Old Mr. Sandbrook came in, and various other guests arrived, old acquaintance to whom Owen must be re-introduced, and he looked fagged and worn by the time all the greetings had been exchanged and all the remarks made on his children. When dinner was announced, he remained to the last with them, and did not appear in the dining-room till his uncle had had time to look round for him, and mutter something discontentedly about ‘those brats.’ The vacant chair was beside Honora, and he was soon seated in it, but at first he did not seem inclined to talk, and leant back, so white and exhausted, that she thought it kinder to leave him to himself.

When, somewhat recruited, he said in a low voice something of his hopes that his little Cilly, as he called her, would be less shy another time, and Honora responding heartily, he quickly fell into the parental strain of anecdotes of the children’s sayings and doings, whence Honora collected that in his estimation Lucilla’s forte was decision and Owen’s was sweetness, and that he was completely devoted to them, nursing and teaching them himself, and finding his whole solace in them. Tender pity moved her strongly towards him, as she listened to the evidences of the desolateness of his home and his heavy sorrow; and yet it was pity alone, admiration would not revive, and indeed, in spite of herself, her judgment would now and then respond ‘unwise,’ or ‘weak,’ or ‘why permit this?’ at details of Lucilla’s mutinerie. Presently she found that his intentions were quite at variance with those of his brother. His purpose was fixed to take the children with him.

‘They are very young,’ said Honora.

‘Yes; but their nurse is a most valuable person, and can arrange perfectly for them, and they will always be under my eye.’

‘That was just what Captain Charteris seemed to dread.’

‘He little knows,’ began Mr. Sandbrook, with a sigh. ‘Yes, I know he is most averse to it, and he is one who always carries his point, but he will not do so here; he imagines that they may go to their aunt’s nursery, but,’ with an added air of confidence, ‘that will never do!’

Honora’s eyes asked more.

‘In fact,’ he said, as the flush of pain rose on his cheeks, ‘the Charteris children are not brought up as I should wish to see mine. There are influences at work there not suited for those whose home must be a country parsonage, if— Little Cilly has come in for more admiration there already than is good for her.’

‘It cannot be easy for her not to meet with that.’

‘Why, no,’ said the gratified father, smiling sadly; ‘but Castle Blanch training might make the mischief more serious. It is a gay household, and I cannot believe with Kit Charteris that the children are too young to feel the blight of worldly influence. Do not you think with me, Nora?’ he concluded in so exactly the old words and manner as to stir the very depths of her heart, but woe worth the change from the hopes of youth to this premature fading into despondency, and the implied farewell! She did think with him completely, and felt the more for him, as she believed that these Charterises had led him and his wife into the gaieties, which since her death he had forsworn and abhorred as temptations. She thought it hard that he should not have his children with him, and talked of all the various facilities for taking them that she could think of, till his face brightened under the grateful sense of sympathy.

She did not hold the same opinion all the evening. The two children made their appearance at dessert, and there began by insisting on both sitting on his knees; Owen consented to come to her, but Lucilla would not stir, though she put on some pretty little coquettish airs, and made herself extremely amiable to the gentleman who sat on her father’s other hand, making smart replies, that were repeated round the table with much amusement.

But the ordinance of departure with the ladies was one of which the sprite had no idea; Honor held out her hand for her; Aunt Sandbrook called her; her father put her down; she shook her curls, and said she should not leave father; it was stupid up in the drawing-room, and she hated ladies, which confession set every one laughing, so as quite to annihilate the effect of Mr. Sandbrook’s ‘Yes, go, my dear.’

Finally, he took the two up-stairs himself—the stairs which, as he had told Honora that evening, were his greatest enemies, and he remained a long time in their nursery, not coming down till tea was in progress. Mrs. Sandbrook always made it herself at the great silver urn, which had been a testimonial to her husband, and it was not at first that she had a cup ready for him. He looked even worse than at dinner, and Honora was anxious to see him resting comfortably; but he had hardly sat down on the sofa, and taken the cup in his hand, before a dismal childish wail was heard from above, and at once he started up, so hastily as to cough violently. Captain Charteris, breaking off a conversation, came rapidly across the room just as he was moving to the door. ‘You’re not going to those imps—’

Owen moved his head, and stepped forward.

