
+somewhat sharply. He would preserve his dignity even though
+his heart was sinking; but he could not keep that tone of
+sharpness out of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Of course it is as I please. I'll pay up of course for the
+second three months, if you choose, fair and square. I meant
+him to stay, and I'll pay. But that's all. You've no further
+claim upon me that I know of; and I must say that for a
+tutor, a regular coach, to keep girls in his house, daughters, or
+whatever you choose to call them, is something monstrous.
+It's a thing no fellow's friends would put up with. It's what
+I call dishonourable.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said Mr. May, with all the self-possession he was
+master of, &ldquo;you will let your son know at once that he must
+pack and go. I dare say, Sir Robert can take him, and we will
+send the portmanteaux. In such a case, it is better there
+should not be a moment's delay.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Clarence!&rdquo; cried Mr. Copperhead, walking to the door
+and opening it. &ldquo;Come along, look sharp, you're to go. I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+take you with me, do you hear? And May will see to sending
+you your boxes. Quick, come along, there's no time to lose.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go!&rdquo; said Clarence, coming in startled, with his eyebrows
+rising almost into his hair. &ldquo;Go? What do you mean?
+Out of the Parsonage? The Governor's been having too much
+sherry,&rdquo; he said, coming close to Mr. May's arm; he had himself
+been taking too much of the sherry, for the good reason
+that nobody had taken any notice of what he did, and that he
+had foreseen the excitement that was coming. &ldquo;You don't
+mean it, I know,&rdquo; he added aloud; &ldquo;I'll go over for the night
+if Sir Robert will have me, and see my mother&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ask May,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;you'll believe him, I
+suppose; he's as glad to get rid of you as I am to take you
+away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is this true?&rdquo; cried Clarence, roused and wondering,
+&ldquo;and if so, what's happened? I ain't a baby, you know, to
+be bundled about from one to another. The Governor forgets
+that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Your father,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;chooses to remove you, and
+that is all I choose to say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, by George, I can say a deal more,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead.
+&ldquo;You simpleton, do you think I am going to leave
+you here where there's man-traps about? None of such nonsense
+for me. Put your things together, I tell you. Ph&#339;be
+Beecham's bad enough at home; but if she thinks she's to have
+you here to pluck at her leisure, she and her friends&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;W&mdash;hew!&rdquo; said Clarence, with a long whistle. &ldquo;So
+that's it. I am very sorry, father, if these are your sentiments;
+but I may as well tell you at once I shan't go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You&mdash;must go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, squaring his shoulders and putting out his
+shirt front; he had never been roused into rebellion before,
+and perhaps without these extra glasses of sherry he would not
+have had the courage now. But what with sherry, and what
+with <i>amour propre</i>, and what with the thing he called love,
+Clarence Copperhead mounted all at once upon a pedestal.
+He had a certain dogged obstinacy in him, suspected by nobody
+but his mother, who had little enough to say in the guidance
+of her boy. He set himself square like a pugilist, which was
+his notion of resistance. Mr. May looked on with a curious
+mixture of feelings. His own sudden and foolish hope was
+over, and what did it matter to him whether the detestable
+father or the coarse son should win? He turned away from
+them with contempt, which was made sharp by their utter uselessness
+to himself. Had it been possible that he might have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+what he wanted from Mr. Copperhead, his patience would have
+held out against any trial; but the moment that hope was over,
+what further interest had he in the question? He went to his
+writing-table and sat down there, leaving them to fight it out
+as they would, by themselves. It was no affair of his.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>A PLEASANT EVENING.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The result, however, was a compromise. Clarence Copperhead
+went off with his father and Sir Robert to the Hall for
+the night, but was to return next day, and Ph&#339;be was left in
+a condition of some excitement behind them, not quite knowing
+what to think. She was as sure as ever that he had made
+up his mind to propose; but he had not done it, and what effect
+his father's visit, and perhaps his mother's entreaties, might
+have upon him, Ph&#339;be could not tell. The crisis excited her
+beyond any excitement which she would have thought possible
+in respect to Clarence Copperhead. She was more like an
+applicant for office kept uncertain whether she was to have a
+desirable post or not, than a girl on the eve of a lover's declaration.
+This was her own conception of the circumstances. She
+did not dislike Clarence; quite the reverse. She had no sympathy
+with Ursula's impatience of his heavy vanity. Ph&#339;be
+had been used to him all her life, and had never thought
+badly of the heavy boy whom she had been invited to amuse
+when she was six years old, and whom she had no particular
+objection to amuse still, let the others wonder at her as they
+might. Poor Reginald, contemplating bitterly her many little
+complacencies to his rival, set them down hastily to an appreciation
+of that rival's worldly advantages, which was not quite
+a just sentence. It was true, and yet it was not true; other
+feelings mingled in Ph&#339;be's worldliness. She did, indeed, perceive
+and esteem highly the advantages which Clarence could
+give her; but she had not the objections to Clarence himself
+that the others had. She was willing, quite willing, to undertake
+the charge of him, to manage, and guide, and make a man
+of him. And yet, while it was not pure worldliness, much less
+was it actual love which moved her. It was a kind of habitual
+affection, as for the &ldquo;poor thing, but mine own, sir,&rdquo; of the
+jester. He was but a poor creature, but Ph&#339;be knew she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+could make something of him, and she had no distaste to the
+task. When she began to perceive that Reginald, in so many
+ways Clarence's superior, was at her disposal, a sense of gratification
+went through Ph&#339;be's mind, and it certainly occurred
+to her that the feeling he might inspire would be a warmer and
+a more delightful one than that which would fall to Clarence
+Copperhead; but she was not tempted thereby to throw
+Clarence off for the other. No, she was pleased, and not unwilling
+to expend a little tender regret and gratitude upon
+poor Reginald. She was ready to be &ldquo;kind&rdquo; to him, though
+every woman knows that is the last thing she ought to be to a
+rejected lover; and she was full of sympathy for the disappointment
+which, nevertheless, she fully intended was to be his lot.
+This seems paradoxical, but it is no more paradoxical than
+human creatures generally are. On this particular evening
+her heart beat very high on account of Clarence, to know if he
+would have strength of mind to hold his own against his father,
+and if he would come back to her and ask her, as she felt certain
+he meant to do, that one momentous question. Her heart
+would not have been broken had he not done so, but still she
+would have been disappointed. Notwithstanding when the
+evening came, the absence of Clarence was a relief to Ph&#339;be
+as well as to the rest of the party, and she gave herself up to
+the pleasures of a few hours of half-tender intercourse with
+Reginald, with a sense of enjoyment such as she seldom felt.
+This was very wrong, there is no denying it, but still so it was.
+She was anxious that Clarence should come back to her, and
+ask her to be his wife; and yet she was pleased to be rid of
+Clarence, and to give her whole attention and sympathy to
+Reginald, trying her best to please him. It was very wrong;
+and yet such things have happened before, and will again;
+and are as natural, perhaps, as the more absolute and unwavering
+passion which has no doubt of its object, passion like Northcote's,
+who had neither eyes nor ears for anything but Ursula.
+The four were alone together that evening, and enjoyed it
+thoroughly. Clarence was away, who, to all but Ph&#339;be, was
+an interruption of their intercourse; and Mr. May was away
+in his study, too much absorbed to think of any duties that
+ought to have devolved upon him as chaperon; and even Janey
+was out of the way, taking tea with Mrs. Hurst. So the two
+young pairs sat round the table and talked; the girls, with a
+mutual panic, which neither breathed to the other, keeping
+together, avoiding separation into pairs. Ursula out of very
+shyness and fright alone, lest another chapter of the strange,
+novel, too moving love-tale might be poured into her ears;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+but Ph&#339;be with more settled purpose, to prevent any disclosure
+on the part of Reginald. The evening was mixed up of
+pleasure and pain to the two young men, each eager to find
+himself alone with the girl whom he loved; but it is to be feared
+the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which
+they ought not to have had. Open and outrageous love-making
+is not half so delicate a pastime as that in which
+nothing distinct dare be said, but all is implication, conveyed
+and understood without words. I know it is a dangerous
+thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession; you may
+say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish
+to give a disagreeable version of it; but, however you choose
+to explain it, this was how it was.</p>
+
+<p>It was with fear and trembling at last that Ph&#339;be went to
+the piano, which was at the other end of the room, after making
+all the resistance which was possible.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank Heaven, that idiot and his fiddle aren't here to-night
+to interfere!&rdquo; cried Reginald.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be shook her head at him, but ventured on no words; and
+how she did exert herself on the piano, playing things which
+were a great deal too classical for Reginald, who would have
+preferred the simplest stock piece, under cover of which he
+might have talked to her hanging over her chair, and making
+belief to turn over the music! This was what he wanted, poor
+fellow. He had no heart nor ears for Beethoven, which Ph&#339;be
+played to him with a tremor in her heart, and yet, the wicked
+little witch, with some enjoyment too.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is not the sort of thing you play when Copperhead is
+here,&rdquo; he said at last, driven to resistance.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, we play Mendelssohn,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with much show
+of innocence; and then she added, &ldquo;You ought to feel the compliment
+if I play Beethoven to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I ought, I suppose,&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;The truth is, I
+don't care for music. Don't take your hands off the keys.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why, you have done nothing but worry me to play!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not for the music,&rdquo; said Reginald, quite satisfied to have
+got his will. &ldquo;Why will you not talk to me and play to me,
+as I wish?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Perhaps, if I knew what you wish&mdash;&rdquo; Ph&#339;be said, in spite
+of herself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, how I should like to tell you! No, not Beethoven; a
+little, just a little music. Heavens!&rdquo; cried Reginald, as she
+crashed into a fortissimo, &ldquo;another sonata! Listen, I am not
+equal to sonatas. Nay, Miss Beecham, play me a little nothing&mdash;talk
+to me.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She shook her head at him with a laugh, and went on playing
+the hardest piece of music she could think of, complicating herself
+in difficult chords and sudden accidentals. If there had
+been anybody there to hear who could have understood, Ph&#339;be's
+performance would, no doubt, have appeared a masterpiece of
+brilliant execution, as it was; but the two others were paying
+not the slightest attention, and as for Reginald, he was in a
+state of tantalized vexation, which half-amused himself, and
+filled the performer with an exhilarating sense of successful
+mischief. Northcote was trying to say&mdash;what was he not
+trying to say?&mdash;to Ursula, under cover of the music, which was
+the best shield he could have had; and perhaps in reality,
+though Reginald was tantalized to the utmost degree of tantalization,
+even he had a certain enjoyment in the saucy self-defence
+which was more mischievous than cruel. He stood
+behind Ph&#339;be's chair, now and then meeting her laughing
+glance with one of tender appeal and reproach, pleased to feel
+himself thus isolated with her, and held an arm's-length in so
+genial a way. He would have his opportunity after a while,
+when there would be no piano to give her a momentary refuge,
+and then he would say out all that was in his heart, with no
+possible shadow of a rival to interfere with him. Angry? no;
+as he stood behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keys,
+a delightful calm stole over Reginald. Now and then she would
+throw a half-mocking glance at him upward over her shoulder,
+as she swept over the resounding board. When the sonata was
+concluded, Ph&#339;be sprang up from the piano, and went back to
+the table. She proposed that they should play a game at cards,
+to which Ursula agreed. The young men shrugged their
+shoulders and protested; but, after all, what did it matter, so
+long as they were together? They fell into their places quite
+naturally, the very cards assisting; and so the moments flew
+by. There was not so much sound as usual in the old faded
+drawing-room, which had come to look so bright and homelike;
+not so much sound of voices, perhaps less laughter&mdash;yet of all
+the evenings they had spent there together, that was the one
+they looked back upon, all four, with most tender recollection.
+They had been so happy, or, if not happy, so near (apparently)
+to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness itself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't let Reginald come with me,&rdquo; Ph&#339;be whispered, as
+she kissed her friend, and said good night, &ldquo;or ask Mr. Northcote
+to come too.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; said Ursula, with dreamy eyes; her own young
+tide of life was rising, invading, for the moment, her perceptions,
+and dulling her sense of what was going on round her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+There was no time, however, for anything more to be said, for
+Reginald was close behind with his hat in his hand. Ph&#339;be
+had to resign herself, and she knew what was coming. The
+only thing was, if possible, to stop the declaration on the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without
+that perpetual shadow of Copperhead&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, poor Clarence!&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I wonder how he is
+getting on away from us all to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Poor Clarence!&rdquo; echoed Reginald aghast. &ldquo;You don't
+mean to say that you&mdash;miss him, Miss Beecham? I never
+heard you speak of him in that tone before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss him! no, perhaps not exactly,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a
+soft little sigh; &ldquo;but still&mdash;I have known him all my life, Mr.
+May; when we were quite little I used to be sent for to his
+grand nursery, full of lovely toys and things&mdash;a great deal
+grander than mine.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And for that reason&mdash;&rdquo; said Reginald, becoming bitter,
+with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing for that reason,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;but I noticed it
+at six as I should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little
+worldly-minded thing, don't you think? So you see there are
+the associations of a great many years to make me say Poor
+Clarence, when anything is the matter with him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly,&rdquo; cried
+Reginald, thoroughly wretched; &ldquo;but I did not know there
+was anything the matter.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think there will be if he has to leave our little society,
+where we have all been so happy,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, softly. &ldquo;How
+little one thought, coming here a stranger, how pleasant it
+was to be! I especially, to whom coming to Carlingford was
+rather&mdash;perhaps I might say a humiliation. I am very fond
+of grandpapa and grandmamma now, but the first introduction
+was something of a shock&mdash;I have never denied it; and if it
+had not been for sweet kind Ursula and you&mdash;all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The little breathless fragmentary pause which Ph&#339;be made
+between the you and the &ldquo;all,&rdquo; giving just a ghost of emphasis
+to the pronoun, sounded to poor Reginald in his foolishness
+almost like a caress. How cleverly it was managed, with just
+so much natural feeling in it as gave it reality! They were
+approaching No. 6, and Martha, the maid, already was visible
+at the open door.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you do give me some share&mdash;some little share,&rdquo; he
+cried, with a broken voice. &ldquo;Ah, if you would only let me tell
+you what your coming has been to me. It has opened up my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+life; I feel everything different, the old earth itself; there is a
+new light upon the whole world&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush, here is Martha!&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;she will not understand
+about new lights. Yes, it has been pleasant, very
+pleasant; when one begins to sigh and realize how pleasant a
+thing has been, I always fear it is going to be broken up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;<i>Absit omen!</i>&rdquo; cried Reginald, fervently, taking the hand
+she had put out to bid him good night, and holding it fast to
+detain her; and was there moisture in the eyes which she lifted
+to him, and which glistened, he thought, though there was only
+the distant light of a lamp to see them by?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You must not keep me now,&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;here is grandpapa
+coming. Good night, Mr. May, good night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Was Ph&#339;be a mere coquette <i>pure et simple</i>? As soon as
+she had got safe within these walls, she stooped down over the
+primroses to get rid of Martha, and then in the darkness had
+a cry, all by herself, on one side of the wall, while the
+young lover, with his head full of her, checked, but not altogether
+discouraged, went slowly away on the other. She cried,
+and her heart contracted with a real pang. He was very tender
+in his reverential homage, very romantic, a true lover, not the
+kind of man who wants a wife or wants a clever companion to
+amuse him, and save him the expense of a coach, and be his to
+refer to in everything. That was an altogether different kind
+of thing. Ph&#339;be went in with a sense in her mind that perhaps
+she had never touched so close upon a higher kind of existence,
+and perhaps never again might have the opportunity; but before
+she had crossed the garden, she had begun once more to question
+whether Clarence would have the fortitude to hold his own
+against everything that father or mother could do to change his
+mind. Would he have the fortitude? Would he come back to
+her, safe and determined, or would he yield to arguments in favour
+of some richer bride, and come back either estranged or at the
+least doubtful? This gave her a pang of profound anxiety at
+the bottom of her heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+<h3>AN EXPEDITION.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. May did not come upstairs that evening. It was not
+that he was paralysed as he had been on the previous occasion,
+when he sat as now and heard Ph&#339;be go away after her first
+visit, and when the wind blowing in from the open door playfully
+carried to his feet the scribbled note with Tozer's name.
+He was not stupefied as then, nor was he miserable. The
+threatened withdrawal of Clarence Copperhead was more to
+him than the impending ruin meant by that bill which was so
+nearly due. He was occupied by that to the exclusion of the
+other. It would be a most serious change to him in every
+way. He had calculated on the continuance of this additional
+income for at least a year, and short of the year it would have
+done him no good, but had simply plunged him into additional
+expense. It was this he was thinking of, and which kept him
+in his study after the young people had assembled. Cotsdean
+had come again while Mr. May was at dinner, which by some
+curious unconscious aggravation on his part was the time he
+especially chose as most convenient for him; and he had again
+sent a dirty note by Bobby, imploring his principal to think of
+the impending fate, and not to desert him. Mr. May was
+angry at this perpetual appeal. &ldquo;Why should I desert him,
+the idiot?&rdquo; he said to himself; and moved by the man's persistence,
+he took out his pocket-book again, and made out
+beyond all chance of mistake, that it was the 18th. Why
+should the fool insist upon its being the 15th with such perpetual
+iteration? There were the figures as plain as possible,
+18th April. Mr. May wrote a peremptory note announcing
+this fact to Cotsdean, and then returned to his own thoughts.
+Sir Robert had asked him to go over that morning and spend
+the day at the Hall with the Copperheads, not knowing of any
+breach between them. He thought he had better do this. If
+Clarence determined to stay, that would be a great thing in his
+favour, and he had seen that the young man's dull spirit was
+roused; and if that hope failed, there might still be advantage
+even in this sudden breaking of the bond. Part of the second
+quarter was gone, and the father had offered three months
+additional pay. These two payments would make up the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+hundred and fifty pounds at once, and settle the business.
+Thus, in either way, he should be safe, for if Clarence went
+away the money would be paid; and if he stayed, Mr. May
+himself had made up his mind to risk the bold step of going to
+the bank and asking an advance on this inalienable security.
+All these deliberations made his mind easy about the bill. It
+must come right one way or another; he might have chosen
+perhaps not to run it quite so close; but after all the 15th was
+only to-morrow, and there were still three days. While his
+mind was full of these things he did not care to go upstairs.
+He heard the voices of the young people, but he was too much
+engrossed with his own calculations to care to join them. It
+was a close thing, he said to himself, a very close thing; but
+still he felt that he could do it&mdash;surely he could do it. If Mr.
+Copperhead settled with him&mdash;and he was the sort of man, a
+man to whom money was nothing, to do so on the spot if he
+took it into his head&mdash;then all was right. And if Mr. Copperhead
+did not do so, the bank, though his past transactions
+with it had not been encouraging, would certainly make all right
+on account of these Copperhead payments, which were as
+certain as any payments could be. He went to bed early, being
+engrossed by these thoughts, not even saying good-night to
+Ursula, as was his wont; and he made up his mind to take an
+early breakfast, and start the first thing in the morning for the
+Hall. There was an early train which would suit admirably.
+He could not afford to drive, as Sir Robert had done, changing
+horses half way. He went upstairs to bed, somewhat heavily,
+but not discontented, seeing his way. After all, the great
+thing in life is to see your way. It does not matter so much
+whether that way is great or small, so long as you can see it
+plain before you. Mr. May breathed a sigh of anxiety as he
+ended the day. He had a great many things on his mind; but
+still he was not altogether heavy-hearted or discouraged beyond
+measure; things, he felt, would shape themselves better than
+he had hoped. He was not perhaps going to be so much better
+off than of old, as he thought possible when Clarence Copperhead
+came. Such delusive prospects do glimmer across a poor
+man's path when any apparent expansion of means occurs to
+him; but in the majority of cases he has to consent to see
+the fine fictitious glow die away. Mr. May was not ignorant
+of this experience already. A man who is over fifty is generally
+more or less prepared for anything that can happen to him
+in this kind; but he thought he could &ldquo;get on;&rdquo; and after all
+that is the sum of life to three parts of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>He was silent at breakfast, but not disagreeable, and Ursula<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+was too much taken up with her own concerns to pay much
+attention to him. Ursula's concerns were developing with a
+rapidity altogether extraordinary. In the mind of a girl of
+twenty, unforestalled by any previous experience, the process
+that goes on between the moment when the surprising, overwhelming
+discovery rushes upon her that some one loves her
+in the old way of romance, until the corresponding moment
+when she finds out that her own heart too has been invaded by
+this wonderful sentiment, which is like nothing that was ever
+known before, is of a very rapid description. It is like the
+bursting of a flower, which a day's sunshine brings to the
+blooming point like a miracle, though it is in reality the simplest
+result of nature. Already there began to glow a haze of
+brightness about those three months past in which everything
+had begun. When or how it began she could not now tell.
+The glow of it was in her eyes and dazzled her. She heard the
+voices of the others sounding vaguely through this bright mist
+in which she herself was isolated; when she was obliged to
+reply, she called herself back with an effort, and did so&mdash;but of
+her own will she seldom spoke. How Janey chattered, how
+the children maundered on about their little concerns, which
+were of consequence to nobody! Papa was the person whom
+Ursula really respected this morning, for he had more sense
+than to talk. How could people talk, as if there was pleasure
+in that? But papa had more sense, he had things to think of&mdash;too.
+So the girl approved her father, and thought more
+highly of him, and never inquired what it might be that occupied
+his mind, and kept him from noticing even when the
+children were unruly. And it would be giving the reader an
+unfair idea of the children, if we attempted to conceal that they
+did take advantage of their opportunities, and were as unruly
+as well-conditioned children in the circumstances were likely
+to be. Mr. May took no notice; he took his coffee hurriedly
+and went off to the station.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If I don't return this evening you need not be alarmed. I
+shall come back at the latest to-morrow morning,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>The children all rushed to the window to see him go away;
+even Ursula looking out dreamily remarked him too, as she
+seldom did; and Mrs. Sam Hurst at her window, wondering
+where her neighbour could be going, heaved a deep sigh of
+admiration, which though she was not &ldquo;in love,&rdquo; as the girls
+thought, with Mr. May, was a passing tribute to his good looks
+and training. He looked a gentleman every inch of him&mdash;an
+English gentleman, spotless in linen, speckless in broadcloth,
+though his dress was far from new; the freshness of sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
+health and a clear conscience on his handsome face, though he
+was no longer young. His abundant hair, steel-grey, slightly
+crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but with a becoming
+twist in it&mdash;clerical, yet not too clerical, a man given to no
+extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of
+the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own
+comfort by marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a
+great pleasure in making his daughters anxious about her
+&ldquo;intentions,&rdquo; and that even to be said to be in love with such
+a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.</p>
+
+<p>He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway,
+and thus missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes
+after he was gone, and followed him to the train; but too late.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead,
+&ldquo;Old Tozer has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They
+can settle it between 'em.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever
+been before on such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally
+an awful and respect-inspiring personage, was so far as
+money went a man of straw, as he well knew, and his name on
+a bill was very little worth; but Tozer was a man who could
+pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten times
+that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean's sense of
+commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring
+of his bill in the circumstances should give him a very
+serious pang. He would not be sold up, or have an execution
+put into his shop when the other party to the bill was so substantial
+a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed it, must
+have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with
+two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall
+him. He was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such
+force in it as before. He went back to his shop and his business
+prepared to take the matter as calmly as possible. He
+was but passive in it. It could not harm him much in the eyes
+of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much astonished
+at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle
+it between them. It was their affair.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards
+the Hall. He got a dog-cart at the little inn at the station to
+take him over, though generally when he went to see the
+Dorsets it was his custom to walk. &ldquo;But what were a few
+shillings?&rdquo; he said to himself, the prodigality of desperation
+having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and
+if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less
+matter? but the discomfort of walking over those muddy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+roads, and arriving with dirty boots and a worn-out aspect,
+mattered a great deal. He reached the Hall at a propitious
+moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest good-humour.
+He had been taken over the place, from one end to
+another, over the stables, the farm-buildings, the farm itself
+from end to end, the preserves, the shrubberies, the greenhouses,
+everything; all of which details he examined with an
+unfailing curiosity which would have been highly flattering to
+the possessors if it had not been neutralized by a strain of
+comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May
+went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert
+and his daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing
+loudly over a picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented
+a bit of vague Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil,
+and was a true &ldquo;Wilson,&rdquo; bought by an uncle of Sir Robert's,
+who had been a connoisseur, from the Master himself, in the
+very country where it was painted; and all these details pleased
+the imagination of the family, who, though probably they
+would have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the
+acquaintance of the best of contemporary painters, were proud
+that Uncle Charles had known Italian Wilson, and had bought
+a picture out of his studio. A Hobbema or a Poussin would
+scarcely have pleased them as much, for the worst of an old
+Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as a copy;
+whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to
+be copied. They were showing their picture and telling the
+story to the millionnaire with an agreeable sense that, though
+they were not so rich, they must, at least, have the advantage
+of him in this way.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ha!&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;you should see my Turner.
+Didn't I show you my Turner? I don't venture to tell you,
+Sir Robert, what that picture cost me. It's a sin, it is, to keep
+that amount of capital hanging useless upon a bit of wall. The
+Wilson may be all very well. I ain't a judge of art, and I can't
+give my opinion on that point, though it's a common sort of a
+name, and there don't seem to be much in it; but everybody
+knows what a Turner means. Here's May; he'll be able to
+tell you as well as another. It means a few cool thousands,
+take my word for it. It means, I believe, that heaps of people
+would give you your own price. I don't call it a profitable investment,
+for it brings in no interest; but they tell me it's a
+thing that grows in value every year. And there it is, Sir,
+hanging up useless on my wall in Portland Place, costing a
+fortune, and bringing in not a penny. But I like it; I like it,
+for I can afford it, by George! Here's May; he knows what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+that sort of thing is; he'll tell you that a Turner is worth its
+weight in gold.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thank you, I don't think I need any information on that
+subject,&rdquo; said Sir Robert. &ldquo;Besides, I saw your Turner. It
+is a pretty picture&mdash;if it is authentic; but Wilson, you
+know&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Wasn't a big-enough swell not to be authentic, eh?&rdquo; said
+Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;Common name enough, and I don't know
+that I ever heard of him in the way of painting; but I don't
+pretend to be a judge. Here's May; now, I dare say he knows
+all about it. Buying's one thing, knowing's another. Your
+knowing ones, when they've got any money, they have the advantage
+over us, Sir Robert; they can pick up a thing that's good,
+when it happens to come their way, dirt cheap; but fortunately
+for us, it isn't often they've got any money,&rdquo; he added, with a
+laugh, slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a way which made him
+totter. But the clergyman's good-humour was equal even to
+this assault. It is wonderful how patient and tolerant we can
+all be when the motive is strong enough.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;but I fear I have not even the
+compensation of knowledge. I know enough, however, to feel
+that the possessor of a Turner is a public personage, and may
+be a public benefactor if he pleases.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How that? If you think I am one to go lending my
+pictures about, or leaving them to the nation when I'm done
+for, that's not my sort. No, I keep them to myself. If I consent
+to have all that money useless, it is for myself, you may
+depend, and not for other people. And I'll leave it to my boy
+Clarence, if he behaves himself. He's a curiosity, too, and has
+a deal of money laid out on him that brings no interest, him
+and his mother. I'll leave it to Clar, if he doesn't make a low
+marriage, or any folly of that kind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You should make it an heir-loom,&rdquo; said Sir Robert, with
+sarcasm too fine for his antagonist; &ldquo;leave it from father to son
+of your descendants, like our family diamonds and plate.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Anne and Sophy looked at each other and smiled, the one
+sadly, the other satirically. The Dorset family jewels were
+rose-diamonds of small value, and the plate was but moderate
+in quantity, and not very great in quality. Poor Sir Robert
+liked to blow his little trumpet too, but it was not so blatant as
+that of his visitor, whose rude senses did not even see the
+intended malice.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By George! I think I will,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm told it's as
+safe as the bank, and worth more and more every year, and if it
+don't bring in anything, it don't eat anything; eh, May? Look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+here; perhaps I was hasty the other day,&rdquo; he said, pushing the
+clergyman a little apart from the group with a large hand on his
+shoulder. &ldquo;Clarence tells me you're the best coach he ever saw,
+and that he's getting on like a house on fire.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He does make progress, I think,&rdquo; answered the tutor, thus
+gracefully complimented.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But all the same, you know, I had a right to be annoyed.
+Now a man of your sense&mdash;for you seem a man of sense, though
+you're a parson, and know what side your bread's buttered
+on&mdash;ought to see that it's an aggravating thing when a young
+fellow has been sent to a coach for his instruction, and to keep
+him out of harm's way, to find him cheek by jowl with a nice-looking
+young woman. That's not what a father has a right
+to expect.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You couldn't expect me to do away with my daughter because
+I happened to take a pupil?&rdquo; said Mr. May, half-amused;
+&ldquo;but I can assure you that she has no designs upon your son.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So I hear, so I hear,&rdquo; said the other, with a mixture of
+pique and satisfaction. &ldquo;Won't look at him, Clar tells me; got
+her eye on some one else, little fool! She'll never have such
+a chance again. As for having no designs, that's bosh, you
+know; all women have designs. I'm a deal easier in my mind
+when I'm told she's got other fish to fry.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Other fish to fry?&rdquo; said Mr. May; this time he was
+wholly amused, and laughed. &ldquo;This is news to me. However,
+we don't want to discuss my little Ursula; about your
+son it will be well that I should know, for I might be forming
+other engagements. This moment is a time of pecuniary
+pressure with me,&rdquo; he added, with the ingratiating smile and
+half-pathetic frankness of the would-be borrower. &ldquo;I have
+not taken pupils before, but I want money for the time. My
+son's settlement in life, you see, and&mdash;but the father of a large
+family can always find good reasons for wanting money.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's it,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, seriously. &ldquo;Why are you
+the father of a large family? That's what I ask our ministers.
+It's against all political economy, that is. According as you've
+no money to give 'em, you go and have children&mdash;when it
+should be just the other way.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That may be very true; but there they are, and can't be
+done away with; and I do want money, as it happens, more
+now than I shall want it a year hence, or, perhaps, even six
+months hence.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Most people do,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, withdrawing his
+hand from his pocket, and placing his elbow tightly against
+the orifice of that very important part of him. &ldquo;It's the commonest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+thing in the world. I want money myself, for that matter.
+I've always got a large amount to make up by a certain date,
+and a bill to pay. But about Clar, that's the important matter.
+As he seems to have set his mind on it, and as you assure me
+there's no danger&mdash;man-traps, or that sort of thing, eh?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The colour came to Mr. May's cheek; but it was only for a
+moment. To have his own daughter spoken of as a man-trap
+gave him a momentary thrill of anger; but, as he would have
+applied the word quite composedly to any other man's daughter,
+the resentment was evanescent. He did not trust himself to
+answer, however, but nodded somewhat impatiently, which made
+the millionnaire laugh the more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't like the man-trap?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Bless you, they're all
+alike, not yours more than the rest. But as I was saying, if
+it's warranted safe I suppose he'll have to stay. But I don't
+stand any nonsense, May; and look here, your music and all
+that ain't in the agreement. He can have a master for his
+music, he's well enough able to pay for it; but I won't have a
+mistress, by George, to put folly into his head.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am to forbid him the drawing-room, I suppose, and take
+his fiddle from him! I have no objections. Between ourselves,
+as I am not musical, it would be very agreeable to me; but
+perhaps he is rather over the age, don't you think, for treatment
+of that kind?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clarence had come in, and stood watching the conversation,
+with a look Mr. Copperhead was not prepared for. Those
+mild brown eyes, which were his mother's share in him, were
+full a-stare with sullen resolution, and his heavy mouth shut
+like that of a bull-dog. He lingered at the door, looking at
+the conversation which was going on between his father and his
+tutor, and they both noticed him at the same moment, and
+drew the same conclusion. Mr. May was in possession of the
+<i>parole</i>, as the French say, and he added instinctively in an
+undertone,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Take care; if I were you I would not try him too far.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead said nothing; but he stared too, rather
+aghast at this new revelation. What! his porcelain, his Dresden
+figure of a son, his crowning curiosity, was <i>he</i> going to show
+a will of his own? The despot felt a thrill go over him. What
+kind of a sentiment love was in his mind it would be hard to
+tell; but his pride was all set on this heavy boy. To see him
+a man of note, in Parliament, his name in the papers, his
+speeches printed in the &ldquo;Times,&rdquo; was the very heaven of his
+expectations. &ldquo;Son of the famous Copperhead, the great contractor.&rdquo;
+He did not care about such distinction in his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>
+person; but this had been his dream ever since Clarence came
+into being. And now there he stood gloomy, obdurate. If he
+had made up his mind to make a low marriage, could his father
+hinder him&mdash;could anything hinder him? Mr. Copperhead
+looked at his son and quailed for the first time in his life.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May,&rdquo; he said, hurriedly, &ldquo;do the best you can; he's got
+all his mother's d&mdash;&mdash;d obstinacy, you can see, can't you? but
+I've set my heart on making a man of him&mdash;do the best you
+can.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May thought to himself afterwards if he had only had
+the vigour to say, &ldquo;Pay me six months in advance,&rdquo; the thing
+would have been done. But the lingering prejudices of breeding
+clung about him, and he could not do it. Mr. Copperhead,
+however, was very friendly all the rest of the day, and gave him
+private looks and words aside, to the great admiration of the
+Dorsets, to whom the alliance between them appeared remarkable
+enough.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<h3>A CATASTROPHE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. May left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the
+warm invitation which was given to him to stay. He was
+rather restless, and though it was hard to go out into the dark
+just as grateful odours began to steal through the house, it
+suited him better to do so than to spend the night away from
+home. Besides, he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook
+was not first-rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation.
+It was a long walk to the station, for they had no horses
+at liberty to drive him, a fact at which he was slightly offended,
+though he was aware that Sir Robert's stable was but a poor
+one. He set out just as the dressing-bell began to ring, fortified
+with a glass of sherry and a biscuit. The night was mild and
+soft, the hedgerows all rustling with the new life of the spring,
+and the stars beginning to come out as he went on; and on the
+whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were somewhat
+muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious
+dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but
+was not at all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to
+himself to be asleep as he trudged on, and woke up with a start,
+thinking that he saw indistinct figures, the skirt of a dress or
+the tail of a long coat, disappearing past him, just gone before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+he was fully awake to what it was. He knew there was no
+one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or illusion,
+but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct wayfarers,
+which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him
+in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety.
+It was all quite plain before him what to do,&mdash;to go to the Bank,
+to tell them what he had coming in, and to settle everything as
+easily as possible. The consciousness of having this to do acted
+upon him like a gentle opiate or dream-charm. When he got to
+the railway station, and got into a carriage, he seemed to be floating
+somehow in a prolonged vision of light and streaks of darkness,
+not quite aware now far he was going, or where he was going,
+across the country; and even when he arrived at Carlingford he
+roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he had to
+get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a sort
+of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and
+half-asleep. &ldquo;If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should
+have blamed that,&rdquo; he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind
+of drowsy, amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he
+scarcely could tell how. When he got within sight of his own
+house, he paused a moment and looked up at the lights in the
+windows. There was music going on; Ph&#339;be, no doubt, for
+Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house looked full
+and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of
+that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and
+showed an appreciation of better things in his determination
+not to leave the house where he had been so happy. Mr. May
+felt an amiable friendliness stealing over him for Clarence too.</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had
+begun. Ph&#339;be &ldquo;had not intended to come,&rdquo; but was there
+notwithstanding, persuaded by Ursula, who, glad for once to
+escape from the anxieties of dinner, had celebrated tea with
+the children, to their great delight, though she was still too
+dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And
+Northcote had &ldquo;not intended to come.&rdquo; Indeed, he had gone
+further than this, he had intended to keep away. But when he
+had eaten his solitary dinner, he, too, had strayed towards the
+centre of attraction, and walking up and down in forlorn contemplation
+of the lighted windows, had been spied by Reginald,
+and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were
+together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general
+criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation.
+Janey did not quite realize the importance of the
+place she was occupying, but she was keenly interested in all
+that was going on, very eager to understand the relationships<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+in which the others stood, and to see for herself what progress
+had been made last night while she was absent. Her sharp
+girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the features,
+expressed a totally different phase of existence from that which
+softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears,
+and watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance
+of the half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to
+which Ursula had a soft response fluttering somewhere in her
+pretty throat, but which was not destined to be spoken to-night;
+and it was she who made Ph&#339;be's music quite a simple
+performance, attended with little excitement and no danger.
+Ph&#339;be was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps
+even Ph&#339;be could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening
+better had Janey been away. As it was, these agitations were
+all suppressed and incipient; they could not come to anything;
+there were no hairbreadth escapes, no breathless moments, when
+the one pursued had to exercise her best skill, and only eluded
+the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with all her senses about
+her, hearing everything, seeing everything, neutralized all effort
+on the part of the lovers, and reduced the condition of Ursula
+and Ph&#339;be to one of absolute safety. They were all kept on
+the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful
+observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement
+and mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly,
+each of the young men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness
+for Janey's bed-time.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do you let her sit up till midnight every night?&rdquo; said
+Reginald, with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Let me sit up!&rdquo; cried Janey, &ldquo;as if I was obliged to do
+what she tells me!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked
+at the clock.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock,&rdquo; she said,
+with a sigh. &ldquo;I should have thought papa would have come
+home before now. Can he be staying at the Hall all night?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Just then, however, there was the well-known ring at the
+bell, and Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper.
+Why couldn't Janey make herself useful and do that, the little
+company thought indignantly and with one accord, instead of
+staying here with her sharp eyes, putting everybody out? Mr.
+May's little dinner, or supper, served on a tray, was very comfortable,
+and he ate it with great satisfaction, telling Ursula
+that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead
+was a little less disagreeable than he always is; and you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+may look for Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not
+going to leave us. You must take care that he does not fall in
+love with you, Ursula. That is the chief thing they seem to be
+afraid of.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fall in love with <i>me</i>!&rdquo; cried Ursula. &ldquo;Oh, papa, where
+are your eyes? He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't
+you see it? It is Ph&#339;be he cares for.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious
+smile in his eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully whether
+her father had taken much wine at the Hall.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, ha! is that what they are frightened for?&rdquo; he said,
+and then he shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;She will show bad taste,
+Ursula; she might do better; but I suppose a girl of her class
+has not the delicacy&mdash;So that is what they are frightened for!
+And what are the other fish <i>you</i> have to fry?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Papa!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you; that you
+had other fish to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations
+to-night. What's that? Very odd, I thought I saw some one
+going out at the door&mdash;just a whiff of the coat-tails. I think
+my digestion must be out of order. I'll go into the study and
+get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Won't you come upstairs to the drawing-room?&rdquo; said
+Ursula, faltering, for she was appalled by the idea of explanations.
+What had she to explain, as yet? Mr. May shook his
+head, with that smile still upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, you'll get on excellently well without me. I've had a
+long walk, and I think I'll go to bed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't look very well, papa.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, yes, I'm well enough; only confused in the head a little
+with fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good-night.
+Don't keep those young fellows late, though one of
+them is your brother. You can say I'm tired. Good-night,
+my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It was very seldom that he called her &ldquo;my dear,&rdquo; or, indeed,
+said anything affectionate to his grown-up children. If Ursula
+had not been so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so
+sure that &ldquo;they&rdquo; would miss her, she would have been anxious
+about her father; but as it was, she ran upstairs lightly when
+he stopped speaking, and left him going into the study, where
+already his lamp was burning. Betsy passed her as she ran up
+the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held between
+two folds of her apron. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome
+parish business to bother him, when he was tired already.
+But Ursula did not stop for that. How she wanted to be there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+again, among &ldquo;them all,&rdquo; even though Janey still made one!
+She went in breathless, and gave her father's message only half-articulately.
+He was tired. &ldquo;We are never to mind; he says
+so.&rdquo; They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May being
+tired, what did that matter? He would, no doubt, be better
+to-morrow; and in the mean time those sweet hours, though
+so hampered by Janey, were very sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on
+his table. He was just taking out his medicine from the
+drawer, and he made a wry face at the note and at the pills
+together.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Parish?&rdquo; he said, curtly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He came this morning,
+after you'd gone, and he sent over little Bobby.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That will do.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A presentiment of pain stole over him. He gave Betsy a
+nod of dismissal, and went on with what he was doing. After
+he had finished, he took up the little note from the table with
+a look of disgust. It was badly scrawled, badly folded, and
+dirty. Thank Heaven, Cotsdean's communications would soon
+be over now.</p>
+
+<p>Janey had proposed a round game upstairs. They were all
+humble in their desire to conciliate that young despot. Reginald
+got the cards, and Northcote put chairs round the table.
+He placed Ursula next to himself, which was a consolation, and
+sat down by her, close to her, though not a word, except of the
+most commonplace kind, could be said.</p>
+
+<p>Just then&mdash;what was it? an indescribable thrill through the
+house, the sound of a heavy fall. They all started up from
+their seats to hear what it was. Then Ursula, with a cry of
+apprehension, rushed downstairs, and the others after her.
+Betsy, alarmed, had come out of the kitchen, followed by her
+assistant, and was standing frightened, but irresolute; for Mr.
+May was not a man to be disturbed with impunity. And this
+might be nothing&mdash;the falling of a chair or a table, and nothing
+more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; cried Ursula, in an anxious whisper.</p>
+
+<p>She was the leader in the emergency, for even Reginald held
+back. Then, after a moment's pause, she opened the door, and
+with a little cry rushed in. It was, as they feared, Mr. May
+who had fallen; but he had so far recovered himself as to be
+able to make efforts to rise. His face was towards them.
+It was very pale, of a livid colour, and covered with moisture,
+great beads standing on his forehead. He smiled vaguely when
+he saw the circle of faces.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;a faintness,&rdquo; he faltered, making again
+an effort to rise.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is it, papa? Oh, what's the matter?&rdquo; cried Janey,
+rushing at him and seizing him by the arm. &ldquo;Get up! get
+up! what will people think? Oh, Ursula, how queer he looks,
+and he feels so heavy. Oh, please get up, papa!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go away,&rdquo; said Mr. May, &ldquo;go away. It is&mdash;a faintness.
+I am very well where I am&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But he did not resist when Reginald and Northcote lifted
+him from the floor. He had a piece of paper tightly clasped
+in his hand. He gave them a strange suspicious look all round,
+and shrank when his eyes fell upon Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;Don't let her
+know,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Take me away, take me away.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Reginald will take you upstairs, papa&mdash;to your room&mdash;to
+bed; you ought to go to bed. It is the long walk that has
+worn you out. Oh, Reginald, don't contradict him, let him
+go where he pleases. Oh, papa, where <i>are</i> you going?&rdquo; cried
+Ursula, &ldquo;the other way; you want to go to bed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;This way, take me&mdash;somewhere,&rdquo; said the sufferer; though
+he could not stand he made a step, staggering between them,
+and an effort to push towards the hall door, and when they
+directed him in the other direction to the staircase which led
+to his room, he struggled feebly yet violently with them. &ldquo;No,
+no, no, not there!&rdquo; he cried. The sudden confusion, dismay,
+and alarm into which the family was plunged, the strange sense
+of a catastrophe that came upon them, cannot be told. Ursula,
+calling out all the time that they were not to contradict him,
+insisted imperiously with words and gestures that he should
+be taken upstairs. Janey, altogether overcome, sat down on
+the lower steps of the staircase and cried. Reginald almost as
+pale as his father, and not saying a word, urged him towards
+the stairs. To get him up to his room, resisting as well as he
+could, and moaning inarticulate remonstrances all the way, was
+no easy business. As the procession toiled along Ph&#339;be was
+left below, the only one in possession of her faculties. She sent
+the housemaid hurriedly off for the doctor, and despatched
+Betsy to the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hot water is always wanted,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;see that you
+have enough in case he should require a bath.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Then with her usual decision she stepped back into the study.
+It was not vulgar curiosity which was in Ph&#339;be's mind, nor
+did it occur to her that she had no right to investigate Mr.
+May's private affairs. If she could find what had done it,
+would not that be a great matter, something to tell the doctor,
+to throw light on so mysterious a seizure? Several bits of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+torn paper were lying on the floor; but only one of these was
+big enough to contain any information. It was torn in a kind
+of triangular shape, and contained a corner of a letter, a section
+of three lines,</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right;">&ldquo;must have mistaken the date<br>
+presented to-day,<br>
+paid by Tozer,&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>was what she read. She could not believe her eyes. What
+transactions could there be between her grandfather and Mr.
+May? She secured the scrap of paper, furtively putting it
+into her pocket. It was better to say nothing either to the
+doctor, or any one else, of anything so utterly incomprehensible.
+It oppressed Ph&#339;be with a sense of mystery and of
+personal connection with the mystery, which even her self-possession
+could scarcely bear up against. She went into the
+kitchen after Betsy, avowedly in anxious concern for the boiling
+of the kettle.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hot water is good for everything,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;mamma
+says a hot bath is the best of remedies. Did Mr. May have
+anything&mdash;to worry him, Betsy? I suppose it is only fatigue,
+and that he has taken too long a walk.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't believe in the long walk, Miss,&rdquo; said Betsy, &ldquo;it's
+that Cotsdean as is always a-tormenting with his dirty letters.
+When that man comes bothering here, master is always put out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cotsdean? I don't know the name.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't say nothing, Miss,&rdquo; said Betsy, sinking her voice,
+&ldquo;but you take my word it's money. Money's at the bottom
+of everything. It's something, as sure as you're alive, as
+master has got to pay. I've been a deal with gentlefolks,&rdquo;
+added Betsy, &ldquo;and ne'er a one of them can abide that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SINNED-AGAINST.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be's mind was full of many and somewhat agitating
+thoughts. She went upstairs with a restless haste, which she
+would have been the first to condemn, to the room where the
+others were congregated, when they had laid Mr. May on his
+bed with no small difficulty, and were now consulting what to
+do. Ursula had fallen a little from the position of command<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+she had taken up. To get him to bed, to send for the doctor,
+these were evident practical steps to take; but after having
+done these she was bewildered and fell back upon her advisers.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We can't do anything, we can only wait and watch him,&rdquo;
+Reginald was saying, as Ph&#339;be, herself unseen, looked in at
+the anxious party; and without asking any question she turned
+and went downstairs again, and hastily putting on her shawl
+and hat, went out, shutting the door softly, and ran home on
+the shady side of Grange Lane, where nobody could see her.
+It was a very quiet road, and she was not disturbed by any unreasonable
+alarms. It was still early when she got home,
+earlier than usual, and her intention was not to stay there at
+all, but to go back again and offer her assistance to Ursula,
+for whom she had left a message to this effect. Ph&#339;be was
+full of genuine regard and friendliness towards the Mays.</p>
+
+<p>She felt that she had obligations to all of them, to the
+parson-father for submitting to her presence, nay, encouraging
+it, and to Ursula for receiving her with that affectionate fervour
+of friendship which had completely changed the tenor of
+Ph&#339;be's life at Carlingford. She was obliged to them, and
+she knew that she was obliged to them. How different these
+three months would have been but for the Parsonage; what a
+heavy leaden-coloured existence without variety and without
+interest she must have lived; whereas it had gone by like a
+summer day, full of real life, of multiplied interests, of everything
+that it was most desirable to have. Not at home and in
+London could she have had the advantages she had enjoyed
+here. Ph&#339;be was sensible enough&mdash;or perhaps we might use
+a less complimentary word&mdash;worldly enough, to count within
+those manifest benefits the advantage of seeing more of Clarence
+Copperhead, and of drawing him within the charmed circle of
+her influence, and she was grateful to the Mays, for this was
+their doing. And then, on the other hand, quite a different
+thing, her heart was touched and softened with gratitude to
+Reginald for loving her; of all her gratitudes, perhaps this indeed
+was the most truly felt. They had given her unbounded
+kindness, friendliness, everything that is most sweet to the
+solitary; and over and above, as if these were not enough, they
+had made her the exquisite present of a heart, the best thing
+that can be given or received by man. Ph&#339;be felt herself
+penetrated with gratitude for all this, and she resolved that, if
+anything she could do could benefit the Mays, the effort on her
+part should not be wanting. &ldquo;Paid by Tozer.&rdquo; What had been
+paid by Tozer? What had her grandfather to do with it. Could
+it be he who had lent money to Mr. May? Then Ph&#339;be resolved,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+with a glow on her face, he should forgive his debtors.
+She went in with her mind fully made up, whatever might
+happen, to be the champion of the sufferer, the saviour of the
+family. This would show them that their kindness had been
+appreciated. This would prove even to Reginald that, though
+she would not sacrifice her own prospects by marrying him,
+yet that she was grateful to him, to the bottom of her heart. Her
+mind was full of generous ardour as she went in. She knew
+her power; her grandfather had never yet refused her anything,
+never resisted her, and it did not seem likely that he
+should begin now.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Tozer was by herself in the parlour, dozing over the
+fire. She woke up with a little start when Ph&#339;be came in
+and smiled at the sight of her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I didn't expect as you'd have come so soon,&rdquo; she said;
+&ldquo;you've broke up early to-night, darling. Couldn't you have
+no music? I didn't look for you for an hour or more.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You know, grandmamma, it is Mr. Copperhead who teases
+me most for music, and he is not here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, yes, <i>I</i> know,&rdquo; said the old lady, nodding her head
+with many smiles. &ldquo;I know a deal more about it than you
+think for, Ph&#339;be, and don't you think as I disapprove, for it's
+quite the other way. But you won't tell me as there ain't
+others as cares for music as well as young Copperhead. I've seen
+one as couldn't take his eyes off of you while you were playing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush, grandmamma; the others like music for music's
+sake, or perhaps for my sake; but Mr Copperhead likes it for
+his own sake, and therefore he is the one who insists upon it.
+But this is not the reason why I have come home so soon.
+Mr. May has been taken suddenly ill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord bless us!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Tozer, &ldquo;deary, deary me!
+I'm very sorry, poor gentleman, I hope it ain't anything
+serious. Though he's a church parson, he's a very civil-spoken
+man, and I see his children drag him into his own house
+one day as me and Tozer was passing. I said to Tozer at the
+time, you take my word, whatever folks say, a man as lets his
+children pull him about like that ain't a bad one. And so he's
+ill, poor man! Is there anything as we can do to help, my
+dear? They ain't rich, and they've been as kind to you as if
+you'd been one of their own.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I thought that would be the first thing you would ask me,&rdquo;
+said Ph&#339;be gratefully, giving her a kiss&mdash;&ldquo;dear grandmamma,
+it is like your kind heart&mdash;and I ran off to see that you were
+quite well and comfortable, thinking perhaps if you did not want
+me I might go back to poor Ursula for the night.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To hear her granddaughter call Miss May by her Christian
+name was in itself a pleasure to Mrs. Tozer. She gave Ph&#339;be
+a hug. &ldquo;So you shall, my darling, and as for a bottle of good
+wine or that, anything as is in the house, you know you're
+welcome to it. You go and talk to your grandfather; I'm as
+comfortable as I can be, and if you'd like to run back to
+that poor child&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not before you are in bed,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, &ldquo;but if you please
+I'll go and talk to grandpapa as you said. There are things in
+which a man may be of use.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, doubtfully; &ldquo;your grandfather
+ain't a man as is much good in sickness; but I won't
+say as there ain't some things&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, grandmamma, I'll take your advice and run and talk
+to him; and by the time I come back you will be ready for bed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Do, my dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer. She was very comfortable,
+and did not care to move just then, and, as Ph&#339;be went away,
+looked after her with dreamy satisfaction. &ldquo;Bless her! there
+ain't her match in Carlingford, and the gentlefolks sees it,&rdquo; said
+Mrs. Tozer to herself. But she had no idea how Ph&#339;be's
+heart was beating as she went along the dimly-lighted passage,
+which led to a small room fitted up by Tozer for himself.
+She heard voices in earnest talk as she approached, but this
+made her only the more eager to go in, and see for herself
+what was going on. There could be no doubt, she felt sure of
+it, that the discussion here had some connection with the
+calamity <i>there</i>. What it was she had not the slightest idea;
+but that somehow the two were connected she felt certain.
+The voices were loud as she approached the door.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll find out who done it, and I'll punish him&mdash;as sure as
+that's my name, though I never put it on that there paper,&rdquo;
+Tozer was saying. Ph&#339;be opened the door boldly, and went
+in. She had never seen her grandfather look so unlike himself.
+The knot of the big white neckerchief round his neck
+was pushed away, his eyes were red, giving out strange lights
+of passion. He was standing in front of the fireplace gesticulating
+wildly. Though it was now April and the weather very
+mild and genial, there were still fires in the Tozer sitting-rooms,
+and as the windows were carefully shut, Ph&#339;be felt the atmosphere
+stifling. The other person in the room was a serious,
+large man, whom she had already seen more than once; one of
+the chief clerks in the bank where Tozer kept his account,
+who had an old acquaintance with the butterman, and who
+was in the habit of coming when the bank had anything to say
+to so sure a customer about rates of investment or the value of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+money. He was seated at one side of the fire, looking very
+grave and shaking his head as the other spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is very true, and I don't say anything against it.
+But, Mr. Tozer, I can't help thinking there's some one else in
+it than Cotsdean.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What one else? what is the good of coming here to me
+with a pack of nonsense? He's a poor needy creature as hasn't
+a penny to bless himself with, a lot of children, and a wife as
+drinks. Don't talk to me of some one else. That's the sort of
+man as does all the mischief. What, Ph&#339;be! run away to
+your grandmother, I don't want you here.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am very sorry to interrupt you, grandpapa. Mayn't I
+stay? I have something to say to you&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tozer turned round and looked at her eagerly. Partly his
+own fancy, and partly his wife's more enlightened observations,
+had made him aware that it was possible that Ph&#339;be might
+one day have something very interesting to reveal. So her
+words roused him even in the midst of his pre-occupation.
+He looked at her for a second, then he waved his hand and
+said,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'm busy; go away, my dear, go away; I can't talk to you
+now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gave the visitor a look which perplexed him; but
+which meant, if he could but have read it, an earnest entreaty
+to him to go away. She said to herself, impatiently, that he
+would have understood had he been a woman; but as it was
+he only stared with lack-lustre eyes. What was she to do?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa,&rdquo; she said, decisively, &ldquo;it is too late for business
+to-night. However urgent it may be, you can't do anything
+to-night. Why, it is nearly ten o'clock, and most people are
+going to bed. See Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, I mean this gentleman&mdash;to-morrow
+morning the first thing; for you know, however
+anxious you may be, you can't do anything to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is true enough,&rdquo; he said, looking with staring eyes
+from her to his visitor, &ldquo;and more's the pity. What had to be
+done should ha' been done to-day. It should have been done
+to-day, sir, on the spot, not left over night like this, to give
+the villain time to get away. It's a crime, Ph&#339;be, that's what
+it is&mdash;that's the fact. It's a crime.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, grandpapa, I am very sorry; but it will not mend
+matters, will it, if sitting up like this, and agitating yourself
+like this, makes you ill? That will not do away with the crime.
+It is bed-time, and poor grandmamma is dozing, and wondering
+what has become of you. Grandpapa&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ph&#339;be, go away, it ain't none of your business; you're<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
+only a bit of a girl, and how can you understand? If you
+think I'm going to sit down with it like an old fool, lose my
+money, and what is worse nor my money, let my very name be
+forged before my eyes&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be gave so perceptible a start that Tozer stopped short,
+and even the banking-clerk looked at her with aroused curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Forged!&rdquo; she cried, with a gasp of dismay; &ldquo;is it so bad
+as that?&rdquo; She had never been more near betraying herself,
+showing a personal interest more close than was natural.
+When she saw the risk she was running, she stopped short and
+summoned all her energies. &ldquo;I thought some one had pilfered
+something,&rdquo; she said with an attempt at a laugh. &ldquo;I beg your
+pardon, grandpapa; but anyhow what can you do to-night?
+You are keeping&mdash;this gentleman&mdash;and yourself out of bed.
+Please put it off till to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think so too,&rdquo; said the banker's clerk. &ldquo;I'll come to you
+in the morning as I go to the Bank. Perhaps I may have been
+wrong; but I think there's more in it than meets the eye.
+To-morrow we can have the man Cotsdean up and question him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;After he's had time to take himself off,&rdquo; said Tozer, vehemently.
+&ldquo;You take my word he ain't in Carlingford, not now,
+let alone to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then that shows,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, quietly, &ldquo;that it is of no
+use making yourself ill to-night. Grandpapa, let this gentleman
+go&mdash;he wants to go; and I have something to say to you.
+You can do anything that is necessary to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think so indeed,&rdquo; said Mr. Simpson, of the Bank, getting
+up at last, &ldquo;the young lady is quite right. We can't act hastily
+in a thing like this. Cotsdean's a man of good character, Mr.
+Tozer; all that has to be taken into account&mdash;and he is not a
+beggar. If he has done it, we can recover something at least;
+but if he has been taken advantage of&mdash;I think the young lady
+is a good counsellor, and that it's much the best to wait till
+to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be seized upon her grandfather's arm to restrain him,
+and held him back. &ldquo;Good-night,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;grandpapa, stay
+with me, I have something to say to you. Listen; you don't
+think me very silly, do you, grandpapa dear?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Silly!&rdquo; he said, listening to the steps of the departing
+visitor as they receded along the passage. &ldquo;What has a chit
+like you to do with business? I tell you it'll kill me. Me
+a-signing of accommodation bills for a bit of a small shopkeeper
+like that Cotsdean! I tell you it'll make an end of me, that will,
+unless I gets my money and clears myself afore the world. And
+here you've been and sent away Simpson, and who's to manage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+for me? I ain't a lawyer to know what to do. Get away, get
+away, and leave me to myself, I can't be disturbed with
+women-folks when I've got real business in hand.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll manage for you,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;you need not stare at
+me like that, grandpapa&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go out o' the room this moment, Miss!&rdquo; he cried furious;
+&ldquo;you! here's a sort of thing for me to put up with. Sam Tozer
+wasn't born yesterday that a bit of an impudent girl should
+take upon her to do for him. Manage for me! go out o' my
+sight; I'm a fool, am I, and in my dotage to have a pack of
+women meddling in my affairs?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be had never met with such an outburst of coarse anger
+in her life before, and it gave her a shock, as such assaults
+naturally do to people brought up softly, and used to nothing
+but kindness. For a moment she wavered, doubtful whether
+she should not proudly abandon him and his affairs altogether;
+but this was to abandon her friends too. She mastered herself
+accordingly, and the resentment which she could not help
+feeling&mdash;and stood pale but quiet opposite to the infuriated old
+man. His grey eyes seemed to give out sparks of fire. His
+hair bristled up on his head like the coat of a wild animal
+enraged. He went up and down on the hearth-rug like the
+same animal in a cage, shaking his fist at some imaginary
+culprit.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Once I get him, see if I let him go,&rdquo; he cried, his voice
+thick with fast-coming words and the foam of fury. &ldquo;Let the
+bank do as it likes; I'll have him, I will. I'll see justice on
+the man as has dared to make free with my name. It ain't
+nothing to you, my name; but I've kep' it honest, and out of
+folk's mouths, and see if I'll stand disgrace thrown on it now.
+A bill on me as never had such a thing, not when I was struggling
+to get on! Dash him! damn him!&rdquo; cried the old man,
+transported with rage. When he had come to this unusual and
+terrible length, Tozer paused dismayed. He had lost his
+temper before in his life; but very seldom had he been betrayed
+into anything so desperate as this. He stopped aghast, and
+cast a half-frightened look at Ph&#339;be, who stood there so quiet,
+subdued out of her usual force, pale and disapproving&mdash;his own
+grandchild, a pastor's daughter! and he had forgotten himself
+thus before her. He blushed hotly, though he was not used to
+blushing, and stopped all at once. After such frightful language,
+so unbecoming a deacon of Salem, so unlike a consistent
+member of the connection, what could he say?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be softly, &ldquo;it is not good to be so
+angry; you are made to say things you are sorry for. Will you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+listen to me now? Though you don't think it, and perhaps
+won't believe it, I have found out something quite by chance&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He went up to her and clutched her by the arm. &ldquo;Then
+what are you a-standing there for, like a figure in stone? Can't
+you out with it, and ease my mind? Out with it, I tell you!
+Do you want to drive me out of my senses?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was so much excited that he shook her in the hot paroxysm
+of returning rage. Ph&#339;be was not frightened, but indignation
+made her pale. She stood without flinching, and looked
+at him, till poor old Tozer let go his hold, and dropping into a
+chair, covered his face with his hands. She was too generous
+to take advantage of him, but went on quietly, as if nothing
+had occurred.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa, as I tell you, I have found out something by
+chance that has to do with the thing that troubles you; but I
+don't know quite what it is. Tell me first, and then&mdash;is this
+the thing?&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, curiously, taking up a slip of paper
+from the table, a stamped piece of paper, in a handwriting
+which seemed horribly familiar to her, and yet strange. Tozer
+nodded at her gloomily, holding his head between his hands,
+and Ph&#339;be read over the first few words before her with an
+aching heart, and eyes that seemed to ache in sympathy. Only
+a few words, but what evidence of guilt, what pitiful misery in
+them! She did not even think so much of the name on the back,
+which was and was not her grandfather's name. The rest of
+the bill was written in a hand disguised and changed; but she
+had seen a great deal of similar writing lately, and she recognized
+it with a sickening at her heart. In the kind of fatherly
+flirtation which had been innocently carried on between Ph&#339;be
+and her friend's father, various productions of his in manuscript
+had been given to her to read. She was said, in the pleasant
+social jokes of the party, to be more skilled in interpreting Mr.
+May's handwriting than any of his family. She stood and
+gazed at the paper, and her eyes filled with tears of pain and
+pity. The openness of this self-betrayal, veiled as it was with
+a shadow of disguise which could deceive no one who knew
+him, went to Ph&#339;be's heart. What could he have done it for?
+Mere money, the foolish expenses of every day, or, what would
+be more respectable, some vague mysterious claim upon him,
+which might make desperate expedients necessary? She stood,
+temporarily stupefied, with her eyes full, looking at that pitiful,
+terrible, guilty bit of paper, stupefied by the sudden realization
+of her sudden guess at the truth&mdash;though, indeed, the truth
+was so much more guilty and appalling than any guess of
+hers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Tozer, &ldquo;you've seen it, and now what do you
+think of it? That's my name, mind you, my name! I hope
+the Almighty will grant me patience. Stuck on to what they
+calls a kite, an accommodation bill. What do you think of that,
+Miss Ph&#339;be? A-a-ah! if I had hold of him&mdash;if I had him
+under my fists&mdash;if I had him by the scruff of the neck!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa, doesn't it say in the Bible we are to forgive
+when harm is done to us?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be had begun to tremble all over; for the first time she
+doubted her own power.</p>
+
+<p>He got up again, and began to prowl about the table, round
+and round, with the same wild look in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am not one as would go again' Scripture,&rdquo; he said,
+gloomily; &ldquo;but that's a spiritual meaning as you're too young
+to enter into. You don't suppose as Scripture would approve
+of crime, or let them escape as had wronged their fellow-creatures?
+There wouldn't be no business, no justice, no trade,
+on such a rule as that.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, grandpapa&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you but me. You've seen me in good spirits and
+good temper, Ph&#339;be, my girl; but you don't know old Sam
+Tozer when his spirit's up. D&mdash;&mdash; him!&rdquo; cried the old man,
+striking his hand violently on the table; &ldquo;and you may tell your
+father, as is a Minister, that I said so. The Bible's spiritual;
+but there's trade, and there's justice. A man ain't clear of
+what he's done because you forgive him. What's the law for
+else? Forgive! You may forgive him as fast as you like, but
+he's got to be punished all the same.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But not by you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By the law!&rdquo; cried Tozer. His inflamed eyes seemed to
+glare upon her, his rough grey hair bristled on his head, a hot
+redness spread across his face beneath his fiery eyes, which
+seemed to scorch the cheek with angry flames. &ldquo;The law that
+ain't a individual. That's for our protection, whether we like
+it or not. What's that got to do with forgiving? Now, looking
+at it in a public way, I ain't got no right to forgive.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa, you have always been so kind, always so good
+to everybody. I have heard of so many things you have done&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That is all very well,&rdquo; said Tozer, not without a certain
+gloomy complacence, &ldquo;so long as you don't touch <i>me</i>. But the
+moment as you touches me, I'm another man. That's what I
+can't bear, nor I won't. Them as tries their tricks upon me
+shan't be let off, neither for wife nor child; and don't you think,
+my girl, though you're Ph&#339;be, junior, that you are a-going for
+to come over me.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be could not but shiver in her fright and agitation; but
+distressed and excited as she was, she found means to take a
+step which was important indeed, though at the moment she
+did not fully realize its importance, and did it by instinct only.
+She had a handkerchief in her hand, and almost without consciousness
+of what she was doing, she crushed up the miserable
+bit of paper, which was the cause of so much evil and misery, in
+its folds. He was far too impassioned and excited to observe
+such a simple proceeding. It was the suggestion of a moment,
+carried out in another moment like a flash of lightning. And
+as soon as she had done this, and perceived what she had done,
+fortitude and comfort came back to Ph&#339;be's soul.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You will not hear what I have found out, and now I do
+not choose to tell you, grandpapa,&rdquo; she said, with an air of
+offence. &ldquo;Unless you wish to be ill, you will do much better
+to go to bed. It is your usual hour, and I am going to grandmamma.
+Say good-night, please. I am going out again to
+stay all night. Mr. May is ill, and I ought to help poor
+Ursula.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You go a deal after them Mays,&rdquo; said Tozer, with a cloud
+over his face.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes. I wonder whom else I should go after? Who has
+been kind to me in Carlingford except the Mays? Nobody.
+Who has asked me to go to their house, and share everything
+that is pleasant in it? None of your Salem people, grandpapa.
+I hope I am not ungrateful, and whatever happens, or
+whatever trouble they are in,&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be, fervently, &ldquo;I shall
+stand up for them through thick and thin, wherever I go.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked at her with a startled look.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You speak up bold,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you won't get put upon
+for want of spirit; and I don't know as what you're saying
+ain't the right thing&mdash;though I don't hold with the Church,
+nor parsons' ways. I'd do a deal myself, though you think me
+so hard and cross, for folks as has been kind to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know you will, grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a slight
+emphasis which startled him, though he did not know why;
+and she kissed him before she went to her grandmother, which
+she did with a perfectly composed and tranquil mind. It was
+astonishing how the crackle of that bit of paper in her handkerchief
+calmed and soothed her. She recovered her breath,
+her colour, and her spirits. She ran up to her room and
+changed her dress, which was silk, for a soft merino one, which
+made no rustling; and then she folded the bill carefully, and
+put it into the safe keeping of the little purse which she always
+carried in her pocket. No one would think of searching for it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+there, and she would always have it at hand whatever happened.
+When she had made these needful arrangements, she went to
+old Mrs. Tozer, and took her comfortably upstairs. Never was
+there a more devoted nurse. The old lady chatted cheerfully,
+yet sympathetically, of the poor gentleman and his illness, with
+the half-satisfaction of an invalid in hearing of some one else
+who is ill.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And be sure you take him some of the port wine as the
+doctor ordered, and Tozer paid that dear for. I don't care for
+it, not a bit, Ph&#339;be. I'd sooner have it from the grocer's, at
+two shillings a bottle. That's what I've always been used to,
+when I did take a glass of wine now and again. But I dare
+say as Mr. May would like it, poor gentleman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Tozer had laid her head, all nodding with white
+muslin frills, edged with cotton lace, upon her pillow, Ph&#339;be,
+noiseless in her soft merino gown, went back, accompanied by
+Martha, to the Parsonage, where Ursula's careworn face lighted
+a little at sight of her. Ursula had left her father for the
+moment in Betsy's care, to get something that was wanted,
+and she stole into the dining-room on hearing of her friend's
+arrival, and talked a little in a whisper, though the sick man
+was on the upper floor, and could not possibly have heard anything.
+Northcote was still there, sitting with Reginald, too
+anxious and excited to go away; and they all conversed in
+whispers, the three of them talking together for the benefit of
+the new-comer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not paralysis; at least, he does not think so; a great
+mental shock&mdash;but we can't tell a bit what it was&mdash;coming
+when he was dreadfully tired, and not able to bear it.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They all spoke together, each of them saying a few words, and
+kept close together in the centre of the room, a curious little
+half-frightened group, overawed and subdued by the sudden
+change and strange calamity dropt into their midst. Ph&#339;be
+seemed to bring them new life and hope.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If it is going to be an illness,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you gentlemen
+had better go home and go to bed, to be able to help us when
+we want help. Anyhow, what good can they do, Ursula?
+They had much better go to bed.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ursula looked at them with a certain regret; though they
+could not do much good, it was a relief to come and whisper a
+few words to them now and then, giving them news of the
+patient. But Ph&#339;be was right, and there was nothing to be
+said against her decision. The two young women and the
+faithful Betsy were enough, and, indeed, more than enough to
+watch over Mr. May.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2>
+<h3><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></h3>
+<h3>A MORNING'S WORK.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go and lie down for an hour,&rdquo; whispered Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I am
+not sleepy at all. I have sat up before, and never felt it,
+you never did, I can see it in your poor little white face; and
+besides, I am steadier, because I am not so anxious. Now go,
+Ursula, if you are really fond of me, as you say&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Ph&#339;be! if you think he is a little better. Oh, how
+horrible it is to be sleepy, as if you were all body, and had no
+heart at all!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have plenty of heart, but you have never been used
+to this nursing. Leave your door open, so that I may call
+you in a moment. I have sat up often. Now go, to please
+me,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. She had another object than mere rest to
+her friend, who at last, very much ashamed and crying softly,
+yet so weary that nothing on this earth seemed so desirable to
+her as sleep, crept to her room, and lay down there as the pale
+morning began to dawn. Betsy slept heavily in an easy-chair
+outside the door of the sick-room. She was there at hand in
+case anything was wanted, but she was happily unconscious
+where she was, sleeping the sleep of hard work and a mind undisturbed.
+Ph&#339;be had seen that the patient was stirring out
+of the dull doze in which his faculties had been entirely stilled
+and stupefied. He was rousing to uneasiness, if not to full
+consciousness. Two or three times he made a convulsive
+movement, as if to raise himself; once his eyes, which were
+half open, seemed to turn upon her with a vague glimmer of
+meaning. How strangely she felt towards him, as she sat
+there in the grey of the morning, sole guardian, sole confidant
+of this erring and miserable man! The thought ran through
+her with a strange thrill. He was nothing to her, and yet he
+was absolutely in her power, and in all heaven and earth there
+seemed no one who was capable of protecting him, or cared to
+do so, except herself only. She sat looking at him with a
+great pity in her mind, determined to be his true protector, to
+deliver him from what he himself had done. She had not
+realized at first what it was he had done, and indeed it was
+only now that its full enormity, or rather its full consequences
+(which were the things that affected her most urgently), made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+themselves apparent to her. Generalizations are unsafe things;
+and whether it was because she was a woman that Ph&#339;be,
+passing over the crime, fixed her thoughts upon the punishment,
+I do not venture to say; but she did so. After all a
+few lines of writing on a bit of paper is not a crime which
+affects the imagination of the inexperienced. Had it been a
+malicious slander Ph&#339;be would have realized the sin of it
+much more clearly; but the copy of her grandfather's signature
+did not wound her moral sense in the same way, though it
+was a much more serious offence. That Mr. May could have
+intended to rob him of the money appeared impossible to her;
+and no doubt the borrowing of the signature was wrong&mdash;very
+wrong. Yes, of course it was horribly, fatally wrong; but
+still it did not set her imagination aglow with indignant horror,
+as smaller affairs might have done. But the consequences&mdash;disgrace,
+ruin, the loss of his position, the shame of his profession,
+moral death indeed, almost as frightful as if he had
+been hanged for murder. She shivered as she sat by him,
+veiled by the curtain, and thought of her grandfather's vindictive
+fierceness; only she stood between him and destruction,
+and Ph&#339;be felt that it was by no legitimate means that she
+was doing so, not by her influence over her grandfather as she
+had hoped, but only by an unjustifiable expedient which in
+itself was a kind of crime. This, however, brought a slight
+smile on her face. She took out her little purse from her
+pocket, and looked at the bit of paper carefully folded in it.
+The faint perfume of the Russia leather had already communicated
+itself to the document, which had not been so
+pleasant in Tozer's hands. As she looked at it lying peacefully
+on her lap, her attention was suddenly called by the
+patient, who sat upright and looked furtively about him, with
+his hand upon the coverings ready to throw them off. His
+ghastly white face peered at her from behind the curtain with
+wild eagerness&mdash;then relaxed, when he met her eye, into a
+kind of idiot smile, a painful attempt to divert suspicion, and
+he fell back again with a groan. The trance that had stupefied
+him was over; he had recovered some kind of consciousness,
+how much or how little she could not tell. His mind now
+seemed to be set upon hiding himself, drawing his coverings
+over him, and concealing himself with the curtain, at which he
+grasped with an excess of force which neutralized itself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. May,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, softly. &ldquo;Mr. May! do you know
+me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She could not tell what answer he made, or if he made any
+answer. He crouched down under the bed-clothes, pulling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+them over his face, trying to hide himself from her; from
+which she divined that he did recognize her, confused though
+his faculties were. Then a hoarse murmuring sound seemed
+to come out of the pillow. It was some time before she could
+make out what it was.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Where am I?&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>With the lightning speed of sympathy and pity, Ph&#339;be
+divined what his terror was. She said, almost whispering,</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;At home, in your own bed&mdash;at home! and safe. Oh,
+don't you know me&mdash;I am Ph&#339;be.&rdquo; Then after a pause,
+&ldquo;Tozer's granddaughter; do you know me now?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The strange, scared, white-faced spectre shrank under his
+covering, till she could see no more of him except two wild
+eyes full of terror which was almost madness.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; she said eagerly, &ldquo;try to understand! Oh, Mr.
+May, try to understand! I know about it&mdash;I know everything,
+and you are safe&mdash;quite safe; you need not have any fear!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He did not follow what she said, Ph&#339;be perceived with pain
+and terror. Even the impression made by the first sight of
+her seemed to fade from his mind. His grasp relaxed upon
+the curtains and coverlet; and then the hoarse murmuring
+was resumed. Straining all her ears, she made out that he
+was not speaking to her or any one, but moaned to himself,
+saying the same words over and over again. It took her a
+long time to make out even what these words were. When at
+last she did make them out they filled the girl with an alarm
+beyond words.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It used to be hanging,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Hard labour; can I
+bear hard labour? And the children&mdash;the children! Hard
+labour&mdash;for life. Hanging&mdash;was soon over. The children!
+I cannot bear it. I never was put to&mdash;hard labour&mdash;in all my
+life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be was too sick at heart to listen to more. She drew a
+little apart, but near enough to be seen by him. If he chose
+to spring up, to fling himself from the window, as she had
+heard of men doing in delirium, who could restrain him? Not
+she, a slight girl, nor Betsy, even if Betsy could be roused to
+the danger. She did not know how long the vigil which
+followed lasted, but it seemed like years to her; and when at
+last she was relieved by the joyful sound of Reginald's voice
+and footstep coming up the stairs, she felt disposed to run to
+the glass at once, and look if her hair had grown white,
+or her countenance permanently changed with the terror.
+Reginald, for his part, thought of his father in the second place
+only, as children are apt to do; he came up to her first, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+with a thrill in his voice of surprise and emotion, addressed
+her hastily by her name.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ph&#339;be! is it <i>you</i> who are watching&mdash;you, darling?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hush! I sent Ursula to bed; she was so tired. Don't
+leave him. I am frightened,&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;He is wandering
+in his mind. Oh, don't leave him, Mr. May!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I will do exactly as you tell me,&rdquo; said Reginald, in a confused
+transport of feeling, the very anxiety in his mind helping
+to destroy his self-control. He stooped down and kissed
+her hands before she could divine what he was about to do.
+&ldquo;Only you or an angel would have done it,&rdquo; he cried, with
+a tremulous voice.</p>
+
+<p>Was it not natural that he should think that some thought
+of him had made Ph&#339;be so careful of his father? His heart
+was swelling, too full to hold, with a sudden joy, which expanded
+the pain, and made that greater too.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, what does it matter about me? Mr. May, think what
+I am saying. Don't leave him for a moment. He might throw
+himself out of the window, he might do some harm to himself.
+Ah! again!&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, trembling.</p>
+
+<p>But this time it was only a convulsive start, nothing more.
+The patient dropped down again softly upon his pillows, and
+relapsed into his doze, if doze it could be called, in which his
+faculties were but half-dormant, and his open eyes contradicted
+all the appearances of natural sleep.</p>
+
+<p>When she was relieved from the sick room&mdash;and now she had
+a double motive in getting away&mdash;Ph&#339;be stole softly into the
+faded little place where Ursula lay, still fast asleep, though fully
+dressed, and bathed her face and strained eyes. &ldquo;I wonder if
+my hair is grey underneath,&rdquo; she said to herself. &ldquo;I wonder
+nothing has happened to me.&rdquo; But a great deal had happened
+to her. Such a night is rarely encountered by so young a
+creature, or such an alarming charge undertaken. And sudden
+hot kisses upon little, cold, agitated hands, worn by fatigue to
+nervous perception of every touch, are very exciting and strange
+to a girl. They had given her a kind of electric shock. She
+was not in love with Reginald, and therefore she felt it all the
+more, and her heart was still throbbing with the suddenness and
+excitement of the incident. And after she had made an effort to
+get over this, there remained upon her mind the disturbing
+burden of a knowledge which no one shared, and a responsibility
+which was very heavy and terrible, and too tremendous for her
+slight shoulders. After she had made that hasty toilette, she
+sat down for a moment at the foot of the bed on which Ursula lay
+sleeping, unconscious of all those mysteries, and tried to think.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+It is not an easy process at any time, but after a long night's
+watching, terror, and agitation, it seemed more impossible to
+Ph&#339;be than it had ever done before. And she had so much
+occasion for thought, so much need of the power of judging
+clearly. What was she to do?&mdash;not to-morrow, or next week,
+but now. She had taken the responsibility of the whole upon
+herself by the sudden step she had taken last night; but, bold as
+she had been, Ph&#339;be was ignorant. She did not know whether
+her theft of the bill would really stop the whole proceedings,
+as had seemed so certain last night; and what if she was found
+out, and compelled to return it, and all her labour lost! A
+panic took possession of her as she sat there at the foot of
+Ursula's bed, and tried to think. But what is the use of trying
+to think? The more you have need of them, the more all
+mental processes fail you. Ph&#339;be could no more think than
+she could fly. She sat down very seriously, and she rose
+up in despair, and, thought being no longer among her possibilities,
+resolved to do something at once, without further delay,
+which would be a consolation to herself at least. How wonderful
+it was to go out in the fresh early morning, and see the
+people moving about their work, going up and down with indifferent
+faces, quite unconcerned about the day and all it
+might bring forth! She went up Grange Lane with a curious
+uncertainty as to what she should do next, feeling her own
+extraordinary independence more than anything else. Ph&#339;be
+felt like a man who has been out all night, who has his own
+future all in his hands, nobody having any right to explanation
+or information about what he may choose to do, or to expect
+from him anything beyond what he himself may please to give.
+Very few people are in this absolutely free position, but this was
+how Ph&#339;be represented it to herself, having, like all other girls,
+unbounded belief in the independence and freedom possessed
+by men. Many times in her life she had regarded with envy
+this independence, which, with a sigh, she had felt to be impossible.
+But now that she had it, Ph&#339;be did not like it. What
+she would have given to have gone to some one, almost any one,
+and told her dilemma, and put the burden a little off her shoulders!
+But she durst not say a word to any one. Very anxious and
+pre-occupied, she went up Grange Lane. Home? She did not
+know; perhaps she would have thought of something before
+she reached the gate of No. 6. And accordingly, when she
+had lifted her hand to ring the bell, and made a step aside to
+enter, an inspiration came to Ph&#339;be. She turned away from
+the door and went on up into the town, cautiously drawing her
+veil over her face, for already the apprentices were taking down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
+the shutters from her uncle's shop, and she might be seen.
+Cotsdean's shop was late of opening that morning, and its master
+was very restless and unhappy. He had heard nothing more
+about the bill, but a conviction of something wrong had crept
+into his mind. It was an altogether different sensation from
+the anxiety he had hitherto felt. This was no anxiety to speak
+of, but a dull pain and aching conviction that all was not right.
+When he saw the young lady entering the shop, Cotsdean's
+spirits rose a little, for a new customer was pleasant, and though
+he thought he had seen her, he did not know who she was.
+She was pleasant to look upon, and it was not often that any
+one came so early. He came forward with anxious politeness;
+the boy (who was always late, and a useless creature, more
+expense than he was worth) had not appeared, and therefore
+Cotsdean was alone.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I wanted to speak to you, please,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;Will
+you mind if I speak very plainly, without any ceremony? Mr.
+Cotsdean, I am Mr. Tozer's granddaughter, and live with him
+at No. 6 in the Lane. I dare say you have often seen me with
+Miss May.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes, Miss, certainly,&rdquo; he said, with a thrill of alarm
+and excitement running through him. He felt his knees knock
+together under cover of the counter, and yet he did not know
+what he feared.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will you please tell me frankly, in confidence, about&mdash;&mdash;the
+bill which was brought to my grandfather yesterday?&rdquo;
+said Ph&#339;be, bringing out the question with a rush.</p>
+
+<p>Whether she was doing wrong, whether she might bring
+insult upon herself, whether it was an interference unwarrantable
+and unjustifiable, she could not tell. She was in as great
+a fright as Cotsdean, and more anxious still than he was; but
+fortunately her agitation did not show.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What am I to tell you about it, Miss?&rdquo; said the man,
+terrified. &ldquo;Is it Mr. Tozer as has sent you? Lord help me!
+I know as he can sell me up if he has a mind; but he knows it
+ain't me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't speak so loud,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, trembling too. &ldquo;Nobody
+must hear; and remember, you are never, never to talk
+of this to any one else; but tell me plainly, that there may be
+no mistake. Is it&mdash;Mr. May?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Tozer,&rdquo; said Cotsdean, who was shaking from head to
+foot, &ldquo;if that's your name&mdash;I don't want to say a word against
+my clergyman. He's stood by me many a day as I wanted him,
+and wanted him bad; but as I'm a living man, that money was
+never for me; and now he's a-gone and left me in the lurch, and if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+your grandfather likes he can sell me up, and that's the truth.
+I've got seven children,&rdquo; said the poor man, with a sob breaking
+his voice, &ldquo;and a missus; and nothing as isn't in the business,
+not a penny, except a pound or two in a savings' bank, as would
+never count. And I don't deny as he could sell me up; but
+oh! Miss, he knows very well it ain't for me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Cotsdean,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, impressively, &ldquo;you don't
+know, I suppose, that Mr. May had a fit when he received your
+note last night?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord help us! Oh! God forgive me, I've done him wrong,
+poor gentleman, if that's true.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is quite true; he is very, very ill; he can't give you any
+advice, or assist you in any way, should grandpapa be unkind.
+He could not even understand if you told him what has
+happened.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Once more Cotsdean's knees knocked against each other in
+the shadow of the counter. His very lips trembled as he stood
+regarding his strange visitor with scared and wondering eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now listen, please,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, earnestly; &ldquo;if any one
+comes to you about the bill to-day, don't say anything about
+<i>him</i>. Say you got it&mdash;in the way of business&mdash;say anything
+you please, but don't mention <i>him</i>. If you will promise me
+this, I will see that you don't come to any harm. Yes, I will;
+you may say I am not the sort of person to know about business,
+and it is quite true. But whoever comes to you remember
+this&mdash;if you don't mention Mr. May, I will see you safely
+through it; do you understand?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be leant across the counter in her earnestness. She
+was not the kind of person to talk about bills, or to be a satisfactory
+security for a man in business; but Cotsdean was a
+poor man, and he was ready to catch at a straw in the turbid
+ocean of debt and poverty which seemed closing round him.
+He gave the required promise with his heart in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ph&#339;be returned down the street. Her fatigue began
+to tell upon her, but she knew that she dared not give in, or allow
+that she was fatigued. However heavy with sleep her eyes
+might be, she must keep awake and watchful. Nothing, if she
+could help it, must so much as turn the attention of the world
+in Mr. May's direction. By this time she was much too deeply
+interested to ask herself why she should do so much for Mr.
+May. He was her charge, her burden, as helpless in her
+hands as a child; and nobody but herself knew anything about it.
+It was characteristic of Ph&#339;be's nature that she had no doubt
+as to being perfectly right in the matter, no qualm lest she
+should be making a mistake. She felt the weight upon her of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a certain half-pleasing
+sense of the solemnity of the position and of its difficulties;
+but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or
+suffering her fancy to stray further than the facts justified;
+neither was she troubled by any idea of going beyond her sphere
+by interfering thus energetically in her friend's affairs. Ph&#339;be
+did not easily take any such idea into her head. It seemed
+natural to her to do whatever might be wanted, and to
+act upon her own responsibility. Her self-confidence reached
+the heroic point. She knew that she was right, and she knew
+moreover that in this whole matter she alone was right. Therefore
+the necessity of keeping up, of keeping alert and vigilant,
+of holding in her hand the threads of all these varied complications
+was not disagreeable to her, though she fully felt its importance&mdash;nay,
+almost exaggerated it in her own mind if that
+could be. She felt the dangerous character of the circumstances
+around her, and her heart was sore with pity for the culprit, or
+as she called him to herself the chief sufferer; and yet all the
+same Ph&#339;be felt a certain sense of satisfaction in the great role
+she herself was playing. She felt equal to it, though she scarcely
+knew what was the nest step she ought to take. She was
+walking slowly, full of thought, to Tozer's door, pondering upon
+this, when the sound of rapid wheels behind roused her attention,
+and looking up, surprised, she suddenly saw leaping out
+of a dog-cart the imposing figure of Clarence Copperhead, of
+whom she had not been thinking at all. He came down with
+a heavy leap, leaving the light carriage swinging and quivering
+behind him with the shock of his withdrawal.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Ph&#339;be!&rdquo; he said, breathless; &ldquo;here's luck! I came
+over to see you, and you are the first person I set eyes on&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was rather heavy to make such a jump, and it took away
+his breath.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;To see me?&rdquo; she said, laughing, though her heart began
+to stir. &ldquo;That is very odd. I thought you must have come
+to see poor Mr. May, who is so ill. You know&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;May be hanged!&rdquo; said the young man; &ldquo;I mean&mdash;never
+mind&mdash;I don't mean him any harm, though, by Jove, if you
+make such a pet of him, I don't know what I shall think. Miss
+Ph&#339;be, I've come over post-haste, as you may see; chiefly to see
+you; and to try a horse as well,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;which the governor
+has just bought. He's a very good 'un to go; and pleased the
+governor would be if he knew the use I had put him to,&rdquo; he
+concluded, with a half-laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be knew as well as he did what that use was. He had
+brought his father's horse out for the first time, to carry him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+here to propose to her, in spite of his father. This was the
+delicate meaning which it amused him to think of. She understood
+it all, and it brought a glow of colour to her face; but it
+did not steel her heart against him. She knew her Clarence,
+and that his standard of fine feeling and mental elevation was
+not high.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I wish I could speak to you, Miss
+Ph&#339;be, somewhere better than in the street. Yes, in the garden&mdash;that
+will do. It ain't much of a place either to make a
+proposal in, for that's what I've come to do; but you don't
+want me to go down on my knees, or make a fuss, eh? I got
+up in the middle of the night to be here first thing and see
+you. I never had a great deal to say for myself,&rdquo; said Clarence,
+&ldquo;you won't expect me to make you fine speeches; but I <i>am</i> fond
+of you&mdash;awfully fond of you, Ph&#339;be, that's the truth. You
+suit me down to the ground, music and everything. There's no
+girl I ever met that has taken such a hold upon me as you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be heard him very quietly, but her heart beat loud. She
+stood on the gravel between the flower-borders, where the primroses
+were beginning to wither, and glanced over her life of the
+past and that of the future, which were divided by this moment
+like the two beds of flowers; one homely, not very distinguished,
+simple enough&mdash;the other exalted by wealth to something quite
+above mediocrity. Her heart swelled, full as it was with so
+many emotions of a totally different kind. She had gained a
+great prize, though it might not be very much to look at;
+more or less, she was conscious this golden apple had been
+hanging before her eyes for years, and now it had dropped into
+her hand. A gentle glow of contentment diffused itself all over
+her, not transport, indeed, but satisfaction, which was better.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Copperhead&mdash;&rdquo; she said, softly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No, hang it all, call me Clarence, Ph&#339;be, if you're going to
+have me!&rdquo; he cried, putting out his big hands.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandmamma is looking at us from the window,&rdquo; she said,
+hurriedly, withdrawing a little from him.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, and what does that matter? The old lady won't say
+a word, depend upon it, when she knows. Look here, Ph&#339;be,
+I'll have an answer. Yes or no?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you got your father's consent&mdash;Clarence?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, it is yes then! I thought it would be yes,&rdquo; he cried,
+seizing her in his arms. &ldquo;As for the governor,&rdquo; added
+Clarence, after an interval, snapping his fingers, &ldquo;I don't care
+<i>that</i> for the governor. When I've set my mind on a thing, it
+ain't the governor, or twenty governors, that will stop me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>
+<h3>A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you any notion what was the cause?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;None,&rdquo; said Reginald. &ldquo;Oh, no, none at all,&rdquo; said Ursula.
+They were all three standing at the door of the sick-room, in
+which already a great transformation had taken place. The
+doctor had sent a nurse to attend upon the patient. He had
+told them that their father was attacked by some mysterious
+affection of the brain, and that none of them were equal to the
+responsibility of nursing him. His children thus banished had
+set the door ajar, and were congregated round it watching what
+went on within. They did not know what to do. It was
+Northcote who was asking these questions; it was he who was
+most active among them. The others stood half-stunned,
+wholly ignorant, not knowing what to do.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't think papa is ill at all,&rdquo; said Janey. &ldquo;Look how
+he glares about him, just as I've seen him do when he was
+writing a sermon, ready to pounce upon any one that made a
+noise. He is watching that woman. Why should he lie in
+bed like that, and be taken care of when he is just as well as I
+am? You have made a mistake all the rest of you. I would
+go and speak to him, and tell him to get up and not make all
+this fuss, if it was me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Janey! hold your tongue,&rdquo; said Ursula; but she, too,
+looked half-scared at the bed, and then turned wistful inquiring
+eyes to Northcote. As for Reginald, he stood uncertain,
+bewildered, all the colour gone out of his face, and all the
+energy out of his heart. He knew nothing of his father's
+affairs, or of anything that might disturb his mind. His mind;
+all that his son knew of this was, that whatsoever things disturbed
+other minds his father had always contemptuously
+scouted all such nonsense. &ldquo;Take some medicine,&rdquo; Mr. May
+had been in the habit of saying. &ldquo;Mind! you mean digestion,&rdquo;
+was it nothing more than some complicated indigestion that
+affected him now?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it anything about&mdash;money?&rdquo; said Northcote.</p>
+
+<p>They all turned and looked at him. The idea entered their
+minds for the first time. Yes, very likely it was money.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We have always been poor,&rdquo; said Ursula, wistfully. Northcote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+took her hand into his; none of them except Ursula herself
+paid any attention to this involuntary, almost unconscious
+caress, and even to her it seemed a thing of course, and quite
+natural that he should be one of them, taking his share in all
+that was going on.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I&mdash;am not poor,&rdquo; he said, faltering. &ldquo;You must not think
+me presumptuous, May. But the first thing to be done is to
+get him out of his difficulties, if he is in difficulties&mdash;and you
+must let me help to do it. I think you and I should go out
+and see about it at once.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Go&mdash;where?&rdquo; Reginald, like most young people, had
+taken little notice of his father's proceedings. So long as
+things went smoothly, what had he to do with them? When
+there was a pressure for money, he knew he should hear of it,
+at least in the shape of reproaches and sneers from his father
+at his useless life, and the expenses of the family. But even
+these reproaches had died away of late, since Reginald had
+possessed an income of his own, and since the revenues of the
+Parsonage had been increased by Clarence Copperhead. Reginald
+was more helpless than a stranger. He did not know
+where to turn. &ldquo;Do you think we could ask him? I am
+almost of Janey's opinion. I don't think he is so ill as he
+seems.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And then they all paused and looked again into the room.
+The nurse was moving softly about, putting everything in
+order, and Mr. May watched her from the bed with the keenest
+attention. His face was still livid and ghastly in colour;
+but his eyes had never been so full of eager fire in all the
+experience of his children. He watched the woman with a
+close attention which was appalling; sometimes he would put
+his covering half aside as if with the intention of making a
+spring. He was like some imprisoned animal seeing a possibility
+of escape. They looked at him, and then at each other,
+with a miserable helplessness. What could they do? He was
+their father, but they knew nothing about him, and just because
+he was their father they were more slow to understand, more
+dull in divining his secrets than if he had been a stranger.
+When there came at last a suggestion out of the silence, it
+was Northcote who spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I don't see how you can leave him, May. It is plain he
+wants watching. I will go if you will let me&mdash;if Ursula will
+say I may,&rdquo; said the young man with a little break in his
+voice. This roused them all to another question, quite different
+from the first one. Her brother and sister looked at
+Ursula, one with a keen pang of involuntary envy, the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+with a sharp thrill of pleasurable excitement. Oddly enough
+they could all of them pass by their father and leave him out
+of the question, more easily, with less strain of mind, than
+strangers could. Ursula for her part did not say anything;
+but she looked at her lover with eyes in which two big tears
+were standing. She could scarcely see him through those
+oceans of moisture, bitter and salt, yet softened by the sense
+of trust in him, and rest upon him. When he stooped and
+kissed her on the forehead before them all, the girl did not
+blush. It was a solemn betrothal, sealed by pain, not by
+kisses.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, go,&rdquo; she said to him in words which were half sobs,
+and which he understood, but no one else.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You perceive,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it is not a stranger interfering in
+your affairs, May, but Ursula doing her natural work for her
+father through me&mdash;her representative. God bless her! I
+am Ursula now,&rdquo; he said with a broken laugh of joy; then
+grew suddenly grave again. &ldquo;You trust me, May?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Poor Reginald's heart swelled; this little scene so calmly
+transacted under his eyes, would it ever happen for him, or
+anything like it? No, his reason told him&mdash;and yet; still he
+was thinking but little of his father. He had his duty too,
+and this happened to be his duty; but no warmer impulse was
+in the poor young fellow's heart.</p>
+
+<p>And thus the day went on. It was afternoon already, and
+soon the sky began to darken. When his children went into
+the room, Mr. May took no notice of them&mdash;not that he did
+not know them; but because his whole faculties were fixed
+upon that woman who was his nurse, and who had all her wits
+about her, and meant to keep him there, and to carry out the
+doctor's instructions should heaven and earth melt away around
+her. She too perceived well enough how he was watching her,
+and being familiar with all the ways, as she thought, of the
+&ldquo;mentally afflicted,&rdquo; concluded in her mind that her new
+patient was further gone than the doctor thought.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I hope as you'll stay within call, sir,&rdquo; she said significantly
+to Reginald; &ldquo;when they're like that, as soon as they breaks
+out they're as strong as giants; but I hope he won't break out,
+not to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald withdrew, shivering, from the idea thus presented
+to him. He stole down to his father's study, notwithstanding
+the warning she had given him, and there with a sick heart set
+to work to endeavour to understand his father&mdash;nay, more
+than that, to try to find him out. The young man felt a thrill
+of nervous trembling come over him when he sat down in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+father's chair and timidly opened some of the drawers. Mr.
+May was in many respects as young a man as his son, and
+Reginald and he had never been on those confidential terms
+which bring some fathers and sons so very close together. He
+felt that he had no business there spying upon his father's
+privacy. He could not look at the papers which lay before
+him. It seemed a wrong of the first magnitude, wrought
+treacherously, because of the helplessness of the creature most
+concerned. He could not do it. He thrust the papers back
+again into the drawer. In point of fact there were no secrets
+in the papers, nor much to be found out in Mr. May's private
+life. All its dark side might be inferred from, without being
+revealed in, the little book which lay innocently on the desk,
+and which Reginald looked over, thinking no harm. In it
+there were two or three entries which at length roused his
+curiosity. Cotsdean, October 10th. Cotsdean, January 12th.
+C. &amp; T. April 18th. What did this mean? Reginald remembered
+to have seen Cotsdean paying furtive visits in the study.
+He recollected him as one of the few poor people for whom his
+father had a liking. But what could there be between them?
+He was puzzled, and as Betsy was passing the open door at
+the time, called her in. The evening was falling quickly, the
+day had changed from a beautiful bright morning to a rainy
+gusty afternoon, tearing the leaves and blossoms from the
+trees, and whirling now and then a shower of snowy petals,
+beautiful but ill-omened snow, across the dark window. Beyond
+that the firmament was dull; the clouds hung low, and
+the day was gone before it ought. When Betsy came in she
+closed the door, not fastening it, but still, Reginald felt, shutting
+him out too much from the sick-bed, to which he might
+be called at any moment. But he was not alarmed by this,
+though he remarked it. He questioned Betsy closely as to
+his father's possible connection with this man. In such a
+moment, confidential, half-whispered interviews are the rule of
+a house. Every one has so much to ask; so much to say in
+reply; so many particulars to comment upon which the rest
+may have forgotten. She would have liked to enter upon the
+whole story, to tell how the master was took, and how she
+herself had thought him looking bad when he came in; but
+even to talk about Cotsdean was pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I told Miss Beecham,&rdquo; said Betsy, &ldquo;and I told the other
+gentleman, Mr. Northcote, as was asking me all about it. It's
+months and months since that Cotsdean got coming here&mdash;years
+I may say; and whenever he came master looked bad.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+If you'll believe me, Mr. Reginald, it's money as is at the
+bottom of it all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Money? hush, what was that? I thought I heard something
+upstairs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Only the nurse, sir, as is having her tea. I'm ready to
+take my oath as it's money. I've been in service since I was
+nine years old,&rdquo; said Betsy, &ldquo;I've had a deal of experience of
+gentlefolks, and it's always money as is the thing as sets them
+off their head. That's what it is. If that Cotsdean didn't
+come here something about money, never you believe me no
+more.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cotsdean! a poor shopkeeper! what could he have to do
+with my father's affairs?&rdquo; Reginald was not speaking to the
+woman, but drearily to himself. If this was the only clue to
+the mystery, what a poor clue it was!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I dunno, sir,&rdquo; said Betsy, &ldquo;it ain't for me to tell; but one
+thing I'm sure of&mdash;Lord bless us, what's that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald rushed to the door, nearly knocking her down as
+he pushed her aside with his hand. When they got outside,
+it was only the hat-stand in the hall that had fallen, something
+having been torn off from it apparently in mad haste, and the
+door had opened and shut. Reginald rushed upstairs, where
+the nurse was sitting quietly at her tea, the bed-curtains being
+drawn.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right, sir; he's in a nice sleep,&rdquo; said that functionary;
+&ldquo;I didn't light no candles, not to disturb him, poor gentleman.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Reginald tore the curtains aside, then turned and dashed
+downstairs, and out into the windy twilight. In that moment
+of stillness and darkness the patient had escaped. He could
+see a strange figure walking rapidly, already half way up
+Grange Lane, and rushed on in pursuit without taking thought
+of anything. The sick man had seized upon a long coat which
+had been hanging in the hall, and which reached to his heels.
+Reginald flew on, going as softly as he could, not to alarm him.
+Where could he be going, utterly unclothed except in this big
+coat? Was it simply madness that had seized him, nothing
+more or less? He followed, with his heart beating loudly.
+There seemed nobody about, no one to whom he could make
+an appeal to help him, even if he could overtake the rapidly
+progressing fugitive. But even while this thought crossed his
+mind, Reginald saw another figure, broad and tall, developing
+in the distance, coming towards them, which stopped short,
+and put out an arm to stop the flight. Even that moment
+gave him the advantage, and brought him near enough to make
+out that it was Mr. Copperhead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The very man I want,&rdquo; he heard him say with his loud
+voice, putting his arm within that of Mr. May, who resisted,
+but not enough to attract the attention of the new-comer, as
+Reginald came up breathless and placed himself on his father's
+other side. The darkness prevented any revelation of the
+strange appearance of the fugitive, and Mr. Copperhead was
+not lively of perception in respect to people unconnected with
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You, too,&rdquo; he cried, nodding at Reginald, &ldquo;come along.
+I've come to save that boy of mine from a little artful&mdash;Come,
+both of you. The sight of a young fellow like himself will
+shame him more than anything; and you, May, you're the
+very man I want&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Not there, not there, for God's sake!&rdquo; said Mr. May, with
+a hoarse cry, &ldquo;not there, my God! Reginald! it used to be
+hanging. Do you mean to give me up?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Hold him fast,&rdquo; Reginald whispered in desperation, &ldquo;hold
+him fast! It is madness.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lord bless us!&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead, but he was a man
+who was proud of his strength, and not given to timidity. He
+held his captive fast by the arm, while Reginald secured him
+on the other side. &ldquo;Why, what's this, May? rouse yourself
+up; don't give in, man. No, you ain't mad, not a bit of you.
+Come along, wait here at Tozer's for me, while I do my
+business; and then I'll look after <i>you</i>. Come on.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There was a violent but momentary struggle; then all at
+once the struggling man yielded and allowed himself to be
+dragged within the garden-door. Was it because an ordinary
+policeman, one of the most respectful servants of the law, who
+would have saluted Mr. May with the utmost reverence, was
+just then coming up? He yielded; but he looked at his son
+with a wild despair which made Reginald almost as desperate
+as himself in maddening ignorance and terror.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ruin! ruin!&rdquo; he murmured hoarsely, &ldquo;worse than death.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CONFLICT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The day which had intervened between Ph&#339;be's morning
+walk, and this darkling flight along the same road, had been
+full of agitation at the house of the Tozers. Ph&#339;be, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+would willingly have spared her lover anything more than the
+brief intercourse which was inevitable with her relations, could
+find no means of sending him away without breakfast. She
+had escaped from him accordingly, weary as she was, to make
+arrangements for such a meal as she knew him, even in his
+most sentimental mood, to love&mdash;a thing which required some
+time and supervision, though the house was always plentifully
+provided. When she had hastily bathed her face and changed
+her dress she came back to the room where she had left him, to
+find him in careless conversation with Tozer, who only half-recovered
+from the excitement of last night, but much overawed
+by a visit from so great a personage, had managed to put
+aside the matter which occupied his own thoughts, in order to
+carry on a kind of worship of Clarence, who was the son of the
+richest man he had ever heard of, and consequently appeared to
+the retired butterman a very demigod. Clarence was yawning
+loudly, his arms raised over his head in total indifference to
+Tozer, when Ph&#339;be came into the room; and the old man
+seized upon the occasion of her entrance to perform another
+act of worship.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, here's Ph&#339;be at last. Mr. Copperhead's come in from
+the country, my dear, and he's going to make us proud, he is,
+by accepting of a bit of breakfast. I tell him it's a wretched
+poor place for him as has palaces at his command; but what
+we can give him is the best quality, that I answers for&mdash;and
+you're one as knows how things should be, even if we ain't
+grand ourselves.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you palaces at your command, Clarence?&rdquo; she said,
+with a smile. Notwithstanding the fatigue of the night, the
+fresh air and her ablutions, and the agitation and commotion of
+her mind, made Ph&#339;be almost more animated and brilliant than
+usual. Her eyes shone with the anxiety and excitement of the
+crisis, and a little, too, with the glory and delight of success;
+for though Clarence Copperhead was not very much to brag of
+in his own person, he still had been the object before her for
+some time back, and she had got him. And yet Ph&#339;be was
+not mercenary, though she was not &ldquo;in love&rdquo; with her heavy
+lover in the ordinary sense of the word. She went towards
+him now, and stood near him, looking at him with a smile.
+He was a big, strong fellow, which is a thing most women
+esteem, and he was not without good looks; and he would be
+rich, and might be thrust into a position which would produce
+both honour and advantage; and lastly, he was her own, which
+gives even the most indifferent article a certain value in some
+people's eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Palaces? I don't know, but nice enough houses; and you
+know you like a nice house, Miss Ph&#339;be. Here, I haven't
+said a word to the old gentleman. Tell him; I ain't come all
+this way for nothing. You've always got the right words at
+your fingers' end. Tell him, and let's get it over. I think I
+could eat some breakfast, I can tell you, after that drive.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, slightly tremulous, &ldquo;Mr. Copperhead
+wishes me to tell you that&mdash;Mr. Copperhead wishes you
+to know why&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bless us!&rdquo; cried Clarence with a laugh. &ldquo;Here is a
+beating about the bush! She has got her master, old gentleman,
+and that is what she never had before. Look here, I'm
+going to marry Ph&#339;be. That's plain English without any
+phrases, and I don't know what you could say to better it. Is
+breakfast ready? I've earned it for my part.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Going to marry Ph&#339;be!&rdquo; Tozer gasped. He had heard
+from his wife that such a glory was possible; but now, when
+it burst upon him, the dazzling delight seemed too good to be
+true. It thrust the forgery and everything out of his head,
+and took even the power of speech from him. He got up and
+gazed at the young people, one after the other, rubbing his
+hands, with a broad grin upon his face; then he burst forth
+all at once in congratulation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;God bless you, sir! God bless you both! It's an honour
+as I never looked for. Rising in the world was never no
+thought of mine; doing your duty and trusting to the Lord is
+what I've always stood by; and it's been rewarded. But she's
+a good girl, Mr. Copperhead; you'll never regret it, sir. She's
+that good and that sensible, as I don't know how to do without
+her. She'll do you credit, however grand you may make her;
+and if it's any comfort to you, as she's connected with them as
+knows how to appreciate a gentleman&mdash;&rdquo; said Tozer, breaking
+down in his enthusiasm, his voice sinking into a whisper in the
+fulness of his heart.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa!&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, feeling sharply pricked in her
+pride, with a momentary humiliation, &ldquo;there are other things
+to be thought of,&rdquo; and she gave him a look of reproach which
+Tozer did not understand, but which Clarence did vaguely.
+Clarence, for his part, liked the homage, and was by no means
+unwilling that everybody should perceive his condescension
+and what great luck it was for Ph&#339;be to have secured him.
+He laughed, pleased to wave his banner of triumph over her,
+notwithstanding that he loved her. He <i>was</i> very fond of her,
+that was true; but still her good fortune in catching him was,
+for the moment, the thing most in his thoughts.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, old gentleman,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you ain't far wrong there.
+She <i>is</i> a clever one. We shall have a bad time of it with the
+governor at first; for, of course, when there's no money and no
+connections, a man like the governor, that has made himself,
+ain't likely to be too well pleased.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;As for money, Mr. Copperhead, sir,&rdquo; said Tozer with
+modest pride, &ldquo;I don't see as there's anything to be said
+against Ph&#339;be on that point. Her mother before her had a
+pretty bit of money, though I say it, as shouldn't&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ah, yes&mdash;yes,&rdquo; said Clarence. &ldquo;To be sure; but a little
+bit of coin like that don't count with us. The governor deals
+in hundreds of thousands; he don't think much of your little
+bits of fortunes. But I don't mind. She suits me down to
+the ground, does Ph&#339;be; and I don't give that for the governor!&rdquo;
+cried the young man valiantly. As for Ph&#339;be herself, it is impossible
+to imagine any one more entirely put out of her place,
+and out of all the comfort and satisfaction in her own initiative
+which she generally possessed, than this young woman was,
+while these two men talked over her so calmly. It is doubtful
+whether she had ever been so set aside out of her proper position
+in her life, and her nerves were overstrained and her bodily
+strength worn out, which added to the sense of downfall. With
+almost a touch of anger in her tone she, who was never out of
+temper, interrupted this talk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I think breakfast is ready, grandpapa. Mr. Clarence Copperhead
+wants some refreshment after his exertions, and in
+preparation for the exertions to come. For I suppose your
+papa is very likely to follow you to Carlingford,&rdquo; she added,
+with a low laugh, turning to her lover. &ldquo;I know Mr. Copperhead
+very well, and I should not like my first meeting with him
+after I had thwarted all his views.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ph&#339;be! you don't mean to desert me? By Jove! I'll
+face him and twenty like him if you'll only stand by me,&rdquo; he
+cried; which was a speech that made amends.</p>
+
+<p>She suffered him to lead her into breakfast less formally than
+is the ordinary fashion, and his hand on her trim waist did not
+displease the girl. No; she understood him, knew that he was
+no great things; but yet he was hers, and she had always
+meant him to be hers, and Ph&#339;be was ready to maintain his
+cause in the face of all the world.</p>
+
+<p>The breakfast was to Clarence's taste, and so was the company&mdash;even
+old Tozer, who sat with his mouth agape in admiration
+of the young potentate, while he recounted his many
+grandeurs. Clarence gave a great deal of information as to
+prices he had paid for various things, and the expenses of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>
+living at Oxford and elsewhere, as he ate the kidneys, eggs,
+and sausages with which Ph&#339;be's care had heaped the table.
+They had no <i>p&acirc;t&eacute; de foie gras</i>, it is true, but the simple fare
+was of the best quality, as Tozer had boasted. Mrs. Tozer did
+not come downstairs to breakfast, and thus Ph&#339;be was alone
+with the two men, who suited each other so much better than
+she could have hoped. The girl sat by them languidly, though
+with a beating heart, wondering, as girls will wonder sometimes,
+if all men were like these, braggards and believers in
+brag, worshippers of money and price. No doubt, young men
+too marvel when they hear the women about them talking
+across them of <i>chiffons</i>, or of little quarrels and little vanities.
+Ph&#339;be had more brains than both of her interlocutors put
+together, and half-a-dozen more added on; but she was put
+down and silenced by the talk. Her lover for the moment had
+escaped from her. She could generally keep him from exposing
+himself in this way, and turn the better side of him to the
+light; but the presence of a believer in him turned the head of
+Clarence. She could not control him any more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A good horse is a deuced expensive thing,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the
+governor gave a cool hundred and fifty for that mare that
+brought me over this morning. He bought her from Sir
+Robert; but he didn't know, Ph&#339;be, the use I was going to
+put her to. If he'd known, he'd have put that hundred and
+fifty in the sea rather than have his beast rattled over the
+country on such an errand.&rdquo; Here he stopped in the midst of
+his breakfast, and looked at her admiringly. &ldquo;But I don't
+repent,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;I'd do it again to-morrow if it wasn't
+done already. If you stand by me, I'll face him, and twenty
+like him, by Jove!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't say nothing,&rdquo; said her grandfather. &ldquo;I wouldn't
+be so ungrateful. Gentlemen like Mr. Copperhead ain't picked
+up at every roadside.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They ain't, by Jove!&rdquo; said Clarence; &ldquo;but she's shy, that's
+all about it,&rdquo; he added, tenderly; &ldquo;when we're by ourselves,
+I don't complain.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Poor Ph&#339;be! She smiled a dismal smile, and was very glad
+when breakfast was over. After that she took him into the
+garden, into the bright morning air, which kept her up, and
+where she could keep her Clarence in hand and amuse him,
+without allowing this revelation of the worst side of him.
+While they were there, Martha admitted the visitor of yesterday,
+Mr. Simpson from the Bank, bringing back to Ph&#339;be's
+mind all the other matter of which it had been full.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you think you ought to go and see about the horse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+and the dog-cart?&rdquo; she said suddenly, turning to her lover
+with one of those sudden changes which kept the dull young
+man amused. &ldquo;You don't know what they may be about.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They can't be up to much,&rdquo; said Clarence. &ldquo;Thank you,
+Miss Ph&#339;be, I like you better than the mare.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But you can't be here all day, and I can't be here all day,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;I must look after grandmamma, and you ought to
+go down and inquire after poor Mr. May&mdash;he is so ill. I have
+been there all night, helping Ursula. You ought to go and
+ask for him. People don't forget all the duties of life because&mdash;because
+a thing of this sort has happened&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Because they've popped and been accepted,&rdquo; said graceful
+Clarence. &ldquo;By Jove! I'll go. I'll tell young May. I'd like
+to see his face when I tell him the news. You may look as
+demure as you like, but you know what spoons he has been
+upon you, and the old fellow too&mdash;made me as jealous as King
+Lear sometimes,&rdquo; cried the happy lover, with a laugh. He
+meant Othello, let us suppose.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Nonsense, Clarence! But go, please go. I must run to
+grandmamma.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Simpson had gone in, and Ph&#339;be's heart had begun to
+beat loudly in her throat; but it was not so easy to get rid of
+this ardent lover, and when at last he did go, he was slightly
+sulky, which was not a state of mind to be encouraged. She
+rushed upstairs to her grandmother's room, which was over the
+little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could already
+hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the
+noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage.
