An upper and a lower spring
To thee, to all are given:
They mingle not, apart they gleam,
The joys of earth, of heaven on high;
God grant thee grace to choose the spring,
Even before the nether spring is dry.

—M.

‘One moment, Phœbe, I’ll walk a little way with you;’ and Honor Charlecote, throwing on bonnet and scarf, hurried from the drawing-room where Mrs. Saville was working.

In spite of that youthful run, and girlish escape from ‘company’ to a confidante, the last fortnight had left deep traces. Every incipient furrow had become visible, the cheeks had fallen, the eyes sunk, the features grown prominent, and the auburn curls were streaked with silver threads never previously perceptible to a casual eye. While languid, mechanical talk was passing, Phœbe had been mourning over the change; but she found her own Miss Charlecote restored in the freer manner, the long sigh, the tender grasp of the arm, as soon as they were in the open air.

‘Phœbe,’ almost in a whisper, ‘I have a letter from him.’

Phœbe pressed her arm, and looked her sympathy.

‘Such a nice letter,’ added Honor. ‘Poor fellow! he has suffered so much. Should you like to see it?’

Owen had not figured to himself what eyes would peruse his letter; but Honor was in too much need of sympathy to withhold the sight from the only person who she could still hope would be touched.

‘You see he asks nothing, nothing,’ she wistfully pleaded. ‘Only pardon! Not to come home; nor anything.’

‘Yes; surely, that is real contrition.’

‘Surely, surely it is: yet they are not satisfied—Mr. Saville and Sir John. They say it is not full confession; but you see he does refer to the rest. He says he has deeply offended in other ways.’

‘The rest?’

‘You do not know. I thought your brother had told you. No? Ah! Robert is his friend. Mr. Saville went and found it out. It was very right of him, I believe. Quite right I should know; but—’

‘Dear Miss Charlecote, it has pained you terribly.’

‘It is what young men do; but I did not expect it of him. Expensive habits, debts, I could have borne, especially with the calls for money his poor wife must have caused; but I don’t know how to believe that he gave himself out as my heir, and obtained credit on that account—a bond to be paid on my death!’

Phœbe was too much shocked to answer.

‘As soon as Mr. Saville heard of these troubles,’ continued Honor, ‘as, indeed, I put all into his hands, he thought it right I should know all. He went to Oxford, found out all that was against poor Owen, and then proceeded to London, and saw the lawyer in whose hands Captain Charteris had left those children’s affairs. He was very glad to see Mr. Saville, for he thought Miss Sandbrook’s friends ought to know what she was doing. So it came out that Lucilla had been to him, insisting on selling out nearly all her fortune, and paying off with part of it this horrible bond.’

‘She is paying his debts, rather than let you hear of them.’

‘And they are very angry with him for permitting it; as if he or anybody else had any power to stop Lucy! I know as well as possible that it is she who will not let him confess and make it all open with me. And yet, after this, what right have I to say I know? How little I ever knew that boy! Yes, it is right it should be taken out of my hands—my blindness has done harm enough already; but if I had not bound myself to forbear, I could not help it, when I see the Savilles so much set against him. I do not know that they are more severe in action than—than perhaps they ought to be, but they will not let me pity him.’

‘They ought not to dictate to you,’ said Phœbe, indignantly.

‘Dictate! Oh, no, my dear. If you could only hear his compliments to my discretion, you would know he was thinking all the time there is no fool like an old fool. No, I don’t complain. I have been wilful, and weak, and blind, and these are the fruits! It is right that others should judge for him, and I deserve that they should come and guard me; though, when I think of such untruth throughout, I don’t feel as if there were danger of my ever being more than sorry for him.’

‘It is worse than the marriage,’ said Phœbe, thoughtfully.

‘There might have been generous risk in that. This was—oh, very nearly treachery! No wonder Lucy tries to hide it! I hope never to say a word to her to show that I am aware of it.’

‘She is coming home, then?’

‘She must, since she has broken with the Charterises; but she has never written. Has Robert mentioned her?’

‘Never; he writes very little.’

‘I long to know how it is with him. Now that he has signed his contract, and made all his arrangements, he cannot retract; but—but we shall see,’ said Honor, with one gleam of playful hope. ‘If she should come home to me ready to submit and be gentle, there might be a chance yet. I am sure he is poor Owen’s only real friend. If I could only tell you half my gratitude to him for it! And I will tell you what Mr. Saville has actually consented to my doing—I may give Owen enough to cover his premium and outfit; and I hope that may set him at ease in providing for his child for the present from his own means, as he ought to do.’

