Lightly soars the thistle-down,
Lightly does it float ­,
Lightly seeds of care are sown,
Little do we note. 
Watch life’s thistles bud and blow,
Oh, ’tis pleasant folly;
But when all life’s paths they strew,
Then comes melancholy. 
Poetry Past and Present.

Mary Ponsonby had led a life of change and wandering that had given her few strong local attachments.  The period she had spent at Ormersfield, when she was from five to seven years old, had been the most joyous part of her life, and had given her a strong feeling for the place where she had lived with her mother, and in an atmosphere of affection, free from the shadow of that skeleton in the house, which had darkened her childhood more than she understood.

The great weakness of Mrs. Ponsonby’s life had been her over-hasty acceptance of a man, whom she did not thoroughly know, because her delicacy had taken alarm at foolish gossip about herself and her cousin.  It was a folly that had been severely visited.  Irreligious himself, Mr. Ponsonby disliked his wife’s strictness; he resented her affection for her own family, gave way to dissipated habits, and made her miserable both by violence and neglect.  Born late of this unhappy marriage, little Mary was his only substantial link to his wife, and he had never been wanting in tenderness to her:  but many a storm had raged over the poor child’s head; and, though she did not know why the kind old Countess had come to remove her and her mother, and ‘papa’ was still a loved and honoured title, she was fully sensible of the calm security at Ormersfield.

When Mr. Ponsonby had recalled his wife on his appointment at Lima, Mary had been left in England for education, under the charge of his sister in London.  Miss Ponsonby was good and kind, but of narrow views, thinking all titled people fashionable, and all fashionable people reprobate, jealous of her sister-in-law’s love for her own family, and, though unable to believe her brother blameless, holding it as an axiom that married people could not fall out without faults on both sides, and charging a large share of their unhappiness on the house of Fitzjocelyn.  Principle had prevented her from endeavouring to weaken the little girl’s affection to her mother; but it had been her great object to train her up in habits of sober judgment, and freedom from all the romance, poetry, and enthusiasm which she fancied had been injurious to Mrs. Ponsonby.  The soil was of the very kind that she would have chosen.  Mary was intelligent, but with more sense than fancy, more practical than intellectual, and preferring the homely to the tasteful.  At school, study and accomplishments were mere tasks, her recreation was found in acts of kindness to her companions, and her hopes were all fixed on the going out to Peru, to be useful to her father and mother.  At seventeen she went; full of active, housewifely habits, with a clear head, sound heart, and cramped mind, her spirits even and cheerful, but not high nor mirthful, after ten years of evenings spent in needlework beside a dry maiden aunt.

Nor was the home she found at Lima likely to foster the joyousness of early girlhood.  Mr. Ponsonby was excessively fond of her; but his affection to her only marked, by contrast, the gulf between him and her mother.  There was no longer any open misconduct on his part, and Mrs. Ponsonby was almost tremblingly attentive to his wishes; but he was chill and sarcastic in his manner towards her, and her nervous attacks often betrayed that she had been made to suffer in private for differences of opinion.  Health and spirits were breaking down; and, though she never uttered a word of complaint, the sight of her sufferings was trying for a warm-hearted young girl.

Mary’s refuge was hearty affection to both parents.  She would not reason nor notice where filial tact taught her that it was best to be ignorant; she charged all tracasseries on the Peruvian republic, and set herself simply to ameliorate each vexation as it arose, and divert attention from it without generalizing, even to herself, on the state of the family.  The English comfort which she brought into the Limenian household was one element of peace; and her brisk, energetic habits produced an air of ease and pleasantness that did much to make home agreeable to her father, and removed many cares which oppressed her mother.  To her, Mary was all the world-daughter, comforter, friend, and nurse, unfailing in deeds of love or words of cheer, and removing all sense of dreariness and solitude.  And Mary had found her mother all, and more than all she remembered, and admired and loved her with a deep, quiet glow of intense affection.  There was so much call for Mary’s actual exertion of various kinds, that there was little opportunity for cultivating or enlarging her mind by books, though the scenes and circumstances around her could not but take some effect.  Still, at twenty-one she was so much what she had been at seventeen ­so staid, sensible, and practical, that Miss Ponsonby gladly pronounced her not in the least spoilt.

