A GIRL OF TO-DAY, by Ellinor Davenport Adams

The final words, spoken in a tone of complete satisfaction, accompanied a daring dive of hand and arm through the open window of the still moving railway-carriage.

“You ridiculous boy! We are only five minutes behind time!” Frances seized the intruding hand in a firm grip; and, as the train stopped, leaned out of the window to bestow a sisterly hug. “Its good to see you, dear! How brown and jolly you look! The country agrees with you, Austin; I thought it would.”

“Well, I don’t know. It was fearfully slow here at first, after Allerton. Of course, now—. Oh, come along, Frances! I’ve heaps to tell you, once we’re on the road. I wouldn’t bring the trap, because I wanted time for a good talk all to ourselves; and I knew the mile walk from the station to Woodend wouldn’t frighten you. Toss out the parcels! I suppose you’ve[Pg 10] a few dozen. What, only one? Hallo! they’ve taught you something at school.”

Frances nodded her head reflectively. “Much you know about that yet, my son. Wait awhile, and I’ll enlighten you!”

Delivering herself of this promise,—which was received by the boy with an impudent little shrug,—the girl sprang to the platform in a style strongly suggestive of past triumphs in her school gymnasium, and then proceeded to catch her brother by the shoulders and give him what she called “a proper look-over”.

Austin stood the examination well. Though slightly built, he was broad of chest and straight of limb; his blue eyes were bright and clear; and the weakness of his mouth was usually discounted by the sunny smile which readily parted his lips. Nearly three years younger than his sister, and accustomed to look to her for companionship, guidance, and encouragement, Austin had found the months of their separation so real a trial that his joy in their present meeting was particularly demonstrative. He remembered in a flash of thought half a score of promising projects which had been allowed to lapse until Frances should come home from Haversfield College. And now Frances was here in front of him, and surveying him with the steady gray eyes he knew and truly loved—Frances herself, no whit spoiled by her two terms at the famous school for girls, though in Austin’s mind there had lurked some fears of long skirts, hair “done up”, and—worse than all!—airs of condescending superiority and adult wisdom.

Frances did not look at all grown-up. She was just a healthy, happy lass of barely fourteen years; frankly preferring short frocks to long ones, and in no haste for the time when hair-dressing should become a troublesome solemnity. So far, life had made small demands on her individuality. At home, she had known no special duty except the care of Austin, who had been rather delicate in early childhood; at school, she had been one of many, fairly successful in her work, more than fairly successful at games and bodily exercises, and perhaps showing promise chiefly in a susceptibility to all those influences which tend to widen a young girl’s sympathies and draw out her intelligence. Frances had been fortunate in her recent experience—Haversfield is an excellent nursery for the best kind of girlhood. Its many house-mistresses are chosen by the Principal with extreme care; and Frances had been under the charge of Miss Cliveden, a clever, cultivated, and liberal-minded woman, whose training was quite as valuable for heart as for head. The brightest-witted, most thoughtful, and most generous pupils of Haversfield were proud to call themselves “Miss Cliveden’s girls”.

“Is Mamma all right?” inquired Frances, releasing her brother after a little satisfied shake.

“Right as she can be. Ten deep in tea-drinkings, and particular friends with all the world. No, not with all the world—with the most particular world of Woodend. She’s ‘At Home’ this afternoon, you know. First and third Thursdays, and all that twaddle—”

“Well, it is! Fancy a lot of women staring at each other over tea-cups and cake, and two odd men tripping about among the crew and wishing themselves at Kamschatka!”

“But Mamma is well?” persisted Frances. “And she likes Woodend, and her new house—you’re sure?”

“Don’t you be ridiculous,” said Frances sharply. “I’ve no patience with boys who call every sensible word ‘preaching’.”

Frances’s frowns vanished, and smiles came instead. Her sisterly prerogative of “preaching” was so seldom exercised that Austin usually took her mild rebukes like a lamb. His laugh echoed hers just now, and he gave an affectionate hug to the arm he clung to. Brother and sister were walking at a good pace along the straggling white road to the village.

“Never mind, Sis. You shall preach as much as you like—to-day. And Mater is really all right—she must be. She has loads of friends already.”

“Loads! In a tiny place like this!” commented[Pg 13] Frances, gazing about her. On either hand stretched the green meadows, watered by brooks filled with recent rain; in front, the country spread smiling and serene under the brilliant sun of late July. Immediately before them, the road dipped into a shallow wooded valley, studded on both sides with houses of every degree. Farther off, above the trees of Fencourt Park (the home of Woodend’s chief landlord), could be descried the broken ridges of Rowdon Common. All these interesting facts were duly pointed out by Austin, with the justifiable airs and pride of a resident; while Frances, as a new-comer, merely listened or asked sagacious questions.

“That’s where we hang out,” remarked the boy elegantly, while waving his hand towards a long, picturesquely-built house on the opposite side of the valley. “It’s a tidy crib, with lots of room.”

“I’ve bagged a jolly place for larks,” continued Austin eagerly. “There’s a stove in it and a splendid big table, and a bath-room next door, which will just do for our photography.”

The boy’s face, uplifted to his sister’s, was full of the happy enthusiasm which feels itself secure of sympathy; and Frances’s heart beat high with pleasure because her welcome home was of this joyful sort. For the absent school-girl, like her brother, had known some fears—lest the six months’ parting should have taught Austin to do without her. The boy had proved a poor correspondent; and it was not easy for Frances with her warm, unselfish temperament, to[Pg 14] realize that unanswered letters did not necessarily signify failing affection.

“That’s the church—it’s splendid for photographing, if only one could get the lines of the tower straight. And there’s the rectory alongside. The Rector’s very old; but a good sort, like the curate.”

“The curate is Mr. Carlyon, your tutor, isn’t he? Oh, Austin, do you like having lessons with him?” asked Frances, with intense interest. Her reverence for knowledge had grown of late, and she wanted, not unnaturally, to find out whether in this direction Austin’s steps had progressed with her own.

“I like it well enough. You see,” he added awkwardly, “I’m not exactly a grind; one must use one’s wits, but I think mine go best with my hands. Only, Carlyon was a swell at Oxford, and he’s got a way of making one think one wouldn’t mind being a swell too.”

“Then he knows a straight ball when he sees one,” Austin continued, “and he’s a crack with his bat. Then when lessons are on, he doesn’t drone away everlastingly about dead-and-gone chaps. There’s one of his cranks we all approve of, somehow.”

“We’ve half an hour every day for what he chooses to call ‘current events’. Carlyon tells us what’s going on in the world, reads bits out of papers and talks them over, and gives marks to the fellows who remember best.”

“Oh, Austin! I hope you get most marks!” interrupted Frances, with the utterly unreasonable ambition[Pg 15] of a sister. Austin felt that he was wanting, and replied grumpily:

“Hang it, I’d like to know what chance I have! The other chaps hear things at home. Mater won’t let me look at a paper, and never talks to me about what she reads herself.”

“Never mind,” said Frances, “I’ll hunt out the news for you, and read the things up, and send you off all ready crammed. I shall like doing it.”

“I know you will,” groaned Austin. “I say, Frances, you’ll shine like the sun at our ‘symposia’—I hope you like that pretty word, Ma’am!”

“What are your symposia?” chuckled Frances, beginning to think Woodend couldn’t be so much behind Haversfield itself.

“Why, on Saturday mornings Carlyon takes his boys, and his sister takes her girls, and we’ve a meeting in the big rectory dining-room. Then the lot of us talk like fits about those blessed ‘current events’ our respected teachers have been driving into us all the week. It’s prime fun, once we get started. Carlyon and his sister do the starting. When they’re on opposite sides, we’ve rare larks; for they pitch into one another like mad—quite civilly, you know. Then we chaps and Miss Carlyon’s crew follow suit, and go for one another in fine style. Gracious! You should have heard Max Brenton and Florry Fane last Saturday! It was our breaking-up day, and we had an extra grand symposium. Max and Florry are no end good at argufying.”

Frances heard the names of these friends of Austin with the pleasant anticipations natural to a sociable[Pg 16] girl just about to make trial of a new home, new surroundings, new companions. She hoped this “Max and Florry” would be “good” for something besides “argufying”—good for comradeship of the only kind possible to a nature whose characteristics were deep-rooted and strong. Half-hearted alliances were outside Frances’s comprehension; her love and trust must be given freely and fully, or not at all.

“In her last letter Mamma told me I was to be one of Miss Carlyon’s girls after the holidays. That will seem funny at first, now that I have got used to a big school. It was nice at Haversfield, Austin. I want to stay with Mamma and you, of course, else I should like to go back. Miss Cliveden—my house-mistress—was so jolly. She used to make one feel as if one wanted to be of some good, if one could.”

“You can be of lots of good here,” said Austin comfortably. “It’s no sense a fellow having a sister if she’s away at school. Max says if he had a sister he’d think himself lucky, for she would be able to teach him how to make a bed properly. That’s a thing he often needs to do for his worst cases, and he does not quite understand it.”

Austin declined to explain. At the moment he was too much occupied with his own affairs to have leisure for Max’s. He was eager to convince Frances that she could be of supreme use to him personally; and Frances, before whose eyes had lately gleamed a vision of a wider range for her girlish energies, listened, and sympathized, and promised, as only the best of sisters could. She was quite sure that Austin[Pg 17] wanted her most of all. He always had wanted her, and she never had disappointed him.

They had been brought up together, and educated by the same governesses and tutors until a few months before this story opens. Then Austin’s childish delicacy had for the first time threatened to become serious, and his mother had carried him off to London for distinguished medical advice. For years Mrs. Morland’s home had been in Allerton, a large provincial town to which she had first been attracted because it was the dwelling-place of an old friend, who had since passed away. The London doctors recommended a country life for Austin; and, after some weeks of search for a suitable spot, Mrs. Morland fixed on Woodend, a village which had everything desirable in the way of soil, air, and scenery. Her household gods were removed from Allerton to Woodend in the course of a bright April, and she and her son settled down in the pretty home she had bought and furnished.

During all this time of unrest, Frances had been quietly at work at Haversfield, where she had been sent in order that her education might not be interrupted. She had spent the Easter holidays with a school friend, because at the time her mother was superintending the removal to Woodend, and Austin was paying a visit to a Scotch cousin.

If Mrs. Morland had guessed under what influences her daughter would come, she certainly would not have sent her to Haversfield. Not only had she no regard for the “learned lady”, but she set no value at all upon the womanly accomplishments which were unable[Pg 18] to secure social prestige. Miss Cliveden’s definition of “society” would have astonished Mrs. Morland; and her gospel of labour, preached with her lips and in her life, would have seemed to Frances’s mother uniquely dull and quixotic.

Miss Cliveden taught her girls to love work, to love it best when done for others, and to reverence all work truly and faithfully accomplished. The nobility of honest labour was her favourite theme, and the allurements of altruistic toil the highest attraction she could hold out to her young scholars. As her pupils were all in the upper forms of the college, Frances was one of the youngest of them, and Miss Cliveden took a great liking for the frank-hearted, winning lass. Thrown chiefly among the elder girls, Frances soon caught their spirit and shared their ambitions, while remaining in ways and thoughts a thorough child.

By the time Mrs. Morland was comfortably settled in Woodend, she began to grow tired of petting and coddling a wayward, restless boy. Scotland and the country air had brought Austin back to fair health, and his bright eyes and rosy cheeks assured his mother that her sacrifice had not been in vain. Mrs. Morland loved ease of mind and body. She thought it time her boy should return to his lesson-books, and that Frances—so soon as her second term at Haversfield should be over—should come home to help him.

The terms of his father’s will had decreed that Austin should be educated privately. Mr. Morland had disliked public schools. His wife regretted the social disadvantage, but could not overrule her husband’s[Pg 19] decision; and she began to face the trouble of looking out for a new tutor. Before she had looked long, she discovered that Mr. Carlyon, the young curate of Woodend church, took pupils; and Austin became one of them for the greater part of the summer term.

“Oh, well—nice enough. Some jolly fellows among the boys, and plenty of girls to match. I dare say you’ll like Florry Fane, anyhow. She has lots of pluck, and doesn’t bounce, though she’s no end clever. Then there’s roly-poly Betty Turner—and May Gordon—and the First Violin.”

“We’ve a boys’ and girls’ band, and she’s the leader. Everybody calls her the First Violin. She hardly moves without her fiddle; and she can play.”

“Had to; Miss Carlyon wouldn’t let me off. Besides, it’s good fun. We’ve a master to train us, and he gives me lessons alone as well. I practise sometimes,” added Austin hastily, “so you needn’t worry.”

Frances felt on this golden afternoon even less inclined than usual to “preach”, so she let the fiddle pass.

“Crowds!—at least, Max says so. He’s always abusing Sir Arthur Fenn—chap who lives at Fencourt, the biggest place about. That’s to say, Fencourt and most of Woodend belong to him; but he’s hardly ever here. He’s got a grander place somewhere, and[Pg 20] that’s why he doesn’t care much about this one, and won’t do much for the people.”

“I don’t know,—they’re such a rough lot, no decent folk would want to go near them.”

“I should!” declared Frances warmly. “I’d love to try to help people who were very poor and miserable.”

“Gracious!” cried Austin, laughing merrily. “I declare, you’re as bad as Max. He’ll show you the way about, if you want to be mixed up in charity soup and blankets!”

“Why!—what should a boy know about such things?” said Frances, laughing too.

“Max isn’t a boy, as you’ll soon discover. He’s the boy. The one and only Max Brenton. My grammar doesn’t amount to much, but I know Max is of the singular number.”

“He’s the son of Doctor Brenton—the one and only son of the one and only doctor!”

“More so, my dear!—yes, if possible, more so!” returned Austin, grimacing expressively. “You see, they’ve brought each other up, and it’s sort of mixed which is which. So they’re ‘the old Doc’ and ‘the young Doc’ to all Woodend,—and a jolly good sort they both are!” continued the boy heartily. “If Max weren’t always so fearfully busy, he’d be the chummiest chum a fellow could want.”

“What is he so busy about?” asked Frances, enjoying the description of this mysterious Max.

“Respected student of distinguished Haversfield (as Florry would say), if you put me on to construe for an hour I couldn’t ‘render into tolerable English’ the sayings and doings of Max Brenton—the one and only Max Brenton! He’s not to be understood. You must just take him as you find him; and if you don’t meet him to-day, hope you’ll come across him to-morrow. And now, don’t you want to know if the tennis-court is in good order, and if you’re going to have cake for tea?”

Frances laughed, and yielded herself up to home matters. For a time the brother and sister exchanged question and answer at a great rate, and held a lively discussion as to the possibilities of Elveley. Austin was full of talk about his chosen playroom and its entrancing conveniences. Frances planned the arrangement of cunning nooks for her personal possessions, and promised to give her whole mind to the study of photography, until she had solved the problems presented by the camera which had been a present to Austin from the Scotch cousin.

The young pair chuckled and chattered like magpies, and were so deep in their concerns that a boy, coming at full speed round a corner from the village, almost ran into them before he attracted their attention.

Austin slipped his hand from Frances’s arm, dived adroitly on one side, and managed to catch his friend in headlong course.

“Hallo!” panted Max, in return. “So sorry, old chap; I didn’t see it was you.” He disengaged himself and stepped with outstretched hand towards Austin’s sister. “And this is Miss Frances?” he continued, smiling frankly.

“Rather!” remarked Austin, with a certain gracious condescension, as becomes one whose sister is of the right sort to make sisterless fellows envious. “I’ve been telling her what a singular number you are; and she wants to go shares in your soup-and-blanket business.”

“It’s awfully jolly of her,” said Max, who had meanwhile exchanged with Frances a comrade’s grasp. “We wanted some more girls badly in Woodend.”

“Frances isn’t a girl, she’s the girl; the one and only Frances, who will soon be the sworn ally of the one and only Max.”

“All the better for me!” laughed Max. “Will you really, though, Miss Frances?”

“I’d like to,” replied the girl, smiling at this busy boy’s pleasant, eager face.

“I’ll hold you to it,” declared Max. “I must say good-bye, for see here!”

“Pills and potions!—so I must cut!” He lifted his cap, sang out a gay farewell, and was off at his former excellent pace.

“What a nice boy!” exclaimed Frances, still beaming. “At least, of course I don’t know much about him yet, but he looks nice.”

“Why does he carry his father’s medicines? Hasn’t Dr. Brenton a proper person—?”

“He doesn’t come to school, except for a few hours in the week. He learns classics and mathematics with us—his father has taught him the rest. Dr. Brenton couldn’t possibly get on all day without Max. You’ll soon understand why. Now, Frances, we’ll be in Woodend directly. I hate crawling down a hill when I’m hot, so I’m going full pelt till I get to the bottom of this one. Don’t you hurry. I’ll wait for you there.”

“Will you, though?” demanded Frances with scorn. And Austin’s last fears about the effects of Haversfield vanished when his sister darted forward, overtook him easily, passed him triumphantly, and made her entry into Woodend at a speed which showed no concern either for her sailor-hat or her dignity.

“I said she was the Frances!” murmured Austin, as with a great affectation of indifference he jogged along behind.

Though he counted the Doctor’s son as first and chief, Austin undoubtedly had plenty of friends; and since the time of his coming to Woodend he had done his best to prepare the way for Frances by industriously singing her praises. The young people who had managed hitherto to exist in the village without either Austin or Frances might have been severely bored but for the agreeable curiosity roused by Austin’s descriptions of his absent sister. The Woodend boys were really anxious to make the acquaintance of so remarkable a girl. The Woodend lassies, having a good opinion of Austin, were willing to expect great things of Austin’s sister. Both boys and girls indulged the hope that the new-comer into their little world might rouse in it some pleasant stir.

They knew that they needed badly a stimulus of some sort to give fresh energy to their rather monotonous lives. They had their games and pastimes, like other youngsters; but these suffered in attraction for want of competition. The cricket-team and tennis-club rarely found rivals with whom they might contend in honourable warfare. Woodend was not exactly remote; but it had a special population of upper-class residents, who loved its pure air and fine scenery, and had no neighbours of like tastes and habits in the villages near at hand. The young folks played and worked contentedly enough among themselves as a[Pg 25] rule; but they were growing just a little tired of each other, and there was nobody to lead.

The girls—poor things!—were in worst case. The boys, when they had turned fourteen or fifteen, were usually sent to a public school. The girls remained at home, with so much time on their hands that they could not even enjoy the luxury of being idle—it was too common an experience.

The Carlyons—Edward and Muriel—were working, in part, a reformation. Edward Carlyon, Master of Arts of Oxford University, had established a small private school for boys; Muriel Carlyon, sometime student of Girton College, and graduate of London, had done as much for the girls. The Woodend youngsters of good degree flocked to Wood Bank,—formerly the home of an artist,—where Edward taught his boys in the big, dismantled studio, and Muriel consecrated a couple of fair-sized rooms to her girls. The coming of Austin Morland, who, though only in his twelfth year, had a certain talent for leadership, had waked up the boys’ schoolroom, and plans for the summer holidays had been more ambitious than usual.

Frances could not do anything striking for the girls’ schoolrooms at present, since they were shut, and their presiding genius was away from home. But Austin’s sister, finding herself welcomed in a fashion which showed how unstinted had been Austin’s recommendations, was determined to do her best to justify his loyalty. She was soon the happy potentate of an acquiescent kingdom, and honestly anxious to make good use of her unexpected influence. Besides[Pg 26] being the leader in every frolic, she tried to interest herself in everybody’s hobbies and everybody’s fancies.

Most of her new friends belonged to one or other of the many juvenile organizations which now make a real effort—whose value may be appreciated by social economists of a later date—to concern themselves in the welfare of the poor and suffering. Frances had caught from her elder comrades at Haversfield a girlish enthusiasm for this kind of toil. She threw herself warmly into the diversions of Florry Fane’s set—who could understand poetry, dabble in oil and water colours, and write stories. She dressed dolls for Betty Turner’s hospital box, she collected butterflies and beetles with Guy Gordon, she studied rabbits with Frank Temple, she joined the Children’s Orchestra and was a great admirer of the First Violin.

But the best of Frances’s heart went into her promised alliance with Max Brenton. Max was the blithest boy in all Woodend, by far the busiest and the most popular. Even Austin Morland, bright of face and gay of manner as was the lad, could not, and would not, have stepped into the place filled by Max. Meet the Doctor’s son when and where you might, you were bound to feel happier for having done so.

Elveley was the largest house in Woodend proper; it possessed ample garden ground, and neat outbuildings in the rear. Its possessor had usually been the person of most importance in the village, and thus the coming of the new owner had been awaited with curiosity. Mrs. Morland had been at some pains to send in advance her credentials as to family and position. She was a woman who placed extravagant[Pg 27] value on social esteem, and she had voluntarily stunted her intelligence and narrowed her views for fear of perilling her own prestige by shocking any antique prejudice in her neighbours. She had not much sympathy with the special affairs of childhood; but when she turned aside from her individual interests to see how matters went with her boy and girl, she generally found reason for complacency.

Now that she had settled in Woodend, it was in harmony with her wishes and instincts that Frances should be to the girls such a leader as Mrs. Morland had become to their elders, and that Austin’s careless good-humour should assure his popularity. If her children had been dull and commonplace, she would have felt herself an injured person. Because they were neither, she was ready to be indulgent and compliant. They had plenty of pocket-money, and were seldom refused a petition; and though they rarely spent with their mother more than an hour or so in the day, their food and clothing were carefully attended to by responsible people, and their education was the best within reach. Frances and Austin were not aware that they missed anything; and they nourished for their mother a love which, if it depended rather on tradition than on fact, was sufficiently real to make their home dear and fairly bright.

The big playroom in Mrs. Morland’s delightful old house soon became the headquarters of every juvenile institution. Cricket, football, and tennis clubs kept their archives in its table-drawers; its shelves harboured a choice lending-library, contributed to by every owner of a story-book; its corners saw the[Pg 28] hatching of every plot, harmless or mischievous. Further, it was within its walls that Frances—intent at first only on aiding Max, but with wider ambition by and by—founded and maintained her prosperous club, the Woodend Society of Altruists.

“You don’t think it sounds priggish?” inquired Frances in alarm. “It’s what the Haversfield girls called their club, and I thought we might just copy.”

“They are only people who try to help others,” replied Frances; and this simple explanation, given with a gentle sincerity of voice and manner, seemed to satisfy everybody. Indeed, everybody present at a fairly representative meeting of the Woodend young folks became an Altruist on the spot.

“Sign our names in the book of the Society and keep the rules,” said Florry Fane. “Frances must sign hers first, because she’s the founder of the club.”

“Florry and I have written down the rules we thought might do,” said Frances modestly, “Florry is going to read them out, and then if any boy or girl will suggest improvements we shall be very much obliged.”

But nobody wished to improve the excellent rules drawn up by Frances and Florry. The words in which[Pg 29] the Altruist Code was expressed were few, and so well chosen that no careless member could pretend either to have forgotten or to have misunderstood.

In becoming an Altruist everybody undertook to do his or her very best to lighten the loads of dwellers within or without the gates of happy Woodend homes. This was an ambitiously comprehensive scheme, but nothing less thorough would suit Frances and her allies. Nor did they intend that their new club should exist only on paper; and so their rules provided that by appropriate deeds alone could a continued membership be ensured.

The boys and girls were so truly in want of a fresh sensation to give zest to their holiday hours that they were in some danger of riding their new hobby-horse to death. The Altruists grew in number and flourished exceedingly. They found their parents ready with approval and support; and when they had passed through an embryo stage of rash philanthropic excitement, they settled down into a capital club, whose motto of “Help Others” was something more than a vain boast. Of course the new Society must have funds—how otherwise provide for necessary outlay? Members loyally sacrificed a percentage of pocket-money, which was liberally reinforced—at the instigation of Mrs. Morland—by adult subscriptions. The mothers of young Altruists searched their cupboards for old linen, blankets, and clothing, wherewith to start the Society’s stores. The fathers promised that appeals for fruit and flowers should have their best consideration. Dr. Brenton sent word through Max that he would accept as a “gratis” patient any sick[Pg 30] person tended and cared for by an Altruist. Mrs. Morland, well pleased that Frances should enjoy the prestige owing to a founder, sent for a carpenter, and desired him to make any alterations the children might order, with the view of rendering their playroom satisfactory Headquarters for their club.

As soon as the Carlyons came home, Muriel was waited on by a deputation of her girls, who wanted her to be Honorary President of the Altruists. Miss Carlyon was very ready to agree, and to give Frances credit for a really bright idea.

“I don’t see why your club shouldn’t do ever such great things for the Woodend poor folk,” declared Muriel warmly. “I shall be proud to be one of you, and so will my brother; and you must count on us for all the help we can give.”

“Oh, Miss Carlyon!” said Frances shyly, “we thought perhaps we might just help you—a little.”

“We’ll help each other, dear. And then we shall be Altruists among ourselves. I can assure you, I think, besides being useful, we shall be very jolly.”

And so it proved. None of the club meetings were more spirited or more mirthful than those at which the Honorary President made her appearance; and the frequent presence of Edward Carlyon encouraged his boys to stand firmly by the Society, and to lose all fear that they were “benevolent prigs”, as they had been called by Jack Shorter. Jack was the only one of Carlyon’s boys who had possessed sufficient unamiability to remain outside the club. At last, finding himself sent to Coventry, Jack repented and became an embarrassingly active Altruist.

When the Wood Bank schoolrooms opened their doors for the autumn term, it was discovered that the Carlyons intended their support to be anything but “honorary”. They had fitted up a large basement room as a workshop for various handicrafts, and there the boys and girls learned to make all sorts of things for the Society’s stores. Out of doors, a shed held all kinds of necessary tools, and the young folks studied practical gardening, with intent to aid such villagers as might own neglected plots. Sewing-meetings produced a wonderful collection of garments, new and renovated, which helped to fill Frances’s clothing-cupboard. The juvenile choir and orchestra made free offers of their services; and lads and lassies with a talent for “reading and recitation” were in enormous request.

Frances’s days were busy and happy. She enjoyed her school-work with Muriel Carlyon, a teacher of the class to which she had grown accustomed at Haversfield. Muriel’s system of teaching was not without originality; and her love of outdoor occupations hindered her from possessing the traditional characteristics of a blue-stocking. Her brother Edward was a muscular, well-built young Englishman, whose college triumphs had not prevented respectable attainments with scull and bat. The Carlyons took a lively interest in their pupils, whom they treated and trained with a success which would have astonished primmer pedagogues. Their boys and girls trooped to school together, and often measured wits or muscles in their class-rooms or their play-grounds. Thus their friendships were closer and more sympathetic than those of lads[Pg 32] and lassies usually are. They learned to appreciate one another’s tastes and dispositions, and to sacrifice individual whims to the common good.

Autumn drifted into winter with the coming of a bleak November. Football and hockey were in full swing in the playing-fields. The little ones had built their first snow-man; and the rubbing and oiling of skates followed careful studies of the barometer. The youngsters were now in some danger of forgetting the duties of their Society. Their time had suddenly assumed an incalculable value.

It was at this stage of affairs that Max Brenton one day made his appearance at the door of the club-room, wherein sat Frances busily posting up the Society’s accounts.

“If you please,” began Max in a great hurry, “may I have a blanket, two flannel petticoats, a three-year-old frock, and a pair of very large old boots?”

Frances wrinkled her forehead. “I’m sorry we have no flannel petticoats left, owing to a great demand. I can manage the other things, except the boots. We are quite out of very large boots. Couldn’t one of you boys learn shoemaking?”

“But the cobbler will do nothing he is not paid for; and poor folks cannot always pay. It would be very useful to have a shoemaker of our very own. We could buy our leather and make it into enormous boots. Gentleman-boots are really hardly any good to us.”

“That’s true. But, please, may I have the things?[Pg 33] And I will try my best to persuade somebody to learn shoemaking.”

Frances rose, and stepped thoughtfully towards her cupboard. Thence, after some searching, she extracted a tiny garment of crimson serge, warmly lined and neatly finished. To this she added two pairs of knitted socks of the same cheerful hue.

“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Max, radiant. “May I really have these awfully swell things? You girls are bricks!”

“You boys helped to buy the stuff. I’m glad you like the colour,” continued Frances graciously, “because at the last sewing-meeting of our Society we decided that for the future all the clothing we make shall be scarlet or crimson, if it can be. It was Florry Fane’s idea. She said it would be ‘the badge of all our tribe’. We shall be able to tell our pensioners the moment we see them. For instance, next time I meet the little child who is to have this frock, I shall think, ‘There goes an Altruist baby!’”

“I see. And next time I come across a hoary old chap to whom you’ve given a crimson comforter, I shall say, ‘There goes an Altruist antediluvian!’”

“Well,” laughed Frances, “suppose you do? You’ll allow that our colour is becoming. It’s bright and picturesque; and by and by, when we’ve given away lots of crimson things, think how gay Woodend will look.”

“Oh, it will! As soon as a visitor reaches the favoured spot, he’ll cry, ‘Hullo! here’s an Altruist village!’”

“I hope he may. Now, tell me whom these things[Pg 34] are for, because I must put the names down in our clothing book.”

Max, remembering certain private labours of his own, gazed in admiration at Frances’s neat records.

“The frock is for Polly Baker, child of Joseph Baker, a dweller in Lumber’s Yard, and sometime a tiller of the fields.”

“But, Max, Miss Carlyon says the Altruists oughtn’t to help people who won’t help themselves. That Joseph Baker is a lazy, selfish, good-for-nothing.”

“And Mr. Carlyon has got him work over and over again, but he always loses it.”

“True, dear Madam Altruist. But that isn’t the fault of his daughter Polly, aged three.”

“Still, if Baker finds he can get his children fed and clothed for nothing, he will go on spending all his money in that dreadful inn in Lumber’s Yard.”

“He will go on doing that anyhow. Mr. Carlyon isn’t easily beaten, but he has given up Joseph Baker, Esquire. Meanwhile, Baker’s children would starve if it were not for charity. Frances, Polly is such a game little thing! You wouldn’t believe how she stands up to her brute of a father when she sees him ill-treat her mother. I’ve delivered her out of Baker’s clutches more than once.”

“Wouldn’t he? Doesn’t he, if he gets the chance? He’s a—a—beast! Beg pardon!”

“It’s fearful!” sighed Frances, pausing perforce on the threshold of the social problem which had risen before her. “He ought to be punished.”

“He will be, when I’m big enough to thrash him,” murmured Max; and Frances turned a face flushed with sympathy to this chivalrous lad. “But don’t let us punish our Altruist baby.”

“Oh, Max! When you wheedle—,” said the Altruist secretary, shaking her head. “Here are your things, and you must be responsible. Now, in return for your pleasant news about Baker, I’ll tell you something really nice. I have added up our funds, and I find we have quite a lot of money; so I am getting ready a list of ‘wants’, and to-morrow we will have a shopping expedition. We girls shall need large supplies of scarlet flannel and crimson serge to make into clothing for our Christmas presents. You boys are sure to require things for your workshops. We will take the pony-carriage and drive into Exham. As to-morrow will be Saturday, not many Altruists will care to leave the playing-fields; but you will come, won’t you, Max?”

“And there will be Austin and Florry—four of us. You and Austin can get the things for your own work while Florry and I buy yards and yards of flannel and serge and calico.”

“Will there be room for us boys in the trap coming home?” inquired Max meekly. “I’d like to know whether, if the cargo weighs down the pony, you mean to sacrifice us or the flannel?”

“Then I’d better bring provisions for camping out. There’s a fall of the barometer, and all the village weather-prophets tell me we are to have snow; besides, there’s some rough road between here and Exham. Look out for storms to-morrow, Frances! Now, I’ll be off with my booty. Baker sold to a fellow-cad the last frock I begged for Polly; but I’ll dare him to touch this beauty. Keep your eyes open, and they’ll be gladdened by the sight of the Altruist baby!”

Max went away happy. All his father’s poor patients enjoyed his personal attentions, and not a few considered the Doctor’s son as good an adviser as the Doctor himself. Max tried to be discreet, but his boyish habit of telling the unvarnished truth to any village sneak or bully sometimes brought him into awkward predicaments.

Surely only youth and health would look forward with glorious anticipations to a five-mile drive on a bitter winter day, in a little open carriage!

The four adventurous Altruists were certain they[Pg 37] were going to enjoy themselves, and no sooner were they fairly on their way than they began to justify their own predictions. For the sake of extra excitement, they took it in turns to drive; but it was impossible for them to take it in turns to talk, so they all chattered at once. This did not help the driving, which was mixed in character. Nobody could quite tell, as the ribbons changed hands, what might be the next diversion; and, of course, this uncertainty was the best part of the fun. At last the pony settled, under the capable guidance of Florry, into a steady trot; and the Altruists settled, at the same propitious moment, into a steady discussion of their proposed Christmas feast for the Woodend villagers.

This feast had been for some weeks under consideration at the Society’s meetings, and the arrangement of its details was far advanced. The Altruists intended that it should be a grand manifesto of their good-will to all the working-folk.

“We are to have a present for everybody,” declared Austin loudly, “and we boys must do our share. I am making my third stool. No one can say that stools are not useful things in cottages.”

“But they will not furnish a house,” objected Max; “and I want very badly a complete rig-out for a two-roomed shanty. I have a man on my list who was sold up last week by his Jew of a landlord—old Fenn. Poor Johnson was a decent chap, but when they turned him out he just went to the bad.”

“He can’t have gone very far in a week,” remarked Austin, who had not taken kindly the allusion to his handiwork.

“He went to Fenn’s Home Farm, and tried to burn the ricks. Fortunately he didn’t succeed; and when Dad heard he was to be taken up, we went and begged Johnson off. We’re going bail for him, that if they’ll let him alone he’ll keep straight; and Dad has got him some rough work in the gardens. But his wife and child had to go to the workhouse; and now the idea is to start them all afresh in one of Ventnor’s little places. They’ll want only a few things to begin with. What do you say, Frances? Shall we give him one of Austin’s stools for a Christmas-box?”

“I don’t mind making him an extra big stool, which might do for a table,” said Austin graciously.

“Mamma will let me have one of her patchwork-carpets,” said Florry. “She makes them out of odd pieces begged from friends, and they are quite warm and cheerful.”

“Mrs. Temple offered me an old bedstead and bedding only the other day,” cried Frances. “How fortunate for poor Johnson! I’ll ask Mamma for a chest of drawers.”

“And the Altruists as a body can easily produce a ‘harlequin’ set of plates and cups and dishes,” said Florry.

“I have some spare pots and pans in my stores,” added Frances proudly. “I declare, Max, your friend sha’n’t wait till Christmas to set up housekeeping!”

“You are all awfully kind,” said Max gratefully. The boy’s eyes were actually moist, and he hung his[Pg 39] head; but in a moment had recovered sufficiently to shout in vigorous crescendo:

They were not quite there, thanks to the pony’s objections to lead the way. Rough pulled his head free indignantly, and was allowed to steer his own course in peace.

The Altruist quartette presently arrived safely in Exham. Max, who was then the whip, made for a respectable inn, where the travellers left the much-enduring Rough to take a rest, while they attended to business.

“Ladies, do we have the honour of accompanying you?” asked Austin, with a grand bow; “or do we go off on our own hook?”

“As though we would take you two imps into shops with us!” said Frances. “Go and buy your things and we’ll get ours, then we can meet at Thorn’s and have tea. Thorn is our confectioner, and Mamma said we might order what we liked.”

“Good for Mater,” chuckled Austin. “But in the meantime, can you girls really do without us?”

“We’ll try to,” said Frances severely; “and mind you scamps keep out of mischief. Come on, Florry.”

The girls linked arms and marched off, affecting the superior and independent airs so tantalizing to the best of boys. Max and Austin watched their departure with mischievous eyes.

“I believe they’ll buy up all the red stuff in Exham,” said Max. “Observe the lofty tilt of Florry’s head.[Pg 40] Mark the aggressive decision of Frances’s step. They’ll conquer or die!”

“I say, Max,” giggled irreverent Austin, “let’s tag on to them a bit. Our shopping won’t be a scrap of fun. We’ve just to leave an order at the timber-yard, and call in at the ironmonger’s for nails and screws and a few other things. Frances has disappeared into that big draper’s, and there goes Florry after her. Let’s get through our timber business, and then have a lark with the girls. We’ll make the counter-Johnnies sit up.”

“Not she!—come on, Max!” Away went the pair, arm in arm, with the mincing steps they intended as an imitation of their comrades’ sedate town manners.

Frances could bear a good deal, but her soul quailed when her eyes lighted on the figures of the two boys stealing up the shop in the wake of a frock-coated person, of whom they had just inquired where they should discover “the young ladies who were buying up the establishment’s entire stock of red flannel”.

“We have not yet finished our business,” remarked Austin, while he seated himself with easy grace on an offered chair; “but we could not resist peeping in as we passed to see how you girls were getting on.”

“We have not finished either,” said Frances, regarding her brother’s demure face uneasily. “We have bought our crimson serge and our calico, but we still want scarlet flannel and red knitting-wool. Also tapes, buttons, hooks, cottons, and needles.”

“I have bought a bradawl and a pound of French nails,” said Austin gravely. “I am yet in need of a[Pg 41] yard-measure, a few miles of string, some boot-buttons, a shaving-strop, and a packet of tin-tacks.”

“For my part,” said Max, “I require a lawn-mower, a type-writer, a bottle of blacking, and a pork-pie.”

“With these few necessaries,” added Austin, “we hope to complete the persecuted Johnson’s start in housekeeping. And—Timbuctoo! I’d nearly forgotten his wife’s mangle!”

“A stool and a blanket to be thrown in promiscuous,” said Max; “and a few yards of crimson stuff for a table-cover would be received with thanks. Ah! and we have secured a very nice jam-pot for an ink-bottle. Further suggestions gratefully acknowledged.”

“When you boys try to be funny the result is sad,” said Frances, feeling her dignity compromised by the mirth on the cadaverous countenance of the shop-assistant, who had left off serving her in order to appreciate the young gentlemen’s sallies. “Come, Florry,” continued the ruffled damsel, “let’s try Mason’s for the flannel: Miss Carlyon said it was good there.”

The petrified assistant, seeing that the stern eyes of a superior hard-by were fixed on him, glanced appealingly at the boys, but Miss Morland kept sedately on her path to the door.

“Won’t he get a wigging!” laughed unrepentant Austin, following humbly in the rear. “I say, Max, this establishment will lose the Altruist custom. I back Mason’s for scarlet flannel!”

But Max was inclined to think the joke weak, and positively refused to peril the receipts of the draper across the road. Instead, he dragged off Austin to[Pg 42] transact legitimate business; and the ironmonger had the benefit of their wit and wisdom for the next few minutes.

“It was a splendid bargain,” declared Frances, who, as an administrator of charity funds, had taken her first lessons in economy. “Fifty yards of scarlet flannel for fifty shillings! Did you see what a heap more they had of it? The man said it was ‘a manufacturer’s stock’.”

“So do I, when they’re Altruist flannel,” said Frances fervently. “Now we had better go to meet the boys at Thorn’s. Poor boys! they have had no delicious bargains. Perhaps it is a little dull buying nails. I wish I hadn’t been huffy with Austin; boys hate prim, fussy sisters. I’ll tell you what, Florry, we’ll make it up to the poor things. We shall get first to Thorn’s, and we’ll order all the goodies they like best. Max prefers jam-sandwiches, and Austin likes méringues; and they’re both fearfully fond of very plummy cake. Thorn’s cake is capital.”

The girls walked on rapidly, and made, as they went, plans for the sumptuous entertainment of the boys.

“We’ll heap coals of fire on their heads,” said Florry. “They will be torn by an anguished repentance. Here we are. Look at those lovely chocolates in the window!”

“I like chocolate-almonds the best,” said Florry pensively; “they are superb.”

“The boys like toffy and hardbake and Turkish-delight. Do you know, Florry, I read in a tiresome book that the real Turkish-delight isn’t a bit like the English one! Wasn’t it horrid of the author to say so? I’ve never really enjoyed it since.”

“It isn’t,” said Frances contemptuously; “but you can get the real thing at Thorn’s. Let’s go in. I don’t see the boys anywhere, so we shall have time to order a beautiful tea for them—jam-sandwiches, and méringues, and plummy cake, and shortbread, and toffy, and hardbake, and Turkish-delight. Oh! and Bath-buns and gingerbread. I should like a little bread-and-butter. The boys think it is not worth while to have any bread-and-butter when they are out for a lark.”

Frances pushed open the glass door and entered. “Florry,” she whispered, “do make haste into the side-room and secure the nicest table. Stay! I’ll come too; and if we lay a few parcels down nobody will steal our chairs. We must have the table next the window, it’s such fun watching the carriages and people in the street. We can come back to do our ordering.”

The most popular table in Thorn’s private tea-room was already occupied. On two of the four chairs in front of it sat Max and Austin, bolt upright, their[Pg 44] countenances wearing an expression of almost seraphic calm. The table was covered with good things. The girls looked, and saw jam-sandwiches, méringues, plum-cake, shortbread, Bath-buns, gingerbread, and a little—a very little—bread-and-butter. Glass sweetmeat dishes contained chocolate-creams, chocolate-almonds, toffy, hardbake, and Turkish-delight. Max mounted guard over a laden tea-tray.

No sooner did they behold the astonished faces of their comrades than the boys rose, and with their finest company manners offered the best places to the girls.

“Ladies,” said Austin, “we hurried here that we might have time to order a most beautiful tea for you. We have done our utmost. You see before you all the goodies you like best; and we have not even forgotten that Frances has a weakness for bread-and-butter.”

The November day had drawn on to dusk before Frances could persuade herself and the others that it was time to start for home. The boys were despatched to fetch the pony-carriage, and requested to call on their way back for the biggest parcels, which would be awaiting them at the drapers’ shops. Frances and Florry summoned a smiling waitress, and asked her to fill some bags with the numerous goodies left from the feast.

“For the boys are sure to be hungry again before we[Pg 45] reach home,” said Frances. “Snow has been falling for the last hour; and we shall have to drive cautiously along the country lanes, they are so dark. And poor Rough is not properly shod for the snow yet.”