‘I’ll settle them.’

Renewed cries met his ears. ‘No—a strange place—’ he said. ‘I must—’

He put his brother-in-law back with his hand, and was gone. The captain could not contain his vexation, ‘That’s the way those brats serve him every night!’ he exclaimed; ‘they will not attempt to go to sleep without him! Why, I’ve found him writing his sermon with the boy wrapped up in blankets in his lap; there’s no sense in it.’

After about ten minutes, during which Mr. Sandbrook did not reappear, Captain Charteris muttered something about going to see about him, and stayed away a good while. When he came down, he came and sat down by Honora, and said, ‘He is going to bed, quite done for.’

‘That must be better for him than talking here.’

‘Why, what do you think I found? Those intolerable brats would not stop crying unless he told them a story, and there was he with his voice quite gone, coughing every two minutes, and romancing on with some allegory about children marching on their little paths, and playing on their little fiddles. So I told Miss Cilly that if she cared a farthing for her father, she would hold her tongue, and I packed her up, and put her into her nursery. She’ll mind me when she sees I will be minded; and as for little Owen, nothing would satisfy him but his promising not to go away. I saw that chap asleep before I came down, so there’s no fear of the yarn beginning again; but you see what chance there is of his mending while those children are at him day and night.’

‘Poor things! they little know.’

‘One does not expect them to know, but one does expect them to show a little rationality. It puts one out of all patience to see him so weak. If he is encouraged to take them abroad, he may do so, but I wash my hands of him. I won’t be responsible for him—let them go alone!’

Honora saw this was a reproach to her for the favour with which she had regarded the project. She saw that the father’s weakness quite altered the case, and her former vision flashed across her again, but she resolutely put it aside for consideration, and only made the unmeaning answer, ‘It is very sad and perplexing.’

‘A perplexity of his own making. As for their not going to Castle Blanch, they were always there in my poor sister’s time a great deal more than was good for any of them, or his parish either, as I told him then; and now, if he finds out that it is a worldly household, as he calls it, why, what harm is that to do to a couple of babies like those? If Mrs. Charteris does not trouble herself much about the children, there are governesses and nurses enough for a score!’

‘I must own,’ said Honora, ‘that I think he is right. Children are never too young for impressions.’

‘I’ll tell you what, Miss Charlecote, the way he is going on is enough to ruin the best children in the world. That little Cilly is the most arrant little flirt I ever came across; it is like a comedy to see the absurd little puss going on with the curate, ay, and with every parson that comes to Wrapworth; and she sees nothing else. Impressions! All she wants is to be safe shut up with a good governess, and other children. It would do her a dozen times more good than all his stories of good children and their rocky paths, and boats that never sailed on any reasonable principle.’

‘Poor child,’ said Honora, smiling, ‘she is a little witch.’

‘And,’ continued the uncle, ‘if he thinks it so bad for them, he had better take the only way of saving them from it for the future, or they will be there for life. If he gets through this winter, it will only be by the utmost care.’

Honora kept her project back with the less difficulty, because she doubted how it would be received by the rough captain; but it won more and more upon her, as she rattled home through the gas-lights, and though she knew she should learn to love the children only to have the pang of losing them, she gladly cast this foreboding aside as selfish, and applied herself impartially as she hoped to weigh the duty, but trembling were the hands that adjusted the balance. Alone as she stood, without a tie, was not she marked out to take such an office of mere pity and charity? Could she see the friend of her childhood forced either to peril his life by his care of his motherless children, or else to leave them to the influences he so justly dreaded? Did not the case cry out to her to follow the promptings of her heart? Ay, but might not, said caution, her assumption of the charge lead their father to look on her as willing to become their mother? Oh, fie on such selfish prudery imputing such a thought to yonder broken-hearted, sinking widower! He had as little room for such folly as she had inclination to find herself on the old terms. The hero of her imagination he could never be again, but it would be weak consciousness to scruple at offering so obvious an act of compassion. She would not trust herself, she would go by what Miss Wells said. Nevertheless she composed her letter to Owen Sandbrook between waking and sleeping all night, and dreamed of little creatures nestling in her lap, and small hands playing with her hair. How coolly she strove to speak as she described the dilemma to the old lady, and how her heart leapt when Miss Wells, her mind moving in the grooves traced out by sympathy with her pupil, exclaimed, ‘Poor little dears, what a pity they should not be with you, my dear, they would be a nice interest for you!’