Fain would her aunt have kept both her and her mother as her guests; but Mrs. Ponsonby had permission to choose whatever residence best suited her, and felt that Bryanston-square and Miss Ponsonby would be fatal to her harassed spirits.  She yearned after the home and companions of her youth, and Miss Ponsonby could only look severe, talk of London doctors, and take Mary aside to warn her against temptations from fashionable people.

Mary had been looking for the fashionable people ever since, and the first sign of them she had seen, was the air and figure of her cousin Fitzjocelyn.  Probably good Aunt Melicent would distrust him; and yet his odd startling talk, and the arch look of mischief in the corners of his mouth and eyes, had so much likeness to the little Louis of old times, that she could not look on him as a stranger nor as a formidable being; but was always recurring to the almost monitorial sense of protection, with which she formerly used to regard him, when she shared his nursery.

Her mother had cultivated her love for Ormersfield, and she was charmed by her visits to old haunts, well remembering everything.  She gladly recognised the little low-browed church, the dumpy tower, and grave-yard rising so high that it seemed to intend to bury the church itself, and permitted many a view, through the lattices, of the seats, and the Fitzjocelyn hatchments and monuments.

She lingered after church on Sunday afternoon with Mrs. Frost to look at Lady Fitzjocelyn’s monument.  It was in the chancel, a recumbent figure in white marble, as if newly fallen asleep, and with the lovely features chiselled from a cast taken after death had fixed and ennobled their beauty.

‘It is just like Louis’s profile!’ said Mrs. Frost, as they came out.

‘Well,’ said Louis, who was nearer than she was aware, ’I hope at least no one will make me the occasion of a lion when I am dead.’

‘It is very beautiful,’ said Mary.

’May be so; but the sentiment is destroyed by its having been six months in the Royal Academy, number 16,136, and by seeing it down among the excursions in the Northwold Guide.’

‘Louis, my dear, you should not be satirical on this,’ said Mrs. Frost.

‘I never meant it,’ said Louis, ’but I never could love that monument.  It used to oppress me with a sense of having a white marble mother!  And, seriously, it fills up the chancel as if it were its show-room, according to our family tradition that the church is dedicated to the Fitzjocelyns.  Living or dead, we have taken it all to ourselves.’

‘It was a very fair, respectable congregation,’ said his aunt.

’Exactly so.  That is my complaint.  Everything belonging to his lordship is respectable ­except his son.’

’Take care, Louis; here is Mary looking as if she would take you at your word.’

’Pray, Mary, do they let no one who is not respectable go to church in Peru?’

’I do not think you would change your congregation for the wretched crowds of brown beggars,’ said Mary.

‘Would I not?’ cried Louis.  ’Oh! if the analogous class here in England could but feel that the church was for them! ­not driven out and thrust aside, by our respectability.’

‘Marksedge to wit!’ said a good-humoured voice, as Mr. Holdsworth, the young Vicar, appeared at his own wicket, with a hearty greeting.  ’I never hear those words without knowing where you are, Fitzjocelyn.’

‘I hope to be there literally some day this week,’ said Louis.  ’Will you walk with me?  I want to ask old Madison how his grandson goes on.  I missed going to see after the boy last time I was at home.’

’I fear he has not been going on well, and have been sorry for it ever since,’ said the Vicar.  ’His master told me that he found him very idle and saucy.’

‘People of that sort never know how to speak to a lad,’ said Louis.  ’It is their own rating that they ought to blame.’

‘Not Tom Madison, I know,’ said Mr. Holdsworth, laughing.  ’But I did not come out to combat that point, but to inquire after the commissions you kindly undertook.’

’I have brought you such a set of prizes!  Red rubrics, red margins; and for the apparatus, I have brought a globe with all the mountains in high relief; ­yes, and an admirable physical atlas, and a box of instruments and models for applying mathematics to mechanics.  We might give evening lectures, and interest the young farmers.’

‘Pray,’ said the Vicar, with a sound of dismay, ’where may the bill be?  I thought the limits were two pounds eighteen.’

‘Oh!  I take all that on myself.’

‘We shall see,’ said Mr. Holdsworth, not gratefully.  ’Was Origen sent home in time for you to bring?’

‘There!’ cried Louis, starting, ’Origen is lying on the very chair where I put him last January.  I will write to Jem Frost to-morrow to send him to the binder.’