The girls, with their bags and parcels, were standing ready at the door of the confectioners, and looking out with amused and interested faces as the boys drove up.

“I say,” cried Max, “it’s a good thing we brought lots of rugs and wraps—we’re in for a storm.”

“Really a storm, Max?” inquired Frances, feeling that she ought to provide prudence for the party. “Do you think we shall get home all right with just Rough? Oughtn’t we to leave him here and hire a proper horse and carriage from the hotel?”

“I’m going to drive Rough,” said Austin promptly, “come with me who will.”

“I will,” cried Florry, whose eyes sparkled at the prospect of the mildest adventure.

“We’ll all go together,” decided Frances, satisfied with her virtuous suggestion. “Max had better drive, though; he knows the roads so well.”

The four packed themselves and their parcels tightly into the trap. Rough was already tossing his head in disgust with the rapidly-falling snow-flakes, which were driven by a bitter north wind into his eyes and ears, half-blinding him, and tickling him unpleasantly. The boys had proposed that the girls should take the front seat, because they would then have the wind[Pg 46] behind them; but Frances insisted on giving her place to Austin, who was subject, when he caught cold, to a bad kind of sore throat.

The snow, which in the streets of Exham partially melted on the ground, already lay thickly on the country roads, where it froze as it fell. The pony-carriage had hardly turned into the narrow lanes leading in the direction of Woodend before the youngsters found that the storm, prophesied by Max, was on them. The snow was hurled at their heads by a cutting blast, which flung the heavy white flakes into deep drifts at the sides of the roads most exposed to it. The pace had to be very slow and the driving very careful; but Max’s attention was lured from his duty as charioteer when the merry talk of his companions invited him to join their discussions. The quartette were still warm and cosy among their rugs, and they were enjoying the faint trace of danger which gave zest to their adventurous journey.

Rough was not enjoying himself at all. The boys had strapped a small blanket over him, but this was not much of a protection from a winter storm. At length he came to a full stop at the foot of a hill, which he greatly objected to tackle with a carriage-load behind him. The young people took the hint, and sprang out. They were in a sheltered road, with trees overhead; but half-way up the hill some branches, brittle with frost, were snapped by the gale and blown down into the lane. One of the boughs struck Frances, another fell on Rough. Neither girl nor pony was hurt, but both might have been.

“Hallo!” called out Max, “that was no joke! I[Pg 47] have known serious accidents from falling branches. We had better avoid these lanes bordered by great trees, and choose the more open roads. You know there are two ways to Woodend. The one by Rowdon Common is a little further round, but it will be safer both for Rough and for us.”

“Then we’ll take it,” said Frances; “for though you might get on all right without me if another bough came in my direction, I don’t know how you would manage without Rough.”

They climbed the rest of the hill, and then again settled themselves in the trap. A little further on, Max took the turning whence he could guide Rough home by the longer route. And now troubles began to descend on our Altruists. First, Rough turned sulky, and tried to loiter, refusing to respond heartily even when the whole quartette shouted encouragement; because he knew very well the quickest route to Woodend. Next, the carriage-candles began to flicker in a manner promising speedy extinction.

“Goodness!” murmured Austin, when this second fact was obvious to the party. “The stable-boy told me the candles were very short, and wanted to put in new ones; but I was in such a hurry, I said they would just do.”

“Suppose we put out one of the lights?” suggested sensible Florry. “If we burn the two separately, they’ll last longer.”

Even this ingenious resource did not greatly prolong the time during which the pony and Max were able to see their way. When the second candle failed[Pg 48] him, the driver pulled up, and peered forward into the darkness.

“If you could see me, my friends,” he remarked ruefully, “you would notice that I am looking serious.”

“Then perhaps it’s just as well that the light of your countenance has gone out with the candles, Max,” said Florry. “If you could see us, you would know that we are not particularly cheerful.”

“Oh, come!” cried Austin, “let’s keep up our spirits somehow. What are you going to do, Max?”

“Lead Rough!” laughed the other boy. “I ought to know ‘every foot of the ground’, as people say; but it’s only when folks are out in a blinding snowstorm on a pitch-dark evening that they discover the shakiness of their geography. However, I know we must soon turn to the right, and then keep on straight up another hill to Rowdon Common. Our road borders the Common for half a mile, and then branches off downhill again. Once we are clear of the Common, we shall be all right.”

They were not to reach that condition very easily. Max led Rough onward, and found the necessary turning to the right; and along the uphill road the youngsters all walked, to lighten the pony’s burden, until Frances took alarm on Austin’s account. After much persuasion she induced the boy to get back into the trap, and Florry to go with him to spare his pride. She and Max trudged on side by side. Presently both observed that Rough showed signs of distress. Though close to the little animal they could hardly see him, but they could hear his laboured breathing.

“Hallo! he is going rather lame,” said Max. “Surely[Pg 49] he can’t have had a stone in his shoe all this time? We’ll stop and find out.... Why! this is worse than a stone—he has lost a shoe!”

There was nothing to be done now, except to let the pony go at his own pace, and keep him to the side of the road where the snow lay thinnest. At a very leisurely rate the party journeyed up the remainder of the hill, Rough stumbling badly every now and then.

“Here we are, at last!” sighed Max, as the road again became level, and the increased severity of the storm, reaching them across the high, open country, told the travellers that they were on the edge of Rowdon Common. “We have a rough stone wall on one side of us now, and a pretty wide ditch on the other; so we must jog along carefully.”

Max and Frances both decided to go on walking; and Florry, after whispering persuasions to Austin, joined them, in order to relieve Rough a little more.

Poor Austin’s temper suffered from his indignation at this attempt on the girls’ part to “coddle” him. The liveliest recollections of his latest bad throat never sufficed to keep him out of danger if he possibly could get into it. Max and his companions just then halted for a moment under lee of the wall, intending to give Rough a breathing-time; and Austin, in a fit of impatience, seized the reins as they hung loose, and tugged them heedlessly.

The culprit’s ill-temper vanished as he and the trap and the pony swerved all together and turned clean over into the ditch, now half-covered by a deep drift. Frances and the others, in the better light of the open ground, saw the rapid movement of the little carriage,[Pg 50] and for an instant held their breath; then peals of laughter from Austin assured them that he was safe, and the three rushed to the rescue.

“I’m all right, Sis; don’t worry! Damp? Oh, well, not particularly. I’m going to help Max to get Rough on his legs. This is rough on Rough, isn’t it? Ho, ho!”

But Frances, who knew that her brother was something more than “damp”, could hardly speak. Her sufferings were far greater than the patient’s when Austin had quinsy; and she blamed herself bitterly for not insisting on the obviously prudent course she had suggested in Exham. A strong carriage and sturdy horse would long ago have conveyed the quartette safely to Woodend; and now here they were, up on the Common, exposed to the force of the storm, and with no prospect of speedy escape. Austin would be certain to take cold if his damp clothes were not soon dried. The poor pony, after his fall and fright, would surely be quite disabled.

Indeed, Rough, when again on his feet, stood shivering and snorting, and positively refused to move further.

“I’m afraid he’s used up,” said Max anxiously; “and I think—really I do—that we shall be in the same plight if we try to struggle against the storm. The wind is a perfect hurricane up here, and freezingly cold. Girls, I believe we had better spread our macintoshes on the snow, roll up in our rugs, and bivouac in the shelter of the wall. It is so low it will not protect us unless we squat on the ground.”

The youngsters were all in agreement, and at once set to work to carry out Max’s plan. The macintoshes were spread, the carriage-cushions fetched to provide seats, the parcels were ranged to act as “cover” on the exposed side, rugs and wraps were dealt out to everybody, and the bags of “goodies” were thankfully seized. While Austin and the girls finished the camp, Max laid the thick skin carriage-mat along Rough’s back, fastened it round him with his own blanket, and led the pony close up to the wall.

The buns and cakes were distributed by Frances, who had no heart to eat, but knew that moaning over Austin would not help him. He was wedged in tightly between the girls, and submitted like a lamb to be enveloped in wraps. Max took the outside place, and fed Rough with biscuits.

In spite of all precautions, the little group grew colder and damper; in spite of the most energetic attempts at cheerfulness, their spirits sank lower. The storm showed no signs of abating. While the youngsters were slowly being forced to recognize that their position was not only uncomfortable but perilous, a strong though flickering light, as of a powerful lantern swayed by the wind, was seen approaching them along the road from the direction of Woodend. The four watched it with keen eagerness. It came nearer—came close. It was a lantern, indeed, fixed to the front of a great hooded waggon drawn by two powerful horses.

The pony-carriage still lay half in, half out of the ditch. Max sprang to his feet and ran forward to warn the waggoner, who, having caught sight of the[Pg 52] obstructions in his path, was already drawing up by the wall. The man was known to Max as a servant employed by a big farmer of the neighbourhood, and the boy lost no time in shouting to the amazed driver a cheery greeting and a peremptory demand for help out of his own dilemma. Not many words were needed. Job Benson recognized Max, and was quite willing to aid him and his companions.

“Hurry, Austin! Up with you, girls! Here’s relief for the garrison at last! This waggoner is going to Rowdon Smithy before turning across country to his master’s farm; and he says he will take us as far as the smithy, where we shall get safe shelter until we’ve a chance to make our way home. We’ll tether Rough to the waggon, and the sight of his fellow-gees will encourage him to follow them. We must leave the trap in the ditch till to-morrow. Now let’s make haste, or the horses won’t stand.”

Rugs and shawls and bundles were grasped by the willing hands of the rescued travellers. Into the great waggon and its welcome shelter climbed the girls and boys as best they could, while the good-natured driver offered everybody a helping hand and heartily bade the whole troop welcome.

“I know the old man at the smithy,” said Max to his comrades, “and I’m sure he’ll give us a rest and a warm. Dad’s attending him just now; nothing much wrong but old age, you know. His name is William East, and he has a grandson, Jim, who is no end of a nice chap.”

The waggon followed a road across the Common for[Pg 53] a time, and then, turning down a lane to lower ground, touched one of the country roads to Exham. Standing level with the road, a little back among a group of trees, were the cottage and outbuildings of Rowdon Smithy.

Though the four youngsters fancied that they had been wandering for hours in the cold and darkness, the time of their relief was early in the evening. Work was not yet over for somebody at the smithy. The forge was set up in a large building, which looked a sort of superior shed, open on the side next to the road, and with a paved court, worn by the tread of many horses, in front of it. Gazing across the unwalled court to the open shed, Frances saw in the brilliant light of the smithy fire a young man busily engaged with hammer and anvil; his tall, slight figure, in rough working dress, bent and raised with almost mechanical precision as his supple right arm swung its ponderous tool. When the lumbering waggon halted before the court, the worker paused in his labour, throwing back his head and screening his eyes with his free left hand, to gain a better view of the arrival. The waggoner called out a hasty summons, and the young smith left his forge and quickly crossed the yard.

The lad’s voice was clear and soft, and his speech,[Pg 54] though rustic in expression, conveyed no trace of dialect; while his face, now plainly visible in the lantern’s glow, appeared a singularly pleasant one. Its attraction increased when Max’s lively countenance was thrust forward by its owner, and when Max shouted a gay greeting.

“Hallo, Jim!—Jim East! Look out for a sensation! Here’s a snowed-up party of four humans and one animal come to beg help and shelter!”

Max had jumped down and was pouring out explanations in a moment. The young smith listened and looked, and shyly doffed his cap, standing bare-headed in the driving snow while his eyes rested in astonishment on the figures of the two girls.

“The little ladies!” murmured Jim; “they’ve never been with you, Master Brenton?”

“Haven’t they, though! They’ve found out what a snowstorm on Rowdon Common means, I can tell you. But I’m afraid they are very cold and tired,” added Max seriously. “I was beginning to think it was all up with us when I first caught sight of Job. Well, Jim, will you help us?”

Though evidently bashful, Jim East had nothing clownish about him. His manner showed a simple courtesy which pleased and reassured the girl-travellers, as he stepped close to the waggon and held up his strong, lithe arms.

“Come, Missies, let me lift you down, and show you the way to grandfather’s cottage. ’Tis but a step; and our old Elizabeth, if she’s there, shall wait on you. You’ll be sorely stiff with the terrible cold.”

The girls willingly accepted the young smith’s offered aid, and were placed with gentle care at Max’s side.

“Oh, I can get down all right,” said Austin, not too civilly. Austin did not appear to advantage when brought by circumstances into contact with the class he chose to term “cads”. “Here, you chap, just catch this baggage, will you? We’ve no end of traps. I’ll throw them down.”

Frances blushed with sisterly mortification—why would Austin be so rude and snobbish to this worthy young artisan? Surely Jim East was a type of those whose humble toil was the crown of honest manhood. Certainly Austin was not a model member of the Woodend Society of Altruists. But glancing apprehensively at young East, lest her brother’s imperious commands should make him surly and indignant, Frances saw that the lad’s countenance revealed nothing but frank good-nature. He gave Austin a smiling reply, and would have obeyed him without question, had not Max laid a hand on his arm.

“Not a bit, Jim! I’ll see to the baggage. Do you get the girls under cover as quickly as you can, there’s a good fellow.”

A few paces along the road a low hedge began. This bordered a long, narrow, old-fashioned garden, cut vertically in precise halves by a flagged pathway[Pg 56] reached through a small green gate. Jim opened the gate for the girls, and led them towards a cottage lying back from the road at the end of the garden.

Frances, with Florry immediately behind her, stepped gladly into the light and shelter of a long passage with a door at either end. Another door, in the wall on their right, was pushed open by the young smith, whose dark eyes glowed with pleasure as he spoke softly to someone within:

“Grandfather, here’s little ladies for you—two little ladies! They’ve been like to have lost themselves in the storm, so Master Brenton’s been telling me. They’ll be best to come in here—eh, grandfather? And maybe they’ll warm themselves with you, till I fetch Elizabeth to wait on them.”

Jim stood on one side, his happy excitement controlled by an instinctive wish to be quiet and unobtrusive in the company of young gentlefolk. The two girls, with ready thanks on their lips, passed by their conductor into a fair-sized room furnished with much homely comfort, and saw in an arm-chair by the fire an old man, whose fine head, with its massive forehead, keen eyes, and firm mouth, denoted strength of will and individual character. William East’s silvery locks were quick to command the respect of the two girls, who stepped slowly towards their aged host.

“Elizabeth has gone home, grandson,” said East, speaking in a quavering voice which still retained a note of decision and authority, as towards one who had been taught prompt obedience. “So you will wait on the little ladies yourself. Chairs to the fire[Pg 57] for them, Jim,—and off with their boots. Then you’ll make some hot, strong coffee, and see you’re quick with it. These are not the kind as needs to lose themselves in snowstorms.” East turned his face to the girls, and it softened wonderfully, while he addressed them in very different tones: “Come near to the fire, Missies, and tell me all about it. Why, you both look fairly spent. There, there, dearies—the recklessness one sees in young folk! But sit you down, and be sure you’re kindly welcome.”

“You’re very good,” said Frances gratefully. “I don’t know why you should be troubled with all of us boys and girls. There are four of us, Mr. East,—and a pony. We’ve left the carriage somewhere in the snow. I’m afraid we’re a great bother, but you must please try not to let us worry you;—Max Brenton has been telling us that you aren’t very well just now, and I’m so sorry.”

Frances’s sympathy was sure of appreciation—it was so earnest and sincere, and expressed with the simplest good-will. Old East greeted it with many nods and smiles, and beckoned Frances to the chair nearest to himself. Indeed, he was amazingly pleased to see this bright young lady by his side.

Jim waited deftly on both the girls, taking off their wet boots and coats, and trying to rub some feeling back into their half-frozen feet. Next he went away with the boots into the kitchen, and set about making coffee in his best style.

“I must tell you our names,” said Frances presently,[Pg 58] when the boys had joined the group in the cottage parlour. “Of course you know the Doctor’s son—everybody knows Doctor Max.”

“Ay, he’s his father’s son truly—I can’t say better for him than that.”

“And the boy beside him is my brother Austin. Then this is Miss Florry Fane, the best of girls; and I am Frances Morland.”

The old man leaned forward suddenly, and seemed to scan the speaker’s face with a curious intentness.

“Morland, did you say, my dear? Ah! once I knew someone with that name. Does your father live here-abouts?”

“My father is dead. Austin and I live with our mother in Woodend; but we have not been here long—only since the spring.”

Frances talked on easily and quietly, fearing to disturb East, who, with his face turned from her, gazed into the fire. One hand he held across his eyes; the other, which rested on his knee, trembled a little. For a time he sat thus, hardly speaking, yet evidently listening with interest and pleasure to all the young girl cared to tell him. When she did hear his voice, it addressed her in quavering gentleness:

“And you’ve come to see me, Missy,—you, so blithe and bonnie! The Lord Himself sent you this night to gladden my old eyes. Ah! but I’m thankful—I’m thankful! Will you remember, little Missy, when I’m gone hence, as your coming brought a blessing with it to Rowdon Cottage?”

Frances, moved by this appeal, and somewhat shy—for[Pg 59] the aged face near her was quivering, and the aged voice faltered and broke—put her small hand trustfully on East’s wasted fingers.

“I am glad we came; and you are very kind. Mayn’t I come and see you sometimes, with Max?”

“Rarely welcome would you be, little Missy,” said the old man, brightening. “And there’s something I’d say. If ever my Jim needs kindness, as like enough he may, will you try to be good to him?”

“Oh yes, I will,” said Frances soberly, knowing that East’s thoughts were anticipating his nearing end and his grandson’s consequent loneliness.

“Jim’s one to think much of kindness from little ladies,” continued the grandfather wistfully. “I fancy, maybe, as I’ve not done well by him. ’Twas my wish to bring him up strong and sturdy and independent; for, as a wean even, the boy was gentle and soft, and fond of daintiness. That’s why I made him a smith by trade. Thought I, ‘He’ll learn hardness as he stands by the forge and bends the iron to his will’. But no, Jim’s craft will never make a man of him.”

“That’s a pity,” said the consoling voice of Max, who had drawn near. “A fellow ought to match his trade. My trade’s doctoring,—at least it’s going to be; so I don’t miss a chance of practice. It’s not often I get a really good thing, though. Still, all my chums have promised that if they break an arm they’ll let me set it.”

Max, with his cheery laugh, could dispel most shadows, but East’s thoughtful gravity did not disappear. Frances was drawn across the room by the fragments she caught of a conversation between her[Pg 60] brother and the young blacksmith, and East’s eyes followed her and watched all her movements.

Jim was begging Austin to come to the kitchen and be swathed in blankets while his clothes were drying. Not that the working lad would have thought much of being in a yet damper condition than was his boy-guest, but he had heard Frances confide to his grandfather her fears for her brother.

“Catch me!” retorted Austin, more bored than angry; “I’m not such a soft. Clear off, I say, Jim East. I tell you, I won’t be coddled.”

“Better take a bit of care than lie abed,” argued Jim sensibly. “And Missy’s feared for you, sir.”

“Girls always fuss,” muttered the boy, growing cross. He pushed aside, with unmannerly roughness, young East’s detaining hand, and was making for the fireside when Frances intercepted him.

“Oh, Austin, how can you be so rude?” whispered the girl reproachfully. “Do go with this good-natured lad,” she pleaded. “You know how dreadful it is when you get a bad throat.”

“As though I’d loaf about his dirty old kitchen and be rolled up in smithy blankets!” said Austin, in extreme disgust.

He spoke low, but Frances knew that Jim must hear, and she coloured deeply in her distress. Her brother’s over-fastidiousness on some points always made her impatient, but now she felt that he was both foolish and ungrateful in repelling kindly advances. She allowed Austin to pass, and throw himself on the rug before the fire at Florry’s feet; then[Pg 61] she turned to Jim, again apprehensive that his feelings might have been hurt by his guest’s unmannerly words and ungracious bearing.

Jim’s eyes were on Austin; Jim’s lips smiled as, without a touch of jealousy, he recognized in the handsome, attractive boy the evidence of the better training and opportunities denied to himself.

“Boys are always so tiresome, aren’t they?” said Frances, seeing with relief that Jim’s face betrayed no sense of injury. “My brother won’t be taken care of, you see; though I’m sure if he does have a sore throat, he won’t like it.”

“Oh, I hope he won’t be ill, Missy,” said Jim. “He looks so—so game, and happy-like. I’d think it wasn’t easy to coddle him.”

“It isn’t,” said Frances soberly; “and I don’t want him to be a molly—only I wouldn’t like him to be ill again. I’m ever so much obliged to you for offering to help him.”

“You’ve no call to thank me, Missy. It wouldn’t have been much to do. The pony’s safe in the shed,” added the young smith shyly; “I’ll give him a rub down and a feed by and by.”

“You are good,” said Frances. “Oh, do you think there’s any chance of getting home to-night? All our friends will be so anxious if we don’t return till morning, though it’s very kind of your grandfather to say we may camp here.”

“Indeed and you mustn’t worry, Missy,” said Jim. “Sometimes there’s folks passes here much later than this; and if you’d not mind mounting into a waggon again—”

“We wouldn’t mind a bit. I can’t think what Mamma will do if she hears nothing about us till morning.”

Jim’s young face looked very serious, but he offered no further comfort; and Frances, feeling that her low spirits might become infectious, tried to divert her mind by asking leave to look at a book-case against the wall near at hand. While she looked, and wondered a little at the class of books she found on the shelves, Jim fetched her a cup of hot coffee and placed it on a small table by her side. Frances was used to the companionship and natural attentions of well-bred lads, but it struck her that none of her boy-friends could have shown her more courteous respect than she was now receiving from this pleasant young rustic.

“Jim,” said the voice of the old grandfather, “fetch your fiddle, lad. Maybe the young folks might like to hear a tune.”

Austin grimaced expressively behind his hands, but only Max saw, and Max joined the girls in polite invitations to blushing Jim. The fiddle was brought from another room, and its owner, seating himself modestly in a dark corner, begged to know what tune the little ladies would like best. Florry, guessing that the performer’s repertory might be limited, suggested “Home, Sweet Home”.

Then Jim surprised his audience, for though his rendering was entirely simple, it showed an ear for rhythm, a taste for expression, and an unerring correctness of pitch.

“He does play in tune,” murmured Austin the critic, while the other children thanked the fiddler heartily.

Jim coloured with gratification to find himself approved, and willingly obliged his guests with all their favourite popular airs. By the time he had satisfied everybody the evening had worn far on; and Jim, yielding his fiddle into the hands of Austin, who longed to finger the instrument of his fellow-musician, went to hold a low-voiced consultation with his grandfather.

The result of this talk was the summoning of Frances to consider a plan of action, as proposed by the Easts.

“My grandson fears there’s no chance now of a way home for you to-night, Missy. The snow is too deep for any wise man to take a beast into without necessity. I’m thinking ’twere best if you settled yourselves down quiet-like, took a bit of supper, and made the best of what I can give you. There’ll be a tidy room upstairs for the missies, and the young masters will sleep soundly on yonder big couch. ’Tis all I can do.”

“Indeed, you are very kind,” said Frances. “Of course we shall do splendidly. It’s only because of our friends that we mind. My mother is all alone—except for servants,—and she will be so frightened. Then there are Florry’s parents, and the Doctor.”

“You’re right to think of them, Missy,” said the old man, whose eyes seemed to shine with a sort of solemn joy when they rested on Frances. “And ’twould never do to let them go in fear all night. They’d be out scouring the country, like as not. There’s Jim will set out for Woodend just as soon as he can get ready; and he’ll let your friends know you’re safe and well, and waiting here till sent for.”

“Jim cross the Common to-night!” cried Max,[Pg 64] coming forward as spokesman for the visitors. “Oh, I say, Mr. East! How could he?”

“I could go myself rather,” went on Max seriously. “It isn’t fair that Jim should suffer for my foolery. I ought to have backed up Frances when she wanted to hire a trap in Exham.”

“That’s over and done with, master,” said East, “and it’s no use to spend your time blaming yourself for what was just a bit of a frolic. Jim will go, he’s tall and strong and hardy.”

Frances looked at the grandson’s slight figure and sensitive face. Jim was healthily spare and wiry, but hardly robust. And he must be all in all to his grandfather—the prop of the little home. Her sense of justice made her beg hard that the venturesome journey to Woodend might not be made; but both the Easts, though they tried to reassure their anxious young guests, had evidently made up their minds.

“Elizabeth—our old housekeeper—lives quite close at hand,” said Jim to the girls. “I shall pass her cottage, and I’ll bid her come to you, Missies, and see to your comfort as well as she can.”

The girls insisted that they needed no waiting-woman, but Jim smiled in respectful disagreement while he wished them good-night. The room door closed softly behind him, and the grandfather, pitying the disturbed young faces, told their owners not to fret, for Jim would surely come safely back from Woodend, though not till long after they were a-bed and asleep.

The snowstorm which had brought with it to our youngsters so great an adventure was the talk of the countryside for many a week. The roads about Exham were impassable for some days, except to sturdy rustics or stout farm-horses. Dr. Brenton came to the smithy next day in a great waggon (just like Job Benson’s rescuing ark), which he had borrowed from a Woodend farmer; and with hearty thanks to the Easts, and warm acknowledgments of Jim’s pluck and consideration, carried off the wanderers to their homes.

“We should like to come again, if we may,” said Frances, lingering by the old grandfather for a second farewell.

“Ay,” he returned, pressing the girl’s kind little hand. “I’m glad I’ve seen you, Missy. Come again.”

“Please!” added Jim from the background. “We’ll be proud to have you, Missy. Come again.”

The Society of the Altruists was very busy indeed. The Christmas entertainment to which allusion has been made was a project of Frances Morland’s, who, among her other qualifications for the public service, possessed the gift of diplomacy. She was sincerely anxious to help others, and to enlist her friends in the generous enterprise; but she knew that the boys and girls of Woodend were no different from[Pg 66] their fellows, and therefore liable to sink gradually into a condition of lukewarmness about any scheme which did not make a constant appeal to their active interest. The lack of some fillip to stir up the young people’s energies had already brought about the destruction of numerous undertakings in Woodend which had made a gallant start, and Frances was determined to save her Society from such an untimely fate.

Everybody was pleased with the prospect of giving an entertainment in which everybody might play some part. The guests were to be the poor of Woodend, and the festivity was to take place two days before Christmas. Frances suggested this date as best suited to the guests, who would doubtless like to parade some, at least, of the Altruist presents at their own home-gatherings of Christmas-day. Christmas-eve was not a possible feast-day, because the Carlyons liked their pupils to join in the carol-singing after the evening service, and the service itself was one which the young people seldom cared to miss. Then there was so much to be done at home in the way of decorations and private plans.

Therefore, many dwellers in the cottages of Woodend were looking forward expectantly to the twenty-third of December. Their excitement, however, was as nothing in comparison with that of the Altruists. Frances had made skilful division of her forces. Some were to act in a fairy play, written for the occasion by Florry Fane, who intended one day to astonish the world of literature; some were painting scenery, preparing “properties”, or making dresses for use in the play; some were practising solos, duets, and part-songs[Pg 67] for the concert which was to precede the play in the evening’s programme. Then there were those whose souls inclined not to literature, drama, or music: to them fell the task of arranging the commissariat department, and the means of distributing gifts so as to please everyone.

It was Saturday evening, in the second week of December. Up the straggling village road came, whistling cheerily, Max Brenton,—the “man of affairs”, as Florry had dubbed him. Max’s well-worn coat was buttoned closely, and his crimson comforter had been tied, with utter disregard for appearances, over his cap, so as to shield his ears. A bitter east wind blew about him, and as he went he swung his arms vigorously to aid his progress, and stamped his feet to resist the clinging snow.

“Hope Dad has got home,” thought the boy fervently. “Old Carrots isn’t too lively, and this is a regular mucky night. Ugh, what slush! Freezing hard, too, now. I said that sudden thaw wouldn’t hold. Well, anything’s better than slush—for us. I’m afraid the ninety-year-olds and the babies will suffer.”

The Doctor’s son trudged soberly on. He was fresh from the playing-fields, tired, cold, and hungry for the tea which ought to be waiting him. As he trudged, he hoped many things. That Janet had not forgotten to order Dad’s steak. That the dining-room lamp would not have gone out for the third time that week. That the fire would not have gone out to keep the lamp company. Janet was eccentric in her dealings with lamps and fires, and had a sort of general[Pg 68] idea that Saturday was sacred to the service of the kitchen, and not to be wasted over trifling matters belonging to “the family’s” part of the dwelling. The Doctor and Max had been for a dozen years “the family” to whom Janet had consecrated her faithful labours. She had been already old when the Doctor had found her seated in dry-eyed despair beside the bed of her dead husband, and had forthwith bidden her to his home, whence the sole servant had departed to face the wedded life just over for Janet.

Max had always taken Janet for granted, and had ceased to wonder why she never mended the holes in his stockings all at once. Janet preferred doing repairs in instalments.

“For there may be a toe out here and there, and there may not, Master Max,” she would observe; “and small odds is it about maybe a toe. But it’s heels I was at last mending-night, and it’s heels you’ll find darned solid.”

Much anxious study of the mystery which doth hedge a needle made Max at last independent of Janet’s darning. Not to vex the poor old lady, he quietly supplemented her labours with personal industry; and when Janet did heels he did toes. Buttons he regarded as a trifle, and even a patch—if no longer to be avoided by care and ingenuity—was not beyond his utmost skill.

Max had graver anxieties than darning. There were, for instance, the money-box and the account-books.

The Doctor’s income was not to be accurately anticipated, but its highest possible total never cost Max[Pg 69] much labour in the way of sending in bills. There were so many “gratis” patients. Some were too poor to pay save in thanks; some were old friends, whom the Doctor could not endure to serve except for love alone. When those patients who could pay remembered to do so, the Doctor cashed their cheques and put the change into the money-box—leaving out only a fixed sum, which went to a fund called by Max “Examinations”, and intended to provide for his medical studies by and by. It was a great grief to the Doctor, and therefore to Max, when inroads had to be made into this fund in order to pay the tradesmen’s weekly books. Dread of such a necessity made the darkest hour of Saturday that which Max gave to the family exchequer. His face always wore a portentous solemnity when he raised the lid of the money-box.

The Doctor’s home was an odd little crib standing far back from the road at the very top of a long garden. Alongside of the house was a one-stalled stable and coach-house combined, with a paved square before it and a side-door opening into a lane. Carrots, the Doctor’s ancient steed, was of the nondescript red colour which had suggested to Max his name, and consequently might be seen afar off; a fact that added greatly to his popularity with poor patients anxiously on the look-out for the Doctor. For years the Doctor had trudged afoot on his messages of healing; but a small legacy from a wealthy cousin had sufficed for the building of the stables and for the purchase of Carrots and the trap. The Doctor had friends in Woodend who gladly would have made him the owner[Pg 70] of a thoroughbred, a brougham, and a palatial coach-house; but there were limits beyond which a poor man’s pride permitted not the dearest friends to go.

As Max neared his home he put his best foot forward—stepped more sturdily, whistled more cheerily. The lights he watched for had just come into view, when he caught the sound of a child’s sobbing somewhere in the darkness beyond.

“Hallo! who’s there?—Hold hard, don’t run away! Why, Polly, it isn’t you?”

“Gracious! Fancy your mother letting a mite like you be out this weather! What are you doing, Polly?”

“You brave little thing!” cried Max; and, stooping, he lifted the baby-girl into his arms. “‘Dokker’s’ out, Polly,—at least, I’m afraid he is.” Max had missed the light from the Doctor’s sanctum. “But come on, and we’ll see.”

Max held Polly close, and ran, wondering meanwhile what tragedy had taken place in Lumber’s Yard. The yard was the poorest part of Woodend—a cluster of wretched cottages, the property, like most of the village, of Sir Arthur Fenn of Fencourt, the absentee lord of the manor.

This query drew forth a rigmarole in baby-English,[Pg 71] whence, by careful reasoning and shrewd deduction, Max gathered that Polly’s mother had rushed to the soothing of her youngest son, aged six months, had fallen across the wooden cradle and dropped against the grate. Whether or not the hurts were serious, of course the boy could not guess; but he knew the necessity for the speedy dressing of burns, and hurried on at his best pace.

To save time, Max avoided the front door, and darted round to the back—a region where Janet reigned supreme. The kitchen door opened right into the yard, and at the door stood Janet, scolding Tim the stable-boy, who ought to have been out with the Doctor. Tim played truant occasionally—just by way of remembering that he was a boy. At the workhouse, where he had been brought up, he never had attempted to be anything but elderly.

“Ah, Master Max,” cried Janet, “here you are, sir!—and here’s this young vagabond come back from his spree, which I’d make him pay dear for, if I’d my way—but there, the master—”

“Never mind Tim just now, there’s a good soul. Is Dad back? Ah! I thought he wasn’t. Well, Janet, just take care of Polly for a bit, will you? I’ll have to snatch up a few things and go myself. I’m afraid Dad has been kept somewhere, or perhaps Carrots can’t get along. Goodness knows!”

Max ran through the house to the surgery, shouting explanations while he went, while Janet packed Tim off in disgrace to the stables, and proceeded to bestow on Polly a share of her own tea. Presently Max came flying back with a small bag in one hand.

“Keep Polly here for an hour, Janet,” the boy called out. “I’ll be back by then, and Tim can carry her home.”

Down in Lumber’s Yard reigned a degree of excitement which seemed keenly enjoyed by the sharers in it. The news that Bell Baker had been burned to death was the first rumour, but this gradually modified itself into something approaching fact. Mrs. Baker was a decent woman, whom a bad husband kept in a condition of miserable poverty. It was on behalf of her little Polly that Max, some weeks earlier, had begged from Frances a “three-year-old frock”.

The entry to Lumber’s Yard was by a narrow foot-path, and this Max found blocked up by a gesticulating group of women. The men were congregated in the yard itself—a three-sided court with tumble-down cottages round it.

“Out of the way, good folks,” cried Max authoritatively, and the women parted to let him through, then closed their ranks and followed in a body to the Bakers’ door. This Max unceremoniously pushed open,—and then as coolly shut and locked in the face of the would-be busybodies. He had seen that the one respectable neighbour Mrs. Baker possessed was already by the poor woman’s side, and that thus he was secure of necessary aid.

The boy’s manner changed when he was fairly in possession of the place. He went across to the truckle-bed on which the sufferer lay, and, bending over her,[Pg 73] asked softly if he could do anything for her relief. The pity of the tender-hearted was in his eyes, the skill of the expert in his hands, while he gently cut away burned clothing and applied proper dressing to the cruel hurts. Max had been thoroughly trained by his father in the application of first aid to cases of accident, and had found plenty of opportunities to make his knowledge of practical use.

No more urgent need than that of Mrs. Baker had yet presented itself to his personal care, and after a moment’s thought he determined to take a further responsibility on his boyish shoulders.

“Who’s to keep him out, Master Max? Baker’s a bad sort when he’s the worse o’ liquor.”

“Can’t you lock the door and stand a siege?” demanded the boy, his eyes sparkling in prospect of such a diversion. “But no,” he added, professional prudence conquering pugnacious instincts, “that would worry and frighten Mrs. Baker.” Max looked down thoughtfully on his poor patient, who lay moaning in semi-unconsciousness. “I’ll do what I can,” he finished, “and you will help me, won’t you, Mrs. Lane?”

“Then stay here till my father comes. He’ll tackle Joe Baker, if I don’t succeed.”

Max paused only to speak a few words of sympathy to Mrs. Baker, and then packed his traps and started off.

At the further end of Lumber’s Yard stood a fair-sized inn, the “Jolly Dog”, much frequented by the lowest class of the male population. It was rented by a man named Daniel Luss, whose license had more than once been jeopardized by the scenes of rioting and drunkenness his premises had witnessed. But Luss’s landlord was Sir Arthur Fenn, and Sir Arthur’s county influence was great. Luss willingly paid a high rent, and the administrators of law and order let him alone.

Max ran across the snow-covered yard straight to the “Jolly Dog”. There was only one outer door. It led to the bar, and to the inn-parlour, where the more truculent spirits of Woodend congregated to discuss village politics and abuse those neighbours who struggled after respectability. Max knocked loudly on the open door, but no one appeared. At last, taking his courage in his hands, he stepped within. For the time the bar was empty, its servitors being busy in the kitchen behind, where they enjoyed black tea and bloaters and toast to an accompaniment of unparliamentary language from the adjacent parlour.

Max hesitated a minute, and his heart beat faster. He knew that the men he was going to face were rough and lawless—often savage and cruel. One of the worst was Joseph Baker. But the boy recalling the face of Baker’s suffering wife, went boldly up to the parlour door, pushed it open and walked in. There was no surprise for Max in the scene before[Pg 75] him—groups of sodden men looming through a thick cloud of tobacco-smoke, some already in quarrelsome mood, some making the roof ring with mirthless laughter. The surprise was on the side of the men, when, a note of exclamation passing from one to the other, they turned their heavy eyes upon the boyish figure by the door.

“It’s the young Doc’,” grunted a fellow who had entered recently, and was therefore in possession of his faculties. “Got ’is tools with ’im too, ain’t he?”

There was a roar of appreciation, and the speaker leaned back in his chair to think out another sally.

Max knew that what he wanted to say must be said quickly, and, stepping forward, raised his clear treble to a tone which he hoped might pierce the dullest ears.

“Men, listen to me a moment, will you? I’ve come to tell you something you mayn’t have heard. I’m telling it especially to one of you—Joseph Baker. Baker is here, isn’t he?”

Max had decided wisely not to heed interruptions, but he saw a couple of hands stretched out to drag a man from a distant corner, and guessed that the half-obscured, tottering figure was that of Baker.

“Yes, there he is. Well then, Baker, and all of you—I’m sorry to say there’s been a dreadful accident, and Baker’s wife is badly hurt. She’s suffering fearfully, but I think she’ll live, with care. Without care she won’t live, and you know she has a little baby and three other children. Now, I want Baker to promise me he’ll do what he can to keep her quiet and comfortable to-night, either by keeping quiet himself when[Pg 76] he gets home, or else by spending the night elsewhere and leaving his wife to Mrs. Lane’s care.”

“What’s wrong wi’ Bell?” inquired Baker thickly as he stumbled out from his corner. “If it’s some o’ her bloomin’ nonsense, I’ll make her pay. I’ll—”

“So she’s gone and half-killed herself, has she?” cried the husband savagely. “Jist let me git her, an’ I’ll finish the job. Who’s goin’ to cook my wittles, I’d like to know, wi’ her a-shamming in bed? Here, mates, I’m off home, but I’ll not be long. Wait till I git back, and I’ll tell ye how I’ve settled Bell.”

Max looked at the wretch with scorn and loathing, and involuntarily stretched out his arms to bar access to the door behind him. Several of Baker’s associates grunted applause at the husband’s valorous determination; but the majority of the room’s occupants were not yet in a state to be without some feeling of humanity, and these raised a murmur of shame, of which Max took quick advantage. It had become evident to the boy that his visit to the “Jolly Dog” on behalf of Bell would do more harm than good if it sent Baker to her side while she lay unprotected.

“Yes,” cried Max, taking the word from a stout, good-natured looking man near to him, “it would be a shame, wouldn’t it, not to do all one could for poor Mrs. Baker? You know how a burn hurts, even a little one; so you can guess how she feels now.” The boy paused, longing for some inspiration which might serve to delay Joe’s departure. Dr. Brenton might be home by now—would be sure, at the earliest moment,[Pg 77] to hasten after his son. If only Max could hinder Baker from leaving the “Jolly Dog” until such time as he might be pretty sure of finding his wife protected by the Doctor’s presence!

“You’ve been ’elping ’er yerself, master, maybe?” asked the stout man, pointing to Max’s bag of “tools”.

“Then I say as you’re a rare sort for a bit of a younker. Ain’t ’e now, mates?”

“An’ I’m blest if we don’t drink yer ’ealth wi’ three times three. ’Ere, ’Arry, set the young Doc’ in the middle o’ the table there, an’ fill ’im a mug to ’isself.”

In a moment Max, lifted like a feather by ’Arry, the giant of Woodend, found himself on the table, and raised above the heads of the village revellers. A foaming mug was offered to him by the stout man, whom the others called Jack.

“Thanks,” said the boy, taking a drink, and handing back the mug; “I was thirsty. You’ve reminded me that I’ve missed my tea, but it will come just as handy later. Before I go, let’s have a lark together. Make Baker sit down, some of you; and I’ll call on Hal Tatton for a song.”

Baker was dragged back to his corner by half a dozen hands, and the men gazed curiously at the brave, boyish figure standing erect and masterful on the big deal table. He was so far removed from themselves in person, in bearing, in habit; his voice echoed with so plucky a note, and his eyes met theirs with so[Pg 78] bright an intelligence. What manner of converse could they hold with a lad like this?

“Now, Hal,” called out Max imperatively, “you’re a good hand at a lively ditty—let’s have ‘The Boys of England’ without ado. I’ll give you your key.”

And Max, not entirely unappreciative of his position, started the first verse of the latest popular melody—a “patriotic” song, reeking of battle, and defiance, and general jingoism. Hal caught up the air, and Max subsided until the correct moment, when he demanded a “jolly good chorus”.

The song ended, Hal retired to his seat amid loud plaudits, and Max racked his brains for ideas. His glance was on an old clock ticking on the mantel-shelf. A quarter to eight! Another half-hour and he surely might reckon safely on his father’s return home as an accomplished fact.

“And then,” concluded the boy in rapid thought, “if he hadn’t got to Baker’s cottage, I could fetch him before Joe had done any harm. I’m sure that stout chap would keep him here a bit if I asked him. The thing is, to hold on a while, and then leave this lively crew in first-rate temper.”

“That was a right good song, men, and we’re all obliged to Hal for it. Aren’t we? Yes, that’s the way to say ‘Thank you’. Well now, what for a change before I go? If you like, I’ll tell you a story I read somewhere the other day. It’s not long, and it’s no end exciting.”

Max told his story accordingly; and if he were at[Pg 79] first gratified by comparative silence and a fair amount of attention from his rough audience, he was none the less aware of a beating heart as he approached his climax. For Max’s tale was a true one, and its chief incident—exciting, as he had promised—was the rescue of an injured wife from her husband’s brutality by a band of chivalrous and pitiful rustics. Max almost held his breath as he concluded. He had played for high stakes, and might have lost everything.