+Ph&#339;be never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who
+kissed and wept over her, exulting in the news.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I ain't been so pleased since my Ph&#339;be told me as she was
+to marry a minister,&rdquo; said Mrs. Tozer, &ldquo;and this is a rise in
+life a deal grander than the best of ministers. But, bless your
+heart, what shall I do without you?&rdquo; cried the old woman,
+sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Tozer came in, with an air of angry abstraction,
+and began to search through drawers and boxes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I've lost something,&rdquo; he answered, with sombre looks, to
+his wife's inquiry. Ph&#339;be busied herself with her grandmother,
+and did not ask what it was. It was only when he
+had searched everywhere that some chance movement directed
+his eyes to her. She was trembling in spite of herself. He
+came up to her, and seized her suddenly by the arm. &ldquo;By
+George!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;I'm in a dozen minds to search you!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tozer! let my child alone. How dare you touch her&mdash;her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
+as is as good as Mr. Copperhead's lady? What's she got to
+do with your dirty papers? Do you think Ph&#339;be would
+touch them&mdash;with a pair of tongs?&rdquo; cried the angry grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be shrank with all the cowardice of guilt. Her nerves
+were unstrung by weariness and excitement. And Tozer, with
+his little red eyes blazing upon her, was very different in this
+fury of personal injury, from the grandfather of the morning,
+who had been ready to see every virtue in her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I believe as you've got it!&rdquo; he cried, giving her a shake.
+It was a shot at a venture, said without the least idea of its
+truth; but before the words had crossed his lips, he felt with a
+wild passion of rage and wonder that it was true. &ldquo;Give it
+up, you hussy!&rdquo; he shrieked, with a yell of fury, his face convulsed
+with sudden rage, thickly and with sputtering lips.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Tozer!&rdquo; cried his wife, flinging herself between them,
+&ldquo;take your hands off the child. Run, run to your room, my
+darling; he's out of his senses. Lord bless us all, Sam, are
+you gone stark staring mad?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, trembling, &ldquo;if I had it, you may
+be sure it would be safe out of your way. I told you I knew
+something about it, but you would not hear me. Will you
+hear me now? I'll make it up to you&mdash;double it, if you like.
+Grandmamma, it is a poor man he would drive to death if he is
+not stopped. Oh!&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be, clasping her hands, &ldquo;after
+what has happened this morning, will you not yield to me?
+and after all the love you have shown me? I will never ask
+anything, not another penny. I will make it up; only give in
+to me, give in to me&mdash;for once in my life! Grandpapa! I never
+asked anything from you before.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give it up, you piece of impudence! you jade! you d&mdash;d
+deceitful&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He was holding her by the arm, emphasizing every new
+word by a violent shake, while poor old Mrs. Tozer dropped
+into a chair, weeping and trembling.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh! it ain't often as he's like this; but when he is, I can't
+do nothing with him, I can't do nothing with him!&rdquo; she
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>But Ph&#339;be's nerves strung themselves up again in face
+of the crisis. She shook him off suddenly with unexpected
+strength, and moving to a little distance, stood confronting
+him, pale but determined.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If you think you will get the better of me in this way, you
+are mistaken,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am not your daughter; how dare
+you treat me so? Grandmamma, forgive me. I have been up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
+all night. I am going to lie down,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;If grandpapa
+has anything more to say against me, he can say it to
+Clarence. I leave myself in his hands.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Saying this, she turned round majestically, but with an
+anxious heart, and walked away to her room, every nerve in
+her trembling. When she got there, Ph&#339;be locked the door
+hastily, in genuine terror; and then she laughed, and then she
+cried a little. &ldquo;And to think it was here all the time!&rdquo; she
+said to herself, taking out the little Russia leather purse out of
+her pocket. She went into the closet adjoining her room, and
+buried it deep in her travelling trunk which was there, relieving
+herself and her mind of a danger. Then&mdash;Ph&#339;be did what
+was possibly the most sensible thing in the world, in every
+point of view. She went to bed; undressed herself quietly,
+rolled up her hair, and lay down with a grateful sense of ease
+and comfort. &ldquo;When Clarence comes back he will be disappointed;
+but even for Clarence a little disappointment will
+be no harm,&rdquo; said the sensible young woman to herself. And
+what comfort it was to lie down, and feel all the throbs and
+pulses gradually subsiding, the fright going off, the satisfaction
+of success coming back, and gradually a slumberous, delicious
+ease stealing over her. Of all the clever things Ph&#339;be had
+done in her life, it must be allowed that there was not one so
+masterly as the fact that she, then and there, went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>All this had taken up a good deal of time. It was twelve
+when Mr. Simpson of the bank disturbed the lovers in the
+garden, and it was one o'clock before Ph&#339;be put a stop to all
+Tozer's vindictive plans by going to bed. What he said to
+Mr. Simpson, when he went back to him, is not on record.
+That excellent man of business was much put out by the long
+waiting, and intimated plainly enough that he could not allow
+his time to be thus wasted. Mr. Simpson began to think that
+there was something very strange in the whole business.
+Tozer's house was turned upside down by it, as he could hear
+by the passionate voices and the sound of crying and storming
+in the room above; but Cotsdean was secure in his shop, apparently
+fearing no evil, as he had seen as he passed, peering in
+with curious eyes. What it meant he could not tell; but it
+was queer, and did not look as if the business was straight-forward.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;When you find the bill, or make up your mind what to do,
+you can send for me,&rdquo; he said, and went away, suspicious and
+half-angry, leaving Tozer to his own devices. And the afternoon
+passed in the most uncomfortable lull imaginable. Though
+he believed his granddaughter to have it, he looked again over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>
+all his papers, his drawers, his waste-basket, every corner he
+had in which such a small matter might have been hid; but
+naturally his search was all in vain. Clarence returned in the
+afternoon, and was received by poor old Mrs. Tozer, very
+tremulous and ready to cry, who did not know whether she
+ought to distrust Ph&#339;be or not, and hesitated and stumbled
+over her words till the young man thought his father had come
+in his absence, and that Ph&#339;be had changed her mind. This
+had the effect of making him extremely eager and anxious, and
+of subduing the bragging and magnificent mood which the
+triumphant lover had displayed in the morning. He felt himself
+&ldquo;taken down a peg or two,&rdquo; in his own fine language. He
+went to the Parsonage and tried very hard to see Ursula, to
+secure her help in case anything had gone wrong, and then to
+Reginald, whose vexation at the news he felt sure of, and
+hoped to enjoy a sight of. But he could see no one in the
+absorbed and anxious house. What was he to do? He wandered
+about, growing more and more unhappy, wondering if
+he had been made to fling himself into the face of fate for no
+reason, and sure that he could not meet his father without
+Ph&#339;be's support. He could not even face her relations. It
+was very different from the day of triumph he had looked for;
+but, as Ph&#339;be had wisely divined, this disappointment, and all
+the attending circumstances, did not do him any harm.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in the afternoon when Northcote called. He too
+had acted on the information given by Betsy, and had gone to
+Cotsdean, who made him vaguely aware that Tozer had some
+share in the business in which Mr. May was involved, and who,
+on being asked whether it could be set right by money, grew
+radiant and declared that nothing could be easier. But when
+Northcote saw Tozer, there ensued a puzzling game at cross
+purposes, for Tozer had no notion that Mr. May had anything
+to do with the business, and declined to understand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I ain't got nothing to do with parsons, and if you'll take
+my advice, sir, it 'ud be a deal better for you to give 'em up
+too. You're a-aggravating the connection for no good, you
+are,&rdquo; said Tozer, surely by right of his own troubles and perplexities,
+and glad to think he could make some one else uncomfortable
+too.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I shall do in that respect as I think proper,&rdquo; said Northcote,
+who was not disposed to submit to dictation.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Fact is, he's a deal too well off for a minister,&rdquo; Tozer said
+to his wife when the young man disappeared, &ldquo;they're too independent
+that sort; and I don't know what he means by his
+Mays and his fine folks. What have we got to do with Mr. May?&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Except that he's been good to the child, Tozer; we can't
+forget as he's been very good to the child.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, dash the child!&rdquo; cried the old man, infuriated; &ldquo;if
+you say much more I'll be sorry I ever let you see her face.
+What has she done with my bill?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Bill? if it's only a bill what are you so put out about!&rdquo;
+cried Mrs. Tozer. &ldquo;You'll have dozens again at Christmas, if
+that is all you want.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the laugh was unsuccessful, and the old man went back
+to his room to nurse his wrath and to wonder what had come to
+him. Why had his granddaughter interfered in his business,
+and what had he to do with Mr. May?</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be got up refreshed and comfortable when it was time
+for the family tea, and came down to her lover, who had come
+back, and was sitting very dejected by old Mrs. Tozer's side.
+She was fresh and fair, and in one of her prettiest dresses,
+having taken pains for him; and notwithstanding Tozer's
+lowering aspect, and his refusal to speak to her, the meal
+passed over very cheerfully for the rest of the party, and the
+two young people once more withdrew to the garden when
+it was over. The presence of Clarence Copperhead protected
+Ph&#339;be from all attack. Her grandfather dared not fly out
+upon her as before, or summon her to give up what she had
+taken from him. Whatever happened, this wonderful rise in
+life, this grand match could not be interfered with. He withdrew
+bitter and exasperated to his own den, leaving his poor
+wife crying and wretched in the family sitting-room. Mrs.
+Tozer knew that her husband was not to be trifled with, and
+that, though the circumstances of Ph&#339;be's betrothal subdued
+him for the moment, this effect in all probability would not
+last; and she sat in terror, watching the moments as they
+passed, and trembling to think what might happen when the
+young pair came in again, or when Clarence at last went away,
+leaving Ph&#339;be with no protection but herself. Ph&#339;be, too,
+while she kept her dull companion happy, kept thinking all the
+while of the same thing with a great tremor of suppressed
+agitation in her mind; and she did not know what was the
+next step to take&mdash;a reflection which took away her strength.
+She had taken the bill from her trunk again and replaced it in
+her pocket. It was safest carried on her person, she felt; but
+what she was to do next, even Ph&#339;be, so fruitful in resources,
+could not say. When Northcote came back in the evening she
+felt that her game was becoming more and more difficult to
+play. After a brief consultation with herself, she decided that
+it was most expedient to go in with him, taking her big body-guard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+along with her, and confiding in his stupidity not to find
+out more than was indispensable. She took Northcote to her
+grandfather's room, whispering to him on the way to make
+himself the representative of Cotsdean only, and to say nothing
+of Mr. May.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then you know about it?&rdquo; said Northcote amazed.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, hush, hush!&rdquo; cried Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;offer to pay it on Cotsdean's
+part, and say nothing about Mr. May.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked at her bewildered; but nodded his
+head in assent, and then her own young man pulled her back
+almost roughly, and demanded to know what she meant by
+talking to that fellow so. Thus poor Ph&#339;be was between two
+fires. She went in with a fainting yet courageous heart.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Pay the money!&rdquo; said Tozer, who by dint of brooding
+over it all the day had come to a white heat, and was no
+longer to be controlled. &ldquo;Mr. Northcote, sir, you're a minister,
+and you don't understand business no more nor women do.
+Money's money&mdash;but there's more than money here. There's
+my name, sir, as has been made use of in a way!&mdash;me go signing
+of accommodation bills! I'd have cut off my hand sooner.
+There's that girl there, she's got it. She's been and stolen it
+from me, Mr. Northcote. Tell her to give it up. You may
+have some influence, you as is a minister. Tell her to give it
+up, or, by George, she shall never have a penny from me!
+I'll cut her off without even a shilling. I'll put her out o' my
+will&mdash;out o' my house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I say, Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; said Clarence, &ldquo;look here, that's serious,
+that is; not that I mind a little pot of money like what the
+poor old fellow's got; but what's the good of throwing anything
+away?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Make her give it up,&rdquo; cried Tozer hoarsely, &ldquo;or out of this
+house she goes this very night. I ain't the sort of man to be
+made a fool of. I ain't the sort of man&mdash;Who's this a-coming?
+some more of your d&mdash;d intercessors to spoil justice,&rdquo; cried
+the old man, &ldquo;but I won't have 'em. I'll have nothing to say
+to them. What, who? Mr. Copperhead's father? I ain't
+ashamed to meet Mr. Copperhead's father; but one thing at a
+time. Them as comes into my house must wait my time,&rdquo;
+cried the butterman, seeing vaguely the group come in, whom
+we left at his doors. &ldquo;I'm master here. Give up that bill,
+you brazen young hussy, and go out of my sight. How dare
+you set up your face among so many men? Give it up!&rdquo; he
+cried, seizing her by the elbow in renewed fury. The strangers,
+though he saw them enter, received no salutation from him.
+There was one small lamp on the table, dimly lighted, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>
+threw a faint glow upon the circle of countenances round, into
+which came wondering the burly big Copperhead, holding fast
+by the shoulder of Mr. May, whose ghastly face, contorted
+with wild anxiety, glanced at Tozer over the lamp. But the
+old man was so much absorbed at first that he scarcely saw
+who the new-comers were.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What's all this about?&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;Seems
+we've come into the midst of another commotion. So you're
+here, Clar! it is you I want, my boy. Look here, Northcote,
+take hold, will you? there's a screw loose, and we've got to
+get him home. Take hold, till I have had a word with
+Clarence. That's a thing that won't take long.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clarence cast a glance at Ph&#339;be, who even in her own
+agitation turned and gave him a tremulous smile of encouragement.
+The crisis was so great on all sides of her that Ph&#339;be
+became heroic.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am here,&rdquo; she said, with all the steadiness of strong
+emotion, and when he had received this assurance of support,
+he feared his father no more.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;All right, sir,&rdquo; he said almost with alacrity. He was
+afraid of nothing with Ph&#339;be standing by.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Make her give me up my bill,&rdquo; said Tozer; &ldquo;I'll hear
+nothing else till this is settled. My bill! It's forgery; that's
+what it is. Don't speak to me about money! I'll have him
+punished. I'll have him rot in prison for it. I'll not cheat
+the law&mdash;You people as has influence with that girl, make
+her give it me. I can't touch him without the bill.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. May had been placed in a chair by the two young men
+who watched over him; but as Tozer spoke he got up, struggling
+wildly, almost tearing himself out of the coat by which they
+held him. &ldquo;Let me go!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Do you hear him? Rot
+in prison! with hard labour; it would kill me! And it used
+to be hanging! My God&mdash;my God! Won't you let me go?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Tozer stopped short, stopped by this passion which was
+greater than his own. He looked wonderingly at the livid
+face, the struggling figure, impressed in spite of himself.
+&ldquo;He's gone mad,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good Lord! But he's got
+nothing to do with it. Can't you take him away?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be in his ear, &ldquo;here it is, your bill;
+it was <i>he</i> who did it&mdash;and it has driven him mad. Look! I
+give it up to you; and there he is&mdash;that is your work. Now
+do what you please&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Trembling, the old man took the paper out of her hand.
+He gazed wondering at the other, who somehow moved in his
+excitement by a sense that the decisive moment had come,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+stood still too, his arm half-pulled out of his coat, his face
+wild with dread and horror. For a moment they looked at
+each other in a common agony, neither the one nor the other
+clear enough to understand, but both feeling that some tremendous
+crisis had come upon them. &ldquo;He&mdash;done it!&rdquo; said
+Tozer appalled and almost speechless. &ldquo;<i>He</i> done it!&rdquo; They
+all crowded round, a circle of scared faces. Ph&#339;be alone stood
+calm. She was the only one who knew the whole, except the
+culprit, who understood nothing with that mad confusion in
+his eyes. But he was overawed too, and in his very madness
+recognized the crisis. He stood still, struggling no longer,
+with his eyes fixed upon the homely figure of the old butterman,
+who stood trembling, thunderstruck, with that fatal piece
+of paper in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Tozer had been mad for revenge two moments before&mdash;almost
+as wild as the guilty man before him&mdash;with a fierce
+desire to punish and make an example of the man who had
+wronged him. But this semi-madness was arrested by the
+sight of the other madman before him, and by the extraordinary
+shock of this revelation. It took all the strength out of him.
+He had not looked up to the clergyman as Cotsdean did, but
+he had looked up to the gentleman, his customer, as being
+upon an elevation very different from his own, altogether above
+and beyond him; and the sight of this superior being, thus
+humbled, maddened, gazing at him with wild terror and agony,
+more eloquent than any supplication, struck poor old Tozer to
+the very soul. &ldquo;God help us all!&rdquo; he cried out with a broken,
+sobbing voice. He was but a vulgar old fellow, mean, it might
+be, worldly in his way; but the terrible mystery of human
+wickedness and guilt prostrated his common soul with as
+sharp an anguish of pity and shame as could have befallen the
+most heroic. It seized upon him so that he could say or do
+nothing more, forcing hot and salt tears up into his old eyes,
+and shaking him all over with a tremor as of palsy. The
+scared faces appeared to come closer to Ph&#339;be, to whom these
+moments seemed like years. Had her trust been vain? Softly,
+but with an excitement beyond control, she touched him on
+the arm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's true,&rdquo; said Tozer, half-crying. &ldquo;Something's got
+to be done. We can't all stand here for ever, Ph&#339;be; it's him
+as has to be thought of. Show it to him, poor gentleman, if
+he ain't past knowing; and burn it, and let us hear of it no
+more.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Solemnly, in the midst of them all, Ph&#339;be held up the paper
+before the eyes of the guilty man. If he understood it or not,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+no one could tell. He did not move, but stared blankly at her
+and it. Then she held it over the lamp and let it blaze and
+drop into harmless ashes in the midst of them all. Tozer
+dropped down into his elbow-chair sniffing and sobbing. Mr.
+May stood quite still, with a look of utter dulness and stupidity
+coming over the face in which so much terror had been. If he
+understood what had passed, it was only in feeling, not in
+intelligence. He grew still and dull in the midst of that
+strange madness which all the time was only half-madness, a
+mixture of conscious excitement and anxiety with that which
+passes the boundaries of consciousness. For the moment he
+was stilled into stupid idiotcy, and looked at them with vacant
+eyes. As for the others, Northcote was the only one who
+divined at all what this scene meant. To Reginald it was
+like a scene in a pantomime&mdash;bewildering dumb show, with no
+sense or meaning in it. It was he who spoke first, with a
+certain impatience of the occurrence which he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Will you come home, sir, now?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Come home,
+for Heaven's sake! Northcote will give you an arm. He's very
+ill,&rdquo; Reginald added, looking round him pitifully in his ignorance;
+&ldquo;what you are thinking of I can't tell&mdash;but he's ill and&mdash;delirious.
+It was Mr. Copperhead who brought him here
+against my will. Excuse me, Miss Beecham&mdash;now I must take
+him home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. The tears came into her eyes as she
+looked at him; he was not thinking of her at the moment, but
+she knew he had thought of her, much and tenderly, and she
+felt that she might never see him again. Ph&#339;be would have
+liked him to know what she had done, and to know that what
+she had done was for him chiefly&mdash;in order to recompense him
+a little, poor fellow, for the heart he had given her, which she
+could not accept, yet could not be ungrateful for. And yet
+she was glad, though there was a pang in it, that he should
+never know, and remain unaware of her effort, for his own
+sake; but the tears came into her eyes as she looked at him,
+and he caught the gleam of the moisture which made his heart
+beat. Something moved her beyond what he knew of; and
+his heart thrilled with tenderness and wonder; but how should
+he know what it was?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Give my love to Ursula,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall not come to-night
+as she has a nurse, and I think he will be better. Make
+her rest, Mr. May&mdash;and if I don't see her, say good-bye to her
+for me&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good-bye?&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, good-bye&mdash;things have happened&mdash;Tell her I hope she
+will not forget me,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, the tears dropping down her
+cheeks. &ldquo;But oh, please never mind me, look at him, he is
+quite quiet, he is worn out. Take him home.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is nothing else to be done,&rdquo; said poor Reginald,
+whose heart began to ache with a sense of the unknown which
+surrounded him on every side. He took his father by the arm,
+who had been standing quite silent, motionless, and apathetic.
+He had no need for any help, for Mr. May went with him at a
+touch, as docile as a child. Northcote followed with grave
+looks and very sad. Tozer had been seated in his favourite
+chair, much subdued, and giving vent now and then to something
+like a sob. His nerves had been terribly shaken. But
+as he saw the three gentlemen going away, nature awoke in the
+old butterman. He put out his hand and plucked Northcote
+by the sleeve. &ldquo;I'll not say no to that money, not now, Mr.
+Northcote, sir,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>PH&#338;BE'S LAST TRIAL.</h3>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now if you please,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead. &ldquo;I think it's
+my turn. I wanted May to hear what I had got to say, but
+as he's ill or mad, or something, it is not much good. I can't
+imagine what all these incantations meant, and all your play,
+Miss Ph&#339;be, eyes and all. That sort of thing don't suit us
+plain folks. If you don't mind following your friends, I want
+to speak to old Tozer here by himself. I don't like to have
+women meddling in my affairs.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa is very tired, and he is upset,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be.
+&ldquo;I don't think he can have any more said to him to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By George, but he shall though, and you too. Look here,&rdquo;
+said Mr. Copperhead, &ldquo;you've taken in my boy Clarence here.
+He's been a fool, and he always was a fool; but you're not a
+fool, Miss Ph&#339;be. You know precious well what you're
+about. And just you listen to me; he shan't marry you, not
+if he breaks his heart over it. I ain't a man that thinks much
+of breaking hearts. You and he may talk what nonsense you
+like, but you shan't marry my boy; no, not if there wasn't
+another woman in the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He has asked me,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be; &ldquo;but I certainly did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+ask him. You must give your orders to your son, Mr. Copperhead.
+You have no right to dictate to me. Grandpapa, I
+think you and I have had enough for to-night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>With this Ph&#339;be began to close the shutters, which had
+been left open, and to put away books and things which were
+lying about. Tozer made a feeble attempt to stop her energetic
+proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Talk to the gentleman, Ph&#339;be, if Mr. Copperhead 'as anything
+to say to you&mdash;don't, don't you go and offend him, my
+dear!&rdquo; the old man cried in an anxious whisper; and then he
+raised himself from the chair, in which he had sunk exhausted
+by the unusual commotions to which he had been subjected.
+&ldquo;I am sure, sir,&rdquo; Tozer began, &ldquo;it ain't my wish, nor the wish
+o' my family, to do anything as is against your wishes&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, interrupting him ruthlessly,
+&ldquo;Mr. Copperhead's wishes may be a rule to his own family,
+but they are not to be a rule to yours. For my part I won't
+submit to it. Let him take his son away if he pleases&mdash;or if
+he can,&rdquo; she added, turning round upon Clarence with a smile.
+&ldquo;Mr. Clarence Copperhead is as free as I am to go or to
+stay.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By Jove!&rdquo; cried that young man, who had been hanging
+in the background, dark and miserable. He came close up
+to her, and caught first her sleeve and then her elbow; the
+contact seemed to give him strength. &ldquo;Look here, sir,&rdquo; he
+said, ingratiatingly, &ldquo;we don't want to offend you&mdash;<i>I</i> don't
+want to fly in your face; but I can't go on having coaches for
+ever, and here's the only one in the world that can do the
+business instead of coaches. Ph&#339;be knows I'm fond of her,
+but that's neither here nor there. Here is the one that can
+make something of me. I ain't clever, you know it as well as
+I do&mdash;but she is. I don't mind going into parliament, making
+speeches and that sort of thing, if I've got her to back me up.
+But without her I'll never do anything, without her you may
+put me in a cupboard, as you've often said. Let me have her,
+and I'll make a figure, and do you credit. I can't say any
+fairer,&rdquo; said Clarence, taking the rest of her arm into his grasp,
+and holding her hand. He was stupid&mdash;but he was a man,
+and Ph&#339;be felt proud of him, for the moment at least.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You idiot!&rdquo; cried his father, &ldquo;and I was an idiot too to
+put any faith in you; come away from that artful girl. Can't
+you see that it's all a made-up plan from beginning to end?
+What was she sent down here for but to catch you, you oaf,
+you fool, you! Drop her, or you drop me. That's all I've got
+to say.&rdquo;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, drop me, Clarence,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be, with a smile; &ldquo;for in
+the mean time you hurt me. See, you have bruised my arm.
+While you settle this question with your father, I will go to
+grandmamma. Pardon me, I take more interest in her than in
+this discussion between him and you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You shan't go,&rdquo; cried her lover, &ldquo;not a step. Look here,
+sir. If that's what it comes to, her before you. What you've
+made of me ain't much, is it? but I don't mind what I go in
+for, as long as she's to the fore. Her before you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is that your last word?&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; His son faced him with a face as set and cloudy as
+his own. The mouth, shut close and sullen, was the same in
+both; but those brown eyes which Clarence got from his
+mother, and which were usually mild in their expression, looking
+out gently from the ruder face to which they did not seem
+to belong, were now, not clear, but muddy with resolution,
+glimmering with dogged obstinacy from under the drooping
+eyelids. He was not like himself; he was as he had been that
+day when Mr. May saw him at the Dorsets, determined, more
+than a match for his father, who had only the obstinacy of his
+own nature, not that dead resisting force of two people to
+bring to the battle. Clarence had all the pertinacity that was
+not in his mother, to reinforce his own. Mr. Copperhead
+stared at his son with that look of authority, half-imperious,
+half-brutal, with which he was in the habit of crushing all who
+resisted him; but Clarence did not quail. He stood dull and
+immovable, his eyes contracted, his face stolid, and void of all
+expression but that of resistance. He was not much more
+than a fool, but just by so much as his father was more reasonable,
+more clear-sighted than himself, was Clarence stronger
+than his father. He held Ph&#339;be by the sleeve, that she might
+not escape him; but he faced Mr. Copperhead with a dull
+determination that all the powers of earth could not shake.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment the father lost his self-control.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Then I'll go,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and when you've changed your
+mind, you can come to me; but&mdash;&rdquo; here he swore a big oath,
+&ldquo;mind what you're about. There never was a man yet but repented
+when he set himself against me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Clarence made no answer. Talking was not in his way.
+And Mr. Copperhead showed his wondering apprehension of a
+power superior to his own, by making a pause after he had
+said this, and not going away directly. He stopped and tried
+once more to influence the rebel with that stare. &ldquo;Ph&#339;be&mdash;Ph&#339;be&mdash;for
+God's sake make him give in, and don't go against
+Mr. Copperhead!&rdquo; cried Tozer's tremulous voice, shaken with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
+weakness and anxiety. But Ph&#339;be did not say anything.
+She felt in the hesitation, the pause, the despairing last effort
+to conquer, that the time of her triumph had nearly come.
+When he went away, they all stood still and listened to his
+footsteps going along the passage and through the garden.
+When he was outside he paused again, evidently with the idea
+of returning, but changed his mind and went on. To be left
+like this, the victors on a field of domestic conflict, is very
+often not at all a triumphant feeling, and involves a sense of
+defeat about as bad as the reality experienced by the vanquished.
+Ph&#339;be, who was imaginative, and had lively feeling, felt a cold
+shiver go over her as the steps went away one by one, and
+began to cry softly, not knowing quite why it was; but
+Clarence, who had no imagination, nor any feelings to speak of,
+was at his ease and perfectly calm.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What are you crying for?&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the governor can do
+what he likes. I'd marry you in spite of a hundred like him.
+He didn't know what he was about, didn't the governor, when
+he tackled <i>me</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But, Clarence, you must not break with your father, you
+must not quarrel on my account&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's as it may be,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;never you mind. When it's
+cleverness that's wanted, it's you that's wanted to back me up&mdash;but
+I can stick to my own way without you; and my way is
+this,&rdquo; he said, suddenly lifting her from the ground, holding her
+waist between his two big hands, and giving her an emphatic
+kiss. Ph&#339;be was silenced altogether when this had happened.
+He was a blockhead, but he was a man, and could stand up for
+his love, and for his own rights as a man, independent of the
+world. She felt a genuine admiration for her lout at that
+moment; but this admiration was accompanied by a very chill
+sense of all that might be forfeited if Mr. Copperhead stood out.
+Clarence, poor and disowned by his father, would be a very
+different person from the Clarence Copperhead who was going
+into parliament, and had &ldquo;a fine position&rdquo; in prospect. She did
+not form any resolutions as to what she would do in that case,
+for she was incapable of anything dishonourable; but it made
+her shiver as with a cold icy current running over; and as for
+poor old Tozer he was all but whimpering in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Lord!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;A great man like Mr. Copperhead
+affronted in my 'umble 'ouse. It's what I never thought to see.
+A friend of the connection like that&mdash;your father's leading
+member. Oh, Ph&#339;be, it was an evil day as brought you here to
+make all this mischief! and if I had known what was going
+on!&rdquo; cried Tozer, almost weeping in his despair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You are tired, grandpapa,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;Don't be frightened
+about us. Mr. Copperhead is very fond of Clarence, and
+he will give in; or if he doesn't give in, still we shall not be
+worse off than many other people.&rdquo; But she said this with a
+secret panic devouring her soul, wondering if it was possible
+that such a horrible revolution of circumstances and change of
+everything she had looked for, could be. Even Clarence was
+silenced, though immovable. He went away soon after, and betook
+himself to his room at the Parsonage, where all his possessions
+still were, while Ph&#339;be attended upon her grandmother,
+whose agitation and fear she calmed without saying much.
+Tozer, quite broken down, retired to bed; and when they were
+all disposed of, Ph&#339;be went out to the garden, and made a
+mournful little promenade there, with very serious thoughts.
+If Clarence was to be cast off by his father what could she do
+with him? It was not in Ph&#339;be to abandon the stupid lover,
+who had stood up so manfully for her. No, she must accept
+her fate however the balance turned; but if this dreadful change
+happened what should she do with him? The question penetrated,
+and made her shiver to the depths of her soul; but never
+even in imagination did she forsake him. He was hers now,
+come good or ill; but the prospect of the ill was appalling to
+her. She went up and down the garden-path slowly in the
+silence, looking up to the stars, with her heart very full. Ph&#339;be
+felt that no usual burden had been put upon her. Last night
+her occupation had been one of the purest charity, and this
+Providence had seemed to recompense in the morning, by dropping
+at her very feet the prize she had long meant to win; but
+now she was down again after being lifted up so high, and a
+great part of its value was taken out of that prize. Was she
+mercenary or worldly-minded in her choice? It would be hard
+to say so, for she never questioned with herself whether or not
+she should follow Clarence into obscurity and poverty, if things
+should turn out so. She would never abandon him, however
+bad his case might be; but her heart sunk very low when she
+thought of her future with him, without the &ldquo;career&rdquo; which
+would have made everything sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Copperhead, too, had very serious thoughts on this subject,
+and sat up long drinking brandy-and-water, and knitting
+his brows, as he turned the subject over and over in his mind,
+recognizing with disgust (in which nevertheless there mingled a
+certain respect) that Clarence would not yield, he was as obstinate
+as himself, or more so. He had gone to the inn, where he
+was alone, without any of his usual comforts. It was perhaps
+the first time in his prosperous life that he had ever been really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
+crossed. Joe had never attempted to do it, nor any of the first
+family. They had married, as they had done everything else,
+according to his dictation; and now here was his useless son,
+his exotic plant, his Dresden china, not only asserting a will of
+his own, but meaning to have it; and showing a resolution, a
+determination equal to his own. His mother had never shown
+anything of this. She had yielded, as every one else had yielded
+(Mr. Copperhead reflected), to whatever he ordered. Where had
+the boy got this unsuspected strength? A kind of smile broke
+unawares over the rich man's face, as he asked himself this question,
+a smile which he chased away with a frown, but which
+nevertheless had been there for a moment roused by a subtle suggestion
+of self-flattery. Where, but from himself, had his gentleman-son
+(as the millionnaire proudly held him to be) got that
+strength of obstinacy? He chased the thought and the smile
+away with a frown, and went to bed gloomily nursing his wrath;
+but yet this suggestion which he himself had made was more
+flattering to himself than words can say. As for Clarence, the
+only other person deeply concerned, after he had asked for Mr.
+May, and expressed his regret to learn how ill he was, the young
+man smoked a cigar on the doorsteps, and then went peaceably,
+without either care or anxiety, to bed, where he slept very
+soundly till eight o'clock next morning, which was the hour at
+which he was called, though he did not always get up.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Copperhead began the new day, he began it with
+a very unwise idea, quickly carried out, as unwise ideas generally
+are. Feeling that he could make nothing of his son, he
+resolved to try what he could make of Ph&#339;be; a young woman,
+nay, a bit of a girl not more than twenty, and a minister's
+daughter, brought up in reverence of the leading member&mdash;any
+resistance on her part seemed really incredible. He could not
+contemplate the idea of giving up all the cherished plans of
+his life by a melodramatic renunciation of his son. To give up
+Clarence whom he had trained to be the very apex and crowning
+point of his grandeur, was intolerable to him. But Mr.
+Copperhead had heard before now of young women, who, goaded
+to it, had been known to give up their lover rather than let
+their lover suffer on their account, and if this had ever been
+the case, surely it might be so in the present instance. Had
+he not the comfort of the Beecham family in his hands?
+Could not he make the Crescent Chapel too hot to hold them?
+Could he not awaken the fears of scores of other fathers very
+unlikely to permit their favourite sons to stray into the hands
+of pastors' daughters? There was nothing indeed to be said
+against Mr. Beecham, but still it would be strange if Mr. Copperhead,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
+out and away the richest man in the community, could
+not make the Crescent too hot to hold him. He went down
+the Lane from the &ldquo;George,&rdquo; where he had slept, quite early
+next morning, with this purpose full in his head, and, as good
+luck (he thought) would have it, found Ph&#339;be, who had been
+restless all night with anxiety, and had got up early, once more
+walking up and down the long garden-path, reflecting over all
+that had happened, and wondering as to what might happen
+still. What a piece of luck it was! He was accustomed to
+have fortune on his side, and it seemed natural to him. He
+went up to her with scarcely a pause for the usual salutations,
+and plunged at once into what he had to say.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Miss Ph&#339;be, I am glad to find you alone. I wanted a word
+with you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;about the affair of last night. Why
+shouldn't you and I, the only two sensible ones in the business,
+settle it between ourselves? Old Tozer is an old ass, begging
+your pardon for saying so, and my son is a fool&mdash;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I do not agree to either,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be gravely, &ldquo;but never
+mind, I will certainly hear what you have to say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What I have to say is this. I will never consent to let
+my son Clarence marry you.&rdquo; Here he was interrupted by a
+serious little bow of assent from Ph&#339;be, which disconcerted
+and angered him strangely. &ldquo;This being the case,&rdquo; he resumed
+more hotly, &ldquo;don't you think we'd better come to terms,
+you and me? You are too sensible a girl, I'll be bound, to
+marry a man without a penny, which is what he would be.
+He would be properly made an end of, Miss Ph&#339;be, if he
+found out, after all his bravado last night, that you were the
+one to cast him off after all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He cannot find that out,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be with a smile; &ldquo;unfortunately
+even if I could have done it under brighter circumstances
+my mouth is closed now. I desert him now, when
+he is in trouble! Of course you do not know me, so you are
+excused for thinking so, Mr. Copperhead.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The rich man stared. She was speaking a language which
+he did not understand. &ldquo;Look here, Miss Ph&#339;be,&rdquo; he said,
+&ldquo;let's understand each other. High horses don't answer with
+me. As for deserting him when he's in trouble, if you'll give
+him up&mdash;or desert him, as you call it&mdash;he need never be in
+trouble at all. You can stop all that. Just you say no to
+him, and he'll soon be on his knees to me to think no more of
+it. You know who I am,&rdquo; Mr. Copperhead continued with a
+concealed threat. &ldquo;I have a deal of influence in the connection,
+though I say it that shouldn't, and I'm very well looked on in
+chapel business. What would the Crescent do without me?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>
+And if there should be an unpleasantness between the minister
+and the leading member, why, you know, Miss Ph&#339;be, no one
+better, who it is that would go to the wall.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She made no answer, and he thought she was impressed by
+his arguments. He went on still more strongly than before.
+&ldquo;Such a clever girl as you knows all that,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead,
+&ldquo;and suppose you were to marry Clarence without a
+penny, what would become of you? What would you make
+of him? He is too lazy for hard work, and he has not brains
+enough for anything else. What would you make of him if
+you had him? That's what I want to know.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And that is just what I can't tell you,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be smiling.
+&ldquo;It is a very serious question. I suppose something will turn
+up.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What can turn up? You marry him because he is going
+into parliament, and could give you a fine position.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I confess,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be with her usual frankness, &ldquo;that I did
+think of his career; without that the future is much darker,
+and rather depressing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes, you see that! A poor clod of a fellow that can't
+work, and will be hanging upon you every day, keeping you
+from working&mdash;that you will never be able to make anything
+of.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Mr. Copperhead,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be sweetly, &ldquo;why do you tell
+all this to me? Your mere good sense will show you that I
+cannot budge. I have accepted him being rich, and I cannot
+throw him over when he is poor. I may not like it&mdash;I don't
+like it&mdash;but I am helpless. Whatever change is made, it cannot
+be made by me.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He stared at her in blank wonder and dismay. For a moment
+he could not say anything. &ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he faltered at
+last, &ldquo;you thought him a great match, a rise in the world for
+you and yours; but he ain't a great match any longer. What's
+the use then of keeping up the farce? You and me understand
+each other. You've nothing to do but to let him off; you're
+young and pretty, you'll easily find some one else. Fools are
+plenty in this world,&rdquo; he added, unable to refrain from that
+one fling. &ldquo;Let him off and all will be right. What's to
+prevent you? I'd not lose a moment if I were you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Ph&#339;be laughed. She had a pretty laugh, soft yet ringing
+like a child's. &ldquo;You and I, I fear, are no rule for each other,&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;Mr. Copperhead, what prevents me is a small thing
+called honour, that is all.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Honour! that's for men,&rdquo; he said hastily, &ldquo;and folly for
+them according as you mean it; but for women there's no such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>
+thing, it's sham and humbug; and look you here, Miss Ph&#339;be,&rdquo;
+he continued, losing his temper, &ldquo;you see what your father
+will say to this when you get him into hot water with his
+people! There's more men with sons than me; and if the
+Crescent ain't too hot to hold him within a month&mdash;Do you
+think I'll stand it, a beggarly minister and his belongings
+coming in the way of a man that could buy you all up, twenty
+times over, and more!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The fury into which he had worked himself took away Mr.
+Copperhead's breath. Ph&#339;be said nothing. She went on by
+his side with soft steps, her face a little downcast, the suspicion
+of a smile about her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;By George!&rdquo; he cried, when he had recovered himself,
+&ldquo;you think you can laugh at me. You think you can defy
+me, you, a bit of a girl, as poor as Job!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I defy no one,&rdquo; said Ph&#339;be. &ldquo;I cannot prevent you from
+insulting me, that is all; which is rather hard,&rdquo; she added, with
+a smile, which cost her an effort, &ldquo;seeing that I shall have to
+drag your son through the world somehow, now that you have
+cast him off. He will not give me up, I know, and honour
+prevents me from giving him up. So I shall have hard work
+enough, without any insults from you. It is a pity,&rdquo; said
+Ph&#339;be, with a sort of sympathetic regret for herself so badly
+used. &ldquo;I could have made a man of him. I could have
+backed him up to get on as well as most men; but it will certainly
+be uphill work now.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She did not look at the furious father as she spoke. She
+was quite calm, treating it reflectively, regretfully, as a thing
+past and over. Mr. Copperhead tried to burst forth again in
+threats and objurgations; but in spite of himself, and though
+she never said another word, the big, rich, noisy man was
+silenced. He went away, threatening to appeal to her father,
+which Ph&#339;be, with a last effort, begged him smilingly to do.
+But this was the last of which she was capable. When she
+had closed the door after him, she rushed upstairs to her room,
+and cried bitterly. Everything was very dark to her. If he
+did appeal to her father, the appeal would spread confusion
+and dismay through the pastor's heart and family; and what
+was to become of herself, with Clarence on her hands, who
+could do nothing that was useful, and could earn neither his
+own living nor hers? All this was very terrible to Ph&#339;be, and
+for a moment she contemplated the unheard of step of having
+a headache, and staying upstairs. But she reflected that her
+poor old grandfather had done <i>his</i> duty, at no small sacrifice,
+according to her bidding, yesterday; and she bathed her eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>
+heroically, and collected her strength and went down to breakfast
+as usual. It was her duty, which she must do.</p>
+
+<p>As for Mr. Copperhead, he took a long walk, to reflect upon
+all the circumstances, which were complicated enough to cause
+him much trouble. He could not give up his cherished scheme,
+his Member of Parliament, his crown of glory. It was what
+he had been looking forward to for years. He tried to realize
+the failure of his hopes, and could not&mdash;nay, would not, feeling
+it more than he could bear. No; without his gentleman son,
+his University man, his costly, useless production, who was
+worth so much money to him, yet brought in nothing, he felt
+that he must shrink in the opinion of all his friends, even of
+his own sons, the &ldquo;first family,&rdquo; who had so envied, sneered
+at, undervalued Clarence, yet had been forced to be civil to
+him, and respect their father's imperious will as he chose that
+it should be respected. What a sorry figure he should cut
+before all of them if he cast off Clarence, and had to announce
+himself publicly as foiled in all his plans and hopes! He
+could not face this prospect; he shrank from it as if it had
+involved actual bodily pain. The men who would laugh at his
+failure were men of his own class, to whom he had bragged at
+his ease, crowing and exulting over them, and he felt that he
+could not face them if all his grand anticipations collapsed.
+There was nothing for it but to give in. And on the other
+hand this girl Ph&#339;be was a very clever girl, able not only to
+save the expense of coaches, but to cram the boy, and keep
+him up better than any coach could do. She could make his
+speeches for him, like enough, Mr. Copperhead thought, and
+a great many reasons might be given to the world why she
+had been chosen instead of a richer wife for the golden
+boy. Golden girls, as a general rule, were not of so much
+use. &ldquo;Fortune ain't worth thinking of in comparison with
+brains. It was brains I wanted, and I've bought 'em dear; but
+I hope I can afford it,&rdquo; he almost heard himself saying to an
+admiring, envious assembly; for Mr. Copperhead so far deserved
+his success that he could accept a defeat when it was
+necessary, and make the best of it. When he had nearly
+ended his walk, and had reached in his thoughts to this point,
+he met his son, who was walking up from the Parsonage to
+No. 6 in the Lane. Clarence looked cheerful enough as he
+walked along, whistling under his breath, towards his love;
+but when he saw his father, a change came over his face. Once
+more his eyelids drooped over his eyes, and those muddy brown
+orbs got fixed in dull obstinacy; once more his upper lip shut
+down sullen and fast upon the lower. The entire expression<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>
+of his face changed. Mr. Copperhead saw this afar off, from
+the moment his son perceived him, and the sight gave to all
+his thinking that force which reality gives to imagination; the
+risk he was running became doubly clear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good morning, Clarence,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Good morning, sir,&rdquo; responded the other, with lowering
+brows and close-shut mouth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I suppose you were coming to the George to me? Come
+along, I've had no breakfast; and let's hope, my boy, that
+you're in a better mind than last night.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Look here, sir,&rdquo; said Clarence; &ldquo;you might as well ask
+one of those houses to walk with you to the George, and show
+a better mind. I'm of one mind, and one only. I'll marry
+Ph&#339;be Beecham, whether you like it or not, and no other
+woman in this world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is that your last word?&rdquo; said the father, curiously repeating,
+without being aware of it, his question of the previous
+night.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That's my last word,&rdquo; said the son, contemplating his
+father sullenly from under the heavy lids of his obstinate eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Mr. Copperhead; &ldquo;then come along to
+breakfast, for I'm hungry, and we can talk it over there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr><span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST.</h3>
+
+
+<p>This is how Ph&#339;be's difficulties ended. Contrary to her
+every expectation, Mr. Copperhead made a great brag of her
+powers wherever he went. &ldquo;Money is money,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but
+brains is brains, all the same&mdash;we can't get on without 'em&mdash;and
+when you want to make a figure in the world, sir, buy a
+few brains if they fall in your way&mdash;that's my style. I've done
+with stupid ones up till now; but when I see there's a want of
+a clever one, I ain't such a fool as to shut my eyes to it. They
+cost dear, but I'm thankful to say I can afford that, ay, and a
+good deal more.&rdquo; Thus everything was satisfactorily arranged.
+Tozer and his wife cried together for joy on the wedding-day,
+but they did not expect to be asked to that ceremony, being
+well aware that Ph&#339;be, having now completely entered into
+the regions of the great, could not be expected to have very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
+much to say to them. &ldquo;Though I know, the darling, as she'd
+just be the same if she was here, and wouldn't let nobody look
+down upon you and me,&rdquo; said the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She's a wonderful girl, she is,&rdquo; said old Tozer. &ldquo;Wind us
+all round her little finger, that's what she could do&mdash;leastways,
+except when there was principle in it, and there I stood firm.
+But I've done things for Ph&#339;be as I wouldn't have done for
+no other breathing, and she knew it. I wouldn't give in to
+her tho' about church folks being just as good as them as is
+more enlightened. That's agin' reason. But I've done things
+for 'em along of her!&mdash;Ah! she's a wonderful girl is Ph&#339;be&mdash;Ph&#339;be,
+Junior, as I always call her. There ain't her match
+between here and London, and that's what I'll always
+say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But we will not try to describe the glory and joy that filled
+Mr. Beecham's house in the Terrace, when Mrs. Clarence
+Copperhead went back there with all their friends to the
+wedding-breakfast, which was in the very best style, and
+regardless of expense. Even at that moment it gave Ph&#339;be a
+little pang to see her mother in the bright colours which she
+loved, but which made her so much pinker and fatter than was
+needful. Little Mrs. Copperhead, in dim neutral tints, looked
+like a little shadow beside the pastor's buxom wife, and was
+frightened and ill at ease and sad to the heart to lose her boy,
+who had been all she possessed in the world. Sophy Dorset,
+specially asked for the purpose with Ursula May, who was a
+bridesmaid, looked on with much admiration at the curious
+people, so rich, so fine, and so overwhelming, among whom her
+father had found it so remarkable to meet not one person whom
+he knew. &ldquo;Now, Ursula,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you had played your
+cards properly that beautiful bridegroom and that nice little
+house in Mayfair, and the privilege, perhaps, of writing M.P.
+after your name some time or other, might all have been yours
+instead of Miss Beecham's. Why did you let her carry off the
+prize?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cousin Sophy!&rdquo; cried Ursula indignantly. &ldquo;As if I ever
+thought of him as a prize! But I know you are only laughing
+at me. The strange thing is that she likes him, though I am
+sure she knew very well that Reginald&mdash;Oh, when one thinks
+how many people there are in this world who do not get what
+they wish most&mdash;and how many people there are&mdash;&rdquo; Ursula
+paused, involved in her own antithesis, and Sophy ended it for
+her with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who do&mdash;and the one is no happier than the other, most
+times, little Ursula; but you don't understand that, and as you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+are going to be one of the blessed ones, you need not take to
+making reflections; that is my privilege, my dear.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Oh, Cousin Sophy, why were not you one of those blessed
+ones too?&rdquo; cried Ursula, clasping her arms suddenly round her
+kind friend. This, be it understood, was after the breakfast
+was over, and when, in the deep gloom which generally
+concludes a wedding day, everybody had gone home. The two
+were in a magnificent large bedchamber in Portland Place, in
+the vast silent mansion of the Copperheads, where at present
+there was nothing more cheerful than the bridegroom's soft-eyed
+mother, taking herself dreadfully to task for not being
+happy, and trying not to cry, though there was to be a great
+dinner and entertainment that night.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Don't you know?&rdquo; said Sophy, putting her aside with a
+certain proud coldness, and a momentary laugh, &ldquo;he I loved
+proved false; that is to say, in simple language, he turned out
+so poor a creature that it is very good of me not to despise
+humanity for his sweet sake. Never mind. If all had gone
+well, and he had been a real man instead of the sham image of
+one, I don't suppose I should have ever been among the blessed
+ones. Anne is, who never thought of such mysteries at all;
+and so you will be, my little Ursula&mdash;very happy. I am sure
+of it&mdash;though how you can manage to be happy, my dear,
+marrying a man who is not a good Churchman, it is not for me
+to say.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Cousin Sophy, have I been brought up in a way to make me
+so fond of Churchmen?&rdquo; said Ursula solemnly. She could
+not have told how much or how little she knew about her
+father's behaviour, and the &ldquo;shock to his mental system;&rdquo; but
+vaguely and by instinct there was a great deal that she did
+know.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You have been behind the scenes too much perhaps,&rdquo; said
+Sophy Dorset, shrugging her shoulders, &ldquo;but don't think any
+worse of the world than you ought, if you can't think very
+much better. No class is good or bad, Ursula. Men are but
+men all over the world.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This made Ursula cry, though it is difficult to say why. She
+thought it cynical, and probably so will the reader. Perhaps
+Sophy Dorset abandoned the cause of mankind too easily, as
+most people of her temperament and age are disposed to do.
+Anyhow the evening entertainment took place and was very
+fine, and every honour was done to Clarence Copperhead's marriage,
+especially by his mother, who appeared in the most lovely
+satin that eyes ever saw, and diamonds&mdash;and almost succeeded
+all the evening in keeping herself from crying, but not entirely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>
+She did break down when the health of bridegroom and bride
+was drunk as it ought to be; but recovered herself hastily
+when the mother on the other side gave her a kiss of sympathy.
+Though it was an honest kiss it filled poor little Mrs. Copperhead's
+mind with the most unchristian feelings, and gave her
+strength to keep up for the rest of the evening, and do her duty
+to the last. Nevertheless Ph&#339;be was the best of daughters-in-law,
+and ended by making her husband's mother dependent on
+her for most of the comforts of her life. And Clarence got
+into Parliament, and the reader, perhaps (if Parliament is
+sitting), may have had the luck to read a speech in the morning
+paper of Ph&#339;be's composition, and if he ever got the secret of
+her style would know it again, and might trace the course of a
+public character for years to come by that means. But this
+secret is one which no bribe nor worldly inducement will ever
+tempt our lips to betray.</p>
+
+<p>Northcote was released from the charge of Salem Chapel
+directly after these events, by the return of the minister safe
+and sound from his holiday, to the great delight of the congregation,
+though they had not been very fond of their old
+pastor before. Now they could not sufficiently exult over the
+happy re-instalment. &ldquo;The other one never crossed our doors
+from the day he came till now as he's going away,&rdquo; said one
+indignant member; &ldquo;nor took no more notice of us chapel
+folks nor if we were dirt beneath his feet.&rdquo; &ldquo;That time as the
+Meeting was held, when he spoke up again' the sinecure, was
+the only time as my mind was satisfied,&rdquo; cried another. &ldquo;And
+a deal came of it after, making friends with the very man he
+had abused.&rdquo; &ldquo;All his friends was Church folks,&rdquo; said a
+third; &ldquo;he was a wolf in sheep's clothing, that's what I calls
+him; and a poor moralist as a preacher, with never a rousing
+word in them things as he called his sermons. We're well rid
+of the likes of him, though he may be clever. I don't give
+much for that kind of cleverness; and what's the good of you,
+minister or not minister, if you can't keep consistent and stick
+to your own side.&rdquo; The chorus was so strong that the echo of
+it moved Tozer, who was a kind of arch-deacon and leading
+member too, in his way, where he sat twiddling his thumbs in
+his little room. &ldquo;I'm one as is qualified to give what you may
+call a casting vote,&rdquo; said Tozer, &ldquo;being the oldest deacon in
+Salem, and one as has seen generations coming and going.
+And as for Church and Chapel, I've served 'em both, and seen
+the colour of their money, and there's them as has their obligations
+to me, though we needn't name no names. But this I
+will say, as I'm cured of clever men and them as is thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>
+superior. They ain't to be calculated upon. If any more o'
+them young intellectuals turns up at Carlingford, I'll tell him
+right out, 'You ain't the man for my money.' I'll say to him
+as bold as brass, 'I've been young, and now I'm old, and it's
+my conviction as clever young men ain't the sort for Salem.
+We want them as is steady-going, and them as is consistent;
+good strong opinions, and none o' your charity, that's what we
+wants here.'&rdquo; Now Tozer had loved clever young men in his
+day more well than wisely, as everybody knew, and this deliverance
+carried all the more weight in consequence, and was
+echoed loudly by one general hum of content and applause.</p>
+
+<p>Northcote took this very quietly, but he retired, after he had
+married Ursula, from the office of pastor, for which he was not
+fitted, and from the Liberation Society, and various other
+societies, coming to see that Disestablishment was not a panacea
+for national evils any more than other things. He was in the
+habit of quoting his brother-in-law, Reginald May, as the best
+man he knew; but this did not make him a Churchman; for
+naturally he could not say the same of other members of the
+same class and family. He was shaken out of his strong
+opinions; but it is doubtful how far this was good for him, for
+he was a man of warlike disposition, and not to have something
+which he could go to the stake for&mdash;something which he could
+think the devil's own stronghold to assail, was a drawback to
+him, and cramped his mental development; but he was happy
+in his home with his pretty Ursula, which is probably all the
+reader will care to know. He paid Tozer's hundred and fifty
+pounds. And he made no inquiries, and tried not to ask himself
+what all that strange scene had meant&mdash;and whatever it
+did mean it was over for ever, and nobody asked any further
+questions or made any revelations on the subject. As for Mr.
+May, his mysterious illness went on for some time, the doctors
+never venturing to put any name to it. It was &ldquo;mental shock,&rdquo;
+and perhaps aberration, though he was sane enough to calm
+down after that incomprehensible scene. Mr. Simpson of the
+Bank had a good guess at the secret of the enigma, but even
+Tozer got hazy about it after a while, and though he knew that
+he had done Mr. May a wonderful service, could scarcely have
+told what it was&mdash;and neither, when it was all over, could the
+culprit have told. He got better and worse for about a year,
+and then he died, his strength failing him without any distinct
+reason, no one could tell how. Reginald got the living and
+stepped into his father's place, making a home for the children,
+which sharp Janey rules over, not so softly or steadily as Ursula,
+with a love of theories and experiments not quite consistent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
+with the higher graces of housekeeping, yet with an honest
+meaning through it all. As the times are so unsettled, and no
+one can tell what may become within a year of any old
+foundation, the trustees have requested Reginald to retain his
+chaplaincy at the old College; so that he is in reality a pluralist,
+and almost rich, though they say the hardest-worked man in
+Carlingford. He has his vagaries too, which no man can live
+without, but he is the kindest guardian to his brothers and
+sisters, and bears with Janey's freaks with exemplary gentleness.
+And he has a curate, whom in the course of nature
+Janey will probably marry&mdash;though this has not yet been
+revealed to either party, who have reached only the first stage
+of hating each other up to this time. It is not thought in the
+family that Reginald will ever marry. She was never worthy
+of him, the sisters say; but he thinks differently, as yet at
+least. However he is young, and things may mend.</p>
+
+<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">Top</a></span>
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Phoebe, Junior
+
+Author: Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
+Release Date: April 28, 2009 [EBook #28629]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHOEBE, JUNIOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Delphine Lettau, Marcia Brooks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chronicles of Carlingford
+
+PHOEBE, JUNIOR
+
+MRS OLIPHANT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+   CHAP.                               PAGE
+
+      I. THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS            1
+
+     II. THE LEADING MEMBER               9
+
+    III. MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL           16
+
+     IV. A COUNTRY PARTY                 26
+
+      V. SELF-DEVOTION                   31
+
+     VI. A MORNING CALL                  38
+
+    VII. SHOPPING                        45
+
+   VIII. THE DORSETS                     52
+
+     IX. COMING HOME                     59
+
+      X. PAPA                            67
+
+     XI. PHOEBE'S PREPARATIONS           74
+
+    XII. GRANGE LANE                     81
+
+   XIII. THE TOZER FAMILY                88
+
+    XIV. STRANGERS                       96
+
+     XV. A DOMESTIC CRISIS              104
+
+    XVI. THE NEW GENTLEMAN              113
+
+   XVII. A PUBLIC MEETING               119
+
+  XVIII. MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS              127
+
+    XIX. THE NEW CHAPLAIN               134
+
+     XX. THAT TOZER GIRL!               142
+
+    XXI. A NEW FRIEND                   148
+
+   XXII. A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT          155
+
+  XXIII. TIDED OVER                     164
+
+   XXIV. A VISIT                        169
+
+    XXV. TEA                            177
+
+   XXVI. THE HALL                       185
+
+  XXVII. A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES      192
+
+ XXVIII. THE NEW PUPIL                  200
+
+   XXIX. URSULA'S ENTREES               209
+
+    XXX. SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE       217
+
+   XXXI. SOCIETY                        224
+
+  XXXII. LOVE-MAKING                    230
+
+ XXXIII. A DISCLOSURE                   236
+
+  XXXIV. AN EXTRAVAGANCE                244
+
+   XXXV. THE MILLIONNAIRE               251
+
+  XXXVI. FATHER AND SON                 258
+
+ XXXVII. A PLEASANT EVENING             267
+
+XXXVIII. AN EXPEDITION                  273
+
+  XXXIX. A CATASTROPHE                  281
+
+     XL. THE SINNED-AGAINST             287
+
+    XLI. A MORNING'S WORK               298
+
+   XLII. A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK           307
+
+  XLIII. THE CONFLICT                   312
+
+   XLIV. PHOEBE'S LAST TRIAL            326
+
+    XLV. THE LAST                       336
+
+
+
+
+PHOEBE, JUNIOR.
+
+A Last Chronicle of Carlingford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS.
+
+
+Miss Phoebe Tozer, the only daughter of the chief deacon and leading
+member of the Dissenting connection in Carlingford, married, shortly
+after his appointment to the charge of Salem Chapel, in that town, the
+Reverend Mr. Beecham, one of the most rising young men in the
+denomination. The marriage was in many ways satisfactory to the young
+lady's family, for Mr. Beecham was himself the son of respectable people
+in a good way of business, and not destitute of means; and the position
+was one which they had always felt most suitable for their daughter, and
+to which she had been almost, it may be said, brought up. It is,
+however, scarcely necessary to add that it was not quite so agreeable to
+the other leading members of the congregation. I should be very sorry to
+say that each family wished that preferment for its own favourite
+daughter; for indeed there can be no doubt, as Mrs. Pigeon asserted
+vigorously, that a substantial grocer, whose father before him had
+established an excellent business, and who had paid for his pew in Salem
+as long as any one could recollect, and supported every charity, and
+paid up on all occasions when extra expense was necessary, was in every
+way a more desirable son-in-law than a poor minister who was always
+dependent on pleasing the chapel folks, and might have to turn out any
+day. Notwithstanding, however, the evident superiority of the
+establishment thus attained by Maria Pigeon, there is a certain
+something attached to the position of a clerical caste, even among such
+an independent body as the congregation at Salem Chapel, which has its
+own especial charms, and neither the young people who had been her
+companions nor the old people who had patronized and snubbed her, felt
+any satisfaction in seeing Phoebe thus advanced over them to the honours
+and glories inalienable from the position of minister's wife. All her
+little airs of bridal vanity were considered as so many offensive
+manifestations of delight and exultation in her rise in life. Her
+_trousseau_, though pronounced by all competent judges not half so
+abundant or fine as Maria Pigeon's, still called forth comments which
+nobody ventured to indulge in, in respect to the grocer's blooming
+bride. A grocer's lady has a right to anything her parents can afford;
+but to see a minister's wife swelling herself up, and trying to ape the
+quality, filled the town with virtuous indignation. The sight of young
+Mrs. Beecham walking about with her card-case in her hand, calling on
+the Miss Hemmingses, shaking hands with Mrs. Rider the doctor's wife,
+caused unmitigated disgust throughout all the back streets of
+Carlingford; and "_that_ Phoebe a-sweeping in as if the chapel belonged
+to her," was almost more than the oldest sitter could bear. Phoebe, it
+must be added, felt her elevation to the full, and did not spare her
+congregation. Sometimes she would have the audacity to walk from the
+vestry to the pew, as if she were an office-bearer, instead of coming in
+humbly by the door as became a woman. She would sit still ostentatiously
+until every one had gone, waiting for her husband. She quite led the
+singing, everybody remarked, paying no more attention to the choir than
+if it did not exist; and once she had even paused on her way to her
+seat, and turned down the gas, which was blazing too high, with an air
+of proprietorship that nobody could endure.
+
+"Does Salem belong to them Tozers, I should like to know?" said Mrs.
+Brown. "Brown would never be outdone by him in subscriptions you may be
+sure, nor Mr. Pigeon neither, if the truth was known. I never gave my
+money to build a castle for the Tozers."
+
+Thus the whole congregation expressed itself with more or less
+eloquence, and though the attendance never diminished, everybody being
+too anxious to see "what they would do next," the feeling could not be
+ignored. Phoebe herself, with a courage which developed from the moment
+of her marriage, took the initiative.
+
+"It never answers," she said, solemnly, "to marry one of the flock; I
+knew it, Henery, and I told you so; and if you would be so infatuated,
+and marry me when I told you not, for your own interests--"
+
+"They're all jealous of you, my pet, that's what it is," said Mr.
+Beecham, and laughed. He could bear the annoyance in consideration of
+that sweet consciousness of its cause which stole over all his being.
+Phoebe laughed, too, but not with so delicious a gratification. She felt
+that there were people, even in Salem, who might be jealous of him.
+
+"The end of it all is, we must not stay here," she said. "You must find
+another sphere for your talents, Henery, and I'm sure it will not be
+difficult. If you get put on that deputation that is going down to the
+North, suppose you take a few of your best sermons, dear. That can never
+do any harm--indeed it's sure to do good, to some poor benighted soul at
+least, that perhaps never heard the truth before. And likewise, perhaps,
+to some vacant congregation. I have always heard that chapels in the
+North were very superior to here. A different class of society, and
+better altogether. These Pigeons and Browns, and people are not the sort
+of society for you."
+
+"Well, there's truth in that," said Mr. Beecham, pulling up his
+shirt-collar. "Certainly it isn't the sort of thing one was accustomed
+to." And he lent a serious ear to the suggestion about the sermons. The
+consequence was that an invitation followed from a chapel in the North,
+where indeed Mrs. Phoebe found herself in much finer society, and grew
+rapidly in importance and in ideas. After this favourable start, the
+process went on for many years by which a young man from Homerton was
+then developed into the influential and highly esteemed pastor of an
+important flock. Things may be, and probably are, differently managed
+now-a-days. Mr. Beecham had unbounded fluency and an unctuous manner of
+treating his subjects. It was eloquence of a kind, though not of an
+elevated kind. Never to be at a loss for what you have to say is a
+prodigious advantage to all men in all positions, but doubly so to a
+popular minister. He had an unbounded wealth of phraseology. Sentences
+seemed to melt out of his mouth without any apparent effort, all set in
+a certain cadence. He had not, perhaps, much power of thought, but it is
+easy to make up for such a secondary want when the gift of expression is
+so strong. Mr. Beecham rose, like an actor, from a long and successful
+career in the provinces, to what might be called the Surrey side of
+congregational eminence in London; and from thence attained his final
+apotheosis in a handsome chapel near Regent's Park, built of the whitest
+stone, and cushioned with the reddest damask, where a very large
+congregation sat in great comfort and listened to his sermons with a
+satisfaction no doubt increased by the fact that the cushions were soft
+as their own easy-chairs, and that carpets and hot-water pipes kept
+everything snug under foot.
+
+It was the most comfortable chapel in the whole connection. The seats
+were arranged like those of an amphitheatre, each line on a slightly
+higher level than the one in front of it, so that everybody saw
+everything that was going on. No dimness or mystery was wanted there;
+everything was bright daylight, bright paint, red cushions, comfort and
+respectability. It might not be a place very well adapted for saying
+your prayers in, but then you could say your prayers at home--and it was
+a place admirably adapted for hearing sermons in, which you could not do
+at home; and all the arrangements were such that you could hear in the
+greatest comfort, not to say luxury. I wonder, for my own part, that the
+poor folk about did not seize upon the Crescent Chapel on the cold
+Sunday mornings, and make themselves happy in those warm and ruddy pews.
+It would be a little amusing to speculate what all the well-dressed
+pew-holders would have done had this unexpected answer to the appeal
+which Mr. Beecham believed himself to make every Sunday to the world in
+general, been literally given. It would have been extremely embarrassing
+to the Managing Committee and all the office-bearers, and would have, I
+fear, deeply exasperated and offended the occupants of those family
+pews; but fortunately this difficulty never did occur. The proletariat
+of Marylebone had not the sense or the courage, or the profanity, which
+you will, to hit upon this mode of warming themselves. The real
+congregation embraced none of the unwashed multitude. Its value in mere
+velvet, silk, lace, trinkets, and furs was something amazing, and the
+amount these comfortable people represented in the way of income would
+have amounted to a most princely revenue. The little Salems and
+Bethesdas, with their humble flocks, could not be supposed to belong to
+the same species; and the difference was almost equally marked between
+such a place of worship as the Crescent Chapel and the parish churches,
+which are like the nets in the Gospel, and take in all kinds of fish,
+bad and good. The pew-holders in the Crescent Chapel were universally
+well off; they subscribed liberally to missionary societies, far more
+liberally than the people in St. Paul's close by did to the S. P. G.
+They had everything of the best in the chapel, as they had in their
+houses. They no more economized on their minister than they did on their
+pew-cushions, and they spent an amount of money on their choir which
+made the singing-people at St. Paul's gnash their teeth. From all this
+it will be seen that the atmosphere of the Crescent Chapel was of a
+very distinct and individual kind. It was a warm, luxurious air,
+perfumy, breathing of that refinement which is possible to mere wealth.
+I do not say there might not be true refinement besides, but the surface
+kind, that which you buy from upholsterers and tailors and dressmakers,
+which you procure ready made at schools, and which can only be kept up
+at a very high cost, abounded and pervaded the place. Badly dressed
+people felt themselves out of place in that brilliant sanctuary; a muddy
+footprint upon the thick matting in the passages was looked at as a
+crime. Clean dry feet issuing out of carriage or cab kept the aisles
+unstained, even on the wettest day. We say cab, because many of the
+people who went to the Crescent Chapel objected to take out their own
+carriages or work their own horses on Sunday; and there were many more
+who, though they did not possess carriages, used cabs with a freedom
+incompatible with poverty. As a general rule, they were much better off
+than the people at St. Paul's, more universally prosperous and
+well-to-do. And they were at the same time what you might safely call
+well-informed people--people who read the newspapers, and sometimes the
+magazines, and knew what was going on. The men were almost all liberal
+in politics, and believed in Mr. Gladstone with enthusiasm; the women
+often "took an interest" in public movements, especially of a charitable
+character. There was less mental stagnation among them probably than
+among many of their neighbours. Their life was not profound nor high,
+but still it was life after a sort. Such was the flock which had invited
+Mr. Beecham to become their pastor when he reached the climax of his
+career. They gave him a very good salary, enough to enable him to have a
+handsome house in one of the terraces overlooking Regent's Park. It is
+not a fashionable quarter, but it is not to be despised in any way. The
+rooms were good-sized and lofty, and sometimes have been known to
+suffice for very fine people indeed, a fact which the Beechams were well
+aware of; and they were not above the amiable weakness of making it
+known that their house was in a line with that of Lady Cecilia Burleigh.
+This single fact of itself might suffice to mark the incalculable
+distance between the Reverend Mr. Beecham of the Crescent Chapel, and
+the young man who began life as minister of Salem in Carlingford. And
+the development outside was not less remarkable than the development
+within.
+
+It is astonishing how our prejudices change from youth to middle age,
+even without any remarkable interposition of fortune; I do not say
+dissipate, or even dispel, which is much more doubtful--but they
+change. When Mr. and Mrs. Beecham commenced life, they had both the
+warmest feeling of opposition to the Church and everything churchy. All
+the circumstances of their lives had encouraged this feeling. The
+dislike of the little for the great, the instinctive opposition of a
+lower class towards the higher, intensified that natural essence of
+separatism, that determination to be wiser than one's neighbour, which
+in the common mind lies at the bottom of all dissent. In saying this we
+no more accuse Dissenters in religion than Dissenters in politics, or in
+art, or in criticism. The first dissenter in most cases is an original
+thinker, to whom his enforced departure from the ways of his fathers is
+misery and pain. Generally he has a hard struggle with himself before he
+can give up, for the superlative truth which has taken possession of
+him, all the habits, the pious traditions of his life. He is the real
+Nonconformist--half martyr, half victim, of his convictions. But that
+Nonconformity which has come to be the faith in which a large number of
+people are trained is a totally different business, and affects a very
+different kind of sentiments. Personal and independent conviction has no
+more to do with it than it has to do with the ardour of a Breton peasant
+trained in deepest zeal of Romanism, or the unbounded certainty of any
+other traditionary believer. For this reason we may be allowed to
+discuss the changes of feeling which manifested themselves in Mr. and
+Mrs. Beecham without anything disrespectful to Nonconformity. Not being
+persons of original mind, they were what their training and
+circumstances, and a flood of natural influences, made them. They began
+life, feeling themselves to be of a hopelessly low social caste, and
+believing themselves to be superior to their superiors in that
+enlightenment which they had been brought up to believe distinguished
+the connection. The first thing which opened their minds to a dawning
+doubt whether their enlightenment was, in reality, so much greater than
+that of their neighbours, was the social change worked in their position
+by their removal from Carlingford. In the great towns of the North,
+Dissent attains its highest social elevation, and Chapel people are no
+longer to be distinguished from Church people except by the fact that
+they go to Chapel instead of Church, a definition so simple as to be
+quite overwhelming to the unprepared dissenting intelligence, brought up
+in a little Tory borough, still holding for Church and Queen. The
+amazing difference which this made in the sentiments of Mrs. Phoebe
+Beecham, _nee_ Tozer, it is quite impossible to describe. Her sudden
+introduction to "circles" which Mrs. Pigeon had never entered, and to
+houses at the area-door of which Mr. Brown, the dairyman, would have
+humbly waited, would have turned the young woman's head, had she not
+felt the overpowering necessity of keeping that organ as steady as
+possible, to help her to hold her position in the new world. Phoebe was a
+girl of spirit, and though her head went round and round, and everything
+felt confused about her, she did manage desperately to hold her own and
+to avoid committing herself; but I cannot attempt to tell how much her
+social elevation modified her sectarian zeal. Phoebe was only a woman, so
+that I am free to assign such motives as having a serious power over
+her. Let us hope Mr. Beecham, being a man and a pastor, was moved in a
+more lofty, intellectual, and spiritual way.
+
+But however that may be, the pair went conjugally together in this
+modification of sentiment, and by the time they reached the lofty
+eminence of the Crescent Chapel, were as liberal-minded Nonconformists
+as heart could desire. Mr. Beecham indeed had many friends in the Low,
+and even some in the Broad Church. He appeared on platforms, to promote
+various public movements, along with clergymen of the Church. He spoke
+of "our brethren within the pale of the Establishment" always with
+respect, sometimes even with enthusiasm. "Depend upon it, my dear Sir,"
+he would even say sometimes to a liberal brother, "the Establishment is
+not such an unmitigated evil as some people consider it. What should we
+do in country parishes where the people are not awakened? They do the
+dirty work for us, my dear brother--the dirty work." These sentiments
+were shared, but perhaps not warmly, by Mr. Beecham's congregation, some
+of whom were hot Voluntaries, and gave their ministers a little trouble.
+But the most part took their Nonconformity very quietly, and were
+satisfied to know that their chapel was the first in the connection, and
+their minister justly esteemed as one of the most eloquent. The
+Liberation Society held one meeting at the Crescent Chapel, but it was
+not considered a great success. At the best, they were no more than
+lukewarm Crescent-Chapelites, not political dissenters. Both minister
+and people were Liberal, that was the creed they professed. Some of the
+congregations Citywards, and the smaller chapels about Hampstead and
+Islington, used the word Latitudinarian instead; but that, as the
+Crescent Chapel people said, was a word always applied by the bigoted
+and ignorant to those who held in high regard the doctrines of Christian
+charity. They were indeed somewhat proud of their tolerance, their
+impartiality, their freedom from old prejudices. "That sort of thing
+will not do now-a-days," said Mr. Copperhead, who was a great railway
+contractor and one of the deacons, and who had himself a son at Oxford.
+If there had been any bigotry in the Crescent, Mr. Copperhead would have
+had little difficulty in transferring himself over the way to St. Paul's
+Church, and it is astonishing what an effect that fact had upon the mind
+of Mr. Beecham's flock.
+
+Mr. Beecham's house was situated in Regent's Park, and was constructed
+on the ordinary model of such houses. On the ground-floor was a handsome
+dining-room, a room which both Mr. and Mrs. Beecham twenty years before
+would have considered splendid, but which now they condescended to, as
+not so large as they could wish, but still comfortable. The drawing-room
+above was larger, a bright and pleasant room, furnished with
+considerable "taste." Behind the dining-room, a smaller room was Mr.
+Beecham's study, or the library, as it was sometimes called. It was
+lined with book-cases containing a very fair collection of books, and
+ornamented with portraits (chiefly engravings) of celebrated ministers
+and laymen in the connection, with a bust of Mr. Copperhead over the
+mantelpiece. This bust had been done by a young sculptor whom he
+patronized, for the great man's own house. When it was nearly completed,
+however, a flaw was found in the marble, which somewhat detracted from
+its perfection. The flaw was in the shoulder of the image, and by no
+means serious; but Mr. Copperhead was not the man to pass over any such
+defect. After a long and serious consultation over it, which made the
+young artist shake in his shoes, a solution was found for the
+difficulty.
+
+"Tell you what, Sir," said Mr. Copperhead; "I'll give it to the
+minister. It'll look famous in his little study. Works of art don't
+often come his way; and you'll get a block of the best, Mr.
+Chipstone--the very best, Sir, no expense spared--and begin another for
+me."
+
+This arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to all parties, though I
+will not say that it was not instrumental in bringing about certain
+other combinations which will be fully discussed in this history. The
+Beechams were mightily surprised when the huge marble head, almost as
+large as a Jupiter, though perhaps not otherwise so imposing, arrived at
+the Terrace; but they were also gratified.
+
+"It is quite like receiving us into his own family circle," Mrs. Beecham
+said with a glance at her daughter, Phoebe, junior, who, with all her
+pink fingers outspread, was standing in adoration before that image of
+wealth and fabulous luxury.
+
+"What a grand head it is!" cried the young enthusiast, gazing rapt upon
+the complacent marble whisker so delightfully curled and bristling with
+realistic force.
+
+"It looks well, I must say, it looks well," said Mr. Beecham himself,
+rubbing his hands, "to receive such a token of respect from the leading
+member of the flock." And certainly no more perfect representation of a
+bell-wether ever adorned any shepherd's sanctuary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE LEADING MEMBER.
+
+
+Mr. Copperhead, to whom so much allusion has been made, was a well-known
+man in other regions besides that of the Crescent Chapel. His name,
+indeed, may be said to have gone to the ends of the earth, from whence
+he had conducted lines of railway, and where he had left docks, bridges,
+and light-houses to make him illustrious. He was one of the greatest
+contractors for railways and other public works in England, and, by
+consequence, in the world. He had no more than a very ordinary
+education, and no manners to speak of; but at the same time he had that
+kind of faculty which is in practical work what genius is in literature,
+and, indeed, in its kind is genius too, though it neither refines nor
+even (oddly enough) enlarges the mind to which it belongs. He saw the
+right track for a road through a country with a glance of his eye; he
+mastered all the points of nature which were opposed to him in the
+rapidest survey, though scientifically he was great in no branch of
+knowledge. He could rule his men as easily as if they were so many
+children; and, indeed, they were children in his hands. All these gifts
+made it apparent that he must have been a remarkable and able man; but
+no stranger would have guessed as much from his appearance or his talk.
+There were people, indeed, who knew him well, and who remained
+incredulous and bewildered, trying to persuade themselves that his
+success must be owing to pure luck, for that he had nothing else to
+secure it. The cause of this, perhaps, was that he knew nothing about
+books, and was one of those jeering cynics who are so common under one
+guise or another. Fine cynics are endurable, and give a certain zest
+often to society, which might become too civil without them; but your
+coarse cynic is not pleasant. Mr. Copperhead's eye was as effectual in
+quenching emotion of any but the coarsest kind as water is against
+fire. People might be angry in his presence--it was the only passion he
+comprehended; but tenderness, sympathy, sorrow, all the more generous
+sentiments, fled and concealed themselves when this large, rich, costly
+man came by. People who were brought much in contact with him became
+ashamed of having any feelings at all; his eye upon them seemed to
+convict them of humbug. Those eyes were very light grey, prominent, with
+a jeer in them which was a very powerful moral instrument. His own
+belief was that he could "spot" humbug wherever he saw it, and that
+nothing could escape him; and, I suppose, so much humbug is there in
+this world that his belief was justified. But there are few more awful
+people than those ignoble spectators whose jeer arrests the moisture in
+the eye, and strangles the outcry on their neighbour's lip.
+
+Mr. Copperhead had risen from the ranks; yet not altogether from the
+ranks. His father before him had been a contractor, dealing chiefly with
+canals and roads, and the old kind of public works; a very rough
+personage indeed, but one to whose fingers gold had stuck, perhaps
+because of the clay with which they were always more or less smeared.
+This ancestor had made a beginning to the family, and given his son a
+name to start with. _Our_ Mr. Copperhead had married young, and had
+several sons, who were all in business, and all doing well; less
+vigorous, but still moderately successful copies of their father. When,
+however, he had thus done his duty to the State, the first Mrs.
+Copperhead having died, he did the only incomprehensible action of his
+life--he married a second time, a feeble, pretty, pink-and-white little
+woman, who had been his daughter's governess; married her without rhyme
+or reason, as all his friends and connections said. The only feasible
+motive for this second union seemed to be a desire on Mr. Copperhead's
+part to have something belonging to him which he could always jeer at,
+and in this way the match was highly successful. Mrs. Copperhead the
+second was gushing and susceptible, and as good a butt as could be
+imagined. She kept him in practice when nobody else was at hand. She was
+one of those naturally refined but less than half-educated, timid
+creatures who are to be found now and then painfully earning the bread
+which is very bitter to them in richer people's houses, and preserving
+in their little silent souls some fetish in the shape of a scrap of
+gentility, which is their sole comfort, or almost their sole comfort.
+Mrs. Copperhead's fetish was the dear recollection that she was "an
+officer's daughter;" or rather this had been her fetish in the days when
+she had nothing, and was free to plume herself on the reflected glory.
+Whether in the depths of her luxurious abode, at the height of her good
+fortune, she still found comfort in the thought, it would be hard to
+tell. Everybody who had known her in her youth thought her the most
+fortunate of women. Her old school companions told her story for the
+encouragement of their daughters, as they might have told a fairy tale.
+To see her rolling in her gorgeous carriage, or bowed out of a shop
+where all the daintiest devices of fashion had been placed at her feet,
+filled passers-by with awe and envy. She could buy whatever she liked,
+festoon herself with finery, surround herself with the costliest
+knick-knacks; the more there were of them, and the costlier they were,
+the better was Mr. Copperhead pleased. She had everything that heart
+could desire. Poor little woman! What a change from the
+governess-chrysalis who was snubbed by her pupil and neglected by
+everybody! and yet I am not sure that she did not--so inconsistent is
+human nature--look back to those melancholy days with a sigh.
+
+This lady was the mother of Clarence Copperhead, the young man who was
+at Oxford, her only child, upon whom (of course) she doted with the
+fondest folly; and whom his father jeered at more than at any one else
+in the world, more even than at his mother, yet was prouder of than of
+all his other sons and all his possessions put together. Clarence, whom
+I will not describe, as he will, I trust, show himself more effectually
+by his actions, was like his mother in disposition, or so, at least, she
+made herself happy by thinking; but by some freak of nature he was like
+his father in person, and carried his mouse's heart in a huge frame,
+somewhat hulking and heavy-shouldered, with the same roll which
+distinguished Mr. Copperhead, and which betrayed something of the
+original navvy who was the root of the race. He had his father's large
+face too, and a tendency towards those demonstrative and offensive
+whiskers which are the special inheritance of the British Philistine.
+But instead of the large goggle eyes, always jeering and impudent, which
+lighted up the paternal countenance, Clarence had a pair of mild brown
+orbs, repeated from his mother's faded face, which introduced the oddest
+discord into his physiognomy generally. In the family, that is to say
+among the step-brothers and step-sisters who formed Mr. Copperhead's
+first family, the young fellow bore no other name than that of the
+curled darling, though, indeed, he was as far from being curled as any
+one could be. He was not clever; he had none of the energy of his race,
+and promised to be as useless in an office as he would have been in a
+cutting or a yard full of men. I am not sure that this fact did not
+increase secretly his father's exultation and pride in him. Mr.
+Copperhead was fond of costly and useless things; he liked them for
+their cost, with an additional zest in his sense of the huge vulgar use
+and profit of most things in his own life. This tendency, more than any
+appreciation of the beautiful, made him what is called a patron of art.
+It swelled his personal importance to think that he was able to hang up
+thousands of pounds, so to speak, on his walls, knowing all the time
+that he could make thousands more by the money had he invested it in
+more useful ways. The very fact that he could afford to refrain from
+investing it, that he could let it lie there useless, hanging by so many
+cords and ribbons, was sweet to him. And so also it was sweet to him to
+possess a perfectly useless specimen of humanity, which had cost him a
+great deal, and promised to cost him still more. He had plenty of useful
+sons as he had of useful money. The one who was of no use was the apex
+and glory of the whole.
+
+But these three made up a strange enough family party, as may be
+supposed. The original Copperheads, the first family, who were all of
+the same class and nature, would have made a much noisier, less
+peaceable household; but they would have been a much jollier and really
+more harmonious one. Mr. Copperhead himself somewhat despised his elder
+sons, who were like himself, only less rich, less vigorous, and less
+self-assertive. He saw, oddly enough, the coarseness of their manners,
+and even of their ways of thinking; but yet he was a great deal more
+comfortable, more at his ease among them, than he was when seated
+opposite his trembling, deprecating, frightened little wife, or that
+huge youth who cost him so much and returned him so little. Now and
+then, at regular periodical intervals, the head of the family would go
+down to Blackheath to dine and spend the night with his son Joe, the
+second and the favourite, where there were romping children and a
+portly, rosy young matron, and loud talk about City dinners, contracts,
+and estimates. This refreshed him, and he came home with many chuckles
+over the imperfections of the family.
+
+"My sons buy their wives by the hundred-weight," he would say jocularly
+at breakfast the day after; "thirteen stone if she is a pound, is Mrs.
+Joe. Expensive to keep up in velvet and satin, not to speak of mutton
+and beef. Your mother comes cheap," he would add aside to Clarence, with
+a rolling laugh. Thus he did not in the least exempt his descendants
+from the universal ridicule which he poured on all the world; but when
+he sat down opposite his timid little delicate wife, and by his
+University man, who had very little on the whole to say for himself,
+Mr. Copperhead felt the increase in gentility as well as the failure in
+jollity. "You are a couple of ghosts after Joe and his belongings, you
+two. Speak louder, I say, young fellow. You don't expect me to hear that
+penny-whistle of yours," he would say, chuckling at them, with a mixture
+of pride and disdain. They amused him by their dulness and silence, and
+personal awe of him. He was quite out of his element between these two,
+and yet the very fact pleasantly excited his pride.
+
+"I speak as gentlemen generally speak," said Clarence, who was sometimes
+sullen when attacked, and who knew by experience that his father was
+rarely offended by such an argument.
+
+"And I am sure, dear, your papa would never wish you to do otherwise,"
+said anxious Mrs. Copperhead, casting a furtive frightened glance at her
+husband. He rolled out a mighty laugh from the head of the table where
+he was sitting. He contemplated them with a leer that would have been
+insulting, had he not been the husband of one and the father of the
+other. The laugh and the look called forth some colour on Mrs.
+Copperhead's cheek, well as she was used to them; but her son was less
+susceptible, and ate his breakfast steadily, and did not care.
+
+"A pretty pair you are," said Mr. Copperhead. "I like your gentility.
+How much _foie gras_ would you eat for breakfast, I wonder, my lad, if
+you had to work for it? Luckily for you, I wasn't brought up to talk, as
+you say, like a gentleman. I'd like to see you managing a field of
+navvies with that nice little voice of yours--ay, or a mob before the
+hustings, my boy. You're good for nothing, you are; a nice delicate
+piece of china for a cupboard, like your mother before you. However,
+thank Heaven, we've got the cupboard," he said with a laugh, looking
+round him; "a nice big 'un, too, well painted and gilded; and the time
+has come, through not talking like a gentleman, that I can afford you.
+You should hear Joe. When that fellow talks, his house shakes.
+Confounded bad style of house, walls like gingerbread. How the boards
+don't break like pie-crust under Mrs. Joe's fairy foot, I can't make
+out. By Jove, ma'am, one would think I starved you, to see you beside
+your daughter-in-law. Always had a fine healthy appetite had Mrs. Joe."
+
+There was nothing to answer to this speech, and therefore a dead silence
+ensued. When the master of the house is so distinctly the master,
+silence is apt to ensue after his remarks. Mrs. Copperhead sipped her
+tea, and Clarence worked steadily through his breakfast, and the head of
+the family crumpled the Times, which he read at intervals. All sorts of
+jokes had gone on at Joe's table the morning before, and there had been
+peals of laughter, and Mrs. Joe had even administered a slap upon her
+husband's ruddy cheek for some pleasantry or other. Mr. Copperhead, as
+he looked at his son and his wife, chuckled behind the Times. When they
+thought he was occupied they made a few gentle remarks to each other.
+They had soft voices, with that indescribable resemblance in tone which
+so often exists between mother and son. Dresden china; yes, that was the
+word; and to see his own resemblance made in that delicate _pate_, and
+elevated into that region of superlative costliness, tickled Mr.
+Copperhead, and in the most delightful way.
+
+"How about your ball?" was his next question, "or Clarence's ball, as
+you don't seem to take much interest in it, ma'am? You are afraid of
+being brought in contact with the iron pots, eh? You might crack or go
+to pieces, who knows, and what would become of me, a wretched widower."
+Mr. Copperhead himself laughed loudly at this joke, which did not excite
+any mirth from the others, and then he repeated his question, "How about
+the ball?"
+
+"The invitations are all sent out, Mr. Copperhead; ninety-five--I--I
+mean a hundred and thirty-five. I--I beg your pardon, they were in two
+lots," answered the poor woman nervously. "A hundred and
+thirty-eight--and there is--a few more--"
+
+"Take your time, ma'am, take your time, we'll get at the truth at last,"
+said her husband; and he laid down his paper and looked at her. He was
+not angry nor impatient. The twinkle in his eye was purely humorous. Her
+stumblings amused him, and her nervousness. But oddly enough, the most
+furious impatience could not have more deeply disconcerted her.
+
+"There are a few more--some old friends of mine," she went on, confused.
+"They were once rather--kind--took an interest; that is--"
+
+"Oh, the baronet and his daughters," said Mr. Copperhead, "by all means
+let's have the baronet and his daughters. Though as for their taking an
+interest--if you had not been a rich man's wife, ma'am, living in a
+grand house in Portland Place--"
+
+"It was not now," she said, hurriedly. "I do not suppose that any one
+takes an interest--in me now--"
+
+Mr. Copperhead laughed, and nodded his head. "Not many, ma'am, I should
+think--not many. You women must make up your minds to that. It's all
+very well to take an interest in a pretty girl; but when you come to a
+certain age--Well, let's proceed, the baronet--"
+
+"And his two girls--"
+
+"Ah, there's two girls! that's for you, Clarence, my boy. I thought
+there must be a motive. Think that fellow a good _parti_, eh? And I
+would not say they were far wrong if he behaves himself. Make a note of
+the baronet's daughter, young man. Lord, what a world it is!" said Mr.
+Copperhead, reflectively. "I should not wonder if you had been scheming,
+too."
+
+"I would not for the world!" cried the poor little woman, roused for
+once. "I would not for anything interfere with a marriage. That is the
+last thing you need fear from me. Whether it was a girl I was fond of,
+or a girl I disliked--so long as she was Clarence's choice. Oh, I know
+the harm that is done by other people's meddling--nothing, nothing,
+would induce me to interfere."
+
+Mr. Copperhead laid down his paper, and looked at her. I suppose,
+however little a man may care for his wife, he does not relish the idea
+that she married him for anything but love. He contemplated her still
+with amused ridicule, but with something fiercer in his eyes. "Oh--h!"
+he said, "you don't like other people to interfere? not so much as to
+say, it's a capital match, eh? You'll get so and so, and so and so, that
+you couldn't have otherwise--carriages perhaps, and plenty of money in
+your pocket (which it may be you never had in your life before), and
+consideration, and one of the finest houses in London, let us say in
+Portland Place. You don't like that amount of good advice, eh? Well, I
+do--I mean to interfere with my son, to that extent at least--you can do
+what you like. But as you're a person of prodigious influence, and
+strong will, and a great deal of character, and all that," Mr.
+Copperhead broke out with a rude laugh, "I'm afraid of you, I am--quite
+afraid."
+
+Fortunately, just at this moment his brougham came round, and the great
+man finished his coffee at a gulp, and got up. "You look out for the
+baronet's daughters, then--" he said, "and see all's ready for this ball
+of yours; while I go and work to pay the bills, that's my share. You do
+the ornamental, and I do the useful, ha, ha! I'll keep up my share."
+
+It was astonishing what a difference came upon the room the moment he
+disappeared. Somehow it had been out of harmony. His voice, his look,
+his heavy person, even his whiskers had been out of character. Now the
+air seemed to flutter after the closing of the door like water into
+which something offensive has sunk, and when the ripples of movement
+were over the large handsome room had toned down into perfect accord
+with its remaining inhabitants. Mrs. Copperhead's eyes were rather
+red--not with tears, but with the inclination to shed tears, which she
+carefully restrained in her son's presence. He still continued to eat
+steadily--he had an admirable appetite. But when he had finished
+everything on his plate, he looked up and said, "I hope you don't mind,
+mamma; I don't suppose you do; but I don't like the way my father speaks
+to you."
+
+"Oh, my dear!" cried the mother, with an affected little smile, "why
+should I mind? I ought to know by this time that it's only your papa's
+way."
+
+"I suppose so--but I don't like it," said the young man, decisively. He
+did not notice, however, as after second thoughts he returned to the
+game-pie, that his mother's eyes were redder than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL.
+
+
+This ball was an event, not only in Mr. Copperhead's household, but even
+in the connection itself, to which the idea of balls, as given by
+leading members of the flock, was somewhat novel. Not that the young
+people were debarred from that amusement, but it was generally attained
+in a more or less accidental manner, and few professing Christians
+connected with the management of the chapel had gone the length of
+giving such an entertainment openly and with design. Mr. Copperhead,
+however, was in a position to triumph over all such prejudices. He was
+so rich that any community would have felt it ought to extend a certain
+measure of indulgence to such a man. Very wealthy persons are like
+spoilt children, their caprices are allowed to be natural, and even when
+we are angry with them we excuse the vagaries to which money has a
+right. This feeling of indulgence goes a very great way, especially
+among the classes engaged in money-making, who generally recognize a
+man's right to spend, and feel the sweetness of spending more acutely
+than the hereditary possessors of wealth. I do not believe that his
+superior knowledge of the best ways of using money profitably ever
+hinders a money-making man from lavish expenditure; but it gives him a
+double zest in spending, and it makes him, generally, charitable towards
+the extravagances of persons still richer than himself. A ball, there
+was no doubt, was a worldly-minded entertainment, but still, the chapel
+reflected, it is almost impossible not to be a little worldly-minded
+when you possess such a great share of the world's goods, and that, of
+course, it could not be for himself that Mr. Copperhead was doing this,
+but for his son. His son, these amiable casuists proceeded, was being
+brought up to fill a great position, and no doubt society did exact
+something, and as Mr. Copperhead had asked all the chief chapel people,
+his ball was looked upon with very indulgent eyes. The fact that the
+minister and his family were going staggered some of the more particular
+members a little, but Mr. Beecham took high ground on the subject and
+silenced the flock. "The fact that a minister of religion is one of the
+first persons invited, is sufficient proof of the way our friend means
+to manage everything," said the pastor. "Depend upon it, it would be
+good for the social relations of the country if your pastors and
+teachers were always present. It gives at once a character to all the
+proceedings." This, like every other lofty assertion, stilled the
+multitude. Some of the elder ladies, indeed, groaned to hear, even at
+the prayer-meetings, a whisper between the girls about this ball and
+what they were going to wear; but still it was Christmas, and all the
+newspapers, and a good deal of the light literature which is especially
+current at that season, persistently represented all the world as in a
+state of imbecile joviality, and thus, for the moment, every objection
+was put down.
+
+To nobody, however, was the question, what to wear, more interesting
+than to Phoebe, junior, who was a very well-instructed young woman, and
+even on the point of dress had theories of her own. Phoebe had, as her
+parents were happy to think, had every advantage in her education. She
+had possessed a German governess all to herself, by which means, even
+Mr. Beecham himself supposed, a certain amount of that philosophy which
+Germans communicate by their very touch must have got into her, besides
+her music and the language which was her primary study. And she had
+attended lectures at the ladies' college close by, and heard a great
+many eminent men on a great many different subjects. She had read, too,
+a great deal. She was very well got up in the subject of education for
+women, and lamented often and pathetically the difficulty they lay under
+of acquiring the highest instruction; but at the same time she
+patronized Mr. Ruskin's theory that dancing, drawing, and cooking were
+three of the higher arts which ought to be studied by girls. It is not
+necessary for me to account for the discrepancies between those two
+systems, in the first place because I cannot, and in the second place,
+because there is in the mind of the age some ineffable way of
+harmonizing them which makes their conjunction common. Phoebe was
+restrained from carrying out either to its full extent. She was not
+allowed to go in for the Cambridge examinations because Mr. Beecham felt
+the connection might think it strange to see his daughter's name in the
+papers, and, probably, would imagine he meant to make a schoolmistress
+of her, which he thanked Providence he had no need to do. And she was
+not allowed to educate herself in the department of cooking, to which
+Mrs. Beecham objected, saying likewise, thank Heaven, they had no need
+of such messings; that she did not wish her daughter to make a slave of
+herself, and that Cook would not put up with it. Between these two
+limits Phoebe's noble ambition was confined, which was a "trial" to her.
+But she did what she could, bating neither heart nor hope. She read
+Virgil at least, if not Sophocles, and she danced and dressed though she
+was not allowed to cook.
+
+As she took the matter in this serious way, it will be understood that
+the question of dress was not a mere frivolity with her. A week before
+the ball she stood in front of the large glass in her mother's room,
+contemplating herself, not with that satisfaction which it is generally
+supposed a pretty young woman has in contemplating her own image. She
+was decidedly a pretty young woman. She had a great deal of the hair of
+the period, nature in her case, as (curiously, yet very truly) in so
+many others, having lent herself to the prevailing fashion. How it comes
+about I cannot tell, but it is certain that there does exist at this
+present moment, a proportion of golden-haired girls which very much
+exceeds the number we used to see when golden hair had not become
+fashionable--a freak of nature which is altogether independent of dyes
+and auriferous fluid, and which probably has influenced fashion
+unawares. To be sure the pomades of twenty years ago are, Heaven be
+praised! unknown to this generation, and washing also has become the
+fashion, which accounts for something. Anyhow, Phoebe, junior, possessed
+in perfection the hair of the period. She had, too, the complexion which
+goes naturally with those sunny locks--a warm pink and white, which, had
+the boundaries between the pink and the white been a little more
+distinct, would have approached perfection too. This was what she was
+thinking when she looked at herself in her mother's great glass. Mrs.
+Beecham stood behind her, more full-blown and more highly-coloured than
+she, but very evidently the rose to which this bud would come in time.
+Phoebe looked at her own reflection, and then at her mother's, and sighed
+such a profound sigh as only lungs in the most excellent condition could
+produce.
+
+"Mamma," she said, with an accent of despair, "I am too pink, a great
+deal too pink! What am I to do?"
+
+"Nonsense, my pet," said Mrs. Beecham; "you have a lovely complexion;"
+and she threw a quantity of green ribbons which lay by over her child's
+hair and shoulders. A cloud crossed the blooming countenance of Phoebe,
+junior. She disembarrassed herself of the ribbons with another sigh.
+
+"Dear mamma," she said, "I wish you would let me read with you now and
+then, about the theory of colours, for instance. Green is the
+complementary of red. If you want to bring out my pink and make it more
+conspicuous than ever, of course you will put me in a green dress. No,
+mamma, dear, not that--I should look a fright; and though I dare say it
+does not matter much, I object to looking a fright. Women are, I
+suppose, more ornamental than men, or, at least, everybody says so; and
+in that case it is our duty to keep it up."
+
+"You are a funny girl, with your theories of colour," said Mrs. Beecham.
+"In my time, fair girls wore greens and blues, and dark girls wore reds
+and yellows. It was quite simple. Have a white tarlatan, then; every
+girl looks well in that."
+
+"You don't see, mamma," said Phoebe, softly, suppressing in the most
+admirable manner the delicate trouble of not being understood, "that a
+thing every girl looks well in, is just the sort of thing that no one
+looks _very_ well in. White shows no invention. It is as if one took no
+trouble about one's dress."
+
+"And neither one ought, Phoebe," said her mother. "That is very true. It
+is sinful to waste time thinking of colours and ribbons, when we might
+be occupied about much more important matters."
+
+"That is not my opinion at all," said Phoebe. "I should like people to
+think I had taken a great deal of trouble. Think of all the trouble that
+has to be taken to get up this ball!"
+
+"I fear so, indeed; and a great deal of expense," said Mrs. Beecham,
+shaking her head. "Yes, when one comes to think of that. But then, you
+see, wealth has its duties. I don't defend Mr. Copperhead--"
+
+"I don't think he wants to be defended, mamma. I think it is all
+nonsense about wasting time. What I incline to, if you won't be shocked,
+is black."
+
+"Black!" The suggestion took away Mrs. Beecham's breath. "As if you were
+fifty! Why, I don't consider myself old enough for black."
+
+"It is a pity," said Phoebe, with a glance at her mother's full colours;
+but that was really of so much less importance. "Black would throw me
+up," she added seriously, turning to the glass. "It would take off this
+pink look. I don't mind it in the cheeks, but I am pink all over; my
+white is pink. Black would be a great deal the best for both of us. It
+would tone us down," said Phoebe, decisively, "and it would throw us up."
+
+"But for you, a girl under twenty, my dear--"
+
+"Mamma, what does it matter? The question is, am I to look my best?
+which I think is my duty to you and to Providence; or am I just," said
+Phoebe, with indignation, "to look a little insipidity--a creature with
+no character--a little girl like everybody else?"
+
+The consequence of this solemn appeal was that both the Phoebes went to
+Mr. Copperhead's ball in black; the elder in velvet, with Honiton lace
+(point, which Phoebe, with her artistic instincts, would have much
+preferred, being unattainable); the younger in tulle, flounced to
+distraction, and largely relieved with blue. And the consequence of this
+toilette, and of the fact that Phoebe did her duty by her parents and by
+Providence, and looked her very best, was that Clarence Copperhead fell
+a hopeless victim to her fascinations, and scarcely could be induced to
+leave her side all night. The ball was about as remarkable a ball as
+could have been seen in London. The son of the house had contemplated
+with absolute despair the list of invitations. He had deprecated the
+entertainment altogether. He had said, "We know nobody," with a
+despairing impertinence which called forth one of his father's roars of
+laughter. And though Mr. Copperhead had done all he could to assume the
+position of that typical Paterfamilias who is condemned to pay for those
+pleasures of his family which are no pleasure to him, yet common-sense
+was too much for him, and everybody felt that he was in reality the
+giver and enjoyer of the entertainment. It was Mr., not Mrs.
+Copperhead's ball. It was the first of the kind which had ever taken
+place in his house; the beginning of a new chapter in his social
+existence. Up to this moment he had not shown any signs of being smitten
+with that craze for "Society," which so often and so sorely affects the
+millionnaire. He had contented himself hitherto with heavy and showy
+dinners, costing Heaven knows how much a head (Mr. Copperhead knew, and
+swelled visibly in pride and pleasure as the cost increased), which he
+consumed in company with twenty people or so of kindred tastes to
+himself, who appreciated the cost and understood his feelings. On such
+people, however, his Dresden china was thrown away. Joe and Mrs. Joe
+were much more in their way than the elegant University man and the
+well-bred mother, who was "a poor little dowdy," they all said.
+Therefore the fact had been forced upon Mr. Copperhead that his circle
+must be widened and advanced, if his crowning glories were to be
+appreciated as they deserved.
+
+The hunger of wealth for that something above wealth which the
+bewildered rich man only discovers the existence of when he has
+struggled to the highest pinnacle of advancement in his own way, began
+to seize this wealthy neophyte. To be sure, in this first essay, the
+company which he assembled in his fine rooms in Portland Place, to see
+all his fine things and celebrate his glory, was not a fine company, but
+they afforded more gratification to Mr. Copperhead than if they had been
+ever so fine. They were people of his own class, his old friends,
+invited to be dazzled, though standing out to the utmost of their power,
+and refusing, so far as in them lay, to admit how much dazzled they
+were. It was a more reasonable sort of vanity than the commoner kind,
+which aims at displaying its riches to great personages, people who are
+not dazzled by any extent of grandeur, and in whose bosoms no jealousy
+is excited towards the giver of the feast. Mr. Copperhead's friends had
+much more lively feelings; they walked about through the great rooms,
+with their wives on their arms, in a state of semi-defiance, expressing
+no admiration, saying to each other, "This must have cost Copperhead a
+pretty penny," as they met in doorways; while the ladies put their
+flowery and jewelled heads together and whispered, "Did you ever see
+such extravagance? And what a dowdy _she_ is with it all!" This was the
+under-current of sentiment which flowed strong in all the passages, and
+down the rapids of the great staircase; a stream of vigorous human
+feeling, the existence of which was as deeply gratifying to the
+entertainer as the sweetest flattery. The lord and the ladies who might
+have been tempted to his great house would not have had a thought to
+spare for Mr. Copperhead; but the unwilling applause of his own class
+afforded him a true triumph.
+
+Amid this throng of people, however, there could be little doubt that
+the one young lady who attracted his son was the least eligible person
+there, being no other than Phoebe Beecham, the pastor's daughter. Almost
+the only other utterly ineligible girl was a pale little maiden who
+accompanied Sir Robert Dorset and his daughters, and who was supposed to
+be either their governess or their humble companion. The Dorsets were
+the only people who had any pretensions to belong to "society," in all
+those crowded rooms. They were distantly related to Mrs. Copperhead,
+and had been, she gratefully thought, kind to her in her youth, and
+they had no particular objection to be kind to her now that she was
+rich, though the Baronet, as Mr. Copperhead always called him, winced at
+so rampant a specimen of wealth, and "the girls" did not see what good
+it was to keep up relations with a distant cousin, who though so
+prodigiously rich was of no possible use, and could neither make parties
+for them, nor chaperon them to the houses of the great. When they had
+received her present invitation, they had accepted it with surprise and
+hesitation. Chance only had brought them to London at that time of the
+year, the most curious time surely to choose for a ball, but convenient
+enough as affording a little amusement at a season when little amusement
+was ordinarily to be had. Sir Robert had consented to go, as a man with
+no occupation elsewhere might consent to go to the Cannibal Islands, to
+see how the savages comported themselves. And little Ursula May, another
+poor relative on the other side of the house, whom they had charitably
+brought up to town with them, might go too, they decided, to such a
+gathering. There was no Lady Dorset, and the girls were "girls" only by
+courtesy, having passed the age to which that title refers. Such good
+looks as they had were faded, and they were indifferently dressed. This
+last circumstance arose partly from the fact that they never dressed
+very well, and partly because they did not think it necessary to put
+themselves to much trouble for poor Mrs. Copperhead's ball. Their little
+companion, Ursula, was in a white frock, the sort of dress which Phoebe
+had rebelled against. She was all white and had never been to a ball
+before. This little party, which represented the aristocracy at the
+Copperhead's ball, went to the entertainment with a little expectation
+in their minds: What sort of people would be there? Would they be
+"frights?" They were not likely to be interesting in any other way, the
+Miss Dorsets knew; but to little Ursula a ball was a ball, and meant
+delight and glory she was aware, though she did not quite know how. The
+expectations of the party, however, were strangely disappointed. Instead
+of being "a set of frights," Mrs. Copperhead's guests were found to be
+resplendent in toilette. Never, even under a ducal roof, had these
+ladies found themselves in such a gorgeous assembly, and never before,
+perhaps, even at the Duchess's grandest receptions, had they been unable
+to discover a single face they knew. Sir Robert was even more appalled
+by this discovery than his daughters were. He put up his glass and
+peered more and more wistfully into the crowd. "Don't know a soul," he
+repeated at intervals. Poor Sir Robert! he had not thought it possible
+that such an event could happen to him within the four seas. Accordingly
+the Dorsets clung, somewhat scared, to Mrs. Copperhead's side, and
+Ursula along with them, who looked at the crowd still more wistfully
+than Sir Robert did, and thought how nice it would be to know somebody.
+Unfortunately the Miss Dorsets were not attractive in personal
+appearance. Clarence Copperhead, though he was not indifferent to a
+baronet, was yet not sufficiently devoted to the aristocracy to do more
+than dance once, as was his bounden duty, with each of the sisters. "It
+seems so strange not to know any one," these ladies said. "Isn't it?"
+said Clarence. "_I_ don't know a soul." But then he went off and danced
+with Phoebe Beecham, and the Miss Dorsets stood by Mrs. Copperhead,
+almost concealing behind them the slight little snow-white figure of
+little Ursula May.
+
+Clarence was a very well-behaved young man on the whole. He knew his
+duty, and did it with a steady industry, working off his dances in the
+spirit of his navvy forefather. But he returned between each duty dance
+to the young lady in black, who was always distinguishable among so many
+young ladies in white, and pink, and green, and blue. The Miss Dorsets
+and Ursula looked with interest and something like envy at that young
+lady in black. She had so many partners that she scarcely knew how to
+manage them all, and the son of the house returned to her side with a
+pertinacity that could not pass unremarked. "Why should one girl have so
+much and another girl so little?" Ursula said to herself; but, to be
+sure, she knew nobody, and the young lady in black knew everybody. On
+the whole, however, it became evident to Ursula that a ball was not
+always a scene of unmixed delight.
+
+"It is very kind of you to remember what old friends we are," said
+Phoebe. "But, Mr. Clarence, don't be more good to me than you ought to
+be. I see your mother looking for you, and Mr. Copperhead might not like
+it. Another time, perhaps, we shall be able to talk of old days."
+
+"There is no time like the present," said the young man, who liked his
+own way. I do not mean to say that it was right of Phoebe to dance with
+him, especially dances she had promised to other people. But he was the
+personage of the evening, and that is a great temptation. Mr. Copperhead
+himself came up to them more than once, with meaning in his eyes.
+
+"Don't be too entertaining, Miss Phoebe," he said; for he saw no reason
+why he should not speak plainly in his own house, especially to the
+minister's daughter. "Don't be too entertaining. This is Clarence's
+ball, and he ought to be civil to other people too."
+
+"Oh, please go away!" cried Phoebe, after this admonition. But Clarence
+was sullen, and stood his ground.
+
+"We are going to have our waltz out," he said. "It is not my ball a
+bit--let him entertain his people himself. How should I know such a set
+of guys? I know nobody but you and the Dorset girls, who are in society.
+Parents are a mistake," said the young man, half rebellious, half
+sullen, "they never understand. Perhaps you don't feel that, but I
+should think girls must see it sometimes as well as men."
+
+"Girls don't use such strong expressions," said Phoebe, smiling, as they
+flew off in the uncompleted waltz. She danced very well, better than
+most of the ladies present, and that was the reason Clarence assigned to
+his mother for his preference of her. But when Mr. Copperhead saw that
+his remonstrance was unheeded by the young people, he went up to Mrs.
+Beecham, with a rich man's noble frankness and courage. "I am delighted
+to see you here, ma'am, and I hope you have remarked how well Miss Phoebe
+is entertaining my boy. Do you see them dancing? She's been away from
+you a long time, Mrs. Beecham, as girls will when they get hold of
+somebody that pleases them. Shouldn't you like me to go and fetch her
+back?" Mrs. Beecham, with cheeks that were very full blown indeed, and
+required a great deal of fanning, called back her child to her side at
+the end of that dance. She scolded Phoebe behind her fan, and recalled
+her to a sense of duty. "A pastor's daughter has to be doubly
+particular," she said; "what if your poor papa was to get into trouble
+through your thoughtlessness?"
+
+"I was not thoughtless, mamma; forgive me for answering back," said
+Phoebe, very meekly; and she showed no signs of sulkiness, though
+Clarence was carried off and kept from approaching her again.
+
+Unfortunately, however, when Clarence was removed from Phoebe, he fell
+into still greater peril. The eldest Miss Dorset and her mother, both of
+them with equally benevolent intentions, introduced him simultaneously
+to Ursula May. "The poor little girl has not danced once," Mrs.
+Copperhead, who had recollections of standing by herself for a whole
+evening, unnoticed, whispered in his ear, and Miss Dorset spoke to him
+still more plainly. "We brought her," she said, "but I cannot get her
+partners, for I don't know anybody." And what could Clarence do but
+offer himself? And Ursula, too, was a good dancer, and very pretty--far
+prettier than Phoebe.
+
+"Confound him! there he is now for ever with that girl in white," said
+his father to himself, with great rage. Dozens of good partners in pink
+and blue were going about the room. What did the boy mean by bestowing
+himself upon the two poor ones, the black and the white. This disturbed
+Mr. Copperhead's enjoyment, as he stood in the doorway of the ball-room,
+looking round upon all the splendour that was his, and feeling disposed,
+like Nebuchadnezzar, to call upon everybody to come and worship him. He
+expanded and swelled out with pride and complacency, as he looked round
+upon his own greatness, and perceived the effect made upon the
+beholders. When that effect did not seem sufficiently deep, he called
+here and there upon a lingerer for applause. "That's considered a very
+fine Turner," he said, taking one of them into a smaller room. "Come
+along here, you know about that sort of thing--I don't. I should be
+ashamed to tell you how much I gave for it; all that money hanging there
+useless, bringing in nothing! But when I do buy anything I like it to be
+the very best that is to be had."
+
+"I'd as soon have a good chromo," said the person addressed, "which
+costs a matter of a five-pound note, and enough too, to hang up against
+a wall. But you can afford it, Copperhead. You've the best right of any
+man I know to be a fool if you like."
+
+The great man laughed, but he scarcely liked the compliment. "I am a
+fool if you like," he said, "the biggest fool going. I like a thing that
+costs a deal, and is of no use. That's what I call luxury. My boy,
+Clarence, and my big picture, they're dear; but I can afford 'em, if
+they were double the price."
+
+"If I were you," said his friend, "I wouldn't hang my picture in this
+little bit of a hole, nor let my boy waste his time with all the
+riff-raff in the room. There's Smith's girl and Robinson's niece, both
+of them worth a cool hundred thousand; and you leave him to flourish
+about all over the place with a chit in a white frock, and another in a
+black one. I call that waste, not luxury, for my part."
+
+"I don't want to sell either the boy or the picture," said the rich man,
+with a laugh. But nevertheless he was annoyed that his son should be
+such an ass. Miss Smith and Miss Robinson were as fine as their
+milliners could make them. The first of these ladies had an emerald
+locket almost as big as a warming-pan, and Miss Robinson's pearls were a
+little fortune in themselves; but the chosen objects of that young
+idiot's attentions wore nothing but trumpery twopenny-halfpenny
+trinkets, and gowns which had been made at home for all Mr. Copperhead
+knew. Confound him! the father breathed hotly to himself. Thus it will
+be seen that unmixed pleasure is not to be had in this world, even in
+the midst of envious friends and the most splendid entertainment which
+money could supply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A COUNTRY PARTY.
+
+
+"Very funny, now," said Sir Robert. "I don't know that such a thing ever
+happened to me before. Give you my word for it, I didn't know a single
+soul, not one; and there must have been a couple of hundred or so there.
+Jove! I never thought there were as many people in England that I didn't
+know."
+
+"How could you know Mr. Copperhead's friends?" said Sophy Dorset. "What
+I wonder is, that she should have asked us. Not but that it was amusing
+enough, once in a way, just to see how such people look."
+
+"They looked very much like other people, my dear. Finer, though. I
+haven't seen so many jewels at an evening party for ages. Very much like
+other people. Fatter, perhaps, the men, but not the women. I notice,"
+said Sir Robert, who himself was spare, "that City men generally have a
+tendency to fat."
+
+"They are so rich," said Miss Dorset, with gentle disgust.
+
+She was the quiet one, never saying much. Sophy, who was lively,
+conducted the conversation. They were all seated at breakfast, later
+than usual, on the morning after the Copperheads' ball. It was a hazy
+morning, and the party were seated in a large sitting-room in the "very
+central" locality of Suffolk Street, looking down that straight little
+street upon the stream of carriages and omnibuses in the foggy distance.
