^- ,_^- 
 
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 \ •* -.
 
 ALE C'S BRIDE 
 
 VOL. I.
 
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 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
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 ALEC'S BRIDE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 ST. OLAVE'S," "JANITA'S CROSS, 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 ' Then Lancelot threw abroad his armour and said—' Alas ! who may 
 trust this world ?' " 
 
 EN" THREE VOLmiES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1867. 
 The right of Translation is reserved
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWFLL, 
 
 BLENHEIM HOUSE.
 
 It- 
 
 V, ( 
 
 .;J S;t 2-a-a^ 
 
 bo 
 
 ^ CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^ liTOT many years ago — indeed it was the 
 
 same year in which the Honourable and 
 
 Reverend Adolphus Fitzmarten, Dean of St. 
 
 Botolph, was consecrated to the bishopric of 
 
 (y^ Ulphusby — a young girl might have been seen 
 
 v4)y any one passing through the Minster Close, 
 
 i seated at an upper window of one of those old 
 
 ^ grey stone houses whose latticed basements, mul- 
 
 Vj) lioned and almost covered with vine or ivy, 
 
 looked out over an expanse of green sward 
 
 ^ belted with fine old elm trees, to the north side 
 
 of Ulphusby Minster. 
 ^ Her name was Roda — Roda Montagu. 
 ^ VOL. I. B 
 
 4.
 
 2 Alecs Bride. 
 
 It was a pleasant, definite, sensible, straight- 
 forward name. With no Italian mellifluence of 
 vowel sounds about it, no German redundancy 
 of unpronounceable consonants. An admirably 
 compact little quintett of syllables, in which 
 every one had its own distinctly recognizable 
 use, and from which not so much as a single 
 letter could have been removed without griev- 
 ously marring the symmetry of the whole. A 
 name in which prose and poetry blended like 
 the leaves and flowers in a judiciously arranged 
 nosegay, so that neither colour shall dazzle nor 
 shade weary the eye which looks upon it. Not 
 too beautiful for the ordinary wear and tear of 
 week-day life, yet holding enough sweetness to 
 make one linger lovingly over it. Equally re- 
 moved from the dreamlike halo of romance which 
 enshrines the Angelines and Evangelines and 
 Clementines of olden story books, and that pain-
 
 Alecs Bride. 3 
 
 f ul odour of eartliliness which the Joans and Bet- 
 tys and Abigails of this work-a-day world 
 must needs cany wherever they go. 
 
 The owner of this pretty name presented an 
 exact counterpart to it. She was a bright, 
 active, intelligent looking girl, full of spirit and 
 repressed energy ; with all that careless over- 
 flow of life and vivacity which is so seldom seen 
 except in a young, wealthy, well-born English 
 maiden. In the course of a year or two she 
 might put in a successful claim for the palm of 
 beauty, but at the very immature age of fifteen 
 and three quarters, few girls, especially girls 
 brought up as Roda had been brought up in the 
 quietness and seclusion of home life, apart from 
 the forcing influences of fashionable schools and 
 French governesses, have learned to display 
 themselves to the best advantage, or have be- 
 come so much as conscious of the charms which 
 
 B 2
 
 4 Alecs Bride, 
 
 slumber, like the unsunned buds of early spring, 
 close folded within their sheltering leaves, ready 
 to burst forth when the warm summer air of love 
 shall breathe upon them and waken them into 
 sweet fragrant life. 
 
 Perhaps, when little Miss Koda stood on the 
 actual confines of that wonderful thing called 
 " society," with but a few months or weeks be- 
 tween her and her first ball, and when she be- 
 came studiously careful of that rose and lily 
 complexion which, now, without so much as a 
 thought of its preciousness, she exposed alike to 
 sun, frost and wind, upon the Ulphusby moors ; 
 and when she woke up to a proper sense of the 
 exceeding value of that coronal of wavy black 
 hair whose troublesome superfluity of length and 
 thickness she twisted up every morning into a 
 huge shapeless cob at the back of her head, 
 which cob, as the day wore on, and Roda took
 
 Alecs Bride. 5 
 
 her accustomed diet of skipping, swinging and 
 racing in the garden, dissolved by degrees into 
 an equally shapeless but more picturesque con- 
 glomeration of glossy ringlets, creeping away 
 over her white neck and shoulders, quite down 
 to her waist ; " very viewly to look at," as old 
 Fits, the gardener, used to sa}^, beating his 
 fancy creepers and wonderful Australian tendril 
 plants all to nothing, but ruinous to her best 
 lace tuckers, as Malala, the more sensible 
 laundress, affirmed, and making her light 
 coloured muslin frocks " such a sight as never 
 was " ; — and when over all the frank outspoken- 
 ness of happy girlhood there began to float the 
 veil of maidenly reserve, and with it the dawning 
 consciousness of power and fascination, then 
 perhaps Roda Montagu might be called beau- 
 tiful ; then perhaps she might manage to work 
 mischief enough in a world which as yet had
 
 6 Alecs Bride, 
 
 taken but little heed of her or her beauty. 
 Still, though she is but an unfinished girl 
 of sixteen, rather careless about her personal 
 appearance, and with a fine appetite for bread 
 and butter, of which she has not yet learned 
 to be ashamed, Roda Montagu is worth look- 
 ing at as she sits there in the casement window 
 of her large, old-fashioned bed-room, gazing 
 out over falling leaves and thinning elm-tree 
 branches, to the black towers of Ulphusby 
 Minster, Her elbows are on the oaken win- 
 dow-board, and her chin rests on her clasped 
 hands. An ungainly attitude, since it jerks 
 her head considerably out of the perpendicular, 
 besides increasing the elevation of her nose, 
 which has, without any such external helps, a 
 sufficiently heavenward tendency. Indeed, if 
 it were not for the brightness and regularity 
 of the rest of her face, that petit nez retrousse
 
 Alecs Bride. 7 
 
 would be a serious hindrance to her prospects 
 in life. But, as we have said before, Roda 
 has not yet learned to make the best of her- 
 self, nor judiciously to restrain and keep 
 in the background any little imperfections, 
 physical or mental, which may prevent people 
 from thinking so well of her as she deserves. 
 She speaks just as she thinks ; she acts just 
 as she feels — two most pernicious habits for 
 anyone to get into in the present state of 
 society, where people of even the most ordi- 
 nary wisdom or experience have found out 
 and acted upon the discovery that thought 
 and expression, feeling and action, are much 
 better divorced ; that if you feel a thing, the 
 best course for you to take is to act as if you 
 did not feel it ; and if your thoughts go in one 
 direction, to let your words go anywhere but 
 after them. Roda will have to learn a wise
 
 8 Alec 8 Bride. 
 
 reticence in this, as in several other things, 
 before she is many years older. She will come 
 to the knowledge of it, perhaps, by a sort of 
 instinct, just as she will by-and-by spring into 
 the consciousness of her own charms, and 
 begin to exercise them with all a maiden's coy 
 caprice ; or she will have to find it out, as 
 others have found it out before her, by much 
 painful experience, many a vexing stumble 
 and disappointment, in the race for social 
 happiness and well-being. 
 
 But what is Roda doing as she sits there, 
 with her elbows on the window-board % Not 
 crying, surely % Yes — a great tear has dropped 
 on the oak panelling, and another and another, 
 and now there is a bursting sob, and now, after 
 a little pause, she has begun again, crying in 
 right good earnest, as only girls of sixteen do 
 cry, with utter disregard to red eyes next
 
 Alecs Bride. 9 
 
 morning, and swollen eyelids, and pale cheeks, 
 and various other drawbacks to personal love- 
 liness, which people of mature years are 
 obliged to take into consideration before they 
 can indulge in the luxury of unmitigated grief. 
 Evidently it is not of the slightest consequence 
 to her as she sits there, shaking with the vio- 
 lence of her emotions, whatever they may be, 
 whether those blue eyes wall ever win back 
 their brightness, or w^iether those red, swollen 
 lids will ever be white and transparent again ; 
 or whether the round cheeks, wet and tear- 
 stained now, shall some day dimple w^ith smiles, 
 and flush with the sweet kisses of the Sep- 
 tember breeze. She is just as unhappy as she 
 can be ; her little heart is as full of trouble as 
 it can hold, and that is all she knows. 
 
 Koda has been wanting to " have it out " in 
 this impetuous fashion ever since noonday,
 
 10 Alec's Bride, 
 
 when the mixed express left Ulphusby for 
 London, bearing away in a compartment of 
 one of its first-class carriages an individual 
 with whom just now we have not the slightest 
 concern^ but whose departure, nevertheless, 
 makes all the difference in the world to Koda. 
 Since the cab wheels crunched upon the gravel 
 walk in front of the drawing-room window, 
 and a wide-awake hat was waved in sign of 
 farewell, just as the horse's head disappeared 
 behind Mrs. Dexter's Gothic cottage at the 
 west end of the Close, poor Roda has quite 
 made up her mind that she shall never be 
 happy any more in this world — never any more 
 at all. 
 
 The sun may shine, but she is sure she shall 
 never see any brightness in its shining ; the 
 blackberries on Ulphusby moor may swell into 
 luxurious purple ripeness, she will not care to
 
 Alecs Bride. 11 
 
 gather one of them. Fits may bring her the 
 downiest nectarines he can find on his south 
 wall, thev will be but dust and ashes in her 
 mouth. Nay, even when the beautiful Decem- 
 ber frosts have come at last, and Ulphusby pool 
 is just one sea of glass, and the Miss Ducannons 
 and Miss Lesbanks, and all the rest of the 
 Close girls are skating away in their tartan 
 skirts and fur-bound hats, Roda knows as well 
 as can be that she shall not care to join them. 
 Her skatincj davs are over now, and so are 
 all the rest of the days wherein life could 
 have any pleasure for her. She would about 
 as soon die as not, she thinks, if she could do 
 just as she likes. 
 
 She wanted to go away and cry just as she is 
 crying now, as soon as the sound of the cab 
 wheels had died out ; but though, in general, 
 Eoda has a lamentable forgetfulness of conse-
 
 12 Alecs Bride. 
 
 quences, still she had enough foresight in this 
 instance to remember that her music-master 
 was coming at one o'clock, and, sitting close to 
 her elbow during a whole long hour of Cramer's 
 pianoforte studies, would not fail to notice her 
 red eyes, and perhaps ask what she had been 
 crying about — which inquiry she was sure would 
 make her begin again worse than ever. And then 
 when the music-lesson was over, there came the 
 daily walk with Aunt Phillis, and then dressing, 
 and then dinner; and this afternoon the Miss Du- 
 cannons were coming in to do leather work with 
 her; and there would be the long evening, 
 in which, if her papa did not have anyone come 
 to play chess with him, he would want to hear 
 some of her new songs, and perhaps expect 
 her to say one or two Latin verbs, just to keep 
 her from forgetting all about them. No, she 
 must be as patient as she could, and think as
 
 Alecs Bnde, 13 
 
 little as possible about that mid-day express to 
 London, or the crunching of the cab wheels, 
 or the waving of the \Yide-awake hat, until 
 the Minster clock struck ten, and Stubbs 
 brought in the candles, after which Aunt 
 Phillis used to say, "Now, Eoda, my dear," 
 and then she was expected to pack up her work, 
 give her papa and aunt their customary good- 
 night kisses, and go to bed. 
 
 A dismissal which she received on this occa- 
 sion with unwonted readiness; and although 
 now the Ulphusby clocks are just upon the 
 stroke of eleven, she is still sitting there with 
 her chin on her hands, as aforesaid, crying as 
 though all the brightness of her life lay behind 
 her. In fact, she does really, seriously think 
 that she is never again going to be happy any 
 more. Through those blinding, fast falling 
 tears, she cannot see any sunshine, any joy-
 
 14 Alecks Bride. 
 
 ousness beyond. She does not know that 
 when a few days have worn away, she will be 
 very nearly, if not quite, as bright as ever. 
 She does not know that this, her first grief, 
 which now seems so hopeless, will by-and-by 
 find its level, as all other griefs do ; and its 
 rugged outlines, now so terribly black and 
 sharp, will be overflowed by the ever rising 
 tide of her young life's hopes and enjoyments. 
 Roda would be very angry if you were to tell 
 her so, for people never like to think they can 
 "get over" anything easily; but it is a fact, 
 nevertheless, that by to-morrow night those red 
 eyelids will have got back all their snowy white- 
 ness, and the morning after she will be racing 
 as usual with Jeff and Lily in the garden, and 
 by next week at this time she will be able to 
 listen to the shrill whistle of the mid-day express
 
 Alec's Bride. 15 
 
 without feelings amounting to anything like 
 agony. When the blackberries on Ulphus- 
 by moor have begun to ripen into purple soft- 
 ness, they will be gathered by none so merry as 
 herself; and long ere the December frosts have 
 crisped that skating pool, almost covered now 
 with the falling leaves of Autumn, she will be 
 looking up those dainty little skates of hers, 
 and having them roughed ready for use, as soon 
 as her papa shall have time to escort her to the 
 scene of action. For at sixteen no sorrow is in- 
 curable, and no grief cuts so deep that after-joy 
 cannot heal the wound. 
 
 So leaving her to find out this blessed truth 
 for herself, we will go back a few years along 
 that chain of things and circumstances whose 
 latest link finds Roda ^lontagu weeping over 
 her first great grief in that stone-mullioned
 
 16 Alecs Bride. 
 
 ivy-bound window, which looks out, past elm 
 trees and green sward, to the towers of Ulphus- 
 by Minster.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 "PODA lived with her father, Dr. Montagu, 
 and her maternal aunt, Miss Phillis 
 Chickory, in a stately old-fashioned house, con- 
 sisting chiefly of high pitched gables and very 
 tall twisted chimneys, which, snugly sheltered 
 by trees as old as itself, and nearly covered 
 with vine and ivy, stood in a quiet corner to- 
 wards the north end of the ^linster Close. The 
 house was formerly occupied by the Deans of 
 Ulphusby, but of late years a very grand new 
 residence had been built for them near the 
 College, on the other side of the Minster. 
 Dr. Montagu's house, however, still retained 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 Alecs Bride, 
 
 its name of tlie Old Deanery, and a real pleasant 
 homelike-looking place it was. 
 
 Dr. Montagu matched his house almost as 
 exactly as his daughter Roda matched her 
 name. He was a portly, well-built, fair- 
 corn plexioned, good-tempered man of fifty, 
 blessed with an easy disposition, a considerable 
 interest in the funds, good natural abilities, 
 and a fine talent for making a comfortable 
 thing of life. Not, however, that he made a 
 comfortable thing of it at the expense of other 
 people's comfort, or that he lived to too great 
 an extent in the basement of his nature, to the 
 neglect of its upper stories. On the contrary, 
 he was a frank, honourable man, even scholarly 
 so far as the Classics were concerned, quite 
 popular amongst the College dons and pro- 
 fessors, who certainly would not have frater- 
 nized with him as they did, if he had not borne
 
 Alecs Bride. 19 
 
 a fair character for learning and gentleman- 
 hood. But he was one of those easy-going 
 men upon whom nothing makes a very deep 
 impression. He took life easily — got out of it 
 what comfort, enjo3^ment, luxury, it could 
 give, and let the rest go by. He never troubled 
 himself about politics, never got excited when 
 there was an election, or went into mourning 
 over the dissensions which reft the Church of 
 which he was a minister. He had no doubt 
 that things would all come right in the end ; 
 at any rate, if they did not, his position would 
 be no worse for it. Disappointment, when it 
 came to him — and of course he had to take his 
 share of it now and then, like other men — he 
 looked upon as an unlucky chance, a thing 
 to be got over as soon as possible ; not in an}: 
 sort a discipline, or means of moral purification 
 or chastening, sent for the purpose of making 
 
 C 2
 
 20 Alec's Bride. 
 
 him a better man than he was before. Indeed, 
 perhaps one of the last thoughts that ever 
 entered Dr. Montagu's mind, was that he 
 needed any sort of moral purification, or that 
 his internal spiritual econom}^ would be improved 
 by any such cleansing and re-modification as 
 chastening or discipline is supposed to produce. 
 He hadhad his troubles — one of which was the 
 loss of his wife, many years ago — but he did not 
 look at them from a spiritual point of view. 
 He took them as farmers take a bad harvest, 
 or tradesmen a slow season, or as a well-bred 
 lady takes the spilling of something over her 
 best satin gown — things that could not be 
 helped, and need not be fretted over. 
 
 Dr. Montagu held some trifling preferment 
 in the Cathedral, so trifling that the emoluments 
 of it scarcely covered the expense of the need- 
 ful canonical vestments, to say nothing of fur-
 
 Alecs Bride. 21 
 
 nishing him with those mysterious appendages 
 of clerical attire which, under the auspices of 
 advanced Ritualists, had lately crept into use 
 in some of the more fashionable churches of UI- 
 phusby. 
 
 To supplement this almost nominal prefer- 
 ment, which, indeed, did little more than ^ive 
 him access to the most select ecclesiastical society 
 of the place, Dr. Montagu held the head- 
 mastership of the Ulphusby Grammar School 
 — a lucrative post, and an easy one also, since 
 the undermasters did the principal part of the 
 teaching, leaving little for the nominal head 
 but to walk through the rooms now and then, 
 by way of identifying himself with the concern, 
 and sometimes to hear the recitations of the 
 elder boys. Certainly the head-master might 
 do a great deal more than this if he were so 
 disposed, and possibly a very painstaking, con-
 
 22 Alec's Bride. 
 
 scientious man would have felt it incumbent 
 upon him to take a little of the actual routine 
 duty upon his own shoulders; but Dr. Mon- 
 tagu was not a man who saw any merit in 
 works of supererogation, and as in Ulphusby 
 Cathedral the higher its officials were paid the 
 less they did, why should not Ulphusby Gram- 
 mar School, whose foundation was coeval with 
 that of the Cathedral, follow the same division 
 of labour? At any rate. Dr. Montagu fol- 
 lowed it, and no one found any fault with him 
 for doing so, except perhaps the under-masters, 
 who might grumble a little at their long hours and 
 short profits ; but then, as the grumbling never 
 came to head-quarters, it did the Doctor no harm. 
 When, twenty years ago, he left the small 
 country living of Marsly-in-the -Dales to take the 
 head-mastership of the Ulphusby Grammar- 
 School, and that very microscopic preferment
 
 Alecs Bride, 23 
 
 in the Cathedral, he brought his bride with 
 him, a Scottish lady. She was a pretty, ami- 
 able little woman, with a sweet face and a 
 handsome fortune, but she died when their 
 only child Koda was two years old, and Dr. 
 Montagu had never married again. He 
 buried her in the south aisle of the Minster, 
 amongst all the crumbling Deans, Canons, Pre- 
 bends, and other ecclesiastical functionaries, 
 and erected a tasteful tablet over her remains, 
 wherein it was stated that she departed this life 
 sincerely loved and deeply lamented. Both of 
 which statements were quite correct, for he 
 did indeed love his wife better than he loved 
 any other woman, and he felt very sorry when 
 she was taken away from him. But if his love 
 had been wise and tender in proportion to its 
 sincerity, the lamentation would never have been 
 needed.
 
 24 Alecs Bride. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu was a gentle affectionate wo- 
 man, not so largely gifted with intellectual 
 abilities, or the faculty of household manage- 
 ment, as with a longing for love in its full 
 unrestrained manifestation. She was fond, too, 
 as gentle, weak-natured women often are, of 
 delicate little attentions, and much outward 
 deference; whereas Dr. Montagu, bluff, hearty, 
 good-tempered, but completely un perceptive, had 
 no notion of any attentions beyond giving his 
 wife plenty of pin-money, buying her a hand- 
 some bonnet now and then, and bestowing 
 on her a hearty kiss when he went away to 
 the school in a morning. In return for which 
 attentions he expected that his home should 
 be well-managed, his personal comforts religi- 
 ously cared for, and his table supplied with 
 all the successive good things which were in 
 season from January to December.
 
 Alecs Bride. 25 
 
 Here, alas ! Mrs. Moiitap^ii failed. To put 
 her deficiencies in the mildest possible form, 
 she was not a paragon of a housekeeper. She 
 could embroider him fancy braces by the dozen ; 
 she could cover the walls of his stud}^ with poonah 
 paintings ; she could adorn his head with velvet 
 smoking caps, and his feet with bead slippers ; 
 and if crochet doylies, and napkin rings of 
 Berlin work, and netted fish serviettes, and 
 elaborate decorations for the knuckle ends of 
 legs of mutton, could have been considered 
 as sufiicient table comforts, then no table 
 was more richly supplied than that of the old 
 Deanery. 
 
 But, unfortunately. Dr. Montagu required 
 something more substantial. He did not care 
 for netted serviettes if the fish upon them were 
 done to rags, and the most splendid rosette of 
 crochet work that his wife's finders ever manu-
 
 26 Alecs Bride, 
 
 factured could not compensate for the imper- 
 fect cooking of the leg of mutton which it 
 garnished. Mrs. Montagu did her best, poor 
 thing, but the mysteries of domestic science 
 were too much for her. She was conquered by 
 them, as many a loving but unpractical wife 
 has been conquered before. And since she 
 had not energy enough to strive against her 
 difficulties, she was fain to let things take their 
 course, and just hope that some day- the 
 knowledge would come to her, as the capacity 
 for building its nest does to the robin. 
 
 Dr. Montagu did not turn unkindly upon his 
 wife when she thus failed in her part of the 
 matrimonial bargain. He was too good-natured 
 to be intentionally unkind to anyone. But as 
 he could not have things comfortable at home, 
 he saw no harm in havino; them comfortable 
 elsewhere — more especially as he gave his wife
 
 Alecs Bride. 27 
 
 pin-money as heretofore, bought her as many 
 bonnets as she wanted to wear, and never 
 omitted taking an affectionate leave of her 
 when he set off for the grammar-school, except 
 when she was not downstairs in time to receive 
 it ; and in other ways conducted himself unex- 
 ceptionably enough, with this one little draw- 
 back, that his best, brightest life was no longer 
 lived at home. 
 
 Mrs. Montagu knew that. It does not need 
 a woman of bright intelligence or very quick 
 perceptions to find out that she has ceased to 
 content a nature which never had anything in 
 common with her own. She knew the cause. 
 Perhaps, also, she knew how she could have 
 removed it. But she was too fond of ease, and 
 the roots of self-indulgence had struck them- 
 selves too far down into her nature for her to 
 arouse herself, and win back what she now
 
 28 Alec's Bride. 
 
 felt it was a grievous mistake ever to have 
 lost. So, being too loving and too hungry for 
 love to bear its loss, she did what, under the 
 circumstances, was the best thing she could 
 have done — she slipped quietly away to that 
 other world, where, let us hope, the sins and 
 short-comings of this w^ould be forgiven her. 
 
 She " fell into delicate health," as the phrase 
 goes. People began to speak of her as "Mrs. 
 Montagu, poor thing !" when they saw her, 
 with white face and weary step, loitering on 
 sunshiny afternoons in the sheltered walks of 
 the old garden at the north side of the Close. 
 Then she was seen no more out of doors, and 
 passers-by only caught a glimpse of her very 
 rarely, propped up with pillows in an easy- 
 chair at one of the mullioned windows. At 
 last, after a tedious illness, " borne," as the 
 masons, under Dr. Montagu's direction, carved
 
 Alecs Bride. 29 
 
 upon her funeral tablet, " with uncomplaining 
 fortitude," she died. But for a woman who has 
 seen the one hope of her life slowly depart 
 from her, never to return again, even a tedious 
 illness, with the good deliverance of death 
 beyond it, is not the hardest trial of fortitude 
 she has had to bear. 
 
 It was to nurse her sister through this same 
 tedious illness that Miss Phillis Chickory, the 
 kind, good, unselfish maiden aunt of the 
 family, was sent for, and came to the Old 
 Deanery after the doctors had pronounced Mrs. 
 ^lontagu's disease to be beyond remedy. And 
 so well was her trust fulfilled, so w^ell did 
 she guide the domestic machinery, which had 
 got into sad disorder during poor ^[rs. Mon- 
 tagu's feeble administration, so admirably did 
 she meet the Doctor's views in the arrange- 
 ment of his table, and the management of his
 
 30 Alec's Bride. 
 
 personal comforts, and other matters which 
 were of considerable importance to him, that 
 when all was over, and the sincerely lamented 
 but incompetent wife was deposited in her final 
 resting-place amongst the departed dignitaries of 
 Ulphusby Cathedral, her husband, finding that 
 he could now have things comfortable at home, 
 thought he could not do better than ask Miss 
 Chickory to remain with him, and undertake, 
 in addition to her other responsibilities, the 
 charge of his little motherless daughter, Roda, 
 a pretty, black-haired, mischievous child of two 
 years old ; ■ very like her poor dear mamma in 
 beauty and affectionateness,but like her in nothing 
 else. For Miss Roda was a restless, impetuous, 
 energetic little scrap of mortality, full, even at 
 that tender age, of fun and tricks and non- 
 sense, running over with eager activity, quickly 
 roused to passion, as quickly soothed by love
 
 Aled's Bride. 31 
 
 and tenderness ; a child who, as the old nurse 
 said, " took a vast of managing," but who, if 
 only she icas properly managed, would more 
 than repay all the trouble in a noble, earnest, 
 loveable womanhood. 
 
 So Miss C hickory staid, and was unto the 
 child as a mother. Xay, perhaps, as the slow 
 years wore on, Koda o;ained from Aunt Phil- 
 lis much more than that weak, gentle, ease- 
 loving mother could have given her. For Miss 
 Chickory, to a heart equally winning and affec- 
 tionate as her sister's, joined a clear head and 
 an active right hand, and beyond these, that 
 rare unselfishness wdiich ever sets the interests 
 of others before its own. She was a straight- 
 forward, practical woman, with a singular sim- 
 plicity about her, seldom met wath in connec- 
 tion with so much energy and administrative 
 skill as she possessed.
 
 32 Alec's Bride, 
 
 People, especially the rather stuck-np, ex- 
 clusive people of the upper circles of Ulphusby 
 society, used to smile at her primitive ways, and 
 call her, long before she had passed the bounds 
 of middle life, "that dear old Miss Chickory." 
 But they never added "poor thing" to her 
 name, as they used to Mrs. Montagu's, for 
 there was a serene, motherly composure of love 
 about her, and a warm, sunny geniality, not 
 unmixed with dignity in all her ways, which 
 only those win whose lives are fulfilled from 
 some far hidden' spring of quiet content. 
 
 Eoda's aunt was one of those simple, sweet- 
 hearted women, of wdiom the world takes little 
 heed until they leave it ; and then, for the first 
 time, it feels how precious was the work they 
 did. She w^as not greatly gifted ; she had no 
 lofty aspirations, no splendid longings, whose 
 continual unfulfilment wrote its sad story on
 
 Alecs Bride. 33 
 
 her face. She had long ago learned the wis- 
 dom — than which the very greatest philosopher 
 on earth can find no greater — of doing the 
 duty which lay nearest to her, and trusting 
 for light, when that was done, to see the next. 
 The duty that lay nearest to her now was 
 to keep her brother-in-law's house, see that 
 he W'as made comfortable, and adapt her- 
 self to any little selfishnesses with which time 
 and circumstance might have encrusted his 
 character, though perhaps even these did not ap- 
 pear to her as others would have regarded them. 
 For it is only the selfish who are quick to see or 
 be annoyed by selfishness in those about them ; 
 the generous nature thinks all others like 
 itself. 
 
 She was also to be a mother to the child Koda, 
 to teach her her dutv to God and her neish- 
 hour, so far as her own simple ideas of duty, 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 Alecs Bride. 
 
 and the ever shining light of a pure example, 
 could teach that great lesson. 
 
 Then beyond these, the nearer interests of 
 her life, there were poor people about her into 
 whose dark days she could put a little gleam of 
 brightness, and sad sick hearts to whom gentle 
 words of hers might bring some touch of heal- 
 ing. To the doing of these things with such 
 skill as she possessed, Aunt Phlllis gave her 
 whole life ; and in the doing of them, though 
 not in the trusting to them, she found what 
 many of her more brilliantly gifted sisters seek 
 after in vain — perfect peace. 
 
 Thus, though she was first and best to no 
 one, though it was her lot to be but one among 
 many to those she loved, having no friend, man 
 or woman, in all the wide world to whom she 
 was bound by a tie so close that none closer 
 could ever come in its place, her life was not a
 
 Alecs Bride. 35 
 
 wasted life, not nearly so much wasted as that 
 of the dead wife, around whom once the love 
 of both husband and child had slathered. For 
 she was at least goincr on her way brightly and 
 cheerfully, holding up her little light with 
 unwearying hand, scarcely knowing, perhaps, 
 how many feet it guided, or how^ many weary 
 travellers it comforted. 
 
 That good womanly heart of hers might not 
 be a very great one ; perhaps it did not take 
 very much, only the power of doing good to 
 others, to fill it. Doubtless her name would 
 never be known, her influence never felt, far 
 away from that little household, whose light and 
 comfort she had been since the day she came to 
 it. But still, if every woman did her duty as 
 faithfully, and trimmed her little lamp as con- 
 stantly, as Aunt Phillis did, not murmuring 
 that the duty w^as so mean, or the lamp so tiny, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 Ale&s Bride. 
 
 there would be less stumbling in the world, less 
 crying out for light, fewer complaints over the 
 darkness and dreariness of the way. 
 
 Once only, every year in the Autumn, Miss 
 Chickory used to go away for a month to visit 
 her friends in Scotland. Tliose were dark days 
 for the Old Deanery peoy^le. The warmth and 
 sunshine seemed to have gone out of the house. 
 E-oda moped about from morning to night in 
 the great quiet rooms, which looked so empty 
 when Aunt Phillis's bright face and cheery 
 voice were away. And Dr. Montagu, as he 
 came home evening after evening to the fireside 
 which no thoughful care of hers had made com- 
 fortable for him, used to say, as he hunted for his 
 cold slippers, and took up the damp uncut 
 paper, 
 
 '*' The house does not seem like home without 
 her."
 
 Alecs Bride. 37 
 
 Truly, any woman of whom that can be said, 
 may well be content.
 
