Madonna Mary

“My dear Miss Seton,” said Sir Edward, with a gentle laugh, “you don’t suppose that I expect him to have a heartache for love of me? He is a nice young fellow, and I am sorry to lose him; but if it were only my pleasant company – ”

Then Aunt Agatha blushed as if it had been herself who was young Percival’s attraction. “We shall all miss him, I am sure,” she said. “He is so delicate and considerate. He has not come in, thinking no doubt that Mary is not equal to seeing strangers; but I am so anxious that Mary should see him – that is, I like her to know our friends,” said the imprudent woman, correcting herself, and once more blushing crimson, as if young Percival had been a lover of her very own.

“He is a very nice fellow,” said Sir Edward; “most people like him; but I don’t know that I should have thought of describing him as considerate or delicate. Mary must not form too high an idea. He is just a young man like other young men,” said the impartial baronet, “and likes his own way, and is not without a proper regard for his own interest. He is not in the least a hero of romance.”

“I don’t think he is at all mercenary, Sir Edward, if that is what you mean,” said Aunt Agatha, blushing no longer, but growing seriously red.

“Mercenary!” said Sir Edward. “I don’t think I ever dreamt of that. He is like other young men, you know. I don’t want Mary to form too high an idea. But one thing I am sure of is that he is very sorry to go away.”

And then a little pause happened, which was trying to Aunt Agatha, and in the interval the voices of the two young people in the garden sounded pleasantly from outside. Sitting thus within hearing of them, it was difficult to turn to any other subject; but yet Miss Seton would not confess that she could by any possibility understand what her old neighbour meant; and by way of escaping from that embarrassment plunged without thought into another in which she floundered helplessly after the first dash.

“Mary has just come from Earlston,” she said. “It has grown quite a museum, do you know? – every sort of beautiful thing, and all so nicely arranged. Francis – Mr. Ochterlony,” said Aunt Agatha, in confusion, “had always a great deal of taste – Perhaps you may remember – ”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Sir Edward – “such things are not easily forgotten – but I hope you don’t mean to suppose that Percival – ”

“I was thinking nothing about Captain Percival,” Miss Seton said, feeling ready to cry – “What I meant was, I thought – I supposed you might have some interest – I thought you might like to know – ”

“Oh, if that is all,” said Sir Edward, “of course I take a great interest – but I thought you meant something of the same kind might be going on here. You must never think of that. I would never forgive myself if I were twice to be the occasion – ”

“I was thinking nothing about Captain Percival,” said Aunt Agatha, with tears of vexation in her eyes; “nor – nor anything else – I was talking for the sake of conversation: I was thinking perhaps you might like to hear – ”

“May I show you my boys, Sir Edward?” said Mary, ringing the bell – “I should like you to see them; and I am going to ask you, by-and-by, what I must do with them. My brother-in-law is very much a recluse – I should be glad to have the advice of somebody who knows more of the world.”

“Ah, yes, let us see the boys,” said Sir Edward. “All boys are they? – that’s a pity. You shall have the best advice I can give you, my dear Mary – and if you are not satisfied with that, you shall have better advice than mine; there is nothing so important as education; come along, little ones. So these are all? – three – I thought you had more than three. Ah, I beg your pardon. How do you do, my little man? I am your mamma’s old friend – I knew her long before you were born – come and tell me your name.”