‘Poor little thing! what will become of it?’

‘He and his sister must arrange,’ said Honor, hastily, as if silencing a yearning of her own. ‘I do not need the Savilles to tell me I must not take it off their hands. The responsibility may be a blessing to him, and it would be wrong to relieve him of a penalty in the natural course of Providence.’

‘There, now you have put it into my head to think what a pleasure it would be to you—’

‘I have done enough for my own pleasure, Phœbe. Had you only seen that boy when I had him first from his father, and thought him too much of the angel to live!’

There was a long pause, and Honor at length exclaimed, ‘I see the chief reason the Savilles came here!’

‘Why?’

‘To hinder my seeing him before he goes.’

‘I am sure it would be sad pain to you,’ cried Phœbe, deprecatingly.

‘I don’t know. He must not come here; but since I have had this letter, I have longed to go up for one day, see him, and bring Lucy home. Mr. Saville might go with me. You don’t favour it, Phœbe? Would Robert?’

‘Robert would like to have Owen comforted,’ said Phœbe, slowly; ‘but not if it only made it worse pain for you. Dear Miss Charlecote, don’t you think, if the worst had been the marriage, you would have tried everything to comfort him? but now that there is this other horrid thing, this presuming on your kindness, it seems to me as if you could not bear to see him.’

‘When I think of their enmity and his sorrow, I feel drawn thither; but when this deception comes before me, I had rather not look in his face again. If he petted me I should think he was taking me in again. He has Robert, he has his sister, and I have promised to let Mr. Saville judge. I think Mr. Saville would let me go if Robert said I ought.’

Phœbe fondled her, and left her relieved by the outpouring. Poor thing! after mistakes which she supposed egregious in proportion to the consequences, and the more so because she knew her own good intentions, and could not understand the details of her errors, it was an absolute rest to delegate her authority, even though her affections revolted against the severity of the judge to whom she had delivered herself and her boy.

One comfort was that he had been the adviser chosen for her by Humfrey. In obeying him, she put herself into Humfrey’s hands; and remembering the doubtful approval with which her cousin had regarded her connection with the children, and his warnings against her besetting sin, she felt as if the whole was the continuation of the mistake of her life, her conceited disregard of his broad homely wisdom, and as if the only atonement in her power was to submit patiently to Mr. Saville’s advice.

And in truth his measures were not harsh. He did not want to make the young man an outcast, only to prevent advantage being taken of indulgence which he overrated. It was rather his wife who was oppressive in her desire to make Miss Charlecote see things in a true light, and teach her, what she could never learn, to leave off loving and pitying. Even this was perhaps better for her than a solitude in which she might have preyed upon herself, and debated over every step in conscious darkness.

Before her letter was received, Owen had signed his agreement with the engineer, and was preparing to sail in a fortnight. He was disappointed and humiliated that Honor should have been made aware of what he had meant to conceal, but he could still see that he was mercifully dealt with, and was touched by, and thankful for, the warm personal forgiveness, which he had sense enough to feel, even though it brought no relaxation of the punishment.

Lucy was positively glad of the non-fulfilment of the condition that would have taken her back to the Holt; and without seeing the letter, had satisfaction in her resentment at Honor for turning on Owen vindictively, after having spoilt him all his life.

He silenced her summarily, and set out for his preparations. She had already carried out her project of clearing him of his liabilities. Mr. Prendergast had advised her strongly to content herself with the post obit, leaving the rest to be gradually liquidated as the means should be obtained; but her wilful determination was beyond reasoning, and by tyrannical coaxing she bent him to her will, and obliged him to do all in which she could not be prominent.

Her own debts were a sorer subject, and she grudged the vain expenses that had left her destitute, without even the power of writing grandly to Horatia to pay off her share of the foreign expenditure. She had, to Mr. Prendergast’s great horror, told him of her governess plan, but had proceeded no further in the matter than studying the advertisements, until finding that Honor only invited her, and not her nephew, home to the Holt, she proceeded to exhale her feelings by composing a sentence for the Times. ‘As Governess, a Lady—’

‘Mr. Prendergast.’

Reddening, and abruptly hasty, the curate entered, and sitting down without a word, applied himself to cutting his throat with an ivory paper-knife. Lucilla began to speak, but at her first word, as though a spell were broken, he exclaimed, ‘Cilly, are you still thinking of that ridiculous nonsense?’