 38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TTLPHUSBY was a very stupid place, not- 
 withstanding its great reputation for 
 learning. Its quaint old college buildings, whose 
 tall gables, black-timbered and smoke-dried, 
 loomed up beneath the south front of the 
 Minster, might be famous forcing-houses for 
 theology and logic ; but they, or to speak more 
 correctly, the professors who prelected within 
 their sacred precincts, did not always temper 
 these excellent studies with that wide charity 
 which leaves to all people the right of private 
 judgment. And though the grey-haired, silken- 
 robed dons and doctors who loitered about in
 
 Alecs Bride. 39 
 
 those clingy quadrangles, were deeply skilled in 
 Greek and Hebrew roots, they had not by any 
 means cultivated with so much care those other 
 roots, which, striking into the heart of man, 
 and not his intellect, bring forth the sweet 
 fruits of peace and good- will towards all. Per- 
 haps within that one square mile of the Queen's 
 dominions which Ulphusby-proper co\ er^^d, there 
 was more theological wrangling and contention, 
 more clamouring for individual rights, more 
 setting up of party standards, and vigorous 
 pulling down of them by the opposite party, 
 than in any other city of the same exceedingly 
 limited importance. Certainly, if more exclu- 
 siveness and sectarianism and narrow-mindedness 
 could have been found elsewhere, the place 
 where these enemies of social progress defended 
 their position with greater tenacity than at 
 Ulphusby, was to be pitied.
 
 40 Alecs Bride. 
 
 Of coursGj being a collegiate town and a 
 cathedral town too, it was decidedly ecclesiasti- 
 cal in its tendencies, and no one who did not 
 duly attend the service of his parish church 
 had any prospect of being welcomed within 
 the pale of gentility, or of being called upon 
 by anyone whose acquaintance was worth 
 having. Truly there was room enough for all 
 reasonable latitude of private opinion within 
 the arms of the gracious mother, out of whose 
 embrace eternal safety, or, at any rate, present 
 respectability, was next to impossible. All the 
 three recognised divisions of the English Estab- 
 lishment had their representatives more or less 
 numerously spread over the fifteen parishes of 
 Ulphusby; and so, if a resident in the place 
 could find no rest for the sole of his foot, 
 religiously speaking, in any of these generally 
 accepted departments of the body ecclesiastic,
 
 Alecs Bride. 41 
 
 so mucli the worse for him, as in that case he 
 must wander into the unconsecrated limbo of 
 Dissent, and be debarred for ever from all the 
 privileges and immunities of a good position 
 in society. 
 
 Ritualism held its head tolerably high in 
 Ulphusby, the present Bishop being a man 
 whose sympathies, though somewhat hesitat- 
 ingly expressed, were decidedly in favour of 
 eucharistic vestments and daily communion. 
 Plowever, he had not as yet taken a suffi- 
 ciently firm stand in the foremost ranks of the 
 High Church party, to establish it upon an 
 enduring basis in the place. 
 
 Its most worthy representative was Mr. 
 Ambrose, the incumbent of St. Chad's, a noble, 
 faithful, self-denying man, yet having withal 
 a touch of mysticism in his disposition, and a 
 keen spiritual sense, which looked through
 
 42 Alecs Bride. 
 
 outward rite and symbol to the interior 
 truth which these are intended to shadow 
 forth. He was a scholar and a gentleman, 
 very active amongst his poor people; more 
 skilfulj perhaps, in winning their affections 
 than in rendering himself popular with the 
 fashionable part of his congregation, with 
 whose blind, undistinguishing love for pomp 
 and ceremony, merely as such, he had little 
 sympathy, and between whom and himself the 
 natural sensitive reserve of his temperament 
 seemed to place an insurmountable barrier. 
 He loved better to sit in his study, pondering 
 upon the duties of the church to the world, 
 or to go out and practise those duties among 
 the poor outcasts in the disreputable courts 
 and alleys of his parish, than to seek much 
 intercourse with his more brilliant and fashion- 
 able adherents, who, as he sometimes felt
 
 Alecs Bride. 43 
 
 bitterly enough, only gathered round Ritualism 
 for the sake of its splendidly-mounted standard, 
 and not for the truth which those who worthily 
 bore that standard sought to teach. 
 
 But if the poor people came to Mr. Am- 
 brose, the rich ones found their spiritual needs 
 abundantly supplied in the ministrations of the 
 Rev. Marcus Fabian, lately appointed curate, 
 or, as he preferred to term himself, assistant 
 priest, in the church of St. Chad's. He had 
 obtained this appointment chiefly through the 
 interest of his sister, Mrs. Dexter, widow of 
 one of the late resident canons, who, with her 
 three young children, lived upon a comfortable 
 annuity in St. Nlnlan's Lodge, a neat little 
 Gothic cottage at the north end of the Close, 
 scarcely a stone's throw from the Old Deanery, 
 with whose occupants she was on terms of 
 familiar intimacy. Indeed, the interchange of
 
 44 Alecs Bride. 
 
 visits between them had of late become so fre- 
 quent, that certain ill-natured people hinted at 
 ulterior purposes on the part of Mrs. Dexter, 
 and some were even bold enough to affirm that 
 had Dr. Montagu seen things in the same 
 light as the Canon's widow, the Old Deanery 
 would long ago have w^elcomed a new mistress, 
 and " dear old Miss Chickory," as Mrs. Dexter 
 called her, have journeyed home again to her 
 friends in the north. But that might only be 
 gossip, for it was well known that the Close 
 people had a fine talent for discovering motives, 
 and commenting upon them, not alwa3-s to the 
 credit of the parties interested. And even if 
 Mrs. Dexter did sometimes look at that pleasant 
 old mullioned-windowed house at the north end 
 of the Close, and think what a very suitable 
 home it would make for herself and her three 
 children, — and if she did now and then turn over
 
 Alecs Bride. 45 
 
 in her mind the possibility of becoming Mrs. 
 Montagu number two, and transferring sucli 
 pieces of her furniture as should be suitable 
 into those fine oak-panelled rooms, — that was 
 only what many another lady in Ulphusby had 
 done before her, even the very ladies w^ho w^ere 
 so hard upon her for doing it. 
 
 The Kev. Marcus Fabian was a clerical ex- 
 quisite of the first water. Well born, well bred, 
 of inimitably persuasive manners and winning 
 address, possessing an almost unbounded capa- 
 city of insinuating himself into the unappro- 
 priated female heart, he completely supple- 
 mented the deficiencies of his austere, reserved 
 incumbent, and supplied wdiat Mr. Ambrose's 
 finer, more spiritual nature could never make 
 him competent to become, a rallying-point for 
 the fashionable young ladies of the congrega- 
 tion — a visible, ever-present idol, on whom they
 
 46 Alecs Bride. 
 
 could expend their superfluous adoration, and 
 for whose bland smiles and delicately mani- 
 fested preferences they were willing to ex- 
 change almost any amount of labour in the 
 embroidering of church garments, or the man- 
 agement of Easter, Whit-tide, and Christmas 
 decorations. 
 
 For certainly the most fearless and out-spoken, 
 if not the most able champions of primes, nones, 
 and vespers in Ulphusby, were the young ladies 
 of the upper classes, chiefly fresh from Parisian 
 conventual schools ; of much leisure, consider- 
 able pin-money, and large vanity. Perhaps the 
 requirements of Kitualism supplied them with an 
 outlet for that natural activity which, in a more 
 vivacious town, w^ould have worked itself off in 
 attendance upon lectures, concerts, soirees, balls, 
 and other public amusements, painfully infre- 
 quent in Ulphusby, or which, had they belonged
 
 Alecs Bride. 47 
 
 to the lower middle ranks of society, would 
 have found a wholesome outlet in common- 
 place household duties. 
 
 At any rate, the daily services, as performed 
 with much chanting of surpliced choristers at 
 the fashionable church of St. Chad's, absorbed 
 many a weary hour which would otherwise 
 have been yawned away over morning calls ; 
 and the embroidering of stoles and chasubles, 
 the designing of monograms for altar-cloths, 
 and the elaborating of book-cushions for the 
 epistolers and gospellers, put a temporary 
 stop to that mighty tide of slippers and bead 
 braces which from time immemorial has set 
 in towards popular incumbents or pet curates. 
 
 Then, too, it was ^' the thing" to be ritual- 
 istic. It was wonderful how rapidly high 
 churchism spread in the small city of Ulphusby, 
 when one or two of the leading belles had
 
 48 Alecs Bride. 
 
 openly avowed their approval of its outward 
 observances. Bowing and turning towards the 
 East became universal at all available parts of 
 the service. The congregation of St. Chad's, 
 which consisted chiefly of ladies, began to as- 
 sume the appearance of a gaily coloured flower- 
 bed, swept at regular intervals by a gentle 
 breeze, which, passing over it, bent its bright 
 blossoms almost to the ground, and, ere 
 they had time to recover themselves, exacted 
 the graceful homage again ; then suddenly 
 veering round swept them in an opposite direc- 
 tion, — and so kept them continually undulating, 
 until some authoritative " or emus " bowed the 
 entire parterre of brilliant perfumed blossoms, 
 and kept it low. A lady who wished to be 
 genteel, could be it at once by becoming ritual- 
 istic. It was such an inexpensive way of link- 
 ing herself with the best society of the place.
 
 Alecs Bride. 49 
 
 Young ladies of small means and lofty aspira- 
 tions, — and there were many such in the St. 
 Chad's congregation, — might not be able, except 
 by considerable self-denial in other matters, to 
 vie with !Mrs. Dexter's bonnets, new two or 
 three times a year from Paris, or to imitate, 
 save at a very remote distance, her untold 
 variety of mantles and flounced silk dresses ; 
 but the genuflexions could be done for nothing, 
 and a regular attendance on primes, nones, 
 and vespers, whilst marking those who observed 
 it as decidedly people of ton, was by no means 
 costly to any one who had plenty of leisure 
 time on her hands. Indeed the only expense 
 it involved was a subscription, perhaps once 
 or twice a year, when those who had been thus 
 regular in the use of their means, and might 
 therefore be considered as dutiful daughters 
 of the Anglican Church, were waited upon by 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 Alec's Bride, 
 
 the leading ladies of the parish, — whose notice 
 was in itself an honour worth almost any money, 
 — and solicited on behalf of a velvet altar cloth, 
 or a complete and more elaborate set of vest- 
 ments for the officiating clergy. 
 
 Thus, many w^ho could never understand the 
 true spirit of High Churchism, nor see through 
 its symbolism the meaning of the thing sym- 
 bolised, adhered to these things simply because 
 they were fashionable, the shibboleth of a party 
 wdiich could lift them a step or two higher in 
 the social scale, and give them the privilege 
 of bowing acquaintance with people who, had 
 they belonged to a simple nonconformist faith, 
 would have thought scorn even to look upon them. 
 
 Then there w^as the Low Church party, not 
 a very important party in Ulphusby, as neither 
 the Bishop, Dean nor any of the leading cathe- 
 dral dignitaries, professed much sympathy with
 
 Alecs Bride. 51 
 
 its peculiar views ; but a party nevertheless, 
 by whom much, perhaps most, of the real hard 
 work which got done in many of the parishes, 
 w^as accomplished. These were the people who 
 never made any genuflexions at all, even abolish- 
 ing the time-honoured obeisance in the second 
 division of the Apostles' Creed, never turned 
 to the East at stated parts of the service, never 
 had their churches decorated, never wore any- 
 thing but the most legitimate and universally 
 recognised articles of ecclesiastical attire, and 
 looked upon copes, albs, and chasubles as dan- 
 gerous innovations, the first indications of that 
 Komanising tendency which would never rest 
 until it had brought back into the vestry of 
 every parish church in the land the entire ward- 
 robe of the Man of Sin. People hard to be con- 
 vinced that their own was not the only way 
 of safety under heaven, yet thoroughly honest 
 
 E 2 
 
 \;S^onamo.s
 
 52 Alecs Bride. 
 
 and painstaking and sincere, doing with vigor- 
 ous faithfulness what they esteemed to be right, 
 and only needing sometimes a little more charity 
 towards those who held what they thought to 
 be wronfT. Earnest in their defence for the 
 truth, yet slow to see that truth has many sides, 
 and that, with such visual organs as Providence 
 has given to most christian people, the whole, 
 or even the greater number of those sides 
 cannot by any possibility be seen together. 
 Narrowing the way of life perhaps more than 
 the Great Master himself has narrowed it, yet 
 never pointing out to others any toil or self- 
 denial which they were unwilling themselves 
 to undertake, or preaching a higher standard 
 of Christian practice than they laboured truly 
 and faithfully to set forth in their own example. 
 Then, looking with equally kindly toleration 
 and indifference upon the very Low Church
 
 Alecs Bride. 53 
 
 party, with its unadorned services and Cal- 
 vinistic tenets, and the very High Church 
 party, with its eucharistic vestments and un- 
 lighted candles, were the Broad Church people, 
 not as yet very numerous in Ulphusby, consist- 
 ing almost entirely of a few Professors belong- 
 ing to the different colleges, rather learned 
 men, who had travelled much and seen a good 
 deal of the world, and who, insisting on the 
 right of private judgment for themselves, were 
 wilhng to extend it to others. Yery few ladies 
 in Ulphusby sided with the Broad Church 
 party, — partly because it w^as not considered 
 fashionable, no person of any distinction hav- 
 ing expressed her sympathy with its pecuhar 
 theological views; and partly because it held 
 forth no material attractions to the feminine 
 taste, lacking the pomp and ceremony and 
 prestige of the ritualistic party, and the fine
 
 54 Alecs Biide, 
 
 opportunities for social intercourse afforded 
 by the numerous Low Church working meetings 
 and bazaars. 
 
 The Ritualists openly expressed their belief 
 that the Broad Church people were doing 
 more harm than good in the world. But then 
 the Broad Church people in their turn said the 
 same of the Ritualists ; and each of them, Broad 
 Church and Ritualists, joined in a similar ver- 
 dict against the Evangelicals, who, nowise tardy 
 in self-defence, said that not they, but the two 
 other parties, were doing the harm. So that if 
 any one of the three spoke the truth — and it 
 would be very wrong to think that they could 
 do anything else — the Church altogether was not 
 doing very much good in the world. At any 
 rate, it was not such a burning and shining 
 light, even according to its own showing, as it 
 ought to be.
 
 Alecs Bride. 55 
 
 But, however much they might disagree 
 amongst themselves concerning their respective 
 merits, there was, at any rate, one point upon 
 which these three parties, High Church, Broad 
 Church, and Low Church, could unite on one 
 common standing ground ; namely, hearty re- 
 probation of that outlying conglomerate of sects. 
 Nonconformist, Wesleyan, Baptist, Anabaptist, 
 Presbyterians, Moravians, Plymouth Brethren, 
 or whatever name they might call themselves 
 by, whichj under the general head of Dissent, 
 they sought to sweep from the surface of polite 
 society — sought to sweep it thence with besoms 
 of various sizes, and handled with various de- 
 grees of vituperative energy, but always heartily 
 and unanimously. 
 
 The Dissenters were to the Low Church what 
 the Low Church itself w^as to the advanced 
 Ritualists. Nay, worse, for the Evangelicals,
 
 dQ Alecs Bride, 
 
 though living sadly below their privileges in the 
 matter of genuflexions and eucharistic vestments, 
 and being but very unworthy children of a 
 noble mother, were, by virtue of that common 
 motherhood, invested with a sort of distant 
 relationship to the more dutiful sons of 
 the Church, and might therefore be treated with 
 the careful, pitying toleration which is due to 
 an erring but not hopelessly reprobate brother. 
 But the Dissenters had neither part nor lot in 
 the great religious system of the land. The 
 utmost reach of charity that could be extended 
 to them was the faint hope that somehow they 
 might be saved, and find their way into some 
 remote corner of the heavenly Canaan ; or linger, 
 scarcely recognised, upon the skirts of that great 
 multitude, the blessed company of the faith- 
 ful, who had been baptised into the true 
 church, and followed its teachings, and meekly
 
 Alecs Bride. 57 
 
 bowed themselves beneath the yoke of its su- 
 preme authority. 
 
 The Dissenters of Ulphusby, too, on their 
 part, knowing how deeply rooted was this 
 animus against them, and feeling how very 
 flimsy was that outward show^ of good-will, 
 which at chance meetings, where ministers of 
 all denominations met together, was extended 
 to them, looked with resolute, defiant glance 
 from their unconsecrated Bethels and Ebenezers 
 to the gorgeous cathedral and the beneficed 
 churches which held within their coffers so 
 much of the country's wealth. Silently for the 
 most part, but with much unexpressed bitter- 
 ness, these two classes regarded each other, as 
 the strong, stout-limbed labourer, the keen, 
 clear-headed artificer, and the skilful mechanic, 
 upholders together of the greatness and strength 
 of this laud, look across the great gulf of caste
 
 5S A lees Bride. 
 
 to the white-handed gentry and nerveless aristo- 
 crats who make laws for them, impose taxes 
 upon them, and live at ease upon the produce 
 of their labour. 
 
 Theirs was the muscle and the strength, 
 theirs the earnest heart and the active right 
 hand, which, thrusting down the lever of a 
 boldly preached gospel, spoken in the people's 
 own tongue, into many a rude lawless home, 
 had lifted it into order and concord and purity. 
 Theirs was the burning love, which, fearing 
 no danger, and dreading no death, had crossed 
 the wide ocean to foreign lands, there to hold 
 up over the rough ways of life, some light of 
 heavenly truth to lost and groping souls. 
 Theirs was the energy which, in years gone 
 by, had stirred this sleeping England, and 
 roused her to a new wholesome religious life, 
 giving her spirit instead of form, and tlie living
 
 Alec's Bride. 59 
 
 soul instead of the dead letter. Yet here, in 
 this ancient seat of learninty — in a city which 
 owed its very existence to the desire of some 
 pious soul to spread light into a dark world — 
 they, the loving, earnest-hearted ones were 
 politely thrust aside, held at arm's length, 
 denied a common brotherhood by those stoled 
 and surpliced ministers of the church who 
 should have welcomed them as its truest friends, 
 who should have recognised in them the faithful 
 doers of a work which themselves had failed to 
 accomplish, a work which, perhaps, it was not 
 now in their power ever to do so effectually as 
 these would have done it for them. 
 
 It was not a chance compliment now and 
 then at some public gathering, followed next 
 day by a studiously averted look in the more 
 public streets — not a hurried coalition entered 
 into for mutual interest at election times or
 
 60 Alecs Bride. 
 
 cholera visitations, and then scattered to the 
 winds when the favourite member was returned, 
 and the epidemic driven away, which could 
 heal that deep-lying grievance. 
 
 The people who would once have given back 
 love for love, now set themselves to give back 
 neglect for neglect. If the Church gathered 
 aside its garments and looked coldly upon the 
 Dissenters, the Dissenters in tiieir turn, upon 
 their broad, firm, ever-strengthening standing- 
 ground of common-sense activity, drew more 
 closely together, and looked with increasing 
 indifference across that gulf which not their 
 own will had first made. They had their work 
 to do, too, — perhaps a work as great as that of 
 the stoled and surpliced priests who refused to 
 look upon them as other than heretics and schis- 
 matics. Time, which adjusts all things, would 
 adjust their rights by-and-by.
 
 Alecs Bride. 61 
 
 And upon all this strife, this reaching out of 
 individual prides and pettinesses, the God of 
 love looked down, waitinor patiently until these, 
 His children, brothers and sisters of one great 
 family, should learn to forget their little private 
 interests, should lay aside their pitiful jarrings, 
 their envies and jealousies, and clasping hands, 
 pray together to their Father in heaven ; Father 
 alike of high and low, rich and poor, learned 
 and simple ; who, so only the prayer be sincere, 
 looks not whether it rises from gorgeous min- 
 ster or lowly meeting-house ; who, if the heart 
 be reverent towards Himself, loving towards its 
 fellows, cares not whether it beats beneath alb 
 of priestly ministrant or smock of hard-handed 
 labourer. 
 
 Truly, if that great All-Father gave to us 
 only as we give to each other, those streets of 
 gold on which we some day hope to tread would
 
 62 • Alecs Bride. 
 
 echo with few footsteps, and tlie crowns which 
 we dream of wearing when our work is done, 
 would lie for ever — though not of our casting 
 there — before His throne.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "XTET, if anyone could have swept away — - 
 just as each of the church parties wished 
 to sweep the other two away, and as the united 
 three of them wished to sweep the Dissenters 
 away — that spirit of sectarianism and exclusive- 
 ness which prevailed in the upper and middle 
 ranks of society, and brought in its stead a 
 kindly feeling of toleration between class and 
 class, Ulphusby might have been a comfortable 
 place to live in. Noting in what narrow, 
 sharply defined channels its tide of social life 
 flowed, one could not help wishing that some 
 vigorous, large-hearted reformer would rise up
 
 64 Alecs Bride. 
 
 and slacken that weary code of etiquette which 
 said to the well-bred church lady, respecting 
 her equally well-bred next-door neighbour of 
 Dissenting principles — " Thou shalt in no wise 
 call upon her;" or to the retired lawyer of 
 ritualistic tendences, and the Evangelical doctor 
 who met daily at their club or news-room — 
 "Ye shall not enter into friendly relations, nor 
 bow to each other in the streets." It would 
 have been an inestimable blessing to the place, 
 if some second Luther could have come forth 
 from those hoary old college gates, and in a 
 voice whose thunder neither Deans, nor Arch- 
 deacons, nor the whole body corporate of eccle- 
 siastical dignitaries could resist, have preached 
 the glorious doctrine of position by individual 
 merit, and not position by the accident of being 
 born a churchman and continuing so. 
 
 Indeed the very architecture of the place
 
 Alecs Bride. 65 
 
 seemed to cry out against those false barriers 
 which pride had erected between one set of 
 people and another. Those quaint old rows of 
 houses, leaning over tow^ards each other, story 
 after story, until from the topmost w^indows 
 their respective occupants might hold a friendly 
 chat when the day's toil w^as done, were a mute 
 protest against the unutterable foolishness which 
 kept people who had the same tastes and the 
 same pursuits from fraternizing to any appreciable 
 extent, or even exchanging the simple courtesies 
 of acquaintance, because one of them performed 
 his religious duties in a church set apart 
 for that purpose by the bishop of the diocese, 
 and the other worshipped the same God in a 
 building whose only consecration was the devout, 
 earnest breathing of man's spiritual aspirations 
 there. But these things were so, and would 
 doubtless remain so until the Millennium, so 
 VOL. r. r
 
 Q6 Alecs Bride. 
 
 much preached of in some of the popular 
 churches, arrivedj bringing with it clearer light 
 and a more loving spirit. 
 
 Apart from its hoar of antiquity and the 
 great reputation for learning which in by-gone 
 years had made it the trysting-place of some of 
 England's storied names, Ulphusby was an un- 
 interesting city, especially for anyone who ap- 
 preciated a stirring life. For, indeed there 
 w^as very little life astir in those narrow, quiet 
 streets, where sometimes at midday scarce a 
 footfall, save of some passing student, broke their 
 academic hush. As for public gaieties, they 
 were few and far between. The county families 
 got up a ball now and then, and a few enter- 
 prising people tried to raise an annual flower- 
 show, which only survived its second birthday ; 
 and at very rare intervals a concert was given 
 by a company of artists, who had nothing else
 
 Alecs Bride. 67 
 
 to do, and who, passinoj through the place on 
 their way to some larger town, tried to en- 
 liven it for an hour or two with the concord 
 of sweet sounds. A very mild undemon- 
 strative fair, held once a year, was the 
 only entertainment upon which the common 
 people could confidently reckon. It came and 
 went without much outward manifestation, 
 save a stall or two of apples and ginger-bread 
 in the market-place, and sometimes a penny 
 peep-show or wax-work exhibition, pitched, by 
 permission of the Mayor and corporation, on a 
 spare scrap of ground, at a respectful distance 
 from the city. In addition to this annual epi- 
 sode of dissipation, which was duly registered 
 in the almanacks, an unexpected windfall 
 of excitement visited the place sometimes in 
 the shape of peripatetic giants and dwarfs, or 
 panoramas unequalled for splendour and mag- 
 
 f2
 
 68 Alecs Bride. 
 
 nificence, and dissolving views "on an unpre- 
 cedented scale of grandeur," as the placards 
 said, although the people who went to see the 
 exhibitions themselves never could exactly bear 
 witness to the correctness of the statement. 
 That might be, however, because their ideas of 
 splendour and magnificence were too great ever 
 to be realised. 
 
 Lecturers fought shy of the place. There 
 were very seldom any "courses" delivered in 
 those masty public rooms, whose proprietors 
 reaped so painfully small a profit from the let- 
 ting of them to itinerant improvers of the 
 public mind. And the reputation of the city for 
 chronic stupor, with its almost proverbial ter- 
 ror of anything that was not in the highest 
 degree respectable, effectually preserved it from 
 those periodic incursions of electro -biologists, 
 astronomical, geological, ethnological, and philo-
 
 Alecs Bride. 69 
 
 sophical orators, whose prelections paid them 
 so well in other places. 
 
 Somebody unshadowed by church patronage, 
 unintroduced by any of the leadincr people of 
 the city, had once had the audacity to attempt 
 a course of six lectures on the rise and progress 
 of civilisation among the Caucasian tribes ; 
 but the attempt proved a signal failure, no 
 one but the reporter of the weekly paper, two 
 or three elderly ladies and a policeman, who 
 thought that possibly he might be called upon 
 to keep order, being present. Ulphusby did 
 not approve of indiscriminate entertainment. 
 It liked its lectures to be provided for it under 
 the patronage of the Dean and Chapter, and 
 even the common people attended a set of dis- 
 solving views with more satisfaction if it could 
 be announced upon the bills that a Canon or 
 an Archdeacon would honour the performance 
 with his presence.
 
 70 Alec's Bride. 
 
 Of course the chief interest of the city gathered 
 round the Cathedral. It was not an imposing 
 building externally — time, damp, and the un- 
 sparing hand of the Protectorate soldiers having 
 done much to destroy what little architectural 
 beauty it had originally possessed. Still there 
 was a grave, grey grandeur about it, as it 
 towered there high over all the other buildings 
 of the place, looking down upon them with its 
 memories of nigh a thousand years. 
 
 The very scars and blemishes on its battered 
 front seemed like way marks of the people's 
 history — rough, terrible notches cut by fire and 
 sword, and cannon balls, in those rude times 
 when men could only thus tell out the restless 
 spirit which chafed within them. Here a charge 
 from Cromwell's men had carried away an airy 
 pinnacle ; and there a fire, kindled by some 
 Scottish raiders, had gnawed down the fair
 
 Alecs Bride. 71 
 
 proportions of some graceful archway ; and 
 many a crumbling niche, and headless statue, 
 and mutilated piece of diaper work, told of the 
 misguided zeal which had sought thus to mar 
 what it was not strong euougli to destroy. 
 
 Within, all was very quiet and peaceful. 
 The hand of the spoiler had onlj' touched that 
 old Cathedral, as the hand of the scoffer touches 
 truth, to bring out more of its exceeding preci- 
 ousness and beauty. For the rude Protectorate 
 soldiers, housing themselves here, striking w^ith 
 their spears the clustered columns, had broken 
 off the outer coating, and revealed the rich 
 polished marble underneath; and in some shrine 
 of saint or virgin the same violent hands, in- 
 tending to destroy, had delved upon the pave- 
 ment, knocking up here and there fragments 
 of coloured marble, which hinted of fair designs 
 liidden away under the unsightly rough
 
 72 Alecs Bride. 
 
 slabs which had been put there some time to 
 raise the floor. And tearing down the paintings 
 from the walls, they found rich tracery of diaper 
 work behind, far more beautiful than the 
 canvas they had spoiled. They thought to 
 have marred the place for ever, but they only 
 revealed its beauties to others, who, coming 
 after them, restored what had so long been 
 hidden behind the dust and accumulated rubbish 
 of centuries, waiting for touch of friend or foe 
 to bring it into view. 
 
 So now the sunlight coming through those 
 narrow lancet windows cast a glow of purple 
 and crimson upon clustered shafts of dark 
 polished marble, and lit up the graven legend 
 on some saintly shrine, and made a trail of 
 glory as it passed over tesselated pavement, 
 wrought in many a quaint device of cross and 
 trefoil. And it lingered lovingly, too, before at
 
 Alecs Bride. 73 
 
 evening time it died awav, upon here and there 
 a toil-worn mechanic, or poor labouring house 
 mother, who, the long day's labour closed at 
 last, returning home way-worn and weary, or 
 leaving for a little season the war and tumult 
 of contending voices, found here what Protes- 
 tantism has too long denied to her poor un- 
 taught, uncherished children, a place where they 
 may pray to their Father in secret ; where, the 
 door being shut, as it never can be in their 
 crowded, strifeful homes, between them and the 
 noise of life, they may gather in their wandering 
 thoughts, and gain strength to bear up a little 
 longer the heavy burden which a divine hand 
 has laid upon them. 
 
 As might have been expected, the cream 
 of Ulphusby society was to be found in 
 the immediate neighbourhood of the Cathe- 
 dral. On its south side stood a cluster of
 
 74 ' Alecs Bride. 
 
 college buildings, the colleges of St. Ulphus 
 and St. Ninian, very weather-beaten and 
 time-worn, yet having withal an air of sombre 
 comfort, like most of the old houses in the 
 city. At a little distance, but still beneath 
 the immediate shadow of the Cathedral, beside 
 whose blackened towers its lately-restored 
 spire shone by contrast with increased re- 
 splendence, uprose the fine old church of 
 St. Chad's, appointed shrine of ritualism and 
 gentility. On the north side, protected from 
 the cutting blasts which swept across Ulphusby 
 moors b}^ a belt of magnificent elm trees, stood 
 the residences of the Cathedral magnates, ivy- 
 covered, lichen-stained houses, w^ith massive 
 oaken doors and stone-mullioned windows, and 
 grifiins and falcons and lions-couchant carved 
 upon the gates which led into their secluded 
 gardens. None of the lions looked more fierce
 
 Alecs Bride. 75 
 
 tlian that which guarded Dr. Montagu's house ; 
 and none of the Cathedral buildings looked 
 more well-to-do and pleasant than the one so 
 guarded, standing back in the midst of a quaint 
 old-fashioned garden, gorgeous now with sun- 
 flowers and dahlias, and the richly-coloured 
 blossoms of early autumn ; with its wealth of 
 vine and ivy too, climbing over buttress, and 
 oriel, and balcony, peeping with saucy freedom 
 quite into one open casement, and turning over 
 the leaves of a book which lies upon the oaken 
 window-board. It is the casement of Eoda's 
 own room, and that is her book of German 
 fairy-tales, which she has left open whilst she 
 goes and has a romp with Jeff in the garden, 
 the fit of crying having, as we prophesied, only 
 been of short continuance.
 