And while Sir Edward got at these particulars, and took the baby on his knee, and made himself agreeable to the two sturdy little heroes who stood by, and stared at him, Aunt Agatha came round behind their backs, and gave Mary a quiet kiss – half by way of consolation, half by way of thanks – for, but for that happy inspiration of sending for the children, there was no telling what bog of unfortunate talk Miss Seton might not have tumbled into. Sir Edward was one of those men who know much, too much, about everybody – everything, he himself thought. He could detect allusions in the most careless conversation, and never forgot anything even when it was expedient and better that it should be forgotten. He was a man who had been unlucky in his youth, and who now, in his old age, though he was as well off as a man living all alone, in forlorn celibacy, could be, was always called poor Sir Edward. The very cottagers called him so, who might well have looked upon his life as a kind of paradise; and being thus recognised as an object of pity, Sir Edward had on the whole a very pleasant life. He knew all about everybody, and was apt at times to confuse his neighbours sadly, as he had just done Aunt Agatha, by a reference to the most private bits of their individual history; but it was never done with ill-nature – and after all there is a charm about a person who knows everything about everybody. He was a man who could have told you all about the Gretna Green marriage, which had cost poor Major Ochterlony so much trouble, as well, or perhaps even better, than if he had been present at it; and he was favourable to marriages in general, though he had never himself made the experience, and rather liked to preside over a budding inclination like that between Winifred Seton and young Percival. He took little Wilfrid on his knee when the children were thus brought upon the scene, in a fatherly, almost grand-fatherly way, and was quite ready to go into Mary’s plans about them. He thought it was quite right, and the most suitable thing she could do, to settle somewhere where there was a good grammar-school; and he had already begun to calculate where the best grammar-schools were situated, and which would be the best plan for Mrs. Ochterlony, when the voices in the garden were heard approaching. Aunt Agatha had escaped from her embarrassment by going out to the young people, and was now bringing them in to present the young man for Mary’s approval and criticism. Miss Seton came first, and there was anxiety in her face; and after her Winnie stepped in at the window, with a little flush upon her pretty cheek, and an unusual light in her eye; and after her – but at that moment the whole party were startled by a sudden sound of surprise, the momentary falling back of the stranger’s foot from the step, and a surprised, half-suppressed exclamation. “Oh! – Mrs. Ochterlony!” exclaimed Sir Edward’s young friend. As it happened all the rest were silent at that moment, and his voice was distinctly audible, though perhaps he had not meant it to be so. He himself was half hidden by the roses which clambered all over the cottage, but Mary naturally turned round, and turned her face to the window, when she heard her own name – as indeed they all did – surprised at the exclamation, and still more at the tone. And it was thus under the steady gaze of four pairs of eyes that Captain Percival came into the room. Perhaps but for that exclamation Mary might not have recognised him; but her ear had been trained to quick understanding of that inflection, half of amusement, half of contempt, which she had not heard for so long. To her ears it meant, “Oh, Mrs. Ochterlony! – she who was married over again, as people pretended – she who took in the Kirkmans, and all the people at the station.” Captain Percival came in, and he felt his blood run cold as he met all those astonished eyes, and found Mary looking so intently at him. What had he done that they should all stare at him like that? for he was not so well aware of what he had given utterance to, nor of his tone in giving utterance to it, as they were. “Good heavens, what is the matter?” he said; “you all look at me as if I were a monster. Miss Seton, may I ask you to introduce me – ”

“We have met before, I think,” Mary said, quietly. “When I heard of Captain Percival I did not know it was the same I used to hear so much about in India. I think, when I saw you last, it was at – ”

She wanted by sudden instinct to say it out and set herself right for ever and ever, here where everything about her was known; but the words seemed to choke her. In spite of herself she stopped short; how could she refer to that, the only great grievance in her life, her husband’s one great wrong against her, now that he was in his grave, and she left in the world the defender and champion of all his acts and ways? She could not do it – she was obliged to stop short in the middle, and swallow the sob that would have choked her with the next word. And they stood all gazing at her, wondering what it was.