‘Is it of any use to ask for the music?’

’I assure you, Mr. Holdsworth, I am very sorry.  I’ll write at once to Frost.’

’Then I am afraid the parish will not be reformed as you promised last Christmas,’ said the Vicar, turning, with a smile, to Mrs. Frost.  ’We were to be civilized by weekly concerts in the school.’

‘What were you to play, Louis?’ said Mrs. Frost, laughing.

‘I was to imitate all the birds in the air at once,’ said Louis, beginning to chirp like a melee of sparrows, turning it into the croak of a raven, and breaking off suddenly with, ’I beg your pardon ­I forgot it was Sunday!  Indeed, Mr. Holdsworth, I can say no more than that I was a wretch not to remember.  Next time I’ll write it all down in the top of my hat, with a pathetic entreaty that if my hat be stolen, the thief shall fulfil the commissions, and punctually send in the bill to the Rev. W. B. Holdsworth!’

‘I shall hardly run the risk,’ said Mr. Holdsworth, smiling, as he parted with them, and disappeared within his clipped yew hedges.

‘Poor, ill-used Mr. Holdsworth!’ cried Aunt Catharine.

‘Yes, it was base to forget the binding of that book,’ said Louis, gravely.  ‘I wish I knew what amends to make.’

’You owe amends far more for making a present of a commission.  I used to do the like, to save myself trouble, till I came down in the world, and then I found it had been a mere air de grand seigneur.’

’I should not dare to serve you or Jem so; but I thought the school was impersonal, and could receive a favour.’

’It is no favour, unless you clearly define where the commission ended and the gift began.  Careless benefits oblige no one.’

Fitzjocelyn received his aunt’s scoldings very prettily.  His manner to her was a becoming mixture of the chivalrous, the filial, and the playful.  Mary watched it as a new and pretty picture.  All his confidence, too, seemed to be hers; but who could help pouring out his heart to the ever-indulgent, sympathizing Aunt Catharine?  It was evidently the greatest treat to him to have her for his guest, and his attention to her extended even to the reading a sermon to her in the evening, to spare her eyes; a measure so entirely after Aunt Melicent’s heart, that Mary decided that even she would not think her cousin so hopelessly fashionable.

Goodnatured he was, without doubt; for as the three ladies were sitting down to a sociable morning of work and reading aloud, he came in to say he was going to see after Tom Madison, and to ask if there were any commands for Northwold, with his checked shooting-jacket pockets so puffed out that his aunt began patting and inquiring.  ’Provisions for the House Beautiful,’ he said, as forth came on the one side a long rough brown yam.  ‘I saw it at a shop in London,’ he said, ’and thought the Faithfull sisters would like to be reminded of their West Indian feasts.’  And, ‘to make the balance true,’ he had in the other pocket a lambswool shawl of gorgeous dyes, with wools to make the like, and the receipt, in what he called ‘female algebra,’ the long knitting-pins under his arm like a riding-whip.  He explained that he thought it would be a winter’s work for Miss Salome to imitate it, and that she would succour half-a-dozen families with the proceeds; and Mrs. Ponsonby was pleased to hear him speak so affectionately of the two old maiden sisters.  They were the nieces of an old gentleman to whom the central and handsomest house of Dynevor Terrace had been let.  He had an annuity which had died with him, and they inherited very little but the furniture with which they had lived on in the same house, in hopes of lodgers, and paying rent to Mrs. Frost when they had any.  There was a close friendship and perfect understanding between her and them, and, as she truly assured them, full and constant rent could hardly have done her as much good as their neighbourhood.  Miss Mercy was the Sister of Charity of all Northwold; Miss Salome, who was confined to her chair by a complaint in her knee, knitted and made fancy-works, the sale of which furnished funds for her charities.  She was highly educated, and had a great knowledge of natural history.  Fitzjocelyn had given their abode the name of the House Beautiful, as being redolent of the essence of the Pilgrim’s Progress; and the title was so fully accepted by their friends, that the very postman would soon know it.  He lingered, discoursing on this topic, while Mary repacked his parcels, and his aunt gave him a message to Jane Beckett, to send the carpenter to N before Mary’s visit of inspection; but she prophesied that he would forget; and, in fact, it was no good augury that he left the knitting-pins behind him on the table, and Mary was only just in time to catch him with them at the front door.