 76 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Tj^OR nearly sixteen years Roda Montagu had 
 lived a very happy life in that Old Deanery 
 house, close by the blackened towers of Ulphus- 
 by Minster. True, she had her Uttle breezes 
 and thunder-storms sometimes, as every girl 
 must, who is blessed with an abundance of 
 health and spirits, a loving heart, a warm tem- 
 per, and a strong will ; all of which providential 
 blessings Roda possessed in an unusual degree ; 
 but these only cleared the atmosphere, and made 
 it a better medium for the sunshine which came 
 afterwards. 
 
 Perhaps some people may object to a warm
 
 Alecs Bride. 77 
 
 temper and a strong will being classed under 
 the head of blessings, especially providential 
 blessings, they being popularly supposed to de- 
 tract from, rather than add to, the happiness or 
 even convenience of any life of which they form 
 an integral part. Still, they are blessings, al- 
 though, perhaps at the time they come into 
 vigorous action, blessings in disguise. For a 
 warm temper which fires up and burns out its 
 own rubbish, and then lets the ashes be swept 
 away, leaving the fireside clean and bright, is 
 decidedly better for all purposes of home peace, 
 than the weary, dreary smoulderings of a sullen 
 spirit, which, like the damp fuel of some badly- 
 lighted fire, hisses, sputters, and sends out 
 volumes of choking smoke ; and finally, after 
 much coaxing, blowing, and humouring, and 
 after causing infinite uncomfortableness in the 
 house, goes out altogether, leaving behind it
 
 78 Alecs Bride. 
 
 nothing but ineffectual vexation. A strong 
 will, too, provided it be of that fine, keen metal 
 which will bend like a Damascus blade to the 
 band that touches it skilfully, yet can do its 
 work when the time comes with one clear deci- 
 sive blow, is far better for use in life's battle, 
 than the half-tempered sword which snaps in 
 the hand that is trusting to it, or the blunt, 
 harmless weapon which served so well to 
 dangle by the side in time of peace, but fails 
 its user so pitifully when there is peace no 
 longer. 
 
 But the Damascus blade may give a wound 
 too much sometimes, or, glancing aside, smite 
 where it should only dazzle ; and the clear 
 bright fire may burn out by accident something 
 more valuable than its own rubbish. And so, 
 perhaps, before Roda's work in the world was 
 done, that warm temper and that strong will of
 
 Alecs Bride. 79 
 
 hers might cause mischief both to herself and 
 others. 
 
 Up to the present time, however, they had 
 only served to give a pleasant piquancy and a 
 genial warmth — so pleasant and so genial, that 
 those who knew her best could scarcely wish 
 them other than they were. It was so pretty 
 to see her kindle up when she read or heard any 
 tale of injustice and wrong; how the light 
 would flash into her clear blue eyes, and the 
 colour deepen in her cheeks, and the little foot 
 stamp, and the little hands be clenched, as if in 
 indignant protest. And if it was a wrong that 
 she could right, or if it was a piece of injustice 
 that she could punisli, she was up and doing 
 like a little Aristides, though the wroncr misht 
 only be that of Jeff the black terrier, who was 
 bullying Lily the grey one out of her proper 
 share of breakfast from the plate by Dr.
 
 80 Alecs Bride. 
 
 Montagu's side ; and the injustice that of some 
 cowardly little urchins in the Minster Close, 
 who were cheating their companions at mar- 
 bles and pocketing more " allies" than they had 
 won fairly. So well was that championship 
 of hers recognised at last, that impetuous intoler- 
 ance of wrong, that promptitude in avenging 
 it to the utmost of her power, that the chorister 
 boys who were wont to cheat at " knuckle-down" 
 and tyrannize over their smaller companions 
 at *' tardy," always carried on these nefarious 
 practices out of sight of the Old Deanery gates, 
 or cleared off into obscure corners, when Koda's 
 quick light step was heard crossing the Close. 
 For many a confiscated ^' alley," many a one- 
 sided game summarily put a stop to, many 
 an outburst of indignant reproof, had given 
 them sufficiently practical illustration how 
 justice never lingered when the head-master's
 
 Alecs Bride. 81 
 
 young daughter had tlie administration of it. 
 
 There was one thing which Roda needed to 
 make her a truly beautiful character, and that 
 was, the discipline of some want or sorrow. 
 It would come, it would surely come, but even 
 now it had tarried longer than it does in most 
 lives. Since her mother died, and that was 
 before Roda could remember, no sickness nor 
 trouble of any kind had reached the Old Dean- 
 ery. No temporal cares, either, vexed it 
 with their daily pressure. There was no 
 need for sparing and saving, no wear and tear 
 of brain in devising schemes whereby appear- 
 ances might be kept up. There was no draining 
 away of comfort from the private home life, 
 that the outside of it — that which other people 
 could look upon — might be made more imposing, 
 that splendid entertainments might be given 
 and a good position achieved in Ulphusby 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 Alecs Bride. 
 
 society. Under Aunt Phillis's wise and loving 
 guidance everything moved on smoothly and 
 comfortably. When servants once came to 
 that house they scarcely ever went away, 
 except to be married, and then the Doctor al- 
 ways gave them their wedding breakfast and 
 some trifle of household gear to remember 
 him by. Malala, the head servant, or laundress 
 as she liked to call herself, thinking it had a 
 grander sound, became a member of the cabinet 
 in the second year of Miss C hickory's reign, 
 and always used to say when hiring time came 
 round, that she meant to stay there until some- 
 one came to fetch her away — referring to some 
 possible matrimonial change which might one day 
 take place. But as the years passed on and 
 nobody did fetch her, or as those wdio came 
 with such intentions were one by one dismissed 
 as unsuitable, Malala, like most sensible women,
 
 Alecs Bride. 83 
 
 being unwilling to throw herself away, she 
 began to be looked upon as a permanent part 
 of the establishment, and took all its interests 
 into her heart accordingly. She was a real, 
 sterling, honest woman, almost as deyoted to 
 duty as Aunt Phillis herself, and all that a 
 good servant can be in a house — few people 
 perhaps knowing how much that is — Malala 
 was in the Old Deanery. 
 
 Then, too, to make Eoda's life still happier, 
 there were no sour tempers to be kept sweet by 
 continual petting and humouring. There w^as 
 not a single person in that little household, whom, 
 to use the common phrase, it was " impossible to 
 get along wdth." If Dr. Montagu had a touch 
 of selfishness in his disposition — and he certainly 
 had — it manifested itself in that easy-goingness 
 which avoids coming into collision with anybody. 
 His notions of right and wrong w^ere by no 
 
 g2
 
 84 Alecs Bride, 
 
 means so lofty as those of his young daughter. 
 His principle was to make life a pleasant, com- 
 fortable thing ; and if, whilst doing this for him- 
 self, he also made it pleasant and comfortable 
 for others, so much the better. Many men, and 
 women too, do this sort of thing all their lives, 
 and yet get credit for being thoroughly pleasant 
 people, no one ever finding out that compact, 
 well-covered selfishness is the foundation upon 
 which they manage to build such a fair-seeming 
 structure. 
 
 Most likely Roda had not found out this de- 
 fect in her father's character. Circumstances 
 might so be ordered that she never should find 
 it out at all. She had discovered, though, that 
 if any trouble had to be taken about anything, 
 it was invariabiy taken by Aunt Phillis. But 
 then she always took it with such sunny cheer- 
 fulness, with such a ready appropriation of it
 
 Alecs Bride, 85 
 
 as her own proper portion, that a more expe- 
 rienced perception than Roda's might have failed 
 to note that there was any unselfishness in her 
 taking of it, any more than that there was selfish- 
 ness in those who left it for her to take. And 
 perhaps dear old Miss Chickory, — as every one 
 called her now, for she was beginning to be a 
 little the worse for wear, — so careful for the com- 
 fort of others, diffusing such an atmosphere of 
 peace and quietness around her, was quite as un- 
 conscious of her own self-forgetfulness as Dr. 
 Montagu, universally acknowledged to be a 
 capital good fellow, was unconscious of his self- 
 absorption. 
 
 However that might be, the Old Deanery 
 house was a thoroughly pleasant home, and 
 Roda lived a thoroughly pleasant life in it — a 
 life in which there was neither care nor thought 
 nor anxiety, no need for anything but just to
 
 86 Alecs Bride. 
 
 enjoy the days as they passed on, and to build 
 up her own little innocent castles in the air, 
 and to romp with Jeff and Lily in the great gar- 
 den ; and then at night, when the day's work, 
 such work as it was for her, was over, to lie 
 down in her warm casemented chamber, and 
 dream happy dreams, until the sweet organ 
 music of the early morning service in Ulphusby 
 Minster woke her to another day of unthinking 
 enjoyment. 
 
 No life that to discipline Miss Roda, or tone 
 down the natural eagerness and buoyancy and 
 bright untutored impatience of her young na- 
 ture. Even Aunt Phillis used to shake her 
 head sometimes, and say to herself, " This must 
 come to an end some day ;" but she only said it 
 to herself. She never talked it over with 
 Roda's papa, or tried to devise any schemes 
 whereby a little wholesome bitterness might be
 
 Alec s Bride. 87 
 
 brought into a cup which now only held the 
 sweet. She did not, like some over-wise people, 
 seek to check the sparkle of the young girl's 
 joyfulness with a perpetual reminder of some- 
 thing mysteriously dreadful looming before her 
 in the untried years of life. She never said, 
 when Koda's laugh rang out so merrily through 
 the old rooms, " Ah ! well, wait a few years, and 
 
 then " as though present joy was a thing 
 
 that must needs be paid for by future sorrow ; 
 a sort of youthful indiscretion, for which ma- 
 turer years would take their revenge, in much 
 care, and weariness, and suffering. 
 
 Aunt Phillis had a very favourite little book 
 of daily reflections, with a Latin quotation at the 
 beginning of it — 
 
 " Orandum est ut sit mens scum in corpore sano" 
 She knew nothing about the Classics herself, 
 and this sentence had often puzzled her when
 
 88 Alecs Bride. 
 
 she read the book, so one day she got Dr. 
 Montagu to translate it for her. She could not 
 remember the exact words even then ; but at all 
 events it was somethhisj about the desirableness 
 of a sound mind in a sound body. And Aunt 
 Phillis thought that such a life as Roda was 
 living now, with its freedom, both mental and 
 physical, the perfect love and confidence which 
 closed it round, the fearless unrestraint with 
 which every thought and longing of it could be 
 expressed, was the best means of producing a sound 
 mind in a sound body, and also the best educa- 
 tion for the future, whatever that future might 
 be. For a nature unfettered by anything but a 
 wise restraint from meaimess and wrong-doing — 
 which was the chief restraint Aunt Phillis 
 exercised — unwarped by prejudice, unsoured by 
 suspicion or want of love, free to grow like 
 the trees in the Old Deanery garden, with air
 
 Alecs Bride. 89 
 
 and sunshine all round it, every part springing 
 outward to the light, nothing cramped, nothing 
 distorted, would not greatly fail wdien the need- 
 ful winds of trial swept over it. If it bent at 
 all, it would only bend to strike its roots more 
 firmly in the soil, not to snap and break, and 
 then measure its fair length upon the ground, 
 a pitiful eyesore to those who had tended it 
 so carefully. 
 
 Perhaps i\.unt Phillis was right.
 
 90 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1)0DA never used to trouble herself very 
 much about the postman's knock, nor did 
 she care greatly for any of the letters he 
 brought, except those from Canada ; and she only 
 looked after them because of the foreign stamps, 
 for some of the little boys at the grammar 
 school had taken the prevailing epidemic, 
 and were interceding with their friends for 
 foreign stamps as earnestly as a portionless 
 younger son intercedes for foreign appointments. 
 And she did enjoy seeing their rosy faces 
 brighten, and their eager eyes sparkle, as one 
 after another the empty spaces in their albums
 
 Alecs Bride. 91 
 
 got filled up. As for anything else, the post- 
 man might either come or not, just as he liked. 
 It was of no consequence to her. She had no 
 band of school-girl friends at a distance who 
 poured out their deathless affection through the 
 medium of violet ink and rose-coloured paper. 
 
 As yet, too, she was ignorant of that thrill of 
 sweet expectation with which a young girl looks 
 for and opens her first love letter. She had 
 read about it in story books, she had wondered 
 what it could be like, and if it would ever come 
 to her ; but out of that quiet home, in which all 
 her life had been spent, there was no other 
 world for her, no one wdiose voice, or look, 
 or smile could add anything to her happi- 
 ness, or in w^hose memory she cared very much 
 to be held. 
 
 The only letters she ever got, except w^hen 
 Aunt Phillis w-ent away into Scotland, were
 
 92 Alec's Bride. 
 
 from her two cousins in London, the only two 
 cousins she possessed ; very admirably brought 
 up young ladies, who used to write to her some- 
 times by way of composition exercise, under 
 the superintendence of their governess, giving 
 her carefully worded accounts of their studies, 
 and what books they had been reading, and 
 what lectures they had been attending, and 
 what sort of weather they had been having in 
 town for the last few days. Of course the letters 
 required answering, and the answering of them 
 was a terrible weariness to poor Koda, who never 
 attended any courses of lectures, or read books 
 that could be conveniently synopsised in a para- 
 graph or two ; and whose ideas when not flowing 
 out towards some one who loved her and cared for 
 her, were exceedingly averse to anything like 
 perspicuous arrangement. Moreover, she had the 
 notion that her cousins, who were a year or two
 
 Alecs Bride. 93 
 
 in advance of her own age, looked down upon 
 her, somewhat contemptuously, from their su- 
 perior altitude of intellectual cultivation. And 
 . indeed they did for the most part write to her 
 with that air of patronising condescension which 
 London people are apt to assume towards dwel- 
 lers in quiet country towns, and which dwellers 
 in quiet country towns in their turn assume 
 when they are writing to their friends in remote 
 rural districts. Koda did not like to be looked 
 down upon, because she thought she knew quite 
 as much as her cousins, and so wdien the time 
 came that she could no longer put off answering 
 the letters, she used to begin as far as possible 
 from the top of the first page, and also to sit 
 down to her task at a judiciously short interval 
 before dinner or tea, the summons to which, 
 when she had got as far as the middle of the third 
 page, was a reasonable excuse for concluding,
 
 94 Alec's Bride. 
 
 with affectionate reojards and apologies for not 
 saying any more at present. Then when she 
 had folded and sealed up her letters, she used to 
 give herself an impatient shake, as much as to 
 say — 
 
 "There, I've done with that plague, at any 
 rate !" 
 
 This being Roda's state of mind in respect of 
 general correspondence, she never became ex- 
 cited when the postman's scarlet collar was seen 
 at the other end of the Close ; neither did she 
 career, breathless with impatience, from the 
 farthest corner of the house when his loud 
 double knock resounded through it. And this 
 was the reason, too, why, one sunny July morn- 
 ing, when the Canadian letters were delivered, 
 she merely asked her papa to take care of the 
 stamps for her, as they had been promised to 
 little Arthur Stumps of the Grammar School more
 
 Alec's Bride. 95 
 
 than three months ago, and he would be sure to 
 ask for them next time he came to fetch clover 
 for his rabbits. Neither, when her papa began 
 to read the letter aloud, and comment upon it, 
 as he generally did upon the Canadian letters, 
 did she pay any special attention to what he 
 said. She only gathered up something about 
 the sailing of a vessel called the Rover, and 
 something else about the University of Frank- 
 fort, and then two or three disconnected scraps 
 about the pleasantness of old friendships, and 
 the reviving of early recollections. Whilst Dr. 
 Montagu was reading about the early recollec- 
 tions, there was a great scuffle outside the 
 garden-gate, caused by some little boys who 
 were cheating over hop-scotch, which scuffle 
 Roda felt herself bound to inquire into ; and by 
 the time she had rated the young miscreants for 
 their dishonesty, and scattered them to the
 
 96 Alecs Bride. 
 
 farthest corner of the Close, the letter and its 
 contents had been as effectually banished from 
 her thoughts. 
 
 It was not many days after this, that, coming 
 in out of the garden one morning, with her 
 apron full of flowers which she had been gather- 
 ing for the baskets in the dining-room, and 
 dancing through the hall in her usual careless 
 fashion, sometimes singing, sometimes whistling 
 to Jeff, who was frisking round her, trying to 
 pull the flowers out of her apron, she was 
 startled as she entered the room by seeing some 
 one — a stranger, with sunburnt face and curly 
 black hair — sitting in Aunt Phillis's chair. Aunt 
 Phillis had gone to the morning service, and Dr. 
 Montagu was at the reading-room. 
 
 She had never seen him before ; a single look 
 was quite enough to convince her of that. He 
 was a very pleasant, inteUigent-looking young
 
 Alecs Bride, 97 
 
 man, of an entirely different stamp from the 
 Ulphusby students. A remark which need not 
 be considered to imply any reflection on the 
 pleasantness or intelligence of the academic 
 population, who were indeed a very gentlemanly 
 set of youths, with a proper becoming gravity 
 about them for the most part, and who would 
 have considered themselves, as well as the 
 dignity of the place, very much affronted if any 
 exception had been taken to their personal 
 appearance. But this young man, standing by 
 Aunt Phillis's chair — for he had risen when 
 Roda came in, and was preparing to say some- 
 thing for himself by way of introduction — seemed 
 to be of an entirely different style from the Ul- 
 phusby people. There w^as a slightly foreign air 
 about the cut of his dress. 
 
 The coat which he carried over his arm had 
 fur facings to it — a most needless precaution, as 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 Alec's Bride. 
 
 Roda thought, for the middle of July ; and even 
 his little black valise had an outlandish look, 
 very unlike the shiny articles one sees in re- 
 spectable English shop windows. Also, mingling 
 with his quiet gentlemanly bearing, there was a 
 certain easy freedom, almost brusquerie, which, 
 in a strictly proper place like Ulphusby, might 
 be considered as slightly out of order. 
 
 Roda, who w^as quite unaccustomed to stran- 
 gers, scarcely knew what to do or say, and the 
 young man, over whose face there had come 
 a roguish smile, evidently enjoyed her per- 
 plexity. At last she said, what, if not the most 
 correct thing that could have been said under 
 the circumstances, was certainly unimpeachable 
 so far as its veracity was concerned, 
 
 " I don't know who you are." 
 
 She looked so pretty as she said this, her 
 head just a little inclined to one side, half shyly,
 
 Alecs Bride. 99 
 
 half saucily, the rosy colour flushing up into 
 her cheeks, one round white arm gathering 
 close to her the black stuff apron filled 
 with leaves and flowers, some of which were 
 straying out over her dress. And there was 
 such a sweet hesitation in her voice as she said 
 the words. 
 
 The youth — for indeed he was scarcely more 
 than a youth, though for courtesy's sake we 
 have hitherto paid him the compliment of calling 
 him a young gentleman — broke into a merry 
 laugh as Roda gave utterance to her thoughts 
 in this simple fashion. 
 
 '^ Don't suppose you do. I come from Canada 
 west, and my name is Alec lanson." 
 
 " Oh ! very well," Roda said, not knowing 
 what else to say. 
 
 And then Alec went on — 
 
 " I've come here on my way to Frankfort, 
 
 h2
 
 100 Alec's Bride. 
 
 where I'm going to a German school to learn 
 the language, and I came to see you because 
 your father and my father are very old friends. 
 They were at college together." 
 
 Roda began to understand now. This was 
 the young man her papa had been talking of, 
 lately, as likely to come over to England for a 
 year or two. And this visit of his was doubt- 
 less what the Canadian letter had been about. 
 He could not be intending to stay very long, 
 though, for that queer-looking little black bag 
 was so very, very small. 
 
 Roda scarcely knew whether to be glad or 
 sorry for that. He looked as if he would be a 
 pleasant person to get along with, not above a 
 romp, nor too dignified for a frisk with Jeff 
 and Lily, if they should ever get to that degree 
 of friendship. She thought she should rather 
 like him to stay.
 
 Alecs Bride. 101 
 
 "But how do you know who I am?" she 
 asked, still looking at him with that questioning, 
 hesitating glance. For she was quite sure 
 she had never seen him before, and people 
 never told her that she was so remarkably like 
 her papa, that the relationship could speak 
 for itself in their faces, without any other wit- 
 ness. 
 
 " Oh ! I know you well enough," he replied,' 
 still with that roguish, merry smile. " I have 
 heard you talked about at our place ever since 
 you were ten years old, and Dr. Montagu sent 
 us a portrait of you only last time he wrote. 
 You had that frock on, with the little bows down 
 the front ; but your hair was rather tidier than 
 it is now." 
 
 Koda put up her hand involuntarily. Yes, 
 her hair was all in a mess. And that unfortu- 
 nate cob behind had almost entirely dissolved
 
 102 Alecs Bride. 
 
 into a cataract of curls. " Yes, I — I know it is 
 very untidy," she said apologetically ; " but — 
 but you know I was going to make it straight 
 again before dinner. I always make it straight 
 before dinner." 
 
 " Never you mind whether you do or not — it 
 looks very pretty as it is. And you're the little 
 girl, too, that used to cuff Jeff or Lily, I forget 
 which, when one of them wanted to get some 
 of the other's breakfast. And you come down 
 strong sometimes upon the chorister boys when 
 they cheat at marbles. I've wanted to know 
 you ever since I heard about your doing that, 
 for I hate cheating myself." 
 
 And one might have told that from the look of 
 him. Alec lanson had a frank open face, and 
 there was such a genuine unaffectedness about his 
 manners, albeit they lacked a little of the court- 
 esy of old England. Certainly any cheating
 
 Alecs Bride. 103 
 
 that got done in the world would not be helped 
 on by this young Canadian. 
 
 Roda was just thinking w^hat she should say 
 next, and wondering whether she should ring 
 the bell and have luncheon brought in, as she 
 could not tell how long he had been travelling, 
 when Dr. Montagu came into the room, and 
 there was an uproarious greeting and hand- 
 shaking, under cover of which she tucked up 
 her flowers and beat a retreat to her own 
 room. 
 
 She did not make her appearance any more 
 until dinner-time, looking prettier than ever in 
 her light pink muslin frock, the dark hair, 
 which had been so untidy when Mr. lanson 
 came, brushed away and disposed in a pictur- 
 esque knot of curls at the back of her head. Per- 
 haps she had taken a little extra pains over it, 
 for Malala had often told her that when stran-
 
 104 Alec's Bride. 
 
 gers came to the house she ought to try and 
 make herself look like a Christian. It was a 
 shame to be seen, Malala said, the way her hair 
 used to hang about her neck, not fit for a decent 
 person to sit down in the room w^ith. She 
 ought to wear it in a net like the rest of girls, 
 or else have it properly pinned up, so that it 
 couldn't tumble down over her frocks, making 
 them such a sight as never was. 
 
 "Malala, will it do?" said Eoda anxiously, 
 peeping into the still-room as she came down- 
 stairs to dinner. *' I can't make it look any 
 better than this, and I'm sure I've done the best 
 I could." 
 
 Malala expressed her approbation, though 
 in a somewhat modified form. She loved her 
 master's daughter very dearly, but she clung to 
 the old-fashioned notion that praise and plum- 
 pudding are bad things for children ; and as she
 
 Alecs Bride, 105 
 
 still looked upon Roda in the light of a child, 
 she considered it her duty to administer the 
 praise accordingly. As for the pudding, that 
 was not always under her control, or Roda 
 would not have got so much as she did some- 
 times. 
 
 Dr. Montagu, who, in the excitement of un- 
 expectedly meeting the son of his old friend, 
 had not noticed that Roda was in the room 
 when he came home, introduced them formally 
 to each other now ; and Alec, nothing loth, gave 
 the little hand a real Canadian grip, getting from 
 Roda a second smile, not quite so shy this time, 
 but rather saucy still, and so bright, that it fixed 
 her at once and for ever in his good graces as 
 one of the prettiest, most bewitching little Eng- 
 lish girls he had ever seen, with no nonsense 
 about her at all, and no affectation — so different 
 from the stuck-up young ladies of New York, who
 
 106 Alecs Bride, 
 
 seemed to pass from cliildren into women at a 
 single bound — never lingering, like this little 
 Eoda, on the sweet border-land of girlhood ; or 
 blending, as she did, a maiden's coy grace with all 
 the frank fearlessness of youth. And as Roda, 
 whilst he thought thus of her, was mentally 
 determining that he was just the sort of person 
 to get along nicely with, there was every pros- 
 pect of their becoming good friends, if only 
 Alec stayed long enough for that desirable end 
 to be brought about. 
 
 But as the young Canadian held that little 
 hand in his, and looked down into the bright 
 girlish face, he was only thinking what a pretty 
 plaything Roda would be, how pleasantly she 
 would help to wile away any time that he might 
 have to spend at the Old Deanery. And as 
 Roda settled in her own mind that he was a 
 very nice person to get along with, she was just
 
 Alecs Bride. 107 
 
 putting him in the same category as Jeff and 
 Lily, and old Fits, the gardener, and look- 
 ing forward to enjoying his society in the same 
 way as she enjoyed theirs. So that the friend- 
 ship was not likely to lead to any very perilous 
 results, even if Alec did stay long enough for it 
 to become firmly established. 
 
 Whilst the gentlemen were sitting together 
 over their wine. Dr. Montagu found that the 
 Frankfort College, to which young Alec was 
 going for the purpose of studying French and 
 German, before returning to Ulphusby for a 
 year's hard work under the professors there, 
 would not open until the beginning of October, 
 and this interval of nearly three months Alec 
 had to dispose of as best he could. When he 
 set sail from Xew York in the Rover ^ he ex- 
 pected to have just touched at the old country, 
 journeyed to one or two of its most interesting
 
 108 Alec's Bride. 
 
 shrines, seen some of his father's friends, and 
 then passed on at once to Frankfort, there to 
 spend a couple of years, and get as many prizes 
 as were within his reach. But when he got to 
 London, letters were waiting for him there 
 which put off the commencement of his Conti- 
 nental course for three months, owing to some 
 changes in the Frankfort College. So instead 
 of setting to work at once. Alec lanson found 
 himself, at the mature age of nineteen, with a 
 couple of hundred pounds to his credit at the 
 bank, and two or three months of complete idle- 
 ness before him — months in which he might do 
 just as he liked, take up with any sort of mis- 
 chief, or folly, or worse, which happened to 
 come in his way, and perhaps do for himself 
 what no collegiate or university course could 
 ever undo. 
 
 In this somewhat perilous position he took the
 
 Alecs Bride. 109 
 
 wisest step that could be taken. He came to 
 Ulphusby, to see his father's oldest friend, Dr. 
 Montagu, intending to stay a few days with 
 him, and then spend the rest of his spare time 
 in some quiet out-of-the-way place, rubbing up 
 his knowledge of French and German, and in 
 various ways preparing himself for more rapid 
 progress when he was once fairly afloat. 
 
 But Dr. Montagu was a kind-hearted man, a 
 man who had seen a good deal of the world, too, 
 and perhaps had himself stumbled over some of 
 the snares and traps which are so freely set for 
 the young and inexperienced. He knew wdiat 
 a perilous thing it is for a youth to be left alone 
 in a land of strangers, with money and time at 
 his command, and no work to do — at least, no 
 work for the doing of which he is held respon- 
 sible to any superior authority. And so, finding 
 this to be Alec's position, he told him he was
 
 110 Alecs Bride. 
 
 welcome to make himself at home at the Old 
 Deanery until such time as he could go forward 
 to Frankfort, and place himself under the pro- 
 fessors there at the opening of the session. 
 
 " It's for your father's sake, Alec," he said, 
 laying his hand on the young man's shoulder. 
 " I should ill repay his goodness to me if I left 
 his son without a home when I had one to offer 
 him. So com.e along here, if you can put up 
 with a set of plain people like ourselves. We 
 shall make no stranger of you, but you can do 
 just as you like, and rub up your French and 
 German yonder in my study. I don't do much 
 in it myself now, for I'm getting past the time 
 for that sort of thing. I can appreciate an easy 
 chair and a glass of old port after dinner much 
 better than those Latin poets that your father 
 and I used to go into such raptures over when 
 we were both lads together like you. Just
 
 Alecs Bride, 111 
 
 make yourself comfortable with us, as long as 
 you can, and when you get tired of us, why, we 
 shall part friends just the same. I never find 
 fault with anybody for getting tired of a place, 
 for I should get tired of it myself, I daresay, if 
 my bread and cheese wasn't connected with 
 it." 
 
 Alec, sipping wine and disposing of straw- 
 berries in the doctor's handsomely furnished 
 dining-room, thought there would not be much 
 difficulty in making himself comfortable there 
 for an indefinite length of time. And as for 
 getting tired, — when he glanced through the 
 open doorway across the hall to Dr. Montagu's 
 study, with its loaded shelves, bulky portfolios, 
 and capacious easy-chairs, and heard from some 
 other room not far off, a sweet voice, Roda's voice, 
 caroUing a merry English ballad, — he was quite 
 sure that getting tired of the Old Deaneiy house
 
 112 Alec's Bride. 
 
 was the very last thing in the world that he 
 should think of doing. 
 
 When the gentlemen joined the adies in the 
 drawing-room, Dr. Montagu told Aunt Phillis 
 of the arrangement he had made with Alec. 
 He was to write up to London for his port- 
 manteau and books, and then settle down 
 there in the Minster Close, just like one of 
 themselves, no fuss or difference of any kind 
 being made on his account, until such time as 
 the Frankfort College opened, or he got tired of 
 his quarters. 
 
 " Which, if you're the sensible fellow I take 
 you to be. Alec," said the doctor, " won't happen 
 just yet. I can tell you that being anywhere 
 where you have got an Aunt Phillis to look 
 after you, and take care of you, is wonderfully 
 better than knocking about in those dreary 
 London lodgings, where nobody knows any-
 
 Alecs Bride. 113 
 
 thing about you, or wants to know it either, and 
 where you never find out what personal comforts 
 mean, except by the loss of them. I've known 
 a little of that sort of thing in my young days, 
 but I shouldn't like to try it again. Should I, 
 Aunt PhiUis r 
 
 And the good Doctor, rubbing his hands and 
 stretching out his portly form on the sofa, looked 
 across to his sister-in-law with the happy con- 
 tented air of a man whose troubles lie in the 
 past, whose Hfe is filled with all the bliss that 
 personal comforts and good dinners, and unex- 
 ceptional digestive organs can give. 
 