“Yes,” said the young man, with a confidential air – “I remember it very well indeed – I heard all about it from Askell, you know; – but I never imagined, when I heard you talking of your sister, that it was the same Mrs. Ochterlony,” he added, turning to Winnie, who was looking on with great and sudden interest. And then there was a pause – such a pause as occurs sometimes when there is an evident want of explanation somewhere, and all present feel that they are on the borders of a mystery. Somehow it changed the character of the assembled company. A few minutes before it had been the sad stranger, in her widow’s cap, who was the centre of all, and to whom the visitors had to be presented in a half apologetic way, as if to a queen. Aunt Agatha, indeed, had been quite anxious on the subject, pondering how she could best bring Sir Edward’s young friend, Winnie’s admirer, under Mrs. Ochterlony’s observation, and have her opinion of him; and now in an instant the situation was reversed, and it was Mary and Captain Percival alone who seemed to know each other, and to have recollections in common! Mary felt her cheeks flush in spite of herself, and Winnie grew pale with incipient jealousy and dismay, and Aunt Agatha fluttered about in a state of the wildest anxiety. At last both she and Sir Edward burst out talking at the same moment, with the same visible impulse. And they brought the children into the foreground, and lured them into the utterance of much baby nonsense, and even went so far as to foster a rising quarrel between Hugh and Islay, all to cover up from each other’s eyes and smother in the bud this mystery, if it was a mystery. It was a singular disturbance to bring into such a quiet house; for how could the people who dwelt at home tell what those two strangers might have known about each other in India, how they might have been connected, or what secret might lie between them? – no more than people could tell in a cosy sheltered curtained room what might be going on at sea, or even on the dark road outside. And here there was the same sense of insecurity – the same distrust and fear. Winnie stood a little apart, pale, and with her delicate curved nostril a little dilated. Captain Percival was younger than Mary, and Mary up to this moment had been hedged round with a certain sanctity, even in the eyes of her discontented young sister. But there was some intelligence between them, something known to those two which was known to no one else in the party. This was enough to set off the thoughts of a self-willed girl, upon whose path Mary had thrown the first shadow, wildly into all kinds of suspicions. And to tell the truth, the elder people, who should have known better, were not much wiser than Winnie. Thus, while Hugh and Islay had a momentary struggle in the foreground, which called for their mother’s active interference, the one ominous cloud of her existence once more floated up upon the dim firmament over Mary’s head; though if she had but finished her sentence it would have been no cloud at all, and might never have come to anything there or thereafter. But this did not occur to Mrs. Ochterlony. What did occur to her in her vexation and pain was that her dead Hugh would be hardly dealt with among her kindred, if the stranger should tell her story. And she was glad, heartily glad, that there was little conversation afterwards, and that very soon the two visitors went away. But it was she who was the last to be aware that a certain doubt, a new and painful element of uncertainty stayed behind them in Aunt Agatha’s pretty cottage after they were gone.

CHAPTER XVI

THAT night was a painful night for Winnie. The girl was self-willed and self-loving, as has been said. But she was not incapable of the more generous emotions, and when she looked at her sister she could no more suspect her of any wrong or treachery than she could suspect the sun shining over their heads. And her interest in the young soldier had gone a great length. She thought he loved her, and it was very hard to think that he was kept apart from her by a reason which was no reason at all. She roved about the garden all the evening in an unsettled way, thinking he would come again – thinking he could not stay away – explaining to herself that he must come to explain. And when she glanced indoors at the lamp which was lighted so much earlier than it needed to be, for the sake of Mary’s sewing, and saw Mary seated beside it, in what looked like perfect composure and quietness, Winnie’s impatience got the better of her. He was to be banished, or confined to a formal morning call, for Mary’s sake, who sat there so calm, a woman for whom the fret and cares of life were over, while for Winnie life was only beginning, and her heart going out eagerly to welcome and lay claim to its troubles. And then the thought that it was the same Mrs. Ochterlony came sharp as a sting to Winnie’s heart. What could he have had to do with Mrs. Ochterlony? what did she mean coming home in the character of a sorrowful widow, and shutting out their visitors, and yet awakening something like agitation and unquestionable recognition in the first stranger she saw? Winnie wandered through the garden, asking herself those questions, while the sweet twilight darkened, and the magical hour passed by, which had of late associated itself with so many dreams. And again he did not come. It was impossible to her, when she looked at Mary, to believe that there could be anything inexplainable in the link which connected her lover with her sister – but still he ought to have come to explain. And when Sir Edward’s windows were lighted once more, and the certainty that he was not coming penetrated her mind, Winnie clenched her pretty hands, and went crazy for the moment with despite and vexation. Another long dull weary evening, with all the expectation and hope quenched out of it; another lingering night; another day in which there was as much doubt as hope. And next week he was going away! And it was all Mary’s fault, however you took it – whether she had known more of him than she would allow in India, or whether it was simply the fault of that widow’s cap which scared people away? This was what was going on in Winnie’s agitated mind while the evening dews fell upon the banks of Kirtell, and the soft stars came out, and the young moon rose, and everything glistened and shone with the sweetness of a summer night. This fair young creature, who was in herself the most beautiful climax of all the beauty around her, wandered among her flowers with her small hands clenched, and the spirit of a little fury in her heart. She had nothing in the world to trouble her, and yet she was very unhappy, and it was all Mary’s fault. Probably if Mary could but have seen into Winnie’s heart she would have thought it preferable to stay at Earlston, where the Psyche and the Venus were highly indifferent, and had no hearts, but only arms and noses that could be broken. Winnie was more fragile than the Etruscan vases or the Henri II. porcelain. They had escaped fracture, but she had not; but fortunately this thought did not occur to Mrs. Ochterlony as she sat by the lamp working at Hugh’s little blouses in Aunt Agatha’s chair.