When the boy’s voice ceased, there was absolute silence; his hearers had been following him closely. Suddenly Baker started from his corner with a savage growl.

“’E’s lettin’ on at me, that’s wot ’e is! Do you ’ear me, I say? ’E’s told that ’ere story agin me; and ’anged if I don’t take it out o’ ’im instead o’ Bell! No! I’ll git ’im first, an’ Bell arter!”

Baker threw himself furiously towards the table, where Max stood, quiet and watchful. He knew that he would be helpless in Joe’s clutches, if no one took his part.

Then Harry uprose, and stepped carelessly to Baker, whom he cast to the floor with one well-directed push.

“You’re a plucked ’un,” said the giant, surveying Max grimly; “an’ look ’ere, you’re a proper Doc’ an’ you’ve arned your pay. My mates an’ me”—Harry glanced rapidly round—“we’ll keep that tale o’ yourn in our ’eads to-night. We’ll take turns to watch Bell’s door, and—my word on’t,”—he thumped his great fist on the table,—“that skunk Joe sha’n’t set ’is foot inside till you give ’im leave.”

“Ah, thank you, Harry!” said Max in real gratitude; “I thought you’d want to help poor Mrs. Baker. And thank you all,” added the boy merrily, “for being so kind to me. We had a jolly song, hadn’t we? I shall call on Hal Tatton for another next time I see him.”

“You’ll get it so soon as ye asks, master,” returned the grinning Tatton. “I’m not forgetting the way ye cured that sprained wrist o’ mine—I’ll stand by Bell.”

“And me!” “And me!” shouted the voices of many rough fellows who had met with kindness from the good Doctor or his son.

“Then thank you all again, and good-bye!” cried Max. The men stood silent, watching him as he went. He had brought with him into the wretched place a glimpse of brightness, and the loafers of Lumber’s Yard were sorry to see him go.

Harry the giant kept his word, and told off his retainers to mount guard by turns over the cottage where Bell lay moaning. By and by he found it simpler to lock Joe Baker into a shed behind his cottage, giving him plenty of sacks to keep him warm, and a liberal supply of food, collected from the neighbours. In this fashion Joe was kept out of mischief until Bell was up and about again; when Harry’s elementary sense of justice assured him that he had kept his bond with Max and had no further right to interfere for the present in the marital affairs of the Bakers.

During the long hours of his imprisonment, Joe’s memory of Max’s successful plan stirred the drunken[Pg 81] scamp to bitter hatred and a passionate desire for revenge. But he knew that to raise a finger against “the young Doc’” would be to set the whole village in a fury; and dread for the results on his own person made him sulk and scowl in secret.

Max, on that eventful evening, went from the “Jolly Dog” straight back to the Bakers’ cottage. There, as he had hoped, he found his father, and the pair walked home in company.

First, the Doctor bestowed a little judicious professional praise on his son’s surgical handiwork, and made a few comments for Max’s future guidance. Next, he turned to a fresh topic—one which, as might easily be seen, was at the time very seriously in his thoughts.

“To the smithy, Dad?” asked Max, glancing up quickly. “Is old East any better?”

“He never could have been better,” said the Doctor quietly; “now he never will be worse. I was in time, Max, to see the end. It was very peaceful—just the sleep of old age. There was really no disease. Nature had worn herself out.”

“He has his old servant Elizabeth and her crippled husband. But the lad’s sensitiveness shrinks instinctively from the sort of condolence people of that class usually offer. You know what I mean, Max,” continued Dr. Brenton hastily. “I don’t mean that the sorrow or the sympathy of poor folks is less real than that of their betters as the world counts degree. But they have different modes of expression—and—well,[Pg 82] Jim is not of Elizabeth’s order. I wondered why, until to-night. Old East, before he died, solved the mystery for me.”

“You’ll know some day, sonny. I may tell you only that East didn’t want me to-night as a medicine man. He knew I could do nothing for him. Now, Max, I should like you to go to the smithy early to-morrow, and see what you can do for Jim.”

“Take him out for a walk—encourage him to speak his heart to you. ’Twill do him good—poor boy! poor boy! I see trials in store for Jim.”

“Perhaps Frances might go with me? She’s the best sympathizer I know of. And she liked old East, and has seen him several times since the night we lost ourselves in the snow. Couldn’t I tell her?”

“Her mother would not let her go, Max,” interrupted the Doctor; “I’m quite sure of it. And perhaps, for many reasons, it’s better she shouldn’t. But by all means tell her of Jim’s loss. Later on it may be her lot to console him. Meanwhile, we blundering males can but do our best.”

It was December the twenty-third, and two o’clock in the afternoon. Frances and Austin had finished their early dinner at their mother’s luncheon-table,[Pg 83] and were hurrying down the road to the school-house, where, by grace of the Rector, the Altruists’ entertainment was to be given.

“We still have plenty to do,” exclaimed Frances a little breathlessly, for the brother and sister were walking at a rapid pace. “The benches have to be arranged, and the tables laid, and I have one more wig to make for the ‘Ten Little Niggers’.”

“Gramercy!” exclaimed Austin; “did I not count ten heads, and ten wigs on the heads, at the dress rehearsal yesterday?”

“Teddy’s was not a proper wig,” sighed Frances. “You know Teddy has not a mother—or even an aunt, or a cousin, or an old nurse—to do anything of that sort for him. His father’s housekeeper is a horrid cross old thing, who would not have let Teddy act at all if she could have helped it. So I waylaid Mr. Bevers, and made him promise that Teddy should do anything I liked; and then Florry and I saw to his dresses between us. That is how Teddy comes to be a little nigger, and a baker-boy, and a fairy-page. He is such a darling, and he sings like a cherub. We wanted him ever so badly.”

“Girls always contrive to get what they want. They just peg away till they do. I will say, though, Frances, that they don’t mind going to any amount of trouble about it. Fancy making three dresses for one little shaver!”

“The baker-boy dress isn’t much—just a cap and apron,—and the little nigger was easy. The pink satin fairy-page was different, of course. Teddy and Gus, in pink and blue, look sweet.”

“They are rather fetching,” condescended Austin. “And Max’s idea of letting Teddy and Lilla sing the opening duet was a jolly good one. I’m not gone on babies, but Lilla’s a picture in that old-world thing her mother has dressed her up in.”

“She’s a picture as a fairy too,” said Frances; “though I think the minuet will be the most picturesque bit of the play. Florry is a lovely fairy god-mother, isn’t she? I do think she’s clever enough to act at the Lyceum!”

“The play’s the thing, undoubtedly, as Mr. Hamlet of Denmark remarked. Just wait till you see our Travesty, though. I flatter myself we’ll make Woodendites sit up. Max and I have worked out a splendid blood-curdling duel, with that drop-lunge Mr. Carlyon taught us for a finish. You didn’t see it at rehearsal yesterday?”

“No, I was called away; but I’m sure it will be capital. Max is funny, as Laertes. And Frank Temple is a fine King. How lucky it is he had that lovely dress of red velvet and ermine!”

“It is a real stage-dress. Frank had an uncle who went on the stage and became a famous actor. The regal robes belonged to him.”

“Fancy! That is interesting. I wonder what he would say if he knew they were going to be worn in the Hamlet Travesty.”

“We never could have done the Travesty without Mr. Carlyon. Of course, it was his plan that we should act it; so I suppose that’s why he has been so much interested in it. And Miss Carlyon has stage-managed[Pg 85] Florry’s play for us: she said it was her duty as president of the Altruists.—There’s Betty Turner, Austin. Make haste, and we’ll catch her up.”

The active pair soon caught up Betty, who was exceedingly plump, and was never seen in a hurry. She looked at her friends in mild amazement as they pelted down the hill and pulled up one on each side of her.

“How you two do excite yourselves!” she observed languidly. “Francy’s cheeks are as red as beet-root, and Austin will have no breath left for his song.”

“We shouldn’t enjoy anything if we didn’t get enthusiastic!” laughed Frances. “And isn’t this the great occasion—the Altruists’ field-day?”

“I shall have to leave the club, you make me so hot!” chuckled Betty. “I feel like building a snow-man when I look at you. At least, somebody else might build him for me, while I watched. The sensation would be equally cooling.”

“And not nearly so fatiguing,” said Austin. “Won’t you enjoy filling a hundred tea-cups twice over, Betty?”

“Catch me, indeed! I sha’n’t do the pouring out—that’s for May and Violet. They like it. Especially May. She has a genius for mathematics, and will be able to solve the problem of how many spoonfuls of tea to the pot, and how many pots to the tea-tableful of old women.”

“Give ’em plenty,” urged Austin. “Tibby Prout told me she hadn’t tasted tea this winter.”

“Tibby Prout!” repeated Betty meditatively. “I’ll keep my eye on Tibby: she shall have six cups. Just write her name here, Austin.” Betty pulled a notebook[Pg 86] and pencil from her pocket. “It is so tiring to remember names.”

“You’ll have to remember to look in your notebook; and then you’ll have to remember why the name of Tibby Prout is written there; and then you’ll have to remember why I, and not you, have written it.”

“So I shall!” agreed Betty mournfully; and with an air of great depression she turned in at the school-house gate.

“‘A plump and pleasing person’,” whispered Austin mischievously in his sister’s ear. “It’s a good thing she’s amiable, as there’s so much of her!”

The boy ran off, laughing, to greet Max, who was just coming up to the gate. In his company came “Harry” the giant, a broad grin on his stolid face.

“See whom I’ve brought!” exclaimed Max, when greetings and confidences had passed between the chums. “You needn’t worry any longer about the benches, Frances. Harry has promised to arrange them all, just as you like.”

“That is kind of you, Harry,” said the girl, looking at the rustic with the frank kindliness which acted like a charm on her poorer neighbours, and made them her faithful allies. “I just wanted somebody very strong and rather patient. It will take a good while to move the benches, but it would have taken the boys twice as long as it will take you.”

“Never fear, Miss,” said the giant heartily; “I’ll turn this ’ere place upside-down in ’arf an hour, if so be as you want it.”

Then they all set busily to work. The school-house contained one large room, of which the upper part[Pg 87] possessed a platform which was used for all sorts of village entertainments, such as penny-readings and magic-lantern shows. The young Altruist carpenters had rigged-up a plain screen of wood above and at the sides of the platform, and this, when hung with drapery, took the place of a proscenium, and was fitted with a curtain which would draw up and down. There were two entrances, right and left of the stage, and simple appliances to hold the simple scenery. Not much scope was given, perhaps, for elaborate effects; but Miss Carlyon as stage-manager, and Florry as dramatist, had used their wits, and some of their contrivances were wonderfully ingenious. They had availed themselves, too, of such opportunities as were offered by the command of a passage running from one stage-door to the other, outside the room. Here they marshalled their processions, and assembled their hidden choir, and even found room for one or two members of the orchestra when these were wanted to discourse music at moving moments of the performances.

Owing to the length of the programme, the proceedings were to begin at four o’clock, with a generous tea. Before the hour arrived the Carlyons made their appearance, and were immediately in the thick of everything. Edward, his long coat flying behind him, dashed hither and thither in response to agonized calls from boys in difficulties; while Muriel gave helping hands to her girls, until the preparations for tea were complete.

Every Altruist wore a crimson badge, and a similar one was presented to every guest on entrance. The[Pg 88] stage-hangings were crimson; the Christmas greetings hung up on the walls were fashioned in crimson letters on a white ground. Of course the room was prettily decorated with green-stuffs and berries, and the long tables grouped in the background were ornamented with lovely flowers. Altogether, the aspect of the room was distinctly festive when, as the clock struck four, the doors were thrown open and the guests began to pour in. Men, women, and children—all had been invited; and for once the denizens of Lumber’s Yard mingled with the better-class cottagers. Bell Baker, still pale, and poorly-clad, was brought under the care of the Doctor himself, who had borrowed a bath-chair, and packed his suffering charge into it. With Bell came her three eldest children; the baby was being cared for by an enterprising cottage-woman, who had decided to stay at home from the Altruist Feast and “take in” babies at a penny the head! The resulting fortune in shillings was a satisfactory consolation to her for the loss of her treat.

The Altruist fund might have fallen short of the demands made on it for the expenses of the grand entertainment, had it not been amply supplemented by those well-to-do inhabitants of Woodend who were interested in the undertaking. The feasts proper—both tea and supper—were “entirely provided by voluntary contributions”, as Frances had proudly announced at the last meeting of the Society. The rector offered fifty pounds of beef; Miss Carlyon’s cookery-class made a score of plum-puddings and a hundred mince-pies, the materials coming from the kitchens of Altruists’ mothers; the oranges and apples[Pg 89] and almonds and raisins, with such trifles as bon-bons and sweets, were sent in by various Altruists’ fathers. Mrs. Morland promised fifty pounds of cake, and as Austin was allowed to do the ordering it was as plummy as Christmas cake knows how to be. In this way gifts rapidly mounted up; and by the time it became necessary to reckon up the funds, Frances found that she had only sugar to provide!

This was very cheering to the young leader of the Altruists, who had dreaded having to check the bounding ambition of her associates. The sewing-meetings had done great things with scarlet flannel and crimson wool; but in this direction, also, the grown-ups were kind. Mrs. Morland, who had quietly assumed the headship of Woodend society, dropped polite hints at dinner-parties and distributed confidences at “At Homes”. It became generally understood that all contributions of new and useful clothing would be thankfully received in the club-room. Perhaps Mrs. Morland’s patronage did less for the cause than did the popularity of her daughter. Frances was everybody’s favourite; and the pleasure of receiving her earnest thanks, and seeing the joyful light in her grave gray eyes, sent many a Woodend matron and maid to the making of shirts.

The Carlyons had determined privately to run no risk of usurping the credit which belonged of right to the originators of the entertainment; and they kept very much behind the scenes during the evening, except when sharing the labours of the party told off to preserve order and see that all the guests were comfortably placed. Tea over, and the tables cleared, the[Pg 90] orchestra struck up a lively medley of popular tunes, while the company were ranged on the benches that Harry had set in two rows, facing the stage, in the upper part of the long room. Behind these benches was a small space, and then a few rows of chairs for the families and friends of the Altruists, who were to be permitted to view the performances in consideration of their liberal help.

When all were seated, and quiet reigned in the neighbourhood of the empty tea-tables, the orchestra ceased to make melody, and Miss Carlyon, slipping round from the back, took her place before the piano, the fifteen-year-old Pianist of the band retiring modestly to a three-legged stool that she shared with the fourteen-year-old First Violin. The footlights were turned up, the gas in the auditorium was turned down; on the whole audience fell the hush of expectancy. Miss Carlyon played a few bars of a simple children’s song; then the curtain swayed backward a little to allow two performers to step before it.

First came Teddy Bevers, beautiful to behold in his pink satin tunic trimmed with swansdown, lace ruffles, pink silk stockings, and buckled shoes. His dark curls bobbed merrily all over his little head, as, holding his pink hat with its white plume behind him, he bowed low to another small figure tripping after him. Lilla Turner was a tiny, slender maiden, just the opposite of plump Betty, her sister and slave; she wore a short petticoat of quilted white satin, and a Watteau bodice and panier of white and gold brocade. Lilla returned Teddy’s bow with a sweeping curtsey, then took his offered hand, and the little pair paced [Pg 91]solemnly to the front and made a profound salute to the audience. Both sang prettily; and Miss Carlyon’s careful teaching had given them a clear enunciation, which made the words of their prologue audible throughout the room:

Teddy and Lilla continued, through three verses, to entreat the indulgence of an audience already disposed to be more than kind; then the salutes were sedately repeated, and the little couple vanished amid enraptured applause. The beauty and grace of the small actors had warmed the hearts of the workaday folk to whom they sang, and the Woodend villagers demanded an encore with all their hands and tongues.

The programme was long enough already; and, besides, Florry’s sense of dramatic fitness made her look on a repetition of her prologue as something like barbarism. So Teddy and Lilla were told to go on again and bow their acknowledgments; which they did, kissing their hands ere they finally retired.

They had paved the way admirably for the others, and the fairy play was throughout a brilliant success. The curtain was rung down on a most picturesque tableau, while Max burned red fire at the wings, and the orchestra discoursed sweet music. Three times the curtain was raised before the audience would be satisfied; and even then there were calls for the “author”,[Pg 92] and Florry was pulled on to the stage by a group of enthusiastic little fairies.

A big sigh of satisfaction seemed to come from everybody; and the onlookers were still assuring each other that nothing could beat the fairy play, when the orchestra struck up a familiar melody. All the boys on the benches began to hum appreciatively; and the curtain slowly rose, while across the stage in a couple of bounds sprang the First Little Nigger. His age was twelve, his face and hands were sooty-black; he wore a costume of scarlet-and-white striped cotton jacket, green knickerbockers, one scarlet and one white stocking, a white collar of enormous proportions, and a lovely horse-hair wig. After him came his nine brothers, in similar raiment, and in gradations of size, which ended in Teddy Bevers, who informed his hearers that he was the “Tenth Little Nigger Boy!”

Mr. Carlyon had written a new version of the historic ditty—a version strictly topical, and full of harmless local allusions, which won peals of laughter from the benches. The actors had been taught some amusing by-play; and their antics drew shrieks of delight from small boys and girls, who had gaped in uncomprehending wonderment at the Fairy Godmother. It was of no use to try to refuse an encore for the Ten Little Niggers, so Mr. Carlyon sent them on again to repeat their fun and frolic for the benefit of the little ones in front.

The niggers had brought the younger portion of the audience into such an uproarious condition that the feelings of the First Violin were sadly tried by the hubbub amid which she stepped on to the platform. But now, if ever, Woodend was on its good behaviour; and,[Pg 93] as the elders wanted to “hear the music”, they coaxed and scolded the juniors into a restless silence. However, the melting strains of Raff’s “Cavatina” were not beyond the appreciation of anybody; and those who did not admire her plaintive performance for its own sake, were full of wonder at the skill of the First Violin. The next item on the programme was a vocal duet by Frances and her brother. Austin sang well in a charmingly fresh treble, with which his sister’s alto blended very prettily; and the pair had practised most conscientiously. This was the only number of the programme in which Frances’s name appeared. The girl had declined to be put down for anything which would give her prominence, because she knew her mother would prefer to see Austin to the fore, and Frances had a delicate instinct which warned her not to court jealousy by claiming too much for the Morland family. Austin had played one of the best parts in the fairy piece, was to play Hamlet in some scenes selected by Mr. Carlyon from Poole’s “Travesty”, and besides his duet with Frances, had a solo to sing. Nobody grudged the bright, good-natured boy his many appearances, but Frances felt that they ought to suffice for both.

The concert swung gaily on its way. The First Little Nigger, still sooty of face and brilliant of attire, sang Hard times come again no more to his own banjo accompaniment, and was rewarded by the sight of many pocket-handkerchiefs surreptitiously drawn forth. There was a flute solo from Guy Gordon, a musician whose fancy usually hovered between the jew’s-harp and the concertina; but on this occasion he[Pg 94] gave a “Romance” for his more classical instrument, and moved to emulation every rustic owner of a penny whistle. Three little lads, dressed as sailor-boys, were immensely popular in a nautical ditty, which cast a general defiance at everybody who might presume to dispute the sovereignty of The Mistress of the Sea; and three little girls with three little brooms joined in a Housemaid’s Complaint, which set forth in touching terms the sufferings of domestics who were compelled to be up by ten, and to dine on cold mutton and fried potatoes. Songs, humorous and pathetic, filled up the concert programme, until it terminated in a costume chorus, How to make a Cake.

This item was an exemplification of the picturesque possibilities of familiar things. A table in the middle of the stage was presided over by Betty, attired in print frock, cap, and apron. In front of her on the table stood a big basin. To her entered a train of boy and girl cooks, carrying aloft bags and plates containing materials for cake-making. A lively song, descriptive of the action, accompanied Betty’s demonstration of the results of her cookery studies; the cake was mixed, kneaded, disposed of in a tin, and proudly borne off to an imaginary stove by Guy Gordon, the biggest baker. The song continued, descriptive of the delightful anticipations of the cake-makers; and when Guy returned carrying a huge plum-cake, this was promptly cut into slices by Betty and distributed among her helpers, who, munching under difficulties, marched round the stage to a triumphant chorus of “We’ll show you how to eat it!”

Max was to appear as Laertes in the Travesty, and had hitherto taken no more distinguished part in the entertainment than the playing of what it pleased him to call “twentieth fiddle” in the orchestra. But he now found greatness thrust upon him. No sooner had the cooks acknowledged their call and vanished, than Harry the giant uprose in his place, and boldly addressed Mr. Carlyon.

“Axing parding, sir, if I may make so bold, there’s some of us ’ere—me and my mates—wot knows as ’ow the young Doc’ can sing a rare good song. And we takes the liberty of askin’ Master Max to favour us.”

Harry’s speech created an immediate sensation; but his sentiments were upheld by prolonged applause from his “mates” and the audience generally.

Edward Carlyon successfully maintained a strict impartiality in his dealings with his pupils; but in his heart of hearts he kept a special corner for Max Brenton. Well pleased with Harry’s request, he leant towards the “twentieth fiddle”, and said:

“You hear, Max? You’re honoured by a distinct invitation; so up with you to the platform and let’s hear what you can do!”

Max, covered with blushes, was pushed forward by the entire orchestra, while Carlyon seated himself in front of the piano.

“What shall it be, lad?—The Old Brigade, I think. Muriel, will you tell the boys and girls behind to provide Max with a chorus?”

Max plucked up courage, and obeyed. His slight figure, in its trim Eton suit, stood out bravely on the[Pg 96] platform, reminding Harry and one or two others of another evening when the boy had sung “against time” to save a woman from suffering.

All the Altruists knew The Old Brigade, and had chimed in with a chorus many a time when the Carlyons’ young choristers had held their merry practices in the boys’ school-room. So the gallant song went with splendid spirit, and when it reached its last verse the chorus was reinforced by the greater number of the audience, who proceeded rapturously to encore themselves.

Max’s song was an excellent finish to the concert; and then the onlookers were allowed a few minutes to recover their breath and discuss the performance, while the stage was made ready for the Travesty.

In front reigned mirth, satisfaction, and pleasing hopes of more good things to come. Behind, the aspect of affairs had changed suddenly. At the end of Max’s song a letter was handed to Carlyon, whose face, as he read, became a proclamation of disaster. He was in the little room at the end of the passage, which had been made ready for the use of the performers when off the platform; and round him had gathered the boys and girls who were to figure in the Travesty.

“Bad news, youngsters,” said Carlyon dismally. “The first hitch in our evening’s entertainment. I wondered why Frank Temple was so late in arriving. This letter—which evidently ought to have reached me before—is to tell me that Mr. and Mrs. Temple have been summoned by telegram to Mr. Temple’s home, where his father is lying dangerously ill. The boy was named in the telegram—his grandfather had[Pg 97] asked for him; so of course he has gone with his parents. Now,” continued Carlyon, looking at the blank faces before him, “I know that all of you will feel very much for Frank; but just at present we must think also of the poor folk in the school-room, who are waiting patiently for your appearance. What shall we do? Shall we give up the Travesty? Or will someone go on and read the part of the King?”

“Well, I think myself we ought to proceed, and do our best. The question is, who can read the King? It must be someone who knows something about the piece—”

“Frances!” exclaimed Max immediately. “Frances has been at all the rehearsals; and she has often read the King’s part when she was hearing Austin and me say ours!”

Frances at first held back; but when she saw that she was really the best person to fill the breach, she made no more ado, but began to look about for a costume.

“If only Frank had thought of sending his,” said Max, regretful of the crimson velvet and ermine. “It would have done quite nicely for Frances. The tunic would have covered her frock.”

“We can hardly borrow it without leave, though. Well, I must let you settle the knotty point of costume for yourselves, youngsters, while I help my sister with the stage.”

Carlyon rushed off, nodding encouragingly to[Pg 98] Frances, who had her eyes on the play-book and on every corner of the room in turn. Suddenly she darted over to a table covered by a crimson cloth.

“Hurrah!” she cried. “Here’s my tunic. A little ingenuity will soon drape it gracefully about my kingly person.”

Frances had seized the table-cover; and now, amid peals of laughter, she began, with Austin’s assistance, to pin herself into it. Max vanished from the room, returning in three minutes with two articles borrowed from friends among the Altruists’ relations in the audience.

“See, Frances! This fur-lined cape will make you a lovely cloak, and this fur tippet, put on back to front, will be your regal collar. About your neck and waist we will dispose the fairy prince’s gold chains, and he shall lend you his sword, likewise his cap.”

“Not his cap,” amended Austin, who was dancing a triumphant jig round his sister. “Frank left his crown here yesterday after rehearsal, and Frances can wear that.”

“And her sleeves will look all right. What a good thing your frock is of black velvet, Frances!”

By the time the young costumiers had finished they had turned out quite an effective King. Frances’s dark hair, waving to her shoulders, was pronounced “a first-rate wig” when the regal crown had been fitted on. The Carlyons declared the new King to be admirably attired; and Frances, relieved of anxiety about her costume, entered fully into the fun.

“I’m a ‘king of shreds and patches’ like Shakespeare’s man,” she chuckled; “but so long as my[Pg 99] various garments hold together, I don’t mind! Max, if I could get a few minutes to look through this long speech, I believe I could manage without the book. I’ve heard Frank say his part ever so often.”

“You’ve helped everybody, Frances,” said Max, remembering gratefully his own indebtedness, “and now you’re going to shine yourself. You’ll have time to read up your part before you go on.”

The spirit of true burlesque is rare among amateurs; but youngsters who act for the fun of the thing, and not merely to “show off”, are often capable of excellent comedy. Carlyon had chosen with care the boys and girls who were to perform in the Travesty, and had trained them sufficiently but not too much. Entering completely into the humour of parody, one and all acted with plenty of vigour and without a trace of self-consciousness. Max and Austin had arranged a serio-comic fencing-match, which was brought to a melodramatic finish by a clever rapier trick. Frances’s play with the poisoned cup sent Betty, the lackadaisical Queen, into a series of private giggles, which she was compelled to conceal by an unexpectedly rapid demise. At last the curtain rang down on Austin’s farewell speech.

The boys and girls who during the long evening had figured on the platform assembled in the green-room for a brief chatter over their experiences. They were in high spirits and honestly happy; for they felt that they had done their best, and that their best had given several bright and pleasant hours to folks whose lives were but dull and gray.

Buns, sandwiches, and lemonade provided the[Pg 100] Altruists’ modest refreshment. They had thoroughly earned their supper, but they hurried through it in order to make an appearance at the feast-tables of their guests. There was neither time nor place for change of dress; so the actors in their motley garb now mingled with their audience, greatly to the latter’s delight. Sweets and bon-bons tasted twice as good when handed round by Teddy in pink satin, and Lilla in white; and a whole troop of little fairies dispensed almonds and raisins at a lavish rate. The movement of the guests to the supper-tables at the end of the room was the signal for the retirement of upper-class Woodend to the neighbourhood of the platform, whence it watched its young people justifying their motto, “Help Others”.

“Austin,” whispered Frances, “aren’t you sorry poor Jim isn’t here?”

“Jim?” questioned her brother. “Why, wouldn’t he have been a cut above these good folk?”

“Oh, yes, of course. He wouldn’t need anyone to give him supper or a woollen comforter, I suppose. But he could have seen the acting, and he would have helped us.”

“Really, Frances, you are ridiculous. You have such a fancy for Jim—as though we could have had a fellow like that tagging on to us all the evening.”

“I could have put up with him very well,” returned Frances calmly; “and he would have been very useful. Don’t you be ridiculous, Austin.”

Austin muttered something about not wanting “loafing cads” in his vicinity; and was called so severely to task for his unmannerly epithet that he retired to[Pg 101] grumble mildly in Max’s ear. But Max, too, liked Jim, and regretted the lad’s absence and the cause of it. He was sure that Frances was thinking pitifully of Jim’s lonely Christmas, and his sympathy was with Frances, not with her brother. Austin saw that his grumble must seek another sympathizer, and while looking for one, he noticed an old man’s empty plate, and flew to fulfil the duty of an Altruist host.

Supper was followed by a distribution of gifts. The presents numbered two for each person, and the ambition of the society had decreed that they should be strictly useful and of a kind to give some real comfort to the recipients. Thus, flannel shirts, knitted vests and socks, and cardigan jackets were handed to the men; while the women received warm skirts, bodices, and petticoats, “overall” aprons, and woollen shawls. Crimson was the hue of most of the clothing, and Max’s prophecy concerning the Altruist village seemed on the way to fulfilment. Thanks came heartily and in full measure from the delighted guests; and when their best spokesman had been put forward to offer the gratitude of the poor of Woodend to “the young ladies and gentlemen what had shown them a kindness they’d never forget”, good-byes became general, the village-folk trooped out, and the happy evening was really over.

Mrs. Morland went home alone in her carriage, promising to send it back for Frances and Austin, who were to take Max with them and set him down at his father’s gate. A wonderful amount of consideration from Woodend invalids had left Dr. Brenton free for a[Pg 102] whole evening, and among the Altruist audience not one had been happier than he. Now he went off with his borrowed bath-chair and its weakly occupant, meaning not only to see poor Mrs. Baker safely indoors, but to satisfy himself that her husband, who had stayed sulking at home, was propitiated by the present of warm shirts and socks which Frances had chosen as the likeliest pacifiers.

The boys were still in their fancy dress, and obliged to wait in the school-room for Mrs. Morland’s carriage; but Frances, in her cosy frock and jacket, could defy the snow without, and she accompanied some of her friends to the gate and saw them off. As the last carriage full of boys and girls rolled smoothly away, she still stood thoughtfully by the roadside. Frances was thoroughly content; her heart seemed full of peace and good-will to all the world, and lifting her face to the moonlit sky, she searched half-consciously for those old friends Orion and the Plough, while her happy young face smiled in memory of all the joys that evening had brought for her.

“She does look kind!” mused a lad hidden in the shadow of some bushes opposite. “Kind and gentle and good! It was worth while to tramp from Rowdon to see Miss Frances’s face to-night. She has been making folks happy, as her way is, God bless her! I was afraid before I came,—but now I’m glad. Miss Frances will be kind, I know she will. The boy’s different, and I doubt he’ll be against me; but what shall I care, if Missy is kind?”

“Nay, what should I care, with all the world against me, so long as Missy was kind?”

Mrs. Morland, as may have been gathered, was in a sense an indulgent mother, and her children lacked nothing necessary for their health or their comfort. Her personal interest in their private concerns, their hobbies, their undertakings, their studies, was regulated entirely by what she estimated as social opinion—by the effect which the particular hobby or pursuit in question might have on the position of Frances and of Austin among their juvenile fellows, and in the eyes of Mrs. Morland’s own acquaintances.

Thus, she had almost from the first set the seal of her approval on the Society of the Altruists; because she observed that Frances, as founder and leader of that energetic body, had secured a kind of sovereignty over her comrades; also, that the majority of the better-class Woodendites spoke well of the young people’s efforts, and gave honour to Frances as the inspirer of all their best intentions. Greater still was the credit given to the girl for the modesty which made her obviously unaware of the good opinions she had won from her mother’s friends, and for the unselfishness which made her eager to admire the generous labours of her supporters; and Mrs. Morland was careful to do[Pg 104] nothing to make Frances more self-conscious, and therefore less attractive to critical eyes.

At home, the mother was content to give an occasional peep into the club-room when a meeting was in full swing, and to subscribe liberally when funds were requisitioned; abroad, she was fond of allusions to “my lassie’s up-to-date fancies,—which really, you know, are quite amusingly altruistic”. Mrs. Morland was by no means a popular person, in spite of her local distinction. Woodend happened to be favoured with, for its size, an unusually large number of well-to-do residents; and among these, by birth, by fortune, by knowledge of the world, Mrs. Morland had an undoubted prominence. When qualities of head and heart were considered, her claims were less readily admitted.

Yet she was, in a degree, an able woman, though her talents were purely social, and she had no sympathy with art or with letters except in so far as they might help to secure social consideration. Austin inherited a share of his mother’s gifts, and was naturally her favourite child. In Frances she detected all those qualities which had least appealed to her in her husband’s character; but as most people seemed to find these traits admirable, she gave them toleration on account of their value in the eyes of others.

Christmas-day dawned in what the girls and boys of Woodend called “proper weather”—snow under foot, clear blue sky and sunshine overhead. Frances and Austin had worked hard on Christmas-eve at church decorations, proving themselves Muriel Carlyon’s best allies. Their mother viewed without enthusiasm[Pg 105] the ornamentation of her pictures, furniture, and walls, when the materials were holly and fir. Indeed, she called such time-honoured greenstuff “messy nonsense”, which soiled whatever it touched when fresh, and covered the floors with litter when dry. In church, she found it unnecessary to disapprove of anything which had the sanctity of tradition to support its use; and so she willingly granted Muriel’s request that the two youngsters might be spared to help her, and allowed to share her luncheon in order to save the time spent in going home.

Muriel Carlyon was a popular person both in school and out of it, but she certainly shone as a holiday companion. She was as invariably ready to interest herself in the latest schemes of harmless frolic as in the soberer matters of daily life and duty, and had been quite as enthusiastic as any of her pupils over the plans for the great entertainment, quite as delighted at its triumphant success. There were a few among her younger friends who knew that her sympathies could go deeper still, that she could sorrow with the sorrowing, and point the way to seek for comfort.

The old rector, Dr. Stansby, looked on Edward and Muriel Carlyon almost as a son and daughter. They spent with him all they could of their scanty leisure, and held it a pleasant duty to see that a sense of growing infirmity should not touch his peace of mind. No parish matter could be neglected while these two workers watched over affairs, and Edward tackled bravely the few abuses which old-fashioned prejudices had rendered unassailable in the days when Dr. Stansby had laboured alone.

The brightness of the Christmas morning with which my story is concerned was reflected in the faces of Mrs. Morland’s pair of youngsters as they ran into the breakfast-room to see what fate had sent them. Their mother followed at leisure, her simple winter morning-gown falling gracefully about her stately person. She never had been known to be in a hurry; and of late years the assured comfort of her circumstances, and the small demands made on her for sustained exertion, had weakened further her naturally inert disposition. But she had a smiling face for her children when they sprang back to throw their arms about her and offer grateful kisses.

Before Austin’s place at table stood a beautiful enlarging camera, which would surely be a priceless help in the practice of the “dark art”; he found, too, a fine array of photographic plates and papers, and the latest thing in “print-washers”, as a gift from his sister. All these matters being of moment in regard to his latest hobby, the boy was certain that no present could have pleased him better. Frances found herself the possessor of a beautiful writing-case, fitted with everything necessary and unnecessary. Austin had amused himself and Max vastly by a special journey to Exham in order to select his present, which now astonished his sister’s eyes. It was a plain wicker work-basket of enormous proportions; and half an hour of coaxing had induced Muriel Carlyon to line the monster with crimson silk, on which were stitched at regular intervals great white letters:

The peals of laughter with which Frances received this offering, and in which Austin joined, almost upset Mrs. Morland’s equanimity; but just as she began to think of frowning, the lively couple calmed down and pounced on the row of new story-books, which were to be a joint possession.

Frances remembered for long afterwards the special peacefulness and happiness which seemed to mark the morning of that Christmas-day. Never had she more thoroughly enjoyed the service in the old Woodend church, with the rector’s benign face seeming to greet each well-known member of his congregation, and Edward Carlyon reading the familiar prayers, and Muriel accompanying on the organ her well-trained choir of boys and men. The choristers were recruited chiefly from Mr. Carlyon’s pupils, so that Austin was the soloist that morning, and sang with bird-like clearness a vocal hymn of joy and praise.

The children dined late with their mother on great occasions, and now, after a luncheon of sandwiches, mince-pies, jelly, and cream, they hurried out for a run which might assist digestion. Austin carried his camera, for he pined to get a snow-effect, and thought that the view of Woodend village from the elevation on which his mother’s house stood would answer admirably for a subject.

“It wasn’t worth while to bring my camera-case,” announced the boy, as he darted round from a side-door his arms burdened with impedimenta. “You won’t mind carrying something, will you, Frances, as it’s such a little way we’re going?”

“I always carry something,” replied his sister[Pg 108] calmly; “and I would have come to help you collect your baggage if Mater hadn’t called me back to write a letter for her. It was only a little letter, but it took time. Everything takes time. I wish the days were twice as long.”

“Well, as they’re at their shortest now, and we’ve only two hours of light before us, we’d better scurry. There, I’ve dropped my dark cloth, and I can’t stoop to pick it up.”

“But ought you to carry them without any covering? I’m sure light will get in and fog the plates when the sun shines like this.”

“It’s December sun,” said Austin testily. “And what’s the use of calling the slides ‘dark’ if they let in the light?”

“Oh, never mind, dear!” cried Frances hastily, remembering that Austin’s “wasters”, as he called his spoilt plates, were sore points. The glory of his few photographic successes could hardly, as yet, be said to atone for the bitterness of almost universal failure.

Austin had pulled three dark slides from under one arm, a tripod from under the other, and had held towards Frances the racked-out camera he had hugged to his breast.

“If you’ll carry this tricky thing I’ll be awfully[Pg 109] obliged,” he said piteously. “I’m in mortal fear of dropping it and smashing my lens.”

“All right!” agreed Frances. “Wrap the slides in the dark cloth and I’ll take them also. That’s the way. Now, let’s run.”

So Austin shouldered the tripod, and off they went. Down the carriage-drive to the gate, and then along the road overlooking the village till they reached the desired spot. Here they cried a halt, and Austin set up his tripod.

“Oh, crikey! Why didn’t you tell me when I handed you the wretched thing?”

“I never looked at the lens. I thought you would have made sure you had everything before you came downstairs. Not that I need have thought so,” added Frances grimly. “Last time, you forgot the dark cloth; and the time before, when Max was with us, don’t you remember—?”

“There you are again with your ‘rememberings’!” muttered Austin. “A fellow can’t be expected to keep his wits about him with you and Max chattering like fun.”

“Oh, I dare say!” laughed Frances. “Here, take the camera, and I’ll run back for the cap.”

“Hang it, can’t I use my hand? I’m sure I’d cover the lens all right.”

Frances scudded away, but when she had gone almost out of sight, suddenly turned and scudded back again.

“Filled them!” ejaculated Austin. “Why,” he began lamely, “weren’t they full? I never thought of that. And I want slow plates.”

“You dreadful goose!” cried Frances; and picking up the slides, she raced away again.

Arrived in the dark-room, she found that only one of the double slides possessed its piece of black card for dividing the two plates. A search for the missing necessaries delayed her a good deal, and might have ruffled her temper had she not become resigned to photographic muddles.

“Here I am at last!” she remarked cheerfully, as she came up to Austin, who remained seated in philosophic calm on the top of a five-barred gate. “There were no cards in two of the slides.”

“That’s all right. It says in my photographic handbook there are ‘immense possibilities in mist and cloud’; and also, that ‘there is pictorial value in a gate or a stile carefully placed’. Now, I haven’t been wasting my time while you’ve been away; I’ve been thinking over what that chap wrote. And I’ve made up my mind to get the mist and the cloud and this gate into my photograph.”

“Likewise the windmill, the group of poplars, and[Pg 111] the whole expanse of Nature, I presume?” observed Frances sarcastically.

“I dare say I could edge in the poplars—my lens has a wide field,” said the photographer. “The windmill is behind our backs.”

“I thought you were going to take the village. And you can’t see the village through the gate or over it. You must open the gate and go into the field to get the view we wanted.”

“Humph! I believe I’ll give up the village in favour of the gate. I’m certain I can ‘carefully place’ the gate on my ‘neg.’, so as to give it ‘pictorial value’; and a gate is easier than a whole village. Besides, the cloud and the mist will go in of themselves, not to mention your poplars.”

This Austin proceeded to do, while Frances patiently held the cap—the sixth which had been bought for this particular camera. Each of the remaining five had been dropped and trodden into a shapeless mass in what its owner called “moments of remarkable enthusiasm”. Anticipating such a moment, Frances thought it well to watch over the survivor.

“I’m doing my best,” announced the operator from the enveloping folds of his dark cloth, “but those poplars are awful worrying. They don’t work in nicely with the gate when it’s ‘carefully placed’.”

“Oh, not when I’ve promised you,” said Austin courteously. “There, I’ve focussed the lot somehow. Just take a peep, Sis, and admire my work.”

Frances accordingly concealed the greater part of her person from view beneath the dark cloth—which, it may be noted, was of proportions as Brobdignagian as Frances’s work-basket, in order to elude the light which like a fiend seemed to pursue Austin’s dark slides.

“I see the gate on the extreme left,” commented the critic, “and half the poplars on the extreme right, and a long strip of hedge cutting the picture nearly in two, and a foreground muddled into nothing—”

“You must have a muddled foreground,” interrupted Austin. “It’s artistic.”

“Well, I like to tell a bush from a wall myself,” said Frances; “but I suppose you’re an impressionist, like those people your photographer-man writes about. There’s plenty of cloud and mist, Austin; and if you don’t think a picture with just a gate and poplars, and a hedge and an impressionist foreground, rather dull—”

“I’d have liked a figure or two, ‘to give interest’,” admitted the handbook student. “Of course I can put you in.”

“Hallo!” shouted Austin just then, “here come two jolly figures for me!”

Frances looked, and saw Max Brenton and Betty Turner tramping through the snow at a pace dictated by Betty’s aversion to undue haste. Max lugged a big basket in one hand and a small one in the other, and was trying to keep up his circulation by whistling vigorously. Betty was pensive, and disinclined at the moment for conversation.

As soon as the two pairs of youngsters hailed each other from afar, they began, after the fashion of their age and kind, to rush together as though they had been opposing currents of electricity. They met with a bump and a shock and a great deal of laughter.