 Aunt Phillis smiled. Her kindly nature loved 
 a little praise, now and then. Not that she 
 would not have laboured to do her duty just as 
 well without it, but to know that she was 
 making other people happy was all that she 
 needed for happiness of her own. And now 
 VOL. I. I
 
 4 
 
 114 Alecs Bride. 
 
 that warm motherly heart was going to have 
 someone else to spend its overflow of love upon. 
 Instead of only two, there would be three for 
 her to take care of, and think for, and watch 
 over. If Alec had any lingering doubt before 
 of his welcome to the Old Deanery, it all passed 
 away when he looked into Aunt Phillis's face, 
 and saw her bright smile, and heard the few, 
 but thoroughly hearty and comfortable words 
 with which she seconded her brother-in-law's 
 invitation that this young stranger should make 
 his home with them for the present. 
 
 So he stayed. Yet if Dr. Montagu had seen 
 the quick flash of undisguised pleasure which 
 sparkled in Roda's eyes as the arrangement 
 was settled and compacted, he might have 
 thought that a two months' residence at the Old 
 Deanery, under present circumstances, had 
 perils of its own, as real, though not so fatal,
 
 Alecs Bride, 115 
 
 perhaps, to his young friend's prospects in 
 life, as a lonely and unprotected sojourn amidst 
 the allurements of the great world of London. 
 
 I2
 
 116 
 
 CHAPTEK YII. 
 
 TN the course of a day or two, Alec was com- 
 pletely domesticated in his new quarters. 
 The Doctor and he had had a cosy crack in the 
 study over books, and professors, and college 
 routine. He had told Aunt Phillis all about 
 his mother and sisters — how lonely he had 
 felt when he said good-bye to them a month 
 ago, and how it was almost more than he could 
 do to keep from making a fool of himself when 
 the cars began to move, and he lost sight of 
 their waving hands, and realised for the first 
 time that he was adrift in the world, with no
 
 Alecs Bride. 117 
 
 one to speak a kind word to him, or care how he 
 got along. 
 
 But he meant to study so hard at Frankfort 
 and get such lots of prizes and medals, and then 
 go home and make them all so proud of him. 
 He had some friends in the Government, who, 
 if he passed his examination well, would use 
 their influence to get him some colonial appoint- 
 ment, most likely in Canada ; and so who could 
 tell but that in process of time he might be Go- 
 vernor-General there, the great man of the 
 family ? At any rate he meant to try for it. 
 There was nothing like setting a good high 
 standard before you, for even if you did not 
 quite reach it, you got all the benefit of the 
 trial. But he did mean to reach his standard, 
 if hard work and steady perseverance could 
 reach it. He had everything on his side, youth 
 and health, and plenty of pluck, and as much
 
 118 Alec's Bride. 
 
 ability as most lads of his age — not to be too 
 boastful about it — and the real will to work, 
 which after all was the best thing for anyone 
 who wanted to get on. It was no use having 
 everything else if a lad had not the will to work 
 and strive and push his way up to something 
 like a place in the world. 
 
 All this Alec said to Aunt Phillis on the 
 evening of his first day at the Old Deanery, as 
 they two sat in the drawing-room together. Dr. 
 Montagu having gone to play chess with one of 
 the professors. Aunt Phillis listened with lov- 
 ing patience. She had heard a good deal of 
 that sort of thing from young men who had 
 come to Ulphusby College, intending to shine as 
 lights in the world, and then, instead of doing so, 
 had subsided into the merest farthing-candle 
 glimmer, or drifted altogether into the dim twi- 
 light of oblivion. But it was not in her kindly.
 
 Alecs Bride. 119 
 
 benevolent heart to put an extinguisher on 
 Alec's aspirations, by telling him that they were 
 likely to come to any such unheroic end. He 
 would want all his energy and all his brightness 
 and all his hope in the race for success. No 
 need to trammel his footsteps in the very outset 
 of it, by telling him how one had stumbled and 
 another had fallen, and another had wearied, 
 and another fainted, all long before the prize 
 was gained. Instead, she heai'd what he had 
 to say, and encouraged him to go on as he had 
 begun; and gave him her good wishes so earnest- 
 ly, that Alec took her into his heart and deter- 
 mined to hold her there for ever, as one of the 
 brightest, kindest, most motherly old ladies he 
 had ever known. 
 
 He and Roda had also made friends with 
 each other. The day after he came they ex- 
 plored every nook and corner of the big old-
 
 120 Alecs Bride. 
 
 fashioned garden. She had shown him the 
 thrush's nest, and the leafless apple-tree stump 
 where at sundown the blackbird came to sing. 
 She had made him climb, at the imminent 
 risk of his new coat, to the top of one of the 
 old stone buttresses by the garden wall, and there 
 shown him a hole made by a cannon ball, more 
 than two hundred years ago, where, that very 
 Spring, putting in her hand by chance to look 
 for some houseleek, she had felt, to her great 
 surprise and delight, five little smooth round 
 eggs ; and she told him how, when the young 
 birds were hatched, she had fed them every 
 morning with bread crumbs soaked in milk, 
 their mother sitting on the top of the wall, not 
 looking a bit frightened. Because, of course, 
 Eoda said, it knew well enough that she did 
 not want to do them any harm. All the birds 
 in the garden knew that. And he had been
 
 Alecs Bride, 121 
 
 introduced to Jeff and Lily, and had learned 
 the peculiar characters of each, with the num- 
 ber of times a week that Jeff used to tiy and cheat 
 Lily out of her proper share of breakfast. Also 
 she had told him that she should be sixteen 
 next November ; in return for which valuable 
 piece of information he informed her that he 
 had completed his nineteenth year last Christmas, 
 and was very sorry that he should not be at 
 home to celebrate his coming of age. After 
 that, they agreed that he was to call her Roda 
 instead of Miss Montagu, that being a useless 
 piece of formalism ; and she on her part was 
 to drop Mr. lanson and say Alec, because, as 
 he was going to stay several wrecks, or perhaps 
 three months — for nobody could tell exactly 
 when the Frankfort College would open — it 
 would save them both so much trouble. Be- 
 sides, Roda was such a pretty name, it seemed
 
 122 Alec's Bride, 
 
 a pity not to use it as much as possible. 
 These little preliminaries having been ar- 
 ranged to the satisfaction of both parties, Roda 
 took her new friend across to the Minster, 
 whose every nook and corner she knew as well 
 as the blackbirds' haunts in their own garden. 
 Here she showed him the quaint old carvings 
 and bosses, with the stories, some whimsical 
 enough, belonging to them ; and the shrines to 
 which, in by-gone days, pilgrims used to come 
 from all parts of the land for penance or of- 
 fering ; and the sculptured martyrs, ranged 
 side by side, with flowing robes and crowns of 
 palm, over the eastern doorway. The lancet 
 windows, too, each one telling the story of some 
 olden saint; Offerus with the child Christ 
 upon his shoulders, and Agnes with her lamb, 
 and the holy Agatha, who suffered so much 
 and endured so meekly, and Cecilia upward
 
 Alecs Bride. 123 
 
 gazing as though listening to celestial music, 
 with many another whose legend Roda could 
 remember well, for she had read them over 
 and over again from the dusty old quartos in 
 papa's study, and their faces peering down 
 upon her now from those dim old Minster win- 
 dows, seemed to her like the faces of friends. 
 She used to wonder sometimes if there were 
 any saints in the world now, any people who 
 could suffer and be patient and conquer and 
 forgive, and dying at last, win such glorious 
 crowned rest as those Agathas and Cecilias 
 and Christophers had done. Or were the times 
 quite gone by for saints and martyrs, and was 
 there nothing left now for those to do whose 
 love was as great and whose faith as lofty as 
 theirs ? 
 
 Alec listened to everything she said, not 
 caring a whit whether it were true or not. The
 
 124 Alec's Bride. 
 
 education which his father had given him out 
 there in the far West, had not gone deeply into 
 ecclesiastical lore, and he was rather disposed 
 to place these quaintly beautiful legends side 
 by side with the stories of Cinderella and Jack 
 the Giant-Killer and Bluebeard, and other 
 pleasant fictions which his mother used to 
 recount when he was a little boy, always how- 
 ever bidding him run away and play when the 
 tale was done and the important question had to 
 be put — 
 
 *^ But is it true, mamma?" 
 
 But whether those curious legends were true 
 or not. Alec was quite sure that the voice which 
 repeated them was the sweetest voice he had ever 
 heard; and no Canadian beauty or New York 
 belle in all her glory of lace and streamers 
 and flowers, had ever seemed to him half so 
 beautiful as this little eager, enthusiastic child,
 
 Alec's Bride. 125 
 
 charming him so much because she was only 
 a child — who kept looking up into his face with 
 her oft recurring "you know," and "you re- 
 member," and " don't you recollect ?" as she 
 ran over her romantic legends or gracefully im- 
 possible stories, taking it so for granted that 
 he knew all about them, and only wanted just 
 a reminder from her Xo bring them all back to 
 him. 
 
 If Roda had been an experienced tactician, 
 instead of the simple untutored Httle girl she 
 was, she could not have won Alec's favour better 
 than by this unconscious taking for granted 
 that he knew all about everything. For though 
 he by no means wanted to make her believe 
 that he did know all about everything — for that 
 would have been a very long way from the 
 real state of the case — still it was very flattering 
 to his masculine vanity to feel that she assumed
 
 126 Alecs Bride. 
 
 the fact without his even taking the trouble 
 to try to impress it upon her. And every man 
 likes to feel himself superior to the woman or 
 girl or child who is amusing him. It is very 
 natural and abundantly proper that he should 
 do so. For it takes away all the romance from 
 the relation between a man and a woman when 
 the man begins to find out that he can no longer 
 pour out of his full vessel into her empty one, 
 when the humiliating consciousness first dawns 
 upon him that her vessel is, if anything, the 
 fuller of the two, and not because he has filled 
 it, either. A w^oman is completely charming 
 to some men, only so long as she can be looked 
 down upon. She is very much like those dainty 
 little glass letter-weights whose interior pretti- 
 ness is all lost by being lifted to a level with 
 the eye. It is only when the person who admires 
 them holds them low enough, that he can see
 
 Alecs Bride. 127 
 
 their beauty. Alec would have been very in- 
 dignant if any one had accused him of looking 
 at Roda or any other woman in the light of a 
 glass letter-weight, a mere toy or plaything. 
 Still he liked to feel that she was not quite 
 equal to himself. And he liked to feel that 
 she felt it too. Indeed, this was the principal 
 part of the pleasantness. For what is the use 
 of knowing your own superiority if you are 
 the only person who knows it, or what is the 
 use of having a crown if nobody recognizes your 
 right to put it on ? 
 
 Then, in return for this information about the 
 saints and martyrs, and Roda's little confi- 
 dences concerning her daily life — the scrapes 
 she got into with Fits the gardener for running 
 over the flower-beds, and the trouble she had 
 sometimes with Monsieur Marony when her 
 French exercises were not correct, or she could
 
 128 Alecs Bride, 
 
 not go through her verbs properly — Alec told 
 her a little of his own life in that far-off 
 Canadian settlement ; how they — that is, he and 
 his elder brother — use to go out hunting bisons 
 and buffaloes, sometimes encountering bands of 
 red Indians with their tomahawks and scalping 
 knives, huge, sturdy-limbed men some of them, 
 that could have taken Roda and flung her 
 right away, just as easily as he could toss Jeff 
 or Lily across the garden ; others, little mean 
 men with copper-coloured faces, and malicious 
 eyes, and sneaking ways, men who had knives 
 hidden under their blankets, ready to draw 
 out and scalp anyone who did not happen 
 to be well enough armed to resist them. He 
 and some young fellows, friends of his, had 
 once happened to come upon a gang of them, 
 and it was by the merest chance that they did 
 not get dragged away to have their brains
 
 Alec's Bride, 129 
 
 beaten out, and their skins made into moccassins, 
 and their scalps hung up as ornaments in the red 
 men's wigwams. 
 
 " In which case, Roda," said Alec, wdth an 
 air of supreme unconcern, as if the chance, 
 whichever way it went, had not been of the 
 slightest moment — " in wdiich case I should 
 never have troubled you by coming and staying 
 two months at the Old Deanery." 
 
 Roda felt rather queer at the thought of 
 Alec's skin being made into moccassins, and his 
 curly black hair being hung up for an orna- 
 ment in some red man's hut, and she mentally 
 resolved to hate the sneaking tribes of red 
 Indians down to the very latest day of her 
 existence. But would Alec tell her something 
 more about these wonderful people and their 
 ways ? She had never heard anything like it 
 in all her life. To sit there by Alec's side on 
 TOL. I. K
 
 130 Alecs Bride. 
 
 one of the old Minster tombs, and hear such 
 things as these from some one who had actually 
 seen them all for himself, was ten times better 
 than all the story-books and fairy tales in Ul- 
 phusby Library. 
 
 So Alec, nothing loth — for he had not known 
 anything so pleasant for a long time as to have 
 that bright eager little face upturned to him, 
 and to watch its changing look of wonder and 
 delight — went on to tell her about the Indian 
 squaws, very ugly women, he said, as different 
 as could be from Roda, with wizened faces, and 
 high cheek bones, and babies as ugly as them- 
 selves, strapped to pieces of board upon their 
 backs. And how the men used to make these 
 squaws do all the work, drive the stakes into 
 the ground for the wigwams, and fetch wood 
 and water, and dig up roots out of the forests, 
 and get the food ready for them, and stand by
 
 Alecs Bride. 131 
 
 to wait upon them whilst they ate it. And 
 then, when they w^re going to a fresh place, 
 how these great, tall, red-skinned fellows ex- 
 pected the squaws to take down the tent and get 
 up the stakes, and carry them, with the blankets 
 and babies too, on their backs, whilst they just 
 lounged along and smoked their pipes. He 
 said he had once gone out hunting, and found 
 one of these poor creatures slaving away under 
 a great load almost big enough for a horse, 
 and he had offered to help her with it, but she 
 dare not let him, because if her husband 
 had happened to see them he would have 
 beaten, and perhaps killed her, for letting a man 
 do any of her work. 
 
 " Just think of that, Eoda. And here, you 
 know, if you belonged to me, I should not so 
 much as let you put out your fingers to do any- 
 thing that I could do for you — no, I'm sure I 
 
 k2
 
 132 Alecs Bride. 
 
 wouldn't. I hate to see a woman doing any- 
 thing that a man ought to do for her." 
 
 Roda looked at her pretty hands and her neat 
 morning frock — for she really had tried before 
 she came down to breakfast to make herself 
 look like a Christian, as Malala said — and she 
 tried to fancy herself trudging through a North 
 American forest with a baby and a whole 
 wigwam, stakes, blankets, and everything, 
 strapped upon her shoulders. She thought she 
 should not like it at all. It was so very dif- 
 ferent to being an English lady, and going to 
 balls, and having people to wait upon her, and 
 pick up her glove or her handkerchief if she 
 happened to drop it. Not half so pleasant. 
 And then not to be allowed to sit down to 
 dinner until the gentlemen — they were very 
 funny gentlemen, though — had had as much as 
 they wanted, and perhaps there was scarcely
 
 Alecs Bride. 133 
 
 anything left for the poor squaws. Xo wonder 
 there was so much said about sending mis- 
 sionaries out to such people as the red Indians ; 
 and no wonder that Jane Taylor, who had 
 doubtless heard all about them, w^rote that pretty 
 little hymn that Aunt Phillls had taught her 
 so many years ago — 
 
 " I thank the goodness and the grace." 
 
 Certainly it was a great mercy to be a happy 
 English child in a Christian land, if that was 
 the way people did in lands that were not 
 Christian. But then how kind it was of Alec 
 to offer to help the poor squaw with that load 
 of things, and what a rude cowardly fellow her 
 husband must have been to let her carry it. 
 And to think that Alec had really seen all this, 
 and watched the squaws putting up the huts, 
 and nearli/ had the back of his head cut off by a
 
 134 Alecs Bride, 
 
 scalping knife, and come upon the Indians at 
 their war dance, and looked on whilst they 
 danced and jumped, and shrieked in that horri- 
 ble way. She was quite sure it would have 
 frightened her to death, only to have heard the 
 noise they made; and yet Alec had been amongst 
 them and talked to them, and did not seem to 
 care anything about it. How very brave he 
 must be, quite a sort of hero, and yet he was 
 so kind and pleasant, and good-tempered with 
 it all. So very, veri/ different from the stupid 
 Ulphusby people, who seemed to spend all their 
 time in studying the dead languages, and 
 who had no more fun or mischief in them 
 than one of those old gurgoyles that stuck out 
 of the Minster. 
 
 Roda was quite right there. Alec's life, 
 touched as it had been here and there with 
 daring and adventure spent for the most part
 
 Alecs Bride. 135 
 
 in a new, •uncultured country, amidst wild peo- 
 ple and wilder scenery, had stripped away from 
 him, or rather had prevented him from ever 
 taking to himself at all, that strict garb of con- 
 ventional propriety which, in a thoroughly- 
 educated, long-established place like the ca- 
 thedral and collegiate town of Ulphusby, was 
 almost as needful to a gentleman who wished 
 to belong to good society, as his actual broad- 
 cloth or kerseymere. It had made him a man 
 in real doing and daring, long before his years 
 had given him a right to the privileges and 
 immunities of manhood. And the appearance 
 of a man too ; for nobody, looking on his 
 sturdy, compact build and sunburnt face, 
 already fringed with beard and moustache, 
 would have thought that he was a lad of 
 nineteen, younger by two or three years than 
 the slim, smooth-chinned students who, with
 
 136 Alecs Bride, 
 
 their black stuff gowns and tasselled caps, 
 loitered about in the college quadrangles, or 
 assembled morning by morning in the Pro- 
 fessor's rooms. 
 
 That wild adventurous life in the far West 
 had not quite obscured the gentleman in him, 
 though. From his father and mother and 
 sisters, who had carried into their Canadian 
 home that true refinement of mind and polish 
 of manner which are independent of outward 
 circumstances, he had learned enough to prevent 
 even the most fastidious English society from 
 being ashamed of him. Under all his brus- 
 querie and off-handedness there shone out the 
 true metal of good breeding. In his speech, 
 manner, and bearing there might still be 
 noticed that ease and courtesy which only come 
 to any man or woman like the colour and per- 
 fume to a rose, from far back years and genera-
 
 Alecs Bride, 137 
 
 tions of careful culture. Alec had the chivalry 
 of noble ancestry about him, spite of his sun- 
 burnt face, his touch of Canadian roughness, 
 and the informality of his general address. 
 The very best people in Ulphusby, using that 
 adjective in its relation to social position, would 
 never need to tolerate young lanson, or make 
 allowances for him, as one unaccustomed to 
 the rites and ceremonies of their sacred en- 
 closure. 
 
 But if Alec had the darins; and adventurous 
 spirit of a man, the playfulness of boyhood 
 lingered about him still. And a boy's love of 
 teasing, too, as Eoda by-and-by found out to 
 her cost. For things did not always go on so 
 smoothly as during that first morning's chat 
 in Ulphusby Minster. The little stream of 
 their friendship, starting its course on the 
 sunny hill-top of perfect confidence and good-
 
 138 Alecs Bride. 
 
 will, had to fret over many a boulder and 
 water-break, and have its silver sheen marred 
 by many an overhanging crag before it widened 
 out into — 
 
 But what it widened into at last is not for us 
 to inquire now.
 
 139 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 rFHE first few days of Alec's visit brought 
 nothing but sunshine and laughter to 
 the Old Deanery. Both Dr. Montagu and 
 Aunt Phillis thought, as indeed they had 
 every reason to think quite on to the close of 
 his stay with them, that young lanson was the 
 brightest, pleasantest, most genial guest they 
 had ever entertained. So full of fun, and 
 sprightliness, and merriment, so thoroughly 
 good-tempered and well-disposed, so free from 
 all those stuck-up affected ways by which youths 
 just verging into manhood sometimes still
 
 140 Alec's Bride, 
 
 farther aggravate that unavoidably disagreeable 
 stage of their progress. 
 
 Indeed, Dr. Montagu used sometimes to think 
 that, if both of them had been half-a-dozen 
 years older, there was no one to whom he could 
 so willingly have given his little Roda as to 
 this Alec, the son of his earliest, best-loved 
 friend. There was that in him which would 
 make a real true man, when experience had 
 toned down that overflow of self-confidence, 
 and a little wholesome discipline had gathered 
 into wise restraint all that careless wealth of 
 power, purpose, and daring. For Dr. Mon- 
 tagu believed in discipline for others, though he 
 had very little notion of appropriating any of it 
 to his own use. 
 
 But at sixteen and nineteen, the doctor said 
 to himself, boys and girls were too young to 
 think of anything of that sort ; and he did not
 
 Alec's Bride. 141 
 
 believe that Roda, as much behind her years in 
 womanhood as Alec was beyond his in manhood, 
 had ever as yet given lodgment in her harum- 
 scarum little brain to any thought of a possible 
 future outside the walls of that old home in 
 which life hitherto had been made for her such 
 a thoroughly happy, joyous thing. 
 
 Dr. Montagu might be right in that suppo- 
 sition of his, or he might be wrong. Girls 
 who have been left to develop after their own 
 natural, unrestrained fashions, as Roda had, 
 often take up these thoughts earlier than other 
 people think they do, though they take them up 
 with a mute, wondering reverence, and hide 
 them far away down in their innocent hearts, 
 there to become powerful for purity and noble- 
 ness, and perhaps suffering ; instead of chatter- 
 ing over them as girls do who are forced out 
 over-soon into social life, until all the dehcate
 
 142 Alecs Bride. 
 
 bloom is rubbed away from them, or, worse still, 
 the decay of a premature ripeness destroys 
 their influeuce for any thin oj but evil. 
 
 However that might be, or however joyously 
 Koda's life might have flowed on up to the pre- 
 sent time, she was certainly a great deal happier 
 after Alec lanson came. She had never had such 
 a merry playfellow, she had never heard such 
 wonderful stories, she had never got such delight- 
 ful romps in the garden — for even Jeff and Lily 
 seemed to find out that the new comer had a 
 talent for being frisky, and could play tricks 
 with them better than anyone else. The days 
 had never passed so quickly, or brought her so 
 much of real fun and merriment, until Alec 
 had been at the Old Deanery a little more 
 than a week, and the first slight barriers of 
 restraint had got fairly broken down between 
 them. Then he be2;an to manifest that uncon-
 
 Alecs Bride. * 143 
 
 querable passion for teasing, that mischievous 
 propensity for practical jokes, which, out in 
 Canada had made him such a loveable plague 
 to his sisters, and such an inveterate nuisance 
 to a few of the neighbouring back-woodsmen, 
 who declared that if it had not been for his 
 bright merry face and winning ways, which, 
 somehow or other, always got round over 
 them, they would have hauled him up times 
 without number before his father, and liad him 
 soundly chastised for all the tricks he had 
 played upon them. 
 
 Of course he never presumed to play his 
 pranks upon Dr. Montagu or Aunt Phillis. At 
 least not to the extent of absolute provocation, 
 though even out of them he did not fail to pick 
 a little bit of fun when time and opportunity 
 served. But Roda was fair play. On her he 
 could expend all the superabundant nonsense
 
 144 Alecs Bride. 
 
 and overflowing naughtiness of his disposition. 
 He would hide her new songs and concert 
 pieces which she was regularly practising, and 
 then tell her that Mr. Alison, the Minster 
 organist, was coming across the Close to give her 
 her weekly music-lesson. He would make away 
 with her French grammar and dictionary into 
 the most unlikely holes and corners, and then 
 remind her — for he knew that she always left 
 her lessons to the very last minute — that this 
 was Mr. Marony's day for hearing her read 
 " Charles the Twelfth." He would pocket her 
 thimble or scissors, or little bits of fancy-work, 
 which were generally lying about within his 
 reach, and then preserve such a solidly grave 
 demeanour whilst she tumbled her work-basket 
 upside down, and ransacked Aunt Phillis's 
 boxes, the look of impatience and perplexity 
 deepening on her face, until at last she could
 
 Alecs Bride. 145 
 
 bear it no longer, and broke out into an im- 
 petuous little burst of temper, when he would 
 quietly produce the missinor article from some 
 of his innumerable pockets — Roda said he had 
 twice as many pockets about him as the biggest 
 travelling-bag she had ever seen — and tell her, 
 with the most provoking composure, that pati- 
 ence being the supreme virtue, he felt it on his 
 conscience to take every opportunity of teaching 
 other people to practise it. 
 
 This did very well for a few times. Then 
 Koda began to understand his tactics, and 
 when her French books, or her new music, 
 or her fancy-work could not be found, she used 
 to seek him out, and look him in the face and 
 say— 
 
 "Now, Alec." 
 
 Whereupon Alec, after a little coaxing and 
 persuading, would confess to having put " The 
 VOL. I. . L
 
 146 Alecs Bride. 
 
 Spanish Muleteer" into Dr. Montagu's folio 
 edition of old English divines, or the " Moun- 
 tainer's Bride" into Aunt Phillis's preserve 
 cupboard, or " Charles the Twelfth " amongst 
 the decanters in the cellaret. Or he would 
 direct her to the third pocket on the right-hand 
 side of his second best coat, which was hung 
 upon the fifth peg of the hat-stand at the north 
 end of the hall ; putting her hand into which 
 she would find a thimble, or a piece of crochet- 
 work, or a skein of silk, or something else, as 
 the case mio-ht be. So after that he altered 
 his style of joke, and some morning, perhaps, 
 when she was absorbed in a deeply interest- 
 ing fairy tale, he would get possession of 
 her tiny Balmorals, which were very often 
 thrown about in the side entry, that being 
 the place where Hoda usually pulled them off 
 when she came in from her walks ; and when he
 
 Alecs Bride. 147 
 
 had laced them up to the very top, and fastened 
 the ends of the laces in and out so that the 
 far-famed Gordian knot could scarcely have 
 been more perplexing, he would rush into the 
 study. 
 
 "Oh! Eoda, could you go into the town 
 and match some wool for Aunt Phillis. She 
 wants it directly, and she can't trust little Fits, 
 because he has no eye for colour. It's to be 
 just like this." 
 
 And Alec held up a scrap of something that 
 he had fetched out of Aunt Phillis's work- 
 basket, where there was generally some sort of 
 knitting going forward. 
 
 Down went the book, and away went Roda 
 upstairs like a flash of lightning. She would 
 do anything in the world for Aunt Phillis. 
 Two minutes afterwards she was down again, 
 
 l2
 
 148 Alecs Bride. 
 
 hat and cloak on, hunting for her boots, which 
 Alec always put very carefully just where he 
 found them. 
 
 "Now I shall be ready in a minute. I've 
 only ^ot my boots to put on." 
 
 But what a puttinc^ on that was ! And how 
 Alec used to laugh as she pulled and twist- 
 ed the scarlet laces about, and tried in vain to 
 thrust her little foot in, and said that she 
 was quite sure young Fits had been at the boots, 
 he was always getting into mischief, and he de- 
 served to have somebody to do the same for 
 him next time he was in a real downright 
 hurry to go anywhere. And then she twitched 
 and pulled again, and finally, when she was 
 just upon the point of getting her scissors and 
 ending the difficulty in that wa}^, Alec would 
 burst into a merry laugh and say that it was 
 all a joke, and that Aunt Phillis didn't want
 
 Alecs Bride. 149 
 
 the wool, and that it wasn't Fits at all, but 
 just himself who had fastened the laces up 
 in that way because he wanted to see how 
 pretty she looked when she got into a real bad 
 temper. And then he would cover his ears 
 with his hands, for fear of summary chastisement 
 as he said, and run out of the room, leaving 
 Koda with her boots, scarcely knowing whether 
 to laugh or cry ; he was such a plague, she had 
 never known half such a plague in all her 
 life. 
 
 He used to tell her at first that he only teased 
 her because he was very fond of her. He did 
 not know how it was, but he always felt as if 
 he must tease people if he liked them very 
 much ; and that if she had been like those grand 
 stuck-up Miss Ducanuons, who made such 
 low bows at the Minster service, or the rich 
 Miss Lesbanks, who was as solid and stupid
 
 150 Alec's Bride. 
 
 as a Dutch cheese, instead of being the dear, 
 pretty, bright little creature she was, he should 
 never have played her a single prank, and 
 would have beaten even the Ulphusby students 
 themselves, if they could have been beaten, for 
 propriety of demeanour. 
 
 That excuse did very well at first. Roda 
 was just waking up to a dim consciousness of 
 her own beauty, and she rather liked to hear 
 herself praised, especially by Alec. Indeed it 
 was only since he came that she had found out 
 her possessions in this respect at all, or had 
 cared to know that she was in any way 
 superior in personal charms to the pasty-faced 
 Miss Ducannons, or the broadly-built Miss Les- 
 banks. But by-and-by, as the jokes got more 
 numerous and the teasing lapsed from an in- 
 termittent to a chronic form, she began to think 
 that it was almost too high a price to pay for
 
 Alecs Bride. 151 
 
 Alec's preference ; though even then, if she had 
 spoken the truth, she would rather have been 
 teased to the very verge of endurance than 
 have heard him say that he liked anyone else 
 better than herself. If only he would give her 
 a little rest. If he would not be everlastingly 
 keeping on, never letting her have a moment's 
 peace. Even if he wasn't actually teasing her, 
 she was quite sure he was getting ready to do so, 
 thinking about some fresh way of tormenting 
 her. And as mothers when the little ones are 
 unusually quiet, always go to see what is the 
 matter, for they know something must be going 
 wrong then ; so wdien Alec gave her a little 
 breathing time, she always suspected that mis- 
 chief was brewing. And she was not often 
 mistaken. 
 
 But one day the teasing got beyond all 
 bounds. She was sitting at the study table,
 
 152 Alecs Bride. 
 
 learning her French verbs for ^Ir. Marony, 
 when Alec came quietly up behind her, and 
 without her knowing anything about it, managed 
 to pull out the jet pin, or skewer, as he called 
 it, which fastened up the curls behind. And 
 when, after infinite labour and application, she 
 had struggled to the end of that most tiresome 
 of regulars, iressaille?', to start, there was he, 
 standing with a face as grave as the Lord 
 Chancellor's, measuring off her curls into little 
 bits, and tying them up with red tape, after 
 the fashion, he said, of the Indian squaws, who 
 were considered to rival the ancient Greeks 
 and Romans in the art of hair-dressing ; as she 
 might find out for herself if she would kindly 
 turn round and look in the glass. 
 