And Aunt Agatha, more actively jealous than Winnie herself, sat by knitting little socks – an occupation which she had devoted herself to, heart and soul, from the moment when she first knew the little Ochterlonys were coming home. She was knitting with the prettiest yarn and the finest needles, and had a model before her of proportions so shapely as to have filled any woman’s soul with delight; but all that was eclipsed for the time by the doubt which hung over Mary, and the evident unhappiness of her favourite. Aunt Agatha was less wise than Winnie, and had not eyes to perceive that people were characteristic even in their wrong-doing, and that Captain Percival of himself could have nothing to do with the shock which Mary had evidently felt at the sight of him. Probably Miss Seton had not been above a little flirtation in her own day, and she did not see how that would come unnatural to a woman of her own flesh and blood. And she sat accordingly on the other side of the lamp and knitted, with a pucker of anxiety upon her fair old brow, casting wistful glances now and then into the garden where Winnie was.

“And I suppose, my dear, you know Captain Percival very well?” said Aunt Agatha, with that anxious look on her face.

“I don’t think I ever saw him but once,” said Mary, who was a little impatient of the question.

“But once, my dear love! and yet you both were so surprised to meet,” said Aunt Agatha, with reasonable surprise.

“There are some moments when to see a man is to remember him ever after,” said Mary. “It was at such a time that I saw Sir Edward’s friend. It would be best to tell you about it, Aunt Agatha. There was a time when my poor Hugh – ”

“Oh, Mary, my darling, you can’t think I want to vex you,” cried Aunt Agatha, “or make you go back again upon anything that is painful. I am quite satisfied, for my part, when you say so. And so would Winnie be, I am sure.”

“Satisfied?” said Mary, wondering, and yet with a smile; and then she forgot the wonder of it in the anxiety. “I should be sorry to think that Winnie cared much for anything that could be said about Captain Percival. I used to hear of him from the Askells who were friends of his. Do not let her have anything to do with him, Aunt Agatha; I am sure he could bring her nothing but disappointment and pain.”

“I – Mary? – Oh, my dear love, what can I do?” cried Miss Seton, in sudden confusion; and then she paused and recovered herself. “Of course if he was a wicked young man, I – I would not let Winnie have anything to do with him,” she added, faltering; “but – do you think you are sure, Mary? If it should be only that you do not – like him; or that you have not got on – or something – ”

“I have told you that I know nothing of him, Aunt,” said Mary. “I saw him once at the most painful moment of my life, and spoke half-a-dozen words to him in my own house after that – but it is what I have heard the gentlemen say. I do not like him. I think it was unmannerly and indelicate to come to my house at such a time – ”

“My darling!” said Aunt Agatha, soothing her tenderly. Miss Seton was thinking of the major’s death, not of any pain that might have gone before; and Mary by this time in the throng of recollections that came upon her had forgotten that everybody did not know.