‘Going out as a governess? Look there;’ and she held up her writing.

He groaned, gave himself a slice under each ear, and viciously bit the end of the paper-knife.

‘You are going to recommend me?’ she said, with a coaxing look.

‘You know I think it a monstrous thing.’

‘But you know of a place, and will help me to it!’ cried she, clapping her hands. ‘Dear good Mr. Pendy, always a friend in need!’

‘Well, if you will have it so. It is not so bad as strangers. There’s George’s wife come to town to see a governess for little Sarah, and she won’t do.’

‘Shall I do?’ asked Lucilla, with a droll shake of her sunny hair. ‘Yes. I know you would vouch for me as tutoress to all the Princesses; able to teach the physical sciences, the guitar, and Arabic in three lessons; but if Mrs. Prendergast be the woman I imagine, much she will believe you. Aren’t they inordinately clever?’

‘Little Sarah is—let me see—quite a child. Her father did teach her, but he has less time in his new parish, and they think she ought to have more accomplishment, polish, and such like.’

‘And imagine from the specimen before them that I must be an adept at polishing Prendergasts.’

‘Now, Cilla, do be serious. Tell me if all this meant nothing, and I shall be very glad. If you were in earnest, I could not be so well satisfied to see you anywhere else. You would find Mrs. Prendergast quite a mother to you.’

‘Only one girl! I wanted a lot of riotous boys, but beggars must not be choosers. This is just right—people out of the way of those who knew me in my palmy days, yet not absolute strangers.’

‘That was what induced me—they are so much interested about you, Cilla.’

‘And you have made a fine heroic story. I should not wonder if it all broke down when the parties met. When am I to be trotted out for inspection?’

‘Why, I told her if I found you really intended it, and had time, I would ask you to drive to her with me this morning, and then no one need know anything about it,’ he said, almost with tears in his eyes.

‘That’s right,’ cried Lucilla. ‘It will be settled before Owen turns up. I’ll get ready this instant. I say,’ she added at the door, ‘housemaids always come to be hired minus crinoline and flowers, is it the same with governesses?’

‘Cilla, how can you?’ said her friend, excessively distressed at the inferior position, but his depression only inspired her with a reactionary spirit of mischief.

‘Crape is inoffensive, but my hair! What shall I do with it? Does Mrs. Prendergast hold the prejudice against pretty governesses?’

‘She would take Venus herself if she talked no nonsense; but I don’t believe you are in earnest,’ growled the curate, angry at last.

‘That is encouragement!’ cried Lucilla, flying off laughing that she might hide from herself her own nervousness and dismay at this sudden step into the hard verity of self-dependence.

She could not stop to consider what to say or do, her refuge was always in the impromptu, and she was far more bent on forcing Mr. Prendergast to smile, and distracting herself from her one aching desire that the Irish journey had never been, than of forming any plan of action. In walking to the cabstand they met Robert, and exchanged greetings; a sick faintness came over her, but she talked it down, and her laugh sounded in his ears when they had passed on.

Yet when the lodgings were reached, the sensation recurred, her breath came short, and she could hardly conceal her trembling. No one was in the room but a lady who would have had far to seek for a governess less beautiful than herself. Insignificance was the first idea she inspired, motherliness the second, the third that she was a perfect lady, and a sensible woman. After shaking Lucilla kindly by the hand, and seating her on the sofa, she turned to her cousin, saying, ‘Sarah and her papa are at the National Gallery, I wish you would look for them, or they will never be in time for luncheon.’

‘Luncheon is not for an hour and a half.’

‘But it is twenty minutes’ walk, and they will forget food and everything else unless you keep them in order.’

‘I’ll go presently;’ but he did not move, only looking piteous while Mrs. Prendergast began talking to Lucilla about the pictures, until she, recovering, detected the state of affairs, and exclaimed with her ready grace and abruptness, ‘Now, Mr. Prendergast, don’t you see how much you are in the way?’

‘A plain truth, Peter,’ said his cousin, laughing.

Lucy stepped forward to him, saying affectionately, ‘Please go; you can’t help me, and I am sure you may trust me with Mrs. Prendergast;’ and she stretched out a hand to the lady with an irresistible child-like gesture of confidence.

‘Don’t you think you may, Peter?’ asked Mrs. Prendergast, holding the hand; ‘you shall find her here at luncheon. I won’t do anything to her.’