+It was not for pleasure that this country party had come to London. Sir
+Robert's second son, who was in India, had sent his eldest children home
+to the care of his father and sisters. They were expected at Portsmouth
+daily, and the aunts, somewhat excited by the prospect of their charge,
+had insisted upon coming to town to receive them. As for Ursula May, who
+was a poor relation on the late Lady Dorset's side, as Mrs. Copperhead
+had been a poor relation on Sir Robert's, London at any season was a
+wonder and excitement to her, and she could not sufficiently thank the
+kind relations who had given her this holiday in her humdrum life. She
+was the daughter of a poor clergyman in the little town of Carlingford,
+a widower with a large family. Ursula was the eldest daughter, with the
+duties of a mother on her much burdened hands; and she had no special
+inclination towards these duties, so that a week's escape from them was
+a relief to her at any time. And a ball! But the ball had not been so
+beatific as Ursula hoped. In her dark blue serge dress, close up to the
+throat and down to the wrists, she did not look so pale as she had done
+in her snow-white garments on the previous night; but she was at the
+best of times a shadowy little person, with soft, dark brown hair, dark
+brown eyes, and no more colour than the faintest of wild rose tints; but
+the youthfulness, and softness, and roundness of the girl showed to full
+advantage beside the more angular development of the Miss Dorsets, who
+were tall, and had lost the first smooth curves of youth. To Ursula, not
+yet twenty, these ladies looked very mature, almost aged, being one of
+them ten, and the other eight years older than herself. She looked up to
+them with great respect; but she felt, all the same--how could she help
+it?--that in some things, though the Miss Dorsets were her superiors, it
+was best to be Ursula May.
+
+"Poor Clara!" said Sir Robert. "She was always a frightened creature.
+When I recollect her, a poor little governess, keeping behind backs at
+the nursery parties--and to see her in all her splendour now!"
+
+"She would keep behind backs still, if she could," said Miss Dorset.
+
+"Think of that, Ursula," cried Sophy; "there is an example for you. She
+was a great deal worse off than you are; and to see her now, as papa
+says! You may have a house in Portland Place too, and ask us to balls,
+and wear diamonds. Think of that! Though last night you looked as
+frightened as she."
+
+"Don't put such demoralizing ideas into the child's head. How it is that
+girls are not ruined," said Miss Dorset, shaking her head, "ruined! by
+such examples, I cannot tell. They must have stronger heads than we
+think. As poor as Cinderella one day, and the next as rich as the
+Queen--without any merit of theirs, all because some chance man happens
+to take a fancy to them."
+
+"Quite right," said Sir Robert; "quite right, my dear. It is the natural
+course of affairs."
+
+Miss Dorset shook her head. She went on shaking her head as she poured
+out the tea. She was not given to eloquence, but the subject inspired
+her.
+
+"Don't think of it, Ursula; it is not the sort of thing that good girls
+ought to think of," and the elder sister made signs to Sophy, who was
+reckless, and did not mind the moral effect of the suggestion.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Copperhead! I shall never have a house in Portland Place, nor
+any diamonds, except Aunt Mary's old brooch. I shall live and die an old
+maid, and nobody will waste a thought upon me," said Sophy, who made
+this prophecy at her ease, not expecting it to come true; "but I don't
+envy poor Clara, and if you marry such a man as Mr. Copperhead, though I
+shall admire you very much, Ursula, I shan't envy you."
+
+"Is young Mr. Copperhead as bad as his father?" said Ursula, simply.
+
+She was so far from thinking what meaning could be attached to her
+words, that she stopped and looked, wondering, from one to another when
+they laughed.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" said Sir Robert; "not so bad, either!"
+
+Poor Ursula was extremely serious. She turned with relief to Miss
+Dorset, who was serious too.
+
+"My dear, we don't know much about Clarence; he is a heavy young man. I
+don't think he is attractive. Have you had a letter from the Parsonage
+this morning?" said Anne Dorset, with a very grave face; and as it
+turned out that Ursula had a letter, Miss Dorset immediately plunged
+into discussion of it. The girl did not understand why the simple little
+epistle should be so interesting, nor did she perceive yet what the
+laughter was about. To tell the truth, Ursula, who was not clever, had
+thought young Mr. Copperhead very _nice_. He had asked her to dance when
+nobody else did; he had talked to her as much as he could have talked to
+Sophy Dorset herself. He had rehabilitated her in her own eyes after the
+first disappointment and failure of the evening, and she was prepared to
+think, whatever might be said about the father, that the son was "very
+kind" and very agreeable. Why should they laugh? Ursula concluded that
+there must be some private joke of their own about Clarence (what a
+pretty, interesting, superior name Clarence was!) which she could not be
+permitted to know.
+
+"If you talk like that," said Anne Dorset to Sophy, "you will set her
+little head afloat about good matches, and spoil her too."
+
+"And a very good thing," said Sophy. "If you had put the idea into my
+head, I should not be Sophy Dorset now. Why shouldn't she think of a
+good match? Can she live there for ever in that dreadful Parsonage,
+among all those children whom she does not know how to manage? Don't be
+absurd, Anne; except an elder daughter like you here and there, you
+know, girls must marry if they are to be of any consequence in the
+world. Let them get it into their heads; we can't change what is the
+course of nature, as papa says."
+
+"Oh, Sophy! it is so unwomanly."
+
+"Never mind; when a man chuckles and jeers at me because I am unmarried,
+I think it is unmanly; but they all do it, and no one finds any fault."
+
+"Not all surely; not near _all_."
+
+"Don't they? Not to our faces, perhaps; but whenever they write,
+whenever they speak in public. When men are so mean, why should we train
+girls up to unnatural high-mindedness? Why, that is the sort of girl who
+ought to make a good marriage; to 'catch' somebody, or have somebody
+'hooked' for her. She is pretty, and soft, and not very wise. I am doing
+the very best thing in the world for her, when I laugh at love and all
+that nonsense, and put a good match into her mind."
+
+Miss Dorset turned away with a sigh, and shook her head. It was all she
+could do. To encounter Sophy in argument was beyond her power, and if it
+had not been beyond her power, what would have been the good of it?
+Sophy had a story which, unfortunately, most people knew. She had been
+romantic, and she had been disappointed. Five or six years before, she
+had been engaged to a clergyman, who, finding that the good living he
+was waiting for in order to marry was not likely to come through Sir
+Robert's influence, intimated to his betrothed his serious doubt whether
+they were likely to be happy together, and broke off the engagement. He
+married somebody else in six months, and Sophy was left to bear the
+shame as she might. To be sure, a great many people were highly
+indignant with him at the moment; his sin, however, was forgotten long
+ago, so far as he was concerned; but nobody forgot that Sophy had been
+jilted, and she did not forget it herself, which was worse. Therefore
+Miss Dorset attempted no argument with her sister. She shook her gentle
+head, and said nothing. Anne was the elder sister born, the
+maiden-mother, who is a clearly defined type of humanity, though rare,
+perhaps, like all the finer sorts. She resolved in her own mind to take
+private means for the fortification and preservation of Ursula, whose
+position, as elder sister of a motherless family, interested her
+especially as being like her own; but Anne owned within herself that
+she had never been so young as little Ursula May.
+
+Ursula, for her part, thought very little about the question which had
+thus moved her cousins. She thought Mr. Clarence Copperhead was very
+nice, and that if she had but known as many people, and had as many
+partners as that young lady in black, she would have enjoyed the ball
+very much. After all, now that it was over, she felt that she had
+enjoyed it. Three dances were a great deal better than none at all, and
+to have that pretty white frock given to her by Sir Robert was no small
+matter. Besides, for in this as in other things the uses of adversity
+are sometimes sweet, the pretty dress, which no doubt would have been
+torn and crumpled had she danced much, was almost quite fresh now, and
+would do very well at Carlingford if there should be any balls
+there--events which happened occasionally, though Ursula had never been
+lucky enough to go to any of them. And Cousin Sophy had given her a set
+of Venetian beads and Cousin Anne a bracelet. This good fortune was
+quite enough to fill her mind with satisfaction, and prevent any undue
+meditation upon good matches or the attentions of Clarence Copperhead.
+Ursula was as different as possible from Phoebe Beecham. She had no
+pretensions to be intellectual. She preferred the company even of her
+very smallest brothers and sisters to the conversation of her papa,
+though he was known to be one of the most superior men in the diocese.
+Even when her elder brother Reginald, of whom she was very fond, came
+home from college, Ursula was more than indifferent to the privileged
+position of elder sister, by which she was permitted to sit up and
+assist at the talks which were carried on between him and his father.
+Reginald was very clever too; he was making his own way at the
+university by means of scholarships, the only way in which a son of Mr.
+May's was likely to get to the university at all, and to hear him talk
+with his father about Greek poetry and philosophy was a very fine thing
+indeed; how Phoebe Beecham, if the chance had been hers, would have
+prized it; but Ursula did not enjoy the privilege. She preferred a
+pantomime, or the poorest performance in a theatre, or even Madame
+Tussaud's exhibition. She preferred even to walk about the gay streets
+with Miss Dorset's maid, and look into the shop-windows and speculate
+what was going to be worn next season. Poor little girl! with such
+innocent and frivolous tastes, it may be supposed she did not find her
+position as elder sister and housekeeper a very congenial one. Her
+father was no more than Incumbent of St. Roque, an old perpetual curacy
+merged in a district church, which was a poor appointment for an
+elderly man with a family; he was very clever and superior, but not a
+man who got on, or who did much to help his children to get on; and had
+Ursula been of the kind of those who suffer and deny themselves by
+nature, she would have had her hands full, and abundant opportunity
+afforded her to exercise those faculties. But she was not of this frame
+of mind. She did what she was obliged to do as well as time and
+opportunity permitted; but she did not throw herself with any enthusiasm
+into her duties. To keep seven children in good condition and discipline
+in a small house, on a small income, is more, it must be allowed, than
+most girls of twenty are equal to; only enthusiasm and self-devotion
+could make such a task possible, and these qualifications poor little
+Ursula did not possess. Oh! how glad she was to get away from it all,
+from having to think of Janey and Johnny, and Amy and little Robin. She
+was not anxious about how things might be going on in her absence, as
+kind Miss Dorset thought she must be. The happiness of escaping was
+first and foremost in her thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SELF-DEVOTION.
+
+
+"Mr. Copperhead's manner is not pleasant sometimes, that is quite true.
+We must make allowances, my dear. Great wealth, you know, has its
+temptations. You can't expect a man with so much money and so many
+people under him to have the same consideration for other people's
+feelings. He says to this man go and he goeth, and to that man come and
+he cometh."
+
+"That is all very well," said Phoebe; "but he has no right, that I can
+think of, to be rude to mamma and me."
+
+"He was not exactly rude, my dear," said Mrs. Beecham. "We must not say
+he was rude. Clarence ought to have divided his attentions more equally,
+we must admit, and his father was annoyed--for the moment. I have no
+doubt he has forgotten all about it long ago, and will be as pleasant as
+ever next time we meet."
+
+"I am quite sure of it," said the pastor, "and at the worst it was but
+his manner--only his manner. In short, at the committee meeting
+yesterday nothing could have been nicer. He went even out of his way to
+send, as it were, a kind message to Phoebe. 'I needn't ask if Miss Phoebe
+enjoyed herself,' he said. Depend upon it, my dear, if there was a
+temporary annoyance it is both forgotten and forgiven, so far as Mr.
+Copperhead is concerned."
+
+"Forgiven!" Phoebe said to herself; but she thought it wiser to say
+nothing audible on the subject. Her father and mother, it was evident,
+were both disposed to extend any amount of toleration to the leading
+member. It was he who was the best judge as to what he had a right to be
+annoyed about. The family party were in Mr. Beecham's study, where the
+large bust of Mr. Copperhead stood on the mantelpiece, the chief
+decoration. How could any one be so wicked as to rebel against the
+influence of so great a personage? Phoebe had her own ideas, but she was
+wise and kept them to herself.
+
+"And now," said Mrs. Beecham, solemnly, "what is to be done, my dear,
+about this letter from my good papa?"
+
+Phoebe was standing in front of a book-case, apparently looking for a
+book. She said nothing; but it was easy to perceive by the erectness of
+her shoulders, and the slight movement that ran through her, that her
+attention was fully engaged.
+
+"Ah, yes indeed, what about it?" the pastor said. He put down the pen,
+which he had been holding in his hand by way of symbol that, amiable as
+he was, his attention to his woman-kind was an encroachment upon time
+which might be more usefully employed. But this was a serious question;
+he had no suggestion to offer, but he sat and twiddled his thumbs, and
+looked at his wife with interest suddenly aroused.
+
+"There is a great deal to be thought of," said Mrs. Beecham, "it is not
+a simple matter of family devotion. Of course if I had no other ties,
+nor other duties, everything would be easy. I should go at once to my
+poor suffering mamma."
+
+Mrs. Beecham was a clever woman, but she had not been able to get it out
+of her mind, owing to the imperfections of her education in youth, that
+it was a vulgar thing to say father and mother. "But in the present
+circumstances," she continued, her husband having given his assent to
+this speech, "it is clear that I cannot do what I wish. I have you to
+think of, my dear, and the children, and the duties of my position. On
+the other hand, of course I could not wish, as poor mamma's only
+daughter, to have my sister-in-law called in. She is not the kind of
+person; she is underbred, uneducated. Of course she would be thinking of
+her own children, and what would be best for them. My parents have done
+all that ought to be expected from them for Tom. Considering all things,
+what they have to dispose of ought to go to Phoebe and Tozer. But Mrs.
+Tom would not see that."
+
+"It is very true, my dear; I don't suppose she would," said Mr. Beecham,
+with an anxious air.
+
+"Mrs. Tom," said his wife, with some heat, "would think her own had the
+first claim. She maintained it to my very face, and after that what have
+we to expect? It's us that are Tozers," she said; "as for you, Phoebe,
+you belong to another family. I put it in my own language of course, not
+in her vulgar way."
+
+"It is a very serious question altogether," said the pastor, with some
+solemnity. "I don't see how you can get away, and I don't know what is
+to be done."
+
+"Whatever is to be done, I won't leave poor mamma in the hands of Mrs.
+Tom," cries Mrs. Beecham, "not whatever it costs me. She's capable of
+anything, that woman is. To have her in the same town is bad enough, but
+in the same house nursing poor mamma! You and I would never see a penny
+of the money, Henery, nor our children--not a penny! besides the
+vexation of seeing one's own parents turned against one. I know very
+well how it would be."
+
+Mr. Beecham ceased twiddling his thumbs. The crisis was too serious for
+that indulgence. "The position is most difficult," he said, "I see it
+all. It is easy to see it for that matter, but to decide what are we to
+do is not easy. To go back to Carlingford after so many changes, would
+it be good for you?"
+
+"It would kill me," said Mrs. Beecham, with energy, "you know it would
+kill me. Envy drove us out, and envy would bring me to the grave. I
+don't deceive myself, that is what I see before me, if I tear myself
+from all my duties and go. But on the other hand----"
+
+"Listen, mamma!" cried Phoebe, turning round suddenly; "if grandmamma is
+ill, and you are afraid to leave her alone, why not send me?"
+
+Both her parents turned towards Phoebe, as she spoke; they listened to
+her with wonder and consternation, yet with admiring looks. Then they
+looked at each other consulting, alarmed. "You!" said Mrs. Beecham, and
+"You!" echoed the pastor, repeating in his great astonishment what his
+wife said.
+
+"Yes, indeed, me--why not me? it would be only my duty," said Phoebe,
+with great composure. "And there is nothing to keep me from going. I
+almost think I should like it--but anyhow, mamma, if you think it
+necessary, whether I like it or not--"
+
+"Phoebe, my darling, you are the best child in the world," cried her
+mother, rising up, and going to her hastily. She gave her a kiss of
+maternal enthusiasm, and then she looked at her husband. "But should we
+take advantage of it?" she said.
+
+"You see, my dear," said Mr. Beecham, hesitating, "you might find many
+things different from what you are used to. Your grandpapa Tozer is an
+excellent man--a most excellent man--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said his wife, with some impatience. She was as conscious as
+he was of the great elevation in the social scale that had occurred to
+both of them since they left Carlingford, and knew as well as he did
+that the old people had remained stationary, while the younger ones had
+made such advances; but still she did not like to hear her husband
+criticize her father. What there was to be said, she preferred to say
+herself. "Yes, yes," she said, "Phoebe knows there is a difference; they
+are old-fashioned folks, and don't live quite as we live. Some things
+would strike you very strangely, my dear, some things you would not
+like; and then Phoebe may be, for anything I can tell, at a turning-point
+in her own life."
+
+"If you mean about the Copperheads, mamma, dismiss that from your mind,"
+said Phoebe. "There is no sort of hurry. We may be thrown together in
+after-life, and of course no one can tell what may happen, but in the
+mean time there is nothing of the sort in my mind--nor in any one
+else's. Do not think of that for a moment. I am at no turning-point. I
+am quite ready and quite willing to go wherever you please."
+
+Once more the parent pair looked at each other. They had been very
+careful not to bring their children into contact, since they were
+children, with the homelier circumstances of the life in which they
+themselves had both taken their origin. They had managed this really
+with great skill and discretion. Instead of visiting the Tozers at
+Carlingford, they had appointed meetings at the sea-side, by means of
+which the children were trained in affectionate acquaintance with their
+grandparents, without any knowledge of the shop. And Mr. Tozer, who was
+only a butterman at Carlingford, presented all the appearance of an old
+Dissenting minister out of it--old-fashioned, not very refined perhaps,
+as Mrs. Beecham allowed, but very kind, and the most doting of
+grandfathers. The wisp of white neckcloth round his neck, and his black
+coat, and a certain unction of manner all favoured the idea.
+Theoretically, the young people knew it was not so, but the impression
+on their imagination was to this effect. Mrs. Tozer was only
+"grandmamma." She was kind too, and if rather gorgeous in the way of
+ribbons, and dressing generally in a manner which Phoebe's taste
+condemned, yet she came quite within the range of that affectionate
+contempt with which youth tolerates the disadvantages of its seniors.
+But the butterman's shop! and the entire cutting off from everything
+superior to the grocers and poulterers of Carlingford--how would Phoebe
+support it? This was what Mr. and Mrs. Beecham asked each other with
+their eyes--and there was a pause. For the question was a tremendous
+one, and neither knew in what way to reply.
+
+"Phoebe, you are a very sensible girl--" said her father at last,
+faltering.
+
+"I beg your pardon, papa. I don't think you are treating me as if I were
+sensible," said Phoebe. "I know well enough that grandpapa is in
+business--if that is what you are afraid of--"
+
+"Has been in business," said Mrs. Beecham. "Your grandpapa has retired
+for some time. To be sure," she added, turning to her husband, "it is
+only Tom that has the business, and as I consider Mrs. Tom
+objectionable, Phoebe need not be brought in contact--"
+
+"If Phoebe goes to Carlingford," said the pastor, "she must not be
+disagreeable to any one. We must make up our minds to that. They must
+not call her stuck up and proud."
+
+"Henery," said Mrs. Beecham, "I can put up with a great deal; but to
+think of a child of mine being exposed to the tongues of those Browns
+and Pigeons and Mrs. Tom, is more than I can bear. What I went through
+myself, you never knew, nor any one breathing--the looks they gave me,
+the things they kept saying, the little nods at one another every time I
+passed! Was it my fault that I was better educated, and more refined
+like, than they were? In Mr. Vincent's time, before you came, Henery, he
+was a very gentleman-like young man, and he used to come to the ----
+High Street constantly to supper. It wasn't my doing. I never asked
+him--no more than I did you!"
+
+"Your father used to ask me," said Mr. Beecham, doubtfully. "It was very
+kind. A young pastor expects it in a new place; and a great many things
+arise, there is no doubt, in that way."
+
+"Not by my doing," said the lady; "and when we were married, Henery, the
+things I did to please them! Thank Heaven, they know the difference now;
+but if they were to set themselves, as I could quite expect of them,
+against my child--"
+
+"Mamma," said Phoebe, tranquilly, "I think you forget that it is me you
+are talking of. I hope I know what a pastor's daughter owes to herself.
+I have had my training. I don't think you need be frightened for me."
+
+"No; I think Phoebe could manage them if any one could," said her father,
+complacently.
+
+She smiled with a gracious response to this approval. She had a book in
+her hand, which of itself was a proof of Phoebe's pretensions. It was, I
+think, one of the volumes of Mr. Stuart Mill's "Dissertations." Phoebe
+was not above reading novels or other light literature, but this only in
+the moments dedicated to amusement, and the present hour was morning, a
+time not for amusement, but for work.
+
+"Phoebe don't know Carlingford, nor the folks there," said Mrs. Beecham,
+flushed by the thought, and too much excited to think of the elegancies
+of diction. She had suffered more than her husband had, and retained a
+more forcible idea of the perils; and in the pause which ensued, all
+these perils crowded into her mind. As her own ambition rose, she had
+felt how dreadful it was to be shut in to one small circle of very small
+folks. She had felt the injurious line of separation between the
+shopkeepers and the rest of the world; at least she thought she had felt
+it. As a matter of fact, I think it very doubtful whether Phoebe Tozer
+had felt anything of the kind; but she thought so now; and then it was a
+fact that she was born Phoebe Tozer, and was used to that life, whereas
+Phoebe Beecham had no such knowledge. She had never been aware of the
+limitations of a small Dissenting community in a small town, and though
+she knew how much the Crescent congregation thought of a stray
+millionnaire like Mr. Copperhead (a thing which seemed too natural to
+Miss Beecham to leave any room for remark), her mother thought that it
+might have a bad effect upon Phoebe's principles in every way, should she
+find out the lowly place held by the connection in such an
+old-fashioned, self-conceited, Tory town as Carlingford. What would
+Phoebe think? how would she manage to associate with the Browns and the
+Pigeons? Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from the shop; but
+the shop was still there, greasy and buttery as ever, and Mrs. Beecham's
+own respected papa was still "the butterman." How would Phoebe bear it?
+This was the uppermost thought in her mind.
+
+"You know, my darling," she said afterwards, when they had left the
+study, and were seated, talking it over, in the drawing-room, "there
+will be a great deal to put up with. I am silly; I don't like even to
+hear your papa say anything about dear old grandpapa. He is my own, and
+I ought to stand up for him; but even with grandpapa, you will have a
+great deal to put up with. They don't understand our ways. They are
+used to have things so different. They think differently, and they talk
+differently. Even with your sense, Phoebe, you will find it hard to get
+on."
+
+"I am not at all afraid, I assure you, mamma."
+
+"You are not afraid, because you don't know. I know, and I am afraid.
+You know, we are not great people, Phoebe. I have always let you know
+that--and that it is far finer to elevate yourself than to be born to a
+good position. But when you see really the place which poor dear
+grandpapa and grandmamma think so much of, I am sure I don't know what
+you will say."
+
+"I shall not say much. I shall not say anything, mamma. I am not
+prejudiced," said Phoebe. "So long as an occupation is honest and
+honourable, and you can do your duty in it, what does it matter? One
+kind of work is just as good as another. It is the spirit in which it is
+done."
+
+"Oh, honest!" said Mrs. Beecham, half relieved, half affronted. "Of
+course, it was all that. Nothing else would have answered papa. Your
+uncle Tom has the--business now. You need not go there, my dear, unless
+you like. I am not fond of Mrs. Tom. We were always, so to speak, above
+our station; but she is not at all above it. She is just adapted for it;
+and I don't think she would suit you in the least. So except just for a
+formal call, I don't think you need go there, and even that only if
+grandmamma can spare you. You must be civil to everybody, I suppose; but
+you need not go further; they are not society for you. You will hear
+people talk of me by my Christian name, as if we were most intimate; but
+don't believe it, Phoebe. I always felt aspirations towards a very
+different kind of life."
+
+"Oh, don't be afraid, mamma," said Phoebe, calmly; "I shall be able to
+keep them at a distance. You need not fear."
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the anxious mother; "but not too much at a distance
+either. That is just what is so difficult. If they can find an excuse
+for saying that my child is stuck up! Oh! nothing would please them more
+than to be able to find out something against my child. When you have
+apparently belonged to that low level, and then have risen," said Mrs.
+Beecham, with a hot colour on her cheek, "there is nothing these kind of
+people will not say."
+
+These conversations raised a great deal of thought in Phoebe's mind; but
+they did not change her resolution. If it was necessary that some one
+should go to look after her grandmamma, and keep all those vulgar people
+at bay, and show to the admiring world what a Dissenting minister's
+daughter could be, and what a dutiful daughter was, then who so fit as
+herself to be the example? This gave her even a certain tragical sense
+of heroism, which was exhilarating, though serious. She thought of what
+she would have to "put up with," as of something much more solemn than
+the reality; more solemn, but alas! not so troublesome. Phoebe felt
+herself something like a Joan of Arc as she packed her clothes and made
+her preparations. She was going among barbarians, a set of people who
+would not understand her, probably, and whom she would have to "put up
+with." But what of that? Strong in a sense of duty, and superior to all
+lesser inducements, she felt herself able to triumph. Mrs. Beecham
+assisted with very divided feelings at the preparations. It was on her
+lips to say, "Never mind the evening dresses; you will not want them."
+But then the thought occurred to her that to let the Carlingford folks
+see what her daughter had been used to, even if she had no use for such
+things, would be sweet.
+
+"No, Henery; she shall take them all," she said to her husband. "They
+shall see the kind of society my child is in; very different from their
+trumpery little teas! They shall see that you and I, we grudge nothing
+for Phoebe--and I dare be sworn there is not one of them like her, not
+even among the quality! I mean," said Mrs. Beecham, hastily, with a
+flush of distress at her own failure in gentility, "among those who
+think themselves better than we are. But Phoebe will let them see what a
+pastor's family is out of their dirty little town. She will bring them
+to their senses. Though I hesitated at first when it was spoken of, I am
+very glad now."
+
+"Yes; Phoebe is a girl to find her level anywhere," said the pastor,
+complacently. And they forgot what she would have to put up with in
+their satisfaction and admiration for herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A MORNING CALL.
+
+
+Sir Robert Dorset and his daughter called, as in duty bound, upon their
+relation two days after her ball. "You had better come with us, Ursula,"
+said Miss Dorset. "Sophy does not care about visits, and Mrs. Copperhead
+asked a great many questions about you. She is very tender-hearted to
+the ---- young." Anne had almost said to the poor, for it is difficult
+to remember always that the qualifications by which we distinguish our
+friends when they are not present, are not always satisfactory to their
+own ears. "She was like you once, you know," she added, half
+apologetically. Ursula, who was not in the least disposed to take
+offence, did not ask how, but assented, as she would have assented had
+Cousin Anne told her to get ready to go to the moon. She went upstairs
+and put on her little felt hat, which had been made handsome by the long
+drooping feather bestowed upon her by Sophy, and the blue serge jacket
+which corresponded with her dress. She had not any great opinion of her
+own good looks, but she hoped that she was "lady-like," notwithstanding
+the simplicity of her costume. This was her only aspiration. In her
+heart she admired the tall straight angular kind of beauty possessed by
+her cousins, and did not think much of her own roundness and softness,
+which seemed to Ursula a very inferior "style;" but yet if she looked
+lady-like that was always something, and both Sir Robert and his
+daughter looked at her approvingly as she stood buttoning her gloves,
+waiting for them.
+
+"If there are other city gentlemen there mind you make yourself very
+agreeable, Ursula," said Cousin Sophy, which vexed the girl a little.
+Whether the people were city gentlemen or not, of course, she said to
+herself, she would try to be _nice_--was not that a girl's first duty?
+She tried for her part to be _nice_ to everybody, to talk when she
+could, and receive the recompense of pleased looks. To walk with her
+friends up the long line of Regent Street, with many a sidelong glance
+into the shop-windows, was very pleasant to Ursula. Sometimes even
+Cousin Anne would be tempted to stop and look, and point things out to
+her father. Unfortunately, the things Miss Dorset remarked were chiefly
+handsome pieces of furniture, beautiful carpets, and the like, which
+were totally out of Ursula's way.
+
+"There is just the kind of carpet I want for the drawing-room," Anne
+said, looking at something so splendid that Ursula thought it was good
+enough for the Queen. But Sir Robert shook his head.
+
+"The drawing-room carpet will do very well," he said. "It will last out
+my day, and your brother will prefer to please himself."
+
+This brought a little cloud upon Anne Dorset's placid face, for she too,
+like Mr. Beecham, had a brother whose wife it was not agreeable to think
+of as mistress in the old house. She went on quickly after that looking
+in at no more shops. Perhaps she who could buy everything she wanted (as
+Ursula thought) had on the whole more painful feelings in looking at
+them, than had the little girl beside her, whose whole thoughts were
+occupied by the question whether she would have enough money left to buy
+her sister Janey one of those new neckties which were "the fashion."
+Janey did not often get anything that was the fashion. But at any rate
+Ursula made notes and laid up a great many things in her mind to tell
+Janey of--which would be next best.
+
+Mrs. Copperhead was seated in a corner of her vast drawing-room when her
+visitors arrived, and her pale little countenance brightened at sight of
+them. They were the nearest approach to "her own people" that the poor
+soul possessed. She received their compliments upon her ball with
+deprecating looks.
+
+"I am sure you are very good--very good to say so. I am afraid it was
+not much amusement to you. They were not the kind of people--"
+
+"I scarcely knew a soul," said Sir Robert; "it was a curious sensation.
+It does one good now and then to have a sensation like that. It shows
+you that after all you are not such a fine fellow as you thought
+yourself. Once before I experienced something of the same feeling. It
+was at a ball at the Tuileries--but even then, after a while, I found
+English people I knew, though I didn't know the French grandees; but, by
+Jove! except yourself and Mr. Copperhead, Clara, I knew nobody here."
+
+Mrs. Copperhead felt the implied censure more than she was intended to
+feel it.
+
+"Mr. Copperhead does not care about cultivating fashionable people," she
+said, with a little spirit. "He prefers his old friends."
+
+"That is very nice of him," cried Anne, "so much the kindest way. I
+liked it so much. At most balls we go to, people come and ask me to
+dance for duty, pretending not to see that my dancing days are over."
+
+"She talks nonsense," said Sir Robert. "Clara, I must trust to you to
+put this notion out of Anne's head. Why should her dancing days be over?
+I am not a Methuselah, I hope. She has no right to shelve herself so
+early, has she? I hope to see her make a good match before I die."
+
+"So long as she is happy--" said Mrs. Copperhead, faltering. She was not
+any advocate for good matches. "Oh, there is Mr. Copperhead!" she added,
+with a little start, as a resounding knock was heard. "He does not often
+come home so early; he will be very glad to see you, Sir Robert. Are you
+going to stay long in town, Miss May?"
+
+"Not long, only till the children arrive," said Anne, looking
+compassionately at the rich man's nervous wife. She had been quiet
+enough, so long as she was alone. Now a little fever seemed to be
+awakened in her. She turned to Ursula and began to talk to her quickly--
+
+"Do you like being in town? It is not a good time of the year. It is
+nicer in May, when everything looks cheerful; but I always live in
+London. You will come back for the season, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh no," said Ursula. "I never was in London before. Cousin Anne brought
+me for a great pleasure. I have been twice to the theatre, and at the
+ball here."
+
+"Oh yes, I forgot, you were at the ball--and you danced, did you dance?
+I cannot remember. There were so many people. Oh yes, I recollect. I
+spoke to Clarence--"
+
+"I danced three times," said Ursula. "I never was at a ball before. It
+was very nice. Mr. Copperhead was so kind--"
+
+"What is that about Mr. Copperhead being kind? Was I kind? I am always
+kind--ask my wife, she will give me a good character," said the master
+of the house, coming up to them. "Ah, the Baronet! how do you do, Sir
+Robert? I don't often see you in my house."
+
+"You saw us the other evening," said Sir Robert, courteously, "and we
+have just come, Anne and I, to let Clara know how much we enjoyed
+it. It was really splendid. I don't know when I have seen so
+much--um--luxury--so great a display of--of--beautiful things--and--and
+wealth."
+
+"Glad to hear you were pleased," said Mr. Copperhead, "no expense was
+spared at least. I don't often throw away my money in that way, but when
+I do I like things to be regardless of expense. That is our way in the
+city; other people have to make a deal of gentility go a long way, but
+with us, who don't stand on our gentility--"
+
+"It is not much to stand upon, certainly, in the way of giving balls,"
+said Sir Robert. "I quite agree with you that money should not be spared
+when a good effect is to be produced. Anne, my dear, if you have said
+all you have to say to Clara, you must recollect that we have a great
+deal to do--"
+
+"You are not going the moment I come in," said Mr. Copperhead. "Come, we
+must have some tea or something. Not that I care very much for tea, but
+I suppose you'll be shocked if I offer you anything else in the
+afternoon. Haven't you ordered tea, Mrs. Copperhead? I can't teach my
+wife hospitality, Sir Robert--not as I understand it. She'd see you come
+and go a dozen times, I'll be bound, without once thinking of offering
+anything. That ain't my way. Tea! and directly, do you hear."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Copperhead, in a nervous tremor; "bring tea, Burton,
+please. It is rather early, but I do so hope you will stay." She gave
+Miss Dorset an appealing glance, and Anne was too kind to resist the
+appeal.
+
+"To be sure they'll stay," said Mr. Copperhead. "Ladies never say no to
+a cup of tea, and ours ought to be good if there's any virtue in money.
+Come and look at my Turner, Sir Robert. I ain't a judge of art, but it
+cost a precious lot, if that is any test. They tell me it's one of the
+best specimens going. Come this way."
+
+"You won't mind?" said poor Mrs. Copperhead. "He is very hospitable, he
+cannot bear that any one should go without taking something. It is
+old-fashioned, but then Mr. Copperhead--"
+
+"It is a most kind fashion, I think," said Anne Dorset, who had a
+superstitious regard for other people's feelings, "and Mr. Copperhead is
+quite right, I never say no to a cup of tea."
+
+Just then Clarence came in with his hands in his pockets, so curiously
+like his father in his large somewhat loose figure, as unlike him in
+aspect and expression, that even the gentle Anne could scarcely help
+smiling. When he had shaken hands with Miss Dorset he dropped naturally
+into a seat beside Ursula, who, dazzled by his position as son of the
+house, and flattered by what she called his "kindness," was as much
+pleased by this sign of preference as if Clarence Copperhead had been a
+hero.
+
+"I hope you have recovered my father's ball," he said.
+
+"Recovered! Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Yes, you think it uncivil; but I myself have scarcely recovered yet.
+The sort of people he chose to collect--people whom nobody knew."
+
+"But, Mr. Copperhead," said Ursula, "if it was his old friends, as your
+mother says, how much more noble of him than if they had been fine
+people he did not care for! As for me, I don't know any one anywhere. It
+was all the same to me."
+
+"That was very lucky for you," said the young man. "My good cousins did
+not take it so easily. They are your cousins, too?"
+
+"Oh, yes--they are so good," cried Ursula. "Cousin Sophy laughs at me
+sometimes, but Cousin Anne is as kind as an angel. They have always been
+good to us all our lives."
+
+"You live near them, perhaps? Sir Robert has been kind enough to ask me
+to the Hall."
+
+"No, not near. We live at Carlingford. It is not a place like the
+Dorsets'; it is a poor little town where papa is one of the clergymen.
+We are not county people like them," said Ursula, with anxious honesty,
+that he might not have a false idea of her pretensions. "I have never
+been anywhere all my life, and that is why they brought me here. It was
+by far the most beautiful party I ever saw," she added, with a little
+enthusiasm. "I never was at a real dance before."
+
+"I am glad you thought it pretty," said Clarence. "I suppose it was
+pretty; when the rooms are nice," and he looked round the handsome room,
+not without a little complacency, "and when there is plenty of light and
+flowers, and well-dressed people, I suppose no dance can help being a
+pretty sight. That was about all. There was no one worth pointing out."
+
+"Oh, there were some very pretty people," said Ursula; "there was a
+young lady in black. She was always dancing. I should have liked to know
+her. You danced with her a great many times, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Ah!" said Clarence. He was not more foolish than his neighbours, but it
+flattered him that his dancing with one person should have been noticed,
+especially by a pretty creature, who herself had attracted him and
+shared the privilege. "That was Miss Beecham. I did not dance with her
+above three or four times. Of course," he said, apologetically, "we are
+old friends."
+
+Ursula did not know why he should apologize. She did not intend to
+flirt, not having any knowledge of that pastime as yet. She was quite
+simple in her mention of the other girl, who had attracted her
+attention. Now having said all she could remember to say, she stopped
+talking, and her eyes turned to the elder Mr. Copperhead, who came back,
+followed by Sir Robert. There was a largeness about the rich man, which
+Ursula, not used to rich men, gazed at with surprise. He seemed to
+expand himself upon the air, and spread out his large person, as she had
+never known any one else do. And Sir Robert, following him, looked so
+strangely different. He was very reluctant to be so led about, and, as
+it were, patronized by the master of the house, and his repugnance took
+a curious form. His nose was slightly drawn up, as if an odour of
+something disagreeable had reached him. Ursula, in her innocence,
+wondered what it was.
+
+"Here's the Baronet, Clarence," said Mr. Copperhead, who was slightly
+flushed; "and he doubts the Turner being genuine. My Turner! Go off at
+once to those picture people, Christie, whatever you call them, and tell
+them I want proofs that it's genuine. I am not the sort of man, by
+George! to be cheated, and they ought to know that. They have had many a
+hundred pounds of my money, but they shall never have another penny if I
+don't get proofs. It ain't pleasant, I can tell you, to hear the
+Baronet, or any one else for that matter, running down my pictures."
+
+"I did not run it down," said Sir Robert, with another little curl of
+his nostrils. (What could there be in this grand big house that could
+make a disagreeable smell?) "I only said that I had seen copies that
+were so wonderfully good that none but an expert could tell the
+difference; that was all. I don't say that yours is one of them."
+
+"No; nor no one shall!" cried Mr. Copperhead. "We shall have the
+experts, as you call them, and settle it. By George! there shall be
+nothing uncertain in my house. You can tell the men it is Sir Robert
+Dorset who suggested it. There's nothing like a title (even when it
+isn't much of a title) to keep people up to their work. Not meaning any
+disrespect to Sir Robert, I could buy him and his up five times over.
+But I ain't Sir Robert, and never will be. Say Sir Robert, Clarence, my
+boy; that'll bear weight."
+
+"It was an unfortunate observation on my part," said Sir Robert,
+stiffly. "I have a picture myself, which I bought for a Correggio, and
+which is a mere copy, I believe, though a very nice one. I hold my
+tongue on the subject, and nobody is the wiser. Anne, my dear, I think
+we must go now."
+
+"That would never suit me," said the rich man; "holding my tongue ain't
+my way, is it, Mrs. Copperhead? What! going, after all, without your
+tea? I am afraid, ma'am, the Baronet is touchy, and doesn't like what I
+said. But nobody minds me, I assure you. I say what I think, but I don't
+mean any harm."
+
+"Oh, no," said Anne, drawing herself up, while her father took leave of
+poor little tremulous Mrs. Copperhead. "We really must go; we have
+stayed longer than we meant to stay. Ursula--"
+
+"Your little companion?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Ah; you should take care,
+Miss Dorset, of these little persons. They stand in the way of the young
+ladies themselves often enough, I can tell you. And so can Mrs.
+Copperhead; she knows."
+
+He laughed, and both Anne and Ursula became aware that something
+offensive was meant; but what it was, neither of them could make out.
+Mrs. Copperhead, whose intelligence had been quickened on that point,
+perceived it, and trembled more and more.
+
+"Good-bye, dear," she said to Ursula in an agony. "Though we are not
+cousins, we are connections, through your kind Cousin Anne; for she lets
+me call her my Cousin Anne too. Perhaps you will come and pay me a visit
+sometimes, if--if you can be spared."
+
+"Oh, yes; I should be very glad," said Ursula, confused.
+
+She did not understand why Sir Robert should be in such a hurry, when
+both young Mr. Copperhead and his mother were so kind. As for the other
+Mr. Copperhead, he did not interest Ursula. But he went down to the door
+with them in an excess of civility, offering Anne his arm, which she was
+obliged to take, much against her will; and even Ursula felt a passing
+pang of humiliation when the footman threw open the great door before
+them, and no carriage was visible.
+
+"Oh, you are walking!" said Mr. Copperhead, with one of his big laughs.
+
+After all, a laugh could hurt nobody. Why was it that they all felt
+irritated and injured? Even Sir Robert grew scarlet, and when they were
+outside on the broad pavement turned almost angrily upon his daughter.
+
+"I tell you what, Anne," he said; "not if it was to save my life, shall
+I ever enter that brute's doors again."
+
+"Oh, papa; poor Mrs. Copperhead!" cried kind Anne, with a wail in her
+voice. That was all the reply she made.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SHOPPING.
+
+
+Next day a telegram came from Southampton, announcing the arrival of the
+little Dorsets, which Ursula rejoiced over with the rest, yet was
+dreadfully sorry for in her heart. "Now we shall be able to get home,"
+the sisters said, and she did her best to smile; but to say that she was
+glad to leave London, with all its delights, the bright streets and the
+shop-windows, and the theatres, and the excitement of being "on a
+visit," would be a great deal more than the truth. She was glad,
+sympathetically, and to please the others; but for herself, her heart
+fell. It was still winter, and winter is not lively in Carlingford; and
+there was a great deal to do at home, and many things "to put up with."
+To be sure, that was her duty, this was only her pleasure; but at
+twenty, pleasure is so much more pleasant than duty. Ursula did not at
+all rebel, nor did she make painful contrasts in her mind, as so many
+young people do; asking why are others so well off, and I so badly off?
+but her heart sank. All the mendings, all the keepings in order, the
+dinners to be invented with a due regard for the butcher's bill, the
+tradespeople to be kept in good humour, the servant to be managed, and
+papa, who was more difficult than the servant, and more troublesome than
+the children! If Ursula sighed over the prospect, I don't think the
+severest of recording angels would put a very bad mark against her. She
+had been free of all this for ten wonderful days. No torn frocks, no
+unpleasant baker, no hole in the carpet, no spoiled mutton-chops, had
+disturbed her repose. All these troubles, no doubt, were going on as
+usual at home, and Janey and the maid were struggling with them as best
+they could. Had Ursula been very high-minded and given up to her duty,
+no doubt she would have been too much moved by the thought of what her
+young sister might be enduring in her absence, to get the good of her
+holiday; but I fear this was not how she felt it. Janey, no doubt, would
+get through somehow; and it was very sweet to escape for ever so short a
+time, and have a real rest. Therefore, it must be allowed that, when
+Ursula went to her bed-room after this news arrived, she relieved
+herself by "a good cry." Two or three days longer, what difference could
+that have made to those children? But after her headache was relieved in
+this way, the cloud dispersed a little. The thought of all she had to
+tell Janey consoled her. She counted over the spare contents of her
+purse, and calculated that, after all, she would have enough to buy the
+necktie; and she had all her presents to exhibit; the ball-dress, that
+unhoped-for acquisition; the Venetian beads; the bracelet, "Which is
+really good--_good_ gold; fancy!" said Ursula to herself, weighing it in
+her hand. How Janey would be interested, how she would be dazzled! There
+was a great deal of consolation in this thought. In the afternoon her
+cousins took her out "shopping," an occupation which all young girls and
+women like. They bought a great many things "for the spring," and "for
+the children," while Ursula looked on with admiration. To be able to buy
+things three months in advance, three months before they could possibly
+be wanted, what luxury! and yet the Dorsets were not rich, or so, at
+least, people said.
+
+"Now, Ursula," said Cousin Anne, "we have made all our purchases.
+Suppose you choose frocks for the children at home."
+
+"Oh, me?" cried poor Ursula, forgetting grammar. She blushed very red,
+and looked, not without indignation, into Anne Dorset's mild eyes. "You
+know I have not any money; you know we can't afford it!" she cried, with
+starting tears.
+
+"But I can," said Cousin Anne; "at least, I have some money just now.
+Money always goes, whether one buys things or not," she added, with a
+little sigh. "It runs through one's fingers. When one has something to
+show for it, that is always a satisfaction. Come, this would be pretty
+for little Amy; but it is you who must choose."
+
+"But, Cousin Anne! Dresses! If it was a necktie or a ribbon; but
+frocks--"
+
+"Frocks would be most useful, wouldn't they? One for Amy, and one for
+Janey. I suppose Robin does not wear frocks now?"
+
+"He has been in knickerbockers these two years," said Ursula, half
+proud, half sorry; "and the worst of it is, they can't be made at home.
+Papa says, boys' clothes made at home are always spoiled, and the tailor
+is so dear. Oh, Cousin Anne, are you really, really going to be so very,
+very good--!"
+
+Mrs. Copperhead came into the shop while they were choosing. Poor little
+woman! she who trembled so in her own house, how everybody bowed down
+before her at Messrs. Margrove and Snelcher's! It was all she could do
+to extricate herself from a crowd of anxious officials, all eager to
+supply her with everything that heart could desire, when she saw the
+little party. She came up to them, almost running in her eagerness, her
+small pale face flushed, and leaned on Anne Dorset's chair and whispered
+to her.
+
+"You will not be angry, dear kind Anne. You are always so good to
+everybody. Oh, forgive me! forgive me!"
+
+Ursula could not help hearing what she said.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive _you_, Mrs. Copperhead."
+
+"Oh, dear Anne! But I am more than myself, you know! He does not mean
+it; he never was brought up to know better. He thinks that is how people
+behave--"
+
+"Please don't say anything, dear Mrs. Copperhead."
+
+"Not if you will forgive--not if you will promise to forgive. Poor
+Clarence is heart-broken!" cried the poor woman. "He is so frightened
+for what you must think."
+
+"We don't think anything," said Sophy, breaking in; "it is one of our
+good qualities as a family that we never think. Come and help us; we are
+choosing frocks for Ursula's sisters. She has two. What are their ages,
+Ursula? You, who live in town, and know the fashions, come and help us
+to choose."
+
+And how respectful all the shopmen grew when the nameless country party
+was joined by the great Mrs. Copperhead--or rather the great Mr.
+Copperhead's wife, at whose command was unlimited credit, and all the
+contents of the shop if she chose. One hurried forward to give her a
+chair, and quite a grand personage, a "head man," came from another
+counter to take the charge of pleasing such a customer. Ursula could not
+but look upon the whole transaction with awe. Mrs. Copperhead was a very
+humble, timid woman, and Mr. Copperhead was not nice; but it was
+something to command the reverence of all the people in such a grand
+shop--a shop which Ursula by herself would scarcely have ventured to
+enter, and in which she felt timid and overwhelmed, saying, "Sir" to the
+gentleman who was so good as to ask what she wanted. But here Mrs.
+Copperhead was not afraid. She gave herself up with her whole heart to
+the delightful perplexity of choice, and when that matter was settled,
+looked round with searching eyes.
+
+"Don't they want something else?" she said, "it is so long since I have
+bought any children's things. It reminds me of the days when Clarence
+was little, when I took such pride in his dress. Come with me into the
+cloak room, my dear, I am sure they must want jackets or something."
+
+Ursula resisted with pitiful looks at Cousin Anne, and Sophy whispered
+into Mrs. Copperhead's ear an explanation, which, instead of quenching
+her ardour, brought it up instantly to boiling point. Her pale little
+languid countenance glowed and shone. She took both Ursula's hands in
+hers, half smiling, half crying.
+
+"Oh, my dear," she said, "you can give me such a pleasure, if you will!
+You know we are connections, almost relations. Let me send them
+something. Dear children, I wish I could see them. Come and look at the
+little jackets and mantles. I have often thought, if Providence had
+given me a little girl, what pleasure I should have had in dressing her.
+Hats too! I am sure they must want hats. Come, my dear, come and look at
+them." Ursula did not know what to do. A little pride and a great deal
+of shyness kept her back, but Mrs. Copperhead was too much in earnest to
+be crossed. She bought a couple of very smart little upper garments for
+Amy and Janey, and then, clandestinely taking no one into her
+confidence, for Ursula herself, and gave secret orders to have them all
+sent to the Dorsets' lodgings that night. She was quite transformed so
+long as this transaction lasted. Her languid countenance grew bright,
+her pale eyes lighted up.
+
+"You have given me such a pleasure," she said, holding Ursula's hands,
+and standing up on tip-toe to kiss her. "I am so much obliged to you. I
+could almost think that Clarence was little again, or that he had got a
+little sister, which was always my heart's desire. Ah, well! often,
+often, it seems better for us not to have our heart's desire, my dear;
+at least I suppose that is how it must be."
+
+"I do not know how to thank you," said Ursula, "you have been so
+kind--so very kind."
+
+"I have been kind to myself," said Mrs. Copperhead, "I have so enjoyed
+it; and, my dear," she added, with some solemnity, still holding Ursula
+by the hands, "promise you will do me one favour more. It will be such a
+favour. Whenever you want anything for yourself or your sister will you
+write to me? I am always in London except in autumn, and I should so
+like to do your commissions. People who live in London know how to get
+bargains, my dear. You must promise to let me do them for you. It will
+make me so happy. Promise!" cried the little woman, quite bright in her
+excitement. Ursula looked at the two others who were looking on, and did
+not know what to say.
+
+"She thinks you are too expensive an agent for her," said Sophy Dorset,
+"and I think so too."
+
+Mrs. Copperhead's face faded out of its pleasant glow.
+
+"There are two things I have a great deal too much of," she said, "money
+and time. I am never so happy as when I am buying things for children,
+and I can see that she will trust me--won't you, my dear? Must we say
+good-bye now? Couldn't I take you anywhere? Look at that big carriage,
+all for me alone, a little light woman. Let me take you somewhere. No!
+Ah, Cousin Anne, you have not forgiven us for all you said."
+
+"We have some other things to do," said Anne, drawing back. As for
+Ursula, she would not at all have objected to the splendour of the
+carriage. And her heart was melted by the lonely little woman's pathetic
+looks. But the other ladies stood out. They stood by while poor Mrs.
+Copperhead got into the carriage and drove off, her pale reproachful
+little face looking at them wistfully from the window. It was afternoon
+by this time, getting dark, and it was a tolerably long walk along the
+lighted, crowded streets.
+
+"Cousin Anne, I am afraid we have hurt her feelings," said Ursula; "why
+wouldn't you go?"
+
+"Go!" cried mild Anne Dorset; "get into that man's carriage after
+yesterday? Not for the world! I can put up with a great deal, but I
+can't go so far as that."
+
+"She never did any harm," said Sophy, "poor little soul! You see now,
+Ursula, don't you, how fine it is to marry a rich man, and have
+everything that your heart can desire?"
+
+Ursula looked at her wondering. To tell the truth, Mrs. Copperhead's
+eagerness to buy everything she could think of for the unknown children
+at Carlingford, the manner with which she was regarded in the great
+shop, her lavish liberality, her beautiful carriage, and all the fine
+things about her, had brought Ursula to this very thought, that it was
+extremely fine to marry a rich man. Sophy's irony was lost upon her
+simple-minded cousin, and so indeed was Mrs. Copperhead's pathos. That
+she was very kind, and that she was not very happy, were both apparent,
+but Ursula did not connect the unhappiness with the fact that she was a
+rich man's wife. Mr. Copperhead certainly was not very _nice_; but when
+people got so old as that, they never were very happy, Ursula thought,
+and what had the money to do with it? She looked confused and puzzled at
+Sophy, wondering what she meant. Yes, indeed, to marry a rich man, to be
+able to buy presents for everyone, to make the children at home
+perfectly happy without any trouble to one's self! Could any one doubt
+that it was very nice? Alas! Ursula did not think it at all likely that
+this would ever be in her power.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Copperhead!" said Anne, as they made their way along the
+crowded street, where it was difficult for them to walk together, much
+less to maintain any conversation. And presently Ursula, keeping as
+close as possible to her cousin's side, but compelled to make way
+continually for other passers-by, lost herself in a maze of fancies, to
+which the misty afternoon atmosphere, and the twinkling lights, and the
+quickly passing crowds lent a confused but not unpleasing background.
+She was glad that the noise made all talk impossible, and that she could
+dream on quietly as they glided and pressed their way through the
+current of people in Oxford Street and Regent Street, as undisturbed as
+if she had been shut up in her own room--nay, more so--for the external
+sights and sounds which flitted vaguely by her, disguised those dreams
+even from herself. Mrs. Copperhead had once been poorer than she was, a
+poor little governess. What if somewhere about, in some beautiful house,
+with just such a carriage at the door, a beautiful young hero should be
+waiting who would give all those dazzling delights to Ursula? Then what
+frocks she would buy, what toys, what ornaments! She would not stop at
+the girls, but drive to the best tailor's boldly, and bid him send down
+some one to take Johnnie's measure, and Robin's, and even Reginald's;
+and then she would go to the toy-shop, and to the bookseller, and I
+can't tell where besides; and finally drive down in the fairy chariot
+laden with everything that was delightful, to the very door. She would
+not go in any vulgar railway. She would keep everything in her own
+possession, and give each present with her own hands--a crowning delight
+which was impossible to Mrs. Copperhead--and how clearly she seemed to
+see herself drawing up, with panting horses, high-stepping and splendid,
+to the dull door of the poor parsonage, where scarcely anything better
+than a pony-carriage ever came! How the children would rush to the
+window, and "even papa," out of his study; and what a commotion would
+run through Grange Lane, and even up into the High Street, where the
+butcher and the baker would remember with a shiver how saucy they had
+sometimes been--when they saw what a great lady she was.
+
+A dreamy smile hovered upon Ursula's face as she saw all the little
+scenes of this little drama, mixed up with gleams of the shop-windows,
+and noises of the streets, and great ghosts of passing omnibuses, and
+horses steaming in the frosty air. How many girls, like her, go dreaming
+about the prosaic streets? It was not, perhaps, a very elevated or
+heroic dream, but the visionary chariot full of fine things for the
+children, was better than Cinderella's pumpkin carriage, or many another
+chariot of romance. Her cousins, who were so much her elders, and who
+shuddered in their very souls at the thought of poor Mrs. Copperhead,
+and who were talking earnestly about the children they expected next
+morning, and what was to be done with them, had no clue to Ursula's
+thoughts. They did not think much of them, one way or another, but took
+great care not to lose her from their side, and that she should not be
+frightened by the crowding, which, after all, was the great matter. And
+they were very glad to get back to the comparative quiet of Suffolk
+Street, and to take off their bonnets and take their cup of tea. But
+Ursula, for her part, was sorry when the walk was over. She had enjoyed
+it so much. It was half Regent Street and half Carlingford, with the
+pleasure of both mixed up together; and she was half little Ursula May
+with her head in the air, and half that very great lady in the
+dream-chariot, who had it in her power to make everybody so happy.
+Between poor Mrs. Copperhead, who was the most miserable, frightened
+little slave in the world, with nothing, as she said, but time and
+money, and Ursula without a penny, and who always had so much to do,
+what a gulf there was! a gulf, however, which fancy could bridge over so
+easily. But the dream was broken when she got indoors; not even the
+quiet of her own little room could bring back in all their glory the
+disturbed images that had floated before her in the street.
+
+This was Ursula's last day in town, and there can be no doubt that it
+was of a nature, without any aid from Sophy's suggestion, to put a great
+many ideas into her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE DORSETS.
+
+
+Next day the little Dorsets came, an odd little pair of shivering
+babies, with a still more shivering Ayah. It was the failing health of
+the little exotic creatures, endangered by their English blood, though
+they had never seen England, and talked nothing but Hindostanee, which
+had brought them "home" at this inhospitable time of the year; and to
+get the rooms warm enough for them became the entire thought of the
+anxious aunts, who contemplated these wan babies with a curious mixture
+of emotions, anxious to be "very fond" of them, yet feeling difficulties
+in the way. They were very white, as Indian children so often are, with
+big blue veins meandering over them, distinct as if traced with colour.
+They were frightened by all the novelty round them, and the strange
+faces, whose very anxiety increased their alarming aspect; they did not
+understand more than a few words of English, and shrank back in a little
+heap, leaning against their dark nurse, and clinging to her when their
+new relations made overtures of kindness. Children are less easily
+conciliated in real life than superficial observers suppose. The
+obstinate resistance they made to all Anne Dorset's attempts to win
+their confidence, was enough to have discouraged the most patient, and
+poor Anne cried over her failure when those atoms of humanity, so
+strangely individual and distinct in their utter weakness, helplessness,
+and dependence, were carried off to bed, gazing distrustfully at her
+still with big blue eyes; creatures whom any moderately strong hand
+could have crushed like flies, but whose little minds not all the power
+on earth could command or move. Strange contrast! Anne cried when they
+were carried off to bed. Sir Robert had escaped from the hot room, which
+stifled him, long before; and Sophy, half angry in spite of herself,
+had made up her mind to "take no notice of the little wretches."
+
+"Fancy!" she said; "shrinking at Anne--Anne, of all people in the world!
+There is not a little puppy or kitten but knows better. Little
+disagreeable things! Oh, love them! Why should I love them? They are
+John's children, I believe; but they are not a bit like him; they must
+be like their mother. I don't see, for my part, what there is in them to
+love."
+
+"Oh, much, Sophy," said Anne, drying her eyes; "they are our own flesh
+and blood."
+
+"I suppose so. They are certainly Mrs. John's flesh and blood; at least,
+they are not a bit like us, and I cannot love them for being like her,
+can I?--whom I never saw?"
+
+The illogicality of this curious argument did not strike Anne.
+
+"I hope they will get to like us," she said. "Poor little darlings!
+everything strange about them, new faces and places. I don't wonder that
+they are frightened, and cry when any one comes near them. We must trust
+to time. If they only knew how I want to love them, to pet them--"
+
+"I am going to help little Ursula with her packing," said Sophy hastily;
+and she hurried to Ursula's room, where all was in disorder, and threw
+herself down in a chair by the fire, "Anne is too good to live," she
+cried. "She makes me angry with her goodness. Little white-faced things
+like nobody I know of, certainly not like our family, shrinking away and
+clinging to that black woman as if Anne was an ogre--_Anne!_ why, a
+little dog knows better--as I said before."
+
+"I don't think they are very pretty children," said Ursula, not knowing
+how to reply.
+
+"Why should we be supposed to be fond of them?" said Sophy, who was
+relieving her own mind, not expecting any help from Ursula. "The whole
+question of children is one that puzzles me; a little helpless wax image
+that does not know you, that can't respond to you, and won't perhaps
+when it can; that has nothing interesting in it, that is not amusing
+like a kitten, or even pretty. Well! let us suppose the people it
+belongs to like it by instinct--but the rest of the world--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy!" cried Ursula, her eyes round with alarm and horror.
+
+"You think I ought to be fond of them because they are my brother's
+children? We are not always very fond even of our brothers, Ursula.
+Don't scream; at your age it is different; but when they marry and have
+separate interests--if these mites go on looking at me with those big
+scared eyes as if they expected me to box their ears, I shall do it some
+day--I know I shall; instead of going on my knees to them, like Anne,
+to curry favour. If they had been like our family, why, that would have
+been some attraction. Are you pleased to go home, or would you prefer to
+stay here?"
+
+"In London?" said Ursula, with a long-drawn breath, her hands
+involuntarily clasping each other. "Oh! I hope you won't think me very
+silly, but I do like London. Yes, I am pleased--I have so many presents
+to take to them, thanks to you and to Cousin Anne, and to Mrs.
+Copperhead. I am ashamed to be carrying away so much. But Carlingford is
+not like London," she added, with a sigh.
+
+"No, it is a pretty soft friendly country place, not a great
+cold-hearted wilderness."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy!"
+
+"My poor little innocent girl! Don't you think it is desolate and
+cold-hearted, this great sea of people who none of them care one straw
+for you?"
+
+"I have seen nothing but kindness," said Ursula, with a little heat of
+virtuous indignation; "there is you, and Mrs. Copperhead; and even the
+gentlemen were kind--or at least they meant to be kind."
+
+"The gentlemen?" said Sophy, amused. "Do you mean the Copperheads?
+Clarence perhaps? He is coming to Easton, Ursula. Shall I bring him into
+Carlingford to see you?"
+
+"If you please, Cousin Sophy," said the girl, simply. She had not been
+thinking any thoughts of "the gentlemen" which could make her blush, but
+somehow her cousin's tone jarred upon her, and she turned round to her
+packing. The room was littered with the things which she was putting
+into her box, that box which had grown a great deal too small now,
+though it was quite roomy enough when Ursula left home.
+
+"Ursula, I think you are a good little thing on the whole--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy, forgive me! No, I am not good."
+
+"Forgive you! for what? Yes, you are on the whole a good little thing;
+not a saint, like Anne; but then you have perhaps more to try your
+temper. We were always very obedient to her, though we worried her, and
+papa always believed in her with all his heart. Perhaps you have more to
+put up with. But, my dear, think of poor Mrs. Copperhead, for example--"
+
+"Why do you always call her poor Mrs. Copperhead? she is very rich. She
+can make other people happy when she pleases. She has a beautiful house,
+and everything--"
+
+"And a bear, a brute of a husband."
+
+"Ah! Does she mind very much?" asked Ursula, with composure. This
+drawback seemed to her insignificant, in comparison with Mrs.
+Copperhead's greatness. It was only Sophy's laugh that brought her to
+herself. She said with some haste, putting in her dresses, with her back
+turned, "I do not mean to say anything silly. When people are as old as
+she is, do they mind? It cannot matter so much what happens when you are
+old."
+
+"Why? but never mind, the theory is as good as many others," said Sophy.
+"You would not mind then marrying a man like that, to have everything
+that your heart could desire?"
+
+"Cousin Sophy, I am not going to--marry any one," said Ursula, loftily,
+carrying her head erect. "I hope I am not like that, thinking of such
+things. I am very, very sorry that you should have such an opinion of
+me, after living together ten days."
+
+She turned away with all the forlorn pride of injury, and there were
+tears in her voice. Sophy, who dared not laugh in reply, to make the
+young heroine more angry, hastened to apologize.
+
+"It was a silly question," she said. "I have a very good opinion of you,
+Ursula. Ten days is a long time, and I know you as if we had been
+together all your life. I am sure you do not think anything a nice girl
+ought not to think; but I hope you will never be deceived and persuaded
+to marry any one who is like Mr. Copperhead. I mean who is not nice and
+young, and good, like yourself."
+
+"Oh, no!" cried the girl, with energy. "But most likely I shall not
+marry any one," she added, with a half sigh; "Janey may, but the eldest
+has so much to do, and so much to think of. Cousin Anne has never
+married."
+
+"Nor Cousin Sophy either." Sophy's laugh sounded hard to the girl.
+"Never mind, you will not be like us. You will marry, most likely, a
+clergyman, in a pretty parsonage in the country."
+
+"I do not think I am very fond of clergymen," said Ursula, recovering
+her ease and composure. "They are always in and about, and everything
+has to be kept so quiet when they are studying; and then the parish
+people are always coming tramping upstairs with their dirty feet. When
+you have only one servant it is very, very troublesome. Sir Robert never
+gives any trouble," she said, once more, with a soft little sigh.
+
+"Papa?" said Sophy, somewhat surprised; "but you would not--" she was
+going to say, marry papa; but when she looked at Ursula's innocent
+gravity, her absolute unconsciousness of the meanings which her chance
+words might bear, she refrained. "I think I must send Seton to help
+you," she said, "you can not get through all that packing by yourself."
+
+"Oh yes, I am not tired. I have put in all my old things. The rest are
+your presents. Oh, Cousin Sophy!" said the girl, coming quickly to her
+and stealing two arms round her, "you have been so good to me! as if it
+was not enough to give me this holiday, the most delightful I ever had
+in my life--to send me home loaded with all these beautiful things! I
+shall never forget it, never, never, if I were to live a hundred years!"
+
+"My dear!" cried Sophy, startled by the sudden energy of this embrace.
+Sophy was not emotional, but her eyes moistened and her voice softened
+in spite of herself. "But you must let me send Seton to you," she said,
+hurrying away. She was excited by the day's events, and did not trust
+herself to make any further response; for if she "gave way" at all, who
+could tell how far the giving way might go? Her brother John had been
+married at the time when Sophy too ought to have been married, had all
+gone well--and, perhaps, some keen-piercing thought that she too might
+have had little children belonging to her, had given force and sharpness
+to her objections to the pale little distrustful Indian children who had
+shrunk from her overtures of affection. She went to her room and bathed
+her eyes, which were hot and painful, and then she went back to Anne in
+the sitting-room, who had opened the window to reduce the temperature,
+and was resting in an easy chair, and pondering what she could do to
+make the children love her, and to be a mother to them in the absence of
+Mrs. John.
+
+"I have been talking to Ursula, who is always refreshing," said Sophy.
+"I wonder whom that child will marry. She gave me to understand, in her
+awkward, innocent way, that she preferred papa. A laugh does one good,"
+Sophy added, slightly rubbing her eyes. Anne made no immediate answer.
+She scarcely heard indeed what her sister said.
+
+"I think we shall get on after a while," she said, softly. "They said
+their prayers very prettily, poor darlings, and let me kiss them without
+crying. After a while we shall get on, I don't fear."
+
+"Anne!" cried Sophy, "you are too much for mere human nature: you are
+too bad or too good for anything. I begin to hate these little wretches
+when I hear you speak of them so."
+
+"Hush!" said Anne, "I know you don't mean it. Easton will be very
+strange to them at first. I could not go to India for my part. A crust
+of bread at home would be better. Think of parting with your children
+just when they come to an age to understand?"
+
+"John, I suppose, did not take children into consideration when he went
+away. You speak as if children were all one's life."
+
+"A great part of it," said Anne, gently. "No, dear, I am not clever like
+you, and perhaps it is what you will call a low view; but after all it
+runs through everything. The flowers are used for the seed, and
+everything in the world is intended to keep the world going. Yes, even
+I, that is the good of me. I shall never be a mother, but what does that
+matter? There are so many children left on the world whom somebody must
+bring up."
+
+"And who are brought to you when they need you, and taken from you when
+they need you no longer," said Sophy, indignantly; "you are left to bear
+the trouble--others have the recompense."
+
+"It is so in this world, my dear, all the way down, from God himself.
+Always looking for reward is mean and mercenary. When we do nothing,
+when we are of no use, what a poor thing life is," said Anne, with a
+little colour rising in her cheeks, "not worth having. I think we have
+only a right to our existence when we are doing something. And I have my
+wages; I like to be of a little consequence," she said, laughing.
+"Nobody is of any consequence who does not do something."
+
+"In that case, the ayah, the housemaid is of more consequence than you."
+
+"So be it--I don't object," said Anne; "but I don't think so, for they
+have to be directed and guided. To be without a housemaid is dreadful.
+The moment you think of that, you see how important the people who work
+are; everything comes to a stand-still without Mary, whereas there are
+ladies whose absence would make no difference."
+
+"I, for instance."
+
+"You are very unkind to say so, Sophy; all the same, if you were to do
+more, you would be happier, my dear."
+
+"To do what? go on my knees to those wax dolls, and entreat them to let
+me pet them and make idols of them--as you will do?"
+
+"Well, how are you getting on now?" said Sir Robert, coming in. "Ah! I
+see, you have the window open; but the room is still very warm. When
+they get to Easton they will have their own rooms of course. I don't
+want to reflect upon John, but it is rather a burden this he has saddled
+us with. Mrs. John's mother is living, isn't she? I think something
+might have been _said_ at least, on her part, some offer to take her
+share."
+
+Sophy gave her sister a malicious glance, but promptly changed her tone,
+and took up her position in defence of the arrangement, with that ease
+which is natural in a family question.
+
+"Of course," she said, "your grandchildren, Dorsets, and the heir,
+probably, as Robert has no boy, could go nowhere, papa, but to us. It
+may be a bore, but at least John showed so much sense; for nothing else
+could be----"
+
+"John does not show very much sense in an ordinary way. What did he want
+with a wife and children at his age? The boy is five, isn't he? and the
+father only thirty--absurd! I did not marry till I was thirty, though I
+had succeeded before that time, and was the only son and the head of the
+family. John was always an ass," said Sir Robert, with a crossness which
+sprang chiefly from the fact that the temperature of the room was higher
+than usual, and the habits of his evening interfered with. He was
+capable of sacrificing something of much more importance to his family,
+but scarcely of sacrificing his comfort, which is the last and most
+painful of efforts.
+
+"That may be very true," said Sophy, "but all the same, it is only right
+that the children should be with us. Mrs. John's people are not well
+off. Her mother has a large family of her own. The little things would
+have been spoiled, or they would have been neglected; and after all,
+they are Dorsets, though they are not like John."
+
+"Well, well, I suppose you are right," said Sir Robert, grumbling, "and,
+thank Heaven, to-morrow we shall be at home."
+
+Anne had scarcely said a word, though it was she who was most deeply
+concerned about the children. She gave her sister a hug when Sir Robert
+relapsed into the evening paper, and then stole upstairs to look at the
+poor babies as they lay asleep. She was not a mother, and never would
+be. People, indeed, called her an old maid, and with reason enough,
+though she was little over thirty; for had she been seventy, she could
+not have been more unlikely to marry. It was not her vocation. She had
+plenty to do in the world without that, and was satisfied with her life.
+The sad reflection that the children whom she tended were not her own,
+did not visit her mind, as, perhaps, it had visited Sophy's, making her
+angry through the very yearning of nature. Anne was of a different
+temperament, she said a little prayer softly in her heart for the
+children and for her sister as she stooped over the small beds. "God
+bless the children--and, oh, make my Sophy happy!" she said. She had
+never asked for nor thought of happiness to herself. It had come to her
+unconsciously, in her occupations, in her duties, as natural as the soft
+daylight, and as little sought after. But Sophy was different. Sophy
+wanted material for happiness--something to make her glad; she did not
+possess it, like her sister, in the quiet of her own heart. And from the
+children's room Anne went to Ursula's, where the girl, tired with her
+packing, was brushing her pretty hair out before she went to bed.
+Everything was ready, the drawers all empty, the box full to
+overflowing, and supplemented by a large parcel in brown paper; and what
+with the fatigue and the tumult of feeling in her simple soul, Ursula
+was ready to cry when her cousin came in and sat down beside her.
+
+"I have been so happy, Cousin Anne. You have been so good to me," she
+said.
+
+"My dear, everybody will be good to you," said Miss Dorset, "so long as
+you trust everybody, Ursula. People are more good than bad. I hope when
+you come to Easton you will be still happier."
+
+Ursula demurred a little to this, though she was too shy to say much.
+"Town is so cheerful," she said. It was not Sir Robert's way of looking
+at affairs.
+
+"There is very little difference in places," said Anne, "when your heart
+is light you are happy everywhere." Ursula felt that it was somewhat
+derogatory to her dignity to have her enjoyment set down to the score of
+a light heart. But against such an assertion what could she say?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+COMING HOME.
+
+
+The party which set out from Suffolk Street next morning was a mighty
+one; there were the children, the ayah, the new nurse whom Anne had
+engaged in town, to take charge of her little nephews as soon as they
+got accustomed to their new life; and Seton, the ancient serving-woman,
+whom the sisters shared between them; and Sir Robert's man, not to speak
+of Sir Robert himself and the Miss Dorsets and Ursula. Easton was within
+a dozen miles of Carlingford, so that they all travelled together as far
+as that town. The Dorset party went farther on to the next station, from
+which they had still six miles to travel by carriage. They set down
+Ursula on the platform with her box and her parcel, and took leave of
+her, and swept out of the station again, leaving her rather forlorn and
+solitary among the crowd. "Disgraceful of May not to send some one to
+meet the child. I suppose he knew she was coming," said Sir Robert. And
+Ursula had something of the same feeling, as she stood looking wistfully
+about her. But as soon as the train was gone, her name was called in a
+somewhat high-pitched voice, and turning round she found herself hugged
+by Janey, while Johnnie, fresh from school, seized her bag out of her
+hand by way of showing his satisfaction.
+
+"We didn't come up till we could make sure that the Dorsets were out of
+the way," said Janey, "and, oh, is it really you? I am so glad to get
+you home."
+
+"Why didn't you want to see the Dorsets? They are the kindest friends we
+have in the world," said Ursula. "How is papa? Is he in a good humour?
+And the rest? Why did not some more come to meet me? I made sure there
+would be four at least."
+
+"Amy and Robin have gone out to tea--they didn't want to go; but papa
+insisted. Oh, he is very well on the whole. And Reginald is at home, of
+course, but I thought you would like me best. Johnnie came to carry the
+bag," said Janey with a natural contempt for her younger brother. "What
+a big parcel! You must have been getting quantities of presents, or else
+you must have packed very badly, for I am sure there was lots of room in
+the trunk when you went away."
+
+"Oh, Janey, if you only knew what I have got there!"
+
+"What?" said Janey, with quiet but composed interest. It never occurred
+to her that she could have any individual concern in the contents of the
+parcels. She was a tall girl who had outgrown all her frocks, or rather
+did outgrow them periodically, with dark elf locks about her shoulders,
+which would not curl or _creper_, or do anything that hair ought to do.
+She had her thoughts always in the clouds, forming all sorts of
+impossible plans, as was natural to her age, and was just the kind of
+angular, jerky school-girl, very well intentioned, but very maladroit,
+who is a greater nuisance to herself and everybody else than even a
+school-boy, which is saying a good deal. Things broke in her hands as
+they never broke in anybody else's; stuffs tore, furniture fell to the
+ground as she passed by. Ursula carefully kept her off the parcel and
+gave it to Johnnie. One of the railway porters, when all the rest of the
+passengers were disposed of, condescended to carry her trunk, and thus
+they set out on their way home. The parsonage was close to St. Roque, at
+the other end of Grange Lane. They had to walk all the way down that
+genteel and quiet suburban road, by the garden walls over which, at
+this season, no scent of flowers came, or blossomed branches hung forth.
+There were red holly-berries visible, and upon one mossy old tree a gray
+bunch of mistletoe could be seen on the other side of the street. But
+how quiet it was! They scarcely met a dozen people between the station
+and St. Roque.
+
+"Oh, Janey, is everybody dead?" said Ursula. "How dull it is! You should
+see London----"
+
+"Ursula," said Janey firmly, "once for all, I am not going to stand this
+London! A nasty, smoky, muddy place, no more like Carlingford than--I am
+like you. You forget I have been in London; you are not speaking to
+ignorant ears," said Janey, drawing herself up, "and your letters were
+quite bad enough. You are not going to talk of nothing but your
+disagreeable London here. Talk to people who have never seen it!" said
+the girl, elevating her shoulders with the contempt of knowledge.
+
+"That time you were at the dentist's--" said Ursula, "and call that
+seeing London! Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy took me everywhere. We went
+to drive in the Park. We went to the Museum and the National Gallery.
+And, oh! Janey, listen! we went to the theatre: think of that!"
+
+"Well, I should like to go to the theatre," said Janey, with a sigh.
+"But you told me in your letter. That's what comes of being the eldest.
+Unless you get married, or something, nobody will ever think of taking
+_me_."
+
+"You are five years younger than I am," said Ursula, with dignity.
+"Naturally, people don't think of a girl at your age. You must wait till
+you are older, as I have had to do. Janey! guess what is in _that_?"
+
+"Your new dress--your ball-dress. If it isn't crumpled as you said, you
+can't have danced very much. I know my dress will be in tatters if I
+ever go to a ball."
+
+"I danced as much as I wished. I did not know many people," said Ursula,
+drawing herself up. "Of course at this time of the year nobody is in
+town, and we hardly knew any one--and of course--"
+
+"Of course, you only knew the fashionable people who are out of town in
+winter," cried Janey, with a laugh which echoed along the street. Ursula
+had not come home from London to be laughed at by her younger sister,
+she who had been petted by the Dorsets, and whose opinion even Sir
+Robert had asked on various occasions. She felt this downfall all the
+more deeply that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with
+Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over again,
+and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many experiences acquired
+in that momentous time. Poor Ursula! ten days is quite long enough to
+form habits at her age, and she had been taken care of, as young ladies
+are taken care of in society; accompanied or attended wherever she went,
+and made much of. To find herself thus left to arrive and get home as
+she pleased, with nobody but Janey to meet her, was a terrible
+falling-off; and to be laughed at by Janey was the last step of all.
+Tears filled her eyes, she turned her shoulder to her companion,
+averting her head; and this was all poor Ursula had to look to. The
+dreary Carlingford street, papa finding fault, everything going wrong,
+and Janey laughing at her! To be Cousin Anne's maid, or governess to the
+little Indian children would be better than this. For five minutes more
+she walked on in offended silence, saying nothing, though Janey, like
+the school-girl she was, made frequent use of her elbow to move her
+sister.
+
+"Ursula!" the girl said at last, with a more potent nudge, "what's the
+matter? won't you speak to me?" And Janey, who had her own
+disappointment too, and had expected to be received with enthusiasm,
+burst out crying, regardless of appearances, in the middle of the
+street.
+
+"Janey, for Heaven's sake--people will see you! I am sure it is I who
+should cry, not you," said Ursula, in sudden distress.
+
+"I don't care who sees me," sobbed Janey. "You have been enjoying
+yourself while we have stayed at home, and instead of being pleased to
+come back, or glad to see us--Oh, how can you be so cold-hearted?" she
+said with a fresh burst of tears.
+
+Here the other side of the question suddenly dawned upon Ursula. She had
+been enjoying herself while the others stayed at home. It was quite
+true. Instead of feeling the shock of difference she should have thought
+of those who had never been so lucky as she was, who had never seen
+anything out of Carlingford. "Don't be so foolish, Janey," she said, "I
+_am_ glad;--and I have brought you such beautiful presents. But when you
+do nothing but laugh----"
+
+"I am sure I didn't laugh to hurt. I only laughed for fun!" cried Janey,
+drying her eyes not without a little indignation; and thus peace was
+made, for indeed one was dying to tell all that happened, and the other
+dying to hear. They walked the rest of the way with their heads very
+close together, so absorbed that the eldest brother, coming out of the
+gate as they approached, stood looking at them with a smile on his face
+for some time before they saw him. A slight young man, not very tall,
+with dark hair, like Ursula's, and a somewhat anxious expression, in
+correct English clerical dress.
+
+"Has it all begun already?" he said, when they came close up to him, but
+without perceiving him, Ursula's face inspired with the pleasure of
+talking, as Janey's was with the eager delight of listening. The house
+was built in the ecclesiastical style, with gables and mullioned
+windows, which excluded the light, at least, whether or not they
+inspired passers-by with a sense of correct art, as they were intended
+to do. It was next door to the church, and had a narrow strip of
+shrubbery in front, planted with somewhat gloomy evergreens. The gate
+and door stood always open, except when Mr. May himself, coming or
+going, closed them momentarily, and it cannot be denied that there were
+outward and visible signs of a large, somewhat unruly family inside.
+
+"Oh, Reginald!" cried Ursula. "You have come home!"
+
+"Yes--for good," he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. "Or for bad--who
+can tell? At all events, here I am."
+
+"Why should it be for bad?" cried Janey, whose voice was always audible
+half-way up the street. "Oh, Ursula, something very nice has happened.
+He is to be warden of the old college, fancy! That _is_ being provided
+for, papa says; and a beautiful old house."
+
+"Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some old person who
+was chosen."
+
+"But papa says he can live at home and let the house," cried Janey.
+"There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman, papa thinks; it
+is nice, because there is no work--but look at Reginald, he does not
+like it a bit; he is never satisfied, I am sure, I wish it was me--"
+
+"Come in," said Reginald hastily, "I don't want all my affairs, and my
+character besides, to be proclaimed from the house-tops." Janey stopped
+indignant, to make some reply, and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she
+feared, with an energetic pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been
+playing in the little square hall, which was strewed with doll's
+clothes, and with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation.
+Some old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one of
+which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of Anne Dorset's
+orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these imperfections.
+
+"Oh, what a muddle!" she cried; "I don't wonder that Reginald does not
+care for living at home."
+
+"Oh, I wish papa heard you!" cried Janey loudly, as Ursula led the way
+into the drawing-room, which was not much tidier than the hall. There
+was a basket-full of stockings to be mended, standing on the old
+work-table. Ursula felt, with a sinking of the heart, that they were
+waiting for her arrival, and that Janey had done nothing to them. More
+toys and more old school-books were tossed about upon the faded old
+carpet. The table-cover hung uneven, one end of it dragging upon the
+floor. The fire was burning very low, stifled in dust and white ashes.
+How dismal it looked! not like a place to come home to. "Oh, I don't
+wonder Reginald is vexed to be made to live at home," she said once
+again to herself, with tears in her eyes.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself," her brother said, as she dropped
+wearily into the old easy-chair. "We have missed you very much; but I
+don't suppose you missed us. London was very pleasant, I suppose, even
+at this time of the year?"
+
+"Oh, pleasant!" said Ursula. "If you had been with me, how you would
+have liked it! Suffolk Street is only an inn, but it is a very nice inn,
+what they call a private hotel. Far better than the great big places on
+the American principle, Sir Robert says. But we dined at one of those
+big places one day, and it was very amusing. Scores of people, and great
+mirrors that made them look hundreds. And such quantities of lights and
+servants; but Sir Robert thought Suffolk Street very much the best. And
+I went to two theatres and to a ball. They were so kind. Sophy Dorset
+laughs at me sometimes, but Anne is an angel," said Ursula fervently. "I
+never knew any one so good in my life."
+
+"That is not saying much," said Janey, "for none of us are very good,
+and you know nobody else. Anne Dorset is an old maid."
+
+"Oh, Janey! how dare you?"
+
+"And, for that matter, so is Sophy. Papa says so. He says she was
+jilted, and that she will never get a husband."
+
+"Hold your tongue," said Reginald fiercely, "if we are to hear what my
+father says at second hand through an imp like you--"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Janey, mocking, "that is because you are not friends
+with papa."
+
+"Janey, come and help me to take off my things," said Ursula, seeing
+that Reginald would probably proceed to strong measures and box his
+sister's ears. "If you were older, you would not talk like that," she
+said, with dignity, as they went upstairs. "Oh, dear Janey, you can't
+think how different Cousin Anne and Sophy are, who are not girls, like
+us. They never talk unkindly of other people. You would get to think it
+childish, as I do, if you had been living with Cousin Anne."
+
+"Stuff!" said Janey. "Papa is not childish, I hope. And it was he who
+said all that. I don't care what your fine Cousin Anne does."
+
+Notwithstanding, the reproof thus administered went to Janey's heart;
+for to a girl of fifteen, whose next sister is almost twenty, the
+reproach of being childish is worse than any other. She blushed
+fiery-red, and though she scoffed, was moved. Besides, though it suited
+her to quote him for the moment, she was very far from putting any
+unbounded faith in papa.
+
+"Just wait a moment! See what Cousin Anne, whom you think so little of,
+has sent you," said Ursula, sitting down on the floor with the great
+parcel in her lap, carefully undoing the knots; for she had read Miss
+Edgeworth's stories in her youth, and would not have cut the strings for
+the world; and when the new dresses, in all their gloss and softness,
+were spread out upon the old carpet, which scarcely retained one trace
+of colour, Janey was struck dumb.
+
+"Is that," she said, faltering and conscience-stricken, "for _me_?"
+
+"This is for you; though you think them old maids--and that they will
+never get husbands," said Ursula, indignantly. "What a thing for a girl
+to say! And, indeed, I don't think Cousin Anne will ever get a husband.
+There is not one in the world half good enough for her--not one! Yes,
+this is for you. They went themselves, and looked over half the things
+in the shop before they could get one to please them. They did not say,
+'Janey is an unkind little thing, that will repeat all she hears about
+us, and does not care for us a bit.' They said, 'Ursula, we must choose
+frocks for Janey and Amy. Come and help us to get what they will like
+best.'"
+
+Janey's lips quivered, and two very big tears came into her eyes. She
+was stricken with the deepest compunction, but her pride did not permit
+her to give in all at once.
+
+"I dare say you told her how badly off we were," she said.
+
+"I told her nothing about it, and she did not say a word--not a word, as
+if it were a charity--only to please you--to let you see that you were
+remembered; but I dare say it is quite true after all," said Ursula,
+with lofty irony, "that Cousin Anne will never get a husband, and that
+they are old maids."
+
+"Oh, you know I didn't mean it!" said Janey, giving way to her tears.
+
+Then Ursula got up and took off her hat and smoothed her hair, feeling
+satisfied with her success, and went downstairs again to Reginald, who
+was seated on the dingy sofa waiting for her, to answer her questions
+about the great event which had happened since she had been away.
+Ursula's mind was full of the shock of the sharp impression made by her
+return, though the impression itself began to wear away.
+
+"I can understand why you don't care about living at home," she said.
+"Oh I wonder if I could do anything to mend it! I am so glad you have
+got something, Reginald. If you have a good servant, you might be quite
+comfortable by yourself, and we could come and see you. I should not
+feel it a bit--not a single bit; and it would be so much nicer for you."
+
+"You are mistaken," said her brother. "It is not staying at home I
+object to. We are not very tidy or very comfortable, perhaps, but we all
+belong to each other, at least. It is not that, Ursula."
+
+"What is it, then? Janey says," said Ursula, drawing a long breath of
+awe and admiration, "that you are to have two hundred and fifty pounds a
+year."
+
+"For doing nothing," he said.
+
+"For doing nothing?" She looked up at him a little bewildered, for his
+tone struck Ursula as not at all corresponding with the delightful
+character of the words he said. "But, Reginald, how nice, how very nice
+it sounds! How lucky you must have been! How could it happen that such a
+delightful thing should come to one of us? We are always so unlucky,
+papa says."
+
+"If you think this luck--" said Reginald. "He does, and he is quite
+pleased; but how do you suppose I can be pleased? Thrust into a place
+where I am not wanted--where I can be of no use. A dummy, a practical
+falsehood. How can I accept it, Ursula? I tell you it is a sinecure!"
+
+Ursula looked at him with eyes round with wonder. He seemed to be
+speaking in some different language of which she understood nothing.
+"What is a sinecure?" she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+PAPA.
+
+
+"Ursula has come back!" cried the little ones, who had returned from
+their tea-party, running to meet their father at the door.
+
+Mr. May was very good, except by moments, to his younger children. He
+was not, indeed, an unkind father to any of them; but he had never
+forgiven Providence for leaving him with his motherless family upon his
+hands, a man so utterly unfit for the task. Perhaps he did not put this
+exactly into words, but he felt it deeply, and had never got over it.
+There were so many things that he could have done better, and there were
+so many people who could have done this better; and yet it was precisely
+to him, not a person adapted to the charge of children, that it had been
+given to do it! This seemed to argue a want of judgment in the
+regulation of mortal affairs, which irritated him all the more because
+he was a clergyman, and had to persuade other people that everything
+that happened to them was for the best. He was a man of some culture,
+and literary power, and wrote very pleasant "thoughtful" papers for some
+of the Church magazines; but these compositions, though very easy to
+read, were only brought into the world by elaborate precautions on the
+part of the family, which scarcely dared to speak above its breath when
+papa was "writing;" for on such occasions he could be very savage, as
+the occasional offender knew. He was a man with an imposing person,
+good-looking, and of very bland and delightful manners, when he chose.
+But yet he had never made friends, and was now at fifty-five the
+incumbent of St. Roque, with a small income and a humble position in the
+church hierarchy of Carlingford. He preached better than any other of
+the Carlingford clergymen, looked better, had more reputation out of the
+place; and was of sufficiently good family, and tolerably well
+connected. Yet he never got on, never made any real advance in life.
+Nobody could tell what was the cause of this, for his opinions were
+moderate and did not stand in his way--indeed within the limits of
+moderation he had been known to modify his principles, now inclining
+towards the high, then towards the low, according as circumstances
+required, though never going too far in either direction. Such a man
+ought to have been successful, according to all rules, but he was not.
+He was generally in debt and always needy. His eldest son, James, was in
+India, doing well, and had often sent a contribution towards the comfort
+of the family, and especially to help Reginald at College. But James had
+married a year before, and accordingly was in a less favourable position
+for sending help. And indeed these windfalls had never produced much
+effect upon the family, who heard of James' gifts vaguely without
+profiting by them. All this _donna a penser_ to the elder children.
+Having no softening medium of a mother's eyes to look at their father
+through, they were more bold in judging him than, perhaps, they ought to
+have been; and he did not take pains to fascinate his children, or throw
+the glamour of love into their eyes. He took it for granted, frankly and
+as a part of nature, that he himself was the first person to be
+considered in all matters. So he was, of course--so the father, the
+bread-winner, the head of the family, ought to be; and when he has a
+wife to keep him upon that pedestal, and to secure that his worship
+shall be respected, it becomes natural, and the first article of the
+family creed; but somehow when a man has to set forth and uphold this
+principle himself, it is less successful; and in Mr. May's case it was
+not successful at all. He was not severe or tyrannical, so that they
+might have rebelled. He only held the conviction quite honestly and
+ingeniously, that his affairs came first, and were always to be attended
+to. Nothing could be said against this principle--but it tells badly in
+the management of a family unless, indeed, as we have said, it is
+managed through the medium of the mother, who takes away all imputation
+of selfishness by throwing an awful importance and tender sanctity over
+all that happens to be desirable or necessary for "papa."
+
+Mr. May had no wife to watch over the approaches of his study, and talk
+of him with reverential importance to her children. This was not his
+fault, but his misfortune. Bitterly had he mourned and resented the blow
+which took her from him, and deeply felt the loss she was to him. This
+was how he spoke of it always, the loss to him; and probably poor Mrs.
+May, who had adored and admired her husband to the last day of her life,
+would have been more satisfied with this way of mourning for her than
+any other; but naturally Ursula, who thought of the loss to herself and
+the other children, found fault with this limitation of the misfortune.
+A man who has thus to fight for himself does not appear in an amiable
+aspect to his family, to whom, as to all young creatures, it seemed
+natural that _they_ should be the first objects; and as they were a
+great trouble and burden to him, perhaps the children did not always
+bear their most amiable aspect to their father. Both looked selfish to
+the other, and Mr. May, no doubt, could have made out quite as good a
+case as the children did. He thought all young people were selfish,
+taking everything they could, trying to extract even the impossible from
+the empty purse and strained patience of their elders; and they thought
+that he was indifferent to them, thinking about himself, as it is a
+capital sin in a parent to do; and both of them were right and both
+wrong, as indeed may be said in every case to which there are two sides.
+
+"Ursula has come!" cried the two little ones. Amy and Robin could read
+their father's face better than they could read those instruments of
+torture called printed books, and they saw that he was in a good humour,
+and that they were safe to venture upon the playful liberty of seizing
+him, one by each hand, and dragging him in. He was a tall man, and the
+sight of him triumphantly dragged in by these imps, the youngest of whom
+was about up to his knees, was pretty, and would have gone to the heart
+of any spectator. He was not himself unconscious of this, and when he
+was in a good humour, and the children were neat and tolerably dressed,
+he did not object to being seen by the passers-by dragged up his own
+steps by those two little ones. The only passers-by, however, on this
+occasion were a retired shopkeeper and his wife, who had lately bought
+one of the oldest houses in Grange Lane, and who had come out for a walk
+as the day was fine. "Mark my words, Tozer," the lady was saying,
+"that's a good man though he's a church parson. Them as children hangs
+onto like that, ain't got no harm in them."
+
+"He's a rum un, he is," said Mr. Tozer in reply. It was a pity that the
+pretty spectacle of the clergyman with his little boy and girl should
+have been thus thrown away upon a couple of Dissenters, yet it was not
+without its effect. Amy pulled one arm and Robin pulled the other. They
+were dark-haired children like all the Mays, and as this peculiarity is
+rare among children, it gave these two a certain piquancy.
+
+"Well, well," he said, "take me to Ursula," and after he had kissed his
+newly-arrived daughter, he sat down in the faded drawing-room with much
+geniality, and took one child on each knee.
+
+"I hope you have enjoyed yourself, Ursula," he said; "of course, we have
+missed you. Janey has done her best, but she is not very clever at
+housekeeping, nor does she understand many things that people require,
+as you have learned to do."
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you have missed me!" said Ursula, "I mean sorry; I
+have enjoyed myself very, very much. The Dorsets were so kind, kinder
+than anybody ever was before."
+
+"And, papa, they have sent me a new dress."
+
+"And me too, papa," chirruped little Amy on his knee.
+
+"You too, Mouse! it was very kind of them; and you went to the Tower and
+did all the lions, Ursula? that is the lot of country cousins, and the
+Dorsets would spare you nothing, I suppose."
+
+"We went to much better things," said Ursula, producing her theatres and
+her ball as she had done before. "And, oh, papa, I like them so much. I
+wish we lived a little nearer. Those poor little Indian children, I fear
+they will be too much for Cousin Anne; they look so pale and so peevish,
+not like our children here."
+
+"Well, they are not pale at all events," said Mr. May, putting them
+down; "run and play like good children. You will have heard that we have
+had something happening to us, even in this quiet place, while you were
+away."
+
+"Oh, I was so astonished," said Ursula, "but Reginald doesn't seem to
+like it. That is so odd; I should have thought he would have been
+overjoyed to get something. He used to talk so about having no
+interest."
+
+"Reginald is like a great many other people. He does not know his own
+mind," said Mr. May, his countenance overcasting. Ursula knew that sign
+of coming storms well enough, but she was too much interested to
+forbear.
+
+"What is a sinecure, papa?" she asked, her brother's last word still
+dwelling in her mind.
+
+"A piece of outrageous folly," he cried, getting up and striding about
+the room, "all springing from the foolish books boys read now-a-days,
+and the nonsense that is put into their minds. Mean! it means that your
+brother is an ass, that is what it means. After all the money that has
+been spent upon him--"
+
+"But, papa, we have not spent much, have we? I thought it was his
+scholarship?" said Ursula with injudicious honesty. Her father turned
+upon her indignantly.
+
+"I am not aware that I said we. _We_ have nothing to spend upon any one,
+so far as I know. I said I--the only person in the house who earns any
+money or is likely to do so, if Reginald goes on in this idiotical way."
+
+Ursula grew red. She was Mr. May's own daughter, and had a temper too.
+"If I could earn any money I am sure I would," she cried, "and only too
+glad. I am sure it is wanted badly enough. But how is a girl to earn any
+money? I wish I knew how."
+
+"You little fool, no one was thinking of you. Do a little more in the
+house, and nobody will ask you to earn money. Yes, this is the shape
+things are taking now-a-days," said Mr. May, "the girls are mad to earn
+anyhow, and the boys, forsooth, have a hundred scruples. If women would
+hold their tongues and attend to their own business, I have no doubt we
+should have less of the other nonsense. The fact is everything is
+getting into an unnatural state. But if Reginald thinks I am going to
+maintain him in idleness at his age--"
+
+"Papa, for Heaven's sake don't speak so loud, he will hear you!" said
+Ursula, letting her fears of a domestic disturbance overweigh her
+prudence.
+
+"He will hear me? I wish him to hear me," said Mr. May, raising his
+voice. "Am I to be kept from saying what I like, how I like, in my own
+house, for fear that Reginald should hear me, forsooth! Ursula, I am
+glad to have you at home; but if you take Reginald's part in his folly,
+and set yourself against the head of the family, you had better go back
+again and at once. _He_ may defy me, but I shall not be contradicted by
+a chit of a girl, I give you my word for that."
+
+Ursula was silent; she grew pale now after her redness of hasty and
+unconsidered self-defence. Oh, for Cousin Anne to shield and calm her;
+what a difference it made to plunge back again thus into trouble and
+strife.
+
+"He thinks it better to be idle at his father's expense than to do a
+little work for a handsome salary," said Mr. May; "everything is right
+that is extracted from his father's pocket, though it is contrary to a
+high code of honour to accept a sinecure. Fine reasoning that, is it
+not? The one wrongs nobody, while the other wrongs you and me and all
+the children, who want every penny I have to spend; but Reginald is much
+too fine to think of that. He thinks it quite natural that I should go
+on toiling and stinting myself."
+
+"Papa, it may be very wrong what he is doing; but if you think he wants
+to take anything from you--"
+
+"Hold your tongue," said her father; "I believe in deeds, not in words.
+He has it in his power to help me, and he chooses instead, for a
+miserable fantastic notion of his own, to balk all my care for him. Of
+course the hospital was offered to him out of respect for me. No one
+cares for _him_. He is about as much known in Carlingford as--little Amy
+is. Of course it is to show their respect to me. And here he comes with
+his fantastic nonsense about a sinecure! Who is he that he should make
+such a fuss? Better men than he is have held them, and will to the end
+of the chapter. A sinecure! what does he call a sinecure?"
+
+"That is just what I want to know," said Ursula under her breath, but
+her father did not, fortunately, hear this ejaculation. Reginald had
+gone out, and happily was not within hearing, and Mr. May calmed down by
+degrees, and told Ursula various circumstances about the parish and the
+people which brought him down out of his anger and comforted her after
+that passage of arms. But the commotion left him in an excitable state,
+a state in which he was very apt to say things that were disagreeable,
+and to provoke his children to wrath in a way which Ursula thought was
+very much against the scriptural rule.
+
+"Things in the parish are going on much as usual," he said, "Mrs. Sam
+Hurst is as kind as ever."
+
+"Indeed!" said Ursula with a suppressed snort of anger. Mr. May gave the
+kind of offensive laugh, doubly offensive to every woman, which men give
+when their vanity is excited, and when there is, according to the common
+expression, a lady in the case.
+
+"Yes, she is very kind," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "She has had
+the children to tea a great many times since you have been away. To show
+my sense of her kindness, you must ask her one of these days. A woman
+who understands children is always a valuable friend for a man in my
+position--and also, Ursula, for a girl in yours."
+
+"She may understand children, but they are not fond of her," said
+Ursula, with a gleam of malice which restored her father to good humour.
+He had no more idea of marrying a second time than of flying. He was
+tenderly attached in his way to his wife's memory, and quite
+sufficiently troubled by the number of dwellers in his house already;
+but he rather liked, as a good-looking man in his wane generally does,
+to think that he could marry if he pleased, and to hold the possibility
+over the heads of his household, as a chastisement of all their sins
+against him which he could use at any time. All the Mays grew hot and
+angry at the name of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and their fear and anger delighted
+their father. He liked to speak of her to provoke them, and partly for
+that, partly for other reasons of his own, kept up a decorous
+semi-flirtation with his neighbour who lived next door, and thus excited
+the apprehensions and resentment of the girls every day of their lives.
+When Ursula thought of Mrs. Sam Hurst she wished for the Dorsets no
+more. It was above all things, she felt, her duty to be here on the spot
+to defend the family from that woman's machinations. The idea put energy
+into her. She ceased to be tired, ceased to feel herself, "after her
+journey," capable of nothing but sitting still and hearing of all that
+had been done since she went away.
+
+In the course of the evening, however, Ursula took advantage of a quiet
+moment to look into the dictionary and make herself quite safe about the
+meaning of the word sinecure. It was not the first time she had heard
+it, as may be supposed. She had heard of lucky people who held
+sinecures, and she had heard them denounced as evil things, but without
+entering closely into the meaning. Now she had a more direct interest in
+it, and it must be confessed that she was not at all frightened by the
+idea, or disposed to reject it as Reginald did. Ursula had not learnt
+much about public virtue, and to get a good income for doing nothing, or
+next to nothing, seemed to her an ideal sort of way of getting one's
+livelihood. She wished with a sigh that there were sinecures which could
+be held by girls. But no, in that as in other things "gentlemen" kept
+all that was good to themselves; and Ursula was disposed to treat
+Reginald's scruples with a very high hand. But she did not choose that
+her father should attack him with all these disagreeable speeches about
+maintaining him in idleness, and taunts about the money that had been
+spent on his education. That was not the way to manage him, the girl
+felt; but Ursula resolved to take her brother in hand herself, to argue
+with him how foolish it was, to point out to him that if he did not take
+it some one else would, and that the country would not gain anything
+while he would lose, to laugh at his over delicacy, to show him how
+delightful it would be if he was independent, and what a help to all his
+brothers and sisters. In short, it seemed quite simple to Ursula, and
+she felt her path mapped out before her, and triumphed in every stage of
+her argument, inventing the very weakest replies for Reginald to make.
+Full of the inspiration of this purpose, she felt that it was in every
+way well that she had come home. With Reginald settled close by, going
+away no longer, standing by her in her difficulties, and even perhaps,
+who could tell? taking her to parties, and affording her the means now
+and then of asking two or three people to tea, the whole horizon of her
+life brightened for Ursula. She became reconciled to Carlingford. All
+that had to be done was to show Reginald what his duty was, and how
+foolish he was to hesitate, and she could not allow herself to suppose
+that _when it was put before him properly_ there could long remain much
+difficulty upon that score.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PHOEBE'S PREPARATIONS.
+
+
+A few days after Ursula's return home, another arrival took place in
+Carlingford. Phoebe Beecham, after considering the case fully, and
+listening with keen interest to all the indications she could pick up as
+to the peculiarities of her grandfather's house, and the many things in
+life at Carlingford which were "unlike what she had been used to," had
+fully made up her mind to dare the difficulties of that unknown
+existence, and to devote herself in her mother's place to the care of
+her grandmother and the confusion of Mrs. Tom. This was partly
+undertaken out of a sense of duty, partly out of that desire for change
+and the unknown, which has to content itself in many cases with the very
+mildest provision, and partly because Phoebe's good sense perceived the
+necessity of the matter. She was by no means sure what were the special
+circumstances that made "Mrs. Tom" disagreeable to her mother, but she
+was deeply sensible of the importance of preventing Mrs. Tom from
+securing to herself and her family all that Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had to
+leave. Phoebe was not mercenary in her own person, but she had no idea of
+giving up any "rights," and she felt it of the utmost importance that
+her brother, who was unfortunately by no means so clever as herself,
+should be fully provided against all the contingencies of life. She was
+not concerned about herself in that particular. Phoebe felt it a matter
+of course that she should marry, and marry well. Self-confidence of this
+assured and tranquil sort serves a great many excellent purposes--it
+made her even generous in her way. She believed in her star, in her own
+certain good-fortune, in herself; and therefore her mind was free to
+think and to work for other people. She knew very well by all her mother
+said, and by all the hesitations of both her parents, that she would
+have many disagreeable things to encounter in Carlingford, but she felt
+so sure that nothing could really humiliate _her_, or pull her down from
+her real eminence, that the knowledge conveyed no fears to her mind.
+When this confidence in her own superiority to all debasing influences
+is held by the spotless princess in the poem, it is the most beautiful
+of human sentiments, and why it should not be equally elevated when
+entertained by a pink and plump modern young woman, well up in all
+nineteenth century refinements, and the daughter of the minister of the
+Crescent Chapel, it would be hard to say. Phoebe held it with the
+strongest faith.
+
+"Their ways of thinking, perhaps, and their ways of living, are not
+those which I have been used to," she said; "but how does that affect
+me? I am myself whatever happens; even if poor dear grandmamma's habits
+are not refined, which I suppose is what you mean, mamma, that does not
+make me unrefined. A lady must always be a lady wherever she is--Una,"
+she continued, using strangely enough the same argument which has
+occurred to her historian, "is not less a princess when she is living
+among the satyrs. Of course, I am not like Una--and neither are they
+like the wild people in the wood."
+
+Mrs. Beecham did not know much about Una, except that she was somebody
+in a book; but she kissed her daughter, and assured her that she was "a
+real comfort," and devoted herself to her comfort for the few days that
+remained, doing everything that it was possible to do to show her love,
+and, so to speak, gratitude to the good child who was thus throwing
+herself into the breach. The Beechams were in no want of money to buy
+what pleased them, and the mother made many additions to Phoebe's
+wardrobe which that young lady herself thought quite unnecessary, not
+reflecting that other sentiments besides that of simple love for herself
+were involved.
+
+"They shall see that my daughter is not just like one of their
+common-looking girls," Mrs. Beecham said to her husband; and he shared
+the feeling, though he could not but think within himself that her
+aspect was of very much more importance than the appearance of Phoebe
+Tozer's child could possibly be as _his_ daughter.
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," he replied, "vulgar people of that sort
+are but too ready to look down upon a pastor's family. They ought to be
+made to see the difference."
+
+The consequence of this was that Phoebe was fitted out like a young
+princess going on her travels. Ursula May would have been out of her
+wits with delight, had half these fine things come her way; but Phoebe
+took them very calmly.
+
+"I have never undervalued dress," she said, "as some girls do; I think
+it is a very important social influence. And even without that, mamma,
+so long as it pleases you--" So with this mixture of philosophy and
+affection all went well.
+
+"We must call on Mrs. Copperhead before you go; they would think it
+strange, after all the interest they have shown in us."
+
+"Have they shown an interest in us?" said Phoebe. "Of course we must
+call--and Mrs. Copperhead is a lady, but as for Mr. Copperhead, mamma--"
+
+"Hush! he is the leading member, and very influential in the connection.
+A pastor's family must not be touchy, Phoebe. We must put up with a great
+many things. There ought to be peace among brethren, you know, and
+harmony is the first thing that is essential in a church--"
+
+"I wonder if harmony would be as essential, supposing Mr. Copperhead to
+come to grief, mamma."
+
+"Phoebe! slang from you--who have always set your face against it."
+
+"What can one talk but slang when one thinks of such a person?" said
+Phoebe gravely; and thus saying she opened the door for her mother, and
+they went out in their best gowns to pay their visit. Mrs. Copperhead
+was very civil to the pastor's family. It was not in her to be uncivil
+to any one; but in her soft heart she despised them a little, and
+comported herself to them with that special good behaviour and dignified
+restraint which the best natured people reserve for their inferiors. For
+though she went to chapel, taken there by Mr. Copperhead, she was
+"church" at heart. The interest which Mrs. Beecham took in everything,
+and the praises she bestowed on the ball, did not relax her coldness.
+They were too well off, too warm and silken to call forth her
+sympathies, and there was little in common between them to afford any
+ground for meeting.
+
+Yes, Mr. Copperhead was quite well--she was quite well--her son was
+quite well. She hoped Mr. Beecham was well. She had heard that most
+people were pleased with the ball, thank you. Oh, Miss Beecham was going
+away--indeed! She hoped the weather would be good; and then Mrs.
+Copperhead sat erect upon her sofa, and did not try to say any more.
+Though she had not the heart of a mouse, she too could play the great
+lady when occasion served. Clarence, however, was much more hospitable
+than his mother. He liked Phoebe, who could talk almost as if she was in
+society, as girls talk in novels. He knew, of course, that she was not
+in society, but she was a girl whom a fellow could get on with, who had
+plenty to say for herself, who was not a lay figure like many young
+ladies; and then she was pretty, pink, and golden, "a piece of colour"
+which was attractive to the eye. He soon found out where she was going,
+and let her know that he himself intended a visit to the neighbourhood.
+
+"The Dorsets live near," he said. "Relations of my mother. You saw them
+at the ball. I dare say you will meet them somewhere about." This, it
+is to be feared, Clarence said in something of his mother's spirit, with
+a warm sense of superiority, for he knew that the pastor's daughter was
+very unlikely to meet the Dorsets. Phoebe, however, was equal to the
+occasion.
+
+"I am not at all likely to meet them," she said with a gracious smile.
+"For one thing, I am not going to enjoy myself, but to nurse a sick
+person. And sick people don't go to parties. Besides, you know the
+foolish prejudices of society, properly so called. I think them foolish
+because they affect me," said Phoebe, with engaging frankness. "If they
+did not affect me, probably I should think them all right."
+
+"What foolish prejudices?" said Clarence, thinking she was about to say
+something about her inferior position, and already feeling flattered
+before she spoke.
+
+"About Dissenters, you know," she said; "of course, you must be aware
+that we are looked down upon in society. It does not matter, for when
+people have any sense, as soon as they know us they do us justice; but
+of course you must be aware that the prejudice exists."
+
+Clarence did know, and with some bitterness; for Mr. Copperhead, though
+he did not care much, perhaps, about religion, cared for his chapel, and
+stood by it with unswerving strictness. His son, who was an Oxford man,
+and respectful of all the prejudices of society, did not like this. But
+what could he do against the obstinate dissentership of his father?
+This, as much as anything else, had acted upon the crowd the night of
+the ball, and made them all nobodies. He hesitated to make any reply,
+and his face flushed with shame and displeasure. Phoebe felt that she had
+avenged upon Clarence his mother's haughty politeness. She had brought
+home to him a sense of the social inferiority which was common to them
+both. Having done this, she was satisfied, and proceeded to soften the
+blow.
+
+"It cannot fall upon you, who are in so much better a position, as it
+does upon us," said Phoebe. "We are the very head and front of the
+offending, a Dissenting minister's family!--Society and its charms are
+not for us. And I hope we know our place," she said, with mock humility;
+"when people have any sense and come to know us it is different; and for
+the foolish ones I don't care. But you see from that, I am not likely to
+meet your cousins, am I?" she added with a laugh.
+
+"If you mean that they are among the foolish ones----"
+
+"Oh, no; I don't. But you can't suppose they will take the trouble to
+find _me_ out. Why should they? People entirely out of my range, and
+that have nothing to do with me. So you may be quite sure I am right
+when I say we sha'n't meet."
+
+"Well," said Clarence, piqued, "I am going to Easton, and I shall see
+you, if Mrs. Beecham will give me permission to call."
+
+"She will give you the address along with that; but till then,
+good-bye," said Phoebe. To tell the truth, she had no desire to see
+Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. Perhaps he meant something, perhaps
+he did not--at this stage of the proceedings it was a matter of
+indifference to Phoebe, who certainly had not allowed "her affections" to
+become engaged. If he did mean anything, was it likely that he could
+support unmoved the grandfather and grandmother who were, or had been,
+"in trade?" On the other hand, was it not better that he should know the
+worst? Phoebe was no husband-hunter. She contemplated the issue with calm
+and composure, however it might turn out.
+
+"He asked me if he might call," said Mrs. Beecham, in some excitement.
+"I don't care much to have you seen, my darling, out of your own
+father's house."
+
+"Just as you please, mamma--just as it suits best," said Phoebe,
+dismissing the subject. She was not anxious. A good deal depended on
+whether he meant anything or nothing, but even that did not conclude the
+subject, for she had not made up her own mind.
+
+"Why didn't you tell them about the Mays?" said Clarence, as the two
+ladies went out. "They live in Carlingford, and I should think it would
+be pleasant on both sides."
+
+"My dear boy, you forget the difference of position," said Mrs.
+Copperhead. "They are Dissenters."
+
+"Oh, I like that," cried Clarence, half angry, as himself sharing the
+disadvantages of the connection. "A needy beggar like May has a great
+deal to stand upon. I like that."
+
+"But it is true all the same," said Mrs. Copperhead, shaking her head.
+"And you can see the difference at once. I dare say Miss Beecham is a
+very clever young woman, but between her and Miss May what a difference
+there is! Any one can see it--"
+
+"I am afraid then I am stupid, for I can't see it, mother. They are both
+pretty girls, but for amusing you and that sort of thing give me Phoebe.
+She is worth twenty of the other. As sharp as a needle, and plenty to
+say for herself. This is the kind of girl I like."
+
+"I am very sorry for it. I hope that is not the kind of wife you will
+like," said Mrs. Copperhead, with a sigh.
+
+"Oh, wife! they haven't a penny, either the one or the other," said
+Clarence, with delightful openness, "and we may be sure that would not
+suit the governor even if it suited me."
+
+In the mean time Mrs. Beecham and Phoebe were walking up the broad
+pavement of Portland Place towards their home.
+
+"It is pleasant to see the mother and the son together," said Mrs.
+Beecham, who was determined to see everything in the best light that
+concerned the Copperheads. "They are so devoted to each other, and,
+Phoebe, dear--I don't like to talk in this way to a sensible girl like
+you, but you must see it with your own eyes. You have certainly made a
+great impression upon Clarence Copperhead. When he said he hoped to see
+you in Carlingford, and asked, might he call? it was exactly like asking
+my permission to pay you his addresses; it is very flattering, but it is
+embarrassing as well."
+
+"I do not feel particularly flattered, mamma; and I think if I were you
+I would not give him the address."
+
+Mrs. Beecham looked anxiously in her daughter's face.
+
+"Is it from prudence, Phoebe, or is it that you don't like him, that you
+wouldn't have him if he asked you?"
+
+"We must wait till he does ask me," said Phoebe, decisively. "Till then I
+can't possibly tell. But I don't want him at Carlingford. I know that
+grandpapa and grandmamma are--in trade."
+
+"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Beecham, in a subdued voice.
+
+"Dissenters, and in trade; and he is going to stay with the Dorsets,
+fine county people. Don't give him the address; if we meet by chance,
+there is no harm done. I am not ashamed of any one belonging to me. But
+you can say that you don't think his father would like him to be
+visiting me at Carlingford--which I am sure would be quite true."
+
+"Indeed he might go much farther without finding any one so well worth
+visiting," said the mother, indignant, to which Phoebe nodded her head in
+tranquil assent.
+
+"That is neither here nor there," she said; "you can always tell him so,
+and that will please Mr. Copperhead, if ever he comes to hear of it. He
+thought at one time that I was too entertaining. One knows what that
+means. I should like him to see how little I cared."
+
+"But, my dear, Clarence Copperhead would be worth--a little attention.
+He could give a girl--a very nice position," Mrs. Beecham faltered,
+looking at her daughter between every word.
+
+"I am not saying anything against Clarence Copperhead," said Phoebe, with
+composure, "but I should like his dear papa to know how little I care,
+and that you have refused him my address."