“We were just coming to you,” said Betty. “At least, I was. Mamma has some friends staying with her, and this morning each of them gave me something for our Society stores—”

“It was rather decent. So I thought I’d like you to have the things, as it’s Christmas-day; and the servants were fearfully busy, so I just took the basket to bring it myself. Coming up the hill I got so hot and tired, and I just sat down on my basket—”

“Only Max came and helped me up, and carried the basket. It was nice of him, only he’s always in such a hurry. In the other basket, the little one, he has some nonsense of his own—”

“Oh, I hope they’re not ‘every four hours’ bottles!” cried Austin. “Do look, Max. Perhaps, by luck, they’re ‘at bed-time’ potions. I want you and Betty to be figures for me.”

The boys immediately set off at the best pace permitted by the baskets, Austin giving a hand with the altruistic burden. The girls followed, at Betty’s leisure.

“There’s no hurry about Dad’s things,” remarked Max, setting his load down by the roadside and dashing[Pg 114] at the camera. Max could be enthusiastic with anybody. “What are you taking, old fellow? The lens doesn’t seem to be pointing anywhere.”

“It’s pointing at a pictorial gate, an impressionist foreground, half a group of poplars, and any amount of mist and cloud ‘thrown in’. Frances actually says my view will be dull!”

Max accordingly popped under the cloth, and presently emerged with a somewhat puzzled and dejected appearance.

“I suppose it’s all right,” he remarked humbly to the owner of the camera; “though things do seem a little mixed in front.”

“Poor Max! He doesn’t appreciate the charms of impressionism,” said Frances, coming up arm in arm with the serene Betty.

“Ha! there’s another figure for me!” cried Austin next. “My star’s overhead this afternoon. Fly, Max, and tell Florry to hurry up. She’s the very thing for a photograph. There’s ‘pictorial value’ in any girl with long hair and an animated expression.”

Max “flew” as desired; and, while he ran—by way of saving time,—acquainted Florry at the top of his voice with the honour in store for her. Florry naturally flew to meet the honour, reached Max midway, caught his hand, and dashed wildly back. They landed, at full pelt, in the middle of Frances, Betty, Austin, the camera, and the baskets. In the result, Austin and the smaller basket became as mixed as the impressionist foreground.

“Goodness!” said the boy ruefully, picking himself[Pg 115] up. “I’ve squashed your basket, Max, and all your father’s things are running out in streams!”

“It wasn’t medicine—it was port-wine,” confessed Max in sorrow; “Dad was sending it to old Briggs. Janet had made him some jelly and stuff, too. You needn’t mind, though, Austin; it was my fault.”

“You needn’t mind, either of you,” said Frances. “Mamma will give us some more port-wine, and we’ll beg a jelly from cook.”

“Thank you,” said Max fervently. “You’re awfully kind, Frances,—Frances the Altruist!”

“Now for the figures!” Austin sprang with recovered glee to his camera. “You’d better all stand nicely up against my carefully-arranged gate.”

“But why should we all stand up against a gate?” objected Betty. “Let half of us, at least, sit down.”

“Why should you sit down in the snow?” inquired Austin sensibly. “I should say that, for choice, you’d rather stand up.”

“I could sit on my basket,” murmured Betty. But she allowed Austin to “place” her, as carefully as any handbook could desire, exactly against the middle of the gate, with Florry and Max on either hand.

“Aren’t we a bit stiff?” suggested Max mildly. “Mightn’t I sit on top of the gate, instead of standing in a row with the girls? Or, as Betty likes sitting, couldn’t she mount the gate?”

“No, indeed!” said Austin severely; “Betty would block out my best clouds. And if you held her on, Max, I couldn’t take your eyes. I don’t fancy portraits when you can’t see the folks’ eyes.”

“I could turn my face to you,” said Max persuasively, with a lingering fondness for his bright idea.

Austin was immovable in his determination to arrange his friends in line, and to photograph all the eyes they could present to his camera.

Finally, after the usual agonized commands to his sitters, Austin reached the vital moment and removed the cap from his lens. He remained then in a state of frantic uncertainty as to when he should put it on again; and remained uncertain so long that, before he could settle the important point, the six eyes watching his changeful countenance and palpitating person began to twinkle, and Betty giggled outright.

“There!” said the photographer, with the calmness of despair, “that’s another plate done for!”

“It isn’t as though it would have been a common picture either,” continued Austin stonily; “we’ve lost a really good thing. Not so much a snow-effect as a figure-study, with mist and clouds and poplars.”

“If only I could have made up my mind!” broke out the artist bitterly. “If only I could have made up my mind a moment sooner, I should have capped the lens and saved my best picture!”

“Austin dear,” remarked Frances quietly, “you have six plates in your slides.”

This simple speech effected an immediate transformation.[Pg 117] Austin remembered that his little all in the way of plates had not been torn from him. Betty recovered her spirits, and having magnanimously offered to “stand out, in case she spoilt another”, was warmly pressed to remain in and be immortalized. Frances suggested that, after removing the cap, Austin should count ten under his breath, and then do the deed. Florry added the useful hint that if Betty did not fix her gaze on the photographer’s worried countenance she might be better able to control her own.

“Very well,” said Austin graciously, “you may turn your head just a trifle, Betty, and stare at that fir-tree. But I must have your eyes on the camera, Florry; and I’d like one or two of your curling locks pulled over your shoulder to show in front. I want to take your long hair and your animated expression. I believe,” finished Austin joyfully, “this picture will be better than the other. I hadn’t remembered the ‘pictorial value’ of Florry’s curls!”

After several agitated moments, the photographer announced that his mission was accomplished.

“I don’t believe any of you turned a hair,” he remarked gratefully. “I’m no end obliged to you. Let’s all tear off home and develop this plate.”

“Oh, Austin!” remonstrated Frances; “you’re always in such a hurry! Do let’s take some more pictures first.”

“All right. I’ll tell you what. We’ve six plates; one’s spoilt, and one’s properly exposed. That leaves four: one for each of you. I’ll sit on the gate, and watch you take them. Only do be a little quick, for I’m burning to develop my beautiful figure-study.”

A chorus of thanks applauded this generosity; though, to tell truth, Austin’s possessions were always freely at the disposal of everybody. All the present party of friends knew enough of the photographic art to be able to “take” something—what, they were not quite sure until their work had gone through “development” at the hands of Austin or Frances.

Frances now announced that her choice of subject should be the village of Woodend, from the brow of the hill whereon she stood. Betty wished to take a portrait of Frances and Florry. Max was already focussing Austin, as the latter perched on the gate,—“so as to give the girls time to think”. Florry declined to disclose her purpose till her comrades had had their turns.

Austin’s eyes beamed with good-humoured triumph, as he obligingly turned them full on his friend; and Max “took” the eyes and their owner without any discomfiting entreaties for attention and tiresome worry about detail.

Betty was so charmed with Austin’s pose that she insisted on Frances and Florry displacing him and mounting the gate.

“I shall take you large,” she observed ambitiously; “just as big as I can get you on to the ground-glass.”

The sitters made anguished efforts to keep still while Betty, who despised haste in photographic exposure as in everything, counted sixty aloud.

“I’ve given my plate a minute,” she said with satisfaction. “Now something’s sure to come up.”

“Oh, put in a few figures to give interest!” begged Austin. “My handbook says they’re an enormous improvement to a quiet country landscape.”

“Well, if Max doesn’t mind, he might just run across the field to that stile leading to the brook. He could be crossing over it, as though he were going to the village by the short cut.—When you’re half over it, Max, you might stand still, and—and—just try to look like moving.”

Max ran to execute the required task, and his dramatic instincts brought him to a pause in an attitude quite suggestive of motion.

“But he’s got his back to us,” objected Austin loudly. “We can’t see his eyes. Hi, Max! Turn round, I say!”

“No, no!” shouted Frances. “Keep still!—I couldn’t see his eyes if he turned this way, Austin; he’s too far off. This is a view, not a portrait.”

“Oh!” said Austin in disgust; “you could easily have made it a figure-study.”

Frances, however, appeared satisfied, and speedily recalled Max. To Florry now fell the post of responsibility, and the last plate.

Florry, as dramatist, author, poet, painter, and musician, was easily first among the artistic youth of Woodend. Her social qualities were as naught in the eyes of Mrs. Morland, for she did not understand how to appear “to advantage” before select circles of her elders, and among her fellows she held her many gifts as the property of all. When the universal voice demanded it, Florry emerged from her shell, and wrote, painted, or played to order, without even the affectation[Pg 120] of incompetence. She was the sole darling of a refined and modest home, where her talents were wisely nourished and never overstrained.

“I mean, just as you did before. Frances and Betty squatting anyhow in the snow; Austin standing up with his legs apart, his cap pushed back, his hands in his pockets, and looking awfully ashamed of himself; Max down on one knee, holding the broken bottle, and with such a dismal face.” Florry caught hold of the camera and led the way back to the roadside. She had an idea.

“It will be a picture—we’ll call it ‘Disaster!’,” she went on rapidly. “Frances and Betty will be showing each other the wasted jelly and beef-tea. It won’t be acting—it will be real.”

The young people threw themselves with their usual enthusiasm into Florry’s plan. As they grouped on the snow, Florry, who was careful of details, requested Austin to turn up his collar in consideration of the wintry atmosphere she wished to preserve in the composition of her picture, and implored him to look at the ruin he had wrought, and not to stare, round-eyed, at the camera.

“No;—I’m sorry. My handbook says slow plates are best for snow-effects; and when we came out, I meant—”

“Never mind! Just wait a moment, as quiet as you can, while I draw my shutter. But when I say ‘Now!’ mind you don’t wink an eye.”

“Winking an eye,” began Austin eagerly, “wouldn’t show on a slow plate. It—”

“And I’m not going to. I wasn’t likely to let you all look like statues.”

“We’ve been ‘took’ unawares!” cried Austin, dancing wildly round Max and the basket.

“Florry’s a base deceiver!” said Frances, chuckling over the little ruse. “Now we’ll pack our traps and learn our fate in the dark-room.”

Subsequent proceedings in the ammonia-perfumed apartment need not be here described, but I give the result.

Austin’s developed plate revealed the distressing fact that a trifling twist of the camera had caused the disappearance of the half-group of poplars. There remained to him the gate, with a tin-soldier row of diminutive figures in front of it—their backs to the fading light, and their faces consequently indistinguishable as to eyes and all other features; a long stretch of hedge, running aimlessly across the picture to the right as though seeking a lost vanishing-point; a foreground more mixed than the most ardent impressionist could have believed possible; and a dark expanse of nothing where the mist and clouds ought to have been.

Max had three portraits of Austin. That is to say, his figure faithfully represented Austin at three different moments, as the model had oscillated on his slippery perch.

Betty’s desire for size had given her two gigantic heads, which acknowledged her leisurely exposure by deliberately fading away before her anxious eyes, leaving her with a coal-black plate and a disappointed soul.

Frances’s lights were a little hard and her shadows a little heavy; but Woodend village loomed with no more than artistic vagueness on her plate, and her short exposure had preserved her mist and clouds. And Max’s far-off figure was quite life-like. Frances hoped that her negative would, after all, yield a decent print, and Austin was consoled by the thought that Woodend village had been photographed at last.

There was no light in the dark-room save that which came from Austin’s ruby lamp, and a flickering reflection through the red-paned window of the waning day without. Frances developed Florry’s plate with friendly care, and announced results to the group peering over her shoulders.

“It’s coming up!” was the first exciting news. (Don’t press so, Austin dear; you’re shaking my arm, and I can’t rock the dish properly.) “Oh, it’s coming up all over, quite slowly, and ever so nicely! Not those splashes of black here and there—which just mean fearfully high high-lights, and nothing else in particular,—and not black fog everywhere, like poor Betty’s. Oh, it’s coming more, it’s getting plain! There’s Austin’s furry collar, and Betty’s woolley cloud, and Max’s black collar—I mean, his white collar showing[Pg 123] black! And there’s the basket, and the broken bottle, and the spoilt jelly! It’s lovely! I think all the details have come out now. Shall I stop?”

“Oh, no!” pleaded Austin. “Make it pretty dense, then we’ll see ourselves through the back.”

So Frances resigned herself to future slow printing, and developed a good, strong negative, which, when fixed, rinsed, carried out to the brightest light attainable, and examined through the back over a black cloth, was found to reveal a delightfully natural presentment of the agitated group round about the broken basket.

This triumph and Frances’s modest success were carefully consigned to the plate-washer beneath the running tap, the “wasters” were thrown aside, and the troop of boys and girls departed to secure the replenishment of Max’s stores.

Then the young folks prepared to separate. It was Christmas-day, and long absence from home was impossible. Max was due at the cottage of old Briggs, and Frances and Austin must set him on his way. So down the drive to the gate pelted the lively four, promising themselves many more exciting hours with the wizard camera, which could turn a roadside accident into a “dream”.

Frances was still standing outside the gate, giving a last wave to her retreating friends, when she caught sight of a dark figure advancing from the direction of the village.

“Austin,” she called to her brother, “do come here. I believe I see poor Jim East. Yes, I’m sure it’s he. Fancy! Oh, poor Jim! Let’s stay and speak to him.”

“Well, you do the talking, then. I’ll stick here in the shade till I see what he looks like.”

Jim East, in his dark-hued mourning garments, had from afar appeared sad indeed in the eyes of Frances. As he came nearer, she saw signs not of sadness alone, but of sensations more strange to the girlish onlooker. The sorrow he had just experienced could hardly account for the wistful expression in the lad’s face, or for a certain hopefulness in his bearing. Jim was coming forward to meet, with what courage he could command, the crucial moment of his young life. He was trying to assure himself that he had a right to expect that the ordeal would pass and leave him happy.

“He is very lonely,” reflected Frances pityingly; “he has begun to feel that he is lonely. I wish I could comfort him, but I don’t know how.”

Setting aside all possibility of administering comfort, it must surely be a simple thing to condole and sympathize with Jim. Frances felt that she could do both, for she had sincerely liked the old grandfather, and was glad now to recall the sacrificed holiday hours for which he had thanked her with moist eyes and grateful lips. She took a step forward lest Jim should pass her with his usual quiet salute, but she saw that this had not been his intention. He turned a little, even before she moved, and directed his course to her without hesitation.

“She will be kind,” thought the lad as his gaze rested on Frances, and she greeted him with a smile. “Grandfather was right, he said she would be kind. If only she knew how I want her to be kind!”

Jim’s yearning was no more translatable through his face than was his simple trust in a girl’s faith. Frances had left him the treasured belief that in her sight his work, however humble, was honourable; himself, however lowly, above reproach. She had not forced on him, as had Austin, more than once, the recognition of differences of class, habit, and attainment. These, she knew, were obvious enough to modest Jim. Instead, she had shown him a gracious friendliness which had roused the lad to wondering gratitude; while her intelligent interest in his monotonous labour had given it value apart from bread-winning necessity.

Jim, in his ill-fitting cloth suit of rustic cut, was in Frances’s eyes a much more pretentious and less picturesque figure than Jim the blacksmith working at his forge. A little half-conscious regret that Jim[Pg 126] himself was likely to hold a contrary opinion was promptly stifled by the remembrance that in his case, at least, the wearing of mourning garb was no meaningless form.

“Good-evening, Jim!” Frances’s right hand rested lightly on the half-opened gate which bounded the carriage-drive to Elveley. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve wanted to tell you how very sorry I am for your trouble. It isn’t only I, either; all of us boys and girls are sorry. Your grandfather was always good to us; and we liked him, ever so much. Of course,” she went on gravely, “I know that we can’t feel as you do, because you miss him all day long. But you won’t forget, will you, when you are sad and lonely, that we are sorry too?”

“No, Missy,” said Jim in a low voice, “I won’t forget; and I thank you kindly for speaking so.”

“Then you will try to cheer up, won’t you, Jim? And we will all come to see your dear smithy; and you must come sometimes to our meetings and help us with the village-boys.”

A scrape of Austin’s foot on the gravel warned Frances of his strong objection; but at that moment his sister’s thoughts were echoing the quavering tones of an old man’s voice, begging her, when Jim should be left solitary, to be kind to the lonely lad.

“I’ll do anything as you may wish,” Jim replied. “I’ll be proud to serve you, Missy.” He lifted his head then; the gentleness of Frances’s accents moving him to look to her face in search of help for the better[Pg 127] meeting of his fate. The lad was in sore need of some encouragement, for he knew that the errand which had brought him to Elveley this Christmas-day was one that might well startle, if it did not repel, his listener. And above all things Jim dreaded to see Frances’s pain or to hear her reproach. The position he now occupied was intolerable to the boy’s sensitive nature. But guessing instinctively that in telling his story the simplest words would be the best, and the briefest phrases the most acceptable, Jim began his explanations without any sort of pretence at ingenious circumlocution.

“I came to see you this afternoon, Missy, because of something you don’t know about—something Grandfather told me just before he died. I’m feared—I’m feared it isn’t what you’ll wish to hear. Grandfather told the doctor, too; but not till he’d promised to keep quiet. Grandfather wished me to tell you myself. He wished me to tell you on Christmas-day, because then, he said, folks thought kinder of everyone, let alone their own kindred. So I’ve been waiting all day, but somehow I couldn’t bear to come. I wanted to come, but I was feared, in case Grandfather was wrong when he said you would be kind. He bade me speak first to you.”

“Jim,” said Frances slowly, though her heart beat fast, “I don’t understand you in the very least.”

“Likely not, Missy. But it’s true what Grandfather told me, and I’ve brought the papers, as he wished, for Madam to see.”

“Ay, Missy. And,” added Jim, with a sudden, natural break in his self-control, “won’t you please try to be kind to me? I’m your own father’s son.”

“What!” exclaimed Frances, drawing back against the gate. “Jim! You! What do you mean?”

“I’m Mr. Morland’s eldest son,” said Jim, in hurried tones, vibrating with mingled hope and fear. The hope was built on memory alone, the fear was roused by the shrinking dread he had fancied present in Frances’s face and voice.

“My mother was Martha East, Grandfather’s only daughter,—there had been one son, who had died. My mother wished to marry Mr. Morland, but Grandfather wouldn’t let her, for fear he’d tire of her; so they ran away, and married without leave. Mr. Morland was good to Mother, and they were very happy.”

Jim paused a moment, in keen distress, for he saw that Frances had grown white, and that she trembled as she leant for support against the gate.

“Not long before he married, Mr. Morland had promised a great Society in London to go for them to some country where he had travelled, and try to find out something they wanted to know. So when the time came he was obliged to go right away to some place in Asia; and before he went he took my mother to her old home—for he had no relations of his own—and begged Grandfather to take care of her till he came back. When he’d been away three months, word came to England that he’d been lost—taken prisoner, and carried off by some robber-tribes. There was no more heard of him, and Mother began to fret and pine, for it was said he’d never come home again. Mother[Pg 129] lived only a few months after she’d got the news. She said she couldn’t live without her husband. I was born two months before she died.”

Jim hesitated, his voice faltering again as he glanced at Frances’s face, in which the dread was now too clear to allow of mistake. The hopefulness left the lad’s tones altogether, and he finished his story in nervous haste.

“They thought I’d die too, but I didn’t; and Grandfather, being alone, except for me, was glad I lived. Mother had called me Austin after my father, and James after her brother; but Grandfather always called me Jim. He’d loved his daughter dearly, but he was proud, and didn’t like her having married among gentlefolk, who’d look down on him as just a rough farmer. So, seeing he thought as my father was dead, as well as my mother, he reckoned he’d keep me and bring me up a working-man.

“I was six months old when Mr. Morland came back. He had been rescued by some travellers, who had been sent to search for him. When Grandfather heard the news, he made up his mind as he’d keep me still, and he did. They said in the certificate as my mother had died of a fever that was about the village where Grandfather lived then; and Grandfather took this paper and went to town to meet my father, and told him how Mother had died, but never a word about me. My father was dreadfully grieved not to find his wife waiting for him; and Grandfather told him—quite true—how she’d always loved him, and fretted after him, and spoken of him tender at the last.

“Then Grandfather took me away to the north, but[Pg 130] he always managed to know where my father was. He knew when Mr. Morland married again, and that he had children, and when he died. And a few months ago, knowing he was failing in health and soon to leave me, he began to think as he oughtn’t to have kept me away from my father’s folk, so that I’d be left all alone in the world; and he found out where you were living, and bought Rowdon Smithy so that we could settle near you. He meant that some day I should come to you and beg you to be good to me.” Jim’s eyes and voice pleaded eloquently. “I’m your brother, Missy! your own father’s son. I’ll always care for you and little master if you’ll let me. I’d be proud to work for you, only”—Jim sighed forlornly—“there’s naught you need.”

Frances stood silent and utterly confused. She might have fancied that Jim’s sorrow had turned his brain, but for his intense earnestness and the straightforward way in which he had told his strange story. Again, she remembered facts which gave the story corroboration. For instance, the old grandfather’s solemn expressions of pleasure and satisfaction that he had seen her, and his evident delight in witnessing any kindness she had shown to his boy. Then Frances knew that her father had been a distinguished member of a learned Society, and in his youth had travelled far to serve the cause of science. She had heard of his romantic imprisonment and rescue; and though she never had been told that he had been married twice, she saw that in this respect Jim’s statements might easily be true. Her father had died while she was very young, and her mother might not[Pg 131] have cared to speak, to a mere child, of her own predecessor.

As she hesitated, painfully conscious of Jim’s troubled and searching glances, she was relieved to hear her brother step forward. What Austin would say she could not guess, but at least his words might help her own. The boy did not turn to her for prompting, though he stood by her side, his face flushed and disturbed.

Austin’s tone was masterful, and by no means suggestive of a willingness to believe; but it served to rouse Jim’s pride, which had refused to help its owner hitherto. The lad gained self-command, and after answering Austin’s question with a simple “Yes”, turned again pointedly to Frances for some sort of comment. The girl felt that she must speak. Her perceptions were always quick, though they gained in force from her reluctance to hold them final; and now her confusion vanished before the overwhelming certainty that Jim had spoken the truth—that he, the uneducated, shy young blacksmith, his face roughened with exposure, his hands hard with toil, was indeed her own father’s son, and her kin in blood.

“Not true!” repeated Jim blankly. “You hope it is not true, Missy? Why?—I’m rough, maybe,—but I’d never be rough to you. It is true, Missy; I’ve the papers to show Madam. I’m your father’s eldest child.”

“Oh, don’t say it—don’t say it!” went on Frances, in extremity of fear and distress. “It—it couldn’t make any difference if it were true,—don’t you see? We’re not alike in—in anything; we never could be alike now. Oh, I don’t know how it sounds—what I’m saying! I dare say it’s horrid, and conceited, and—and—not fair. But it wasn’t we who settled whose you should be; and it’s your grandfather’s fault, not ours!” Frances hurried out her words as though her own ears were ashamed to listen to them. “He kept you back—he wouldn’t let you belong to Papa,—and now he wants you to come to us, when it’s too late.”

“Yes, it’s too late!” repeated Frances almost fiercely; “you belong to your mother’s people, not to us. You know there is—a difference. If we were all little, it wouldn’t matter; but Austin and I are too old not to feel—to feel—”

The peasant lad was standing erect and calm, and his grave eyes hardly hinted at the agony which had come to him with the breaking of his happy dream. If his imagination had idealized this young sister of his, as well as a future which, in truth, would have been impossible as he had pictured it, he could find blame for no one save himself. His memory still dwelt tenderly on his grandfather, and he now wondered how he ever could have supposed that the daintily-reared young Morlands would have a thought of toleration for him and his claim of brotherhood.

“How can we help feeling ashamed? It’s not our fault!” reiterated Frances bitterly.

Then Frances, hardly knowing how to account for sensations of repulsion which she knew to be unworthy, broke into child-like tears.

“You—you were a very nice blacksmith,” she sobbed, “and your house was clean and tidy, and we liked to see the forge.”

“But we don’t exactly want a blacksmith-brother?” added Austin interrogatively, while he looked curiously at his sister.

“Wait,” interrupted Jim, in a dull voice; “won’t you stay till I’ve seen Madam? I promised Grandfather I’d see Madam, and show her the papers, to prove he’d told true. Mayhap she won’t turn from me,—won’t you wait?”

“I can’t!” murmured Frances, shrinking as Jim advanced. “And Mamma will only be angry if you go to her.”

“I don’t see why she should be angry,” said Austin, who was the best controlled of the three. “Go up to the front door, Jim East, and they’ll let you in. Then you’ll see our mother. I’ll wait here.”

Mrs. Morland laid the papers aside with a little well-bred gesture of courtesy. Careless her examination of them had seemed to Jim; but in reality she[Pg 134] had grasped their contents accurately, and had no doubt that they were genuine. The stately, beautifully-dressed woman leaned back in her luxurious chair, and her fine eyes, which had forgotten their youthful softness, scanned Jim from head to foot. She seemed to find his appearance amusing.

“My good lad,” she said, in her clear, refined voice, “I am quite aware that I was Mr. Morland’s second wife, and that his first was beneath him in station. He was an honourable man, and he told me all the facts of his pretty rustic idyll. I believe that he even told me that the young woman’s name was Martha East. In any case, there is no reason why her name should not have been Martha East. Nor is there any reason why she should not have left a child. I do not wish to profess incredulity concerning your statement that you are Martha East’s son, and that your existence was hidden deliberately from Mr. Morland by your grandfather. Such an action would, of course, be underhand and selfish; but one does not expect from the uneducated classes a great refinement of motive or honesty of conduct. It would be unreasonable to do so. It would have been unreasonable, for instance, if I had supposed that, when this piece of news was communicated to you, you would have resolved to spare Mr. Morland’s other children the pain and annoyance of hearing it also. That would have been the sort of conduct I could have had the right to expect only from a gentleman. Your grandfather’s training would naturally teach you differently. It would incline you to take the course which promised most gain to yourself.”

“I do not blame you,” continued Mrs. Morland, with a quick movement of deprecation; “your behaviour has been according to your lights. It makes it the more easy for me to credit your story, which has, however, no concern for me or my children. As your grandfather probably knew, Mr. Morland was not a land-owner, and his fortune was absolutely at his own disposal. Consequently, his will would hold good; and the discovery of an elder child would in no way affect his provision for my son and daughter.”

“Madam—Madam,” said Jim sternly, “you have no right to think as I was wanting the money!”

“Then what did you want?” asked Mrs. Morland, smiling slightly. “You wished, perhaps, that I should adopt you—take you to live here, as my children’s equal and companion?”

“No,” said Jim, speaking firmly and bravely, “I did not wish that. I only hoped as you’d allow I belonged to them, and had a right to care for them, and—they for me.”

“Poor boy, you are quite modest and nice! I am afraid you do not precisely understand social distinctions. Your grandfather made choice of your future position for you, when he concealed your birth from my husband. You have been brought up a working-man; and it would be impossible, as it is quite unnecessary, for you to fit yourself for any other kind of life.”

“I had no thought of doing so,” said Jim, maintaining his composure in spite of failing heart.

“I have no doubt that when you come to reflect, you will see matters in a sensible light. For your sake, I am sorry that your grandfather, having kept silence so long to suit his own convenience, did not keep it to the end to suit yours. You would have been happier without this foolish revelation, which I advise you speedily to forget. I will say nothing more about your coming here; you have merely obeyed your grandfather’s selfish wish. But there is something I must say concerning the future.”

Mrs. Morland raised herself, and, leaning forward, spoke in a firm, distinct tone, very different from her previous cynical indifference.

“You must understand, once for all, that I can allow no sort of acquaintanceship between you and my children. They are mine, and I have the right to decide what is best for them. They have, I believe, shown you some kindness—in return, I readily admit, for kindness shown to them by your grandfather. You and they are therefore quits, and I wish all intercourse between you and them to cease from this moment. I understand that your grandfather bought for you a cottage and workshop at a place called Rowdon, not far from here, and that he provided for you according to the needs of the station in which he brought you up?”

“To some extent, then, he justified his conduct. Well, in the same way I have bought a house here, I have placed my children at a school where they are happy, I have surrounded them with the comforts, the pleasures, the luxuries, to which they are accustomed.”

Mrs. Morland stumbled for a second, as her eyes rested on the rough clothing and labour-hardened hands of her husband’s eldest son. But if there was an opening for reproach, Jim did not avail himself of it.

“You have no occasion to. If you have missed what you might have had, it has been no fault of theirs or mine. I have settled here, in my own house, and my children are learning to love their home. You, perhaps, are attached to yours. I have no wish to suggest that you should go elsewhere, and I should prefer not to do so myself. At the same time, my resolve that you and they shall hold no intercourse is unalterable; and I will rather break up my home than have its peace destroyed. If you will give me your promise to keep silence on this purely private matter—which never ought to have been brought forward—and to refrain from forcing yourself on my children, there is no reason why you and they should not rest undisturbed.”

“I never thought of telling anyone,” said Jim simply. “I never meant to come here against your will. I’ll promise, as you wish.”

He picked up the papers Mrs. Morland had laid aside, and thrust them back into his pocket. The young blacksmith would have been puzzled to know what was meant by theories of life and analyses of conduct; but he did not lack intelligence, and he perceived[Pg 138] that he was being treated unworthily by his father’s widow. For the two children he had lately left he had no condemnation, though from them had come the only stabs which had reached his heart.

“I’ll go now, Madam,” he said. “I’ve done as my grandfather bade me, and I hope you’ve seen as he spoke true.”

“Yes,” reflected Mrs. Morland, while Jim was closing the door softly behind him, “the wretched old man did ‘speak true’! That boy has his father’s eyes and expression—he is like Frances. None of those marvellous resemblances one reads of in story-books, of course; but there are sometimes traces which recall personalities more closely than a stronger likeness would. I hope, I hope against hope, that he’ll keep his word! If he’s his father’s son, he will.”

Down by the garden-gate Frances and Austin Morland awaited Jim’s return. Frances had striven hard to draw her brother away; but as he would neither leave his post nor talk to her, she remained by his side, acutely miserable. With tongues inactive, the girl and boy thought the more. Frances felt a self-accusing shame which she could not escape and did not know how to justify. She was not old enough to probe her nature with searching finger, and find there that very sensitiveness to the opinions of others which she always had thought so poor a thing. She wondered only why the sudden appearance of a blacksmith-brother should seem so great a misfortune to her—to her whom her friends had nicknamed “Frances the Altruist”, who had appeared to have[Pg 139] a mission for the better instruction of less liberal-minded persons! She was a sinner against her own code, a traitor to her own cause.

Frances did not tell herself these facts: she merely felt them in a kind of vague disturbance. Self-consciousness is not a fault bred in public schools; and the influence which, though brief in duration, had so strongly affected her, had not tended to develop unchildlike self-introspection.

Austin spoke at last, and his sister, with a little shiver, drew close to him. The boy laid his hand on her arm, in a gesture which was at once affectionate and protecting.

Jim’s footsteps drew close. The lad had forgotten Austin’s promise, and in the gathering darkness did not quickly see the watchers by the gate. He gazed straight before him as he came, and would have passed the two Morlands had Austin not stepped forward.

Jim, with a start, looked at the speaker, not knowing what his own face revealed.

“You showed her those papers—whatever they were? Did she believe what you said?”

“Yes. It didn’t make any difference. I’d rather be going, please,” added Jim, trying to open the gate on which Austin had laid his hands.

“Stay!... No, never mind! I’ll ask Mamma[Pg 140] myself.” Austin opened the gate, mounted it, and swung out with it into the roadway. From this convenient perch he fixed a steady and observant gaze on the figure of the unwelcome visitor.

“Perhaps—if we’d meant it,” returned Austin carelessly. “Frances, I’m going to Mamma. You come too.”

So Austin led the way. Mrs. Morland had already sent a servant to look for her children, and they met the man on the steps.

“Jim East has been here, hasn’t he, Mater? He has been telling Frances and me queer things. Are they true?”

“How am I to know what he has told you, my darling?” asked Mrs. Morland diplomatically.

“Your half-brother, dearest,” corrected Mrs. Morland gently. “A mixed relationship merely. You need not remember it.”

“I believe he is. I shall make inquiries, of course, but I have no doubt they will confirm his story. He brought proofs which appeared to me sufficient; some letters of your father’s, for instance.”

There was a brief pause, while Austin stood thoughtful, and Frances scanned her mother’s face.

“I tell you these things, children,” continued Mrs.[Pg 141] Morland composedly, “because I wish you to understand the position clearly, and also my wishes with regard to it. This poor lad is probably your half-brother, but he has been brought up apart from you, and you and he have nothing in common. There are many reasons why I could not possibly allow you to be intimate with him. Such persons have different thoughts and feelings, and use different language, from any I could allow you to become accustomed to.”

“I’ve seen Jim East—no! I suppose it’s Jim Morland!—a good many times, Mater. I don’t know about his ‘thoughts and feelings’, but I’ve never heard him say a word you wouldn’t have liked us to listen to.”

Frances saw her brother glance at her for confirmation, and murmured lamely: “No, he always spoke nicely.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Mrs. Morland drily. “That lessens my regret at having let you both come in contact with your poorer neighbours. Indirectly, we owe all this nuisance to your fads and nonsense, Frances.”

“Mamma,” said the girl, colouring, “Jim’s grandfather evidently meant to send him here some day. Mr. East came to live at Rowdon on purpose.”

“It is horrible to think we have lived under a sort of espionage,” said Mrs. Morland impetuously. “The old man’s conduct, from first to last, was disgraceful. Let me never hear you speak of him again. And let me hear no more of the wretched boy he left behind. Austin and Frances, you will give me your word of[Pg 142] honour that you will not again visit Rowdon Smithy, and that if you come across that lad anywhere you will take no sort of notice of him. You understand me?”

The girl knew that her brother was watching her. He, of course, would follow where she led.

“Well, ... no.” The boy threw back his head with a proud motion. “See, Mater, I don’t want to be cheeky, or to vex you ... and what you say may be all right for Frances. She’s a girl; and though I can’t see what harm she’d come to at the smithy, I suppose she’s got to stay at home if you want her to. But I don’t care twopence about charity, and humble neighbours, and Altruists—except to please Frances, and join in any lark that’s going. I’ll cut the lot if you like. But if Jim is Jim Morland and our brother—half or whole—I’m not going to cut him. That would make me a jolly cad, anyhow.”

Austin, who was certainly innocent of any desire for melodramatic effect, stopped abruptly, the better to observe his hearers. Frances had dropped her face between her hands—now, why on earth, Austin asked himself, had she done that? Mrs. Morland had started upright, angry and bewildered. What was the matter with her? Did she suppose—did anyone suppose—a fellow was going to cut his own brother?

“Austin!” exclaimed Mrs. Morland, “do I understand that you threaten to disobey me? Do you wish[Pg 143] to make me miserable, and bring shame upon us all? Don’t imagine I shall allow you to do it. You are only a child, and utterly incapable of judging for yourself on so important a matter. You will simply do as I order you. By and by, when you come of age, you can of course throw my authority aside. In the meantime you are entirely under my control. I forbid you to speak again to this young blacksmith. That is enough.”

Mrs. Morland leant back on her cushions almost overcome. Her agitation was very real; for though Austin had not interrupted her, she had seen no sign of yielding on his handsome, boyish face—out of which, as she had spoken, had passed all the carelessness and all the pride.

“Mater—I don’t know how to tell you properly—but I think you’d speak differently if you had seen Jim at the gate just now. Frances had chucked him up, you know, when he came first; and then you had chucked him up, and he was going away without a word. He looked awfully down. I thought it was hard lines.”

Austin pushed away, with an abrupt, half-nervous movement, the chair across which he had been leaning, and thrust his hands into his pockets. He was a typical little Englishman—a boy of that nation which despises demonstrations of sentiment; but there was an honest flush on his cheeks.

“Look here, Mater,” he continued, “don’t you believe that if our father were alive he’d take Jim home this very minute? Wouldn’t he have him here with us, and treat him just the same?”

“I think he would,” said Austin soberly; “I truly do. And,” he continued, a delicate instinct prompting him, “I can’t tell why you don’t; only, of course, I don’t know about all the things you know of. I’m just settling about myself. I saw Jim going away, looking down, and I meant to ask you to send someone to fetch him back.”

“Because,” said Mrs. Morland indignantly, “I will not hear of such a thing. Do you suppose I will have all Woodend sneering at my blacksmith-stepson?”

“Well, I won’t ask what isn’t any good. But I’d like to go after him myself, and say—something. And I think I’ll go.”

The boy was near to the door. He reached it in a few quick, firm steps, turned, waved his hand smilingly, and went.

Mrs. Morland sprang up and moved some paces after him, then, with a helpless sigh, moved towards Frances. Why did not she run to stop the daring offender?

But Frances had sunk into a chair, and was sobbing bitterly. Shrugging her shoulders, Mrs. Morland stepped rapidly to the bell and rang it.

“John,” she said to the servant who appeared at the door, “I wish you to try to catch Master Austin. He has just left the room, and has, I think, gone out of doors.”

John hurried off, much exercised in his mind concerning his mistress’s distressed manner; and though used to a dignified pace, he fairly ran down the carriage-drive, threw back the gate, and stood gazing, now this way, now that.

“Can hardly have got out of sight in this time,” reflected the puzzled servant. “Well! if that isn’t the sound of a pony coming down the drive! Master Austin must have got the beast saddled double-quick. What’s our young gentleman up to, I’d like to know? Well, I’ve got to stop him, I suppose.”

John stood prepared in the middle of the gateway; and as Austin trotted into close quarters the servant explained his mistress’s orders.

“Look here, John,” said Austin, his eyes glowing with mischief, “I’ve an excellent regard for you, and I’d be sincerely sorry to cut short your valuable career. But if you don’t move a bit to one side I’m afraid I’ll make short work of you. I’m going through that gate this instant!”

As he spoke the boy touched his pony; the plucky little animal sprang forward, John sprang backward, and with a joyous laugh Austin was off down the road at full gallop.

Jim tramped steadily through Woodend village, noting his whereabouts only when his heedless progression brought him to a stop in the deep snow gathered at the sides of the pathways, or sent him floundering against wall or fence half-hidden in the[Pg 146] heavy shadows. His thoughts kept him company, and shut out intrusive sensations concerning the white world around him. The lights blinked through the trees from the houses standing back among their gardens, and the sounds of mirthful family meetings strayed sometimes to the lad’s ears. It was Christmas-day—the day on which, so old Bill East had said, folks’ hearts beat tenderly for all their kin. Lower down the valley cottage-homes stood humbly in their tiny plots; and the windows, often uncurtained, revealed the rough comfort within. Homes of another sort—as those of Lumber’s Yard—lay back from view: among them Dr. Brenton and Max were paying a round of Christmas calls before settling down for the evening they never cared to spend apart.

Jim tramped on. He had reached the entry to Lumber’s Yard, where a knot of the male residents had gathered for a sociable chat until it should be time to repair to the parlour of the “Jolly Dog”. One of the men called out to Jim, whose face was just then visible in the light from an open cottage-door. The lad heard the gruff greeting,—it came from Harry the Giant,—and the well-meant invitation which followed it.

“Why, Jim East, you’re looking rarely glum and peckish! Cheer up, lad. Come wi’ me, and ’ave summat hot to hearten ye. We’re all agoing into the “Dog” this minnit. Come along wi’ us.”

Jim paused irresolutely. Before his mental vision loomed the smithy, infinitely dreary; no welcome awaiting him save from four-footed friends. The old woman who kept the place clean and cooked meals for[Pg 147] the Easts had begged a holiday, which had been granted cheerfully. Jim shivered as he thought of the lonely rooms.

It was a searching moment for the poor lad. The cruel rebuffs of his kindred had cut him to the heart; more than that, they had threatened the ruin of his moral sense. If he were a creature so repellent in the eyes of those to whom his inner self had turned with instinctive yearning, surely he must have been mistaken in supposing that his nature could have qualities in common with theirs. Beauty of form, colour, or sound had always roused in him a glow of happiness, in which, during the last fortnight, he had tried—with a kind of grateful wonder—to recognize some latent refinement such as he supposed to be the inalienable possession of the gently born and bred.

He was the son of one whom even his grandfather had admitted to be a gallant and honourable gentleman. He was the brother of Frances, with her gracious manner and gentle speech, and of Austin, whose gay courtesy towards his girl-playmates had secured Jim’s respectful admiration. But since Frances and Austin would have none of him, whither should he turn? Could he carry into his lonely, loveless life that higher purpose which would teach him, without help or sympathy, to shun the base and impure, and to cling to the thing which is right? Or must he sink, sink at once and for ever, to the level of such as these?... Jim dragged his thoughts from the memory of the beautiful home from which he had just been banished, and forced his eyes to rest intelligently[Pg 148] on the slouching figures blocking the entry to Lumber’s Yard.

“Thank you, Harry;”—the lad’s voice had an unusual firmness—“you are kind, but I must be getting home.”

“There’s none to greet ye now,” persisted the giant good-naturedly. “Change your mind, and come wi’ us.”

More arguments, some rough, some jeering, followed him as he shook his head and walked on towards the darkening lanes beyond the village bounds. He chose mechanically the shortest way to Rowdon; and he had just turned into a by-road overhung by leafless elms, when a galloping pony caught him up, and was reined in with a jerk by his side.

The lad started violently, and turned in amazement to see Austin Morland leaning from his saddle with hand outstretched.

Jim, still staring, obeyed half-consciously. The grip exchanged by the brothers satisfied Austin, and sent through Jim a strange thrill of joy.

“I can’t quite make out things yet,” continued the younger boy, a little shy, but wholly friendly; “my mind’s a bit mixed, I fancy. But I know one thing—if you’re Jim Morland, we’ve got to stick to each other. Eh?”

“Well, you are Jim Morland. Mater says so; and[Pg 149] if she seems fussy at first, you and I aren’t going to worry. Perhaps she’ll come round. Anyhow, we’ll stick to each other. Eh?”

“If I could, I’d come with you now. But Frances and I can’t leave the Mater to-night. You see, Jim, don’t you?”

“But you will have me—ever so often. Whether you like it or not. I’ve holidays now. See, Jim! I’ll come to-morrow, in the afternoon quite early. Will you look out for me?”

“Then good-bye now. Because of Frances and the Mater, you know. Don’t mope to-night, there’s a good fellow. I’ll come to-morrow, and won’t I wake you up! Shake hands again! Now I’m off. Good-bye, brother Jim!”