‘Thank you, Mary ­you are the universal memory,’ he said.  ’What rest you must give my father’s methodical spirit!  I saw you pile up all those Blackwoods of mine this morning, just as he was going to fall upon them.’

‘If you saw it, I should have expected you to do it yourself,’ said Mary, in her quaint downright manner.

‘Never expect me to do what is expected,’ answered he.

‘Do you do that because it is not expected?’ said Mary, feeling almost as if he were beyond the pale of reason, as she saw him adjusting a plant of groundsel in his cap.

’It is for the dicky-bird at my aunt’s.  There’s no lack of it at the Terrace; but it is an old habit, and there always was an illusion that Ormersfield groundsel is a superior article.’

‘I suppose that is why you grow go much.’

’Are you a gardener?  Some day we will go to work, clear the place, and separate the botanical from the intrusive!’

‘I should like it, of all things!’

‘I’ll send the horse round to the stable, and begin at once!’ exclaimed Louis, all eagerness; but Mary demurred, as she had promised to read to her mother and aunt some of their old favourites, Madame de Sevigne’s letters, and his attention flew off to his restless steed, which he wanted her to admire.

‘My Yeomanry charger,’ he said.  ’We turn out five troopers.  I hope you will be here when we go out, for going round to Northwold brought me into a direful scrape when I went to exhibit myself to the dear old Terrace world.  My father said it was an unworthy ambition.  What would he have thought, if he had seen Jane stroking me down with the brush on the plea of dust, but really on the principle of stroking a dog!  Good old Jane!  Have you seen her yet?  Has she talked to you about Master Oliver?’

The horse became so impatient, that Mary had no time for more than a monosyllable, before Louis was obliged to mount and ride off; and he was seen no more till just before dinner, when, with a shade of French malice, Mrs. Frost inquired about Jane and the carpenter:  she had seen the cap, still decorated with groundsel, lying in the hall, and had a shrewd suspicion, but the answer went beyond her expectations ­’Ah!’ he said, ‘it is all the effect of the Norman mania!’

‘What have you been doing?  What is the matter?’ she cried, alarmed.

‘The matter is not with me, but with the magistrates.’

’My dear Louis, don’t look so very wise and capable, or I shall think it a very bad scrape indeed!  Pray tell me what you have been about.’

’You know Sir Gilbert Brewster and Mr. Shoreland are rabid about the little brook between their estates, of which each wishes to arrogate to himself the exclusive fishing.  Their keepers watch like the Austrian guard on the Danube, in a life of perpetual assault and battery.  Last Saturday, March 3rd, 1847, one Benjamin Hodgekin, aged fifteen, had the misfortune to wash his feet in the debateable water; the belligerent powers made common cause, and haled the wretch before the Petty Sessions.  His mother met me.  She lived in service here till she married a man at Marksedge, now dead.  This poor boy is an admirable son, the main stay of the family, who must starve if he were imprisoned, and she declared, with tears in her eyes, that she could not bear for a child of hers to be sent to gaol, and begged me to speak to the gentlemen.’  He started up with kindling eyes and vehement manner.  ‘I went to the Justice-room!’

‘My dear! with the groundsel?’

‘And the knitting-needles!’

On rushed the narration, unheeding trifles.  ’There was the array:  Mr. Calcott in the chair, and old Freeman, and Captain Shaw, and fat Sir Gilbert, and all the rest, met to condemn this wretched widow’s son for washing his feet in a gutter!’

‘Pray what said the indictment?’ asked Mrs. Ponsonby.

’Oh, that he had killed an infant trout of the value of three farthings!  Three giant keepers made oath to it, but I had his own mother’s word that he was washing his feet!’

No one could help laughing, but Fitzjocelyn was far past perceiving any such thing.  ’Urge what I would, they fined him.  I talked to old Brewster!  I appealed to his generosity, if there be room for generosity about a trout no bigger than a gudgeon!  I talked to Mr. Calcott, who, I thought, had more sense, but Justice Shallow would have been more practicable!  No one took a rational view but Ramsbotham of the factory, a very sensible man, with excellent feeling.  When it is recorded in history, who will believe that seven moral, well-meaning men agreed in condemning a poor lad of fifteen to a fine of five shillings, costs three-and-sixpence ­a sum he could no more pay than I the National Debt, and with the alternative of three months’ imprisonment, branding and contaminating for life, and destroying all self-respect?  I paid the fine, so there is one act of destruction the less on the heads of the English squirearchy.’