+
+This was all she said on the subject. Phoebe was quite ready to allow
+that Clarence was everything that her mother had said, and she had fully
+worked out her own theory on marriage, which will probably be hereafter
+expounded in these pages, so that she was not at all shocked by having
+his advantages thus pointed out to her. But there was no hurry, she said
+to herself. If it was not Clarence Copperhead, it would be some one
+else, and why should she, at this early stage of her career, attempt to
+precipitate the designs of Providence? She had plenty of time before
+her, and was in no hurry for any change; and a genuine touch of nature
+in her heart made her anxious for an opportunity of showing her
+independence to that arrogant and offensive "leading member," who made
+the life of the office-bearers in the Crescent a burden to them. If she
+could only so drive him into a corner, that he should be obliged to come
+to her in his despair, and beg her to accept his son's hand to save him
+from going off in a galloping consumption, that would have been a
+triumph after Phoebe's heart. To be sure this was a perfectly vain and
+wildly romantic hope--it was the only bit of wild and girlish romance in
+the bosom of a very well-educated, well-intentioned, and sensible young
+woman. She had seen her parents put up with the arrogance of the
+millionnaire for a long time without rebelling any more than they did;
+but Mr. Copperhead had gone further than Phoebe could bear; and
+thoroughly as she understood her own position, and all its interests,
+this one vain fancy had found a footing in her mind. If she could but
+humble him and make him sue to her. It was not likely, but for such a
+triumph the sensible Phoebe would have done much. It was the one point on
+which she was silly, but on that she was as silly as any cynic could
+desire.
+
+And thus with a huge trunk full of charming dresses, a dressing-case fit
+for any bride, the prettiest travelling costume imaginable, and
+everything about her fit, Mrs. Beecham fondly thought, for a duke's
+daughter, Phoebe junior took her departure, to be the comfort of her
+grandmamma, and to dazzle Carlingford. Her fond parents accompanied her
+to the station and placed her in a carriage, and fee'd a guard heavily
+to take care of and watch over her. "Not but that Phoebe might be safely
+trusted to take care of herself anywhere," they said. In which
+expression of their pride in their daughter, the observant reader may
+see a proof of their own origin from the humbler classes. They would
+probably have prided themselves on her timidity and helplessness had
+they been a little better born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+GRANGE LANE.
+
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Tozer had retired from business several years before. They
+had given up the shop with its long established connection, and all its
+advantages, to Tom, their son, finding themselves to have enough to live
+upon in ease, and indeed luxury; and though Mrs. Tozer found the house
+in Grange Lane shut in by the garden walls to be much duller than her
+rooms over the shop in High Street, where she saw everything that was
+going on, yet the increase in gentility was unquestionable. The house
+which they were fortunate enough to secure in this desirable locality
+had been once in the occupation of Lady Weston, and there was
+accordingly an aroma of high life about it, although somebody less
+important had lived in it in the mean time, and it had fallen into a
+state of considerable dilapidation, which naturally made it cheaper. Mr.
+Tozer had solidly repaired all that was necessary for comfort, but he
+had not done anything in those external points of paint and decoration,
+which tells so much in the aspect of a house. Lady Weston's taste had
+been florid, and the walls continued as she had left them, painted and
+papered with faded wreaths, which were apt to look dissipated, as they
+ought to have been refreshed and renewed years before. But outside,
+where the wreaths do not fade, there was a delightful garden charmingly
+laid out, in which Lady Weston had once held her garden parties, and
+where the crocuses and other spring bulbs, which had been put in with a
+lavish hand, during Lady Weston's extravagant reign, had already begun
+to blow. The violets were peeping out from among their leaves on a
+sheltered bank, and Christmas roses, overblown, making a great show with
+their great white stars, in a corner. Tozer himself soon took a great
+interest in this little domain out of doors, and was for ever pottering
+about the flowers, obeying, with the servility of ignorance, the
+gardener's injunctions. Mrs. Tozer, however, who was in weak health, and
+consequently permitted to be somewhat cross and contradictory, regretted
+the High Street.
+
+"Talk of a garden," she said, "a thing as never changes except according
+to the seasons! Up in the town there was never a day the same, something
+always happening--Soldiers marching through, or Punch and Judy, or a
+row at the least. It is the cheerfullest place in the whole world, I do
+believe; shut up here may do for the gentry, but I likes the streets and
+what's going on. You may call me vulgar if you please, but so I do."
+
+Tozer prudently said nothing to such outbursts except a soothing
+exhortation to wait till summer, when she would find the benefit of the
+fresh air, not to speak of the early vegetables; and he himself found
+the garden an unspeakable resource. At first, indeed, he would stroll up
+to the shop of a morning, especially if any new consignment of
+first-rate York hams, or cheese, was coming in, which he loved to turn
+over and test by smell and touch; but by and by the ancient butterman
+made a discovery, such as we are all apt to make when we get old and
+step out of the high road of life. He found out that his son did not
+appreciate his advice, and that Mrs. Tom cared still less for his
+frequent appearances. Indeed, he himself once saw her bounce out of the
+shop as he entered, exclaiming audibly, "Here's that fussy old man
+again." Tozer was an old man, it is true, but nobody (under eighty)
+cares to have the epithet flung in his teeth; and to be in the way is
+always unpleasant. He had self-command enough to say nothing about it,
+except in a very modified shape to his wife, who was ready enough to
+believe anything unpleasant about Mrs. Tom; but he took to gardening
+with ardour from that day; and learned all about the succession of the
+flowers, and how long one set lasted, and which kind should be put into
+the ground next. He would even take off his coat and do a tolerable
+day's work under the gardener's direction, to the great advantage of his
+health and temper, while Mrs. Tozer grumbled upstairs. She was getting
+more and more helpless about the house, unable to see after the stout
+maid-of-all-work, who in her turn grumbled much at the large house, for
+which one maid was not enough. Many altercations took place in
+consequence between the mistress and servant.
+
+"The ungrateful hussy hasn't even as many rooms to do as she had in the
+High Street, when there was the 'prentices' beds to make," Mrs. Tozer
+said indignantly to her husband; but Jane on her side pointed to the
+length of passage, the stairs, the dining and drawing-rooms, where there
+had once only been a parlour.
+
+"Cook and 'ousemaid's little enough," said Jane; "there did ought to be
+a man in this kind of 'ouse; but as there's only two in family,
+shouldn't say nothing if I had a girl under me."
+
+Things were gravitating towards this girl at the time of Phoebe's
+arrival; but nothing had as yet been finally decided upon. Jane,
+however, had bestirred herself to get the young lady's room ready with
+something like alacrity. A young person coming to the house promised a
+little movement and change, which was always something, and Jane had no
+doubt that Phoebe would be on her side in respect to the "girl." "She'll
+want waiting upon, and there'll always be sending of errands," Jane said
+to herself. She knew by experience "what young 'uns is in a house."
+
+There was something, perhaps, in all the preparations for her departure
+which had thrown dust in Phoebe Beecham's eyes. She had been too
+sharp-sighted not to see into her mother's qualms and hesitations about
+her visit to Carlingford, and the repeated warnings of both parents as
+to the "difference from what she had been accustomed to;" and she
+thought she had fully prepared herself for what she was to encounter.
+But probably the elaborate outfit provided by her mother and the
+importance attached to her journey had to some degree obliterated this
+impression, for it is certain that when Phoebe saw an old man in a shabby
+coat, with a wisp of a large white neckcloth round his throat, watching
+anxiously for the arrival of the train as it came up, she sustained a
+shock which she had not anticipated. It was about five years since she
+had seen her grandfather, an interval due to hazard rather than purpose,
+though, on the whole, the elder Beechams had not been sorry to keep
+their parents and their children apart. Phoebe, however, knew her
+grandfather perfectly well as soon as she saw him, though he had not
+perceived her, and was wandering anxiously up and down in search of her.
+She held back in her corner for the moment, to overcome the shock. Yes,
+there could be no doubt about it; there he was, he whom she was going to
+visit, under whose auspices she was about to appear in Carlingford. He
+was not even like an old Dissenting minister, which had been her
+childish notion of him. He looked neither more nor less than what he
+was, an old shopkeeper, very decent and respectable, but a little shabby
+and greasy, like the men whose weekly bills she had been accustomed to
+pay for her mother. She felt an instant conviction that he would call
+her "Ma'am," if she went up to him, and think her one of the quality.
+Poor Phoebe! she sat back in her corner and gave a gasp of horror and
+dismay, but having done this, she was herself again. She gave herself a
+shake, like one who is about to take a plunge, rose lightly to her feet,
+took up her bag, and stepped out of the carriage, just as Mr. Tozer
+strolled anxiously past for the third time.
+
+"Grandpapa!" she cried with a smile. Mr. Tozer was almost as much taken
+aback by this apparition as Phoebe herself had been. He knew that his
+daughter had made great strides in social elevation, and that her
+children, when he had seen them last, had been quite like "gentlefolk's
+children;" but to see this young princess step forth graciously out of a
+first-class carriage, and address him as "grandpapa," took away his
+breath.
+
+"Why--why--why, Miss! you ain't little Phoebe?" he cried, scared out of
+his seven senses, as he afterwards said.
+
+"Yes, indeed, I am little Phoebe," she said, coming up and kissing him
+dutifully. She was half-disgusted, he half-frightened; but yet it was
+right, and Phoebe did it. "I have only two boxes and a bag," she said,
+"besides my dressing-case. If you will get a cab, grandpapa, I will go
+and see after the luggage."
+
+Old Tozer thought he could have carried the bag himself, and left the
+boxes to follow; but he succumbed humbly and obeyed.
+
+"She don't seem a bit proud," he said to himself; "but, good Lord,
+what'll she ever say to my old woman?"
+
+He saw the contrast very clearly between his wife and this splendid
+grandchild. It did not strike him so much in his own case.
+
+"How is grandmamma?" said Phoebe, blandly; "better, I hope? Mamma was so
+sorry not to come herself; but you know, of course, she has a great many
+things to do. People in town are obliged to keep up certain appearances.
+You are a great deal better off in the country, grandpapa."
+
+"Lord bless you, my dear, do you call Carlingford the country?" said Mr.
+Tozer. "That is all you know about it. Your granny and I are humble
+folks, but the new minister at Salem is one as keeps up appearances with
+the best. Your mother was always inclined for that. I hope she has not
+brought you up too fine for the likes of us."
+
+"I hope not, indeed," said Phoebe. "No fear of my being too fine for my
+duty, grandpapa. Do you live down this nice road? How pretty it is! how
+delightful these gardens must be in summer. I beg your pardon for
+calling it the country. It is so quiet and so nice, it seems the country
+to me."
+
+"Ah, to be sure; brought up in the London smoke," said Mr. Tozer. "I
+don't suppose, now, you see a bit of green from year's end to year's
+end? Very bad for the 'ealth, that is; but I can't say you look poorly
+on it. Your colour's fresh, so was your mother's before you. To be sure,
+she wasn't cooped up like you."
+
+"Oh, we do get a little fresh air sometimes--in the parks, for
+instance," said Phoebe. She was somewhat piqued by the idea that she was
+supposed to live in London smoke.
+
+"Ah, the parks are always something; but I suppose it takes you a day's
+journey to get at them," said Mr. Tozer, shaking his head. "You mustn't
+mind your grandmother's temper just at first, my dear. She's old, poor
+soul, and she ain't well, and she's sometimes cross above a bit. But
+she'll be that proud of you, she won't know if she's on her 'eels or 'er
+'ead; and as for a cross word now and again, I hope as you won't mind--"
+
+"I shan't mind anything, grandpapa," said Phoebe, sweetly, "so long as I
+can be of use."
+
+And these were, indeed, the dutiful sentiments with which she made her
+entry upon this passage in her life, not minding anything but to be of
+use. The first glimpse of old Tozer, indeed, made it quite evident to
+Phoebe that nothing but duty could be within her reach. Pleasure,
+friends, society, the thought of all such delights must be abandoned.
+And as for Clarence Copperhead and the Miss Dorsets, the notion of
+meeting or receiving them was too absurd. But Duty remained, and Phoebe
+felt herself capable of the sacrifice demanded from her. That confidence
+in herself which we have already indicated as a marked feature in her
+character, gave her the consoling certainty that she could not suffer
+from association with her humble relations. Whosoever saw her must do
+her justice, and that serene conviction preserved her from all the
+throes of uneasy pride which afflict inferior minds in similar
+circumstances. She had no wish to exhibit her grandfather and
+grandmother in their lowliness, nor to be ostentatious of her homely
+origin, as some people are in the very soreness of wounded pride; but if
+hazard produced the butterman in the midst of the finest of her
+acquaintances, Phoebe would still have been perfectly at her ease. She
+would be herself, whatever happened.
+
+In the mean time, however, it was apparent that Duty was what she had to
+look to; Duty, and that alone. She had come here, not to amuse herself,
+not to please herself, but to do her duty; and having thus concluded
+upon her object, she felt comparatively happy, and at her ease.
+
+Mrs. Tozer had put on her best cap, which was a very gorgeous creation.
+She had dressed herself as if for a party, with a large brooch,
+enclosing a curl of various coloured hair cut from the heads of her
+children in early life, which fastened a large worked collar over a
+dress of copper-coloured silk, and she rustled and shook a good deal as
+she came downstairs into the garden to meet her grandchild, with some
+excitement and sense of the "difference" which could not but be felt on
+one side as well as on the other. She, too, was somewhat frightened by
+the appearance of the young lady, who was her Phoebe's child, yet was so
+unlike any other scion of the Tozer race; and felt greatly disposed to
+curtsey and say "Ma'am" to her.
+
+"You've grown a deal and changed a deal since I saw you last," she said,
+restraining this impression, and receiving Phoebe's kiss with gratified,
+yet awe-struck feeling; and then her respectful alarm getting too much
+for her, she added, faltering, "You'll find us but humble folks; perhaps
+not altogether what you've been used to--"
+
+Phoebe did not think it expedient to make any reply to this outburst of
+humility.
+
+"Grandmamma, I am afraid you have over-exerted yourself, coming
+downstairs to meet me," she said, taking the old lady's hand, and
+drawing it within her arm. "Yes, I have grown; I am tall enough to be of
+some use; but you must not treat me as if I were a stranger. No, no;
+never mind my room. I am not tired; the journey is nothing. Let me take
+you back to your chair and make you comfortable. I feel myself quite at
+home already. The only odd thing is that I have never been here before."
+
+"Ah, my dear, your mother thought too much of you to send you to the
+likes of us; that's the secret of it. She was always fond of fine folks,
+was my Phoebe; and I don't blame her, bringing you up quite the lady as
+she's done."
+
+"You must not find fault with mamma," said Phoebe, smiling. "What a nice
+cozy room! This is the dining-room, I suppose; and here is your cushion,
+and your footstool at this nice window. How pleasant it is, with the
+crocuses in all the borders already! I am not at all tired; but I am
+sure it must be tea-time, and I should so like a cup of tea."
+
+"We thought," said Mrs. Tozer, "as perhaps you mightn't be used to tea
+at this time of day."
+
+"Oh, it is the right time; it is the fashionable hour," said Phoebe;
+"everybody has tea at five. I will run upstairs first, and take off my
+hat, and make myself tidy. Jane--is that her name?--don't trouble,
+grandmamma; Jane will show me the way."
+
+"Well?" said Mr. Tozer to Mrs. Tozer, as Phoebe disappeared. The two old
+people looked at each other with a little awe; but she, as was her
+nature, took the most depressing view. She shook her head.
+
+"She is a deal too fine for us, Tozer," she said. "She'll never make
+herself 'appy in our quiet way. Phoebe's been and brought her up quite
+the lady. It ain't as her dress is much matter. I'd have given her a
+silk myself, and never thought of it twice; and something lively like
+for a young person, 'stead of that gray stuff, as her mother might wear.
+But all the same, she ain't one of our sort. She'll never make herself
+'appy with you and me."
+
+"Well," said Tozer, who was more cheerful, "she ain't proud, not a bit;
+and as for manners, you don't pay no more for manners. She came up and
+give me a kiss in the station, as affectionate as possible. All I can
+say for her is as she ain't proud."
+
+Mrs. Tozer shook her head; but even while she did so, pleasanter dreams
+stole into her soul.
+
+"I hope I'll be well enough to get to chapel on Sunday," she said, "just
+to see the folk's looks. The minister needn't expect much attention to
+his sermon. 'There's Phoebe Tozer's daughter!' they'll all be saying, and
+a-staring, and a-whispering. It ain't often as anything like her is seen
+in chapel, that's a fact," said the old lady, warming into the
+exultation of natural pride.
+
+Phoebe, it must be allowed, had a good cry when she got within the
+shelter of her own room, which had been very carefully prepared for her,
+with everything that was necessary for comfort, according to her
+grandmother's standard; but where the "tent" bed hung with old-fashioned
+red and brown chintz, and the moreen curtains drooping over the window,
+and the gigantic flowers on the carpet, made Phoebe's soul sick within
+her. Notwithstanding all her courage, her heart sank. She had expected
+"a difference," but she had not looked for her grandfather's greasy coat
+and wisp of neckcloth, or her grandmother's amazing cap, or the
+grammatical peculiarities in which both indulged. She had a good hot fit
+of crying, and for the moment felt so discouraged and depressed, that
+the only impulse in her mind was to run away. But her temperament did
+not favour panics, and giving in was not in her. If somebody must do it,
+why should not she do it? she said to herself. How many times had she
+heard in sermons and otherwise that no one ought to look for the sweet
+without the bitter, and that duty should never be avoided or refused
+because it is unpleasant? Now was the time to put her principles to the
+test; and the tears relieved her, and gave her something of the feeling
+of a martyr, which is always consolatory and sweet; so she dried her
+eyes, and bathed her face, and went downstairs cheerful and smiling,
+resolved that, at all costs, her duty should be done, however
+disagreeable it might be. What a good thing the new fashion of five
+o'clock tea is for people who have connections in an inferior path of
+life who make tea a meal, and don't dine, or dine in the middle of the
+day! This was the thought that passed through Phoebe's mind as she went
+into the dining-room, and found the table covered, not to say groaning
+under good things. She took her place at it, and poured out tea for the
+old people, and cut bread-and-butter with the most gracious philosophy.
+Duchesses did the same every day; the tea-table had renewed its ancient
+sway, even in fashionable life. It cannot be told what a help and
+refreshment this thought was to Phoebe's courageous heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE TOZER FAMILY.
+
+
+When Phoebe woke next morning, under the huge flowers of the old
+fashioned cotton drapery of her "tent" bed, to see the faint daylight
+struggling in through the heavy curtains which would not draw back from
+the window, the discouragement of her first arrival for a moment
+overpowered her again--and with even more reason--for she had more fully
+ascertained the resources of the place in which she found herself. There
+were no books, except some old volumes of sermons and a few back numbers
+of the Congregational Magazine, no visitors, so far as she could make
+out, no newspaper but the Carlingford Weekly Gazette, nothing but her
+grandmother's gossip about the chapel and Mrs. Tom to pass the weary
+hours away. Even last night Mrs. Tozer had asked her whether she had not
+any work to beguile the long evening, which Phoebe occupied much more
+virtuously, from her own point of view, in endeavouring to amuse the old
+people by talking to them. Though it was morning, and she ought to have
+been refreshed and encouraged by the repose of the night, it was again
+with a few hot tears that Phoebe contemplated her prospects. But this was
+only a passing weakness. When she went down to breakfast, she was again
+cheerful as the crocuses that raised their heads along the borders with
+the promise of summer in them. The sun was shining, the sky was frosty,
+but blue. After all, her present sufferings could not endure for ever.
+Phoebe hurried to get dressed, to get her blue fingers warned by the
+dining-room fire. It is needless to say that there was no fire, or
+thought of a fire in the chilly room, with its red and brown hangings,
+in which Mrs. Tozer last night had hoped she would be happy. "No fear of
+that, grandmamma," she had answered cheerfully. This was as much a lie,
+she felt, as if it had been said with the wickedest intentions--was it
+as wrong? How cold it was, and yet how stifling! She could scarcely
+fasten the ribbon at her neck, her fingers were so cold.
+
+"Yes, grandpapa, it is brighter than in London. We don't live in the
+city, you know. We live in rather a pretty neighbourhood looking out on
+Regent's Park, but it is seldom so bright as the country. Sometimes the
+fog blows up our way, when the wind is in the east; but it is warmer, I
+think," said Phoebe, with a little shiver, stooping over the dining-room
+fire.
+
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Tozer, shaking her head, "it's your mother as has spoilt
+you, I don't make no doubt, with fires and things. That takes the
+hardiness out of young folks. A little bit of cold is wholesome, it
+stirs up the blood. Them as is used to fires is always taking cold. One
+good fire in the sitting-room, that's always been my principle, and them
+as is cold if they can't warm theirselves with movin' about, which is
+far the best, let them come and warm their fingers when they please--as
+you may be doing now."
+
+"Perhaps it is a very good principle, grandmamma," said Phoebe, "when one
+is used to it; but the country is colder than town. Where there are
+fires on every side you must have more warmth than in a detached house
+like this. But it is only my hands after all. Shall I make the tea?"
+
+"You should wear mittens like me--I always did in the High Street,
+especial when I was going and coming to the shop, helping serve, when
+the children were young and I had the time for it. Ah! we've done with
+all that now. We're more at our ease, but I can't say as we're much
+happier. A shop is a cheerful sort of thing. I dare say your mother has
+told you--"
+
+"No," said Phoebe, under her breath; but the reply was not noticed. She
+nearly dropped the teapot out of her hand when she heard the word--Shop!
+Yes, to be sure, that was what being "in trade" meant, but she had never
+quite realized it till now. Phoebe was going through a tremendous piece
+of mental discipline in these first days. She writhed secretly, and
+moaned to herself--why did not mamma tell me? but she sat quite still
+outside, and smiled as if it was all quite ordinary and natural, and
+she had heard about the shop all her life. It seemed cruel and unkind to
+have sent her here without distinct warning of what she was going to
+meet. But Phoebe was a good girl, and would not blame her father and
+mother. No doubt they meant it "for the best."
+
+"Is Uncle Tom," she said, faltering somewhat, "in the--shop now?"
+
+"If I'm able," said Mrs. Tozer, "I'll walk that far with you this
+morning--or Tozer, I mean your grandfather, will go. It's a tidy house
+o' business, though I say it as shouldn't, seeing it was him and me as
+made it all; though I don't hold with Mrs. Tom's nonsense about the new
+windows. Your Uncle Tom is as innocent as innocent, but as for her, she
+ain't no favourite of mine, and I makes no bones about saying so, I
+don't mind who hears."
+
+"She ain't so bad as you make her out," said Tozer. "She's kind enough
+in her way. Your grandmother is a-going to show you off--that's it, my
+dear. She can't abide Tom's wife, and she wants to show her as you're
+far finer than her girls. I don't say no. It's nat'ral, and I'm not one
+as stands against nature; but don't you be prejudiced by my old woman
+there. She _is_ a prejudiced one. Nothing in the world will make her
+give up a notion when she's took it into her head."
+
+"No, nothing; and ain't I always right in the end? I should think you've
+proved that times enough," said the old woman. "Yes, I'll take a little,
+my dear, since you press me so pretty. Folks take many a thing when
+they're pressed as they wouldn't touch if there was no one to say, take
+a bit. Tozer, he never thinks of that; he's always had the best o'
+appetites; but as for me, if I get's a cup o' tea that's all as I cares
+for. You'll see as she'll take my view, when she's once been to the High
+Street. She's her mother's daughter, and Phoebe can't abide that woman,
+no more than me."
+
+"Have they got many children?" said Phoebe. "I know there are two girls,
+but as I have never seen them--Are they as old as I am?" she asked, with
+a tremulous feeling at her heart. If there were girls in the shop in the
+High Street, with whom she would have to be on familiar terms, as her
+cousins and equals, Phoebe did not feel that she could put up with that.
+
+"The eldest, Polly, is only twelve," said Tozer; "but never you mind, my
+dear, for you shan't be without company. There's a deal of families with
+daughters like yourself. Your grandmother won't say nothing against it;
+and as for me, I think there's nought so cheery as young folks. You
+shall have a fire in the drawing-room, and as many tea-parties as you
+like. For the young men, I can't say as there's many, but girls is
+plenty, and as long as you're content with that--"
+
+Mrs. Tozer regarded him with withering contempt across the table.
+
+"You're clever ones, you men," she said. "Families with daughters! Do
+you think the Greens and the Robbins is company for _her_? I dare say as
+you've heard your mother speak of Maria Pigeon, my dear? She married
+John Green the grocer, and very well to do and respectable they may be,
+but nobody but the likes of your grandfather would think of you and them
+making friends."
+
+"Indeed I don't care for making friends," said Phoebe, "you must remember
+that I came not for society, but to wait upon you, dear grandmamma. I
+don't want young friends. At home I always go out with my mother; let me
+take walks with you, when you are able. I am glad Uncle Tom's children
+are little. I don't want company. My work--and the garden--and to sit
+with grandmamma, that is all I care for. I shall be as happy as the day
+is long," said this martyr, smiling benignly over the aches in her
+heart.
+
+Her grandparents looked at her with ever-growing pride. Was not this the
+ideal young woman, the girl of the story-books, who cared about nothing
+but her duty?
+
+"That's very nice of you, my dear; but you ain't going to hide yourself
+up in a corner," said Tozer. And, "Never fear, I'll take her wherever
+it's fit for her to go to," his wife added, looking at her with pride.
+Phoebe felt, in addition to all the rest, that she was to be made a show
+of to all the connection, as a specimen of what the Tozer blood could
+come to, and she did not even feel sure that something of the same
+feeling had not been in her mother's bosom when she fitted her out so
+perfectly. Phoebe Tozer had left contemporaries and rivals in
+Carlingford, and the thought of dazzling and surpassing them in her
+offspring as in her good fortune had still some sweetness for her mind.
+"Mamma meant it too!" Phoebe junior said to herself with a sigh.
+Unfortunately for her, she did everybody credit who belonged to her, and
+she must resign herself to pay the penalty. Perhaps there was some
+compensation in that thought.
+
+And indeed Phoebe did not wonder at her grandmother's pride when she
+walked up with her to High Street, supporting her on her arm. She
+recognised frankly that there were not many people like herself about,
+few who had so much the air of good society, and not one who was so well
+dressed. There were excuses to be made then for the anxiety of the old
+people to produce her in the little world which was everything to them,
+and with her usual candour and good sense she acknowledged this, though
+she winced a little when an occasional acquaintance drifted across Mrs.
+Tozer's path, and was introduced with pride to "my granddaughter," and
+thrust forth an ungloved hand, with an exclamation of, "Lord bless us,
+Phoebe's eldest! I hope I see you well, Miss." Phoebe continued urbane,
+though it cost her many a pang. She had to keep on a perpetual argument
+with herself as she went along slowly, holding up her poor grandmother's
+tottering steps. "If this is what we have really sprung from, this is my
+own class, and I ought to like it; if I don't like it, it must be my
+fault. I have no right to feel myself better than they are. It is not
+position that makes any difference, but individual character," Phoebe
+said to herself. She got as much consolation out of this as is to be
+extracted from such rueful arguments in general; but it was after all
+indifferent comfort, and had not her temperament given her a strong hold
+of herself, and power of subduing her impulses, it is much to be feared
+that Phoebe would have dropped her grandmother's arm as they approached
+the station, and run away. She did waver for a moment as she came in
+sight of it. On that side lay freedom, comfort, the life she had been
+used to, which was not very elevated indeed, but felt like high rank in
+comparison with this. And she knew her parents would forgive her and
+defend her if she went back to them, unable to support the martyrdom
+which she had rashly taken upon herself. But then how weak that would
+be, Phoebe thought to herself, drawing Mrs. Tozer's arm more tightly
+within her own--how small! how it would hurt the feelings of the old
+people, how it would vex and embarrass her father and mother! Lastly, it
+might peril her brother's interests and her own, which, to do her
+justice, was the last thing she thought of, and yet was not undeserving
+of notice in its way.
+
+"Lean on me more heavily, grandmamma," she said at last, finally
+concluding and throwing off this self-discussion. She could not prolong
+it further. It was unworthy of her. Hence-forward she had made up her
+mind to set her face like a flint, and no longer leave the question of
+her persistence in her domestic mission an open question. Whatever she
+might have "to put up with," it was now decided once for all.
+
+"Bless us all, if this ain't grandmamma," said Mrs. Tom. It was not
+often, as she herself said with pride, that she required to be in the
+shop, which was very much improved now from its old aspect. Ill luck,
+however, brought her here to-day. She stood at the door which led from
+the shop to the house, dividing the counter, talking to a lady who was
+making a complaint upon the quality of cheese or butter. Mrs. Tozer had
+led Phoebe that way in order to point out to her the plate-glass windows
+and marble slabs for the cheese, of which, though they were one of her
+grievances against Mrs. Tom, she was secretly proud.
+
+"I don't deny but what they've done a deal," said the old woman, "show
+and vanity as I call it. I wish they may do as well for themselves with
+all their plate-glass as me and Tozer did without it; but it ain't often
+as you'll see a handsomer shop," she added, contemplating fondly the
+scene of her early labours. If a squire looks fondly at his land, and a
+sailor at his ship (when ships were worth looking at), why should not a
+shopkeeper regard his shop with the same affectionate feelings? Mrs. Tom
+Tozer had just taken leave of her remonstrant customer with a curtsey,
+and an assurance that the faults complained of should be remedied, when
+she caught sight of the infirm old woman leaning on Phoebe's arm, and
+made the exclamation already quoted.
+
+"Lord bless us all! if it ain't grandmamma, and Phoebe's daughter along
+o' her, I'll lay you sixpence," said Mrs. Tom in the extremity of her
+surprise, and at the highest pitch of her voice. The lady customer was
+still in the shop, and when she heard this she turned round and gave the
+new-comers a stare. (It was not very wonderful, Phoebe allowed to herself
+with secret anguish). She gave old Mrs. Tozer a familiar nod. "This is
+quite a long walk for you now-a-days," she said, gazing at Phoebe, though
+she addressed the old woman.
+
+"Thank ye, ma'am, I am a deal better," said Mrs. Tozer, "especially as
+I've got my granddaughter to take care of me."
+
+"Oh! is this young--person your granddaughter," said the customer with
+another stare, and then she nodded again and went away wondering.
+"Well," Phoebe said to herself, "one little sting more or less what did
+it matter?" and she went on through the shop supporting her grandmother,
+keenly sensible of the looks that encountered her on every side. Mrs.
+Tom stood leaning against the counter, waiting for them without making
+any advance. She was smart and good-looking, with a malicious gleam in a
+pair of bright black beady eyes.
+
+"How are you, granny?" she said, "I declare you're looking quite young
+again, and as spry as twenty. Come in and rest; and this young lady as
+is with you, I don't think as I need ask her name, the likeness speaks
+for itself. It's Phoebe Beecham, ain't it? Bless us all! I'd have known
+her anywhere, I would; the very moral of her mother, and of you too,
+granny. As you stand there now, you're as like as two peas."
+
+Unconsciously Phoebe cast a look upon her grandmother. She did not think
+she was vain. To be unconscious that she had some personal advantages
+would, of course, be impossible; but a thrill crept through her when she
+looked at the old woman by her side, wrinkled and red, in her
+copper-coloured gown. As like as two peas! was that possible? Phoebe's
+heart sank for the moment to her shoes, and a pitiful look of restrained
+pain came to her face. This was assailing her in her tenderest point.
+
+"Am I so like you, grandmamma?" she said, faltering; but added quickly,
+"then I cannot be like mamma. How do you do? My mother wished me to come
+at once, to bring her kind regards. Is my uncle at home?"
+
+"No, Miss, your uncle ain't at home," said Mrs. Tom, "but you might be
+civil, all the same, and put a name to me, more nor if I was a dog. I'm
+your aunt, I am--and I likes all my titles, I do--and proper respect."
+
+"Surely," said Phoebe, with a bow and a gracious smile--but she did not
+add that name. She was pleased to think that "Tom's wife" was her
+mother's favourite aversion, and that a dignified resistance to her
+claims was, so to speak, her duty. It even amused her to think of the
+ingenuity required throughout a long conversation for the clever and
+polite eluding of this claim.
+
+"I hope as you mean to let us in, Amelia," said Mrs. Tozer, "for it
+ain't often as I takes so long a walk. I would never have thought of it
+but for Phoebe--Phoebe junior, as Tozer calls her. She's been used to
+things very different, but I'm thankful to say she ain't a bit proud.
+She couldn't be more attentive to me if I was the queen, and talks of
+your children as pretty as possible, without no nonsense. It ain't often
+as you see that in a girl brought up like she's been."
+
+"I don't pretend to know nothing of how she's been brought up," said
+Mrs. Tom, "and I don't think as there's no occasion for pride here.
+We're all well-to-do, and getting on in the world--thanks to Him as
+gives the increase. I don't see no opening for pride here. Me and your
+mother were never very good friends, Phoebe, since that's your name; but
+if there's anything I can do for you, or my family, you won't ask twice.
+Grandmother's ain't a very lively house, not like mine, as is full of
+children. Come in, Granny. I'm always speaking of making the stairs
+wider, and a big window on the landing; but folks can't do everything
+at once, and we'll have to do with it a bit longer. We've done a deal
+already to the old place."
+
+"More than was wanted, or was thought upon in my time," said the old
+lady, to whom this was as the trumpet of battle. "The stairs did well
+enough for me, and I can't think what Tom can want changing things as
+he's been used to all his life."
+
+"Oh, it ain't Tom," said his wife, her face lighting up with
+satisfaction. "Tom wouldn't mind if the place was to come to bits about
+our ears. He's like you, granny, he's one of the stand-still ones. It
+ain't Tom, it's me."
+
+This little passage of arms took place as they were going upstairs,
+which cost poor Mrs. Tozer many pantings and groaning, and placed Phoebe
+for once on Mrs. Tom's side, for a window on the landing would have been
+a wonderful improvement, there was no denying. When, at last, they had
+toiled to the top, fighting their way, not only through the obscurity,
+but through an atmosphere of ham and cheese which almost choked Phoebe,
+the old lady was speechless with the exertion, though the air was to her
+as the air of Paradise. Phoebe placed her on a chair and undid her
+bonnet-strings, and for a minute was really alarmed. Mrs. Tom, however,
+took it with perfect equanimity.
+
+"She's blown a bit; she ain't as young as she was, nor even as she
+thinks for," said that sympathetic person. "Come, Granny, cheer up. Them
+stairs ain't strange to you. What's the good of making a fuss? Sit down
+and get your breath," she went on, pulling forward a chair; then turning
+to Phoebe, she shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows. "She's
+breaking fast, that's what it is," said Mrs. Tom under her breath, with
+a nod of her head.
+
+"This is the room as your mother spent most of her life in when she was
+like you," said Mrs. Tozer, when she regained her breath. "It was here
+as she met your father first. The first time I set my eyes on him,
+'That's the man for my Phoebe,' I said to myself; and sure enough, so it
+turned out."
+
+"You didn't miss no way of helping it on, neither, granny, if folks do
+you justice," said Mrs. Tom. "Mothers can do a deal when they exerts
+themselves; and now Phoebe has a daughter of her own, I dare be sworn
+she's just as clever, throwing the nice ones and the well-off ones in
+her way. It's a wonder to me as she hasn't gone off yet, with all her
+opportunities--two or three and twenty, ain't you, Miss Phoebe? I should
+have thought you'd have married long afore now."
+
+"I stall be twenty my next birthday," said Phoebe. "My cousins are a
+great deal younger, I hear; are they at school? I hope I shall see them
+before I go."
+
+"Oh, you'll see 'em fast enough," said their mother, "they're 'aving
+their music lesson. I don't hold with sending girls to school. I likes
+to keep them under my own eye. I suppose I needn't ask you now if you
+play?"
+
+"A very little," said Phoebe, who rather piqued herself upon her music,
+and who was learned in Bach and Beethoven, and had an opinion of her own
+about Wagner. Mrs. Tom brightened visibly, for her girls played not a
+little, but a great deal.
+
+"And draw?--but I needn't ask, for living in London, you've got masters
+at your very door."
+
+"Not at all, I am sorry to say," said Phoebe, with a pathetic tone of
+regret in her voice.
+
+"Lord bless us! Now who'd have thought it? I think nothing a sacrifice
+to give mine the best of education," said Mrs. Tom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+STRANGERS.
+
+
+"Well, Ursula, how do you do?" said Mrs. Sam Hurst, meeting her young
+neighbour with outstretched hands. She was a portly good-looking woman
+with an active mind, and nothing, or next to nothing to do, and instead
+of being affronted as some persons might have been, she was amused, and
+indeed flattered, by the suspicion and alarm with which all the young
+Mays regarded her. Whether she had the least intention of ever giving
+any justification to their alarms it would be impossible to say, for
+indeed to a sensible woman of forty-five, well to do and comfortable, a
+husband with "a temper of his own," and a large poor unruly family, was,
+perhaps, not so tempting as he appeared to be to his jealous children.
+Anyhow she was not at all angry with them for being jealous and afraid
+of her. She was cordial in her manner to the Mays as to everybody she
+knew. She asked how Ursula had enjoyed herself, where she had been, what
+she had seen, and a hundred questions more.
+
+"It is quite delightful to see somebody who has something to tell," she
+said when the interrogation was over. "I ask everybody what news, and
+no one has any news, which is dreadful for me."
+
+"How can you care for news?" said Ursula, "news! what interest can there
+be in mere news that doesn't concern us?"
+
+"You are very foolish, my dear," said Mrs. Hurst; "what's to become of
+you when you're old, if you don't like to hear what's going on? I'm
+thankful to say I take a great deal, of interest in my fellow-creatures
+for my part. Now listen, I'll tell you a piece of news in return for all
+your information about London. When I was in Tozer's shop to-day--I
+always go there, though they are Dissenters; after all, you know, most
+tradespeople are Dissenters; some are sorry for it, some think it quite
+natural that gentle-people and tradespeople should think differently in
+religious matters; however, what I say is, you can't tell the difference
+in butter and bacon between church and dissent, can you now? and Tozer's
+is the best shop in the town, certainly the best shop. So as I was in
+Tozer's as I tell you, who should come in but old Mrs. Tozer, who once
+kept it herself--and by her side, figure my astonishment, a young lady!
+yes, my dear, actually a young lady, in appearance, of course--I mean in
+appearance--for, as you shall hear, it could be no more than that. So
+nicely dressed, nothing vulgar or showy, a gown that Elise might have
+made, and everything to correspond, in perfect taste. Fancy! and you may
+imagine how I stared. I could not take my eyes off her. I was so
+astonished that I rubbed up my old acquaintance with the old woman, and
+asked her how her rheumatism was. I _hope_ it is rheumatism. At all
+events I called it so, and then she told me as proud as a peacock that
+it was her granddaughter; fancy, her granddaughter! did you ever hear of
+such a thing? The other woman in the shop, the present Tozer, called out
+to her by name. Phoebe they called her. Poor girl, I was so sorry for
+her. A lady in appearance, and to have to submit to that!"
+
+"Oughtn't ladies to be called Phoebe?" asked Janey. "Why not? It's rather
+a pretty name."
+
+"That is so like Janey," said Mrs. Hurst; "I know she is the clever one;
+but she never can see what one means. It is not being called Phoebe, it
+is because of her relations that I am sorry for her. Poor girl!
+educating people out of their sphere does far more harm than good, I
+always maintain. To see that nice-looking, well-dressed girl in Tozer's
+shop, with all the butter boys calling her Phoebe--"
+
+"The butter boys are as good as any one else," cried Janey, whose
+tendencies were democratic. "I dare say she likes her relations as well
+as we like ours, and better, though they do keep a shop."
+
+"Oh, Janey!" cried Ursula, whose feelings were touched; then she
+remembered that her sympathies ought not to flow in the same channel
+with those of Mrs. Sam Hurst, and continued coldly, "If she had not
+liked them she need not have come to see them."
+
+"That is all you know, you girls. You don't know the plague of
+relations, and how people have got to humble themselves to keep money in
+the family, or keep up appearances, especially people that have risen in
+the world. I declare I think they pay dear for rising in the world, or
+their poor children pay dear--"
+
+"You seem to take a great deal of interest in the Tozers," said Ursula,
+glad to administer a little correction; "even if they came to St.
+Roque's I could understand it--but Dissenters!" This arrow struck home.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Hurst, colouring, "of all people to take an interest
+in Dissenters I am the last; but I was struck, I must admit, to see that
+old Mrs. Tozer, looking like an old washerwoman, with a girl in a
+twenty-guinea dress, you may take my word for it, though as plain as
+that little brown frock of yours, Ursula. That was a sight to wake any
+one up."
+
+Ursula looked down at the little brown frock thus contemptuously
+referred to, with mingled offence and consciousness of inferiority. It
+had not cost as many shillings, and had been made up at home, and was
+not a shining example of the dressmaker's art. "If you value people
+according to what their dress costs--"
+
+"I can't know much about her moral qualities, can I?" said Mrs. Hurst,
+"and I don't suppose she has any position, being old Tozer's grandchild.
+But she wasn't amiss in her looks, and I declare I should have taken her
+for a lady if I had met her in the street. It shows how one may be taken
+in. And this is a lesson for you, young girls; you must never trust to
+appearances. I confess I'd like to find out some more about her. Going
+in, Ursula? Well, my dear, perhaps I'll step in for a talk in the
+evening. You must be dull after your gaiety. Tell your dear papa," said
+Mrs. Hurst with a laugh, "that I am coming to sit with you after tea.
+Now mind you give him my message. He does not like to miss me when I
+come to the Parsonage, does he now? Good-bye for the present. Till eight
+o'clock."
+
+"Oh, how I hate her," cried Janey, "except sometimes when she makes me
+laugh and I feel tempted to like her; but I always resist it. Do you
+think really, Ursula, that papa could be--such a--stupid--"
+
+"Oh, please don't ask me," cried Ursula. "How can I tell? I don't know
+what he may do; but if he does--and if she does--oh, then, Janey--"
+
+"Yes, indeed, then!" said Janey, breathing hard. This mysterious threat
+seemed very horrible to both of them, though what they meant by it, it
+would have been very hard for either of them to tell. They waited within
+the little shrubbery whispering to each other till they heard Mrs. Hurst
+close her own door, for they did not want any more of her society,
+though they had no intention of going in. When she was safe out of the
+way, they stole out and continued their walk in the opposite direction.
+
+"I wanted to have gone into the town," said Ursula. "It _is_ hard to
+have that woman next door; one can't go anywhere or do anything! I
+wanted some braid for your new frock, Janey, and twist to make the
+button-holes; but if we had said we were going up into Carlingford, she
+would have come too. Never mind; a walk is better than nothing. Walk
+fast, and let us try how far we can go before tea."
+
+Upon this idea the two girls set out walking as if for a race, which did
+them all the good in the world, quickening the blood in their veins,
+sending the colour to their cheeks, and dispersing all the cobwebs from
+their minds, since they soon got into the spirit of the race, and
+pursued it with eagerness, with little outbursts of laughter, and
+breathless adjurations to each other to keep within the proper pace, and
+not to run. It was not a very inviting road along which they took their
+walk. Beyond St. Roque the land was divided into allotments for the
+working people, not very tidily kept, and rough with cut cabbages,
+plants, and dug-up potatoes. Beyond this lay a great turnip-field,
+somewhat rank in smell, and the east wind swept chill along the open
+road, which was not sheltered by a single tree, so that the attractions
+of the way soon palled upon pedestrians. Looking back to Grange Lane,
+the snug and sheltered look of that genteel adjunct to the town was
+comforting to behold. Even Grange Lane was not gay; a line of garden
+walls, however they may shelter and comfort the gardens within, are not
+lovely without; but yet the trees, though leafless, waved over the red
+lines of brick, and the big laurels hung out bushes of dark verdure and
+long floating sprays of ivy.
+
+"Let's turn back; perhaps she may not be at the window," cried Ursula.
+"It is so dull here."
+
+Janey stopped short in the heat of the walk, objecting for the moment.
+
+"I wish you had not gone to London. You never used to care for the
+streets and the shops; now a regular good walk is too much for you,"
+cried Janey.
+
+"With a turnip-field on one side and a potato-field on the other!" said
+Ursula, in high disdain.
+
+"I tell you what!" cried Janey. "I don't think I like you since you came
+back. The Dorsets are fine people, and we are not fine. There are no
+grand parties, nor theatres, nor balls at Carlingford. When we go out
+here, we go to walk, not to see things, as you have been used to doing.
+I don't know what you mean by it; nineteen years with us, and one
+fortnight with them! and the fortnight counts for more than all the
+years!"
+
+Janey was not in the habit of restraining her voice any more than
+anything else about her, and she spoke this out with loud school-girl
+tones, reckless who might hear her. In most cases she might have done
+this with the utmost impunity, and how was she to know, as she said to
+her sister afterwards, in self-defence, that any one, especially any
+gentleman, could be lurking about, spying upon people, among those nasty
+allotments? There was some one there, however, who came down the muddy
+path, all cut up by the wheel-barrows, with a smile upon his face. A
+gentleman? Janey called him so without a doubt on the subject; but
+Ursula, more enlightened and slightly irritated, had her doubts. He was
+dressed, not with any care of morning costume, but wore a black
+frock-coat of the most formal description, with a white cravat
+carelessly tied, semi-clerical, and yet not clerical. He had a smile on
+his face, which, on the whole, was rather a handsome face, and looked at
+them, showing evident signs of having heard what Janey said. To be sure,
+he did not say anything, but Ursula felt that his look was just the same
+as if he had spoken, and coloured high, resenting the intrusion. By this
+stranger's side was one of the men who had been working at the
+allotments, whose hands were not clean, and whose boots were heavy with
+the clinging, clayey soil. When they had nearly reached the road, the
+gentleman turned round and shook hands with his companion, and then
+walked on towards Carlingford, throwing another look towards the girls
+as he passed. It would be hard to say whether curiosity or anger was
+strongest in Ursula. In Janey, the former sentiment carried everything
+before it.
+
+"Oh, I wonder who he is?" she cried, low, but eager, in her sister's
+ear. "Who can he be, Ursula, who can he be? We know all the men about
+here, every one, as well as we know Reginald. Oh, Ursula, who do you
+think he can be?"
+
+"He is very impertinent," cried Ursula, with an angry blush. "How should
+I know? And oh! how very silly of you, Janey, to talk so loud, and make
+impudent men stare at us so."
+
+"Impudent!" cried Janey. "I didn't talk loud. He looked rather nice, on
+the contrary. Why, he laughed! Do you call that impudent? It can't be
+anybody from the town, because we know everybody; and did you see him
+shaking hands with that man? How very funny! Let us run in and tell Mrs.
+Sam Hurst, and ask her who she thinks he is. She is sure to know."
+
+"Janey," said Ursula, severely, "if you live very long, you will be as
+great a gossip and as fond of news as Mrs. Sam Hurst herself."
+
+"I don't care," cried Janey; "you're just as fond of news as I am, only
+you won't confess it. I am dying to know who he is. He is quite
+nice-looking, and tall and grand. A new gentleman! Come, quick, Ursula;
+let us get back and see where he goes."
+
+"Janey!" cried the elder sister. She was half curious herself, but
+Ursula was old enough to know better, and to be ashamed of the other's
+naive and undisguised curiosity. "Oh, what would Cousin Anne say! A girl
+running after a gentleman (even if he is a gentleman), to see where he
+goes!"
+
+"Well!" cried Janey, "if she wants to know, what else is she to do? Who
+cares for Cousin Anne? She is an old maid. Why, if it had been a lady, I
+shouldn't have minded. There are so many ladies; but a new gentleman! If
+you won't come on, I will run by myself. How pleased Mrs. Sam Hurst will
+be!"
+
+"I thought you hated Mrs. Sam Hurst?"
+
+"So I do when I think of papa; but when there's anything going on, or
+anything to find out, I like her dearly. She's such fun! She never
+shilly-shallies, like you. She's not an old maid like your Cousin Anne
+that you are always talking of. Come along! if anybody else finds out
+who he is before we do," cried Janey, with almost despairing energy, "I
+shall break my heart!"
+
+Ursula stoically resisted the tug upon her, but she went back to Grange
+Lane, to which, indeed, she had turned her face before they met the
+stranger, and she could not help seeing the tall black figure in front
+of her which Janey watched so eagerly. Ursula was not eager, but she
+could not help seeing him. He walked up the street quickly, not as if he
+thought himself of interest to any one, but when he had got half way up
+Grange Lane, crossed to speak to somebody. This filled Janey with
+consternation.
+
+"He is not such a stranger after all," she cried. "He knows some one. He
+will not be quite a discovery. Who is it he is talking to, I wonder? He
+is standing at one of the doors, but it is not Miss Humphreys, nor Miss
+Griffiths, nor any of the Charters. Perhaps she is a stranger too. If he
+is married he won't be half so interesting, for there are always plenty
+of ladies. Perhaps he has just come by the railway to spend the day--but
+then there is nothing to see in Carlingford, and how did he know that
+man at the lots? Oh, Ursula, why don't you answer me? why don't you say
+something? have you no feeling? I am sure it don't matter a bit to me,
+for I am not out; I am never asked to parties--but I take an interest
+for you other girls' sake."
+
+Before this time, however, Ursula had found a new object of interest.
+She had not been quite so unmoved as Janey supposed. A new gentleman was
+a thing to awaken anybody who knew Carlingford, for, indeed, gentlemen
+were scarce in the society of the little town, and even at the most mild
+of tea-parties it is ludicrous to see one man (and that most likely a
+curate) among a dozen ladies--so that even when she appeared to Janey to
+wonder, she felt that her sister's curiosity was not unjustifiable. But
+while thus engaged in the enterprise of discovering "a new gentleman"
+for the good of society, Ursula's eyes and her attention were caught by
+another interest. The stranger had crossed the street to talk to a lady,
+who had been walking down the Lane, and whom Ursula felt she had seen
+somewhere. Who was it? Certainly not Miss Humphreys, nor Miss Griffiths,
+nor any other of the well-known young ladies of Grange Lane. The setting
+sun, which had come out suddenly after a dull day, threw a slanting,
+long-drawn ray up the street, which fell upon the strangers, as they
+stood talking. This ray caught the young lady's hair, and flashed back a
+reflection out of the shining coils which looked to Ursula (being dark
+herself, she admired golden hair more than anything) as bright as the
+sunshine. And in the light she caught the out-line of a pretty head, and
+of a nose slightly "tip-tilted," according to the model which the
+Laureate has brought into fashion. Where had she seen her before? She
+remembered all at once with a rush of bewildered pleasure.
+
+"Janey! Oh, Janey!" she cried, "Listen! This is too extraordinary. There
+is the young lady in black!"
+
+Janey, as may be supposed, had heard every detail of Mrs. Copperhead's
+ball, and knew what Ursula meant as well as Ursula herself did. She grew
+pale with excitement and curiosity. "No!" she said, "you can't mean it.
+Are you sure, are you quite sure? Two new people in one day! Why,
+everybody must be coming to Carlingford. It makes me feel quite
+strange!" said this susceptible young woman; "the young lady in black!"
+
+"Oh, yes, there can't be any mistake," said Ursula, hurrying on in her
+excitement, "I looked at her so much. I couldn't mistake her. Oh, I
+wonder if she will know me, I wonder if she will speak to me! or if she
+is going to see the Dorsets, or what has brought her to Carlingford.
+Only fancy, Janey, the young lady in black whom I have talked so much
+of; oh, I wonder, I do wonder what has brought her here."
+
+They were on the opposite side of the lane, so that their hurried
+approach did not startle the strangers; but Phoebe, looking up at the
+sound of the footsteps, saw a face she knew looking wistfully, eagerly
+at her, with evident recognition. Phoebe had a faculty quite royal of
+remembering faces, and it took but a moment to recall Ursula's to her.
+Another moment was spent in a rapid discussion with herself, as to
+whether she should give or withhold the salutation which the girl
+evidently sought. But what harm could it do? and it would be pleasant to
+know some one; and if on finding out who she was, Miss Dorset's little
+relation shrank from her acquaintance, why then, Phoebe said to herself,
+"I shall be no worse than before." So she sent a smile and a bow across
+the road and said, "How do you do?" in a pause of her conversation.
+Ursula was too shy to feel on equal terms with the young lady in black,
+who was so much more self-possessed than she was. She blushed and
+smiled, answered, "Quite well, thank you," across the lane like a child,
+and notwithstanding a great many pokes from Janey's energetic elbow,
+went on without further response.
+
+"Oh, why can't you run across and speak to her?" cried Janey, "oh, how
+funny you are, and how disagreeable! would _I_ pass any one I knew, like
+that!"
+
+"You don't understand, you are only a child," said Ursula, frightened
+and agitated, yet full of dignity, "we have only met--in society. When
+you are introduced to any one in society it does not count. Perhaps they
+might not want to know you; perhaps--but anyhow you can't rush up to
+them like two girls at school. You have to wait and see what they will
+do."
+
+"Well, I declare!" cried Janey; "then what is the good of society? You
+know them, and yet you mustn't know them. I would never be such a fool
+as that. Fancy looking at her across the lane and saying 'quite well,
+thank you,' after she had begun to speak. I suppose that's Cousin Anne's
+way? I should have rushed across and asked where she was staying, and
+when she would come to see us. Ursula, oh," cried Janey, suddenly
+changing her tone, and looking at her sister with eyes which had widened
+to twice their natural size with the grandeur of the idea, "you will
+have to ask her to tea!"
+
+"Oh, you silly girl, do you think she would come? you should have seen
+her at the ball. She knew everybody, and had such quantities of
+partners. Mr. Clarence Copperhead was always dancing with her. Fancy her
+coming to tea with us." But Ursula herself was somewhat breathless with
+the suggestion. When a thing has been once said, there is always a
+chance that it may be done, and the two girls walked up very quickly
+into the High Street after this, silent, with a certain awe of
+themselves and their possibilities. It might be done, now that it had
+been said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A DOMESTIC CRISIS.
+
+
+The interest shown by the two girls in the stranger whom they had noted
+with so much attention was not destined to meet with any immediate
+reward. Neither he, nor "the young lady in black," whom he hurried
+across the street to meet, could be heard of, or was seen for full two
+days afterwards, to the great disappointment of the young Mays. Ursula,
+especially, who had been entertaining vague but dazzling thoughts of a
+companionship more interesting than Janey's, more novel and at the same
+time more equal than that which was extended to her by the Miss
+Griffiths in Grange Lane, who were so much better off and had so much
+less to do than she. Ursula did not recollect the name of the fortunate
+girl who was so much in the ascendant at Mr. Copperhead's ball, though
+Phoebe had been introduced to her; but she did recollect her popularity
+and general friendliness, and the number of partners she had, and all
+those delightful signs of greatness which impress a poor little
+stranger, to whom her first dance is not unmingled pleasure. She
+whispered to Janey about her even in the drawing-room when all the
+family were assembled.
+
+"Do you think she will call?" said Ursula, asking counsel even of
+Janey's inexperience, of which she was so contemptuous on other
+occasions.
+
+"Call! how can she, if she is a stranger?" said Janey.
+
+"As if you knew anything about it!" Ursula retorted with great
+injustice.
+
+"If I don't know, then why do you ask me?" complained Janey with reason.
+The room looked more cheerful since Ursula had come home. The fire, no
+longer choked with cinders, burned clear and red. The lamp, though it
+was a cheap one, and burned paraffin oil, did not smell. The old
+curtains were nicely drawn, and the old covers smoothed over the chairs.
+All this did not make them look less old; but it made their antiquity
+natural and becoming. Johnnie, the school-boy, was learning his lessons
+on the rug before the fire. Reginald sat writing, with a candle all to
+himself, at a writing-table in a corner. Ursula and Janey were working
+at the centre table by the light of the lamp. They had no time, you may
+imagine, for fancy-work. Janey, with many contortions of her person,
+especially of her mouth, with which she seemed to follow the movements
+of her needle, was stitching up a sleeve of her new frock which Miss
+Dorset had sent her, and which a poor dress-maker, who "went out," was
+at this moment making up in the schoolroom; while Ursula was still busy
+with the basket of stockings which she had found awaiting her on their
+return. What Reginald was doing at the writing-table was probably a
+great deal less useful, but the girls respected his occupation as no one
+ever thought of respecting theirs, and carried on their conversation
+under their breath, not to interrupt him. The little children had gone
+to bed, tea was over, and several hours of the long winter evening still
+before them. Janey had given over lessons, partly because there was no
+one to insist upon her doing them. Once in a week or so her father gave
+her a lecture for her ignorance, and ordered her into his study to do a
+long sum in arithmetic out of the first old "Colenso" that could be
+picked up; and about once a week too, awakening suddenly to a sense of
+her own deficiencies, she would "practise" energetically on the old
+piano. This was all that was being done for Janey in the way of
+education. She was fifteen, and as Johnnie, and Amy, and Robin were at
+an age when school is a necessity, the only retrenchment possible was to
+keep Janey at home. Ursula had got what education she possessed in the
+same irregular way. It was not much. Besides reading and writing, she
+had pretty manners, which came by nature like those other gifts. A girl
+is not so badly off who can read and write and has pretty manners. Janey
+possessed the two first faculties, but neither had nor apparently could
+acquire the third. The two dark brown heads were close together as they
+worked--Ursula's shining and neat, and carefully arranged, Janey's rough
+with elf-locks; but they were more interesting than Reginald, though he
+was so much better informed. As for Johnnie, he lay extended on the rug,
+his head slightly raised on his two hands, his book on a level with the
+rest of his person, saying over his lesson to himself with moving lips.
+And now and then, when the girls' whispered chatter was silent, the
+sound of Reginald's pen scratching across the paper would fill up the
+interval; it was a sound which filled them all with respect.
+
+This peaceful domestic scene was broken in upon by the entry of Mr. May.
+From the moment that he closed the hall-door behind him, coming in, a
+little thrill ran through the family party. The girls looked at each
+other when they heard that sound, and Johnnie, without stopping his
+inward repetition, shifted himself and his book adroitly, with the
+cleverness of practice, to the side instead of the front of the fire.
+Reginald's pen stopped its scratching, and he wheeled round on his chair
+to give an appealing glance at his sisters.
+
+"What is it now?" he said hurriedly. Every one knew that when the door
+was closed like that it meant something like a declaration of war. But
+they had not much time to wait and wonder. Mr. May came in, pushing the
+door wide open before him, and admitting a gust of chill air of the
+January night. He looked at the peaceable domestic scene with a "humph"
+of dissatisfaction, because there was nothing to find fault with, which
+is as great a grievance as another when one is in the mood for
+grievances. He had come in cross and out of sorts, with a private cause
+for his ill-temper, which he did not choose to reveal, and it would have
+been a relief to him had he found them all chattering or wasting their
+time, instead of being occupied in this perfectly dutiful way--even
+Johnnie at his lessons, repeating them over under his breath. What was
+the world coming to? Mr. May was disappointed. Instead of leading up to
+it gradually by a general _battue_ of his children all round, he had to
+open upon his chief subject at once, which was not nearly so agreeable a
+way.
+
+"What are you doing, Reginald?" he asked, roughly, pulling his chair to
+the other side of the fire, opposite the corner to which Johnnie had
+scuffled out of the way. "I have come in especially to speak to you. It
+is time this shilly-shallying was done with. Do you mean to accept the
+College chaplaincy or not? an answer must be given, and that at once.
+Are you so busy that you can't attend to what I say?"
+
+"I am not busy at all, sir," said Reginald, in a subdued voice, while
+his sisters cast sympathetic looks at him. Both the girls, it is true,
+thought him extremely foolish, but what of that? Necessarily they were
+on his side against papa.
+
+"I thought as much; indeed it would be hard to say what you could find
+to be busy at. But look here, this must come to an end one way or
+another. You know my opinion on the subject."
+
+"And you know mine, sir," said Reginald, rising and coming forward to
+the fire. "I don't say anything against the old College. For an old man
+it might be quite a justifiable arrangement--one who had already spent
+his strength in work--but for me--of course there is nothing in the
+world to do."
+
+"And two hundred and fifty a year for the doing of it--not to speak of
+the house, which you could let for fifty more."
+
+"Father! don't you see that is just the very thing that I object to, so
+much for nothing."
+
+"You prefer nothing for nothing," said Mr. May, with a smile; "well, I
+suppose that is more fair, perhaps--to the public;--but how about me? A
+son of three-and-twenty depending upon me for everything, useless and
+bringing in nothing, does not suit me. You are all the same," he said,
+"all taking from me, with a thousand wants, education, clothes,
+amusement--"
+
+"I am sure," said the irrepressible Janey, "it is not much clothes we
+get, and as for amusements--and education!"
+
+"Hold your tongue," cried her father. "Here are six of you, one more
+helpless than another, and the eldest the most helpless of all. I did
+not force you into the Church. You might have gone out to James if you
+had liked--but you chose an academical career, and then there was
+nothing else for it. I gave you a title to orders. You are my curate
+just now--so called; but you know I can't pay a curate, and you know I
+can't afford to keep you. Providence--" said Mr. May, sitting up in his
+chair, with a certain solemnity, "Providence itself has stepped in to
+make your path clear. Here is better than a living, a provision for you.
+I don't bid you take it for life; take it for a year or two till you can
+hear of something better. Now what on earth is your objection to this?"
+
+The girls had both turned their faces towards their brother. Janey,
+always the first in action, repeated almost unconsciously. "Yes, what
+on earth, Reginald, can be your objection to this?"
+
+Reginald stood in the middle of the room and looked helplessly at them.
+Against his father alone he might have made a stand--but when the united
+family thus gazed at him with inquiring and reproachful looks, what was
+he to say?
+
+"Objection!" he faltered, "you know very well what my objection is. It
+is not honest work--it is no work. It is a waste of money that might be
+better employed; it is a sinecure."
+
+"And what do you call your nominal curateship," said his father, "is not
+that a sinecure too?"
+
+"If it is," said Reginald, growing red, but feeling bolder, for here the
+family veered round, and placed itself on his side, "it is of a contrary
+kind. It is _sine_ pay. My work may be bad, though I hope not, but my
+pay is nothing. I don't see any resemblance between the two."
+
+"Your pay nothing!" cried the father, enraged; "what do you call your
+living, your food that you are so fastidious about, your floods of beer
+and all the rest of it--not to speak of tailors' bills much heavier than
+mine?"
+
+"Which are never paid."
+
+"Whose fault is it that they are never paid? yours and the others who
+weigh me down to the ground, and never try to help or do anything for
+themselves. Never paid! how should I have gone on to this period and
+secured universal respect if they had never been paid? I have had to pay
+for all of you," said Mr. May, bitterly, "and all your vagaries;
+education, till I have been nearly ruined; dresses and ribbons, and a
+hundred fooleries for these girls, who are of no use, who will never
+give me back a farthing."
+
+"Papa!" cried Ursula and Janey in one breath.
+
+"Hold your tongues! useless impedimenta, not even able to scrub the
+floors, and make the beds, which is all you could ever be good for--and
+you must have a servant forsooth to do even that. But why should I speak
+of the girls?" he added, with a sarcastic smile, "they can do nothing
+better, poor creatures; but you! who call yourself a man--a University
+man, save the mark--a fine fellow with the Oxford stamp upon you,
+twenty-three your next birthday. It is a fine thing that I should still
+have to support you."
+
+Reginald began to walk up and down the room, stung beyond bearing--not
+that he had not heard it all before, but to get accustomed to such
+taunts is difficult, and it is still more difficult for a young and
+susceptible mind to contradict all that is seemly and becoming in
+nature, and to put forth its own statement in return. Reginald knew that
+his education had in reality cost his father very little, and that his
+father knew this. He was aware, too, much more distinctly than Mr. May
+knew, of James's remittances on his account; but what could he say? It
+was his father who insulted him, and the young man's lips were closed;
+but the effort was a hard one. He could not stand still there and face
+the man who had so little consideration for his feelings. All he could
+do was to keep his agitation and irritation down by that hurried
+promenade about the room, listening as little as he could, and answering
+not at all.
+
+"Oh, papa! how can you?" cried Janey, seizing the first pause. Janey was
+not old enough to understand the delicacy that closed Reginald's lips,
+and the impulse of self-defence was stirring in her; "how dare you talk
+to Ursula so? I mayn't be much use, but Ursula! nice and comfortable you
+were when she was away! as if you didn't say so ten times in a morning;
+to be sure that was to make me feel uncomfortable. Scrub floors!" cried
+Janey, in the violence of her resentment. "I'll go out and be a
+maid-of-all-work whenever you please. I am sure it would be much happier
+than here."
+
+"Hold your tongue," said Mr. May, "you scolding and Ursula crying;
+that's the beauty of the feminine element in a house. I ought to be very
+thankful, oughtn't I, that I have girls to furnish this agreeable
+variety? But as for you, Reginald," his father added, "mark my words, if
+you determine to reject this windfall that Providence has blown into
+your hands, it must be done at once. No further play of I would and I
+would not, if you please, here; and if it does not suit you, you will
+please to understand that I have no further need for a curate that suits
+me still less. I want your room. If nothing else can be done, I must try
+to take a pupil to add a little to the income which has so many claims
+upon it; and I don't mean to go on keeping you--this is plain enough, I
+hope."
+
+"Very plain, sir," said Reginald, who had grown as pale as he was red
+before.
+
+"I am glad to hear it; you will write to the Corporation at once,
+accepting or rejecting at your pleasure; but this must be done to-night.
+I must insist on its being done to-night; and if you find yourself
+sufficiently bold to reject an income," said Mr. May with emphasis, "and
+go off into the world without a penny in your pocket, I wash my hands of
+it; it is nothing to me."
+
+Then there was a pause. The father of the family sat down in his chair,
+and looked round him with the happy consciousness that he had made
+everybody miserable. The girls were both crying, Reginald pale and
+desperate, coming and going through the room. No one had escaped but
+Johnnie, who, happy in insignificance, lay all his length on the other
+side of the fire, and lifted his face from his book to watch the
+discomfiture of the others. Johnnie had no terrors on his own account.
+He had done nothing to call forth the paternal wrath. Mr. May could not
+resist this temptation.
+
+"Is that a way to learn lessons as they ought to be learnt?" he cried
+suddenly, throwing one of his darts at the unthinking boy. "Get up this
+moment, and sit down to a table somewhere. Your own room, where there is
+nobody to disturb you, is better than amid the chit-chat here; do you
+hear me? get up, sir, and go."
+
+Johnnie stumbled to his feet appalled; he was too much startled to say
+anything. He took his books across the room to the writing-table which
+Reginald had abandoned in a similar way. But by the time he reached that
+haven, he came to himself, and recovering his courage muttered something
+about the hardship to which he was thus exposed, as boys have a way of
+doing; upon which Mr. May got suddenly up, seized him by the shoulders
+and turned him out of the drawing-room. "I said your own room, sir,"
+cried this impartial father, distributing to all alike an equal share of
+his urbanities. When he had accomplished this, he stood for a moment and
+looked at the rest of his confused and uncomfortable family. "There is
+not much cheerful society to be had here this evening, I perceive," he
+said. "It is pleasant to come in from one's cares and find a reception
+like this, don't you think? Let some one bring me some coffee to my
+study. I am going to write."
+
+"Whose fault is it that he gets such a reception?" burst forth Janey,
+the moment her father had closed the door. "Who does it all, I wonder?
+Who treats us like a set of wretches without any feeling? I can't hush,
+I won't hush! Oh, shouldn't I be glad to go out as a housemaid, to do
+anything!"
+
+"Oh, Janey, hush! we can't help ourselves, we are obliged to put up with
+it," said Ursula; "but Reginald, he is not obliged, he can save himself
+when he likes. Oh, I know, I know papa is unreasonable; but, Reginald,
+aren't you a little bit unreasonable too?"
+
+"Don't you begin to reproach me," cried the young man, "I have had
+enough for one day. Have I been such a charge upon him, Ursula? What has
+he spent upon me? Next to nothing. That tailor's bill he spoke of, he
+knew as well as I do that I paid it by the tutorship I had in the
+vacation. It is his bill that is not paid, not mine. And then James's
+money--"
+
+"Oh, never mind that, never mind the past," cried Ursula, "think of the
+present, that's what you ought to do. Oh, Reginald, think; if _I_ had
+the chance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year! there is nothing I
+would not do for it. I would scrub floors, as he said, I would do
+anything, the dirtiest work. You will be independent, able to do what
+you please, and never to ask papa for anything. Reginald, think! Oh,
+dear, dear, I wish I knew how to talk to you. To be independent, able to
+please yourself!"
+
+"I shall be independent anyhow after to-night," he said. "Ursula, you
+will help me to pack my things, won't you? It is leaving you here, you
+girls, with nobody to stand up for you; it is that I feel most."
+
+"Oh, Reginald, don't go and leave us," cried Janey, leaning on the back
+of his chair; "what can we do without you? When he comes in, in a rage
+like to-night, as long as you are here one can bear it. Oh, Reginald,
+can't you, can't you take the chaplaincy? Think what it would be for
+us."
+
+"Yes, I will pack your things," said Ursula, "I will help you to get out
+of it, though we must stay and put up with it all, and never, never
+escape. But where will you go? You have no money, not enough scarcely to
+pay your railway fare. You would have to take to teaching; and where are
+you to go?"
+
+"I have some friends left," cried Reginald, his lips quivering, "some
+people care for me still and would hold out a hand. I am--not--quite so
+badly off as he thinks; I could go to town, or to Oxford--or--"
+
+"You don't know where; and here is a nice old-fashioned house all ready
+for you to step into, and an income," cried Ursula, her tone deepening
+to mark the capital letter; "an Income, quite sure and ready--without
+any difficulty, without any trouble, all if you say yes. Oh, only think
+what a comfort for us all to be able to rush to you when we are in
+trouble! Think of Johnnie and Robin; and that delightful wainscoted room
+for your study, with the book-cases all ready--and plenty of money to
+buy books." This being the highest point to which Ursula could reach,
+she dropped down after it into an insinuating half whisper, "And plenty
+of work to do; dear Reginald, plenty of work in the parish, you may be
+sure, if you will only help the Rector; or here where you are working
+already, and where you may be sure nobody will think of paying you. Oh,
+Reginald, there is plenty, plenty of work."
+
+The young man was already beginning to melt. "Do you think so?" he
+said.
+
+"Think!" cried Janey, "I am sure you may do all papa's work for him and
+welcome, if that is all. For my part I think you are very silly, both
+Ursula and you. Work! Pay is far better if you weren't such a pair of
+simpletons. After all, he has a little reason to be angry. Good
+gracious! why shouldn't you take it? Some one else will, if you won't. I
+would in a minute, and so would Ursula if we could. And why should you
+be so much grander than anybody else? I think it is quite childish for
+my part."
+
+"Reginald, never mind her, she is only a child and doesn't understand
+('Child yourself,' cried Janey). I don't understand very well, but still
+I can see what you want. Oh, you might find such quantities of work,
+things nobody is ever found to do. What do the fellows do at Oxford that
+they get that money for? I have heard you say you would be very glad to
+get a fellowship--"
+
+"That is different, that is a reward of scholarship."
+
+"Well, and so is this too," said Ursula; "it is (I am sure) because the
+old men knew you were one that would be kind. You were always kind,
+Reginald, that is what it is for."
+
+"The old men have nothing to do with it," he said, shaking his head, "it
+is the Corporation, and they are--"
+
+"Very rich men, Reginald dear, a great many of them, very sensible! what
+does it matter about their education? And then you would be a really
+educated man, always ready to do anything that was wanted in
+Carlingford. Don't you see that was their meaning? They pay you for that
+which is not work, but they will find you plenty of work they don't pay
+for. That is what they mean; and oh, Reginald, to run over to you there
+in that pretty wainscoted room, and to have you coming in to us every
+day, and to know that you were there to stand by us!"
+
+Here once more Ursula began to cry. As for Janey, she made a dash at the
+writing-table and brought him paper and pens and ink, "Say yes, say
+yes," she cried; "oh, Reginald, if it was only to spite papa!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE NEW GENTLEMAN.
+
+
+It seems difficult to imagine what connection there could be between
+Phoebe Beecham's appearance in Grange Lane and the interview which took
+place there between her and the "new gentleman," and Mr. May's sudden
+onslaught upon his family, which ended in Reginald's acceptance of the
+chaplaincy. But yet the connection was very distinct. Not even the Mays,
+in their excitement over the appearance of a stranger in Carlingford,
+could be more surprised than Phoebe was when her solitary walk was
+interrupted by the apparition across the street of a known person, a
+face familiar to her in other regions. "Mr. Northcote!" she cried, with
+a little start of surprise. As for the stranger, he made but two steps
+across Grange Lane in his delight at the sight of her. Not that he was
+Phoebe's lover, or possessed by any previous enthusiasm for the girl whom
+he had met about half-a-dozen times in his life, and of whom he knew
+little more than that she was the daughter of a "brother clergyman;" for
+both Mr. Beecham and he were in the habit of using that word, whether
+appropriate or inappropriate. This was the explanation of the white
+necktie and the formal dress which had puzzled Ursula.
+
+Horace Northcote was not of Mr. Beecham's class. He was not well-to-do
+and genial, bent upon keeping up his congregation and his popularity,
+and trying to ignore as much as he could the social superiority of the
+Church without making himself in any way offensive to her. He was a
+political Nonconformist, a vigorous champion of the Disestablishment
+Society, more successful on the platform than in the pulpit, and
+strenuously of opinion in his heart of hearts that the Church was the
+great drawback to all progress in England, an incubus of which the
+nation would gladly be rid. His dress was one of the signs of his
+character and meaning. Strong in a sense of his own clerical position,
+he believed in uniform as devoutly as any Ritualist, but he would not
+plagiarise the Anglican livery and walk about in a modified soutane and
+round hat like "our brethren in the Established Church," as Mr. Beecham
+kindly called them. To young Northcote they were not brethren, but
+enemies, and though he smiled superior at the folly which stigmatised
+an M.B. waistcoat, yet he scorned to copy. Accordingly his frock coat
+was not long, but of the extremest solemnity of cut and hue, his white
+tie was of the stiffest, his tall hat of the most uncompromising
+character. He would not veil for a day in easier and more ordinary
+habiliments the distinct position he assumed as clerical, yet not of the
+clergy; a teacher of men, though not a priest of the Anglican
+inspiration. He could not help feeling that his appearance, as he moved
+about the streets, was one which might well thrill Anglican bosoms with
+a flutter of terror. He was the Church's avowed enemy, and upon this he
+stood as his claim to the honour of those who thought with him. This was
+very different from the views held by the pastor of the Crescent Chapel,
+who was very willing to be on the best terms with the Church, and would
+have liked to glide into closer and closer amity, and perhaps finally to
+melt away altogether in her broad bosom, like a fat raindrop
+contributing noiselessly to swell the sea. It was not, however, any
+feeling of this difference which made Phoebe draw herself back
+instinctively after the first start of recognition. Across her mind,
+even while she held out her hand to the stranger, there flashed a sudden
+recollection of her grandmother and her grandfather, and all the homely
+belongings which he, a minister of the connection, could not be kept in
+ignorance of. It was but a momentary pang. Phoebe was not so foolish as
+to shrink before the inevitable, or to attempt by foolish expedients to
+stave off such a danger. She shrank for a second, then drew herself up
+and shook off all such ignoble cares. "I am myself whatever happens,"
+was her reflection; and she said with something like security:
+
+"I am so glad to meet you, Mr. Northcote; what an unexpected pleasure to
+see you here!"
+
+"It is a most unexpected pleasure for me, I assure you," he said, "and a
+very great one." He spoke with unaffected honesty; for indeed his plunge
+into the society of Salem Chapel had given him a shock not easily got
+over, and the appearance of a being of his own species, among all these
+excellent poulterers and grocers, was a relief unspeakable; and then he
+added, "May I walk with you, if you are going to walk?"
+
+"Surely," said Phoebe with momentary hesitation, and it was just at this
+moment that she perceived Ursula on the other side of the road, and,
+glad of the diversion, waved her hand to her, and said, "How do you do?"
+
+"A friend of yours?" said Mr. Northcote, following her gesture with his
+eyes, and feeling more and more glad that he had met her. "I passed
+those young ladies just now, and heard some of their conversation,
+which amused me. Do they belong to our people? If you will not be angry,
+Miss Beecham, I must say that I should be glad to meet somebody
+belonging to us, who is not--who is more like--the people one meets
+elsewhere."
+
+"Well," said Phoebe, "we are always talking of wanting something
+original; I think on the whole I am of your opinion; still there is
+nothing very great or striking about most of the people one meets
+anywhere."
+
+"Yes; society is flat enough," said the young man. "But--it is strange
+and rather painful, though perhaps it is wrong to say so--why, I wonder,
+are all our people of one class? Perhaps you have not seen much of them
+here? All of one class, and that--"
+
+"Not an attractive class," said Phoebe, with a little sigh. "Yes, I
+know."
+
+"Anything but an attractive class; not the so-called working men and
+such like. One can get on with them. It is very unpleasant to have to
+say it; buying and selling now as we have it in Manchester does not
+contract the mind. I suppose we all buy and sell more and less. How is
+it? When it is tea and sugar--"
+
+"Or butter and cheese," said Phoebe with a laugh, which she could not
+quite keep from embarrassment. "I must be honest and tell you before you
+go any further. You don't know that I belong to the Tozers, Mr.
+Northcote, who are in that line of business. Don't look so dreadfully
+distressed. Perhaps I shouldn't have told you, had you not been sure to
+find out. Old Mr. Tozer is my grandfather, and I am staying there. It is
+quite simple. Papa came to Carlingford when he was a young clergyman,
+newly ordained. He was pastor at Salem Chapel, and married mamma, who
+was the daughter of one of the chief members. I did not know myself when
+I came to Carlingford that they actually kept a shop, and I did not like
+it. Don't apologize, please. It is a very difficult question," said
+Phoebe philosophically, partly to ease herself, partly to set him at his
+ease, "what is best to do in such a case. To be educated in another
+sphere and brought down to this, is hard. One cannot feel the same for
+one's relations; and yet one's poor little bit of education, one's petty
+manners, what are these to interfere with blood relationships? And to
+keep everybody down to the condition they were born, why, that is the
+old way--"
+
+"Miss Beecham, I don't know what to say. I never meant--I could not
+tell. There are excellent, most excellent people in all classes."
+
+"Exactly so," said Phoebe, with a laugh. "We all know that; one man is as
+good as another--if not better. A butterman is as good as a lord; but--"
+she added, with a little elevation of her eyebrows and shrug of her
+shoulders, "not so pleasant to be connected with. And you don't say
+anything about my difficulty, Mr. Northcote. You don't realize it
+perhaps, as I do. Which is best: for everybody to continue in the
+position he was born in, or for an honest shopkeeper to educate his
+children and push them up higher until they come to feel themselves
+members of a different class, and to be ashamed of him? Either way, you
+know, it is hard."
+
+Northcote was at his wit's end. He had no fellow-feeling for this
+difficulty. His friends were all much better off than he was as a poor
+minister. They were Manchester people, with two or three generations of
+wealth behind them, relations of whom nobody need be ashamed; and he was
+himself deeply humiliated and distressed to have said anything which
+could humiliate Phoebe, who rose immeasurably in his estimation in
+consequence of her bold avowal, though he himself would have sacrificed
+a great deal rather than put himself on the Tozer level. He did not know
+what to say.
+
+"Miss Beecham, you know as well as I do, how falsely our opinions are
+formed in this respect, how conventional we are. What is position after
+all? To a grand Seigneur, for instance, the difference between his
+steward and his laquais seems nothing, but to the steward it is a great
+gulf. I--I mean--the whole question is conventional--position, or
+station, or rank--"
+
+Phoebe smiled. "I don't think that is quite the question," she said, "but
+never mind. I suppose you are here on some mission? You would not come
+to Carlingford for pleasure."
+
+"Nay," said Northcote, with a reproachful tone. "I should have thought
+you must have heard of our Meeting. It is for to-night. I have come from
+the Disestablishment Society with some other friends; but it has been my
+fate to come on before to make the arrangements. The others come
+to-day."
+
+"A hard fate, Mr. Northcote."
+
+"I thought so this morning. I have not been much in the way of the
+country congregations. I was confounded; but, Miss Beecham, I no longer
+think my fate hard since I have met you. Your noble simplicity and
+frankness have taught me a lesson."
+
+"It is not noble at all," said Phoebe; "if I had not been sure you must
+find out I should have said nothing about it. Now I fear I must turn
+back."
+
+"But you will come to the Meeting," he said, turning with her. He felt
+it necessary to be obsequious to Phoebe, after the terrible mistake he
+had made.
+
+"Not unless grandpapa insists. I should like to hear your speech," said
+Phoebe; "but I don't object to the Established Church as you do, neither
+does papa when you push him hard. I don't think England would be much
+nicer if we were all Dissenters. To be sure we might be more civil to
+each other."
+
+"If there were no Dissenters, you mean."
+
+"It comes to much the same thing; congregations are not pleasant
+masters, are they, Mr. Northcote? I know some people--one at least,"
+said Phoebe, "who is often very insolent to papa; and we have to put up
+with it--for the sake of peace, papa says. I don't think in the Church
+that any leading member could be so insolent to a clergyman."
+
+"That is perhaps rather--forgive me--a narrow, personal view."
+
+"Wait till you get a charge, and have to please the congregation and the
+leading members!" cried Phoebe. "I know what you are thinking: it is just
+like a woman to look at a public question so. Very well; after all women
+are half the world, and their opinion is as good as another."
+
+"I have the greatest respect for your opinion," said young Northcote;
+"but we must not think of individual grievances. The system, with all
+its wrongs, is what occupies me. I have heard something--even here--this
+very day--What is it, my good friend? I am busy now--another time; or if
+you want me, my lodgings are--"
+
+A glance, half of pain, half of fun, came into Phoebe's eyes. "It is
+grandpapa!" she said.
+
+"You shouldn't speak in that tone, sir, not to your elders, and maybe
+your betters," said Tozer, in his greasy old coat. "Ministers take a
+deal upon them; but an old member like me, and one as has stood by the
+connection through thick and thin, ain't the one to be called your good
+friend. Well, if you begs pardon, of course there ain't no more to be
+said; and if you know our Phoebe--Phoebe, junior, as I calls her. What of
+the meeting, Mr. Northcote? I hope you'll give it them Church folks 'ot
+and strong, sir. They do give themselves airs, to be sure, in
+Carlingford. Most of our folks is timid, seeing for one thing as their
+best customers belong to the Church. That don't touch me, not
+now-a-days," said Tozer, with a laugh, "not that I was ever one as
+concealed my convictions. I hope you'll give it 'em 'ot and strong."
+
+"I shall say what I think," said the young man bewildered. He was by no
+means broken into the ways of the connection, and his pride rebelled at
+the idea of being schooled by this old shopkeeper; but the sight of
+Phoebe standing by not only checked his rebellious sentiments, but filled
+him with a sympathetic thrill of feeling. What it must be for that girl
+to own this old man, to live with him, and feel herself shut into his
+society and friends of his choosing--to hear herself spoken of as Phoebe,
+junior! The idea made him shiver, and this caught old Tozer's always
+hospitable eye.
+
+"You're chilly," he said, "and I don't wonder after the dreadful weather
+we've had. Few passes my door without a bite or a sup, specially at
+tea-time, Mr. Nor'cote, which is sociable time, as I always says. Come
+in and warm yourself and have a cup of tea. There is nothing as pleases
+my old woman so much as to get out her best tea-things for a minister;
+she 'as a great respect for ministers, has Mrs. Tozer, sir; and now
+she's got Phoebe to show off as well as the chiney. Come along, sir, I
+can't take no refusal. It's just our time for tea."
+
+Northcote made an unavailing attempt to get away, but partly it appeared
+to him that to refuse the invitation might look to Phoebe like a pretence
+of superiority on his part, and partly he was interested in herself, and
+was very well aware he should get no company so good in Carlingford,
+even with the drawback of the old shop-people among whom she lived. How
+strange it was to see her in the dress of which Mrs. Sam Hurst had
+raved, and of which even the young Nonconformist vaguely divined the
+excellence, putting her daintily-gloved hand upon old Tozer's greasy
+sleeve, walking home with the shuffling old man, about whose social
+position no one could make the least mistake! He turned with them, with
+a sensation of thankfulness that it was in Grange Lane, Carlingford,
+where nobody knew him. As for Phoebe, no such comfort was in her mind;
+everybody knew her here, or rather, everybody knew old Tozer. No
+disguise was possible to her. The only way to redeem the position was to
+carry it with a high hand, as she did, holding her head erect, and
+playing her part so that all the world might see and wonder. "I think
+you had better come, Mr. Northcote, and have some tea," she said
+graciously, when the awe-stricken young man was floundering in efforts
+to excuse himself. Old Tozer chuckled and rubbed his hands.
+
+"Take Phoebe's advice," he said, "Phoebe's the sensiblest girl I know; so
+was her mother before her, as married one of the most popular preachers
+in the connection, though I say it as shouldn't. My old woman always
+said as our Phoebe was cut out for a minister's wife. And Phoebe junior's
+just such another," cried the admiring grandfather. Heavens above! did
+this mean traps and snares for himself, or did the old shopkeeper think
+of him, Horace Northcote, as another possible victim? If he had but
+known with what sincere compassionate toleration Phoebe regarded him, as
+a young man whom she might be kind to, he might have been saved all
+alarm on this point. The idea that a small undistinguished Dissenting
+minister should think her capable of marrying him, was a humiliation
+which did not enter into Phoebe's head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A PUBLIC MEETING.
+
+
+Phoebe's philosophy, however, was put to the test when, after the young
+pastor had taken tea and got himself away from the pressing
+hospitalities of the Tozers, her grandfather also disappeared to put on
+his best coat in order to attend the Meeting. Mrs. Tozer, left alone
+with her granddaughter, immediately proceeded to evolve her views as to
+what Phoebe was expected to do.
+
+"I never see you out o' that brown thing, Phoebe," she said; "ain't you
+got a silk dress, child, or something that looks a bit younger-looking?
+I'd have thought your mother would have took more pride in you. Surely
+you've got a silk dress."
+
+"Oh, yes, more than one," said Phoebe, "but this is considered in better
+taste."
+
+"Taste, whose taste?" cried the old lady; "my Phoebe didn't ought to care
+for them dingy things, for I'm sure she never got no such example from
+me. I've always liked what was bright-looking, if it was only a print. A
+nice blue silk now, or a bright green, is what you'd look pretty in with
+your complexion. Go now, there's a dear, and put on something very nice,
+something as will show a bit; you're going with your grandfather to this
+Meeting."
+
+"To the Meeting? oh, I hope not," said Phoebe with fervour.
+
+"And why should you hope not? isn't it natural as a young creature like
+you should get out a bit when she can, and see what's to be seen? I
+don't hold with girls moping in a house. Besides, it's very instructive,
+as I've always heard: and you as is clever, of course you'll understand
+every word. Mr. Northcote is a nicish-looking sort of young man.
+Ministers mayn't be much," said Mrs. Tozer, "though just see how your
+papa has got on, my dear. Nobody else as Phoebe could have married would
+have got up in the world like that; you may make a deal more money in
+trade, but it ain't so genteel, there's always that to be said. Now it's
+just as well as you should have your chance with the rest and let
+yourself be seen, Phoebe. Run, there's a darling, and put on something
+bright, and a nice lace collar. You can have mine if you like. I
+shouldn't grudge nothing, not a single thing I've got, to see you
+looking as nice as the best there; and so you will if you take a little
+pains. I'd do up my hair a bit higher if I was you; why, Phoebe, I
+declare! you haven't got a single pad. Now what is the use of neglecting
+yourself, and letting others get ahead of you like that?"
+
+"Pads are going out of fashion, grandmamma," said Phoebe gravely, "so are
+bright colours for dresses. You can't think what funny shades we wear in
+town. But must I go to this Meeting? I should not like to leave you
+alone. It is so much nicer for me to be here."
+
+"You _are_ a good girl, you are," said Mrs. Tozer admiringly, "and me as
+was frightened for a fine lady from London! But Tozer would say as it
+was my doing. He would say as it wasn't natural for a young creature;
+and, bless you, they'll all be there in their best--that Pigeon and the
+others, and Mrs. Tom. I just wish I could go too, to see you outshine
+'em all, which you'll do if you take pains. Take a little more pains
+with your hair, Phoebe, mount it up a bit higher, and if you want
+anything like a bit of lace or a brooch or that, just you come to me. I
+should like Mrs. Tom to see you with that brooch as she's always wanting
+for Minnie. Now why should I give my brooch to Minnie? I don't see no
+reason for it, for my part."
+
+"Certainly not, grandmamma," said Phoebe, "you must wear your brooches
+yourself, that is what I like a great deal better than giving them
+either to Minnie or me."
+
+"Ah, but there ain't a many like you, my sweet," cried the old woman,
+wiping her eyes. "You're my Phoebe's own daughter, but you're a touch
+above her, my darling, and us too, that's what you are. Run now and
+dress, or I don't know what Tozer will say to me. He's set his heart on
+showing you off to-night."
+
+Thus adjured, Phoebe went away reluctantly. It is unnecessary to say that
+her disinterestedness about her grandmother's brooch was not perhaps so
+noble as it appeared on the outside. The article in question was a kind
+of small warming-pan in a very fine solid gold mount, set with large
+pink topazes, and enclosing little wavy curls of hair, one from the head
+of each young Tozer of the last generation. It was a piece of jewelry
+very well known in Carlingford, and the panic which rose in Phoebe's
+bosom when it was offered for her own personal adornment is more easily
+imagined than described. She went upstairs feeling that she had escaped,
+and took out a black silk dress at which she looked lovingly.
+
+"But grandmamma would think it was no better than this," she said to
+herself, and after much searchings of heart she chose a costume of
+Venetian blue, one soft tint dying into another like the lustre on a
+piece of old glass, which in her own opinion was a great deal too good
+for the occasion. "Some one will tread on it to a certainty, and the
+colours don't show in candle-light; but I must try to please
+grandmamma," she said heroically. When it was put on with puffings of
+lace such as Mrs. Tozer had never seen, and was entirely ignorant of the
+value of, at the throat and sleeves, Phoebe wrapt a shawl round her in
+something of the same dim gorgeous hue, covered with embroidery, an
+Indian rarity which somebody had bestowed upon Mrs. Beecham, and which
+no one had used or thought of till Phoebe's artistic eye fell upon it. It
+was a great deal too fine for Carlingford. An opera-cloak bought in
+Oxford Street for a pound or two would have much more impressed the
+assembly to which Phoebe was bound. Mrs. Tozer inspected her when she
+went downstairs, with awe, yet dissatisfaction.
+
+"I dare say as it's all very fine, and it ain't like other folks,
+anybody can see; but I'd dress you different, my dear, if you was in my
+hands," said the old woman, walking round and round her. As for Tozer,
+he too showed less admiration than if he had known better.
+
+"I got a fly, thinking as you'd have some fallal or other on you; but,
+bless my heart, you could have walked in that gown," he said. So that
+Phoebe's toilette, which would have been mightily admired in a London
+drawing-room, could not be said to be a success. She was somewhat
+discouraged by this, notwithstanding that she knew so very much better;
+and accordingly set out in the fly with her grandfather in his best
+coat, feeling, generally, in a depressed condition.
+
+"It is clear that I must take to the pinks and blues to please them,"
+she said to herself with a sigh. She could triumph over the slight that
+might be shown to herself in consequence of her relations; but those
+sneers at her dress went to Phoebe's heart.
+
+The Music Hall was full of a miscellaneous crowd when Phoebe, following
+her grandfather, went in; and the seats allotted to these important
+people were on the platform, where, at least, Tozer's unacknowledged
+object of showing her off could be amply gratified. This arrangement did
+not, on the whole, displease Phoebe. Since she must be exhibited, it
+seemed better, on the whole, to be exhibited there, than in a less
+distinguished place; and all the speakers knew her, which was something.
+She sat down with some complaisance, and let her Indian scarf droop from
+her shoulders, and her pretty dress show itself.
+
+"I declare if that isn't Phoebe, junior," said Mrs. Tom audibly, in the
+middle of the hall, "making a show of herself; but, Lord bless us, for
+all their grandeur, how she do dress, to be sure. A bit of a rag of an
+old shawl, and a hat on! the same as she wears every day. I've got more
+respect for them as comes to instruct us than that."
+
+And, indeed, Mrs. Tom was resplendent in a red _sortie de bal_, with a
+brooch almost as big as that envied one of Mrs. Tozer's stuck into her
+gown, and a cap covered with flowers upon her head. This was the usual
+fashion of the Salem ladies on such rare occasions. The meeting of the
+Disestablishment Society was to them what a ball is to worldly-minded
+persons who frequent such vanities. The leading families came out _en
+masse_ to see and to be seen. It would be wrong to say that they did not
+enter into all the arguments and recognise the intellectual feast set
+before them; no doubt they did this just as well as if they had come in
+their commonest attire; but still the seriousness of the occasion was,
+no doubt, modified by being thus made into a dissipation. The men were
+not so fine, perhaps, because it is more difficult for men to be
+fine--but they were all in their Sunday clothes; and the younger ones
+were in full bloom of coloured satin cravats and fine waistcoats. Some
+of them were almost as fine a sight as the ladies in their ribbons and
+flowers.
+
+"I suppose by the look of them this must be an influential
+community--people of some pretensions," said an obese elderly minister,
+who had seated himself by Phoebe, and whose eyes were dazzled by the
+display. "I never expected all this dress in a quiet country place."
+
+"Oh, yes! they are people of much pretension," said Phoebe gravely.
+
+And then the proceedings began. Old Mr. Green, the grocer, whose son had
+married Maria Pigeon, and who had long been retired from business,
+occupying a house in the country and "driving his carriage," was in the
+chair; and the proceedings went on according to the routine of such
+assemblies, with differing degrees of earnestness on the part of the
+speakers. To most of these gentlemen it was the ordinary occupation of
+their lives; and they made their hearers laugh at well-known stories,
+and enjoyed their own wit, and elicited familiar cheers, and made hits
+such as they had made for years on the same subject, which was a
+comfortable _cheval de bataille_, not at all exciting to themselves,
+though they were quite willing to excite their audience, if that
+audience would allow itself to be excited. Things jogged on thus for the
+first hour very pleasantly! the Meeting was not excited, but it was
+amused and enjoyed itself. It was an intellectual treat, as Pigeon said
+to Brown, and if the younger people did not like it so well as they
+would have liked a ball, the elder people liked it a great deal better,
+and the hall rang with applause and with laughter as one speaker
+succeeded another. It was pleasant to know how unstable "the Church" was
+on her foundation; that aristocratical Church which looked down upon
+Dissent, and of which the poorest adherent gave himself airs much above
+Chapel folks; and how much loftier a position the Nonconformist held,
+who would have nothing to say to State support.
+
+"For my part," said one of the speakers, "I would rather abandon my
+sacred calling to-morrow, or make tents as St. Paul did in its exercise,
+than put on the gilded fetters of the State, and pray or preach as an
+Archbishop told me; nay, as a Cabinet Council of godless worldlings
+directed. There are many good men among the clergy of the Church of
+England; but they are slaves, my friends, nothing but slaves, dragged at
+the chariot wheels of the State; ruled by a caste of hard-headed
+lawyers; or binding themselves in the rotten robes of tradition. It is
+we only who can dare to say that we are free!"
+
+At this sentiment, the Meeting fairly shouted with applause and delight
+and self-complacency; and the speaker, delighted too, and tasting all
+the sweetness of success, gave place to the next, and came and sat down
+by Phoebe, to whose society the younger men were all very glad to escape.
+
+"Miss Beecham, you are fashionably calm," whispered the orator, "you
+don't throw yourself, like the rest of us, into this great agitation."
+
+"Have you a leading member?" whispered Phoebe back again; "and does he
+never drag you at his chariot wheels? Have you deacons that keep you up
+to the mark? Have you people you must drink tea with when they ask you,
+or else they throw up their sittings? I am thinking, of course, of
+papa."
+
+"Have I deacons? Have I leading members? Miss Beecham, you are cruel--"
+
+"Hush!" said Phoebe, settling herself in her chair. "Here is somebody who
+is in dreadful earnest. Don't talk, Mr. Northcote is going to speak."
+
+Thus it will be seen that the Minister's daughter played her _role_ of
+fine lady and _bel esprit_ very fairly in an atmosphere so unlike the
+air that fine ladies breathe. Phoebe paid no more attention to the
+discomfited man at her elbow. She gathered up her shawl in her hand with
+a seeming careless movement, and let it drop lightly across her knee,
+where the gold threads in the embroidery caught the light; and she took
+off her hat, which she had thought proper to wear to show her sense that
+the Meeting was not an evening party; and prepared herself to listen.
+Her complexion and her hair, and the gold threads in the rich Indian
+work, thus blazed out together upon the startled audience. Many of them
+were as much struck by this as by the beginning of Mr. Northcote's
+speech, though it was very different from the other speeches. The others
+had been routine agitation, this was fiery conviction, crude, and
+jumping at conclusions, but still an enthusiasm in its way. Mr.
+Northcote approached his subject gradually, and his hearers, at first
+disappointed by the absence of their familiar watch-words, were dull,
+and bestowed their attention on Phoebe; but before he had been speaking
+ten minutes Phoebe was forgotten even by her uncle and aunt, the two
+people most interested in her. It would be dangerous to repeat to a
+reader, probably quite uninterested in the controversy, Mr. Northcote's
+speech, in which he laid hold of some of those weak points which the
+Church, of course, has in common with every other institution in the
+world. Eloquence has a way of evaporating in print, even when the report
+is immediate. But his peroration was one which startled his hearers out
+of a calm abstract interest to all that keen personal feeling which
+accompanies the narrative of facts known to an audience, and affecting
+people within their own locality.
+
+"I have only been in this place three days," said the speaker, "but in
+that short time I have heard of one of the most flagrant abuses which I
+have been indicating to you. There is in this town, as you all know, an
+institution called the College; what was its original object I do not
+know. Nests of idle pauperism, genteelly veiled under such a name, do
+exist, I know, over all the country; but it is at least probable that
+some educational purpose was in the mind of the pious founder who
+established it. The pious founder! how immense are the revenues, how
+incalculable the means of doing good, which have been locked up in
+uselessness, or worse than uselessness, by men who have purchased a pass
+into the kingdom of heaven at the last moment by such gifts, and become
+pious founders just before they ceased to be miserable sinners! Whatever
+may have been the original intention of the College, however, it is
+clear that it was meant for something more than the pitiful use it is
+put to now. This old foundation, ladies and gentlemen, which might
+provide half the poor children in Carlingford with a wholesome
+education, is devoted to the maintenance of six old men, need I say
+Churchmen?" (here the speaker was interrupted by mingled hisses and
+ironical "hear, hears")--"and a chaplain to say their prayers for them.
+Six old men: and one able-bodied parson to say their prayers for them.
+What do you think of this, my friends? I understand that this heavy and
+onerous duty has been offered--not to some other mouldy old gentleman,
+some decayed clergyman who might have ministered in peace to the decayed
+old burghers without any interference on my part: for a refuge for the
+aged and destitute has something natural in it, even when it is a wrong
+appropriation of public money. No, this would have been some faint
+approach perhaps to justice, some right in wrong that would have closed
+our mouths. But no! it is given to a young gentleman, able-bodied, as I
+have said, who has appeared more than once in the cricket-field with
+your victorious Eleven, who is fresh from Oxford, and would no more
+condescend to consider himself on a footing of equality with the humble
+person who addresses you, than I would, having the use of my hands,
+accept a disgraceful sinecure! Yes, my friends, this is what the State
+Church does. She so cows the spirit and weakens the hearts of her
+followers that a young man at the very beginning of his career, able to
+teach, able to work, able to dig, educated and trained and cultured, can
+stoop to accept a good income in such a position as this. Think of it!
+Six old men, able surely, if they are good for anything, to mumble their
+prayers for themselves somehow; yet provided with an Oxford scholar, an
+able-bodied young man, to read the service for them daily! He thinks it
+very fine, no doubt, a good income and a good house for life, and
+nothing to do but to canter over morning and evening prayer at a
+swinging pace, as we have all heard it done: morning prayer, let us see,
+half an hour--or you may throw in ten minutes, in case the six should
+mumble their Amens slowly--and twenty minutes for the evening, one hour
+a day. Here it is under your very eyes, people of Carlingford, a
+charming provision for the son of one of your most respected clergymen.
+Why, it is in your newspaper, where I read it! Can I give a more
+forcible instance of the way in which a State Church cuts honesty and
+honour out of men's hearts."
+
+A great many people noticed that when Mr. Northcote ended this with a
+thundering voice, some one who had been listening near the door in an
+Inverness cape, and hat over his brows, gave himself a sudden impetuous
+shake which shook the crowd, and turning round made his way out, not
+caring whom he stumbled against. The whole assembly was in a hubbub when
+the orator ceased, and whispers ran freely round among all the groups in
+the front. "That's young May he means." "In course it's young May.
+Infernal job, as I've always said." "Oh hush, Pigeon, don't swear! but
+it do seem a black burning shame, don't it?" "Bravo, Mr. Nor'cote!"
+called out old Tozer, on the platform, "that's what I call giving forth
+no uncertain sound. That's laying it into them 'ot and 'ot."
+
+This was the climax of the Meeting. Everything else was flat after such
+a decided appeal to personal knowledge. Phoebe alone gave a frigid
+reception to the hero of the evening.
+
+"I dislike personalities," she said, pointedly. "They never do a cause
+any good; and it isn't gentlemanly; don't you think so, Mr. Sloely;" and
+she turned away from Northcote, who had come to speak to her, and
+devoted herself to the man at her elbow, whom she had snubbed a little
+while before. Mr. Northcote said to himself that this was untrue, and
+brought up a hundred very good reasons why he should have employed such
+an example, but the reproof stung him to the quick, for to be
+ungentlemanly was the reproach of all others most calculated to go to
+his heart.
+
+But nobody knew how Mr. May went home in his Inverness cape, breathing
+fire and flame, nor of the execution he did thereupon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS.
+
+
+Mr. May went into his study and closed the door. He poked the fire--he
+put himself into his easy-chair--he drew his writing-book towards him,
+and opened it at where a half-written sheet lay waiting. And then he
+paused, rubbed his hands softly together, and falling back again,
+laughed quietly to himself.
+
+Yes; he who had stormed out of the drawing-room like a whirlwind, having
+discomfited everybody, leaving the girls in tears, and the boys in a
+white heat of passion, when he reached the profoundest depths of his own
+retirement, laughed. What did it mean? Of all the people in the world,
+his children would have been most entirely thunderstruck by this
+self-betrayal. They could not have understood it. They were acquainted
+with his passions, and with his moments of good temper. They knew when
+he was amiable, and when he was angry, by instinct, by the gleam of his
+eye, by the way in which he shut the door; but this was something
+totally unknown to them. The truth was that Mr. May, like many other
+people, having a naturally bad temper, which he indulged freely when he
+pleased, had attained the power of using it when it suited him to use
+it, without being suspected by anybody. A bad temper is a possession
+like another, and may be made skilful use of like other things which,
+perhaps, in themselves, are not desirable. He could work himself up into
+fury, and launch the doom he felt disposed to launch, like a burning and
+fizzing thunder-bolt from a hand which was, in reality, not at all
+excited; and like most other people who possess such an unrevealed
+power, it pleased him very much when he persuaded his surroundings that
+it was an impulse of rage which moved him. He had been at the Meeting at
+the Music Hall, "to hear what those fellows had to say for themselves."
+Contempt, unbounded but wrathful, was the feeling in his mind towards
+"those fellows;" but he felt that young Northcote's eloquence, reported
+in next day's papers, was quite enough to quash for ever all hopes of
+his son's acceptance of the chaplaincy. So he walked home as fast as his
+legs would carry him, and burst into his house, as we have seen, with a
+semblance of passion so perfect as to deceive his entire family and
+fill the place with anger and tears. Upon which, withdrawing from the
+scene of conflict, he threw himself down in his easy-chair and chuckled,
+recovering his composure by slow degrees.
+
+When, however, this private indulgence was over, Mr. May's face grew
+dark enough. He pushed his writing away from him, and pulling out a
+drawer in his writing-table, which was full of papers of a very
+unliterary aspect, betook himself to the consideration of them, with
+anything but laughter in his looks, or in his mind. Letters upon blue
+paper in straight up and down handwriting--other papers, also blue, with
+ruled lines and numerals, for which Mr. May was more frightened than he
+would have been for a charge of cavalry. These were the very
+unattractive contents of this drawer. He brought two or three of them
+out in a bundle and read them over, one after another, with contracted
+brows. Debt is an idiosyncrasy like other things. Some people keep clear
+of it miraculously, some seem to drop into it without cause or meaning,
+and to spend all their lives afterwards in vain attempts to get out. Mr.
+May was one of these unfortunate men. He could not tell himself where
+his money went to. Poor man! it was not so much he had, and there was a
+large family to be fed and clothed, and schooled after a sort. But still
+other people on incomes as small as his had managed to maintain their
+families without dropping into this hopeless condition. He had been in
+debt since ever he could remember; and to be sure it was not the pain
+and trouble to him that it is to many people. So long as, by hook or by
+crook, he could manage to stave off the evil day, so long was he happy
+enough, and he had managed this by all sorts of semi-miraculous
+windfalls up to the present time. James's remittances had been like
+heavenly dew to him. It is true that these remittances had been intended
+to keep Reginald at Oxford, and perhaps something of the special
+hardness with which he regarded Reginald arose from the fact that he had
+done him wrong in this respect, and had appropriated what was intended
+for him. But after all, he had said to himself, the maintenance of the
+house in comfort, the keeping clean of the family name, and the staving
+off disagreeable revelations of the family's poverty, were more, for
+even Reginald's comfort, than a little more money in his pocket, which
+everybody knew was very dangerous for a young man.
+
+Mr. May had always a bill coming due, which James's remittances arrived
+just in time to meet. Indeed, this was the normal condition of his life.
+He had always a bill coming due--a bill which some good-humoured banker
+had to be coaxed into renewing, or which was paid at the last moment by
+some skilful legerdemain in the way of pouring out of one vessel into
+another, transferring the debt from one quarter to another, so that
+there may have been said to be always a certain amount of quite
+fictitious and visionary money floating about Mr. May, money which
+existed only in the shape of symbol, and which, indeed, belonged to
+nobody--which was borrowed here to-day, and paid there to-morrow, to be
+re-borrowed and repaid in the same way, never really reaching anybody's
+pocket, or representing anything but that one thing which money is
+supposed to be able to extinguish--debt. When human affairs reach this
+very delicate point, and there is nothing at any moment, except a
+semi-miraculous windfall, to keep a man going, the crisis is very
+serious. And it was no wonder that Mr. May was anxious to drive his son
+into accepting any possible appointment, and that he occasionally railed
+unreasonably at his family. Unless a hundred pounds or so fell down from
+the skies within the next ten days, he saw nothing before him but ruin.
+This, it is needless to say, is very far from being a comfortable
+position. The _sourde_ agitation, excitement, feverish hope and fear of
+the sufferer might well affect his temper. If he could not get a hundred
+pounds within ten days, he did not know what he was to do.
+
+And nobody could say (he thought to himself) that he was an expensive
+man; he had no expensive habits. He liked good living, it is true, and a
+glass of good wine, but this amount of regard for the table does not
+ruin men. He liked books also, but he did not buy them, contenting
+himself with such as the library could afford, and those which he could
+obtain by the reviews he wrote for the Church Magazines. How then was it
+that he never could get rid of that rapidly maturing bill? He could not
+tell. Keeping out of debt is one thing, and getting rid of it when you
+have once taken its yoke upon your neck is another. His money, when he
+had any, "slipped through his fingers," as people say. When James's
+remittance or any other piece of good fortune gave him enough to pay
+that hundred pounds without borrowing elsewhere, he borrowed elsewhere
+all the same. It was a mysterious fatality, from which he seemed unable
+to escape. In such circumstances a crisis must come sooner or later, and
+it appeared to him that now at least, after many hairbreadth escapes,
+the crisis had come.
+
+What was he to do? There was no chance, alas! of money from James, and
+even if Reginald accepted the chaplaincy, and was willing at once to
+come to his father's aid, there was no hope that he would have anything
+for some time--for chaplains incomes are not, any more than other
+people's, generally paid in advance. He leaned back in his chair and
+went over again, for the hundredth time, the list of all the people he
+could borrow from, or who would "back" a bill for him, and he was still
+employed in this melancholy and hopeless enumeration, when a low knock
+came to the door, and a maid-of-all-work, pushing it open, thrust in a
+homely little man in a dusty-brown coat, who put up a hand to his
+forehead as he came in with a salutation which was half charity
+school-boy, half awkward recruit. Beyond this there was no ceremony
+about his entrance, no leave asked or question made. Betsy knew very
+well that he was to come in when he pleased, and that her master did not
+deny himself to Cotsdean. Mr. May received him with a familiar nod, and
+pointed hastily to a chair. He did not even take the trouble to put away
+those blue papers, which he would have done if any other individual,
+even if one of his children had come into the room.
+
+"Good evening, Cotsdean," he said, in a friendly tone. "Well, what
+news?"
+
+"Nothing as is pleasant, sir," said the man, sitting down on a corner of
+his chair. "I've been to the bank, and it's no use my explaining, or
+begging ever so hard. They won't hear of it. 'We've done it times and
+times,' they says to me, 'and we won't do it no more. That's flat,' and
+so indeed it is flat, sir, as you may say downright Dunstable; but that
+ain't no advantage to you and me."
+
+"Yes, it is, Cotsdean," said the clergyman, "it is a decided advantage,
+for it shows there is nothing to be hoped from that quarter, and that is
+always good--even though it's bad bad, as bad as can be--"
+
+"You may say so, sir," said Cotsdean. "I don't know what's to be done no
+more than the babe unborn, and it's wearing me to death, that's what
+it's doing. When I looks round on my small family, it's all I can do not
+to cry out loud. What's to become of my children, Mr. May? Yours, sir,
+they'll never want friends, and a hundred or so here or there, that
+don't ruin gentlefolks; but without selling up the business, how am I
+ever to get a hundred pounds? It ain't equal, sir, I swear it ain't. You
+gets the money, and you takes it easy, and don't hold your head not a
+bit lower; but me as has no good of it (except in the way o' a bit of
+custom that is a deal more in looks than anything else), and has to go
+round to all the folks, to Mr. Brownlow, at the bank, and I don't know
+who, as if it was for me! I suffers in my credit, sir, and I suffers in
+my spirits, and I suffers in my health; and when the smash comes,
+what's to become of my poor children? It's enough to put a man beside
+himself, that's what it is."
+
+Here the poor man's eyes grew bloodshot, partly with rubbing them,
+partly with tears. He rubbed them with the sleeve of his rough coat, and
+the tears were very real, though few in number. Cotsdean's despair was
+indeed tragical enough, but its outside had in it a dash of comedy,
+which, though he was in no mirthful mood, caught the quick eye of Mr.
+May. He was himself very painfully affected, to tell the truth, but yet
+it cost him an effort not to smile.
+
+"Cotsdean," he said, "have I ever failed you yet? You have done a good
+deal for me, I don't deny it--you have had all the trouble, but beyond
+that what have you suffered except in imagination? If you choose to
+exaggerate dangers, it is not my fault. Your children are as safe as--as
+safe as the Bank of England. Now, have I ever failed you? answer me
+that."
+
+"I can't say as you have, sir," said Cotsdean, "but it's dreadful work
+playing with a man's ruin, off and on like this, and nobody knowing what
+might happen, or what a day or an hour might bring forth."
+
+"That is very true," said Mr. May. "I might die, that is what you mean;
+very true, though not quite so kind as I might have expected from an old
+friend--a very old friend."
+
+"I am sure, Sir, I beg your pardon," cried the poor man, "it wasn't
+that; but only just as I'm driven out o' my seven senses with thinking
+and thinking."
+
+"My dear Cotsdean, don't think; there could not be a more unnecessary
+exercise; what good does your thinking do, but to make you unhappy?
+leave that to me. We have been driven into a corner before now, but
+nothing has ever happened to us. You will see something will turn up
+this time. I ask you again, have I ever failed you? you know best."
+
+"No, sir," said Cotsdean, somewhat doubtfully. "No, I didn't say as you
+had. It's only--I suppose I ain't so young as I once was--and a man's
+feelin's, sir, ain't always in his own control."
+
+"You must take care that it is only to me that you make such an
+exhibition as this," said Mr. May. "Who is there? oh, my coffee! put it
+on the table. If you are seen coming here to me with red eyes and this
+agitated appearance," he went on, waiting pointedly till the door was
+closed, "it will be supposed there is some family reason for
+it--again--"
+
+"Oh, lor', Sir! you know--"
+
+"Yes, I know very well," said the clergyman. "I know that there couldn't
+be a better wife, and that bygones are bygones; but you must remember
+and take care; everybody doesn't know you--and her--so well as I do.