The swift pony and his rider vanished. Jim Morland stood where they had left him, and his head sunk in his hands. Who shall despise him if, in his overwrought condition, he sobbed for very happiness?

“And to think I nearly missed him! Ah, if I’d gone along of Harry! Thank God I didn’t.... I’d never go now. I’d never do aught to make him feel shame of me. I’ll care for him always—ay, and for Missy too!... He called me ‘brother Jim’, God bless him!”

Jim went on through the darkness. At the smithy he found that Elizabeth had returned, made up his fire, and laid his table. Jim wandered about, too happy to[Pg 150] eat. He was no longer alone in the world: he had a small brother, who was coming to see him to-morrow, and on many morrows. (Jim hardly paused to wonder how Austin had contrived to overcome his mother’s objections.) At last the lad dragged a chair to the blazing fire in the kitchen. His dog crouched at his feet. His great black tom-cat purred at his elbow. His fiddle invited a song of thanksgiving to which his heart piped its cheerful chorus.

On the following day Austin paid his promised visit to Rowdon Smithy. There was no deceit in the boy, and he proclaimed his intention openly at home. The contest on the subject between himself and his mother was sharp and brief: Austin gained the day. Mrs. Morland had no idea how to enforce her commands, for she had at her disposal no means of coercion. Had it been possible to send her son to school, she would have taken this step immediately; but her husband’s objections stood in the way. There were no near relatives to whose charge she might, for a time, have consigned the little rebel, save the Scotch cousin with whom Austin had spent the last Easter holidays; and this cousin had gone to Australia to take up sheep-farming, in hopes of making a fortune, marrying, and settling down as an antipodean millionaire.[Pg 151] Meanwhile, he was making short work of his patrimony; and Mrs. Morland did not exactly see her way to employ him as jailer.

A settlement between the opposed forces was brought about by the wise diplomacy of Austin. The boy had always found that he had more than enough to do in taking care of his own conscience, and it did not for a moment occur to him that he was the appointed keeper of anybody else’s. Least of all was he inclined to try to dictate to his mother and Frances on points of duty or conduct; if only they would let him alone, he was quite willing to be equally tolerant.

So Austin struck a bargain. His visits to the smithy were to be permitted, in return for a promise that he would not enlighten Woodend as to Jim’s revelations. Austin claimed one exception—he must and would tell Max everything. Dr. Brenton knew already; and the doctor and Max had no secrets from one another; so that Max, most likely, was already in possession of the strange news. Anyway, Austin could not shut out from his confidence his special chum.

Mrs. Morland made the best of the matter, and secured for the present her own peace of mind by holding an interview with Max’s eccentric father.

“Eccentric” Dr. Brenton certainly was in the eyes of Mrs. Morland, who had not hitherto entrusted the health of herself or her children to a medical man not possessed of a carriage and pair. The high esteem in which the Doctor was held by the gentle-people as well as the working-folk of Woodend had roused first her curiosity and then her scorn.

“You must look more closely, dear Madam,” the old-fashioned Rector had said to her, “and beneath Brenton’s shabby coat you will see the spreading of an angel’s wings.”

“I think not, sir,” Edward Carlyon had differed quietly; “beneath the shabby coat you’ll see only a shabbier waistcoat. The wings can wait a bit: we want the man.”

Mrs. Morland was persuaded that she could secure the Doctor’s silence, and indeed she did so. But she did not forget, during a whole uncomfortable day, the “eccentric” man’s look as he bowed agreement to her request. Dr. Brenton heartily wished Jim well, and he knew that Mrs. Morland’s departure from Woodend would in no way help the lad; but while he handed his visitor to her carriage with punctilious courtesy, he wondered what manner of woman this was who could stoop to inflict so great an injustice.

Though in the case of Austin Mrs. Morland gave way to what seemed to be necessity, she was careful to hold Frances to her promise. And Frances wavered miserably between the two parties, in this house divided against itself. Of one thing she was sure—she could not have taken the half-measures which had satisfied Austin. Had Frances acknowledged her brother at all, she must have acknowledged him to all the world. The feeling that in this respect Austin had fallen short of consistency warped her sympathy with his actions, and to some extent seemed to justify her own. She, surely, was at least consistent.

When poor Frances reached this stage in her meditations,[Pg 153] she began to falter. She remembered that she was still the leader of the Altruists, and that a score of boys and girls paid her real homage as the inspirer of deeds of self-denial and mercy. When the Carlyons’ school reopened after the Christmas vacation, Muriel’s pupils began slowly to detect some changes in their popular comrade. The girls with whom she had seemed hitherto to have least in common were those who now met eagerly her tardy advances. To be sought as friend and playfellow by Frances Morland had been a happy distinction to any of Miss Carlyon’s little band. Frances had never affected superiority, and it was impossible to suspect her of vanity; but her clear gray eyes had appeared to look beneath the surface, and to choose with unerring confidence the best natures as those most akin to her own. Her gentle sincerity had appealed to every loyal heart and won its ungrudging recognition.

Now, in the society of her former favourites, she was dull and ill at ease; and when her new friends gathered round her, only too ready to hail her as leader, her instinctive contempt for the offered loyalty made her capricious and even tyrannical. Muriel Carlyon, who watched over her pupils with a very real tolerance and sympathy, knew a pang of disappointment as she saw Frances apparently content to reach a lower plane in character and conduct.

At home, the girl’s altered demeanour was not less apparent than at school. Her influence over Austin must have gone for ever, she told herself, or he could[Pg 154] not have differed from her on a point which was surely a test of individuality; and having so made up her mind, she soon brought about the state of things which had been purely imaginary. It was true that Austin had begun to spend a good deal of his leisure at the smithy, but he would at any time have given his sister’s affairs the preference. Now, however, Frances no longer invited his willing aid. The chemicals and dishes in the dark-room, once so fascinating, were thick with dust, since Austin found photography “no fun” without Frances. Prints had duly been taken from the two negatives which had been the Christmas-day successes, and Florry’s group and Frances’s landscape had been admired by half Woodend. But Frances could not endure the sight of either; and when copies were begged, no coaxing or pleading from Austin would induce his sister to help him to take them.

The boy laid aside his camera and took up his fiddle. His patient teacher, a young Exham musician, was delighted with his sudden progress; and Mrs. Morland smiled complacently while she whispered to her friends:

“Yes, Austin has always been musical—so like his dear father. Mr. Morland had quite a reputation as an amateur violinist. The Amati that is now Austin’s was once his. It gives me so much pleasure to see my dear boy take up in earnest the study of his instrument.”

On reception days Mrs. Morland’s servants were sent to playroom and garden in search of the juvenile[Pg 155] prodigy, but their efforts were vain. Austin’s performances were strictly private—private to himself and his brother Jim. For Jim’s sake he listened to his teacher’s instructions, and strove, in half-hours of self-sacrificial practice, to communicate those instructions to his own finger-tips. Then, later on, he could pass them on to Jim. And Jim sat willingly at Austin’s feet in the art and science of music, and found no evening dull on which he could pore over the exercise-books his brother had brought him, and repeat again and again on his own poor instrument some passage whose difficulty Austin had tried to help him to overcome.

For many weeks matters held to the same course, and the Easter holidays came round to complete the year of Mrs. Morland’s residence in Woodend. Jim had kept his promise, and had not sought to make public the secret of his birth; and Dr. Brenton and Max and Austin had proved equally faithful.

Max’s training, as much as his natural endowment, had given him a large heart and a most tolerant judgment. He was “all things to all men” in the best sense. With this true friend, Austin attempted no concealments, and felt that, without disloyalty, he might venture on a discussion of the one epoch-marking experience of his young life. He even tried to win from Max some opinion as to Frances’s share in Jim’s dismissal and banishment.

“For it wasn’t a scrap like her,” remarked Austin in a puzzled voice; “Frances has always been such a stickler about justice and that, you know. Goodness![Pg 156] she’s down like a shot on a chap who doesn’t play fair—”

“She used to be,” amended Max diffidently. The talk was of another fellow’s sister, and he trusted his tongue would remember its duty. “The other day, when Lal slanged Guy because Guy won that prize Lal wanted, I believe every girl except Frances slanged Lal in his turn for his sneakiness.”

“My! wasn’t there a jolly row!” said Austin, chuckling at the recollection. “Ten of ’em all together giving it hot to that skunk Lal!”

“Frances would have led the assault once on a time.” Max smiled, remembering not Lal’s rating only, but many occasions when Austin’s sister had exchanged her usual serenity for hot contempt of conduct base and ungenerous.

“Yes, she would,” assented Austin slowly. “And that’s what I can’t make out—why she’s so different now.”

“I think it’s because she’s so really fair and straight,” said Max in a sober voice, which breathed chivalrous determination to believe in the absent Frances. “And if she knows all the time that she isn’t exactly fair to Jim, she won’t want to come out strong about ‘justice’ when other folks trip.”

Austin nodded his head in agreement. “That’s it! Besides, she’s a girl, and girls are cranky things; a fellow never knows quite how to take ’em.”

“Bless you, no,” replied Austin, shaking his head[Pg 157] this time, and speaking with conviction. “Why, I could make out any other chap’s sister better than I can make out Frances. But of course,” he added, sitting very erect, “Frances isn’t a common girl. She’s not so understandable as the rest of the lot, even.”

“Do you know,” began Max seriously, “what she told me yesterday? She said she thought she’d have to give up being an Altruist!”

“She did! And I said: ‘Oh, Frances! don’t break up our club. It’s the first of our Woodend things which has gone on and been a success.’ And she said: ‘Of course it will go on, and far better without me.’ And I asked her why; and she said something, very low, about the nicest sort of girls—the girls who were the best Altruists—not caring for her as they used to do; and that they didn’t come so much to the meetings, and that she thought they would if she weren’t the leader.”

“Well,” said Austin, in a crestfallen tone, “fancy Frances chucking up her beloved Society! She trots about with the Mater, too, ever so much more than she used to do, and it’s a bad sign. Imagine Frances sitting in a drawing-room, wearing her best togs, when she might be playing hockey with us!”

“She goes out to tea, like any silly, when she might be making bromides with me in the dark-room.”

“Well, she gave me two pinafores out of the Altruists’ stores last week,” said Max, brightening; “she’s been so stand-off lately I was afraid to beg.”

“Perhaps things will pick up,” said Austin. “I know what would make them do it soonest.”

“Why, for the Mater to find out what a jolly good fellow Jim is, and make it up with him. Then Frances could follow suit, without any humble pie. There’s nothing a girl hates so much as having to own she’s in the wrong.”

The kindness he received from his young brother sank deeply into Jim’s heart, and went far to heal it of the soreness left by Frances’s repudiation of his plea for a kinsman’s position. Jim, as he truly put it, “thought the world of the lad”, and was almost pathetically proud of his handsome face and gallant bearing. During the prevalence of the bleak March winds Austin caught cold, and had one of his bad throats; and Jim was miserable all day and all night, except when Max was with him, assuring him that the boy was “getting on splendidly”, and promising to deliver to the interesting invalid every kind of affectionate message, supplemented by such gifts as were within Jim’s reach.

Austin got well, and resumed his custom of riding to the smithy at least two or three days a week. The first time he went after his convalescence, he received from Jim a welcome which he never could forget. The elder lad’s wet eyes, shaking hands, and broken voice were evidence enough of his clinging love for the younger; and Austin realized, with some sobering emotion, that to his brother he was infinitely dear.

A closer relationship grew between them. When the occasion served, they had long talks, and learned to know one another. Jim’s simple manliness of thought and deed roused in Austin a respect which kept down his secret impatience with his brother’s extreme tenderness of heart. Austin felt dimly that Jim ought to be resentful of the harsh decree which shut him out from the ease and luxury of the home at Elveley, and denied him the advantages due to his father’s son. He even tried to “stir Jim up a bit”, and encourage him to stand out against the powers that were.

“I don’t know what’s mine,” remarked Austin one day, after much pondering over matters which had forced themselves on his boyish consideration, “but I’m sure you ought to have most of it. Why don’t you pluck up, Jim, and say so? Then you could study and go to college as you’d like to; and you’re such a grind, you’d come out an awful swell, and make the Mater and Frances proud of you!”

To his surprise, Jim turned from him with a pained expression, and leaning against the window, murmured:

“It wouldn’t be from me, really,” persisted Austin. “It would be only having what’s rightfully yours. Well, there! Don’t mope, Jim! Come on and give us another lesson in shoeing. I believe I’ll soon be able to tackle a gee all by myself. Won’t it be larks when I can!”

Austin presently realized his ambition; and a fine dray-horse was proudly shod by a young gentleman in spotless flannels, while his admiring elder brother looked on to prompt and praise. Mrs. Morland was[Pg 160] spared the knowledge of this achievement; but Austin confided it to Frances without hesitation. Frances’s native love of consistency moved her to vindicate her chosen position by a hot reproof of Austin for his unconventional conduct.

“Well!” said the boy, profoundly bored, “you don’t stick to your own opinions, Miss Frances. Wasn’t it you who used to talk about any honest work being noble and beautiful, and all that tommy-rot? Now I don’t say shoeing horses is noble work, or beautiful, or anything. I just say it’s first-rate fun!”

“There!” thought Frances bitterly, “he has gone away; he never stays with me now. He isn’t a bit my boy any longer. He’s Jim’s. Oh, how I wish we never had come to Woodend! But Jim says his grandfather always managed to know where we lived. How horrid it seems! I wish I’d been different to Jim. He looked so sorry. I think—I think I hurt him. I wish I were brave, and didn’t feel ashamed for people to know I had a blacksmith for a brother! I hate to think of anyone pitying us about Jim, and sneering at his funny clothes and way of speaking! I know I’m a ‘snob’, and that Miss Cliveden would scorn me now; but I can’t help it.”

Doubt of herself made Frances doubtful of others, and she began to show signs of developing that unlucky sort of suspicion which searches motives with intent to prove itself in the right. Her common-sense told her that the best of her girl-friends could not despise her for conduct of which they knew nothing; yet she,[Pg 161] who had been above all things frank and sincere, now continually imagined slights and offences on the part of her favourite comrades. But Frances had been too well liked to be readily regarded as an outsider by any of Muriel Carlyon’s brightest and busiest lassies.

It was not until, in a mood of hopeless discontent, she carried out her purpose of deserting the flourishing Society she had founded with so much energy and success, that a deputation of alarmed and amazed damsels pursued Miss Carlyon into her private sitting-room, and demanded that she should, then and there, tell them what could be the matter with Frances.

“She called a meeting in the schoolroom after hours!” cried Florry Fane breathlessly; “it was to let us know that she wasn’t going to be our leader any more! She said we should do better without her, and she proposed that I should be the Altruist secretary—as though any one could take Frances’s place!”

“It is true,” said the First Violin—a pensive maid known to her elders as Dorothy Gray,—“that we have not attended the meetings so regularly as we used to; but that was all because Frances has seemed so different.”

“Oh! in every way. She used to talk such a lot about helping people, and to be full of plans for all sorts of ways to make our Society some real good to the Woodend poor folks. We were going to have a bazaar in the summer, and build a club-room which would be open in the evenings and entice the men[Pg 162] from that dreadful inn at Lumber’s Yard. It was to be a secret until we had held another meeting.”

“Of course we were going to tell you all about it before we decided anything.”

“Why, I suppose so. We could not get on without Frances. She is so good at arranging and managing. Besides, it would seem so strange and unfriendly to throw ourselves into anything heartily with Frances out in the cold.”

There was a minute’s silence, while Muriel watched observantly the half-dozen young faces turned eagerly to hers.

“My dears,” she said soberly, “I am with you in your surprise at the change in Frances, and in your natural longing to understand it and to win your friend back to her old ways. Let us put our heads together, and see what we can do. First, let us ask Florry, who has been so much with Frances, whether she can suggest any reason for the lassie’s whims.”

“I don’t think I can,” said Florry slowly; “you see, she isn’t the kind of girl to back out of things in order to be flattered and fussed over, and begged to go on with them. Frances isn’t a bit vain. She’s too much in earnest.”

“Can her mother have raised objections to her doing so much for your Society? Mrs. Morland is taking Frances about with her more than she used to do, and she may wish her daughter to use her leisure differently.”

Florry shook her head. “No—it can’t be that. Frances told me her mother had promised to help with our bazaar, and to persuade her friends to work for it. We should hardly have gone on thinking about it else,” added Florry bluntly, “because the Woodend people all follow Mrs. Morland like sheep.”

“We needn’t criticise our elders on that point,” said plump Betty Turner, “for we all follow Frances like sheep. Why not? Someone must lead.”

“And Mrs. Morland’s leadership has been used most kindly on behalf of the Altruists,” said Miss Carlyon gently. “No doubt it would serve the bazaar to good purpose, and I still hope your grand plan may be triumphantly worked out. And now, dear girls, as you cannot clear up the mystery of Frances’s behaviour, may I, without discouraging you, own that you mustn’t look to me for enlightenment? If there is anything behind, I am not in Frances’s confidence; I can judge only from what appears on the surface. Isn’t it possible that the very honours you have thrust upon her—the popularity, the responsibility—may have become something of a strain? Perhaps she may feel that, for a time at least, she would rather remain in the background, while those who have learned to imitate her courage and energy may take their turn[Pg 164] in coming to the front. In any case, I can’t help believing that your best course will be to persist in your gallant undertakings, and to let our Frances see that her efforts have not been thrown away. She has borne the burden and the heat of the day, and she may flag for awhile only to spring forward more gladly and willingly after a well-earned rest.”

“Must go on and prosper, if only to maintain its founder’s credit. If your Club-room at Elveley is no longer available, you shall hold your meetings here. Persevere, lassies, persevere! And before long—I feel sure of it—Frances the Altruist shall be again in your midst.”

The news that her daughter had abandoned her pet hobby was quite a shock to Mrs. Morland, who had so long been accustomed to see her children to the fore in every juvenile scheme, that she could not recognize the value of a light hidden under a bushel. She reproached Frances long and scornfully for her voluntary abdication of her small queenship; but the girl listened in silence, and with an expression of weariness and indifference which increased her mother’s vexation. Mrs. Morland felt the disappointment and chagrin Austin and Frances were causing her all the more because such sensations were so new and strange. She had always congratulated herself on the possession of a pair of youngsters who were made for future social success. And here was Austin, of his own choice, spending half his play-hours at a vulgar smithy.[Pg 165] And here was Frances handing over her girlish honours to Florry Fane.

Mrs. Morland’s fretting and the children’s divided interests made of Elveley a different home. The three members of the little family were drifting apart slowly and steadily. During Austin’s short illness, mother and daughter drew nearer in the press of a common anxiety; but as soon as the boy was about again, and galloping his pony to and from Rowdon Smithy, he seemed to become once more a being outside Frances’s world.

It was August, and the evenings were sultry and oppressive after burning summer days. At Rowdon Smithy there was always some coolness, borrowed from the adjacent moorland, and helped by a situation exposed on northern and eastern sides. So, when dusk drew on, and Jim’s work might, as a rule, be considered over, the young smith used to sit in his trellised porch, with book in hand or violin on shoulder, and enjoy such breezes as were to be had. The place pleased him for several reasons. It had been a favourite resting-spot of his grandfather’s, it caught the latest beams of the sun setting across the Common, and it commanded a fair stretch of the road by which Austin might be expected to come.

Austin came now oftener than of old. Jim sometimes wondered why: he had, as it seemed to him, so little entertainment to offer to his brother.

On a particular evening of this sunny August, Jim sat, as usual, in the cottage-porch. His hands were busy with his fiddle, his eyes were bent over a sheet of music which Austin had lent to him. Jim had changed much during the last few months. His face and figure had matured and grown manlier; he was dressed with more care, and had the fresh, “clean” look peculiar to upper-class Englishmen. There was but slight trace of the peasant about him, and his homely language sounded pleasantly enough in his soft, clear voice—which even to Austin’s ears was quaintly reminiscent of Frances’s sweet tones. His manners and bearing were seldom at fault; for old William East had known something of the ways of gentle-people, and, acknowledging within himself a duty owed to the lad’s deceived father, had taken pains to shield Jim from bad example and to encourage his natural refinement. The sorrow of his bereavement, and the keen pain of his rejection at the hands of his sister and stepmother, had indeed saddened his young face; but they had also deepened and strengthened his character, in teaching him to stand alone.

The sound of a trotting pony advancing along the hard, white country road broke in on Jim’s peaceful studies and caught his attention. Hoping that the nearing rider might be Austin, Jim sprang to his feet, laid aside his fiddle, and swung briskly down the garden-path to the gate. As he went, he saw that his[Pg 167] young brother was putting his pony to the gallop, with evident impatience to reach his journey’s end. Jim threw wide the gate, and stepped out on to the roadway in time to wave a welcome to his visitor. Then he saw that Austin’s sunburnt cheeks had lost their ruddy colour, and that his eyes looked scared and strange as from a nervous shock.

“Why, Austin! What’s up, lad?” asked the elder brother anxiously. “There’s surely something wrong.”

“Everything’s wrong, Jim! Everything’s dreadful! You’d never guess what’s happened at home! Don’t try: I’d rather tell straight out. Perhaps I shall feel better when you know, too!”

“Harm to all of us, I think, Jim. At least, Mother says we’re beggars! Isn’t that harm enough? Jim, don’t stand and stare like that!”

Jim pulled himself together. “I was frighted, lad,—feared to think of what you might mean. ‘Beggars!’ Surely not ‘beggars’!”

Austin laughed roughly. Child as he was, the trouble which had overtaken him, and the way in which it had been met, had affected him strongly.

“Well, Mater says so: and I suppose she knows. Jim, I’ll ride round to the shed and fasten up Rough first of all.”

“I’ll come with you,” said the other briefly; and they made the short journey in silence. When the pony had been safely tethered, Austin caught Jim by the arm and dragged him off.

“Not indoors!” said the boy impatiently. “I feel[Pg 168] choked already. Let’s go to the orchard. Oh, how jolly quiet and cool it is here! At home—.”

Austin paused, and held his tongue perseveringly until the brothers had gained a favourite retreat in the pleasantest nook among the old apple-trees. Jim, even then, forbore to question, guessing that his young brother’s nerves were strung to a pitch which would not bear further tension. With considerate kindness the elder lad forced back, out of sight, his own fears and forebodings.

Austin threw himself on the ground with a long-drawn breath of relief. The calm of his surroundings and the friendly presence of his brother brought a happy sense of protection to the overwrought lad.

“Now I’ll tell everything,” he said, drawing near to Jim, who immediately put an arm about him. “Only I can’t explain very well, because I don’t half understand myself. It was this morning it happened. A man came from London to see Mamma; so he was taken to the library, and she went there to speak to him. The library has a French window opening on to the lawn, and Frances and I were sitting together in the garden, quite near the library window. We could hear Mamma and the man talking, but not well enough to know what they were saying, so we did not think we need move away. Presently we did hear something: we heard Mamma say plainly, in a queer, high voice, ‘Then I and my children are paupers!’ Frances jumped up, and so did I; and we both ran to the library window. It wasn’t what Mamma had said; it was the way she spoke. Jim, it would have scared[Pg 169] you. Just as we got to the house we heard a sort of cry. Well, we pushed open the window in a jiffey; and there was Mamma, lying all of a heap in her chair, and the strange man standing beside her, looking frightened out of his wits. And he said to us: ‘I’ve brought your mother bad news, but I couldn’t help it; I’ve nothing to do with the matter. The governor sent me down from town to tell her, because he thought it would come easier that way than in a letter or a telegram.’ Of course we didn’t know what he meant, and we didn’t much mind, we were so awfully scared about Mater.”

“Yes. We called her maid, and brought her round; while the man vanished into the garden, saying he’d stay there a while in case he was wanted again. I’d have told him to cut back to his precious ‘governor’, only Frances wouldn’t let me. And as soon as Mamma could speak she asked for the London man, and in he came. I must say he looked sorry; and he didn’t seem to like it when Mamma said she wished him to tell Frances and me exactly what he had told her. Then—oh, Jim! I can’t remember half his long speech. It was all about deeds, and securities, and fraudulent trustees, and creditors. There was a man who had charge of all our money—Mamma’s and Frances’s and mine,—and was to manage for us till I was twenty-one. Papa had made him ‘trustee’. He had always given Mamma plenty of money for everything she needed, and she had never thought anything was wrong.[Pg 170] But a while ago he wanted to make more money for himself; and first he used only what was his own, and lost it; then he began to use ours, and lost that. When nearly all ours was lost, and he knew he must soon be found out, he managed to get hold of what was left of Papa’s money, and then he ran away. So he has gone; and we shall never find him, or get back what he stole.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Jim breathlessly, “what a sore, sore trial for Madam! Does she bear up, dear lad?”

“No,” replied Austin gloomily; “and that’s the worst of it all. Mamma seems so very—queer. She sits and moans and groans, and tells Frances and me over and over again that we’re just beggars, and must go to the workhouse. Jim!” added Austin, with a break in his voice, and a childlike dread which made him shiver nervously, “Jim! must we really do that?”

“No, dear lad, no. Why, Madam has her beautiful house anyway. She told me she’d bought it.”

“Yes; but it isn’t all paid for,” said Austin, shaking his head. “The London man said Mamma’s trustee hadn’t paid for lots of things. Elveley is to be sold and all that’s in it; and even then Mamma won’t be able to pay everybody.”

“I can’t hardly take it in,” muttered Jim. “Are you sure it’s as bad as you say?”

“I’m sure enough,” said Austin bitterly, “seeing Mamma has said it all over and over again. Frances and I have stayed with her,” continued the lad, throwing up his arms wearily; “but this evening I thought I must come here for a bit, or I’d—I’d howl![Pg 171] Jim, you can’t guess what it’s like, at home. Mamma can’t do anything but groan.”

“What’s the good of friends? They can’t find our trustee—or make our money come back again. And we’ve no relations except Cousin Walter, and he’s in Australia, sheep-farming. Don’t I wish I could go to Australia, and have heaps of land, and millions of sheep!” Austin closed his eyes, the better to call up a vision of plenty. “But Cousin Walter’s a failure out there: he can’t help us.”

“There’s surely someone,” said Jim, unable to think of the stately, handsome owner of Elveley as friendless, penniless, and homeless. The lad might have been pardoned a gleam of satisfaction at the ruin which had overtaken the woman who had treated him with contemptuous indifference, and shown no intention of acknowledging his just claim to a share of his father’s property. But Jim was guiltless of resentment, and the inherent chivalry of his nature rose up in indignant pity at the blow dealt to the widow and orphans.

Jim thought much and deeply, but he wisely said little in the meantime, preferring deeds to words. Austin succeeded in convincing him that in Mrs. Morland’s sight, at least, her case was desperate; and Jim the simple-minded could only marvel how so many years of prosperity and social success could have been unfruitful of a single friend attached and loyal enough to come forward with counsel and help.

“There must be someone,” he repeated, with conviction. “Austin, lad, this is too soon to talk so hopeless-like. Mayhap your mother is fair dazed with the shock, and too upset to think clear. Keep up heart, dear lad, and cheer Madam and Missy too. Tell them as all must come right.”

“Oh, Jim!” broke out Austin, “I wish you would come to Elveley and make some sense of things! It’s so awfully bothering to go on not knowing what will really happen, and with Mater not able to tell us. Jim, do come home with me now!”

“Dear lad, I’d come with you gladly, but I haven’t the right—yet. I promised your mother I wouldn’t tell who I was; and what would folks think to see Jim East the blacksmith meddling with Madam’s affairs? No, it would just worry her more if I should venture—it would make things harder for her to see me there. I mayn’t do it, lad. It’s terrible vexing to know I mayn’t.”

Jim’s reluctance was so evidently reasonable and unselfish that Austin forbore to press his entreaty. Instead, he allowed himself to be comforted and encouraged by all the arguments for hope and cheerfulness which Jim could draw from his imagination. At the smithy, Austin always felt happy and at peace. The difficulty was to tear himself away and go back to the home whence peace and happiness had fled.

Mrs. Morland, as has been said, was not personally popular in the village where she had made her home. Woodend was, in a sense, old-fashioned, and it had[Pg 173] acquiesced quietly in her assumption of leadership in all that concerned its small social matters, but it had not learned to like her. Though its upper-class community was no less charitable than others similarly placed, there were not a few old residents who heard the story of the Morland downfall, as it affected the mistress of Elveley, with hardly more than a conventional murmur of regret. But when her children were under discussion the case was different. Everyone liked the bright girl and boy, everyone grieved at the tragic calamity which must so greatly change their lives.

Still, there were some neighbours able and willing to show Mrs. Morland kindness and sympathy. These sought her out at the earliest moment that good taste allowed, and frankly offered to be of service; but the poor woman, completely overwhelmed by the extent of the disaster, rejected their overtures with angry scorn. Naturally, her well-meaning friends retired precipitately, determining that she should be left to take her own course.

What that course should be Mrs. Morland did not even attempt to decide. The creditors who had insisted on the sale of Elveley wished to show the innocent debtor some consideration, and informed her that she might continue to occupy the house for three weeks. The Rector, who was not to be driven away by any rebuffs, listened patiently to the outpourings of bitter invective against her fraudulent trustee, which seemed the only relief Mrs. Morland could discover. The kindly, gentle old man was too infirm to fight an injured woman’s battles; but Edward Carlyon persuaded[Pg 174] Mrs. Morland to put her affairs in the hands of a competent solicitor, who might make the best terms possible with her creditors.

The three weeks of grace had almost slipped by, and still no provision had been made for the future of the little family. Frances and Austin seldom left their mother, though in her presence they were acutely miserable. They were young and vigorous, and, after they had recovered from the shock of misfortune, they were eager to be up and doing. Both girl and boy implored their mother to speak—to tell them what her plans might be, so that they might help forward any arrangements she had made. But Mrs. Morland declared herself incapable of action, and was not moved even by the pale and anxious faces of the harassed pair who were ready to take the field in her behalf.

It was an awakening period for the two young Morlands. Hitherto they had felt a childlike security in the capacity of a mother’s protecting love and care. The world’s struggles and trials had seemed far removed from the sheltered comfort of their home. Now, the arm that had encircled and shielded them had been suddenly removed, and the onset of trouble found them defenseless.

“If only we knew what was going to become of us,” sighed Frances in Miss Carlyon’s ear. “It is so dreadful to feel day after day passing and not to have the least idea what Mamma will do. Sometimes Austin and I think she really does not understand that we must leave Elveley immediately; but if we try to talk about it she will not listen.”

“Dear child, your mother has received a very heavy blow. Who can wonder if it has prostrated her?”

Miss Carlyon’s tone was extremely pitiful, though she could hardly think without impatience of the crushed, broken woman who, even for the sake of her children, would not rouse herself out of her state of despondency. The girl and boy whose future had promised to be so bright were surely the chief sufferers; but Mrs. Morland’s pride saw as yet only her personal defeat—her loss of position, her coming poverty.

“I know how very hard it is for Mamma,” said Frances; “Austin and I would scarcely mind at all if only Mamma need not lose all her things. I do want to help her, but she says I am just a girl, and of no use. And Austin is not grown-up yet. Oh, Miss Carlyon, is there no work I can do? I think I could take care of children, and I would do anything.”

“Should I have to leave home? I don’t think I could bear to go quite away among strangers. What would Austin do?”

“What, indeed? And how could your mother part from her only daughter? Your place is at home, darling.”

“I don’t know,” said Frances in a shaky voice. “I don’t seem much good to Mamma; and perhaps, after all, Austin would not mind now. He does not want me as he used to.”

“How is that?” asked Miss Carlyon gently, while she stroked the girl’s bent head.

“It is because I am different,” said Frances dejectedly.[Pg 176] “I have been mean and horrid, and Austin knows.”

Muriel Carlyon remained silent, half-expecting that her young favourite would open her heart, and give her confidence to her friend. But Frances’s tongue was tied by her promise to her mother; though, in this time of trial, when sight seemed clearer and duty plainer, she did long to cast away the burden of deceit and tell the truth before all the world.

“Do you think anyone would take me as a nursery governess, Miss Carlyon?” asked the girl presently.

“No, dear, I do not. People do not engage little maids of fourteen for posts of responsibility.”

“I am nearly fifteen. Of course I know that is not old, but I could put up my hair.”

“I might try a grey wig,” suggested Frances, throwing her arms round her friend; “and spectacles, you know,—like a girl in a story-book.”

“Even then, I am afraid, you would be nothing but a dear young lass, by no means formidable enough to pose as a governess.”

“You are formidable,” said Frances, hugging Miss Carlyon close. “And your hair is not grey, but pretty brown curls; and you look, oh! ever so young and jolly! It cheers me up just to see you.”

“Have that cheer as often as you will, darling; and believe it doesn’t make troubles lighter to meet them with a gloomy face.”

“Florry is a first-rate philosopher—an unconscious[Pg 177] preacher, too, of the gospel of plain living and high thinking.”

“I’ll tell you how she argues—you know she loves to argue. This is exactly what she said:—‘If you don’t have such a big house, you needn’t mind, for you can’t be in more than one room at a time. And if you don’t have grand dinners, you needn’t mind, for boys and girls come in only for dessert, and grown-ups just have indigestion. And if you’ve only one best frock and one worst one, you needn’t mind, for it will save the bother of thinking what you’ll put on.’ It sounds quite sensible, really. I don’t think I do mind being poor, for myself. Just for Mamma and Austin.”

“Perhaps Mamma and Austin may learn to be equally philosophical. At all events, dear, you can go on trying to show them the bright side of things.”

“If there were a bright side!” said Frances. “I must try to see it myself first.”

“Well—think. Since the sad day of your trial, dear, which of your friends have been most eager to seek you out—which have been careful to hold aloof?”

“Ah!” said Frances at last, in a low, happy voice, “I know what you mean. Thank you, Miss Carlyon. Of course you knew, you could not help seeing, how the girls I used to like the best have seemed, ever since Christmas, to be far jollier without me.”

“Did I?” said Frances, with real surprise. “I thought it was because I was dull and stupid. So I tried to make friends with the others, but it never seemed the same. And now all my old chums have come back to me, and the new ones have stayed away. Oh, yes, Miss Carlyon, there is a bright side. Only, I didn’t know where to look for it.”

It was the evening of the third day before the one on which Elveley, and the major portion of its contents, were to be put up to auction. Mrs. Morland sat alone in her private sitting-room; a small and beautifully-furnished apartment where, during the last weeks, she had hidden herself from all eyes which she considered malicious or inquisitive. She knew she was not a popular woman; but she had preferred to mere popularity the more exclusive gratification which could be obtained by a determined and successful insistence on superiority. So long as she could be a leader, Mrs. Morland cared not whether her train followed her willingly or not. Thus, among her acquaintances, she had not tried to make a single friend.

The disaster which would have been heavy to most women was appalling to her. So far, she had refused to face facts, and had met her children’s timid protests either with indifference or anger. But that very afternoon, the boy and girl—coming hand in hand, for mutual encouragement—had made a fresh attempt to persuade her to listen to them; and though she had[Pg 179] fairly driven them away by her harsh and bitter replies, she had not been able to forget the wretchedness in their young faces. It was true, of course, what they had said: in three days they would have no roof to cover their heads.

Austin, on leaving his mother, rushed to the stable, had his pony saddled, and galloped off to Rowdon. He had promised that his brother should know that day how matters stood; and it seemed to Austin that matters were at desperation-point.

Mrs. Morland remained alone. Round her were the evidences of her lost prosperity, and her eyes roved from one to another of her possessions, while her brain worked busily, and her long, slender fingers played with the pretty toys on a delicately-carved and inlaid table by her side. The children’s appeal had at last roused her, and consternation was taking the place of lethargy. Frances had implored her to speak: but after all, what could she say? What refuge was open to her, that pride could let her accept? More than one of her neighbours—the Rector first of them—had courteously offered her and her children a temporary home; but the idea of lingering on in Woodend, an object of careless pity to those whom she had compelled to a certain admiration, was hateful, even insupportable, to the suffering woman.

Her thoughts were still dwelling on what seemed to her an indignity impossible of endurance, when a servant brought a visitor to her door, and left him, at his own request, to enter unannounced.

“Who’s that?” demanded Mrs. Morland sharply, as[Pg 180] the figure of young Jim Morland began to take shape in the distant shadows of the room.

Jim stepped forward, and with a word of greeting quietly proclaimed himself. He had been warned by Austin of the mood in which he was likely to find his stepmother; and the latent chivalry of his nature was now prepared to resist all inclinations towards impatience or resentment. In Jim’s simple creed a woman’s misfortune rendered her sacred.

“Please forgive me for venturing, Madam,” began the lad respectfully; “I’m feared you’ll not be over-pleased as I should come just now. I’m here because Austin told me of your trouble, and I wanted to see what I could do.”

“What you could do!” exclaimed Mrs. Morland, remembering bitterly enough that her stepson was of age now; that, had she treated him justly, and made over to him the share of his father’s property which was morally his right when he reached his majority, he would have been able, and probably willing, to help her to good purpose. “What can you do, pray? Take my son, and teach him the trade of a blacksmith?”

“He has pluck enough,” replied Jim gently. “And he would think it no shame to do aught which would help you or his sister. But of course that’s for me to do. I am the eldest: and—though I feel sore-like to vex you, Madam,—I’ve come now to claim my rights.”

“Your rights?” queried Mrs. Morland, thinking of her husband’s lost thousands.

“Yes. I’ve waited—knowing as you and Missy thought shame of me—to see if you had better plans. But now I’ve come, because my brother and sister are in need of someone to care for them.” Jim moved nearer, and laid his strong brown hand on the dainty inlaid table: Mrs. Morland almost shivered to see it there. “I claim the right to care for them. Madam, this time you can’t say me nay—it is my right.”

“My good boy,” said Mrs. Morland petulantly, “don’t try to be bombastic if you want me to hear you out. Please say what you have come to say, as quickly as you can.”

“I’d best be quick,” said Jim, unmoved; “for I doubt not you are tired and worried: and if I could”—the lad’s eyes rested softly on his stepmother’s hard-drawn features—“I’d like to bring you some ease. You know as I’ve a little house, Madam. ’Tis a small place, but tidy-like; and there’s a big orchard behind. And since my brother and sister must soon leave their home, I’d have them come to mine and be king and queen of it. I’d be proud to see them there.”

“No doubt,” said Mrs. Morland grimly; “but the joys of cottage life are not quite in their line.”

“Madam,” said Jim earnestly, “you must listen to me now. The others are too young to do aught, and it’s not for them to feel the world’s roughness. You do not like as folks should know their brother’s just a blacksmith and the home he has to offer them just a poor cottage. I do not say as that’s not reason in a way, and no fault of yours. But if, when this place is[Pg 182] sold, you will not let me take them to Rowdon, where are they to go?”

Mrs. Morland sat still awhile, without replying, while her fingers tapped nervously the polished surface of the little table. Her demeanour had changed somewhat during Jim’s brief speech, for she had been obliged to recognize that his words were the expression of his heart’s true feeling, and that she had now no hard or revengeful nature to deal with. However unworthy might be her estimate of the causes which prompted Jim’s present attitude, she began to see in the lad possibilities that would render more tolerable the necessity for owning him.

“They will go with me,” said Mrs. Morland bitterly, “to the workhouse, I suppose!”

“They will go with you, of course,” said Jim, leaning forward, and speaking in a tone of the most persuasive softness his peasant tongue could command. “What would they do without you? But I’ve a home for you all at Rowdon—and—indeed, I’ll make it as trim as I can.”

He glanced at the beautiful and costly things about him, and sighed inwardly. His common-sense taught him that a woman who had been bred amid such surroundings could hardly be contented at Rowdon Smithy. When Jim Morland pressed his invitation on his stepmother, he guessed that he was passing sentence on all his future peace of mind. With his brother and sister alone, he might have hoped, some[Pg 183] day, to be happy: they were very young, and youth readily accepts its circumstances. Austin, at least, would quickly have been at home. But Frances!—Jim wondered if he could bear the daily sight of his sister’s shrinking repugnance; and how might he ever hope to overcome it while Frances remained under the influence of this suspicious, ungracious nature?

“I’ll do my best,” continued the lad gravely; “and mayhap Rowdon will serve for a home till I can earn more and provide a better. Come, then, Madam, if it please you; and the children will make it home-like.”

The impulse to believe the best of Jim, to give him the credit of a magnanimous proposal, was stronger with Mrs. Morland at that moment than she could have imagined. Some words of acknowledgment were rising to her lips when her eyes lighted on her stepson’s rough hand, so near her own delicate fingers, and in a rapid glance she noted his rustic dress, while her pride rose passionately at the thought of recognizing him as a kinsman. Her better instincts were choked at once by a sensation of overwhelming dislike and scorn. Mrs. Morland knew that she was ungenerous; but she easily persuaded herself that, without loss of self-respect, she could deal to Jim a certain measure of fairness in compensation for lack of generosity. He would be satisfied, no doubt, if, in return for the refuge he offered, she gave him the name but not the place of a son.

“If I go to Rowdon,” she said deliberately, “you will, of course, expect me to acknowledge your identity as my husband’s child?”

Jim flushed deeply: his stepmother’s words contained a hint of motive on his part which he had a right to resent.

“I make no bargains, Madam!” said the young workman sternly. “Come to Rowdon, and call me what you please.”

“You have claimed your ‘rights’ as a brother,” said Mrs. Morland, smiling slightly; “and besides, my friends are, as you know, not so dull as to believe I should go by choice to live at Rowdon Smithy, or that you offered me a home there out of pure benevolence. Perhaps, James,” she continued more seriously, “we shall understand each other better if we do strike a bargain. We can put the matter on a business footing between ourselves, and leave the rest of the world to supply the sentiment. Well, then, I accept your offer of a temporary home: in return, I agree to place in the Rector’s hands a written acknowledgment of your right to bear your father’s name.”