‘Act of destruction!’

’The worst destruction is to blast a man’s character because the love of adventure is strong within him !’

He was at this point when Lord Ormersfield entered, and after his daily civil ceremonious inquiries of the ladies whether they had walked or driven out, he turned to his son, saying, ’I met Mr. Calcott just now, and heard from him that he had been sorry to convict a person in whom you took interest, a lad from Marksedge.  What did you know of him?’

‘I was prompted by common justice and humanity,’ said Louis.  ’My protection was claimed for the poor boy, as the son of an old servant of ours.’

’Indeed!  I think you must have been imposed on.  Mr. Calcott spoke of the family as notorious poachers.’

’Find a poor fellow on the wrong side of a hedge, and not a squire but will swear that he is a hardened ruffian!’

‘Usually with reason,’ said the Earl.  ’Pray when did this person’s parents allege that they had been in my service?’

’It was his mother.  Her name was Blackett, and she left us on her marriage with one of the Hodgekins.’

Lord Ormersfield rang the bell, and Frampton, the butler and confidential servant, formed on his own model, made his appearance.

’Do you know whether a woman of the name of Blackett ever lived in service here?’

‘Not that I am aware of, my Lord.  I will ascertain the fact.’

In a few moments Frampton returned.  ’Yes, my Lord, a girl named Blackett was once engaged to help in the scullery, but was discharged for dishonesty at the end of a month.’

‘Did not Frampton know that that related to me?’ said Louis, sotto voce, to his aunt.  ’Did he not trust that he was reducing me from a sea anemone to a lump of quaking jelly?’

So far from this consummation, Lord Fitzjocelyn looked as triumphant as Don Quixote liberating Gines de Pasamonte.  He and his father might have sat for illustrations of

’Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care,’

as they occupied the two ends of the dinner-table; the Earl concealing anxiety and vexation, under more than ordinary punctilious politeness; the Viscount doing his share of the honours with easy, winning grace and attention, and rattling on in an under-tone of lively conversation with Aunt Catharine.  Mary was silently amazed at her encouraging him; but perhaps she could not help spoiling him the more, because there was a storm impending.  At least, as soon as she was in the drawing-room, she became restless and nervous, and said that she wished his father could see that speaking sternly to him never did any good; besides, it was mere inconsiderateness, the excess of chivalrous compassion.

Mrs. Ponsonby said she thought young men’s ardour more apt to be against than for the poacher.

‘I must confess,’ said Aunt Catherine, with all the reluctance of a high-spirited Dynevor, ­’I must confess that Louis is no sportsman!  He was eager about it once, till he had become a good shot; and then it lost all zest for him, and he prefers his own vagaries.  He never takes a gun unless James drives him out; and, oddly enough, his father is quite vexed at his indifference, as if it were not manly.  If his father would only understand him!’

The specimen of that day had almost made Mrs. Ponsonby fear that there was nothing to understand, and that only dear Aunt Kitty’s affection could perceive anything but amiable folly, and it was not much better when the young gentleman reappeared, looking very débonnaire, and, sitting down beside Mrs. Frost, said, in a voice meant for her alone ­’Henry IV; Part II., the insult to Chief Justice Gascoigne.  My father will presently enter and address you: 

                         ’O that it could be proved
      That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
      In cradle-cloths our children as they lay, ­
      Call’d yours Fitzjocelyn ­mine, Frost Dynevor!’

’For shame, Louis!  I shall have to call you Fitzjocelyn!  You are behaving very ill.’

‘Insulting the English constitution in the person of seven squires.’

’Don’t, my dear!  It was the very thing to vex your father that you should have put yourself in such a position.’

’Bearding the Northwold bench with a groundsel plume and a knitting-needle: 

     ’With a needle for a sword, and a thimble for a hat,
      Wilt thou fight a traverse with the Castle cat?’

The proper champion in such a cause, since ‘What cat’s averse to fish?’’

‘No, Louis dear,’ said his aunt, struggling like a girl to keep her countenance; ’this is no time for nonsense.  One would think you had no feeling for your father.’