 Roda did turn round and look in the glass. 
 And then Alec, too, conjugated the verb " to 
 start," for she hit him such a ringing box on
 
 Alecs Bride. 153 
 
 the ear, that he pretended to fall senseless to 
 the ground. 
 
 " Oh ! Alec, you provoking creature ! You 
 do nothing but tease me from morning to night. 
 I wish you had never come to see us, I do — and 
 I shall be so glad when you go away, I shall ! 
 For you are the tiresomest, disagreeablest, pro- 
 vokingest " 
 
 " Adjectives of more than one syllable form 
 the comparative and superlative degrees by 
 assuming the prefixes of more and most," said 
 Alec, slowly and deliberately, still pretending 
 to be in a state of grievous bodily discomfort 
 from the vigorous application of Roda's hand 
 to his ear. "Being so intimately connected 
 with the grammar-school, Miss Montagu, the 
 least that can be expected from you is 
 a respectful adherence to the etymological 
 peculiarities of your mother tongue. I beg
 
 154 Alecs Bride. 
 
 you therefore to correct yourself, and repeat 
 your former allegations, if you still persist in 
 applying them to so inoffensive an individual as 
 myself, in the form prescribed by Murray in 
 his latest edition of the English grammar, 
 Tnost tiresome, most disagreeable, 7nost pro- 
 voking — and is there anything else you wish to 
 
 add r ' 
 
 "No, only that I hate you, and I wish 
 you had never come here to plague me," said 
 Roda, her face glowing with impatience and 
 vexation. 
 
 " Bless its dear little heart !" replied Alec, 
 soothingly. "Did they vex it so, then, and 
 couldn't it bear it any longer? It was very 
 naughty of them, it was !" 
 
 And Alec, mischievous youth that he was, 
 put out his hand to stroke the rosy cheeks that 
 were burning with such ineffectual anger. He
 
 Alec's Bride. 155 
 
 did enjoy getting Roda roused up in this way. 
 He knew she always came round again, and 
 was more loveable than ever after a regular 
 burst of temper. 
 
 '^ Alec ! Alec ! I Jiate you — I'm sure I do I" 
 
 " Then you are very unscriptural, and that is 
 all I can say about it. And I think it is a 
 great shame that you have lived next door to 
 a Minster all your life, and found out so much 
 about the saints and martyrs, without learning 
 that it is even worse than ungrammatical to 
 entertain such emotions towards people who 
 have come all the way from Canada to see 
 you. And when you had never invited them, 
 either." 
 
 " You came of your own accord," said Koda, 
 pouting. " Nobody ever asked you." 
 
 " Exactly so. Just what I was sa^'ing. And 
 as you never asked me to come, you ought to
 
 156 AlecsB^nde. 
 
 be more polite to me, seeing that I came with- 
 out giving you the trouble to ask. Don't you 
 perceive that that deduction follows the original 
 proposition, as naturally as dessert follows dinner, 
 or the fleecy clouds the path of their sovereign 
 lady, the moon ?" 
 
 Here Alec would put himself into a grand 
 attitude, as though reciting from the poets. 
 And then he would begin again with something 
 else just as provoking as his previous train of 
 remark, unless Aunt Phillis, entering the room, 
 put a stop to the proceedings. So they used 
 to go on from day to day, with slight variations 
 in the manner and matter of their quarrelling, 
 always making it up, though, before night, and 
 starting fair next morning, only to stumble 
 and fall again into some still more grievous 
 quagmire of altercation. 
 
 Until Alec had been at the Old Deanery
 
 Alec's Bride. 157 
 
 five or six weeks, and then they really had a 
 very serious difference, caused by some im- 
 polite allusions which he had made touching 
 the condition of Roda's curls. Indeed, he had 
 gone so far as to ask her whether brushes were 
 an unknown luxury in the cathedral town of 
 Ulphusby, and whether the materials usually 
 appropriated to those articles were consumed 
 in the manufacture of moustaches for the 
 students, so that the inhabitants of the place 
 could not get their dressing-cases properly 
 supplied. Because, from the exceeding bristly 
 nature of the hirsute appendages which he had 
 sometimes noticed in the college quadrangles, 
 and the very chaotic state of the only feminine 
 coiffure which he had the opportunity of study- 
 ing minutely, he thought some misappropriation 
 of the kind he had indicated must have taken 
 place.
 
 158. Alecs Bride. 
 
 Roda could bear it no longer. And after 
 she had gone through the usual process of 
 averring that she hated him, and wished he 
 had never come to the Old Deanery, and after, 
 in open defiance of Murray, and her position 
 as daughter of the head master of Ulphusby 
 grammar-school, she had stigmatised him as the 
 disagreeablest, provokingest, tiresomest plague 
 that had ever come to stay with them, she was 
 rushing out of the room in an almost tearful 
 state of excitement. But Alec called her back, 
 and called her back, too, with a voice in which 
 there was no longer any banter. 
 
 "No, Roda, don't go away. I'm sure I'm 
 very sorry if I've vexed you. You know I've 
 told you before I can't help teasing people 
 when I like them." 
 
 " Then I wish you Wouldn't like me," said 
 Roda, uttering in the heat of her impatience a
 
 Alecs Bride. 159 
 
 most unmitigated fib. For that Alec should 
 have given over liking her was the very last 
 thing in the world that she wished. 
 
 " Can't help it," Alec said. " It comes 
 natural — liking and teasing always go together 
 with me, like pudding and sauce, or — Tate 
 and Brady. But I will make you a promise 
 now, Roda, if you like. I won't tease you any 
 more — I'm quite sure I won't, for the next three 
 days." 
 
 " Oh ! Alec," and Roda smiled incredulously 
 at this Utopian promise. " You can't help it. 
 You will begin again first thing to-morrow 
 morning, just the same as if you had never 
 promised at all." 
 
 "Xo, Roda, you may trust me. When I 
 say a thing with this sort of face," and Alec 
 drew down the corners of his mouth, " I mean 
 it. If I tease you from three o'clock to-day
 
 160 Alecs Bride, 
 
 until the same time on Thursday, you may 
 tomahawk me, or scalp me, or do anything you 
 like to me." 
 
 " Not once, Alec ?" 
 
 " No, not once. And I don't care how pro- 
 voking you are, either." 
 
 " Of course you don't, because I never am 
 provoking. It's always you who begin. I 
 couldn't tease anyone if I tried. I shouldn't 
 know what to say. But you really do promise 
 now, that you won't ? — honour bright !" 
 
 " Oh no, I can't do that. That is a very im- 
 proper request to make to a person of my 
 political principles. I really cannot promise 
 you that I will not honour Bright, because I 
 think he is a downright good fellow, whatever 
 your stupid old Ulphusby people may say 
 about him. And I mean to honour him as 
 much as ever I can. Besides, you never
 
 Alecs Bride. 161 
 
 asked me before not to honour him, and I 
 don't see at all what that has to do with my 
 teazing you, as you will persist in saying I 
 do." 
 
 "There then, Alec, you are just beginning 
 again. You know what I mean, you tiresome 
 creature !" 
 
 " That's right, Roda ; don't say tiresomest 
 any more. I am glad you are waking up to a 
 sense of your grammar. Now go on with the • 
 rest of the expletives." 
 
 ^' Alec /" said Roda, and she stamped her 
 foot with such pretty impatience. "You are 
 just as bad as ever, and you are doing it on 
 purpose to vex me, because you say you want 
 to see how I look when I'm crying. But I 
 won't cry, though I'm sure I hate you as much 
 as ever I can." 
 
 And then Roda rushed out of the room again, 
 VOL. T. M
 
 162 Alecs Bride, 
 
 lest her resolution should fail, for her eyes had 
 already begun to sparkle with unshed tears. 
 
 "Come back, come back, little one, and I'll 
 tell you what I mean." 
 
 But Koda would not come back this time. 
 She was sure he w^ould only tease her again, 
 worse than ever, if she did. And what right 
 had he to call her "little one," just as if she 
 was nothing but a baby ! He had never called 
 • her such a name as that before.
 
 163 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 n HE did come back again, though, in about 
 half an hour, feeling rather sorry that she 
 had not obeyed Alec's call, and made it up 
 with him, especially as he had promised to 
 behave better in future. She rather liked to 
 show him that she could get into a temper when 
 she chose ; but, after all, the pleasantest part of 
 a quarrel was the getting reconciled again. 
 Always when they had had a tiff before, and 
 she had gone through the process of calling 
 him names, and saying she hated him and all 
 the rest of it, they had finished everything up 
 with a hearty laugh, and were as good friends 
 
 M 2
 
 164 Alecs Bride. 
 
 as ever, nay better, until the next breeze came 
 round. And she came back now intending to 
 let him see that she was willing to be apologised 
 to, and be pacified. 
 
 There was no Alec in the study, though, 
 nor in the drawing-room, nor in the dining-room. 
 So she went into the garden, expecting to find 
 him smoking his cigar amongst the flower-beds. 
 He generally had a cigar in the morning, and 
 whilst he was smoking it he used to have a chat 
 with old Fits the gardener. 
 
 Fits was there as usual, hobbling about 
 amongst his geraniums and carnations, but he 
 was only talking to himself, as he always did 
 when he had no one else to talk to. 
 
 Eoda did not like to ask him, straight out, if 
 he knew where Alec was. There was just a 
 little shy feeling creeping into her heart about 
 Mr. lanson, now, that made her think people
 
 Alecs Bride. 165 
 
 would notice if she seemed to care anything 
 about him. So she only said to the old 
 man — 
 
 " You are alone this mornino;, Fits." 
 
 She was quite sure, though, that if Fits knew 
 where Alec was, he would say so. And he 
 did, too. 
 
 " Yes, miss, the young master's took hisself 
 off somewheres. I see'd hiui go out, and across 
 the Close a bit since, and says he to me. Fits, 
 says he, it's a fine morning for a walk. Yes, 
 sir, says I, for them as can take it. And he 
 laughed, he did, for he's as good-natured a 
 gentleman as ever was, is Mr. Alec. Law ! 
 what fine cracks him and me has had together, 
 while I've been agate over these flower-beds. 
 He makes the time go so as you can't believe 
 your ears when the Minster strikes." 
 
 " He doesn't tease you, then," thought Roda
 
 166 Alecks Bride, 
 
 to herself, but she was too vexed to talk any 
 more to Fits. 
 
 And so Mr. Alec had set off and gone for a 
 walk, without so much as having had the polite- 
 ness to ask her if she would like to go, too. 
 The most uncourteous thing he had done since 
 he came to the Old Deanery, for he knew very 
 well how much she enjoyed going for a walk 
 with him — not by any means because his society 
 was so wonderfully superior to the society of 
 anyone else ; but because, having him with her, 
 she could go so much farther, and walk so much 
 faster than when she went out with Aunt 
 Phillis, who was getting rather slow in her 
 movements now, and often used to say, as Koda 
 slackened her own footsteps, that sixteen and 
 sixty were badly matched in a country walk. 
 And knowing this, he might have had the cour- 
 tesy to ask if she would join him.
 
 Alecs Bride. 167 
 
 However, and Roda tossed her little head as 
 she went back into the house, it was of no con- 
 sequence. If Alec could do without her, she 
 could do very well without Alec. He had been 
 very rude to her, but she could easily punish 
 him, if that was all. She would not sing to 
 him next time he asked her. And when he 
 wanted to sing his own songs, she would refuse 
 to play for him ; or if she did play at all, she 
 would hurry the tune so, or drag it, and put 
 the expression in the wrong place, that he would 
 wish he had never asked her. And then she 
 knew he always liked to have a walk with her 
 in the garden after tea, when it was fine and 
 sunny ; and just because he liked it, she would 
 contrive to have something else to do, so that he 
 might have to take his walk alone. 
 
 Koda laughed to herself as she thought how 
 finely she was going to serve Alec out for his
 
 168 Alecs Bride. 
 
 little bit of rudeness. And yet under the laugh 
 there was a tinge of bitterness, almost the first 
 she had ever known. For it spoiled the sweet 
 harmony of her life to be out of tune with him, 
 even in her thoughts. 
 
 She took extra pains to make herself look 
 nice when she dressed for dinner that day. 
 Alec's coming had given quite an impetus to 
 her taste in personal decoration. If Dr. Mon- 
 tagu and Aunt PhiUis had had as much per- 
 ception as some people — the people, for instance, 
 who used to comment upon Mrs. Dexter's 
 intentions with regard to the Old Deanery — 
 they would have noticed many a little touch 
 of dawning vanity here and there in the toilet 
 which was hurried over a month ago with such 
 girlish carelessness and impatience. Some- 
 times a blue ribbon, purchased out of Roda's 
 own pocket-money, nestled amongst the dark
 
 Alecs Bride. 169 
 
 curls which were knotted up so gracefully now, 
 instead of being allowed to tumble down and 
 spoil her best lace tuckers. Malala did not 
 quite so often have to urge upon her young 
 lady the necessity of making herself '' look like 
 a Christian," or of keeping her muslin frocks 
 clean and smooth, instead of dragging them 
 through the lilac bushes, or climbing the moss- 
 stained walls, without ever so much as thinking 
 of putting a garden-apron on over them. 
 Malala thought it was her good advice which 
 had brought all this to pass, and perhaps no 
 one else questioned the correctness of her 
 opinion. Certainly she had taken great pains, 
 and spent many a weary hour in exhortations to 
 personal neatness ; and most faithfully had she 
 watched over those musUn frocks, and shielded 
 the wearer of them, so far as lay in her power, 
 from becoming entirely lost to a sense of her
 
 170 Alecs Bride. 
 
 position and responsibilities as a young lady 
 just about to enter life. But if Malala could 
 have dived into the secret of Roda's newly 
 acquired neatness and tastefulness in matters 
 pertaining to her outward appearance, she 
 would have found out that a single look and 
 half a sentence from this handsome young Cana- 
 dian plague, had done more towards producing 
 that desirable end, than all her years of reproof 
 and admonition. 
 
 Roda, however, need not have taken such 
 pains with herself on this occasion. When, 
 after doing all that her very limited experience 
 suggested as possible in the way of adornment she 
 came downstairs, trying to look supremely un- 
 conscious, no Alec had made his appearance. 
 Neither, when the dinner-bell rang, was there 
 any sign of him. And what seemed very 
 strange to Roda, was, that her papa and Aunt
 
 Alecs Bride. 171 
 
 Phillis, both of whom were models of punctu- 
 ality, made no remark about his lateness, and 
 did not appear to be at all annoyed by it. She 
 was still too proud to inquire where he had 
 gone ; but when they had all taken their places 
 at the table, she did condescend to say, thoucrh in 
 a very indifferent tone, as if any answer that 
 might be given to the question was not of the 
 slightest consequence to her, 
 
 " Papa, are we not going to wait for 
 Alec r 
 
 "Wait for Alec, Roda? Well, I think, as 
 he is not coming back until next Thursday, we 
 shall be rather hungry if we do wait. We had 
 better be going on." 
 
 And then Dr. Montagu devoted himself to 
 the important business of carving a couple of 
 fowls. But Aunt Phillis, seeing that Roda 
 did not yet appear to understand what it
 
 172 Alec's Bride. 
 
 was all about, put in a word of explanation. 
 
 "You were not in the room^ my dear, when 
 Alec got his letters this morning. One of 
 them was from a Frankfort professor who is 
 staying in London now, and he wrote to ask 
 Alec to go up and meet him there, to make 
 arrangements for enrolling himself amongst 
 the students, next month. You know personal 
 interviews are always so much more satisfactory 
 than correspondence. And he said, too, be- 
 fore he went awaj^, it was just possible he 
 might have to go back with this professor to 
 Frankfort, in which case he should scarcely 
 have time to come down here again. I don't 
 think he will do that, though, only it is possi- 
 ble." 
 
 There is a popular expression about people's 
 hearts coming up into their mouths. If such a 
 revolution in the arrangement of the vital
 
 Alecs Bride. 173 
 
 * 
 organs be possible, Roda's was certainly on its 
 
 upward journey, for she felt a very curious 
 choking sensation in her throat, and a most 
 painful emptiness where her heart ous^ht to be. 
 It was only by gathering up all the dignity 
 which had come to her within this last hour or 
 two, that she could keep herself from crying. 
 It was so unkind of her not to have come back 
 to Alec when he called her, because he must 
 have wanted to make peace with her and say 
 good-bye before he went away. But then, 
 again, it was just as unkind of him not to tell 
 her that he icas going away, and to keep on 
 teasing her quite up to the very last moment. 
 That was what he meant, then, when he pro- 
 mised so faithfully not to plague her for the 
 next three days. Of course he could not 
 plague her when he was going to be in London 
 all the time. Only he might as well have told
 
 174 Alec's Bride, 
 
 her so, and then their last words need not have 
 been angry words. 
 
 But she didn't care. She was quite sure 
 she didn't care one bit about it. Alec might 
 go where he liked, and stay as long as he liked, 
 for any difference it made to her. She was 
 happy before he came, very happy indeed, and 
 she did not see why she should not be just as 
 happy now that he had gone away for three 
 little days. Or if it was more than three 
 days. If he did have to go with that professor 
 to Frankfort, and never, never come back any 
 more ! 
 
 Here Koda's heart came up into her throat 
 again, and she gave such a vigorous sigh to 
 keep it down, that Aunt Phillis looked to 
 know what was the matter. Sighing was one 
 of the last things that Roda was apt to indulge 
 in.
 
 Alecs Bride, 175 
 
 " I'm sure the fowl is very tough, Aunt Phillis," 
 she said, as though to imply that for the last 
 ten minutes she had been labouring unsuccess- 
 fully to come to a conclusion on that matter. 
 " I can't get the bones away from each other 
 at all, and papa has given me such a large 
 piece." 
 
 " Well, my dear, don't sigh about it," replied 
 unperceptive Miss C hickory, nothing doubting 
 but that Roda's explanation went to the root 
 of the matter. " You know we cannot always 
 get just what we like." Roda was learning 
 that fast enough. "I told Malala to choose 
 the best she could, and she is a very good 
 judge of poultry. I don't really think it is any 
 tougher than the one we had last week, and 
 you got those bones away well enough. Don't 
 you remember pulling the merry-thought with 
 Alec?"
 
 176 Alec's Bride. 
 
 Oh ! if Aunt Phillis had said anything else 
 but that. It made Roda sigh a era in more 
 impressively than ever. She did remember 
 pulling the merry-thought with Alec, and it 
 broke exactly in the middle, which made him 
 say that meant they should both be married on 
 the same day. 
 
 "Only," as Roda had remarked, "you will 
 be married in Canada, you know, and I shall be 
 married in England." 
 
 " Of course," Alec had replied. 
 
 And then they began to talk about some- 
 thing else. 
 
 Roda practised silence all the rest of that 
 weary dinner time, eating patiently what was 
 given her, and trying to appear as if she en- 
 joyed it ; because she knew that want of 
 appetite always attracted Aunt Phillis's attention, 
 as the harbinger of an " attack " of some kind.
 
 Alecs Bride. 177 
 
 If she failed to take in her usual modicum of 
 wholesome support, and especially of the sweet 
 things which Alec used to laugh at her so 
 much for enjoying, she would be sure to draw 
 down a shower of anxious inquiries about the 
 state of her health, and that shower, Roda felt 
 instinctively, would soon bring down an- 
 other. For even now the tears were gathering 
 under her eyelids, and almost a single word 
 would have destroyed her power to keep them 
 back. 
 
 She was glad enough when dinner was over 
 at last, and her papa had settled down for his 
 half hour's nap in the great easy-chair. She 
 wished that she too could go to sleep, not for 
 half an hour only, but for three whole long 
 days, all the time until Alec came back. For 
 the house seemed so still and dreary without 
 him, and when the cold thought crept into her 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 Alecs Bride. 
 
 heart that perhaps he never would come back, 
 Roda ahnost wished that she could sleep all the 
 rest of her life awaj.
 
 179 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 n HE strolled out into the garden, where Jeff 
 and Lily were basking in the sunshine. 
 As soon as they saw her, they came bounding 
 up for a frolic ; but Roda was in no mood for 
 anything of that kind, so they had one between 
 themselves, and apparently enjoyed it as much 
 as though their young mistress had helped on 
 the fun. 
 
 "They can do w^ithout me," thought Roda 
 to herself, sadly. And then she wondered 
 how she ever could have had any satisfaction in 
 playing with them. Those days when she 
 used to scamper up and down the garden with 
 
 N 2
 
 180 Alecs Bride. 
 
 Jeff and Lily at her heels, seemed so distant 
 now, quite out of her reach. She felt as if 
 it never could be any pleasure to frisk about in 
 that way again, or to climb on the stone wall 
 after robins' nests, which last enjoyment had 
 been such a source of unbounded satisfaction 
 to her only a few months before. She was 
 beginning to find out that the companionship 
 of a bright, warm-hearted young fellow like 
 Alec lanson was a very expansive thing. It 
 seemed to set her far-off from the little enjoy- 
 ments which used to content her before he 
 came to the Old Deanery. She knew now 
 that they would never satisfy her again. She 
 wanted something quite different. It was the 
 woman's life stirring and brooding within her — 
 the first vague, unformed longing, which, once 
 having found its way into a girl's heart, stays 
 there until the gift of some good man's
 
 Alecs Bride, 181 
 
 love, or, failing that, God's other and some- 
 times better gift of perfect trust in Him, quiets 
 it for ever. 
 
 Fits was in the garden, surveying his pet 
 flowers, talking to himself all the time in a 
 quiet undertone. Alec used to say sometimes 
 that if the old man could have had a reporter 
 behind him to take up all the wisdom that 
 dropped from his lips during these spells of 
 meditation, the world need not have been quite 
 so stupid as it is. Fits's proper name was John 
 Smith. Nobody knew very much about his 
 early youth, except that being an orphan, he had 
 been brought up in the workhouse at Ulphusby. 
 There, his baptismal appellation being one 
 which he shared in common with half a dozen 
 others, and he being subject to sudden fainting 
 attacks, they used to call him Fits, to distin- 
 guish him from the other John Smiths who
 
 182 Alec's Bride, 
 
 were not affected in that way. When he came 
 out of the workhouse he was apprenticed to a 
 shoemaker ; but accidentally injuring his right 
 hand, he was prevented from getting a living 
 in that department of industry. He then took 
 to gardening, and being a steady man, though 
 not remarkably brilliant, he succeeded tolerably 
 well, until now in his old age, when he was no 
 longer capable of regular work, he had found, 
 through the kindness of Miss Chickory, a com- 
 fortable asylum in the Old Deanery, where he 
 acted as factotum in the garden and outhouses. 
 These did not quite occupy the whole of his 
 time, and so, in addition, he was employed by 
 the Dean and Chapter to mow the Minster 
 Close four times a year, and the little square 
 lawn in the middle of St.Ulphus Court as often. 
 He always retained his name of Fits, finding 
 it much more distinctive than his patronymic of
 
 Alecs Bride. 183 
 
 John Smith ; and his grandson, who was errand 
 boy at the Old Deanery, was called little Fits. 
 People who were not acquainted with his ante- 
 cedents used to consider the name decidedly 
 aristocratic, quite an honour to the family he 
 served, and they would ask him sometimes if 
 he was not a descendant of some noble but, 
 decayed house. Fits, however, scorned to gather 
 a rag of respectability from such false pre- 
 tensions." 
 
 " Nought o' t' sort, marm," — they were gene- 
 rally ladies who asked him of his pedigree — " I 
 were christened plain John Smith, and got my 
 t'other name at the workus, 'cause of being took 
 with fits, as the other John Smith didn't have 
 'em. That's all the grandeur I ever seed in 
 7ny life , and I don't look to see no more while 
 1 get ray new name in the blessed kingdom o' 
 glory. And if a man gets his name writ down
 
 184 Alec's Bride. 
 
 there, marm, it's small odds what folks called 
 him here. Fits o' the Ulphusby workus ull tak' 
 a man to heaven, nobbut he does his duty, as 
 well as the mensefuUest name ever a lord duke 
 went there w^ith." 
 
 Alec used generally to take a stroll round the 
 garden in a morning, and Fits always contrived 
 to be doing something among the flower-beds 
 then, for he dearly loved a "crack with the 
 quality." Alec, knowing this, would stand 
 chatting with him sometimes for half an hour 
 together, telling him stories about the far West, 
 and life among the Red Indians, which made 
 Fits open both mouth and eyes to their fullest 
 extent, and say, as opportunity offered — 
 
 '' Blessings on us ! Did ever anybody hear 
 tell the like o' such goings on !" 
 
 He missed his usual portion to-day, and was 
 glad to take up with Roda as a substitute. Per-
 
 Alecs Bride. 185 
 
 haps, too, althougli she would never have ac- 
 knowledged an V thing of the sort, she enjoyed 
 hearing Alec's praises sounded, and knowing that 
 some one besides herself could appreciate his good 
 qualities. 
 
 "It do make an uncommon difference. Miss, 
 it do," he said, as she strolled listlessly up to 
 him, " now that the young master isn't about. 
 This here place don't seem like the same. Lavv ! 
 Miss Roda, you might go up and down Ulphusby 
 streets while you was footsore, and not find 
 another to match him, accordin' to my line o' 
 thinking." 
 
 " Yes, I daresay, Fits," and Roda tried to look 
 supremely unconcerned ; of course it was not a 
 bit of consequence to her what anyone thought 
 of Alec lanson. " Papa says he is very agree- 
 able — quite different from most of the people 
 about here."
 
 186 Alecs Bride, 
 
 " Different ! Why, yes, I should rather think 
 he was. Now, look here, Miss," and Fits laid 
 down his rake, and put his thumbs into the arm- 
 holes of his w^aistcoat, as he always did when he 
 meant talking, " they're a slow sort is the folks 
 hereabouts. I was only studyin' it out to myself 
 a bit since, when I was agate over the winter 
 onion beds — that bad sort, you know. Miss 
 Koda, as I bought the seed off Martin Bray, of 
 Ulphusby moor farm, and it's him ought to be 
 ashamed for sellin' such a bag o' rubbish. Says 
 I to myself. Fits, says I, the Ulphusby folk is 
 mainly like them onions o' yours. They take a 
 deal o' time to grow ; and when they've done 
 all the growin' that's in 'em to do, there isn't a 
 deal to show for it. You see, Miss, them there 
 onions," and Fits pointed to a distant bed of 
 very attenuated green fibres in the kitchen 
 garden — " I put 'em in along wi' the rest o' the
 
 Alecs Bride, 187 
 
 kitchen stuff, and I harries 'em, and I hoes 'em, 
 and I -weeds 'em, and I waters 'em, and if it 
 wasn't contrary to the blessed Scripters, as I 
 never goes against, I could swear at 'em, too, 
 sometimes ; but it don't seem to forard 'em a 
 bit, it don't. They're just as hard and dry, and 
 not a bit o' natur' in 'em worth mentioning ; and 
 when I sees Martin Bray next market day, I 
 mean to say to him, ^Martin Bray,' I'll say, 
 Hhem there onions, if you meant 'em for a 
 sample of yourself, they're a good match, for 
 they'll never do no good in the world to no- 
 body, and that's what you won't do neither.' 
 And then, you see. Miss Roda, that there 
 next bed as I riz myself from some of my own 
 last year's seed, but didn't take no better care 
 on 'em nor what I did for the tother lot, they're 
 springin' and sproutin', and takin' in lots o' rain 
 and sunshine, and workin' it up into roots and
 
 188 Alec's Bride. 
 
 leaves, as I don't misdoubt to say but what 
 there won't be a crop to beat 'em in any parish 
 in this town. And it strikes me, Miss Roda, 
 young Mr. Alec's that sort. He's been raised 
 from a good stock, he has, and he's been well 
 done to, and made as much of hisself, too, as 
 the stuff could make. And that's what every 
 man had ought to do, according to oni/ line o' 
 thinking. But you know. Miss, it don't do to 
 go again' the Ulphusby set, 'cause they can't 
 make so much of theirselves as Mr. Alec, bless 
 him ! It isn't in 'em. They couldn't do it if 
 they wanted to, ever so." 
 
 " No, I don't suppose they could," said Roda, 
 carelessly. "And then, you know, papa says 
 Mr. lanson has seen a great deal of the world 
 for a young man." Roda was getting quite 
 patronizing. " But it hasn't spoiled him. I 
 daresay if some of the Ulphusby people had
 
 Alecs Bride. 189 
 
 travelled as far as he has, and seen as much, 
 they would be so stuck up that you could not 
 get along with them at all." 
 
 "Ay, marry, Miss Roda, that they would. 
 It's not many people that can bear to see the 
 world. As soon as they get to know a little bit 
 o' what's going on about 'em, they get that con- 
 ceited while there's no bearing of 'em. Some folks 
 is like celery plants, Miss Roda — if you want 
 'em to do any good, you must keep 'em earthed 
 up. As soon as ever they get out into the light, 
 they start running to leaves and uselessness, and 
 they aren't no good to nobody. If you want 
 'em sweet, you must keep em dark." 
 
 " Then I hope I'm not a celery plant," said 
 Roda, " for I shouldn't like to be always earthed 
 up." 
 
 "No, Miss Roda, you're not that sort. It 
 'ud be no more yield to earth you up nor it
 
 190 Alec's Bride. 
 
 would a rose-bush as wants all the blessed air 
 and sunshine it can get. God Almighty has to 
 do with us same as we do wi' plants and flowers, 
 give 'em each their own sort o' care and tending, 
 because what brings one forard might kill 
 another right away. But, Miss Roda, there is 
 some folks as does best in the dark. And I do 
 think, sometimes, though I don't go in to have 
 a vast o' what folks calls spiritle experience, I 
 do think while I'm stood amongst my plants and 
 things, studying these here ways and dealings, 
 as how the Almighty has to do with a fairish 
 lot of His children same as I do with my celery 
 plants — He has to earth 'em, keep 'em dark and 
 low, or they'd go bitter, and be fit for nothing 
 but the dung-heap. Care and trouble is just 
 as good for us, sometimes. Miss Roda, as earth 
 is for the celery ; it keeps us white and sweet, 
 and as soon as we get out of it we turn sour and
 
 Alecs Bride. 191 
 
 string}'. But joiider's my little lad," and Fits 
 took his thumbs out of his waistcoat — " yonder's 
 my little lad agate wi' the carnations, and I 
 must give an eye tull him, or he'll be pulling off 
 the twigs as I want to lay for next year. He's 
 that unhandy, is Httle Fits, when he gets among 
 the flowers, as it ain't no properer to trust him 
 with 'em than a lot o' them Ked Injuns as Mr. 
 Alec talks about."
 