“But that is not the reason,” Mrs. Ochterlony said, composing herself: “the reason is that he could not, unless he is greatly changed, make Winnie otherwise than unhappy. I know the reputation he had. The Heskeths would not let him come to their house after Annie came out; and I have even heard Hugh – ”

“My dear love, you are agitating yourself,” cried Aunt Agatha. “Oh, Mary, if you only knew how anxious I am to do anything to recall – ”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, with a faint smile: “it is not so far off that I should require anything to recall all that has happened to me – but for Winnie’s sake – ”

And it was just at that moment that the light suddenly appeared in Sir Edward’s window, and brought Winnie in, white and passionate, with a thunder-cloud full of tears and lightnings and miserable headache and self-reproach, lowering over her brilliant eyes.

“It is very good of Mary, I am sure, to think of something for my sake,” said Winnie. “What is it, Aunt Agatha? Everything is always so unpleasant that is for one’s good. I should like to know what it was.”

And then there was a dead silence in the pretty room. Mary bent her head over her work, silenced by the question, and Aunt Agatha, in a flutter of uncertainty and tribulation, turned from one to the other, not knowing which side to take nor what to say.

“Mary has come among us a stranger,” said Winnie, “and I suppose it is natural that she should think she knows our business better than we do. I suppose that is always how it seems to a stranger; but at the same time it is a mistake, Aunt Agatha, and I wish you would let Mary know that we are disposed to manage for ourselves. If we come to any harm it is we who will have to suffer, and not Mary,” the impetuous girl cried, as she drew that unhappy embroidery frame out of its corner.

And then another pause, severe and startling, fell upon the little party. Aunt Agatha fluttered in her chair, looking from one to another, and Winnie dragged a violent needle through her canvas, and a great night moth came in and circled about them, and dashed itself madly against the globe of light on the table. As for Mary, she sat working at Hugh’s little blouse, and for a long time did not speak.

“My dear love!” Aunt Agatha said at last, trembling, “you know there is nothing in the world I would not do to please you, Winnie, – nor Mary either. Oh, my dear children, there are only you two in the world. If one says anything, it is for the other’s good. And here we are, three women together, and we are all fond of each other, and surely, surely, nothing ever can make any unpleasantness!” cried the poor lady, with tears. She had her heart rent in two, like every mediatrix, and yet the larger half, as was natural, went to her darling’s side.

“Winnie is right enough,” Mary said, quietly. “I am a stranger, and I have no right to interfere; and very likely, even if I were permitted to interfere, it would do no good. It is a shame to vex you, Aunt Agatha. My sister must submit to hear my opinion one time, but I am not going to disturb the peace of the house, nor yours.”

“Oh, Mary, my dear, it is only that she is a little impatient, and has always had her own way,” said Aunt Agatha, whispering across the table. And then no more was said. Miss Seton took up her little socks, and Winnie continued to labour hotly at her embroidery, and the sound of her work, and the rustle of Mary’s arm at her sewing, and the little click of Aunt Agatha’s knitting-needles, and the mad dashes of the moth at the lamp, were all the sounds in the room, except, indeed, the sound of the Kirtell, flowing softly over its pebbles at the foot of the brae, and the sighing of the evening air among the trees, which were sadly contradictory of the spirit of the scene within; and at a distance over the woods, gleamed Sir Edward’s window, with the ill-disposed light which was, so to speak, the cause of all. Perhaps, after all, if Mrs. Ochterlony had stayed at Earlston, where the Psyche and the Venus were not sensitive, and there was nothing but marble and china to jar into discord, it might have been better; and what would have been better still, was the grey cottage on the roadside, with fire on the hearth and peace and freedom in the house; and it was to that, with a deep and settled longing, that Mary’s heart and thoughts went always back.

When Mrs. Ochterlony had withdrawn, the scene changed much in Aunt Agatha’s drawing-room. But it was still a pretty scene. Then Winnie came and poured out her girlish passion in the ears and at the feet of her tender guardian. She sank down upon the carpet, and laid her beautiful head upon Aunt Agatha’s knee, and clasped her slender arms around her. “To think she should come and drive every one I care for away from the house, and set even you against me!” cried Winnie, with sobs of vexation and rage.