’My dear aunt, I can’t go to gaol like Prince Hal.  I do assure you, I did not assault the bench with the knitting-pins.  What am I to do?’

‘Not set at nought your father’s displeasure.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said he, almost sadly, though half smiling.  ’What would become of me if I tried to support the full weight?  Interfering with institutions, ruining reputation, blasting bulwarks, patronizing poachers, vituperating venerated ­’

‘Quite true,’ cried Aunt Catherine, with spirit.  ’You know you had no business there, lecturing a set of men old enough to be your grandfathers, and talking them all to death, no doubt.’

’Well, Aunt Kitty, if oppression maddens the wise, what must it do to the foolish?’

‘If you only allow that it was foolish ­’

’No; I had rather know whether it was wrong.  I believe I was too eager, and not respectful enough to the old squire:  and, on reflection, it might have been a matter of obedience to my father, not to interfere with the prejudices of true-born English magistrates.  Yes, I was wrong:  I would have owned it sooner, but for the shell he fired over my head.  And for the rest, I don’t know how to repent of having protested against tyranny.’

There was something redeeming in the conclusion, and it was a comfort, for it was impossible to retain anger with one so gently, good-humouredly polite and attentive.

A practical answer to the champion was not long in coming.  He volunteered the next day to walk to Northwold with Mrs. Frost and Mary, who wanted to spend the morning in selecting a house in Dynevor Terrace, and to be fetched home by-and-by, when Mrs. Ponsonby took her airing.  Two miles seemed nothing to Aunt Catharine, who accepted her nephew’s arm for love, and not for need, as he discoursed of all the animals that might be naturalized in England, obtained from Mary an account of the llamas of the Andes, and rode off upon a scheme of an importation to make the fortune of Marksedge by a manufacture of Alpaca umbrellas.

Meantime, he must show the beautiful American ducks which he hoped to naturalize on the pond near the keeper’s lodge:  but, whistle and call as he would, nothing showed itself but screaming Canada geese.  He ran round, pulled out a boat half full of water, and, with a foot on each side, paddled across to a bushy island in the centre, ­but in vain.  The keeper’s wife, who had the charge over them, came out:  ’Oh, my Lord, I am so sorry!  They pretty ducks!’

‘Ha! the foxes?’

’I wish it was, my Lord; but it is they poachers out at Marksedge that are so daring, they would come anywheres ­and you see the ducks would roost up in the trees, and you said I was not to shut ’em up at night.  My master was out up by Beech hollow; I heerd a gun, and looked out; I seen a man and a boy ­I’d take my oath it was young Hodgekin.  They do say Nanny Hodgekin, she as was one of the Blacketts, whose husband was transported, took in two ducks next morning to Northwold.  Warren couldn’t make nothing of it; but if ever he meets that Hodgekin again, he says he shall catch it!’

’Well, Mrs. Warren, it can’t be helped ­thank you for the good care you took of the poor ducks,’ said Louis, kindly; and as he walked on through the gate, he gave a long sigh, and said, ’My dainty ducks!  So there’s an end of them, and all their tameness!’ But the smile could not but return.  ’It is lucky the case does not come before the bench! but really that woman deserves a medal for coolness!’

‘I suppose,’ said Mary, ’she could have paid the fine with the price of the ducks.’

’Ah! the beauties!  I wish Mr. Hodgekin had fallen on the pheasants instead!  However, I am thankful he and Warren did not come to a collision about them.  I am always expecting that, having made those Marksedge people thieves, murder will be the next consequence.’

A few seconds sufficed to bring the ludicrous back.  ’How pat it comes!  Mary, did you prime Mrs. Warren, or did Frampton?’

‘I believe you had rather laugh at yourself than at any one else,’ exclaimed his aunt, who felt baffled at having thrown away her compassion.

’Of course.  One knows how much can be borne.  Why, Mary, has that set you studying, ­do you dissent?’

’I was thinking whether it is the best thing to be always ready to laugh at oneself,’ said Mary.  ‘Does it always help in mending?’

‘’Don’t care’ came to a bad end,’ said Louis; ’but on the other hand, care killed a cat ­so there are two sides to the question.’