“Madam,” said Jim coldly, his patience strained to the uttermost, “you know right well as I’ve the means of proving who I am, if so be as I wanted to do it, without a word from you. ’Twas to save you and Missy what you held to be shame that I’ve kept so long a name as was never really my own. There’ll be no bargaining on my side. Call me East or Morland as it pleases you; I’ll count your wish as it might be my father’s, and be your son or not as you choose. I’ll not presume on your choice either way,” added Jim, borrowing for once a little of his companion’s bitterness; “I’m not likely to forget as you’d never give me[Pg 185] a mother’s love.... I’d not expect it, neither,” he went on, recovering his softer speech, “no more than I look for Missy to remember as it’s not my fault I’m just a rough fellow. The little lad ... the little lad”—Jim’s brave voice trembled—“he’s different: he sees through things somehow.... Madam,” finished Jim, looking straight at his stepmother, “I think the world of the little lad!”

“Boys are so ready to make friends,” said Mrs. Morland, moved in spite of her prejudices, and striving to shake off an uncomfortable sense of defeat. “Well, James, I am not so insensible of your good intentions as you fancy. I never was quick to give affection, so you need not take it amiss if I am not demonstrative. I dare say we shall manage to put up with one another. Whether as part of a bargain or not, I shall certainly desire that you be known for the future by your proper name. And perhaps,” added the speaker, as the better side of her nature asserted itself, “you may not despise a different undertaking on my part. It is unlikely that you and I shall draw together—there is no tie of blood to help us, and I frankly confess to thinking the time too late. But I give you my promise to do nothing to hinder you from winning the children’s liking, if it has value in your eyes.”

“They are very miserable,” continued Mrs. Morland, “and you are about to give them some sort of comfort. Your chance with them ought to be a good one.”

“I’d rather,” said Jim steadily, “as they did not think of things that way. They’re just children, and[Pg 186] shouldn’t know what trouble means, when there’s grown folk to save them. Then, will you please tell them as we’ve arranged?”

“Why not do that yourself?” Mrs. Morland rose, and her spirits answering to a relief of mind she could not all at once realize, she moved with her old grace and dignity towards the door. “Come with me, James. You shall be introduced as the future head of the house to your brother and sister. I shall leave you to give the necessary orders about our movements. La reine est morte—that is, she’s going to retire into private life!”

Mrs. Morland led the way to the children’s sitting-room; but only Austin was there. He had lingered, nervously anxious about the result of Jim’s visit to Elveley; but Frances had already gone for comfort and counsel to her friend Miss Carlyon. To Austin his mother formally announced her decision as to the future.

“Your brother means to be good to you,” she said, with an attempt at cheerfulness; “you must try to thank him better than I have done.”

It fell to the lot of Austin to tell his sister of Jim’s plan for their settlement at Rowdon Smithy. Jim had resolutely declined to wait at Elveley long[Pg 187] enough to be the bearer of his own news. He was beset with misgivings as to the results of the course to which he had persuaded his stepmother to agree; and yet he knew that by no other means could he possibly provide, even in the humblest way, for his kinsfolk.

He had been reared by a masterful, self-contained man, who had exacted unmurmuring obedience, and had seldom encouraged individual thought and action. Thus Jim Morland, at twenty-one, was hardly more than a boy in essential matters; and the responsibility of “head of the house”, suddenly thrust on him, was enough to press heavily on his immature character. He learned, as time passed, to draw on the fundamental independence of his nature; but at first he found himself capable only of doing what lay to his hand—of planning as best he might for the present comfort of his little family, while he trusted that his path might some day grow less dim.

His interview with Mrs. Morland had been really a trial to the sensitive, country-bred lad; and he could not find courage to witness his sister’s reception of the tidings he supposed would come to her as a fresh calamity. Jim suffered here for his pardonable moral cowardice; for even Austin, who knew how Frances had drooped under the burden of suspense and uncertainty, was surprised at the relief she showed when he had explained what lay before her. Frances rose to the occasion like the plucky lass she always had tried to be. That very evening she began to work at the necessary packing; and her mother, hearing the[Pg 188] girl’s cheerful voice when she came for instructions, felt an unreasonable impatience because what she would herself so greatly miss seemed to have small value in her children’s eyes.

Frances was not in the least insensible to the worth of what she was leaving behind, but out of the depths of her late despondency it was good to rise to a level whence she might look bravely and gratefully on the possibilities of the future. In the first place, she knew that the question of acknowledging her brother was at last settled beyond dispute, and that the injustice done to him was to be removed, however tardily. She had done nothing to bring this about, and she was quick to see that atonement on her own part must be of another sort—if, indeed, there were any compensation Jim would care to accept. She could at least take heed that she did not now mistake her brother’s motives, or under-estimate the sacrifice he was ready to make. He had shown himself capable of chivalrous forgiveness, and the higher part of her nature was eager to respond.

Frances’s admiration and her longing to make amends were freely confessed to Muriel Carlyon, who sympathized with both, and had good counsel to give.

“Don’t overwhelm the boy with formal apologies and embarrassing praises, dear child. You would only make him uncomfortable. Try to let him see that you like and trust him, and want to help him all you can. It’s no light duty he has undertaken. You, more than anybody, can make it a pleasant one.”

When Frances came to attempt the putting in practice[Pg 189] of her friend’s advice, she found an obstacle in the barrier of shyness and constraint which the unlucky past had raised between her and her elder brother. Jim was obviously uneasy in her presence—dreading, poor fellow, a criticism which he had every reason to think would be to his disadvantage. He came to Elveley, during the three days of waiting, as little as he could; though, as Mrs. Morland seemed determined to fulfil literally her expressed intention of “retiring into private life”, he was obliged to act for her at every point, to give all necessary orders about the removal, and to interview, as her appointed representative, all persons who had business with her. Jim did his utmost; but at Elveley he grew each moment more weary and dispirited, as he recognized more and more clearly the difference between the surroundings to which his stepmother and her children had been accustomed and those into which he had offered to take them. He kept his forebodings secret, but they worried him none the less.

The long-continued trouble had at last brought Frances one comfort which made amends for everything. It had given Austin—the old Austin—back to her, and had shown the lad at his best. His manly instincts had come into evidence, and he had hovered patiently about his mother and sister, assuring them that he would soon be grown-up, and able to work for them. Then they would all be happy again. Meanwhile—as growing-up is a slow process—he was content to leave to Jim the ordering of affairs. He knew that he meant from the beginning to do his[Pg 190] share, but he wisely refrained from informing his mother that his accomplishment of horse-shoeing was at length to “come in handy”.

Frances, too, had laid her plans, and meant to be a busy little housewife. She had confided to Muriel Carlyon all the doubts and difficulties which had made her hold aloof from her favourite comrades, even to the extent of deserting her cherished Society; and now, feeling that at last she possessed no worrying secrets and was fairly on the road to recover her self-respect, Frances rejoiced in the possession of a true friend to whom she might turn for the encouragement she could not find at home. On the day before the departure from Elveley, she paid a “farewell” visit (only Muriel scouted the word “farewell”) to Woodbank, and entertained herself and her companion with a discussion of her coming diversions.

“I am going to be ever so useful,” she announced blithely. “It wasn’t for nothing, after all, that we girls started our Club. We’ve learned to cook and to iron, and I’ve not forgotten your lessons in cutting-out. I can make my own frocks and things, and the boys’ shirts.—I call Austin and Jim ‘the boys’,” she went on with a little flush, “so that I may get used to thinking of them together.”

“Yes, thank you. Oh, I’m so glad we’re going to Rowdon, not to some quite strange place, far away from you and the girls! Miss Carlyon, we had a little bit of good news this morning. Mamma’s lawyer wrote to tell her that the people who have made her sell[Pg 191] Elveley are going to let her keep some of her favourite books and pictures and furniture—anything she likes up to a certain value—and some of her glass and silver. And Austin and I may have all our very own things: so that Austin is going to take his cameras, and Jim has promised him a dark-room. That will be so nice for him, won’t it? He has a fine stock of plates and chemicals, and we must make them last as long as we can. They’ll keep a good while. Most of Mamma’s things were chosen and packed at once, and have gone away to-day. Austin went with them, to help Jim.”

“You would have known, far better than your brothers, how to arrange the rooms as your mother would like best.”

“I shall have some time to-morrow,” said Frances, colouring. “Mamma will not leave Elveley till the last thing, but I can go to Rowdon early in the day.”

“No—Florry is coming with me.” Frances admitted rather awkwardly this evidence of the shy feeling which made her avoid the sole company of Jim. “We are going to unpack and put away all the clothing, and finish Mamma’s sitting-room ready for her. Jim has been kind about the sitting-room. He has made Mamma understand that it is to be quite her own; he has moved out of it the old things which used to be there, and has put them into the room opposite, where he keeps all sorts of tools and some of the materials for his work. I remember very well when we went to Rowdon Cottage—that’s what they call the little house beside the smithy—Jim’s grandfather[Pg 192] inviting us to look into ‘Jim’s den’. It was neat and nice, only it had no proper furniture except tables and chairs. There were loads of shelves in it. I do love shelves!”

Muriel Carlyon laughed with pleasure to see the girl’s cheeks grow pink as she pictured to herself a real workshop, with entrancing rows of tools, a carpenter’s bench, apparatus for various kindred handicrafts, and a floor littered with fresh-smelling shavings and sawdust.

“It was a jolly ‘den’!” continued Frances; “and if—if I do get friends with Jim, I know I shall beg admittance sometimes to his treasure-chamber. I shouldn’t wonder if Austin had a corner of it all to himself. Jim is very fond of Austin. I’m certain he is, though I’ve hardly seen them together. You could tell by the way they look at one another.”

Frances shook her head. “Mamma would be miserable if there were any litter about her, she likes everything spick and span. And, you know, Austin and I do want her to be as happy as she can. It is so very, very dreadful for her—” Frances paused awkwardly “I mean, it is dreadful to give up the nice things she has been used to for such a long time.”

“So I thought if only she could have her own rooms filled with her own things she might not miss what she has to leave—at least, not so much. And when Jim told her she must count the sitting-room[Pg 193] quite for herself, it did seem possible to make that pretty. Then the room above it is to be hers too. It is a pity, but I must take a corner of that. I am afraid Mamma will dislike sharing her bedroom, especially as her furniture will fill it up so; but we can’t help it. There are only four rooms upstairs, and the two back ones are tiny places, not big enough for anyone to sleep in. One will be for our boxes, and the other is full of lumber already. The second bedroom is for the boys. Austin and I are to have our own little beds, so they won’t take up much room.”

Muriel listened to all these confidences and to many more before she allowed Frances to leave her. She knew that the girl was in real need of a woman’s sympathy and encouragement, and she hoped by judicious counsel to make the entry on a new and strange life a little easier for her favourite. Miss Carlyon was quite as fond of planning and contriving as were any of her young folk; she meant to do her full share in helping forward Frances’s ambitions, and to see that none of her girls had more of her personal help and affection than the lass who was so ready and eager to conquer fate.

The lights in Rowdon Cottage burned throughout that last night of Jim Morland’s solitary life. The hours of dusk and darkness and dawning were few and short to the busy lad, who worked steadily and with intention during every moment they gave him. Jim’s eyes were already fairly-well opened to the nature of the burden he had taken on his young[Pg 194] shoulders. He had accepted in a spirit Mrs. Morland had not dreamed of, her injunction that he should consider himself the head of the little family.

He knew that he must be, first of all, the bread-winner. Jim’s calculations as to ways and means were already completed, and he had reckoned up the average of his earnings, added the result to the sum which came to him from the provision made by his grandfather, and decided that he might count on a weekly income of thirty-five shillings.

Jim was not ignorant enough to suppose that this amount could allow for any save the simplest methods of housekeeping, even when supplemented by garden produce and home-reared poultry. The old woman who did his cooking and housework expected only a small wage, but this, and her food, made a serious item of expenditure; and poor Jim wondered anxiously whether her blundering ways would be tolerated by his fastidious stepmother. Jim was not prone to hard judgments, but he was not a fool; and he had seen that Mrs. Morland could be both unjust and unreasonable. He knew, only too surely, how Frances had shrunk from contact with himself; and argued that she would be predisposed to despise his cottage home.

The lad grew hot and cold by turns as he anticipated his inability to satisfy their expectations; and at last came to the wise decision that he would, at the outset, make confession of his modest means, and avoid the worse pain of raising hopes he could not fulfil.

“For I must not run into debt,” pondered Jim. “I promised grandfather I never would do that.”

Even without the remembered promise to admonish him, Jim was not cast in the mould of those people who can look their just creditors unblushingly in the face.

When morning brought his elderly housekeeper, the lad nerved himself for an ordeal. This was no less a matter than an important parley with old Elizabeth Macbean. Elizabeth was a Scotswoman, and an excellent domestic according to her lights; but her gaunt, angular person and strong-featured countenance were not prepossessing, and Jim was nervously anxious lest she should give offence by her independent speech and manners. To old East and his grandson her civility had never fallen short; she had looked on them as her superiors simply because they employed her, and she had even shown a kind of motherly interest in her younger master. But Jim recollected that Elizabeth had heard with compressed lips and scowling brow the facts he had found it necessary to tell her about the changed affairs of Rowdon Cottage; so he was not without qualms as he prepared to add to his news at this latest possible moment. His gentle nature made him shrink from inflicting pain, and he feared he was about to hurt well-meaning old Elizabeth. Fortunately, Jim had no mixed notions on the score of duty; and it seemed to him now that his duty was plain.

He left Elizabeth to go about her morning work as usual, and was careful to do justice to the simple[Pg 196] breakfast prepared for him. Home-baked scones and new-laid eggs were excellent fare in Jim’s opinion; and he rose from the table refreshed and strengthened in spite of his long night of toil.

“I don’t think as anything could be better than your scones, Elizabeth,” said Jim, from a discreet post at the kitchen door. “You’ll let me have some every day when the children come, won’t you? I’m sure they’ll like your scones, Elizabeth.”

“I’ll see what I can dae. Whiles they have nae butter-milk up at the fairm.”

The tone of Mrs. Macbean’s voice was not promising, and her attitude, as, shovel in hand, she “made up” her fire, was positively militant. Jim drew on his reserve fund of determination and stood his ground.

“Anyway, I must say it,” continued the lad gravely. “You know, Elizabeth, as there’s ladies coming here to-day. I’ve told you all about it, and how, though they’re my very own folk (Jim held his head proudly), they’ve been brought up different. I’m wanting, most of all, as they shall feel this cottage home-like, and so I’d not have them miss, more than I can help, all they’ve had to give up. You’ve always managed for grandfather and me, Elizabeth; and you’ve served us [Pg 197]faithful, as I’ll never forget. But when my stepmother and my half-sister come (Jim was faithfully exact), they’ll be mistresses here. I want you to go to one of them every day for orders, and do your best to please them.”

“Jist as ye please, sir,” was the sole response of Elizabeth; and thrusting one hand deeply into a serviceable pocket, she dragged out, with ostentatious indifference, a small bunch of keys, and flung them clatteringly on to the kitchen-table.

“Nay, Elizabeth,” said Jim kindly, “there’s no need for locking up, and I’m sure the ladies won’t wish it. Keep the keys, and give me your promise as you’ll help me all you can. I’m a bit worried and sore-hearted, Elizabeth.”

“There’s nae doot aboot that,” returned the old dame, though evidently mollified. “I hae watched ye ever since ye telt me o’ the happenings at the grand hoose yonder, where your fine leddy mither and sister wear their silks an’ satins; and I hae seen the speirit gang oot o’ ye. But I’ll dae your wull, maister.”

“That’ll be all right, then, Elizabeth,” said Jim, sighing in relief of spirit. “You’ve made the cottage beautiful clean and fresh-like, and I’m sure you’ll keep things nice.”

Then Mrs. Macbean uplifted her long person after a final dash at the coals, and emphasized her speech with her loaded shovel.

“I hae served gentlefolk afore,” she remarked grimly; “and I’m no needin’ tellin’ as to hoo I’ll[Pg 198] serve them the noo. There’s ae thing mair. I hae kent, lang afore ye hae telt me onything, Maister Jim, that ye were come o’ gentle folk yersel. Ye hae a’ the look o’ it; and I’m thinkin’ it’s a peety.”

With these uncompromising words, Mrs. Macbean flung the contents of her shovel on the fire, snatched up a broom, and vanished through the back door. Jim sighed again, and went off to give the rooms a final inspection. His last visit was to the “den” of which Frances had told Miss Carlyon. Thence he emerged with a strange glimmer of a smile on his lips.

As he stepped to the threshold of the front door, which stood wide open to the warm August airs, he saw a sight which made him halt irresolutely, while his pulses throbbed in sheer nervous excitement.

A couple of girls had just reached the gate, and were pacing slowly up the path between the glowing flower-beds: as they came, they pointed out eagerly to one another old favourites they could recognize among the cared-for luxuriance of the borders.

“See!” said the sweet, clear voice of Frances, “isn’t that a splendid clump of southernwood? And those deep purple pansies—I love them!”

Jim caught his breath sharply. If Frances could “love” anything about Rowdon!

The girls bent low to enjoy the varied fragrance. Jim felt something in his throat, and for a moment saw the pretty girlish figures through a mist. A[Pg 199] sudden access of joy filled his heart. Could it be that his home was to know the familiar presence of such as these? Could anything he had to offer be worthy of their soft eyes and dainty hands? He gazed, in a happiness he could not have explained, at the gracious picture before him. Only a pair of charming English lassies; but for simple Jim they were an inspiration to love all that was highest, purest, worthiest.

Florry Fane lifted her head, and caught sight of Frances’s “blacksmith-brother”. Florry did not keep her intellect for book-studies, and she called on it now to help the situation.

“Hallo!” she exclaimed merrily, “there’s Jim! I shall run and ask him to tell me the name of that pretty blue flower!”

She hurried on, and before Frances could overtake her had gained the porch, and held out her hand to Jim, who stood waiting there.

“Good-morning, Mr. Morland!” said Florry, in gay greeting; “we’ve come to make ourselves tremendously useful. We’ve great big aprons in this bag, and Austin has lent us a hammer and a packet of nails. We mean business, you see.”

Jim took the kind little hand, and bade Florry welcome with most respectful courtesy. It was good of her to call him by his father’s name; but, being Frances’s friend, she was, of course, a queen among girls.

Frances came up, and finding the ice thus broken, managed to greet Jim easily enough. The three talked for a few moments in the porch.

“Now we must go in and set to work,” declared Florry presently; and Jim stood aside that she might lead the way; then, as Frances made a shy motion to follow, he detained his sister by a slight gesture.

“I hope as you’ll find things right, Missy,” said the youth in a low voice. “I’ve a lot of work to do in the smithy yonder, and I’ll be there all day most like. Elizabeth will bring me something to eat; and so—so—the place’ll be clear, if you and Miss Fane wish to stay. I bade Elizabeth ask what you’d fancy,”—Jim coloured, and added with some effort,—“and you won’t forget, Missy, as you’re mistress here.”

Frances wanted to say something kind and appreciative; but while she watched her brother’s nervousness her own came back to her, and she searched vainly for words which might make an approach to frank confidence between them seem possible. Jim saw only her hesitation, and hastily concluding that his forebodings had been justified, stepped quietly out of the porch and took the side-path to the smithy.

“I believe it will always be like this,” thought Frances, as she gazed remorsefully after her brother’s tall, well set-up figure. “I wonder why I’m such a silly? I wish he wouldn’t call me ‘Missy’. I wish I could tell him nicely—so that he wouldn’t be vexed—that he ought to say ‘Frances’, as Austin does. Austin would know how to do it, but that’s because he behaved kindly and fairly and has nothing to be ashamed of. And Jim has been so good to us, so generous and forgiving; I ought to be proud of him—and I think I am, deep down in my heart. It’s the top[Pg 201] part of me that’s so ungracious and horrid. How stupid to be shy, when he’s my own brother! Shall I ever be sensible about it?”

Just as Frances reached this plaintive speculation her friend’s patience gave way, and Florry, who had ventured on a peep into the sitting-room, came back to fetch the loiterer.

“It looks quite nice already,” said Florry cheerfully. “There really isn’t much for us to do, except the ‘etceteras’.” She dragged Frances forcibly into Mrs. Morland’s future sanctum. “See! even the curtains have been put up; and don’t they hang nicely? One of your brothers has ideas, Frances! I wonder which of them ‘disposed’ that drapery?”

“Not Austin; he wouldn’t be bothered!” laughed Frances. “The room does look pretty. Those soft gray walls are such a nice background for the pictures. It was kind of the creditor-people to let Mamma keep some of her pictures and china, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” said Florry soberly. “But as your mother wasn’t really a bit to blame—”

“Don’t! Miss Carlyon says the more I ‘nurse a grievance’ the worse things will seem. I’m certain she’s right; for I begin to feel my ‘angry passions rise’ the moment I give them a chance.”

“Come, then—to business! Here are two suggestive-looking boxes already unfastened for us. What lurks within, fellow-conspirator?”

“Nothing very mysterious. Only a few special treasures of Mamma’s, and some of her books, and other odds and ends. There’s the empty book-case in[Pg 202] that corner. Good Austin! He has remembered to put up the brackets and small shelves for the china.”

“Isn’t that a pretty little overmantel? I don’t recollect seeing it at Elveley. What dainty carving!”

“It never was at Elveley,” said Frances, in a puzzled voice; “and it is pretty. Those two long shelves will be lovely for photographs and the little figures papa brought from India. Oh! the overmantel is a blessing. Let’s make haste to fill it.”

“No—I’ll do the books, and leave you the treasures. Ah, what a jolly Browning! Isn’t this binding perfect? Hallo! it’s Rivière’s! Frances, you’re a lucky girl. It ought to make you amiable to live with this.”

“Goose! I like a binding I can handle. I wouldn’t give my own Browning for that; though I own that Rivière, like our unknown genius of the curtains, has ‘ideas’.”

“Here’s an edition of Jane Austen in crimson morocco. Frances, I wouldn’t have Jane Austen in crimson. She ought to be bound in French gray, or ‘puce’, or anything old-fashioned and sweet. Never mind; here she goes, dear old thing! When we’ve finished with this room, Francy, do let’s unpack your treasures. I helped you to pack them, so I shall know just where everything is.”

Frances shook her head. “I told Austin to send my boxes to the little place upstairs. There’s no room for their contents anywhere.”

“You see, this is the only sitting-room besides Jim’s den,” continued Frances hastily; “and Mamma and I[Pg 203] have to share a bedroom. I’ve been wondering where I shall pop my mammoth work-basket.”

“Oh, Frances! Your beautiful Altruist basket!” Florry saw her friend wince, and, running across the room, threw her arms about the other lassie and hugged her close. “Come back to us, Francy dear! oh, do! You were the first Altruist, and the best—”

“Ah, no, no!” cried Frances, with a tremble in her voice; “I was just a great humbug—a mean pretender!”

“You never were. You started it all; and, Frances, it has been of some use to Woodend. The Rector says so, and Mr. Carlyon, and Dr. Brenton, and—Max. If Max says so—who would dispute Max? Francy, all the girls and boys want you to come back.”

“I can’t till I’m gooder,” said Frances, wavering between sobs and smiles. “I’m a shabby, horrid thing! Florry, don’t let’s talk of those jolly old times—before last Christmas. See! I’m going to work hard. I won’t say another word till I’ve finished.”

Florry could both see and hear that the resolve was a wise one; so she went sedately back to her books, and was in the thick of “business” when the sitting-room door was pushed open and Mrs. Macbean entered.

The girls at once greeted the old woman,—whom they had seen more than once when they had paid holiday visits to the smithy,—with a pleasant word and smile.

“I hae made a bit dinner for ye, Missies,” said Elizabeth, striving after the manners she considered due to gentlefolk, “and I hae pit doon the table-claith,[Pg 204] as the maister’s bidding was, in the room on the ither side o’ the passage. Maybe ye’ll ring the bell yonder when ye’re minded for me to serve ye.”

“Oh, Elizabeth, you are good!” said Frances gratefully. “We meant to go home for dinner; but it is a long way, isn’t it, Florry?”

“Rather! And we’ve such lots to do. Elizabeth—best of Elizabeths!—do say we are to have some of those delicious scones you brought to us once when we came here to plague you!”

“Surely ye’ll no be minding on my bits o’ scones, Missy?” inquired Mrs. Macbean graciously. “The likes o’ you lassies I never did see! Weel, I’ve nae doot I can obleege ye; and ye’ll likely no refuse a whang o’ the cream cheese that the fairm-wife sent till the maister this morning. Come awa’ wi’ ye, Missies, ben the ither room, and I’ll bring the dishes in. It’s one o’clock—late eneuch for bairns.”

Elizabeth bustled away, secretly well pleased that it was once more her lot to wait on gentlefolk. Perhaps there was in the peasant woman’s nature a strain of sympathy which, if it made her jealous for her “maister’s” rights and dignity, was no less capable of appreciating the trouble which had fallen on Jim’s “fine leddy mither and sister”.

The girls ran upstairs to wash their dusty hands, and chased each other down again amid peals of laughter, which brought indulgent smiles to Mrs. Macbean’s face and sent her with good-will to her serving.

“Fancy dining in Jim’s den!” laughed Frances, pausing at the door. “We shall need to use the sitting-room[Pg 205] for meals, I suppose, when we’ve a proper table there. I’m glad we’re going in here to-day. It’s a lovely place, Florry,—all shelves and saw-dust, and dear little saws and hammers and things. Don’t you like a carpenter’s shop? I do. I always envied the boy Altruists—”

Frances, having by this time led the way into “Jim’s den”, stood just beyond the threshold, too absolutely surprised at what she now saw to remember after what fashion she had envied the boys. The room had undergone a transformation. The walls had been freshly covered with a pretty paper; the wide, latticed windows had been hung with dainty Madras muslin, with sage-green draperies at either side to be drawn across at night. The carpet was of the same soft tint, and so were the furnishings of two or three wicker chairs placed at cosy points. The deep window-seat held a couple of big cushions of yellow silk, and was thickly padded, and covered to match the chairs. On a table close to the window stood the Altruist work-basket. Most of the shelves which Frances had admired still ran along the walls, and on them were neatly ranged, not the paraphernalia of handicrafts, but the many special possessions of Frances and Austin. Their own treasured volumes filled two plain book-cases, whence had been banished the hoarded sum of Jim’s library.

Before her eyes had taken in half the details, Frances turned to Florry and exclaimed impetuously: “Oh, what made him do this? How could he? Jim has given up his den to us!”

“He is a brick!” said Florry heartily. “Now you know where your things are going, Frances. I believe they are all here. There’s your mother’s Christmas present”—Florry pointed to the desk on a side-table spread with the children’s writing materials. “There’s your easel, and your paint-boxes are on the shelf close at hand. What’s behind that inviting-looking curtain hung between those two shelves?”

“Austin’s photographic things,” replied Frances, peeping; “here are his cameras, plates, papers, chemicals, and everything. He is to use the bath-room for developing; he has been covering the window with red stuff. Fancy a bath-room in a cottage like this! Jim’s grandfather built it out at the back.”

“Florry,” said Frances, a troubled look in her eyes, “I don’t think Austin and I ought to take this room from Jim. He cannot possibly have anywhere else to go. I think I will just find my way to the smithy this very moment, and talk to him about it.”

“Good!” returned Florry equably; “I will e’en to that cosy window-seat and watch for your return.”

Frances departed in a hurry for fear of failing courage; and Florry, who had something to say, but was in no haste to say it, carried a book to the window and felt herself at home.

Jim stood by his anvil, making, with level, well-aimed blows, rough nails for farmers’ use. He had flung off his coat and waistcoat, rolled up his sleeves, and donned a leathern apron. It was Jim the blacksmith on whose hardy toil Frances cast shy and interested eyes. He[Pg 207] did not look so unapproachable as she had expected; but it was evident that her coming had startled him. The lad laid down his hammer, however, and stepped forward at once.

“You want me, Missy?” he said quickly, with an undefined hope that his sister might be about to command his willing service.

“Oh no!” said Frances; “I didn’t mean to interrupt you—at least, only for a minute. I came to say that—that Florry and I have been looking at your room—”

Jim was hungering for a word of satisfaction. If, indeed, he had pleased Frances, surely he might dare to hope that he had not begun amiss.

“You used to have so many things there,” continued Frances, her self-possession deserting her as she noted the expression of her brother’s grave young face. “I don’t think Austin and I ought to be so much in your way.”

“You could never be that, Missy,” said Jim, whose spirits sank unaccountably at the painful courtesy of Frances’s manner. “It’ll be right for you to have a little place where you’ll feel private-like, and know as nobody will interfere.”

“You are kind, Jim,” said Frances; and the girl hung her head in shame that no warmer words would come at her bidding.

“Surely not,” said Jim dejectedly. “There’s no talk of kindness so long as I can do aught—” Jim hesitated, fearing to offend by some obtrusively brother-like speech, and his pleading glance fell at the sight of[Pg 208] Frances’s averted head. “There, Missy,” he continued gently; “don’t you go for to trouble yourself about my bits of things. I’ve a deal more room for them in the big shed behind here; and they’ll be handier to get at. You’ve no call to think twice of them.”

“You are kind—and good,” she said earnestly. “I don’t know why you should take us in here, and bother about us at all.”

“Don’t, Missy!” murmured Jim, keenly wounded. “Who should care for you and the little lad, if not me?”

“Nobody would, Jim; nobody. And I don’t see why you should. But indeed I do want to help, and to share the work all I can. I shall soon find out—and I’ll beg Elizabeth to teach me.”

“No!—no!” Jim was touched at his tenderest point. “You’ll do naught here but what pleases you, Missy. ’Tis for men to work and make beautiful homes for their lady-folk.”

“Girls work now as well as boys, Jim,” returned Frances rather wistfully. She had been wont to dream of the life-work which should be hers some day—of voluntary, altruistic toil among the poor and suffering of the great city; not of humdrum daily tasks which could claim no more fascinating name than the prosaic one of duty.

“I cannot see as that’s right, Missy,” said Jim; and Frances looked with a certain pity at this lad born out of due time—this old-fashioned believer in the[Pg 209] right of woman to be worked for, and set apart and worshipped. If he could have heard Miss Cliveden’s impassioned voice as she urged her pupils to remember their sacred claim to share with men the glorious task of making history!

Jim was utterly out of date. He bent his head and kissed reverently the little fingers resting on his arm; then caught up his hammer and began afresh to work for his “lady-folk” with all his peasant might.

“Jim will make us keep the room,” said the girl with conviction; “and I do not believe I even thanked him properly.”

“I wouldn’t worry him with gratitude,” remarked Florry the philosopher. “I would just clear a corner for him and ask him to occupy it. I fancy he would like that better than thankings.”

The energy of the Altruists languished a good deal during the long summer vacation. Edward and Muriel Carlyon went on a six-weeks’ visit to a relative in the north, and enjoyed themselves mightily after a year of hard work. Edward’s black coat did not hinder him from tasting the happiness peculiar to the sportsman-naturalist; and Muriel’s governessing had not taken the charm from her tramps through heather[Pg 210] and bracken. A good many of the younger Altruists were off to the seaside: those that remained in Woodend voted it ridiculous to attend meetings over which there was nobody in particular to preside.

Florry Fane received a long-hoped-for invitation to visit an aunt who had settled in Normandy, whence she was in the habit of making frequent excursions to continental cities. The chance of seeing Paris, Rome, and Florence was suddenly flashed before Florry’s dazed eyes, and her parents prepared to miss for a couple of months, at least, the light of their quiet home. Frances Morland did not learn till long afterwards that Florry had turned resolutely from the offered treat because she would not leave her friend in the hour of trouble.

The self-denying little Altruist proved that no meetings were necessary to hold her to the accepted motto of her Society. Hardly a day passed without the appearance at Rowdon of her bright face and helpful hands. Jim’s heart grew lighter directly he heard “Miss Fane’s” voice. It was good to hear for its own sake, and then it meant the best of comradeship for Frances.

The Society sent another delegate to do its work at the smithy. Max and Florry frequently travelled the three miles together, arguing as they went with a vivacity learned at the school “symposia”. They never convinced one another, but it was all the better to be able to look forward to a fresh bout of disagreeing[Pg 211] next time. Sometimes they walked, sometimes they rode with a friendly farmer or begged a lift in the Doctor’s trap. Journey as they might, they always turned up smiling, contented, and in hot dispute.

It was Max’s fair season at Woodend; the season when his many public concerns made least demand on him, and he was most free to remember private interests. His invalids were at their best; his poor folk were recovering from the effects of the burning heat in their stuffy rooms, and were still independent of warm clothing. Moreover, a wealthy valetudinarian had bought Elveley, and was demanding a daily visit from Dr. Brenton. Max ventured to anticipate the consequent fees, and on his own responsibility borrowed from the “Examinations” fund the wherewithal to present the dog-cart with a new rug and its owner with a new overcoat. Dr. Brenton retaliated by ordering for Max a trim Eton suit—challenging the chancellor of the exchequer to refuse to pay for it, and in so doing to ruin his father’s credit. Then the unconventional pair attired themselves festively, and beamed at each other in the joy of their reciprocal liberality.

Max and Austin were always merry at the smithy, and they did their best to make Jim merry likewise. With fervent good-will they wielded the hammer, and smote the anvil, and practised horse-shoeing until their teacher pronounced them adepts. Sometimes they dragged Jim off to the common, where they had cut and rolled a decent pitch for their cricket. Jim could play, of course, but his science was behind theirs. It seemed to the boys a fair return for lessons in horse-shoeing[Pg 212] when their hints, added to natural quickness of eye and hand, had made of Jim a most respectable bowler.

The Morland family had by this time fairly settled at Rowdon, and accepted, after their varying fashion, the fresh order of their lives. The first excitement of change and bustle was over, and with it had gone the impression of relief from pressing disaster, as well as the sense of unrest and adventure which had served to dispel fruitless broodings and cast a glamour of romance over the new cottage-home. Frances and Austin were too busy and too active to sink back into despondency; but their mother suffered acutely—all the more acutely because she shut herself and her gloom out of the reach of the kindliest sympathizers.

Loneliness and misery rendered her harsh and intolerant to the youngsters who longed to comfort her. She was irritated by seeing her own children seemingly happy and contented, and by witnessing the small gaucheries of her stepson’s harmless rusticity. Jim, better able than the younger ones to understand her condition, bore her sharp reproofs and covert sneers with determined self-control. They hurt him none the less; and he suspected that he was despised for the very efforts after a dutiful bearing which cost him so much: but he never had cherished any hope of pleasing or satisfying his stepmother, and was grateful that she kept her promise of not intervening between him and his brother and sister.

It was true that she had not much opportunity of doing so, for the three young people were seldom together.[Pg 213] Frances found plenty of ways in which she could help Elizabeth; who was willing to be relieved of lighter duties, though she would not for worlds have allowed her young mistress to do anything she could make time to do herself. Then there were studies to be kept up, books to be read on the recommendation of Miss Carlyon or Florry, old friends to be visited in spare hours, and the family mending to be attended to.

Jim was an excellent craftsman, as his neighbours had soon discovered; but working alone, and with only the simplest appliances, he could not attempt the higher branches of a smith’s trade. He had constant employment, but no greater returns than any other skilled artisan could depend on; and after the first month of his new life had gone by he began to be tormented by anxiety as to ways and means. Part of his weekly income came from his small invested capital, and on the latter he soon found he must draw to meet household expenses. This meant, by and by, a reduction on the interest paid to him in consideration of his grandfather’s savings, and a consequent lessening of his resources.

When Mrs. Morland had first come to Rowdon, he had told her frankly the amount of his income, and had suggested that she should have control over it and make the housekeeping her own charge. Most women would have been touched by the offer, which was surely honourable to the lad who made it.

“My good boy,” replied Mrs. Morland, “you really must excuse me from undertaking the management of[Pg 214] your house and the responsibility of your wealth. I have never learned how to spend pennies, and I have no idea when porridge and herrings are in season. I might order by mistake a halfpenny-worth too much milk, and then where would you be? No, believe me, you will manage far better yourself. Or stay, it might amuse Frances to play with sixpences, and she is terribly conscientious. No doubt she would calculate the required milk to a drop. I have always felt sure she had a genius for figures, since she told me she “kept the accounts” of that funny little Society she started and got tired of. Children always get tired of everything; but Frances might find housekeeping quite a pleasant entertainment for a time. Go and ask her, James. And do try to avoid grimacing. It makes me quite uncomfortable to see that frowning brow and those tightly-drawn lips. So like some melodramatic, middle-class novel. Run away, boy. Ta-ta.”

Jim’s courage, after this rebuff, was not equal to the task of approaching Frances, and his sister would have heard nothing of the interview if Mrs. Morland had not diverted herself by giving Frances a special version of it. The girl listened in silence, and with half-acknowledged regret on Jim’s behalf. Frances felt instinctively that Jim had made an honest advance, and that he had been unworthily answered.

She was sorry that time did not prove correct her mother’s prophecy that her brother would come to her next; and she debated anxiously with herself whether he would be vexed if she were to offer to try her own[Pg 215] prentice hand at the ordering of the cottage affairs. Jim had certainly invited her to remember that she was “mistress” at Rowdon; there could be no undaughterly presumption in filling the place her mother had refused.

Frances decided that Jim had better be the one to open the question; but Jim held his tongue, and bore his own burdens. He had been accustomed to leave the provisioning of his little household to Elizabeth, and to pay the weekly bills without investigation. Now he found that he must not only investigate, but urge on Mrs. Macbean the strictest economy. Even then, as has been said, his income must be supplemented somehow.

Further, the lad worried himself about the arrested education of his young brother and sister. At first it was undivided happiness to have Austin so constantly at his side, and to catch glimpses of Frances tending the flowers or feeding the chickens. But when he found his brother obstinately determined to help in the smithy, and discovered that his sister actually made beds and dusted rooms, he began to accuse himself of grossly neglected duties.

Edward and Muriel Carlyon had sought out Mrs. Morland on their return home, and had begged her in most tactful fashion to let them keep their two pupils without payment of school-fees. Mrs. Morland’s pride had not been sufficient to render her quite blind to the value of the opportunity; but she had tried to save her self-esteem by leaving the matter for the children’s own settlement. Austin and Frances were[Pg 216] not blind either, and they saw more clearly now than before what a good education might mean to them. They had talked the subject over together, they had invited the counsel of Florry and Max. It was significant that they did not seek their mother’s advice. Finally, they went to Woodbank in company, and put their concerns bravely and fully before their two kindly friends and teachers.

Frances and Austin did not go back to school, but they went twice a week to Woodbank for private lessons in modern languages, classics, and mathematics, and studied at home between whiles. Every evening they spent at least a couple of hours over their books, and found chances for music and drawing as best they could in the daytime.

It was this custom which led, one evening in November, to an unexpected development in the quiet life of Rowdon Cottage. The boy and girl (Austin being the chief spokesman) had persuaded Jim that they would not accept sole rights in his old “den”. He must spend there his few hours of leisure, and a book-case brought from Elveley should be consecrated to his library. Jim at first availed himself but sparingly of his opportunities. Usually he worked all the early part of the evening in the smithy or the shed, and later on disappeared into the little lumber attic where he had disposed the tools and materials for his wood-carving. But sometimes he would slip quietly into the children’s room—the study, as they chose to call it,—and after a respectful, interested glance at the pair of young students seated[Pg 217] opposite one another, with the shaded lamp between them, at the round table, would take a book from his shelf and try to remember that he was one of the family.

On the evening in question, Frances had noticed that Jim had betaken himself to his own corner with a volume which she had seen with some surprise to be Green’s Short History of the English People. The lad read steadily for an hour or so, and Frances, each time she looked up, saw that his attention was firmly fixed on the page. But presently Jim leaned back in his chair, his book rested on his knee, and his eyes were turned towards the round table with an expression which his sister found uncomfortably suggestive of some latent longing. She hesitated for a moment, and then said diffidently:

Jim had not learned to say “Frances”; but “Missy”, as he pronounced it, had the accents of a pet-name, and his sister had ceased to find fault with it.

“Fancy! You must read fast. Can you remember all those names and things? I do think it’s difficult.”

“I’ve read this book three times,” said Jim gently. He had read, ever since he could remember, all the historical works he could get hold of. “I ought to remember it now, Missy.”

“Jim,” began Frances after anxious cogitation, “would[Pg 218] you like—would you care—to study with Austin and me?” The girl flushed a little as she went on hurriedly: “There are heaps of things I dare say you know far more about than we do; but there are some ... and Papa would have liked....”

She need not have paused. The words were hardly spoken when Jim’s face lighted up with eager pleasure.

“Of course we could,” interrupted Austin with a merry laugh. “Jim, old man, you are an eccentric. Fancy meeting a fellow who needn’t stew at lessons, and actually wants to! Come to the table this very minute!” Austin flew to drag up a third chair and force Jim into it. “Now then, what’s it to be first—classics or mathematics?”

“Austin, don’t worry, dear,” said Frances, seeing that Jim’s breath came fast from the excitement of what was to him a momentous opportunity. “Tell Jim the lessons we have at Woodbank, then he can choose what he would like best.”

“I’d like best to learn to speak right, Missy,” said the youth earnestly; “so as you’d have no need, some day, to feel shame of me.”

Frances was on the point of disclaiming vehemently. She was checked by the certainty that her brother would not believe her. Had she not long ago proved him right?

“Humph!” said Austin, again filling the breach; “that’s in your line, Sis. ‘Grammar and Analysis’, and all that twaddle. I hate the stuff.”

“Very well,” agreed Frances quickly, “Jim and I will study subjects and objects; and you’ll see, sir, my pupil won’t hate them.”

“And you’ll see, miss, that my pupil will cross the Pons Asinorum with a leap and a bound.”

Austin flung his arm round his brother’s shoulders and hugged them with a will.

“Don’t mind us, Jim,” he said. “We must lark a bit, and so must you. We’ll be awful strict teachers, and give you a hundred lines every time you miss a question. But you may wink one eye between whiles.”

Austin’s mirth drowned Jim’s attempted thanks. But the younger boy suddenly became sober, and thrusting his Euclid under Jim’s eyes, entered on a careful explanation of certain well-known axioms necessary to the comprehension of the First Proposition. Then Frances delivered a lucid lecture on the Nominative Case. Finally, Jim carried off a couple of lesson-books to his corner, and set to work to recall half-forgotten rudiments learned long ago at elementary schools, and to assure himself that he never would disgrace the pair of accomplished scholars he had left at the round table.