+When you come to see your clergyman in this agitated state, I put it to
+yourself, Cotsdean, I put it to your good sense, what is anybody to
+think? You must take great care not to betray yourself to anybody but
+me."
+
+The man looked at him with a half-gasp of consternation, bewildered by
+the very boldness with which he was thus set down. Betray himself--he
+drew a long breath, as if he had received a _douche_ of cold water in
+his face, which was indeed very much like the effect that this
+extraordinary address produced--betray himself! Poor Cotsdean's
+struggles and sufferings arose, at the present moment, entirely from the
+fact that he had allowed himself to be made use of for Mr. May's
+occasions, and both the men were perfectly aware of this. But though he
+gasped, Cotsdean was too much under the influence of his clergyman to do
+anything more. Had he been a Dissenter, he would have patronized young
+Northcote, who was as good a man as Mr. May (or far better if truth were
+told), with the frankest certainty of his own superior position, but
+being a humble churchman he yielded to his clergyman as to one of the
+powers that be. It is a curious difference. He sat still on the edge of
+his chair, while Mr. May walked across the room to the table by the
+door, where his _cafe noir_ had been placed, and took his cup and drank
+it. He was not civil enough to ask his visitor to share it, indeed it
+never would have occurred to him, though he did not hesitate to use poor
+Cotsdean for his own purpose, to treat him otherwise than as men treat
+their servants and inferiors. When he had finished his coffee, he went
+leisurely back into his former place.
+
+"You have nothing to suggest," he said, "nothing to advise? Well, I must
+try what I can do. It will be hard work, but still I must do it, you
+know," added Mr. May, in a gracious tone. "I have never concealed from
+you, Cotsdean, how much I appreciated your assistance; everything of
+this sort is so much worse in my position than in yours. You understand
+that? A gentleman--and a clergyman--has things expected from him which
+never would be thought of in your case. I have never omitted to
+acknowledge my obligations to you--and you also owe some obligations to
+me."
+
+"I don't deny as you've been very kind, sir," said Cotsdean,
+half-grateful, half-sullen; then he wavered a little. "I never denied
+it, _her_ and me could never have 'it it off but for you. I don't forget
+a favour--nobody can say that of me. I ain't forgot it in this case."
+
+"I don't say that you have forgotten it. I have always put the utmost
+confidence in you; but, my good fellow, you must not come to me in this
+down-in-the-mouth way. Have I ever failed you? We've been hard pressed
+enough at times, but something has always turned up. Have not I told you
+a hundred times Providence will provide?"
+
+"If you put it like that, sir--"
+
+"I do put it like that. I have always been helped, you know, sometimes
+when it seemed the last moment. Leave it to me. I have no more doubt,"
+said Mr. May, lifting up a countenance which was by no means so
+untroubled as could have been wished, "that when the time comes all will
+be well, than I have of the sun rising to-morrow--which it will," he
+added with some solemnity, "whether you and I live to see it or not.
+Leave it all, I say, to me."
+
+Cotsdean did not make any reply. He was overawed by this solemnity of
+tone, and knew his place too well to set himself up against his
+clergyman; but still it cannot be denied that the decision was less
+satisfactory than one of much less exalted tone might have been. He had
+not the courage to say anything--he withdrew with his hat in his hand,
+and a cloud over his face. But as he left the house the doubt in his
+soul breathed itself forth. "If so be as neither me nor him see it rise,
+what good will that do to my family," said Cotsdean to himself, and went
+his way to his closed shop, through all the sacks of seeds and dry
+rustling grain, with a heavy heart. He was a corn-factor in a tolerable
+business, which, as most of the bankers of Carlingford knew, he had some
+difficulty in carrying along, being generally in want of money; but this
+was not so rare a circumstance that any special notice should be taken
+of it. Everybody who knew thought it was very kind of Mr. May to back
+him up as he did, and even to put his name to bills for poor Cotsdean,
+to whom, indeed, he was known to have been very kind in many ways. But
+nobody was aware how little of these said bills went to Cotsdean, and
+how much to Mr. May.
+
+When he was gone, the clergyman threw himself back again into his chair
+with a pale face. Providence, which he treated like some sort of neutral
+deity, and was so very sure of having on his side when he spoke to
+Cotsdean, did not feel so near to him, or so much under his command,
+when Cotsdean was gone. There were still two days; but if before that he
+could not make some provision, what was to be done? He was not a cruel
+or bad man, and would have suffered keenly had anything happened to poor
+Cotsdean and his family on his account. But they must be sacrificed if
+it came to that, and the thought was very appalling. What was he to do?
+His friends were exhausted, and so were his expedients. There was no
+longer any one he could borrow from, or who would take even a share of
+his burden on their shoulders. What was he to do?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE NEW CHAPLAIN.
+
+
+It cannot be denied that, reluctant as Reginald May had been to accept
+the chaplaincy of which so much had been said, he had no sooner fairly
+done so, and committed himself beyond remedy, than a certain sense of
+relief began to steal over the young man's mind. He had made the leap.
+Moved, at last, by arguments which, perhaps, were not worth very much
+logically, and which even while he yielded to them he saw the weakness
+of, he felt sure that when he woke in the morning, and realized what he
+had done, fearful feelings of remorse would seize him. But, curiously
+enough, this was not so; and his first sensation was relief that the
+conflict was over, and that he had no more angry remonstrances to meet
+with, or soft pleadings from Ursula, or assaults of rude abruptness from
+Janey. All that was over; and then a warm glow of independence and
+competency came over the young man. You may be sure he had no fire in
+his rooms to make him warm, and it was a chill January morning, with
+snow in the heavy sky, and fog in the yellow air; but, notwithstanding,
+there came a glow of comfort over him.
+
+Independent!--free to go where he pleased, buy what he liked, spend his
+time as best seemed to him, with a "position" of his own; even a house
+of his own. He laughed softly to himself at this new idea. It did not
+somehow hurt him as he thought it would, this sinecure he had accepted.
+Could he not make it up, as Ursula said, "work for the town in other
+ways without pay, since the town had given him pay without work?" A
+genial feeling of toleration came over Reginald's mind. Why should he
+have made such a fuss about it? It was natural that his father should
+insist, and, now that it was done, he himself did not wish it undone, as
+he had expected to do. After all, if you judged matters with such
+rigidity, who was there without guilt? what public appointment was
+given and held according to abstract right, as, formally speaking, it
+ought to be? Those in the highest offices were appointed, not because of
+their personal excellence, but because of being some other man's son or
+brother; and yet, on the whole, public duty was well done, and the
+unjust ruler and hireling priest were exceptions. Even men whose entry
+into the fold was very precipitate, over the wall, violently, or by some
+rat-hole of private interest, made very good shepherds, once they were
+inside. Nothing was perfect in this world, and yet things were more good
+than evil; and if he himself made it his study to create for himself an
+ideal position, to become a doer of all kinds of volunteer work, what
+would it matter that his appointment was not an ideal appointment? It
+seemed very strange to him, and almost like an interposition of
+Providence in his favour, that he should feel in this way, for Reginald
+was not aware that such revulsions of feeling were very natural
+phenomena, and that the sensation, after any great decision, is almost
+invariably one of relief. To be sure it upset this manly state of mind a
+little when, coming down to breakfast, his father gave him a nod, and
+said briefly, "I am glad you have seen your duty at last."
+
+This made him almost resolve to throw it up again; but the feeling was
+momentary. Why should he give it up? It had made him independent
+(already he thought of his independence as a thing accomplished), and he
+would make full amends to the Church and to Carlingford for taking two
+hundred and fifty pounds a year without working for it. Surely he could
+do that. He did not grudge work, but rather liked it, and would be ready
+to do anything, he did not care what, to make his sinecure into a
+volunteer's outpost for every good work. Yes, that was the way to look
+at it. And it was a glorious independence. Two hundred and fifty pounds
+a year!
+
+"And the house," cried Ursula, when Mr. May had left the
+breakfast-table, and left them free to chatter. "The house--I don't
+think you are likely to find a tenant for it. The houses in Grange Lane
+are so cheap now; and some people object to the poor old men. I think
+you must keep the house. Furnishing will be an expense; but, of course,
+when you have a certain income, that makes such a difference; and you
+can come and see us every day."
+
+"Why can't he live at home?" said Janey; "we are so poor; he ought to
+come and pay us something for his board, and help us to get on."
+
+"What can you know about it, at your age?" said Ursula. "We have not got
+proper rooms for Reginald. He ought, at least, to have a study of his
+own, as well as a bed-room, now that he has an appointment. No, you must
+go to the College, Reginald; and, perhaps, you might have one of the
+boys with you, say Johnnie, which would be a great saving--for he has an
+appetite; he eats more than two of the rest of us do. You might take one
+of them with you--to save the bills a little--if you like."
+
+"Take me," said Janey, "I have a good appetite too; and then I'm a girl,
+which is a great deal more useful. I could keep your house. Oh,
+Reginald! mayn't we go out and see it? I want to see it. I have never
+once been over the College--not in all my life."
+
+"We might as well go, don't you think, Ursula?" he said, appealing to
+her with a delightful mixture of helplessness and supremacy. Yesterday,
+he had not been able to assert any exclusive claim to sixpence. Now he
+had a house--a house all his own. It pleased him to think of taking the
+girls to it; and as for having one of them, he was ready to have them
+all to live with him. Ursula thought fit to accede graciously to this
+suggestion, when she had looked after her numerous household duties.
+Janey, in the mean time, had been "practising" in one of her periodical
+fits of diligence.
+
+"For, you know, if Reginald did really want me to keep house for him,"
+said Janey, "(you have too much to do at home; or, of course, he would
+like you best), it would be dreadful if people found out how little I
+know."
+
+"You ought to go to school," said Ursula, gravely. "It is a dreadful
+thing for a girl never to have had any education. Perhaps Reggie might
+spare a little money to send you to school; or, perhaps, papa--"
+
+"School yourself!" retorted Janey, indignant; but then she thought
+better of it. "Perhaps just for a year to finish," she added in a
+doubtful tone. They thought Reginald could do anything on that wonderful
+two hundred and fifty pounds a year.
+
+The College was a picturesque old building at the other side of
+Carlingford, standing in pretty grounds with some fine trees, under
+which the old men sat and amused themselves in the summer mornings. On
+this chilly wintry day none of them were visible, except the cheerful
+old soul bent almost double, but with a chirruppy little voice like a
+superannuated sparrow, who acted as porter, and closed the big gates
+every night, and fined the old men twopence if they were too late. He
+trotted along the echoing passages, with his keys jingling, to show them
+the chaplain's rooms.
+
+"The old gentlemen is all as pleased as Punch," said Joe. "We was a
+feared as it might be somebody foreign--not a Carlingford gentleman; and
+some parsons is queer, saving your presence, Mr. May; but we knows where
+you comes from, and all about you, as one of the old gentlemen was just
+a-saying to me. Furnished, Miss? Lord bless you, yes! they're furnished.
+It's all furnished, is College. You'll think as the things look a bit
+queer; they wasn't made not this year, nor yet last year, I can tell
+you; and they ain't in the fashion. But if so be as you don't stand by
+fashion, there they is," said Joe, throwing open the door.
+
+The young people went in softly, their excitement subdued into a kind of
+awe. An empty house, furnished, is more desolate, more overwhelming to
+the imagination, than a house which is bare. For whom was it waiting,
+all ready there, swept and garnished? Or were there already unseen
+inhabitants about, writing ghostly letters on the tables, seated on the
+chairs? Even Janey was hushed.
+
+"I'd rather stay at home, after all," she whispered in Ursula's ear
+under her breath.
+
+But after awhile they became familiar with the silent place, and awoke
+the echoes in it with their voices and new life. Nothing so young had
+been in the College for years. The last chaplain had been an old man and
+an old bachelor; and the pensioners were all solitary, living a sort of
+monastic life, each in his room, like workers in their cells. When
+Janey, surprised by some unexpected joke, burst into one of her peals of
+laughter, the old building echoed all through it, and more than one
+window was put up and head projected to know the cause of this
+profanation.
+
+"Joe!" cried one portentous voice; "what's happened? what's the meaning
+of this?"
+
+"It's only them a-laughing, sir," said Joe, delighting in the vagueness
+of his rejoinder. "They ain't used to it, that's the truth; but laugh
+away, Miss, it'll do you good," he added benignly. Joe was of a cheerful
+spirit, notwithstanding his infirmities, and he foresaw lightsome days.
+
+Somewhat taken aback, however, by the commotion produced by Janey's
+laugh, the young party left the College, Ursula carrying with her sundry
+memoranda and measurements for curtains and carpets. "You must have
+curtains," she said, "and I think a carpet for the study. The other room
+will do; but the study is cold, it has not the sunshine. I wonder if we
+might go and look at some, all at once."
+
+Here the three paused in the road, and looked at each other somewhat
+overcome by the grandeur of the idea. Even Reginald, notwithstanding his
+Oxford experience, held his breath a little at the thought of going
+right off without further consideration, and buying carpets and
+curtains. As for Janey, she laughed again in pure excitement and
+delight.
+
+"Fancy going into Holden's, walking right in, as if we had the Bank in
+our pockets, and ordering whatever we like," she cried.
+
+"I suppose we must have them!" said Reginald, yielding slowly to the
+pleasure of acquisition. Ursula was transformed by the instinct of
+business and management into the leader of the party.
+
+"Of course you must have them," she said, with the air of a woman who
+had ordered curtains all her life, "otherwise you will catch cold, and
+that is not desirable," and she marched calmly towards Holden's, while
+Janey dropped behind to smother the laughter which expressed her amazed
+delight in this new situation. It is doubtful whether Holden would have
+given them so good a reception had the Miss Mays gone to hint to order
+curtains for the Parsonage--for the Carlingford tradesmen were very well
+aware of the difficulties, in point of payment, which attended Mr. May's
+purchases. But Holden was all smiles at the idea of fitting up the rooms
+in the College.
+
+"Carpets? I have a Turkey carpet that would just suit one of those old
+rooms--old-fashioned rooms are so much thought of at present," said the
+man of furniture.
+
+"Yes--I suppose that would do," said Reginald, with a side look at his
+sister, to know if he was right. Ursula slew him with a glance of her
+brown eyes. She was almost grand in superior knowledge and righteous
+indignation.
+
+"Turkey! are you out of your senses? Do you think we have the Bank in
+our pockets," she whispered to him angrily, "as Janey says?"
+
+"How was I to know? He said so," said the alarmed chaplain, cowed,
+notwithstanding his income.
+
+"_He_ said so! that is just like you boys, taking whatever everyone
+tells you. Why, a Turkey carpet costs a fortune. Mr. Holden, I think, if
+you please, Brussels will do; or some of those new kinds, a jumble of
+colours without any decided pattern. Not too expensive," said Ursula
+solemnly, the colour mounting to her face. They were all rather brought
+down from their first delight and grandeur when this was said--for
+stipulating about expense made a difference all at once. The delightful
+sensation of marching into Holden's as if the world belonged to them was
+over; but Janey was touched to see that Holden still remained civil,
+and did not express, in his countenance, the contempt he must have felt.
+
+When this was over, and Mr. Holden had kindly suggested the idea of
+sending various stuffs to the College, "that they might judge of the
+effect," the party went home, slightly subdued. The air was heavy and
+yellow, and prophesied snow; but a very red wintry sun had managed to
+make an opening temporarily in the clouds, and threw a ruddy ray down
+Grange Lane, bringing out the few passengers who were coming and going
+under the old garden walls. Ursula clasped her hands together, and came
+to a stop suddenly, when she turned her eyes that way.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "here she is--she is coming! all by herself, and we
+can't help meeting her--the young lady in black!"
+
+"Shall we speak to her?" said Janey with a little awe.
+
+"Who is the young lady in black?" said Reginald, "this girl who is
+coming up? I never saw her before in Carlingford. Is she some one you
+have met with the Dorsets? She don't look much like Grange Lane."
+
+"Oh, hush! here she is," said Ursula, losing all that importance of
+aspect which her position as leader of the expedition had given her. A
+pretty blush of expectation came over her face--her dimples revealed
+themselves as if by magic. You will think it strange, perhaps, that the
+sight of one girl should produce this effect upon another. But then
+Phoebe represented to Ursula the only glimpse she had ever had into a
+world which looked gay and splendid to the country girl--a world in
+which Phoebe had appeared to her as a princess reigning in glory and
+delight. Ursula forgot both her companions and her recent occupation.
+Would the young lady in black notice her; stop, perhaps, and talk to
+her--remember her? Her eyes began to glow and dance with excitement. She
+stumbled as she went on in her anxiety, fixing her eyes upon the
+approaching figure. Phoebe, for her part, was taking a constitutional
+walk up and down Grange Lane, and she too was a little moved,
+recognizing the girl, and wondering what it would be wisest to
+do--whether to speak to her, and break her lonely promenade with a
+little society, or remember her "place," and save herself from further
+mortification by passing the clergyman's daughter, who was a cousin of
+the Dorsets, with a bow.
+
+"The Dorsets wouldn't recognise me, nor Miss May either," Phoebe said to
+herself, "_if they knew_--"
+
+But Ursula looked so wistful as they approached each other that she had
+not the courage to keep to this wise resolution. Though she was only the
+granddaughter of Tozer, the butterman, she was much more a woman of the
+world than this pretty blushing girl who courted her notice. She put out
+her hand instinctively when they met. "It can't harm anybody but myself,
+after all," she thought.
+
+"Oh, I am so glad you remember me," cried Ursula. "I knew you in a
+moment. Have you come to stay here? This is my brother, Reginald, and my
+little sister, Janey," (how Janey scowled at that _little!_ and with
+reason, for she was by half an inch the taller of the two). "Are you
+taking a walk? I do hope you like Carlingford. I do hope you are going
+to stay. That is our house down at the end of the lane, close to St.
+Roque's. Papa is the clergyman there. It will be so delightful," said
+Ursula, repeating herself in her excitement, "if you are going to stay."
+
+"I am going to stay for some time," said Phoebe graciously, "I don't
+quite know how long. I came here shortly after I saw you in town. My
+grandfather lives here. Grange Lane is very nice for a walk. Grandmamma
+is an invalid, so that I don't leave her very often. It was great luck
+finding you just as I had come out; for it is not cheerful walking
+alone."
+
+Phoebe felt perfectly sure that through each of the three heads turned
+towards her a hurried inquiry was going on as to which of those enclosed
+houses contained the grandmother who was an invalid; but no sort of
+enlightenment followed the inquiry, and as for Ursula it terminated
+abruptly in her mind with a rush of cordiality. She was not at an age
+when friendship pauses to make any inquiry into grandmothers.
+
+"I am so glad! for if you are not going anywhere in particular, we may
+all walk together. Janey knows you quite well. I have talked of you so
+often," (here Phoebe gave a gracious bow and smile to Janey, who was not
+quite sure that she liked to be thus patronized), "and so does my
+brother," said Ursula, more doubtfully. "Do you like Carlingford? Have
+you seen many people? Oh! I do hope you will stay."
+
+"I have not seen anybody," said Phoebe. "My people are not much in
+society. When one is old and sick, I don't suppose one cares--"
+
+"There is no society to speak of in Carlingford," said Reginald. "It is
+like most other country towns. If you like it we shall be sure your
+liking is quite disinterested, for it has no social charms--"
+
+When had Reginald said so many words at a time to a young lady before?
+The girls exchanged glances. "I think it is pretty," said Phoebe, closing
+the subject. "It is going to snow, don't you think? I suppose you skate
+like all the young ladies now. It seems the first thing any one thinks
+of when the winter begins."
+
+"Do you skate?" said Ursula, her eyes brighter and opener than ever.
+
+"Oh, a little--as everybody does! Perhaps if there is no society," said
+Phoebe, turning to Reginald for the first time, "people are free here
+from the necessity of doing as everybody does. I don't think there is
+any such bondage in the world--dressing, living, working, amusing
+yourself--you have to do everything as other people do it. So I skate--I
+can't help myself; and a hundred foolish things beside."
+
+"But I should think it _delightful_," cried Ursula, "I have always
+envied the boys. They look so warm when we are all shivering. Reginald,
+if it freezes will you teach us? I think I should like it better than
+anything in the world."
+
+"Yes," said Reginald, "if Miss--if we can make up a party--if you," he
+added with a perfectly new inflection in his voice, "will come too."
+
+"I see you don't know my name," said Phoebe, with a soft little laugh.
+"It is Beecham. One never catches names at a party. I remembered yours
+because of a family in a novel that I used to admire very much in my
+girlish days--"
+
+"Oh! I know," cried Janey, "the Daisy Chain. We are not a set of prigs
+like those people. We are not goody, whatever we are; we--"
+
+"I don't suppose Miss Beecham cares for your opinion of the family
+character," said Reginald in a tone that made Janey furious. Thus
+discoursing they reached the gates of the Parsonage, where Ursula was
+most eager that her friend should come in. And here Mr. May joined them,
+who was impressed, like everybody else, by Phoebe's appearance, and made
+himself so agreeable that Reginald felt eclipsed and driven into the
+background. Ursula had never been so satisfied with her father in her
+life; though there was a cloud on Mr. May's soul, it suited him to show
+a high good-humour with everybody in recompense for his son's
+satisfactory decision, and he was, indeed, in a state of high
+complacence with himself for having managed matters so cleverly that the
+very thing which should have secured Reginald's final abandonment of the
+chaplaincy determined him, on the contrary, to accept it. And he admired
+Phoebe, and was dazzled by her self-possession and knowledge of the
+world. He supported Ursula's invitation warmly; but the stranger freed
+herself with graceful excuses. She had her patient to attend to.
+
+"That is a very lady-like young woman," said Mr. May, when they had
+gone in, after watching regretfully their new acquaintance's progress
+through Grange Lane. "You met her in town, did you? A friend of the
+Dorsets? Where is she living, I wonder; and whom does she belong to? One
+does not often see that style of thing here."
+
+"I never saw any one like her before," said Ursula fervently; and they
+were still all uniting in admiration of Phoebe--when--
+
+But such an interruption demands another page.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THAT TOZER GIRL!
+
+
+"Well, who is she?" cried Mrs. Sam Hurst, too curious to think of the
+ordinary decorums. She had no bonnet on, but a light "cloud" of white
+wool over her cap, and her whole aspect was full of eagerness and
+excitement. "Why didn't you tell me you knew her? Who is she? I am dying
+to know."
+
+"Who is--who?" said Ursula, rather glad of the opportunity of being
+politely rude to Mrs. Sam Hurst before papa. "How is any one to find out
+from the way you speak? She? who is she?"
+
+"That is just what I want you to tell me," said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with
+imperturbable good-humour. "You, Mr. May, you are always good to me,
+though Ursula has her little tempers--the girl you were talking to at
+the door. I stood and watched from the window, and I scarcely could
+contain myself sufficiently not to bounce out in the middle of the talk.
+Now do tell, as the Americans say. Who is that Tozer girl?"
+
+"That Tozer girl!" Ursula gave a little shriek, and grew first red and
+then pale with horror and dismay.
+
+"Yes; I told you about her; so well dressed and looking so nice. That
+was she; with the very same dress, such a charming dress! so much style
+about it. Who is she, Ursula? Mr. May, tell me who is she? You can't
+imagine how much I want to know."
+
+Ursula dropped into a chair, looking like a little ghost, faint and
+rigid. She said afterwards to Janey that she felt in the depths of her
+heart that it must be true. She could have cried with pain and
+disappointment, but she would not give Mrs. Sam Hurst the pleasure of
+making her cry.
+
+"There must be some mistake," said Reginald, interposing. "This is a
+lady--my sister met her in town with the Dorsets."
+
+"Oh, does she know the Dorsets too?" said the inquirer. "That makes it
+still more interesting. Yes, that is the girl that is with the Tozers;
+there can be no mistake about it. She is the granddaughter. She was at
+the Meeting last night. I had it from the best authority--on the
+platform with old Tozer. And, indeed, Mr. May, how any one that had been
+there could dare to look you in the face!--"
+
+"I was there myself," said Mr. May. "It amused me very much. Tell me now
+about this young person. Is she an impostor, taking people in, or what
+is it all about? Ursula looks as if she was in the trick herself, and
+had been found out."
+
+"I am _sure_ she is not an impostor," said Ursula. "An impostor! If you
+had seen her as I saw her, at a great, beautiful, splendid ball. I never
+saw anything like it. I was nobody there--nobody--and neither were
+Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy--but Miss Beecham! It is a mistake, I
+suppose," the girl said, raising herself up with great dignity; "when
+people are always trying for news, they get the wrong news sometimes, I
+don't doubt. You may be sure it is a mistake."
+
+"That's me," said Mrs. Sam Hurst, with a laugh; "that is one of Ursula's
+assaults upon poor me. Yes, I confess it, I am fond of news; and I never
+said she was an impostor. Poor girl, I am dreadfully sorry for her. I
+think she is a good girl, trying to do her duty to her relations. She
+didn't choose her own grandfather. I dare say, if she'd had any say in
+it, she would have made a very different choice. But whether your papa
+may think her a proper friend for you--being Tozer's granddaughter, Miss
+Ursula, that's quite a different business, I am bound to say."
+
+Again Ursula felt herself kept from crying by sheer pride, and nothing
+else. She bit her lips tight; she would not give in. Mrs. Hurst to
+triumph over her, and to give her opinion as to what papa might think
+proper! Ursula turned her back upon Mrs. Hurst, which was not civil,
+fearing every moment some denunciation from papa. But nothing of the
+kind came. He asked quite quietly after a while, "Where did you meet
+this young lady?" without any perceptible inflection of anger in his
+tone.
+
+"Why, papa," cried Janey, distressed to be kept so long silent,
+"everybody knows where Ursula met her; no one has heard of anything else
+since she came home. She met her of course at the ball. You know;
+Reginald, _you_ know! The ball where she went with Cousin Anne."
+
+"Never mind Cousin Anne; I want the name of the people at whose house it
+was."
+
+"Copperhead, papa," said Ursula, rousing herself. "If Cousin Anne does
+not know a lady from a common person, who does, I wonder? It was Cousin
+Anne who introduced me to her (I think). Their name was Copperhead, and
+they lived in a great, big, beautiful house, in the street where
+ambassadors and quantities of great people live. I forget the name of
+it; but I know there was an ambassador lived there, and Cousin Anne
+said----"
+
+"Copperhead! I thought so," said Mr. May. "When Ursula has been set
+a-going on the subject of Cousin Anne, there is nothing rational to be
+got from her after that for an hour or two. You take an interest in this
+young lady," he said shortly, turning to Mrs. Sam Hurst, who stood by
+smiling, rather enjoying the commotion she had caused.
+
+"Who, I? I take an interest in anybody that makes a stir, and gives us
+something to talk about," said Mrs. Hurst, frankly. "You know my
+weakness. Ursula despises me for it, but you know human nature. If I did
+not take an interest in my neighbours what would become of me--a poor
+lone elderly woman, without either chick or child?"
+
+She rounded off this forlorn description of herself with a hearty laugh,
+in which Janey, who had a secret kindness for their merry neighbour,
+though she feared her "for papa," joined furtively. Mr. May, however,
+did not enter into the joke with the sympathy which he usually showed to
+Mrs. Hurst. He smiled, but there was something _distrait_ and
+pre-occupied in his air.
+
+"How sorry we all are for you," he said; "your position is truly
+melancholy. I am glad, for your sake, that old Tozer has a pretty
+granddaughter to beguile you now and then out of recollection of your
+cares."
+
+There was a sharp tone in this which caught Mrs. Hurst's ear, and she
+was not disposed to accept any sharpness from Mr. May. She turned the
+tables upon him promptly.
+
+"What a disgraceful business that Meeting was! Of course, you have seen
+the paper. There ought to be some way of punishing those agitators that
+go about the country, taking away people's characters. Could not you
+bring him up for libel, or Reginald? I never knew anything so shocking.
+To come to your own town, your own neighbourhood, and to strike you
+through your son! It is the nastiest, most underhanded, unprincipled
+attack I ever heard of."
+
+"What is that?" asked Reginald.
+
+He was not easily roused by Carlingford gossip, but there was clearly
+more in this than met the eye.
+
+"An Anti-State Church Meeting," said Mr. May, "with special compliments
+in it to you and me. It is not worth our while to think of it. Your
+agitators, my dear Mrs. Hurst, are not worth powder and shot. Now,
+pardon me, but I must go to work. Will you go and see the sick people in
+Back Grove Street, Reginald? I don't think I can go to-day."
+
+"I should like to know what was in the paper," said the young man, with
+an obstinacy that filled the girls with alarm. They had been in hopes
+that everything between father and son was to be happy and friendly, now
+that Reginald was about to do what his father wished.
+
+"Oh, you shall see it," said Mrs. Hurst, half alarmed too; "but it is
+not anything, as your father says; only we women are sensitive. We are
+always thinking of things which, perhaps, were never intended to harm
+us. Ursula, you take my advice, and don't go and mix yourself up with
+Dissenters and that kind of people. The Tozer girl may be very nice, but
+she is still Tozer's granddaughter, after all."
+
+Reginald followed the visitor out of the room, leaving his sisters very
+ill at ease within, and his father not without anxieties which were so
+powerful, indeed, that he relieved his mind by talking of them to his
+daughters--a most unusual proceeding.
+
+"That woman will set Reginald off at the nail again," he cried; "after
+he had begun to see things in a common-sense light. There was an attack
+made upon him last night on account of that blessed chaplaincy, which
+has been more trouble to me than it is worth. I suppose he'll throw it
+up now. But I wash my hands of the matter. I wonder how you girls can
+encourage that chattering woman to come here."
+
+"Papa!" cried Janey, ever on the defensive, "we _hate_ her! It is you
+who encourage her to come here."
+
+"Oh, hush!" cried Ursula, with a warning glance; it was balm to her soul
+to hear her father call Mrs. Hurst _that woman_. "We have been to see
+the house," she said; "it was very nice. I think Reginald liked it,
+papa."
+
+"Ah, well," said Mr. May, "girls and boys are queer articles. I dare say
+the house, if he likes it, will weigh more with him than justice or
+common sense. So Copperhead was the people's name? What would be wanted,
+do you think, Ursula, to make Reginald's room into a comfortable room
+for a pupil? Comfortable, recollect; not merely what would do; and one
+that has been used, I suppose, to luxury. You can look over it and let
+me know."
+
+"Are we going to take a pupil, papa?" cried Janey, with widening eyes.
+
+"I don't know what you could teach him," he said. "Manners, perhaps? Let
+me know, Ursula. The room is not a bad room; it would want a new carpet,
+curtains, perhaps--various things. Make me out a list. The Copperheads
+have a son, I believe. Did you see him at that fine ball of yours?"
+
+"Oh! papa, he danced with me twice; he was very kind," said Ursula, with
+a blush; "and he danced all the night with Miss Beecham. It must be a
+falsehood about her being old Tozer's granddaughter. Mr. Clarence
+Copperhead was always by her side. I think Mrs. Hurst must have made it
+all up out of her own head."
+
+Mr. May gave a little short laugh.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Hurst!" he said, recovering his temper; "how bitter you all
+are against her. So he danced with you twice? You must try to make him
+comfortable, Ursula, if he comes here."
+
+"Is Mr. Clarence Copperhead coming here?"
+
+Ursula was struck dumb by this piece of news. The grand house in
+Portland Place, and all Sophy Dorset's questions and warnings, came
+suddenly back to her mind. She blushed fiery red; she could not tell
+why. Coming here! How strange it would be, how extraordinary, to have to
+order dinner for him, and get his room in order, and have him in the
+drawing-room in the evenings! How should she know what to say to him? or
+would papa keep him always at work, reading Greek or something
+downstairs? All this flashed through her mind with the rapidity of
+lightning. Mr. May made no reply. He was walking up and down the room
+with his hands behind him, as was his habit when he was "busy." Being
+busy was separated from being angry by the merest visionary line in Mr.
+May's case; his children never ventured on addressing him at such
+moments, and it is impossible to describe how glad they were when he
+withdrew to his own room before Reginald's return; but not a minute too
+soon. The young man came back, looking black as night. He threw himself
+into a chair, and then he got up again, and began also to walk about the
+room like his father. At first he would make no reply to the questions
+of the girls.
+
+"It is exactly what I expected," he said; "just what I looked for. I
+knew it from the first moment."
+
+It was Janey, naturally, who had least patience with this unsatisfactory
+utterance.
+
+"If it was just what you expected, and you looked for it all the time,
+why should you make such a fuss now?" she cried. "I declare, for all you
+are young, and we are fond of you, you are almost as bad as papa."
+
+Reginald did not take any notice of this address; he went on repeating
+the same words at intervals.
+
+"A child might have known it. Of course, from the beginning one knew how
+it must be." Then he suddenly faced round upon Ursula, who was nearly
+crying in excitement and surprise. "But if they think I am to be driven
+out of a resolution I have made by what they say--if they think that I
+will be bullied into giving up because of their claptrap," he cried,
+looking sternly at her, "then you will find you are mistaken. You will
+find I am not such a weak idiot as you suppose. Give up! because some
+demagogue from a Dissenting Committee takes upon him to criticise my
+conduct. If you think I have so little self-respect, so little stamina,"
+he said, fiercely, "you will find you have made a very great mistake."
+
+"Oh, Reginald, _me_?" cried Ursula, with tears in her eyes; "did I ever
+think anything unkind of you? did I ever ask you to do anything that was
+disagreeable? You should not look as if it was me."
+
+Then he threw himself down again on the old sofa, which creaked and
+tottered under the shock.
+
+"Poor little Ursula!" he cried, with a short laugh. "Did you think I
+meant you? But if they thought they would master me by these means,"
+said Reginald with pale fury, "they never made a greater mistake, I can
+tell you. A parcel of trumpery agitators, speechifiers, little petty
+demagogues, whom nobody ever heard of before. A fine thing, indeed, to
+have all the shopkeepers of Carlingford sitting in committee on one's
+conduct, isn't it--telling one what one ought to do? By Jupiter! It's
+enough to make a man swear!"
+
+"I declare!" cried Janey loudly, "how like Reginald is to papa! I never
+saw it before. When he looks wicked like that, and sets his teeth--but I
+am not going to be pushed, not by my brother or any one!" said the girl,
+growing red, and making a step out of his reach. "I won't stand it. I am
+not a child any more than you."
+
+Janey's wrath was appeased, however, when Reginald produced the paper
+and read Northcote's speech aloud. In her interest she drew nearer and
+nearer, and read the obnoxious column over his shoulder, joining in
+Ursula's cries of indignation. By the time the three had thus got
+through it, Reginald's own agitation subsided into that fierce amusement
+which is the frequent refuge of the assaulted.
+
+"Old Green in the chair! and old Tozer and the rest have all been
+sitting upon me," he said, with that laugh which is proverbially
+described as from the wrong side of the mouth, whatever that may be.
+Ursula said nothing in reply, but in her heart she felt yet another
+stab. Tozer! This was another complication. She had taken so great a
+romantic interest in the heroine of that ball, which was the most
+entrancing moment of Ursula's life, that it seemed a kind of disloyalty
+to her dreams to give up thus completely, and dethrone the young lady in
+black; but what could the poor girl do? In the excitement of this
+question the personality of Reginald's special assailant was lost
+altogether: the girls did not even remember his name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+A NEW FRIEND.
+
+
+After this there followed an exciting interval for the family at the
+Parsonage. Reginald, with the impatience of anger, insisted upon
+transporting himself to the College at once, and entering upon "his
+duties," such as they were, in defiance of all public comment. And Mr.
+May, delighted with the head-strong resentment which served his purpose
+so well, promoted it by all the means in his power, goading his son on,
+if he showed any signs of relaxing, by references to public opinion, and
+what the Liberation Society would say. Before those curtains were ready,
+which the girls had ordered with so much pride, or the carpet laid down,
+he had taken possession, and his room in the Parsonage was already
+turned upside down preparing for a new inmate. Many and strange were the
+thoughts in Ursula's mind about this new inmate. She remembered Clarence
+Copperhead as a full-grown man, beyond, it seemed to her, the age at
+which pupilage was possible. What was he coming to Carlingford for? What
+was he coming to the Parsonage for? What could papa do with a pupil
+quite as old as Reginald, who, in his own person, had often taken
+pupils? Ursula had read as many novels as were natural at her age, and
+can it be supposed that she did not ask herself whether there was any
+other meaning in it? Could he be coming to Carlingford on account of
+Miss Beecham; or, on account of--any one else? Ursula never whispered,
+even to her own imagination, on account of me. But it is not to be
+supposed that the unbidden inarticulate thought did not steal in,
+fluttering her girlish soul. Everybody knows that in fiction, at least,
+such things occur continually, and are the most natural things in the
+world; and to Ursula, beyond her own little commonplace world, which she
+somewhat despised, and the strange world undeciphered and wonderful to
+which the Dorsets had introduced her for those ten brief days in London,
+the world of fiction was the only sphere she knew; and in that sphere
+there could be no such natural method of accounting for a young man's
+actions as that of supposing him to be "in love." The question remained,
+was it with Miss Beecham, or was it with--anybody else? Such an inquiry
+could not but flutter her youthful bosom. She made his room ready for
+him, and settled how he was to be disposed of, with the strangest sense
+of something beneath, which her father would never suspect, but which,
+perhaps, she alone might know.
+
+Clarence Copperhead was a more imposing figure to Ursula than he was in
+reality. She had seen him only twice, and he was a big and full-grown
+"gentleman," while Ursula only realised herself as a little girl. She
+was not even aware that she had any intelligence to speak of, or that
+she would be a fit person to judge of "a gentleman." To be sure she had
+to do many things which wanted thought and sense; but she was too
+unthoughtful of herself to have decided this as yet, or to have created
+any private tribunal at which to judge a new-comer of Clarence
+Copperhead's dimensions. A much greater personage than she was, an
+individual whose comings and goings could not be without observation,
+whose notice would be something exciting and strange, was what she took
+him to be. And Ursula was excited. Did Mrs. Copperhead, that kind little
+woman, know why he was coming--was she in his confidence? And how was
+Ursula to entertain him, to talk to him--a gentleman accustomed to so
+much better society? She did not say anything to Janey on this subject,
+though Janey was not without her curiosities too, and openly indulged in
+conjectures as to the new pupil.
+
+"I wonder if he will be fine. I wonder if he will be very good," said
+Janey. "I wonder if he will fall in love with Ursula. Pupils, in books,
+always do; and then there is a dreadful fuss and bother, and the girl is
+sent away. It is hard for the girl; it is always supposed to be her
+fault. I would not allow papa to take any pupils if it was me."
+
+"And much your papa would care for your permission," said Mrs. Sam
+Hurst. "But so far I agree with you, Janey, that before he has pupils,
+or anything of that sort, there ought to be a lady in the house. He
+should marry--"
+
+"Marry! we don't want a lady in the house," cried Janey, "we are ladies
+ourselves, I hope. Marry! if he does, I, for one, will do all I can to
+make his life miserable," said the girl with energy. "What should he
+want to marry for when he has daughters grown up? There are enough of us
+already, I should think."
+
+"Too many," said Mrs. Sam Hurst with a sigh. It gave her the greatest
+secret delight to play upon the girl's fears.
+
+Besides this, however, Ursula had another pre-occupation. In that
+cordial meeting with the young lady who had turned out to be a person in
+such an embarrassing position, there had been a great deal said about
+future meetings, walks, and expeditions together, and Ursula had been
+very desirous that Phoebe should fix some time for their first encounter.
+She thought of this now with blushes that seemed to burn her cheeks. She
+was afraid to go out, lest she should meet the girl she had been so
+anxious to make a friend of. Not that, on her own account, after the
+first shock, Ursula would have been hard-hearted enough to deny her
+acquaintance to Tozer's granddaughter. In the seclusion of her chamber,
+she had cried over the downfall of her ideal friend very bitterly, and
+felt the humiliation for Phoebe more cruelly than that young lady felt it
+for herself; but Ursula, however much it might have cost her, would have
+stood fast to her friendship had she been free to do as she pleased.
+
+"I did not like her for her grandfather," she said to Janey, of whom, in
+this case, she was less unwilling to make a confidant. "I never thought
+of the grandfather. What does it matter to me if he were a sweep instead
+of old Tozer?"
+
+"Old Tozer is just as bad as if he were a sweep," said Janey; "if you
+had ever thought of her grandfather, and known he was old Tozer, you
+would have felt it would not do."
+
+"What is there about a grandfather? I don't know if we ever had any,"
+said Ursula. "Mamma had, for the Dorsets are her relations--but papa.
+Mr. Griffiths's grandfather was a candle-maker; I have heard papa say
+so--and they go everywhere."
+
+"But he is dead," said Janey, with great shrewdness, "and he was rich."
+
+"You little nasty calculating thing! Oh, how I hate rich people; how I
+hate this horrid world, that loves money and loves fine names, and does
+not care for people's selves whether they are bad or good! I shall never
+dare to walk up Grange Lane again," said Ursula, with tears. "Fancy
+changing to her, after being so glad to see her! fancy never saying
+another word about the skating, or the walk to the old mill! How she
+will despise me for being such a miserable creature! and she will think
+it is all my own fault."
+
+At this moment Mr. May, from the door of his study, called "Ursula!"
+repeating the call with some impatience when she paused to dry her eyes.
+She ran down to him quickly, throwing down her work in her haste. He was
+standing at the door, and somehow for the first time the worn look about
+his eyes struck Ursula with a touch of pity. She had never noticed it
+before: a look of suppressed pain and anxiety, which remained about his
+eyes though the mouth smiled. It had never occurred to her to be sorry
+for her father before, and the idea struck her as very strange now.
+
+"Come in," he said, "I want to speak to you. I have been thinking about
+the young woman--this friend of yours. We are all among the Dissenters
+now-a-days, whatever Mrs. Sam Hurst may say. You seem to have taken a
+fancy to this Tozer girl?"
+
+"Don't call her so, papa, please. She is a lady in herself, as good a
+lady as any one."
+
+"Well! I don't say anything against her, do I? So you hold by your
+fancy? You are not afraid of Grange Lane and Mrs. Sam Hurst."
+
+"I have not seen her again," said Ursula, cast down. "I have not been
+out at all. I could not bear to be so friendly one day, and then to pass
+as if one did not know her the next. I cannot do it," cried the girl, in
+tears; "if I see her, I must just be the same as usual to her, whatever
+you say."
+
+"Very well, _be_ the same as usual," said Mr. May; "that is why I called
+you. I have my reasons. Notwithstanding Tozer, be civil to the girl. I
+have my reasons for what I say."
+
+"Do you mean it, papa!" said Ursula, delighted. "Oh, how good of you!
+You don't mind--you really don't mind? Oh! I can't tell you how thankful
+I am; for to pretend to want to be friends, and then to break off all in
+a moment because of a girl's grandfather----"
+
+"Don't make a principle of it, Ursula. It is quite necessary, in an
+ordinary way, to think of a girl's grandfather--and a boy's too, for
+that matter. No shopkeeping friends for me; but in this individual case
+I am willing to make an exception. For the moment, you see, Dissenters
+are in the ascendant. Young Copperhead is coming next week. Now, go."
+
+Ursula marched delighted upstairs. "Janey, run and get your hat," she
+said; "I am going out. I am not afraid of any one now. Papa is a great
+deal nicer than he ever was before. He says I may see Miss Beecham as
+much as I like. He says we need not mind Mrs. Sam Hurst. I am so glad! I
+shall never be afraid of that woman any more."
+
+Janey was taken altogether by surprise. "I hope he is not going to fall
+in love with Miss Beecham," she said suspiciously. "I have heard Betsy
+say that old gentlemen often do."
+
+"He is not so foolish as to fall in love with anybody," said Ursula,
+with dignity. "Indeed, Janey, you ought to have much more respect for
+papa. I wish you could be sent to school and learn more sense. You give
+your opinion as if you were--twenty--more than that. I am sure I never
+should have ventured to say such things when I was a child like you."
+
+"Child yourself!" said Janey indignant; which was her last resource when
+she had nothing more to say; but Ursula was too busy putting aside her
+work and preparing for her walk to pay any attention. In proportion as
+she had been subdued and downcast heretofore, she was gay now. She
+forgot all about old Tozer; about the Dissenters' meeting, and the man
+who had made an attack upon poor Reginald. She flew to her room for her
+hat and jacket, and ran downstairs, singing to herself. Janey only
+overtook her, out of breath, as she emerged into the road from the
+Parsonage door.
+
+"What a dreadful hurry you are in," said Janey. "I always get ready so
+much quicker than you do. Is it all about this girl, because she is new?
+I never knew you were so fond of new people before."
+
+But that day they went up and down Grange Lane fruitlessly, without
+seeing anything of Phoebe, and Ursula returned home disconsolate. In the
+evening Reginald intimated carelessly that he had met Miss Beecham. "She
+is much better worth talking to than most of the girls one meets with,
+whoever her grandfather may be," he said, evidently with an instant
+readiness to stand on the defensive.
+
+"Oh, did you talk to her," said Ursula, "without knowing? Reginald, papa
+has no objections. He says we may even have her here, if we please."
+
+"Well, of course I suppose he must guide you in that respect," said
+Reginald, "but it does not matter particularly to me. Of course I talked
+to her. Even my father could not expect that his permission was needed
+for me."
+
+At which piece of self-assertion the girls looked at him with admiring
+eyes. Already they felt there was a difference. Reginald at home,
+nominal curate, without pay or position, was a different thing from
+Reginald with an appointment, a house of his own, and two hundred and
+fifty pounds a year. The girls looked at him admiringly, but felt that
+this was never likely to be their fate. In everything the boys had so
+much the best of it; and yet it was almost a comfort to think that they
+had seen Reginald himself trembling before papa. Reginald had a great
+deal to tell them about the college, about the old men who made a
+hundred daily claims on his attention, and the charities which he had to
+administer, doles of this and that, and several charity schools of a
+humble class.
+
+"As for my time, it is not likely to hang on my hands as I thought. I
+can't be a parish Quixote, as we planned, Ursula, knocking down
+windmills for other people," he said, adjusting his round edge of
+collar. He was changed; he was important, a personage in his own sight,
+no longer to be spoken of as Mr. May's son. Janey ventured on a little
+laugh when he went away, but Ursula did not like the change.
+
+"Never mind," cried Janey; "I hope Copperhead will be nice. We shall
+have him to talk to, when he comes."
+
+"Oh!" cried Ursula, in a kind of despair, "who taught you to call
+gentlemen like that by their name? There is nothing so vulgar. Why,
+Cousin Anne says--"
+
+"Oh, Cousin Anne!" cried Janey, shaking her head, and dancing away.
+After that she was aware there was nothing for it but flight.
+
+Next day, however, they were more successful. Phoebe, though very little
+older than Ursula, was kind to the country girls, and talked to them
+both, and drew them out. She smiled when she heard of Clarence
+Copperhead, and told them that he was not very clever, but she did not
+think there was any harm in him.
+
+"It is his father who is disagreeable," said Phoebe; "didn't you think
+so? You know, papa is a minister, Miss May," (she did not say clergyman
+when she spoke to a churchwoman, for what was the use of exciting any
+one's prejudices?) "and Mr. Copperhead comes to our church. You may be
+very thankful, in that respect, that you are not a dissenter. But it
+will be very strange to see Clarence Copperhead in Carlingford. I have
+known him since I was no bigger than your little sister. To tell the
+truth," said Phoebe, frankly, "I think I am rather sorry he is coming
+here."
+
+"Why?" cried bold Janey, who was always inquisitive.
+
+Miss Phoebe only smiled and shook her head; she made no distinct reply.
+
+"Poor fellow, I suppose he has been 'plucked,' as the gentlemen call
+it, or 'ploughed,' does your brother say? University slang is very
+droll. He has not taken his degree, I suppose, and they want him to work
+before going up again. I am sorry for your father, too, for I don't
+think it will be very easy to get anything into Clarence Copperhead's
+mind. But there is no harm at all in him, and he used to be very nice to
+his mother. Mamma and I liked him for that; he was always very nice to
+his mother."
+
+"Will you come in and have some tea?" said Ursula. "Do, please. I hope,
+now that I have met you again, you will not refuse me. I was afraid you
+had gone away, or something--"
+
+Ursula, however, could not help looking guilty as she spoke, and Phoebe
+perceived at once that there had been some reason for the two or three
+days disappearance of the girls from Grange Lane.
+
+"You must tell me first," she said, with a smile, "whether you know who
+I am. If you ask me after that, I shall come. I am old Mr. Tozer's
+granddaughter, who had a shop in the High Street. My uncle has a shop
+there now. I do not like it myself," said Phoebe, with the masterly
+candour that distinguished her, "and no one else can be expected to like
+it. If you did not know--"
+
+"Oh, we heard directly," cried Janey; "Mrs. Sam Hurst told us. She came
+shrieking, 'Who is she?' before your back was turned that day; for she
+wondered to see you with old Tozer--"
+
+"Janey!" cried Ursula, with horror. "Of course we know; and please will
+you come? Every new person in Carlingford gets talked over, and if an
+angel were to walk about, Mrs. Sam Hurst would never rest till she had
+found out where he came from."
+
+"And, perhaps, whether he had a broken feather in his wing," said Phoebe.
+"I am very glad you don't mind. It will be very pleasant to come. I will
+run in and tell them, and then I will join you. Grandmamma is an
+invalid, and would like to know where I am."
+
+And the news made a considerable flutter in the dim room where Mrs.
+Tozer sat between the fire and the window, looking out upon the crocuses
+and regretting the High Street.
+
+"But run and put on another dress, dear. What will they think of you in
+that everlasting brown frock as you're so fond of? I'd like them to see
+as my grandchild could dress as nice as any lady in the land."
+
+"She'll not see much finery there," said Tozer; "they're as poor as
+church mice, are them Mays, and never a penny to pay a bill when it's
+wanted. I don't think as Phoebe need mind her dressing to go there."
+
+"And you'll send for me if you want me, grandmamma; you will be sure to
+send?"
+
+But for the brown frock, Mrs. Tozer's satisfaction would have been
+unalloyed as she watched her granddaughter walking across the garden.
+
+"She's at home among the quality, she is," said the old woman; "maybe
+more so than she is with you and me; but there ain't a better girl in
+all England, and that I'll say for her, though if she would think a
+little more about her clothes, as is nat'ral at her age, it would be
+more pleasing to me."
+
+"The worst dress as Phoebe has is better than anything belonging to them
+Mays," said Tozer.
+
+He did not care for the parson at St. Roque; though he was pleased that
+his child should be among "the quality." But it was on that evening that
+poor old Mrs. Tozer had one of her attacks, and Phoebe had to be summoned
+back at an early hour. The servant went down with an umbrella and a
+note, to bring her home; and that trifling incident had its influence
+upon after affairs, as the reader shall shortly see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT.
+
+
+It was something of a comfort to Phoebe to find that the "tea" to which
+Ursula asked her was a family meal, such as Mr. and Mrs. Tozer indulged
+in, in Grange Lane, with no idea of dinner to follow, as in more refined
+circles. This, she said to herself benignly, must be "country fashion,"
+and she was naturally as bland and gracious at the Parsonage tea-table
+as anybody from town, knowing better, but desiring to make herself
+thoroughly agreeable, could be. She amused Mr. May very much, who felt
+the serene young princess, accepting her vulgar relations with gentle
+resignation, and supported by a feeling of her own innate dignity, to be
+something quite new to him. Phoebe had no objection to talk upon the
+subject, for, clever as she was, she was not so clever as to see through
+Mr. May's amused show of interest in her trials, but believed
+ingenuously that he understood and felt for her, and was, perhaps, at
+last, the one noble, impartial, and generous Churchman who could see
+the difficulties of cultivated Dissenters, and enter into them
+sympathetically. Why Mr. May took the trouble to draw her out on this
+point it is more difficult to explain. Poor man, he was in a state of
+semi-distraction over Cotsdean's bill. The ten days had shortened into
+three, and he was no nearer finding that hundred pounds than ever. Even
+while he smiled and talked to Phoebe, he was repeating over and over to
+himself the terrible fact which could not now be ignored. "17th, 18th,
+19th, and Friday will be the 20th," he was saying to himself. If that
+20th came without any help, Cotsdean would be virtually made a bankrupt;
+for of course all his creditors would make a rush upon him, and all his
+affairs would be thrown open to the remorseless public gaze, if the
+bill, which had been so often renewed, had to be dishonoured at last.
+Mr. May had a conscience, though he was not careful of his money, and
+the fear of ruin to Cotsdean was a very terrible and real oppression to
+him. The recollection was upon him like a vulture in classic story,
+tearing and gnawing, as he sat there and smiled over the cup of tea
+Ursula gave him, feeling amused all the same at Phoebe's talk. He could
+scarcely have told why he had permitted his daughter to pursue her
+acquaintance with Tozer's granddaughter. Partly it was because of
+Clarence Copperhead; out of curiosity, as, being about to be brought in
+contact with some South Sea Islander or Fijian, one would naturally wish
+to see another who was thrown in one's way by accident, and thus prepare
+one's self for the permanent acquaintance. And she amused him. Her
+cleverness, her ease, her conversational powers, her woman of the world
+aspect, did not so much impress him, perhaps, as they did others; but
+the complacency and innocent confidence of youth that were in her, and
+her own enjoyment of the situation, notwithstanding the mortifications
+incurred--all this amused Mr. May. He listened to her talk, sometimes
+feeling himself almost unable to bear it, for the misery of those words,
+which kept themselves ringing in a dismal chorus in his own mind, and
+yet deriving a kind of amusement and distraction from it all the same.
+
+"One of your friends was very hard upon my son--and myself--at your
+Meeting the other night, Miss Beecham."
+
+"He was very injudicious," said Phoebe, shaking her head. "Indeed I did
+not approve. Personalities never advance any cause. I said so to him.
+Don't you think the Church has herself to blame for those political
+Dissenters, Mr. May? You sneer at us, and look down upon us--"
+
+"I? I don't sneer at anybody."
+
+"I don't mean you individually; but Churchmen do. They treat us as if
+we were some strange kind of creatures, from the heart of Africa
+perhaps. They don't think we are just like themselves: as well educated;
+meaning as well; with as much right to our own ideas."
+
+Mr. May could scarcely restrain a laugh. "Just like themselves." The
+idea of a Dissenter setting up to be as well educated, and as capable of
+forming an opinion, as a cultivated Anglican, an Oxford man, and a
+beneficed clergyman, was too novel and too foolish not to be somewhat
+startling as well. Mr. May was aware that human nature is strangely
+blind to its own deficiencies, but was it possible that any delusion
+could go so far as this? He did laugh a little--just the ghost of a
+laugh--at the idea. But what is the use of making any serious opposition
+to such a statement? The very fact of contesting the assumption seemed
+to give it a certain weight.
+
+"Whenever this is done," said Phoebe, with serene philosophy, "I think
+you may expect a revulsion of feeling. The class to which papa belongs
+is very friendly to the Established Church, and wishes to do her every
+honour."
+
+"Is it indeed? We ought to be much gratified," said Mr. May.
+
+Phoebe gave him a quick glance, but he composed his face and met her look
+meekly. It actually diverted him from his pre-occupation, and that is a
+great deal to say.
+
+"We would willingly do her any honour; we would willingly be friends,
+even look up to her, if that would please her," added Phoebe, very
+gravely, conscious of the importance of what she was saying; "but when
+we see clergymen, and common persons also, who have never had one
+rational thought on the subject, always setting us down as ignorant and
+uncultured, because we are Dissenters----"
+
+"But no one does that," said Ursula, soothingly, eager to save her new
+friend's feelings. She paused in the act of pouring out the children's
+second cup of tea, and looked up at her with eyes full of caressing and
+flattering meaning. "No one, at least, I am sure," she added, faltering,
+remembering suddenly things she had heard said of Dissenters, "who knows
+_you_."
+
+"It is not I that ought to be thought of, it is the general question.
+Then can you wonder that a young man like the gentleman we were talking
+of, clever and energetic, and an excellent scholar (and very good in
+philosophy, too--he was at Jena for two or three years), should be made
+bitter when he feels himself thrust back upon a community of small
+shopkeepers?"
+
+Mr. May could not restrain another short laugh.
+
+"We must not join in the vulgar abuse of shopkeepers," he said.
+
+Phoebe's colour rose. She raised her head a little, then perceiving the
+superiority of her former position, smiled.
+
+"I have no right to do so. My people, I suppose, were all shopkeepers to
+begin with; but this gives me ways of knowing. Grandpapa is very kind
+and nice--really nice, Mr. May; but he has not at all a wide way of
+looking at things. I feel it, though they are so kind to me. I have been
+brought up to think in such a different way; and if I feel it, who am
+fond of them, think how that young minister must feel it, who was
+brought up in a totally different class?"
+
+"What kind of class was this one brought up in?" said Mr. May, with a
+laugh. "He need not have assaulted Reginald, if he had been born a
+prince. We had done him no harm."
+
+"That is making it entirely a private question," said Phoebe, suavely,
+"which I did not mean to do. When such a man finds out abuses--what he
+takes to be abuses--in the Church, which treats him like a roadside
+ranter, may not he feel a right to be indignant? Oh, I am not so. I
+think such an office as that chaplaincy is very good, one here and there
+for the reward of merit; and I think he was very right to take it; but
+still it would not do, would it, to have many of them? It would not
+answer any good purpose," she said, administering a little sting
+scientifically, "if all clergymen held sinecures."
+
+These words were overheard by Reginald, who just then came in, and to
+whom it was startling to find Phoebe serenely seated at tea with his
+family. The hated word sinecure did not seem to affect him from her lips
+as it would have done from any one else's. He came in quite
+good-humouredly, and said with a smile--
+
+"You are discussing me. What about me? Miss Beecham, I hope you take my
+side."
+
+"I take everybody's side," said Phoebe; "for I try to trace people's
+motives. I can sympathise both with you and those who assailed you."
+
+"Oh, that Dissenting fellow. I beg your pardon, Miss Beecham, if you are
+a Dissenter; but I cannot help it. We never go out of our way to attack
+them and their chapels and coteries, and why should they spring at our
+throats on every occasion? I think it is hard, and I can't say I have
+any charity to spare for this individual. What had we done to him?
+Ursula, give me some tea."
+
+"Miss Beecham, I leave the cause of the Church in younger and, I hope,
+abler hands," said Mr. May, getting up.
+
+Partly it was that Reginald's onslaught made him see for the first time
+certain weak points in the situation; partly it was that his private
+care became too clamorous, and he could not keep on further. He went
+away quite abruptly, and went downstairs to his study, and shut himself
+in there; and the moment he had closed the door, all this amusement
+floated away, and the vulture gripped at him, beak and talons digging
+into his very soul. Good God! what was he to do? He covered his face
+with his hands, and turned round and round mentally in that darkness to
+see if anywhere there might be a gleam of light; but none was visible
+east or west. A hundred pounds, only a hundred pounds; a bagatelle, a
+thing that to many men was as small an affair as a stray sixpence; and
+here was this man, as good, so to speak, as any--well educated, full of
+gifts and accomplishments, well born, well connected, not a prodigal nor
+open sinner, losing himself in the very blackness of darkness, feeling
+that a kind of moral extinction was the only prospect before him, for
+want of this little sum. It seemed incredible even to himself, as he sat
+and brooded over it. Somehow, surely, there must be a way of
+deliverance. He looked piteously about him in his solitude, appealing to
+the very blank walls to save him. What could they do? His few books, his
+faded old furniture, would scarcely realize a hundred pounds if they
+were sold to-morrow. All his friends had been wearied out, all natural
+resources had failed. James might any day have sent the money, but he
+had not done so--just this special time, when it was so hard to get it,
+James, too, had failed; and the hours of this night were stealing away
+like thieves, so swift and so noiseless, to be followed by the others;
+and Cotsdean, poor soul, his faithful retainer, would be broken and
+ruined. To do Mr. May justice, if it had been only himself who could be
+ruined, he would have felt it less; but it went to his very heart to
+think of poor Cotsdean, who had trusted in him so entirely, and to whom,
+indeed, he had been very kind in his day. Strife and discord had been in
+the poor man's house, and perpetual wretchedness, and Mr. May had
+managed, he himself could scarcely tell how, to set it right. He had
+frightened and subdued the passionate wife, and quenched the growing
+tendencies to evil, which made her temper worse than it was by nature,
+and had won her back to soberness and some kind of peace, changing the
+unhappy house into one of comparative comfort and cheerfulness. Most
+people like those best to whom they have been kind, whom they have
+served or benefited, and in this way Mr. May was fond of Cotsdean, who
+in his turn had been a very good friend to his clergyman, serving him as
+none of his own class could have done, going in the face of all his own
+prejudices and the timorousness of nature, on his account. And the
+result was to be ruin--ruin unmitigated to the small man who was in
+business, and equally disastrous, though in a less creditable way, to
+his employer. It was with a suppressed anguish which is indescribable
+that he sat there, with his face covered, looking this approaching
+misery in the face. How long he had been there, he could scarcely
+himself tell, when he heard a little commotion in the hall, the sounds
+of running up and down stairs, and opening of doors. He was in a
+feverish and restless condition, and every stir roused him. Partly
+because of that impatience in his mind, and partly because every new
+thing seemed to have some possibility of hope in it, he got up and went
+to the door. Before he returned to his seat, something might have
+occurred to him, something might have happened--who could tell? It might
+be the postman with a letter containing that remittance from James,
+which still would set all right. It might be--he rose suddenly, and
+opening the door, held it ajar and looked out; the front door was open,
+and the night air blowing chilly into the house, and on the stairs,
+coming down, he heard the voices of Ursula and Phoebe. Ursula was pinning
+a shawl round her new friend, and consoling her.
+
+"I hope you will find it is nothing. I am so sorry," she said.
+
+"Oh, I am not very much afraid," said Phoebe. "She is ill, but not very
+bad, I hope; and it is not dangerous. Thank you so much for letting me
+come."
+
+"You will come again?" said Ursula, kissing her; "promise that you will
+come again."
+
+Mr. May listened with a certain surface of amusement in his mind. How
+easy and facile these girlish loves and fancies were! Ursula knew
+nothing of this stranger, and yet so free were the girl's thoughts, so
+open her heart to receive impressions, that on so short knowledge she
+had received the other into it with undoubting confidence and trust. He
+did not come forward himself to say good-bye, but he perceived that
+Reginald followed downstairs, and took his hat from the table, to
+accompany Phoebe home. As they closed the outer door behind them, the
+last gust thus forcibly shut in made a rush through the narrow hall, and
+carried a scrap of paper to Mr. May's feet. He picked it up almost
+mechanically, and carried it with him to the light, and looked at it
+without thought. There was not much in it to interest any one. It was
+the little note which Tozer had sent to his granddaughter by the maid,
+not prettily folded, to begin with, and soiled and crumpled by the
+bearer.
+
+"Your grandmother is took bad with one of her attacks. Come back
+directly. She wants you badly.
+
+"SAML. TOZER."
+
+This was all that was in it. Mr. May opened it out on his table with a
+half-smile of that same superficial amusement which the entire incident
+had caused him--the contact, even momentary, of his own household with
+that of Tozer, the old Dissenting butterman, was so droll an event. Then
+he sank down on his chair again with a sigh, the amusement dying out all
+at once, purely superficial as it was. Amusement! how strange that even
+the idea of amusement should enter his head in the midst of his despair.
+His mind renewed that horrible mechanical wandering through the dismal
+circle of might-be's which still survived amid the chaos of his
+thoughts. Once or twice there seemed to gleam upon him a stray glimmer
+of light through a loophole, but only to throw him back again into the
+darkness. Now and then he roused himself with a look of real terror in
+his face, when there came a noise outside. What he was afraid of was
+poor Cotsdean coming in with his hand to his forehead, and his
+apologetic "Beg your pardon, sir." If he came, what could he say to him?
+Two days--only two days more! If Mr. May had been less sensible and less
+courageous, he would most likely have ended the matter by a pistol or a
+dose of laudanum; but fortunately he was too rational to deliver himself
+by this desperate expedient, which, of course, would only have made the
+burden more terrible upon the survivors. If Cotsdean was to be ruined,
+and there was no remedy, Mr. May was man enough to feel that it was his
+business to stand by him, not to escape in any dastardly way; but in the
+mean time to face Cotsdean, and tell him that he had done and could do
+nothing, seemed more than the man who had caused his ruin could bear. He
+moved about uneasily in his chair in the anguish of his mind. As he did
+so, he pushed off some of his papers from the table with his elbow. It
+was some sort of break in his feverish musings to pick them up again in
+a bundle, without noticing what they were. He threw them down in a
+little heap before him. On the top, as it chanced, came the little dirty
+scrap of paper, which ought to have been tossed into the fire or the
+waste-paper basket. Saml. Tozer! What was Saml. Tozer to him that his
+name should stare him in the face in this obtrusive way? Tozer, the old
+butterman! a mean and ignorant person, as far beneath Mr. May's level as
+it is possible to imagine, whose handwriting it was very strange to see
+on anything but a bill. He fixed his eyes upon it mechanically; he had
+come, as it were, to the end of all things in those feverish musings; he
+had searched through his whole known world for help, and found there
+nothing and nobody to help him. Those whom he had once relied on were
+exhausted long ago; his friends had all dropped off from him, as far, at
+least, as money was concerned. Some of them might put out a hand to keep
+him and his children from starvation even now, but to pay Cotsdean's
+bill, never. There was no help anywhere, nor any hope. Natural ways and
+means were all exhausted, and though he was a clergyman, he had no such
+faith in the supernatural as to hope much for the succour of Heaven.
+Heaven! what could Heaven do for him? Bank-notes did not drop down out
+of the skies. There had been a time when he had felt full faith in
+"Providence;" but he seemed to have nothing to expect now from that
+quarter more than from any other. Samuel Tozer! why did that name always
+come uppermost, staring into his very eyes? It was a curious signature,
+the handwriting very rude and unrefined, with odd, illiterate dashes,
+and yet with a kind of rough character in it, easy to identify, not
+difficult to copy--
+
+What was it that brought beads of moisture all at once to Mr. May's
+forehead? He started up suddenly, pushing his chair with a hoarse
+exclamation, and walked up and down the room quickly, as if trying to
+escape from something. His heart jumped up in his breast, like a thing
+possessed of separate life, and thumped against his side, and beat with
+loud pulsations in his ears. When he caught sight of himself in the
+mirror over the mantelpiece, he started as if he had seen a ghost. Some
+one else seemed to see him; seemed to pounce upon and seize him out of
+that glass. He retreated from the reach of it, almost staggering; then
+he returned to his table. What thought was it that had struck him so
+wildly, like a sudden squall upon a boat? He sat down, and covered his
+face with his hands; then putting out one finger, stealthily drew the
+paper towards him, and studied it closely from under the shadow of the
+unmoved hand, which half-supported, half-covered his face. Well! after
+all, what would be the harm? A gain of three months' time, during which
+every sort of arrangement could be made so nicely; supplies got
+anywhere, everywhere; the whole machinery of being set easily in motion
+again, and no harm done to any one: this was the real force of the
+idea--no harm done to any one! Long before the three months were out,
+that hundred pounds--a paltry business, a nothing, when a man had time
+before him--could be got, one might make sure; and where was the harm?
+_He_ would never know it. Poor Cotsdean need never have the slightest
+burden upon his conscience. Here, in the stillness of his own room, it
+could all be done as easily as possible, without a soul being taken into
+confidence, except that bloodless wretch in the glass with his staring
+face, Mr. May said to himself, only dimly sensible that this wretch was
+himself. No, it would harm no one, that was clear; it never need be
+known to any one. It was a mere act of borrowing, and borrowing was
+never accounted a crime; borrowing not money even, only a name, and for
+so short a time. No harm; it could do no one in the world any harm.
+
+While these reasonings went on in his mind, his heart dropped down again
+into its right place; his pulse ceased to beat like the pistons of a
+steam-engine; he came gradually to himself. After all, what was it? Not
+such a great matter; a loan of something which would neither enrich him
+who took, nor impoverish him who, without being aware of it, should
+give--a nothing! Why people should entertain the prejudices they did on
+the subject, it was difficult to see, though, perhaps, he allowed
+candidly to himself, it might be dangerous for any ignorant man to
+follow the same strain of thinking; but in the hands of a man who was
+not ignorant, who knew, as he himself did, exactly how far to go, and
+what might be _innocently_ done; _innocently_ done--in his own mind he
+put a great stress on this--why, what was it? A thing which might be of
+use in an emergency, and which was absolutely no harm.
+
+Mr. May was late in leaving his room that night. It was understood in
+the family that he "was writing," and all was kept very quiet in the
+house; yet not sufficiently quiet, for Janey, when she brought in the
+coffee, placing it on the table close to the door, was startled by the
+fierceness of the exclamation with which her father greeted her
+entrance.
+
+"What do you want prying here?" he said, dropping his hand over the
+writing.
+
+"Prying himself!" said Janey, furiously, when she was up again in the
+cheerful light of the drawing-room; "a great deal there is to pry into
+in that dreadful old study."
+
+"Hush! he never likes to be disturbed in his writing," said Ursula,
+soothingly.
+
+And he sat at his "writing" to a much later hour than usual, and he
+stumbled upstairs to his bed-room in the dead of the night, with the
+same scared pale face which he had seen in the glass. Such a look as
+that when it once comes upon a man's face takes a long time to glide
+away; but his heart beat more tranquilly, and the blood flowed even in
+his veins. After all, where was the harm?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+TIDED OVER.
+
+
+Next morning, Cotsdean was mournfully turning over his ledger in the
+High Street, wondering whether he should go back to Mr. May on another
+forlorn expedition, or whether he should betray his overwhelming anxiety
+to his wife, who knew nothing about the state of affairs. The shop was
+what is called a corn-factor's shop, full of sacks of grain, with knots
+of wheat-ears done up ornamentally in the window, a stock not very
+valuable, but sufficient, and showing a good, if not a very important,
+business. A young man behind, attended to what little business was going
+on; for the master himself was too much pre-occupied to think of bushels
+of seed. He was as uneasy as Mr. May had been on the previous night, and
+in some respects even more unhappy; for he had no resource except a sort
+of dumb faith in his principle, a feeling that he must be able to find
+out some way of escape--chequered by clouds of despondency, sometimes
+approaching despair. For Cotsdean, too, felt vaguely that things were
+approaching a crisis--that a great many resources had been
+exhausted--that the pitcher which had gone so often to the well must, at
+last, be broken, and that it was as likely the catastrophe was coming
+now as at any other time. He said to himself that never in his previous
+experience had things seemed so blank as at present; never had the
+moment of fate approached so nearly without any appearance of
+deliverance. He had not even the round of possibilities before him which
+were in Mr. May's mind, however hopeless, at this particular moment, he
+might find them.
+
+Cotsdean, for his part, had nothing to think of but Mr. May. Would he
+find some way out of it still, he who was always so clever, and must, in
+his position, have always "good friends?" How the poor man wished that
+he had never been led into this fatal course--that he had insisted, long
+ago, on the settlement which must come some time, and which did not get
+any easier by putting it off; but then, who was he to stand against his
+clergyman? He did not feel able now to make any stand against him. If he
+had to be ruined--he must be ruined: what could he do? The man who had
+brought him to this, held him in such subjection that he could not
+denounce or accuse him even now. He was so much better, higher, abler,
+stronger than himself, that Cotsdean's harshest sentiment was a dumb
+feeling of injury; a feeling much more likely to lead him to miserable
+tears than to resistance. His clergyman--how was he to stand against his
+clergyman? This was the burden of his thoughts. And still, perhaps,
+there might be salvation and safety in the resources, the power, and
+cleverness, and superior strength of the man for whom, in his humility,
+he had risked everything. Poor Cotsdean's eyes were red with
+sleeplessness and thinking, and the constant rubbings he administered
+with the sleeve of his rough coat. He hung helpless, in suspense,
+waiting to see what his chief would say to him; if he would send for
+him--if he would come. And in the intervals of these anxious thoughts,
+he asked himself should he tell poor Sally--should he prepare her for
+her fate? She and her children might be turned out of house and home,
+very probably would be, he said to himself, leaping to the extreme
+point, as men in his condition are apt to do. They might take everything
+from him; they might bring all his creditors on him in a heap; they
+might sell him up; his shop by which he made his daily bread, and
+everything he had, and turn his children out into the streets. Once more
+he rubbed his sleeve over his eyes, which were smarting with
+sleeplessness and easily-coming tears. He turned over the pages of the
+ledger mechanically. There was no help in it--no large debts owing to
+him that could be called in; no means of getting any money; and nothing
+could he do but contemplate the miseries that might be coming, and wait,
+wait, wondering dully whether Mr. May was doing anything to avert this
+ruin, and whether, at any moment, he might walk in, bringing safety in
+the very look of his bold eyes. Cotsdean was not bold; he was small and
+weakly, and nervous, and trembled at a sharp voice. He was not a man
+adapted for vigorous struggling with the world. Mr. May could do it, in
+whose hands was the final issue. He was a man who was afraid of no one;
+and whose powers nobody could deny. Surely now, even at the last moment,
+he would find help somehow. It seemed profane to entertain a doubt that
+he would be able to do it even at the very last.
+
+But Cotsdean had a miserable morning; he could do nothing. Minute by
+minute, hour by hour, he waited to be called to the Parsonage; now and
+then he went out to the door of his shop and looked out wistfully down
+the street where it ended in the distance of Grange Lane. Was that the
+maid from the Parsonage coming up across the road? Were these the young
+ladies, who, though they knew nothing about the matter at issue, very
+frequently brought a note, or message, from their father to Cotsdean?
+But he was deceived in these guesses as well as in so many others. All
+the world seemed out of doors that morning, but nobody came. The ruddy
+sunshine shone full down the street, glorifying it with rays of warm
+gold, and tinting the mists and clouds which lurked in the corners. It
+had been heavy and overcast in the morning, but at noon the clouds had
+cleared away, and that big red globe of fire had risen majestically out
+of the mists, and everybody was out. But no one, except humble people in
+the ordinary way of business, came to Cotsdean. Bushels of grain for
+chickens, pennyworths of canary seed--oh! did any one think he could pay
+a hundred pounds out of these?--a hundred pounds, the spending of which
+had not been his, poor man; which was indeed spent long ago, and
+represented luxuries past and over, luxuries which were not Cotsdean's.
+Strange that a mere lump of money should live like this, long after it
+was, to all intents and purposes, dead, and spent and gone!
+
+Then came the hour of dinner, when his Sally called him to the room
+behind the shop, from which an odour of bacon and fine big beans--beans
+which were represented in his shop in many a sackful. He went in
+unwillingly in obedience to her command, but feeling unable to eat, soon
+left the table, sending the young man to fill his place, with whose
+appetite no obstacle of care or thought interfered. Poor Cotsdean felt
+that the smell of the dinner made him sick--though he would have liked
+to eat had he been able--the smell of the bacon which he loved, and the
+sight of the small children whom he loved still better, and poor Sally,
+his wife, still red in the face from dishing it up. Sally was anxious
+about her husband's want of appetite.
+
+"What ails you, John?" she said, pathetically; "it wasn't as if you were
+out last night, nor nothing o' that sort. A man as is sober like you
+don't ought to turn at his dinner."
+
+She was half sorry, and half aggrieved, poor woman, feeling as if some
+blame of her cookery must be involved.
+
+"It's the bile," said poor Cotsdean, with that simplicity of statement
+which is common in his class. "Don't you take on, Sally, I'll be a deal
+better by supper-time----or worse," he added to himself. Yes, he would
+make an effort to eat at supper-time; perhaps it might be the last meal
+he should eat in his own comfortable home.
+
+He had been out at the shop door, gazing despairingly down the road; he
+had come in and sold some birdseed, wondering--oh, what good would that
+penny do him?--he who wanted a hundred pounds? and was standing
+listening with a sad heart to the sound of the knives and forks and
+chatter of the children, when suddenly all at once Mr. May walked into
+the shop, changing dismay into hope. What a thing it was to be a
+gentleman and a clergyman. Cotsdean could not but think! The very sight
+of Mr. May inspired him with courage; even though probably he had no
+money in his pocket, it was a supporting thing only to see him, and hear
+the sound of his free unrestrained step. He came in with a friendly nod
+to his humble helper; then he glanced round the shop, to see that no one
+was present, and then he said, "All right, Cotsdean," in a voice that
+was as music to the little corn-factor's ears. His heart, which had been
+beating so low, jumped up in his bosom; his appetite came back with a
+leap; he asked himself would the bacon be cold? and cried, "God be
+praised, sir," in a breath.
+
+Mr. May winced slightly; but why should it be wrong to be grateful to
+God in any circumstances? he asked himself, having become already
+somewhat composed in his ideas on this particular point.
+
+"Are we quite alone?" he said. "Nobody within hearing? I have not
+brought you the money, but a piece of paper that is as good as the
+money. Take it: you will have no difficulty in discounting this; the man
+is as well known as the Carlingford Bank, and as safe, though I dare say
+you will be surprised at the name."
+
+Cotsdean opened out the new bill with trembling hands. "Tozer!" he said
+faintly, between relief and dismay.
+
+"Yes. You must know that I am taking a pupil--one who belongs to a very
+rich Dissenting family in London. Tozer knows something about him, from
+his connection with the body, and through this young man I have got to
+know something of _him_. He does it upon the admirable security of the
+fees I am to receive with this youth; so you see, after all, there is no
+mystery about it. Better not wait for to-morrow, Cotsdean. Go at once,
+and get it settled. You see," said Mr. May, ingratiatingly, "it is a
+little larger than the other--one hundred and fifty, indeed--but that
+does not matter with such an excellent name."
+
+"Tozer!" said Cotsdean, once more bewildered. He handled the piece of
+paper nervously, and turned it upside down, and round about, with a
+sense that it might melt in his hold. He did not like the additional
+fifty added. Why should another fifty be added? but so it was, and there
+seemed nothing for him but to take the immediate relief and be thankful.
+
+"I'd rather, sir, as Tozer hadn't known nothing about it; and why should
+he back a bill for me as ain't one of my friends, nor don't know nothing
+about me? and fifty more added on," said Cotsdean. It was the nearest he
+had gone to standing up against his clergyman; he did not like it. To be
+Mr. May's sole stand-by and agent, even at periodical risk of ruin, was
+possible to him; but a pang of jealousy, alarm, and pain came into his
+mind when he saw the new name. This even obliterated the immediate sense
+of relief that was in his mind.
+
+"Come three months it'll have to be paid," said Cotsdean, "and Tozer
+ain't a man to stand it if he's left to pay; he'd sell us up, Mr. May.
+He ain't one of the patient ones, like--some other folks; and there's
+fifty pounds put on. I don't see my way to it. I'd rather it was just
+the clear hundred, if it was the same to you."
+
+"It is not the same to me," said Mr. May, calmly. "Come, there is no
+cause to make any fuss. There it is, and if you don't like to make use
+of it, you must find some better way. Bring the fifty pounds, less the
+expenses, to me to-night. It is a good bit of paper, and it delivers us
+out of a mess which I hope we shall not fall into again."
+
+"So you said before, sir," said the corn-factor sullenly.
+
+"Cotsdean, you forget yourself; but I can make allowance for your
+anxiety. Take it, and get it settled before the bank closes; pay in the
+money to meet the other bill, and bring me the balance. You will find no
+difficulty with Tozer's name; and what so likely as that one respectable
+tradesman should help another? By the way, the affair is a private one
+between us, and it is unnecessary to say anything to him about it; the
+arrangement, you understand, is between him and me."
+
+"Beg your pardon, sir," said Cotsdean, with a deprecatory movement of
+his hand to his forehead; "but it is me as will be come upon first if
+anything happens, and that fifty pounds--"
+
+"Have you ever found me to fail you, Cotsdean? If you knew the anxiety I
+have gone through, that you might be kept from harm, the sleepless
+nights, the schemes, the exertions! You may suppose it was no ordinary
+effort to ask a man like Tozer."
+
+Cotsdean was moved by the touching tone in which his partner in trouble
+spoke; but terror gave him a certain power. He grumbled still, not
+altogether vanquished.
+
+"I don't say nothing against that, sir," he said, not meeting Mr. May's
+eye; "but when it comes to be paid, sir, I'm the first in it, and where
+is that other fifty to come from? That's what I'm a thinking for--for
+I'm the first as they'd haul up after all."
+
+"You!" said Mr. May, "what could they get from you? You are not worth
+powder and shot. Don't be ridiculous, my good fellow. I never avoid my
+responsibilities, as you know. I am as good, I hope, for that fifty as
+for all that went before. Have you ever known me leave you or any one in
+the lurch?"
+
+"No, sir, I can't say as--I don't suppose I have. I've always put my
+trust in you like in Providence itself," he cried, hastily, holding his
+breath.
+
+"Then do as I tell you," said Mr. May, waving his hand with careless
+superiority; and though his heart was aching with a hundred anxious
+fears, he left the shop with just that mixture of partial offence and
+indifference which overawed completely his humble retainer. Cotsdean
+trembled at his own guilty folly and temerity. He did not dare to call
+his patron back again, to ask his pardon. He did not venture to go back
+to the table and snatch a bit of cold bacon. He was afraid he had
+offended his clergyman, what matter that he was hungry for his dinner?
+He called the young man from the bacon, which was now cold and all but
+eaten up, and snatched at his hat and went out to the bank. It was all
+he could do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+A VISIT.
+
+
+
+     "DEAR MAY,
+
+     "Young Copperhead, the young fellow whom you have
+     undertaken to coach, is coming to the Hall for a few days
+     before he enters upon his studies, and Anne wishes me to
+     ask you to come over on Tuesday to dine and sleep, and to
+     make acquaintance with him. You can carry him back with you
+     if it suits you. In my private opinion, he is a cub of the
+     most disagreeable kind; but the girls like his mother, who
+     is a kind of cousin, as you know. It is not only because he
+     has failed to take his degree (you know how I hate the
+     hideous slang in which this fact is generally stated), but
+     that his father, who is one of the rich persons who abound
+     in the lower circles of society, is ambitious, and would
+     like to see him in Parliament, and that sort of thing--a
+     position which cannot be held creditably without some sort
+     of education: at least, so I am myself disposed to think.
+     Therefore, your pleasing duty will be to get him up in a
+     little history and geography, so that he may not get quite
+     hopelessly wrong in any of the modern modifications of
+     territory, for instance; and in so much Horace as may
+     furnish him with a few stock quotations, in case he should
+     be called upon, in the absence of any more hopeful
+     neophyte, to move the Address. He is a great hulking
+     fellow, not very brilliant, you may suppose, but not so
+     badly mannered as he might be, considering his parentage. I
+     don't think he'll give you much trouble in the house; but
+     he will most probably bore you to death, and in that case
+     your family ought to have a claim, I should think, for
+     compensation. Anyhow, come and see him, and us, before you
+     begin your hard task.
+
+     "Very truly yours,
+           "R. DORSET."
+
+     "Anne makes me open my letter to say that Ursula must come
+     too. We will send a carriage to meet you at the station."
+
+This letter caused considerable excitement in the Parsonage. It was the
+first invitation to dinner which Ursula had ever received. The
+dinner-parties in Carlingford were little frequented by young ladies.
+The male population was not large enough to afford a balance for the
+young women of the place, who came together in the evening, and took all
+the trouble of putting on their pretty white frocks, only to sit in rows
+in the drawing-room, waiting till the old gentlemen came in from the
+dining-room, after which everybody went away. There were no young
+gentlemen to speak of in Carlingford, so that when any one was bold
+enough to attempt a dancing-party, or anything of an equally amusing
+description, friends were sent out in all directions, as the beaters are
+sent into the woods to bring together the unfortunate birds for a
+_battue_, to find men. These circumstances will explain the flutter in
+Ursula's innocent bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr.
+May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened at
+periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially "cross." On
+this occasion there was no black mark against him in the family
+reckoning, and yet he was more kind than any one had ever known him.
+Instead of making any objections, he decided at once that Ursula must
+go, and told her to put on her prettiest frock, and make herself look
+very nice.
+
+"You must let Anne Dorset see that you care to please her," he said.
+"Anne is a very good woman, and her approval is worth having."
+
+"Oh, papa!" cried Janey, "when you are always calling her an old maid!"
+
+"L'un n'empeche pas l'autre," he said, which puzzled Janey, whose French
+was very deficient. Even Ursula, supposed to be the best French scholar
+in the family, was not quite sure what it meant; but it was evidently
+something in favour of Cousin Anne, which was sweet to the grateful
+girl.
+
+Janey, though suffering bitterly under the miserable consciousness of
+being only fourteen, and not asked anywhere, helped with disinterested
+zeal to get her sister ready, and consoled herself by orders for
+unlimited muffins and cake for tea.
+
+"There will only be the children," she said, resignedly, and felt
+herself _incomprise_; but indeed, the attractions of a good romp
+afterwards, no one being in the house to restrain the spirits of the
+youthful party, made even Janey amends.
+
+As for Reginald, who was not asked, he was, it must be allowed, rather
+sulky too, and he could not solace himself either with muffins or romps.
+His rooms at the College were very pleasant rooms, but he was used to
+home; and though the home at the Parsonage was but faded, and not in
+such perfect order as it might have been, the young man felt even his
+wainscoted study dull without the familiar voices, the laughter and
+foolish family jokes, and even the little quarrels which kept life
+always astir. He walked with Ursula to the station, whither her little
+box with her evening dress had gone before her, in a half-affronted
+state of mind.
+
+"What does he want with a pupil?" Reginald was saying, as he had said
+before. "A fellow no one knows, coming and taking possession of the
+house as if it belonged to him. There is plenty to do in the parish
+without pupils, and if I were not on the spot he would get into trouble,
+I can tell you. A man that has been ploughed, 'a big hulking fellow'
+(Sir Robert says so, not I). Mind, I'll have no flirting, Ursula; that
+is what always happens with a pupil in the house."
+
+"Reginald, how dare you--"
+
+"Oh, yes, I dare; my courage is quite equal to facing you, even if you
+do shoot thunderbolts out of your eyes. Mind you, I won't have it. There
+is a set of fellows who try it regularly, and if you were above them,
+would go in for Janey; and it would be great fun and great promotion for
+Janey; she would feel herself a woman directly; so you must mind her as
+well as yourself. I don't like it at all," Reginald went on. "Probably
+he will complain of the dinners you give him, as if he were in an inn.
+Confound him! What my father means by it, I can't tell."
+
+"Reginald, you ought not to swear," said Ursula. "It is dreadfully
+wicked in a clergyman. Poor papa meant making a little more money. What
+else could he mean? And I think it is very good of him, for it will
+bother him most. Mr. Copperhead is very nice, Reginald. I saw him in
+London, you know. I thought he was very----".
+
+"Ah! oh!" said Reginald, "I forgot that. You met him in London? To be
+sure, and it was there you met Miss Beecham. I begin to see. Is he
+coming here after her, I should like to know? She doesn't look the sort
+of girl to encourage that sort of thing."
+
+"The sort of girl to encourage that sort of thing! How strangely you
+talk when you get excited: isn't that rather vulgar? I don't know if he
+is coming after Miss Beecham or not," said Ursula, who thought the
+suggestion uncalled for, "but in a very short time you can judge for
+yourself."
+
+"Ah--indignation!" said the big brother, who like most big brothers
+laughed at Ursula's exhibition of offended dignity; "and, by the way,
+Miss Beecham--you have not seen her since that night when she was sent
+for. Will not she think it strange that you never sent to inquire?"
+
+"I sent Betsey--"
+
+"But if Miss Beecham had been somebody else, you would have gone
+yourself," he said, being in a humour for finding fault. "If poor old
+Mrs. Tozer had been what you call a lady--"
+
+"I thought you were much more strong than I am against the Dissenters?"
+said Ursula, "ever since that man's speech; and, indeed, always, as long
+as I can recollect."
+
+"She is not a mere Dissenter," said Reginald. "I think I shall call as I
+go home. She is the cleverest girl I ever met; not like one of you
+bread-and-butter girls, though she is not much older than you. A man
+finds a girl like that worth talking to," said the young clergyman,
+holding himself erect. Certainly Reginald had not improved; he had grown
+ever so much more self-important since he got a living of his own.
+
+"And if I was to say, 'Mind, I won't have it, Reginald?'" cried Ursula,
+half-laughing, half-angry. "I think that is a great deal worse than a
+pupil. But Miss Beecham is very dignified, and you may be sure she will
+not think much of a call from you. Heaven be praised! that is one thing
+you can't get into your hands; we girls are always good for something
+there. Men may think themselves as grand as they please," said Ursula,
+"but their visits are of no consequence; it is ladies of the family who
+must _call_!" After this little out-break, she came down at once to her
+usual calm. "I will ask Cousin Anne what I ought to do; I don't think
+Miss Beecham wanted me to go then--"
+
+"I shall go," said Reginald, and he left Ursula in her father's keeping,
+who met them at the station, and went off at once, with a pleasant sense
+of having piqued her curiosity, to Grange Lane.
+
+It was still early, for the trains which stopped at the little country
+station next to the Hall were very few and inconvenient, and the sun,
+though setting, was still shining red from over St. Roque's upon Grange
+Lane. The old red walls grew redder still in the frosty night, and the
+sky began to bloom into great blazing patches of colour upon the wintry
+clearness of the blue. There was going to be a beautiful sunset, and
+such a thing was always to be seen from Grange Lane better than anywhere
+else in Carlingford. Reginald went down the road slowly, looking at it,
+and already almost forgetting his idea of calling on Miss Beecham. To
+call on Miss Beecham would be to call on old Tozer, the butterman, to
+whom alone the visit would be naturally paid; and this made him laugh
+within himself. So he would have passed, no doubt, without the least
+attempt at intruding on the privacy of the Tozers, had not the
+garden-door opened before he got so far, and Phoebe herself came out,
+with her hands in her muff, to take a little walk up and down as she did
+daily. She did not take her hand out of its warm enclosure to give it to
+him; but nodded with friendly ease in return to his salutation.
+
+"I have come out to see the sunset," said Phoebe; "I like a little air
+before the day is over, and grandmamma, when she is poorly, likes her
+room to be very warm."
+
+"I hope Mrs. Tozer is better. I hope you have not been anxious."
+
+"Oh, no! it is chronic; there is no danger. But she requires a great
+deal of attendance; and I like to come out when I can. Oh, how fine it
+is! what colour! I think, Mr. May, you must have a _specialite_ for
+sunsets at Carlingford. I never saw them so beautiful anywhere else."
+
+"I am glad there is something you like in Carlingford."
+
+"Something! there is a very great deal; and that I don't like too," she
+said with a smile. "I don't care for the people I am living among,
+which is dreadful. I don't suppose you have ever had such an experience,
+though you must know a great deal more in other ways than I. All the
+people that come to inquire about grandmamma are very kind; they are as
+good as possible; I respect them, and all that, but----Well, it must be
+my own fault, or education. It is education, no doubt, that gives us
+those absurd ideas."
+
+"Don't call them absurd," said Reginald, "indeed I can enter into them
+perfectly well. I don't _know_ them, perhaps, in my own person; but I
+can perfectly understand the repugnance, the distress--"
+
+"The words are too strong," said Phoebe, "not so much as that;
+the--annoyance, perhaps, the nasty disagreeable struggle with one's self
+and one's pride; as if one were better than other people. I dislike
+myself, and despise myself for it; but I can't help it. We have so
+little power over ourselves."
+
+"I hope you will let my sister do what she can to deliver you," said
+Reginald; "Ursula is not like you; but she is a good little thing, and
+she is able to appreciate you. I was to tell you she had been called
+suddenly off to the Dorsets', with whom my father and she have gone to
+pass the night--to meet, I believe, a person you know."
+
+"Oh, Clarence Copperhead; he is come then? How odd it will be to see him
+here. His mother is nice, but his father is----Oh, Mr. May! if you only
+knew the things people have to put up with. When I think of Mr.
+Copperhead, and his great, ugly, staring wealth, I feel disposed to hate
+money--especially among Dissenters. It would be better if we were all
+poor."
+
+Reginald said nothing; he thought so too. In that case there would be a
+few disagreeable things out of a poor clergyman's way, and assaults like
+that of Northcote upon himself would be impossible; but he could
+scarcely utter these virtuous sentiments.
+
+"Poverty is the desire of ascetics, and this is not an ascetic age," he
+said at length, with a half-laugh at himself for his stiff speech.
+
+"You may say it is not an ascetic age; but yet I suppose the
+Ritualists----. Perhaps you are a Ritualist yourself, Mr. May? I know as
+little personally about the church here, as you do about Salem Chapel. I
+like the service--so does papa--and I like above all things the
+independent standing of a clergyman; the feeling he must have that he is
+free to do his duty. That is why I like the church; for other things of
+course I like our own body best."
+
+"I don't suppose such things can be argued about, Miss Beecham. I wish
+I knew something of my father's new pupil. I don't like having a
+stranger in the house; my father is fond of having his own way."
+
+"It is astonishing how often parents are so," said Phoebe, demurely; "and
+the way they talk of their experience! as if each new generation did not
+know more than the one that preceded it."
+
+"You are pleased to laugh, but I am quite in earnest. A pupil is a
+nuisance. For instance, no man who has a family should ever take one. I
+know what things are said."
+
+"You mean about the daughters? That is true enough, there are always
+difficulties in the way; but you need not be afraid of Clarence
+Copperhead. He is not the fascinating pupil of a church-novel. There's
+nothing the least like the Heir of Redclyffe about him."
+
+"You are very well up in Miss Yonge's novels, Miss Beecham."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe; "one reads Scott for Scotland (and a few other
+things), and one reads Miss Yonge for the church. Mr. Trollope is good
+for that too, but not so good. All that I know of clergymen's families I
+have got from her. I can recognize you quite well, and your sister, but
+the younger ones puzzle me; they are not in Miss Yonge; they are too
+much like other children, too naughty. I don't mean anything
+disagreeable. The babies in Miss Yonge are often very naughty too, but
+not the same. As for you, Mr. May----"
+
+"Yes. As for me?"
+
+"Oh, I know everything about you. You are a fine scholar, but you don't
+like the drudgery of teaching. You have a fine mind, but it interferes
+with you continually. You have had a few doubts--just enough to give a
+piquancy; and now you have a great ideal, and mean to do many things
+that common clergymen don't think of. That was why you hesitated about
+the chaplaincy? See how much I have got out of Miss Yonge. I know you as
+well as if I had known you all my life; a great deal better than I know
+Clarence Copperhead; but then, no person of genius has taken any trouble
+about him."
+
+"I did not know I had been a hero of fiction," said Reginald, who had a
+great mind to be angry. All this time they were walking briskly backward
+and forward before Tozer's open door, the Anglican, in his long black
+coat, following the lively movements of Tozer's granddaughter, only
+because he could not help himself. He was irritated, yet he was pleased.
+A young man is pleased to be thought of, even when the notice is but
+barely complimentary. Phoebe must have thought of him a good deal before
+she found him out in this way; but he was irritated all the same.
+
+"You are, however," she answered lightly. "Look at that blaze of
+crimson, Mr. May; and the blue which is so clear and so unfathomable.
+Winter is grander than summer, and even warmer--to look at; with its
+orange, and purple, and gold. What poor little dirty, dingy things we
+are down here, to have all this exhibited every evening for our
+delight!"
+
+"That is true," he said; and as he gazed, something woke in the young
+man's heart--a little thrill of fancy, if not of love. It is hard to
+look at a beautiful sunset, and then see it reflected in a girl's face,
+and not to feel something--which may be nothing, perhaps. His heart gave
+a small jump, not much to speak of. Phoebe did not talk like the other
+young ladies in Grange Lane.
+
+"Mr. May, Mr. May!" she cried suddenly, "please go away! I foresee a
+disastrous encounter which alarms me. You can't fight, but there is no
+saying what you might do to each other. Please go away!"
+
+"What is the matter?" he said. "I don't understand any encounter being
+disastrous here. Why should I go away?"
+
+She laughed, but there was a certain fright in her tone. "Please!" she
+said, "I see Mr. Northcote coming this way. He will stop to speak to me.
+It is the gentleman who attacked you in the Meeting. Mr. May," she added
+entreatingly, between laughter and fright, "do go, please."
+
+"I shall do nothing of the kind," said Reginald, roused; "I am not
+afraid. Let him come on. This wall shall fly from its firm base as soon
+as I."
+
+Phoebe clasped her hands in dismay, which was partially real. "The
+typical churchman," she said, with a glance at Reginald's figure, which
+was not displeasing to him, "and the typical Dissenter! and what am I to
+do between them? Oh, I wish you would go away."
+
+"Not an inch," said the young champion. Phoebe was frightened, but she
+was delighted. "I shall introduce him to you," she said threatening.
+
+"I don't mind," he replied; "nothing on earth should induce me to fly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+TEA.
+
+
+Now here was a business! The typical Anglican and the typical Dissenter,
+as Phoebe said, with only that clever young woman to keep them from
+flying at each other's throats; the one obstinately holding his place by
+her side (and Phoebe began to have a slight consciousness that, being
+without any chaperon, she ought not to have kept Reginald May at her
+side; but in the Tozer world, who knew anything of chaperons?), the
+other advancing steadily, coming up the Lane out of the glow of the
+sunset, showing square against it in his frock-coat and high hat, formal
+and demagogical, not like his rival. The situation pleased Phoebe, who
+liked to "manage;" but it slightly frightened her as well, though the
+open door behind, and the long garden with its clouds of crocuses, was a
+city of refuge always within reach.
+
+"Is it really you, Mr. Northcote?" she said. "You look as if you had
+dropped out of that lovely sunset I have been watching so long--and I
+thought you were at the other end of the world."
+
+"I have been at the other end of England, which comes to the same
+thing," said Northcote, in a voice which was harsh by nature, and
+somewhat rough with cold; "and now they have sent me back to Salem
+Chapel, to take Mr. Thorpe's place for three months. They asked for me,
+I believe; but that you must know better than I do."
+
+It was not in the nature of man not to be a little proud in the
+circumstances, and it is quite possible that he considered Phoebe to have
+something to do with the flattering request.
+
+"No, I have not heard; but I am glad," said Phoebe; "and if it is not
+wicked to say so, I am glad Mr. Thorpe is to be away. Let us hope it
+will do him good. I am sure it will do the rest of us good, at all
+events."
+
+Northcote made no answer; but he looked at the other, and several
+questions began to tremble on his lips. That this was a Churchman did
+not immediately occur to him; for, indeed, various young pastors of his
+own body put on the livery which he himself abjured, and the sight of it
+as a servile copy filled him with a certain contempt.
+
+"Mr. May has been stopped in his way by the beauty of the skies," said
+Phoebe, rather enjoying the position as she got used to it. "Mr.
+Northcote--Mr. May. It is not easy to pass such an exhibition as that,
+is it?--and given to us all for love, and nothing for reward," she
+added; for she was a well read young woman, and did not hesitate to
+suffer this to appear.
+
+And then there was a momentary pause. Northcote was confused, it must be
+allowed, by thus coming face to face, without previous warning, with the
+man whom he had so violently assailed. Reginald had the best of it in
+every way, for he was the man injured, and had it in his power to be
+magnanimous; and he had the advantage of full warning, and had prepared
+himself. Besides, was not he the superior by every social rule? And that
+consciousness is always sweet.
+
+"If Mr. Northcote is new to Carlingford, he will probably not know what
+a fine point of view we have here. That, like so many other things,"
+said Reginald, pointedly, "wants a little personal experience to find it
+out."
+
+"For that matter, to see it once is as good as seeing it a hundred
+times," said Northcote, somewhat sharply; for to give in was the very
+last thing he thought of. A little glow of anger came over him. He
+thought Phoebe had prepared this ordeal for him, and he was vexed, not
+only because she had done it, but because his sense of discomfiture
+might afford a kind of triumph to that party in the connection which was
+disposed, as he expressed it, to "toady the Church."
+
+"Pardon me, I don't think you can judge of anything at a first view."
+
+"And, pardon me, I think you see everything most sharply and clearly at
+a first view," said the Nonconformist, who was the loudest; "certainly
+in all matters of principle. After a while, you are persuaded against
+your will to modify this opinion and that, to pare off a little here,
+and tolerate a little there. Your first view is the most correct."
+
+"Well," said Phoebe, throwing herself into the breach, "I am glad you
+don't agree, for the argument is interesting. Will you come in and fight
+it out? You shall have some tea, which will be pleasant, for it shall be
+hot. I really cannot stay out any longer; it is freezing here."
+
+The new-comer prepared to follow; but Reginald hesitated. Pride
+whispered that to go into the house of Tozer, the butterman, was
+something monstrous; but then it might be amusing. This "Dissenting
+fellow," no doubt, was a drawback; but a kind of angry antagonism and
+disdain half-attracted him even to the Dissenting fellow. It might be
+well, on the whole, to see what kind of being such a person was. All
+curious phenomena are attractive to a student. "The proper study of
+mankind is man," Reginald said to himself. Before he had got through
+this little argument with himself, Phoebe had gone in, and Northcote,
+whose disgust at the interposition of an adversary had no such softening
+of curiosity, followed her abruptly, without any of those graces which
+are current in society. This rudeness offended the other, who was about
+to walk on indignant, when Phoebe turned back, and looked out at him from
+the open door.
+
+"Are not you coming, Mr. May?" she said softly, looking at him with the
+least little shrug of her shoulders.
+
+Reginald yielded without further resistance. But he felt fully that to
+see him, the chaplain of the old College, walking down through Tozer's
+garden, between the two rows of closed-up crocuses which glimmered
+ghostly by the side of the path, was one of the strangest sights in the
+world.
+
+Phoebe, to tell the truth, was a little confused as to where to convey
+her captive, out of whom she meant to get a little amusement for the
+long winter afternoon. For a girl of her active mind, it may easily be
+imagined that a succession of long days with Mrs. Tozer was somewhat
+monotonous. She did her duty like a hero, and never complained; but
+still, if a little amusement was possible, it was worth having. She
+carried in her two young men as naughty boys carry stag-beetles, or
+other such small deer. If they would fight it would be fun; and if they
+would not fight, why, it might be fun still, and more amusing than
+grandmamma. She hesitated between the chilly drawing-room, where a fire
+was lighted, but where there was no evidence of human living, and the
+cozy parlour, where Mrs. Tozer sat in her best cap, still wheezy, but
+convalescent, waiting for her tea, and not indisposed to receive such
+deputations of the community as might come to ask for her. Finally,
+Phoebe opened the door of that sanctuary, which was dazzling with bright
+fire-light after the gloom outside. It was a very comfortable interior,
+arranged by Phoebe to suit her own ideas rather than those of grandmamma,
+though grandmamma's comfort had been her chief object. The tea-things
+were sparkling upon the table, the kettle singing by the fire, and Mrs.
+Tozer half-dozing in the tranquillity and warmth.
+
+"Grandmamma, I have brought Mr. May and Mr. Northcote to see you," she
+said.
+
+The poor old lady almost sprang from her chair in amazement.
+
+"Lord bless us, Phoebe, Mr. May!"
+
+"Don't disturb yourself, grandmamma; they will find seats. Yes, we were
+all looking at the sunset, and as I knew tea must be ready--I know you
+want it, dear granny--I asked them to have some. Here it is, as I told
+you, quite hot, and very fragrant this cold night. How cold it is
+outside! I think it will freeze, and that skating may come off at last,
+Mr. May, that you were talking of, you remember? You were to teach your
+sisters to skate."
+
+"Yes, with the advantage of your example."
+
+Reginald had put himself in a corner, as far away as possible from the
+old woman in the chair. His voice, he felt, had caught a formal tone. As
+for the other, his antagonist, he had assumed the front of the
+battle--even, in Tozer's absence, he had ventured to assume the front of
+the fire. He was not the sort of man Reginald had expected, almost hoped
+to see--a fleshy man, loosely put together, according to the nature, so
+far as he knew it, of Dissenters; but a firmly knit, clean-limbed young
+man, with crisp hair curling about his head, and a gleam of energy and
+spirit in his eye. The gentler Anglican felt by no means sure of a
+speedy victory, even of an intellectual kind. The young man before him
+did not look a slight antagonist. They glared at each other, measuring
+their strength; they did not know, indeed, that they had been brought in
+here to this warmth and light, like the stag-beetles, to make a little
+amusement for Phoebe; but they were quite ready to fight all the same.
+
+"Mr. Northcote, sir, I'm glad to see you. Now this is friendly; this is
+what I calls as it should be, when a young pastor comes in and makes
+free, without waiting for an invitation," said Tozer kindly, bustling
+in; "that speech of yours, sir, was a rouser; that 'it 'em off, that
+did, and you can see as the connection ain't ungrateful. What's that you
+say, Phoebe? what? I'm a little hard of hearing. Mr.--May!"
+
+"Mr. May was good enough to come in with me, grandpapa. We met at the
+door. We have mutual friends, and you know how kind Miss May has been,"
+said Phoebe, trembling with sudden fright, while Reginald, pale with rage
+and embarrassment, stood up in his corner. Tozer was embarrassed too. He
+cleared his throat and rubbed his hands, with a terrible inclination to
+raise one of them to his forehead. It was all that he could do to get
+over this class instinct. Young May, though he had been delighted to
+hear him assailed in the Meeting, was a totally different visitor from
+the clever young pastor whom he received with a certain consciousness of
+patronage. Tozer did not know that the Northcotes were infinitely
+richer, and quite as well-born and well-bred in their ways as the Mays,
+and that his young Dissenting brother was a more costly production, as
+well as a more wealthy man, than the young chaplain in his long coat;
+but if he had known this it would have made no difference. His relation
+to the one was semi-servile, to the other condescending and superior. In
+Reginald May's presence, he was but a butterman who supplied the family;
+but to Horace Northcote he was an influential member of society, with
+power over a Minister's individual fate.
+
+"I assure you, sir, as I'm proud to see you in my house," he said, with
+a duck of his head, and an ingratiating but uncomfortable smile. "Your
+father, I hope, as he's well, sir, and all the family? We are a kind of
+neighbours now; not as we'd think of taking anything upon us on account
+of living in Grange Lane. But Phoebe here--Phoebe, junior, as we call's
+her--she's a cut above us, and I'm proud to see any of her friends in my
+'umble 'ouse. My good lady, sir," added Tozer, with another duck,
+indicating with a wave of his hand his wife, who had already once risen,
+wheezy, but knowing her manners, to make a kind of half-bow,
+half-curtsey from her chair.
+
+"You are very kind," said Reginald, feeling himself blush furiously, and
+not knowing what to say. The other young man stood with his back to the
+fire, and a sneer, which he intended to look like a smile, on his face.
+
+And as for Phoebe, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding all her
+resources, even she was exquisitely uncomfortable for a minute or two.
+The young people all felt this, but to Tozer it seemed that he had
+managed everything beautifully, and a sense of elation stole over him.
+To be visited in this manner by the gentry, "making free," and "quite in
+a friendly way," was an honour he had never looked for. He turned to
+Northcote with great affability and friendliness.
+
+"Well," he said, "Mr. Northcote, sir, it can't be denied as this is a
+strange meeting; you and Mr. May, as mightn't be, perhaps, just the best
+of friends, to meet quite comfortable over a cup of tea. But ain't it
+the very best thing that could happen? Men has their public opinions,
+sir, as every one should speak up bold for, and stick to; that's my way
+of thinking. But I wouldn't bring it no farther; not, as might be said,
+into the domestic circle. I'm clean against that. You say your say in
+public, whatever you may think on a subject, but you don't bear no
+malice; it ain't a personal question; them's my sentiments. And I don't
+know nothing more elevatin', nothing more consolin', than for two public
+opponents, as you may say, to meet like this quite cozy and comfortable
+over a cup o' tea."
+
+"It is a pleasure, I assure you, which I appreciate highly," said
+Reginald, finding his voice.
+
+"And which fills me with delight and satisfaction," said Northcote.
+Those stag-beetles which Phoebe, so to speak, had carried in in her
+handkerchief, were only too ready to fight.
+
+"You had better have some tea first," she said breathless, "before you
+talk so much of its good effects. Sit down, grandpapa, and have your
+muffin while it is hot; I know that is what you like. Do you care about
+china, Mr. May? but every one cares for china now-a-days. Look at that
+cup, and fancy grandmamma having this old service in use without knowing
+how valuable it is. Cream Wedgwood! You may fancy how I stared when I
+saw it; and in everyday use! most people put it up on brackets, when
+they are so lucky as to possess any. Tell Mr. May, grandmamma, how you
+picked it up. Mr. Northcote, there is an article in this review that I
+want you to look at. Papa sent it to me. It is too metaphysical for me,
+but I know you are great in metaphysics--"
+
+"I am greater in china; may not I look at the Wedgwood first?"
+
+"Perhaps you will turn over the literature to me," said Reginald,
+"reviews are more in my way than teacups, though I say it with
+confusion. I know how much I am behind my age."
+
+"And I too," whispered Phoebe, behind the book which she had taken up.
+"Don't tell any one. It is rare, I know; and everybody likes to have
+something that is rare; but I don't really care for it the least in the
+world. I have seen some bits of Italian _faience_ indeed--but English
+pottery is not like Italian, any more than English skies."
+
+"You have the advantage of me, Miss Beecham, both as regards the pottery
+and the skies."
+
+"Ah, if it is an advantage; bringing poetry down to prose is not always
+an advantage, is it? Italy is such a dream--so long as one has never
+been there."
+
+"Yes, it is a dream," said Reginald, with enthusiasm, "to everybody, I
+think; but when one has little money and much work all one's
+life--poverty stands in the way of all kinds of enjoyment."
+
+"Poverty is a nice friendly sort of thing; a ground we can all meet on,"
+said Phoebe. "But don't let us say that to grandpapa. How odd people are!
+he knows you are not Croesus, but still he has a sort of feeling that you
+are a young prince, and do him the greatest honour in coming to his
+house; and yet, all the same, he thinks that money is the very grandest
+thing in existence. See what prejudice is! He would not allow that he
+had any class-reverence, and yet he can no more get rid of it--"
+
+"Miss Beecham, it is very difficult for me to say anything on such a
+subject."
+
+"Very difficult, and you show your delicacy by not saying anything. But
+you know, apart from this, which is not gratifying, I am rather proud of
+grandpapa's way of looking at some things. About saying out your
+opinions in public, and yet bearing no malice, for instance. Now, Mr.
+Northcote is the very Antipodes to you; therefore you ought to know him
+and find out what he means. It would be better for you both. That is
+what I call enlarging the mind," said Phoebe with a smile; which was, to
+tell the truth, a very pretty smile, and filled with a soft lustre the
+blue eyes with which she looked at him. Whether it was this, or the
+cogency of her argument, that moved the young Anglican, it would be hard
+to say.
+
+"If you are to be the promoter of this new science, I don't object to
+studying under you," he said with a great deal of meaning in his voice.
+
+Phoebe gave him another smile, though she shook her head; and then she
+turned to the hero on the other side.
+
+"Is it genuine, Mr. Northcote? is it as fine as I thought? There now, I
+told you, grandmamma! Have you been telling Mr. Northcote how you picked
+it up? I am sure you will present him with a cup and saucer for his
+collection in return for his praises."
+
+"Not for the world," said Northcote, with profound seriousness; "break a
+set of cream Wedgwood! what do you take me for, Miss Beecham? I don't
+mean to say that I would not give my ears to have it--all; but to break
+the set--"
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon! I was not prepared for such delicacy of
+feeling--such conscientiousness--"
+
+"Ah!" said Northcote, with a long-drawn breath, "I don't think you can
+understand the feelings of an enthusiast. A set of fine China is like a
+poem--every individual bit is necessary to the perfection of the whole.
+I allow that this is not the usual way of looking at it; but my pleasure
+lies in seeing it entire, making the tea-table into a kind of lyric,
+elevating the family life by the application of the principles of
+abstract beauty to its homeliest details. Pardon, Miss Beecham, but Mrs.
+Tozer is right, and you are wrong. The idea of carrying off a few lines
+of a poem in one's pocket for one's collection--"
+
+"Now that's what I call speaking up," said Mrs. Tozer, the first time
+she had opened her lips, "that's just what I like. Mr. Northcote has a
+deal more sense than the like of you. He knows what's what. Old things
+like this as might have been my granny's, they're good enough for every
+day, they're very nice for common use; but they ain't no more fit to be
+put away in cupboards and hoarded up like fine china, no more than I am.
+Mr. Northcote should see our best--that's worth the looking at; and if
+I'd known as the gentleman was coming--but you can't put an old head on
+young shoulders. Phoebe's as good as gold, and the trouble she takes with
+an old woman like me is wonderful; but she can't be expected to think of
+everything, can she now, at her age?"
+
+The two young men laughed--it was the first point of approach between
+them, and Phoebe restrained a smile, giving them a look from one to
+another. She gave Reginald his cup of tea very graciously.
+
+"Mr. Northcote prefers the Wedgwood, and Mr. May doesn't mind,
+grandmamma," she said sweetly. "So it is as well to have the best china
+in the cupboard. Grandpapa, another muffin--it is quite hot; and I know
+that is what you like best."