 192 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 n LOWLY that clay rolled on, and the next; 
 and as the shadows of Ulphusby Minster 
 began to lengthen on that second day, Roda 
 could say to herself — 
 
 " To-morrow, at this time, Alec will be back 
 again." 
 
 For there came a letter from him on the 
 second day, saying that there was no need for 
 him to go on to Frankfort w^ith the professor, 
 and so he hoped to get down to Ulphusby some 
 time on Thursday evening, as he intended at 
 first. 
 
 But oh ! how very long and dreary those
 
 Alecs Bride. 193 
 
 three days had been I How slowlv those great 
 brazen hands on the dial-plate of the, Minster 
 had moved round ! What an interminable 
 length of time separated now between the hourly 
 strokes of the great bell, which, when Alec was 
 near, seemed to be always striking ! How 
 gladly she would have had her French books 
 hidden over and over again, and her music 
 stowed away in the most impossible places, and 
 her thimble and scissors surreptitiously ab- 
 stracted, and her hair pulled down and tied 
 with any quantity of red tape, if only Alec had 
 been there to play these tricks upon her. She 
 was quite sure when he once came back again 
 she could bear any amount of teasing ; nay, it 
 would be such an unspeakable relief to be 
 teased again at all after those three days of un- 
 bearable dreariness and stupidity. She would 
 not go through three such days again for all 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 Alec's Bride. 
 
 the happiness she had ever known before Alec 
 came to the Old Deanery. 
 
 But of course she must not let him know 
 this. It would never do for Alec to find out 
 that she had missed him so much. It would 
 make him stuck up and conceited, like those 
 celery plants Fits talked about when they got 
 out of the dark. He would be all the better for 
 bein^ kept in the dark about how she had felt 
 when he was away. She would pretend to be 
 just as angry as ever when he began to tease 
 her, and she would tell him that she hated him 
 when he pulled down her hair — as he would no 
 doubt do the first opportunity — and she would 
 call him tiresome and provoking and disagree- 
 able, and all that kind of thing, just as she used 
 to do before she found out what a miserable 
 thing it was for him to go away, even for three 
 days. And when he came back in the evening
 
 Alecs Bride. 195 
 
 by that seven o'clock train from London, and 
 asked her ho\Y she had enjoyed herself Avhilst he 
 had been away, and if she had got on very 
 nicely, she ^YOuld tell him she had got on very 
 well indeed ; because, although it was a sort of 
 fib, she having been just as dreary as she could 
 be, still it was a great deal better to say that 
 than to let him know how much she had really 
 missed him. 
 
 And she would not seem to be so very glad 
 either, when he came back. Although she could 
 not think of it, so near now, without her heart 
 almost jumping up into her throat, not for sor- 
 row but for joy ; still there was no need for him 
 to know anything about that. She would look 
 as if it was not of so very much consequence, 
 after all. And yet if anything should happen, 
 
 and he could not come that night Roda's 
 
 poor little foolish heart went as flat down again 
 
 2
 
 196 Alecs Bride. 
 
 as though a cannon ball had fallen upon it, at 
 the very thought of another long, stupid, weary 
 day, such as the last three had been. 
 
 Roda turned these things over in her mind 
 as she sauntered through the garden on the 
 afternoon of the day that Alec was to come 
 home. She was too restless and unsettled to do 
 anvthintr. Fits was there amons-st the scarlet 
 geraniums, cutting slips and potting them for 
 next year ; and he would gladly have beguiled 
 the tedium of his work by a little conversation, 
 but Roda was in no mood for listening to his 
 fanciful notions to-day. And so, lying down on 
 a heap of dry leaves which he had swept up 
 under the old apple-tree, she pretended to be 
 asleep, for she thought that would be the best 
 way of letting him see that she did not want to 
 talk. 
 
 It was a glorious August afternoon. Streaks
 
 Alecs Bride. 197 
 
 of golden sunshine lay up and down the old 
 garden. The hollyhocks shot up their spires of 
 purple and crimson around her, almost seem- 
 ing to touch the sky with tlieir budded tops. 
 The bees were humming in the Canterbury 
 bells, and then creeping out to sun themselves 
 on the big bunches of fragrant white phlox, 
 which clustered among the honeysuckle and 
 clematis on the south wall. With every 
 breath of wand, a shower of yellow^ leaves fell 
 from the elm-trees at the garden gate. Their 
 branches w^ere so thinly covered now, that the 
 Minster towers showed plainly enough through 
 them — those great, grim, battered towers, 
 with their fantastic gurgoyles sticking out, 
 and their canopied niches, where stood many 
 a hollow-eyed saint or martyr, from w-hose 
 palm sceptre the leaves had long since crum- 
 bled away. Now and again she heard the
 
 198 Alec's Bride. 
 
 deep boom of the clock, tellinc^ off the half- 
 hours. It would not have to strike many 
 more times now before Alec came home. 
 Oh ! how pleasant it was to think of that !■ — 
 to think of it so near, too. Only a few more 
 journeyings of the great brazen hand — only a 
 few more strokes of that booming tongue, and 
 she should be quite happy again. 
 
 Some one came gently up behind her as she 
 lay there upon the dry leaves, and dropped a full- 
 blown rose upon her face. As it hit the end of 
 her nose, all the petals tumbled off, and scattered 
 over her dress. She opened her eyes, and 
 shook herself, and jumped up, and there was 
 Alec, with his little valise — the same little black 
 valise that was lying by him on the hearth-rug 
 when she came into the dining-room more than 
 a month ago, and said to him— 
 
 " I don't know who you are."
 
 Alecs Bride, 199 
 
 Oh ! how £flad she was ! She got hold of 
 both his hands, and with all the innocent joy of 
 her little heart flashing out in her face, she 
 cried — 
 
 " Oh ! Alec, Alec ! I am so glad you have 
 come back !" 
 
 That was just like Koda. She was always 
 doing the very thing she wanted not to do. If 
 she made up her mind to be particularly meek 
 and patient, she was sure to go off into a thun- 
 derstorm of temper. If she determined to be 
 grave and dignified, after her own little fashion, 
 she generally got beguiled into more than ordi- 
 nary demonstrativeness. Try as she might, she 
 could not succeed in playing a part. The real 
 thought of her heart must have its way, however 
 much she wanted to keep it back. 
 
 She had scarcely got the words said, when 
 she felt as if she could have cried for very vexa-
 
 200 Alecs Bride. 
 
 tion. But it was of no use now. They were 
 said, and she could not unsay them. She could 
 not draw herself up as she fully intended to 
 have done, and say in a quiet, matter-of-fact 
 trone — 
 
 '^ We are very glad to see you back again. 
 Alec, and I hope you have enjoyed yourself 
 very much in London." 
 
 Though she felt as if she would have given 
 almost anything just at that moment if she 
 could have done so, and in some way have made 
 Alec understand that his coming back was a 
 matter of perfect indifference to her, she 
 could only stand there with hot, rosy cheeks, 
 growing hotter and rosier every moment, 
 feeling very much as if she had made a simple- 
 ton of herself. 
 
 Alec, who was quite unprepared for this 
 sudden burst of affectionateness, did perhaps
 
 Alecs Bride. 201 
 
 as unwise a thing as lie could have done. 
 For he, too, had a little of Koda's impetuous 
 disposition, and it sometimes hurried him into 
 actions of which he had to repent wdien it was 
 too late. He ought not to have taken advan- 
 tage of the young girl's innocent frankness ; 
 knowing well enough, as he could not help 
 knowing by her blushing, confused manner, 
 that she had been hurried into saying some- 
 thing that she did not want to say. He should 
 have helped her to recover herself, or, at any 
 rate, have met her upon her own ground, and 
 then by-and-by they would have been all 
 right together again. But, instead of that, he 
 stooped down and kissed the rosy face which 
 had never seemed to him so fair before; and 
 then, the old impulse coming over him too 
 strongly to be resisted, he broke into a merry 
 mischievous laugh.
 
 202 Alecs Bride. 
 
 " Oh ! Roda, and so this is the way you hate 
 your friends, is it ? And this is how you do 
 when you think they are the tiresomest, dis- 
 agreeablest people that ever were. Oh ! you 
 pretty little cheat, I shall know how to believe 
 you next time you call me names." 
 
 Roda dashed past him and flew upstairs, three 
 steps at a time, into her room, feeling very much 
 as though she should like to stay there for the 
 remaining term of her natural life. She really 
 did wish now that she had never seen this trouble- 
 some Alec, who had begun to tease and mock 
 her as soon as he came back. She wished he 
 had never come to the Old Deanery at all. She 
 was quite sure she used to be a great deal hap- 
 pier then than she had been since. He had only 
 made her feel stupid and queer, and spoiled the 
 old pleasant life, which used to be quite enough 
 for her before he came. What should she do
 
 Alecs Bride, 203 
 
 now when she had to meet him again ? For of 
 course she could not keep up in her own room 
 always; and besides, as he was only going to 
 stay a week or two longer, that would be rude. 
 She did not want to be rude to him, though he 
 had plagued her so. And then, it was not as if 
 he disliked her. If he had disliked her, he would 
 not have kissed her when she shook hands with 
 him. 
 
 The memory of that kiss, the first she had had 
 from anyone out of her own home, though it 
 made the hot blood rush over Roda's face again, 
 was a pleasant memory. Only, it had made her 
 feel so strange. Once, a long time ago, she was 
 walking with Aunt PhilHs in the Minster, one 
 dark winter afternoon, whilst the service was 
 going on, and just as they passed the choir 
 gates, the crimson curtain was pushed aside for 
 a moment, and a glow of warm light poured
 
 204 Alecs Bride. 
 
 out, and she saw all the pomp and splendour 
 and glory within. Then all was dark again, 
 and she could only hear the music, which 
 seemed to her sweeter than ever when she knew 
 how fair and beautiful was the spot whence it 
 came. She seemed to be in the dark again, 
 now. She did not know — she could not tell, 
 only she felt as if something new and strange 
 was near her, something which was her own, 
 which yet she could not reach. 
 
 Did she really wish Alec had never come ? 
 Was she really happier when Jeff and Lily were 
 her only companions, and when the settling of 
 quarrels between the little singing boys was 
 her supreraest excitement? It was very un- 
 certain. 
 
 She must smooth her hair, though, and 
 come down stairs again. That was not at all 
 uncertain. Alec was in the room when she
 
 Alecs Bride. 205 
 
 got there, reading some letters wliicli had come 
 for him that morning. Roda took up her work 
 — hickily it was lying on the table close at hand 
 — and began stitching away, trying to look very 
 unconcerned, though her heart was beating as fast 
 as it could. 
 
 But when Alec saw her he came across to her, 
 took hold of her hand, and said, in just his old 
 frank pleasant way, 
 
 "Roda, I do think I didn't behave very well 
 to you just now. And I am sure I was quite 
 as glad to come back to you as you could be to 
 see me, and I was nothing but a stupid donkey 
 to go and do as I did. But if you won't think 
 anything more about it, we will be friends 
 again, just the same as we used to be — shall 
 
 we r 
 
 Alec said — " just the same," but he did not 
 mean it. However, Roda looked right into his
 
 206 Alecs Bride. 
 
 face, as she had thought she should never have 
 been able to look into it again. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " we will be." 
 
 And after that she did not wish any more 
 that she had never seen Alec lanson.
 
 207 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 rpHEN came a whole week of very bright, 
 happy days. Days in which there was 
 only just enough of teasing to give them a 
 pleasant piquant raciness, like the touch of 
 frost which comes sometimes with the sunshine 
 of late September mornings. Roda would 
 not have felt quite right if Alec had given 
 over teasing her. She would have thought 
 that she had offended him in some way, or that 
 he was beginning to get tired of her. Now 
 and then she just lost her temper enough to 
 turn round upon him with a quick flash of her 
 blue eyes, and a saucy toss of her head, which
 
 208 Alecs Bride. 
 
 shook all the glossy ringlets, and an impatient 
 exclamation of — 
 
 " Oh ! Alec ! Alec ! what a plague you are." 
 Just the very thing that Alec wanted her to 
 say, for she always looked so pretty when she 
 got into her little tantrums, and tried to make 
 him think she was really vexed with him, he 
 knowing all the time that it w^as only on the 
 surface, and that he could get her to come 
 round in ten minutes with a kind word or two. 
 But she never told him any more that she hated 
 him, and wished he had never come to see 
 them, nor had recourse to ungrammatical exple- 
 tives to work off the superabundance of her 
 indignation. At times there seemed to be 
 almost a touch of shyness about her manner 
 to him now, a gathering round her of maiden 
 coyness and reserve, so different from the joyous 
 outspoken frankness of their earlier friendship.
 
 Alecs Bride, 209 
 
 Or, when he looked earnestly at her, she would 
 turn her face away, and a flush, not of anger 
 or impatience, came into her cheeks. 
 
 Alec saw it and was content. Perhaps he 
 was learning to think of the little bright-eyed 
 girl as something more than a plaything. Per- 
 haps he was thinking that she might do more 
 than wile away a few unoccupied weeks of 
 waiting before the grave business of his life 
 began. At any rate, there had come between 
 them now the consciousness of an unformed, 
 unspoken feeling, which, shutting away the 
 merry unreserve of the old time, had not yet 
 bound them together in a sweeter, closer confi- 
 dence. They were standing on the threshokl 
 of that Gate Beautiful, through whose flowery 
 portals, once in a lifetime, every man and 
 woman passes, either for good or ill ; some to 
 find entrance into the land Beulah, the dwell- 
 
 YOL. I. P
 
 210 Alec s Bride. 
 
 ing of perfect peace — others to leave behind 
 them for ever the rest, and the quietness, and 
 the content, which, until that gate was opened, 
 had been enough for them. 
 
 There were not so many scampers now in 
 the garden amongst the falling leaves, not so 
 many races — Roda running forwards, Alec back- 
 wards — down the long straight walk under the 
 south wall. Roda was steadying down now, as 
 her Aunt Phillis thought it quite right she 
 should steady down, into a little of the decorum 
 and self-possession which she must sooner or 
 later acquire, if she ever intended to manage 
 her papa's house for him, and undertake the 
 responsibilities which advancing years and fail- 
 ing health made it difficult now for Miss 
 Chickory to support. If that dear, kind-hearted 
 old lady had ever had a fear at all about her 
 bright little niece, it was lest she should carry 
 
 m
 
 Alecs Bride. 211 
 
 overmuch of childhood's glee and carelessness 
 into the narrower, more straitened track of 
 maidenhood ; too much for her own peace, too 
 much for the peace of others also. She was 
 glad, then, to hear Eoda's laugh ring out not 
 quite so noisily through the Old Deanery, and 
 to see her lay aside some of those sports which 
 even Aunt Phillis herself, with all the indul- 
 gence of her disposition, had thought a little too 
 hoydenish for a young lady who would by-and- 
 by have to take her place in the very strict and 
 propriety-loving circle of Close society. 
 
 Aunt Phillis was of a placid, restful nature. 
 She had never known that phase of life through 
 which Roda was now passing. She had never 
 known what it was to have energies unused, 
 longings perpetually reaching out after what 
 could not yet be attained. The ruling power of 
 her life was benevolence, pure unmixed desire 
 
 p2
 
 212 Alec's Bride. 
 
 for the happiness of others ; and a woman who 
 can be contented from that source, never has to 
 stretch out far, or wait very long for the full- 
 filling of her faithful, loving soul. She had 
 never known the sweet selfishness which would 
 fain gather into its care some heart which no 
 one else should touch, which longs to draw to 
 itself what can only be given to one, and to 
 liave whispered into its sole, single confidence, 
 words which none other in the whole wide world 
 shall hear. She was contented to share with 
 many, all love that was given her. She w^as 
 glad to be numbered, even by those whom most 
 she prized, as but one amongst others, not the 
 one best loved either, or whose friendship could 
 least be spared. To know that she could fill 
 one niche in some faithful heart was enough for 
 her. It need not be the highest, it need not be 
 the only one. And this, if it kept her from the
 
 Alecs Bride. 213 
 
 sweetest joy that life can give, kept her also from 
 its bitterest pain. The lowly loving heart 
 sought no more than was given to it. Doing 
 good, helping others, giving a little to many, 
 but everything to none, it was content. 
 
 Not so Roda. Her life would never be able 
 to fill itself from the spring which satisfied Aunt 
 Phillis's. What she had to give must be given 
 to one only out of all the world. Finding that 
 one, the sweet overflow of love which could not 
 be spent there might enrich many others, as the 
 overfull fountain urn sends ever a cool gentle 
 rain upon the thirsty leaves beneath. But only 
 when itself is full to overflowing. Until then 
 the leaves may thirst, the flowers droop in vain, 
 not a drop can reach them. She would be 
 weary, unsatisfied ; her life would be little use 
 to herself or others, so long as she knew that she 
 was but one amongst many. Only as she felt
 
 214 Alecs Bride. 
 
 that she could give to some other life what none 
 but herself could give, would her own rise to 
 its full perfection and sweetness. 
 
 But Aunt Phillis would have been completely 
 bewildered and mystified if any one had spoken 
 to her in this way about restlessness and longing 
 and unsatisfied desires, or anything of the sort. 
 She walked calmly on, holding up her own clear, 
 well-trimmed, bright little lamp, finding sure 
 footing in the light it gave for just one step 
 at a time, no more. She did not know that the 
 same light, thrown upon Koda's path, would 
 have done no good, would have cleared away no 
 difficulty. For we must each carry our own 
 lamp along our own journey, and the light it 
 gives will serve to guide safely no footsteps but 
 our own. Perhaps Koda had not got her lamp 
 yet, at all. Few ask for one, or take the trouble 
 to tend it with patient, reverent care, until they
 
 Alecs Bride, 215 
 
 have had many a weary stumble, and sought 
 from others the li^ht which only God can 
 give. 
 
 Besides, she was very happy now, and the 
 way was so bright since Alec had come back, 
 that she needed no help to travel along it. She 
 knew there was a dark time coming, when he 
 would have to go away to that Frankfort Col- 
 lege ; but hers was the joyous, trustful spirit 
 which takes not the troubles of the future into 
 the keeping of the present. Alec was with her 
 now, and they were better friends than ever, 
 and every day as it passed seemed to fill her 
 little cup of life nearer to the brim. What 
 need, then, to think of the College at Frank- 
 fort, with its medals and prizes and certificates, 
 and its heaps of musty old professors ? 
 
 Until one late September morning, when that 
 red-collared postman, whose knock she had
 
 216 Alecs Bride, 
 
 never yet heard but with the supremest uncon- 
 cern, brought Alec a foreign letter — not from 
 Canada this time, but from Germany. And it 
 contained a summons to answer to his name in 
 the list of Frankfort students within the ensuing 
 week. 
 
 No more teasing now, no more hiding of 
 French books, or misplacing of music, or tying 
 up of Koda's hair with bits of red tape, after the 
 fashion of the Indian squaws. There was busi- 
 ness that must be done in London ; there were 
 friends that must be seen, and arrangements 
 that must be made, and only one little week for 
 all. Within four and twenty hours of the time 
 that the letter came, Alec was on his way to 
 London. 
 
 "You must not forget me, Koda," he said, 
 holding her hand as they walked together for 
 the last time up and down the long walk under
 
 Alecs Bride. 217 
 
 the wall, where the red Virginian creeper grew. 
 He had gathered a little bit, and was playing 
 with it as he spoke. *^ You must be sure and 
 not forget me, for I shall think of you every 
 day, and many times a day." 
 
 Koda smiled as brightly as she could — she 
 was determined not to cry until Alec was quite 
 gone — and she promised that she would think 
 of him as much as he thought of her. That 
 was certainly a compact with whose fairness no 
 one could quarrel. 
 
 " And perhaps, Roda, when you are saying 
 your prayers, you will find a corner for my 
 name somewhere, will you ?" 
 
 " Yes, Alec, I will, if you will do as much for 
 me." 
 
 " All right," said Alec, " and we will each of 
 us take half this little bit of Virginian creeper, 
 to remind us of our promise. And at the end
 
 218 Alecs Bride. 
 
 of a year and a half, I shall come back to 
 Ulphusby, and go into the College for a session, 
 so you have not seen the last of me, you know. 
 Just a year and a half, it's only a little while, 
 Roda, when one really comes to think about it. 
 And then there was something else I wanted to 
 say." 
 
 Alec stopped. 
 
 "Well, Alec?" and Roda played with the 
 bright crimson leaves he had given her, holding 
 them up to the sun, which, shining through 
 them, might shed that rich colour upon her 
 cheek, 
 
 " You were vexed with me last time I kissed 
 you, Roda, because I had no business to do it. 
 May I kiss you now, just once, without your 
 being vexed f 
 
 Roda turned her cheek to him, and he touched 
 it lightly with his lips. And she determined
 
 Alecs Bride. 219 
 
 then that no other lips should touch it until he 
 came back again. Which determination she 
 kept faithfully enough. 
 
 Then there was a farewell chat with old Fits 
 in the garden, and a long talk with the heads of 
 the family in the study, during which Dr. 
 Montagu gave him a great deal of good advice 
 about patience, and self-denial, and application 
 — three things which no one practised less than 
 the good Doctor himself. Then another quiet 
 word with Roda — for he wished her little hand 
 to be the last he held within his own in that 
 house — then a public leave-taking at the gate of 
 the Old Deanery garden, a wave of his wide- 
 awake hat as the cab drove out of the Minster 
 Close, and Alec lanson's visit to Ulphusby was 
 a thing of the past. 
 
 When he was gone, and the faintest sound 
 of distant wheels could no longer be heard,
 
 220 Alecs Bride, 
 
 Roda went through the rooms, gathering up the 
 different books which he had used, laying them 
 carefully away. Then she wrapped up the 
 little spray of Virginian creeper, and put it into 
 her desk, the only thing w^hich she kept under 
 lock and key. After that she practised for her 
 music-lesson, and went out with Aunt Phillis, 
 talking away to her as cheerfully as ever, and 
 did leather work with the Miss Ducannons, and 
 sung to her papa as usual, though it icas rather 
 hard work to sing with proper expression, es- 
 pecially the comic songs which he was so fond 
 of hearing. Last of all came the candles, and 
 Aunt Phillis's— 
 
 " Now, Roda, my dear !" 
 
 Which gentle intimation Roda obeyed at 
 once, hurrying away, after the usual good-night 
 kisses, into her own room, where, when the door 
 was shut, and no one wanted anything more of
 
 Alecs Bride. 221 
 
 her, she began to cry as if her very heart would 
 break. And that was what she was still doing 
 when we came upon her in the first chapter of 
 this story.
 
 222 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TT7HILST Rock was passing through this, 
 her first Slough of Despond, of which 
 most people have to pass through so many be- 
 fore they come to sure footing at last in the hill 
 country, other tears, as bitter, and not so easily 
 to be wiped away, were being wept in a quiet 
 little Presbyterian manse in Glasgow, very near 
 to the west end, with its pleasant squares and 
 terraces, and detached villas, where Miss 
 Chickory used to go once a year to visit her 
 friends who lived in that neighbourhood. 
 
 The tears were for the minister, who had that 
 morning been buried under the shadow of his
 
 Alec's Bride, 223 
 
 own church, leaving an ailing wife and two 
 children, a son and daughter, to fight the rest 
 of their way as best they could over the waves 
 of this troublesome world. It was the old, old 
 story, listened to so often by those who know- 
 much of Scottish ministerial trials. An early 
 marriage, with not much store of temporal goods 
 on either side ; a toilsome life, weighed down by 
 ill-health and many cares, weighed down so 
 heavily that at last even love's hand could bear 
 the burden no longer, and Death took what, 
 but for over-much care, he could not have 
 claimed so soon. 
 
 But the widows of ministers in Scotland have 
 scant time for grief, when the hardest stroke of 
 sorrow leaves them lonely. Perhaps mercifully, 
 the changes that death brings keep their tears 
 from flowing too fast for the loved one that 
 death has taken. Others come to claim the
 
 224 Alec's Bride. 
 
 shattered home. A new life, with new joys 
 and new interests, has to be built up on the 
 ruins of the stricken one ; and, ere yet the g^rass 
 is green upon her husband's grave, the minister's 
 widow must go forth and seek a resting place 
 amongst strangers. 
 
 People have usually much sympathy expressed 
 for them in such seasons of deep affliction. 
 Mrs. Govan's friends and relatives overwhelmed 
 her with letters of condolence. Some enclosed 
 her copies of verses suitable to the occasion, 
 others sent her lists of " promises," upon which 
 to sharpen her somewhat faihng trust. Others 
 exhorted her to put her trust in the widow's 
 God. Truly a needful thing to do ; but even 
 the widow's God, though very pitiful and of 
 tender mercy, does not take all care from those 
 who should help the widow in her sorest straits. 
 Some begged her acceptance of their good
 
 Alecs Elide. 225 
 
 wishes, others of their prayers, others of their 
 profoundest sympathy. Some pointed her to 
 brighter days, which would, they said, surely 
 come when the bitterness of her grief was 
 passed. Others told her that the memory of 
 sweet years gone by should help her to suffer 
 patiently the evil which had ccme upon her now. 
 Others reminded her that life was a vale of 
 tears, that she had already been blessed in tread- 
 ing it, more than many other mortals, and that 
 this bereavement had been sent to raise her 
 affections above earthly things, and fix them in a 
 land where changes never come ; therefore she 
 must not mourn over-much, but endeavour to 
 believe that all was for the best, and gird her- 
 self up to tread the remainder of the way alone, 
 trusting that strength would be proportioned to 
 her day, and that He who giveth the sparrows 
 food would not suffer her to want. 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 22^ Alecs Bride, 
 
 Excellent advice, most excellent, and which 
 IMrs. Govan, poor woman, tried hard to follow. 
 But the widow of a scantily-paid minister, how- 
 ever large her willingness to be comforted, how- 
 ever clinging the grasp of her faith, cannot live 
 entirely upon the sympathies of others, or her 
 own resignation. The rooftree must somehow 
 be kept over fatherless heads, and neither the 
 memory of years gone by, nor the hope of years 
 to come, can do it. Food must be spread upon 
 tlie table still, though the lips that used to bless 
 it, will do so no more ; and neither good wishes 
 nor prayers, howsoever plentifully offered, can 
 keep that table spread, when the bread-winner 
 is taken away. The most benignant commen- 
 dation of orphans to the care of Him who 
 clothes the lilies of the field, will not keep their 
 scanty mourning from growing threadbare, or 
 the carefully-spent purse from slowly wasting
 
 Alecs Bride. 227 
 
 away, now that the labour of no weary brain 
 enriches it from day to day. Prayers, sympa- 
 thies, good wishes, pious counsels, may keep the 
 poor shattered bark from sinking in mid ocean, 
 but alone they will never bring it safely to the 
 haven where it would be. 
 
 Miss Chickory also wrote to the widow. She 
 had never been very intimate with her, not 
 being a woman who made many new friends, 
 and Mrs. Govan's health, too, for many years 
 had been so delicate that she could go very 
 seldom into company. But Koda's aunt had 
 visited her sometimes when she went to stay with 
 her own friends at the West-end, and she felt a 
 kindly interest in the minister's home, even be- 
 fore this heavy shadow passed over it, and some- 
 thing more tangible than kindly interest was 
 needed there. 
 
 So when she heard of the grief which had 
 
 q2
 
 228 Alec's Bride, 
 
 befallen Mrs. Govan, she sat down and wrote 
 a few lines of honest, simple condolence. Aunt 
 Phillis was not brilliantly gifted in the art of 
 expressing her thoughts. She could abound in 
 works of love, but when words were wanted too, 
 especially written words, she found it hard to 
 say what her faithful heart truly felt of sympathy 
 and good-will. However, she put together a 
 few brief sentences expressive of the sorrow 
 which all felt for one whose home peace had 
 been so grievously broken. And then she did 
 what none of the other sympathising friends 
 had done, she asked if she could be of any help 
 to Mrs. Govan in arranging her plans for the 
 future ; and with Dr. Montagu's consent, for he 
 was always ready to help Aunt Phillis in her 
 benevolent endeavours, when they involved no 
 self-denial to himself, she offered Mrs. Govan 
 or her children a home at the Old Deanery
 
 Alecs Biide, 229 
 
 until such time as she could make one for her- 
 self elsewhere. 
 
 Marian^ the daughter, a girl of eighteen, upon 
 whom fell the task of answering most of the 
 consolatory letters, replied to this too. She said 
 they had not been able as yet to think much 
 about the future. When the debts were paid, 
 and her father's affairs settled, they should have 
 about five and thirty pounds a year to depend 
 upon, the proceeds of Mr. Govan's life assurance, 
 and a small legacy which had lately come to her 
 mother from the death of a distant relative. 
 For her mother and herself, she said, she had 
 no fear. She was quite sure that with the little 
 they already had, she should be able, either in 
 Glasgow or elsewhere, to earn as much as 
 would make them comfortable, though not 
 enough, perhaps, for more than comfort. She 
 would either take pupils, or go out to teach, or
 
 230 Alecs Bride, 
 
 give music-lessons, and, in addition, had thought 
 that, if they could meet with a suitable house in 
 some quiet place, they might have one or two 
 lodgers, and so add a little to what she was able 
 to get by teaching. Her mother's health was 
 so frail now, that the chief care of earning a 
 livelihood, and keeping the home together, must 
 depend upon herself. Even before their father's 
 death she had been able to take but little part 
 in household duties, and since then she had been 
 so weighed down by sorrow, that even the need- 
 ful business arrangements could not be attended 
 to by her. Marian had had to manage every- 
 thing, as well as she could, with the help of her 
 brother, and some of the members of the congre- 
 gation, who had been very good to them in taking 
 what press of care strangers could take out of 
 their hands. 
 