Elizabeth kept a divided opinion with regard to Mrs. Morland, but the discords feared by Jim were not heard at Rowdon Cottage. The chief reason for the comparative harmony which reigned between kitchen and sitting-room was the undisguised satisfaction of Mrs. Macbean in being again in contact with gentle-people, and in seeing her young master recognized as one of them. It is to be feared that her estimation of “gentlefolk” was strictly conventional, and that in her heart of hearts she thought all the more of her “fine leddy” mistress because Mrs. Morland never dreamed of soiling her fingers over household matters, but maintained a dignified privacy among the remnants of her former prosperity.

Elizabeth found that a late dinner was expected as a matter of course. Here, there might have been a difficulty, since the old woman had been in the habit of going home to her “gudeman” as soon as she had served Jim’s tea and “tidied up”. But while ordering dinner for half-past eight, Mrs. Morland happened to mention that her stepson would dine with her; and Elizabeth immediately became complaisant.

Jim’s soul grew faint within him when he was informed of the coming ordeal—a dinner à deux with his stepmother. A refusal was on the poor lad’s lips, but he held it back. He could do nothing, he supposed, to narrow the gulf between himself and his father’s second wife; but he had determined that no act or word of his should make the gulf wider. He assented quietly to Mrs. Morland’s peremptory demand for his[Pg 221] company in the sitting-room at half-past eight, and promised meekly enough to don his Sunday suit before he ventured to present himself.

He imagined that his stepmother’s request was prompted solely by a desire to “teach him manners”, and so render him a little more presentable to her friends; but in this he did Mrs. Morland less than justice. She was slow to act in matters for any reason displeasing to her; but having once taken a step in any direction, she did not care to turn back. She had been, in her own limited sense, in earnest when she had said that she would henceforth regard Jim as the head of the family. She meant him to endure to the full the penalties attaching at present to the unenviable position, and would not strain a nerve to lighten his load; but she intended also to see that a certain respect and consideration should be offered him by everyone except herself, and it was a part of her plan that he should be found in her company on fitting occasions.

The family meals were served in the children’s study, but at none of these was the mother present. Her breakfast was carried up to her bedroom, and she lunched alone in her sitting-room. It was Austin’s duty to take her cup backward and forward across the passage at the children’s tea-hour. After dinner Frances and Austin were ordered to appear for dessert. Thus Mrs. Morland attempted to retain among her present surroundings some of the customs and restrictions of the life she had been used to; though the imitation might be a faint likeness of[Pg 222] the model, and the result pathetic rather than impressive.

The various courses of the meal were perhaps only Scotch broth, broiled chicken, and rice-pudding, and the dessert a dish of apples and another of nuts. But the glass, china, and silver were the joy of Elizabeth’s soul; and the simple food must be served most daintily. Jim was right in anticipating severe drilling and remorseless fault-finding; yet, taking all in wise humility, he had sense to acknowledge that the experience had its value. He soon learned to satisfy Mrs. Morland’s requirements as to his comportment at table, and his association with her and her children taught him quickly to note the errors in his speech and to correct them for himself.

“The lad is no dullard,” admitted the victorious stepmother in her thoughts; “he will be a gentleman before he knows it. A gentleman-blacksmith! Delightful absurdity! Oh, shall we never escape from this dreadful place!”

After Christmas the winter arrived in earnest—such a winter as England seldom sees. Day after day keen “black” frost and bitter east wind brought hard suffering to the poor. Jim banished Austin from the smithy, and more than once the boy and his sister[Pg 223] were prevented from paying their visits to Woodbank, and were reduced to “hearing each other” say their well-prepared lessons. Florry was not seen at Rowdon for a week at a time. Max came, of course; but Max in greatcoat, comforter, and gaiters could defy the weather.

Not so Austin; yet Austin, rash as ever, would not stay indoors. Thus Jim got into disgrace; he was condemned utterly as an aider and abettor of his brother’s defiance of prudence. Jim it was who sharpened and cleaned and polished Austin’s old skates, by way of helping the younger lad to forget that he was to have had a new pair that year. Jim it was who announced that Rowdon Pond was bearing. Jim it was who, having reasonable fears of the results when Austin mooned listlessly about the lanes, suggested the brisk exercise of skating as an excellent way of keeping boyish blood in circulation.

Frances always declared that it was running out without cap or overcoat, and standing in draughts, and lingering for last words with Max at the gate, which did it. But Mrs. Morland blamed Jim and the pond; and Jim went for a fortnight with heavy pain at his heart and fresh anxiety on his mind. For he accepted Mrs. Morland’s view: and Austin was very ill. Austin had not had so bad a throat for a long time. He suffered much, poor boy; and Jim, looking at him, suffered more. Dr. Brenton came daily, and Doctor Max spent hours by the bedside.

Jim was night-nurse, at his own humble, imploring request. In vain did Frances remind her mother that[Pg 224] the “head of the house” went to his post after a long day’s work. Mrs. Morland’s face was stony as she declined to accept any excuses for the culprit. Jim was the person at fault, and it was obviously just that he should suffer for his sin. Jim thankfully bore this sort of punishment, and tended Austin through the night hours,—when pain and weakness made the boy restless and irritable,—with infinite tenderness and patience. Francis begged to be allowed to share the watch, but Mrs. Morland was inexorable. She required her daughter’s help in the sick-room during the day, and Frances must take her usual rest or she certainly would break down.

Frances thought “breaking down” more likely to be Jim’s lot, as she watched her elder brother’s face, with its haggard eyes, heavy from ceaseless fatigue, and noted how worry and care were setting on his brow their ineffaceable lines. Indeed, the extra burden of Austin’s illness was leaving marks of its weight, and Jim’s slight figure bowed beneath it.

But the trial was over presently. Austin was better, he became convalescent; he must be carried downstairs in Jim’s own arms, and be coddled and spoiled in the warmest corner of the study. Jim thought no self-denial too hard, no service too exacting; and Austin would hardly have been mortal boy had he never taken advantage of his willing slave.

When fear and trouble on Austin’s personal behalf were ended, a dreadful sequel began. Bedroom fires night and day made inroads into the coal-supply, and invalid luxuries ran up expensive bills. Mrs. Morland’s[Pg 225] demands had not been unreasonable with regard to her own table; but when Austin’s nourishment was in question she ordered lavishly, hardly requiring Jim’s entreaty that she would see that her boy lacked nothing. During convalescence the lad’s appetite was tempted with difficulty, and Jim’s only fear was lest the port-wine should not be strong or plentiful enough. Afterwards, however, the wine must be paid for.

Jim took to sitting up late in his corner under the roof,—how late nobody guessed; for Austin, in his well-warmed bedroom, was always fast asleep when his brother stole in. But the hard winter told on trade, and Jim knew nothing of the best markets for his wood-carving. He was glad to sell his dainty work for a trifle to a little hook-nosed Jew who kept a small “curiosity-shop” in Exham.

Jim reminded himself that he was now a man, and that a man worth his salt ought to be able to maintain his family—especially his “lady-folk”—in comfort. He could not bring himself to suggest further “stinting” to Elizabeth. The lad seemed possessed with a feverish activity. He went to the farmers round about, and found all sorts of odd pieces of work with which to fill up every minute not required by his special trade. Anything to earn a few shillings, and to delay that borrowing from capital and lessening of interest which must surely some day bring ruin on the little home where he sheltered his cherished kindred.

Jim hid his troubles with desperate courage, but[Pg 226] there was somebody who was not entirely deceived. Frances had not forgotten that first interview between Jim and his stepmother on the latter’s coming to Rowdon, and her clear sense had taught her to suspect that the finances of the cottage were giving her elder brother some reason for his harassed look. The girl longed to ease his burden, but she did not know how to invite his confidence. The constraint between them had not lessened sufficiently to allow Frances the opportunity of penetrating his carefully-concealed secret.

“Austin,” said Frances one evening, looking up from her books, “do you know where Jim is? It’s so frightfully cold to-night—surely he can’t be in the smithy still?”

“You mustn’t, indeed. The wind cuts like a lash, and the place where Jim works is right open to it.”

“Well, it’s hard lines for a fellow to be mewed up here. Frances, it’s Saturday. Jim is always late on Saturdays.”

“He’s late every night now, I think. He just gives himself time to dress for dinner; and after dinner he spends half an hour studying with us, then he vanishes upstairs. And he hardly eats anything; he’s getting quite thin.” There was a hint of tears in the girl’s voice, though she did not add aloud her conviction—“I believe he goes without, to leave more for us.”

“We must look after him better,” said Austin uneasily. “He’s such a right-down good chap, he never thinks of himself.”

“No, never. I’ll go and look after him now, Austin. I’ll make him come to the warm room.”

Frances wrapped herself in a woollen shawl, borrowed Austin’s “Tam-o’-Shanter”, and went out softly at the front door. Down the side-path, over a thick carpet of snow, she crept stealthily into view of the smithy. The fires were out: clearly Jim had left his forge. She kept the pathway, and skirted the larger building to reach the closed-in shed behind it, where stood the carpenter’s bench. Here Jim often worked after regular hours, and here she found him to-night.

The girl peeped in through the small window, and at once saw her brother, seated on a rough stool by a rough trestle-table. A few books and papers were spread before him, but he was not examining them, though Frances could see that they were account-books and bills. Jim’s arms rested on the table, his hands supported his upturned face, which, in the light of his little lamp, looked rigid in its blank misery.

For a moment Frances was startled; then the sight of the papers, and the recollection of many things, brought home to her the truth of her recent suspicions. Now, if ever, was the time to speak. If Jim were vexed by her interference, he still might be persuaded to explain his position; and then surely it would be her right to try to help him.

Frances opened the shed door softly, and closed it behind her when she had passed in. The place was[Pg 228] bitterly cold. Jim’s face looked pinched and wan as he turned and gazed at her in dumb surprise. His hands, moving mechanically, swept the bills together with an instinctive effort to hide them; but Frances, walking straight to his side, pointed deliberately to the little heap of crushed papers.

“Missy!” ejaculated Jim, and gazing still at the determined intruder he stumbled on to his feet.

“Yes, I’ve caught you, so you needn’t attempt to get off telling the truth!” The girl feared that the laboured jocularity of her tone wasn’t much of a success, and continued with a natural quiver in her voice: “Oh, Jim, you mustn’t think I’m quite blind, or that I don’t care. I’ve seen for a long time back how worried you have been, and I’ve guessed that something must have gone wrong.”

“I’m sorry, Missy,” said Jim, in a low voice. “I suppose I’m a coward, or I shouldn’t show so plainly when I’ve a little difficulty to meet. But I didn’t know that anyone—that you would notice.” The lad’s eyes grew very soft. “You must please forgive me, Missy.”

“Oh, Jim,” exclaimed Frances, perplexed by this disarming entreaty, “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that! Do—do tell me what’s wrong!”

“It’s not anything for you to know, Missy. Indeed, it’s just my own affair—I’d not trouble you with it. Don’t mind me if I seem a bit downhearted now and again. I’m just a rough fellow, and forget my duty sometimes, like as not.”

“No, Jim, you remember it far too well. You make all the horrid things your duty, and won’t understand that Austin and I want to go shares. And I will know. So now, Jim, tell me.”

Frances persisted with argument and entreaty until she had drawn her brother’s secret from his lips. Having learned the facts, she set to work energetically to propose a remedy.

“We must not spend so much, Jim,” she remarked, knitting her brows seriously. She now occupied the stool, Jim standing by her side with all the air of a conscious defaulter. “It will never do to keep on drawing from your capital. I understand about ‘capital and interest’ quite well—really I do. I know that if capital grows less, so will the interest. We don’t want our interest less, so we mustn’t touch our capital.” (Jim’s eyes brightened as he heard the plural possessive.) “Now,” Frances went on, “listen to me, and don’t interrupt, and don’t contradict. I sha’n’t allow you to contradict! We can do without Elizabeth, and we must.”

“Be quiet, Jim! I like Elizabeth ever so much; but she costs a good deal, and we won’t keep her. She will easily get another place; for I’ll tell Miss Carlyon about her, and what an old dear she is.” Jim smiled forlornly at the epithet applied to angular Mrs. Macbean. “You see, it’s wicked to employ people you can’t afford to pay; and I’m sure we can’t afford to pay Elizabeth.”

Jim clenched his hands behind his back. They[Pg 230] were strong, capable hands; why, oh why, could he not fill them with gold for Missy!

“We can do quite well without her,” persisted Frances, her courage rising bravely to the emergency. Jim watched the kindling of the girl’s intelligent face, and wondered whether he had known before that gentle-voiced Missy possessed so plucky a spirit. “She—or someone else—might come, perhaps, once a week: to wash, you know, Jim, and to clean the kitchen. I shall do the rest.”

“Of course. I can cook and sweep and dust—yes, and I’ll learn to scrub. Why not?”

“No, Missy. Oh, don’t put that shame on me!” muttered Jim, in an agony of mental distress. “’Tis no work for little ladies: and a man ought to bear the burdens by himself. I’ll get more to do—indeed I will! You sha’n’t need to worry, if only you’ll not say Elizabeth must go.”

“But I do say it, Jim,” said Frances solemnly; “I wish I could send you to Haversfield, and let Miss Cliveden talk to you. She’d show you what a goose you were to think ladies—no, gentlewomen—are disgraced by work. Why, loads of splendid, clever women earn their own living; and I’ve always thought I’d love to earn mine. Look at Miss Carlyon—she isn’t ashamed to work for herself, and not be a burden to her brother.”

“As if that mattered! Still, if you think it does, and won’t let me help here, I’ll try another plan. I’m[Pg 231] fifteen now, and I dare say I might teach little children. Mrs. Stanley wants a nursery governess, Max says. I shall beg her to take me.”

“Missy!” Jim’s tone was now one of the blankest, most thorough dismay. “Go away from home—leave Rowdon” murmured the lad incredulously. “Why, ’twould take all the light from the place. You’d never—Missy!—you’d never do it?”

“I’ll have to, if you won’t be reasonable,” said Frances severely. “Of course I’d rather stay here, and teach just you, and look after Austin, and take care of Mamma. But if you won’t let me—”

“Missy,” said Jim nervously, “you know you’re mistress at Rowdon. I won’t say—anything. But oh, don’t go away!”

Frances discreetly followed up her advantage, and made her brother promise to dismiss Elizabeth with the usual notice. It was to be done in the kindest, most appreciative way; and Mrs. Macbean was to be asked if she would care to have another situation found for her, or if she would take daily work, and keep Saturdays for the cottage.

Then Jim was requested to put away the tiresome bills, and go indoors and get his lessons ready at once.

It was his first experience of his sister as “mistress”. Never before had she assumed the voice of the dictator, never before had she ordered him about. Jim felt that he liked it.

And now little Frances the Altruist was indeed a woman of affairs. Jim kept his word, and after the[Pg 232] reluctant departure of Elizabeth attempted no remonstrance; he tried faithfully to control his feelings when he saw his sister cook and sweep and dust. Only, if she rose early, he rose earlier; and she never came down to find a fireless, uncared-for grate. Her cans were filled with water, her scuttles with coal, before her light step could be heard on the stairs.

“It won’t do him any harm to know all Jim has tried to do for us,” she reflected wisely; “and I think, somehow, it will help him to be manly and brave himself.”

“All right, Sis! Jim can keep his hair on; he sha’n’t be ruined yet awhile, if we know it. Peace to the shades of the departed Elizabeth! You’ll boss the show, and I’ll be second in command.”

Mrs. Morland, also, received a communication from Frances. Jim was forthwith sent for—being suspected of having a weaker will than the one she had just encountered,—and obliged to listen to keen upbraiding, even to merciless taunts. Jim, pale and suffering, could reply only that Mrs. Morland’s opinions were humbly acknowledged as his own; and that if Missy could be induced to abandon her scheme, he would thankfully support motherly authority.

The young people of Rowdon Cottage formed themselves into a sort of household league, and speedily[Pg 233] discovered the benefits of co-operation. Jim toiled early and late; but his trouble shared was trouble lightened by at least one appreciable fact—the absence of need for further concealment. His distress of mind at the sight of his fellow-toilers grew no less, in spite of arguments drawn unconsciously from the propaganda of enlightened social economists; but his love for those two children who thus bravely tried to help him grew greater, and taught him more, day by day.

Frances had found her contentment, and was “happy again”. Her loyal friend Florry might now have roamed the Continent, if this desired consummation had indeed sufficed to send her there. But happy, busy Frances was more than ever a companion to be sought by a girl who never had been otherwise than happy and busy. Florry “begged lifts” from Dr. Brenton oftener than ever, and enjoyed her part in the cookery and housework quite as much as she enjoyed the talks about books and the comparisons of lessons which came in between, when folks wanted a rest.

Austin was positively refused regular employment as maid-of-all-work, so he kept on the look-out and seized his chances. At night he would prowl about in search of the family boots, and would hide them in a secret nook, so that in the morning he might try his hand at a new and original system of “blacking”. He would creep through the house, gather up the mats in a swoop, and depart, chuckling, to do mighty execution in the back-yard. Max, if on the spot, of course assisted like a man and a brother. Frances[Pg 234] only had to hint that any special cleansing process was under consideration, and three young Altruists got ready for the fray.

Jim, anxious-eyed but smiling, professed profound admiration, and disappeared within his shed.

It was an April afternoon. Max and Austin, armed with flat sticks, stood on either side of a well-stretched rope, whereon hung the study carpet. The Altruists were spring-cleaning, and Rowdon Cottage resounded with their songs of triumph. Jim had timidly suggested Elizabeth as a helper, but the idea had been rejected with scorn.

Kind Mrs. Fane had taken a hint from Florry, and had carried off Mrs. Morland to spend a week with her—“while the children amused themselves turning everything upside down”. Florry went to Rowdon to keep Frances company, by way of exchange of guests; and other Altruists dropped in promiscuously to “lend a hand”. It was the Easter holidays, so persons of leisure were free to make themselves useful.

Max and Austin stood wiping their fevered brows and admiring their work. They were on the drying-green, which widened out into an orchard that was the pride of Rowdon Cottage. Presently to the green entered a little procession.

Firstly, Guy Gordon, bearing a pile of footstools, and thumping the top one energetically as he marched to a whistled war-song. Next, Florry, carrying cushions many and various. Then, Frances, with an[Pg 235] armful of curtains. Next, the small and rosy-cheeked boy—brother to Guy—who long ago had inquired of Frances, “What is an Altruist?” Bertie bore nothing except himself, and found the task sufficient, for indeed he was plumper than Betty Turner. Last of all came Betty herself, with a basket of stockings and socks. Betty had volunteered to bring the cottage darning and mending up to date as her contribution to the proceedings. One can sit very comfortably on a bank under a tree while one darns the family hose.

Then arose a very Babel. The various persons of the procession betook themselves to convenient spots in the orchard, and set about their business. Guy deposited his footstools on the grass, and thrusting a stick into the hand of small Bertie, left him with the laconic order:

Then off flew Guy to the carpet-beating, which was more inspiriting than footstools. The flat sticks started afresh to the tune of “Three Jolly Sailor Boys”, roared in lusty trebles. Frances, with Florry’s aid, shook her curtains, Betty seated herself picturesquely out of reach of the dust, Bertie banged away to his heart’s content, and the orchard echoed the drying-green in a rousing chorus. Round about, the fruit-trees, in all their loveliness of pink and white, averted the dazzling April sunshine. Betty, among the violets and primroses, examined heels and toes with critical attention, while her voice joined involuntarily in the “Sailor Boys”.

“Isn’t it jolly?” demanded Max, during a pause for breath. “Here’s an Altruist entertainment given gratis and for nothing to the ducks and chickens! Now, then, girls, it’s your turn to lead off. Let’s have something sweet!”

Frances started Mendelssohn’s “Farewell to the Forest”, and Miss Carlyon’s “Selected Choir” gave three parts in melodious first and second treble and alto. Jim brought his work to the door of his shed and listened happily. The sound of the young voices, ringing through the clear spring air, came to his ears as a reminder of his changed conditions, which had in them much of trouble, yet more of joy.

Back and forward between cottage and orchard went the merry troop through the long afternoon. A very respectable amount of work had been got through when, at half-past five, Frances called a halt for tea.

By common consent the pleasant meal was taken out of doors, under the apple-boughs. The girls went into the house, cut bread-and-butter, and piled plates with scones and cakes, while the boys spread the cloth and fetched and carried. All the visiting Altruists had brought contributions to the feast, but Elizabeth’s scones, left at the door with Mrs. Macbean’s respectful duty, were in chief demand.

“Good old Elizabeth!” chuckled Austin. “She’s a first-rater. She bakes scones once a week, and never forgets ‘Mr. Jim’. I say, Mr. Jim, here’s a second supply, well-buttered. Finished? What rot! Pull him down, Max, and send up his cup!”

“I made this cake myself, Jim,” whispered Florry. “It’s ever so sweet—and all boys like sweet things.”

Jim, always grateful for Florry’s simple friendliness, found he could eat the cake nicely. He was next supplied with an egg, which Guy’s hen had been obliging enough to lay, and Betty to boil, on purpose for him. Frances would be hurt if he did not do justice to her home-made brown bread. Altogether, the youngsters took care that Jim’s tea was a hearty one. The lad had dropped, some time ago, the idea that these girls and boys might despise the blacksmith-brother. He knew, without any sentimental demonstrativeness on their part, that they all accounted him “a brick”, and he tried earnestly to deserve the flattering compliment. He did not know how industriously Frances and Austin sang his praises, and with what honest pride they spoke of the hard and self-denying toil which set so high an example that they could not but be up and struggling to follow it.

Tea over, work began again, and lasted till the shadows lengthening “from each westward thing” brought the Altruists’ busy day to a close. The visitors straggled homeward, with Frances, Florry, and Austin travelling as far as the Common to speed them on their way. They were very tired, and very jolly, and very well pleased with themselves. Who could say that spring-cleaning had not its aspects picturesque and poetic? Who could deny these virtuous labourers the right to rouse the echoes with a song of parting, and with yet another to the next good meeting?

Austin ran all the way home that he might coax Jim out for a peaceful stroll. Frances and Florry, left together, exchanged confidences and opinions after their manner. At length, among desultory talk, Florry suddenly opened a brisk campaign.

“Frances, do you remember saying, when you first went to Rowdon, that you couldn’t come back to our Society—your Society—till you were gooder?”

“If you were any gooder than you are now, I should be certain you were falling into a decline. Anyway, you’re an Altruist of Altruists, if our motto counts for anything, for I’m sure you ‘help others’ all day long. We’ve a meeting to-morrow evening. I am going over to it, and I mean to take you with me, and Austin too. It’s a mixed meeting—girls and boys; and afterwards we’ve a choir practice.”

Frances’s eyes kindled as she heard of these remembered joys. She was by no means unhealthily self-introspective by nature; and since she had repented her unworthy treatment of Jim, and done her best to make amends, the load of sensitive shame and humiliation had seemed to fall from her heart. Need she longer hold aloof from the comrades to whom she had once ventured to speak—parrot-like, as it now appeared to her awakened sense, and ignorant of real issues—such brave words of fellowship and admiration towards all those who did worthily the world’s exacting work?[Pg 239] Might she not again take her place among them, better instructed and less ready to instruct?

Florry found that persuasion was not needed. Frances was too sincere to profess a belief in difficulties which time had swept away. She replied, very truthfully and willingly, that she longed to refill the Altruist work-basket.

“I could give odd half-hours to it, you know, Florry. The mornings are so light now, I could easily rise a little earlier.”

“Mamma says it is always the busy people who do the most. Oh, dear Frances, I am so glad! You will see, to-morrow, how badly you have been missed.”

Mrs. Morland, in a sober evening dress of black silk, inhabited her sitting-room in solitary state. The nest her children’s love had prepared for her was fresh and sweet as an Altruist spring-cleaning could make it; and its occupant, surrounded by pretty and dainty things, looked in no want of pity as she sat by her cosy fireside, a volume of Tennyson in her hands. Yet on this particular evening the leisurely reader seemed not entirely at ease. Her eyes wandered continually from her book, and the expression of her face had for once lost its satisfaction with self and impatience with the rest of the world. In thought as[Pg 240] in act Mrs. Morland was slow to admit novelty; but a simple occurrence of the afternoon had touched her imagination, and inclined her to observe intelligently various matters which helped to make the small sum of her daily experience.

A little earlier she had been entertaining visitors—only Muriel and Edward Carlyon. But those young people possessed alert and vigorous individualities which were apt to leave a track where they had been. They talked well on a good many subjects, and had the pleasant knack of choosing those subjects with due regard to their company. Mrs. Morland liked them both, and was by no means insensible to the kindness which had made Frances and Austin their pupils still. So she had listened graciously, and spoken a few appropriate words of thanks when the brother and sister had warmly commended her children’s progress.

“How proud you must be of them!” Miss Carlyon had exclaimed, determined to do her favourites justice. “Do you know, I think no one ever had a brighter trio than yours.”

“My two children always have given me every satisfaction,” she replied with emphasis.

“Jim is a first-rate fellow,” remarked Edward. “Boyish for his years, perhaps, and overpoweringly conscientious. But I believe, when he goes out into the world, he will make his mark.”

“He is a worthy, unassuming lad,” said Mrs. Morland indifferently. “I should hardly have credited him with more than an average share of brains. Of course, I readily admit that he has had no advantages.”

Edward gaily contested the point, arguing that in learning to use his hands as well as his head, Jim had provided himself with two forces instead of one to aid him in doing battle with difficulties. Mrs. Morland declined to show interest in Jim, but she listened courteously to her stepson’s praises, and left her combatant in possession of the field.

The two visitors were disarmed, and began to think they might hitherto have done their hostess injustice on some points at least. They had walked out of set purpose to Rowdon that afternoon, after stirring up each other, as their habit was, to undertake a doubtful errand. They were wondering now whether they might not hope—with the mother in this gracious mood—to make that errand something of a success.

“And how is Frances, our own dear Altruist?” questioned Muriel presently. “I thought yesterday that she was looking pale and tired.”

“Indeed! I have not heard her complain. She has excellent health, fortunately, and is altogether stronger than Austin.”

“Meanwhile,” said Muriel tentatively, “I hope our pair of pickles aren’t overdoing it? You will forgive me, Mrs. Morland, I’m sure, if I intrude on you with selfish anxieties. You see, Edward and I can’t contemplate[Pg 242] with equanimity the loss of our pupils, and Frances has been telling me that she is afraid she must give up some of her studies.”

“She would not wish to worry you,” added Muriel in haste; “and she did not speak definitely—only, I understood it was a question between home duties and school lessons. As Frances has passed the Oxford Junior Locals, I wanted her to get ready for the Senior; but if she has not time for the necessary preparation, there is no more to be said.”

“I had a scholarship in view for Austin,” said Carlyon, before Mrs. Morland could speak. The brother and sister felt themselves on thorny ground, and feared a retreat might be forced on them. “It would help to take him to the University. Still, he is right to stick to his sister.”

“You mustn’t let our foolish ambitions vex you, dear Mrs. Morland,” said Muriel, rising to lay her hand with a pretty gesture on the elder woman’s arm. “If our young people choose the better part, we can only love them all the more, and be all the more proud of them. They will learn a great deal in helping Jim. Do you know, I am quite jealous of Frances’s success as a rival teacher? Now, Edward, you and I must run away. We are due at the rectory at six o’clock.”

The visitors said good-bye to a very stately, monosyllabic hostess, whose geniality had vanished, and left moroseness behind. At first Mrs. Morland was strongly moved to summon Frances for a severe[Pg 243] lecture, but she felt herself handicapped by her ignorance as to the truth. She had no real knowledge of the manner in which her children spent their days; and had objected to the work they had undertaken, in Elizabeth’s place, on account of its nature, not because she realized its amount. But if it were indeed the case that sweeping and scrubbing had absorbed the hours due to Latin and mathematics, in what direction could she exercise her authority? Somebody must sweep and scrub, if the spotlessness on which Mrs. Morland tacitly insisted were to be maintained at Rowdon Cottage.

For a time, indignation with her “trio” and their too officious friends occupied Mrs. Morland’s thoughts entirely; but compunctions were stirring her memory, and she began to recall more exactly, and to examine more thoroughly, the few remarks her late visitors had made. She wondered whether she had indeed left it to an outsider to notice that Frances looked “pale and tired”, and why her girl and boy should not have come first of all to their mother with their doubts as to their ability to keep up their lessons. Mrs. Morland had seen plainly that the Carlyons had spoken with some trepidation and fear of giving offence. She felt obliged to admit that they had not willingly broken the laws of good taste, but had made an honest effort to serve their young friends by letting fall such hints as might induce the children’s mother to give more attention to their affairs.

Mrs. Morland’s thoughts were still dwelling on these matters, when the door opened softly and Frances[Pg 244] entered, carrying a snowy table-cloth of finest damask, such as it was Elizabeth’s pride to handle. Next came Austin, with a folding-stand and butler’s tray, which he set up close to the door. Mrs. Morland was seated so that she could face her children, and she watched them furtively from the cover of her fan. The young pair were so unaccustomed to attract their mother’s notice while about their daily duties that they behaved as though she were as deep in Tennyson as they supposed her to be.

Frances deftly spread the cloth, while Austin fussed gravely over his tray. Presently they began to lay the covers for two, and to deck the table with pretty crystal and silver. There were no “specimen” vases, but they had a big bowl filled with white narcissus and ivy for a centre-piece.

“Is Jim ready?” questioned Frances in a low voice. “I have no soup to-day, but Mr. Carlyon brought a lovely pair of soles, and I have fried them most beautifully. Mamma likes fried soles. Jim is so thoughtful, he is sure to remember to say he won’t have any; then there will be one left for Mamma’s breakfast.”

“I have kept one back for you, dear,” said Frances quickly. “I know you hate cold beef. You shall eat that delicious rissole while I dish the pudding.”

The two now wrangled in undertones as to which[Pg 245] should enjoy the comparative dainty of a rissole, and Mrs. Morland laughed behind her fan until she feared detection. Finally, Austin decided that the morsel should be halved, and the preparations then proceeded in uninterrupted solemnity.

“Is Jim ready?” inquired Frances again. “My soles will be spoilt if dinner is kept waiting.”

“Austin! Last time Jim meddled with the potatoes he let one drop into the ashes—and he nearly spoiled his best coat!”

“I shall fly to the rescue. Oh, Austin, you promised to mix the fresh mustard!”

Frances retired in haste to the kitchen, packed Jim off to the sitting-room, and served up her three courses in fine style. Mrs. Morland, intent on observations, dined almost in silence; and Jim, amazed to find neither his mind nor his manners undergoing improvement, wondered nervously of what heinous offence he had been guilty unawares. Austin brought in the dishes, and waited at table with the utmost confidence and resource. It was his little joke to call himself Adolphus the page-boy, in which character he indulged in various small witticisms, chiefly, it must be owned, for the benefit of Frances. When he had placed a scanty dessert before his mother, he went off, to reappear[Pg 246] immediately in Frances’s wake in his own character of Master Austin Morland.

He wore an evening suit of black velvet, which, having been made eighteen months before, was an exceedingly tight fit for its owner. Mrs. Morland now became aware of the fact, and felt a sudden qualm as she anticipated the time when the children’s stock of good, well-made clothing would be finally worn out or outgrown. She determined to put off, for that evening at least, her intended demand for the immediate re-engagement of Elizabeth, and the release of Frances from “household drudgery”. She would hardly have acknowledged that a part of that forbearing resolution was due to the awakened eyes with which she now regarded the third of her “trio”. Jim’s face was pale and tired beyond all possibility of concealment.

The meal was ended. Mrs. Morland returned to her Tennyson, and the trio returned to their various tasks. For more than an hour the solitary woman sat on by her fireside deep in thought. Glancing up, at length, she saw that her clock pointed to a quarter-past ten, and it occurred to her that the children had not yet come to bid her good-night. Rising with a little shiver, for the room was growing chilly, she crossed the passage to the study, and, opening the door gently, peered in. The three students were gathered together, to share the light of the single small lamp. Frances was correcting an exercise for Jim, who listened intently while she lucidly explained his mistakes. Austin struggled with Greek verbs, repeating them under his[Pg 247] breath, while he held his hands to his ears, and rocked his body to and fro, after the familiar fashion of industrious schoolboys.

Consternation took the place of contentment when Mrs. Morland made the young folks aware of her presence by inquiring whether they knew the hour.

“It is a quarter-past ten,” she remarked, her voice falling on a guilty silence. “You know, Frances and Austin, I do not like you to be up later than ten.”

“We have nearly finished, Mamma. We go to Woodbank to-morrow, and we shall not have our lessons ready unless we do them to-night.”

“Why not, pray? Are there no morning hours before you? And what is this I hear from Miss Carlyon, Frances? Have you really taken it upon yourself to tell her, without first consulting me, that you are prepared to dispense with her kind help?”

“Oh, Mamma,” exclaimed Frances, “Miss Carlyon could not have thought—. Indeed, I didn’t say it that way!”

“Perhaps not,” said Mrs. Morland, half-ashamed of her injustice; “but you said it in some way, and I am very much annoyed. A child like you has no business to decide for herself whether she will or will not accept so great a favour.”

“I only didn’t want to worry you, Mamma; and I didn’t think—I didn’t guess you would mind about my lessons.”

“I dare say your intentions were good, Frances,” said Mrs. Morland less sharply; “but you certainly should have come to me first. You cannot really have been[Pg 248] so foolish as to suppose that I am indifferent about your studies. They may be of the utmost importance to you some day.”

“I know,” said Frances eagerly. “So, won’t you let me sit up a little later sometimes?”

“I can’t do that, for the best of reasons. You rise—as I know to my cost—very early; and I must insist on your taking proper rest. But I see no obstacle to your finding plenty of opportunity for study in the daytime. What is it that comes in the way?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when you come upstairs to-night, Mamma dear. Won’t that do?”

“Very well,” replied Mrs. Morland, feeling a new and strange reluctance to prolong the discomfort she had brought to the industrious little group. Memory again spoke in her ears with Miss Carlyon’s voice the familiar words about choosing the better part. She went back to her room, stirred the smouldering fire, and sank into her luxurious chair. Something—could it be conscience?—was stirring fiercely within her; and qualities long dormant rose up and cried her shame.

She had been alone but a few minutes when Jim came into the room. The lad, still white and weary-eyed, moved with his quiet, undisturbing step to Mrs. Morland’s side.

“I wanted to tell you something,” he began diffidently; “something perhaps you don’t know. It is[Pg 249] that, for a good while back, the children have been helping me—teaching me, I mean, besides learning their own lessons. I wanted so much to learn, that I’m afraid I forgot how I was taking up their time; but indeed I never guessed that Missy was going to leave off any of her lessons with Miss Carlyon. Of course I will manage so that she need not. I hope you won’t worry, or be vexed with Missy. It’s all my fault.”

“I will not let Missy be troubled with me,” said Jim. “That will make some difference.”

“Ay. I will learn, too, somehow, but not at the children’s cost. I can do a smith’s work without Latin; but my brother and sister are to be something different.”

“I cannot tell that; but I can easily get up an hour earlier and help more in the house.”

“Not till five,” replied Jim eagerly. “It would be nothing to rise at four.”

“But if my ears haven’t deceived me, I’ve heard stealthy steps going to your bedroom at one, and even two, in the morning.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Morland calmly, “I’ll think over matters and let you know if I agree to your ingenious plan. Meanwhile, James, I would rather you went to bed a little earlier and rose a little later. And I object to your giving up your lessons with the children. I have no doubt that in helping you they help themselves; but in any case I wish you to go on remembering that if you are a blacksmith you are also a gentleman.”

Mrs. Morland enjoyed the knowledge that her stepson was utterly astonished and subdued; and she went on in the same level tone:

“I never was more convinced of the latter fact than I am this evening. Now, good-night, James! Go to bed, and get rid of that headache.”

During the whole of the following couple of days Mrs. Morland displayed an unwonted activity, though in a direction her children found terribly discomfiting. On this or that pretext she contrived to maintain a careful watch on everybody’s movements, and some of the youngsters’ most cherished and harmless secrets were dragged to light. Thus, Frances was surprised by her mother in the act of “washing out” certain dainty frills which it always had been supposed were left to Mrs. Macbean’s tender mercies. Austin was discovered peeling potatoes in the study, whither he had been banished for fear of draughts, while Jim cleaned the kitchen windows. And Jim’s feelings may be imagined when his workshop was invaded by the[Pg 251] stately presence of his stepmother, who had donned a shawl and wandered through the darkness merely to inquire if he happened to know whether a quarter to ten were the correct time.

Mrs. Morland’s inspection was thorough enough to supply her with a basis of facts whereon to build further meditations and resolutions. Perhaps the latter were confirmed by a conversation she overheard through a door left ajar accidentally:

“I say, Frances, isn’t the Mater getting awfully spry? She has been going about no end the last two days.”

“Yes. She seems ever so much better and stronger, doesn’t she? Wouldn’t it be jolly if she would come for a walk with us sometimes, and go visiting a little, as she used to? She wouldn’t always be so dull if she had more change.”

“She came and watched me feed my chickens this morning. Fancy! she said she had no idea I had gone in for poultry rearing! I believe I must have forgotten to tell her about it. I showed her my ducklings, too, and promised her one for dinner soon.”

“Mamma asked me where I had learned to make such nice puddings. Wasn’t it dear of her to notice? I shall turn out lovely pancakes to-night—she likes pancakes.”

“Anybody would like your pancakes. May I have the little burnt one at the end?”

“You unkind boy, it isn’t always burnt! Perhaps I’ll give you a whole proper one for a treat, as you provide the eggs.”

On the third day after the Carlyons’ visit, Mrs.[Pg 252] Morland once more surprised the little housewife and her male servitors. They were at breakfast in the kitchen; for Frances, to save coal, had decreed that the study fire should not be lighted in the early morning.

“Is this an innovation, young people?” demanded the newcomer amiably. “Thank you, James; I will take Austin’s chair, and he can fetch another. Really”—and Mrs. Morland glanced critically round the bright, clean kitchen—“you look remarkably comfortable here. Your copper pans do you credit, Frances.”

“Jim scoured the pans, Mamma dear,” said the girl, recovering from the shock of discovery. “And I do think they’re pretty. Mayn’t I give you some tea? Oh no! not this, of course—I’ll make some fresh.”

“Nonsense! I’m sure you can spare me a cup of yours. That tea-pot has immense capacity, and if these lads haven’t drained it—”

“Why, there’s lots,” said Austin, lifting the lid of the big brown pot. “Only, you see, Mater, it’s—it’s a little nurseryfied. Frances doesn’t approve of strong tea for our youthful digestions. I’ve plenty of boiling water in my kettle, and you shall have a special brew.”

Jim had risen quietly and placed a small clothes-horse, over which he had thrown a cloth, between Mrs. Morland and the fire. Meanwhile his stepmother, with a swift glance that escaped detection, had surveyed the young people’s fare. A home-baked loaf, a plate of scones, butter, and marmalade. For Austin alone, a boiled egg. All set out with exquisite cleanliness, and appetizing enough in itself, but hardly[Pg 253] sufficient preparation for a long and hard day’s work.

“Frances has found some dainty for my breakfast-tray each morning,” reflected Mrs. Morland, and at that moment Frances spoke.

“Your kidneys are still in the larder, Mamma. Would you like them cooked sooner than usual since you are down so early?”

“They will do nicely for dinner,” said Mrs. Morland. “I am going to breakfast with you, and cannot possibly resist those scones any longer.”

The amazed silence of the group may not have been entirely complimentary, but Mrs. Morland seemed unconcerned, and forced speech on “James” by inquiring whether he were responsible for the shining dish-covers as well as the copper pans. The freshly-made tea was praised generously; and altogether Mrs. Morland showed a welcome disposition to admire everything.

Breakfast over, the workers of the family prepared to set about their usual duties. Jim went off to the forge, Austin departed to feed his chickens, Frances began to clear the breakfast-table.

“I have been thinking,” said Mrs. Morland, while she helped to gather together cups and plates, “that for the future Jim and I will dine with you children in the middle of the day.”

“It would be at least an hour’s saving of your time—oh! more than that. However simple your cookery,[Pg 254] it must require a good deal of attention; then, there is the serving, and after all the washing of dishes and pans. Why, child, we have hit in a moment on the solution of your difficulty.”

“You never have been used to an early dinner,” said Frances in a troubled voice; “you would hate it.”

“It could not really make the slightest difference to me now,” declared the mother. “When I visited and received visitors, things naturally were arranged according to custom.”

“But, Mamma,” said Frances wistfully, “why should you not visit again? The people worth knowing wouldn’t like us a bit the less because we live in a cottage instead of at Elveley. It is not as though we had done anything wrong. All your favourite friends have called since you have been here—”

“Called!” interrupted Mrs. Morland vehemently “yes—to pry into my affairs and gossip over my changed circumstances. Ah! Frances, you don’t know the world yet, thank Heaven; you look on it still with a girl’s eyes, thoughtless and ignorant. No, you must not attempt to question my judgment in such matters. I could not endure to be pitied.”

“Then don’t put your acquaintances to the test,” said Mrs. Morland bitterly.

“Would you rather I did not go to our Altruist meetings, then, Mamma? You know, I’ve joined our little club again lately. Of course, all the girls understand[Pg 255] that I can be with them only once in a way, and that I can’t make things for our stores, but they don’t seem to mind.”

A smile of pleasure brightened the girl’s face as she recalled the enthusiasm which had greeted her return to the Altruists.

“By all means go to your meetings, child. It was not by my wish that you left off doing so. And by all means attend regularly, and get what fun you can in your dull life. As to the work, you shall not be entirely empty-handed. You and I will set up a work-basket between us; and if we have no new material, we can alter and cut down our own old clothes.”

“I will look over your wardrobe this afternoon and bring down some of the things you have quite outgrown. And, my dear, I wish you to consider the matter of our meals as settled. We will all dine together, and we shall have nice long evenings. Why, the Altruist work-basket will be a positive blessing to me. You young people mustn’t be surprised if I pay a visit to your study sometimes; it is just a little lonely in my room after dark. I will sew while you are busy with your lessons, and then we shall save a fire. We might let the kitchen fire go out now and then after tea, and keep one in the sitting-room, so that we could have an hour or two’s music. James has a nice voice—you must teach him to sing.” ...