The good curate groaned himself off, and Lucy felt so much restored that she had almost forgotten that it was not an ordinary call. Indeed she had never yet heard a woman’s voice that thus attracted and softened her. Mrs. Prendergast needed not to be jealous of Venus, while she had such tenderness in her manner, such winning force in her tone.

‘That was well done,’ she said. ‘Talking would have been impossible while he sat looking on!’

‘I am afraid he has given far too good an account of me,’ said Lucy, in a low and trembling voice.

‘His account comes from one who has known you from babyhood.’

‘And spoilt me from babyhood!’

‘Yes, Sarah knows what Cousin Peter can do in that line. He had little that was new to tell us, and what he had was of a kind—’ She broke off, choked by tears. What she had heard of the girl’s self-devotion touched her trebly at the sight of one so small, young, and soft-looking. And if she had ever been dubious of ‘Peter’s pet,’ she was completely fascinated.

‘I must not be taken on his word,’ said Cilla, smiling.

‘No, that would not be right by any of us.’

‘Then pray be very hard with me—as a thorough stranger.’

‘But I am so inexperienced, I have only had one interview with a governess.’

‘And what did she do?’ asked Lucilla, as both recovered from a laugh.

‘She gave so voluble an account of her acquirements and requirements, that I was quite alarmed.’

‘I’m sure I can’t do that. I don’t know what I can do.’

A pause, broken by Lucy, who began to feel that she had more of the cool readiness of the great world. ‘How old is your daughter?’

‘Nearly fifteen. While we had our small parish in Sussex we taught her ourselves, and her father brought her on in Latin and Euclid. Do you know anything of those, Miss Sandbrook? not that it signifies.’

‘Miss Charlecote used to teach me with my brother. I have forgotten, but I could soon get them up again.’

‘They will hardly be wanted, but Sarah will respect you for them. Now, at Southminster, our time is so taken up that poor Sarah gets neglected, and it is very trying to an eager, diligent girl to prepare lessons, and have them continually put off, so we thought of indulging her with a governess, to bring her on in some of the modern languages and accomplishments that have grown rusty with us.’

‘I think I could do that,’ said Lucilla. ‘I believe I know what other people do, and my languages are fresh from the Continent. Ought I to give you a specimen of my pronunciation?’

‘Pray don’t,’ laughed Mrs. Prendergast. ‘You know better than I what is right, and must prepare to be horrified by the sounds you will hear.’

‘I ought to have brought my sketches. I had two years of lessons from S–.’

‘Sarah is burning for teaching in that line. Music? Dr. Prendergast likes the grand old pieces, and hardly cares for modern ones.’

‘I hardly played anything newer than Mozart at Hiltonbury. Miss Charlecote taught me very well, I believe, and I had lessons from the organist from Elverslope, besides a good deal in the fashionable line since. I have kept that up. One wants it.’

There was another shy pause, and Lucilla growing more scrupulous and more confidential, volunteered,—‘Mine has been an idle life since I came out. I am three-and-twenty now, and have been diligently forgetting for the last six years. Did you know that I had been a fast young lady?’

But things had come to such a pass, that say what she would, all passed for ingenuous candour and humility, and the answer was,—

‘I know that you have led a very trying life, but to have passed through such unscathed is no disadvantage.’

‘If I have,’ said Lucy, sadly.

Mrs. Prendergast, who had learned all the facts of Lucilla’s history through the Wrapworth medium, knew only the heroic side of her character, and admired her the more for her diffidence. So when terms were spoken of, the only fear on the one side was, that such a treasure must be beyond her means; on the other, lest what she needed for her nephew’s sake might deprive her of such a home. However, seventy pounds a year proved to be in the thoughts of both, and the preliminaries ended with, ‘I hope you will find my little Sarah a pleasant companion. She is a good girl, and intelligent, but you must be prepared for a few angles.’

‘I like angles. I don’t care for commonplace people.’

‘I am afraid that you will find many such at Southminster. We cannot promise you the society you have been used to.’

‘I am tired of society. I have had six years of it!’ and she sighed.

‘You must fix your own time,’ said Mrs. Prendergast; ‘and indeed we will try to make you at home.’

‘My brother will be gone in a fortnight,’ said Lucilla. ‘After that I should like to come straight to you.’

Her tone and look made those two last words not merely chez vous, but to you, individually—to you, kind one, who will comfort me after the cruel parting. Mrs. Prendergast put her arm round her and kissed her.