+
+"Well, I'll say that for Phoebe," said Tozer, with his mouth full, "that
+whether she understands china or not I can't tell, but she knows what a
+man likes, which is more to the purpose for a young woman. That's what
+she does; and looks after folk's comforts as I never yet saw her match.
+She's a girl in a thousand, is Phoebe, junior. There be them as is more
+for dress," he added, fond and greasy, looking at her seated modestly in
+that gown, which had filled with awe and admiration the experienced mind
+of Mrs. Sam Hurst; "and plays the pianny, and that sort of style of
+girl; but for one as minds the comforts of them about her----" Tozer
+turned back to the table, and made a gulp of his last piece of muffin.
+Eloquence could have no more striking climax; the proof of all his
+enthusiasm, was it not there?
+
+"Don't you play, Miss Beecham?" said Reginald, half-amused, half-angry.
+
+"A little," said Phoebe, with a laugh. She had brought down a small
+cottage piano out of the drawing-room, where nobody ever touched it,
+into a dark corner out of reach of the lamp. It was the only
+accomplishment upon which she prided herself. She got up from the table,
+when she had poured out another cup of tea for her grandfather, and
+without saying a word went to the little piano. It was not much of an
+instrument, and Reginald May was very little of a _connoisseur_.
+Northcote, who knew her gifts, gave himself up to listening, but the
+Tozers looked on, shaking their heads, and it was only after some time
+had passed, that Reginald began to understand that he was listening to
+something which he had never heard before. Ursula's school-girl tunes
+had never interested him very much; he did not know what this was which
+seemed to creep into his heart by his ears. He got up by and by, and
+stole towards the piano bewildered.
+
+"It'll soon be over, sir," said Tozer, encouragingly. "Don't you run
+away, Mr. May. Them are queer tunes, I allow, but they don't last long,
+and your company's an honour. As for the playing, it'll soon be over;
+you needn't run away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE HALL.
+
+
+It is unnecessary to say that the dinner party in the Hall bore very
+little resemblance to those simple amusements in No. 6, Grange Lane.
+There were three or four people to meet Mr. May, who, as an orator and
+literary man, had greater reputation even such a little way from home
+than he had in his own town. He was a very good preacher, and those
+articles of his were much admired as "thoughtful" papers, searching into
+many mental depths, and fathoming the religious soul with wonderful
+insight. Ladies especially admired them; the ladies who were
+intellectual, and found pleasure in the feeling of being more advanced
+than their neighbours. The Rector's wife of the parish in which the
+Dorsets lived applied herself with great vigour to the art of drawing
+him out. She asked him questions with that air of delightful submission
+to an intellectual authority which some ladies love to assume, and which
+it pleases many men to accept. His daughters were not at all reverential
+of Mr. May, and it soothed him to get marks of devotion and literary
+submission out of doors. Even Sophy Dorset had gone through the phase of
+admiration for her cousin. This had been dissipated, it is true, long
+ago; but yet she did not laugh, as she usually did, at the believers in
+him. She listened to Mrs. Rector plying him with eager questions, asking
+his advice on that point and the other, and smiled, but was charitable.
+As for Cousin Anne, she was charitable by nature, and all the world got
+the advantage of it. Little Ursula was one of her prime favourites--a
+motherless girl, who was the eldest, and who had to work for the family,
+was of all others the thing which moved her sympathies most. The little
+Indian children had long ere this yielded to the charms of Aunt Anne.
+They followed her wherever she went like little spaniels, hanging on by
+her dress. She had to go up to the nursery to hear them say their
+prayers before she dressed for dinner.
+
+"You see, this is a proof that with children one should never be
+discouraged," she said; "for they did not take to me at first;" and she
+turned her mild countenance, beaming with soft light, upon Ursula. To be
+hampered by these babies clinging about her, to have them claiming
+imperiously her attention and her time, however she might be engaged; to
+give up to them the moments of leisure in which otherwise she might have
+had a little quiet and repose, this was what Anne Dorset considered as
+her recompense.
+
+"Oh, I wish I could be as good to Amy and Robin! But I feel as if I
+should like to shake them often," cried Ursula, "even though I love them
+with all my heart. Oh! Cousin Anne, I don't think there is any one like
+you."
+
+"Yes, that is what she thinks her reward," said Sophy. "I should like
+something better, if it was I. Don't copy her, Ursula. It is better to
+have children of your own, and get other people to nurse them. Anne, you
+see, likes it. I want you to marry, and get all the good things in this
+life. Let us leave the self-denials to her; she likes them, you
+perceive."
+
+"I don't know why you should always talk of marrying to me, Cousin
+Sophy," said Ursula with gentle reproach. "I hope I am not a girl to
+think of such things."
+
+"And why not? Is it not the first duty of woman, you little simpleton?"
+said Sophy Dorset, with a laugh.
+
+But Ursula could not imagine that it was only in this general way that
+her cousin spoke. She could not but feel that this big Clarence
+Copperhead, with the diamond buttons, and that huge expanse of
+shirt-front, had something to do with Sophy's talk. There was six feet
+of him, which is a thing that goes a long way with a girl; and he was
+not bad-looking. And why did he come to Carlingford, having nothing in
+the world to do with the place? and coming to Carlingford, why was papa
+sought out, of all people, to be his tutor? Certainly the circumstances
+were such as invited conjecture, especially when added on to Sophy's
+allusions. He took Ursula in to dinner, which fluttered her somewhat;
+and though he was much intent upon the dinner itself, and studied the
+_menu_ with a devotion which would have made her tremble for her
+housekeeping, had she been sufficiently disengaged to notice it, he yet
+found time to talk a little between the courses.
+
+"I did not expect, when I saw you in London, that we were to meet again
+so soon, Miss May," was the perfectly innocent remark with which he
+opened the conversation.
+
+Ursula would have said it herself had he not said it, and all she could
+do was to answer, "No, indeed," with a smile.
+
+"And I am coming to your father to be coached," continued the young man.
+"It is a funny coincidence, don't you think so? I am glad you came to
+that ball, Miss May. It makes me feel that I know you. I don't like
+starting off afresh, all at once, among people I don't know."
+
+"No," said Ursula; "I should not like it either. But there are other
+people you know in Carlingford. There is the lady who was at the
+ball--the young lady in black, I used to call her--Miss Beecham; you
+must know her better than you know me."
+
+"Who? Phoebe? really!" he said, elevating his eyebrows. "Phoebe in
+Carlingford! By Jove! how the governor will laugh! I should like to
+know," with a conscious smile on his countenance, "what _she_ is doing
+there."
+
+"Her grandmamma is ill, and she is nursing her," said Ursula simply, at
+which young Copperhead laughed again.
+
+"Oh, that is how it is! Very good of her, don't you think? Shouldn't
+suppose she would be amusing, the old granny, and Phoebe likes to be
+amused. I must go to see her as soon as I can get there. You know, we
+are Dissenters at home, Miss May. Good joke, isn't it? The governor will
+not hear a word against them. As a matter of fact, nobody does go to
+chapel in our rank of life; but the governor sometimes is as obstinate
+as an old pig."
+
+"I suppose he likes it best," said Ursula, gently; and here a new course
+came round, and for the moment Clarence had something else to do. He
+resumed after the _entrees_, which were poor, as he made a mental note.
+
+"Is there anything to do at Carlingford, Miss May? I hope you skate. I
+am not much in the hunting way; nor your father, I suppose? for, to be
+sure, a hunting parson would never do. I am too heavy a weight for most
+horses, and the good of galloping over the country all day, after a poor
+brute of a fox!--but we must not say that before Sir Robert. I suppose
+it is dull?" he said, somewhat pathetically, looking in her face.
+
+"We don't think it dull, Mr. Copperhead. It may be, perhaps, for a
+gentleman."
+
+"That's it," said Clarence. "I don't know if it's because women have
+more resources, or because they want less; but you always get on better
+than we do, somehow; very lucky for you. You don't expect so much. I
+believe that's what it is."
+
+"Then that shows we are the most sensible," said Ursula, roused, and a
+little indignant.
+
+He paused, to make his choice between the inevitable turkey and the
+inevitable beef.
+
+"I hope it's braised," he said, in a devout undertone. "You don't expect
+so much, Miss May, that's what it is; you're always in the house. You
+don't care for exercise. Bless you, if I didn't take exercise, I should
+be fifteen stone before you could turn round. How much are you? about
+eight, perhaps; not much more. That makes a deal of difference: you
+don't require to keep yourself down."
+
+Ursula did not make any answer. She was prepared to look upon him very
+favourably, and accept what he said as full of originality and force;
+but the tone the conversation had taken was not entirely to her mind.
+Phoebe could have managed it; but Ursula was not Phoebe. She was more
+disposed to take offence at the young man's tone than to guide it into
+better ways.
+
+"I hope your mother is well," she said at last, falteringly, after a
+long pause. Ursula thought her companion would remark this pause, and
+think her displeased. She might have saved herself the trouble, for it
+was the braised turkey which kept Clarence quiet, not offence.
+
+"Oh, quite well, I thank you. Not so well as when I am at home; she
+don't like parting with me," he said, "but, of course, I can't be always
+at my mother's apron-strings. Women forget that."
+
+"She was very kind when I was in London."
+
+"Yes, that just pleases her; she is never so happy as when she is buying
+things for somebody," he replied, betraying an acquaintance with the
+exact manner of the kindness which somewhat disturbed poor Ursula: "that
+is exactly her way. I dare say she'll come and see the Dorsets while I'm
+here."
+
+Then there was again a pause, and Clarence turned to speak to some one
+at his other side.
+
+"No, I don't hunt much," he said; "I have come into the country to be
+coached. My father's a modern sort of man, and wants a fellow to be up
+in history, and that sort of thing. Bore--yes; and I dare say
+Carlingford is very dull. Oh, yes, I will go out with the hounds now and
+then, if there is not a frost. I should rather like a frost for my
+part."
+
+It was a hunting lady who had started this new conversation, into which
+the stranger had drifted away, leaving Ursula stranded. She was slightly
+piqued, it must be allowed, and when Sophy asked her after dinner how
+she liked her companion, made a dignified reply.
+
+"I have no doubt he is very nice," she said; "I don't know much of
+gentlemen. He talks of papa as if he were a school-master, and thinks
+Carlingford will be dull."
+
+"So it is, Ursula. I have often heard you say so."
+
+"Yes, perhaps; but a stranger ought to be civil," said the girl,
+offended; and she went and entrenched herself by the side of Cousin
+Anne, where the new pupil could not come near her. Indeed he did not
+seem very anxious to do so, as Ursula soon saw. She blushed very hotly
+all by herself, under Cousin Anne's shadow: that she could have been so
+absurd as ever to think--But his size, and the weight over which he had
+lamented, and his abundant whiskers and large shirt front, made it quite
+impossible for Ursula to think of him as a person to be educated. It
+must be Miss Beecham, she said to herself.
+
+No thoughts of this kind crossed Mr. Clarence Copperhead's mind, as he
+stretched his big limbs before the drawing-room fire after dinner, and
+said "Brava!" when the ladies sang. He knew "Brava" was the right thing
+to say. He liked to be at the Hall, which he had never visited before,
+and to know that it was undeniable gentry which surrounded him, and
+which at the piano was endeavouring to gain his approbation. He was so
+much his father's son that he had a sense of pleasure and triumph in
+being thus elevated; and he had a feeling, more or less, of contempt for
+the clergyman, "only a parson," who was to be his coach. He felt the
+power and the beauty of money almost as much as his father did. What was
+there he could not buy with it? the services of the most learned pundit
+in existence, for what was learning? or the prettiest woman going to be
+his wife, if that was what he wanted. It may be supposed then that he
+had very little attention indeed to bestow upon a girl like Ursula, who
+was only the daughter of his coach--nobody at all in particular--and
+that her foolish fancies on the subject might have been spared. He aired
+himself on the hearth-rug with great satisfaction, giving now and then a
+shake to one of his long limbs, and a furtive glance to see that all was
+perfect in the _sit_ of the garment that clothed it. He had been
+ploughed it is true, but that did not interfere much with his mental
+satisfaction; for, after all, scholarship was a thing cultivated chiefly
+by dons and prigs, and poor men; and no doubt this other poor man, the
+parson, would be able to put all into his head that was necessary, just
+as much as would pay, and no more--a process the mere thought of which
+made Clarence yawn, yet which he had wound up his noble mind to submit
+to.
+
+"Mind you, I don't say I am going to work," he had said to his mother;
+"but if you think he can put it into me, he may try," and he repeated
+much the same sentiment, with a difference, to Sophy Dorset, who by way
+of civility, while the Rector's wife paid court to Mr. May, talked to
+Clarence a little, from the corner of the ottoman close to the fire.
+
+"Work! well, I suppose so, after a sort. I don't mean to make myself ill
+with midnight oil and that sort of thing," he said (he was not at all
+clear in his mind as to how the midnight oil was applied), "but if Mr.
+May can get it into me, I'll give him leave; for one thing, I suppose
+there will be nothing else to do."
+
+"Not much in Carlingford; there are neither pictures, nor museums, nor
+fine buildings, nor anything of the sort; and very little society; a few
+tea-parties, and one ball in the season."
+
+Mr. Clarence Copperhead shrugged his large shoulders.
+
+"I shan't go to the tea-parties, that's certain," he said; "a fellow
+must hunt a little, I suppose, as the place is so destitute. As for
+pictures and museums, that don't trouble me. The worst of going abroad
+is that you've always got to look at things of that sort. To have to do
+it at home would be beyond a joke."
+
+"Have you seen the box of curious things John sent me with the
+children?" said Sophy. "They are on the table at the end of the
+room,--yataghans, and I don't know what other names they have, all sorts
+of Indian weapons. I should think you would be interested in them."
+
+"Thanks, Cousin Sophy, I am very well where I am," he said. He looked at
+her in such a way that she might have appropriated this remark as a
+compliment, had she pleased; but Sophy laughed, and it is to be feared
+did not feel the compliment, for she turned right round to somebody
+else, and took no more notice of Clarence. He was so fully satisfied
+with himself that he had not any strong sense of neglect, though he had
+but little conversation with the company. He was quite satisfied to
+exhibit himself and his shirt-front before the fire.
+
+Next day he accompanied the Mays back to Carlingford. Mr. May had
+enjoyed his visit. His mind was free for the moment; he had staved off
+the evil day, and he had a little money in his pocket, the remains of
+that extra fifty pounds which he had put on to Tozer's bill. With some
+of it he had paid some urgent debts, and he had presented five pounds to
+Cotsdean to buy his wife a gown, and he had a little money in his
+pockets. So that in every way he was comfortable and more at ease than
+usual. The reckoning was four months off, which was like an eternity to
+him in his present mood of mind, and of course he would get the money
+before that time. There was so much time, indeed, that to begin to think
+of the ways and means of paying it at this early period seemed absurd.
+He was to have three hundred pounds for the year of Copperhead's
+residence with him, if he stayed so long, and that would do, if nothing
+else. Therefore Mr. May was quite easy in his mind, not in the least
+feeling the possibility of trouble in store for him. And the visit had
+been pleasant. He had enlarged his acquaintance, and that among the very
+sort of people he cared to know. He had been very well received by all
+the Dorsets, and introduced by Sir Robert as a relation, and he had
+received some personal incense about his works and his gifts which was
+sweet to him. Therefore he was in very good spirits, and exceedingly
+amiable. He conversed with his future pupil urbanely, though he had not
+concealed his entire concurrence in Sir Robert's opinion that he was "a
+cub."
+
+"What have you been reading lately?" he asked, when they had been
+transferred from the Dorsets' carriage, to the admiration and by the
+obsequious cares of all the attendant officials, into the railway
+carriage. Mr. May liked the fuss and liked the idea of that superiority
+which attended the Dorsets' guests. He had just been explaining to his
+companions that Sir Robert was the Lord of the Manor, and that all the
+homage done to him was perfectly natural; and he was in great
+good-humour even with this cub.
+
+"Well, I've not been reading very much," said Clarence, candidly. "What
+was the good? The governor did not want me to be a parson, or a lawyer,
+or anything of that sort, and a fellow wants some sort of a motive to
+read. I've loafed a good deal, I'm afraid. I got into a very good set,
+you know, first chop--Lord Southdown, and the Beauchamps, and that lot;
+and--well, I suppose we were idle, and that's the truth."
+
+"I see," said Mr. May; "a good deal of smoke and billiards, and so
+forth, and very little work."
+
+"That's about it," said the young man, settling himself and his
+trousers, which were the objects of a great deal of affectionate care on
+his part. He gave them furtive pulls at the knees, and stroked them down
+towards the ankle, as he got himself comfortably into his seat.
+
+Mr. May looked at him with scientific observation, and Ursula with
+half-affronted curiosity; his self-occupation was an offence to the
+girl, but it was only amusing to her father. "An unmitigated cub," Mr.
+May pronounced to himself; but there where he sat he represented three
+hundred a-year, and that, at least, was not to be despised. Ursula was
+not so charitable as her father; she was not amused by him in the
+slightest degree. Had he come down to Carlingford in humble worship of
+her pretty eyes, and with a romantic intention of making himself
+agreeable to her, the captivating flattery would have prepossessed
+Ursula, and prepared her to see him in a very pleasant light, and put
+the best interpretation upon all he did and said. But this pretty
+delusion being dissipated, Ursula was angry with herself for having been
+so foolish, and naturally angry with Clarence for having led her into
+it, though he was quite without blame in the matter. She looked at him
+in his corner--he had taken the best corner, without consulting her
+inclinations--and thought him a vulgar coxcomb, which perhaps he was.
+But she would not have been so indignant except for that little bit of
+injured feeling, for which really, after all, he was not justly to
+blame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES.
+
+
+After the evening at Grange Lane which has been described, Reginald May
+met Northcote in the street several times, as was unavoidable,
+considering the size of the place, and the concentration of all business
+in Carlingford within the restricted length of the High Street. The two
+young men bowed stiffly to each other at first; then by dint of seeing
+each other frequently, got to inclinations a little more friendly, until
+at length one day when Northcote was passing by the College, as Reginald
+stood in the old doorway, the young chaplain feeling magnanimous on his
+own ground, and somewhat amused by the idea which suddenly presented
+itself to him, asked his Dissenting assailant if he would not come in
+and see the place. Reginald had the best of it in every way. It was he
+who was the superior, holding out a hand of favour and kindness to one
+who here at least, was beneath him in social consideration; and it was
+he who was the assailed, and, so to speak, injured party, and who
+nevertheless extended to his assailant a polite recognition, which,
+perhaps, no one else occupying the same position would have given. He
+was amused by his own magnanimity, and enjoyed it, and the pleasure of
+heaping coals of fire upon his adversary's head was entirely delightful
+to him.
+
+"I know you do not approve of the place or me," he said, forgetting in
+that moment of triumph all his own objections to it, and the ground upon
+which these objections were founded. "Come in and see it, will you? The
+chapel and the rooms are worth seeing. They are fair memorials of the
+past, however little the foundation may be to your mind."
+
+He laughed as he spoke, but without ill-humour; for it is easy to be
+good-humoured when one feels one's self on the gaining, not the losing
+side. As for Northcote, pride kept him from any demonstration of
+unwillingness to look at what the other had to show. He would not for
+worlds have betrayed himself. It was expedient for him, if he did not
+mean to acknowledge himself worsted, to put on a good face and accept
+the politeness cheerfully. So that it was on the very strength of the
+conflict which made them first aware of each other's existence, that
+they thus came together. The Dissenter declared his entire delight in
+being taken to see the place, and with secret satisfaction, not easily
+put into words, the Churchman led the way. They went to all the rooms
+where the old men sat, some dozing by the fire, some reading, some busy
+about small businesses; one had a turning-lathe, another was
+illuminating texts, a third had a collection of curiosities of a
+heterogeneous kind, which he was cleaning and arranging, writing neat
+little labels in the neatest little hand for each article.
+
+"The charity of our ancestors might have been worse employed," said
+Reginald. "A home for the old and poor is surely as fine a kind of
+benevolence as one could think of--if benevolence is to be tolerated at
+all."
+
+"Ye-es," said Northcote. "I don't pretend to disapprove of benevolence.
+Perhaps the young who have a future before them, who can be of use to
+their country, are better objects still."
+
+"Because they will pay," said Reginald; "because we can get something
+out of them in return; while we have already got all that is to be had
+out of the old people? A very modern doctrine, but not so lovely as the
+old-fashioned way."
+
+"I did not mean that," said the other, colouring. "Certainly it ought to
+pay; everything, I suppose, is meant to pay one way or other. The life
+and progress of the young, or the gratified sentiment of the benefactor,
+who feels that he has provided for the old--which is the noblest kind of
+payment? I think the first, for my part."
+
+"For that matter, there is a large and most flourishing school, which
+you will come across without fail if you work among the poor. Do you
+work among the poor? Pardon my curiosity; I don't know."
+
+"It depends upon what you call the poor," said the other, who did not
+like to acknowledge the absence of this element in Salem Chapel; "if you
+mean the destitute classes, the lowest level, no; but if you mean the
+respectable, comfortable--"
+
+"Persons of small income?" said Reginald. "I mean people with no incomes
+at all; people without trades, or anything to earn a comfortable living
+by; labouring people, here to-day and away to-morrow; women who take in
+washing, and men who go about hunting for a day's work. These are the
+kind of people the Church is weighted with."
+
+"I don't see any trace of them," said the Nonconformist. "Smooth lawns,
+fine trees, rooms that countesses might live in. I can't see any trace
+of them here."
+
+"There is no harm in a bit of grass and a few trees, and the rooms are
+cheaper in their long continuance than any flimsy new rubbish that could
+be built."
+
+"I know I am making an unfortunate quotation," said Northcote; "but
+there is reason in it. It might be sold for so much, and given to the
+poor."
+
+"Cheating the poor, in the first place," said Reginald, warmly concerned
+for what he felt to be his own; "just as the paddock an old horse dies
+in might bear a crop instead, and pay the owner; but what would become
+of the old horse?"
+
+"Half-quarter of this space would do quite as well for your pensioners,
+and they might do without--"
+
+"A chaplain!" said Reginald, laughing in spite of himself. "I know you
+think so. It is a sinecure."
+
+"Well, I think they may say their prayers for themselves; a young man
+like you, full of talent, full of capability--I beg your pardon," said
+Northcote, "you must excuse me, I grudge the waste. There are so many
+things more worthy of you that you might do."
+
+"What, for example?"
+
+"Anything almost," cried the other; "digging, ploughing,
+building--anything! And for me too."
+
+This he said in an undertone; but Reginald heard, and did not carry his
+magnanimity so far as not to reply.
+
+"Yes," he said; "if I am wasted reading prayers for my old men, what are
+you, who come to agitate for my abolition? _I_ think, too, almost
+anything would be better than to encourage the ignorant to make
+themselves judges of public institutions, which the wisest even find too
+delicate to meddle with. The digging and the ploughing might be a good
+thing for more than me."
+
+"I don't say otherwise," said the young Dissenter, following into the
+old fifteenth-century chapel, small but perfect, the young priest of the
+place. They stood together for a moment under the vaulted roof, both
+young, in the glory of their days, both with vague noble meanings in
+them, which they knew so poorly how to carry out. They meant everything
+that was fine and great, these two young men, standing upon the
+threshold of their life, knowing little more than that they were
+fiercely opposed to each other, and meant to reform the world each in
+his own way; one by careful services and visitings of the poor, the
+other by the Liberation Society and overthrow of the State Church; both
+foolish, wrong and right, to the utmost bounds of human possibility. How
+different they felt themselves standing there, and yet how much at one
+they were without knowing it! Northcote had sufficient knowledge to
+admire the perfect old building. He followed his guide with a certain
+humility through the details, which Reginald had already learned by
+heart.
+
+"There is nothing so perfect, so beautiful, so real now-a-days," said
+the young Churchman, with a natural expansion of mind over the beauty to
+which he had fallen heir. It seemed to him, as he looked up at the tall
+windows with their graceful tracery, that he was the representative of
+all who had worked out their belief in God within these beautiful walls,
+and of all the perpetual worshippers who had knelt among the old brasses
+of the early founders upon the worn floor. The other stood beside him
+with a half envy in his mind. The Dissenter did not feel himself the
+heir of those centuries in the same unhesitating way. He tried to feel
+that he was the heir of something better and more spiritual, yet felt a
+not ungenerous grudge that he could not share the other kinship too.
+
+"It is very beautiful and noble," he said. "I should like to feel for it
+as you do; but what I should like still better would be to have the same
+clear certainty of faith, the same conviction that what they were doing
+was the only right thing to do which made both building and prayer so
+unfaltering in those days. We can't be so sure even of the span of an
+arch now."
+
+"No--nor can you be content with the old span, even though it is clearly
+the best by all rules," said Reginald. The other smiled; he was the most
+speculative of the two, being perhaps the most thoughtful; and he had no
+fifteenth-century chapel to charm, nor old foundation to give him an
+anchor. He smiled, but there was a little envy in his mind. Even to have
+one's life set out before one within clear lines like this, would not
+that be something? If it had but been possible, no doubt saying prayers
+for the world, even with no better than the old men of the College to
+say amen, had something more beautiful in it than tours of agitation for
+the Liberation Society; but Northcote knew that for him it was not
+possible, any more than was the tonsure of Reginald's predecessor, who
+had said mass when first those pinnacles were reared towards heaven.
+After he had smiled he sighed, for the old faith was more lovely than
+all the new agitations; he felt a little ashamed of the Liberation
+Society, so long as he stood under that groined and glorious roof.
+
+"May!" said some one, coming in suddenly. "I want you to go to the
+hospital for me. I am obliged to go off to town on urgent
+business--convocation work; and I must get a lawyer's opinion about the
+reredos question; there is not a moment to lose. Go and see the people
+in the pulmonary ward, there's a good fellow; and there are two or three
+bad accidents; and that old woman who is ill in Brown's cottage, you saw
+her the other day; and the Simmonds in Back Grove Street. I should have
+had a day's work well cut out, if I had not had this summons to town;
+but the reredos question is of the first importance, you know."
+
+"I'll go," said Reginald. There is nothing more effectual in showing us
+the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption than to hear it
+sympathetically, through the ears, as it were, of a sceptic. Reginald,
+seeing Northcote's keen eyes gleam at the sound of the Rector's voice,
+instinctively fell into sympathy with him, and heard the speech through
+him; and though he himself felt the importance of the reredos, yet he
+saw in a moment how such a question would take shape in the opinion of
+the young Dissenter, in whom he clearly saw certain resemblances to
+himself. Therefore he assented very briefly, taking out his note-book to
+put down the special cases of which the Rector told him. They had a
+confidential conversation in a corner, during which the new-comer
+contemplated the figure of Northcote in his strange semi-clerical
+garments with some amaze. "Who is your friend?" he said abruptly, for he
+was a rapid man, losing no time about anything.
+
+"It is not my friend at all; it is my enemy who denounced me at the
+Dissenters' meeting."
+
+"Pah!" cried the Rector, curling up his nostrils, as if some
+disagreeable smell had reached him. "A Dissenter here! I should not have
+expected it from you, May."
+
+"Nor I either," said Reginald; but his colour rose. He was not disposed
+to be rebuked by any rector in Carlingford or the world.
+
+"Are you his curate," said Northcote, "that he orders you about as if
+you were bound to do his bidding? I hope, for your own sake, it is not
+so."
+
+Now it was Reginald's turn to smile. He was young, and liked a bit of
+grandiloquence as well as another.
+
+"Since I have been here," he said, "in this sinecure, as you call
+it--and such it almost is--I have been everybody's curate. If the others
+have too much work, and I too little, my duty is clear, don't you
+think?"
+
+Northcote made no reply. Had he known what was about to be said to him,
+he might have stirred up his faculties to say something; but he had not
+an idea that Reginald would answer him like this, and it took him aback.
+He was too honest himself not to be worsted by such a speech. He bowed
+his head with genuine respect. The apology of the Churchman whom he had
+assaulted, filled him with a kind of reverential confusion; he could
+make no reply in words. And need it be said that Reginald's heart too
+melted altogether when he saw how he had confounded his adversary? That
+silent assent more than made up for the noisy onslaught. That he should
+have thus overcome Northcote made Northcote appear his friend. He was
+pleased and satisfied beyond the reach of words.
+
+"Will you come to the hospital with me?" he said; and they walked out
+together, the young Dissenter saying very little, doing what he could to
+arrange those new lights which had suddenly flashed upon his favourite
+subject, and feeling that he had lost his landmarks, and was confused in
+his path. When the logic is taken out of all that a man is doing, what
+is to become of him? This was what he felt; an ideal person in
+Reginald's place could not have made a better answer. Suddenly somehow,
+by a strange law of association, there came into his mind the innocent
+talk he had overheard between the two girls who were, he was aware,
+May's sisters. A certain romantic curiosity about the family came into
+his mind. Certainly they could not be an ordinary family like others.
+There must be something in their constitution to account for this sudden
+downfall, which he had encountered in the midst of all his theories. The
+Mays must be people of a different strain from others; a peculiar race,
+to whom great thoughts were familiar; he could not believe that there
+was anything common or ordinary in their blood. He went out in silence,
+with the holder of the sinecure which he had so denounced, but which now
+seemed to him to be held after a divine fashion, in a way which common
+men had no idea of. Very little could he say, and that of the most
+commonplace kind. He walked quite respectfully by the young clergyman's
+side along the crowded High Street, though without any intention of
+going to the hospital, or of actually witnessing the kind of work
+undertaken by his new friend. Northcote himself had no turn that way. To
+go and minister at a sick-bed had never been his custom; he did not
+understand how to do it; and though he had a kind of sense that it was
+the right thing to do, and that if any one demanded such a service of
+him he would be obliged to render it, he was all in the dark as to how
+he could get through so painful an office; whereas May went to it
+without fear, thinking of it only as the most natural thing in the
+world. Perhaps, it is possible, Northcote's ministrations, had he been
+fully roused, would have been, in mere consequence of the reluctance of
+his mind, to undertake them, more real and impressive than those which
+Reginald went to discharge as a daily though serious duty; but in any
+case it was the Churchman whose mode was the more practical, the more
+useful. They had not gone far together, when they met the Rector
+hurrying to the railway; he cast a frowning, dissatisfied look at
+Northcote, and caught Reginald by the arm, drawing him aside.
+
+"Don't be seen walking about with that fellow," he said; "it will injure
+you in people's minds. What have you to do with a Dissenter--a
+demagogue? Your father would not like it any more than I do. Get rid of
+him, May."
+
+"I am sorry to displease either you or my father," said Reginald
+stiffly; "but, pardon me, in this respect I must judge for myself."
+
+"Don't be pig-headed," said the spiritual ruler of Carlingford; but he
+had to rush off for his train, and had no time to say more. He left
+Reginald hot and angry, doubly disposed, as was natural, to march
+Northcote over all the town, and show his intimacy with him. Get rid of
+an acquaintance whom he chose to extend his countenance to, to please
+the Rector! For a man so young as Reginald May, and so lately made
+independent, such an act of subserviency was impossible indeed.
+
+Before they entered the hospital, however, another encounter happened of
+a very different character. Strolling along in the centre of the
+pavement, endeavouring after the almost impossible combination of a yawn
+and a cigar, they perceived a large figure in a very long great-coat,
+and with an aspect of languor and _ennui_ which was unmistakable a
+hundred yards off. This apparition called a sudden exclamation from
+Northcote.
+
+"If it was possible," he said, "I should imagine I knew that man. Are
+there two like him? but I can't fancy what he can be doing here."
+
+"_That_ fellow!" said Reginald. "It's a pity if there are two like him.
+I can't tell you what a nuisance he is to me. His name is Copperhead;
+he's my father's pupil."
+
+"Then it _is_ Copperhead! I thought there could not be another. He gives
+a sort of odd familiar aspect to the place all at once."
+
+"Then you are a friend of his!" said Reginald, with a groan. "Pardon the
+natural feelings of a man whose father has suddenly chosen to become a
+coach. I hate it, and my dislike to the thing is reflected on the person
+of the pupil. I suppose that's what my antipathy means."
+
+"He does not merit antipathy. He is a bore, but there is no harm in him.
+Ah! he is quickening his pace; I am afraid he has seen us; and anybody
+he knows will be a godsend to him, I suppose."
+
+"I am off," said Reginald; "you will come again? that is," he added,
+with winning politeness, "I shall come and seek you out. We are each the
+moral Antipodes of the other, Miss Beecham says--from which she argues
+that we should be acquainted and learn the meaning of our differences."
+
+"I am much obliged to Miss Beecham."
+
+"Why, Northcote!" said Clarence Copperhead, bearing down upon them in
+his big grey Ulster, like a ship in full sail. "Morning, May; who'd have
+thought to see you here. Oh, don't turn on my account! I'm only taking a
+walk; it don't matter which way I go."
+
+"I am very much hurried. I was just about to hasten off to an
+appointment. Good-bye, Northcote," said Reginald. "We shall meet again
+soon, I hope."
+
+"By Jove! this is a surprise," said Clarence; "to see you here, where I
+should as soon have thought of looking for St. Paul's; and to find you
+walking about cheek by jowl with that muff, young May, who couldn't be
+civil, I think, if he were to try. What is the meaning of it? I suppose
+you're just as much startled to see me. I'm with a coach; clever, and a
+good scholar and a good family, and all that; father to that young
+sprig: so there ain't any mystery about me. What's brought you here?"
+
+"Work," said Northcote, curtly. He did not feel disposed to enter into
+any kind of explanation.
+
+"Oh, work! Now I do wonder that a fellow like you, with plenty of money
+in your pocket, should go in for work as you do. What's the good of it?
+and in the Dissenting parson line of all things in the world! When a
+fellow has nothing, you can understand it; he must get his grub somehow.
+That's what people think of you, of course. Me, I don't do anything, and
+everybody knows I'm a catch, and all that sort of thing. Now I don't say
+(for I don't know) if your governor has as much to leave behind him as
+mine--But halt a bit! You walk as if we were going in for athletics, and
+doing a two mile."
+
+"I'm sorry to see you so easily blown," said Northcote, not displeased
+in his turn to say something unpleasant. "What is it? or are you only
+out of training?"
+
+"That's it," said Clarence, with a gasp. "I'm awfully out of training,
+and that's the fact. We do, perhaps, live too well in Portland Place;
+but look here--about what we were saying--"
+
+"Do you live with the Mays?"
+
+"Worse luck! It's what you call plain cooking; and bless us all, dinner
+in the middle of the day, and the children at table. But I've put a stop
+to that; and old May ain't a bad old fellow--don't bother me with work
+more than I like, and none of your high mightiness, like that fellow.
+I'll tell you what, Northcote, you must come and see me. I haven't got a
+sitting-room of my own, which is a shame, but I have the use of their
+rooms as much as I like. The sisters go flying away like a flock of
+pigeons. I'll tell you what, I'll have you asked to dinner. Capital fun
+it will be. A High Church parson cheek by jowl with a red-hot Dissenter,
+and compelled to be civil. By Jove! won't it be a joke?"
+
+"It is not a joke that either of us will enjoy."
+
+"Never mind, _I'll_ enjoy it, by Jove!" said Copperhead. "He daren't say
+no. I'd give sixpence just to see you together, and the Bashaw of two
+tails--the young fellow. They shall have a party; leave it all to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE NEW PUPIL.
+
+
+Mr. May, since the bargain was fairly concluded with the Copperheads,
+had thought a great deal about the three hundred a-year he was to get
+for his pupil. It almost doubled his income in a moment, and that has a
+great effect upon the imagination. It was true he would have another
+person to maintain on this additional income, but still that additional
+person would simply fill Reginald's place, and it did not at first
+occur to him that what was good enough for himself, Mr. May, of St.
+Roque's, was not good enough for any _parvenu_ on the face of the earth.
+Therefore the additional income represented a great deal of additional
+comfort, and that general expansion of expenditure, not going into any
+special extravagances, but representing a universal ease and enlargement
+which was congenial to him, and which was one of the great charms of
+money in his eyes. To be sure, when he reflected on the matter, he felt
+that the first half-year of Clarence's payment ought to be appropriated
+to that bill, which for the present had brought him so much relief; but
+this would be so entirely to lose the benefit of the money so far as he
+was himself concerned, that it was only in moments of reflection that
+this appeared urgent. The bill to which Tozer's signature had been
+appended did not oppress his conscience. After all, what was it? Not a
+very large sum, a sum which when put to it, and with time before him, he
+could so easily supply; and as for any other consideration, it was
+really, when you came to think of it, a quite justifiable expedient, not
+to be condemned except by squeamish persons, and which being never
+known, could do no harm in the world. He had not harmed anybody by what
+he had done. Tozer, who was quite able to pay it over and over again,
+would never know of it; and in what respect, he asked himself, was it
+worse to have done this than to have a bill really signed by a man of
+straw, whose "value received" meant nothing in the world but a simple
+fiction? Cotsdean was no more than a man of straw; if left to himself,
+he could not pay anything, nor had he anything really to do with the
+business for which his name stood sponsor; and Tozer's name was merely
+placed there in the same fictitious way, without any trouble to Tozer,
+or burden of responsibility. What was the difference, except that it
+saved trouble and anxiety to everybody except the principal in the
+affair--he who ought to bear the brunt? Mr. May recognised this without
+doubt. It was he who had reaped the advantage; and whether Cotsdean was
+the instrument who knew all about it, or Tozer, who did not know
+anything about it, it was he, Mr. May, whose natural duty it was to meet
+the claim and pay the money. He was an honest man; if he was
+occasionally a little slow in his payments, no one could throw any doubt
+upon his character. But, of course, should any unforeseen emergency
+arise, the pupil at once made that straight. Mr. May felt that he had
+only to go to the bank, which generally did not encourage his visits,
+and tell them of his pupil, to have the money at once. Nobody could
+reject such unmistakeable security. So that really there was no further
+occasion for so much as thinking of Tozer; that was provided for; with
+the freest conscience in the world he might put it out of his mind. But
+how he could feel this so strongly, and at the same time revel in the
+consciousness of a fuller purse, more to enjoy, and more to spend, is a
+mystery which it would be difficult to solve. He did so, and many others
+have done so besides him, eating their cake, yet believing that they had
+their cake with the fullest confidence. He was a sensible man, rather
+priding himself on his knowledge of business, with much experience in
+human nature, and a thoughtful sense (fully evidenced in his writings)
+of all the strange inconsistencies and self-deceits of mankind; but he
+dropped into this strain of self-delusion with the calmest satisfaction
+of mind, and was as sure of his own good sense and kindness as if he had
+never in all his life taken a step out of the rigidest of the narrow
+ways of uprightness.
+
+Some part of this illusion, however, was sharply dispelled at a very
+early date. Clarence Copperhead, who was not likely to err by means of
+too much consideration for the feelings of others, grumbled frankly at
+the mid-day meal.
+
+"I don't understand a two o'clock dinner," he said; "it's lunch, that's
+what I call it; and I won't be disagreeable about the kids, but I must
+have my dinner. Bless you! a man can't live without his dinner. What is
+he to do? It is the sort of thing you can look forward to, whatever
+happens. If it's a wet day, or anything of that sort, there's always
+dinner; and after it's over, if there's music or a rubber, why that's
+all very well; or if a man feels a bit sleepy, it doesn't matter. Why,
+dinner's your stand-by, wherever you are. I'd as soon do without my
+head, for my part."
+
+Ursula hastened to tell her father this with dismay in her looks.
+
+"I've always heard that late dinners were so expensive; you require
+twice as many dishes. At two, one has only what is necessary; but at
+seven, you require to have fish, and soup, and _entrees_, and all sorts
+of things, besides the joint. It was disgraceful of him to say it!"
+cried Ursula; "and I think he ought to be made to follow our plan,
+whatever it is, and not do everything he likes here."
+
+"That is all very true," said Mr. May; "but he is right about the
+dinner; it is a great deal more agreeable."
+
+"And expensive, papa."
+
+"Well, perhaps it is a great deal to expect at your age; but if you read
+your cookery-book, as I have often said, when you were reading those
+novels, and learned how to toss up little dishes out of nothing, and
+make _entrees_, and so forth, at next to no expense--"
+
+The tears came into Ursula's eyes at this unjust assault.
+
+"Papa," she said, "you ought to know better at your age. One forgives
+the boys for saying such silly things. How can I toss up little dishes
+out of nothing? If you only knew the price of butter, not to talk of
+anything else. Made dishes are the most expensive things! A leg of
+mutton, for instance; there it is, and when one weighs it, one knows
+what it costs; but there is not one of those _entrees_ but costs
+_shillings_ for herbs and truffles and gravy and forcemeat, and a glass
+of white wine here, and a half pint of claret there. It is all very well
+to talk of dishes made out of nothing. The meat may not be very
+much--and men never think of the other things, I suppose."
+
+"It is management that is wanted," said Mr. May, "to throw nothing away,
+to make use of everything, to employ all your scraps. If you once have a
+good sauce--which is as easy as daylight when you take the trouble--you
+can make all sorts of things out of a cold joint; but women never will
+take the trouble, and that is the secret of poor dinners. Not one in
+fifty will do it. If you wanted really to help us, and improve my
+position, you might, Ursula. I can't afford to fall out with Copperhead,
+he is very important to me just at this moment; and perhaps it is better
+that I should give in to him at once about the late dinner."
+
+"You may say it is not my business," said Ursula, "but we have already
+another maid, and now two dinners--for it is just the same as two
+dinners. He will not be any advantage to you like that, and why should
+he be so much harder to please than we are? Reginald never grumbled, who
+was much better bred and better educated than Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"And with so much money to keep up his dignity," said her father
+mockingly. "No, it is not your business, the cookery-book is your
+business, and how to make the best of everything; otherwise I don't want
+any advice from you."
+
+"What did he say?" cried Janey, rushing in as soon as her father had
+left the room. Ursula, a very general consequence of such interviews,
+was sitting by the fire, very red and excited, with tears glistening in
+her eyes.
+
+"Of course I knew what he would say; he says it is not my business, and
+there are to be late dinners, and everything that man chooses to ask
+for. Oh, it is so hard to put up with it!" cried Ursula, her eyes
+flashing through her tears. "I am to read up the cookery-book and learn
+to make _entrees_ for them; but to say we can't afford it is not my
+business. I wonder whose business it is? It is I who have to go to the
+tradespeople and to bear it all if they grumble; and now this horrible
+man, who dares to tell me the coffee is not strong enough, as if I was a
+barmaid--"
+
+"Barmaids don't have to do with coffee, have they?" said matter-of-fact
+Janey; "but the fact is _he is not a gentleman_; why should you mind?
+What does it matter what a person like that says or does? You said so
+yourself, he is not a bit a gentleman. I wonder what Cousin Anne and
+Cousin Sophy could mean."
+
+"It is not their fault; they think of his mother, who is nice, who sent
+those things; but Mr. Copperhead knew about the things, which was not so
+nice of her, was it? But never mind, we must try to make the best of it.
+Get the cookery-book, Janey; perhaps if you were to read it out loud,
+and we were both to try to fix our mind upon it--for something must be
+done," said Ursula gravely. "Papa will never find it out till all the
+money is spent, but we shall be poorer than we were before we had the
+pupil. Who is that, Janey, at the door?"
+
+It was Phoebe, who came in blooming from the cold, in a furred jacket, at
+which the girls looked with unfeigned admiration. "The skating will soon
+come on in earnest now," she said; "grandmamma is better, and I thought
+I might come and see you. I had a long talk with your brother the other
+day, did he tell you? and I made him know Mr. Northcote, one of our
+people. I know you will turn up your pretty nose, Ursula, at a
+Dissenter."
+
+"I should think so," cried Janey; "we have nothing to do with such
+people, being gentlefolks, have we, Ursula? Oh, I forgot! I beg your
+pardon, I didn't mean to say--"
+
+Phoebe smiled upon her serenely. "I am not angry," she said, "I
+understand all that; and in Carlingford I have no right, I suppose, to
+stand upon being a lady, though I always thought I was one. I am only a
+young woman here, and not so bad either for that, if you will promise,
+Janey, not to call me a young person--"
+
+"Oh, Miss Beecham!"
+
+"Mr. Copperhead is a Dissenter," said Ursula, somewhat sullenly, "we put
+up with him because he is rich. Oh, it is all very disagreeable! I don't
+want to know any new people whatever they are; I find the old ones bad
+enough. Reginald hates him too, a big lazy useless being that treats one
+as if one were a chambermaid!"
+
+"Is it Clarence? It is not quite his fault. His mother is a lady, but
+his father is a brute," said Phoebe, "thinking of nothing but his
+horrible money. Clarence is not so bad. It is because he has no
+imagination, and does not understand other people's feelings; he does
+not mean it, poor fellow; he goes trampling about with his big feet upon
+everybody's toes, and never is a bit the wiser. Here he is--he is coming
+in with your father. I suppose there must be a great deal in race," she
+added with a soft little sigh, "Clarence looks a clown, and your father
+such a gentleman. I suppose I show just the same when I stand beside
+you."
+
+Now Phoebe was well aware that this was not the case, and Ursula's
+indignant disclaimer made her rather laugh, because it was so
+unnecessary, than be pleased by its vehemence. There was an old convex
+mirror opposite which reflected the girls in miniature, making a pretty
+picture of them as they sat together, Ursula with her dark locks, and
+Phoebe in her golden hair, and the tall sharp school-girl, Janey, all
+elbows and angles, short petticoats and grey stockings. Janey was the
+only one in whom there could have been suspected any inferiority of
+race; but her awkwardness was that of youth, and her disordered hair and
+dress belonged also to her age, for she was at that troublesome period
+when frocks are constantly getting too short, and sleeves too scanty.
+Janey was shuffling slowly round the visitor, admiring her at every
+point; her garments were not made as dresses were made in Carlingford.
+Their fit and their texture were alike too perfect for anything that
+ever came out of High Street. The furred jacket had not been seen in
+Grange Lane before. Perhaps it was because the cold had become more
+severe, an ordinary and simple reason--or because Clarence Copperhead,
+who knew her, and in whose eyes it was important to bate no jot of her
+social pretensions, was here; and the furred jacket was beyond
+comparison with anything that had been seen for ages in Carlingford. The
+deep border of fur round the velvet, the warm waddings and paddings, the
+close fit up to the throat, were excellencies which warranted Janey's
+tour of inspection. Phoebe perceived it very well, but did not confuse
+the girl by taking any notice, and in her heart she was herself slightly
+pre-occupied, wondering (as Ursula had done) what the man had come here
+for, and what he would say when he saw her. Both of these young women
+had a secret belief that something romantic, something more than the
+mere prose of reading in the first tutor's house that happened to have
+been suggested to him, had brought young Copperhead to such an unlikely
+place as Carlingford. Ursula had by this time learned to reject this
+hypothesis with much indignation at herself for having entertained it,
+but Phoebe still felt slightly fluttered by this possibility, and was
+eager for the entrance of Clarence. She would know at once what had
+brought him, she said to herself, the moment she caught his eye.
+
+And though Mr. May had reconciled himself so completely to the Tozer
+business, the appearance of Tozer's granddaughter gave him a momentary
+shock. "What did you do with my grandfather's letter? he thought her
+eyes said, and the meeting confused and disturbed him. This, however,
+was only for a moment. He was a man to whom it was always possible to
+make himself agreeable to women, and though he felt so easy in his mind
+about Tozer, still it was evident that to conciliate Tozer's relation,
+and that so influential a relation, was on the whole a good thing to do.
+He was going up to her accordingly with outstretched hands, and the most
+amiable inquiries about her grandmother's health, when, to his surprise,
+he was frustrated by Clarence who had come in before him--his large
+person swelling out, as it always seemed to do when he presented himself
+upon a new scene, with importance and grandeur.
+
+"Miss Beecham!" he said, "really, who would have thought it? Now look
+here, I came to Carlingford thinking there was not a soul I knew in the
+place; and here have you turned up all at once, and Northcote (you know
+Northcote?). It is very queer."
+
+"It is odd, isn't it?" said Phoebe quickly. "I was astonished to see Mr.
+Northcote, and though I heard you were coming I am not less surprised to
+see you." "He has not come for me," she said rapidly to herself, "nor
+for Ursula either; then who is it?" Phoebe demanded in the depths of her
+own bosom; that he should have come for nobody at all, but simply for
+his own purposes, to get a little information put into his head, seemed
+incredible to both the girls. Ursula, for her part, had been angry when
+she discovered his want of meaning, though why she would have found it
+hard to say. But Phoebe, for her part, was not angry. She took this like
+other things of the kind, with great and most philosophical calm, but
+she could not outgrow it all at once. For whom was it? His cousins,
+those Miss Dorsets? But they were much older, and not the kind of women
+for whom such an act was likely. Her mind wandered forth lively and
+curious in search of the necessary clue. She could not consent to the
+fact that no clue was necessary where no mystery was.
+
+"I am glad to see that you venture out in this wintry weather," said Mr.
+May; "you set us all a good example. I am always telling my girls that
+cold weather is no sufficient reason for staying indoors. I wish Ursula
+would do as you do."
+
+"Papa, how can you talk so?" said Janey, indignant, "when you know very
+well it is not the cold that keeps Ursula in, but because she has so
+much to do."
+
+"Oh, yes, one knows the sort of things young ladies have to do," said
+Clarence, with a laugh; "read stories, and look up pretty dresses for
+their parties, eh, Miss Janey? and consult the fashion-books. Oh, of
+course you will deny it; but my mother makes me her confidant, and I
+know that's what you all do."
+
+"To be sure," said Phoebe, "we are not so clever as you are, and can't do
+so many things. We know no Latin or Greek to keep our minds instructed;
+we acknowledge our infirmity; and we couldn't play football to save our
+lives. Football is what you do in this season, when you don't hunt, and
+before the ice is bearing? We are poor creatures; we can't parcel out
+our lives, according as it is time for football or cricket. You must not
+be so severe upon girls for being so inferior to you."
+
+("Oh, don't be too hard upon him,") whispered Ursula, in a parenthesis,
+afraid that this irony should drive the pupil to desperation. ("Hard
+upon him! he will never find it out,") Phoebe whispered back in the same
+tone.
+
+"Oh, hang it all, I don't mean to be severe upon girls," said Clarence,
+pulling his moustache with much complacency; "I am sorry for them, I can
+tell you. It ain't their fault; I know heaps of nice girls who feel it
+horribly. What can they do? they can't go in for cricket and football.
+There ought to be something invented for them. To be sure there is
+lawn-tennis, but that's only for summer. I should go mad, I think, if I
+had nothing to do."
+
+"But you have more brain and more strength, you see, than we have; and
+besides, we are used to it," said Phoebe. "I am afraid, Ursula,
+grandmamma will want me, and I must go."
+
+Here Mr. May said something to his daughter which filled Ursula with
+excitement, mingled of pleasure and displeasure.
+
+"Papa says, will you come to dinner to-morrow at seven? It appears there
+is some one you know coming--a Mr. Northcote. I don't know who he is,
+but it will be very kind if you will come on my account," the girl
+concluded, whispering in her ear, "for how shall I ever get through a
+dinner-party? We never gave one in my life before."
+
+"Of course I will come," said Phoebe. "Dinner-parties are not so common
+here that I should neglect the chance. I must thank Mr. May. But I hope
+you know who Mr. Northcote is," she added, laughing. "I gave an account
+of myself loyally, before I permitted you to ask me; but Mr.
+Northcote--Oh, no! he does not belong to----the lower classes; but he is
+a fiery red-hot----"
+
+"What?" cried eager Janey, pressing to the front. "Radical? I am a
+radical too; and Reginald used to be once, and so was Ursula. Oh, I wish
+it was to-night!" said Janey, clasping her hands.
+
+"Not a radical, but a Dissenter; and you who are a clergyman, Mr. May! I
+like you, oh, so much for it. But I wonder what the people will say."
+
+"My dear Miss Beecham," said the suave Churchman, quite ready to seize
+the chance of making a point for himself, "in the Church, fortunately,
+what the people say has not to be studied, as your unfortunate pastors,
+I am informed, have to do. While Mr. Copperhead is under my roof, I make
+his friends welcome--for his sake first, probably afterwards for their
+own."
+
+"Yes, I asked Northcote," said Clarence; "I never thought they would
+have any objection. He's not a common Dissenter, like the most of those
+fellows that have nothing but their salaries. He's well off; he don't
+require, bless you, to keep people in good temper, and toady to 'em,
+like most do. He's as independent as I am; I don't say that he's quite
+as well off; but money always finds its level. I shouldn't have thought
+of asking May to receive a common Dissenting fellow, like the rest."
+
+Phoebe laughed. It did not occur to the accomplished scion of the house
+of Copperhead, nor to the two girls, who were not experienced enough to
+think of such things, what was the meaning expressed in Phoebe's laugh,
+which was not cheerful. Mr. May himself had the advantage of more
+discrimination.
+
+"I hope you will find that, Dissenter or not, I know what is my duty to
+my friends," he said. "What my guests may possess, or the exact nature
+of their opinions on all points, are not subjects to be discussed by
+me."
+
+"Oh, there is nothing to find fault with in _you_," said Phoebe, with
+less than her usual universal courtesy; "you are always kind, Mr. May;"
+and then she laughed again. "Some people are very clever in finding out
+the vulnerable places," she said.
+
+"She is changed," said Clarence, when she was gone. "She is not the
+jolly girl she used to be. She was always a very jolly girl; ready to
+help a fellow out of a scrape, you know. But Northcote's a fearfully
+clever fellow. You should just hear him talk. He and May will go at it
+hammer and tongs, as sure as fate."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+URSULA'S ENTREES.
+
+
+It would be difficult to describe the anxiety with which that first
+"late dinner" was regarded by Ursula. Janey, too, had thrown herself
+into it heart and soul, until she received the crushing intimation from
+her father, that her company was not expected at this stately meal; a
+discovery which altogether extinguished poor Janey, accustomed to be
+always in the front whatever occurred, and to whom suggestions of things
+that could not be done by a girl who was not "out," had never presented
+themselves. She retired to her own room dissolved in tears when this
+fearful mandate went forth, and for the rest of the morning was good for
+nothing, her eyes being converted into a sort of red pulp, her rough
+hair doubly dishevelled, her whole being run into tears. She was of no
+more use now to go errands between the kitchen and the drawing-room, or
+to read the cookery-book out loud, which was a process upon which Ursula
+depended very much, to fix in her mind the exact ingredients and painful
+method of preparation of the _entrees_ at which she was toiling. Betsy,
+the former maid-of-all-work, now promoted under the title of cook, could
+be trusted to roast the saddle of mutton, which, on consideration that
+it was "a party," had been thought preferable to a leg, and she could
+boil the fish, after a sort, and make good honest family soup, and the
+rice-pudding or apple-tart, which was the nearest approach to luxury
+indulged in at the Parsonage; but as for _entrees_, Betsy did not know
+what they were. She had heard of made dishes indeed, and respectfully
+afar off had seen them when she was kitchen-maid at Lady Weston's--the
+golden age of her youthful inexperience. But this was so long ago, that
+her recollections were rather confusing than useful to Ursula, when she
+went downstairs to make her first heroic effort.
+
+"La, Miss, that ain't how cook used to do 'em at Lady Weston's," Betsy
+said, looking on with unbelieving eyes. She was sure of this negative,
+but she was not sure of anything else, and utterly failed to give any
+active assistance, after driving the girl desperate with her criticisms.
+Altogether it was a confused and unpleasant day. When Reginald came in
+in the morning, his sister had no time to speak to him, so anxious was
+she and pre-occupied, and the drawing-room was being turned upside down,
+to make it look more modern, more elegant, more like the Dorsets'
+drawing-room, which was the only one Ursula knew. The comfortable round
+table in the middle, round which the family had grouped themselves for
+so long, had been pushed aside into a corner, leaving one fresh patch of
+carpet, quite inappropriate, and unconnected with anything else; and
+instead of the work and the school-books which so often intruded there,
+all that was gaudy and uninteresting in the May library had been
+produced to decorate the table; and even a case of wax flowers, a
+production of thirty years since, which had been respectfully
+transferred to a china closet by Ursula's better taste, but which in the
+dearth of ornament she had brought back again. Reginald carried off the
+wax flowers and replaced the table with his own hands, while Ursula
+scorched her cheeks over the _entrees_ downstairs.
+
+"All this for Northcote," he said, when she ran up for a moment, done up
+in a big white apron, her face crimson with the fire and anxiety
+combined: "for Miss Beecham has been here before, and you made no fuss
+about her then."
+
+"She came to tea," said Ursula. "And I got a cake, which was all any one
+could do; but a dinner is a very different thing." Indeed she had by
+this time come to share her father's opinion, that dinner was the right
+and dignified thing in all cases, and that they had been hitherto living
+in a very higgledy-piggledy way. The dinner had gone to her head.
+
+"Then it is for Northcote, as I say," said Reginald. "Do you know who he
+is?"
+
+"A Dissenter," said Ursula, with a certain languor; "but so, you know,
+is Mr. Copperhead, and he is the chief person here now-a-days. Papa
+thinks there is nobody like him. And so is Phoebe."
+
+"Oh, have you come so far as that?" said Reginald, with a little tinge
+of colour in his face. He laughed, but the name moved him. "It is a
+pretty fresh sort of country name, not quite like such an accomplished
+person."
+
+"Oh, that is just like you men, with your injustice! Because she is
+clever you take it amiss; you are all jealous of her. Look at her pretty
+colour and her beautiful hair; if that is not fresh I should like to
+know what is. She might be Hebe instead of Phoebe," said Ursula, who had
+picked up scraps of classical knowledge in spite of herself.
+
+"You are a little goose," said Reginald, pinching her ear, but he liked
+his sister for her generous partizanship. "Mind you don't come to dinner
+with cheeks like that," he said. "I like my sister to be herself, not a
+cook-maid, and I don't believe in _entrees_;" but he went away smiling,
+and with a certain warmth in his breast. He had gone up and down Grange
+Lane many times at the hour of sunset, hoping to meet Phoebe again, but
+that sensible young woman had no mind to be talked of, and never
+appeared except when she was certain the road was clear. This had
+tantalized Reginald more than he chose to avow, even to himself. Pride
+prevented him from knocking at the closed door. The old Tozers were
+fearful people to encounter, people whom to visit would be to damn
+himself in Carlingford; but then the Miss Griffiths were very insipid by
+the side of Phoebe, and the variety of her talk, though he had seen so
+little of her, seemed to have created a new want in his life. He thought
+of a hundred things which he should like to discuss with her--things
+which did not interest Ursula, and which the people about him did not
+understand much. Society at that time, as may be presumed, was in a poor
+way in Carlingford. The Wentworths and Wodehouses were gone, and many
+other nice people; the houses in Grange Lane were getting deserted, or
+falling into inferior hands, as was apparent by the fact that the
+Tozers--old Tozer, the butterman--had got one of them. The other people
+were mostly relics of a bygone state of things: retired old couples, old
+ladies, spinsters, and widows--excellent people, but not lively to talk
+to--and the Griffiths, above mentioned, put up with in consideration of
+tolerable good looks and "fun," became tiresome when anything better was
+to be had. The mere apparition of Phoebe upon the horizon had been enough
+to show Reginald that there were other kinds of human beings in the
+world. It had not occurred to him that he was in love with her, and the
+idea of the social suicide implied in marrying old Tozer's
+granddaughter, had not so much as once entered his imagination. Had he
+thought of it, he would have pulled that imagination up tight, like an
+unruly horse, the thing being too impossible to bear thinking of. But
+this had never entered his mind. He wanted to see Phoebe to talk to her,
+to be near her, as something very new, captivating and full of
+interest--that was all. No one else within his sphere could talk so
+well. The Rector was very great indeed on the reredos question, and the
+necessity of reviving the disused "Church" customs; but Reginald could
+not go so far as he did as to the importance of the reredos, and was
+quite in doubt whether it was not as well for most people to "direct"
+themselves by their own consciences as to be directed by the spiritual
+head of the parish, who was not over wise in his own concerns. His
+father, Reginald knew, could be very agreeable among strangers, but he
+seldom chose to be so in his own house. All this made the advent of
+Phoebe appear to him like a sudden revelation out of a different world.
+He was an Oxford man, with the best of education, but he was a simpleton
+all the same. He thought he saw in her an evidence of what life was like
+in those intellectual professional circles which a man may hope to get
+into only in London. It was not the world of fashion he was aware, but
+he thought in his simplicity that it was the still higher world of
+culture and knowledge, in which genius, and wit, and intellect stood
+instead of rank or riches. How Tozer's granddaughter had got admission
+there, he did not ask himself, but this was what he thought, and to talk
+to her was a new sensation. He was quite unconscious of anything more.
+
+Nobody knew when Ursula took her place at the head of the table in her
+pretty white dress, which she had worn at the Dorsets', how much toil
+and anxiety the preparations had given her. At the last moment, when her
+mind was so far clear of the _entrees_, &c.--as clear as the mind of an
+inexperienced dinner-giver can be, until the blessed moment when they
+are eaten and done with--she had to take Sarah in hand, who was not very
+clear about the waiting, and to instruct her according to her own very
+imperfect knowledge how to fulfil her duties.
+
+"Think it is not a dinner-party at all, but only just our ordinary
+luncheon, and don't get fluttered; and when I look at you like _this_
+come quite close, and I will whisper what you are to do. And oh, Sarah,
+like a good creature, don't break anything!" said Ursula almost with
+tears.
+
+These were all the directions she could give, and they, it must be
+allowed, were somewhat vague. The excitement was becoming to her. She
+sat down with a dreadful flutter in her heart, but with her eyes shining
+and sparkling. Clarence Copperhead, who extended an arm very carelessly
+to take her downstairs, absolutely certain of being a more important
+person than his guest Northcote, was roused for the first time to the
+consciousness that she was very pretty, which he had not found out
+before. "But no style," he said to himself. Phoebe was the one who had
+style. She sat between Mr. May and the stranger, but devoted herself to
+her host chiefly, displaying a gentle contempt of the younger men in his
+presence. No anxiety was in her mind about the dinner. She did not
+follow the fate of those _entrees_ round the table with terrible
+palpitations, as poor Ursula did; and, alas, the _entrees_ were not
+good, and Ursula had the mortification to see the dishes she had taken
+so much trouble with, rejected by one and another. Reginald ate some,
+for which she blessed him, and so did Phoebe, but Mr. May sent his plate
+away with polite execrations.
+
+"Tell your cook she shall go if she sends up such uneatable stuff again,
+Ursula," her father cried from the other end of the table.
+
+Two big tears dashed up hot and scalding into Ursula's eyes. Oh, how she
+wished she could be dismissed like Betsy! She turned those two little
+oceans of trouble piteously, without knowing it, upon Northcote, who had
+said something to her, without being able to reply to him. And
+Northcote, who was but a young man, though he was a fiery political
+Dissenter, and who had come to the Parsonage with a curious mixture of
+pleasure and reluctance, immediately threw down any arms that nature
+might have provided him with, and fell in love with her there and then
+on the spot! to his own absolute consternation. This was how it
+happened. The moment was not romantic, the situation was not sublime. A
+little motherless housekeeper crying because her father scolded her in
+public for a piece of bad cookery. There is nothing in this to make an
+idyll out of; but such as it was, it proved enough for Horace Northcote;
+he yielded himself on the spot. Not a word was said, for Ursula felt
+that if she tried to talk she must cry, and anything further from her
+troubled thoughts than love it would be impossible to imagine; but then
+and there, so far as the young man was concerned, the story began. He
+talked very little for the rest of the meal, and Ursula did not exert
+herself, though she recovered slightly when the mutton turned out to be
+very good, and was commended; but what was the mutton in comparison with
+her _entrees_, which she had made with her own hands, and which were a
+failure? She was reduced to silence, and she thought that the stranger
+at her left hand was nice, because he did not bother her, and was
+content with a very little talk.
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, did you hear papa about those _entrees_?" she cried, when
+they reached the drawing-room; and sitting down on the stool by the fire
+which Janey usually appropriated, she cried, poor child, with
+undisguised passion. "I had made them myself; I had been busy about them
+all day; I read the cookery-book till my head ached, and took such
+pains! and you heard what he said."
+
+"Yes, dear, I heard him; but he did not think what he was saying, it
+never occurred to him that it was you. Don't shake your little head, I
+am sure of it; you know, Ursula, your papa is very agreeable and very
+clever."
+
+"Yes, I know he is clever; and he can be nice when he likes--"
+
+"Did you like it?" cried Janey, bursting in, red-eyed and dishevelled in
+her morning frock. "Oh, no, I am not dressed, I don't mean to, to let
+him get the better of me, and think I care. Only just for a moment to
+see you two. Oh, isn't Phoebe grand in that dress? She is like a picture;
+you are nothing beside her, Ursula. Tell me, is it nice to have dinner
+instead of tea? Did it go off very well, did you enjoy yourselves? Or
+were you all unhappy, sitting round the table, eating beef and mutton,"
+cried Janey with all the scorn of ignorance, "at that ridiculous hour!"
+
+"I was as miserable as I could be," cried Ursula, "I was not happy at
+all. Enjoy myself! with the _entrees_ on my mind, and after what papa
+said. Oh, run away, Janey, and dress, or else go to bed. Papa will be so
+angry if he comes up and finds you here."
+
+"I should like to make him frantic," cried Janey with vindictive force,
+"I should just like to drive him out of his senses! Never mind, yes, I
+am angry; haven't I a right to be angry? I am as tall as Ursula--I hope
+I know how to behave myself--and when there were people coming, and a
+real dinner--"
+
+"Oh, I hear them," cried Ursula in alarm, and Janey flew off, her hair
+streaming behind her. Phoebe put her arm round Ursula, and raised her
+from the stool. She was not perhaps a perfect young woman, but had her
+own ends to serve like other people; yet she had a friendly soul. She
+gave her friend a kiss to preface her admonition, as girls have a way of
+doing.
+
+"I would not let Janey talk so," she said, "I think you should not talk
+so yourself, Ursula, if you will forgive me, of your papa; he is very
+nice, and so clever. I should try all I could to please him, and I
+should not let any one be disrespectful to him if it was I."
+
+"Oh, Phoebe, if you only knew--"
+
+"Yes, I know, gentlemen don't understand often; but we must do our duty.
+He is nice, and clever, and handsome, and you ought to be proud of him.
+Dry your eyes, here they are really, coming upstairs. You must be
+good-humoured and talk. He is ever so much nicer than the young men,"
+said Phoebe, almost loud enough to be heard, as Clarence Copperhead,
+sauntering in advance of the others with his large shirt-front fully
+displayed, came into the room. He came in half whistling in serene
+indifference. Phoebe had "style," it was true; but she was only a
+Dissenting parson's daughter, and what were two such girls to Clarence
+Copperhead? He came in whistling an opera air, which he let drop only
+after he was well inside the door.
+
+"Miss Beecham, let us have some music. I know you can play," he said.
+
+"If Miss May likes," said Phoebe, covering his rudeness; and then she
+laughed, and added, "if you will accompany me."
+
+"Does Mr. Copperhead play too?"
+
+"Oh beautifully. Has he not let you see his music? Won't you bring it
+here and let us look over it? I dare say there are some things we can
+play together."
+
+"You can play everything," said the young man. "And I'll bring my
+violin, if you like."
+
+He was delighted; he quickened his steps almost into a run as he went
+away.
+
+"You should not laugh at Mr. Copperhead," Ursula retorted on her friend.
+"You should be good-humoured, too. You are better than I am, but you are
+not quite good, after all."
+
+"Violin!" said Mr. May. "Heaven and earth! is there going to be any
+fiddling? Miss Beecham, I did not expect you to bring such a horror upon
+me. I thought I had nothing but good to expect from you."
+
+"Wait till you hear him, sir," said Phoebe.
+
+Mr. May retired to the far corner of the room. He called young Northcote
+to him, who was standing beside Ursula, eager to talk, but not knowing
+how to begin. It was bad enough to be thus withdrawn from his chance of
+making himself agreeable; but the reader may imagine what was the
+Dissenter's feelings when Mr. May, with a smile, turned upon him. Having
+given him a (tolerably) good dinner, and lulled him into a belief that
+his sins against the family were unknown, he looked at him, smiling, and
+began.
+
+"Mr. Northcote, the first time I saw you, you were discoursing at an
+Anti-Establishment Meeting in the Town Hall."
+
+Northcote started. He blushed fiery red. "It is quite true. I wished to
+have told you; not to come here on false pretences; but Copperhead--and
+your son has been very kind--"
+
+"Then I suppose your views are modified. Clergymen no longer appear to
+you the demons in human shape you thought them then; and my son, in
+particular, has lost his horns and hoofs?"
+
+"Mr. May, you are very severe; but I own there is reason--"
+
+"It was you who were severe. I was not quite sure of you till Copperhead
+brought you in. Nay," said the clergyman, rubbing his hands; "do you
+think that I object to the utterance of a real opinion? Certainly not.
+As for Reginald, it was the thing that decided him; I leave you to find
+out how; so that we are positively in your debt. But I hope you don't
+fiddle too. If you like to come with me to my study--"
+
+Northcote gave a longing look round the room, which had become all at
+once so interesting to him. Mr. May was too clear-sighted not to see it.
+He thought, quite impartially, that perhaps it was an excusable
+weakness, even though it was his own society that was the counter
+attraction. They were two nice-looking girls. This was how he put it,
+being no longer young, and father to one of them; naturally, the two
+young men would have described the attraction of Phoebe and Ursula more
+warmly. Clarence Copperhead, who had come in with an armful of music and
+his fiddle, was not thinking of the girls, nor of anything but the sweet
+sounds he was about to make--and himself. When he began to tune his
+violin, Mr. May got up in dismay.
+
+"This is more than mortal can stand," he said, making as though he would
+have gone away. Then he changed his mind, for, after all, he was the
+chaperon of his motherless girl. "Get me the paper, Ursula," he said. It
+would be hard to tell with what feelings Northcote contemplated him. He
+was the father of Ursula, yet he dared to order her about, to bring the
+tears to her eyes. Northcote darted the same way as she was going, and
+caught at the paper on a side-table, and brought it hastily. But alas,
+that was last week's paper! he did not save her the trouble, but he
+brought upon himself a gleam of mischief from her father's eyes. "Mr.
+Northcote thinks me a tyrant to send you for the paper," he said, as he
+took it out of her hands. "Thank him for his consideration. But he was
+not always so careful of your peace of mind," he added, with a laugh.
+
+Ursula looked at him with a wondering question in her eyes; but those
+tears were no longer there which had gone to Northcote's heart.
+
+"I don't know what papa means," she said, softly; and then, "I want to
+beg your pardon, please. I was very silly. Will you try to forget it,
+and not tell any one, Mr. Northcote? The truth was, I thought I had done
+them nicely, and I was vexed. It was very childish," she said, shaking
+her head with something of the same moisture floating back over the
+lustre in her pretty eyes.
+
+"I will never tell any one, you may be sure," said the young man; but
+Ursula did not notice that he declined to give the other pledge, for
+Reginald came up just then with wrath in his eyes.
+
+"Is that idiot going to fiddle all night?" he cried (poor Clarence had
+scarcely begun); "as if anybody wanted to hear him and his tweedle-dees.
+Miss Beecham plays like St. Cecilia, Ursula; and I want to speak to her
+about something. Can't you get that brute beguiled away?"
+
+Clarence was the one who was _de trop_ in the little party; but he
+fiddled beatifically, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, without the
+slightest suspicion of the fact, while Phoebe accompanied him, with
+little smiles at her friends, and shrugs of her shoulders. Reginald felt
+very strongly, though for the first time, that she was over doing the
+Scriptural maxim of being all things to all men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE.
+
+
+After this dinner-party, such as it was, the Parsonage became gradually
+the centre of a little society, such as sometimes forms in the most
+accidental way in a house where there are young men and young women, and
+of which no one can say what momentous results may arise. They came
+together fortuitously, blown to one centre by the merest winds of
+circumstance, out of circles totally different and unlike. Why it was
+that Mr. May, so good a Churchman, permitted two people so entirely out
+of his sphere to become his habitual guests and the companions of his
+children was very perplexing to the outside world, who half in mere
+surprise, and a little in despite, wondered and commented till they were
+tired, or till they had become so familiar with the strange spectacle
+that it ceased to strike them. A rich pupil might be forgiven for being
+a Dissenter, indeed in Carlingford as elsewhere money made up for most
+deficiencies; but even natural complacency towards the rich pupil
+scarcely accounted for the reception of the others. The neighbours could
+never be quite sure whether the family at the Parsonage knew or did not
+know that their new friend Northcote was not only acting as Minister of
+Salem Chapel, but was the assailant of Reginald May at the
+Anti-Establishment Meeting, and various persons in Grange Lane held
+themselves for a long time on the tip-toe of preparation, ready to
+breathe to Mr. May the painful intelligence, in case he was unaware of
+it. But he never gave them the opportunity. Honestly, he had forgotten
+the speaker's name at first, and only recognized him when he was
+introduced by young Copperhead; and then the situation was piquant and
+amused him, especially the evident confusion and consternation of the
+culprit when found out.
+
+"I don't know what he thinks he has done to you," said Clarence, "I
+could scarcely make him come in. He says he is sure you can't wish to
+see him."
+
+This was two days after the dinner, when Horace Northcote came to leave
+a respectful card, hoping that he might see Ursula at a door or window.
+Clarence had seized upon him and dragged him in, in spite of himself.
+
+"On the contrary, I am very glad to see him," said Mr. May, with a
+smile. He looked at the young Dissenter with a jeer in his eyes. He
+liked to punish him, having suddenly perceived that this jeer was much
+more potent than any serious penalty. "If he will promise not to slay
+me, I shan't quarrel with him." Mr. May was in such good spirits at this
+moment that he could afford to joke; his own magnanimity, and the
+other's confused looks of guilt, overcame his gravity. "Come back
+again," he said, holding out his hand; and though Horace retired for the
+moment utterly confounded, yet the attractions of the cheerful house
+overcame, after a while, his sense of humiliation and inappropriateness.
+If the injured family had condoned his offence, why should he mind? and
+the pleasant girlish friendliness, without any _arriere pensee_, of
+Ursula, was enough to have set any man at his ease; the facts of the
+case being that Mrs. Hurst was away upon a long visit, and that, having
+no other gossip within the range of her acquaintance, Ursula did not
+know. Reginald, who did, had the same sense of magnanimity as his father
+had, and began to like the society of the congenial yet different spirit
+which it was so strange to him to find under a guise so unlike his own.
+And Northcote, on his side, finding no house to which he could betake
+himself among those whom Phoebe called "our own people;" found a refuge,
+which gradually became dearer and dearer to him, at the Parsonage, and
+in his profound sense of the generosity of the people who had thus
+received him, felt his own partizanship wax feebler and feebler every
+day. He seemed to see the ground cut from under his feet, as he watched
+the young chaplain at his work. Mr. May, to be sure, was no example of
+pastoral diligence, but he was a pleasant companion, and had put himself
+from the first in that position of moral superiority which naturally
+belongs to an injured person who can forgive heartily and without
+prejudice. And Ursula! He did not venture to call her Ursula, even in
+the secret depths of his heart. There a pronoun was enough, as, indeed,
+incipient Love generally finds it. She spoke to him, smiled at him in
+the street; and immediately life became a _Vita Nuova_ to him. The young
+Dissenter was as Dante, and simple Ursula, with her housekeeping books
+in her hand, became another Beatrice. It is not every one who has the
+capacity for this perfect and absorbing sentiment; but Horace Northcote
+had, and for a long time Ursula was as unconscious of it as heart could
+desire.
+
+Phoebe's admission to the house had been more simple still. A girlish
+fancy on Ursula's part, a fit of good-nature on her father's, and then
+that secret thread of connection with Tozer which no one knew of, and
+the coming of Clarence Copperhead, to please whom Mr. May permitted
+himself to be persuaded to do much; and in addition to all this, her
+good looks, her pretty manners, her cleverness and the deference she had
+always shown in the proper quarter. Mr. May did not enter into the lists
+with his son, or think of offering himself as a suitor to Phoebe; but he
+liked to talk to her, and to watch what he called "her little ways," and
+to hear her play when Clarence and his violin were otherwise disposed
+of. He was an experienced man, priding himself on a knowledge of human
+nature, and Phoebe's "little ways" amused him greatly. What did she
+mean?--to "catch" Clarence Copperhead, who would be a great match, or to
+fascinate Northcote? Oddly enough Mr. May never thought of Reginald,
+though that young man showed an eagerness to talk to Phoebe which was
+more than equal with his own, and had always subjects laid up ready to
+discuss with her, when he could find the opportunity. Sometimes he would
+go up to her in the midst of the little party and broach one of these
+topics straight on end, without preface or introduction, as which was
+her favourite play of Shakespeare, and what did she think of the
+character of King Lear? It was not very wise, not any wiser than his
+neighbour was, who made pretty little Ursula into the ideal lady, the
+most gentle and stately figure in poetry; and yet no doubt there was
+something in both follies that was a great deal better than wisdom. The
+society formed by these two young pairs, with Clarence Copperhead as a
+heavy floating balance, and Mr. May and Janey--one philosophical, wise
+and mistaken; the other sharp-sighted and seeing everything--as
+spectators, was very pleasant to the close little coterie themselves,
+and nobody else got within the charmed circle. They grew more and more
+intimate daily, and had a whole vocabulary of domestic jokes and
+allusions which no one else could understand. It must be allowed,
+however, that the outside world was not pleased with this arrangement on
+either side of the question. The Church people were shocked with the
+Mays for harbouring Dissenters under any circumstances whatever, and
+there had not been a Minister at Salem Chapel for a long time so
+unpopular as Horace Northcote, who was always "engaged" when any of the
+connection asked him to tea, and preached sermons which went over their
+heads, and did not remember them when he met them in the street. Tozer
+was about the only one of the congregation who stood up for the young
+man. The others thanked Heaven that "he was but tempory," and on the
+whole they were right, for certainly he was out of place in his present
+post.
+
+As for Clarence Copperhead, he led an agreeable life enough among all
+these undercurrents of feeling, which he did not recognise with any
+distinctness. He was comfortable enough, pleased with his own
+importance, and too obtuse to perceive that he bored his companions; and
+then he considered himself to be slightly "sweet upon" both the girls.
+Ursula was his favourite in the morning, when he embarrassed her much by
+persistently seeking her company whenever liberated by her father; but
+Phoebe was the queen of the evening, when he would get his fiddle with an
+unfailing complacency which drove Reginald frantic. Whether it was mere
+good-nature or any warmer impulse, Phoebe was strangely tolerant of these
+fiddlings, and would go on playing for hours with serene composure,
+never tired and never impatient. Yet poor Clarence was not an
+accompanyist to be coveted. He was weak in the ear and defective in
+science, but full of a cheerful confidence which was as good as genius.
+
+"Never mind, Miss Phoebe," he would say cheerfully, when he had broken
+down for the twentieth time, "play on and I'll catch you up." He had
+thus a series of trysting places in every page or two, which might have
+been very laughable to an indifferent spectator, but which aggravated
+the Mays, father and son, to an intolerable extent. They were the two
+who suffered. As for Horace Northcote, who was not a great talker, it
+was a not disagreeable shield for his silent contemplation of Ursula,
+and the little things which from time to time he ventured to say to her.
+For conversation he had not the thirst which animated Reginald, and
+Ursula's talk, though lively and natural, was not like Phoebe's; but
+while the music went on he could sit by her in a state of silent
+beatitude, now and then saying something to which Ursula replied if she
+was disposed, or if she was not disposed put aside by a little shake of
+her head, and smiling glance at the piano. Sometimes it was simple
+wilfulness that made her silent; but Northcote set it down to an
+angelical sweetness which would not wound even the worst of performances
+by inattention. They were happy enough sitting there under the shelter
+of the piano, the young man absorbed in the dreams of a young love, the
+girl just beginning to realize the adoration which she was receiving,
+with a timid perception of it--half-frightened, half-grateful. She was
+in spite of herself amused by the idea only half understood, and which
+she could scarcely believe, that this big grown man, so much more
+important than herself in everybody's eyes, should show so much respect
+to a little girl whom her father scolded, whom Reginald sent trotting
+about on all sorts of errands, and whom Cousin Anne and Cousin Sophy
+considered a child. It was very strange, a thing to call forth
+inextinguishable laughter, and yet with a strange touch of sweetness in
+it, which almost made her cry in wondering gratitude. What she thought
+of him, Ursula did not ask herself; that he should think _like this_ of
+her was the bewildering, extraordinary, ridiculous fact that at present
+filled her girlish head.
+
+But if they were sweet to Northcote, these evenings were the crown of
+Clarence Copperhead's content and conscious success; he was supremely
+happy, caressing his fiddle between his cheek and his shoulder, and
+raising his pale eyes to the ceiling in an ecstasy. The music, and the
+audience, and the accompanyist all together were delightful to him. He
+could have gone on he felt not only till midnight, but till morning, and
+so on to midnight again, with short intervals for refreshment. Every ten
+minutes or so there occurred a break in the continuity of the strain,
+and a little dialogue between the performers.
+
+"Ah, yes, I have missed a line; never mind; go on, Miss Phoebe, I will
+make up to you," he said.
+
+"It is those accidentals that have been your ruin," said Phoebe laughing;
+"it is a very hard passage, let us turn back and begin again," and then
+the audience would laugh, not very sweetly, and (some of them) make
+acrid observations; but the pianist was good-nature itself, and went
+back and counted and kept time with her head, and with her hand when she
+could take it from the piano, until she had triumphantly tided him over
+the bad passage, or they had come to the point of shipwreck again.
+During these labours, Phoebe, who was really a good musician, ought to
+have suffered horribly; but either she did not, or her good-nature was
+stronger than her good taste, for she went on serenely, sometimes for
+hours together, while her old and her young admirers sat secretly
+cursing (in such ways as are becoming to a clergyman) each in his
+corner. Perhaps she had a slight degree of pleasure in the evident power
+she had over father and son; but it was difficult fully to understand
+her views at this somewhat bewildering period of her life, in which she
+was left entirely to her own resources. She was herself groping a little
+through paths of uncertain footing, enjoying herself a great deal, but
+not seeing clearly where it led to, and having no definite purpose, or
+chart of those unknown countries in her mind.
+
+"How you can go on," said Reginald, on one of these occasions, having at
+length managed to seize upon and get her into a corner, "for hours,
+having your ears sacrificed and your patience tried by these fearful
+discords, and smile through it, is a mystery which I cannot fathom! If
+it was only consideration for your audience, that might be enough to
+move any one--but yourself--"
+
+"I don't seem to feel it so very much myself."
+
+"And yet you are a musician!"
+
+"Don't be too hard upon me, Mr May. I only play--a little. I am not like
+my cousins in the High Street, who are supposed to be very clever at
+music; and then poor Mr. Copperhead is a very old friend."
+
+"Poor Mr. Copperhead! poor us, you mean, who have to listen--and you,
+who choose to play."
+
+"You are very vindictive," she said, with a piteous look. "Why should
+you be so vindictive? I do what I can to please my friends, and--there
+is no doubt about what poor Clarence likes best; if you were to show me
+as plainly what you would like--_quite_ plainly, as he does----"
+
+"Don't you know?" said Reginald, with glowing eyes. "Ah, well! if I may
+show you plainly--quite plainly, with the same results, you may be sure
+not to be left long in doubt. Talk to me! it is easier, and not so
+fatiguing. Here," said the young man, placing a chair for her; "he has
+had your patient services for two hours. Do only half as much for me."
+
+"Ah! but talking is a different thing, and more--difficult--and
+more--personal. Well!" said Phoebe, with a laugh and a blush, taking the
+chair, "I will try, but you must begin; and I cannot promise, you know,
+for a whole hour."
+
+"After you have given that fellow two! and such a fellow! If it was
+Northcote, I might be equally jea--displeased, but I could understand
+it, for he is not a fool."
+
+"I think," said Phoebe, looking towards the other end of the room, where
+Northcote was occupied as usual close to Ursula's work-basket, "that Mr.
+Northcote manages to amuse himself very well without any help of mine."
+
+"Ah!" cried Reginald, startled; for of course it is needless to say that
+the idea of any special devotion to his little sister had never entered
+his mind. He felt disposed to laugh at first when the idea was suggested
+to him, but he gave a second look, and fellow-feeling threw a certain
+enlightenment upon the subject. "That would never do," he said gravely;
+"I wonder I never thought of it before."
+
+"Why would it not do? She is very nice, and he is clever and a rising
+man; and he is very well off; and you said just now he was not a fool."
+
+"Nevertheless it would never do," said Reginald, opposing her pointedly,
+as he had never opposed her before; and he remained silent for a whole
+minute, looking across the room, during which long interval Phoebe sat
+demurely on the chair where he had placed her, looking at him with a
+smile on her face.
+
+"Well?" she said at length, softly, "it was talk you said you wanted,
+Mr. May; but you are not so ready to tune up your violin as Mr.
+Copperhead, though I wait with my fingers on the piano, so to speak."
+
+"I beg your pardon!" he cried, and then their eyes met, and both
+laughed, though, as far as Reginald was concerned, in an embarrassed
+way.
+
+"You perceive," said Phoebe, rising, "that it is not nearly so easy to
+please you, and that you don't know half so exactly what you want, as
+Clarence Copperhead does, though you abuse him, poor fellow. I have got
+something to say to Ursula! though, perhaps, she does not want me any
+more than you do."
+
+"Don't give me up for one moment's distraction; and it was your fault,
+not mine, for suggesting such a startling idea."
+
+Phoebe shook her head, and waved her hand as a parting salutation, and
+then went across the room to where Ursula was sitting, where Horace
+Northcote at least found her very much in his way. She began at once to
+talk low and earnestly on some subject so interesting that it absorbed
+both the girls in a way which was very surprising and unpleasant to the
+young men, neither of whom had been able to interest the one whose
+attention he was specially anxious to secure half so effectually.
+Northcote, from the other side of the table, and Reginald from the other
+end of the room, gazed and gloomed with discomfited curiosity, wondering
+what it could be; while Clarence strutted uneasily about the piano,
+taking up his fiddle now and then, striking a note, and screwing up his
+strings into concord, with many impatient glances. But still the girls
+talked. Was it about their dresses or some nonsense, or was it a more
+serious subject, which could thus be discussed without masculine help?
+but this matter they never fathomed, nor have they found out till this
+hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+SOCIETY.
+
+
+Notwithstanding such little social crosses, however, the society at the
+Parsonage, as thus constituted, was very agreeable. Mr. May, though he
+had his faults, was careful of his daughter. He sat in the drawing-room
+every evening till she retired, on the nights their visitors came, and
+even when it was Clarence only who remained, an inmate of the house, and
+free to go and come as he pleased. Ursula, he felt, must not be left
+alone, and though it is uncertain whether she fully appreciated the care
+he took of her, this point in his character is worth noting. When the
+young party went out together, to skate, for instance, as they did, for
+several merry days, Reginald and Janey were, he considered, sufficient
+guardians for their sister. Phoebe had no chaperon--"Unless you will take
+that serious office upon you, Ursula," she said, shrugging her shoulders
+prettily; but she only went once or twice, so well was she able, even
+when the temptation was strongest, to exercise self-denial, and show her
+perfect power of self-guidance. As for old Tozer and his wife, the idea
+of a chaperon never entered their homely head. Such articles are
+unnecessary in the lower levels of society. They were anxious that their
+child should enjoy herself, and could not understand the reason of her
+staying at home on a bright frosty day, when the Mays came to the door
+in a body to fetch her.
+
+"No, if they'd have gone down on their knees, nor if I had gone down on
+mine, would that girl have left me," cried the old lady, with tears in
+her eyes. "She do behave beautiful to her old granny. If so be as I
+haven't a good night, no power on earth would make that child go
+pleasuring. It's 'most too much at her age."
+
+But Phoebe confided to Ursula that it was not altogether anxiety about
+her grandmother.
+
+"I have nobody of my own to go with. If I took grandpapa with me, I
+don't think it would mend matters. Once or twice it was possible, but
+not every day. Go and enjoy yourself, dear," she said, kissing her
+friend.
+
+Ursula was disposed to cry rather than to enjoy herself, and appealed to
+Reginald, who was deeply touched by Phoebe's fine feeling. He took his
+sister to the ice, but that day he went so far as to go back himself to
+No. 6, actually into the house, to make a humble protest, yet to
+insinuate his admiration. He was much impressed by, and approved highly
+of this reticence, having a very high standard of minor morals for
+ladies, in his mind, like most young men.
+
+"She is not one of the girls who rush about everywhere, and whom one is
+sick of seeing," he said.
+
+"I think it is very silly," cried Janey. "Who cares for a chaperon! and
+why shouldn't Phoebe have her fun, like the rest, instead of shutting
+herself up in a stuffy room with that dreadful old Mrs. Tozer?"
+
+Her brother reproved her so sharply for this speech that Janey withdrew
+in tears, still asking "Why?" as she rushed to her room. Clarence
+Copperhead, for his part, stroked his moustache and said it was a bore.
+
+"For she is the best skater of all the ladies here," he said. "I beg
+your pardon, Miss Ursula. She's got so much go in her, and keeps it up
+like fun. She's the best I know for keeping a fellow from getting tired;
+but as it's Thursday, I suppose she'll be there in the evening."
+
+Clarence never called them anything but Miss Ursula and Miss Phoebe,
+dropping the prefix in his thoughts. He felt that he was "a little sweet
+upon" them both; and, indeed, it had gleamed dully across his mind that
+a man who could marry them both need never be bored, but was likely
+always to find something "to do." Choice, however, being necessary, he
+did not see his way so clearly as to which he would choose. "The
+mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley sheep are fatter," he said to
+himself, if not in these immortal words, yet with full appreciation of
+the sentiment. Ursula began to understand dinners with a judicious
+intelligence, which he felt was partly created by his own instructions
+and remarks; but in the evening it was Phoebe who reigned supreme. She
+was so sensible that most likely she could invent a _menu_ all out of
+her own head, he thought, feeling that the girl who got him through the
+"Wedding March" with but six mistakes, was capable of any intellectual
+feat. He had not the slightest doubt that it was in his power to marry
+either of the girls as soon as he chose to intimate his choice; and in
+the mean time he found it very agreeable to maintain a kind of mental
+possibility of future proprietorship of them both.
+
+And thus the pleasant life ran on in the most agreeable absorption and
+abstraction from the world outside. "Don't ask any one else; why should
+we have any one else?" they all said, except Janey, who had condescended
+to appear in the evening in her best frock, though she was not admitted
+at dinner, and who thought a few additional guests, and a round game now
+and then, would be delightful variations upon the ordinary programme;
+but the others did not agree with her. They became more and more
+intimate, mingling the brother and sister relationship with a something
+unnamed, unexpressed, which gave a subtle flavour to their talks and
+flirtations. In that incipient stage of love-making this process is very
+pleasant even to the spectators, full of little excitements and
+surprises, and sharp stings of momentary quarrel, and great revolutions,
+done with a single look, which are infinitely amusing to the lookers-on.
+The house became a real domestic centre, thought of by each and all with
+tender sentiment, such as made its owners somewhat proud of it, they
+could scarcely tell why. Even Mr. May felt a certain complacence in the
+fact that the young men were so fond of the Parsonage, and when he heard
+complaints of the coldness and dullness of domestic intercourse, smiled,
+and said that he did not feel it so, with that pleasant sense of
+something superior in himself to cause this difference, which is sweet
+to the greatest Stoic; for he was not as yet enlightened as to the
+entire indifference of the little circle to any charm in him, and would
+have been utterly confounded had any one told him that to the grave and
+reflective Northcote, whom he had treated with such magnanimous charity,
+binding him (evidently) by bonds of gratitude to himself for ever, it
+was little Ursula, and not her father, who was the magnet of attraction.
+Mr. May was a clever man, and yet it had not occurred to him that any
+comparison between his own society and that of Ursula was possible.
+Ursula! a child! He would have laughed aloud at the thought.
+
+But all this pleasant society, though father and daughter both agreed
+that it cost nothing, for what is a cake and a cup of tea? and the late
+dinners and the extra maid, and the additional fires, and general
+enlargement of expenditure made immense inroads, it must be allowed,
+into the additional income brought by Clarence Copperhead. The first
+quarter's payment was spent, and more than spent, before it came. The
+money that was to be laid up for that bill of Tozer's--perhaps--had now
+no saving peradventure left in it; for the second half would not be due
+till two months after the Tozer bill, and would but be half, even if
+procurable at once. Mr. May felt a slight shock while this gleamed
+across his mind, but only for a moment. There was still a month, and a
+month is a long time, and in the mean time James was almost certain to
+send something, and his Easter offerings might, probably would, this
+year be something worth having. Why they should be better than usual
+this year Mr. May did not explain to himself; his head was a little
+turned it must be supposed by the momentary chance of having more money
+in his hands than he used to have. Already he had got into the habit of
+ordering what he wanted somewhat recklessly, without asking himself how
+the things he ordered were to be paid for, and, as so often happened,
+followed up that first tampering with the rules of right and wrong by a
+general recklessness of the most dangerous kind. He was not so much
+alone as he had been; his house, in which he was infinitely more amiable
+than of old, had become more pleasant to him; he liked his life better.
+His son was independent with an income of his own, and therefore he felt
+much more respect for him, and treated him as a companion. His daughter
+had developed, if not in the way of _entrees_, a talent for dinners
+which raised her very much in his eyes; and naturally the regard shown
+to her by the visitors reacted upon Mr. May, though it had not crossed
+his mind as yet that any one could be in love with Ursula. All this made
+him happier in spite of himself. When you begin to esteem and be proud
+of your children your life is naturally happier than when you scoff and
+jeer at them, and treat them as creatures of inferior mould to yourself.
+Mr. May found out all at once that Reginald was a fine young fellow,
+that Ursula was pretty and pleasant, and that droll Janey, with her
+elf-locks and angles, was amusing at least, if no more. As for the
+little ones, they were considerably thrust into a corner when the elder
+youth forced itself into the front. They learned their lessons in
+corners, and had their tea by themselves, and were much humbled and
+subdued from the moment in which their school-books and toys had
+meandered over the whole house, and their looks and likings had been
+just as important as anything else. When there is no mother to protect
+them, the elder sister's first lover marks a terribly critical period
+for the children of the house. They were banished from the
+drawing-room, except on special occasions, when they came _en grande
+tenue_, in their best things, and were jeered at by Mr. Copperhead. He
+called them "the kids," both Amy and Robin were aware, and they resented
+it unspeakably. Thus the inward happiness of the Mays confined itself to
+the upper regions of the family. Even Betsy regretted the days when, if
+she had more to do, she had at least "her kitchen to herself," and
+nobody to share the credit. There was more fuss and more worry, if a
+trifle less labour, and the increase in consequence which resulted from
+being called cook, instead of maid-of-all-work, was scarcely so sweet in
+possession as had seemed in prospect.
+
+"Them late dinners" were the object of her perpetual railings; "oh, how
+much more comfortable it was, if gentry would but think so, to have your
+dinner at two, and get done with your washing up before you was cleaned,
+or had any occasion to bother yourself about your cap!" When little Amy
+cried over the loneliness of "the children's tea," which they frequently
+had to pour out for themselves, Betty gave her a cake and a kiss, and
+felt disposed to cry too.
+
+"And she don't know, poor child, not the half," said Betty, which was a
+kind of oracular sentence difficult for Betty herself to understand. The
+children had nothing to do with the late dinner; they were sent to bed
+earlier than they used to be, and scolded if any distant sounds of romps
+made itself audible at seven o'clock when their elders were dining; and
+then when the little ones went injured to bed, and Johnnie, indignant,
+worked at his lessons by himself in a corner of the old nursery, deeply
+aware that his school-boy boots and jacket were quite unfit for the
+drawing-room, the grown-up young people ran lightly upstairs, all smiles
+and pleasure, and those delightful evenings began.
+
+The children sometimes could not get to sleep for the piano and the
+raspings of the fiddle, which sounds of mirth suggested nothing but the
+wildest enjoyment to them; and when the door opened now and then, bursts
+of laughter and mingling voices would come out like the sounds the Peri
+heard at the gates of Paradise. The elder ones were happy; their little
+atoms of individual life had all united for the moment into one sunshiny
+and broad foundation, on which everything seemed to rest with that
+strange sense of stability and continuance, which such a moment of
+happiness, though it carries every element of change in it, almost
+invariably brings. It felt as if it might go on for ever, and yet the
+very sentiment that inspired it made separation and convulsion
+inevitable--one of those strange paradoxes which occur every day.
+
+Thus the year crept round, and winter melted away with all its
+amusements, and spring began. Mr. Northcote's time at Salem Chapel was
+more than half over, a fact on which the congregation congratulated
+itself much.
+
+"If so be as he had a settled charge of his own, I shouldn't be sorry to
+see him gone to-morrow," said one of the recent members.
+
+"Settled charge! You take my word," said Mrs. Pigeon, who was getting
+old, but always continued a woman of spirit, "he'll never have a settled
+charge in our connection. He carries on here, 'cause he can't help
+hisself, but he ain't cut out for a pastor, and he's a deal too thick
+with them Church folks. A parson, too! I'd 'a thought he had more
+pride."
+
+"Nay, now, but I don't wish him no harm," said the first speaker; "he's
+a civil spoken gentleman if he ain't so free and so pleasant as a body
+looks for."
+
+"Civil spoken!" said the other; "one of our own ministers in our own
+connection! Bless you! they're our servants, that's what they are. I'd
+like to see one on 'em as 'ud take upon him to be civil spoken to me."
+
+"Well, I wouldn't go as far as that," cried Mrs. Brown; "we pays 'em
+their salary, and we 'as a right to a civil word: but a minister's a
+minister, and I'll show him respect as long as he deserves it. I ain't
+one for being too hard upon ministers, especially when they're young
+men, as has their temptations like, we all know."
+
+"I don't know what you call temptations," said Mrs. Pigeon; "licking the
+dust under the feet of a Church parson! and after speaking up so bold
+against young May and them old cheats at the College. I wish he was gone
+from here, that's what I wish, and our old pastor (if we can't get none
+better) back again. He was one as knew his place, and wouldn't have set
+his foot inside one of them Parsonages. Parsonages, indeed! kept up with
+our money. If ever there was an iniquity on this earth it's a State
+Church, and all the argufying in the world won't put that out of me."
+
+It happened that Northcote was in the poulterer's shop, talking to the
+poulterer himself at this moment, and he heard the conclusion of this
+speech delivered with much unction and force. Such sentiments would have
+charmed him three months ago, and probably he would have thought this
+uneducated but strenuous partisan an extremely intelligent woman. He
+hurried away now with an uncomfortable smile. If an opinion is the
+right opinion, why should it have an air of absurdity thrown upon it by
+being thus uttered in ungrammatical language by a poulterer's wife?
+Truth is the same by whomsoever stated; but yet, was not dogmatism on
+any subject the sign of an inexperienced and uncultivated, or a rude and
+untutored mind? What did this woman know of the Parsonage, which she
+supposed she helped to pay for? What had he himself known three months
+ago of Reginald May, whom he had assaulted so savagely? This Church
+family, which Mrs. Pigeon knew no better than to abuse, with what divine
+charity it had received himself, notwithstanding his public sin against
+it. When he thought of that public sin, Northcote's countenance glowed
+with shame, and it continued to glow with a more agreeable warmth when
+he escaped into thought of the goodness which the Mays had shown him.
+Had there ever been such goodness? Was there ever so sweet a home of the
+heart as that faded, homely drawing-room? His heart beat high, his steps
+quickened; they carried him down Grange Lane in a path so often trod
+that he felt there must be a special track of his own under the garden
+walls, going Parsonage way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+LOVE-MAKING.
+
+
+Mrs. Sam Hurst had been a long time out of Carlingford; she had been
+paying visits among her friends, with whom, though the young Mays would
+never believe it, she was very popular, for she was not ill-natured in
+her gossip, and she was often amusing in the fulness of her interest in
+other people. It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and
+softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange Lane; the
+doors of the houses began to be left open, and the girls at the
+Parsonage had taken to running out and in without their hats, gleaming
+through the little shrubbery in front, and round to the back garden. One
+evening it was so mild that they all (which comprehensive term,
+sometimes extended to "the whole party," began to be commonly used among
+them with that complacence in the exclusiveness of their little coterie,
+which every "set" more or less feels) came downstairs in a body, and
+wandered about among the laurel-bushes in the spring moonlight. There
+was Ursula and Mr. Northcote, Phoebe and Reginald, and Clarence
+Copperhead, with Janey behind, who followed where they went, but did not
+enjoy the ceremony. It was bad enough in the drawing-room; but
+moonlight, who cared about moonlight? Janey said to herself indignantly.
+She was the only one who looked up to Mrs. Hurst's window, where there
+was a faint light, and when the voices became audible Janey perceived
+some one come behind the curtain and look out. The girl was divided
+between her faithful family feud against Mrs. Hurst, and a vague sense
+of satisfaction in her presence as a Marplot, who one way or other would
+infallibly interfere.
+
+"She will say something to papa," said Janey, her heart involuntary
+rising at the thought, though at the same time she shivered to think of
+the treachery involved to all the tenets of the family. Janey sat on the
+steps and listened to the others talking. No one pointed out the stars
+to her, or followed her about as Reginald followed Phoebe. As for Mr.
+Copperhead, Janey thought he was almost as lonely as she was. He had
+lighted his cigar, and was strolling up and down, interrupting both of
+the other pairs occasionally, breaking into the midst of Northcote's
+astronomical lecture abruptly, and stopping Phoebe herself in the middle
+of a sentence. Janey, watching sharply from the steps, noticed, as a
+spectator has it in her power to do, that whereas Northcote was
+extremely impatient of the interruption, and discovered immediately that
+the stars could be seen better from another spot, Phoebe took it quite
+sweetly, and addressed herself to him as she went on, which Reginald did
+not like, Janey was sure. Were they in love with each other? the girl
+asked herself--was this how it was managed? When the moon went under a
+cloud for a moment Clarence Copperhead's vast shirt-front made a kind of
+substitute down below. Janey lost the other two among the bushes, but
+she always beheld that orb of white moving backward and forward with two
+dark figures near. She felt sure Reginald did not want to have him in
+such close neighbourhood; but Phoebe's voice went on talking to both
+alike. Janey was half-pleased, and half-indignant. She had a jealous
+dislike, such as most girls have, to see her brother engrossed by any
+one, but no more did she like to see another man preferred to Reginald;
+she was jealous both ways. As she sat and watched, a slight little creak
+came to her sharp ears, and looking up she saw Mrs. Hurst's drawing-room
+window opened the very least little bit in the world. Ah! Janey said,
+with a long breath. There was nothing she would not have given to have
+talked it all over with Mrs. Hurst, and to hear what she would say, if
+she had not been the traditional adversary against whom all the family
+steeled their hearts.
+
+That was a very pleasant evening; they all remembered it afterwards. It
+was the moment when Ursula discovered all in the darkness, when the moon
+was under that cloud, _what Mr. Northcote meant_. It flashed upon her
+like a sudden light, though they were standing in the shade of a great
+laurel. He did not make any declaration, nor say a word that she could
+remember. And yet all at once, by some magic which is not explainable,
+she found out that that was what he was meaning. This is not an
+admirable sentence; but it is difficult to know how to put it better. It
+was quite a strange discovery. It set her heart beating, thumping
+against her breast. She herself meant nothing whatever, and she never
+thought of any response, or of the time when he might ask her to make a
+response. The sensation of the moment was quite enough for Ursula. She
+was greatly startled, surprised, yet not surprised, touched and full of
+a wondering respect and sympathy, awe and half-amusement. Could it be
+possible, was _that_ what it was? Though he was not conscious of
+betraying himself in any way, Northcote thought he had done something to
+offend her. Her shy silence and withdrawal from him went to his heart;
+never had her society been so sweet, never had he had her so completely
+to himself. What had he done to alarm or offend her? He went home with
+his head full of this, able to think of nothing else.
+
+And Phoebe went home too, escorted by Reginald and Clarence together, to
+her grandfather's door, with her head buzzing with many thoughts. It was
+not her heart that was in a commotion, like little Ursula's. She was
+more experienced, though she was not much older, and had gone through
+such discoveries before now. But a much more perplexing accident had
+befallen her. Reginald May had fallen in love with her, and Clarence
+Copperhead, after considerable resistance and hanging off, was making up
+his mind to propose. Yes. Phoebe felt with unerring instinct that this
+was the state of affairs. He was making up his mind to propose. So much
+of her and so little of her had at length made an end of all the prudent
+hesitations that lay under the crisp pie-crust of that starched and
+dazzling shirt front. That he should never be able to speak a word to
+her without that May! that fellow! "the son of my coach!" poking himself
+in, was a thing which at length had fired his cool blood to fever heat.
+Nobody else could play his accompaniments like that, or pull him through
+the "Wedding March" like that; and who would look better at the head of
+a table, or show better at a ball, or get on better in society? No one
+he knew, certainly. It was true she was only a Minister's daughter, and
+without a penny; for the little fortune Mr. and Mrs. Beecham had
+carefully gathered together and preserved for their daughter, what was
+that to the Copperheads?--nothing, not a penny. But, on the other hand,
+Clarence felt that he himself, or rather his father, was rich enough to
+be able to afford a wife without money. There was no reason why he
+should marry money; and a wife like Phoebe, what a relief that would be,
+in the way of education! No need of any more coaching. She was clever,
+and fond of reading, and so forth. She would get everything up for him,
+if he went into parliament, or that sort of thing; why, she'd keep him
+posted up. "There ain't many girls that could do that," he said to
+himself. She would save him worlds of trouble; save his money even, for
+coaches and that sort of thing cost money; and then that fellow May
+would be out of it; his nose would be put out of joint. These are not
+eloquent sentiments, but so it was that Clarence's natural feelings
+expressed themselves. He had intimated that he would see Miss Phoebe
+home, but May had stalked out side by side with him--had not left them
+for a moment; and Clarence determined that he would not stand it any
+longer. If there was no other way of shaking this fellow off, why, then
+he would make up his mind to it, and propose.
+
+Phoebe somehow saw all this written in his fine countenance, and she saw
+at the same time that poor Reginald, who was (she thought) young and
+simple, and just the sort of poor boy to yield to such folly, was in
+love with her; and her head was buzzing with the double discovery. The
+first was (of course) the most important. She had no time to indulge her
+thoughts while she walked up between them, keeping them in play each
+with a word, talking all the way to fill up the somewhat sulky silence
+between them; but when she got safely within the garden door, and heard
+it shut behind her, and found herself in the quiet of the little green
+enclosure, with the budding trees and the lilac bushes for her only
+companions, the relief was very grateful to her. She could not go in all
+at once to make conversation for grandpapa and grandmamma, and give them
+the account they liked to hear, of how she had "enjoyed herself." She
+took off her hat to be cooler, and walked slowly down under the
+moonlight, her head all throbbing and rustling with thought. The paths
+were bordered with primroses, which made a pale glimmer in the moon, and
+shed a soft fragrance about. Phoebe had nothing to appeal to Heaven
+about, or to seek counsel from Nature upon, as sentimental people might
+do. She took counsel with herself, the person most interested. What was
+the thing she ought to do? Clarence Copperhead was going to propose to
+her. She did not even take the trouble of saying to herself that he
+loved her; it was Reginald who did that, a totally different person, but
+yet the other was more urgent. What was Phoebe to do? She did not dislike
+Clarence Copperhead, and it was no horror to her to think of marrying
+him. She had felt for years that this might be on the cards, and there
+were a great many things in it which demanded consideration. He was not
+very wise, nor a man to be enthusiastic about, but he would be a career
+to Phoebe. She did not think of it humbly like this, but with a big
+capital--a Career. Yes; she could put him into parliament, and keep him
+there. She could thrust him forward (she believed) to the front of
+affairs. He would be as good as a profession, a position, a great work
+to Phoebe. He meant wealth (which she dismissed in its superficial aspect
+as something meaningless and vulgar, but accepted in its higher aspect
+as an almost necessary condition of influence), and he meant all the
+possibilities of future power. Who can say that she was not as romantic
+as any girl of twenty could be? only her romance took an unusual form.
+It was her head that was full of throbbings and pulses, not her heart.
+No doubt there would be difficulties and disagreeables. His father would
+oppose it, and Phoebe felt with a slight shiver that his father's
+opposition was nothing to be laughed at, and that Mr. Copperhead had it
+in him to crush rebellion with a ferocious hand. And would Clarence have
+strength of mind or spirit to hold out? This was a very serious
+question, and one which included all the rest. If she accepted his
+proposal, would he have the heart to stand to it against his father? or
+would her consent simply involve her in a humiliating struggle which
+would end in defeat? That was the great question. If this should be the
+case, what use would there be in any sacrifice that Phoebe might make? A
+struggle with Mr. Copperhead would affect her father's position as much
+or more than her own, and she knew that a great many of the congregation
+would infallibly side with Mr. Copperhead, feeling it a most dangerous
+precedent that a pastor's daughter should be encouraged to think herself
+eligible for promotion so great, and thus interfere with the more
+suitable matrimonial prospects of wealthy young men who might happen to
+attend her father's chapel. Such a thing the conscript fathers of the
+connection would feel ought to be put a stop to with a high hand. So it
+may be supposed that Phoebe had enough to think of, as she strolled
+about in the moonlight alone, between the two borders of primroses.
+Tozer thought she had gone upstairs to take off her "things," and it was
+natural that when a girl got before a looking-glass she should forget
+the progress of time; so that he merely wondered at her non-appearance
+until the little chill of air stole in from the open door, and made Mrs.
+Tozer cough.
+
+"If it ain't our Phoebe a-walking about in the moonlight like a
+play-actor!" said Tozer, in consternation, drawing aside the curtain to
+look out. "I'll tell you what, old woman, the girl's in love; and that's
+what it is." He thought this was a capital joke, and followed his
+witticism with a laugh.
+
+"Not much wonder, neither, with all them young fellows about," said the
+old lady. "You may laugh; but, Tozer, I ain't so easy in my mind as you.
+If it's him as they call Northcote, that don't matter; but if it's that
+big gabby of a Copperhead, there's troubles a-coming; though he's as
+rich, they do say, as Creases, whoever Creases might be, and it would be
+a credit to have the girl make a match like that out of our house."
+
+Whereat Tozer again laughed loud and long.
+
+"Well," he said, "if Mister Creases himself was here, I wouldn't say as
+he was a bit too good for our Phoebe. Don't you trouble your head, old
+woman; Copperhead or t'other one, let her make her choice. Phoebe
+junior's the girl as'll be their match, and you may take my word for
+that. Phoebe's the one as will keep them in their right place, whoever
+they may be."
+
+Phoebe heard this laugh echo out into the quiet of the night. Of course,
+she did not know the cause of it, but it disturbed her in her thoughts.
+Poor, kind, excellent grandpapa, she said to herself, how would he get
+on with Mr. Copperhead? He would touch his forelock to so rich a man. He
+would go down metaphorically upon his knees before so much wealth; and
+what a fool Clarence would be thought on every side for wanting to marry
+her! Even his mother, who was a romantic woman, would not see any
+romance in it if it was she, Phoebe, who was the poor girl whom he wanted
+to marry. Ursula might have been different, who was a clergyman's
+daughter, and consequently a lady by prescriptive right. But herself,
+Tozer's granddaughter, Tom Tozer's niece, fresh from the butter-shop, as
+it were, and redolent of that petty trade which big trade ignores, as
+much as the greatest aristocrat does! Phoebe was too sensible by far to
+vex or distress herself on this point, but she recognised it without any
+hesitation, and the question remained--was it for her advantage to enter
+upon this struggle, about which there could be no mistake, or was it
+not? And this question was very difficult. She did not dislike
+Clarence, but then she was not in love with him. He would be a Career,
+but he was not a Passion, she said to herself with a smile; and if the
+struggle should not turn out successful on her part, it would involve a
+kind of ruin, not to herself only, but to all concerned. What, then, was
+she to do? The only thing Phoebe decided upon was that, if she did enter
+upon that struggle, it _must_ be successful. Of this alone there could
+be no manner of doubt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+A DISCLOSURE.
+
+
+"Well, young ladies!" said Mrs. Sam Hurst, "I left you very quiet, but
+there seems to be plenty going on now-a-days. What a beautiful moon
+there was last night! I put up my window to look at it, and all at once
+I found there was a party going on below. Quite a _fete champetre_. I
+have newly come from abroad, you know, and it seemed quite congenial. I
+actually rubbed my eyes, and said to myself, 'I can't have come home.
+It's Boulogne still, it isn't Carlingford!'"
+
+"There was no company," said Ursula with dignity; "there was only our
+own party. A friend of Reginald's and a friend of mine join us often in
+the evening, and there is papa's pupil--if you call that a party. We are
+just as quiet as when you went away. We never invite strangers. We are
+as much by ourselves as ever."
+
+"With a friend of Reginald's, and a friend of yours, and papa's pupil!"
+said Mrs. Hurst, laughing; "double your own number, Ursula! and I don't
+suppose Janey counts yet. Why, there is a young man too many. How dare
+you waste the gifts of Providence, you prodigal child? And now let me
+hear who they are."