While Mary was feeling disappointed at his light tone, he changed it to one that was almost mournful.  ’The worst of it is, that ‘don’t care’ is my refuge.  Whatever I do care about is always thwarted by Frampton or somebody, and being for ever thrown over, I have only to fall as softly as I can.’

‘You know, my dear,’ said Mrs. Frost, ’that your father has no command of means to gratify you.’

‘There are means enough for ourselves,’ said Louis; ’that is the needful duty.  What merely personal indulgence did I ever ask for that was refused me?’

‘If that is all you have to complain of, I can’t pity you,’ said Mary.

’Listen, Mary.  Let me wish for a horse, there it is!  Let me wish for a painted window, we can’t afford it, though, after all, it would not eat; but horses are an adjunct of state and propriety.  So again, the parish feasted last 18th of January, because I came of age, and it was proper; while if I ask that our people may be released from work on Good Friday or Ascension Day, it is thought outrageous.’

‘If I remember right, my dear,’ interposed his aunt, ’you wanted no work to be done on any saint’s-day.  Was there not a scheme that Mr. Holdsworth called the cricket cure!’

’That may yet be.  No one knows the good a few free days would do the poor.  But I developed my plan too rapidly!  I’ll try again for their church-going on Good Friday.’

‘I think you ought to succeed there.’

’I know how it will be.  My father will ring, propound the matter to Frampton; the answer will be, ‘Quite impracticable, my Lord,’ and there will be an end of it.’

‘Perhaps not.  At least it will have been considered,’ said Mary.

‘True,’ said Louis; ’but you little know what it is to have a Frampton!  If he be a fair sample of prime ministers, no wonder Princes of Wales go into the opposition!’

‘I thought Frampton was a very valuable superior servant.’

’Exactly so.  That is the worst of it.  He is supreme authority, and well deserves it.  When la Grande Mademoiselle stood before the gates of Orleans calling to the sentinel to open them, he never stirred a step, but replied merely with profound bows.  That is my case.  I make a request, am answered, ‘Yes, my Lord;’ find no results, repeat the process, and at the fourth time am silenced with, ’Quite impracticable my Lord.’’

‘Surely Frampton is respectful?’

’It is his very essence.  He is a thorough aristocrat, respecting himself, and therefore respecting all others as they deserve.  He respects a Viscount Fitzjocelyn as an appendage nearly as needful as the wyverns on each side of the shield; but as to the individual holding that office, he regards him much as he would one of the wyverns with a fool’s-cap on.’

And with those words, Fitzjocelyn had sprung into the hedge to gather the earliest willow-catkins, and came down dilating on their silvery, downy buds and golden blossoms, and on the pleasure they would give Miss Faithfull, till Mary, who had been beginning to compassionate him, was almost vexed to think her pity wasted on grievances of mere random talk.

Warm and kindly was his greeting of his aunt’s good old servant, Jane Beckett, whom Mary was well pleased to meet as one of the kind friends of her childhood.  The refinement that was like an atmosphere around Mrs. Frost, seemed to have extended even to her servants; for Jane, though she could hardly read, and carried her accounts in her head, had manners of a gentle warmth and propriety that had a grace of their own, even in her racy, bad grammar; and there was no withstanding the merry smile that twitched up one side of her mouth, while her eyes twinkled in the varied moods prompted by an inexhaustible fund of good temper, sympathy, and affection, but the fulness of her love was for the distant ‘Master Oliver,’ whose young nursery-maid she had been.  Her eyes winked between tears and smiles when she heard that Miss Mary had seen him but five months ago, and she inquired after him, gloried in his prosperity, and talked of his coming home, with far less reserve than his mother had done.

Mary was struck, also, with the pretty, modest looks of the little underling, and remarked on them as they proceeded to the inspection of the next house.

‘Yes,’ said Louis, ’Charlotte is something between a wood sorrel and a five-plume moth.  Tom Madison, as usual, shows exquisite taste.  She is a perfect Lady of Eschalott.’

‘Now, Louis!’ said his aunt, standing still, and really looking annoyed, ’you know I cannot encourage any such thing.  Poor little Charlotte is an orphan, and I am all the more responsible for her.’

‘There’s a chivalry in poor Tom ­’

‘Nonsense!’ said his aunt, as if resolved not to hear him out, because afraid of herself.  ’Don’t say any more about it.  I wish I had never allowed of his bringing your messages.’