‘Don’t,’ said Lucilla, with the sweetest April face. ‘I can’t bear being made foolish.’

Nevertheless Mrs. Prendergast showed such warm interest in all her concerns, that she felt only that she had acquired a dear friend by the time the others came in, father and daughter complaining, the one gaily, the other dolefully, that Cousin Peter had so hunted them that they could look at nothing in peace. Indeed he was in such a state of restless misery, that Mrs. Prendergast, in compassion to him, sent her daughter to dress, called her husband away, and left the place clear for him to say, in a tone of the deepest commiseration, ‘Well, my poor child?’

‘O, Mr. Pendy, you have found me a true home. Be the others what they may, there must be rest in hearing her voice!’

‘It is settled, then?’

‘Yes. I only hope you have not taken them in. I did my best to let her know the worst of me, but it would make no impression. Seventy pounds a year. I hope that is not wicked.’

‘O, Cilla, what would your father feel?’

‘Come, we won’t fight that over again. I thought I had convinced you of the dignity of labour, and I do feel as if at last I had lit on some one whom I could allow to do me good.’

She could not console him; he grieved over her changed circumstances with far more regret than she felt, and though glad for her sake that she should be with those whom he could trust, yet his connection with her employers seemed to him undutiful towards his late rector. All that she saw of them reassured her. The family manners were full of well-bred good-humour, full of fun, with high intelligence, much real refinement, and no pretension. The father was the most polished, with the scholarly courtesy of the dignified clergyman; the mother was the most simple and caressing; the daughter somewhat uncouth, readily betraying both her feelings and her cleverness and drollery in the style of the old friend whom Lucilla was amused to see treated as a youth and almost a contemporary of her pupil. What chiefly diverted her was the grotesque aspect of Dr. Prendergast and his daughter. Both were on a large scale, with immense mouths, noses turned up to display wide nostrils, great gray eyes, angularly set, yellow hair and eyebrows, red complexions, and big bones. The Doctor had the advantage of having outgrown the bloom of his ugliness; his forehead was bald and dignified, his locks softened by grizzling, and his fine expression and clerical figure would have carried off all the quaintness of his features if they had not been so comically caricatured in his daughter; yet she looked so full of life and character that Lucilla was attracted, and sure of getting on well with her. Moreover, the little elf felt the impression she was creating in this land of Brobdignag. Sarah was looking at her as a terra-cotta pitcher might regard a cup of egg-shell china, and Lucy had never been lovelier. Her mourning enhanced the purity of her white skin, and marked her slender faultless shape; her flaxen hair hung in careless wreaths of ringlet and braid; her countenance, if pale, had greater sweetness in its dejection, now and then brightened by gleams of her courageous spirit. Sarah gazed with untiring wonder, pardoning Cousin Peter for disturbing the contemplation of Domenichino’s art, since here was a witness that heroines of romance were no mere myths, but that beings of ivory and rose, sapphire eyes and golden hair, might actually walk the earth.

The Doctor was pleasant and friendly, and after luncheon the whole party started together to ‘do’ St. Paul’s, whence Mr. Prendergast undertook to take Cilla home, but in no haste to return to the lonely house. She joined in the lionizing, and made a great impression by her familiarity with London, old and new. Little store as she had set by Honor’s ecclesiology and antiquarianism, she had not failed to imbibe a tincture sufficient to go a long way by the help of ready wit, and she enchanted the Doctor by her odd bits of information on the localities, and by guiding him to out-of-the-way curiosities. She even carried the party to Woolstone-lane, displayed the Queen of Sheba, the cedar carving, the merchant’s mark, and had lifted out Stow’s Survey, where Sarah was delighted with Ranelagh, when the door opened, and Owen stood, surprised and blank. Poor fellow, the voices had filled him with hope that he should find Honor there. The visitors, startled at thus intruding on his trouble, and knowing him to be in profound disgrace, would have gone, but he, understanding them to be Mr. Prendergast’s friends, and glad of variety, was eagerly courteous and hospitable, detaining them by displaying fresh curiosities, and talking with so much knowledge and brilliance, that they were too well entertained to be in haste. Lucilla, accepting Mrs. Prendergast as a friend, was rejoiced that she should have such demonstration that her brother was a thorough gentleman; and in truth Owen did and said everything so well that no one could fail to be pleased, and only as an after-thought could come the perception that his ease hardly befitted the circumstances, and that he comported himself more like the master of the house than as a protégé under a cloud.