Perhaps Miss Wells thought chiefly of the brightening in her child’s manner, and the alert vivacity of eye and voice such as she had not seen in her since she had lost her mother; but be that as it might, her words were the very sanction so much longed for, and ere long Honora had her writing-case before her, cogitating over the opening address, as if her whole meaning were implied in them.

‘My dear Owen’ came so naturally that it was too like an attempt to recur to the old familiarity. ‘My dear Mr. Sandbrook?’ So formal as to be conscious! ‘Dear Owen?’ Yes that was the cousinly medium, and in diffident phrases of restrained eagerness, now seeming too affectionate, now too cold she offered to devote herself to his little ones, to take a house on the coast, and endeavour to follow out his wishes with regard to them, her good old friend supplying her lack of experience.

With a beating heart she awaited the reply. It was but few lines, but all Owen was in them.

‘My dear Nora—You always were an angel of goodness. I feel your kindness more than I can express. If my darlings were to be left at all, it should be with you, but I cannot contemplate it. Bless you for the thought!

‘Yours ever, O. Sandbrook.’

She heard no more for a week, during which a dread of pressing herself on him prevented her from calling on old Mrs. Sandbrook. At last, to her surprise, she received a visit from Captain Charteris, the person whom she looked on as least propitious, and most inclined to regard her as an enthusiastic silly young lady. He was very gruff, and gave a bad account of his patient. The little boy had been unwell, and the exertion of nursing him had been very injurious; the captain was very angry with illness, child, and father.

‘However,’ he said, ‘there’s one good thing, L. has forbidden the children’s perpetually hanging on him, sleeping in his room, and so forth. With the constitutions to which they have every right, poor things, he could not find a better way of giving them the seeds of consumption. That settles it. Poor fellow, he has not the heart to hinder their always pawing him, so there’s nothing for it but to separate them from him.’

‘And may I have them?’ asked Honor, too anxious to pick her words.

‘Why, I told him I would come and see whether you were in earnest in your kind offer. You would find them no sinecure.’

‘It would be a great happiness,’ said she, struggling with tears that might prevent the captain from depending on her good sense, and speaking calmly and sadly; ‘I have no other claims, nothing to tie me to any place. I am a good deal older than I look, and my friend, Miss Wells, has been a governess. She is really a very wise, judicious person, to whom he may quite trust. Owen and I were children together, and I know nothing that I should like better than to be useful to him.’

‘Humph!’ said the captain, more touched than he liked to betray; ‘well, it seems the only thing to which he can bear to turn!’

‘Oh!’ she said, breaking off, but emotion and earnestness looked glistening and trembling through every feature.

‘Very well,’ said Captain Charteris, ‘I’m glad, at least, that there is some one to have pity on the poor things! There’s my brother’s wife, she doesn’t say no, but she talks of convenience and spoilt children—Sandbrook was quite right after all; I would not tell him how she answered me! Spoilt children to be sure they are, poor things, but she might recollect they have no mother—such a fuss as she used to make with poor Lucilla too. Poor Lucilla, she would never have believed that “dear Caroline” would have no better welcome for her little ones! Spoilt indeed! A precious deal pleasanter children they are than any of the lot at Castle Blanch, and better brought up too.’

The good captain’s indignation had made away with his consistency, but Honora did not owe him a grudge for revealing that she was his pis aller, she was prone to respect a man who showed that he despised her, and she only cared to arrange the details. He was anxious to carry away his charge at once, since every day of this wear and tear of feeling was doing incalculable harm, and she undertook to receive the children and nurse at any time. She would write at once for a house at some warm watering-place, and take them there as soon as possible, and she offered to call that afternoon to settle all with Owen.

‘Why,’ said Captain Charteris, ‘I hardly know. One reason I came alone was, that I believe that little elf of a Cilly has some notion of what is plotting against her. You can’t speak a word but that child catches up, and she will not let her father out of her sight for a moment.’