 It was about her brother, Marian said, that she
 
 Alecs Bride. 231 
 
 felt most anxiety. He was nearly twenty-one, 
 but had not yet fixed upon any profession. 
 Her father had been anxious that he should 
 enter the ministry, and his education had been 
 carefully attended to, with the hope that he 
 would one day follow that calling. However, 
 he did not seem to have any taste for the 
 ministerial profession. Perhaps, situated as 
 they were now, with small means, and not much 
 patronage, it would only be a waste of time for 
 him to turn his thoughts in that direction, for 
 many years must of necessity pass over, and 
 great expenses be incurred in college prepara- 
 tions, before he could expect to obtain even a 
 very small charge. Many ministers, like her 
 father, had worked on all their lives without 
 commanding even the salary of a moderate 
 banker's clerk, to sav nothinnj of beinoj able to 
 lay by a fund in case of sickness or unexpected
 
 232 Alecs Bride, 
 
 expenses ; and her brother, even if he had been 
 persuaded to set his mind upon the same pro- 
 fession, might have toiled with no better tempo- 
 ral success. 
 
 The only thing, Marian said, that he seemed 
 to have a great taste for, was music. He had 
 made tolerable proficiency in it already, con- 
 sidering the very moderate advantages he had 
 had for studying it, and both she and her 
 mother thought that, if he could be placed for 
 a year or two under some first-rate master, he 
 might prepare himself for an organist's situa- 
 tion, and also, by taking pupils, add something 
 to the general fund. Of course he would not 
 have very much for them at first, but every 
 little would help ; and even if he could only 
 earn enough to cover his own personal expenses, 
 and perhaps the expense of tuition, she thought 
 that by her own industry she should be able to
 
 Alecs Bride, 233 
 
 supply what else was needed to make them 
 comfortable. She had been talking the matter 
 over with him, and he had taken it up very 
 eagerly. Indeed, now for the first time, his 
 mind appeared to be definitely fixed on this 
 line of life, and since he was so much more 
 likely to succeed in a profession which met his 
 own tastes than in one to which only duty 
 impelled him, they thought it best to give him 
 such facilities as they could, and look out for 
 a home in some town where he would be likely 
 to make his way belter than he could hope to 
 make it in a place so taken up with trade and 
 commerce as Glasgow. 
 
 It was a sensible, straightforward letter, with 
 no violent bursts of sorrow, no wild regrets in 
 it, only an under-current of sadness and steady 
 resolution running through it. The words were 
 like the words of one who had already seen
 
 234 Alec's Bride, 
 
 much care, and been accustomed to think for 
 others, and to bear, both for herself and those 
 who could not carry it so patiently as herself, 
 the burden of life. As indeed Marian Govan 
 had borne it for many years ; as she would most 
 likely have to bear it, even to the end. 
 
 When the German philosophers have any- 
 thing important on their minds, they have 
 recourse to their pipes, and smoke away in 
 meditative silence, until the scheme is ela- 
 borated, and some plan of action definitely 
 worked out. What the German philosopher's 
 pipe is to him. Aunt Phillis's knitting was to 
 her. Whenever she took to her lambswool 
 with unwonted industry and determination, 
 both Dr. Montagu and Roda knew that some- 
 thing would come of it, that some benevolent 
 purpose was being worked out in time to the 
 click of those needles, and that in process of
 
 Alecs Bride. 235 
 
 days or weeks the kindly old face would brighten 
 up, and the words — 
 
 *^Do you know, Brother Montagu? I've 
 been thinkincij — " would herald the unfolding 
 of the plan. And once unfolded. Aunt Phillis's 
 power, and not Aunt Phillis's will, would be 
 the only barrier to its speedy and entire accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 As soon as that letter came from the U. P. 
 manse in Glasgow, Miss Chickory set a fresh 
 stocking on her needles, and gave over her 
 customary afternoon nap. By the time the 
 stocking was finished, the plan was elaborated 
 and submitted to Dr. Montagu, who gave it 
 his unqualified approval ; and then Aunt 
 Phillis wrote to Marian Govan a second letter, 
 full of hope and cheerfulness. Words, un- 
 wedded to actions, bafiled her sometimes in the 
 writing of them, but when she had anything
 
 236 Alecs Bride, 
 
 practical to say, Aunt Phillis could say it as 
 clearly as most people. 
 
 She told Marian that she had been thinking 
 very much about their position, and how they 
 might make the best of it. There were not 
 many ways, she knew, in which women who 
 had been delicately brought up, and who were 
 left to struggle alone, could help themselves. 
 But when a young man of talent and promise, 
 like Avery Govan, was still spared to them, 
 she thought they need not fear, with his 
 assistance, getting through their present diffi- 
 culties, and by-and-by establishing themselves 
 in a position almost equal, so far as temporal 
 good was concerned, to the one they had lost. 
 She had made up her mind, she said, that the 
 best thing they could do, under present circum- 
 stances, would be to come to Ulphusby, rent a 
 house in some quiet neighbourhood, and take
 
 Alec s Bride. 237 
 
 one or two students to board with them. There 
 were always fresh students coming to the 
 colleges, who could not be accommodated in 
 them, and therefore sought board and lodging 
 in some respectable family, not far away. The 
 Ulphusby students, too, for the most part, were 
 such quiet, well-behaved young men, diligent 
 and plodding, not full of money and fun and 
 mischief, like the undergraduates in some of 
 the university towns which she could mention ; 
 but very attentive to their studies, making these, 
 and not wine parties or rowing clubs, the chief 
 object of their residence in the place. Even 
 Mrs. Govan, delicate as she was, need not 
 fear undertaking one or two of them, es- 
 pecially the divinity students, who were almost 
 without exception a hard-working, industrious 
 set. 
 
 And then, as for Avery, if his mind was fixed
 
 238 Alecs Bride, 
 
 upon the musical profession, — and it certainly 
 was a very lucrative profession, when a young 
 man brought talent and industry to it, — there 
 was no place in which he could prepare him- 
 self for it better than at Ulphusby ; for Mr. 
 Alison, the Cathedral organist, a first-class man 
 in his profession, was looking out just now 
 for an assistant pupil, who would help him in 
 the training of the chorister boys, in return for 
 instruction on the organ. And with a recom- 
 mendation from a man like Mr. Alison, who 
 was reputed the best musician in all the country 
 round, Avery might, if he only took pains, and 
 worked hard, get the first vacant situation in 
 any of the neighbouring churches, besides 
 being introduced to pupils as soon as he was 
 competent to take them. Of course, just at 
 first, as his sister said, he must be content with 
 small terms, and creep up gradually, little by
 
 Alecs Bride. 239 
 
 little, to the half-guinea an hour which Mr. 
 Alison had had for some years ; but still, even 
 a trifle such as he might get for very young 
 pupils, would be a very useful addition to the 
 little income which they had to depend upon. 
 Indeed, Miss C hickory said, if all England had 
 been sought over, there could not have been a 
 better 'place than Ulphusby found for a young 
 man who was wanting to make his way in the 
 musical profession. 
 
 It was even better than London, for living 
 was so expensive there, and besides the metro- 
 polis threw temptation in a young man's way, 
 which he would never have to battle against in 
 a quiet place like Ulphusby. Many a youth 
 who had gone to London, even with the re- 
 straint of home and friends about him, and 
 longing to live a decent, steady, regular life, 
 had been swept away by the current of folly
 
 240 Alec's Bride. 
 
 and dissipation which poured down its streets, 
 and carried, against his will, along that down- 
 ward course, which, once begun, is seldom 
 retraced. But at Ulphusby, it was so easy to 
 keep straight, the place offered so few tempta- 
 tions to anything but the most trifling amuse- 
 ment, and almost none to those more dangerous 
 forms of vice, which, in a great town, thrust 
 themselves into a young man's path, and almost 
 force him into their power. Aunt Phillis was 
 quite sure Avery Govan could not come 
 to a better place than the quiet little city of 
 Ulphusby. 
 
 Then, if Marian was anxious for teaching, 
 there were shoals of respectable families with 
 small children, who would only be too thankful 
 to meet with a lady-like young person, well in- 
 troduced, to give lessons for an hour or two 
 daily. Or, if she could not well leave home on
 
 Alec's Bride, 241 
 
 account of her mothers dehcate health, she 
 might have the children at her own house, and 
 so perhaps form the nucleus of a flourishing 
 school, which might in future years be much 
 more than a competence for her, when perhaps 
 Avery would be settled in life, and wanting all 
 that he could earn for himself. Moreover, Miss 
 Chickory had seen a house in Ulphus Court 
 advertised to be let. A neat, genteel, compact 
 little house, within a stone's throw of the princi- 
 pal college, just the place for a quiet family, 
 such as Mrs. Govan's w^ould be, and very con- 
 venient for the students, who never liked to 
 have far to w^alk to their colleges. Very near 
 the Cathedral, too, so that Avery would be just 
 on the spot for his duties, if he did succeed in 
 obtaining the situation under Mr. Alison, as 
 there was not the slightest doubt he might do, 
 with Dr. Montagu's recommendation. And 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 Alecs Bride. 
 
 Miss Cliickory knew of at least five families 
 within easy walking distance, including Mrs. 
 Dexter, of St. Ninian's Lodge, where there 
 were young children just ready to be sent to a 
 nice genteel preparatory school, or to have pri- 
 vate lessons at home. A more suitable house, 
 in a more respectable situation, at a more 
 moderate rent, could not have been found in all 
 Ulphusby. 
 
 Finally, as Miss Chickory suggested, Mrs. 
 Govan had few interests to give up in leaving 
 Scotland. She had neither parents, brothers, 
 nor sisters settled there who could have helped 
 her to make a home for herself near them. 
 Her husband's friends did not seem inclined to 
 give her anything but good advice, and that, 
 though very good in its way, did little towards 
 board and lodging, and rent paying. The 
 finger of Providence really did seem as though
 
 Alecs Bride. 243 
 
 it were pointing the minister's widow towards 
 Ulphusby, and bidding her gather together there 
 such a home as her sad heart could find again 
 upon earth. 
 
 All these things Miss C hickory represented 
 in her letter to Marian Govan. And then she 
 began her second stocking, hoping that, before 
 it was finished, things would be in train for the 
 whole family's removal to the quiet little house 
 in Ulphus Court, which she had fixed upon as 
 the most convenient spot in which they could 
 begin their life struggle. 
 
 r2
 
 244 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HHE was not disappointed. That stocking 
 was destined in its progress to mark the 
 equally successful progress of affairs towards 
 Mrs. Govan's settlement at Ulphusby. By the 
 time Miss Chickory had begun to " narrow for 
 the calf," a letter arrived from Marian, authoris- 
 ing her to take the house in Ulphus Court. 
 Before the heel was " set," the bill was out of 
 the window, and the painters and paperers 
 busily at work from attic to basement ; and be- 
 fore the toe was finished, Marian herself had 
 reached the Old Deanery, to superintend the 
 unpacking of furniture, and to make everything
 
 Alecs Bride. 245 
 
 bright and pleasant before ^Irs. Govan and 
 Avery, Tvho were visiting some members of the 
 late Mr. Govan's congregation, should come to 
 take possession of their new home. 
 
 Marian Govan was one of those quiet, thought- 
 ful girls whose heritage seems to be care for 
 others. Though she was very young, not 
 nineteen yet, she could already look back over 
 along life of self-denial, beginning from 'her 
 very earliest childhood, when she used to be 
 summoned from her dolls and playthings to 
 amuse Avery, who was always a noisy, boister- 
 ous little fellow, in some far-off corner of the 
 house, or read stories to him in order that his 
 riotous mirthfulness might not disturb their 
 mamma, who was even then so very delicate 
 and ailing. Then, as years passed on, it was 
 Marian whose playtime was interrupted, that she 
 might help her two little brothers, since dead.
 
 246 Alecs Bride. 
 
 with the preparation of their lessons ; for Mr. 
 Govan was always so busy in his study, or 
 visiting the sick members of his congregation, 
 that he had little time left for hearing spelling, 
 or correcting faulty exercises. After that, it 
 was Marian whose closing year of school educa- 
 tion was shortened by six months, that Harry 
 might have another session at college ; it would 
 be such an advantage to him, his father and 
 mother thought, all through life, if he could go 
 through the higher classes there ; and a girl's 
 education, they said, was not of so m.uch im- 
 portance to her, unless, as they hoped Marian 
 would not need to do, she had to gain her 
 living by it. Then again, it was Marian's long 
 looked for visit to a school friend, which was 
 put aside that Harry might go to the coast for 
 change. The holidays were his only chance 
 for getting a little outing, and Marian could visit
 
 Alecs Bride. 247 
 
 her friend at any time. Though somehow, the 
 time never came, or if it did come, some other 
 sacrifice still more pressing came with it, and 
 put it aside. And as Mrs. Govan's health 
 grew more and more fragile, it was Marian who 
 took up one by one the household cares, and 
 tried to keep them from pressing heavily on 
 anyone but herself ; and when at last the great 
 stroke came, and the manse home was left 
 fatherless, it was Marian who cheered them all, 
 who kept back her own tears that she might 
 stay theirs, Marian who, when they had buried 
 their dead out of their sight, sought another 
 home, and made it ready for them, and 
 who, that her mother's life might be kept rest- 
 ful, and her brother's be free to go on in the 
 channel he had chosen for it, prepared to spend 
 now in patient daily toil those years, in 
 which, if a woman is to have any sunshine at
 
 248 Alecs Bride. 
 
 all, she naturally looks for it to come to her. 
 There are many such daughters as IMarian 
 Govan in the world, doing their work as quietly, 
 with as little praise as it had been her lot to 
 win. They are to be found in widowed homes, 
 from which morning by morning they set out 
 for their daily stint of teaching, and to which, 
 night after night, they come back weary enough 
 perhaps, but still with a cheerful face and a 
 loving smile for the mother who looks for 
 them, as watchers wait for the morning. Or in 
 worse than widowed homes, in homes where 
 the sad-hearted wife sits weeping for the love 
 that will never come again, or where the reck- 
 less ways of some undutiful son are bringing 
 her who bore him, too early to her grave. And 
 the world takes little heed of them, for the 
 work they do is not heroic, not such as can be 
 greatly spoken of and loudly praised. But
 
 Alecs Bride. 249 
 
 wherever such a one Is found, the good God 
 looks upon her with his most loving tenderness ; 
 and the holy angels, if they cannot always keep 
 her eyes from tears, will keep her feet from 
 falling, and will lead her at last, nobly conquer- 
 ing and gloriously crowned, to her place in that 
 upper world, where she will no longer minister, 
 but be ministered unto. 
 
 Ulphus Court, where Marian had prepared a 
 home for her mother and brother, was a very 
 quiet spot. It had once been part of the 
 buildings connected with the Cathedral, and 
 was used as a residence by the ecclesiastical 
 dignitaries ; but failing of late years to meet 
 their requirements, it had been converted into 
 separate dwelling-houses, and was now occupied 
 chiefly by decayed gentlewomen who were fond 
 of retirement. 
 
 It was built in the form of a quadrangle, with
 
 250 Alec's Bride. 
 
 a covered arcade round the interior, like the 
 college buildings, darkening the lower rooms 
 very much, but making a pleasant sheltered 
 walk for the elderly ladies in rainy weather. 
 When the sun shone, they could step out of 
 their upper windows and walk on the top of it, 
 which was ornamented in spring and summer 
 time with quite an imposing little array of 
 flowers and creepers. A fine old archway led 
 into the court, surmounted by a statue of St. 
 Ulphus, the patron saint of the Cathedral ; and 
 here and there, over the massive doors and oriel 
 windows, quaint old heads were sculptured, or 
 coats of arms belonging to the noble families 
 who had once inhabited the place. The rooms 
 were mostly wainscotted, small, but very lofty, 
 and with fragments of oak carving still remain- 
 ing about them. In the midst of the quad- 
 rangle was a square grass plot, with two scraggy
 
 Alecs Bride. 251 
 
 old elm-trees upon it, and the back windows of 
 that side on which Mrs. Govan's rooms were 
 situated, were almost darkened by the Cathedral 
 front, so closelj' had the Deans and Canons and 
 Archdeacons of former centuries nestled to the 
 fountain-head of their dignity. 
 
 Not much sunshine reached the place, except 
 at noonday, when it slanted down over the 
 lichen-stained roofs, and lighted up for an hour 
 or two the dim, quiet little rooms. Very early 
 in the afternoon all was shadowy again, until, 
 in summer time, just before the sunset, a linger- 
 ing flash of red and crimson, reflected from 
 one of the Minster windows, used to strike into 
 Marian's chamber, and fulfil to any one watching 
 there, the olden promise that at evening time 
 there should be light. 
 
 It was late in Xovember before the house was 
 quite finished. Aunt Phillis had been almost
 
 252 Alecs Bride, 
 
 as busy as Marian in getting everything into 
 order ; and Roda, too, had lent a helping hand 
 when such finishing touches as she could 
 manage were ready to be put in. Marian ar- 
 ranged everything as nearly as possible like the 
 Manse home, so that when Mrs. Govan came, 
 the place might not seem strange and unfriendly 
 to her. Only the look-out was so different. 
 Instead of the broad, straight, busy Glasgow 
 street, with its tall grey stone houses reaching up 
 flat after flat, and its stream of busy well- 
 dressed people, and its perpetual hum of restless 
 life, this quiet, secluded quadrangle, into which 
 few but ancient gentlewomen ever came, with 
 its quaint black-timbered arcade, and its moulder- 
 ing carving, and overhanging mossy eaves, 
 under whose shelter the swallows built and 
 twittered, and its air of almost sacred stillness 
 and repose. Surely a peaceful life might be
 
 Alecs Bride, 253 
 
 lived here, a life which, though shorn henceforth 
 of joy, might be unruffled even to the end by 
 tumult or unrest. 
 
 Marian fitted up the pleasantest room in the 
 house for her mother. There was a smaller one 
 near it, which she made as tasteful as she could 
 for Aveiy, for he always liked to have every- 
 thing about him dainty and even elegant. 
 Opening out of this was another, where he could 
 be alone when he ^^'ished to study. Now that 
 he had really taken up a profession, and meant 
 to earn money by it, if he earned money by 
 anything at all, she was quite sure he would see 
 the need of giving his whole attention to it, and 
 doing something creditable in it. He had the 
 talent, he only wanted the application ; or per- 
 haps, Marian thought she ought to say, something 
 to apply himself to. For until a young man 
 really kuew what he was going to do, it was
 
 254 Alecs Bride. 
 
 scarcely possible to put out any power of applica- 
 tion which might be in him. Then there were 
 two other little rooms, which would do for stu- 
 dents — if they were fortunate enouo^h to get 
 students to take them ; and besides the general 
 sitting-room, a large one, in which Marian thought, 
 by-and-by, her brother might give music lessons, 
 or which would answer very well for a school- 
 room, in case she succeeded in getting pupils at 
 home. 
 
 As soon as she came to the Old. Deanery, she 
 had called with Miss C hickory upon Mr. 
 Alison, to make such arrangements as she 
 could with him about Avery, and he was only 
 waiting now for an interview with the young 
 man before finally engaging him as pupil 
 teacher for the chorister boys. With ability 
 and perseverance, Mr. Alison said, there was 
 nothing to prevent him from making a first-
 
 Alecs Bi-ide. 255 
 
 class position in the town very shortly : for 
 being himself an old man, and not caring to 
 work so hard as he used to do, it was scarcely 
 probable that he should continue much longer 
 in his place as Cathedral organist. Indeed, he 
 said that this engaging of an assistant for the 
 training of the choristers was a preparatory- 
 step to his retiring from active duty altogether ; 
 and if the young man whom he selected showed 
 himself possessed of sufficient energy and steadi- 
 ness, nothing was more likely than that the 
 Dean and Chapter would elect him to the 
 vacant situation, in which case his fortune would 
 be made for life. 
 
 As Marian listened, a vision of brighter days 
 rose before her. She saw the stru£rfjles of the 
 next year or two overpassed, her mother placed 
 in a position of ease and comfort again ; life 
 for her, if never more the protected, sheltered
 
 256 Alecs Bride. 
 
 thing it used to be, at least peaceful and free 
 from painful care about the future. She could 
 trust to her own efforts to tide them over the 
 first few months of straitened means. After 
 that, all seemed to depend on Avery. If only 
 he would give himself to real hard work, if only 
 he would put out the power that was in him, 
 and use it wisely, all would be well. And for 
 his own sake, and for the mother's, whose pale 
 face saddened them day by day, Marian thought 
 he would. That he should do it for her sake, 
 or because she needed any help that he could 
 give, never entered her mind.
 
 257 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 "QY the beginning of December, the Govan 
 family were fairly settled at Number 
 3, Ulphus Court. They had met Avith two 
 model divinity students to lodge with them, 
 young men who seemed likely to give them very 
 little trouble, and who paid them as much 
 as covered the rent of the house, so that care 
 was off Marian's mind. She should be able to 
 encounter the landlord, now, with an un- 
 troubled conscience, when rent day came 
 round. 
 
 Avery had obtained the situation under Mr. 
 Alison, though with no salary for the first 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 Alecs Bride. 
 
 year, the instruction which he received being a 
 full equivalent as yet for any assistance which 
 he could render to his employer. He was to 
 have a small sum the second year, and then an 
 increase half-yearly, so long as the engagement 
 between them continued. 
 
 Avery was a bright, clever young man, and 
 had an undeniable taste for his profession. 
 Perhaps the only, or, at any rate, the chief 
 danger was, that he should not bring sufficient 
 application to it. For he was one of those 
 characters that require a steady controlling 
 hand upon them, to prevent them from starting 
 aside, or turning back in the race of life. 
 There was much in him to bring out, if only he 
 could be made to feel the necessit}^ of bringing 
 it out. And with no strong overmastering will 
 to keep him in a given course, to say to him, 
 with resistless authority, when perseverance
 
 Alecs Bride. 259 
 
 failed — Go on, — the native instability and love of 
 ease which were inherent in him, might become 
 too strong for the control which no authorita- 
 tive hand, save duty and conscience, laid upon 
 him now. 
 
 Perhaps, too, there was another danger, and 
 that was the gay company into which the exer- 
 cise of his profession might lead him. How- 
 ever, in a place like Ulphusby he was as far 
 removed from temptation, and from improper 
 associates, as any young man could well be. 
 And w^ith the guard of home, a mother's and 
 a sister's love around him, and with the holy 
 motive of duty to them, care for them, which 
 should ever stimulate him, it was to be hoped, 
 nay, it might reasonably be expected, that he 
 would pass safely through the shoals and quick- 
 sands of early manhood, and so win for himself, 
 and, winning for himself, win for those also 
 
 s2
 
 260 Alecs Bride. 
 
 whom it was his place now to protect and 
 cherish, a good and honourable position in 
 life. 
 
 Marian only wanted a few pupils now to occupy 
 her morning hours. But these were more diffi- 
 cult to meet with than either she or Miss 
 Chickory had expected As soon as she learned 
 that the Govans were really coming to Ulphusby, 
 and that Marian wished for daily teaching, Miss 
 Chickory had gone about amongst such of her 
 friends as she thought would be likely to supply 
 pupils ; and first of all to Mrs. Dexter, who 
 lived at St Ninian's Lodge, at the north end of 
 the Minster Close, and whose patronage, if it 
 could be secured, would give Miss Govan a posi- 
 tion at once amongst the upper-class families of 
 the place. 
 
 Mrs. Dexter had three children, two girls, and 
 a little boy too young as yet to be sent to the
 
 Alecs Bride. 261 
 
 Grammar School ; and she had asked Miss 
 Chickory, only a few weeks before, if that lady 
 could recommend to her a suitable young person 
 of refined manners and genteel connections, who 
 would be willing, for a not exorbitant salary, to 
 impart the rudiments of a sound English educa- 
 tion to these, the sole remaining treasures, as 
 she pathetically remarked, of her shattered 
 life. 
 
 For a not exorbitant salary. Mrs. Dexter was 
 explicit on that head. For, as she explained to 
 Miss Chickory in introducing the subject of the 
 governess, the maintenance of her position 
 amongst the Close families, and her efforts to 
 sustain that appearance which her dear husband, 
 the late lamented Canon, had always wished her 
 to keep up as a person of consideration in ec- 
 clesiastical circles, entailed so much expense, 
 and made so large a demand upon her re-
 
 262 Alecs Bride. 
 
 sources, that really she did not feel herself justi- 
 fied in spending more than was absolutely 
 needful upon her children whilst they were so 
 young. Of course, when the time came that 
 they needed to be prepared for their introduc- 
 tion to society, and qualified to take a good 
 standing there, she should feel bound to make 
 increased sacrifices, and retrench in various ways 
 so as to afford them the advantages of a year or 
 two at a first-rate finishing establishment. 
 Girls who had been to a school of that kind, 
 she said, always got settled so much more 
 brilliantly in life, and it would be so very im- 
 portant to the dear children as they grew up 
 that they should settle early and advantageously. 
 She thought a little expense saved now in their 
 education would be laid out to so much more 
 purpose then, when they were really able to 
 appreciate the benefits which a twelve months'
 
 Alec's Bride. 263 
 
 residence in town amongst really stvlish girls 
 would give them; and therefore she did not 
 intend to lay out more at present than was abso- 
 lutely needful. 
 
 In fact, as ^Irs. Dexter said when discussing 
 the subject, the children scarcely needed any 
 teaching at all. It was simply for the sake of 
 getting them into habits of order and applica- 
 tion that she required a governess now. Xo- 
 thincp advanced, nothino; for which more than 
 very moderate remuneration could be expected. 
 A cultivated accent, and perfectly lady-like 
 manners, — she must say she was very particular 
 about accent and manners, they were so exceed- 
 ingly important to children, — and a slight 
 acquaintance with French and Music, just to 
 save trouble to the masters when the girls 
 began to take regular lessons ; and perhaps a 
 little Latin, a very rudimentary knowledge of
 
 264 Alecs Bride. 
 
 it, for the little boy who would have to go to 
 the Grammar School by-and-by, and elementary 
 drawing, and a good style in dancing and 
 deportment — this was really all she required at 
 present; nothing more than this. And she 
 had no doubt that many girls who were intend- 
 ing to take up teaching as a profession, would 
 be thankful to give her their services for 
 twelvemonths, merely for the sake of getting a 
 recommendation to another situation. It always 
 helped a girl on so to have been for twelve- 
 months in a thoroughly good family, especially 
 one of the Close families, who were known to 
 be so very particular in the selection of their 
 governesses. 
 
 All this, with a great deal more to the same 
 purpose, Mrs. Dexter had said to Miss Chickory 
 a few weeks back, on the occasion of a morning 
 call between the two ladies. Miss Chickory
 
 Alecs Bride. 265 
 
 felt rather doubtful at the time, whether a girl 
 of perfectly ladylike manners and refined ac- 
 cent, and good connections, and even a very 
 moderate acquaintance with French, music, 
 Latin, drawing, and dancing, would be willing 
 to give her services for twelvemonths in con- 
 sideration of a character to some more lucrative 
 situation ; but thinking that Mrs. Dexter might 
 have found this out for herself, she determined, 
 when she knew Marian's intentions, to try at St. 
 Ninian's Lodge first. 
 
 Mrs. Dexter had not met with anyone quali- 
 fied to give the instruction she required, and 
 therefore was quite ready to hear what Miss 
 Chickory might have to advance in favour of 
 her young friend. She should be so delighted, 
 she said, to meet with anyone. The dear 
 children were getting a frightful accent, in 
 consequence of being so much with the nurses.
 
 266 Alecs Bride. 
 
 and it was a nuisance always having them 
 about her in the drawing-room. Indeed, her 
 nerves were not equal to it, for little Percy 
 was so exceedingly boisterous and self-willed, 
 and Blanche and Minna did not seem to have 
 the slightest of idea of doing as they were bid ; 
 it was really lamentable how nurses mis- 
 managed the tempers and dispositions of 
 children, they had so little notion of moral 
 influence, or anything of that sort. And there- 
 fore she should be so thankful to hear of a 
 young person whom she could trust to form 
 their characters, and instil right principles into 
 them, in addition to the trifling accomplishments 
 she had named before. 
 
 Miss Chickory, knowing the Ulphusby weak- 
 ness for good connections, thought she should 
 succeed best in Marian's behalf, by setting Mrs. 
 Dexter's mind at rest on that most important
 
 Alecs Bride, 267 
 
 point. And therefore she stated, in the first 
 place, as a foundation upon which all other 
 quahfications might safely repose, that Miss 
 Govan was the daughter of a late minister of 
 the U. P. church. 
 
 " Oh I I am so delighted. A clergyman's 
 daughter; then of course her accent, and 
 manners, and everything else will be unexcep- 
 tionable. I always feel that I am perfectly 
 safe when I venture upon anyone whose inti- 
 mate connections have belonged to the Church. 
 But, my dear Miss Chickory, Ewpie, I really 
 don't recollect a parish of that name in this 
 vicinity." 
 
 And Mrs. Dexter put the end of her jewelled 
 pencil-case to her lips. She had been noting 
 the number of the Ulphus Court house in her 
 tablets. 
 
 "Not in this vicinity, dear Miss Chickory.
 
 268 Alecs Bride. 
 
 But I dare say there are shoals of villages in 
 the diocese that I have never so much as heard 
 of. The poor dear Canon would have known 
 all about it, no doubt. He had such an excel- 
 lent memory for everything connected with the 
 diocese ; and now I come to think about it, I 
 have heard him mention the parish of Upie, or 
 some such name. One of those out-of-the-way 
 villages on the Ulphusby moors, I believe. 
 Most trying places, are they not, dear Miss 
 Chickory, for a clergyman, especially if he has 
 grown-up daughters; for how they are to be 
 introduced to society when the time comes for 
 them to be settled in life, I really cannot under- 
 stand. Clergymen with grown-up daughters 
 ought 7iot to be appointed to those wTetched 
 moorland parishes. At least, they ought not, 
 for the sake of their families, to accept the 
 nomination.
 
 Alec's Bride. 269 
 
 " Oh ! no, no, Mrs. Dexter," and Miss 
 Chickory hastened to the rescue with rather a 
 humorous smile upon her kind old face. 
 " You have misunderstood me. I said he was 
 a minister amongst the U. P.'s, not a moorland 
 parish at all ; the U. Ph, you know, one of 
 the " 
 
 " Oh ! yes, I understand now, dear Miss 
 Chickory, of course. How stupid of me not to 
 catch the name before ; but as you did not men- 
 tion his being a missionary, I took it for granted 
 that he belonged to a home diocese. The You- 
 pees. Ah ! yes, that alters the case altogether. 
 That tribe in Central Africa — I recolleqt per- 
 fectly w^ell. Wasn't it Dr. Livingstone who 
 did so much for them, found them out, in fact, 
 and induced our Propagation Society to send a 
 missionary to them ? Poor benighted things ; 
 cannibals, or something of that sort, I believe.
 