No sooner had he handed them into their vehicle than he sank into a chair, and burst into one of the prolonged, vehement fits of laughter that are the reaction of early youth unwontedly depressed. Never had he seen such visages! They ought at once to be sketched—would be worth any money to Currie the architect, for gurgoyles.

‘For shame,’ said Lucilla, glad, however, once more to hear the merry peal; ‘for shame, to laugh at my master!’

‘I’m not laughing at old Pendy, his orifice is a mere crevice comparatively. The charm is in seeing it classified—the recent sloth accounted for by the ancient megatherium.’

‘The megatherium is my master. Yes, I’m governess to Glumdalclitch!’

‘You’ve done it?’

‘Yes, I have. Seventy pounds a year.’

He made a gesture of angry despair, crying, ‘Worse luck than I thought.’

‘Better luck than I did.’

‘Old Pendy thrusting in his oar! I’d have put a stop to your absurdity at once, if I had not been sure no one would be deluded enough to engage you, and that you would be tired of looking out, and glad to go back to your proper place at the Holt before I sailed.’

‘My proper place is where I can be independent.’

‘Faugh! If I had known it, they should never have seen the Roman coins! There! it is a lesson that nothing is too chimerical to be worth opposing!’

‘Your opposition would have made no difference.’

He looked at her silently, but with a half smile in lip and eye that showed her that the moment was coming when the man’s will might be stronger than the woman’s.

Indeed, he was so thoroughly displeased and annoyed that she durst not discuss the subject with him, lest she should rouse him to take some strong authoritative measures against it. He had always trusted to the improbability of her meeting with a situation before his departure, when, between entreaty and command, he had reckoned on inducing her to go home; and this engagement came as a fresh blow, making him realize what he had brought on those nearest and dearest to him. Even praise of Mrs. Prendergast provoked him, as if implying Lucilla’s preference for her above the tried friend of their childhood; he was in his lowest spirits, hardly speaking to his sister all dinner-time, and hurried off afterwards to pour out his vexation to Robert Fulmort. Poor Robert! what an infliction! To hear of such a step, and be unable to interfere; to admire, yet not approve; to dread the consequences, and perceive so much alloy as to dull the glitter of the gold, as well as to believe his own stern precipitation as much the cause as Owen’s errors; yet all the time to be the friend and comforter to the wounded spirit of the brother! It was a severe task; and when Owen left him, he felt spent and wearied as by bodily exertion, as he hid his face in prayer for one for whom he could do no more than pray.

Feelings softened during the fortnight that the brother and sister spent together. Childishly as Owen had undergone the relations and troubles of more advanced life, pettishly as he had striven against feeling and responsibility, the storm had taken effect. Hard as he had struggled to remain a boy, manhood had suddenly grown on him; and probably his exclusion from Hiltonbury did more to stamp the impression of his guilt than did its actual effects. He was eager for his new life, and pleased with his employer, promising himself all success, and full of enterprise. But his banishment from home and from Honor clouded everything; and, as the time drew nearer, his efforts to forget and be reckless gradually ceased. Far from shunning Lucilla, as at first, he was unwilling to lose sight of her, and they went about together wherever his preparations called him, so that she could hardly make time for stitching, marking, and arranging his purchases.

One good sign was, that, though hitherto fastidiously expensive in dress and appointments, he now grudged himself all that was not absolutely necessary, in the endeavour to leave as large a sum as possible with Mrs. Murrell. Even in the tempting article of mathematical instruments he was provident, though the polished brass, shining steel, and pure ivory, in their perfection of exactitude, were as alluring to him as ever gem or plume had been to his sister. That busy fortnight of chasing after the ‘reasonable and good,’ speeding about till they were foot-sore, discussing, purchasing, packing, and contriving, united the brother and sister more than all their previous lives.

It was over but too soon. The last evening was come; the hall was full of tin cases and leathern portmanteaus, marked O. C. S., and of piles of black boxes large enough to contain the little lady whose name they bore. Southminster lay in the Trent Valley, so the travellers would start together, and Lucilla would be dropped on the way. In the cedar parlour, Owen’s black knapsack lay open on the floor, and Lucilla was doing the last office in her power for him, and that a sad one, furnishing the Russia-leather housewife with the needles, silk, thread, and worsted for his own mendings when he should be beyond the reach of the womankind who cared for him.