‘Then what is to be done? I would propose his coming here; but the poor child would not let him go.’

‘That is the only chance. He has been forbidden the walking with them in his arms to put them to sleep, and we’ve got the boy into the nursery, and he’d better be out of the house than hear them roaring for him. So if you have no objection, and he is tolerable this evening, I would bring him as soon as they are gone to bed.’

Poor Owen was evidently falling under the management of stronger hands than his own, and it could only be hoped that it was not too late. His keeper brought him at a little after eight that evening. There was a look about him as if, after the last stroke that had befallen him, he could feel no more, the bitterness of death was past, his very hands looked woe-begone and astray, without the little fingers pressing them. He could not talk at first; he shook Honor’s hand as if he could not bear to be grateful to her, and only the hardest hearts could have endured to enter on the intended discussion. The captain was very gentle towards him, and talk was made on other topics but gradually something of the influence of the familiar scene where his brightest days had been passed, began to prevail. All was like old times—the quaint old silver kettle and lamp, the pattern of the china cups, the ruddy play of the fire on the polished panels of the room—and he began to revive and join the conversation. They spoke of Delaroche’s beautiful Madonnas, one of which was at the time to be seen at a print-shop—‘Yes,’ said Mr. Sandbrook, ‘and little Owen cried out as soon as he saw it, “That lady, the lady with the flowery watch.”’

Honora smiled. It was an allusion to the old jests upon her auburn locks, ‘a greater compliment to her than to Delaroche,’ she said; ‘I saw that he was extremely curious to ascertain what my carrots were made of.’

‘Do you know, Nora, I never saw more than one person with such hair as yours,’ said Owen, with more animation, ‘and oddly enough her name turned out to be Charlecote.’

‘Impossible! Humfrey and I are the only Charlecotes left that I know of! Where could it have been?’

‘It was at Toronto. I must confess that I was struck by the brilliant hair in chapel. Afterwards I met her once or twice. She was a Canadian born, and had just married a settler, whose name I can’t remember, but her maiden name had certainly been Charlecote; I remembered it because of the coincidence.’

‘Very curious; I did not know there had been any Charlecotes but ourselves.’

‘And Humfrey Charlecote has never married?’

‘Never.’

What made Owen raise his eyes at that moment, just so that she met them? and why did that dreadful uncontrollable crimson heat come mounting up over cheeks and temples, tingling and spreading into her very neck, just because it was the most hateful thing that could happen? And he saw it. She knew he did so, for he dropped his eyes at once, and there was an absolute silence, which she broke in desperation, by an incoherent attempt to say something, and that ended by blundering into the tender subject—the children; she found she had been talking about the place to which she thought of taking them, a quiet spot on the northern coast of Somersetshire.

He could bear the pang a little better now, and assented, and the ice once broken, there were so many details and injunctions that lay near his heart that the conversation never flagged. He had great reliance on their nurse, and they were healthy children, so that there was not much instruction as regarded the care of their little persons; but he had a great deal to say about the books they were to be taught from, the hymns they were to learn, and the exact management required by Lucilla’s peculiar temper and decided will. The theory was so perfect and so beautifully wise that Honora sat by in reverence, fearing her power of carrying it out; and Captain Charteris listened with a shade of satire on his face, and at last broke out with a very odd grunt, as if he did not think this quite what he had seen at Wrapworth parsonage.

Mr. Sandbrook coloured, and checked himself. Then after a pause, he said in a very different tone, ‘Perhaps so, Kit. It is only too easy to talk. Nora knows that there is a long way between my intentions and my practice.’

The humble dejection of that tone touched her more than she had been touched since he had wrung her hand, long, long ago.

‘Well,’ said the captain, perceiving only that he had given pain, ‘I will say this for your monkeys, they do know what is right at least; they have heard the articles of war, which I don’t fancy the other lot ever did. As to the discipline, humph! It is much of a muchness, and I’m not sure but it is not the best at the castle.’

‘The children are different at home,’ said Owen, quietly; ‘but,’ he added, with the same sad humility, ‘I dare say they will be much the better for the change; I know—’

But he broke off, and put his hand before his eyes.