 270 Alecs Bride, 
 
 It does astonish me, sometimes, how a person of 
 gentlemanly habits and feelings — as, of course, 
 all our clergymen are— can bring himself to 
 venture into the midst of such a set of bar- 
 barians. Their manners and customs must be 
 so very dreadful. But, my dear Miss Chickory, 
 if the young lady's father was amongst the You- 
 pees for so many years, I — I, excuse me, but I 
 don't see how her manners could be perfectly 
 correct and refined, and her accent unexcep- 
 tionable. Entire barbarians, you see, and no 
 decent English society within reach." 
 
 " Oh ! excuse me, Mrs. Dexter, but you have 
 mis— :-" 
 
 " Oh ! I have mistaken the situation, have I % 
 A few English families within reach. Well, 
 then, in that case, possibly, if her parents were 
 sufficiently careful, she might be kept from 
 contaminating influences, poor thing ! Yet still
 
 Alecks Bride. 271 
 
 I can't exactly, — you understand, dear Miss 
 C hickory, I can't exactly like the idea of her being 
 brought up amongst the Youpees. Because, 
 you know, although she might not have imbibed 
 any improper accent from them, still her man- 
 ners, I should imagine, could not have that 
 finisli and perfect elegance which I should wish 
 in any young person who had the charge of my 
 dear children. Manners, you know. Miss 
 Chickory, manners and deportment are so very 
 essential in any one who undertakes the educa- 
 tion of the young." 
 
 Whereupon Miss Chickory was obliged to ex- 
 plain that the " tribe " in question was not in 
 any way connected with Dr. Livingstone's re- 
 searches into Central Africa, but that U. P. 
 was an appellation adopted for the sake of 
 brevity, to designate the United Presbyterians, 
 an exceedingly intelligent and influential body
 
 272 Alec's Bride. 
 
 of Scottish Christians, who, in consequence of 
 some difference of opinion on questions of re- 
 ligious government, had seceded, many years 
 ago, from the National Church, and now held 
 a position in Scotland somewhat analogous to 
 that occupied by the English Nonconformists. 
 
 At the mention of this last word, Mrs. Dexter's 
 countenance underwent a change, from gentle 
 doubt to unmitigated horror. To have the 
 rudiments of a sound English education in- 
 stilled into her children's minds by a young 
 lady from the Ulphusby floors, or by a clergy- 
 man's daughter who had been brought up in 
 close proximity to one of the most barbarous 
 tribes of Central Africa, was a legitimate and 
 even most desirable state of things, compared 
 with that which Miss Chickory had suggested 
 by the mere naming of the word Nonconformity. 
 Mrs. Dexter started back, and put out her
 
 Alecs Bride. 273 
 
 hand in mute, wondering deprecation, being 
 unable, for a few seconds, to find any other 
 manner of expressing her surprise. 
 
 At last she said — 
 
 " Why, then, my dear Miss Chickory, she is 
 a Dissenter ! She is a Dissenter, my dear Miss 
 Chickory !" 
 
 Miss Chickory was compelled to acknowledge 
 that Marian Govan did belong to the outer court 
 of the Gentiles. Until now it had never oc- 
 curred to her that such a position could render 
 her unfit for the sacred office of training Mrs. 
 Dexter's youthful family in the rudimentary 
 accomplishments, and possibly instilling into 
 them at the same time some more Scriptural 
 notions of obedience and self-restraint than, 
 according to their mamma's own showing, they 
 at present possessed. In vain she assured the 
 startled lady that Miss Govan's accent was 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 Alecs Bride. 
 
 refined to perfection. Nowhere was the En- 
 glish language so beautifully spoken as in some 
 of the northern districts of Scotland ; even the 
 most educated English people acknowledged 
 that. In vain she affirmed her manners to be 
 perfectly ladylike, and her connections irre- 
 proachable, and her acquaintance with the re- 
 quired accomplishments, except, perhaps, danc- 
 ing and Latin, abundantly equal to the exigen- 
 cies of the case. Mrs. Dexter was immovable. 
 The stigma of Nonconformity was one impossible 
 to be set aside by any merely intellectual or 
 social qualifications. In every other respect the 
 young person, — LIrs. Dexter could scarcely call 
 her a lady now, — appeared to be very desirable, 
 and doubtless being in straitened circum- 
 stances, and wishing to estabhsh for herself a 
 position in Ulphusbj', would not be foolishly 
 grasping in the matter of salary. But Mrs.
 
 Alecs Bride, 275 
 
 Dexter thought she should scarcely be justified 
 in venturing upon a Dissenter. It would be 
 so dangerous for the dear children. Youthful 
 minds were so easily contaminated, and she should 
 never be able to forgive herself if dear Blanche 
 and Minna imbibed anything of that kind. 
 It would be worse, or certainly far more per- 
 judicial to their future position in life, than any 
 trifling tendencies in the other direction, which 
 they might acquire at the Parisian finishing 
 estabhshment, to which she hoped to be able to 
 send them in the course of a few years. 
 
 And then !Miss Chickory must not think her 
 unkind, nothing was farther from her intentions 
 than anything of the sort ; indeed, she had no 
 patience with those people who were always 
 crying out against Ritualism and that kind of 
 thing, simply because they could see no good 
 except in their own circumscribed little opin- 
 
 t2
 
 276 Alec's Bride. 
 
 ions ; but she did hope Miss Chickory would 
 not ask her to recommend the case amongst 
 her friends. It was a very painful case, no 
 doubt. Of course, whenever the father of a 
 family was removed, things were very different, 
 unless the widow had a handsome income to 
 fall back upon ; but she could not conscientiously 
 recommend a young person of that kind to the 
 care of children, unless a considerable change 
 passed over her religious opinions. 
 
 " Which I hope, dear Miss Chickory, is by 
 no means impossible in the present instance." 
 And Mrs. Dexter quite brightened up at the 
 idea of Marian Govan quitting the outer court of 
 the Gentiles for the more select society of the 
 worshippers in the temple proper, and thereby 
 rendering herself eligible to the instructorship of 
 Blanche and Minna, at a judiciously moderate 
 salary. " Of course, if she could be prevailed
 
 Alecs Elide, 217 
 
 upon to renounce her adherence to the — the — 
 dear me, what was the name you mentioned ? 
 — I really never trouble myself to inquire into 
 these schismatics, you know — and professed 
 herself a member of the Establishment, I should 
 be very glad to use my influence in her behalf. 
 And, indeed, I think I might go so far as to 
 say that I should not hesitate, under proper re- 
 strictions, to commit my own children to her 
 charge, her accent and manners being, as you 
 say, irreproachable, and her acquaintance with 
 the minor accomplishments equal to my require- 
 ments. Could you not, dear Miss Chickory, 
 suggest to her the advisability of such a course, 
 especially in a place like Ulphusby, where 
 opinions of that kind are so insuperable a barrier 
 to anything like a position ?" 
 
 Mrs. Dexter's advertisement in the Ulphushy 
 Gazette for a lady of distinguished manners and
 
 278 Alecs Bride. 
 
 refined accent, with its postscript, " A member 
 of the Estabhshment required," had been now 
 for two months unsuccessful ; women of the 
 qualifications she desired not being willing to 
 impart them to the little Dexters for a nominal 
 salary, or a recommendation to something more 
 lucrative at the end of twelve months. And 
 the Canon's widow began to think that perhaps 
 that concluding clause about the Establishment 
 might be relaxed from necessity to desirability, 
 particularly in the case of Miss Go van, whose 
 straitened position, almost driving her to em- 
 ployment of some kind, rendered her an un- 
 usually economical investment in the educational 
 hne. 
 
 But, of course, it would not do to appear over- 
 anxious, or to let Miss Chickory suspect that 
 she was willing to engage Miss Govan, suppos- 
 ing that young lady were w^ilHng to relinquish
 
 Alecs Bride. 279 
 
 her Gentile prejudices, out of anything but the 
 largest-hearted charity, generously setting aside 
 her own private scruples for the sake of helping 
 the poor girl to establish a position for herself. 
 As she had hinted before, there were doubtless 
 many young ladies, though none of them had 
 replied to her advertisement yet, who would be 
 walling to give twelve months' instruction for the 
 honour of being employed in one of the Close 
 families ; and therefore it could not be other 
 than the purest generosity on her part to offer 
 that privilege, and with it such a salary as she 
 might be induced to name to a young person 
 w^ho had her way to make, as it were, from the 
 beginning, and w^ho ought, therefore, to be 
 abundantly grateful to any one who was willing 
 to give her the opportunity of establishing it so 
 successfully. • 
 
 So with the air of a person who leads her
 
 280 Alecs Bride, 
 
 own private interests to martyrdom for the 
 sake of the public good, Mrs. Dexter intimated 
 to Miss Chickory her readiness to consider what 
 could be done for the young person, and then 
 took her leave, secretly congratulating herself 
 on the admirable bargain she was about to 
 make. 
 
 But it so happened that Mr. Alison, the 
 Cathedral organist, called at the Old Deanery 
 that very evening to make some further ar- 
 rangements with Miss Govan about her brother 
 Avery, and finding that she was in quest of 
 pupils, engaged her there and then to teach the 
 two little orphan grandchildren who lived with 
 him, for a few hours daily ; proposing, at the 
 same time, a much more liberal remuneration 
 than Mrs. Dexter could have thought herself 
 justified, under the circumstances, in offering. 
 He added, moreover, that if Miss Govan pre-
 
 Alecs Bride, 281 
 
 ferred it, they could come to her own house, 
 and that if she Hked to take other pupils, he 
 should not only be willing for her to do so, but 
 would use his influence in procuring them for 
 her. 
 
 Accordingly, when, in the course of a few 
 days, Mrs. Dexter wrote a very patronising 
 note to the Old Deanery, requesting that the 
 young person who had been mentioned as want- 
 ing employment might wait upon her at St. 
 Ninian's Lodge between the hours of twelve 
 and one that day, she was informed that Miss 
 Govan had made arrangements for receiving 
 pupils at her own house, and was therefore no 
 longer open to negociations for a private en- 
 gagement, — an announcement which somewhat 
 mystified the Canon's widow, who was not 
 accustomed to have her patronage disposed of 
 so cavalierly. However, she made the best of
 
 282 Alecs Bride. 
 
 her disappointment, and did perhaps the most 
 sensible thing which, under the circumstances, 
 could have been done ; for, not receiving any 
 more responses to her liberal offer in the Ul- 
 pTiushy Gazette, she committed the three little 
 representatives of deceased canonical dignity, 
 Blanche, Minna, and Percy, to such instruction 
 in accent, manners, and the minor accomplish- 
 ments, as could be imparted to them at No. 3, 
 Ulphus Court, trusting to home influence, and 
 the religious instructions of their uncle, the 
 Eev. Marcus Fabian, to counteract any hetero- 
 dox tendencies which they might unconsciously 
 imbibe along with these needful secularities. 
 
 So that at last, after much anxiety and many 
 cares, Marian Govan found within her reach the 
 means of obtaining a respectable livelihood, — 
 found it, too, without having to be frequently 
 away from her widowed mother, whose failing
 
 Alecs Bride. 283 
 
 health seemed to make Marian's daughterly care 
 and tenderness more needful than ever. She 
 might have to work hard, but that was no new 
 thing for her ; she had learned lonoj ac^o that 
 life was given for action, not for rest. If only 
 Avery would learn the same wise lesson, and 
 put it into practice too, all would be well. And 
 when she looked at their mother's patient face, 
 paling day by day, and thought how much 
 diligence of his might brighten it, she felt sure 
 that no other spur could be needed to make 
 him take the place which that far-off, scarcely 
 green grave, in the bus}' city of Glasgow, had 
 left for him to filL
 
 284 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A ND what of Roda, who has had Alec 
 lanson's little spray of Virginian creeper 
 hidden away under lock and key in her writing- 
 desk for more than three months ? 
 
 Roda passed through her first great trouble — 
 the going away of Alec lanson — very quietly, 
 saying nothing about it to anyone. All great 
 troubles, however and whenever they come, 
 have to be so passed through. For the most 
 part, it is only little griefs that people bewail 
 very loudly, calling in their friends and neigh- 
 bours to make lamentation with them. The 
 iron which enters into the soul, enters into it
 
 Alecs Bride, 285 
 
 silently, and when it is withdrawn, few know of 
 the wound that is left behind. 
 
 Of course, Alec's departure made a great 
 difference at the Old Deaner}^, for he was so 
 thoroughly happy and good-tempered. What- 
 ever happened, he had always a bright smile 
 and a cheerful look and a kind word for every- 
 one. Old Fits, who sorely missed his daily 
 chat with young Master Alec among the flower- 
 beds, used to complain that the place did not 
 seem like itself now that he was away ; and 
 Aunt Phillis said that if he had been her own 
 boy, she could not have parted with him more 
 unwillingly, or thought about him more loving- 
 ly, or looked forward with more pleasure to his 
 coming back from Frankfort, and settling down 
 with them for a whole year, whilst he was going 
 through the College classes. 
 
 Eoda shared in the generally expressed regret.
 
 286 Alecs Bride. 
 
 She was always ready with an unqualified assent 
 when Aunt Phillis said — and she very often did 
 say it — that the house was so quiet, and that 
 nothing seemed half so bright and pleasant now 
 Alec was gone ; and that certainly it did make a 
 wonderful difference when any one who had 
 been staying in the house for nearly two months, 
 went away almost at a moment's notice, without 
 giving any one time to get ready for his loss. 
 
 But though Eoda always used to say, " Yes, 
 Aunt Phillis, I am sure we do miss him very 
 much,'' when Miss Chickory mourned over the 
 unwonted quiet of the house, and though she 
 sympathised cordially with Fits in the loneli- 
 ness of his gardening operations now, yet she 
 never told any one, nor sometimes did she even 
 care to acj^nowledge to herself, the great, great 
 blank which Alec's going away had made in 
 her life. Only the thought of him lay far down
 
 Alecs Bride. 287 
 
 now in her young heart, tinging all its thoughts, 
 sometimes taking the bright glow of hope, as 
 she looked away to the time when he should 
 come back again ; sometimes the leaden hue of 
 listless weariness, when the days dragged along 
 so slowly without him, and there seemed to be 
 neither spring nor interest in anything she did ; 
 sometimes the mingled sadness and sweetness of 
 that vague, unformed longing which had come 
 over her since the days of her merry childhood 
 had departed. 
 
 For their quick, fanciful changes, Eoda's 
 thoughts of Alec were like those brilliant Roman 
 lights one sees in fireworks, changing from 
 depth to depth of intense colour — now golden, 
 now purple, now dazzling crimson, at last burst- 
 ing into one gorgeous blaze of light which seems 
 to illuminate all the country round. Perhaps, 
 too, after their changing hues had passed away,
 
 288 Alecs Bride. 
 
 these thoughts would kindle tocrether Into one 
 fair and brilliant light, illuminating the whole 
 wide circle of her life, not for a moment only, 
 then to fade into gloom again, but giving to it a 
 glory which should go out no more for ever. 
 
 Roda never went back again to the happy 
 carelessness of her childhood. The days 
 w^ere quite passed now when that old house and 
 garden held all she needed to make her life 
 content. It was as when people travel into 
 foreign lands, and see the golden sunsets, and 
 the purple mountains, and the many-tinted 
 flowers, and the rainbow-winged birds of Eastern 
 climes, and then come home again to their own 
 native village, which once seemed so great, so 
 beautiful, so wondrous. Its beauty is all gone 
 now ; it, is no more a wonder to them ; there is 
 no charm any longer in the little wimpling 
 stream, which used to seem so broad ; nor in the
 
 Alecs Bride. 289 
 
 level hedfrerows, where once the wild flowers 
 bloomed so brightly, and the robins twittered 
 forth a soncr, than which no sweeter could be 
 heard. The life that is lived in those little 
 cottages, though once the limit of all their long- 
 ings, is too narrow for them now, it can never 
 content them any more. They may return to 
 look upon it sometimes with wistful, longing 
 tenderness, but to live it again — never ; it can 
 never belong to them now, as it did in the davs 
 of their childhood. Roda scarcely knew it as 
 yet, but she had been into the fairy land of 
 love, and whoso treads that country, comes back 
 again no more for rest, and quiet, and content, 
 to the level plains, and colder skies, and un- 
 sunned valleys, wherein once so quiet a life was 
 lived. 
 
 She did not fret her time away, though, in 
 idle discontent. That one great burst of grief 
 VOT,. I. U
 
 290 Alecs Bride. 
 
 over, the bitterness of parting past, she dried up 
 her tears, and was just as happy, for anything 
 Aunt Phillis and Dr. Montagu could tell, as 
 she used to be before Alec lanson came to the 
 Old Deanery. Indeed, Aunt Phillis said the 
 change that had come over her — though she, 
 dear unsuspecting old lady, little knew why it 
 had come — was decidedly a change for the 
 better. For, as she had sometimes remarked to 
 Dr. Montagu, Roda's very great flow of life and 
 spirits was becoming almost too uncontrollable 
 for a girl of sixteen. All that bounding vivacity 
 was very well for a child, and she hoped that 
 Roda would carry a fair share of it into the 
 years of her coming womanhood ; but life at 
 sixteen should not be entirely spent in romping 
 and scampering up and down the garden, and 
 reading amusing books, and teaching Jeff and 
 Lily to play tricks with balls and bits of string.
 
 Alecs Bride. 291 
 
 If she feared anything for Roda, it was lest she 
 should be a child too long — lest the cares and 
 responsibilities of life should come upon her too 
 suddenly — before she had yet taught herself to 
 look seriously at them, or prepare to bear them 
 with fitting propriety. 
 
 For Aunt Phillis was conscious, though she 
 did not say much about it, that the years were 
 taking away her own strength. She would 
 not be able to trot about the house much 
 longer, and busy herself over Dr. Montagu's 
 domestic comforts, and see that his home was 
 made pleasant and attractive for him, so that 
 he need not leave it to seek a well-spread table 
 and a cheerful fireside elsewhere. And she 
 sometimes feared that Roda's gay, careless 
 disposition, might cause her ere long to strike 
 upon that rock which had proved so fatal to 
 her poor mother's peace — incapacity for efficient 
 
 u2
 
 292 Alecs Bride. 
 
 household management, and an inability to 
 make Dr. Montagu's home so agreeable to him, 
 that he should not need to supplement its de- 
 ficiencies by seeking comfort abroad. 
 
 So she welcomed Roda's new quietness with 
 great satisfaction. She fancied she saw in it 
 tliat ripening and maturing of character which 
 would make her by-and-by so much more 
 valuable a member of society, which would 
 give her so much more influence both at home 
 and abroad, and fit her to supply, or perhaps 
 much more than supply, what her own failing 
 health and strength would soon keep her from 
 giving. She did not know that Roda's life 
 had only gathered itself from without that it 
 might live more intensely within, that all the 
 impetuousness, and eagerness, and energy that 
 used to be expended in childish sport and frolic, 
 had been called in now, and were still at work
 
 Alecs Bride. 293 
 
 vioporously as ever, only where she could no 
 longer take knowledge of their working. 
 
 In due time there came a letter from Alec to 
 tell them of his safe arrival at Frankfort, and 
 the kind of life he was livinfr there. It was 
 rather a down-hearted letter for such a merry 
 fellow as Alec, who was generally so full of fun 
 and nonsense, that he could scarcely restrain 
 himself enough to say what he had to say in 
 plain English, but must needs dress it up in all 
 sorts of queer fanciful conceits. Tliere was a 
 touch of home-longing in this letter, or, rather, 
 not of home-longing, but longing for the Old 
 Deanery, at Ulphusby, with its pleasant memo- 
 ries — its home -like rest and quietness. He said 
 how much he missed them all — how often he 
 thought of them, and the happy hours he had 
 spent in that dear old garden, close by the grey 
 towers of the Minster, within hearing of its
 
 294 Alecs Bride. 
 
 organ music. He often shut his eyes, he said, 
 and fancied himself there again, walking with 
 Roda under the elm-trees, or playing chess 
 with Dr. Montagu in the study, or having a 
 long cosy chat with Aunt Phillis over her 
 knitting, as they used to have in an evening 
 sometimes, when the Doctor was taking his 
 nap ; but when he opened them, he only saw 
 the four bare walls of his study, and the dry 
 French and German books lying about, and 
 perhaps a half-finished exercise, which he had 
 to toil at to get it finished for the professor 
 next day. Then he told them all about his 
 classes, and his work, and how he meant to 
 fag very hard for the next year and a half, so 
 that he might bring back a first-rate character 
 with him when he came to Ulphusby, to study 
 in the College there. Only it was so dreary 
 to have no one to talk to — nothing but work,
 
 Alecs Bride. 295 
 
 work, work, from n:iorninf]; to niglit, and never 
 a bright little smiling face to cheer him up, or 
 anyone to say a kindly word to him. He 
 would give almost anything, he said, for just 
 one day at the Old Deanery again, with Eoda 
 to join him in a scamper round the garden, or 
 sing some of those sweet English songs to 
 him. 
 
 And then he asked after Eoda, and sent his 
 love to her — if it was proper for her to accept 
 such a gift from him. However, whether she 
 took it or not, there it was for her. And he 
 even sent his remembrances to Fits, with an as- 
 surance that he very much missed his daily 
 morning portion of chat amongst the spinach and 
 asparagus beds, and would gladly exchange a 
 week of their cleverest professor's lectures for 
 one of the old man's dissertations on garden phi- 
 losophy.
 
 296 Alecs Bride. 
 
 " Bless him ! it's just like the dear young 
 master, it is," said Fits, when Roda ran into the 
 garden to read him the message. " Law, Miss, 
 it's first time any gentleman ever thought on to 
 send i7ie sl message, it is. 1 worked nigh hand 
 thirty year, man an' boy, for the quality as lived 
 here afore your pa corned to the place, and when 
 the young gentlemen went away to get their 
 larning in furrin' parts, they never sent me no 
 message, not they, no more nor if I'd been one 
 o' the ould elm-trees in the garden. But folks 
 is different, Miss Roda, that's just where it is — 
 folks is different. You can no more put a bit 
 o' natur' into some on 'em, than you could make 
 them there shrivelled bean-stalks as I raked up 
 into a heap yesterday for kindling, put out a 
 fresh lot o' leaves and blossoms, and do a bit 
 more good in the world. It isn't in 'em to do it, 
 if they tried ever so. It's a rare gift, Miss
 
 Alecs Bride. 297 
 
 Roda, is a free sperit like young Mr. Alec's — it 
 makes a body as happy as the day is long. I'se 
 warrant young master, bless him I is as blithe 
 as a cricket out yonder in them there furrin' 
 parts, where he's gone to make a man of his- 
 self." 
 
 " Oh ! no, Fits, he isn't," said Roda ; and she 
 felt rather glad in her heart of hearts that she 
 had it to say of him. '^ He says he isn't at all 
 happy just now. He is very lonely; he says 
 he never was so lonely in all his life before." 
 
 *' Lonely I — blessings on you, Miss Roda, folks 
 has all got to be lonely one time or another, if 
 tliey're ever to come out good for anything. 
 They're just like trees in a plantation, is the 
 most o' men and women ; they run up spindly 
 and poor if you keep 'em over rank together, 
 and don't put out no branches worth speakin' 
 on. If you want a real good tree, Miss Roda,
 
 298 Alecs Bride. 
 
 you must have it took out from among the rest, 
 and fix it somewheres where it don't get nothin' 
 but air and sunshine round about it, and then it 
 pushes up an' pushes out, same as it couldn't 
 get the chance to do while all the t' others was 
 round about, until the birds o' the air comes and 
 builds their nests in it, accordin' to the Scrip- 
 ters ; and there's a shelter under it for anyone 
 as wants to sit down an' have a bit o' rest. 
 And that's the way, Miss Roda, as the great 
 gardener up yonder does wi' folks as he wants 
 to make summut of. He picks 'em out from 
 among t' rest, and sets 'em out by themselves, 
 where they've got a chance to grow and broaden. 
 Maybe they don't like it at first, for it's human 
 natur' to want to cling together, like trees in a 
 plantin', but they'd never come to no good if 
 they was let to do that all the time, and so they 
 must just be riz up and took away and left to
 
 Alecs Bride. 299 
 
 do for themselves a bit, while thej get strong 
 and sappy, and a fair piece of root to 'em, so as 
 they can hold theirselves steady when a bit o' 
 wind happens to blow. And it strikes me. Miss 
 Roda, Mr. Alec's getting that sort o' thing done 
 to him out yonder." 
 
 *' Perhaps he is," said Roda, still trying to 
 seem as if it was of no consequence to her 
 whether it was so or not. " But I hope I shall 
 never have to be taken up in that sort of way 
 and put anywhere by myself to get strong, for 
 I'm sure I shouldn't like it at all. The first 
 wind that came would blow me down altogether, 
 I think, and there would be an end of me." 
 
 ^' Of course there would. Miss Roda," said 
 old Fits, looking from under his rough stubby 
 eyebrows at the fair little girl before him, in 
 all the pride of her young, unspoiled beauty. 
 "I'd like to see w^hat sort of a figure t/oitd
 
 300 Alecs Bride. 
 
 make if 3-011 was set out anywhere to take care 
 of yourself. No, no, Miss, you needn't be 
 afraid. You're not ready for that sort o' thing 
 yet, and maybe it won't never have to come to 
 you at all. It isn't everybody as needs to be 
 took out and left to themselves to get strength 
 enough to hold fast, against the storm comes. 
 He's a good Gardener, Miss Eoda, that has the 
 care of you and me, and all the rest on us, and 
 He never makes no mistakes with the plants of 
 His setting. He'll none go and deal with a 
 tender little thing like you, as if you had the 
 making of a big tree in you, any more than I 
 should go and scatter them tender little seedling 
 balsams of mine up and down the garden for 
 the wind to tew 'em about, or anything as hap- 
 pened to be stirring ; bless 'em poor, little things ! 
 they'd be dead and done for in no time. They 
 want setting nigh hand of each other, so as
 
 Alec's Bnde. 301 
 
 their bits o' leaves can reach out and touch one 
 another for a bit o' comfort ; and when there's 
 an east wind, I haps 'em from it— and when 
 there's a bit o' sun to be got, I lets it come to 
 'em — and when there's goin' to be rain, I puts 
 a bit o' summut over 'em, so as they shan't get 
 drownded. And do you think, Miss Roda, as 
 the Gardener as does for you an' me 'ull take 
 less care of his little 'uns nor I does for my 
 seedling balsams? No, no, you needn't fear 
 ought coming to you as you won't be able to do 
 with. He'll none take and set you out by your- 
 self till 3^our able to bide it, and maybe you're 
 the sort — for there is some — that never wants no 
 setting out at all." 
 
 Roda thought that was a very comfortable 
 theory, especially for the seedling balsams. 
 But as Fits was sticking his thumbs into the 
 armholes of his waistcoat, as though he was
 
 302 Alecs Bride. 
 
 meditating more remarks, and as she wanted to 
 go back into the house to see something else 
 that had been sent in the letter, she went 
 away and left him to finish his dissertations at 
 a future opportunity. 
 
 The something was Alec's portrait, taken 
 just as she saw him first, in that curious, un- 
 EnMish-lookina Canadian dress. He said he 
 got it done in Paris, as he was passing through, 
 when he had no time to do himself up like a 
 gentleman, and so they must excuse the rough- 
 ness of it ; but Roda liked him better in that 
 dress, with the belt and the fur collar, and the 
 queer-shaped cap, than if he had been got up 
 in the grandest turn-out that Paris could pro- 
 duce. ' There was something in one of the 
 buttonholes of his coat which she could not 
 exactly make out at first ; but when she looked 
 more closely at it, she found that it was a little
 
 Alecs Bride. 803 
 
 spray of Virginian creeper, the same that he 
 had gathered that morning as they were walk- 
 ing up and down the long walk for the last 
 time — at least, the last time for a year and a 
 half. That little bit of leaf made her feel very 
 glad. She was quite sure now that he was not 
 intending to forget her, or he would never have 
 put that leaf there to remind her — as of course 
 he knew it must remind her — of what they had 
 been saying to each other when he gathered it. 
 It was worth a whole heap of letters and mes- 
 sages, just that one single spray, which had no 
 meaning for anyone but herself. It seemed 
 to make her heart warm afresh towards him ; 
 and she felt as she had never felt before, 
 how very pleasant it is to be cared for and 
 remembered, as Alec must have cared for 
 and remembered her before he would have 
 thought of wearing that spray of Virginian
 
 304 Alecs Bride. 
 
 creeper when he had his photograph taken. 
 
 The picture had to be put, with many more, 
 in the ^rand album on the drawing-room 
 table, wdiere visitors, turning it over from 
 time to time, remarked what a very fine-looking 
 young man Mr. lanson was, so different to the 
 generality of English people, and especially the 
 people of Ulphusby, who w^ere so very slight 
 and small of stature. They supposed it was the 
 sort of life he had led out there in the far West, 
 which had given him an appearance of manli- 
 ness beyond his years, for everyone knew there 
 was nothing like hunting, and shooting, and 
 roaming about through the forests, as they 
 understood young lanson had been accustomed 
 to do, for giving that bronzed, hardy look which 
 some people thought w^as so very handsome. 
 
 Eoda thought they meant her, when they said 
 "some people" so very expressively, and so she
 
 Alec's Bride. 305 
 
 used to begin to talk about him with a great 
 air of unconcern, as if she did not care the 
 least bit in the world for him. But she took 
 the letter and laid it carefully away in her 
 wTiting-deskj and many a time, when Aunt 
 Phillis thought she w^as busy over her favourite 
 story books, it was taken out and read wnth a 
 bright happy smile. A very happy smile, even 
 though Alec had said in it that he was so very 
 lonely, and had no one out there at Frankfort 
 to speak a kind word to him. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE
 
 #5
 
 5^rwj?»i^^p^^ -"y-*;':?^"""*'-' " •■ f
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLIN0I9-URBANA 
 
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