“Oh, Winnie! not me! Never me, my darling,” cried Aunt Agatha; and they made a group which a painter would have loved, and which would have conveyed the most delicate conception of love and grief to an admiring public, had it been painted. Nothing less than a broken heart and a blighted life would have been suggested to an innocent fancy by the abandonment of misery in Winnie’s attitude. And to tell the truth, she was very unhappy, furious with Mary, and with herself, and with her lover, and everybody in the wide world. The braids of her beautiful hair got loose, and the net that confined them came off, and the glistening silken flood came tumbling about her shoulders. Miss Seton could not but take great handfuls of it as she tried to soothe her darling; and poor Aunt Agatha’s heart was rent in twain as she sat with this lovely burden in her lap, thinking, Oh, if nobody had ever come to distract Winnie’s heart with love-making, and bring such disturbance to her life; oh, if Hugh Ochterlony had thought better of it, and had not died! Oh, if Mary had never seen Captain Percival, or seeing him, had approved of him, and thought him of all others the mate she would choose for her sister! The reverse of all these wishes had happened, and Aunt Agatha could not but look at the combination with a certain despair.

“What can I do, my dear love?” she said. “It is my fault that Mary has come here. You know yourself it would have been unnatural if she had gone anywhere else: and how could we go on having people, with her in such deep mourning? And as for Captain Percival, my darling – ”

“I was not speaking of Captain Percival,” said Winnie, with indignation. “What is he to me? – or any man? But what I will not bear is Mary interfering. She shall not tell us what we are to do. She shan’t come in and look as if she understood everything better than we do. And, Aunt Agatha, she shan’t – she shall never come, not for a moment, between you and me!”

“My darling child! my dear love!” cried poor Aunt Agatha, “as if that was possible, or as if poor Mary wanted to. Oh, if you would only do her justice, Winnie? She is fond of you; I know she is fond of you. And what she was saying was entirely for your good – ”

“She is fond of nobody but her children,” said Winnie, rising up, and gathering her bright hair back into the net. “She would not care what happened to us, as long as all was well with her tiresome little boys.”

Aunt Agatha wrung her hands, as she looked in despair at the tears on the flushed cheek, and the cloud which still hung upon her child’s brow. What could she say? Perhaps there was a little truth in what Winnie said. The little boys, though Miss Seton could not help feeling them to be so unimportant in comparison with Winnie and her beginning of life, were all in all to Mrs. Ochterlony; and when she had murmured again that Mary meant it all for Winnie’s good, and again been met by a scornful protestation that anything meant for one’s good was highly unpleasant, Aunt Agatha was silenced, and had not another word to say. All that she could do was to pet her wilful darling more than ever, and to promise with tears that Mary should never, never make any difference between them, and that she herself would do anything that Winnie wished or wanted. The interview left her in such a state of agitation that she could not sleep, nor even lie down, till morning was breaking, and the new day had begun – but wandered about in her dressing-gown, thinking she heard Winnie move, and making pilgrimages to her room to find her, notwithstanding all her passion and tears, as fast asleep as one of Mary’s boys – which was very, very different from Aunt Agatha’s case, or Mary’s either, for that matter. As for Mrs. Ochterlony, it is useless to enter into any description of her feelings. She went to bed with a heavy heart, feeling that she had made another failure, and glad, as people are when they have little comfort round them, of the kind night and the possible sleep which, for a few hours at least, would make her free of all this. But she did not sleep as Winnie did, who felt herself so ill-used and injured. Thus, Mrs. Ochterlony’s return, a widow, brought more painful agitation to Miss Seton’s cottage than had been known under its quiet roof since the time when she went away a bride.