+
+"You may say Janey doesn't count," cried that young woman in person.
+"Oh, Mrs. Hurst, what a bore they are! If that's society, I don't care
+for society. One always following Ursula about whenever she moves, so
+that you can't say a word to her; and the others pulling poor Phoebe to
+pieces, who hates them, I am sure. Phoebe was so jolly at first. She
+would talk to you, or she would play for you! Why, she taught Johnnie
+and me a part-song to sing with her, and said he had a delightful
+voice; but she never has any time to look at us now," said Janey,
+stopping in this breathless enumeration of wrongs. "She is always taken
+up with those horrible men."
+
+"I suppose you call Reginald a horrible man?" said Ursula, with rising
+colour. "If that was my opinion of my own brother, I should take care
+not to say it, at least."
+
+"Oh, Reginald isn't the worst! There's your Mr. Northcote, and there's
+that Copperhead--Woodenhead, we call him in the nursery. Oh, how papa
+can put up with him, I can't tell! he never had any patience with us.
+You can't think how dull he is, Mrs. Hurst! I suppose girls don't mind
+when a man _goes on_, whether he's stupid or not. I never heard Mr.
+Northcote say much that was interesting either; but he looks clever, and
+that is always something."
+
+"So Mr. Northcote is Ursula's one," said Mrs. Hurst, laughing. "You are
+a perfect jewel, Janey, and I don't know how I should ever find out
+anything that's going on, but for you. Northcote! it is a new name in
+Carlingford. I wonder I have not heard of him already; or have you kept
+him entirely to yourself, and let nobody know that there was a new man
+in the place?"
+
+There was a little pause here. The girls knew nothing about Northcote,
+except the one fact that he was a Dissenter; but as Mrs. Hurst was an
+excellent Churchwoman, much better than they were, who had, perhaps,
+been brought up too completely under the shadow of the Church to believe
+in it implicitly, they hesitated before pronouncing before her that
+unfortunate name.
+
+"I don't know whether you are aware," Ursula said at last, with some
+slowness and reluctance, "that papa's pupil is of a Dissenting family.
+He is related, through his mother, to our cousins, the Dorsets." (This
+fact Ursula put forth with a little triumph, as refuting triumphantly
+any ready conclusion as to the social standing of Dissenters.) "I think
+Mr. Northcote came first to the house with Mr. Copperhead. He is a
+Dissenter too."
+
+"Why, Ursula," cried Mrs. Hurst, "not the man who attacked Reginald in
+the Meeting? It was all in the papers. He made a frightful violent
+speech about the College and the sinecure, and what a disgraceful thing
+it was that your brother, a young man, could accept it. You don't mean
+him?"
+
+Ursula was struck dumb. She looked up at her questioner with her lips
+falling apart a little, with a look of mingled consternation and fear.
+
+"Of course it can't be," said the gossip, who was not ill-natured. "You
+never read the papers, but your papa does, and so does Reginald. Oh,
+you may be sure it is some other Northcote, though I don't know the
+name."
+
+"Ursula doesn't like to tell you," said Janey; "but he's the Dissenting
+Minister, I know he is. Well! I don't care! He is just as good as
+anybody else. I don't go in for your illiberal ways of thinking, as if
+no one was worth talking to except in the Church. Mr. Northcote is very
+nice. I don't mind what you say. Do you mean to tell me that all those
+curates and people who used to plague our lives out were nicer? Mr.
+Saunders, for instance; he is a real good Churchman, I have always heard
+people say--"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Janey; you don't know anything about it," said Mrs.
+Hurst, whom this wonderful disclosure elevated into authority. "A
+Dissenting Minister! Ah, me! what a thing it is for you poor girls to
+have no mother. I did not think your papa would have had so little
+consideration as to expose you to society like that. But men are so
+thoughtless."
+
+"I don't know what right you have to speak of exposing us to society
+like that," cried Ursula, quivering all over with sudden excitement.
+
+She felt as if some one had dug a knife into her, and turned it round in
+the wound.
+
+"Men have so little consideration," repeated Mrs. Hurst, "especially
+when a girl is concerned. Though how your papa could have received a man
+who made such an assault upon him--even if he had passed over the attack
+upon Reginald, he was attacked himself."
+
+"It must be a mistake," said Ursula, growing pale. Her hands came
+together half-unconsciously, and clasped in a mute gesture of appeal.
+"It is not possible; it cannot be true."
+
+"Well, it is very odd that your papa should show such charity, I allow.
+I don't think it is in human nature. And Reginald, what does Reginald
+say? If it is that man, it will be the strangest thing I ever heard of.
+But there could not be two Northcotes, Dissenting Ministers in
+Carlingford, could there? It is very strange. I can't think what your
+papa can have had in his head. He is a man who would do a thing for a
+deep reason, whether he liked it or not. How did this Mr. Northcote come
+first here?"
+
+"Oh, it was through Mr. Copperhead," said Janey. "It was the first
+dinner-party we had. You should have seen the fright Ursula was in! And
+papa would not let me come to dinner, which was a horrid shame. I am
+sure I am big enough, bigger than Ursula."
+
+"If he came with the pupil, that makes it all quite plain. I suppose
+your papa did not want to quarrel with his pupil. What a predicament for
+him, if that was the case! Poor Mr. May! Of course, he did not want to
+be uncivil. Why, it was in the 'Gazette,' and the 'Express,' and all the
+papers; an account of the Meeting, and that speech, and then a leading
+article upon it. I always file the 'Express,' so you can see it if you
+like. But what an embarrassment for your poor papa, Ursula, that you
+should have taken this man up! And Reginald, how could he put up with
+it, a touchy young man, always ready to take offence? You see now the
+drawback of not paying a little attention to what is going on round you.
+How uncomfortable you must have made them! It might be very well to look
+over an offence, not to be unpleasant to the stranger; but that you
+should have thoughtlessly led this man on into the position of an
+intimate--"
+
+"I did nothing of the sort," cried Ursula, growing red and growing pale,
+starting up from her work with a sense of the intolerable which she
+could not restrain. "What have I done to be spoken of so? I never led
+him on, or any one. What you say is cruel, very cruel! and it is not
+true."
+
+"Isn't it true that he was here last night, following you about, as
+Janey says? Oh, I know how these sort of things go on. But you ought to
+think of your papa's position, and you ought to think of Reginald. If it
+was to come to the Bishop's ears that St. Roque's Parsonage was a refuge
+for Dissenters! For I know who _your_ friend is, Ursula! That Tozer
+girl, another of them! Indeed, I assure you, it makes me feel very
+uncomfortable. And Reginald, just at the very beginning of his career."
+
+Ursula did not make any reply. She bent her head down over her work, so
+low that her flushed cheeks could scarcely be seen, and went on
+stitching with energy and passion such as needles and thread are seldom
+the instruments of; and yet how much passion is continually worked away
+through needles and thread! Mrs. Hurst sat still for some time, looking
+at her, very little satisfied to keep silence, but feeling that she had
+discharged an efficient missile, and biting her lips not to say more to
+weaken its effect. When some time had passed in this way, and it was
+apparent that Ursula had no intention of breaking the silence, her
+visitor got up and shook out her skirts with a little flutter of
+indignation.
+
+"You are offended," she said, "though I must say it is very ill on your
+part to be offended. What motive can I have but your good, and regard
+for your poor dear papa? It is he that is always the victim, poor man,
+whether it is your vagaries he has to pay for, or Reginald's
+high-flying. Oh, yes; you may be as angry as you like, Ursula; but you
+will find out the difference if your encouragement of this Dissenter
+interferes with something better--a living for Reginald, perhaps, or
+better preferment for your poor papa."
+
+"Oh!" cried Janey, awe-stricken; "but after all, it was not Ursula; it
+was papa himself. I think he must have done it to please Mr. Copperhead;
+for, Mrs. Hurst, you know Mr. Copperhead is very important. We have all
+to give in to him. He pays papa three hundred a-year."
+
+"Three thousand wouldn't make up for it if it spoilt all your career,"
+cried the indignant woman, and she swept away without saying any more to
+Ursula, who kept quite still over her work without budging. Janey went
+downstairs meekly after her to open the door, whispering an entreaty
+that she would not be angry.
+
+"No, no, I am not angry," said Mrs. Hurst, "but I shall keep it up for a
+day or two. It is the best thing for her. I think she was struck with
+what I said."
+
+Janey stole upstairs again, feeling rather guilty; but Ursula took
+little notice of her. The dinner was ordered and everything settled for
+the day. She was busy with her week's mending and darning, with the
+stockings and other things in a big basket beside her. When she came to
+some articles belonging to Janey, she threw them out with great
+impatience.
+
+"You may surely mend your things yourself, you are big enough. You can
+talk for yourself and me too," cried Ursula with sudden impetuosity; and
+then she sat and worked, her needle flying through the meshes of her
+darning, though it is hard to darn stockings in that impassioned way.
+They were socks of Johnnie's, however, with holes in the heels that you
+could put your fist through, and the way in which the big spans filled
+themselves up under this influence was wonderful to see. Janey, who was
+not fond of mending, set to work quite humbly under the influence of
+this example, and made two or three attempts to begin a conversation but
+without avail.
+
+The girls were seated thus in a disturbed and restless silence, working
+as if for their lives, when the usual little jar of the gate and sound
+of the bell downstairs announced a visitor. On ordinary occasions, they
+were both in the habit of rushing to the window when the gate was opened
+to see who was coming, and Janey had thrown aside her work to do so when
+a look from Ursula stopped her. High-spirited as Janey was, she did not
+dare to disobey that look. By right of the passion that had got
+possession of her, Ursula took the absolute command of the situation in
+a way she had never done before, and some sudden intuition made her
+aware who it was who was coming. The girls both sat there still and
+breathless, waiting for his appearance. He never came in the day, never
+had been seen in the Parsonage at that hour before, and yet Ursula was
+as certain who it was as if she had seen him a mile off. He came into
+the room, himself looking a little breathless and disturbed, and gave a
+quick impatient look at Janey as he went up to her sister. Ursula saw it
+and understood well enough. Janey was in his way; he had come this
+morning with a special purpose. Her heart sank down to her very shoes,
+and then rose again with a feverish and unreal leap. Was it not her duty
+to take the initiative, to cut away the very ground from beneath his
+feet? He took a seat, not far from where she was sitting, and made an
+effort to begin a little ordinary conversation, throwing frequent
+glances at Janey. He said it was a fine day, which was self-evident;
+that he almost feared they would be out; that he had come to--to
+tell her something he had forgotten last night, about--yes,
+about--Cassiopeia's chair, to correct what he said about Orion--yes,
+that was it; and again he looked at Janey, who saw his looks, and
+wondered much what she ought to do--go away, as he evidently wished her,
+or stay and listen, which was the eager desire of her mind. When Ursula
+lifted her head from her darning, and looked at him with cheeks
+alternately white and crimson, Janey felt herself grow hot and
+breathless with kindred excitement, and knew that the moment had come.
+
+"Mr. Northcote," said Ursula, looking at him fixedly, so fixedly that a
+nervous trembling ran over him, "I have a question to ask you. You have
+been coming to us very often, and perhaps papa may know, but I don't. Is
+it true that you made a speech about Reginald when you first came here?"
+
+Janey, looking eagerly on, saw Northcote grow pale, nay, grey in the
+fresh daylight. The colour seemed to ebb out of him. He started very
+slightly, as if waking up, when she began to speak, and then sat looking
+at her, growing greyer and greyer. A moment elapsed before he made any
+reply.
+
+"Yes, I did," he said, with a half-groan of pain in his voice.
+
+"You did! really you did! Oh!" cried Ursula, the hot tears falling
+suddenly out of her eyes, while she still looked at him, "I was hoping
+that it was all some horrible mistake, that you would have laughed. I
+hoped you would laugh and say no."
+
+Northcote cleared his throat; they were waiting for him to defend
+himself. Janey, holding herself on the leash, as it were, keeping
+herself back from springing upon him like a hound. Ursula gazed at him
+with great blazing reproachful eyes; and all he could do was to give
+that sign of embarrassment, of guilt, and confusion. He could not utter
+a word. By the time he had got himself wound up to the point of speech,
+Ursula, impatient, had taken the words out of his mouth.
+
+"Reginald is my brother," she said. "Whatever is against him is against
+us all; we have never had any separate interests. Didn't you think it
+strange, Mr. Northcote, to come to this house, among us all, when you
+had been so unkind to him?"
+
+"Miss May--"
+
+He made a broken sort of outcry and motion of his head, and then cleared
+his throat nervously once more.
+
+"Did you think how your own brothers and sisters would have stood up for
+you? that it would have been an offence to them if anybody had come to
+the house who was not a friend to you? that they would have had a
+right--"
+
+"Miss May," said the culprit; "all this I have felt to the bottom of my
+heart; that I was here on false pretences--that I had no right to be
+here. But this painful feeling was all quenched and extinguished, and
+turned into gratitude by the goodness of your father and brother. I did
+not even know that you had not been told. I thought you were aware from
+the beginning. You were colder than they were, and I thought it was
+natural, quite natural, for it is easier to forgive for one's self than
+for those one loves; and then I thought you melted and grew kinder to
+me, that you saw how all my ideas were changed, all my feelings--my mind
+itself; changed by the great charity, the wonderful goodness I have
+found here!"
+
+"Mr. Northcote!" Ursula had been struggling to break in all the time;
+but while he spoke her words dispersed, her feelings softened, and at
+the end she found nothing but that startled repetition of his name with
+which to answer him. No doubt if he had given her time the eloquence
+would have come back; but he was too much in earnest to be guilty of
+such a mistake.
+
+"What can I say about it?" cried the young man. "It has filled me with
+shame and with happiness. I have been taken in my own trap--those whom I
+attacked as you say--went out of my way to attack, and abused like a
+fool because I knew nothing about them--have shown me what the Bible
+means. Your father and brother knew what I had done, they met me
+separately, quite independent of each other, and both of them held out
+their hands to me; why, except that I had offended them, I cannot tell.
+A stranger, belonging to an obscure class, I had no claim upon them
+except that I had done what ought to have closed their house against
+me. And you know how they have interpreted that. They have shown me what
+the Bible means."
+
+The two girls sat listening, both with their heads bent towards him, and
+their eyes fixed upon his face. When he stopped, Janey got up with her
+work in her lap, and coming a little nearer to Ursula, addressed her in
+a wondering voice.
+
+"Is it _papa_ he is talking of like that?" she said, under her breath.
+
+"Yes," he said, fervently, turning to her. "It is your father. He has
+made charity and kindness real things to me."
+
+"Poor papa!" said Ursula, whose tears were arrested in her eyes by the
+same surprised sensation, half-pleasure, half-pain, which hushed even
+Janey's voice. They were "struck," as Mrs. Hurst had said, but by such a
+strange mingling of feelings that neither knew what to make of them.
+Northcote did not understand what they meant; their words conveyed a
+slight shock of surprise, but no distinct idea to him; and when Janey,
+too much impressed to settle down again, went away after a while
+musingly, carrying her work in the upper skirt of her gown, held like a
+market-woman's apron by her elbow against her side; and he found himself
+to have attained in the very confusion of his intentions to what he
+wished, i.e., an interview with Ursula by herself, he was almost too
+much agitated to take advantage of it. As for Ursula, she had floated a
+hundred miles away from that sensation of last night which, had no
+stronger feeling come in to bewilder her, would have made his errand
+very plain to her mind. She had ceased to think about him, she was
+thinking with a certain tenderness, and wondering, half-awed,
+half-amused, self-questioning, about her father. Was he so good as this?
+had he done this Christian action? were they all perhaps doing papa
+injustice? She was recalled to herself by Northcote's next proceeding.
+He went to the door and closed it after Janey, who had left it open, of
+course, and then he came to the back of the chair on which stood the
+great basket of darning. His voice was tremulous, his eyes liquid and
+shining with emotion.
+
+"Will you forgive me, since they have forgiven me? and may I ask _you_
+something?" he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+AN EXTRAVAGANCE.
+
+
+Mr. May did not take any particular notice of what was going on around
+him among the young people. Nobody could have been more startled than
+he, had he been told of the purpose with which Horace Northcote, the
+Dissenting minister, had paid his early morning visit; and though he had
+a half-scornful, half-amused glimmer of insight into the feelings of his
+son, and saw that Clarence Copperhead was heavily veering the same way,
+it did not occur to him that any crisis was approaching. He was enjoying
+himself in his way, and he had not done that for a long time. He dearly
+liked the better way of living, the more liberal strain of housekeeping
+and expenditure; he liked the social meetings in the evening, the talk
+after dinner with the three young men, the half-fatherly flirtation with
+Phoebe, which she too enjoyed much, avowedly preferring him, with pretty
+coquetry, to the others. All this was very pleasant to him; and the
+additional money in his pocket was very pleasant, and when the post came
+in, one of these April mornings, and brought a letter from James,
+enclosing a draft for fifty pounds, his satisfaction was intense. The
+sight of the money brought an itching to his fingers, a restlessness
+about him generally. And yet it was not all that might have been
+desired, only fifty pounds! he had been buoying himself up by vain
+thoughts of how James this time, having been so long writing, would send
+a larger sum, which would at once tide him over the Tozer business, and
+on this account had been giving himself no trouble about it. Never
+before had he been so _insouciant_, although never before had the risk
+been so great. He had suffered so much about it last time, probably,
+that was why he took it so easily now; or was it because his trust in
+the chapter of accidents had grown greater since he was more dependent
+on it? or because of the generally expanded sense of living in him which
+made anxiety uncongenial anyhow? Whatever the cause was, this was the
+effect. A momentary disappointment when he saw how little James's draft
+was--then a sense of that semi-intoxication which comes upon a poor man
+when a sum of money falls into his hands--gradually invaded his soul. He
+tried to settle down to his writing, but did not feel equal to the
+effort. It was too little for the purpose, he said to himself, for which
+he wanted it; but it was enough to do a great many pleasant things with
+otherwise. For the first time he had no urgent bills to swallow it up;
+the very grocer, a long-suffering tradesman who made less fuss than the
+others, and about whom Ursula made less fuss, had been pacified by a
+payment on account of the Copperhead money, and thus had his mouth
+stopped. Barring that bill, indeed, things were in a more comfortable
+state than they had been for a long time in the May household; and
+putting that out of account, James's money would have been the nearest
+approach to luxury--reckoning luxury in its most simple form as money to
+spend without any absolutely forestalling claim upon it--which Mr. May
+had known for years. It is so seldom that poor people have this
+delicious sense of a little, ever so little surplus! and it would be
+hard to say how he could entertain the feeling that it was an overplus.
+There was something of the fumes of desperation perhaps, and impending
+fate in the lightness of heart which seized upon him. He could not keep
+still over his writing. He got up at last, and put James's draft into
+his pocket-book, and got his hat to go out. It was a fine morning, full
+of that exhilaration which belongs only to the spring. He went to the
+bank, and paid in the money, getting a small sum at the same time for
+his own immediate use; but somehow his restlessness was scarcely
+satisfied by that very legitimate piece of business, and he extended his
+walk into the town, and strayed, half by chance, half by intention, to
+the old furniture shop at the other end of the High Street, which was a
+favourite resort of the higher classes in Carlingford, and where
+periodically there was an auction, at which sometimes great bargains
+were to be had. Mr. May went into this dangerous place boldly. The sale
+was going on; he walked into the midst of temptation, forgetting the
+prayer against it, which no doubt he had said that morning. And as evil
+fate would have it, a carved book-case, the very thing he had been
+sighing for, for years, was at that moment the object of the
+auctioneer's praises. It was standing against the wall, a noble piece of
+furniture, in which books would show to an advantage impossible
+otherwise, preserved from dust and damp by the fine old oak and glass
+door. Mr. May's heart gave a little jump. Almost everybody has wished
+for something unattainable, and this had been the object of his desires
+for years. He gave a little start when he saw it, and hurried forward.
+The bidding had actually begun; there was no time to think and consider,
+if he wished to have a chance, and it was going cheap, dead cheap.
+After a minute or two of competition the blood rose to his cheeks, he
+got thoroughly excited. The effect of this excitement was two-fold--not
+only did it drive all thought of prudence out of his head, but it raised
+by several pounds the price of the book-case, which, had he gone about
+it coolly, he might have had at a much cheaper rate. When he suddenly
+woke up to find himself the owner of it, a thrill of consternation ran
+over him--it was all so sudden; and it was perfectly innocent, if only
+he had any money; and to be sure he had James's money, which was not
+enough to do anything else--certainly not to do the thing he wanted it
+for. He tried to laugh at himself for the little thrill of alarm that
+ran through him; but it was too late to recede; and he gave his cheque
+for the money and his directions as to having it sent to the Parsonage,
+with a quake at his heart, yet a little flourish of satisfaction.
+
+"Just what I have been wanting for years," he said, as he examined his
+new acquisition, and the people about looked at him with additional
+respect he felt, not being used to see Mr. May so prompt in payment, and
+so ready with his money. This pleased him also. He walked home with his
+head a little turned still, although there was a quake and flutter
+underneath. Well! he said to himself, who could call it an extravagance?
+a thing he had wanted for years--a thing which was a necessity, not for
+luxury, but everyday use--a thing which was not dear, and which was very
+handsome and substantial, and _really good_; how could any one say it
+was extravagant? Ursula might stare with her big eyes, but she was only
+a silly little girl, and women always were silly about expenses, alarmed
+by a big bold handsome purchase, though there was nobody better at the
+art of frittering away money in pretty nothings. When he got home, he
+began at once nervously to clear the space where it should stand. What
+an improvement it would be! and his books were getting spoiled daily in
+those unsightly, open shelves, entirely spoiled. It was exciting to
+anticipate its arrival, and the admiration and commotion in the house.
+He called in Betsy and gave her orders about it; how, if it came when he
+was absent, it was to be put in that particular place, no other.
+
+"And mind that great care is taken, for it is valuable, and a beautiful
+piece of furniture," he said.
+
+"La, sir!" said Betsy, who was thunderstruck, though she knew it was not
+"her place" to show any feeling. He did not think it was necessary to
+appeal to Ursula on the same subject, but was rather glad to get out
+again, feeling the restlessness which had not been dissipated, but
+rather the reverse. He went and saw one or two poor people, to whom he
+was much more tolerant and kind than his wont, for in general Mr. May
+was not attracted towards the poor; and he gave them a shilling or two
+of the money he had drawn at the bank that morning--though somehow it
+had acquired a certain value in his eyes, and it was with a grudge that
+he took it out of his pocket. I must not spend this, he said to himself;
+but gave the shillings as a kind of tithe or propitiatory offering to
+Providence, that things might go well with him. Why should not things go
+well with him? He was not a bad man, he wronged nobody. He had done
+nothing to-day that a saint might not have done; he wanted the
+book-case, and he had the money, a sum not big enough for any more
+important purpose; but which was far better disposed of so than
+frittered away in nothings, as no doubt it would have otherwise been. By
+the afternoon, when the book-case arrived, he had convinced himself that
+it was not only quite reasonable, but a most lucky chance, a thing he
+could scarcely have hoped for, the opportunity and the money both coming
+in such exact accord with each other. When he returned from his walk the
+girls were looking at it, Ursula somewhat scared, Janey in open
+raptures.
+
+"It is very nice indeed, papa," said the elder girl; "but it must have
+cost a deal of money."
+
+"Be thankful that you haven't got to pay for it," he said, brusquely. He
+was not disposed to stand criticism. How it filled up his bare room, and
+made it, Mr. May thought, all at once into a library, though the old
+writing-table and shabby chairs looked rather worse perhaps than before,
+and suggested renewal in the most urgent way. To make it all of a piece,
+to put a soft Turkey carpet instead of the drugget, how pleasant it
+would be!--not extravagant, only a natural inclination towards the
+seemly, and a desire to have things around him becoming his position. No
+doubt such things were things which he ought to have in his position; a
+gentleman and a scholar, how humiliating it was that nothing but the
+barest elements of comfort should be within his reach. This was not how
+life ought to be; a poor creature like Clarence Copperhead, without
+birth, or breeding, or brains, or anything but money, was able to
+gratify every wish, while he--his senior, his superior! Instead of
+blaming himself, therefore, for his self-indulgence, Mr. May sympathized
+with himself, which is a much less safe thing to do; and accordingly, it
+soon began to appear to him that his self-denial all this time in not
+giving himself what he wanted had been extreme, and that what he had now
+done, in conceding himself so harmless a gratification, was what he
+ought to have done years ago. It was his own money sent to him by his
+dutiful son without conditions; and who had any right to interfere?
+
+When he was at dinner, Betsy came behind his chair under pretence of
+serving him; Betsy, whose place was in the kitchen, who had no right to
+show in the dining-room at all, and whose confused toilette had caught
+Ursula's eye and filled her with horror.
+
+"Please, sir," she said, breathing hot on Mr. May's ear, till he shrank
+with sensitive horror. "Cotsdean's in the kitchen. He says as how he
+must see you; and I can't get him away."
+
+"Ah, Cotsdean? tell him if he has anything to say to me, to write it
+down."
+
+"Which he's done, sir," said Betsy, producing a little bit of paper
+rolled tightly together, "but I wasn't to give it till I'd asked you to
+see him. Oh, please see him, sir, like a dear good gentleman. He looks
+like a man as is going off his head."
+
+"He is a fool," said Mr. May, taking the paper, but setting his teeth as
+he did so. Evidently he must get rid of this fellow--already beginning
+to trouble him, as if he was not the best person to know when and how
+far he could go.
+
+"Tell him I'll attend to it, he need not trouble himself," he said, and
+put the paper into his pocket, and went on with his dinner. Cotsdean,
+indeed! surely there had been enough of him. What were his trumpery
+losses in comparison with what his principal would lose, and how dare
+that fellow turn up thus and press him continually for his own poor
+selfish safety? This was not how Mr. May had felt three months before;
+but everything changes, and he felt that he had a right to be angry at
+this selfish solicitude. Surely it was of as much consequence to him at
+least as to Cotsdean. The man was a fussy disagreeable fool, and nothing
+more.
+
+And as it happened they sat late that night at dinner, without any
+particular reason, because of some discussion into which Clarence and
+Reginald fell, so that it was late before Mr. May got back to his room,
+where his books were lying in a heap waiting their transportation. They
+seemed to appeal to him also, and ask him reproachfully how they had got
+there, and he went to work arranging them all with all the enthusiasm
+natural to a lover of books. He was a book-lover, a man full of fine
+tastes and cultured elegant ways of thinking. If he had been extravagant
+(which he was not) it would have been in the most innocent, nay
+delightful and laudable way. To attach any notion of criminality, any
+suspicion of wrong-doing to such a virtuous indulgence, how unjust it
+would be! There was no company upstairs that evening. Copperhead had
+strolled out with Reginald to smoke his cigar, much against the will of
+the latter, and was boring him all the way to the College with accounts
+of his own lavish expenditure, and how much he had given for this and
+that; his cameos, his diamond studs, the magnificent dressing-case which
+was the wonder of the Parsonage. "Hang it all, what is the good of
+having money if you don't spend it?" said Clarence, and Reginald, who
+had not much money to spend, felt as near hating him as it was in his
+nature to do. Thus Mr. May was released from duty in the drawing-room,
+where Ursula, palpitating with many thoughts which were altogether new
+to her, sat doing her darning, and eluding as well as she could Janey's
+questions. Janey was determinedly conversational that night. She drove
+Ursula nearly out of her senses, and kept Johnnie--who had crept into
+the drawing-room in high delight at finding it for once free to
+him--from learning his lessons.
+
+"Oh, how nice it is to be by ourselves," said Janey, "instead of all
+those new people. I don't mind Phoebe; but strange men in the house, what
+a nuisance they are, always getting in one's way--don't you think so,
+Ursula?"
+
+Ursula made no reply, and after awhile even Janey sank into silence, and
+the drawing-room, usually so gay, got a cold and deserted look. The new
+life which had come in had left its mark, and to go back to what had
+once been so pleasant in the past was no longer possible. Johnnie and
+Janey might like it, having regained their former places, but to Ursula
+the solitude was horrible. She asked herself, with a great blush and
+quiver, what she would do if that temporary filling up of new interests
+and relationships was to fall away, as was likely, and leave her to the
+old life unbroken, to Janey's childish society and questions, and papa's
+imperious and unmodified sway. She grew pale and chill at the very
+thought.
+
+But Mr. May, as we have said, was off duty. He forgot all about Cotsdean
+and the note in his pocket, and set to work with the most boyish
+simplicity of delight to arrange his books in his new shelves. How well
+they looked! never before had their setting done them justice. There
+were books in gorgeous bindings, college prizes which had never shown at
+all, and which now gleamed out in crimson and gold from behind the
+glass, and made their owner's heart beat with pleasure. Alas! to think
+how much innocent pleasure is denied us by the want of that small sum of
+money! and worse still, how an innocent pleasure becomes the reverse of
+innocent when it is purchased by the appropriation of something which
+should have been employed elsewhere. Perhaps, however, the sense of
+guilt which he kept under, added zest in Mr. May's mind to the pleasure
+of his acquisition; he was snatching a fearful joy, Heaven knows how
+soon the penalty might overwhelm him. In the mean time he was determined
+to take the good of it, and enjoy what he had gained.
+
+When the books were all in he sat down at his table and surveyed it,
+rubbing his dusty hands. How much that is childish, how much that is
+fresh, and youthful, and innocent must be in the mind of a man (you
+would say) who could be thus excited about a book-case! and yet this was
+not the kind of man whom you would call unsophisticated and youthful. It
+was probably the state of suppressed excitement in which he was, the
+unreality of his position, that helped him to that sense of elation as
+much as anything else; for emotion is a Proteus ready to take any form,
+and pain itself sometimes finds vent in the quick blazing up of
+fictitious delight, as much as in the moanings that seem more accordant
+with its own nature. He put his hand into his pocket for his pencil to
+make a note of the contents of the new shelves, and then he found
+Cotsdean's note, which he had not forgotten, but which he had felt no
+desire to remember. When he felt it between his fingers his countenance
+fell a little; but he took it out and read it with the smile still upon
+his face. It was a dirty little roll of paper, scribbled in pencil.
+
+     "Rev. Sir,
+
+     "I hope as you are not forgetting the 15th. Pleas excuse
+     anxiety and bad writing, i am a poor nervous man I no, a
+     word of answer just to say as it is all right will much
+     oblidge.
+
+     "Rev. Sir,
+     "Your humble servant,
+     "T. COTSDEAN."
+
+Betsy knocked at the door as he read this, with a request for an answer
+to Mr. Cotsdean's note. "Little Bobby, sir, is waiting for it in the
+kitchen."
+
+"Give Bobby some supper," said Mr. May, "tell him to tell his father
+it's all right, and I shan't forget. You understand? He is a troublesome
+little fool; but it's all right, and I shan't forget, and give the child
+some supper, Betsy. He ought not to be out so late."
+
+"He is a delicate little thing, sir, thankye, sir," said Betsy,
+half-frightened by her master's amiability; and he smiled and repeated,
+
+"Tell him it's all right."
+
+Was it all right, the 15th? Cotsdean must have made a mistake. Mr. May's
+countenance paled, and the laugh went off; he opened a drawer in his
+writing-table and took out a book, and anxiously consulted an entry in
+it. It was the 18th certainly, as clear as possible. Something had been
+written on the opposite page, and had blotted slightly the one on which
+these entries were written; but there it stood, the 18th April. Mr. May
+prided himself on making no mistakes in business. He closed the book
+again with a look of relief, the smile coming back once more to his
+face. The 18th, it was three days additional, and in the time there was
+no doubt that he would find out what was the right thing to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+THE MILLIONNAIRE.
+
+
+When Mr. May woke next morning, it was not the book-case he thought of,
+but that date which had been the last thing in his mind on the previous
+night. Not the 15th,--the 18th. Certainly he was right, and Cotsdean was
+wrong. Cotsdean was a puzzle-headed being, making his calculations by
+the rule of thumb; but he had put down the date, and there could be no
+possible mistake about it. He got up disposed to smile at the poor man's
+ignorance and fussy restlessness of mind. "I have never left him in the
+lurch, he may trust to me surely in the future," Mr. May said to
+himself, and smiled with a kind of condescending pity for his poor
+agent's timidity; after all, perhaps, as Cotsdean had so little profit
+by it, it was not wonderful that he should be uneasy. After this, it
+might be well if they did anything further of the sort, to divide the
+money, so that Cotsdean too might feel that he had got something for the
+risk he ran; but then, to be sure, if he had not the money he had no
+trouble, except by his own foolish anxiety, for the payment, and always
+a five-pound note or two for his pains. But Mr. May said to himself that
+he would do no more in this way after the present bill was disposed of;
+no, he would make a stand, he would insist upon living within his
+income. He would not allow himself to be subject to these perpetual
+agitations any more. It would require an effort, but after the effort
+was made all would be easy. So he said to himself; and it was the 18th,
+not the 15th, three days more to make his arrangements in. It had come
+to be the 12th now, and up to this moment he had done nothing, having
+that vague faith in the Indian mail which had been realized, and yet had
+not been realized. But still he had nearly a week before him, which was
+enough certainly. Anything that he could do in six months, he said to
+himself, he could easily do in six days--the mere time was nothing; and
+he smiled as he dressed himself leisurely, thinking it all over. Somehow
+everything looked perfectly easy to him this time; last time he had been
+plunged into tragic despair; now, and he did not know why, he took it
+quite easily; he seemed to fear nothing. There were various ways of
+getting the money as natural as the daylight, and in the mean time why
+should he make himself unhappy? As soon as he was ready he went to his
+room and had another look at the book-case which, with his best books in
+it, all in order and ranged in unbroken lines, looked everything a
+book-case ought to look. It made him feel more of a man somehow, more
+like the gentleman and scholar he had meant to be when he started in
+life; he had not intended then to be a poor district incumbent all his
+life, with a family of eight children. His book-case somehow transported
+him back to the days when he had thought of better things for himself,
+and when life had held an ideal for him. Perhaps at the best of times it
+had never been a very high ideal; but when a man is over fifty and has
+given up doing anything but struggle through each day as it comes, and
+get out of his work as best he may, doing what he must, leaving undone
+what he can, any ideal almost seems something higher than himself; but
+the recollection of what he had meant to be, came back to him strongly
+when he looked at his carved oak. It had not been carried out; but still
+he felt rehabilitated and better in his own opinion as he stood beside
+this costly purchase he had made, and felt that it changed his room and
+all his surroundings. It might have been almost wicked to run into such
+an extravagance, but yet it did him good.
+
+"My people came down to the Hall last night," Clarence Copperhead said
+to him at breakfast, "and the Governor is coming over along with Sir
+Robert. He'd like to see you, I am sure, and I suppose they'll be going
+in for sight-seeing, and that sort of thing. He is a dab at
+sight-seeing, is the Governor. I can't think how he can stand it for my
+part."
+
+"Then you must remember that I put myself at his orders for the day,"
+said Mr. May graciously. "Sir Robert is not a bad guide, but I am a
+better, though it sounds modest to say it; and, Ursula, of course Mr.
+Copperhead will take luncheon with us."
+
+"Don't think of that," said Clarence, "he's queer and likes his own way.
+Just as likely as not he'll think he ought to support the hotels of the
+place where he is--sort of local production, you know. I think it's
+nonsense, but that is how it is--that's the man."
+
+"We shall look for him all the same," said Mr. May, with a nod at
+Ursula; and a sudden project sprang up in his mind, wild as projects so
+often are. This father whom his fancy, working upon what Clarence said,
+immediately invested with all the prodigal liberality of a typical rich
+man; this stranger to whom a hundred pounds was less then a penny was to
+himself, would give him the money he wanted. What so easy? He drew a
+long breath, and though he had not been aware that he was anxious, he
+was suddenly conscious of a sense of relief. Yes, to be sure, what so
+simple, what so likely? he would explain his monetary necessities
+lightly and with grace, and Mr. Copperhead would supply them. He was in
+the mildest state of desperation, the painless stage, as may be seen,
+when this strange idea entered into his head. He hugged it, though he
+was a man of the world and might have known better, and it produced a
+kind of elation which would have been a very strange spectacle to any
+looker-on who knew what it meant. The thing seemed done when he next
+thought of it ten minutes later, settled as if it had been so for years.
+Mr. Copperhead would make it all right for him, and after that he would
+undertake such risks no more.
+
+Mr. Copperhead, however, did not come for two days, though Ursula spent
+all the morning and a great deal of trouble in arranging a luncheon for
+him; but on the second morning he came, driven by Sir Robert, who had
+changed horses on the road, and who was in a somewhat irritated and
+excited condition, very glad to get rid of his visitor.
+
+"I hope you don't mind having your toes trodden on, May," he said,
+privately; "that fellow is never happy but when he's insulting some
+one." And indeed Mr. Copperhead began this favourite pastime at once by
+making very big eyes at the sight of Ursula. "A-ha!" he said, rubbing
+his hands, and elevating his eyebrows; and he gave a meaning laugh as he
+shook hands with her, and declared that he did not expect to find young
+ladies here. "I haven't a great deal of education myself, and I never
+knew it could be carried on so pleasantly," he said. "You're a lucky
+young dog, Clar, that's what you are;" and the son laughed with the
+father at this excellent joke, though the rest of the company looked on
+with great gravity. Ursula, for her part, turned with wondering eyes
+from the new-comer to her old friend, Sir Robert.
+
+"What does he mean?" she asked, with an appealing look.
+
+"He is the greatest brute I know," said poor Sir Robert, under his
+breath; and he went off suddenly on the plea of business, leaving his
+unpleasant visitor in Mr. May's hands, who undertook the charge not
+unwillingly, being possessed by his own plan. Mr. Copperhead went all
+over Carlingford. He inspected the town-hall, the infirmary, and the
+church, with the business-like air of a man who was doing his duty.
+
+"Poor little place, but well enough for the country," he said. "A
+country-town's a mistake in my opinion. If I had it in my power I'd raze
+them all to the ground, and have one London and the rest green fields.
+That's your sort, Mr. May. Now you don't produce anything here, what's
+the good of you? All unproductive communities, sir, ought to be swept
+off the face of the earth. I'd let Manchester and those sort of places
+go on till they burst; but a bit of a little piggery like this, where
+there's nothing doing, no trade, no productions of any kind."
+
+"We like it all the same," said Mr. May; "we small sort of people who
+have no enterprise like you--"
+
+"I dare say you like it! To be sure, you can moon about here as much as
+you please, and make believe to do something, and there's nobody to
+contradict you. In a great centre of industry you couldn't live like
+that; you must work or you'll get pushed aside altogether; unless, of
+course, you're a millionnaire to start with," Mr. Copperhead added, with
+a noisy laugh.
+
+"Which I am not certainly--very much the reverse--in short, a poor man
+with a large family, which I suppose is a thing about as objectionable
+in a centre of industry as anything can be."
+
+"The large family ain't objectionable if you make 'em work," said Mr.
+Copperhead; "it all depends on that. There's always objections, you
+know," he said, with a jocular grin, "to pretty girls like that daughter
+of yours put straight in a young fellow's way. You won't mind my saying
+it? They neither work themselves nor let others work--that sort. I think
+we could get on with a deal fewer women, I must allow. There's where
+Providence is in a mistake. We don't want 'em in England; it's a waste
+of raw material. They're bad for the men, and they ain't much good for
+themselves, that I can see."
+
+"You are a little hard upon the ladies, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"Not I--we can't do without 'em of course, and the surplus we ought to
+export as we export other surpluses; but I object to them in a young
+man's way, not meaning anything unpleasant to you. And perhaps if I had
+been put up to it sooner--but let's hope there's no mischief done. What
+is this now? some of your antiquities, I suppose. Oh yes, let's have a
+look at it; but I confess it's the present age I like best."
+
+"This is the College," cried Mr. May, swallowing certain sensations
+which impaired his sense of friendliness; "but not an educational
+college, a foundation for old men--decayed citizens, as they are
+called--founded in the fifteenth century. My son is the chaplain, and
+will be very glad to show it you. There are twelve old men here at
+present, very comfortably looked after, thanks to the liberal
+arrangements of the founder. They attend chapel twice a day, where
+Reginald officiates. It is very agreeable to me to have him settled so
+near me."
+
+"Cunning I call it," said Mr. Copperhead, with his hoarse laugh; "does
+you credit; a capital snug nest--nothing to do--and pay--pay good now?
+those old fellows generally managed that; as it was priests that had the
+doing of it, of course they did well for their own kind. Good Lord, what
+a waste of good money all this is!" he continued, as they went into the
+quadrangle, and saw the little park beyond with its few fine trees;
+"half-a-dozen nice villas might be built on this site, and it's just the
+sort of place I should fancy where villas would pay. Why don't the
+Corporation lay hands on it? And your son lives here? Too dull for me; I
+like a little movement going on, but I dare say he likes it; and with
+how much a year?"
+
+"Two hundred and fifty; and some advantages beside--"
+
+"Bravo!" said Mr. Copperhead, "now how many curates could you get for
+that two and a-half? I've got a great respect for you, Mr. May; you know
+what's what. That shows sense, that does. How do you do, sir? fine old
+place you've got here--capital snug appointment. I've just been saying
+to your father I admire his sense, looking out for you a nice fat easy
+appointment like this."
+
+Reginald turned from red to white, and then to portentous blackness. The
+subject was of all others the one least likely to please him.
+
+"It is not very fat," he said, with a look of offence, quite undeserved
+by the chief sufferer, towards his father, "nor very easy. But come in.
+It is rather an interesting old place. I suppose you would like to see
+the Chapel, and the old captain's rooms; they are very fine in their
+way."
+
+"Thank you; we've been seeing a deal already, and I feel tired. I think
+I'll--let you off the chapel. Hallo! here's another old
+friend--Northcote, by George! and what are _you_ doing here I should
+like to know, a blazing young screamer of the Liberation Society, in a
+high and dry parson's rooms? This is as good as a play."
+
+"I suppose one is not required to stay at exactly the same point of
+opinion all one's life," said Northcote, with a half-smile.
+
+"By George! but you are though, when you're a public man; especially
+when you're on a crusade. Haven't I heard you call it a crusade? I can
+tell you that changing your opinion is just the very last thing the
+public will permit you to do. But I shan't tell for my part--make
+yourself easy. Clarence, don't you let it out; your mother, fortunately,
+is out of the way. The world shall never know through me that young
+Northcote, the anti-state Churchman, was discovered hob-nobbing with a
+snug chaplain in a sinecure appointment. Ha, ha! had you there."
+
+"To do Northcote justice," said Mr. May; "he began life in Carlingford
+by pointing out this fact to the neighbourhood; that it was a sinecure,
+and that my son and I--"
+
+"Would it not be more to the point to inspect the chapel?" said
+Reginald, who had been standing by impatiently playing with a big key;
+upon which Mr. Copperhead laughed more loudly than before.
+
+"We'll not trouble the chapel," he said, "railway stations are more in
+my way; you are all a great deal finer than I am, and know a deal more,
+I suppose; but my roughness has served its purpose on the whole, better
+perhaps for some things--yes, for some things, Clar, and you may thank
+your stars, old boy. If you had been a parson's son, by George! there
+would have been no fat appointment waiting for you."
+
+"After all, my son's appointment is not so very fat," said Mr. May,
+forcing a laugh. "It is not so much as many a boy at school gets from
+his father."
+
+"Ah, you mean my boy at school! he's an extravagant dog. His mother and
+he, sir, are made of different clay from me; they are porcelain and I am
+delft. They want fine velvet cupboards to stand themselves in, while I'm
+for the kitchen dresser. That's the difference. But I can afford it,
+thank Heaven. I tell Clarence that he may thank his stars that I can
+afford it, and that he isn't born a poor man's son. He has been plucked
+at Oxford, you know," he said, with a big laugh, thrusting forth his
+chest as Clarence thrust forth his shirt-front, with an apparent
+complacency over the very plucking. My son can afford to be plucked, he
+seemed to say. He got up as he spoke, and approaching the fireplace
+turned his back to it, and gathered up his coat-tails under his arm. He
+was no taller than Mr. May, and very little taller than Reginald; but
+they both shrank into insignificance beside the big self-assertive
+figure. He looked about the room as if he was thinking of "buying up"
+the whole contents of it, and thought very little of them. A glance of
+contempt, a shrug more implied than actual, testified his low opinion of
+everything around. When he withdrew his eyes from the furniture he shook
+out his leg, as Clarence had done his, and gave a pull to his trousers
+that they might sit properly. He had the word "Rich" painted in big
+letters all over him, and he seemed to feel it his vocation to show this
+sense of superiority. Clarence by his side, the living copy of the great
+man's appearance and manners, strutted and put himself forward like his
+father, as a big calf might place itself beside the parent cow. Mr.
+Copperhead did not look upon his offspring, however, with the cow's
+motherly complacency. He laughed at him openly, with cynical amusement.
+He was clever in his way, and Clarence was stupid; and besides he was
+the proprietor, and Clarence, for all he was porcelain, was his goods
+and chattels. When he looked at him, a wicked leer of derision awoke in
+his eye.
+
+"Yes, my boy," he said, "thank your stars; you would not make much of it
+if you were a poor man. You're an ornament that costs dear; but I can
+afford you. So, Northcote, you're changing your opinions--going over to
+the Church, eh? Extremes meet, they say; I shouldn't have thought it--"
+
+"I am doing nothing of the kind," said Northcote stoutly. He was not in
+a mood to be taken to task by this Mammon of unrighteousness, and indeed
+had at all times been a great deal too independent and unwilling to
+submit to leading members of the connection. Mr. Copperhead, however,
+showed no resentment. Northcote too, like Clarence, had a father before
+him, and stood on quite a different footing from the ordinary young
+pastor, whose business it was to be humble and accept all that his
+betters might portion out.
+
+"Well," he said, "you can afford to please yourself, and that's always
+something. By the way, isn't it time to have something to eat? If there
+is a good hotel near--"
+
+"Luncheon will be waiting at my house," said Mr. May, who was still
+doing his best to please the man upon whom he had built such wild hopes,
+"and Ursula will be waiting."
+
+"Ah, ah, the young lady! so she will. I wouldn't miss that for
+something; but I don't like putting you to so much expense. My son here
+has an excellent appetite, as you must have found out by this time, and
+for my part so have I. I think it a thousand pities to put you to this
+trouble--and expense."
+
+"Pray don't think of that," said Mr. May with courtesy, which belied his
+feelings, for he would have liked nothing so well as to have knocked
+down his complacent patron. He led the way out, almost with eagerness,
+feeling Mr. Copperhead to be less offensive out of doors than within
+four walls. Was this the sort of man to be appealed to for help as he
+had thought? Probably his very arrogance would make him more disposed
+towards liberality. Probably it would flatter his sense of consequence,
+to have such a request made to him. Mr. May was very much at sea,
+letting I dare not wait upon I would; afraid to speak lest he should
+shut this door of help by so doing, and afraid to lose the chance of any
+succour by not speaking. He tried hard, in spite of all his
+difficulties, to be smooth and agreeable to a man who had so much in his
+power; but it was harder work than he could have thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+FATHER AND SON.
+
+
+Ursula had prepared a very careful luncheon for the stranger. She
+thought him disagreeable, but she had not looked at him much, for,
+indeed, Ursula's mind was much unsettled. Horace Northcote had spoken to
+her that morning, after Mrs. Hurst's visit and her retaliation upon him,
+as no man yet had ever spoken to her before. He had told her a long
+story, though it was briefly done, and could have been expressed in
+three words. He was not of her species of humanity; his ways of
+thinking, his prejudices, his traditions, were all different from hers,
+and yet that had happened to him which happens all over the world in
+every kind of circumstances--without knowing how it was, he had got to
+love her. Yes, he knew very well how it was, or rather, he knew when it
+was, which is all that is to be expected from a lover. It was on the
+evening of the _entrees_, the first dinner-party, and he had gone on
+ever since, deeper and deeper, hearing her say many things which he did
+not agree in, and tracing her life through a score of little habits
+which were not congenial to his, yet loving her more and more for all
+that was new to him, and even for the things which were uncongenial. He
+had told her all this, and Ursula had listened with a kind of awe,
+wondering at the ardour in the young man's eyes, and the warmth with
+which he spoke; wondering and trembling a little. She had guessed what
+he meant the night before, as has been said, and this had touched her
+with a little thrill of awakened feeling; but the innocent girl knew no
+more about passion than a child, and when she saw it, glowing and
+ardent, appealing to her, she was half-alarmed, half-overawed by the
+strange sight. What answer could she make to him? She did not know what
+to say. To reject him altogether was not in Ursula's heart; but she
+could not respond to that strange, new, overwhelming sentiment, which
+put a light in his eyes which she dared not meet; which dazzled her when
+she ventured a glance at him. "Was he to go away?" he asked, his voice,
+too, sounding musical and full of touching chords. Ursula could not tell
+him to go away either. What she did say to him, she never quite knew;
+but at least, whatever it was, it left him hopeful, if unsatisfied.
+
+And since that time her mind had been in a strange confusion, a
+confusion strange but sweet. Gratified vanity is not a pretty title to
+give to any feeling, and yet that mixture of gratification and
+gratitude, and penetrating pleasure in the fact of being elevated from
+an often-scolded and imperfect child to an admired and worshipped woman
+is, perhaps, of all the sensations that feminine youth is conscious of,
+the most poignant in its sweetness. It went through her whole life;
+sometimes it made her laugh when she was all alone, and there was
+nothing of a laughter-producing nature in her way; and sometimes it made
+her cry, both the crying and the laughter being one. It was strange,
+very strange, and yet sweet. Under the influence of this, and of the
+secret homage which Northcote paid her whenever they met; and which she
+now understood as she had never understood it before, the girl's whole
+nature expanded, though she did not know. She was becoming sweet to the
+children, to puzzled Janey, to every one around her. Her little
+petulances were all subdued. She was more sympathetic than she had ever
+been before. And yet she was not in love with her lover. It was only
+that the sunshine of young life had caught her, that the highest
+gratification of youth had fallen to her share unawares. All this might
+have been, and yet some one else come in to secure Ursula's real love;
+but in the mean time she was all the happier, all the better for the
+love which she did not return.
+
+This is a digression from our immediate subject, which was the luncheon
+prepared for Mr. Copperhead. Ursula sent up an urgent message for Phoebe,
+who came to her in her prettiest morning dress, very carefully
+arranged, but with a line of care upon her brow.
+
+"I will come if you wish it, dear," she said; "but I don't want to meet
+Mr. Copperhead. I don't like him."
+
+"Neither do I like him," cried Ursula. "He said something disagreeable
+the little moment he was here. Oh, I don't remember what it was, but
+something. Please stay. What am I to do with them all by myself? If you
+will help me, I may get through."
+
+Phoebe kissed her with a tremulous kiss; perhaps she was not unwilling to
+see with her own eyes what the father of Clarence meant, and what
+brought him here. She sat down at the window, and was the first to see
+them coming along the street.
+
+"What a gentleman your father looks beside them," cried Phoebe; "both of
+them, father and son; though Clarence, after all, is a great deal better
+than his father, less like a British snob."
+
+Ursula came and stood by her, looking out.
+
+"I don't think he is much better than his father," she said.
+
+Phoebe took her hand suddenly and wrung it, then dropped it as if it had
+hurt her. What did it all mean? Ursula, though rays of enlightenment had
+come to her, was still perplexed, and did not understand.
+
+Mr. Copperhead did not see her till he went to luncheon, when Phoebe
+appeared with little Amy May looking like a visitor, newly arrived. She
+had run upstairs after that first sight of him from the window,
+declaring herself unable to be civil to him except at table. The great
+man's face almost grew pale at the sight of her. He looked at Ursula,
+and then at Clarence, and laughed.
+
+"'Wheresoever the carcase is the eagles are gathered together,'" he
+said. "That's Scripture, ain't it, Miss Ursula? I am not good at giving
+chapter and verse."
+
+"What does it mean?" asked Ursula.
+
+She was quite indifferent to Mr. Copperhead, and perfectly unconscious
+of his observation. As for Phoebe, on the contrary, she was slightly
+agitated, her placid surface ruffled a little, and she looked her best
+in her agitation. Mr. Copperhead looked straight at her across the
+table, and laughed in his insolent way.
+
+"So you are here too, Miss Phoebe!" he said. "I might think myself in the
+Crescent if I didn't know better. I met young Northcote just now, and
+now you. What may you be doing here, might one ask? It is what you call
+a curious coincidence, ain't it, Clarence and you both here?"
+
+"I said so when Mr. Clarence came," said Phoebe. "_I_ came to take care
+of my grandmother, who is ill; and it was a very lucky thing for me that
+I had met Miss May at your ball, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+"By Jove, wasn't it!" said Clarence, roused to some dull sense of what
+was going on. "We owe all the fun we have had here to that, so we do.
+Odd, when one thinks of it; and thought so little of it then, didn't we?
+It's a very queer world."
+
+"So you've been having fun here?" said his father. "I thought you came
+here to work; that's how we old fellows get taken in. Work! with young
+ladies dangling about, and putting things into your head! I ought to
+have known better, don't you think so, Miss Ursula? _You_ could have
+taught me a thing or two."
+
+"I?" said Ursula, startled. "I don't know what I could teach any one. I
+think Mr. Clarence Copperhead has kept to his hours very steadily. Papa
+is rather severe; he never would take any excuse from any of us when we
+were working with him."
+
+"He is not so severe now, I'll be bound," said Mr. Copperhead. "Lets you
+have your fun a little, as Clarence tells me; don't you, May? Girls will
+be girls, and boys, boys, whatever we do; and I am sure, Miss Phoebe, you
+have been very entertaining, as you always were."
+
+"I have done my best," said Phoebe, looking him in the face. "I should
+have had a dull life but for the Parsonage, and I have tried to be
+grateful. I have accompanied your son on the violin a great many
+evenings, and I hope our friends have liked it. Mr. Clarence is a
+promising player, though I should like him to trust less to his ear; but
+we always pulled through."
+
+"Thanks to you," said Clarence, in the middle of his cutlet
+
+He did not quite see why she should flourish this music in his father's
+face; but still he was loyal in a dull fashion, and he was obstinate,
+and did not mean to be "sat upon," to use his own words. As for Phoebe,
+her quick mind caught at once the best line of policy. She determined to
+deliver Ursula, and she determined at the same time to let her future
+father-in-law (if he was to be her father-in-law) see what sort of a
+person he had to deal with. As soon as she made up her mind, her
+agitation disappeared. It was only the uncertainty that had cowed her;
+now she saw what to do.
+
+"So!" said Mr. Copperhead, "musical evenings! I hope you have not
+turned poor Clar's head among you, young ladies. It's not a very strong
+head; and two is more than a match for one. I dare say he has had no
+chance between you."
+
+"Make yourself quite easy," said Phoebe, with her sweetest smile; "he was
+only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and Mr. Northcote are both very
+pleasant companions. Your son is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are
+never bored. You see, he has been accustomed to more brilliant society;
+but as for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very
+happy. And if there has been two to one, it has been the other way."
+
+"I think I must let your people know of your gaieties, Miss Phoebe. If
+your mother sent you here, I don't doubt it was for a purpose, eh? She
+knows what she's about, and she won't like it if she knows you are
+fritting away your chances and your attentions. She has an eye for
+business, has Mrs. Beecham," said the leading member, with a laugh.
+
+"You cannot tell mamma more about me than she knows already," said
+Phoebe, with rising colour.
+
+And by this time every one else at table was uncomfortable. Even
+Clarence, who had a dull appreciation of his father's jokes when they
+were not levelled at himself, and who was by no means indisposed to
+believe that "girls," generally, were "after him," and that even in this
+particular case Phoebe herself might have come to Carlingford on purpose
+to complete his conquest, even Clarence was moved.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by brilliant society," he said. "I know I'm
+the dull one among you clever people. I don't say much, but I know it
+all the same; and it's awfully good of you to pull me through all that
+music. I don't begrudge you your laugh after. Is my mother coming over,
+sir, to see the place?"
+
+"To see what? There is not much in the place," said Mr. Copperhead.
+"You're coming back with me, my boy. I hope it won't inconvenience you,
+May. I've other views for him. Circumstances alter cases, you know. I've
+been turning it over in my head, and I think I can see my way to another
+arrangement."
+
+"That, of course, is entirely in your own hands," said Mr. May, with a
+cheerfulness he did not feel. His heart sank, but every rule of good
+society made it incumbent upon him to show no failure at such a moment.
+"Copperhead, see that your father has some wine. Well, I suppose our
+poor little Carlingford is not much of a place; no trade, no movement,
+no manufactures--"
+
+"The sort of place that should be cleared off the face of the earth,"
+said the millionnaire; "meaning no offence, of course. That's my opinion
+in respect to country towns. What's the good of them? Nests of gossip,
+places where people waste their time, and don't even amuse themselves.
+Give me green fields and London, that is my sort. I don't care if there
+was not another blessed brick in the country. There is always something
+that will grow in a field, corn or fat beasts--not that we couldn't get
+all that cheaper from over the water if it was managed as it ought to
+be. But a place like this, what's the good of it? Almshouses and
+chaplains, and that kind of rubbish, and old women; there's old women by
+the score."
+
+"They must be somewhere, I suppose," said Mr. May. "We cannot kill them
+off, if they are inoffensive, and keep the laws. So that, after all, a
+country town is of use."
+
+"Kill 'em off--no; it's against what you benevolent humbugs call the
+spirit of the time, and Christianity, and all that; but there's such a
+thing as carrying Christianity too far; that's my opinion. There's your
+almshouses now. What's the principle of them? I call it encouraging
+those old beggars to live," said Mr. Copperhead; "giving them permission
+to burden the community as long as they can manage it; a dead mistake,
+depend upon it, the greatest mistake in the world."
+
+"I think there is a great deal to be said in favour of Euthanasia," said
+Phoebe, quietly stepping into the conversation; "but then it would have
+to be with the consent of the victims. When any one found himself
+useless, unnecessary to the world, or unhappy in it--"
+
+"Humbug and nonsense," said Mr. Copperhead. "A likely thing for anybody
+to do. No, it is not a question for law-making. Let 'em die out
+naturally, that's my opinion. Don't do anything to hurry 'em--that is, I
+don't see my way to it; but let 'em go quiet, and don't bring 'em
+cordials and feather-beds, and all that middyeval nonsense, to keep 'em
+going as long as possible. It's wicked, that's what it is."
+
+"At all events," said Mr. May, who, poor man, was bent on pleasing, "it
+is refreshing to hear opinions so bold and original. Something new is
+always a blessing. I cannot say I agree with you--"
+
+"No parson would be bold enough for that. Christianity's been a capital
+thing for the world," said Mr. Copperhead, "I don't say a word against
+it; but in these go-ahead days, sir, we've had enough of it, that's to
+say when it's carried too far. All this fuss about the poor, all the row
+about dragging up a lot of poor little beggars to live that had far
+better die, and your almshouses to keep the old ones going, past all
+nature! Shovel the mould over them, that's the thing for the world; let
+'em die when they ought to die; and let them live who can live--that's
+my way of thinking--and what's more, I'm right."
+
+"What a fine thing for you, Mr. Clarence," cried Phoebe, "who are going
+into Parliament! to take up your father's idea and work it out. What a
+speech you could make on the subject! I saw a hospital once in Paris
+that would make such a wonderful illustration. I'll tell you about it if
+you like. Poor old wretched people whose life was nothing but
+wretchedness kept going, kept living for years and years--why, no one
+could tell; for I am sure it would have been better, far better for them
+to die and be done with it. What a speech you might make when you bring
+a bill into Parliament to abolish almshouses and all sorts of
+charities!" she added with a laugh, turning from Clarence, at whom she
+had been looking, to his father, who was puzzled, and did not know how
+to understand the young woman's eyes.
+
+"I'll never make much of a speech in Parliament," said Clarence; "unless
+you make it for me," he added in an undertone. But no one else was
+speaking, and the undertone was quite audible. Meanwhile Phoebe had not
+ceased to look at his father, and held him with a pair of eyes not like
+the Ancient Mariner's. Mr. Copperhead was confused, his power even of
+insolence was cowed for the moment. He obeyed quite docilely the
+movement made to leave the table. Was it possible that she defied him,
+this Minister's daughter, and measured her strength against his? Mr.
+Copperhead felt as if he could have shaken the impertinent girl, but
+dared not, being where he was.
+
+And lunch being over, Mr. May led his pupil's father into his study. "I
+want to show you what your boy has been doing," he said, pointing to a
+line of books which made the millionnaire's soul shrink within him. "I
+have not bothered him with classics; what was the use as he is not going
+back to Oxford? but I have done my best for him in a practical way. He
+has read history, largely as you see, and as much as I could give him of
+political and constitutional--"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Copperhead, reading the titles of some of the books
+under his breath. They impressed him deeply, and took away for a moment
+his self-confidence. It was his habit to boast that he knew nothing
+about books; but in their presence he shrank, feeling that they were
+greater than he, which was, there is little doubt, a sign of grace.
+
+"If you wish to remove Clarence," said Mr. May, "perhaps I had better
+make out a scheme of reading for him."
+
+"Look here," cried the rich man, "I didn't want to remove him; but there
+he is, the first I see of him, cheek for jowl with a good-looking girl.
+I don't mean to say a word against Miss May, I've no doubt she's
+charming; but anyhow there she is side by side with Clar, who is no more
+able to resist that sort of thing--"
+
+Mr. May laughed, and this time with unmitigated amusement. "Do you mean
+Ursula? I think I can answer for it that she made no attempts upon him
+for which resistance would be necessary."
+
+"That's all very well to say; but bless you they do it, every one," said
+Mr. Copperhead, "without exception, when a young fellow's well off and
+well-looking; and as if one wasn't bad enough, you've got Phoebe Beecham.
+You won't tell me she doesn't mean anything?--up to any mischief, a real
+minister's daughter. I don't mean anything uncivil to you or yours. I
+suppose a parson's different; but we know what a minister's daughter is
+in our connection. Like the men themselves, in short, who are always
+pouncing on some girl with a fortune if her relations don't take care.
+And Clarence is as weak as a baby; he takes after his mother--a poor bit
+of a feeble creature, though he's like me in exterior. That's how it is,
+you perceive; I don't quite see my way to letting him go on."
+
+"That is of course precisely as you please," said Mr. May, somewhat
+sharply. He would preserve his dignity even though his heart was
+sinking; but he could not keep that tone of sharpness out of his voice.
+
+"Of course it is as I please. I'll pay up of course for the second three
+months, if you choose, fair and square. I meant him to stay, and I'll
+pay. But that's all. You've no further claim upon me that I know of; and
+I must say that for a tutor, a regular coach, to keep girls in his
+house, daughters, or whatever you choose to call them, is something
+monstrous. It's a thing no fellow's friends would put up with. It's what
+I call dishonourable."
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. May, with all the self-possession he was master of,
+"you will let your son know at once that he must pack and go. I dare
+say, Sir Robert can take him, and we will send the portmanteaux. In such
+a case, it is better there should not be a moment's delay."
+
+"Clarence!" cried Mr. Copperhead, walking to the door and opening it.
+"Come along, look sharp, you're to go. I'll take you with me, do you
+hear? And May will see to sending you your boxes. Quick, come along,
+there's no time to lose."
+
+"Go!" said Clarence, coming in startled, with his eyebrows rising almost
+into his hair. "Go? What do you mean? Out of the Parsonage? The
+Governor's been having too much sherry," he said, coming close to Mr.
+May's arm; he had himself been taking too much of the sherry, for the
+good reason that nobody had taken any notice of what he did, and that he
+had foreseen the excitement that was coming. "You don't mean it, I
+know," he added aloud; "I'll go over for the night if Sir Robert will
+have me, and see my mother--"
+
+"Ask May," said Mr. Copperhead, "you'll believe him, I suppose; he's as
+glad to get rid of you as I am to take you away."
+
+"Is this true?" cried Clarence, roused and wondering, "and if so, what's
+happened? I ain't a baby, you know, to be bundled about from one to
+another. The Governor forgets that."
+
+"Your father," said Mr. May, "chooses to remove you, and that is all I
+choose to say."
+
+"But, by George, I can say a deal more," said Mr. Copperhead. "You
+simpleton, do you think I am going to leave you here where there's
+man-traps about? None of such nonsense for me. Put your things together,
+I tell you. Phoebe Beecham's bad enough at home; but if she thinks she's
+to have you here to pluck at her leisure, she and her friends--"
+
+"W--hew!" said Clarence, with a long whistle. "So that's it. I am very
+sorry, father, if these are your sentiments; but I may as well tell you
+at once I shan't go."
+
+"You--must go."
+
+"No," he said, squaring his shoulders and putting out his shirt front;
+he had never been roused into rebellion before, and perhaps without
+these extra glasses of sherry he would not have had the courage now. But
+what with sherry, and what with _amour propre_, and what with the thing
+he called love, Clarence Copperhead mounted all at once upon a pedestal.
+He had a certain dogged obstinacy in him, suspected by nobody but his
+mother, who had little enough to say in the guidance of her boy. He set
+himself square like a pugilist, which was his notion of resistance. Mr.
+May looked on with a curious mixture of feelings. His own sudden and
+foolish hope was over, and what did it matter to him whether the
+detestable father or the coarse son should win? He turned away from them
+with contempt, which was made sharp by their utter uselessness to
+himself. Had it been possible that he might have what he wanted from
+Mr. Copperhead, his patience would have held out against any trial; but
+the moment that hope was over, what further interest had he in the
+question? He went to his writing-table and sat down there, leaving them
+to fight it out as they would, by themselves. It was no affair of his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+A PLEASANT EVENING.
+
+
+The result, however, was a compromise. Clarence Copperhead went off with
+his father and Sir Robert to the Hall for the night, but was to return
+next day, and Phoebe was left in a condition of some excitement behind
+them, not quite knowing what to think. She was as sure as ever that he
+had made up his mind to propose; but he had not done it, and what effect
+his father's visit, and perhaps his mother's entreaties, might have upon
+him, Phoebe could not tell. The crisis excited her beyond any excitement
+which she would have thought possible in respect to Clarence Copperhead.
+She was more like an applicant for office kept uncertain whether she was
+to have a desirable post or not, than a girl on the eve of a lover's
+declaration. This was her own conception of the circumstances. She did
+not dislike Clarence; quite the reverse. She had no sympathy with
+Ursula's impatience of his heavy vanity. Phoebe had been used to him all
+her life, and had never thought badly of the heavy boy whom she had been
+invited to amuse when she was six years old, and whom she had no
+particular objection to amuse still, let the others wonder at her as
+they might. Poor Reginald, contemplating bitterly her many little
+complacencies to his rival, set them down hastily to an appreciation of
+that rival's worldly advantages, which was not quite a just sentence. It
+was true, and yet it was not true; other feelings mingled in Phoebe's
+worldliness. She did, indeed, perceive and esteem highly the advantages
+which Clarence could give her; but she had not the objections to
+Clarence himself that the others had. She was willing, quite willing, to
+undertake the charge of him, to manage, and guide, and make a man of
+him. And yet, while it was not pure worldliness, much less was it actual
+love which moved her. It was a kind of habitual affection, as for the
+"poor thing, but mine own, sir," of the jester. He was but a poor
+creature, but Phoebe knew she could make something of him, and she had
+no distaste to the task. When she began to perceive that Reginald, in so
+many ways Clarence's superior, was at her disposal, a sense of
+gratification went through Phoebe's mind, and it certainly occurred to
+her that the feeling he might inspire would be a warmer and a more
+delightful one than that which would fall to Clarence Copperhead; but
+she was not tempted thereby to throw Clarence off for the other. No, she
+was pleased, and not unwilling to expend a little tender regret and
+gratitude upon poor Reginald. She was ready to be "kind" to him, though
+every woman knows that is the last thing she ought to be to a rejected
+lover; and she was full of sympathy for the disappointment which,
+nevertheless, she fully intended was to be his lot. This seems
+paradoxical, but it is no more paradoxical than human creatures
+generally are. On this particular evening her heart beat very high on
+account of Clarence, to know if he would have strength of mind to hold
+his own against his father, and if he would come back to her and ask
+her, as she felt certain he meant to do, that one momentous question.
+Her heart would not have been broken had he not done so, but still she
+would have been disappointed. Notwithstanding when the evening came, the
+absence of Clarence was a relief to Phoebe as well as to the rest of the
+party, and she gave herself up to the pleasures of a few hours of
+half-tender intercourse with Reginald, with a sense of enjoyment such as
+she seldom felt. This was very wrong, there is no denying it, but still
+so it was. She was anxious that Clarence should come back to her, and
+ask her to be his wife; and yet she was pleased to be rid of Clarence,
+and to give her whole attention and sympathy to Reginald, trying her
+best to please him. It was very wrong; and yet such things have happened
+before, and will again; and are as natural, perhaps, as the more
+absolute and unwavering passion which has no doubt of its object,
+passion like Northcote's, who had neither eyes nor ears for anything but
+Ursula. The four were alone together that evening, and enjoyed it
+thoroughly. Clarence was away, who, to all but Phoebe, was an
+interruption of their intercourse; and Mr. May was away in his study,
+too much absorbed to think of any duties that ought to have devolved
+upon him as chaperon; and even Janey was out of the way, taking tea with
+Mrs. Hurst. So the two young pairs sat round the table and talked; the
+girls, with a mutual panic, which neither breathed to the other, keeping
+together, avoiding separation into pairs. Ursula out of very shyness and
+fright alone, lest another chapter of the strange, novel, too moving
+love-tale might be poured into her ears; but Phoebe with more settled
+purpose, to prevent any disclosure on the part of Reginald. The evening
+was mixed up of pleasure and pain to the two young men, each eager to
+find himself alone with the girl whom he loved; but it is to be feared
+the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which they
+ought not to have had. Open and outrageous love-making is not half so
+delicate a pastime as that in which nothing distinct dare be said, but
+all is implication, conveyed and understood without words. I know it is
+a dangerous thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession; you
+may say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish to
+give a disagreeable version of it; but, however you choose to explain
+it, this was how it was.
+
+It was with fear and trembling at last that Phoebe went to the piano,
+which was at the other end of the room, after making all the resistance
+which was possible.
+
+"Thank Heaven, that idiot and his fiddle aren't here to-night to
+interfere!" cried Reginald.
+
+Phoebe shook her head at him, but ventured on no words; and how she did
+exert herself on the piano, playing things which were a great deal too
+classical for Reginald, who would have preferred the simplest stock
+piece, under cover of which he might have talked to her hanging over her
+chair, and making belief to turn over the music! This was what he
+wanted, poor fellow. He had no heart nor ears for Beethoven, which Phoebe
+played to him with a tremor in her heart, and yet, the wicked little
+witch, with some enjoyment too.
+
+"This is not the sort of thing you play when Copperhead is here," he
+said at last, driven to resistance.
+
+"Oh, we play Mendelssohn," said Phoebe, with much show of innocence; and
+then she added, "You ought to feel the compliment if I play Beethoven to
+you."
+
+"So I ought, I suppose," said Reginald. "The truth is, I don't care for
+music. Don't take your hands off the keys."
+
+"Why, you have done nothing but worry me to play!"
+
+"Not for the music," said Reginald, quite satisfied to have got his
+will. "Why will you not talk to me and play to me, as I wish?"
+
+"Perhaps, if I knew what you wish--" Phoebe said, in spite of herself.
+
+"Oh, how I should like to tell you! No, not Beethoven; a little, just a
+little music. Heavens!" cried Reginald, as she crashed into a
+fortissimo, "another sonata! Listen, I am not equal to sonatas. Nay,
+Miss Beecham, play me a little nothing--talk to me."
+
+She shook her head at him with a laugh, and went on playing the hardest
+piece of music she could think of, complicating herself in difficult
+chords and sudden accidentals. If there had been anybody there to hear
+who could have understood, Phoebe's performance would, no doubt, have
+appeared a masterpiece of brilliant execution, as it was; but the two
+others were paying not the slightest attention, and as for Reginald, he
+was in a state of tantalized vexation, which half-amused himself, and
+filled the performer with an exhilarating sense of successful mischief.
+Northcote was trying to say--what was he not trying to say?--to Ursula,
+under cover of the music, which was the best shield he could have had;
+and perhaps in reality, though Reginald was tantalized to the utmost
+degree of tantalization, even he had a certain enjoyment in the saucy
+self-defence which was more mischievous than cruel. He stood behind
+Phoebe's chair, now and then meeting her laughing glance with one of
+tender appeal and reproach, pleased to feel himself thus isolated with
+her, and held an arm's-length in so genial a way. He would have his
+opportunity after a while, when there would be no piano to give her a
+momentary refuge, and then he would say out all that was in his heart,
+with no possible shadow of a rival to interfere with him. Angry? no; as
+he stood behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keys, a
+delightful calm stole over Reginald. Now and then she would throw a
+half-mocking glance at him upward over her shoulder, as she swept over
+the resounding board. When the sonata was concluded, Phoebe sprang up
+from the piano, and went back to the table. She proposed that they
+should play a game at cards, to which Ursula agreed. The young men
+shrugged their shoulders and protested; but, after all, what did it
+matter, so long as they were together? They fell into their places quite
+naturally, the very cards assisting; and so the moments flew by. There
+was not so much sound as usual in the old faded drawing-room, which had
+come to look so bright and homelike; not so much sound of voices,
+perhaps less laughter--yet of all the evenings they had spent there
+together, that was the one they looked back upon, all four, with most
+tender recollection. They had been so happy, or, if not happy, so near
+(apparently) to happiness, which is better sometimes than happiness
+itself.
+
+"Don't let Reginald come with me," Phoebe whispered, as she kissed her
+friend, and said good night, "or ask Mr. Northcote to come too."
+
+"Why?" said Ursula, with dreamy eyes; her own young tide of life was
+rising, invading, for the moment, her perceptions, and dulling her sense
+of what was going on round her. There was no time, however, for
+anything more to be said, for Reginald was close behind with his hat in
+his hand. Phoebe had to resign herself, and she knew what was coming. The
+only thing was, if possible, to stop the declaration on the way.
+
+"This is the first chance I have had of seeing you home without that
+perpetual shadow of Copperhead--"
+
+"Ah, poor Clarence!" said Phoebe. "I wonder how he is getting on away
+from us all to-night."
+
+"Poor Clarence!" echoed Reginald aghast. "You don't mean to say that
+you--miss him, Miss Beecham? I never heard you speak of him in that tone
+before."
+
+"Miss him! no, perhaps not exactly," said Phoebe, with a soft little
+sigh; "but still--I have known him all my life, Mr. May; when we were
+quite little I used to be sent for to his grand nursery, full of lovely
+toys and things--a great deal grander than mine."
+
+"And for that reason--" said Reginald, becoming bitter, with a laugh.
+
+"Nothing for that reason," said Phoebe; "but I noticed it at six as I
+should at twenty. I must have been a horrid little worldly-minded thing,
+don't you think? So you see there are the associations of a great many
+years to make me say Poor Clarence, when anything is the matter with
+him."
+
+"He is lucky to rouse your sympathies so warmly," cried Reginald,
+thoroughly wretched; "but I did not know there was anything the matter."
+
+"I think there will be if he has to leave our little society, where we
+have all been so happy," said Phoebe, softly. "How little one thought,
+coming here a stranger, how pleasant it was to be! I especially, to whom
+coming to Carlingford was rather--perhaps I might say a humiliation. I
+am very fond of grandpapa and grandmamma now, but the first introduction
+was something of a shock--I have never denied it; and if it had not been
+for sweet kind Ursula and you--all."
+
+The little breathless fragmentary pause which Phoebe made between the you
+and the "all," giving just a ghost of emphasis to the pronoun, sounded
+to poor Reginald in his foolishness almost like a caress. How cleverly
+it was managed, with just so much natural feeling in it as gave it
+reality! They were approaching No. 6, and Martha, the maid, already was
+visible at the open door.
+
+"Then you do give me some share--some little share," he cried, with a
+broken voice. "Ah, if you would only let me tell you what your coming
+has been to me. It has opened up my life; I feel everything different,
+the old earth itself; there is a new light upon the whole world--"
+
+"Hush, here is Martha!" cried Phoebe, "she will not understand about new
+lights. Yes, it has been pleasant, very pleasant; when one begins to
+sigh and realize how pleasant a thing has been, I always fear it is
+going to be broken up."
+
+"_Absit omen!_" cried Reginald, fervently, taking the hand she had put
+out to bid him good night, and holding it fast to detain her; and was
+there moisture in the eyes which she lifted to him, and which glistened,
+he thought, though there was only the distant light of a lamp to see
+them by?
+
+"You must not keep me now," cried Phoebe, "here is grandpapa coming. Good
+night, Mr. May, good night."
+
+Was Phoebe a mere coquette _pure et simple_? As soon as she had got safe
+within these walls, she stooped down over the primroses to get rid of
+Martha, and then in the darkness had a cry, all by herself, on one side
+of the wall, while the young lover, with his head full of her, checked,
+but not altogether discouraged, went slowly away on the other. She
+cried, and her heart contracted with a real pang. He was very tender in
+his reverential homage, very romantic, a true lover, not the kind of man
+who wants a wife or wants a clever companion to amuse him, and save him
+the expense of a coach, and be his to refer to in everything. That was
+an altogether different kind of thing. Phoebe went in with a sense in her
+mind that perhaps she had never touched so close upon a higher kind of
+existence, and perhaps never again might have the opportunity; but
+before she had crossed the garden, she had begun once more to question
+whether Clarence would have the fortitude to hold his own against
+everything that father or mother could do to change his mind. Would he
+have the fortitude? Would he come back to her, safe and determined, or
+would he yield to arguments in favour of some richer bride, and come
+back either estranged or at the least doubtful? This gave her a pang of
+profound anxiety at the bottom of her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+AN EXPEDITION.
+
+
+Mr. May did not come upstairs that evening. It was not that he was
+paralysed as he had been on the previous occasion, when he sat as now
+and heard Phoebe go away after her first visit, and when the wind blowing
+in from the open door playfully carried to his feet the scribbled note
+with Tozer's name. He was not stupefied as then, nor was he miserable.
+The threatened withdrawal of Clarence Copperhead was more to him than
+the impending ruin meant by that bill which was so nearly due. He was
+occupied by that to the exclusion of the other. It would be a most
+serious change to him in every way. He had calculated on the continuance
+of this additional income for at least a year, and short of the year it
+would have done him no good, but had simply plunged him into additional
+expense. It was this he was thinking of, and which kept him in his study
+after the young people had assembled. Cotsdean had come again while Mr.
+May was at dinner, which by some curious unconscious aggravation on his
+part was the time he especially chose as most convenient for him; and he
+had again sent a dirty note by Bobby, imploring his principal to think
+of the impending fate, and not to desert him. Mr. May was angry at this
+perpetual appeal. "Why should I desert him, the idiot?" he said to
+himself; and moved by the man's persistence, he took out his pocket-book
+again, and made out beyond all chance of mistake, that it was the 18th.
+Why should the fool insist upon its being the 15th with such perpetual
+iteration? There were the figures as plain as possible, 18th April. Mr.
+May wrote a peremptory note announcing this fact to Cotsdean, and then
+returned to his own thoughts. Sir Robert had asked him to go over that
+morning and spend the day at the Hall with the Copperheads, not knowing
+of any breach between them. He thought he had better do this. If
+Clarence determined to stay, that would be a great thing in his favour,
+and he had seen that the young man's dull spirit was roused; and if that
+hope failed, there might still be advantage even in this sudden breaking
+of the bond. Part of the second quarter was gone, and the father had
+offered three months additional pay. These two payments would make up
+the hundred and fifty pounds at once, and settle the business. Thus, in
+either way, he should be safe, for if Clarence went away the money would
+be paid; and if he stayed, Mr. May himself had made up his mind to risk
+the bold step of going to the bank and asking an advance on this
+inalienable security. All these deliberations made his mind easy about
+the bill. It must come right one way or another; he might have chosen
+perhaps not to run it quite so close; but after all the 15th was only
+to-morrow, and there were still three days. While his mind was full of
+these things he did not care to go upstairs. He heard the voices of the
+young people, but he was too much engrossed with his own calculations to
+care to join them. It was a close thing, he said to himself, a very
+close thing; but still he felt that he could do it--surely he could do
+it. If Mr. Copperhead settled with him--and he was the sort of man, a
+man to whom money was nothing, to do so on the spot if he took it into
+his head--then all was right. And if Mr. Copperhead did not do so, the
+bank, though his past transactions with it had not been encouraging,
+would certainly make all right on account of these Copperhead payments,
+which were as certain as any payments could be. He went to bed early,
+being engrossed by these thoughts, not even saying good-night to Ursula,
+as was his wont; and he made up his mind to take an early breakfast, and
+start the first thing in the morning for the Hall. There was an early
+train which would suit admirably. He could not afford to drive, as Sir
+Robert had done, changing horses half way. He went upstairs to bed,
+somewhat heavily, but not discontented, seeing his way. After all, the
+great thing in life is to see your way. It does not matter so much
+whether that way is great or small, so long as you can see it plain
+before you. Mr. May breathed a sigh of anxiety as he ended the day. He
+had a great many things on his mind; but still he was not altogether
+heavy-hearted or discouraged beyond measure; things, he felt, would
+shape themselves better than he had hoped. He was not perhaps going to
+be so much better off than of old, as he thought possible when Clarence
+Copperhead came. Such delusive prospects do glimmer across a poor man's
+path when any apparent expansion of means occurs to him; but in the
+majority of cases he has to consent to see the fine fictitious glow die
+away. Mr. May was not ignorant of this experience already. A man who is
+over fifty is generally more or less prepared for anything that can
+happen to him in this kind; but he thought he could "get on;" and after
+all that is the sum of life to three parts of mankind.
+
+He was silent at breakfast, but not disagreeable, and Ursula was too
+much taken up with her own concerns to pay much attention to him.
+Ursula's concerns were developing with a rapidity altogether
+extraordinary. In the mind of a girl of twenty, unforestalled by any
+previous experience, the process that goes on between the moment when
+the surprising, overwhelming discovery rushes upon her that some one
+loves her in the old way of romance, until the corresponding moment when
+she finds out that her own heart too has been invaded by this wonderful
+sentiment, which is like nothing that was ever known before, is of a
+very rapid description. It is like the bursting of a flower, which a
+day's sunshine brings to the blooming point like a miracle, though it is
+in reality the simplest result of nature. Already there began to glow a
+haze of brightness about those three months past in which everything had
+begun. When or how it began she could not now tell. The glow of it was
+in her eyes and dazzled her. She heard the voices of the others sounding
+vaguely through this bright mist in which she herself was isolated; when
+she was obliged to reply, she called herself back with an effort, and
+did so--but of her own will she seldom spoke. How Janey chattered, how
+the children maundered on about their little concerns, which were of
+consequence to nobody! Papa was the person whom Ursula really respected
+this morning, for he had more sense than to talk. How could people talk,
+as if there was pleasure in that? But papa had more sense, he had things
+to think of--too. So the girl approved her father, and thought more
+highly of him, and never inquired what it might be that occupied his
+mind, and kept him from noticing even when the children were unruly. And
+it would be giving the reader an unfair idea of the children, if we
+attempted to conceal that they did take advantage of their
+opportunities, and were as unruly as well-conditioned children in the
+circumstances were likely to be. Mr. May took no notice; he took his
+coffee hurriedly and went off to the station.
+
+"If I don't return this evening you need not be alarmed. I shall come
+back at the latest to-morrow morning," he said.
+
+The children all rushed to the window to see him go away; even Ursula
+looking out dreamily remarked him too, as she seldom did; and Mrs. Sam
+Hurst at her window, wondering where her neighbour could be going,
+heaved a deep sigh of admiration, which though she was not "in love," as
+the girls thought, with Mr. May, was a passing tribute to his good looks
+and training. He looked a gentleman every inch of him--an English
+gentleman, spotless in linen, speckless in broadcloth, though his dress
+was far from new; the freshness of sound health and a clear conscience
+on his handsome face, though he was no longer young. His abundant hair,
+steel-grey, slightly crisped under his hat, not curling exactly, but
+with a becoming twist in it--clerical, yet not too clerical, a man given
+to no extremes, decorously churchmanlike, yet liberal and tolerant of
+the world. Though she was too wise to compromise her own comfort by
+marrying him, Mrs. Hurst felt that there was a great pleasure in making
+his daughters anxious about her "intentions," and that even to be said
+to be in love with such a man was no shame, but rather the reverse.
+
+He went away accordingly, taking a short cut to the railway, and thus
+missing Cotsdean, who came breathless ten minutes after he was gone, and
+followed him to the train; but too late.
+
+"Well, well," Cotsdean said to himself, wiping his forehead, "Old Tozer
+has plenty, it ain't nothing to him to pay. They can settle it between
+'em."
+
+Cotsdean himself was easier in his mind than he had ever been before on
+such an occasion. His clergyman, though personally an awful and
+respect-inspiring personage, was so far as money went a man of straw, as
+he well knew, and his name on a bill was very little worth; but Tozer
+was a man who could pay his way. A hundred and fifty pounds, or even ten
+times that, would not ruin the old shopkeeper. Cotsdean's sense of
+commercial honour was not so very keen that the dishonouring of his bill
+in the circumstances should give him a very serious pang. He would not
+be sold up, or have an execution put into his shop when the other party
+to the bill was so substantial a person. Of course Tozer, when he signed
+it, must have been told all about it, and Cotsdean did not see how with
+two such allies against ruin, anything very serious could befall him. He
+was uneasy indeed, but his uneasiness had no such force in it as before.
+He went back to his shop and his business prepared to take the matter as
+calmly as possible. He was but passive in it. It could not harm him much
+in the eyes of his banker, who knew his affairs too well to be much
+astonished at any such incident, and Tozer and Mr. May must settle it
+between them. It was their affair.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. May rattled along in the railway towards the Hall. He got
+a dog-cart at the little inn at the station to take him over, though
+generally when he went to see the Dorsets it was his custom to walk.
+"But what were a few shillings?" he said to himself, the prodigality of
+desperation having seized upon him. In any case he could pay that, and
+if he was to be ruined, what did a few shillings more or less matter?
+but the discomfort of walking over those muddy roads, and arriving with
+dirty boots and a worn-out aspect, mattered a great deal. He reached the
+Hall at a propitious moment, when Mr. Copperhead was in the highest
+good-humour. He had been taken over the place, from one end to another,
+over the stables, the farm-buildings, the farm itself from end to end,
+the preserves, the shrubberies, the greenhouses, everything; all of
+which details he examined with an unfailing curiosity which would have
+been highly flattering to the possessors if it had not been neutralized
+by a strain of comment which was much less satisfactory. When Mr. May
+went in, he found him in the dining-room, with Sir Robert and his
+daughters standing by, clapping his wings and crowing loudly over a
+picture which the Dorsets prized much. It represented a bit of vague
+Italian scenery, mellow and tranquil, and was a true "Wilson," bought by
+an uncle of Sir Robert's, who had been a connoisseur, from the Master
+himself, in the very country where it was painted; and all these details
+pleased the imagination of the family, who, though probably they would
+have been but mildly delighted had they possessed the acquaintance of
+the best of contemporary painters, were proud that Uncle Charles had
+known Italian Wilson, and had bought a picture out of his studio. A
+Hobbema or a Poussin would scarcely have pleased them as much, for the
+worst of an old Master is that your friends look suspiciously upon it as
+a copy; whereas Wilson is scarcely old enough or precious enough to be
+copied. They were showing their picture and telling the story to the
+millionnaire with an agreeable sense that, though they were not so rich,
+they must, at least, have the advantage of him in this way.
+
+"Ha!" said Mr. Copperhead, "you should see my Turner. Didn't I show you
+my Turner? I don't venture to tell you, Sir Robert, what that picture
+cost me. It's a sin, it is, to keep that amount of capital hanging
+useless upon a bit of wall. The Wilson may be all very well. I ain't a
+judge of art, and I can't give my opinion on that point, though it's a
+common sort of a name, and there don't seem to be much in it; but
+everybody knows what a Turner means. Here's May; he'll be able to tell
+you as well as another. It means a few cool thousands, take my word for
+it. It means, I believe, that heaps of people would give you your own
+price. I don't call it a profitable investment, for it brings in no
+interest; but they tell me it's a thing that grows in value every year.
+And there it is, Sir, hanging up useless on my wall in Portland Place,
+costing a fortune, and bringing in not a penny. But I like it; I like
+it, for I can afford it, by George! Here's May; he knows what that sort
+of thing is; he'll tell you that a Turner is worth its weight in gold."
+
+"Thank you, I don't think I need any information on that subject," said
+Sir Robert. "Besides, I saw your Turner. It is a pretty picture--if it
+is authentic; but Wilson, you know--"
+
+"Wasn't a big-enough swell not to be authentic, eh?" said Mr.
+Copperhead. "Common name enough, and I don't know that I ever heard of
+him in the way of painting; but I don't pretend to be a judge. Here's
+May; now, I dare say he knows all about it. Buying's one thing,
+knowing's another. Your knowing ones, when they've got any money, they
+have the advantage over us, Sir Robert; they can pick up a thing that's
+good, when it happens to come their way, dirt cheap; but fortunately for
+us, it isn't often they've got any money," he added, with a laugh,
+slapping Mr. May on the shoulder in a way which made him totter. But the
+clergyman's good-humour was equal even to this assault. It is wonderful
+how patient and tolerant we can all be when the motive is strong enough.
+
+"That is true," he said; "but I fear I have not even the compensation of
+knowledge. I know enough, however, to feel that the possessor of a
+Turner is a public personage, and may be a public benefactor if he
+pleases."
+
+"How that? If you think I am one to go lending my pictures about, or
+leaving them to the nation when I'm done for, that's not my sort. No, I
+keep them to myself. If I consent to have all that money useless, it is
+for myself, you may depend, and not for other people. And I'll leave it
+to my boy Clarence, if he behaves himself. He's a curiosity, too, and
+has a deal of money laid out on him that brings no interest, him and his
+mother. I'll leave it to Clar, if he doesn't make a low marriage, or any
+folly of that kind."
+
+"You should make it an heir-loom," said Sir Robert, with sarcasm too
+fine for his antagonist; "leave it from father to son of your
+descendants, like our family diamonds and plate."
+
+Anne and Sophy looked at each other and smiled, the one sadly, the other
+satirically. The Dorset family jewels were rose-diamonds of small value,
+and the plate was but moderate in quantity, and not very great in
+quality. Poor Sir Robert liked to blow his little trumpet too, but it
+was not so blatant as that of his visitor, whose rude senses did not
+even see the intended malice.
+
+"By George! I think I will," he said. "I'm told it's as safe as the
+bank, and worth more and more every year, and if it don't bring in
+anything, it don't eat anything; eh, May? Look here; perhaps I was
+hasty the other day," he said, pushing the clergyman a little apart from
+the group with a large hand on his shoulder. "Clarence tells me you're
+the best coach he ever saw, and that he's getting on like a house on
+fire."
+
+"He does make progress, I think," answered the tutor, thus gracefully
+complimented.
+
+"But all the same, you know, I had a right to be annoyed. Now a man of
+your sense--for you seem a man of sense, though you're a parson, and
+know what side your bread's buttered on--ought to see that it's an
+aggravating thing when a young fellow has been sent to a coach for his
+instruction, and to keep him out of harm's way, to find him cheek by
+jowl with a nice-looking young woman. That's not what a father has a
+right to expect."
+
+"You couldn't expect me to do away with my daughter because I happened
+to take a pupil?" said Mr. May, half-amused; "but I can assure you that
+she has no designs upon your son."
+
+"So I hear, so I hear," said the other, with a mixture of pique and
+satisfaction. "Won't look at him, Clar tells me; got her eye on some one
+else, little fool! She'll never have such a chance again. As for having
+no designs, that's bosh, you know; all women have designs. I'm a deal
+easier in my mind when I'm told she's got other fish to fry."
+
+"Other fish to fry?" said Mr. May; this time he was wholly amused, and
+laughed. "This is news to me. However, we don't want to discuss my
+little Ursula; about your son it will be well that I should know, for I
+might be forming other engagements. This moment is a time of pecuniary
+pressure with me," he added, with the ingratiating smile and
+half-pathetic frankness of the would-be borrower. "I have not taken
+pupils before, but I want money for the time. My son's settlement in
+life, you see, and--but the father of a large family can always find
+good reasons for wanting money."
+
+"That's it," said Mr. Copperhead, seriously. "Why are you the father of
+a large family? That's what I ask our ministers. It's against all
+political economy, that is. According as you've no money to give 'em,
+you go and have children--when it should be just the other way."
+
+"That may be very true; but there they are, and can't be done away with;
+and I do want money, as it happens, more now than I shall want it a year
+hence, or, perhaps, even six months hence."
+
+"Most people do," said Mr. Copperhead, withdrawing his hand from his
+pocket, and placing his elbow tightly against the orifice of that very
+important part of him. "It's the commonest thing in the world. I want
+money myself, for that matter. I've always got a large amount to make up
+by a certain date, and a bill to pay. But about Clar, that's the
+important matter. As he seems to have set his mind on it, and as you
+assure me there's no danger--man-traps, or that sort of thing, eh?"
+
+The colour came to Mr. May's cheek; but it was only for a moment. To
+have his own daughter spoken of as a man-trap gave him a momentary
+thrill of anger; but, as he would have applied the word quite composedly
+to any other man's daughter, the resentment was evanescent. He did not
+trust himself to answer, however, but nodded somewhat impatiently, which
+made the millionnaire laugh the more.
+
+"Don't like the man-trap?" he said. "Bless you, they're all alike, not
+yours more than the rest. But as I was saying, if it's warranted safe I
+suppose he'll have to stay. But I don't stand any nonsense, May; and
+look here, your music and all that ain't in the agreement. He can have a
+master for his music, he's well enough able to pay for it; but I won't
+have a mistress, by George, to put folly into his head."
+
+"I am to forbid him the drawing-room, I suppose, and take his fiddle
+from him! I have no objections. Between ourselves, as I am not musical,
+it would be very agreeable to me; but perhaps he is rather over the age,
+don't you think, for treatment of that kind?"
+
+Clarence had come in, and stood watching the conversation, with a look
+Mr. Copperhead was not prepared for. Those mild brown eyes, which were
+his mother's share in him, were full a-stare with sullen resolution, and
+his heavy mouth shut like that of a bull-dog. He lingered at the door,
+looking at the conversation which was going on between his father and
+his tutor, and they both noticed him at the same moment, and drew the
+same conclusion. Mr. May was in possession of the _parole_, as the
+French say, and he added instinctively in an undertone,
+
+"Take care; if I were you I would not try him too far."
+
+Mr. Copperhead said nothing; but he stared too, rather aghast at this
+new revelation. What! his porcelain, his Dresden figure of a son, his
+crowning curiosity, was _he_ going to show a will of his own? The despot
+felt a thrill go over him. What kind of a sentiment love was in his mind
+it would be hard to tell; but his pride was all set on this heavy boy.
+To see him a man of note, in Parliament, his name in the papers, his
+speeches printed in the "Times," was the very heaven of his
+expectations. "Son of the famous Copperhead, the great contractor." He
+did not care about such distinction in his own person; but this had
+been his dream ever since Clarence came into being. And now there he
+stood gloomy, obdurate. If he had made up his mind to make a low
+marriage, could his father hinder him--could anything hinder him? Mr.
+Copperhead looked at his son and quailed for the first time in his life.
+
+"May," he said, hurriedly, "do the best you can; he's got all his
+mother's d----d obstinacy, you can see, can't you? but I've set my heart
+on making a man of him--do the best you can."
+
+Mr. May thought to himself afterwards if he had only had the vigour to
+say, "Pay me six months in advance," the thing would have been done. But
+the lingering prejudices of breeding clung about him, and he could not
+do it. Mr. Copperhead, however, was very friendly all the rest of the
+day, and gave him private looks and words aside, to the great admiration
+of the Dorsets, to whom the alliance between them appeared remarkable
+enough.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+A CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+Mr. May left the Hall before dinner, notwithstanding the warm invitation
+which was given to him to stay. He was rather restless, and though it
+was hard to go out into the dark just as grateful odours began to steal
+through the house, it suited him better to do so than to spend the night
+away from home. Besides, he comforted himself that Sir Robert's cook was
+not first-rate, not good enough to make it a great temptation. It was a
+long walk to the station, for they had no horses at liberty to drive
+him, a fact at which he was slightly offended, though he was aware that
+Sir Robert's stable was but a poor one. He set out just as the
+dressing-bell began to ring, fortified with a glass of sherry and a
+biscuit. The night was mild and soft, the hedgerows all rustling with
+the new life of the spring, and the stars beginning to come out as he
+went on; and on the whole the walk was pleasant, though the roads were
+somewhat muddy. As he went along, he felt himself fall into a curious
+dreamy state of mind, which was partly fatigue perhaps, but was not at
+all unpleasant. Sometimes he almost seemed to himself to be asleep as he
+trudged on, and woke up with a start, thinking that he saw indistinct
+figures, the skirt of a dress or the tail of a long coat, disappearing
+past him, just gone before he was fully awake to what it was. He knew
+there was no one on the lonely road, and that this was a dream or
+illusion, but still he kept seeing these vanishings of indistinct
+wayfarers, which did not frighten him in the least, but half-amused him
+in the curious state of his brain. He had got rid of his anxiety. It was
+all quite plain before him what to do,--to go to the Bank, to tell them
+what he had coming in, and to settle everything as easily as possible.
+The consciousness of having this to do acted upon him like a gentle
+opiate or dream-charm. When he got to the railway station, and got into
+a carriage, he seemed to be floating somehow in a prolonged vision of
+light and streaks of darkness, not quite aware now far he was going, or
+where he was going, across the country; and even when he arrived at
+Carlingford he roused himself with difficulty, not quite certain that he
+had to get out; then he smiled at himself, seeing the gas-lights in a
+sort of vague glimmer about him, not uncomfortable, but misty and
+half-asleep. "If Sir Robert's sherry had been better, I should have
+blamed that," he said to himself; and in fact it was a kind of drowsy,
+amiable mental intoxication which affected him, he scarcely could tell
+how. When he got within sight of his own house, he paused a moment and
+looked up at the lights in the windows. There was music going on; Phoebe,
+no doubt, for Ursula could not play so well as that, and the house
+looked full and cheerful. He had a cheerful home, there was no doubt of
+that. Young Copperhead, though he was a dunce, felt it, and showed an
+appreciation of better things in his determination not to leave the
+house where he had been so happy. Mr. May felt an amiable friendliness
+stealing over him for Clarence too.
+
+Upstairs in the drawing-room another idyllic evening had begun. Phoebe
+"had not intended to come," but was there notwithstanding, persuaded by
+Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had
+celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was
+still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote
+had "not intended to come." Indeed, he had gone further than this, he
+had intended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner,
+he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up
+and down in forlorn contemplation of the lighted windows, had been spied
+by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were
+together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general
+criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation.
+Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was
+occupying, but she was keenly interested in all that was going on, very
+eager to understand the relationships in which the others stood, and to
+see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was
+absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the
+features, expressed a totally different phase of existence from that
+which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears, and
+watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the
+half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a
+soft response fluttering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was
+not destined to be spoken to-night; and it was she who made Phoebe's
+music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no
+danger. Phoebe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even
+Phoebe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey
+been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and
+incipient; they could not come to anything; there were no hairbreadth
+escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her
+best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with
+all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything,
+neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the
+condition of Ursula and Phoebe to one of absolute safety. They were all
+kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful
+observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement and
+mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young
+men outdoing the other in a savage eagerness for Janey's bed-time.
+
+"Do you let her sit up till midnight every night?" said Reginald, with
+indignation.
+
+"Let me sit up!" cried Janey, "as if I was obliged to do what she tells
+me!"
+
+Ursula gave a little shrug to her pretty shoulders, and looked at the
+clock.
+
+"It is not midnight yet; it is not nine o'clock," she said, with a sigh.
+"I should have thought papa would have come home before now. Can he be
+staying at the Hall all night?"
+
+Just then, however, there was the well-known ring at the bell, and
+Ursula ran downstairs to see after her father's supper. Why couldn't
+Janey make herself useful and do that, the little company thought
+indignantly and with one accord, instead of staying here with her sharp
+eyes, putting everybody out? Mr. May's little dinner, or supper, served
+on a tray, was very comfortable, and he ate it with great satisfaction,
+telling Ursula that he had, on the whole, spent a pleasant day.
+
+"The Dorsets were kind, as they always are, and Mr. Copperhead was a
+little less disagreeable than he always is; and you may look for
+Clarence back again in a day or two. He is not going to leave us. You
+must take care that he does not fall in love with you, Ursula. That is
+the chief thing they seem to be afraid of."
+
+"Fall in love with _me_!" cried Ursula. "Oh, papa, where are your eyes?
+He has fallen in love, but not with me. Can't you see it? It is Phoebe he
+cares for."
+
+Mr. May was startled. He raised his head with a curious smile in his
+eyes, which made Ursula wonder painfully whether her father had taken
+much wine at the Hall.
+
+"Ah, ha! is that what they are frightened for?" he said, and then he
+shrugged his shoulders. "She will show bad taste, Ursula; she might do
+better; but I suppose a girl of her class has not the delicacy--So that
+is what they are frightened for! And what are the other fish _you_ have
+to fry?"
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Yes. He told me he was not alarmed about you; that you had other fish
+to fry, eh! Well, it's too late for explanations to-night. What's that?
+Very odd, I thought I saw some one going out at the door--just a whiff
+of the coat-tails. I think my digestion must be out of order. I'll go
+into the study and get my pills, and then I think I'll go to bed."
+
+"Won't you come upstairs to the drawing-room?" said Ursula, faltering,
+for she was appalled by the idea of explanations. What had she to
+explain, as yet? Mr. May shook his head, with that smile still upon his
+face.
+
+"No, you'll get on excellently well without me. I've had a long walk,
+and I think I'll go to bed."
+
+"You don't look very well, papa."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'm well enough; only confused in the head a little with
+fatigue and the things I've had to think about. Good-night. Don't keep
+those young fellows late, though one of them is your brother. You can
+say I'm tired. Good-night, my dear."
+
+It was very seldom that he called her "my dear," or, indeed, said
+anything affectionate to his grown-up children. If Ursula had not been
+so eager to return to the drawing-room, and so sure that "they" would
+miss her, she would have been anxious about her father; but as it was,
+she ran upstairs lightly when he stopped speaking, and left him going
+into the study, where already his lamp was burning. Betsy passed her as
+she ran up the stairs, coming from the kitchen with a letter held
+between two folds of her apron. Poor papa! no doubt it was some tiresome
+parish business to bother him, when he was tired already. But Ursula did
+not stop for that. How she wanted to be there again, among "them all,"
+even though Janey still made one! She went in breathless, and gave her
+father's message only half-articulately. He was tired. "We are never to
+mind; he says so." They all took the intimation very easily. Mr. May
+being tired, what did that matter? He would, no doubt, be better
+to-morrow; and in the mean time those sweet hours, though so hampered by
+Janey, were very sweet.
+
+Betsy went in, and put down the note before Mr. May on his table. He was
+just taking out his medicine from the drawer, and he made a wry face at
+the note and at the pills together.
+
+"Parish?" he said, curtly.
+
+"No, sir; it's from Mr. Cotsdean. He came this morning, after you'd
+gone, and he sent over little Bobby."
+
+"That will do."
+
+A presentiment of pain stole over him. He gave Betsy a nod of dismissal,
+and went on with what he was doing. After he had finished, he took up
+the little note from the table with a look of disgust. It was badly
+scrawled, badly folded, and dirty. Thank Heaven, Cotsdean's
+communications would soon be over now.
+
+Janey had proposed a round game upstairs. They were all humble in their
+desire to conciliate that young despot. Reginald got the cards, and
+Northcote put chairs round the table. He placed Ursula next to himself,
+which was a consolation, and sat down by her, close to her, though not a
+word, except of the most commonplace kind, could be said.
+
+Just then--what was it? an indescribable thrill through the house, the
+sound of a heavy fall. They all started up from their seats to hear what
+it was. Then Ursula, with a cry of apprehension, rushed downstairs, and
+the others after her. Betsy, alarmed, had come out of the kitchen,
+followed by her assistant, and was standing frightened, but irresolute;
+for Mr. May was not a man to be disturbed with impunity. And this might
+be nothing--the falling of a chair or a table, and nothing more.
+
+"What is it?" cried Ursula, in an anxious whisper.
+
+She was the leader in the emergency, for even Reginald held back. Then,
+after a moment's pause, she opened the door, and with a little cry
+rushed in. It was, as they feared, Mr. May who had fallen; but he had so
+far recovered himself as to be able to make efforts to rise. His face
+was towards them. It was very pale, of a livid colour, and covered with
+moisture, great beads standing on his forehead. He smiled vaguely when
+he saw the circle of faces.
+
+"Nothing--nothing--a faintness," he faltered, making again an effort to
+rise.
+
+"What is it, papa? Oh, what's the matter?" cried Janey, rushing at him
+and seizing him by the arm. "Get up! get up! what will people think? Oh,
+Ursula, how queer he looks, and he feels so heavy. Oh, please get up,
+papa!"
+
+"Go away," said Mr. May, "go away. It is--a faintness. I am very well
+where I am--"
+
+But he did not resist when Reginald and Northcote lifted him from the
+floor. He had a piece of paper tightly clasped in his hand. He gave them
+a strange suspicious look all round, and shrank when his eyes fell upon
+Phoebe. "Don't let her know," he said. "Take me away, take me away."
+
+"Reginald will take you upstairs, papa--to your room--to bed; you ought
+to go to bed. It is the long walk that has worn you out. Oh, Reginald,
+don't contradict him, let him go where he pleases. Oh, papa, where _are_
+you going?" cried Ursula, "the other way; you want to go to bed."
+
+"This way, take me--somewhere," said the sufferer; though he could not
+stand he made a step, staggering between them, and an effort to push
+towards the hall door, and when they directed him in the other direction
+to the staircase which led to his room, he struggled feebly yet
+violently with them. "No, no, no, not there!" he cried. The sudden
+confusion, dismay, and alarm into which the family was plunged, the
+strange sense of a catastrophe that came upon them, cannot be told.
+Ursula, calling out all the time that they were not to contradict him,
+insisted imperiously with words and gestures that he should be taken
+upstairs. Janey, altogether overcome, sat down on the lower steps of the
+staircase and cried. Reginald almost as pale as his father, and not
+saying a word, urged him towards the stairs. To get him up to his room,
+resisting as well as he could, and moaning inarticulate remonstrances
+all the way, was no easy business. As the procession toiled along Phoebe
+was left below, the only one in possession of her faculties. She sent
+the housemaid hurriedly off for the doctor, and despatched Betsy to the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hot water is always wanted," said Phoebe; "see that you have enough in
+case he should require a bath."
+
+Then with her usual decision she stepped back into the study. It was not
+vulgar curiosity which was in Phoebe's mind, nor did it occur to her that
+she had no right to investigate Mr. May's private affairs. If she could
+find what had done it, would not that be a great matter, something to
+tell the doctor, to throw light on so mysterious a seizure? Several bits
+of torn paper were lying on the floor; but only one of these was big
+enough to contain any information. It was torn in a kind of triangular
+shape, and contained a corner of a letter, a section of three lines,
+
+                                        "must have mistaken the date
+                                                   presented to-day,
+                                                      paid by Tozer,"
+
+was what she read. She could not believe her eyes. What transactions
+could there be between her grandfather and Mr. May? She secured the
+scrap of paper, furtively putting it into her pocket. It was better to
+say nothing either to the doctor, or any one else, of anything so
+utterly incomprehensible. It oppressed Phoebe with a sense of mystery and
+of personal connection with the mystery, which even her self-possession
+could scarcely bear up against. She went into the kitchen after Betsy,
+avowedly in anxious concern for the boiling of the kettle.
+
+"Hot water is good for everything," said Phoebe; "mamma says a hot bath
+is the best of remedies. Did Mr. May have anything--to worry him, Betsy?
+I suppose it is only fatigue, and that he has taken too long a walk."
+
+"I don't believe in the long walk, Miss," said Betsy, "it's that
+Cotsdean as is always a-tormenting with his dirty letters. When that man
+comes bothering here, master is always put out."
+
+"Cotsdean? I don't know the name."
+
+"Don't say nothing, Miss," said Betsy, sinking her voice, "but you take
+my word it's money. Money's at the bottom of everything. It's something,
+as sure as you're alive, as master has got to pay. I've been a deal with
+gentlefolks," added Betsy, "and ne'er a one of them can abide that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+THE SINNED-AGAINST.
+
+
+Phoebe's mind was full of many and somewhat agitating thoughts. She went
+upstairs with a restless haste, which she would have been the first to
+condemn, to the room where the others were congregated, when they had
+laid Mr. May on his bed with no small difficulty, and were now
+consulting what to do. Ursula had fallen a little from the position of
+command she had taken up. To get him to bed, to send for the doctor,
+these were evident practical steps to take; but after having done these
+she was bewildered and fell back upon her advisers.
+
+"We can't do anything, we can only wait and watch him," Reginald was
+saying, as Phoebe, herself unseen, looked in at the anxious party; and
+without asking any question she turned and went downstairs again, and
+hastily putting on her shawl and hat, went out, shutting the door
+softly, and ran home on the shady side of Grange Lane, where nobody
+could see her. It was a very quiet road, and she was not disturbed by
+any unreasonable alarms. It was still early when she got home, earlier
+than usual, and her intention was not to stay there at all, but to go
+back again and offer her assistance to Ursula, for whom she had left a
+message to this effect. Phoebe was full of genuine regard and
+friendliness towards the Mays.
+
+She felt that she had obligations to all of them, to the parson-father
+for submitting to her presence, nay, encouraging it, and to Ursula for
+receiving her with that affectionate fervour of friendship which had
+completely changed the tenor of Phoebe's life at Carlingford. She was
+obliged to them, and she knew that she was obliged to them. How
+different these three months would have been but for the Parsonage; what
+a heavy leaden-coloured existence without variety and without interest
+she must have lived; whereas it had gone by like a summer day, full of
+real life, of multiplied interests, of everything that it was most
+desirable to have. Not at home and in London could she have had the
+advantages she had enjoyed here. Phoebe was sensible enough--or perhaps
+we might use a less complimentary word--worldly enough, to count within
+those manifest benefits the advantage of seeing more of Clarence
+Copperhead, and of drawing him within the charmed circle of her
+influence, and she was grateful to the Mays, for this was their doing.
+And then, on the other hand, quite a different thing, her heart was
+touched and softened with gratitude to Reginald for loving her; of all
+her gratitudes, perhaps this indeed was the most truly felt. They had
+given her unbounded kindness, friendliness, everything that is most
+sweet to the solitary; and over and above, as if these were not enough,
+they had made her the exquisite present of a heart, the best thing that
+can be given or received by man. Phoebe felt herself penetrated with
+gratitude for all this, and she resolved that, if anything she could do
+could benefit the Mays, the effort on her part should not be wanting.
+"Paid by Tozer." What had been paid by Tozer? What had her grandfather
+to do with it. Could it be he who had lent money to Mr. May? Then Phoebe
+resolved, with a glow on her face, he should forgive his debtors. She
+went in with her mind fully made up, whatever might happen, to be the
+champion of the sufferer, the saviour of the family. This would show
+them that their kindness had been appreciated. This would prove even to
+Reginald that, though she would not sacrifice her own prospects by
+marrying him, yet that she was grateful to him, to the bottom of her
+heart. Her mind was full of generous ardour as she went in. She knew her
+power; her grandfather had never yet refused her anything, never
+resisted her, and it did not seem likely that he should begin now.
+
+Mrs. Tozer was by herself in the parlour, dozing over the fire. She woke
+up with a little start when Phoebe came in and smiled at the sight of
+her.
+
+"I didn't expect as you'd have come so soon," she said; "you've broke up
+early to-night, darling. Couldn't you have no music? I didn't look for
+you for an hour or more."
+
+"You know, grandmamma, it is Mr. Copperhead who teases me most for
+music, and he is not here."
+
+"Yes, yes, _I_ know," said the old lady, nodding her head with many
+smiles. "I know a deal more about it than you think for, Phoebe, and
+don't you think as I disapprove, for it's quite the other way. But you
+won't tell me as there ain't others as cares for music as well as young
+Copperhead. I've seen one as couldn't take his eyes off of you while you
+were playing."
+
+"Hush, grandmamma; the others like music for music's sake, or perhaps
+for my sake; but Mr Copperhead likes it for his own sake, and therefore
+he is the one who insists upon it. But this is not the reason why I have
+come home so soon. Mr. May has been taken suddenly ill."
+
+"Lord bless us!" cried Mrs. Tozer, "deary, deary me! I'm very sorry,
+poor gentleman, I hope it ain't anything serious. Though he's a church
+parson, he's a very civil-spoken man, and I see his children drag him
+into his own house one day as me and Tozer was passing. I said to Tozer
+at the time, you take my word, whatever folks say, a man as lets his
+children pull him about like that ain't a bad one. And so he's ill, poor
+man! Is there anything as we can do to help, my dear? They ain't rich,
+and they've been as kind to you as if you'd been one of their own."