“Mamma!—mamma darling!” Frances had flown[Pg 256] to Mrs. Morland. Their cheeks were pressed together, their arms were about one another.

“There—you silly child! I have been thinking the old mother has been out of everything long enough. Run away to your bedrooms; and before you go, lend me your biggest apron. You shall see that I will soon master the professional manner of washing breakfast-cups.”

“Max,” said Dr. Brenton from the hall door, “can you take a case for me this afternoon?” The Doctor’s eyes twinkled as he spoke, for his son’s professional aid furnished him with plenty of opportunity for the harmless jesting enjoyed by both. “Of course, I mean if your own private practice permits.”

“Thank you,” replied Max gravely; “I believe I’ve nothing serious on. My distinguished services are entirely at your disposal. Is it toothache or measles? I’m great at measles.”

“I’m sorry I can’t give you a turn with your speciality. It’s just a broken arm. But there was some chance of fever; and the boy’s mother is such a fool she can’t even take his temperature, or I might have told her to send me word how he did—”

“Yes, and I don’t know how you’re to get there. I can’t spare the trap, for I’ve to go twice as far in the other direction.”

“Never mind ways and means,” said Max cheerily. “As Appleton isn’t out of our planet, I suppose I can reach it somehow.”

“Wait a bit, though, my boy,” said the Doctor, stepping out on to the gravel path and laying his hand on Max’s shoulder. “This is Wednesday, and I don’t want to spoil any little plan for your friends’ holiday afternoon. Was there a spree in view?”

“Nothing you need bother about, Dad,” replied Max, raising his bright face. “I was just going over to Rowdon with this pansy-root for Frances. I forgot to grub up the thing in the morning, so I’m getting it now.”

“You always enjoy a few hours at Rowdon,” said the Doctor regretfully. “Perhaps, after all, I might get back in time to tackle Appleton myself.”

“No, you mightn’t. You’ll be tired enough as it is, after being out half last night. Don’t you worry, Dad, I’ll see to Brown.”

“It won’t matter how late you visit him. You could have a game first, lad. Rowdon is not much off the road to Appleton. Suppose you went there first?”

“Good idea! If Austin’s in trim, I dare say he’ll go on with me. Frances too, maybe. Off you go, Dad, and don’t fidget about Brown. I’ll settle him and his temperature.”

So off the Doctor went, as easy in his mind as his young son’s care could make him. And Max dug up[Pg 258] his root, wrapped it neatly in brown paper, and made ready for the tramp to Rowdon.

Austin was “in trim” and volunteered his company to Appleton. Frances and her mother had arranged to give the afternoon to the Altruist work-basket; but they invited Max to come back to tea at the cottage, and to play a game at cricket on the Common afterwards. The boys did their walk in good time, found Brown’s temperature normal and his arm doing well, and then strolled homeward at a leisurely pace.

“How are things going in the village?” inquired Austin, as they neared Rowdon, and topics of more personal interest had been pretty well exhausted. “Has your father got old Fenn to do anything for Lumber’s Yard?”

“Fenn! Not he. But the folks themselves are looking up. Carlyon has been hammering away at them a long time, as you know, and most of them are a shade more respectable in consequence. At least, they are beginning to show some disgust with that beast Baker, which is a sign of a return to decency.”

“Anything fresh in the way of brutality is hardly within Mr. Joe Baker’s power. He’s an out-and-out right-down waster, and I told him so yesterday for the fiftieth time.”

“Mauling that tiny mite Polly. Fortunately Harry the Giant heard the child yell, and went to her help just as I got there. I couldn’t help treating Baker to[Pg 259] a few home truths, and I wish you’d seen his scowls and heard the pleasant things he promised me.”

“Beast! But I say, Max, don’t put yourself in his way in a lonely lane on a dark night. He doesn’t love you.”

The tea-table, presided over by Mrs. Morland, was surrounded that evening by a lively little company. Austin and Max gave a mirthful version of their encounter with Mrs. Brown, concerning the beef-tea they had ventured to criticise; and quiet Jim, whose sense of humour was undergoing cultivation, chuckled over the boys’ small witticisms. Max’s long walk had not robbed cricket of attraction. As soon as tea had been cleared away, the youngsters dragged Jim off to the Common; and even Mrs. Morland was cajoled into coming with them to look on and keep the score.

But it was a really tired-out lad who, when dusk was deepening into darkness, bade Frances and Austin good-bye on the further side of the Common. Max would not let his friends come further, for he meant to cover a good part of the remaining distance at a swinging trot, which might, he hoped, compel his aching legs to do their duty. And for a time they did it nobly; but presently fatigue compelled the boy to slow down to a steady walk, which made reflection easier. Max’s thoughts were usually good company, and on this particular evening he had abundant food for them.

Max Brenton was nearing his fifteenth birthday, and his busy, capable life held promise of early[Pg 260] maturity. Though still a very boyish boy, he had in his many quiet hours developed a power of concentration and resolute temper, which inclined him to wider schemes of activity than boyhood often learns to contemplate. It was only the strength and depth of his affections—in which alone Max was child-like—that rendered it possible for him to look forward without impatience to a career consecrated to the service of Woodend.

Max would have preferred a broader outlook and a brisker scene for his energies. But he knew that a partnership with his son was Dr. Brenton’s wildest dream of future happiness and prosperity, and Max could not imagine himself bringing defeat to his father’s plan. How often had they talked it over together! and how gaily had Max anticipated his triumphant return to his little country home with the honours of the schools bound thick about his brows! By that time Dad would want someone to do the night-work, and share the responsibility of difficult cases; and who should help him, who ever had helped him, but Max?

The boy smiled as, moving rapidly through the evening darkness, he reminded himself afresh of all these things. Then the smile faded, and a quick sigh expressed the lurking regret of his growing years. For a while his thoughts soared to all conceivable heights of medical distinction; and he wondered whether, had his path not been inexorably prepared for him, he might have climbed to better purpose some other way.

Max’s thoughts still dwelt lingeringly on the opportunities present-day conditions afford to the specialist in any profession, as he drew within sight of the straggling cottages of Woodend village. The first of all was a neat little one-storeyed tenement, where dwelt poor Mrs. Baker’s aged father and mother. Of late the couple had often tried to shelter Bell and her little ones during outbreaks of Joe Baker’s drunken fury; and more than once the fugitives had been pursued to their place of refuge by their persecutor. Max recalled these facts while his eyes caught through the trees the glimmer of lights below him in the valley; and by a natural sequence of thought, he remembered also his morning encounter with Joe.

“He was in one of his worst moods,” meditated the boy; “and if the ‘Jolly Dog’ has seen any more of him since, I expect his wife will be in danger to-night. I declare, I’ve half a mind to look in on her father and give him a word of warning. He might fetch the children, anyhow.”

Max looked again at the light in old Baring’s distant window, and decided to carry out his plan. A little further on he turned into the lane where, many months ago, Austin Morland’s galloping pony had caught up “brother Jim”. The overhanging trees behind tall wooden palings added to the natural darkness of the hour and place; and it was not till his eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom that he detected a tiny figure stumbling towards him up the path. When the child came close, Max saw that it was little five-year-old Polly Baker.

“Oh, Mas’r Max! Mas’r Max!” The child flung herself at the lad, and clung to him desperately. “He’s after me, Father is! Don’t let him have me! Please don’t, Mas’r Max!”

The boy lifted the little child in his arms, and tried to soothe her. He felt that her frail body was palpitating with the terror which had already made her baby face wizened and old. A mighty wrath surged into Max’s heart. Polly’s trembling fingers tugging weakly at his jacket called all his manliest instincts into vigour.

He easily made out the child’s broken words of explanation. Baker had been turned away from the “Jolly Dog” as being dangerous to its other frequenters, and in malicious rage had lurched home and set about beating wife and children indiscriminately. Neighbours had come to the rescue, and had seen that Bell was safely housed with a friend, while her children were sent under escort to their grandfather Baring. For a time Baker had remained indoors, nursing his wrongs; then, not daring to interfere with Bell, since Harry the Giant was mounting guard over her, he had set out in the dark to wreak his fury on the Barings and their helpless charges.

His coming had sent Polly and the other little ones into paroxysms of terror, and they had flown for shelter out to the friendly night. Baker was drunk enough to be dangerous, without having in the least lost control over his senses. Little Polly, whose baby[Pg 263] fist had sometimes been raised in defence of her mother, was always his favourite victim; and the child now gasped in Max’s ear her certainty that her father had seen and followed her. If he had been sure she was right, Max would have turned instantly, and have run back up the lane to some trusty villager’s dwelling; but before he could persuade himself to this course, events proved Polly’s fear to be justified. Round the corner into the lane came Baker, running at full speed, with sufficient certainty of gait to assure Max that he would have no helpless drunkard to deal with.

Even then, Max knew that he could escape, without Polly. Max was fleet of foot; but the clinging grasp of the childish fingers and the weight of the little quivering body were enough to give the advantage to Baker in an uphill race. Max had but a minute for reflection, and he determined to try to dodge Baker, slip past him, and make a dash for the village. Running downhill, he thought he might outstrip the enemy, should he give chase; and there would be the chance of meeting help in the more frequented road.

Max had hardly resolved on the attempt, when he knew it had failed. Baker made a cunning feint of speeding by, then flung himself to one side and fairly pinned Max against the palings. In a twinkling the boy had twisted himself free, and set down his burden with a whispered “Run for it, Polly! Run back to the village, fast!”

Max’s fear was all for the baby girl, and his one[Pg 264] thought now was to gain time for her escape. Therefore he made no attempt to secure his own, but threw all his strength into the effort to hold back Polly’s father, who, with threats which chilled Max’s blood, addressed thickly to the flying child, was trying to hurl himself after her. The strong young arms of Polly’s defender were not so easily shaken off; and as the little flickering feet carried their owner round the corner and out of sight, Baker turned his attention to revenge.

Max’s vigour was already nearly spent, and his danger had been obvious to him from the beginning of the unequal struggle. Baker’s hatred of “the young Doc”, first called into active existence on the night when the boy’s manœuvres had successfully combated his own brutal designs, had increased continually ever since. It was Max’s interference, and Max’s personal popularity, which had made the denizens of Lumber’s Yard band themselves into a sort of bodyguard to protect Baker’s ill-used wife and children. It was Max who had again and again assailed the drunkard and bully with words of biting contempt. It was Max who had that very morning boldly threatened to obtain legal redress for Bell and her little ones should their cruel tyrant persecute them once more.

Now the man had the boy in his power. Max could not do much in self-defence. He tried to hit out, but Baker, seizing his arms, flung him back against the fence, and, pinning him there with one hand, struck at him furiously with the other. Even then Max’s thoughts were with the escaping child, and he clung desperately[Pg 265] to the arm which held him during the few moments of blinding pain before he dropped. Baker was not made of the stuff which spares a fallen foe. His heavy nailed boots did a ruffian’s work on the prostrate body of Max Brenton.

Little Polly fled as for dear life along the village road. She passed her grandfather’s house, which had proved so poor a shelter; she gave no heed to bystanders at cottage-gates; she did not dare to pause even when a friendly voice addressed her. Deep in her baby heart was a fear, not for herself alone; and she flew on and on, her fluttering breath panting between her white lips, her scared eyes gleaming with terror above her colourless cheeks. Her way soon led her by large houses set far back in their beautiful gardens, and at the gate of one of these a boy stood waiting for a comrade.

Every Altruist was Polly’s friend, and knew the story of her wretched home. So now at last the child ventured to check her headlong pace, and to give voice to her baby fears. This lad, she knew, was Guy Gordon—he who could make cunning use of the strange silver flute, he whose pockets kept stores of sweets for tiny, crimson-frocked girls. Guy was the friend of Polly’s young deities—Max and Austin, Frances and Florry. To him the child now turned with a despairing cry.

“No, it’s Mas’r Guy!” laughed the boy good-naturedly. “What’s up, Trots?”

“Save him, p’ease save Mas’r Max! Father’s got him in the dark lane far away. Father’ll kill Mas’r Max!”

Guy knew, like the rest of his small world, the hatred felt by Baker for the Doctor’s son; and while the boy tried to assure himself that there was no use in heeding incoherent babble from a mere baby like Polly, a horrible dread swept across his mind.

“Father’s got him! Oh, Father’s got Mas’r Max! Father hates Mas’r Max ’cos he won’t let him beat Mummy and me! Father’ll kill Mas’r Max away in the dark lane, ’cos—’cos Mas’r Max held Father to let Polly run!”

“It can’t be true! Polly, are you certain you mean just what you say? Oh, what’s the use of asking her! I’ll do something on the chance—”

Guy thought a moment, then, picking up the child, ran at his best speed up the road to Dr. Brenton’s house, now close at hand.

“Me was comin’ here!” sobbed Polly, as Guy pelted in at the gate; “me was comin’ to tell Dokker! Polly love Dokker and Mas’r Max. Polly not let Mas’r Max be killed dead!”

“You poor little brave thing!” muttered Guy, choking back a sob himself. “If anything has happened to Max, what will the Doctor do? He is in, I know. I saw him go home just half an hour ago. Where’s the[Pg 267] bell? Ugh! how my hand shakes! I’m no better than this baby.”

The Doctor was in, heard Guy’s story, and keeping over his voice and face a control which amazed his boy-visitor, questioned Polly so quietly and gently that he drew from her an account clear enough as to time and place, and connected enough as to fact, to convince himself and Guy that the little one told the truth. Then he called Janet, handed Polly into her care, and caught up his hat and a thick stick.

Dr. Brenton and Guy ran down the road, side by side, at a level, steady trot. Guy kept respectful and sympathetic silence. He, like Polly, loved the good Doctor and Max.

Suddenly Guy drew from his pocket a whistle, on which he blew a loud and shrill blast.

“It’s the Altruists’ whistle, sir,” he explained briefly. “Of course we won’t wait, but if there are any of ‘Ours’ about, they’ll turn up and help.”

“Thanks, lad,” said the Doctor. “We’ll pray as we go that Max has escaped from that scoundrel.”

Guy’s whistle roused the echoes. Down the garden-paths and the shadowy drives of the larger dwellings of Woodend rushed a half-score of Altruists, responsive to the well-known signal, and eager to know what had brought it forth. For this particular whistle was never used save when opportunity offered for the Society’s members to justify their motto, “Help Others”. The[Pg 268] running boys soon caught up the Doctor and Guy, and heard from the latter, in his breathless undertones, what the signal had meant. The lads felt themselves in sufficient force to deliver Max from any danger; and as the village road was now empty of all save stragglers hieing homeward, they attracted no particular attention.

“There’s Harry the Giant!” exclaimed Frank Temple, who ran beside Guy just in the Doctor’s wake. “He might be of use—I’ll bring him.”

The name of Max sufficed for Harry, who attached himself willingly to the little group of boys. Then in silence they followed the Doctor out of the village, along the uphill country road, and so into the long, dark lane, which Polly’s description had enabled Dr. Brenton to identify. Half-way up the lane they came upon Max, lying, as Baker had left him, in the deep shadow of the trees.

“I think he is alive, Guy,” said Dr. Brenton presently, while he turned to his young allies a white and agonized face; “if he is, that’s the most I can say—and I’m not sure yet. Come, you all cared for him; you shall help me to carry him home.”

The boys pressed forward, but Harry, stepping quickly in front of them, stooped and raised Max carefully in his mighty arms.

“By your leave, gen’lemen,” said the big, good-hearted fellow, “there’s none but me as shall carry Master Max.”

When Max again looked out on the world with seeing eyes, he was lying upon his own bed, a fact which for the moment puzzled him exceedingly. Because cool air and soft sunshine were coming in at the open window; and while it was yet day, Max had been wont to work. As he still scolded himself lazily for a good-for-nothing lie-abed, and almost resolved to rise that very minute, his blinking eyes caught sight of a dark mass which resolved itself slowly into the definite shape of humanity, and became the motionless figure of a man.

The figure moved, rose, came forward with the painful caution of dreary suspense. Dr. Brenton had doubted his ears, and Max’s eyelids were together again. But gradually they parted, tardily but surely, and Max’s lips smiled.

Round the corner of a big screen near the door came the eager face of a boy. Just one peep at that other boyish face on the pillow, and then Austin’s vanished.[Pg 270] A minute later its owner, on shoeless feet, was dancing a wild jig of enthusiasm on the landing outside. For the great London specialist, Sir Gerald Turner, had said that if, within a certain time, Max recovered consciousness, there might be a chance for his life. And Austin had firm faith in that “chance”.

Sir Gerald had found it convenient to spend a country holiday with his brother, Betty’s father, and might be relied on to be within hail. Max’s case was interesting, and Sir Gerald liked Dr. Brenton. So now Austin, with one brief word to Janet, found his boots, dragged them on somehow, and flew to summon the famous physician. Sir Gerald came at a pace which tried Austin’s patience to the last degree; but as the man was not to be hurried, the boy ran in advance, and wondered as he went what it could feel like to give a verdict for life or death.

Dr. Brenton came to meet his coadjutor, and led him upstairs. The two friends, speaking in whispers, passed out of Austin’s ken. Then the boy, studying his watch, learned that Sir Gerald could actually be heartless enough to keep him in horrible uncertainty for a good ten minutes, and wondered how London could produce and tolerate such a monster. The distant hum of voices heard murmuringly through Max’s window overhead was so intolerable that Austin covered his ears with his hands as he rocked to and fro on the doorstep. Thus he was taken by surprise when a hand was laid kindly on his shoulder, and a voice said gently:

“Be comforted, my boy. Your playfellow is better: he is going to pull through.”

Austin’s wild shout of joy made Max stir in his health-giving sleep; but after all it did no harm, and carried to a little knot of waiting Altruists the first glad prophecy of better things to come.

Max improved slowly, and at length reached a point of improvement beyond which he seemed unable to go. No one was more disturbed than he that this should be the case. His father was palpably uneasy at leaving him, and yet work must be attended to. His own pensioners were doubtless in need of him, though the entire body of Altruists had placed themselves unreservedly at his service.

Through the cloudless days of a beautiful May the Doctor’s son struggled back to life, and learned afresh how sweet a thing it was. He never was lonely, for some boy or girl was always at hand to look after food and medicines, tell stories, and invite orders. On his own behalf Max was not exigent; but his comrades found out, during those days of vicarious work among the sick and sorry of Woodend, how busy a person “the young Doc” had become, and how many of his glad boyish hours must have been given freely to the helping of others.

“Max was an Altruist long before we started our Society,” remarked Frances meditatively. “I don’t know how he managed to do all he did.”

“Will Max ever be busy again, I wonder?” questioned Florry. “Oh, poor Max!—if he doesn’t get[Pg 272] well! I heard Dr. Brenton tell Papa that Max didn’t get on a bit, and that he had been so badly hurt.—Oh, Frances! wasn’t it cruel?”

“Yes; but Max is a hero, and we’re proud of him. And he’s quite brave about it. If he fretted, he wouldn’t have half so good a chance; but since he’s plucky and quiet he will surely get well some day. Meanwhile, we can take care of all his ‘cases’.—I dressed a burn to-day,” finished Frances triumphantly. “The child had come to see Max—just fancy—and I took him in, and Max showed me how to do it.”

“We’ll start an ambulance class, and beg Dr. Brenton to teach us,” said Betty. “I should like it. I’m going to be a doctor some day, and live in Harley Street, and be rich and famous, and cure all the people nobody else can cure;—I’ll be just like Uncle Gerald.”

“And Florry will be rich and famous too,” sighed Frances; “she’ll write hooks and plays and be as great an author as you will be a doctor. Oh, dear! I sha’n’t be anybody particular. I’ll just have to stay at home and help Max with his easy cases.”

“I can tell you something more about Max,” said Betty. “Uncle Gerald says Dr. Brenton ought to send him away yachting with somebody who would take great care of him, and then he would get well a great deal sooner. I’m on the look-out for a nice Somebody to do it. I’ve a cousin who has a yacht, and I wrote to him, and what do you think the wretch replied? ‘Catch me plaguing myself with an invalid boy!’ I sha’n’t speak to him when he comes here again.”

“We will ask all the Altruists to ‘look out for a nice Somebody’ to take Max a sea-voyage,” said Florry. “I dare say we shall soon find someone. Now, good-bye, girls; it’s my turn to be nurse. I’ve a lovely story by Stanley Weyman to read to Max, and I’m aching to begin it.”

If the care and service of his friends could have cured the sick boy he would have made a wonderfully quick recovery. As it was, they certainly helped him loyally through the long days of his pain and weakness; and the persistent cheerfulness of their prophecies as to his future coloured insensibly his own thoughts, and made them usually bright and always contented. Then, though the details of Baker’s capture by a band of Woodend villagers, and his exemplary punishment at their hands, were still withheld from him, he had the relief of knowing that the brutal rascal of Lumber’s Yard had been packed off to America, with a threat of legal proceedings should he dare to reappear in Woodend; and that Bell Baker, free of his tyranny, was developing into a good mother and tidy housewife. Max’s friends found her as much work as she could do; and the Altruists helped her judiciously with extra food and clothing for her little ones.

Moreover, the Woodend gentlemen held a meeting, at which they said many pleasant things about the Doctor’s son, and many serious ones about the condition of the worst part of their village. Edward Carlyon gave his testimony; and it was resolved to[Pg 274] attempt the purchase of Lumber’s Yard. This plan was actually carried out almost immediately; and a few months later the “Jolly Dog” and the surrounding wretched dwellings were pulled down, and Lumber’s Yard was no more. Instead, the proud villagers beheld a row of pretty cottages about an open green; and to the small colony was given, by universal vote, the name of young Max Brenton.

“Things are looking up, or else the world is coming to an end. Jim has a visitor.”

“On my word of honour. I say, Frances, he’s such a quaint chap to look at.”

“Somebody else is quaint to look at. I hope you weren’t in your shirt-sleeves when you answered the door?”

“Well—hardly. I believe I wore a complete shirt, likewise a pair of breeks.”

“So am I—awful. But in the goodness of my heart I just looked in to bring you the news. The fellow told me his name was Tom Lessing, of Lessing’s Creek Farm, Douglas River, Australia. Pretty wide address. He asked for Jim, and said Jim would be sure to see him, so I sent him along to the smithy.[Pg 275] But first, as I didn’t want to miss a chance, I inquired if he had happened to meet Mr. Walter Keith—thinking that he would have run across Cousin Walter as likely as not. But he hadn’t.”

“Well, there was no harm in asking. I hope Jim will invite Tom Lessing, of Lessing’s Creek Farm, to dinner. I’d love to hear a backwoodsman talk. I’d love to go to Australia. Isn’t it odd of Jim not to long to be a colonist? He says he wouldn’t like it a bit.”

“Cousin Walter hasn’t particularly enjoyed being a colonist, Master Adventurous.”

“Oh, that’s because he didn’t learn a trade before he went, and because he didn’t understand sheep-farming, and because he’s a bit of a duffer all round! Now, Jim’s got a kernel in his nut—”

“Well, brains in his cranium, then. I’m off to peep in on Tom Lessing, of Lessing’s Creek Farm.”

“Yes, they are. He said so. He said a jolly lot in two minutes, I can tell you.”

“Then I wouldn’t pry, Austin. They may have a great deal to tell each other.”

“None of your blarney! You want to watch over my manners by keeping me in sight. Not a bit! Tom Lessing, like a magnet, lures me to Lessing’s Creek Farm, Douglas River, Australia.”

Austin walked with dignity out by the backdoor, but presently put his head in again, and remarked:

Mrs. Morland was seated shelling peas in the orchard,—it was a warm June morning,—when her stepson, walking quickly over the short, sweet-smelling grass, came to her side.

“Can you spare a minute?” he asked with his old nervousness. The sight of his stepmother taking part in the day’s household work always increased his uneasy sense of his own shortcomings.

“Just that an old friend has come to see me, and is still here. He’s waiting for me in the smithy. Tom Lessing and I used to be great chums once on a time, though his people were better off than mine. He went out to Australia four years ago, and he has done very well.” Mrs. Morland heard a slight sigh. “He always was a very capable chap, and he has a splendid farm out there now. I—I think the children would like him; he has seen such a lot. Please, would you mind very much if I kept him to dinner?”

“Is he very rough? I do not mean to hurt you, James; but you know I have Frances to think of.”

“I would not let a rough fellow come near the children,” said Jim in gentle reproach.

“No—no. I am sure you would not. Then, pray keep your friend. I will help Frances to prepare something extra, and he shall be made welcome.”

“Thank you very much,” said Jim gratefully. “Tom has come to England for a holiday, and he is going to take lodgings in Exham for a few days, so that we may see something of each other. I should not wish him to come here, Mrs. Morland,” added Jim simply, “if you were afraid for the children; but, indeed, Tom is a nice fellow, and I think you will not dislike him.”

The last words proved true. Tom Lessing had not long been in Mrs. Morland’s presence before she had decided that she liked him very much. He was several years older than her stepson, and as big and strong as Jim was slight and active. He treated Jim’s “lady-folk” with courteous deference, and was evidently able to polish his “backwoodsman” manners for fit converse in an English home. The dinner passed off pleasantly, Jim and Austin distinguishing themselves as waiters. The visitor enjoyed everything, and behaved in an easy, natural fashion which had nothing vulgar about it. Mrs. Morland reflected that her stepson must have followed some wise instinct in the choice of his boyhood’s friends.

That dinner was the first of several meals shared by Tom with his old chum, and his chum’s kindred. Privately, he declared that Jim was a lucky chap to have proved his right to claim relationship with such[Pg 278] a bright, plucky little pair as his lately-discovered brother and sister; and then he added a few words in acknowledgment of Mrs. Morland’s courteous welcome, which made Jim happier than anything. Besides sharing meals, Tom found himself made free of the smithy, where he held exhaustive discussions with Jim, and of the orchard, where he romped with Austin, to the latter’s great content.

During the old friends’ exchange of confidences and record of experiences, Jim was lured into expressions of feeling with regard to his kindred which made good-hearted Tom look on the lad with kindly and pitying eyes. With him, overwrought Jim felt he might venture to unbosom himself of his anxieties and ambitions concerning the future. Jim’s desired course of action tended in only one way—the proper maintenance, in ease and comfort, of his stepmother and sister, and the careful training of his brother with a view to Austin’s adoption of some honourable profession. While uttering his aspirations, Jim revealed to his attentive chum the reality of his pride in the girl and boy who depended on him, and his deep affection for them. Tom listened and pondered, and made up his mind. His liking for “young East” had always been something more than mere boyish comradeship; and the respect and sympathy with which he quietly noted Jim’s hard and continual effort to live up to his own high standard of duty now added to Tom’s former easy liking the deeper regard of his maturer years.

One morning Frances, wandering through the orchard[Pg 279] for a breath of cool air, came suddenly on Jim, who was lying at full length on the bank in the shadow of the hedge, his head pillowed on his folded arms. There was something so forlorn in the lad’s attitude that Frances feared some fresh trouble had overtaken him; and she was not surprised that his face, when he raised it in answer to her call, was darkened by a deep dejection.

“Jim—Jim! What is the matter? Now, it’s no use to try to hide things, Jim! You know it isn’t. Just tell me.”

Jim dragged himself up to his sister’s level as she sat down beside him, and his eyes rested very wistfully on her inquiring face. So long and sad was his gaze that the girl grew yet more uncomfortable, and repeated her question insistently.

“I’ve no bad news for you, Missy,” said Jim at last, with great effort. “None that you will find bad, at least. I have heard something, and I’ve been thinking it over; that’s all. If I weren’t a coward, it wouldn’t have wanted any thinking.”

“I will tell you presently, Missy. As well now as any time; only I’d like your mother and the lad to hear too.”

“Jim,” said Frances, her brave voice quivering slightly, “you speak as though your news were bad.”

“That’s just my selfishness,” muttered Jim; “I couldn’t see all at once the rights of things. I can see now.”

“Come indoors and tell us all about it,” said Frances, trying to speak cheerfully; “not much news grows better by keeping.”

“It could be only a matter of hours for this, anyway,” replied Jim gently; “and if your mother is at liberty and Austin is at home, I will do as you wish.”

So Frances led the way, and the pair walked soberly to the little house which had become to both a cherished home.

Jim waited at the back-door while his sister went to look for her mother and brother, and finding them both in the study, sharing the window-seat, and the task of snipping gooseberries, ran back to summon the “head of the family”.

All the responsibility of headship was in the lad’s countenance as he entered the study in his sister’s wake. He stood silent while Frances, in brief fashion, explained the situation; but something in her stepson’s look caught and held Mrs. Morland’s attention, and made her suspect that a tragedy might underlie Jim’s unusual calmness. She could not guess how hard he had striven to reach the degree of composure necessary to satisfy his stepmother’s ideal of good breeding.

“Yes, I’ve something to tell,” he said, when Frances paused, “and I hope it will mean a real difference to you all. I had no right to look forward to such a chance as I have had given me, and I know you’ll wonder at it too—”

“James,” interrupted Mrs. Morland, with an acute[Pg 281] glance, “you don’t look as though the chance were altogether welcome.”

“That’s what I told him,” said Frances brightly. “He pretends to bring good news, but I believe he’s a deceiver.”

Jim flushed slightly, and hung his head. “You must please forgive me,” he murmured, “if I seem ungrateful and selfish. Indeed, I want to see how everything’s for the best. I’ll be quick now, and tell my news. You know Tom Lessing has a fine place in Australia, and is making money fast. He has a lot of hands, and seems to pay them well; and he gives every one of them a share in his profits over and above their salaries. Tom is very kind, and—you’ve all been good and kind to him, for which we both thank you.”

Though Jim spoke earnestly, there was an aloofness in his manner which touched all his listeners, and reminded them, with keen shame, what scanty cause he had, even now, to feel himself one of them. Frances impulsively moved a step nearer him, and stopped, overcome by the constraint she could not disguise; Austin sprang to his brother’s side, and pressed affectionately against him. Jim gently held him off, as though the lad’s caresses threatened his own self-control; but his hand kept the boy within reach, and once or twice passed tenderly over Austin’s tumbled curly head. If Mrs. Morland ever had doubted her stepson’s love for her children, the suspicion from that moment died away.

“Because he is kind, and because you have been[Pg 282] good to him,” continued Jim, “Tom has given me a chance. He has offered to take me back with him to Australia, and to find me a good place as one of his overseers. He says I’d soon learn enough to be of use, and he’d help me to get on. I should have two hundred and fifty a year; and as I’d live with him, he’d give me board and lodging too. So, since I shouldn’t want much for clothes, I could send nearly all my earnings home; and there would be grandfather’s money as well, and we would sell the smithy. I’ve been thinking you might have a little house in Woodend, and the children would go to school again, and by and by Austin would go to college. I hope you would be very happy.”

The speaker’s lips trembled for just a second, in evidence of full heart and highly-strung nerves. Then Jim, with courageous eyes, looked across the room for comments and congratulations.

“We should be very happy?” queried Frances; and this time she went close to her brother, and took his hand. “Oh, Jim!” she exclaimed, her eyes bright with tears; “don’t go away from us, dear Jim!”

“You sha’n’t go away—so that’s all about it!” cried Austin, with a masterful toss of his fair head. “You sha’n’t oversee anybody, except us. It’s tommy-rot.”

“We are happy now,” continued Frances in trembling haste. “We don’t want any more money, if we can’t have it without giving you up to Australia. What’s the use of having found you, Jim, if you go away again?”

Boy and girl, on either side, were clinging tightly to him. Jim, trying to be calm—trying to be brave—looked desperately to his stepmother for her expected support. If she should quench Austin and Frances with some cynical reproof—if she should accept Jim’s final sacrifice with just a word of contemptuous indifference—surely his pride would help his judgment to keep fast hold of his failing courage.

Mrs. Morland had already risen, and was coming towards him now with hands outstretched, and in her face the light of a motherly love to which Jim could not try to be blind.

“Would you really do that for us?” she asked, smiling, though her voice was not quite steady. “Ah! but you would make such a mistake if you thought we would let you go. Frances is right;—we can do without wealth, but we can’t do without you!”

“And so you want me to go back to Australia alone? But, my dear madam, consider. Though I say it, this is a really first-rate opening for Jim—and remember the advantage to your own children. You won’t think me impertinent, will you, for what may seem a cool sort of interference in your affairs? You and all your family have been so kind to me that I can’t help taking a warm interest in your children;[Pg 284] and as for Jim—I think he’s first-rate. I quite admit that, in wanting him, I’ve a selfish regard for my own concerns.”

“I don’t believe there’s an atom of selfishness about you, Mr. Lessing,” replied Mrs. Morland, speaking slowly and very sincerely. “I am not in the least offended by your frank speech, for I appreciate to the full all you say about my children. Among ‘my children’, you must please include Jim; and when I say that your opinion of him is also mine, I think you will see why I want to keep him with me. He is willing to endure exile for the sake of his sister and brother; but I no longer think, as I’m afraid I did once, that Jim ought to give all and receive nothing. Frances and Austin are not afraid of work, and are anxious to do all they can to ease the load which, as you know, at present lies chiefly on their brother. By and by they will relieve him more. No, Mr. Lessing, we can’t part with Jim. To be plain, we are indebted to you for teaching us how much we need him.”

“Then that’s all right,” returned Tom heartily, “and glad am I to hear it. I didn’t take long to see that the foolish lad was breaking his heart because he fancied the young folks and you would just as soon be without him. So, thought I, let Jim put it to the test: if he’s right, he’ll do better to make a fresh start and learn to stand alone; if he’s wrong, he’ll be a happy fellow when he discovers it. There, you’ll forgive me, won’t you? I meant my offer straight enough, and I mean it still. It rests with you whether Jim has a way made clear for him, or whether he[Pg 285] hasn’t. He won’t leave you and the children. Well and good: let you and the children come with him. A minute more—best allow me to say my say, and then you’ll find it easier to answer. My place out there is not so lonely that you need fear to be beyond civilization. There’s Douglas Town near at hand, with good schools and the rest, and plenty of nice folk of a sort you could make friends with. Then the air is dry and bracing—just the thing for your boy. Lastly,—and this is a bit personal, maybe,—if you and the young people came out with Jim, you’d find a home ready-made. The Creek Farm badly wants a mistress, and I’d be proud to see you reign there, and grateful too. I’m not a marrying man—now. I had my dream;—you’ll not think the worse of me, Mrs. Morland,—it’s over. But I can fancy what a difference it would make out yonder, if there were a kindly, gracious gentlewoman in authority. As for Miss Frances, she’d just be the light of the place. Last of all, I’d like to say that our exile—for so it is to every son of Old England—needn’t be for always. When Jim and I had made our pile,—and we’d try to be quick about it,—we’d all come home again; in time, maybe, for Austin to keep his terms at Oxford. Well, that’s all I need trouble you with for a first start; details can follow. I think you know enough to be able to decide.”

Mrs. Morland’s decision was not arrived at all at once, or without some serious deliberations with her “trio”. They were all old enough to comprehend both the advantages and disadvantages of the plan proposed by[Pg 286] Lessing; but Austin’s delight at the prospect of becoming a “backwoodsman” was not to be damped by the assurance that in Australia, as in England, he would have to be just a schoolboy for a good while yet. The only regret of the two youngest of the family was the anticipation of a long parting from friends tried and true; but various circumstances rendered this outlook less dismal than it might have been. Florry Fane and her parents were going to the Normandy aunt for a lengthy stay; Guy Gordon and Frank Temple were bound for Harrow next term; Betty Turner and the First Violin were at the same date to become pupils of Miss Cliveden at Haversfield College.

And Max? Well, Max’s movements were decided for him by Frances at the outset of the family deliberations.

“A voyage to Australia! The very thing for Max! And we could keep him out there until he was quite well and strong, and bring him back in time for college with Austin!”

“Yes, we must have Max,” declared Lessing, who had given a good many hours to the entertainment of Woodend’s petted “hero”, and accounted himself a favoured friend of the young Doctor and the old. “And why shouldn’t his father come too? I’d guarantee him plenty of practice: we’d give our ears for an English medical man out there. I’ll wager he’d make his fortune faster than any of us.”

After that, Dr. Brenton joined in one or two of the councils, but his decision was arrived at more easily[Pg 287] than Mrs. Morland’s. He had only Max to think of, and Sir Gerald said that a sea-voyage and a prolonged residence in a fine climate would certainly save Max for a useful maturity. The Doctor set his old dreams aside, and made a final draw on “Examinations”. If that hoarded fund would give his boy present ease and future vigour, he could afford to wait patiently and let the world slip by. Some day Max would find his life-work: what it might be his father no longer cared to anticipate. Enough to know that the crown of a worthy manhood must be the unfailing reward of a generous and unselfish youth.

“Children, I think that we will go. Jim ought to have his chance, and we don’t wish to separate. That, after all, sums up everything for the present, so the question is answered easily enough.... Now, we must not keep back Mr. Lessing, and he is kindly anxious to take us with him. Besides, let us remember Max, whose hope of health depends, it seems, on a quick departure. We must help each other to make haste.”

We cannot here follow our three young Altruists into their busy lives across seas; but we know that they will ever be the best of comrades, and never better than when sharing willing labours in the service of all who need their aid.

Frances’s motto, “Help Others”, was faithfully cherished in her old home. Woodend kept up constant communication with the Creek Farm, and[Pg 288] still hoped some day to welcome the wanderers back. Meanwhile, a branch “Society of Altruists” was started in the new home in the far southern continent; and Antipodean school-fellows of Frances and Austin became oddly familiar with a certain corner of Old England, and with the girls and boys who worked and played together there.

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Swiss Stories for Children. From the German of Madam Johanna Spyri. By Lucy Wheelock.

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Chap.		Page
I.	Brother and Sister,	9
II.	Boys and Girls together,	24
III.	Adventurers Four,	36
IV.	Rowdon Smithy,	53
V.	Doctor Max,	65
VI.	Music and Mumming,	82
VII.	Photographers Abroad,	103
VIII.	Jim East,	124
IX.	Frances Falters,	150
X.	Trouble at Elveley,	165
XI.	The Head of the House,	186
XII.	A Gentleman-Blacksmith,	209
XIII.	“Missy”,	222
XIV.	Mrs. Holland’s Trio,	239
XV.	Polly’s Deliverer,	256
XVI.	Wanted—A Nice Somebody,	269
XVII.	Lessing of Lessing’s Creek,	274
XVIII.	To the Far South,	283

	Page
“Frances caught sight of a dark figure advancing”,	Frontis. 123
“The old man leaned forward suddenly to scan the speaker’s face”,	58
“A story we bring you from Faëry Land”,	91
“Nay, Elizabeth,” said Jim kindly, “there’s no need for locking up”,	197
“The figure moved, rose, came forward with the painful caution of dreary suspense”,	269
“Ah! but you would make such a mistake if you thought we would let you go”,	283

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Girl of To-day

A GIRL OF TO-DAY

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

A GIRL OF TO-DAY.

CHAPTER I. BROTHER AND SISTER.

CHAPTER II. BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER.

CHAPTER III. ADVENTURERS FOUR.

CHAPTER IV. ROWDON SMITHY.

CHAPTER V. DOCTOR MAX.

CHAPTER VI. MUSIC AND MUMMING.

CHAPTER VII. PHOTOGRAPHERS ABROAD.

CHAPTER VIII. JIM EAST.

CHAPTER IX. FRANCES FALTERS.

CHAPTER X. TROUBLE AT ELVELEY.

CHAPTER XI. THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE.

CHAPTER XII. A GENTLEMAN-BLACKSMITH.

CHAPTER XIII. “MISSY.”

CHAPTER XIV. MRS. MORLAND’S TRIO.

CHAPTER XV. POLLY’S DELIVERER.

CHAPTER XVI. WANTED—A NICE SOMEBODY.

CHAPTER XVII. LESSING OF LESSING’S CREEK.

CHAPTER XVIII. TO THE FAR SOUTH.

BLACKIE & SON’S BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

BY G. A. HENTY.

BY PROFESSOR A. J. CHURCH.

BY HERBERT HAYENS.

BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.

BY GEORGE MAC DONALD.

BY ASCOTT R. HOPE.

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD.

BY KIRK MUNROE.

FINELY ILLUSTRATED BOOKS FOR CHILDREN.

BOOKS FOR GIRLS.

BY ROBERT LEIGHTON.

TWELFTH EDITION OF THE UNIVERSE.

BY G. NORWAY.

BY DR. GORDON STABLES, R.N.

BY HUGH ST. LEGER.

BY CHARLES W. WHISTLER.

BY ANNIE E. ARMSTRONG.

BY EDGAR PICKERING.

BLACKIE’S NEW THREE-SHILLING SERIES.

BLACKIE’S HALF-CROWN SERIES.

BLACKIE’S TWO-SHILLING SERIES.

LIBRARY OF FAMOUS BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.

BLACKIE’S EIGHTEENPENNY SERIES.

BLACKIE’S SCHOOL AND HOME LIBRARY.

Transcriber's Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

CHAPTER I.
BROTHER AND SISTER.

CHAPTER II.
BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER.

CHAPTER III.
ADVENTURERS FOUR.

CHAPTER IV.
ROWDON SMITHY.

CHAPTER V.
DOCTOR MAX.

CHAPTER VI.
MUSIC AND MUMMING.

CHAPTER VII.
PHOTOGRAPHERS ABROAD.

CHAPTER VIII.
JIM EAST.

CHAPTER IX.
FRANCES FALTERS.

CHAPTER X.
TROUBLE AT ELVELEY.

CHAPTER XI.
THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE.

CHAPTER XII.
A GENTLEMAN-BLACKSMITH.

CHAPTER XIII.
“MISSY.”

CHAPTER XIV.
MRS. MORLAND’S TRIO.

CHAPTER XV.
POLLY’S DELIVERER.

CHAPTER XVI.
WANTED—A NICE SOMEBODY.

CHAPTER XVII.
LESSING OF LESSING’S CREEK.

CHAPTER XVIII.
TO THE FAR SOUTH.

BLACKIE’S
SCHOOL AND HOME LIBRARY.