CHAPTER XVII

AND after this neither Sir Edward nor his young friend appeared for two whole days. Any girl of Winifred Seton’s impetuous character, who has ever been left in such a position on the very eve of the telling of that love-tale, which had been all but told for several weeks past, but now seemed suddenly and artificially arrested just at the moment of utterance – will be able to form some idea of Winnie’s feelings during this dreadful interval. She heard the latch of the gate lifted a hundred times in the day, when, alas, there was no one near to lift the latch. She was afraid to go out for an instant, lest in that instant “they” should come; her brain was ringing with supposed sounds of footsteps and echoes of voices, and yet the road lay horribly calm and silent behind the garden hedge, with no passengers upon it. And these two evenings the light came early into Sir Edward’s window, and glared cruelly over the trees. And to be turned inward upon the sweet old life from which the charm had fled, and to have to content one’s self with flowers and embroidery, and the canary singing, and the piano, and Aunt Agatha! Many another girl has passed through the same interval of torture, and felt the suspense to be killing, and the crisis tragic – but yet to older eyes perhaps even such a dread suspension of all the laws of being has also its comic side. Winnie, however, took care to keep anybody from laughing at it in the cottage. It was life and death to her, or at least so she thought. And her suppressed frenzy of anxiety, and doubt, and fear, were deep earnest to Aunt Agatha, who seemed now to be living her own early disappointments over again, and more bitterly than in the first version of them. She tried hard to remember the doubt thrown upon Captain Percival by Mary, and to persuade herself that this interposition was providential, and meant to save her child from an unhappy marriage. But when Miss Seton saw Winnie’s tragic countenance, her belief in Providence was shaken. She could not see the good of anything that made her darling suffer. Mary might be wrong, she might be prejudiced, or have heard a false account, and it might be simply herself who was to blame for shutting her doors, or seeming to shut her doors, against her nearest and oldest neighbours. Could it be supposed that Sir Edward would bring any one to her house who was not a fit associate or a fit suitor, if things should take such a turn, for Winnie? Under the painful light thrown upon the subject by Winnie’s looks, Aunt Agatha came altogether to ignore that providential view which had comforted her at first, and was so far driven in the other direction at last as to write Sir Edward a little note, and take the responsibility upon her own shoulders. What Miss Seton wrote was, that though, in consequence of their late affliction, the family were not equal to seeing visitors in a general way, yet that it would be strange indeed if they were to consider Sir Edward a stranger, and that she hoped he would not stay away, as she was sure his company would be more a comfort to Mary than anything else. And she also hoped Captain Percival would not leave the Hall without coming to see them. It was such a note as a maiden lady was fully justified in writing to an old friend – an invitation, but yet given with a full consideration of all the proprieties, and that tender regard for Mary’s feelings which Aunt Agatha had shown throughout. It was written and despatched when Winnie had gone out, as she did on the third day, in proud defiance and desperation, so that if Sir Edward’s sense of propriety and respect for Mary’s cap should happen to be stronger than Aunt Agatha’s, no further vexation might come to the young sufferer from this attempt to set all right.

And Winnie went out without knowing of this effort for her consolation. She went down by the Kirtell, winding down the wooded banks, in the sweet light and shade of the August morning, seeing nothing of the brightness, wrapped up and absorbed in her own sensations. She felt now that the moment of fate had passed, – that moment that made or marred two lives; – and had in her heart, in an embryo unexpressed condition, several of Mr. Browning’s minor poems, which were not then written; and felt a general bitterness against the world for the lost climax, the dénouement which had not come. She thought to herself even, that if the tale had been told, the explanation made, and something, however tragical, had happened after, it would not have been so hard to bear. But now it was clear to Winnie that her existence must run on soured and contracted in the shade, and that young Percival must stiffen into a worldly and miserable old bachelor, and that their joint life, the only life worth living, had been stolen from them, and blighted in the bud. And what was it all for? – because Mary, who had had all the good things of this life, who had loved and been married in the most romantic way, and had been adored by her husband, and reigned over him, had come, so far, to an end of her career. Mary was over thirty, an age at which Winnie could not but think it must be comparatively indifferent to a woman what happened – at which the snows of age must have begun to benumb her feelings, under any circumstances, and the loss of a husband or so did not much matter; but at eighteen, and to lose the first love that had ever touched your heart! to lose it without any reason – without the satisfaction of some dreadful obstacle in the way, or misunderstanding still more dreadful; without ever having heard the magical words and tasted that first rapture! – Ah, it was hard, very hard; and no wonder that Winnie was in a turmoil of rage, and bitterness, and despair.