+
+"I thought that would be the first thing you would ask me," said Phoebe
+gratefully, giving her a kiss--"dear grandmamma, it is like your kind
+heart--and I ran off to see that you were quite well and comfortable,
+thinking perhaps if you did not want me I might go back to poor Ursula
+for the night."
+
+To hear her granddaughter call Miss May by her Christian name was in
+itself a pleasure to Mrs. Tozer. She gave Phoebe a hug. "So you shall, my
+darling, and as for a bottle of good wine or that, anything as is in the
+house, you know you're welcome to it. You go and talk to your
+grandfather; I'm as comfortable as I can be, and if you'd like to run
+back to that poor child--"
+
+"Not before you are in bed," said Phoebe, "but if you please I'll go and
+talk to grandpapa as you said. There are things in which a man may be of
+use."
+
+"To be sure," said Mrs. Tozer, doubtfully; "your grandfather ain't a man
+as is much good in sickness; but I won't say as there ain't some
+things--"
+
+"Yes, grandmamma, I'll take your advice and run and talk to him; and by
+the time I come back you will be ready for bed."
+
+"Do, my dear," said Mrs. Tozer. She was very comfortable, and did not
+care to move just then, and, as Phoebe went away, looked after her with
+dreamy satisfaction. "Bless her! there ain't her match in Carlingford,
+and the gentlefolks sees it," said Mrs. Tozer to herself. But she had no
+idea how Phoebe's heart was beating as she went along the dimly-lighted
+passage, which led to a small room fitted up by Tozer for himself. She
+heard voices in earnest talk as she approached, but this made her only
+the more eager to go in, and see for herself what was going on. There
+could be no doubt, she felt sure of it, that the discussion here had
+some connection with the calamity _there_. What it was she had not the
+slightest idea; but that somehow the two were connected she felt
+certain. The voices were loud as she approached the door.
+
+"I'll find out who done it, and I'll punish him--as sure as that's my
+name, though I never put it on that there paper," Tozer was saying.
+Phoebe opened the door boldly, and went in. She had never seen her
+grandfather look so unlike himself. The knot of the big white
+neckerchief round his neck was pushed away, his eyes were red, giving
+out strange lights of passion. He was standing in front of the fireplace
+gesticulating wildly. Though it was now April and the weather very mild
+and genial, there were still fires in the Tozer sitting-rooms, and as
+the windows were carefully shut, Phoebe felt the atmosphere stifling. The
+other person in the room was a serious, large man, whom she had already
+seen more than once; one of the chief clerks in the bank where Tozer
+kept his account, who had an old acquaintance with the butterman, and
+who was in the habit of coming when the bank had anything to say to so
+sure a customer about rates of investment or the value of money. He was
+seated at one side of the fire, looking very grave and shaking his head
+as the other spoke.
+
+"That is very true, and I don't say anything against it. But, Mr. Tozer,
+I can't help thinking there's some one else in it than Cotsdean."
+
+"What one else? what is the good of coming here to me with a pack of
+nonsense? He's a poor needy creature as hasn't a penny to bless himself
+with, a lot of children, and a wife as drinks. Don't talk to me of some
+one else. That's the sort of man as does all the mischief. What, Phoebe!
+run away to your grandmother, I don't want you here."
+
+"I am very sorry to interrupt you, grandpapa. Mayn't I stay? I have
+something to say to you--"
+
+Tozer turned round and looked at her eagerly. Partly his own fancy, and
+partly his wife's more enlightened observations, had made him aware that
+it was possible that Phoebe might one day have something very interesting
+to reveal. So her words roused him even in the midst of his
+pre-occupation. He looked at her for a second, then he waved his hand
+and said,
+
+"I'm busy; go away, my dear, go away; I can't talk to you now."
+
+Phoebe gave the visitor a look which perplexed him; but which meant, if
+he could but have read it, an earnest entreaty to him to go away. She
+said to herself, impatiently, that he would have understood had he been
+a woman; but as it was he only stared with lack-lustre eyes. What was
+she to do?
+
+"Grandpapa," she said, decisively, "it is too late for business
+to-night. However urgent it may be, you can't do anything to-night. Why,
+it is nearly ten o'clock, and most people are going to bed. See Mr.
+----, I mean this gentleman--to-morrow morning the first thing; for you
+know, however anxious you may be, you can't do anything to-night."
+
+"That is true enough," he said, looking with staring eyes from her to
+his visitor, "and more's the pity. What had to be done should ha' been
+done to-day. It should have been done to-day, sir, on the spot, not left
+over night like this, to give the villain time to get away. It's a
+crime, Phoebe, that's what it is--that's the fact. It's a crime."
+
+"Well, grandpapa, I am very sorry; but it will not mend matters, will
+it, if sitting up like this, and agitating yourself like this, makes you
+ill? That will not do away with the crime. It is bed-time, and poor
+grandmamma is dozing, and wondering what has become of you.
+Grandpapa----"
+
+"Phoebe, go away, it ain't none of your business; you're only a bit of a
+girl, and how can you understand? If you think I'm going to sit down
+with it like an old fool, lose my money, and what is worse nor my money,
+let my very name be forged before my eyes--"
+
+Phoebe gave so perceptible a start that Tozer stopped short, and even the
+banking-clerk looked at her with aroused curiosity.
+
+"Forged!" she cried, with a gasp of dismay; "is it so bad as that?" She
+had never been more near betraying herself, showing a personal interest
+more close than was natural. When she saw the risk she was running, she
+stopped short and summoned all her energies. "I thought some one had
+pilfered something," she said with an attempt at a laugh. "I beg your
+pardon, grandpapa; but anyhow what can you do to-night? You are
+keeping--this gentleman--and yourself out of bed. Please put it off till
+to-morrow."
+
+"I think so too," said the banker's clerk. "I'll come to you in the
+morning as I go to the Bank. Perhaps I may have been wrong; but I think
+there's more in it than meets the eye. To-morrow we can have the man
+Cotsdean up and question him."
+
+"After he's had time to take himself off," said Tozer, vehemently. "You
+take my word he ain't in Carlingford, not now, let alone to-morrow."
+
+"Then that shows," said Phoebe, quietly, "that it is of no use making
+yourself ill to-night. Grandpapa, let this gentleman go--he wants to go;
+and I have something to say to you. You can do anything that is
+necessary to-morrow."
+
+"I think so indeed," said Mr. Simpson, of the Bank, getting up at last,
+"the young lady is quite right. We can't act hastily in a thing like
+this. Cotsdean's a man of good character, Mr. Tozer; all that has to be
+taken into account--and he is not a beggar. If he has done it, we can
+recover something at least; but if he has been taken advantage of--I
+think the young lady is a good counsellor, and that it's much the best
+to wait till to-morrow."
+
+Phoebe seized upon her grandfather's arm to restrain him, and held him
+back. "Good-night," she said; "grandpapa, stay with me, I have something
+to say to you. Listen; you don't think me very silly, do you, grandpapa
+dear?"
+
+"Silly!" he said, listening to the steps of the departing visitor as
+they receded along the passage. "What has a chit like you to do with
+business? I tell you it'll kill me. Me a-signing of accommodation bills
+for a bit of a small shopkeeper like that Cotsdean! I tell you it'll
+make an end of me, that will, unless I gets my money and clears myself
+afore the world. And here you've been and sent away Simpson, and who's
+to manage for me? I ain't a lawyer to know what to do. Get away, get
+away, and leave me to myself, I can't be disturbed with women-folks when
+I've got real business in hand."
+
+"I'll manage for you," said Phoebe; "you need not stare at me like that,
+grandpapa--"
+
+"Go out o' the room this moment, Miss!" he cried furious; "you! here's a
+sort of thing for me to put up with. Sam Tozer wasn't born yesterday
+that a bit of an impudent girl should take upon her to do for him.
+Manage for me! go out o' my sight; I'm a fool, am I, and in my dotage to
+have a pack of women meddling in my affairs?"
+
+Phoebe had never met with such an outburst of coarse anger in her life
+before, and it gave her a shock, as such assaults naturally do to people
+brought up softly, and used to nothing but kindness. For a moment she
+wavered, doubtful whether she should not proudly abandon him and his
+affairs altogether; but this was to abandon her friends too. She
+mastered herself accordingly, and the resentment which she could not
+help feeling--and stood pale but quiet opposite to the infuriated old
+man. His grey eyes seemed to give out sparks of fire. His hair bristled
+up on his head like the coat of a wild animal enraged. He went up and
+down on the hearth-rug like the same animal in a cage, shaking his fist
+at some imaginary culprit.
+
+"Once I get him, see if I let him go," he cried, his voice thick with
+fast-coming words and the foam of fury. "Let the bank do as it likes;
+I'll have him, I will. I'll see justice on the man as has dared to make
+free with my name. It ain't nothing to you, my name; but I've kep' it
+honest, and out of folk's mouths, and see if I'll stand disgrace thrown
+on it now. A bill on me as never had such a thing, not when I was
+struggling to get on! Dash him! damn him!" cried the old man,
+transported with rage. When he had come to this unusual and terrible
+length, Tozer paused dismayed. He had lost his temper before in his
+life; but very seldom had he been betrayed into anything so desperate as
+this. He stopped aghast, and cast a half-frightened look at Phoebe, who
+stood there so quiet, subdued out of her usual force, pale and
+disapproving--his own grandchild, a pastor's daughter! and he had
+forgotten himself thus before her. He blushed hotly, though he was not
+used to blushing, and stopped all at once. After such frightful
+language, so unbecoming a deacon of Salem, so unlike a consistent member
+of the connection, what could he say?
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe softly, "it is not good to be so angry; you are
+made to say things you are sorry for. Will you listen to me now? Though
+you don't think it, and perhaps won't believe it, I have found out
+something quite by chance--"
+
+He went up to her and clutched her by the arm. "Then what are you
+a-standing there for, like a figure in stone? Can't you out with it, and
+ease my mind? Out with it, I tell you! Do you want to drive me out of my
+senses?"
+
+He was so much excited that he shook her in the hot paroxysm of
+returning rage. Phoebe was not frightened, but indignation made her pale.
+She stood without flinching, and looked at him, till poor old Tozer let
+go his hold, and dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands.
+She was too generous to take advantage of him, but went on quietly, as
+if nothing had occurred.
+
+"Grandpapa, as I tell you, I have found out something by chance that has
+to do with the thing that troubles you; but I don't know quite what it
+is. Tell me first, and then--is this the thing?" said Phoebe, curiously,
+taking up a slip of paper from the table, a stamped piece of paper, in a
+handwriting which seemed horribly familiar to her, and yet strange.
+Tozer nodded at her gloomily, holding his head between his hands, and
+Phoebe read over the first few words before her with an aching heart, and
+eyes that seemed to ache in sympathy. Only a few words, but what
+evidence of guilt, what pitiful misery in them! She did not even think
+so much of the name on the back, which was and was not her grandfather's
+name. The rest of the bill was written in a hand disguised and changed;
+but she had seen a great deal of similar writing lately, and she
+recognized it with a sickening at her heart. In the kind of fatherly
+flirtation which had been innocently carried on between Phoebe and her
+friend's father, various productions of his in manuscript had been given
+to her to read. She was said, in the pleasant social jokes of the party,
+to be more skilled in interpreting Mr. May's handwriting than any of his
+family. She stood and gazed at the paper, and her eyes filled with tears
+of pain and pity. The openness of this self-betrayal, veiled as it was
+with a shadow of disguise which could deceive no one who knew him, went
+to Phoebe's heart. What could he have done it for? Mere money, the
+foolish expenses of every day, or, what would be more respectable, some
+vague mysterious claim upon him, which might make desperate expedients
+necessary? She stood, temporarily stupefied, with her eyes full, looking
+at that pitiful, terrible, guilty bit of paper, stupefied by the sudden
+realization of her sudden guess at the truth--though, indeed, the truth
+was so much more guilty and appalling than any guess of hers.
+
+"Well," said Tozer, "you've seen it, and now what do you think of it?
+That's my name, mind you, my name! I hope the Almighty will grant me
+patience. Stuck on to what they calls a kite, an accommodation bill.
+What do you think of that, Miss Phoebe? A-a-ah! if I had hold of him--if
+I had him under my fists--if I had him by the scruff of the neck!"
+
+"Grandpapa, doesn't it say in the Bible we are to forgive when harm is
+done to us?"
+
+Phoebe had begun to tremble all over; for the first time she doubted her
+own power.
+
+He got up again, and began to prowl about the table, round and round,
+with the same wild look in his eyes.
+
+"I am not one as would go again' Scripture," he said, gloomily; "but
+that's a spiritual meaning as you're too young to enter into. You don't
+suppose as Scripture would approve of crime, or let them escape as had
+wronged their fellow-creatures? There wouldn't be no business, no
+justice, no trade, on such a rule as that."
+
+"But, grandpapa--"
+
+"Don't you but me. You've seen me in good spirits and good temper,
+Phoebe, my girl; but you don't know old Sam Tozer when his spirit's up.
+D---- him!" cried the old man, striking his hand violently on the table;
+"and you may tell your father, as is a Minister, that I said so. The
+Bible's spiritual; but there's trade, and there's justice. A man ain't
+clear of what he's done because you forgive him. What's the law for
+else? Forgive! You may forgive him as fast as you like, but he's got to
+be punished all the same."
+
+"But not by you."
+
+"By the law!" cried Tozer. His inflamed eyes seemed to glare upon her,
+his rough grey hair bristled on his head, a hot redness spread across
+his face beneath his fiery eyes, which seemed to scorch the cheek with
+angry flames. "The law that ain't a individual. That's for our
+protection, whether we like it or not. What's that got to do with
+forgiving? Now, looking at it in a public way, I ain't got no right to
+forgive."
+
+"Grandpapa, you have always been so kind, always so good to everybody. I
+have heard of so many things you have done--"
+
+"That is all very well," said Tozer, not without a certain gloomy
+complacence, "so long as you don't touch _me_. But the moment as you
+touches me, I'm another man. That's what I can't bear, nor I won't. Them
+as tries their tricks upon me shan't be let off, neither for wife nor
+child; and don't you think, my girl, though you're Phoebe, junior, that
+you are a-going for to come over me."
+
+Phoebe could not but shiver in her fright and agitation; but distressed
+and excited as she was, she found means to take a step which was
+important indeed, though at the moment she did not fully realize its
+importance, and did it by instinct only. She had a handkerchief in her
+hand, and almost without consciousness of what she was doing, she
+crushed up the miserable bit of paper, which was the cause of so much
+evil and misery, in its folds. He was far too impassioned and excited to
+observe such a simple proceeding. It was the suggestion of a moment,
+carried out in another moment like a flash of lightning. And as soon as
+she had done this, and perceived what she had done, fortitude and
+comfort came back to Phoebe's soul.
+
+"You will not hear what I have found out, and now I do not choose to
+tell you, grandpapa," she said, with an air of offence. "Unless you wish
+to be ill, you will do much better to go to bed. It is your usual hour,
+and I am going to grandmamma. Say good-night, please. I am going out
+again to stay all night. Mr. May is ill, and I ought to help poor
+Ursula."
+
+"You go a deal after them Mays," said Tozer, with a cloud over his face.
+
+"Yes. I wonder whom else I should go after? Who has been kind to me in
+Carlingford except the Mays? Nobody. Who has asked me to go to their
+house, and share everything that is pleasant in it? None of your Salem
+people, grandpapa. I hope I am not ungrateful, and whatever happens, or
+whatever trouble they are in," cried Phoebe, fervently, "I shall stand up
+for them through thick and thin, wherever I go."
+
+The old man looked at her with a startled look.
+
+"You speak up bold," he said; "you won't get put upon for want of
+spirit; and I don't know as what you're saying ain't the right
+thing--though I don't hold with the Church, nor parsons' ways. I'd do a
+deal myself, though you think me so hard and cross, for folks as has
+been kind to you."
+
+"I know you will, grandpapa," said Phoebe, with a slight emphasis which
+startled him, though he did not know why; and she kissed him before she
+went to her grandmother, which she did with a perfectly composed and
+tranquil mind. It was astonishing how the crackle of that bit of paper
+in her handkerchief calmed and soothed her. She recovered her breath,
+her colour, and her spirits. She ran up to her room and changed her
+dress, which was silk, for a soft merino one, which made no rustling;
+and then she folded the bill carefully, and put it into the safe keeping
+of the little purse which she always carried in her pocket. No one would
+think of searching for it there, and she would always have it at hand
+whatever happened. When she had made these needful arrangements, she
+went to old Mrs. Tozer, and took her comfortably upstairs. Never was
+there a more devoted nurse. The old lady chatted cheerfully, yet
+sympathetically, of the poor gentleman and his illness, with the
+half-satisfaction of an invalid in hearing of some one else who is ill.
+
+"And be sure you take him some of the port wine as the doctor ordered,
+and Tozer paid that dear for. I don't care for it, not a bit, Phoebe. I'd
+sooner have it from the grocer's, at two shillings a bottle. That's what
+I've always been used to, when I did take a glass of wine now and again.
+But I dare say as Mr. May would like it, poor gentleman."
+
+When Mrs. Tozer had laid her head, all nodding with white muslin frills,
+edged with cotton lace, upon her pillow, Phoebe, noiseless in her soft
+merino gown, went back, accompanied by Martha, to the Parsonage, where
+Ursula's careworn face lighted a little at sight of her. Ursula had left
+her father for the moment in Betsy's care, to get something that was
+wanted, and she stole into the dining-room on hearing of her friend's
+arrival, and talked a little in a whisper, though the sick man was on
+the upper floor, and could not possibly have heard anything. Northcote
+was still there, sitting with Reginald, too anxious and excited to go
+away; and they all conversed in whispers, the three of them talking
+together for the benefit of the new-comer.
+
+"Not paralysis; at least, he does not think so; a great mental
+shock--but we can't tell a bit what it was--coming when he was
+dreadfully tired, and not able to bear it."
+
+They all spoke together, each of them saying a few words, and kept close
+together in the centre of the room, a curious little half-frightened
+group, overawed and subdued by the sudden change and strange calamity
+dropt into their midst. Phoebe seemed to bring them new life and hope.
+
+"If it is going to be an illness," she said, "you gentlemen had better
+go home and go to bed, to be able to help us when we want help. Anyhow,
+what good can they do, Ursula? They had much better go to bed."
+
+Ursula looked at them with a certain regret; though they could not do
+much good, it was a relief to come and whisper a few words to them now
+and then, giving them news of the patient. But Phoebe was right, and
+there was nothing to be said against her decision. The two young women
+and the faithful Betsy were enough, and, indeed, more than enough to
+watch over Mr. May.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+A MORNING'S WORK.
+
+
+"Go and lie down for an hour," whispered Phoebe. "I am not sleepy at all.
+I have sat up before, and never felt it, you never did, I can see it in
+your poor little white face; and besides, I am steadier, because I am
+not so anxious. Now go, Ursula, if you are really fond of me, as you
+say--"
+
+"Oh, Phoebe! if you think he is a little better. Oh, how horrible it is
+to be sleepy, as if you were all body, and had no heart at all!"
+
+"You have plenty of heart, but you have never been used to this nursing.
+Leave your door open, so that I may call you in a moment. I have sat up
+often. Now go, to please me," said Phoebe. She had another object than
+mere rest to her friend, who at last, very much ashamed and crying
+softly, yet so weary that nothing on this earth seemed so desirable to
+her as sleep, crept to her room, and lay down there as the pale morning
+began to dawn. Betsy slept heavily in an easy-chair outside the door of
+the sick-room. She was there at hand in case anything was wanted, but
+she was happily unconscious where she was, sleeping the sleep of hard
+work and a mind undisturbed. Phoebe had seen that the patient was
+stirring out of the dull doze in which his faculties had been entirely
+stilled and stupefied. He was rousing to uneasiness, if not to full
+consciousness. Two or three times he made a convulsive movement, as if
+to raise himself; once his eyes, which were half open, seemed to turn
+upon her with a vague glimmer of meaning. How strangely she felt towards
+him, as she sat there in the grey of the morning, sole guardian, sole
+confidant of this erring and miserable man! The thought ran through her
+with a strange thrill. He was nothing to her, and yet he was absolutely
+in her power, and in all heaven and earth there seemed no one who was
+capable of protecting him, or cared to do so, except herself only. She
+sat looking at him with a great pity in her mind, determined to be his
+true protector, to deliver him from what he himself had done. She had
+not realized at first what it was he had done, and indeed it was only
+now that its full enormity, or rather its full consequences (which were
+the things that affected her most urgently), made themselves apparent
+to her. Generalizations are unsafe things; and whether it was because
+she was a woman that Phoebe, passing over the crime, fixed her thoughts
+upon the punishment, I do not venture to say; but she did so. After all
+a few lines of writing on a bit of paper is not a crime which affects
+the imagination of the inexperienced. Had it been a malicious slander
+Phoebe would have realized the sin of it much more clearly; but the copy
+of her grandfather's signature did not wound her moral sense in the same
+way, though it was a much more serious offence. That Mr. May could have
+intended to rob him of the money appeared impossible to her; and no
+doubt the borrowing of the signature was wrong--very wrong. Yes, of
+course it was horribly, fatally wrong; but still it did not set her
+imagination aglow with indignant horror, as smaller affairs might have
+done. But the consequences--disgrace, ruin, the loss of his position,
+the shame of his profession, moral death indeed, almost as frightful as
+if he had been hanged for murder. She shivered as she sat by him, veiled
+by the curtain, and thought of her grandfather's vindictive fierceness;
+only she stood between him and destruction, and Phoebe felt that it was
+by no legitimate means that she was doing so, not by her influence over
+her grandfather as she had hoped, but only by an unjustifiable expedient
+which in itself was a kind of crime. This, however, brought a slight
+smile on her face. She took out her little purse from her pocket, and
+looked at the bit of paper carefully folded in it. The faint perfume of
+the Russia leather had already communicated itself to the document,
+which had not been so pleasant in Tozer's hands. As she looked at it
+lying peacefully on her lap, her attention was suddenly called by the
+patient, who sat upright and looked furtively about him, with his hand
+upon the coverings ready to throw them off. His ghastly white face
+peered at her from behind the curtain with wild eagerness--then relaxed,
+when he met her eye, into a kind of idiot smile, a painful attempt to
+divert suspicion, and he fell back again with a groan. The trance that
+had stupefied him was over; he had recovered some kind of consciousness,
+how much or how little she could not tell. His mind now seemed to be set
+upon hiding himself, drawing his coverings over him, and concealing
+himself with the curtain, at which he grasped with an excess of force
+which neutralized itself.
+
+"Mr. May," said Phoebe, softly. "Mr. May! do you know me?"
+
+She could not tell what answer he made, or if he made any answer. He
+crouched down under the bed-clothes, pulling them over his face, trying
+to hide himself from her; from which she divined that he did recognize
+her, confused though his faculties were. Then a hoarse murmuring sound
+seemed to come out of the pillow. It was some time before she could make
+out what it was.
+
+"Where am I?" he said.
+
+With the lightning speed of sympathy and pity, Phoebe divined what his
+terror was. She said, almost whispering,
+
+"At home, in your own bed--at home! and safe. Oh, don't you know me--I
+am Phoebe." Then after a pause, "Tozer's granddaughter; do you know me
+now?"
+
+The strange, scared, white-faced spectre shrank under his covering, till
+she could see no more of him except two wild eyes full of terror which
+was almost madness.
+
+"Listen!" she said eagerly, "try to understand! Oh, Mr. May, try to
+understand! I know about it--I know everything, and you are safe--quite
+safe; you need not have any fear!"
+
+He did not follow what she said, Phoebe perceived with pain and terror.
+Even the impression made by the first sight of her seemed to fade from
+his mind. His grasp relaxed upon the curtains and coverlet; and then the
+hoarse murmuring was resumed. Straining all her ears, she made out that
+he was not speaking to her or any one, but moaned to himself, saying the
+same words over and over again. It took her a long time to make out even
+what these words were. When at last she did make them out they filled
+the girl with an alarm beyond words.
+
+"It used to be hanging," he said. "Hard labour; can I bear hard labour?
+And the children--the children! Hard labour--for life. Hanging--was soon
+over. The children! I cannot bear it. I never was put to--hard
+labour--in all my life."
+
+Phoebe was too sick at heart to listen to more. She drew a little apart,
+but near enough to be seen by him. If he chose to spring up, to fling
+himself from the window, as she had heard of men doing in delirium, who
+could restrain him? Not she, a slight girl, nor Betsy, even if Betsy
+could be roused to the danger. She did not know how long the vigil which
+followed lasted, but it seemed like years to her; and when at last she
+was relieved by the joyful sound of Reginald's voice and footstep coming
+up the stairs, she felt disposed to run to the glass at once, and look
+if her hair had grown white, or her countenance permanently changed with
+the terror. Reginald, for his part, thought of his father in the second
+place only, as children are apt to do; he came up to her first, and
+with a thrill in his voice of surprise and emotion, addressed her
+hastily by her name.
+
+"Phoebe! is it _you_ who are watching--you, darling?"
+
+"Hush! I sent Ursula to bed; she was so tired. Don't leave him. I am
+frightened," cried Phoebe. "He is wandering in his mind. Oh, don't leave
+him, Mr. May!"
+
+"I will do exactly as you tell me," said Reginald, in a confused
+transport of feeling, the very anxiety in his mind helping to destroy
+his self-control. He stooped down and kissed her hands before she could
+divine what he was about to do. "Only you or an angel would have done
+it," he cried, with a tremulous voice.
+
+Was it not natural that he should think that some thought of him had
+made Phoebe so careful of his father? His heart was swelling, too full to
+hold, with a sudden joy, which expanded the pain, and made that greater
+too.
+
+"Oh, what does it matter about me? Mr. May, think what I am saying.
+Don't leave him for a moment. He might throw himself out of the window,
+he might do some harm to himself. Ah! again!" said Phoebe, trembling.
+
+But this time it was only a convulsive start, nothing more. The patient
+dropped down again softly upon his pillows, and relapsed into his doze,
+if doze it could be called, in which his faculties were but
+half-dormant, and his open eyes contradicted all the appearances of
+natural sleep.
+
+When she was relieved from the sick room--and now she had a double
+motive in getting away--Phoebe stole softly into the faded little place
+where Ursula lay, still fast asleep, though fully dressed, and bathed
+her face and strained eyes. "I wonder if my hair is grey underneath,"
+she said to herself. "I wonder nothing has happened to me." But a great
+deal had happened to her. Such a night is rarely encountered by so young
+a creature, or such an alarming charge undertaken. And sudden hot kisses
+upon little, cold, agitated hands, worn by fatigue to nervous perception
+of every touch, are very exciting and strange to a girl. They had given
+her a kind of electric shock. She was not in love with Reginald, and
+therefore she felt it all the more, and her heart was still throbbing
+with the suddenness and excitement of the incident. And after she had
+made an effort to get over this, there remained upon her mind the
+disturbing burden of a knowledge which no one shared, and a
+responsibility which was very heavy and terrible, and too tremendous for
+her slight shoulders. After she had made that hasty toilette, she sat
+down for a moment at the foot of the bed on which Ursula lay sleeping,
+unconscious of all those mysteries, and tried to think. It is not an
+easy process at any time, but after a long night's watching, terror, and
+agitation, it seemed more impossible to Phoebe than it had ever done
+before. And she had so much occasion for thought, so much need of the
+power of judging clearly. What was she to do?--not to-morrow, or next
+week, but now. She had taken the responsibility of the whole upon
+herself by the sudden step she had taken last night; but, bold as she
+had been, Phoebe was ignorant. She did not know whether her theft of the
+bill would really stop the whole proceedings, as had seemed so certain
+last night; and what if she was found out, and compelled to return it,
+and all her labour lost! A panic took possession of her as she sat there
+at the foot of Ursula's bed, and tried to think. But what is the use of
+trying to think? The more you have need of them, the more all mental
+processes fail you. Phoebe could no more think than she could fly. She
+sat down very seriously, and she rose up in despair, and, thought being
+no longer among her possibilities, resolved to do something at once,
+without further delay, which would be a consolation to herself at least.
+How wonderful it was to go out in the fresh early morning, and see the
+people moving about their work, going up and down with indifferent
+faces, quite unconcerned about the day and all it might bring forth! She
+went up Grange Lane with a curious uncertainty as to what she should do
+next, feeling her own extraordinary independence more than anything
+else. Phoebe felt like a man who has been out all night, who has his own
+future all in his hands, nobody having any right to explanation or
+information about what he may choose to do, or to expect from him
+anything beyond what he himself may please to give. Very few people are
+in this absolutely free position, but this was how Phoebe represented it
+to herself, having, like all other girls, unbounded belief in the
+independence and freedom possessed by men. Many times in her life she
+had regarded with envy this independence, which, with a sigh, she had
+felt to be impossible. But now that she had it, Phoebe did not like it.
+What she would have given to have gone to some one, almost any one, and
+told her dilemma, and put the burden a little off her shoulders! But she
+durst not say a word to any one. Very anxious and pre-occupied, she went
+up Grange Lane. Home? She did not know; perhaps she would have thought
+of something before she reached the gate of No. 6. And accordingly, when
+she had lifted her hand to ring the bell, and made a step aside to
+enter, an inspiration came to Phoebe. She turned away from the door and
+went on up into the town, cautiously drawing her veil over her face, for
+already the apprentices were taking down the shutters from her uncle's
+shop, and she might be seen. Cotsdean's shop was late of opening that
+morning, and its master was very restless and unhappy. He had heard
+nothing more about the bill, but a conviction of something wrong had
+crept into his mind. It was an altogether different sensation from the
+anxiety he had hitherto felt. This was no anxiety to speak of, but a
+dull pain and aching conviction that all was not right. When he saw the
+young lady entering the shop, Cotsdean's spirits rose a little, for a
+new customer was pleasant, and though he thought he had seen her, he did
+not know who she was. She was pleasant to look upon, and it was not
+often that any one came so early. He came forward with anxious
+politeness; the boy (who was always late, and a useless creature, more
+expense than he was worth) had not appeared, and therefore Cotsdean was
+alone.
+
+"I wanted to speak to you, please," said Phoebe. "Will you mind if I
+speak very plainly, without any ceremony? Mr. Cotsdean, I am Mr. Tozer's
+granddaughter, and live with him at No. 6 in the Lane. I dare say you
+have often seen me with Miss May."
+
+"Yes--yes, Miss, certainly," he said, with a thrill of alarm and
+excitement running through him. He felt his knees knock together under
+cover of the counter, and yet he did not know what he feared.
+
+"Will you please tell me frankly, in confidence, about----the bill which
+was brought to my grandfather yesterday?" said Phoebe, bringing out the
+question with a rush.
+
+Whether she was doing wrong, whether she might bring insult upon
+herself, whether it was an interference unwarrantable and unjustifiable,
+she could not tell. She was in as great a fright as Cotsdean, and more
+anxious still than he was; but fortunately her agitation did not show.
+
+"What am I to tell you about it, Miss?" said the man, terrified. "Is it
+Mr. Tozer as has sent you? Lord help me! I know as he can sell me up if
+he has a mind; but he knows it ain't me."
+
+"Don't speak so loud," said Phoebe, trembling too. "Nobody must hear; and
+remember, you are never, never to talk of this to any one else; but tell
+me plainly, that there may be no mistake. Is it--Mr. May?"
+
+"Miss Tozer," said Cotsdean, who was shaking from head to foot, "if
+that's your name--I don't want to say a word against my clergyman. He's
+stood by me many a day as I wanted him, and wanted him bad; but as I'm a
+living man, that money was never for me; and now he's a-gone and left me
+in the lurch, and if your grandfather likes he can sell me up, and
+that's the truth. I've got seven children," said the poor man, with a
+sob breaking his voice, "and a missus; and nothing as isn't in the
+business, not a penny, except a pound or two in a savings' bank, as
+would never count. And I don't deny as he could sell me up; but oh!
+Miss, he knows very well it ain't for me."
+
+"Mr. Cotsdean," said Phoebe, impressively, "you don't know, I suppose,
+that Mr. May had a fit when he received your note last night?"
+
+"Lord help us! Oh! God forgive me, I've done him wrong, poor gentleman,
+if that's true."
+
+"It is quite true; he is very, very ill; he can't give you any advice,
+or assist you in any way, should grandpapa be unkind. He could not even
+understand if you told him what has happened."
+
+Once more Cotsdean's knees knocked against each other in the shadow of
+the counter. His very lips trembled as he stood regarding his strange
+visitor with scared and wondering eyes.
+
+"Now listen, please," said Phoebe, earnestly; "if any one comes to you
+about the bill to-day, don't say anything about _him_. Say you got
+it--in the way of business--say anything you please, but don't mention
+_him_. If you will promise me this, I will see that you don't come to
+any harm. Yes, I will; you may say I am not the sort of person to know
+about business, and it is quite true. But whoever comes to you remember
+this--if you don't mention Mr. May, I will see you safely through it; do
+you understand?"
+
+Phoebe leant across the counter in her earnestness. She was not the kind
+of person to talk about bills, or to be a satisfactory security for a
+man in business; but Cotsdean was a poor man, and he was ready to catch
+at a straw in the turbid ocean of debt and poverty which seemed closing
+round him. He gave the required promise with his heart in his mouth.
+
+Then Phoebe returned down the street. Her fatigue began to tell upon her,
+but she knew that she dared not give in, or allow that she was fatigued.
+However heavy with sleep her eyes might be, she must keep awake and
+watchful. Nothing, if she could help it, must so much as turn the
+attention of the world in Mr. May's direction. By this time she was much
+too deeply interested to ask herself why she should do so much for Mr.
+May. He was her charge, her burden, as helpless in her hands as a child;
+and nobody but herself knew anything about it. It was characteristic of
+Phoebe's nature that she had no doubt as to being perfectly right in the
+matter, no qualm lest she should be making a mistake. She felt the
+weight upon her of the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a
+certain half-pleasing sense of the solemnity of the position and of its
+difficulties; but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or
+suffering her fancy to stray further than the facts justified; neither
+was she troubled by any idea of going beyond her sphere by interfering
+thus energetically in her friend's affairs. Phoebe did not easily take
+any such idea into her head. It seemed natural to her to do whatever
+might be wanted, and to act upon her own responsibility. Her
+self-confidence reached the heroic point. She knew that she was right,
+and she knew moreover that in this whole matter she alone was right.
+Therefore the necessity of keeping up, of keeping alert and vigilant, of
+holding in her hand the threads of all these varied complications was
+not disagreeable to her, though she fully felt its importance--nay,
+almost exaggerated it in her own mind if that could be. She felt the
+dangerous character of the circumstances around her, and her heart was
+sore with pity for the culprit, or as she called him to herself the
+chief sufferer; and yet all the same Phoebe felt a certain sense of
+satisfaction in the great role she herself was playing. She felt equal
+to it, though she scarcely knew what was the nest step she ought to
+take. She was walking slowly, full of thought, to Tozer's door,
+pondering upon this, when the sound of rapid wheels behind roused her
+attention, and looking up, surprised, she suddenly saw leaping out of a
+dog-cart the imposing figure of Clarence Copperhead, of whom she had not
+been thinking at all. He came down with a heavy leap, leaving the light
+carriage swinging and quivering behind him with the shock of his
+withdrawal.
+
+"Miss Phoebe!" he said, breathless; "here's luck! I came over to see you,
+and you are the first person I set eyes on--"
+
+He was rather heavy to make such a jump, and it took away his breath.
+
+"To see me?" she said, laughing, though her heart began to stir. "That
+is very odd. I thought you must have come to see poor Mr. May, who is so
+ill. You know--"
+
+"May be hanged!" said the young man; "I mean--never mind--I don't mean
+him any harm, though, by Jove, if you make such a pet of him, I don't
+know what I shall think. Miss Phoebe, I've come over post-haste, as you
+may see; chiefly to see you; and to try a horse as well," he added,
+"which the governor has just bought. He's a very good 'un to go; and
+pleased the governor would be if he knew the use I had put him to," he
+concluded, with a half-laugh.
+
+Phoebe knew as well as he did what that use was. He had brought his
+father's horse out for the first time, to carry him here to propose to
+her, in spite of his father. This was the delicate meaning which it
+amused him to think of. She understood it all, and it brought a glow of
+colour to her face; but it did not steel her heart against him. She knew
+her Clarence, and that his standard of fine feeling and mental elevation
+was not high.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I wish I could speak to you, Miss Phoebe,
+somewhere better than in the street. Yes, in the garden--that will do.
+It ain't much of a place either to make a proposal in, for that's what
+I've come to do; but you don't want me to go down on my knees, or make a
+fuss, eh? I got up in the middle of the night to be here first thing and
+see you. I never had a great deal to say for myself," said Clarence,
+"you won't expect me to make you fine speeches; but I _am_ fond of
+you--awfully fond of you, Phoebe, that's the truth. You suit me down to
+the ground, music and everything. There's no girl I ever met that has
+taken such a hold upon me as you."
+
+Phoebe heard him very quietly, but her heart beat loud. She stood on the
+gravel between the flower-borders, where the primroses were beginning to
+wither, and glanced over her life of the past and that of the future,
+which were divided by this moment like the two beds of flowers; one
+homely, not very distinguished, simple enough--the other exalted by
+wealth to something quite above mediocrity. Her heart swelled, full as
+it was with so many emotions of a totally different kind. She had gained
+a great prize, though it might not be very much to look at; more or
+less, she was conscious this golden apple had been hanging before her
+eyes for years, and now it had dropped into her hand. A gentle glow of
+contentment diffused itself all over her, not transport, indeed, but
+satisfaction, which was better.
+
+"Mr. Copperhead--" she said, softly.
+
+"No, hang it all, call me Clarence, Phoebe, if you're going to have me!"
+he cried, putting out his big hands.
+
+"Grandmamma is looking at us from the window," she said, hurriedly,
+withdrawing a little from him.
+
+"Well, and what does that matter? The old lady won't say a word, depend
+upon it, when she knows. Look here, Phoebe, I'll have an answer. Yes or
+no?"
+
+"Have you got your father's consent--Clarence?"
+
+"Ah, it is yes then! I thought it would be yes," he cried, seizing her
+in his arms. "As for the governor," added Clarence, after an interval,
+snapping his fingers, "I don't care _that_ for the governor. When I've
+set my mind on a thing, it ain't the governor, or twenty governors, that
+will stop me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK.
+
+
+"Have you any notion what was the cause?"
+
+"None," said Reginald. "Oh, no, none at all," said Ursula. They were all
+three standing at the door of the sick-room, in which already a great
+transformation had taken place. The doctor had sent a nurse to attend
+upon the patient. He had told them that their father was attacked by
+some mysterious affection of the brain, and that none of them were equal
+to the responsibility of nursing him. His children thus banished had set
+the door ajar, and were congregated round it watching what went on
+within. They did not know what to do. It was Northcote who was asking
+these questions; it was he who was most active among them. The others
+stood half-stunned, wholly ignorant, not knowing what to do.
+
+"I don't think papa is ill at all," said Janey. "Look how he glares
+about him, just as I've seen him do when he was writing a sermon, ready
+to pounce upon any one that made a noise. He is watching that woman. Why
+should he lie in bed like that, and be taken care of when he is just as
+well as I am? You have made a mistake all the rest of you. I would go
+and speak to him, and tell him to get up and not make all this fuss, if
+it was me."
+
+"Oh, Janey! hold your tongue," said Ursula; but she, too, looked
+half-scared at the bed, and then turned wistful inquiring eyes to
+Northcote. As for Reginald, he stood uncertain, bewildered, all the
+colour gone out of his face, and all the energy out of his heart. He
+knew nothing of his father's affairs, or of anything that might disturb
+his mind. His mind; all that his son knew of this was, that whatsoever
+things disturbed other minds his father had always contemptuously
+scouted all such nonsense. "Take some medicine," Mr. May had been in the
+habit of saying. "Mind! you mean digestion," was it nothing more than
+some complicated indigestion that affected him now?
+
+"Is it anything about--money?" said Northcote.
+
+They all turned and looked at him. The idea entered their minds for the
+first time. Yes, very likely it was money.
+
+"We have always been poor," said Ursula, wistfully. Northcote took her
+hand into his; none of them except Ursula herself paid any attention to
+this involuntary, almost unconscious caress, and even to her it seemed a
+thing of course, and quite natural that he should be one of them, taking
+his share in all that was going on.
+
+"I--am not poor," he said, faltering. "You must not think me
+presumptuous, May. But the first thing to be done is to get him out of
+his difficulties, if he is in difficulties--and you must let me help to
+do it. I think you and I should go out and see about it at once."
+
+"Go--where?" Reginald, like most young people, had taken little notice
+of his father's proceedings. So long as things went smoothly, what had
+he to do with them? When there was a pressure for money, he knew he
+should hear of it, at least in the shape of reproaches and sneers from
+his father at his useless life, and the expenses of the family. But even
+these reproaches had died away of late, since Reginald had possessed an
+income of his own, and since the revenues of the Parsonage had been
+increased by Clarence Copperhead. Reginald was more helpless than a
+stranger. He did not know where to turn. "Do you think we could ask him?
+I am almost of Janey's opinion. I don't think he is so ill as he seems."
+
+And then they all paused and looked again into the room. The nurse was
+moving softly about, putting everything in order, and Mr. May watched
+her from the bed with the keenest attention. His face was still livid
+and ghastly in colour; but his eyes had never been so full of eager fire
+in all the experience of his children. He watched the woman with a close
+attention which was appalling; sometimes he would put his covering half
+aside as if with the intention of making a spring. He was like some
+imprisoned animal seeing a possibility of escape. They looked at him,
+and then at each other, with a miserable helplessness. What could they
+do? He was their father, but they knew nothing about him, and just
+because he was their father they were more slow to understand, more dull
+in divining his secrets than if he had been a stranger. When there came
+at last a suggestion out of the silence, it was Northcote who spoke.
+
+"I don't see how you can leave him, May. It is plain he wants watching.
+I will go if you will let me--if Ursula will say I may," said the young
+man with a little break in his voice. This roused them all to another
+question, quite different from the first one. Her brother and sister
+looked at Ursula, one with a keen pang of involuntary envy, the other
+with a sharp thrill of pleasurable excitement. Oddly enough they could
+all of them pass by their father and leave him out of the question, more
+easily, with less strain of mind, than strangers could. Ursula for her
+part did not say anything; but she looked at her lover with eyes in
+which two big tears were standing. She could scarcely see him through
+those oceans of moisture, bitter and salt, yet softened by the sense of
+trust in him, and rest upon him. When he stooped and kissed her on the
+forehead before them all, the girl did not blush. It was a solemn
+betrothal, sealed by pain, not by kisses.
+
+"Yes, go," she said to him in words which were half sobs, and which he
+understood, but no one else.
+
+"You perceive," he said, "it is not a stranger interfering in your
+affairs, May, but Ursula doing her natural work for her father through
+me--her representative. God bless her! I am Ursula now," he said with a
+broken laugh of joy; then grew suddenly grave again. "You trust me,
+May?"
+
+Poor Reginald's heart swelled; this little scene so calmly transacted
+under his eyes, would it ever happen for him, or anything like it? No,
+his reason told him--and yet; still he was thinking but little of his
+father. He had his duty too, and this happened to be his duty; but no
+warmer impulse was in the poor young fellow's heart.
+
+And thus the day went on. It was afternoon already, and soon the sky
+began to darken. When his children went into the room, Mr. May took no
+notice of them--not that he did not know them; but because his whole
+faculties were fixed upon that woman who was his nurse, and who had all
+her wits about her, and meant to keep him there, and to carry out the
+doctor's instructions should heaven and earth melt away around her. She
+too perceived well enough how he was watching her, and being familiar
+with all the ways, as she thought, of the "mentally afflicted,"
+concluded in her mind that her new patient was further gone than the
+doctor thought.
+
+"I hope as you'll stay within call, sir," she said significantly to
+Reginald; "when they're like that, as soon as they breaks out they're as
+strong as giants; but I hope he won't break out, not to-day."
+
+Reginald withdrew, shivering, from the idea thus presented to him. He
+stole down to his father's study, notwithstanding the warning she had
+given him, and there with a sick heart set to work to endeavour to
+understand his father--nay, more than that, to try to find him out. The
+young man felt a thrill of nervous trembling come over him when he sat
+down in his father's chair and timidly opened some of the drawers. Mr.
+May was in many respects as young a man as his son, and Reginald and he
+had never been on those confidential terms which bring some fathers and
+sons so very close together. He felt that he had no business there
+spying upon his father's privacy. He could not look at the papers which
+lay before him. It seemed a wrong of the first magnitude, wrought
+treacherously, because of the helplessness of the creature most
+concerned. He could not do it. He thrust the papers back again into the
+drawer. In point of fact there were no secrets in the papers, nor much
+to be found out in Mr. May's private life. All its dark side might be
+inferred from, without being revealed in, the little book which lay
+innocently on the desk, and which Reginald looked over, thinking no
+harm. In it there were two or three entries which at length roused his
+curiosity. Cotsdean, October 10th. Cotsdean, January 12th. C. & T. April
+18th. What did this mean? Reginald remembered to have seen Cotsdean
+paying furtive visits in the study. He recollected him as one of the few
+poor people for whom his father had a liking. But what could there be
+between them? He was puzzled, and as Betsy was passing the open door at
+the time, called her in. The evening was falling quickly, the day had
+changed from a beautiful bright morning to a rainy gusty afternoon,
+tearing the leaves and blossoms from the trees, and whirling now and
+then a shower of snowy petals, beautiful but ill-omened snow, across the
+dark window. Beyond that the firmament was dull; the clouds hung low,
+and the day was gone before it ought. When Betsy came in she closed the
+door, not fastening it, but still, Reginald felt, shutting him out too
+much from the sick-bed, to which he might be called at any moment. But
+he was not alarmed by this, though he remarked it. He questioned Betsy
+closely as to his father's possible connection with this man. In such a
+moment, confidential, half-whispered interviews are the rule of a house.
+Every one has so much to ask; so much to say in reply; so many
+particulars to comment upon which the rest may have forgotten. She would
+have liked to enter upon the whole story, to tell how the master was
+took, and how she herself had thought him looking bad when he came in;
+but even to talk about Cotsdean was pleasant.
+
+"I told Miss Beecham," said Betsy, "and I told the other gentleman, Mr.
+Northcote, as was asking me all about it. It's months and months since
+that Cotsdean got coming here--years I may say; and whenever he came
+master looked bad. If you'll believe me, Mr. Reginald, it's money as is
+at the bottom of it all."
+
+"Money? hush, what was that? I thought I heard something upstairs."
+
+"Only the nurse, sir, as is having her tea. I'm ready to take my oath as
+it's money. I've been in service since I was nine years old," said
+Betsy, "I've had a deal of experience of gentlefolks, and it's always
+money as is the thing as sets them off their head. That's what it is. If
+that Cotsdean didn't come here something about money, never you believe
+me no more."
+
+"Cotsdean! a poor shopkeeper! what could he have to do with my father's
+affairs?" Reginald was not speaking to the woman, but drearily to
+himself. If this was the only clue to the mystery, what a poor clue it
+was!
+
+"I dunno, sir," said Betsy, "it ain't for me to tell; but one thing I'm
+sure of--Lord bless us, what's that?"
+
+Reginald rushed to the door, nearly knocking her down as he pushed her
+aside with his hand. When they got outside, it was only the hat-stand in
+the hall that had fallen, something having been torn off from it
+apparently in mad haste, and the door had opened and shut. Reginald
+rushed upstairs, where the nurse was sitting quietly at her tea, the
+bed-curtains being drawn.
+
+"All right, sir; he's in a nice sleep," said that functionary; "I didn't
+light no candles, not to disturb him, poor gentleman."
+
+Reginald tore the curtains aside, then turned and dashed downstairs, and
+out into the windy twilight. In that moment of stillness and darkness
+the patient had escaped. He could see a strange figure walking rapidly,
+already half way up Grange Lane, and rushed on in pursuit without taking
+thought of anything. The sick man had seized upon a long coat which had
+been hanging in the hall, and which reached to his heels. Reginald flew
+on, going as softly as he could, not to alarm him. Where could he be
+going, utterly unclothed except in this big coat? Was it simply madness
+that had seized him, nothing more or less? He followed, with his heart
+beating loudly. There seemed nobody about, no one to whom he could make
+an appeal to help him, even if he could overtake the rapidly progressing
+fugitive. But even while this thought crossed his mind, Reginald saw
+another figure, broad and tall, developing in the distance, coming
+towards them, which stopped short, and put out an arm to stop the
+flight. Even that moment gave him the advantage, and brought him near
+enough to make out that it was Mr. Copperhead.
+
+"The very man I want," he heard him say with his loud voice, putting his
+arm within that of Mr. May, who resisted, but not enough to attract the
+attention of the new-comer, as Reginald came up breathless and placed
+himself on his father's other side. The darkness prevented any
+revelation of the strange appearance of the fugitive, and Mr. Copperhead
+was not lively of perception in respect to people unconnected with
+himself.
+
+"You, too," he cried, nodding at Reginald, "come along. I've come to
+save that boy of mine from a little artful--Come, both of you. The sight
+of a young fellow like himself will shame him more than anything; and
+you, May, you're the very man I want--"
+
+"Not there, not there, for God's sake!" said Mr. May, with a hoarse cry,
+"not there, my God! Reginald! it used to be hanging. Do you mean to give
+me up?"
+
+"Hold him fast," Reginald whispered in desperation, "hold him fast! It
+is madness."
+
+"Lord bless us!" said Mr. Copperhead, but he was a man who was proud of
+his strength, and not given to timidity. He held his captive fast by the
+arm, while Reginald secured him on the other side. "Why, what's this,
+May? rouse yourself up; don't give in, man. No, you ain't mad, not a bit
+of you. Come along, wait here at Tozer's for me, while I do my business;
+and then I'll look after _you_. Come on."
+
+There was a violent but momentary struggle; then all at once the
+struggling man yielded and allowed himself to be dragged within the
+garden-door. Was it because an ordinary policeman, one of the most
+respectful servants of the law, who would have saluted Mr. May with the
+utmost reverence, was just then coming up? He yielded; but he looked at
+his son with a wild despair which made Reginald almost as desperate as
+himself in maddening ignorance and terror.
+
+"Ruin! ruin!" he murmured hoarsely, "worse than death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+THE CONFLICT.
+
+
+The day which had intervened between Phoebe's morning walk, and this
+darkling flight along the same road, had been full of agitation at the
+house of the Tozers. Phoebe, who would willingly have spared her lover
+anything more than the brief intercourse which was inevitable with her
+relations, could find no means of sending him away without breakfast.
+She had escaped from him accordingly, weary as she was, to make
+arrangements for such a meal as she knew him, even in his most
+sentimental mood, to love--a thing which required some time and
+supervision, though the house was always plentifully provided. When she
+had hastily bathed her face and changed her dress she came back to the
+room where she had left him, to find him in careless conversation with
+Tozer, who only half-recovered from the excitement of last night, but
+much overawed by a visit from so great a personage, had managed to put
+aside the matter which occupied his own thoughts, in order to carry on a
+kind of worship of Clarence, who was the son of the richest man he had
+ever heard of, and consequently appeared to the retired butterman a very
+demigod. Clarence was yawning loudly, his arms raised over his head in
+total indifference to Tozer, when Phoebe came into the room; and the old
+man seized upon the occasion of her entrance to perform another act of
+worship.
+
+"Ah, here's Phoebe at last. Mr. Copperhead's come in from the country, my
+dear, and he's going to make us proud, he is, by accepting of a bit of
+breakfast. I tell him it's a wretched poor place for him as has palaces
+at his command; but what we can give him is the best quality, that I
+answers for--and you're one as knows how things should be, even if we
+ain't grand ourselves."
+
+"Have you palaces at your command, Clarence?" she said, with a smile.
+Notwithstanding the fatigue of the night, the fresh air and her
+ablutions, and the agitation and commotion of her mind, made Phoebe
+almost more animated and brilliant than usual. Her eyes shone with the
+anxiety and excitement of the crisis, and a little, too, with the glory
+and delight of success; for though Clarence Copperhead was not very much
+to brag of in his own person, he still had been the object before her
+for some time back, and she had got him. And yet Phoebe was not
+mercenary, though she was not "in love" with her heavy lover in the
+ordinary sense of the word. She went towards him now, and stood near
+him, looking at him with a smile. He was a big, strong fellow, which is
+a thing most women esteem, and he was not without good looks; and he
+would be rich, and might be thrust into a position which would produce
+both honour and advantage; and lastly, he was her own, which gives even
+the most indifferent article a certain value in some people's eyes.
+
+"Palaces? I don't know, but nice enough houses; and you know you like a
+nice house, Miss Phoebe. Here, I haven't said a word to the old
+gentleman. Tell him; I ain't come all this way for nothing. You've
+always got the right words at your fingers' end. Tell him, and let's get
+it over. I think I could eat some breakfast, I can tell you, after that
+drive."
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, slightly tremulous, "Mr. Copperhead wishes me
+to tell you that--Mr. Copperhead wishes you to know why----"
+
+"Bless us!" cried Clarence with a laugh. "Here is a beating about the
+bush! She has got her master, old gentleman, and that is what she never
+had before. Look here, I'm going to marry Phoebe. That's plain English
+without any phrases, and I don't know what you could say to better it.
+Is breakfast ready? I've earned it for my part."
+
+"Going to marry Phoebe!" Tozer gasped. He had heard from his wife that
+such a glory was possible; but now, when it burst upon him, the dazzling
+delight seemed too good to be true. It thrust the forgery and everything
+out of his head, and took even the power of speech from him. He got up
+and gazed at the young people, one after the other, rubbing his hands,
+with a broad grin upon his face; then he burst forth all at once in
+congratulation.
+
+"God bless you, sir! God bless you both! It's an honour as I never
+looked for. Rising in the world was never no thought of mine; doing your
+duty and trusting to the Lord is what I've always stood by; and it's
+been rewarded. But she's a good girl, Mr. Copperhead; you'll never
+regret it, sir. She's that good and that sensible, as I don't know how
+to do without her. She'll do you credit, however grand you may make her;
+and if it's any comfort to you, as she's connected with them as knows
+how to appreciate a gentleman--" said Tozer, breaking down in his
+enthusiasm, his voice sinking into a whisper in the fulness of his
+heart.
+
+"Grandpapa!" said Phoebe, feeling sharply pricked in her pride, with a
+momentary humiliation, "there are other things to be thought of," and
+she gave him a look of reproach which Tozer did not understand, but
+which Clarence did vaguely. Clarence, for his part, liked the homage,
+and was by no means unwilling that everybody should perceive his
+condescension and what great luck it was for Phoebe to have secured him.
+He laughed, pleased to wave his banner of triumph over her,
+notwithstanding that he loved her. He _was_ very fond of her, that was
+true; but still her good fortune in catching him was, for the moment,
+the thing most in his thoughts.
+
+"Well, old gentleman," he said, "you ain't far wrong there. She _is_ a
+clever one. We shall have a bad time of it with the governor at first;
+for, of course, when there's no money and no connections, a man like the
+governor, that has made himself, ain't likely to be too well pleased."
+
+"As for money, Mr. Copperhead, sir," said Tozer with modest pride, "I
+don't see as there's anything to be said against Phoebe on that point.
+Her mother before her had a pretty bit of money, though I say it, as
+shouldn't--"
+
+"Ah, yes--yes," said Clarence. "To be sure; but a little bit of coin
+like that don't count with us. The governor deals in hundreds of
+thousands; he don't think much of your little bits of fortunes. But I
+don't mind. She suits me down to the ground, does Phoebe; and I don't
+give that for the governor!" cried the young man valiantly. As for Phoebe
+herself, it is impossible to imagine any one more entirely put out of
+her place, and out of all the comfort and satisfaction in her own
+initiative which she generally possessed, than this young woman was,
+while these two men talked over her so calmly. It is doubtful whether
+she had ever been so set aside out of her proper position in her life,
+and her nerves were overstrained and her bodily strength worn out, which
+added to the sense of downfall. With almost a touch of anger in her tone
+she, who was never out of temper, interrupted this talk.
+
+"I think breakfast is ready, grandpapa. Mr. Clarence Copperhead wants
+some refreshment after his exertions, and in preparation for the
+exertions to come. For I suppose your papa is very likely to follow you
+to Carlingford," she added, with a low laugh, turning to her lover. "I
+know Mr. Copperhead very well, and I should not like my first meeting
+with him after I had thwarted all his views."
+
+"Phoebe! you don't mean to desert me? By Jove! I'll face him and twenty
+like him if you'll only stand by me," he cried; which was a speech that
+made amends.
+
+She suffered him to lead her into breakfast less formally than is the
+ordinary fashion, and his hand on her trim waist did not displease the
+girl. No; she understood him, knew that he was no great things; but yet
+he was hers, and she had always meant him to be hers, and Phoebe was
+ready to maintain his cause in the face of all the world.
+
+The breakfast was to Clarence's taste, and so was the company--even old
+Tozer, who sat with his mouth agape in admiration of the young
+potentate, while he recounted his many grandeurs. Clarence gave a great
+deal of information as to prices he had paid for various things, and the
+expenses of his living at Oxford and elsewhere, as he ate the kidneys,
+eggs, and sausages with which Phoebe's care had heaped the table. They
+had no _pate de foie gras_, it is true, but the simple fare was of the
+best quality, as Tozer had boasted. Mrs. Tozer did not come downstairs
+to breakfast, and thus Phoebe was alone with the two men, who suited each
+other so much better than she could have hoped. The girl sat by them
+languidly, though with a beating heart, wondering, as girls will wonder
+sometimes, if all men were like these, braggards and believers in brag,
+worshippers of money and price. No doubt, young men too marvel when they
+hear the women about them talking across them of _chiffons_, or of
+little quarrels and little vanities. Phoebe had more brains than both of
+her interlocutors put together, and half-a-dozen more added on; but she
+was put down and silenced by the talk. Her lover for the moment had
+escaped from her. She could generally keep him from exposing himself in
+this way, and turn the better side of him to the light; but the presence
+of a believer in him turned the head of Clarence. She could not control
+him any more.
+
+"A good horse is a deuced expensive thing," he said; "the governor gave
+a cool hundred and fifty for that mare that brought me over this
+morning. He bought her from Sir Robert; but he didn't know, Phoebe, the
+use I was going to put her to. If he'd known, he'd have put that hundred
+and fifty in the sea rather than have his beast rattled over the country
+on such an errand." Here he stopped in the midst of his breakfast, and
+looked at her admiringly. "But I don't repent," he added. "I'd do it
+again to-morrow if it wasn't done already. If you stand by me, I'll face
+him, and twenty like him, by Jove!"
+
+"You don't say nothing," said her grandfather. "I wouldn't be so
+ungrateful. Gentlemen like Mr. Copperhead ain't picked up at every
+roadside."
+
+"They ain't, by Jove!" said Clarence; "but she's shy, that's all about
+it," he added, tenderly; "when we're by ourselves, I don't complain."
+
+Poor Phoebe! She smiled a dismal smile, and was very glad when breakfast
+was over. After that she took him into the garden, into the bright
+morning air, which kept her up, and where she could keep her Clarence in
+hand and amuse him, without allowing this revelation of the worst side
+of him. While they were there, Martha admitted the visitor of yesterday,
+Mr. Simpson from the Bank, bringing back to Phoebe's mind all the other
+matter of which it had been full.
+
+"Don't you think you ought to go and see about the horse and the
+dog-cart?" she said suddenly, turning to her lover with one of those
+sudden changes which kept the dull young man amused. "You don't know
+what they may be about."
+
+"They can't be up to much," said Clarence. "Thank you, Miss Phoebe, I
+like you better than the mare."
+
+"But you can't be here all day, and I can't be here all day," she said.
+"I must look after grandmamma, and you ought to go down and inquire
+after poor Mr. May--he is so ill. I have been there all night, helping
+Ursula. You ought to go and ask for him. People don't forget all the
+duties of life because--because a thing of this sort has happened--"
+
+"Because they've popped and been accepted," said graceful Clarence. "By
+Jove! I'll go. I'll tell young May. I'd like to see his face when I tell
+him the news. You may look as demure as you like, but you know what
+spoons he has been upon you, and the old fellow too--made me as jealous
+as King Lear sometimes," cried the happy lover, with a laugh. He meant
+Othello, let us suppose.
+
+"Nonsense, Clarence! But go, please go. I must run to grandmamma."
+
+Mr. Simpson had gone in, and Phoebe's heart had begun to beat loudly in
+her throat; but it was not so easy to get rid of this ardent lover, and
+when at last he did go, he was slightly sulky, which was not a state of
+mind to be encouraged. She rushed upstairs to her grandmother's room,
+which was over the little room where Tozer sat, and from which she could
+already hear sounds of conversation rapidly rising in tone, and the
+noise of opening and shutting drawers, and a general rummage. Phoebe
+never knew what she said to the kind old woman, who kissed and wept over
+her, exulting in the news.
+
+"I ain't been so pleased since my Phoebe told me as she was to marry a
+minister," said Mrs. Tozer, "and this is a rise in life a deal grander
+than the best of ministers. But, bless your heart, what shall I do
+without you?" cried the old woman, sobbing.
+
+Presently Tozer came in, with an air of angry abstraction, and began to
+search through drawers and boxes.
+
+"I've lost something," he answered, with sombre looks, to his wife's
+inquiry. Phoebe busied herself with her grandmother, and did not ask what
+it was. It was only when he had searched everywhere that some chance
+movement directed his eyes to her. She was trembling in spite of
+herself. He came up to her, and seized her suddenly by the arm. "By
+George!" he cried, "I'm in a dozen minds to search you!"
+
+"Tozer! let my child alone. How dare you touch her--her as is as good
+as Mr. Copperhead's lady? What's she got to do with your dirty papers?
+Do you think Phoebe would touch them--with a pair of tongs?" cried the
+angry grandmother.
+
+Phoebe shrank with all the cowardice of guilt. Her nerves were unstrung
+by weariness and excitement. And Tozer, with his little red eyes blazing
+upon her, was very different in this fury of personal injury, from the
+grandfather of the morning, who had been ready to see every virtue in
+her.
+
+"I believe as you've got it!" he cried, giving her a shake. It was a
+shot at a venture, said without the least idea of its truth; but before
+the words had crossed his lips, he felt with a wild passion of rage and
+wonder that it was true. "Give it up, you hussy!" he shrieked, with a
+yell of fury, his face convulsed with sudden rage, thickly and with
+sputtering lips.
+
+"Tozer!" cried his wife, flinging herself between them, "take your hands
+off the child. Run, run to your room, my darling; he's out of his
+senses. Lord bless us all, Sam, are you gone stark staring mad?"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, trembling, "if I had it, you may be sure it
+would be safe out of your way. I told you I knew something about it, but
+you would not hear me. Will you hear me now? I'll make it up to
+you--double it, if you like. Grandmamma, it is a poor man he would drive
+to death if he is not stopped. Oh!" cried Phoebe, clasping her hands,
+"after what has happened this morning, will you not yield to me? and
+after all the love you have shown me? I will never ask anything, not
+another penny. I will make it up; only give in to me, give in to me--for
+once in my life! Grandpapa! I never asked anything from you before."
+
+"Give it up, you piece of impudence! you jade! you d--d deceitful----"
+
+He was holding her by the arm, emphasizing every new word by a violent
+shake, while poor old Mrs. Tozer dropped into a chair, weeping and
+trembling.
+
+"Oh! it ain't often as he's like this; but when he is, I can't do
+nothing with him, I can't do nothing with him!" she cried.
+
+But Phoebe's nerves strung themselves up again in face of the crisis. She
+shook him off suddenly with unexpected strength, and moving to a little
+distance, stood confronting him, pale but determined.
+
+"If you think you will get the better of me in this way, you are
+mistaken," she said. "I am not your daughter; how dare you treat me so?
+Grandmamma, forgive me. I have been up all night. I am going to lie
+down," said Phoebe. "If grandpapa has anything more to say against me, he
+can say it to Clarence. I leave myself in his hands."
+
+Saying this, she turned round majestically, but with an anxious heart,
+and walked away to her room, every nerve in her trembling. When she got
+there, Phoebe locked the door hastily, in genuine terror; and then she
+laughed, and then she cried a little. "And to think it was here all the
+time!" she said to herself, taking out the little Russia leather purse
+out of her pocket. She went into the closet adjoining her room, and
+buried it deep in her travelling trunk which was there, relieving
+herself and her mind of a danger. Then--Phoebe did what was possibly the
+most sensible thing in the world, in every point of view. She went to
+bed; undressed herself quietly, rolled up her hair, and lay down with a
+grateful sense of ease and comfort. "When Clarence comes back he will be
+disappointed; but even for Clarence a little disappointment will be no
+harm," said the sensible young woman to herself. And what comfort it was
+to lie down, and feel all the throbs and pulses gradually subsiding, the
+fright going off, the satisfaction of success coming back, and gradually
+a slumberous, delicious ease stealing over her. Of all the clever things
+Phoebe had done in her life, it must be allowed that there was not one so
+masterly as the fact that she, then and there, went to sleep.
+
+All this had taken up a good deal of time. It was twelve when Mr.
+Simpson of the bank disturbed the lovers in the garden, and it was one
+o'clock before Phoebe put a stop to all Tozer's vindictive plans by going
+to bed. What he said to Mr. Simpson, when he went back to him, is not on
+record. That excellent man of business was much put out by the long
+waiting, and intimated plainly enough that he could not allow his time
+to be thus wasted. Mr. Simpson began to think that there was something
+very strange in the whole business. Tozer's house was turned upside down
+by it, as he could hear by the passionate voices and the sound of crying
+and storming in the room above; but Cotsdean was secure in his shop,
+apparently fearing no evil, as he had seen as he passed, peering in with
+curious eyes. What it meant he could not tell; but it was queer, and did
+not look as if the business was straight-forward.
+
+"When you find the bill, or make up your mind what to do, you can send
+for me," he said, and went away, suspicious and half-angry, leaving
+Tozer to his own devices. And the afternoon passed in the most
+uncomfortable lull imaginable. Though he believed his granddaughter to
+have it, he looked again over all his papers, his drawers, his
+waste-basket, every corner he had in which such a small matter might
+have been hid; but naturally his search was all in vain. Clarence
+returned in the afternoon, and was received by poor old Mrs. Tozer, very
+tremulous and ready to cry, who did not know whether she ought to
+distrust Phoebe or not, and hesitated and stumbled over her words till
+the young man thought his father had come in his absence, and that Phoebe
+had changed her mind. This had the effect of making him extremely eager
+and anxious, and of subduing the bragging and magnificent mood which the
+triumphant lover had displayed in the morning. He felt himself "taken
+down a peg or two," in his own fine language. He went to the Parsonage
+and tried very hard to see Ursula, to secure her help in case anything
+had gone wrong, and then to Reginald, whose vexation at the news he felt
+sure of, and hoped to enjoy a sight of. But he could see no one in the
+absorbed and anxious house. What was he to do? He wandered about,
+growing more and more unhappy, wondering if he had been made to fling
+himself into the face of fate for no reason, and sure that he could not
+meet his father without Phoebe's support. He could not even face her
+relations. It was very different from the day of triumph he had looked
+for; but, as Phoebe had wisely divined, this disappointment, and all the
+attending circumstances, did not do him any harm.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when Northcote called. He too had acted on
+the information given by Betsy, and had gone to Cotsdean, who made him
+vaguely aware that Tozer had some share in the business in which Mr. May
+was involved, and who, on being asked whether it could be set right by
+money, grew radiant and declared that nothing could be easier. But when
+Northcote saw Tozer, there ensued a puzzling game at cross purposes, for
+Tozer had no notion that Mr. May had anything to do with the business,
+and declined to understand.
+
+"I ain't got nothing to do with parsons, and if you'll take my advice,
+sir, it 'ud be a deal better for you to give 'em up too. You're
+a-aggravating the connection for no good, you are," said Tozer, surely
+by right of his own troubles and perplexities, and glad to think he
+could make some one else uncomfortable too.
+
+"I shall do in that respect as I think proper," said Northcote, who was
+not disposed to submit to dictation.
+
+"Fact is, he's a deal too well off for a minister," Tozer said to his
+wife when the young man disappeared, "they're too independent that sort;
+and I don't know what he means by his Mays and his fine folks. What have
+we got to do with Mr. May?"
+
+"Except that he's been good to the child, Tozer; we can't forget as he's
+been very good to the child."
+
+"Oh, dash the child!" cried the old man, infuriated; "if you say much
+more I'll be sorry I ever let you see her face. What has she done with
+my bill?"
+
+"Bill? if it's only a bill what are you so put out about!" cried Mrs.
+Tozer. "You'll have dozens again at Christmas, if that is all you want."
+
+But the laugh was unsuccessful, and the old man went back to his room to
+nurse his wrath and to wonder what had come to him. Why had his
+granddaughter interfered in his business, and what had he to do with Mr.
+May?
+
+Phoebe got up refreshed and comfortable when it was time for the family
+tea, and came down to her lover, who had come back, and was sitting very
+dejected by old Mrs. Tozer's side. She was fresh and fair, and in one of
+her prettiest dresses, having taken pains for him; and notwithstanding
+Tozer's lowering aspect, and his refusal to speak to her, the meal
+passed over very cheerfully for the rest of the party, and the two young
+people once more withdrew to the garden when it was over. The presence
+of Clarence Copperhead protected Phoebe from all attack. Her grandfather
+dared not fly out upon her as before, or summon her to give up what she
+had taken from him. Whatever happened, this wonderful rise in life, this
+grand match could not be interfered with. He withdrew bitter and
+exasperated to his own den, leaving his poor wife crying and wretched in
+the family sitting-room. Mrs. Tozer knew that her husband was not to be
+trifled with, and that, though the circumstances of Phoebe's betrothal
+subdued him for the moment, this effect in all probability would not
+last; and she sat in terror, watching the moments as they passed, and
+trembling to think what might happen when the young pair came in again,
+or when Clarence at last went away, leaving Phoebe with no protection but
+herself. Phoebe, too, while she kept her dull companion happy, kept
+thinking all the while of the same thing with a great tremor of
+suppressed agitation in her mind; and she did not know what was the next
+step to take--a reflection which took away her strength. She had taken
+the bill from her trunk again and replaced it in her pocket. It was
+safest carried on her person, she felt; but what she was to do next,
+even Phoebe, so fruitful in resources, could not say. When Northcote came
+back in the evening she felt that her game was becoming more and more
+difficult to play. After a brief consultation with herself, she decided
+that it was most expedient to go in with him, taking her big body-guard
+along with her, and confiding in his stupidity not to find out more than
+was indispensable. She took Northcote to her grandfather's room,
+whispering to him on the way to make himself the representative of
+Cotsdean only, and to say nothing of Mr. May.
+
+"Then you know about it?" said Northcote amazed.
+
+"Oh, hush, hush!" cried Phoebe; "offer to pay it on Cotsdean's part, and
+say nothing about Mr. May."
+
+The young man looked at her bewildered; but nodded his head in assent,
+and then her own young man pulled her back almost roughly, and demanded
+to know what she meant by talking to that fellow so. Thus poor Phoebe was
+between two fires. She went in with a fainting yet courageous heart.
+
+"Pay the money!" said Tozer, who by dint of brooding over it all the day
+had come to a white heat, and was no longer to be controlled. "Mr.
+Northcote, sir, you're a minister, and you don't understand business no
+more nor women do. Money's money--but there's more than money here.
+There's my name, sir, as has been made use of in a way!--me go signing
+of accommodation bills! I'd have cut off my hand sooner. There's that
+girl there, she's got it. She's been and stolen it from me, Mr.
+Northcote. Tell her to give it up. You may have some influence, you as
+is a minister. Tell her to give it up, or, by George, she shall never
+have a penny from me! I'll cut her off without even a shilling. I'll put
+her out o' my will--out o' my house."
+
+"I say, Phoebe," said Clarence, "look here, that's serious, that is; not
+that I mind a little pot of money like what the poor old fellow's got;
+but what's the good of throwing anything away?"
+
+"Make her give it up," cried Tozer hoarsely, "or out of this house she
+goes this very night. I ain't the sort of man to be made a fool of. I
+ain't the sort of man--Who's this a-coming? some more of your d--d
+intercessors to spoil justice," cried the old man, "but I won't have
+'em. I'll have nothing to say to them. What, who? Mr. Copperhead's
+father? I ain't ashamed to meet Mr. Copperhead's father; but one thing
+at a time. Them as comes into my house must wait my time," cried the
+butterman, seeing vaguely the group come in, whom we left at his doors.
+"I'm master here. Give up that bill, you brazen young hussy, and go out
+of my sight. How dare you set up your face among so many men? Give it
+up!" he cried, seizing her by the elbow in renewed fury. The strangers,
+though he saw them enter, received no salutation from him. There was one
+small lamp on the table, dimly lighted, which threw a faint glow upon
+the circle of countenances round, into which came wondering the burly
+big Copperhead, holding fast by the shoulder of Mr. May, whose ghastly
+face, contorted with wild anxiety, glanced at Tozer over the lamp. But
+the old man was so much absorbed at first that he scarcely saw who the
+new-comers were.
+
+"What's all this about?" said Mr. Copperhead. "Seems we've come into the
+midst of another commotion. So you're here, Clar! it is you I want, my
+boy. Look here, Northcote, take hold, will you? there's a screw loose,
+and we've got to get him home. Take hold, till I have had a word with
+Clarence. That's a thing that won't take long."
+
+Clarence cast a glance at Phoebe, who even in her own agitation turned
+and gave him a tremulous smile of encouragement. The crisis was so great
+on all sides of her that Phoebe became heroic.
+
+"I am here," she said, with all the steadiness of strong emotion, and
+when he had received this assurance of support, he feared his father no
+more.
+
+"All right, sir," he said almost with alacrity. He was afraid of nothing
+with Phoebe standing by.
+
+"Make her give me up my bill," said Tozer; "I'll hear nothing else till
+this is settled. My bill! It's forgery; that's what it is. Don't speak
+to me about money! I'll have him punished. I'll have him rot in prison
+for it. I'll not cheat the law--You people as has influence with that
+girl, make her give it me. I can't touch him without the bill."
+
+Mr. May had been placed in a chair by the two young men who watched over
+him; but as Tozer spoke he got up, struggling wildly, almost tearing
+himself out of the coat by which they held him. "Let me go!" he said.
+"Do you hear him? Rot in prison! with hard labour; it would kill me! And
+it used to be hanging! My God--my God! Won't you let me go?"
+
+Tozer stopped short, stopped by this passion which was greater than his
+own. He looked wonderingly at the livid face, the struggling figure,
+impressed in spite of himself. "He's gone mad," he said. "Good Lord! But
+he's got nothing to do with it. Can't you take him away?"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe in his ear, "here it is, your bill; it was _he_
+who did it--and it has driven him mad. Look! I give it up to you; and
+there he is--that is your work. Now do what you please--"
+
+Trembling, the old man took the paper out of her hand. He gazed
+wondering at the other, who somehow moved in his excitement by a sense
+that the decisive moment had come, stood still too, his arm half-pulled
+out of his coat, his face wild with dread and horror. For a moment they
+looked at each other in a common agony, neither the one nor the other
+clear enough to understand, but both feeling that some tremendous crisis
+had come upon them. "He--done it!" said Tozer appalled and almost
+speechless. "_He_ done it!" They all crowded round, a circle of scared
+faces. Phoebe alone stood calm. She was the only one who knew the whole,
+except the culprit, who understood nothing with that mad confusion in
+his eyes. But he was overawed too, and in his very madness recognized
+the crisis. He stood still, struggling no longer, with his eyes fixed
+upon the homely figure of the old butterman, who stood trembling,
+thunderstruck, with that fatal piece of paper in his hand.
+
+Tozer had been mad for revenge two moments before--almost as wild as the
+guilty man before him--with a fierce desire to punish and make an
+example of the man who had wronged him. But this semi-madness was
+arrested by the sight of the other madman before him, and by the
+extraordinary shock of this revelation. It took all the strength out of
+him. He had not looked up to the clergyman as Cotsdean did, but he had
+looked up to the gentleman, his customer, as being upon an elevation
+very different from his own, altogether above and beyond him; and the
+sight of this superior being, thus humbled, maddened, gazing at him with
+wild terror and agony, more eloquent than any supplication, struck poor
+old Tozer to the very soul. "God help us all!" he cried out with a
+broken, sobbing voice. He was but a vulgar old fellow, mean, it might
+be, worldly in his way; but the terrible mystery of human wickedness and
+guilt prostrated his common soul with as sharp an anguish of pity and
+shame as could have befallen the most heroic. It seized upon him so that
+he could say or do nothing more, forcing hot and salt tears up into his
+old eyes, and shaking him all over with a tremor as of palsy. The scared
+faces appeared to come closer to Phoebe, to whom these moments seemed
+like years. Had her trust been vain? Softly, but with an excitement
+beyond control, she touched him on the arm.
+
+"That's true," said Tozer, half-crying. "Something's got to be done. We
+can't all stand here for ever, Phoebe; it's him as has to be thought of.
+Show it to him, poor gentleman, if he ain't past knowing; and burn it,
+and let us hear of it no more."
+
+Solemnly, in the midst of them all, Phoebe held up the paper before the
+eyes of the guilty man. If he understood it or not, no one could tell.
+He did not move, but stared blankly at her and it. Then she held it over
+the lamp and let it blaze and drop into harmless ashes in the midst of
+them all. Tozer dropped down into his elbow-chair sniffing and sobbing.
+Mr. May stood quite still, with a look of utter dulness and stupidity
+coming over the face in which so much terror had been. If he understood
+what had passed, it was only in feeling, not in intelligence. He grew
+still and dull in the midst of that strange madness which all the time
+was only half-madness, a mixture of conscious excitement and anxiety
+with that which passes the boundaries of consciousness. For the moment
+he was stilled into stupid idiotcy, and looked at them with vacant
+eyes. As for the others, Northcote was the only one who divined at
+all what this scene meant. To Reginald it was like a scene in a
+pantomime--bewildering dumb show, with no sense or meaning in it. It was
+he who spoke first, with a certain impatience of the occurrence which he
+did not understand.
+
+"Will you come home, sir, now?" he said. "Come home, for Heaven's sake!
+Northcote will give you an arm. He's very ill," Reginald added, looking
+round him pitifully in his ignorance; "what you are thinking of I can't
+tell--but he's ill and--delirious. It was Mr. Copperhead who brought him
+here against my will. Excuse me, Miss Beecham--now I must take him
+home."
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe. The tears came into her eyes as she looked at him; he
+was not thinking of her at the moment, but she knew he had thought of
+her, much and tenderly, and she felt that she might never see him again.
+Phoebe would have liked him to know what she had done, and to know that
+what she had done was for him chiefly--in order to recompense him a
+little, poor fellow, for the heart he had given her, which she could not
+accept, yet could not be ungrateful for. And yet she was glad, though
+there was a pang in it, that he should never know, and remain unaware of
+her effort, for his own sake; but the tears came into her eyes as she
+looked at him, and he caught the gleam of the moisture which made his
+heart beat. Something moved her beyond what he knew of; and his heart
+thrilled with tenderness and wonder; but how should he know what it was?
+
+"Give my love to Ursula," she said. "I shall not come to-night as she
+has a nurse, and I think he will be better. Make her rest, Mr. May--and
+if I don't see her, say good-bye to her for me----"
+
+"Good-bye?"
+
+"Yes, good-bye--things have happened--Tell her I hope she will not
+forget me," said Phoebe, the tears dropping down her cheeks. "But oh,
+please never mind me, look at him, he is quite quiet, he is worn out.
+Take him home."
+
+"There is nothing else to be done," said poor Reginald, whose heart
+began to ache with a sense of the unknown which surrounded him on every
+side. He took his father by the arm, who had been standing quite silent,
+motionless, and apathetic. He had no need for any help, for Mr. May went
+with him at a touch, as docile as a child. Northcote followed with grave
+looks and very sad. Tozer had been seated in his favourite chair, much
+subdued, and giving vent now and then to something like a sob. His
+nerves had been terribly shaken. But as he saw the three gentlemen going
+away, nature awoke in the old butterman. He put out his hand and plucked
+Northcote by the sleeve. "I'll not say no to that money, not now, Mr.
+Northcote, sir," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+PHOEBE'S LAST TRIAL.
+
+
+"Now if you please," said Mr. Copperhead. "I think it's my turn. I
+wanted May to hear what I had got to say, but as he's ill or mad, or
+something, it is not much good. I can't imagine what all these
+incantations meant, and all your play, Miss Phoebe, eyes and all. That
+sort of thing don't suit us plain folks. If you don't mind following
+your friends, I want to speak to old Tozer here by himself. I don't like
+to have women meddling in my affairs."
+
+"Grandpapa is very tired, and he is upset," said Phoebe. "I don't think
+he can have any more said to him to-night."
+
+"By George, but he shall though, and you too. Look here," said Mr.
+Copperhead, "you've taken in my boy Clarence here. He's been a fool, and
+he always was a fool; but you're not a fool, Miss Phoebe. You know
+precious well what you're about. And just you listen to me; he shan't
+marry you, not if he breaks his heart over it. I ain't a man that thinks
+much of breaking hearts. You and he may talk what nonsense you like, but
+you shan't marry my boy; no, not if there wasn't another woman in the
+world."
+
+"He has asked me," said Phoebe; "but I certainly did not ask him. You
+must give your orders to your son, Mr. Copperhead. You have no right to
+dictate to me. Grandpapa, I think you and I have had enough for
+to-night."
+
+With this Phoebe began to close the shutters, which had been left open,
+and to put away books and things which were lying about. Tozer made a
+feeble attempt to stop her energetic proceedings.
+
+"Talk to the gentleman, Phoebe, if Mr. Copperhead 'as anything to say to
+you--don't, don't you go and offend him, my dear!" the old man cried in
+an anxious whisper; and then he raised himself from the chair, in which
+he had sunk exhausted by the unusual commotions to which he had been
+subjected. "I am sure, sir," Tozer began, "it ain't my wish, nor the
+wish o' my family, to do anything as is against your wishes--"
+
+"Grandpapa," said Phoebe, interrupting him ruthlessly, "Mr. Copperhead's
+wishes may be a rule to his own family, but they are not to be a rule to
+yours. For my part I won't submit to it. Let him take his son away if he
+pleases--or if he can," she added, turning round upon Clarence with a
+smile. "Mr. Clarence Copperhead is as free as I am to go or to stay."
+
+"By Jove!" cried that young man, who had been hanging in the background,
+dark and miserable. He came close up to her, and caught first her sleeve
+and then her elbow; the contact seemed to give him strength. "Look here,
+sir," he said, ingratiatingly, "we don't want to offend you--_I_ don't
+want to fly in your face; but I can't go on having coaches for ever, and
+here's the only one in the world that can do the business instead of
+coaches. Phoebe knows I'm fond of her, but that's neither here nor there.
+Here is the one that can make something of me. I ain't clever, you know
+it as well as I do--but she is. I don't mind going into parliament,
+making speeches and that sort of thing, if I've got her to back me up.
+But without her I'll never do anything, without her you may put me in a
+cupboard, as you've often said. Let me have her, and I'll make a figure,
+and do you credit. I can't say any fairer," said Clarence, taking the
+rest of her arm into his grasp, and holding her hand. He was stupid--but
+he was a man, and Phoebe felt proud of him, for the moment at least.
+
+"You idiot!" cried his father, "and I was an idiot too to put any faith
+in you; come away from that artful girl. Can't you see that it's all a
+made-up plan from beginning to end? What was she sent down here for but
+to catch you, you oaf, you fool, you! Drop her, or you drop me. That's
+all I've got to say."
+
+"Yes, drop me, Clarence," said Phoebe, with a smile; "for in the mean
+time you hurt me. See, you have bruised my arm. While you settle this
+question with your father, I will go to grandmamma. Pardon me, I take
+more interest in her than in this discussion between him and you."
+
+"You shan't go," cried her lover, "not a step. Look here, sir. If that's
+what it comes to, her before you. What you've made of me ain't much, is
+it? but I don't mind what I go in for, as long as she's to the fore. Her
+before you."
+
+"Is that your last word?" said Mr. Copperhead.
+
+"Yes." His son faced him with a face as set and cloudy as his own. The
+mouth, shut close and sullen, was the same in both; but those brown eyes
+which Clarence got from his mother, and which were usually mild in their
+expression, looking out gently from the ruder face to which they did not
+seem to belong, were now, not clear, but muddy with resolution,
+glimmering with dogged obstinacy from under the drooping eyelids. He was
+not like himself; he was as he had been that day when Mr. May saw him at
+the Dorsets, determined, more than a match for his father, who had only
+the obstinacy of his own nature, not that dead resisting force of two
+people to bring to the battle. Clarence had all the pertinacity that was
+not in his mother, to reinforce his own. Mr. Copperhead stared at his
+son with that look of authority, half-imperious, half-brutal, with which
+he was in the habit of crushing all who resisted him; but Clarence did
+not quail. He stood dull and immovable, his eyes contracted, his face
+stolid, and void of all expression but that of resistance. He was not
+much more than a fool, but just by so much as his father was more
+reasonable, more clear-sighted than himself, was Clarence stronger than
+his father. He held Phoebe by the sleeve, that she might not escape him;
+but he faced Mr. Copperhead with a dull determination that all the
+powers of earth could not shake.
+
+For the moment the father lost his self-control.
+
+"Then I'll go," he said, "and when you've changed your mind, you can
+come to me; but--" here he swore a big oath, "mind what you're about.
+There never was a man yet but repented when he set himself against me."
+
+Clarence made no answer. Talking was not in his way. And Mr. Copperhead
+showed his wondering apprehension of a power superior to his own, by
+making a pause after he had said this, and not going away directly. He
+stopped and tried once more to influence the rebel with that stare.
+"Phoebe--Phoebe--for God's sake make him give in, and don't go against Mr.
+Copperhead!" cried Tozer's tremulous voice, shaken with weakness and
+anxiety. But Phoebe did not say anything. She felt in the hesitation, the
+pause, the despairing last effort to conquer, that the time of her
+triumph had nearly come. When he went away, they all stood still and
+listened to his footsteps going along the passage and through the
+garden. When he was outside he paused again, evidently with the idea of
+returning, but changed his mind and went on. To be left like this, the
+victors on a field of domestic conflict, is very often not at all a
+triumphant feeling, and involves a sense of defeat about as bad as the
+reality experienced by the vanquished. Phoebe, who was imaginative, and
+had lively feeling, felt a cold shiver go over her as the steps went
+away one by one, and began to cry softly, not knowing quite why it was;
+but Clarence, who had no imagination, nor any feelings to speak of, was
+at his ease and perfectly calm.
+
+"What are you crying for?" he said, "the governor can do what he likes.
+I'd marry you in spite of a hundred like him. He didn't know what he was
+about, didn't the governor, when he tackled _me_."
+
+"But, Clarence, you must not break with your father, you must not
+quarrel on my account--"
+
+"That's as it may be," he said, "never you mind. When it's cleverness
+that's wanted, it's you that's wanted to back me up--but I can stick to
+my own way without you; and my way is this," he said, suddenly lifting
+her from the ground, holding her waist between his two big hands, and
+giving her an emphatic kiss. Phoebe was silenced altogether when this had
+happened. He was a blockhead, but he was a man, and could stand up for
+his love, and for his own rights as a man, independent of the world. She
+felt a genuine admiration for her lout at that moment; but this
+admiration was accompanied by a very chill sense of all that might be
+forfeited if Mr. Copperhead stood out. Clarence, poor and disowned by
+his father, would be a very different person from the Clarence
+Copperhead who was going into parliament, and had "a fine position" in
+prospect. She did not form any resolutions as to what she would do in
+that case, for she was incapable of anything dishonourable; but it made
+her shiver as with a cold icy current running over; and as for poor old
+Tozer he was all but whimpering in his chair.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he cried. "A great man like Mr. Copperhead affronted in my
+'umble 'ouse. It's what I never thought to see. A friend of the
+connection like that--your father's leading member. Oh, Phoebe, it was an
+evil day as brought you here to make all this mischief! and if I had
+known what was going on!" cried Tozer, almost weeping in his despair.
+
+"You are tired, grandpapa," said Phoebe. "Don't be frightened about us.
+Mr. Copperhead is very fond of Clarence, and he will give in; or if he
+doesn't give in, still we shall not be worse off than many other
+people." But she said this with a secret panic devouring her soul,
+wondering if it was possible that such a horrible revolution of
+circumstances and change of everything she had looked for, could be.
+Even Clarence was silenced, though immovable. He went away soon after,
+and betook himself to his room at the Parsonage, where all his
+possessions still were, while Phoebe attended upon her grandmother, whose
+agitation and fear she calmed without saying much. Tozer, quite broken
+down, retired to bed; and when they were all disposed of, Phoebe went out
+to the garden, and made a mournful little promenade there, with very
+serious thoughts. If Clarence was to be cast off by his father what
+could she do with him? It was not in Phoebe to abandon the stupid lover,
+who had stood up so manfully for her. No, she must accept her fate
+however the balance turned; but if this dreadful change happened what
+should she do with him? The question penetrated, and made her shiver to
+the depths of her soul; but never even in imagination did she forsake
+him. He was hers now, come good or ill; but the prospect of the ill was
+appalling to her. She went up and down the garden-path slowly in the
+silence, looking up to the stars, with her heart very full. Phoebe felt
+that no usual burden had been put upon her. Last night her occupation
+had been one of the purest charity, and this Providence had seemed to
+recompense in the morning, by dropping at her very feet the prize she
+had long meant to win; but now she was down again after being lifted up
+so high, and a great part of its value was taken out of that prize. Was
+she mercenary or worldly-minded in her choice? It would be hard to say
+so, for she never questioned with herself whether or not she should
+follow Clarence into obscurity and poverty, if things should turn out
+so. She would never abandon him, however bad his case might be; but her
+heart sunk very low when she thought of her future with him, without the
+"career" which would have made everything sweet.
+
+Mr. Copperhead, too, had very serious thoughts on this subject, and sat
+up long drinking brandy-and-water, and knitting his brows, as he turned
+the subject over and over in his mind, recognizing with disgust (in
+which nevertheless there mingled a certain respect) that Clarence would
+not yield, he was as obstinate as himself, or more so. He had gone to
+the inn, where he was alone, without any of his usual comforts. It was
+perhaps the first time in his prosperous life that he had ever been
+really crossed. Joe had never attempted to do it, nor any of the first
+family. They had married, as they had done everything else, according to
+his dictation; and now here was his useless son, his exotic plant, his
+Dresden china, not only asserting a will of his own, but meaning to have
+it; and showing a resolution, a determination equal to his own. His
+mother had never shown anything of this. She had yielded, as every one
+else had yielded (Mr. Copperhead reflected), to whatever he ordered.
+Where had the boy got this unsuspected strength? A kind of smile broke
+unawares over the rich man's face, as he asked himself this question, a
+smile which he chased away with a frown, but which nevertheless had been
+there for a moment roused by a subtle suggestion of self-flattery.
+Where, but from himself, had his gentleman-son (as the millionnaire
+proudly held him to be) got that strength of obstinacy? He chased the
+thought and the smile away with a frown, and went to bed gloomily
+nursing his wrath; but yet this suggestion which he himself had made was
+more flattering to himself than words can say. As for Clarence, the only
+other person deeply concerned, after he had asked for Mr. May, and
+expressed his regret to learn how ill he was, the young man smoked a
+cigar on the doorsteps, and then went peaceably, without either care or
+anxiety, to bed, where he slept very soundly till eight o'clock next
+morning, which was the hour at which he was called, though he did not
+always get up.
+
+When Mr. Copperhead began the new day, he began it with a very unwise
+idea, quickly carried out, as unwise ideas generally are. Feeling that
+he could make nothing of his son, he resolved to try what he could make
+of Phoebe; a young woman, nay, a bit of a girl not more than twenty, and
+a minister's daughter, brought up in reverence of the leading
+member--any resistance on her part seemed really incredible. He could
+not contemplate the idea of giving up all the cherished plans of his
+life by a melodramatic renunciation of his son. To give up Clarence whom
+he had trained to be the very apex and crowning point of his grandeur,
+was intolerable to him. But Mr. Copperhead had heard before now of young
+women, who, goaded to it, had been known to give up their lover rather
+than let their lover suffer on their account, and if this had ever been
+the case, surely it might be so in the present instance. Had he not the
+comfort of the Beecham family in his hands? Could not he make the
+Crescent Chapel too hot to hold them? Could he not awaken the fears of
+scores of other fathers very unlikely to permit their favourite sons to
+stray into the hands of pastors' daughters? There was nothing indeed to
+be said against Mr. Beecham, but still it would be strange if Mr.
+Copperhead, out and away the richest man in the community, could not
+make the Crescent too hot to hold him. He went down the Lane from the
+"George," where he had slept, quite early next morning, with this
+purpose full in his head, and, as good luck (he thought) would have it,
+found Phoebe, who had been restless all night with anxiety, and had got
+up early, once more walking up and down the long garden-path, reflecting
+over all that had happened, and wondering as to what might happen still.
+What a piece of luck it was! He was accustomed to have fortune on his
+side, and it seemed natural to him. He went up to her with scarcely a
+pause for the usual salutations, and plunged at once into what he had to
+say.
+
+"Miss Phoebe, I am glad to find you alone. I wanted a word with you," he
+said, "about the affair of last night. Why shouldn't you and I, the only
+two sensible ones in the business, settle it between ourselves? Old
+Tozer is an old ass, begging your pardon for saying so, and my son is a
+fool--"
+
+"I do not agree to either," said Phoebe gravely, "but never mind, I will
+certainly hear what you have to say."
+
+"What I have to say is this. I will never consent to let my son Clarence
+marry you." Here he was interrupted by a serious little bow of assent
+from Phoebe, which disconcerted and angered him strangely. "This being
+the case," he resumed more hotly, "don't you think we'd better come to
+terms, you and me? You are too sensible a girl, I'll be bound, to marry
+a man without a penny, which is what he would be. He would be properly
+made an end of, Miss Phoebe, if he found out, after all his bravado last
+night, that you were the one to cast him off after all."
+
+"He cannot find that out," said Phoebe with a smile; "unfortunately even
+if I could have done it under brighter circumstances my mouth is closed
+now. I desert him now, when he is in trouble! Of course you do not know
+me, so you are excused for thinking so, Mr. Copperhead."
+
+The rich man stared. She was speaking a language which he did not
+understand. "Look here, Miss Phoebe," he said, "let's understand each
+other. High horses don't answer with me. As for deserting him when he's
+in trouble, if you'll give him up--or desert him, as you call it--he
+need never be in trouble at all. You can stop all that. Just you say no
+to him, and he'll soon be on his knees to me to think no more of it. You
+know who I am," Mr. Copperhead continued with a concealed threat. "I
+have a deal of influence in the connection, though I say it that
+shouldn't, and I'm very well looked on in chapel business. What would
+the Crescent do without me? And if there should be an unpleasantness
+between the minister and the leading member, why, you know, Miss Phoebe,
+no one better, who it is that would go to the wall."
+
+She made no answer, and he thought she was impressed by his arguments.
+He went on still more strongly than before. "Such a clever girl as you
+knows all that," said Mr. Copperhead, "and suppose you were to marry
+Clarence without a penny, what would become of you? What would you make
+of him? He is too lazy for hard work, and he has not brains enough for
+anything else. What would you make of him if you had him? That's what I
+want to know."
+
+"And that is just what I can't tell you," said Phoebe smiling. "It is a
+very serious question. I suppose something will turn up."
+
+"What can turn up? You marry him because he is going into parliament,
+and could give you a fine position."
+
+"I confess," said Phoebe with her usual frankness, "that I did think of
+his career; without that the future is much darker, and rather
+depressing."
+
+"Yes, you see that! A poor clod of a fellow that can't work, and will be
+hanging upon you every day, keeping you from working--that you will
+never be able to make anything of."
+
+"Mr. Copperhead," said Phoebe sweetly, "why do you tell all this to me?
+Your mere good sense will show you that I cannot budge. I have accepted
+him being rich, and I cannot throw him over when he is poor. I may not
+like it--I don't like it--but I am helpless. Whatever change is made, it
+cannot be made by me."
+
+He stared at her in blank wonder and dismay. For a moment he could not
+say anything. "Look here," he faltered at last, "you thought him a great
+match, a rise in the world for you and yours; but he ain't a great match
+any longer. What's the use then of keeping up the farce? You and me
+understand each other. You've nothing to do but to let him off; you're
+young and pretty, you'll easily find some one else. Fools are plenty in
+this world," he added, unable to refrain from that one fling. "Let him
+off and all will be right. What's to prevent you? I'd not lose a moment
+if I were you."
+
+Phoebe laughed. She had a pretty laugh, soft yet ringing like a child's.
+"You and I, I fear, are no rule for each other," she said. "Mr.
+Copperhead, what prevents me is a small thing called honour, that is
+all."
+
+"Honour! that's for men," he said hastily, "and folly for them according
+as you mean it; but for women there's no such thing, it's sham and
+humbug; and look you here, Miss Phoebe," he continued, losing his temper,
+"you see what your father will say to this when you get him into hot
+water with his people! There's more men with sons than me; and if the
+Crescent ain't too hot to hold him within a month--Do you think I'll
+stand it, a beggarly minister and his belongings coming in the way of a
+man that could buy you all up, twenty times over, and more!"
+
+The fury into which he had worked himself took away Mr. Copperhead's
+breath. Phoebe said nothing. She went on by his side with soft steps, her
+face a little downcast, the suspicion of a smile about her mouth.
+
+"By George!" he cried, when he had recovered himself, "you think you can
+laugh at me. You think you can defy me, you, a bit of a girl, as poor as
+Job!"
+
+"I defy no one," said Phoebe. "I cannot prevent you from insulting me,
+that is all; which is rather hard," she added, with a smile, which cost
+her an effort, "seeing that I shall have to drag your son through the
+world somehow, now that you have cast him off. He will not give me up, I
+know, and honour prevents me from giving him up. So I shall have hard
+work enough, without any insults from you. It is a pity," said Phoebe,
+with a sort of sympathetic regret for herself so badly used. "I could
+have made a man of him. I could have backed him up to get on as well as
+most men; but it will certainly be uphill work now."
+
+She did not look at the furious father as she spoke. She was quite calm,
+treating it reflectively, regretfully, as a thing past and over. Mr.
+Copperhead tried to burst forth again in threats and objurgations; but
+in spite of himself, and though she never said another word, the big,
+rich, noisy man was silenced. He went away, threatening to appeal to her
+father, which Phoebe, with a last effort, begged him smilingly to do. But
+this was the last of which she was capable. When she had closed the door
+after him, she rushed upstairs to her room, and cried bitterly.
+Everything was very dark to her. If he did appeal to her father, the
+appeal would spread confusion and dismay through the pastor's heart and
+family; and what was to become of herself, with Clarence on her hands,
+who could do nothing that was useful, and could earn neither his own
+living nor hers? All this was very terrible to Phoebe, and for a moment
+she contemplated the unheard of step of having a headache, and staying
+upstairs. But she reflected that her poor old grandfather had done _his_
+duty, at no small sacrifice, according to her bidding, yesterday; and
+she bathed her eyes heroically, and collected her strength and went
+down to breakfast as usual. It was her duty, which she must do.
+
+As for Mr. Copperhead, he took a long walk, to reflect upon all the
+circumstances, which were complicated enough to cause him much trouble.
+He could not give up his cherished scheme, his Member of Parliament, his
+crown of glory. It was what he had been looking forward to for years. He
+tried to realize the failure of his hopes, and could not--nay, would
+not, feeling it more than he could bear. No; without his gentleman son,
+his University man, his costly, useless production, who was worth so
+much money to him, yet brought in nothing, he felt that he must shrink
+in the opinion of all his friends, even of his own sons, the "first
+family," who had so envied, sneered at, undervalued Clarence, yet had
+been forced to be civil to him, and respect their father's imperious
+will as he chose that it should be respected. What a sorry figure he
+should cut before all of them if he cast off Clarence, and had to
+announce himself publicly as foiled in all his plans and hopes! He could
+not face this prospect; he shrank from it as if it had involved actual
+bodily pain. The men who would laugh at his failure were men of his own
+class, to whom he had bragged at his ease, crowing and exulting over
+them, and he felt that he could not face them if all his grand
+anticipations collapsed. There was nothing for it but to give in. And on
+the other hand this girl Phoebe was a very clever girl, able not only to
+save the expense of coaches, but to cram the boy, and keep him up better
+than any coach could do. She could make his speeches for him, like
+enough, Mr. Copperhead thought, and a great many reasons might be given
+to the world why she had been chosen instead of a richer wife for the
+golden boy. Golden girls, as a general rule, were not of so much use.
+"Fortune ain't worth thinking of in comparison with brains. It was
+brains I wanted, and I've bought 'em dear; but I hope I can afford it,"
+he almost heard himself saying to an admiring, envious assembly; for Mr.
+Copperhead so far deserved his success that he could accept a defeat
+when it was necessary, and make the best of it. When he had nearly ended
+his walk, and had reached in his thoughts to this point, he met his son,
+who was walking up from the Parsonage to No. 6 in the Lane. Clarence
+looked cheerful enough as he walked along, whistling under his breath,
+towards his love; but when he saw his father, a change came over his
+face. Once more his eyelids drooped over his eyes, and those muddy brown
+orbs got fixed in dull obstinacy; once more his upper lip shut down
+sullen and fast upon the lower. The entire expression of his face
+changed. Mr. Copperhead saw this afar off, from the moment his son
+perceived him, and the sight gave to all his thinking that force which
+reality gives to imagination; the risk he was running became doubly
+clear.
+
+"Good morning, Clarence," he said.
+
+"Good morning, sir," responded the other, with lowering brows and
+close-shut mouth.
+
+"I suppose you were coming to the George to me? Come along, I've had no
+breakfast; and let's hope, my boy, that you're in a better mind than
+last night."
+
+"Look here, sir," said Clarence; "you might as well ask one of those
+houses to walk with you to the George, and show a better mind. I'm of
+one mind, and one only. I'll marry Phoebe Beecham, whether you like it or
+not, and no other woman in this world."
+
+"Is that your last word?" said the father, curiously repeating, without
+being aware of it, his question of the previous night.
+
+"That's my last word," said the son, contemplating his father sullenly
+from under the heavy lids of his obstinate eyes.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Copperhead; "then come along to breakfast, for I'm
+hungry, and we can talk it over there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+THE LAST.
+
+
+This is how Phoebe's difficulties ended. Contrary to her every
+expectation, Mr. Copperhead made a great brag of her powers wherever he
+went. "Money is money," he said, "but brains is brains, all the same--we
+can't get on without 'em--and when you want to make a figure in the
+world, sir, buy a few brains if they fall in your way--that's my style.
+I've done with stupid ones up till now; but when I see there's a want of
+a clever one, I ain't such a fool as to shut my eyes to it. They cost
+dear, but I'm thankful to say I can afford that, ay, and a good deal
+more." Thus everything was satisfactorily arranged. Tozer and his wife
+cried together for joy on the wedding-day, but they did not expect to be
+asked to that ceremony, being well aware that Phoebe, having now
+completely entered into the regions of the great, could not be expected
+to have very much to say to them. "Though I know, the darling, as she'd
+just be the same if she was here, and wouldn't let nobody look down upon
+you and me," said the old woman.
+
+"She's a wonderful girl, she is," said old Tozer. "Wind us all round her
+little finger, that's what she could do--leastways, except when there
+was principle in it, and there I stood firm. But I've done things for
+Phoebe as I wouldn't have done for no other breathing, and she knew it. I
+wouldn't give in to her tho' about church folks being just as good as
+them as is more enlightened. That's agin' reason. But I've done things
+for 'em along of her!--Ah! she's a wonderful girl is Phoebe--Phoebe,
+Junior, as I always call her. There ain't her match between here and
+London, and that's what I'll always say."
+
+But we will not try to describe the glory and joy that filled Mr.
+Beecham's house in the Terrace, when Mrs. Clarence Copperhead went back
+there with all their friends to the wedding-breakfast, which was in the
+very best style, and regardless of expense. Even at that moment it gave
+Phoebe a little pang to see her mother in the bright colours which she
+loved, but which made her so much pinker and fatter than was needful.
+Little Mrs. Copperhead, in dim neutral tints, looked like a little
+shadow beside the pastor's buxom wife, and was frightened and ill at
+ease and sad to the heart to lose her boy, who had been all she
+possessed in the world. Sophy Dorset, specially asked for the purpose
+with Ursula May, who was a bridesmaid, looked on with much admiration at
+the curious people, so rich, so fine, and so overwhelming, among whom
+her father had found it so remarkable to meet not one person whom he
+knew. "Now, Ursula," she said, "if you had played your cards properly
+that beautiful bridegroom and that nice little house in Mayfair, and the
+privilege, perhaps, of writing M.P. after your name some time or other,
+might all have been yours instead of Miss Beecham's. Why did you let her
+carry off the prize?"
+
+"Cousin Sophy!" cried Ursula indignantly. "As if I ever thought of him
+as a prize! But I know you are only laughing at me. The strange thing is
+that she likes him, though I am sure she knew very well that
+Reginald--Oh, when one thinks how many people there are in this world
+who do not get what they wish most--and how many people there are--"
+Ursula paused, involved in her own antithesis, and Sophy ended it for
+her with a sigh.
+
+"Who do--and the one is no happier than the other, most times, little
+Ursula; but you don't understand that, and as you are going to be one
+of the blessed ones, you need not take to making reflections; that is my
+privilege, my dear."
+
+"Oh, Cousin Sophy, why were not you one of those blessed ones too?"
+cried Ursula, clasping her arms suddenly round her kind friend. This, be
+it understood, was after the breakfast was over, and when, in the deep
+gloom which generally concludes a wedding day, everybody had gone home.
+The two were in a magnificent large bedchamber in Portland Place, in the
+vast silent mansion of the Copperheads, where at present there was
+nothing more cheerful than the bridegroom's soft-eyed mother, taking
+herself dreadfully to task for not being happy, and trying not to cry,
+though there was to be a great dinner and entertainment that night.
+
+"Don't you know?" said Sophy, putting her aside with a certain proud
+coldness, and a momentary laugh, "he I loved proved false; that is to
+say, in simple language, he turned out so poor a creature that it is
+very good of me not to despise humanity for his sweet sake. Never mind.
+If all had gone well, and he had been a real man instead of the sham
+image of one, I don't suppose I should have ever been among the blessed
+ones. Anne is, who never thought of such mysteries at all; and so you
+will be, my little Ursula--very happy. I am sure of it--though how you
+can manage to be happy, my dear, marrying a man who is not a good
+Churchman, it is not for me to say."
+
+"Cousin Sophy, have I been brought up in a way to make me so fond of
+Churchmen?" said Ursula solemnly. She could not have told how much or
+how little she knew about her father's behaviour, and the "shock to his
+mental system;" but vaguely and by instinct there was a great deal that
+she did know.
+
+"You have been behind the scenes too much perhaps," said Sophy Dorset,
+shrugging her shoulders, "but don't think any worse of the world than
+you ought, if you can't think very much better. No class is good or bad,
+Ursula. Men are but men all over the world."
+
+This made Ursula cry, though it is difficult to say why. She thought it
+cynical, and probably so will the reader. Perhaps Sophy Dorset abandoned
+the cause of mankind too easily, as most people of her temperament and
+age are disposed to do. Anyhow the evening entertainment took place and
+was very fine, and every honour was done to Clarence Copperhead's
+marriage, especially by his mother, who appeared in the most lovely
+satin that eyes ever saw, and diamonds--and almost succeeded all the
+evening in keeping herself from crying, but not entirely. She did break
+down when the health of bridegroom and bride was drunk as it ought to
+be; but recovered herself hastily when the mother on the other side gave
+her a kiss of sympathy. Though it was an honest kiss it filled poor
+little Mrs. Copperhead's mind with the most unchristian feelings, and
+gave her strength to keep up for the rest of the evening, and do her
+duty to the last. Nevertheless Phoebe was the best of daughters-in-law,
+and ended by making her husband's mother dependent on her for most of
+the comforts of her life. And Clarence got into Parliament, and the
+reader, perhaps (if Parliament is sitting), may have had the luck to
+read a speech in the morning paper of Phoebe's composition, and if he
+ever got the secret of her style would know it again, and might trace
+the course of a public character for years to come by that means. But
+this secret is one which no bribe nor worldly inducement will ever tempt
+our lips to betray.
+
+Northcote was released from the charge of Salem Chapel directly after
+these events, by the return of the minister safe and sound from his
+holiday, to the great delight of the congregation, though they had not
+been very fond of their old pastor before. Now they could not
+sufficiently exult over the happy re-instalment. "The other one never
+crossed our doors from the day he came till now as he's going away,"
+said one indignant member; "nor took no more notice of us chapel folks
+nor if we were dirt beneath his feet." "That time as the Meeting was
+held, when he spoke up again' the sinecure, was the only time as my mind
+was satisfied," cried another. "And a deal came of it after, making
+friends with the very man he had abused." "All his friends was Church
+folks," said a third; "he was a wolf in sheep's clothing, that's what I
+calls him; and a poor moralist as a preacher, with never a rousing word
+in them things as he called his sermons. We're well rid of the likes of
+him, though he may be clever. I don't give much for that kind of
+cleverness; and what's the good of you, minister or not minister, if you
+can't keep consistent and stick to your own side." The chorus was so
+strong that the echo of it moved Tozer, who was a kind of arch-deacon
+and leading member too, in his way, where he sat twiddling his thumbs in
+his little room. "I'm one as is qualified to give what you may call a
+casting vote," said Tozer, "being the oldest deacon in Salem, and one as
+has seen generations coming and going. And as for Church and Chapel,
+I've served 'em both, and seen the colour of their money, and there's
+them as has their obligations to me, though we needn't name no names.
+But this I will say, as I'm cured of clever men and them as is thought
+superior. They ain't to be calculated upon. If any more o' them young
+intellectuals turns up at Carlingford, I'll tell him right out, 'You
+ain't the man for my money.' I'll say to him as bold as brass, 'I've
+been young, and now I'm old, and it's my conviction as clever young men
+ain't the sort for Salem. We want them as is steady-going, and them as
+is consistent; good strong opinions, and none o' your charity, that's
+what we wants here.'" Now Tozer had loved clever young men in his day
+more well than wisely, as everybody knew, and this deliverance carried
+all the more weight in consequence, and was echoed loudly by one general
+hum of content and applause.
+
+Northcote took this very quietly, but he retired, after he had married
+Ursula, from the office of pastor, for which he was not fitted, and from
+the Liberation Society, and various other societies, coming to see that
+Disestablishment was not a panacea for national evils any more than
+other things. He was in the habit of quoting his brother-in-law,
+Reginald May, as the best man he knew; but this did not make him a
+Churchman; for naturally he could not say the same of other members of
+the same class and family. He was shaken out of his strong opinions; but
+it is doubtful how far this was good for him, for he was a man of
+warlike disposition, and not to have something which he could go to the
+stake for--something which he could think the devil's own stronghold to
+assail, was a drawback to him, and cramped his mental development; but
+he was happy in his home with his pretty Ursula, which is probably all
+the reader will care to know. He paid Tozer's hundred and fifty pounds.
+And he made no inquiries, and tried not to ask himself what all that
+strange scene had meant--and whatever it did mean it was over for ever,
+and nobody asked any further questions or made any revelations on the
+subject. As for Mr. May, his mysterious illness went on for some time,
+the doctors never venturing to put any name to it. It was "mental
+shock," and perhaps aberration, though he was sane enough to calm down
+after that incomprehensible scene. Mr. Simpson of the Bank had a good
+guess at the secret of the enigma, but even Tozer got hazy about it
+after a while, and though he knew that he had done Mr. May a wonderful
+service, could scarcely have told what it was--and neither, when it was
+all over, could the culprit have told. He got better and worse for about
+a year, and then he died, his strength failing him without any distinct
+reason, no one could tell how. Reginald got the living and stepped into
+his father's place, making a home for the children, which sharp Janey
+rules over, not so softly or steadily as Ursula, with a love of theories
+and experiments not quite consistent with the higher graces of
+housekeeping, yet with an honest meaning through it all. As the times
+are so unsettled, and no one can tell what may become within a year of
+any old foundation, the trustees have requested Reginald to retain his
+chaplaincy at the old College; so that he is in reality a pluralist, and
+almost rich, though they say the hardest-worked man in Carlingford. He
+has his vagaries too, which no man can live without, but he is the
+kindest guardian to his brothers and sisters, and bears with Janey's
+freaks with exemplary gentleness. And he has a curate, whom in the
+course of nature Janey will probably marry--though this has not yet been
+revealed to either party, who have reached only the first stage of
+hating each other up to this time. It is not thought in the family that
+Reginald will ever marry. She was never worthy of him, the sisters say;
+but he thinks differently, as yet at least. However he is young, and
+things may mend.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Phoebe, Junior, by Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
+
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