Honora hoped she should not be left alone with him, but somehow it did happen. The captain went to bring the carriage into the court, and get all imaginable wraps before trusting him out in the air, and Miss Wells disappeared, probably intending kindness. Of course neither spoke, till the captain was almost come back. Then Owen rose from where he had been sitting listlessly, leaning back, and slowly said, ‘Nora, we did not think it would end thus when I put my hand to the plough. I am glad to have been here again. I had not remembered what I used to be. I do not ask you to forgive me. You are doing so, returning me good for—shall I say evil?’

Honor could not speak or look, she drooped her head, and her hair veiled her; she held out her hand as the captain came in, and felt it pressed with a feverish, eager grasp, and a murmured blessing.

Honora did not see Mr. Sandbrook again, but Captain Charteris made an incursion on her the next day to ask if she could receive the children on the ensuing morning. He had arranged to set off before daybreak, embarking for Ostend before the children were up, so as to spare the actual parting, and Honora undertook to fetch them home in the course of the day. He had hoped to avoid their knowing of the impending separation but he could only prevail so far as to extract a promise that they should not know when it was to take place. Their father had told them of their destination and his own as they sat on his bed in the morning before he rose, and apparently it had gone off better than could have been expected; little Owen did not seem to understand, and his sister was a child who never shed tears.

The day came, and Honora awoke to some awe at the responsibility, but with a yearning supplied, a vacancy filled up. For at least six months she should be as a mother, and a parent’s prayers could hardly have been more earnest.

She had not long been dressed, when a hasty peal was heard at the bell, and no sooner was the door opened than in hurried Captain Charteris, breathless, and bearing a large plaid bundle with tangled flaxen locks drooping at one end, and at the other rigid white legs, socks trodden down, one shoe wanting.

He deposited it, and there stood the eldest child, her chin buried in her neck, her fingers digging fast into their own palms, her eyes gleaming fiercely at him under the pent-house she had made of her brows.

‘There’s an introduction!’ he said, panting for breath. ‘Found her in time—the Strand—laid flat on back seat, under all the plaids and bags—her father put up his feet and found her—we drove to the lane—I ran down with her—not a moment—can’t stay, good-bye, little Cilly goose, to think she could go that figure!’

He advanced to kiss her, but she lifted up her shoulder between him and her face, much as a pugnacious pigeon flap its wings, and he retreated.

‘Wiser not, maybe! Look here,’ as Honora hurried after him into the hall to ask after the patient; ‘if you have a bit of sticking-plaster, he had better not see this.’

Lucilla had made her little pearls of teeth meet in the fleshy part of his palm.

Honora recoiled, shocked, producing the plaster from her pocket in an instant.

‘Little vixen,’ he said, half laughing; ‘but I was thankful to her for neither kicking nor struggling!’

‘Poor child!’ said Honora, ‘perhaps it was as much agony as passion!’

He shrugged his shoulders as he held out his hand for her operations, then hastily thanking her and wishing her good-bye, rushed off again, as the astonished Miss Wells appeared on the stairs. Honor shrank from telling her what wounds had been received, she thought the gentle lady would never get over such a proceeding, and, in fact, she herself felt somewhat as if she had undertaken the charge of a little wild cat, and quite uncertain what the young lady might do next. On entering the breakfast-room, they found her sunk down all in a heap, where her uncle had set her down, her elbows on a low footstool, and her head leaning on them, the eyes still gazing askance from under the brows, but all the energy and life gone from the little dejected figure.

‘Poor child! Dear little thing—won’t you come to me?’ She stirred not.

Miss Wells advanced, but the child’s only motion was to shake her frock at her, as if to keep her off; Honora, really afraid of the consequences of touching her, whispered that they would leave her to herself a little. The silver kettle came in, and tea was made.

‘Lucilla, my dear, the servants are coming in to prayers.’

She did not offer to move, and still Honora let her alone, and she remained in the same attitude while the psalm was read, but afterwards there was a little approximation to kneeling in her position.

‘Lucilla, dear child, you had better come to breakfast—’ Only another defying glance.