‘Who set him down in the kitchen to drink a cup of beer?’ said Louis, mischievously.

’Ah! well! one comfort is, that girls never care for boys of the same age,’ replied Aunt Catharine, as she turned the key, and admitted them into N; when Fitzjocelyn confused Mary’s judgment with his recommendations, till Aunt Catharine pointing out the broken shutter, and asking if he would not have been better employed in fetching the carpenter, than in hectoring the magistrates, he promised to make up for it, fetched a piece of wood and James’s tools, and was quickly at work, his Aunt only warning him, that if he lost Jem’s tools she would not say it was her fault.

By the time Mary’s imagination had portrayed what paper, paint, furniture, and habitation might make the house, and had discerned how to arrange a pretty little study in case of her father’s return; he had completed the repair in a workmanlike manner, and putting two fingers to his cap, asked, ‘Any other little job for me, ma’am?’

Of course, he forgot the tools, till shamed by Mary’s turning back for them, and after a merry luncheon, served up in haste by Jane, they betook themselves to Number 8, where the Miss Faithfulls were seated at a dessert of hard biscuits and water, of neither of which they ever partook:  they only adhered to the hereditary institution of sitting for twenty minutes after dinner with their red and purple doileys before them.

Mary seemed to herself carried back fourteen years, and to understand why her childish fancy had always believed Christiana’s Mercy a living character, when she found herself in the calm, happy little household.  The chief change was that she must now bend down, instead of reaching up, to receive the kind embraces.  Even the garments seemed unchanged, the dark merino gowns, black silk aprons, white cap-ribbons, the soft little Indian shawl worn by the elder sister, the ribbon bow by the younger, distinctions that used to puzzle her infant speculation, not aware that the coloured bow was Miss Mercy’s ensign of youth, and that its absence would have made Miss Salome feel aged indeed.  The two sisters were much alike ­but the younger was the more spare, shrivelled up into a cheery nonpareil, her bloom changed into something quite as fresh and healthful, and her blithe tripping step always active, except when her fingers were nimbly taking their turn.  Miss Salome had become more plump, her cheek was smoother and paler, her eye more placid, her air that of a patient invalid, and her countenance more intellectual than her sister’s.  She said less about their extreme enjoyment of the yam, and while Mrs. Frost and Mary held counsel with Miss Mercy on servants and furniture, there was a talk on entomology going on between her and Fitzjocelyn.

It was very pretty to see him with the old ladies, so gently attentive, without patronizing, and they, though evidently doting on him, laughing at him, and treating him like a spoilt child.  He insisted on Mary’s seeing their ordinary sitting room, which nature had intended for a housekeeper’s room, but which ladylike inhabitants had rendered what he called the very ‘kernel of the House Beautiful.’  There were the stands of flowers in the window; the bullfinch scolding in his cage, the rare old shells and china on the old-fashioned cabinets that Mary so well remembered; and the silk patchwork sofa-cover, the old piano, and Miss Faithfull’s arm chair by the fire, her little table with her beautiful knitting, and often a flower or insect that she was copying; for she still drew nicely; and she smiled and consented, as Louis pulled out her portfolios, life-long collections of portraits of birds, flowers, or insects.  Her knitting found a sale at the workshop, where the object was well known, and the proceeds were diffused by her sister, and whether she deserved her name might be guessed by the basket of poor people’s stores beside her chair.

Miss Mercy was well known in every dusky Northwold lane or alley, where she always found or made a welcome for herself.  The kindly counsel and ready hand were more potent than far larger means without them.

Such neighbours were in themselves a host, and Mary and her mother both felt as if they had attained a region of unwonted tranquillity and repose, when they had agreed to rent N, Dynevor Terrace, from the ensuing Lady-day, and to take possession when carpenters and upholsterers should have worked their will.

Louis was half-way home when he exclaimed, ’There!  I have missed Tom Madison a second time.  When shall I ever remember him at the right time?’

Little did Louis guess the effect his neglect was taking!  Charlotte Arnold might have told, for Mrs. Martha had brought in stories of his unsteadiness and idle habits that confirmed her in her obedience to Jane.  She never went out alone in his leisure hours; never looked for him in returning from church ­alas! that was not the place to look for him now.  And yet she could not believe him such a very bad boy as she was told he had become.