Miss Wells, with what Honor thought defective judgment, made pointed commendations of the tea, the butter and honey, but they had no effect; Honora, though her heart ached for the wrench the poor child had undergone, thought it best to affect indifference, gave a hint of the kind, and scrupulously avoided looking round at her, till breakfast was finished. When she did so, she no longer met the wary defiant gleam of the blue eyes, they were fast shut, the head had sunk on the arms, and the long breathings of sleep heaved the little frame. ‘Poor little dear!’ as Miss Wells might well exclaim, she had kept herself wakeful the whole night that her father might not go without her knowledge. And how pretty she looked in that little black frock, so ill and hastily put on, one round white shoulder quite out of it, and the long flaxen locks showing their silky fineness as they hung dispersed and tangled, the pinky flush of sleep upon the little face pillowed on the rosy pair of arms, and with a white unstockinged leg doubled under her. Poor child, there was more of the angel than the tiger-cat in her aspect now, and they had tears in their eyes, and moved softly lest they should startle her from her rest.

But wakened she must be. Honora was afraid of displeasing her domestic vizier, and rendering him for ever unpropitious to her little guests if she deferred his removal of the breakfast things beyond a reasonable hour. How was the awaking to be managed? Fright, tears, passion, what change would come when the poor little maid must awake to her grief! Honora would never have expected so poetical a flight from her good old governess as the suggestion, ‘Play to her;’ but she took it eagerly, and going to the disused piano which stood in the room began a low, soft air. The little sleeper stirred, presently raised her head, shook her hair off her ears, and after a moment, to their surprise, her first word was ‘Mamma!’ Honora was pausing, but the child said, ‘Go on,’ and sat for a few moments as though recovering herself, then rose and came forward slowly standing at last close to Honora. There was a pause, and she said, ‘Mamma did that.’

Never was a sound more welcome! Honora dared to do what she had longed for so much, put an arm round the little creature and draw her nearer, nor did Lucilla resist, she only said, ‘Won’t you go on?’

‘I can make prettier music in the other room, my dear; we will go there, only you’ve had no breakfast. You must be very hungry.’

Lucilla turned round, saw a nice little roll cut into slices, and remembered that she was hungry; and presently she was consuming it so prosperously under Miss Wells’s superintendence that Honor ventured out to endeavour to retard Jones’s desire to ‘take away,’ by giving him orders about the carriage, and then to attend to her other household affairs. By the time they were ended she found that Miss Wells had brought the child into the drawing-room, where she had at once detected the piano, and looking up at Honora said eagerly ‘Now then!’ And Honora fulfilled her promise, while the child stood by softened and gratified, until it was time to propose fetching little Owen, ‘your little brother—you will like to have him here.’

‘I want my father,’ said Lucilla in a determined voice, as if nothing else were to satisfy her.

‘Poor child, I know you do; I am so sorry for you, my dear little woman, but you see the doctors think papa is more likely to get better if he has not you to take care of!’

‘I did not want my father to take care of me,’ said the little lady, proudly; ‘I take care of father, I always make his tea and warm his slippers, and bring him his coffee in the morning. And Uncle Kit never will put his gloves for him and warm his handkerchief! Oh! what will he do? I can’t bear it.’

The violent grief so long kept back was coming now, but not freely; the little girl threw herself on the floor, and in a tumult of despair and passion went on, hurrying out her words, ‘It’s very hard! It’s all Uncle Kit’s doing! I hate him! Yes, I do.’ And she rolled over and over in her frenzy of feeling.

‘My dear! my dear!’ cried Honora, kneeling by her, ‘this will never do! Papa would be very much grieved to see his little girl so naughty. Don’t you know how your uncle only wants to do him good, and to make him get well?’

‘Then why didn’t he take me?’ said Lucilla, gathering herself up, and speaking sullenly.

‘Perhaps he thought you gave papa trouble, and tired him.’

‘Yes, that’s it, and it’s not fair,’ cried the poor child again; ‘why couldn’t he tell me? I didn’t know papa was ill! he never told me so, nor Mr. Pendy either; or, how I would have nursed him! I wanted to do so much for him; I wouldn’t have asked him to tell me stories, nor nothing! No! And now they won’t let me take care of him;’ and she cried bitterly.

‘Yes,’ said good, gentle Miss Wells, thinking more of present comfort than of the too possible future; ‘but you will go back to take care of him some day, my dear. When the spring comes papa will come back to his little girl.’